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Episode 225 - Layoffs and Liquidators

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·59m 12s·analyzed·Aug 4, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Haggis Pinball liquidation details emerge; industry discusses contract manufacturing and failed game concepts.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers discusses Haggis Pinball liquidation (over $2M in creditors, minimal assets), Pinball Adventures' survival through Punny Factory profits and potential contract manufacturing opportunities, and broader industry discussion about failed pinball companies. Also covers Marvel Rivals beta and SAG-AFTRA video game voice actor strike.

Key Claims

  • Haggis Pinball creditor list totals over $2 million Australian dollars with hundreds of creditors including distributors, individual depositors, and employees

    high confidence · Tony and Dennis summarizing liquidation documents and forum discussions

  • Pinball Adventures is a low-overhead operation funded by Punny Factory sales profits and plans to ship their next game before end of 2024

    high confidence · Andrew from Pinball Adventures emailed the hosts with company update

  • Fast Pinball was not listed as a creditor despite shipping boards to Haggis because they had not yet invoiced for the prototype work

    high confidence · Dennis citing Fast Pinball owner's statement

  • Pinball Adventures has been contacted by several companies inquiring about collaborative builds or contract manufacturing services

    high confidence · Andrew raised this as a discussion point via email

  • Deep Root's Merlin's Magic was designed by John Norris and inspired by Eight Ball Deluxe mechanics

    high confidence · Dennis discussing failed Deep Root games and Whitewood photos from liquidation

  • SAG-AFTRA video game voice actors voted to strike effective immediately before Comic-Con over AI voice work provisions

    high confidence · Dennis discussing strike news and contract negotiations

  • Games in production before August 2023 are grandfathered and not affected by the SAG-AFTRA strike

    high confidence · Dennis explaining Interactive Media Agreement contract lag time provisions

Notable Quotes

  • “just like you'd expect in a bankruptcy case, there's just nothing there to pay, to remotely pay back. I mean pennies on the dollar would be a generous way to describe it”

    Tony @ Early in Haggis discussion — Summarizes severity of Haggis Pinball creditor situation

  • “they made money on Punny Factory sales, and based off of that, they're able to continue operating off of the profits of Punny Factory for the time being. So they're a business doing business as a business is supposed to do business.”

    Dennis @ Pinball Adventures discussion — Contrasts Pinball Adventures' sustainable model with Haggis' failure

  • “I really think John Norris' designs would resonate with a lot of people. It's just unfortunate he's never been at a company that's been at the top of the game.”

    Dennis @ Failed games discussion — Assessment of designer talent and company limitations

  • “if you're a small company that is mainly concentrating on your own thing and it is one of those, call it a side gig company... you could run the risk of getting yourself burned out and into deep and in trouble”

    Tony @ Contract manufacturing discussion — Weighing risks and benefits of contract work for small manufacturers

  • “the hang-up has been, once again, the use of AI in voice work. And that's the one place where the companies haven't really been working with them.”

    Dennis @ SAG-AFTRA strike discussion — Identifies core dispute in entertainment industry strike

Entities

Haggis PinballcompanyPinball AdventurescompanyAndrewpersonDamienpersonFast PinballcompanyAaronpersonJohn NorrispersonDeep RootcompanyRobert Muellerperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Haggis Pinball liquidation reveals massive creditor list ($2M+) with minimal assets to recover, suggesting systemic issues in small manufacturer business models

    high · Over $2 million in creditors documented, hundreds of creditors listed including distributors, individuals with deposits, and employees; pennies on the dollar recovery expected

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Adventures demonstrates sustainable profitability through single successful title (Punny Factory) used to fund operations and new development

    high · Andrew states company operates on Punny Factory profits and is functioning as a proper business with low overhead

  • ?

    community_signal: Discussion of potential corporate veil piercing in Haggis Pinball liquidation, with liquidators investigating possible personal liability for company founders

    medium · Dennis notes rumors that liquidators believe case exists for piercing corporate veil; unconfirmed but under investigation

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community interest in revisiting lost game concepts from failed manufacturers, particularly designer-driven titles like John Norris' unrealized work

    medium · Dennis and Tony discuss Deep Root's Merlin's Magic and Predator/Gremlins concepts as missed opportunities; nostalgia for legendary designer work

  • $

    market_signal: Contract manufacturing and collaborative builds emerging as potential business model for small-to-mid manufacturers facing cash constraints

    medium · Multiple companies contacted Pinball Adventures about collaborative or contract builds; hosts discuss precedent (Home Pin, Stern's special projects) and viability

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.178

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, August 4th. This is episode 225. I am Tony. I am Dennis. We're another quarter of the way through a hundred series. We are. It means much, but what does mean stuff is the people that have supported us. So I'm going to preemptively, just at the top of this episode, say thank you to Travahontas for upgrading their Patreon membership level. And those of you who want to support us can at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. Also, I want to say thank you to Danny T, who is a new Patreon member for us. So thanks to you both. Thank you very much. So, Tony, what's been going on over the last couple of weeks? Any grand adventures? Any exciting games? No real grand adventures. I've been listening to the audio books of the Aubrey Martin series for almost this entire year. It's all 20 books. And I finally finished them. And I decided, okay. I've got to start them over again.
1:19
No. But it's like, okay, I'm going to make a change. I want to listen to something that's very different than, you know, Napoleonic War era British naval stuff. So I listened to the first book of the Murderbot Diaries, which is like a novella. So it was pretty short, but it was fun and it was really enjoyable. But then I went and listened to another book called Scum of the Earth And Scum of the Earth is a novel about the Earth has been attacked And taken over by an alien race And the main character is a collaborator And it's hilariously written And it's just kind of a fun, silly novel that I quite enjoy Is it like Red Shirts? it's not quite as blatant as red shirts uh as just being a pure comedy but it it definitely has its moments so so it's just kind of a fun funny take on on you know collaborations yeah so that's the vici government was like we're just fun yeah yeah exactly no it was it It was pretty good I enjoyed it quite a lot And now I'm continuing to move on Into something completely different So we'll see I also over the course of We went and saw Wolverine Deadpool Last week Yes we did It was great I enjoyed it And then like two days later Until you're 90 So true Like two days later I had a headache And I went to bed early And I woke up the next day And I had apparently been visited by the snot fairy overnight Who just decided that all of my sinus cavities Need to be full of snot So I spent the entire Middle part of the week Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday With just some annoying sinus thing going on Just killing me And then I woke up Friday morning And it was all gone All I had left was like a little cough It was just like, oh, you've got a whole bunch of meetings on these three days.
Dennis Nordman
person
John Papadukeperson
Barry Oslerperson
John Borgperson
Skid-Bcompany
Von E.D.company
American Pinballcompany
Premierecompany
Stern Pinballcompany
SAG-AFTRAorganization
Tonyperson
Dennisperson
  • ?

    technology_signal: AI voice acting becoming central labor dispute in game development; grandfathered exclusion for games in production before August 2023 creates timeline lag

    high · SAG-AFTRA strike triggered over AI voice work provisions; games like GTA6 and Star Citizen grandfathered under old contract

    • 3:47
    All of the snot. And then it's like, oh, you have no meetings on Friday? You're better. Yay. So annoying. Well, it happens. Well, yes, we did go see Deadpool last weekend, which the week before, so right after we finished our prior episode, I had a work week in Detroit. So I was out there. So you went and saw RoboCop.
    4:11
    I did not. I did see the Scientology building, though. I shared that photo on my personal Facebook because I saw it at night when I was walking back from the nearest grocery store because I had to find some sort of place to buy soda pop that wasn't the hotel. And there was one. You didn't want to spend $10 a bottle? No. It was bad enough spending $10 for a 12-pack. But, hey, it's Detroit, so you do what you got to do to survive. And so that was nice. And then been busy, of course, catching up and doing work stuff. I have been playing one game. I started it actually around the time we went to see Deadpool 3. And that's the beta trial for Marvel Rivals, which is the hero shooter. I saw you playing that when I got here so we could go see Deadpool. So that, I think, is going to end probably tomorrow, the beta. So anyway, it's been interesting. but again so it's it obviously it's going to be compared a lot to overwatch because it's a hero shooter it lets you have six characters on a team you can have you know tank damage or support you get in a vibe here there are ultimates and things like that um third person though not first uh so because you got to look at your character well obviously um there are parts i like and parts i don't the uh overall it's been fun uh a little frustrating because there are of course as a beta not too surprising a lot of balance issues also there are like three maps so they definitely need to get more maps uh out but it has potential so especially since i think it'll be free to play i will say if you like hero shooters probably go ahead and give it a shot because it won't cost anything once the final right which i believe will be in 2025 so anyway did a little bit of that and that's really all i've been playing so let's go into pinball all right let's get through this episode because we might actually get a chance to play john wick today we don't know yet we don't know tony has done his research he thinks we have a chance i've done my research before i've been wrong that's right but that's not your fault we blame the people that just don't operate when we want them to operate yeah so and i can't blame them they're being very nice they were very being very nice to their people it's like oh it's a holiday weekend so we'll just not open today Yes, very kind of them. But what isn't kind is haggis pinball and having to talk about that. So we covered the quasi breaking news at the time of our last episode about the appointment of liquidators and that haggis pinball is done. They were winding up everything. There has been more information, a ton of discussion on Pinside. I'm not linking anything here in this instance. If you're really curious about this stuff, you can go and explore it. I just wanted to go ahead and provide a little bit of additional information because the list of creditors is essentially available now. I've read some summary information. I've read some on forums. I know NAP Arcade has a write-up as well in terms of – because some people are like – Because the main creditor list has personal contact information, so they're trying to be a little bit careful in terms of what goes on a forum and such. Which is very nice. So not to dox people. So anyway, I think the main highlight to note is that the list of creditors, as of what I last saw summarized, was over $2 million Australian. dollars. This does include Damien, the founder of Haggis Pinball, who I believe is listed as a creditor personally, as well as one of his other companies listed as one of the sizable creditors to Haggis Pinball, which is not necessarily atypical for these sort of situations. However, there were hundreds of thousands of dollars listed tying to either distributors, like three different distributors covering various parts of the world, along with individuals that had deposits in, full purchases in, season ticket passes in. So from everything I have seen in the write-ups that people have done, just like you'd expect, very, very little in the way of assets being tied to Haggis Pinball available and a massive list of creditors. There are some secured creditors, so I guess it does work a little bit like the United States. I think there are even some employees that were listed as owed something. I don't remember if they were on the secured side, which would be pay, or if it was unsecured like they assisted in some other way. I don't recall. But anyway, we'll have to see what happens as the liquidation process moves forward.
    8:38
    But there's – like you would expect in a bankruptcy case, there's just nothing there to pay, to remotely pay back. I mean pennies on the dollar would be a generous way to describe it, but that's the only way to describe it. Yeah, my assumption is most pre-orders, members of the groups, all that stuff, none of them are getting anything. So anyway, I just thought I'd add that for anyone that isn't reading up on it, that the process is moving forward with the liquidator like you'd expect.
    9:09
    There are a lot of discussions about what we would here in the U.S. refer to as piercing the corporate veil, which is if certain scenarios happen, you can start going after the directors of an organization personally for liability. We've seen this happen in some major cases here in the United States recently. Don't know. Someone had indicated they'd heard from the liquidator that they think there may be a case for that. But, of course, it's too early. They're still in the process of just trying to get through what actually is still on Haggis' books. And creditors, I don't know if we passed the deadline for all creditors to have informed the liquidators. Like, for example, I believe Fast Pinball, I believe the owner of Fast Pinball had come in and said And they're not on the creditor list because they had not actually yet sent the invoice for the boards they had sent for the centaurs to Haggis. I think for the prototype. So it was like three boards. But they're like, we're not in there even though we never got paid for them because we actually never sent them the invoice yet. We were still planning to, but we hadn't done it. Right. So there may be some scenarios like that also. I didn't know if you had anything you wanted to add to the Haggis. No, I think we've talked about it pretty well. You know how to let the air out of a man, which doesn't really have anything to do with Haggis. No, no, no. Scottish movie. Yeah. Rob Roy. Great movie. Yeah. See it if you haven't. If you thought that Tim Roth was not enough of a creep in other films, like Reservoir Dogs or whatnot, you watch his role. You watch his role in Rob Roy. He is disgusting. Yeah, it is. Archibald Cunningham. That's the character. Disturbing. Archibald Cunningham, at your service.
    10:53
    Well, speaking of at your service, Pinball Brothers has been at the service of people who are really interested in European disco bands because they are finally shipping ABBA. Mamma mia. That's right. So if you wanted to be a dancing queen, I don't remember the rest of the lyrics, but there you go. Your game will be coming, and you'll be able to rock out. That works. Good enough. Yes. Yeah. No, I mean, ABBA makes sense as a theme.
    11:23
    I mean, they were huge. Well, and Pinball Brothers is a European company. Right. So I expect that Europe should be the strongest sales point for ABBA. I would think so, because as I recall, ABBA originally was a Euro contest. Yeah, like a Eurovision thing. A Eurovision winner. Yeah. So to me, this is a license where, I mean, ABBA is because of the Mamma Mia musical and stuff. It is a known, I mean, we know the music here in the U.S. But I feel the license falls in that vein of like how HomePen chose Thunderbirds, which had like no market in the United States. But it was known in Europe and it was known in Australia. So I understood the logic of it for an Australian – I was going to say Australian-based company. But for an Australian owner with a Chinese-based company, perhaps it made sense.
    12:10
    Speaking of non-American companies, though we could say North American companies, Pinball Adventures. So we briefly, briefly, briefly, you might recall, mentioned them when we were talking about Haggis because some of the forum discussion on Pennside was around the realm of, well, what about some of these other companies that we haven't heard from recently? Like what's going on with Haggis having this? Well, Andrew with Pinball Adventures listened to our episode, and so he emailed in and gave an update. and he gave me some information that he said could be shared publicly about what's going on with the company. So essentially, just sort of the key highlights there is Pinball Adventures is working on their next game, and they do anticipate currently that it should be out sometime before the end of this year. That's the plan as it's going along. However, unlike what we've seen with some of the documentation coming out of Haggis, they, with Pinball Adventures, it's a very low overhead operation. They made money on Punny Factory sales, and based off of that, they're able to continue operating off of the profits of Punny Factory for the time being. So they're a business doing business as a business is supposed to do business. It's existing as an actual functional business. Yes, and Andrew had in a different email to me. He kind of shared some of the issues that they were, you know, in terms of the, you know, just trying to build all of the games. And they they're a low production entity. But just the volume of it and everything like they there was some desire to not be as aggressive moving forward because he's got other businesses and stuff, too. So they're trying to keep it enjoyable and just keep it really small and just sort of do these sort of things. So that led to an item that he raised that he thought might actually be an interesting discussion point for us. and I agree it could very well be, was that he said there have been several companies that have contacted Pinball Adventures this year inquiring about working together or building titles for some other – like either working on something collaboratively or I guess having – as I understood it, having Pinball Adventures do the build for them. Like I assume a small run build. Right. And so he kind of thought, like, as a discussion point, what do we think would make sense with ideas like this? I could see if you have everything you need internally to make small run of games. We not talking you know Stern or spooky big run but we talking a small run of games And it not overly demanding and you can do it for the right price it would be a good thing to do kind of on the side while you in the midst of design of a game and you're not building anything else. I could see where that could make sense just to bring some extra money in to bounce up your overhead or to bounce up your reserves so that you can continue to cover your overhead while you work on other things. But at the same time, I can see where if you're a small company that is mainly concentrating on your own thing and it is one of those, call it a side gig company, where it is one of many things you're doing or a thing that you do on the side in addition to your normal day job where you could run the risk of getting yourself burned out and into deep and in trouble. Because anytime you bring another group in, now you've tied yourself financially to them and you've tied yourself to their own possible issues. If you start building machines for Joe Bob's pinball home and then when you go to get your money and deliver the machines and they're like, oh, we spent it all on meth and beer and they can't pay you for the machines that you built. Now you're out in addition to their problems. So suddenly you've hurt yourself. So I can see arguments for it either way. I think it's completely a size thing and how much you think you need an extra income stream. Yeah, I see a few different scenarios and it also depends on what type of company we're We're talking about like a pinball adventures company or we're talking like an American pinball company. So I'm going to expand it a little bit. So staying with a smaller size, assuming that pinball adventures isn't really interested in expanding production, which, of course, has always been an option for any company. If it had enough demand to kind of do this, I think I could see one of two things. One, especially given their size, they might be they being pinball adventures. It might be ideal to do like corporate partnership, like build things. Home Pin did this, I think, with Car Company. They took some basic layout that they had or something and did – we've seen Stern do this with taking – they have a couple of play fields like the Home Edition play field. They have the Woe Nelly play field that they then re-theme as Primus and stuff.
    17:19
    That was like a special job. They did one with another band, I believe. So – or Pabst Can Crusher was like a weird little project. I would almost call them vanity projects for companies. Pinball Adventures, I could see doing that sort of thing. Pabst Can Crusher had great art. Yeah, I think that was a Dirty Donny art package. Yeah, the art package was amazing. So in the case of Pinball Adventures, like one of the things they could do as a work together that I think would make a lot of sense would be if they had a – let's say it's Punny Factory. They have a layout that they've already established, so you're not having to invest a lot of creativity in the design anymore. You already did that. That's a sunk cost. You have your building. You have your manufacturing capability, so that's already established. You've got all the equipment to do the builds. So you work with partners and be like, hey, do you want six of this? Because I'm not sure how many games a year Pinball Adventures wants to make, but I think on most of their runs, given that they've been unlicensed, unlicensed i my guess would be the demand is probably sub 100 for many of the titles and to less they move into into licensed games just based off the current climate that's a guess it depends on you know games getting out there and being popular but if some company was to be like 10 or less of something they arranged for an artist you know to reskin the art package the only question i have is on the display that's the tricky part because if you do like a primus perhaps you know you do an old timey style game where you're not expected to come up with animation then i think you've got some potential it's easier you don't have to worry about hiring and like just straight alphanumeric right right right anything pre-dmd becomes pretty easy where you're not like oh yeah we'll put in like it'll say this it'll say like the new name for the multiball corvette multiball mustang multiball uh uh ford uh fiesta multiball you know i'm stuck in the car realm but so something like that i think could make a lot of sense um now for for a bigger company with a bigger manufacturing presence i should say like an american pinball i do think it could make a lot of sense if people had come up with a design of a game like from scratch they could do this with pinball adventures too but i'm thinking if they think that they got something like legends of valhalla that they think could move sizable number of units that is a space that I think would make sense for manufacturers. Stern has moved away from doing it, I think mostly because their original first-party stuff had just become so popular. Yeah, yeah. They're just so busy, they can't really afford it. But to me, this is a prime place where American pinball should have been. And Legend of Hala was kind of that, but we know Steve Bowden was updating the rules. He was more involved than it just being a, here's a concept that someone else basically homebrewed and we're just producing it. But like what Spooky used to do, TNA is like that, but maybe a better example, which kind of bridges the gap, is like the Jetsons run they did for the pinball company. That's something I could see an American pinball doing if it's a several hundred unit run. A company like Pinball Adventures might do it if it's a couple dozen. Depending on when they need them and how many they want, it determines who comes into play. But I've always been a little surprised, especially with American pinball. I know I'm pivoting towards them, but it's just because we know they have manufacturing capabilities. They've often been praised about the quality of their builds, and they used to turn out a decent number of games. But as they've struggled, you know, barbecue and everything else to find a real hit for them, being able to bring in, as you noted, like bring in the additional money on the side essentially by doing contract gigs. I mean, if they've got the manufacturing, I'm surprised they don't do it. But we haven't heard anything post. I haven't post Legends of the Hall. No. And the other question is how much demand is there really for that kind of contract build? I don't know. And that's where I could see for a really, really small – again, HomePen did a thing like that. For corporate things like one or two, like the Good Morning America that Data East did for Good Morning America back in the 90s and stuff. I could see a Pinball Adventures doing something like that because there's probably a decent premium that you could make. And a lot of those things, I imagine, they don't really care what the layout is. Like they don't mind if you reskin the layout. They probably don't even know any better.
    21:47
    But for a company like American Pinball, I know there are a lot of homebrews. Obviously, we've seen Homebrew Row, Homebrew Alley at TPF and all the rest of it. There are probably a lot of homebrewers that feel that they have something that should be commercially viable. the trick here for any you know pinball adventures or a or american pinball let's run with the the concept of the home brewer coming in is getting the license because those games almost all rely on a license pretty much have to and that's the trick but maybe that if they're if they're i mean american pinball doesn't have a huge track record for securing licensed properties but they did get hot wheels maybe that's a space where one of the companies could be like yeah we'll also help you work with a licensor, that'll be part of the fee to be able to go and do Sonic and be able to go and do Beavis and Butthead.
    22:43
    Beavis and Butthead. Is that obscure? Is that obscure at all? I don't know. I think only Slam Tilt cares about Beavis and Butthead, Slam Tilt Podcast. Yeah. It's probably obscure. Probably. Anyway, so those are my thoughts on it. I mean, it could be, because, yeah, if you wanted to do, like,
    23:01
    if you're wanting to go and get E.T. That's a license discussion that's going to be insane and not really going to happen. Where if you were wanting to get Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th dimension, you have better chances there. Right, but a homebrewer doesn't know. I remember I worked once, well, not worked, I discussed behind the scenes with a homebrewer who had a game concept. It was a pinball game based off of a video game, but they didn't like they didn't even know who they could contact to try and and get that license arranged because they thought about exploring the idea of making it commercially available and if it's if the license is old enough nobody might really know right there's all one so that's where that could be an interesting service kind of separate i think from what andrew was getting at about just the whole life navigating the licensing world is very confusing for people and being able to take those dreams to life. There's that, but there's also like some of these homebrews have some pretty interesting concepts and maybe they're too weird. The layouts are too wacky to expect high volumes, but if you have the license tied to it, maybe you can make it commercially viable. Maybe if they've got deep enough pockets as a homebrewer, they subsidize that build and it's their job to sell them. Or if you go after something that's in the public domain, sure there's all sorts of stuff but so you can make your war of the worlds machine as long as you don't make them look like the ones from the movie yeah yes so anyway thank you uh andrew for the discussion suggestion i have a separate discussion item i wanted to briefly talk with you about tony before moving to the video game section this is kind of inspired by what's been going on with haggis pinball and that was uh last night i was sitting and i was thinking you know what there have been a lot of failed pinball companies for not just i mean there have been a lot just since we've been podcasting right there have been a number of them i just kind of thought what what game from the failed pinball companies do you wish most wish had actually come to fruition it doesn't have to necessarily be in fact i'll say it doesn't have to be the one that they failed doing so for example there were a ton of deep root concepts that were announced um but or it could be the raza that they were specifically working on uh speaking of raza you know there's that magic girl alice in wonderland from zidware would be an example predator out of skit b would be an example highway pinball is a little tricky they made all of their full throttle so you could say alien but i i'm guessing we're probably not going to pick this one since uh pinball brothers ended up making alien for them anyway obviously with haggis the centaur revisited but you could also speculate if you wanted about one of the other class of 81 games that they might have built because they were going to what do three or four more on top of right on top of centaur uh vonny d had pinball gremlins so something things like that i don't know tony i wanted to see if like of all these failures that have happened um if you want to even go back to like when gottlieb uh ended premiere uh brooks and dunn was in the works you could name that one whatever the wizard blocks that Williams was supposed to do as the next pinball. I mean, I'm just like, what do you kind of wish that was that would have happened in theory, but for the failure of the company?
    26:32
    Well, that's tough. I think the big thing. Is the licenses themselves, and I could see the fun that could be had with a predator license or a gremlins license. both of those I think you could have a lot of fun with.
    26:52
    There's a lot of ways you could work with it. F. Predators hasn't hurt itself so badly, just flailing in its confusion as it tries to still make new movies.
    27:04
    But you could do some fun things with that. Yeah, I would say probably one of those two concepts would be the ones that I think would go the best out of this group. So you want the concept, though, not the layout that they were. Okay. That's interesting. Now, and to be fair to Von E.D., I don't know if they actually had, like, Jim Henson's Gremlins. I think it was, like, generic Gremlins. Just generic, which is just silly. Well, so, yeah. Okay. I agree with you about, well, Henson Gremlins and, yeah, Predator. Predator does scream for a pinball machine. It does. It's weird. It's honestly, there's been enough time since Skit B that Skit B was such a Mickey Mouse organization that I am a bit surprised that we've not seen a bigger manufacturer try and run with it. But in terms of what I would most want to see from like a failed pinball game, Merlin's Magic from Deep Root. That was the eight ball deluxe inspired game that John Norris was working on. So I've seen some of the Whitewood shots from when the Deep Root studio was gone and people were liquidating and taking photos for the auctions and whatnot. But I just remember the one thing I recall talking about back when Deep Root had announced that they were operating and even before I knew the names of all the games, they had – it was like the dream team for pinball. Like Robert Mueller had assembled John Norris, who mostly is known for his godly premiere days. He had Dennis Nordman. He had John Papaduke. He had Barry Osler. I mean, it was like here is a pantheon of 90s famous pinball designers all working on various titles. And Merlin's Magic was the one that John was working on. And I've said for – I haven't said it lately, but I've said it quite a while in my podcasting time that I really think John Norris' designs would resonate with a lot of people. It's just unfortunate he's never been at a company that's been at the top of the game. So when he was with Premiere, he was saddled with having to deal with their build philosophy, which was parallel development, which is why so many of the games feel a lot less baked than what Williams did because they were operating on an average three-month life cycle, not the year that Williams would give its designers.
    29:32
    And I like 8 Deluxe I used to own Sharky Shootout which is inspired by eight balls in fact john norris did the original game that that uh ultimately got changed it got changed up a bit to be sharkies by john borg but there was a golden uh like q game that was being done by john norris before because he was briefly at stern uh and then they kind of took that layout and changed it up a little bit and made it into sharkies but i really would like to see his approach to an eight ball deluxe in the modern era and so you know i don't care about all about the theme being i think it was called merlin's magic i care nothing about that but it's just from a layout perspective right i would really like to see john norris do another major commercial game and so that's the one i wished i had seen so that's mine okay tony we're done with pinball we got some video game stuff though we have some video game stuff well what What stuff do we have? A couple big things this week. One of the big ones is SAG-AFTRA. Their video game voice actor portion of SAG-AFTRA did vote to strike because their deal expired last year. They've been negotiating a new deal. But the hang-up has been, once again, the use of AI in voice work. And that's the one place where the companies haven't really been working with them. So they went ahead and initiated a strike immediately before Comic-Con. So when they initiated the strike, they did give permission for everyone to complete their Comic-Con requirements and contractual stuff because they're like, Hi, we're initiating this contract the day Comic-Con starts. You guys can do all that stuff. That won't be considered strike breaking because of how short notice it is. Right.
    31:25
    So, we'll see where this goes, but there's an interesting provision in the Interactive Media Agreement contract that they're working on.
    31:36
    Even more than movies and TV, there is a huge lag time where this is going to affect games in production, because games that have been in production since before August of 23 aren't going to be affected at all. So like Grand Theft Auto 6, Star Citizen, none of those things will have any effect.
    32:01
    They're specifically written in that those are from before the end of the contract, so they're still good.
    32:09
    They'll still continue to work on it. And even live games, so, you know, your Fortnites and the new live Call of Duty and all of those, those live type games, they have a 60-day window before they're allowed to stop working on those projects. So they've got two months to put stuff together before you start seeing anything even getting slowed down. And even on those live projects, you're looking at a year before you see anything. So the closest I think we'll have to seeing any actual interruptions in video game productions is a solid two, maybe three years from now. Wow. Okay. That's strange. Yeah, I thought it was, it's weird, but anything that's old enough to have been in production for a long enough time is not affected by this at all.
    33:00
    So it's only stuff that's in the spin-up stage now, so I don't know how useful this strike actually is.
    33:10
    I mean, unless it goes an extended period of time. Right, right, and maybe that's their thinking, is that they have to start it at some stage. It just won't really – it's not going to be disruptive to the industry as quickly as we see in other industries when strikes happen. I guess. I don't know. I mean, even on TV, we're feeling – the strike has been over for almost a year now, and we're still feeling the effects of the strike. Right, right. Yeah. The shows are finally starting to get back that we stalled out on. They're long wait for The Boys, long wait for House of the Dragon. Right. But this will be an even longer Tale on it It'll be interesting to see how that works out Apparently in 2020 The International Olympics Committee ended their partnership with Nintendo and Sega That's why with the new Olympics that are Ongoing as we speak Of which I've watched Nothing of There's no Mario vs. Sonic Olympics But they did The IOC wanted to explore Their options And see what else was out there They really wanted to make some different moves Embrace their group And get into NFTs Oh come on So Yeah two years ago Well that's when these decisions were Made four years ago So that's where we ended up with There's no Mario Sonic Olympics There is an Olympics game, though. It was made by a little group, a little development group that's got offices in San Francisco and Seoul. And it's a fun game. But it's got NFTs. I'm sure it's working really well for them compared to a Mario game. I don't understand.
    35:05
    Sad. So much sadness. I think they drank the water from the river instead of swimming in it. The Wall Street Journal had a big article about Twitch.
    35:19
    Oh, really? I hadn't heard about this. Yes. They put out a big article talking about Twitch, and Amazon bought Twitch in 2014 for a billion dollars. I forgot it was that long ago. I mean, it's felt like a while. Amazon's been in control for a long time. But the article was talking about how Twitch is still losing money. They've not made their billion back for sure. It's a net loss for Amazon. It is every quarter.
    35:48
    And subscriptions are dropping. Noticeable percentage points of subscription drops. Ad sales have plateaued and have even started to drop at times. I'm going to whine a little bit. The viewing experience on Twitch with those ads is awful. Oh, it's so bad. I forgot because I so rarely watch Twitch anymore. I basically turn it on for GDQ. Yeah. And it's like, here are seven ads back to back. Like, you've got to be kidding me. Now, I have YouTube Prime Red, whatever they call it now. You know, the good YouTube. The good YouTube. So you don't have to see the ads. But when I go to YouTube, if I go when I'm not signed in and see the ad, it's not – it's like one ad. It's usually like a skippable 15-second ad that you watch five seconds of. So it's like – it's just a really bad experience. It feels worse than network TV. It does. It is a terrible experience. But you said it.
    36:51
    You don't watch Twitch that much. No. I used to watch a lot of Twitch. I don't watch Twitch at all anymore. And it's not like I'm not watching videos anymore. I watch a ton of YouTube, way more than I should. Yeah, an unhealthy amount of YouTube. Yes. We're going to have an intervention. No, we're not. Okay. Because I need people to watch Watches Within Us. Go to YouTube. Watch Watches Within Us and watch my wristwatch content.
    37:17
    But, yeah, no, their subscriptions are down, ad sales are down, revenue is down. They talked with employees, and employees are preparing themselves for another round of layoffs.
    37:31
    Now, Twitch says that they're in a good place, and they're – I laugh, too. They're starting – they're making the necessary changes, and they're moving in a good direction. But the question is, how long is this a loss that Amazon will continue to bankroll? It would not shock me if behind the scenes Amazon has been trying to shop this out to sell, spend off and sell. It would not surprise me either.
    38:06
    One interesting thing from the article is that when Amazon bought Twitch, they were the fourth largest source of U.S. web traffic. They're now the 18th. Wow. So in 10 years, they've dropped a lot. I mean, yeah, that's a lot. That's a huge fall, especially when you consider that there's probably more web video traffic consumption overall just because the population increases since. But Twitch has dropped, and there's other groups and stuff. And half the time, if I am watching somebody live anymore, it's on YouTube, not on Twitch.
    38:43
    There's just not that much draw to me to Twitch anymore. so yeah the only honestly doing my uh doing the watch stuff on youtube the only regret it's not much of regret the only slight regret that i ever would have is there's no prime no twitch youtube prime thing to get easy subs right because you know people are like oh i'm already because so many people are amazon prime members for the shipping that you know they just give their sub to whatever. I often forget at this point though because I so rarely sign into Twitch. I'm exactly like you. I sign into Twitch so rarely that when I sign into Twitch and if I watch somebody for like an hour, I just throw on my sub because I know I'm probably not going to sign into Twitch for another month. I did it the other day because I had a friend send me there's a family building a homestead in Alaska and they just they use Starlink and they just stream almost 24 hours a day, either just like an outside picture of the homestead or them working on stuff around the place. And I was like, this is neat, and I watched it for like 20 minutes. I'm like, okay, prime subscription. And then I turned it off, and I've never been back. But, I mean, that was the first time I'd been on Twitch since.
    40:00
    Who knows? Yeah, I was last on to watch Evo, the fighting game tournament. I think that's the big thing for Twitch anymore are big events. Well, and it's only because they're not, at least I wasn't aware of them, streaming on other things. I remember when people got really grumpy when Overwatch League switched from Twitch to YouTube. And I was like, it was a rough transition for a variety of things. But ultimately, I thought, had the League sustained, it would have been the smart play long term to get off of Twitch. Right. Well, and then just like I spoke about, I don't know, a month or two ago. I mean, we all know that Critical Role is the largest watch thing on Twitch. And they've started their own completely separate from Twitch buy-in service. They're so big, why let Twitch take that chunk of money from them? And that's exactly the decision they made. And from the initial numbers I've seen, they've been very successful with it. And that means that all of those subs are leaving Twitch to go somewhere else. Yep. So stuff like that is just going to hurt Twitch in the long run. So we'll have to see what happens. We also spoke last episode about Bethesda getting the largest video game union signed on. That's already been eclipsed. Really? Yeah. Blizzard's entire World of Warcraft team has now been unionized. That's 500 developers that have now been unionized through the Communication Workers Guild.
    41:48
    So Microsoft has said that they were accepting it and they have no problems with the unions coming in. That's been the interesting thing is usually companies seem to crack down really hard on union organizing. But everything I had heard the first go around was that Microsoft was like, okay. Yeah, and that was their answer here. I mean, 500 guys, so that's 700 people in the last month that have unionized under Microsoft. So, I mean, that is an enormous change, and that's the same thing I've heard. They've just been like, okay.
    42:18
    So other interesting Blizzard news is Blizzard has created a new team. This is a very specialist Specific development team That they are They brought Most of the team members are from the King Division Because It's technically Activision Blizzard King is their mobile division Which is actually very very big Yeah No one ever talks about it We always say Activision Blizzard But King is huge Yeah they're the Candy Crush people And millions of other apps Most of the developers came off of that team, but their specific goal is to develop smaller scale, lower budget titles utilizing Blizzard's existing properties. properties hmm you know it's there used to be it's felt like there's now more of a gap where it's more like indie games and then like triple a blockbusters there used to be some company like i think square had some divisions and stuff that did kind of like the specialized in the double a right kind of budget titles that you might see uh release at 40 rather than 60 and i kind of miss seeing those because you can you could get some really interesting you know they wouldn't be as polished like graphically but they right you could get some interesting gameplay but yeah you could i anyway i used to pick up games like that um on kind of like on a lark uh when they be on sale and stuff and i i you know be like oh this is actually a really kind of clever concept and i i like this concept i like the idea of getting a starcraft game that's not starcraft a smaller, more targeted Starcraft game. Or even an Overwatch game that's not Overwatch itself. It could be something else. Island of Warcraft. Yes, Island of Warcraft. So something... Underwatch.
    44:12
    It'll be even smaller. It's only going to be teams of four. There's no tanks at all. And it be a card battles game But I mean it an interesting idea I be interested to see what comes out of it
    44:31
    Layoffs have gotten continued. I won't even say gotten, but continued to be huge. But this time, there's been some really interesting developments in the layoffs. Oh, okay. Bungie laid off 17% of their staff. I heard they had a big one. I didn't know what the percentage was. Yeah, it's like 220 people thereabouts that were laid off. And then they're moving another 155 people out of Bungie, and they're being moved to Sony, who purchased Bungie last year. Right. Yeah, no, Bungie, I mean, there have been warning signs, obviously, because Bungie's ownership scenario, like they had a – they were independent, but like a second party. I should say they're like a second party developer for Microsoft. Then they went fully independent. Right. And then Sony bought them.
    45:24
    And but they have. I don't know. It just seems like it's been as big as Destiny and Destiny 2 are as games. It seems like ever since they quit doing Halo, it's just been rough for Bungie. It has. And that's part of what's led into this is apparently from reports is these layoffs have been planned for a while. They're just now happening, but they've been planned for a while because apparently on multiple occasions now, they have failed to hit the financial targets that they promised Sony at the buyout. Oh, okay.
    46:01
    Oops. And in addition to that, they are also dealing with an issue of the employees versus management, because through all of the layoffs, management hasn't taken any pay cuts, anything like that, while they're talking about it. You've got to stay motivated as a manager. You know this. Right. No, obviously. But it's been made worse because people have come out that were laid off talking about it. And it's like literally the week before he laid me off, the boss invited a whole bunch of us to come to his place to see the new car that he bought of his giant, his $2.5 million car collection.
    46:46
    And then they laid us off the next week because they couldn't afford us. And people were laid off. And it's like, oh, you're laid off. And it's like, my maternity leave starts on Monday. You're laid off. Sorry.
    47:00
    So it has been a giant mess. But you said that layoffs plaguing the industry, so you must have more than just Bungie. I do. That was the only one I'd heard of. Oh, no. Humble Games. As a small developer, they're an offshoot of Humble Bundle. Yeah. I guess I did hear about this one, and then I was told, no, it's not Humble Bundle. Humble Games is separate. And then I didn't read any further. They're an offshoot of Humble Bundle, but they're not Humble Bundle. Right, it's like a subsidiary. Exactly. But they're known because they've helped publish a bunch of indie games that have been really popular, like Slay the Spire, Unpacking, A Hat in Time. Okay, I've heard of A Hat in Time. I haven't played any of those. My daughters both love A Hat in Time. It's one of their favorite games of all time.
    47:50
    But they are, there have been, it's interesting. The initial reports came out from the employees that they had laid off 100% of their staff. That's a lot. And then reports came from Humble Games that it's like, no, we are undergoing a restructuring. But it turns out that the restructuring is that they are laying off 100% of their staff and then hired a third-party company to come in and finish stuff that was almost, projects that were almost done, and to handle back catalog stuff as they restructure with no staff. Right. Yeah. Okay. That is a different approach. Yeah. So they're just basically, they're like, we're keeping, like, the boss and probably his secretary. and we're paying a third-party company to manage the back end of the games that we've published and get the stuff that's about ready to publish just to pack it up and publish it as is.
    49:03
    Okay. So we will see how that goes, but that has been harsh. And the last big one is the big one. It's not directly video game related. It is not a video game publisher. Then why are they in your list? Because it's Intel.
    49:28
    Is this AMD's fault? What's going on? They had a loss last quarter of $1.6 billion. Really? Wow. And the quarter before was slightly better, but they've had multiple quarters of losses. A lot of it is led because they are in the process of building some new factories. They're a foundry division that does actual chip production.
    49:53
    But the other big thing that has hit them is Intel, giant, enormous, used to be the kings of the roost.
    50:01
    They're not the top tier in chip production anymore. They're not even second tier in chip production anymore. And all of the major players in the last couple of years have chosen other companies to be. Oh, to use in their computers and such. Computers and Sony and Microsoft chose Qualcomm to do their chips, not Intel. So, I mean, they're not in any consoles. They're not in any. They've been behind the list None of the big AI servers Use Intel Everybody uses AMD or Qualcomm They're just Behind And they've been so far behind They said they are laying off 15% of their global workforce Which would be up to like 19,000 People But so far they've only announced 15,000 Layoffs So And if you looked at their stock this week, it crashed huge. Even bigger because this announcement came out just as the U.S. jobs announcement came out. Right, which was softer than expected. Right, being soft. Stock market kind of had its little bubble dropped a little. They always react to little news things. Right. We'll see how it goes this week. But Intel crashed hard, and it all came out at the same time. So, yeah, Intel is in the middle of a – they are cutting down everything that is not absolutely necessary. They're going back through every project, every research that's in progress to see if it's worth continuing. They are in what I would call a deep emergency mode.
    51:51
    Well, I mean, I don't know what the – this is so outside my wheelhouse. I just don't know if the problem is that their chips are inferior to the Qualcomm and AMD options, then how do you quickly put out a superior chip? I don't think there is a way. I think maybe they have something that they were R&Ding in the works, but I don't know how you accelerate to get to that point and then get trusted partners to now accept you. because they'll be like Microsoft isn't and Sony isn't going to take the PS5 and the Xbox One and change chips mid-life cycle. You have to get in on the next product. So they're going to have to wait for that. But most of those are already in planning now, if not in deep development. So they probably don't get the next gen either of console. They'll have to wait a gen after. And they've also lost a lot of the big laptop projects recently. Now, getting new models on laptops, maybe that's a little bit easier. Maybe they get back in with – I don't know if they're still with Dell or not. Most of our work laptops are Dell, and they do have i7s and stuff. So they might still have that company, for example. So maybe some of the things might be easier to get in than others, like maybe the computer manufacturers. But again, I don't even think that's the bulk of the market anymore. So many people are buying smart devices. And they're not in any of the smart devices. So it's like, yeah, this might be – It's not a long-term issue. Now, I read several articles, and a lot of people think that this is a – they'll be okay once the new factories that they're building go – like actually start production. But the problem is they've been hemorrhaging so bad, and they've lost so many contracts. The question is can they survive long enough to start production of next-generation chips? and will their next generation chips be good enough to keep up with everything else that's coming out? Yeah, I just don't. I don't know if anyone's looked into them and done the, you know, the one thing with like the old Tom's hardware guides and stuff, it's going to be, people will analyze these chips vis-a-vis all the other. I mean, I remember when AMD started to be on par with Intel and then started to beat them. And Intel was like, well, we're Intel. And that's been the big problem is the last two generations of Intel chips have not been up to spec. They've not made the spec that they are claimed to be. They've had issues with the last two generations of chips, so they're behind already. But when I used to build my own systems, I would always go with Intel, and then eventually AMD got along far enough, I quit carrying. And if it was like, oh, the computer comes with AMD, I'm like, great, they've got a good work, I'll do them. My computer has an Intel, but I've had it for almost a decade. I don't even know what's in my desktop at this point. I need to replace it probably at this point. Anyway, just so videos process faster. But my oldest daughter's desktop and my youngest daughter's laptop, they're both AMDs. So And if I was going to buy one right now It would probably be an AMD Just because Intel's been having chip problems So We'll have to see where that ends up going I decided to End On a slightly more interesting Slightly more upbeat Very video game focused Gamescom is coming So always a big time In the summer the big news this time was that Xbox is having a big return to Gamescom.
    55:31
    Xbox is having a massive return to Gamescom, even bigger than what I was expecting from what their original press releases were. They are bringing 50 playable games and in addition to that, they are doing special live stream events every single day of Gamescom. Hmm. And they're having a big theater event as well, where they're doing the giant trailer and some showing stuff for all the big stuff coming out. But they they are apparently rolling the games con huge this year. Last episode, I talked about console sales being down across the board, how even Sony's down. But everybody across the board is down. Microsoft is definitely down more down than any of the others. But Well actually I think as I recall I think Switch was farther down than any of the others Just because they didn't have the big Legend of Zelda release To perk them up this time around But In the numbers Are showing that came out Just after all that That Xbox's actual Game sales Have been up So their actual software sales are doing better. So, still not going to be better than Sony sales, just because there's so many more Sony consoles out there, but better than they were last year. So, Xbox is sitting in a pretty decent place. Well, you'd think after buying 30,000 developers it would happen. You would hope that they finally got something. I mean, we know at this point that the only way Xbox has done this generation is not until the next generation that they have a hope to pull out. so we'll have to see what happens yes but they're definitely making a play for it okay we'll have to wait and see well for those of you who have waited to the end of this episode here's all the fun plug stuff you can email us at collectedgamerspodcast.gmail.com I'm going to really suggest that because I have a sinking suspicion that at least on the pinball side of things news might be a little light for a while I don't know there's some heavy heavier rumors going around that this month will be the next cornerstone release from stern uh i hadn't leaned that way really i was expecting september i still lean that way but there's rumors going that no they'll probably push it this month but i mean so we'll have something soon one way or the other because we're not that far from september either but other than that i don't i don't expect anything on the new release horizon until closer to Expo, which would be October.
    58:16
    I don't think anybody else is quite in the lineup on the edge of collapse, but that doesn't mean that something's not going to happen. You never know. They don't publish their books. None of these companies are publicly traded, so it's just hard to know at this point. You can also reach out to us at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. As I noted at the start of the episode, we do love Patreon support, and we're at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. You can support the channel for as little as a dollar a month. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore gamers. And hey, if you've got those Twitch primes just sitting there, you can also go. I mean, we do have that channel. It hasn't had anything in over a year. I should do my Twitch prime on our Twitch channel. There you go. Twitch prime, the church prime, your own prime. Yeah. Yes, double prime, prime squared. But anyway, we'll be back in a couple of weeks. And until then, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See ya.