Episode 63 - Zach Attack!

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 21m·analyzed·Jun 4, 2018

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Zach Minney discusses TWIP fundraising, Papa Duke legal appeal, Deadpool leak analysis, and Iron Maiden market appeal.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast hosts Tony and Dennis interview Zach Minney from Straight Down the Middle pinball show. The episode covers pinball industry news including This Week in Pinball's fundraising efforts, Papa Duke's legal appeal regarding Zidware/Magic Girl, and analysis of the leaked Deadpool pinball playfield image (determined to be a Gomez design, not Trudeau). They also discuss Iron Maiden as potentially Stern's best game of the year due to theme, designer popularity, and code quality.

Key Claims

This Week in Pinball (TWIP) founder Jeff Teolis puts in 20-30 hours per week on the site
high confidence · Zach and Dennis both confirm this figure during discussion of TWIP's fundraising request
John Papaduke (Papa Duke/J-Pop) has formally filed an appeal regarding his civil judgment from the Zidware/Magic Girl case
high confidence · Dennis states this was a last-minute news item added to show notes
The leaked Deadpool pinball image is a George Gomez design, not a Trudeau design
high confidence · Zach, Tony, and Dennis all analyze the flipper gap and ramp design, concluding it matches Gomez's style and compares to Avengers
Iron Maiden will likely be Stern's best game of 2018 for the community
medium confidence · Zach speculates that the theme, designer popularity (Keith Elwin), and code quality elevate Iron Maiden despite other factors
Deep Root Pinball has five machines as giveaway prizes through This Week in Pinball, with setup service included
medium confidence · Dennis mentions this as part of TWIP's fundraising sweepstakes, though Zach notes the Deep Root machines may come later in 2019
This Week in Pinball is rumored to be launching its own podcast with a co-host who is a major pinball personality
medium confidence · Zach reports hints dropped on TWIP's website regarding the new podcast venture

Notable Quotes

“Your podcast, because of the intelligence you guys bring, the knowledge you bring, and some of the statistical analysis, you guys have, in my books, one of the greatest pinball podcasts out there.”
Zach Minney @ N/A — Compliment to Eclectic Gamers establishing credibility and content quality despite their video game segments
“There's no flipper gate. It's Gomez.”
Zach Minney @ N/A — Technical analysis used to definitively identify leaked Deadpool design as Gomez work based on playfield design language
“I think a lot of why this game gets promoted so much is the theme is this bad boy rock music. Like, you're cool if you like this kind of music.”
Zach Minney @ N/A — Analysis of how community gravitates toward games based on theme and designer personality, not just mechanics
“he's never wanted to ask anything from anybody. That's just the type of person he is.”
Zach Minney @ N/A — Character assessment of Jeff Teolis explaining difficulty he had in launching TWIP fundraising
“The Black Widow shot's the devil.”
Dennis @ N/A — Technical criticism of specific shot placement on Avengers that carries over to Deadpool design comparison

Entities

Zach MinneypersonJeff Teolisperson John Papadukeperson George Gomezperson Keith Elwinperson Zombie Yetiperson Straight Down the Middle

Signals

?
business_signal: Deep Root Pinball perceived with community skepticism despite significant spending, until machines are actually delivered and tested
medium · Dennis notes 'There are a lot of people in the community that I don't think are taking Deep Root Pinball seriously' but acknowledges 'They're spending way too much money to be joking'
?
community_signal: This Week in Pinball launching voluntary donation program to sustain 20-30 hour/week coverage, indicating industry recognition of media resource value
high · Zach and Dennis both emphasize Jeff's humility and work ethic; donation option available with sweepstakes giveaways including Deep Root machines
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sentiment_shift: Iron Maiden's market success attributed more to theme/designer popularity than mechanical design, with Keith Elwin's celebrity status as major factor
high · Zach explicitly states game popularity comes from 'community gravitating towards games' based on theme and designer personality, plus Keith Elwin's player status
?
design_philosophy: Deadpool design heavily references Avengers layout, particularly problematic Black Widow ramp shot known for poor ergonomics
high · Dennis and Zach identify Avengers-style backboard and compare directly to Black Widow shot placement; acknowledge shot layout concern
$
market_signal: Pinball podcast ecosystem expanding with This Week in Pinball launching dedicated podcast, indicating growing audience demand despite perceived saturation
medium · Zach reports rumors of TWIP podcast with major community co-host; notes that while many podcasts exist, most aren't monthly active; Eclectic Gamers finds audience despite video game segments

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.424

0:00

Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, June 3rd. It is episode 63. I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis. And we are joined once more by a guest, a super special guest. He is one of the hosts of the wildly popular video show slash podcast Straight Down the Middle, a pinball show He follows the better red than dead philosophy when it comes to his LED color selections He is known far and wide for destroying Iron Maiden for theme reasons alone And the disgusting practice of putting ketchup on a hot dog The Eclectic Gamers Podcast welcomes Zachary Minney to the show Zach, welcome Wow, I love that intro Thanks so much, Dennis. Tony, how's it going, buddy? It's going pretty good. There's nothing wrong with ketchup on a hot dog as long as it's got... As long as you're five. Oh, it means more than just ketchup. I ate three of them yesterday just for you two.

1:13

Look, it doesn't need... It's a hot dog. It's a simple... Look, we're not... Because we know people get mad when you turn podcasts about pinball into podcasts about food. But I'm just going to tell you... Do they really? Hot dog needs... Maybe we should do a test. Needs three things. Well, it needs two things. Mustard and onions. If you want to include cart water that the hot dog was sitting in while it was waiting for you to go buy it, you can include that. That's it. It doesn't need to be Chicago style where they put – Chicago screwed up pizza. They screwed up hot dogs as well. They did not screw up pizza. You do not need to – They did screw up hot dogs. Celery salt on a hot dog. You can't even taste celery. Celery salt. Yes, it's one of the core components of a Chicago style hot dog. Not that you'd ever taste it because, one, celery has no taste, and two, that they put jalapenos on it as well, so you can't taste any hot dog anyway. Because all you taste is jalapenos. Yeah. Onions and mustard, really? Yeah, onions and mustard. That is the core-based proper hot dog. Now, to be fair, if you want to have a really good hot dog, the first thing you've got to do is smother it in chili. Okay, I'm probably right. And then add onions and mustard. If you want to turn it into a chili dog, to me it's no longer a hot dog, and you may go down whatever path you wish.

Big Daddy Enterprisescompany

leak_detection: Deadpool pinball playfield image leaked and circulated privately for ~7 months before going public on social media

high · Dennis states image 'quietly made the rounds for a while on cell phones and in the dark corners of Android and iPhone' before public release

regulatory_signal: Papa Duke's appeal of Zidware civil judgment ongoing, with outcomes likely to depend on procedural grounds rather than substantive review

high · Dennis confirms appeal filed; discusses statistical likelihood of appeal success and remaining appeal levels; notes difficulty accessing Illinois state court documents

personnel_signal: George Gomez confirmed to have taken over Deadpool project design from Trudeau, representing mid-project redesign

high · Zombie Yeti interview on Head to Head Pinball; leaked playfield design analysis confirms Gomez signature design elements (flipper gap, ramp design)

Chili, onions, and mustard. Perfect chili dog. I could get on board with that. So, Zach, do you like mustard now? Did we convert you? You know what? I'm going to try mustard. I don't particularly like mustard any time I've eaten it, but because of the outpour and the messaging that I've received over this darn hot dog fiasco, I'm going to try several different Mustards So I'm open to change guys I'm open to change I don't ever try and make people like something they don't like My recommendation would just be that you not ever Eat hot dogs ever again And the problem is solved You are an abomination And you're not expected to Like a condiment that you hate So I mean that's a compromise My core philosophy always is My opinion is the correct one and I will teach people to like what I like. That sounds familiar. Is that fair? That sounds real familiar. It does. This is very dark, I feel. Oh, this is going to be good. This is going to be good. So, anyway, we're in our introduction phase. So, Zach, I've already welcomed you onto the show, but let the listeners know. You've got to talk about what Straight Down the Middle is or what you do or your involvement in the hobby. For those listeners who are tuning in, we are not going to do a video game segment this time. It is going to be all about pinball. We're usually very heavy on pinball anyway. Next episode we're doing is going to be the E3 episode, so there's going to be video games out the wazoo. People can shift over at that. So tell us about you, Zach. Tell us about you. Oh, well, my name is Zach. Straight down the middle of Pinball Show is something a buddy, Greg, and he's in Louisville. Greg and I started, I think it's been about a year and a half ago. We started, we wanted to, we liked the tuxed hockey stuff off of TNT Amusements, and we really liked all the podcasts that we were listening to regarding pinball, but we wanted something a little bit different, something with a little bit of comedic value. So we thought, I met Greg. He was kicking the tires on some of the machines I was selling. So one day I was like, buddy, just give me a call, give me a text. Let's talk pinball. Let's hang out. So we hung out. The first time we hung out, we actually recorded the first, second, and third episode straight down the middle. It's a YouTube-based show. We do different things like machine reviews. We do top ten lists. We do different promotional stuff. We wanted to kind of do just a catch-all media for anything pinball. And my philosophy in pinball is always it's so visual that we have to show people what we're talking about. So from then on, we've just kind of hit the ground running. We've got a different format than a lot of people. We have Twitch stream now with Chuck Wirt. We have a Facebook page. So check us out on all different types of things. We're always trying to bring something new to the pinball media industry. Yeah. Actually, I completely miss out on most of your experiences. I actually subscribe to the audio podcast to listen to on my commute. So when you do reviews, I just have to close my eyes, and then I'm in a ditch. because I was right. But, you know, that's what had to happen. So, I mean, we all make sacrifices for the hobbies that we participate in. That's right. Well, so many people were asking. They were saying, well, I want to listen to it in the car, but I don't want to, yeah, end up in a ditch. So what can we do? So a lot of the episodes that make enough sense to turn into an audio, we just transcode it into an audio and we throw it up there for people. It's not the best because visually our show is very visual, So we do a lot of gags and editing jokes and clip art and memes and stuff, but you still get the basis of what we're trying to do on audio as well. Yeah, I've been thinking about actually converting over and just watching it on YouTube because those come out so much faster than when you finally get around to doing the transition.