Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome, I'm just an ordinary deli guy. We're gonna have a fun show. I don't think Michael Barrett's gonna be joining us, little crybaby over there. These newbies that have been in the hobby for a couple years come in here, insult Kaneda's fan base. They're over there bickering on the other BS pages. I love it, people. I love it. I love it. The more they try to stop K-Man, the more they send people through the door. Our subscription numbers are up. We're closing in again on 700. It feels so good. All we need. Thank you for the stars, David. I have not sold the Neo Geo yet. It's one of those things where you got to see these Neo Geos. I mean, they're just museum pieces. The problem is, is like the Neo Geo Facebook pages are terrible. I need to go more towards the arcade collectors. I think I came in a little too hot at 10k. It's worth a round there, but maybe not, right? I mean, ultimately, the market will decide. Cengiz is in the house. We got to get Kerry Hardy and Cengiz in the room together. So if you know Kerry Hardy, I can't message him right now because I'm live. We got to get Kerry Hardy and Cengiz in the house. I mean, this has probably been the most divided, the most engaging, the most like critical, the most controversial week ever when it comes to a pinball launch. I don't think I've ever seen a pinball launch week sort of unravel in such a terrible way. Javier, if you bought a John Wick LE, you just lit three to four thousand dollars on fire, brother. I mean, Javier, you know, I love you brother but man it is the dumbest le you can ever buy right now knowing what we all know about prices we're gonna talk all about this but man FOMO is if FOMO isn't just dead on this game something can't die that was never a lie there was never even any FOMO on this game you know the thing is this we're gonna talk all about gun gate we're gonna talk about Gomez damage control we're gonna talk about stern social media company jared hitting me up i've never seen stern this whole like we're only gonna get five for all of spain like what does that mean bro like what does that mean like you guys don't have shipping services javier here's what doesn't make sense to me man you're telling me that in spain you can't wait to this game is worth like 8500 buy it and just spend $1,500 to ship it over there? Why would you buy it new, pay all the VAT taxes, but why do you need it right now? You're telling me you can't buy a store machine and ship it to Spain. That doesn't make any sense to me. You could buy products from all over the world and ship it. Are they going to break your system so only those five can work if you're on Insider Connected via Spain's VPN or whatever? I want to welcome Ken to the show. So Ken and I had a really good phone conversation earlier this morning. Ken, thank you, brother, for joining the show. You know, Ken is one of our very passionate members here. And I like Ken a lot because he challenges me and he challenges the way I think. And I love that, you know, and I had a really good conversation earlier this week, too, with Mad Pinball, Jeff over there. We're going to talk a little bit about that because I think in this week of utter divisiveness, I think there's a way through it all where we need to get back to why we love pinball because it's a escape from all the garbage. Right. And I think a lot of the garbage got put onto the pinball community this week. And I think a lot of people handled it in an interesting way, to say the least. Well, we're going to talk all about it. We're only like six minutes into this bad boy show. Thank you for the stars, guys. You know me. I always have a stars target of 10,000. Michael Barrett said, I don't have any fans. Man, man, someone's on the Patreon page. Someone's keeping, you know, Kaneda live. Someone's watching this thing like 1,800 times. It's funny to me when you actually understand that we're a subculture within a subculture, right? We're like a subculture within gaming and arcade devices. And when you start to really drill down to how many people actually buy new and box pinball machines on a global level, you really you really get to a point where you know having 3 000 fans here having over probably you know a thousand people listening to every podcast because some of you are too cheap to pay you probably steal my content you know the thing is is like it's not insignificant when you're talking you know a thousand here three thousand there um more people are fans of this page than we'll buy John Wick Pinball, right? More people subscribe to Canada's Pinball Podcast on Patreon than we'll buy John Wick L.E. Cengiz should apologize to the pinball community. Kerry overreacted so badly. I wish I would have waited before posting the rant, says Kerry. Kerry's here. Cengiz is here. Everybody's here. Guys, welcome. This is a no judgment zone, All right. If anyone's ever taken a lot of arrows in the back, no one's taken more than Kaneda and the pinball hobby. I know that we are very excited. We are very passionate about pinball. And especially as content creators, you know, there's there's no filter anymore. Right. It's just you can just go live. Kerry can just hop down to his basement. Cengiz can just put up a video. I think everybody has been very quick to react to something that now that we've had a week to absorb it all. I think everybody realizes it was a little bit of a mountain was made out of a molehill. And what that did was it created a lot of quick to judge, right? Quick to judge stern. Like, I think that do I think here's here's what I've been thinking a lot about this all weekend. And I've been thinking about this show and how I want to talk to you now that we have like we have Kerry Hardy here. We have Jenga's here. We have George Gomez interviews. Do I think that Stern didn't want to put guns in the game? No. Right. Was it a mistake to make John Wick artwork without guns? Yes. So here's my thing. I think the answer to all of this is somewhere in the middle. Like not everybody is completely wrong. Not everybody is completely right. Because, you know, if you look at it and I'm looking at all these John Wick toys and these John Wick collectibles, I think Stern made a licensing mistake by indicating to Lionsgate that pinball machines are designed for all ages. See, that was stupid. That was stupid. I think once they did that, they got looked at through a different licensing lens. And so if they had said this was for adults, which it is because nobody buys a pinball machine who's younger than 30 because they can't afford one. I think they could have got a different licensing vantage point or lens looking at this game than they did. OK, so I think I think that Stern might have over calculated or over like expressed, you know, who plays their product like three year olds are not playing pinball. OK, so I think Stern made a little bit of a mistake there because we're seeing John Wick with guns all throughout other John Wick merchandise. OK, now, do I think Stern used John Wick as an agenda or some political stance to favor the alt left and DEI and woke and everything? You know, I don't think so. You know, I think that again, I think they miscalculate it. I think they underestimated the response from people, too. And I think they had an opportunity. Here's the thing, gang. I don't blame Kerry Hardy. I don't blame Cengiz. I don't blame the blame on all of this. The blame on all of this. And I mean this when I say I blame Stern's marketing team. Stern's marketing team should have anticipated this, should have on day one come out with the game. If they had dropped this game on day one, even with the gunless artwork, but shown the gameplay with all of the John Wick clips where he's shooting up the entire joint with guns galore, this never would have happened. If Stern just marketed this game and showed us the right gameplay footage on day one, they would have avoided all of this. This was the worst marketing launch in history of Stern. I've never seen a Stern launch week turn so negative, so like so disgusting on so many levels now the game is lost in all of the debate the new designers lost in all of it what they're doing with everything everything is multiplied by a negative because stern has crappy marketing and they had to do so much damage control this week And it was embarrassing to see all of the damage control they had to do. And that falls on stern. You know, George Gomez said to me, we did not anticipate there would be this reaction to having no guns on John Wick artwork. Well, George, how? So that is a colossal mistake. You know, you know who the pinball buying demographic is, George. You know, you go to shows, you know, the states where pinball is really popular. You know, there's a lot of people that are gun aficionados and pinball aficionados. And, you know, John Wick is like it's a damn movie celebrating firearms. I mean, that's really what it is. So I still think Stern really flubbed it. And I know George has to go on his damage control tour defending the company and its integrity. They could have easily avoided it. OK, so, yes, Gunn Gate is dead. Now, there are those saying now that anyone who was upset about the lack of guns should feel foolish now. Right. It's like when people were insulting Kate Middleton on social media and then they realized like a few weeks later she had cancer. Right. How crappy they should feel. I don't know. I don't think there needs to be any more discussion about it. What I think is happening is a few things, and I've said this and I'll say it again. I think there is a level of vitriol and anger that is a powder keg that has already gone off. This launch, all it did was light that powder keg because for three years now, Stern Pinball has been ripping all of us off. And if you don't understand that and you think that this company, you know, with all their beer drinking and smiling and thumbs upping, they're overcharging us on all of these games. And I think people are angry about that. I think people are angry that Stern has destroyed its own FOMO and collectible market. I think these games are so overpriced because after all the gun gate dies down. Here's what happened, gang. I went and watched the stream yesterday with Tim Sexton. I went and I saw it for like an hour. I saw the John Wick gameplay. I saw the lights. I saw the heard the music. I saw the art. I saw the clips. I saw the heard the call outs. Here's my take on John Wick. I think all of this controversy and all this arguing has distracted everybody from the fact of the matter that Stern Pinball just launched. It's a basic game. There's not this masterpiece or there's nothing that was shown yesterday that makes me feel like this game is elevating anything new. There's no real toys in it that are impressive. The layout is pretty pedestrian. The code, whatever, you know, there's a lot of clips, but they're so repetitive. And I think John Wick is a difficult game to create pinball. Wow. And I'll explain why, because the thing with John Wick and as I was watching the stream, it doesn't have like these iconic bad guys that you can't wait to battle over and over again. Right. It doesn't have Darth Vader, Darth Maul, you know, Darth Sidious. It doesn't have Shredder. Right. It doesn't have Slimer and Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. it's like you're playing this game and you're going after like the different bad guys through the four movies and when they're popping up like you're like who are these people like no one really remembers you know each of these movies to that degree all we really remember is like keanu firing his guns and all the headshots and all the different like you know in unique environments and all the dogs that got killed and all the horses taking out bad guys it just doesn't have this like connection and then when you remove the rest of the movie which builds up all the tension to the action sequences and you just keep putting like action sequence action sequence action sequence like just you just keep putting them together the game just felt very like monochromatic to me um the lighting system is just old it just doesn't impress at all like there's nothing about the lighting that isn't it looks like a 10 year old game in 2024 and so like i don't care i know like tim sexton has his fans and and this and that if this game was priced much cheaper i think we all look at it differently but i can't get over this guys i can't get over the fact that that is most likely what we're looking at there is a game with like a 3500 bomb and there's there's no full rgb led lights happening in the game the flat cheap plastic skyline is not really like impressive can we drill down on the same playfield being used three times like yeah i mean guys it's i think what everyone should know i think what everybody should know john borg's indiana jones was supposed to be the game that came out now and that game got shelved so I think this game is somewhat of a stopgap quickly designed game I know Elliot he seems like a really nice guy and here I've been trying to think about how to say this because Elliot seems like a really nice guy he seems pretty shy he seems very jovial he seems like you know he's one of them I'm going to say something right now and it might be a little controversial it might be a little I mean I just want to I don't want to be mean and I'm not going to be mean but I just want to say something that I've been thinking about the moment Stern Pinball decided to raise their prices where they're at and we're talking 7,000 for a pro to 13,000 for an LE you know 9,500 for premiums 10,000 for premiums every one of the games now at these prices has to be a banger. Like it has to be a banger. And by banger, I mean, the new bar, I think is Godzilla. I think it's Jurassic Park. I think it's stuff like Stranger Things. I want to use those three games. I want us to stick on what I mean by that. I think Godzilla, Jurassic Park, and Stranger Things, to me, are where every single game needs to be in order to justify where the money is in these games. Okay. All three of those games. Think about what made them so awesome. You know, the themes are great, but they also did like interesting things mechanically that we hadn't seen before. They also like had pinball moments that we hadn't seen before. And they also like had a lot of wow throughout the game. Right. A lot of them. So it's like when Elliot comes out with this game and there's really not a lot, right? There's like only really not there's no movement, really. There's one bash toy mech. There's like not a lot to get excited about when I look at what's physically on the game. And like, why not? Like, where is the engineering? Like, where's the where's the major mech that's supposed to be? Wow. And I just think that like all we're but Ryan, I'm so tired of this. Ryan, let me like, I am not spending seven to $13,000 on audio video integration. Do you guys not understand this? Like you don't see any of those clips when you're playing a pinball machine. This damn LCD screen has become the crutch for having empty barren games that cost twice as much as games that were loaded. When are we going to stop this? This is not a video game. It's not a movie it's an effing pinball machine i want to look down and see effing mechanical wow in the game guys like why the would i pay on a 35 and a dollar bomb game if all of the money is going into into video assets you can't see the video when you play a goddamn pinball machine and i hate to use the lord's name in vain but go play lord of the rings they physically had to make the ring borog you know, the path of the dead, like Aragon's sword, like Gandalf's lighted staff, like the towers moving and shaking. They like all that had to be in the game. And now all we're doing is throwing the goddamn movie up for 40 minutes and saying, oh, they did such a great job. They didn't do shit. They didn't do shit. They just took movie clips and put it on a screen. How hard is that? There's no coding. There's no like, oh, yeah, where they sliced it up. That's pinball now. That's effing pinball. And I'm so tired of this shit. It's like, that's not pinball. That's not what mechanical engineers, that's not a world underclass. That's all they're doing. I could go buy a freaking $19 John Wick DVD and all your, I don't want to watch the movie. I want to be pulled into that world in a unique pinball way. Like, why are we defending the cheap way out? It's the cheap way out, guys. Why are you here? Why are you into pinball? You're going to spend $13,000 and all you get is a little Mustang bash toy. And that's it. No magnets, no third flipper, no upper play field, no lower play field. Where'd the money go? Where is the money going in this game? And I don't know why you defend them. Why? Like freaking Toten was like $2,000. Look at all the stuff in the Twilight Zone was like a $2,000 machine game. It was like $1,700 from Bally Williams. You can adjust for inflation all you want. You're never going to get close to $13,000. So stop defending these guys. You know how hard you have to work to make $13,000 and you look down at the game and the freaking side armor is black. No sparkle, no topper, no gun that you lock the bullets in. I mean, there's more gun action in the walking dead. There's more gun action in ACDC. I don't understand this stuff. I don't understand this stuff. I don't understand why you guys are like, well, they really did a great job. You do. When you play pinball, you're looking at your feet. You're looking at your feet. The moment they started charging two thousand dollars for toppers, something you're not even going to see. I just look, I look, I it's Saturday morning. It's Saturday morning. And my point is, this is where pinball prices are at and for where the bomb is at and for what's in this game. Not only is Elliott, I don't think qualified yet to be a lead designer at these prices. And I feel bad for Elliott because he shouldn't have to come out of the gate needing to hit a home run. It's not Elliott's fault. But this game isn't on this, like, this game isn't as good as Foo Fighters or Iron Maiden. It's not even close. And so it's like, it's so hard to be a rookie now. There's no room for rookie designers. You got to come out with a banger or you're like, or you're going to whiff. You know, so they can employ all their Mickey Mouse YouTubers to try to deflect you. You think B. Kong is buying one for $13,000? dollars the dude's hacking up $300 arcade one-ups I know he's like a member of this page now and be welcome but bro you not spending on this b you don know what it like to lose in six months because you opened up a cardboard box It like all of this to me is like John Wick to me has just become a metaphor for like everything that's wrong with Stern right now. Their games are overpriced. There's not enough magic in them. And they're trying to hide behind video assets and artwork. And it's only going to get them so far. And the jig is up. Like the gravy train is over. Like it's over. It's over. Like if you bought a John Wick LE, you just lost $3,000 to $4,000. I guarantee you, I guarantee you, I will shut my show off for a month. For a month. If we get to the end of this year, there will be no Canada's Pinball Podcast. Between January 1 and the end of January, I will shut my show off for a month. If you can't get a John Wick LE for $9,000. All right? I will bet George Gomez that, Tim Sexton that. Elliot Eismin that, Randy Martinez that, Christopher Franchi that, Zach Mennie that, Kerry Hardy that, Cengiz that, you will be able to get one for $9,000. You are going to lose $4,000. And how long are they going to continue to push these absolutely tanking assets in front of us? Tanking. It never used to be this way because it shouldn't be this way. If you think I'm speeding some truth, kick some stuff. So now that I've calmed down, I think Elliott's game is a fine entry level game. I think he's got a lot to learn about putting more wow into the game. He seems like a nice guy, but this pricing doesn't work for a rookie designer like him that doesn't have an out of the gate banger. And this is not an out of the gate banger. Okay. That's it. And It's really hard because it's really difficult because I look at Stern like a movie studio and every designer is like a director and they're directing different movies. And like do we have to just always give every movie a good score? Now, look, I think John Wick – here's what I hear everybody saying. It's fun. I can't wait to play on location. No crap, guys. Of course I can't wait to play this game on location. Of course I'm going to go to Jack Bar the moment they get this game. Of course, I'm going to drop 20, 30, 50 bucks into it. But that's it. But I'm not going to buy it. What could you have possibly seen that makes you want to buy this game? What could you possibly have seen so far that's like, yep, I want to lose $3,000. That's all in LE purchases now. Yep. I see enough where I think I can't wait to lose $3,000 on this game. Thank you, Seth Davis. Thank you, you greedy SOB. Because Seth Davis, how the F is a plastic topper worth $2,000, you jackasses over there at Stern Pricing? You're jackasses. Can we call them jackasses? $2,000 for a topper, I think you're jackasses. I just got a freaking 82-inch freaking ink blue velvet couch from West Elm for $2,000, you jackasses. A piece of furniture that I need. This little topper, that's what? at most 24 inches long of plastic for two grand. Just F off. F off. I'm tired of this crap, guys. And all of these moves are happening. I'm tired of George Gomez saying, Seth's a great guy. He's a great business guy. For who, George? For who? All right, I'm going to go off on a rant right now. And I literally, I'm just going to say this, and I don't care anymore. Because like, someone needs to say this shit, and I'm going to curse. and I don't like to curse, but I'm going to curse right now. But I just need to curse because you know what? Like every once in a while, you know me, I don't want to curse, but every once in a while, it wouldn't be an Eminem album without some freaking expletive. So here's the fucking truth. Here's the fucking truth, people. When a company makes greedy fucking moves like Stern and charges you two fucking thousand dollars for a fucking topper that probably cost them no more than like 200 bucks to make the reason why a company would do this fucking shit where they want to cook their fucking books to make their profits fucking sore do you know why companies fucking do that because they have something called share fucking holders where they want to fucking soar the profits so their stock can fucking go up so all the shareholders in that company can make fucking money. That's why you would do it. But news fucking flash, Seth Davis, you're not fucking publicly traded. You're fucking skyrocketing the prices for your own fucking gain. None of us are fucking investors. We are now investors once we buy your product. But the problem is our fucking stock is tanking as your profits are soaring. Why do I have to be the only fucking one? You can see that. Our profits are fucking tanking as your profits are soaring. The value of the assets of the stock, a game is like a fucking share of stock. I bought your $13,000 stock. it's now worth $9,000 but your profits are fucking soaring and I don't like cursing I'm not normally going to do this but that's the fucking truth so while Gary becomes richer and Gomez and Seth Davis I don't need to see fucking pictures of the team celebrating over beers because my friends are losing fucking $3,000 to $4,000 on every single game and no one wants to fucking ask why or nobody wants to try to lower the prices and nobody wants to limit the number of fucking LEs and all the fucking LE buyers that kept your candy asses in business all these years. Who do you fucking think has floated stern all these years? All the LE buyers that have been buying from you for 10 years and then you bring in Seth Davis and then you fuck them all with those anniversary additions and you are going to keep fucking us until we said something and nobody else, all the shill content creators in your back fucking pockets, they weren't saying anything. They don't say shit. you know you got guys like they're fucking you got your shill content creators you know who they are saying james bond 60th was priced perfectly at twenty thousand dollars and we're supposed to let you charge us twenty thousand dollars for james bond 60th george and seth and gary and Keith Elwin why is he immune why is he immune did Keith Elwin say i'm not gonna let you charge this, this will piss off. No, you didn't do shit. He didn't say shit. And if he did say shit, he should have quit. He should have said, I'm going to fucking quit. If you fuck over the people that have kept this hobby in business, all the fans, all the hard earned money these people are spending, it's stupid, stupid. And that's it. And that's it. Can't let your kids hear this. They treat their company like they need to pump the books. They pump the books up and we're not And we're like shareholders who are losing. Every new game you buy, every new game you buy, you're losing so much money on it. And yet we're supposed to keep buying while Seth Davis and Gary and George, they all get rich. We're supposed to just, oh, it's their lifestyle, it's their livelihood, it's their passion. What don't I get, George? Explain to me how a fucking Foo Fighters topper costs $2,000. explain to me how a black knight fucking topper a black knight fucking topper went from being 4.99 to 1500 bucks how the fuck did it go three times up in price how the fuck what the fuck happened did a fucking comet land on stern pinball and only in your fucking factory does plastic cost three times as much but you like you think we don't remember this shit like you're banking your whole company on a bunch of newbies to come in and just spend money like it's nothing. I don't I don't want to get this strident. I don't because I don't want this community to continue to go down this road like it's fucking stupid, gang. I'm not going to curse like this ever again, but you're going to get it like it now. It's fucking stupid. Like we know that a Jersey Jacks, the bomb is forty five hundred and then they fucking jack the prices up on three shitty games in a row, at least two shitty games in a row, because I don't think Elton John is a shitty game. It's a very good game, but Toy Story was shit. Godfather's shit. How the F are you going to charge me $15,000 for a fucking Godfather when Wizard of Oz was fucking twice as loaded for $6,500? And we're just supposed to fucking, yeah, it's okay, guys. It's fun. It's fun. It's fun, guys. Bye, bye, bye. Keep buying from me because I get rich. If you keep buying from me, I'm going to get a cut on every game, and I'm going to get rich and I'm going to build this and I'm going to be on my livelihood. And if you challenge that I should make money for just drop shipping fucking games, then you're going against my livelihood. And how dare you? Fuck this shit. And we all want pinball. Like Jeff Teal just said, we want to get back to talking about the fun of pinball, that these games should be these fucking games have a ceiling, guys. If you think there's no ceiling and the sky's the fucking limit. Look, I want the sky to be the fucking limit on a stock I'm invested in. If I buy Tesla stock, yeah, I want Elon Musk to sell as many as he can for as much as he can because I'm invested in Tesla. None of us are fucking invested in Stern. They seriously are operating like they're a publicly traded company and they're not. And Seth Davis doesn't care about you or me or the community. He does not. He does not. His job is to increase profits. And look at the direction they're going in. It's all internet. It's all DLC. It's all shit that's going to be on the screen. It's all shit on the screen. Where's the mechanical magic? Where's the well? You know, I'm about to have a baby. And one of the reasons why I'm going off like this is like, I'm going to have some timeouts coming real soon. Like by Tuesday, I will be a dad again. I will teach my children the same way I talk to my fans here. Don't get ripped off in life. Don't overpay for stuff and make sure there's value there. Look, people are pushing back against McDonald's. You know, there's only so much you can squeeze consumers. Now McDonald's, now McDonald's is lowering prices. Now they have a $5 meal. Well, who's going to lower prices in the pinball world? Because we're all telling them to F off. Fuck off. like fuck your $13,000 LEs. Fuck them. How the fuck, how the fuck is a fucking John Wick $2,500 more than a Godzilla LE? Fuck off. Fuck off. How the fuck did you sell ACDC much more loaded than John Wick? How'd you sell that fucking LE for $6,500? Fuck off. Like, am I allowed to say that? Like, fuck off. like like fuck off i will i will pay you i will pay you ten thousand dollars for an le because i think that's the ceiling on what you're capable of making stern and you're not going to charge me another three thousand dollars because you put a fucking dvd up on a screen so fuck off fuck off and then people can you know either agree with canada or disagree you know you get me pg 99 days out of the year you get me PG look I'm not making anybody be here I'm not making anybody be here like I'm just saying stuff that I know most of you are feeling you can't fucking say it the moment you say this stuff you run into like oh but there's people with passion and their family like I get it but fuck off most of the people at Stern can't even afford to buy their own products you know I remember Jack Danger when he used to make like like 30,000 a year because he loved it so much. Now he's making games. He wouldn't even be able to afford his own product. Like what happened? What the fuck happened? Like seriously, what happened? I don't get what happened. Well, that's what all the LDS are. The market is telling Stern. The secondhand market is telling Stern what these things are freaking worth. So do your damage control, Gomez. Do your tours. Go buddy up with Joel and I saw Loser Kid. And yeah, go to your media outlets that are simply going to allow you to give your excuses. But George, how the fuck is a Foo Fighters topper worth $2,000? That's all I want to ask George Gomez. George, you're a smart man. you used to make entire machines for that much money. It's the $2,000 toppers. It's the James Bond 60th. It's the rerunning of Jurassic Park LE. It's fucking over every Elvira owner who went in and believed them about their limited editions. It's their fucking strategy over the last three years. Fuck off. That's it. Stern, fuck off. Like Stern, if you lower prices, I will fucking I will be the first to stand up and applaud if you fucking put more into these games That are physical. I will applaud you, but i'm not I don't want pinball to turn into fucking xbox I don't want to turn into fucking xbox I don't need badges and and all that shit. Like what are we doing here gang? You need to you need are we the girl scouts the boy scouts and you need little fucking badges Can we just fucking have a great game like lord of the rings again? Can we just have a fucking great game like ACDC again and Metallica and Godzilla and Stranger Things and Jurassic Park? Can we fucking get that like every single time now at these prices? How many fucking badges did you get when you played Lord of the Rings? How many fucking badges do you have from Tron? How many fucking ACDC achievements do you fucking have hanging on your wall? They want they want to turn this product into something. It's not they want to minimize their costs and I get it so they can increase their profits. profits. I get it. But they're doing it like we're all shareholders and the assets we're buying are becoming worthless and they're making money. The more profit they make, the more these games go down in value. You know, let me explain to you why I love pinball and why, you know, I get, I get this mad about Stern pinball because I think Stern pinball, I think they had, they had the pinball world and they had all of us. They've made some of the greatest games of time. I think Stern Pinball has made the best pinball in the history of pinball all before Seth Davis. I think Stern Pinball has the greatest coders. I think they've got some of the best designers. I think they make games that have the best replay value. I think Zambietti's artwork is the fucking best in the fucking history of pinball. And they had it so good. And they fucking ruined it all by becoming greedy because you can't do what they did. You can't take it this high. These prices are so fucking arrogant. It's like at these prices, you're fucking saying that this game is a fucking masterpiece classic that people are going to want for fucking 20 years. That's a $13,000 game. That's always what a $13,000 game was. Remember, Toronto Lee was $5,500. It only went up to $12,000 because there was only 400 and it was fucking amazing and everybody wanted one. And there's only 400 Tron LEs in the world. On day one, John Wick has a thousand LEs. It's not nearly as good as Tron. There's not nearly as much interesting stuff in it. It's not nearly as atmospheric. It's not nearly as cool. And yet it's worth fucking, it's more than twice the price that Tron LE was. Fuck off. To me, it's just that simple. Fuck off. This isn't like, this isn't a product where you had to go hunt for the materials. You didn't have to fucking go kill some tuna or shoot some cows. It's fucking wood and lights. So fuck off. Fuck off. You tripled the price of your product basically and put like not as much in it. Now, when you actually make a product that seems like it's worth this much money, then I'll stop telling you to fuck off. And that's that. I sold my Batman SLE and I don't want to support Stern until I see them make moves that benefit this community. And I think, you know, the damage control and BKONGs of the world, that's fine. They can do what they do, but I'm going to keep doing what I do. And I'm allowed to say this stuff. Like they sell a very high price product. And I'm just, I think that company now has been driven by, I think it's always been there. I think Gary's always been like about the money, about the product. But Gary also understood there was a limit. And George knew that. And so the only new factor that has been pushing Stern so high is Seth Davis. Like he's the new variable. I feel like Gary knew there was a limit. And I think they're all on board because they're all making money. While all my friends are losing money. And that doesn't make me happy. That doesn't make me excited. and I love that there's content creators that don't even want to talk about this stuff. I don't really care. I think more people feel this way. I think a lot of people are going to watch this video, and I think if you buy John Wick Ali, I think you need your head examined because now's the moment. Now's the moment for everybody. If you put your foot down now and don't buy this middle-of-the-road game that doesn't have a lot in it, that doesn't have any innovation in it, if you put your foot down now and don't buy it, guess what's going to happen? They're going to lower their fucking prices. It's that simple, people. McDonald's lowering its prices, Tesla, Ford. We can make Stern Pinball lower their fucking prices. And the way you get Stern Pinball to lower their prices is you stop fucking buying. Like, we have the power. And I don't understand. You know, and I talk to everybody, man. I talk to people all day long. Nobody wants these high prices. Nobody. The distros don't want them. Dealers don't want them. Nobody. It's just, it's too much. It's too much. It's pushed friends like my friend Derek out of the hobby. I think they're all living in their own little bubble. Like, yeah, I get it. Like, imagine walking in the JJP. You're a billionaire's calling the shots. What does he know about, like, saving up to buy a pinball machine? Nothing. You know, they've lost touch with, like, who is this community? They've lost touch with the financial reality on all of us. Like, yes, the world around us is getting more expensive. but my fucking pinball machine shouldn't be flying by the percentage increase of everything else. Like, fuck you. It's a pinball machine. You're telling me that my fucking non-essential pinball toy is now exponentially going more expensive than my food, than my car, than my house, than my clothes. All the essentials. And now I got to look over here. The one thing that brought me joy and happiness was this nice little subculture hobby of mine where if I bought a pinball machine, I could play it for a year and it wouldn't lose much value. And it was such a fun thing to have. And I could justify it to my wife. I could justify it to my kids that if I bought an LE for 8,500, I could keep it for two years and sell it for 8,500. But now I'm buying an LE for 13,000. And if you put a fucking topper on it, it's a $15,000 game. And then I lose fucking, and then I'm going to sell it for what? What do you think a $15,000 with topper stern is going to go for? You're going to lose five to $6,000. So fuck you. Like, fuck this pricing. Fuck it. Fuck it. There's nothing else to say. Fuck pinball modern pricing. That's it. Stop fucking with us. I didn't get a fucking, I didn't double my fucking salary in the last five years, but you doubled, you fucking 40% increased your prices. Who the fuck got a 40% raise? and all the people defending these moves. It's so stupid. It's so stupid. And like, I'm reading your comments as I'm speaking and all of you feel the same way. Who the hell, who the hell is excited? Who the hell is excited about these prices? But what have you done? You know, the moment you bitch about it, you get people mocking us, right? When we say stuff like this, you're gonna get the people mocking us who are like the buddy buddies of stern employees. They're going to mock you. They're going to mock you. Oh, you know, come on, Chris. It's just about the fun. This is not fun. This is not fun. Yeah, because losing $4,000 on a brand new toy is not fucking fun. And stop saying it's like driving a car off of the lot. Do you buy three to four fucking cars a year? Do you replace your car every fucking year? No, you don't. Do you need a fucking car? Yes, you do. Do you need fucking food? Yes, you do. Do you need furniture? Yes, you do. Do you need another pinball machine when you already have 10? You already have 10 machines. Do you need another? No, you fucking don't. So you don't fuck with the new in box FOMO. They fucked with the new in box FOMO and now they're going to get fucked. And that's it. I could just say that one sentence the moment you fucked with new and box FOMO you fucked yourselves over And all of you know who I talking it not just Stern They fucking over all of it You think people want to buy a Scooby-Doo and then lose like $3,000 in here? No, they fucking want to do it. How come Spooky's are always like, Spooky's have like $12,000 in the butter cabinet. What the fuck happened? What the fuck happened? The company used to make $6,000 games. Fucking wake up the next day, fucking $12,000 in the butter cabinet. What the fuck happened? Double the price. We're not supposed to say. They fucking gas lit all of us. Okay, I see. $7,000. Okay, $8,000. Okay, $899. Okay, $9,200. Okay, $9,700. Okay, $10,000. Okay, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They charge more for the butter cabinets. The fuck? They charge like 40% more for butter. What happened? Butter more expensive now? No. Charlie's got three Corvettes. That's what happened. That's what happened. they see the money. They see the money and they want to cash out and they want to make as much as they can. And God bless you guys. It's capitalism, but it goes both ways. You're allowed to see how much you can make and I'm allowed to say how much I'm willing to take and how much I'm willing to give. You're going to hear this anywhere else. You're going to hear this on any other content creator page. I think this is the most important podcast I've ever done. I don't mean to curse people. I don't mean to be strident. I really don't. But I think I think I I think I'm expressing a level of tiredness of all of this crap. And you know what? It's like Gunn Gate just became a distraction from the real problem in this hobby is that it all got bonkers crazy and everyone's feeling like it's not worth it now. And I don't know anyone is going to be like, Chris, you're wrong. like George Gomez the problem with George Gomez is he can't explain to me why a Foo Fighters topper is $2,000 I'm willing to listen to him about the price of wood the price of labor the price of electricity but George it's a fucking plastic topper it's a fucking plastic topper and as I've always said a fucking quarter pounder with cheese is fucking delicious it's just as delicious at $50 as it is at $10. But I don't want to spend more than $10 on a quarter pound of cheese. You could charge me $50 and it's still delicious, but I'm not fucking buying. Gang, let's do this. Let's get to 20,000 stars because you know what's going to happen now is all the Canada haters are being told what happened on this show. And now they're going to come join. And the thing that you can do for me the most, It's not about these Facebook stars because, you know, freaking Apple and Facebook take a cut. But like join the show, join Canada's Pinball Podcast. The more people that subscribe to my show, the more people that like this, that share this with their friends. You know, they say we're just bitching. We're just bitching. We're just bitching. We're just bitching. Nobody's looking out for the for the consumers at all. It's really dangerous what's happening in the world today. It's like if we don't keep these for profit companies somewhat accountable, they will continue to squeeze us until we've got nothing left. And look, I want to get back to talking about pinball fun and the mechs and the magic. But there's not magical mechs in John Wick. There's no magical mechs in John Wick. And that's it. It saddens me. I think that this cheap and cheerful, this hobby was always it was it was so priced so perfectly. and I think they saw what was happening around them and I'm not saying like there shouldn't have been price increases but they reached they reached what they needed the price increase to be and it was when Godzilla was 10.5 and that's what it needed to be they know that they're still making gang remember the bomb on the game is like 3500 they just shot past it like like way past it Well, Jane, as you know, I mean, this will be upload this audio for sure. I mean, this is I think this is the most explosive Canadian rant of all time. But I hope you know that that I say this stuff and I speak this way because I do respect all the folks at these pinball companies. But I think the bean counters and I think the shill content creators. And you know who you are. You're doing a disservice to what makes this hobby amazing. And what I hate about the fallback, well, we need to grow pinball. How the fuck are you going to grow pinball when you charge $13,000 for a game? How the fuck are you going to grow pinball when two Jersey Jacks CEs are the price of a fucking car? Fuck off. If you want to grow a fucking hobby, you got to reduce prices. That brings more fucking people in. and like i'm i think i was i think i was educated right i had the best private school boarding school educations money could buy and it fucking led me here fuck my parents are disappointed but if you want to fucking grow pinball fucking lower the prices you want to grow pinball make it fucking more attractive for operators to put your games on location because they're not so fucking expensive. If you want to grow pinball, start picking better themes. You had it. Pinball was growing so nicely. And then you raise the prices so much that the core audience of pinball is now all feeling like, fuck, it's not worth it. Fuck it. It's not worth it. Don't worry, gang. This is just the last Saturday morning show before baby number two. I am not going to start becoming a cursing content creator but I just couldn't do this without the bombs because I do want to tell them to fuck off I wish you guys the best I'm not buying I'm encouraging my listeners not to buy at these prices and I think if you bought a John Wick LE you made a huge mistake because you're going to lose so much value And the only reason I say that is because I'm looking at James Bond, Foo Fighters, and Venom. Look at those games. Look at those games. James Bond is a theme with 60 years, gang. 60 years of fan base. Thing lost $3,000 to $4,000. The code's great. People love the layout. Why'd it lose $3,000, John Ehrlich? Why? Because they fucking priced it $3,000 more than it fucking is worth. The thing about this hobby and the thing that they don't want you to know one thing that I always fall back on is, it's the people that make the hobby great. I think we're all at the point now, I think we're all at the point now where you guys all have enough pinball machine. You all have enough pinball machines that you'll ever need, right? I mean, that's like, that's a given. Hold on one second, again. I just need to, let me get my charger. I think all of you have enough pinball machines that you ever will need. And so now you're going to get your enjoyment a few different ways. You're going to get your enjoyment by enjoying pinball content, which doesn't cost a lot of money. You're going to get your enjoyment by going to shows and playing on location. You're going to get your enjoyment by playing the games you own and just exploring them more. I mean most of you have games where you haven't seen the end. You haven't got to the end. You haven't got to the wizard mode. you absolutely can fall in love all over again with the great games you own you know that's not going to keep the new in box people happy it's not going to keep the line happy but who cares because now like you can get so much enjoyment from just the community which it doesn't cost you much and i think that's what um that's what i love about pinball is ultimately the most valuable thing is like these greedy executives can't take from us is that the most valuable thing is absolutely free. Like Derek is a good example. My boy Derek here, right? And Derek, congratulations on the move to California. Derek plays his games, right? Plays them like 5,000, 10,000 plays, keeps them in great condition, you know, no scuffs on the cabinet. And, you know, we all know that he lost $7,000 on his godfather, Ali, and that made him want to leave the hobby, right? It saddens me, but like that's the truth. Like he just doesn't – he's just over it. And like – but Derek's my best friend, OK? So I want to – Derek, I hope you allow me to talk this freely. And Greg Colton, you're one of my – Greg Colton is probably my best Facebook buddy. Like him and I talk all the time. the friendships I've made in this hobby I can't put a price on it you know I don't need to buy a $2,000 topper an LE like all the flexing of the games and the more rare versions means jack shit right there's nothing none of that matters once you get into pinball and you know once we know who the players are the companies are the games are you know and we get to discuss you know the things we love about the games we love, then we're all in it together. But Derek's become my best friend where like I talk to him every day, like on the phone, like not. And that's why I love hobbies like this, because they've brought so many of us together from all over the world. And they've become like our extended family and somewhat like I bet a lot of you can relate to this. A lot of us probably feel like our pinhead friends know us even better than some of our family members. Right. John, you are a great friend, too. And what I hate seeing happen in pinball is just the distance now between what makes this hobby so beautiful and what these companies now are telling us we need to pay to get access to the new stuff. I think it's just it's not worth it it's not worth it I think everyone who's like been in pinball for the last you know 10 years is just raising a proverbial middle finger to these companies and I and I think they're gonna have to like wake up they're either gonna wake up or they're gonna have crappy sales and I don't feel and it's their fault it's their fault you know there's no more excuses covid this covid that like this that like cost of this like come on guys like they're continuing to make efficiencies in their products and their bombs have not increased um sure some other costs might have gone up but so what not nearly as much as the games have gone up um all right so let's let's move on to some other stuff okay because i'm telling you like one of the reasons why Funhouse has been delayed is Nick Parks is nervous. Nick Parks is nervous. Why do you think Funhouse has already gone from $11,000 to $10,000? Because they're nervous. I mean, the game looks stunning. Brian Allen's artwork on this game, I heard, is absolutely phenomenal. I heard Brian Allen just crushed it. But it's a Funhouse, right? It's going to be revealed next week. I think it's going to, I think next to John Wick, Funhouse is going to absolutely be the game that looks like it's worth the 10 Gs. It was always 10K? No, it wasn't. Kid. Kid Crisso. I have email correspondence from Andrea Pedretti, two distros with the three models. They killed a model, man. It wasn't always 10K. There was an $11,000 model with a topper. So like, and I could, I'm not going to reveal my sources, but that was emailed out from Andrea Pedretti to Distro. So don't tell me it was always 10K. I don't care. I'm glad they lowered the price. I'm glad they lowered the price. But, you know, still not cheap. It's not cheap. you know I mean a lot of $10,000 plus games out there in the market you know like Elton John should be selling better but it's not because it's overpriced it's like I think there's like a there's got to be there's got to be a way to get a banger game out into the pinball marketplace for $8,000 there's just gotta be I don't know I really don't know man I don't know what happened I mean all I know is like they used to be able to do it now they somehow can't do it right they used to be able to make a game packed like Wizard of Oz and Pirates and now they just don't seem to be able to do it so I don't know what happened like did the creativity just die did the mechanical know-how die did the did the enthusiasm to make games that loaded die or did the I don't know you know i mean ninja clips seven thousand dollars or what is it like six thousand nine hundred and ninety four dollars i i just i don't understand who's buying these things you know it's it's gonna be brutal man it's gonna be brutal and i think i think a lot of people are gonna hear this and they're gonna put their money back in their wallet and you know you just you're just not going to be able to like defend the prices and that's and like i know there's like distributors with shows and there's people that get make their money selling these things you know i had a good chat with jeff cervera over at mad pinball we had a really good talk this week um i had posted something like john wick is the worst selling game in 20 years or something which i heard from a major distributor um and he he was like canada you're a clown like it's not right okay so i was like all right well jeff i don't appreciate you calling me a clown but that's what i heard from a major distributor but anyway we had a really good phone conversation probably for like a half hour um jeff is a great guy and you know ultimately nobody wants these high prices nobody why would a distributor want to make it harder to sell games why would a distributor want to see people buy products and lose so much money because they know they're not going to come back and buy again you know i'm saying like you know it's it's sad it's like i'll use the example of james bond 60th right it's like when that game came out And it was $19,999, right? Right. You know, there were like distributors saying that it was priced perfectly. Right. Trying to get the hype, trying to get the FOMO, all the reasons why it was priced perfectly. So they sold some, right? People bought them for 20 grand. It's now worth 11 or 12. right so like if i talked you into buying this stock for twenty dollars a share and then a year later it's worth eleven dollars a share are you are you listening to me again are you trusting my advice are you listening to my podcast are you going to watch my videos are you going to are you going to like support me are you going to trust me ever again and that's it and the reason why canada's pinball podcast has more subscribers than every single pinball content creator combined why do you think that is because i'm advocating to take the prices down i'm calling out these bs moves these companies make when they overcharge us for toppers and and they like and haggis pinball lies to us for like three years about delivery dates and you know do we you know i I question these things. And when a game is great like Godzilla, it's a great game. It's a great game. When I play Stranger Things and it's like, wow, like that UV kit, wow. That's what I want to be talking about. Like, wow, did you see that moment? And that's what John Wick doesn't have. We can beat around this. I watched Tim Sexton talking for an hour. I didn't see anything that happened in John Wick that was like, wow. I didn't see one wow thing. And I feel like nervous saying that, but like it's true. I didn't see one wow moment in John Wick. I didn't see one moment where like the lights did something interesting. I didn't see one moment where a mech did something interesting. I didn't see one moment where like call outs or the game went crazy or there was any like real sense of being in a neon city. I didn't see one moment that was wow. I heard them keep talking about like, again, that's that's all that's become. is just BS, code calculus garbage that you have to try to learn a goddamn Bible full of rule sets to unlock what's in those guys' heads. But you know what? That's not what pinball is supposed to be. Pinball is supposed to be like, wow. What's happening under that glass is wow. When that UV kit hits in Stranger Things, wow moment, man. when that projector's going it's pretty wow when that t-rex eats that ball it's wow when that you know when that uh building in godzilla goes up and down and all the different pathways in godzilla that's why i mean you know what game has a lot of wow just just like just from the shots alone it's the code's terrible because it's too complex but like man the shots in avengers are wow when I when I play Avengers it is like you it's like a roller coaster ride like looking at what's in John Wick compared to Avengers boring like snooze fest snooze fest when I see that ring grab the ball in midair and then pull it through the back of the game in Lord of the Rings or Balrog swings out and the music's going to war and like, oh, wow. I didn't see any of that yesterday. I'm not allowed to say this stuff. And either they bring that wow and they start understanding that these games, they need to start designing them where the games themselves have personality. It's just feeling flat. It's flat. Like John Wick is a flat game. You can see it. It's flat. It's mono. It's one dimensional. It's monochromatic. It's like, it just, you just don't, I don't feel like John Wick at the machine. You know, like when you start the game, it should be like, you killed my fucking dog. Like there should be like, get in it. There's nothing. There's nothing. It's just like, all this stuff's happening. Like it's just, it's just, it's just, I know Michael, Michael Huntsman. Well, you know, look, it's sometimes I feel like I'm on an island here saying this stuff, but I know I'm not. I know like I know people are going to watch this throughout the day and it's going to get I think if there's any Facebook live that I get, I get comments on it's going to be this one. but you know you just can't go from like a bally williams period where there was all this wow happening in the games mechanically the codes were shallow but that's because remember those games were designed to wow us in an arcade environment you know from three to five minutes experiences that's it they weren't meant to be owned at home you know now that games have home ownership, sure, but you can have both. You can have the physical wow and you can have the code that gives you longevity. That's called Godzilla. That's called Stranger Things. That's called Lord of the Rings. That's called Tron. Oh, by the way, I just let my Patreon subscribers know this, but since we have about 100 people here, Tron Vault Edition, 100% coming. John Borg is working on it it's coming it's gonna be like trying le on crack it's coming it's coming it's not a it's not an if it's coming it's just a matter of when now if you have a trying le that you think is worth $18,000 might be a good time to sell it because they're making enhancements to it yeah well two years ago a lot of stuff got put on the back burner John Borg's working on it why would he be working on it I'm just saying like trust me it's coming because you know when George Gomez says if there's demand there we want to make it and the problem now I think with Stern is collectors don't want to hear, well, if there's more demand, we'll just make more. That the last thing a collector wants to hear especially guys who buy LEs That the only FOMO there is This is that I just it always confuses me why would there be FOMO around a pro or a premium there no FOMO there so the only FOMO that exists is around the limited edition or the collector's edition right and for those people to feel good in their FOMO and secure and their heavy investment in your product what they want to hear is that you're never making any more again What they want to hear is that even if the demand over time increases for this, we are still not making more. But that's not what George Gomez is saying. He's like, we're listening to the demand and we want to bring out stuff where there's demand. I don't know, George. Tron had its – I would rather him say, we made Tron. We love seeing the fact that there's still demand for that game like 15 years later. but we're never making more. And I hope everyone who has one enjoys it and it becomes like a centerpiece of their Stern collection. He doesn't talk like that. No, he keeps the door wide open to screw over those LE owners. You know, when they sold 500 Jurassic Park LEs and all those LE owners were feeling great, right? They had a game. They loved it. It was bolted to the ground. They had an LE. They felt special. It was the centerpiece of their collection. the games were starting to go way up in value right 16 000 17 000 and they were never going to sell them and it was just nice knowing that it was just nice knowing that if one day i wanted to sell this i now have a game that might be worth almost double what i paid for it it's great right you need some stocks to double for to absorb the losses because not every game goes up yeah it was all the way up to 18 000 and then what did they do they made a nicer version of the game with better artwork, another 500, which made all the original owners not want theirs anymore. And then all of them tanked. And now you can go get a new Jurassic Park 30th LE for like 10,500. So that's an $8,000 loss because they got greedy. Did they need to do that? Did they need to burn those 500 faithful owners just to make another quick buck? So I just I don't know how you feel good about this stuff, gang. I don't know. I don't know why. I don't want to talk to George Gomez about Lionsgate licensing. I believe him when he says that stuff. What I can't believe is how you get to a $2,000 price tag on a Foo Fighter topper. You know, I don't understand why you thought it'd be a good idea to make more Jurassic Park LEs. everything should have a time and a place and if you just keep remaking them you destroy what like makes things special absolutely greg every value proposition of every le now is destroyed there's no fomo around any of them anymore and without fomo and this is the thing i think seth Davis doesn't get because he doesn't know pinball. He came from other industries. If you lose the FOMO, like the hype drop moment, right, of a new product, that FOMO needs to, that game needs to sell out pretty much within the first week. That will, that will lift up all of your sales of, you know, premiums and pros because there's no, there's no more of the LEs to get. So I'm going to get this. But every day now, every week, those John Wick LEs sit unsold. It makes everyone realize it's not a stock that's going anywhere north. I mean, that's all it is. And everyone was winning. It was a win-win for Stern, the distros, and the consumers. It was a win-win. I mean, you know, a distributor wants to see Greg Colton buy a game for $8,500 and if it's a hot game maybe greg makes a few grand and if it's not a hot game greg gets out for eight right and greg gets his 500 plays a thousand plays and he didn't feel like he lost anything but nowadays it's like greg gets in at 13 when he goes if he wants to sell it he's getting nine. And that's just on one game. So if he does that three times in a row, he's losing $12,000 on three Stern LEs. That's the end of FOMO. It's the end of FOMO. I love doing this content. I love this being a distraction from everything else going on in life. I think that pinball will be fine I think the market is going to force these companies to adjust I think the consumers are exhausted I think they are I think you can read it on pinside you can see it on Facebook there's not enough super rich fat cats who don't care about losing three to four thousand dollars every game um to create growth to absorb the volume of of these le's and and the number of premiums they need to sell i think distros are really need to get together you know they need to like it's like reverse collusion they need to get together to lower the prices with these manufacturers they need to push back you know i'm saying like like they need to push back against the manufacturers. I can't, I, I'm not going to buy your product anymore. If you need me to sell it for this much money. And, and that's to me, the 2024 pinball battleground, you know, as we wait for stuff like Harry Potter and Muppets and, and back to the future, you know, I'm happy to wait. Guys, let's do something here. Okay. I mean this when I say this, because I'm seeing Donald saying stuff about Cengiz and Cengiz saying stuff about guns. And I really think everybody needs to just let's just let all the gun gate stuff go. All right. Let's let's not let's not hold on to anger towards anybody around that topic. The topic never should have been even a topic like Stern should have shown the clips of the game. We never would have had gun gate. You know, if Cengiz is over in Denmark and he's anti-gun and you're in America and you are a gun and a gun enthusiast, it's OK. Like, I think it's OK that we live in a world where people can have opposing viewpoints on something. What we shouldn't be doing. And this is where I think everybody got a little bit, maybe a lot of it. They got it wrong. I don't think we should be insulting people for either one of those opinions. Right. That's why I don't I'm not coming out here and saying, like, you're an idiot if you like guns and you're an idiot if you don't understand Second Amendment. And you're you know, you're a snowflake socialist. Let's just all use this Saturday morning as a moment to realize a lot of us have differences of opinions around these things. let's not focus on that. Okay. Let's keep our energy and our attention on the topic in which brings us all here. Okay. Cause I can't tell you the amount of times people come at me and say stuff that is like either sexist or homophobic or this or that. And I'm like, I'm not, I'm not engaging this. And I'm also not here to try to change you on that level. Like, you know, everyone here is a grown adult i think we're this is a place and will always be a sanctuary away from all the garbage we're trying to avoid okay and look yes look there's gonna be consequences right and and sean like if if you know carrie hardy lost some fans jang has lost some fans i mean that's the truth that's the truth like through all of this isn't it crazy like through all of this debate and all this controversy i've actually gained a lot of fans this last couple weeks and i haven't taken a real hard stance on this stuff uh i'm just trying to cover it like to me there was like a little bit of a gun gate issue i think jordan gomez clarified the issue for me it was dead there like i did two shows back to back at first i said that stern was firing blanks with no guns you know woke john wick john woke whatever and then i'm like oh okay go misclarified boom to me it was over like that thing was over in 24 hours um you know i think we all should just be like you know it's it's um there's that scene in the transformer movie where like we're we're optimists and and you know rodimus i gotta get the scene right it's rodimus and Galvatron, right? Like these two vehemently opposed points of view and beliefs. And they're like, we're allies now against a common foe. And what I think everybody should do as we get ready to turn off this very crazy episode of Saturday Morning Spectacular, we should all just at least be allies against the common foe of ridiculous prices. these companies are ripping us off we need to get the prices to come down or we need a significant investment in the bomb and in the innovations and in the physical game of pinball again because if it's just lights and lcd and internet connections and downloadable content as the future of this hobby they can have it i'm not doing this i will just go buy a dvd player i will just go play Xbox with $50 games. That is not what makes people love pinball. I will say I did find Kerry's video funny where he sped up Cengiz's voice to sound like Mickey Mouse. A lot of Mickey Mouse voices this week. I was like, Cengiz, you're going to take that? You're going to take that from Kerry? But yeah, I mean, we all should just be telling these companies to F off at these prices and we should stop fighting each other sucks there's no more twippies man what's Colin doing man does anyone even like did did everybody unsubscribe to this week in pinball like I I don't even like I don't even know what happened to that site and to the kinetesis like I don't even talk about it anymore because like it's become as irrelevant as like like that dude didn't even get invited like like beat kong is is got more access than than that dude um i don't care man like i people were like you're jealous you didn't get in it i stern's not going to invite me to unveil a game for them guys like i don't want i wouldn't even take that invite i've got to remain neutral i've got to stay where i'm at they didn't invite jason napp though and that's bs um jason's a great guy has the best pinball media site i think you know You read Jason Knapp's site. You go to Pinside for just shits and giggles, and then you listen to Kaneda, and you've got all you need to know. I mean I'm doing like three shows a week real time when stuff happens. Like nobody else is doing that. Nobody else is doing that. Nobody. And nobody's mixing it up like this. Nobody's talking the real, real. And I know that's why you're here. It's like just real. I mean I would love for someone to say to me, Chris, you don't understand. Like Stern Prices should be this. Like nobody's going to say that. Nobody. But I think as we end this episode, let's just all not buy for a while and see what happens. Watch them lower their prices. That is exactly what will happen. They won't go out of business. They will just lower their prices because they're making more than enough. And they know that. Everybody, thank you for being here on Saturday. I think I should upload the audio of this show for my fans. I'll do it right now. I think I might have blown a blood vessel or two. But I think I just said what had to be said. And, you know, it is what it is. I think it was a great show. It was the best show ever, Anthony. Good. John Wick is a good game. Godzilla is a great game. Donald. Donald, Donald, Donald, Donald. you gotta be kinder empathy and kindness Donald you gotta learn a little bit of that you know what I'm saying everybody enjoy there's a question from B Kong in the chat is B here and thank you guys for the 8400 stars oh come on we can get to 10,000 stars after all of this heat before I go um what was this question what was the question from well god can someone just be con what did you say hold on uh i'm looking i'm looking i'm looking i'm scrolling oh here we go i have a genuine question you did complain about me and vick getting a chance to play john wick what would you have liked to see for a first impressions video given one hour of time to interview stern and play the game that would have appeased the core pinball community? All right, B, good question. So here's the thing, B. I think the issue, and thank you for the stars, I think the issue was nothing you're going to create would really appease the pinball community. And I'll explain why. Because you're not yet a content creator for the pinball community. I know you're getting into it and you got to start somewhere. But getting this level of access when Stern ignored all the pinball content creators sets you up for failure. So there's nothing you and Vic could have done. I mean, at least Vic's whole thing seems to be more pinball lately. I don't always agree with Vic's, you know, topper hack up decisions. But that's the thing, B, is like you. Here's what annoyed us, B. I'm going to be completely candid. A lot of us have spent so many hours of our lives and years of our lives making tons of pinball content and CERN ignored all those people. and then when we saw your face like i got to play john wick in a very like you know like like animated with like comic sans font like like and then you were driving people to subscribe to hear your take on our thing you know i'm saying like that's that's the thing b is like you should not have been the first line of information for us that and it because it's our thing and it's not an entitlement thing man it's like it's like who are you to pinball community and again we're happy you're here but it's like you've got to earn like the respect of the community before you know you're highlighting the products on a launch like that's the thing it was like it was like like imagine this be like you don't even cover cars right we use a car you mean you don't really cover cars you've been covering watches your whole life but part but there's crossover right between car fanatics and watch fanatics and there is then all of a sudden like lamborghini has their newest lamborghini and all of a sudden it's not the car media that's introducing us to it it's a watch guy so that's the thing is because b it's like you you know i don't think you have and it's a weird place to be in because i i also i don't really know i don't even think b like they needed vick or you or anybody, I think they needed to just show the game. Like they were fully capable of just showing us the game because here's what was annoying, B, because B, you don't know what it's like, right? I'm gonna give you like a real quick, and I know we're over, but I wanna answer this thoughtfully. You don't know what it's like, B, where a company wants you to make a $13,000 decision in like one day, right? You've made arcade one-up stuff. It's like 300 bucks. Stern Pinball's marketing has always been this. We're going to give you as little information as we can about a product. And we all for so many years, we had to make a decision within a day whether or not we committed to buying a super expensive elite. Right. And so we need as much information on that first day as that we can get. And so then when you're introducing John Wick the way you did with like over the shoulder gameplay, like just Zach Sharp, like smiling, it wasn't enough info. Like and it was like and that and again, it's just it's just more of a I think you got thrown into a marketing model that's been annoying people for a really long time. And then you were an unfamiliar face. And and they ignored all the familiar faces. And I'll say this, the social media agency that Stern hired should be fired because I've worked at social media agencies. I've worked building media lists for launch moments. You would never leave off the core media. You know, they jumped right to the you know, you would be a second tier invite. And it's not to say you wouldn't be invited. You'd absolutely be invited. But like, first and foremost, it would be like, who are the core pinball media that we need to get that we need to hit? They just ignored all those people. And then they went right to like the second tier. And that's why I think people are just like, what? What wasn't going to be me. But like, there's no way be that you should have had more details on John Wick than Jason Knapp. And that's that's it. It was just the optics of it all. And that's it. how much pinball content has be made where is all this content well look guys you're not going to expand pinball because b puts up some videos you're not going to expand pinball when prices are this ridiculous to me it's a it's a moot point it's a moot point you're not going to expand pinball because you just buy ads in more places or get more content creators to create like ad-like videos celebrating the product. It's just not going to happen. And all they've done on this launch, for every newbie that that content attracted, they pissed off their core buyer and their core content creators. And B, it's not, again, I don't think it's on you. I think you guys had no idea what was going on. But again, it's not about exposure. There's not a lack of awareness that there's pinball machines in the world. People just don't get this. I deal with this every day. It's like Bud Light thinking they're going to reach new consumers if they do this. Stern's thinking the same way. Stern is losing its core audience. The moves they're making recently, they're hemorrhaging their core audience. What are you talking about? Kongs R Us. Let me let me explain something to you. Kongs R Us has zero credibility in the pinball community. I don't understand like what pinball community you guys are reaching. Is it like arcade one up pinball machines? But like who the hell who is this guy? Who's this like Raphael Raphael guy? Raphael, I've been covering pinball for 10 years. Kong Zaras has never come up once. Like, you sound like, I don't know what you're even basing this on. He's known now, John Ehrlich. I don't really get, like, gang, I got to be honest. All of this John Wick launch was terrible. It was a fumbled launch, and it's divided everybody in all these dumb ways. And underneath it all is not a spectacular game. and that's just the end of it. And they need to lower the prices. The prices don't work for a game like this. And I welcome any and all pinball content creators, but I think Stern's marketing department absolutely flubbed this thing. And I think the conversations we've had this week are a prime example of a botched marketing launch, okay? All right, guys. Later. Have a good Saturday. He did it again!