Oh, welcome everybody to the world's most slanderous pinball podcaster, your host, Canada. We're at 590 club members. Thank you for the support. We're going to get back up over 600. I'm not worried about that. Happy 4th of July, everybody. You might hear Killian playing in the background, but I had to do a show this morning. We're going to talk about He-Man Pinball. We've been hearing about He-Man now for a few years, so there's a really good chance this game is happening. But now what gets people really excited is that the game is not going to be made by some boutique company that's going to struggle to get He-Man out into the world. It's going to be made by Stern Pinball. Now look, Stern Pinball getting a license like this is good news from a manufacturing standpoint. It's good news that they have great designers that grew up loving He-Man. We're going to talk about the power of nostalgia. And we're going to talk about even though most of us have outgrown what we were into when we were kids. There's no denying the sheer power of nostalgia. And if you get it right and you hit nostalgia in the bullseye, this could be a very, very well received pinball machine by the community. But you got to do it right. I don't think they did it right with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We're going to talk about how Turtles got it wrong. But He-Man has an opportunity to get it right. And before I go on to He-Man and why I think it's a great theme for pinball, I got a little anonymous email that came into my inbox about Haggis Pinball. See, this is what happens when you start to sort of kick the tires a little bit, when you start to poke the bear, when you start to ask some questions about what's going on in pinball and what's going on with these companies. And then you get a company like Haggis who struggled to make game number two, and they're now gonna want people to give money towards game number three. Once you start to kick that can down the road, people start to share some stuff. But again, all of this stuff comes to me anonymously. So you have to take it with a grain of salt. But there are documents attached to this email that explain what this email is all about. And it's two things that I got. I got the company structure and then some known debts that are associated with Haggis Pinball. So let me just summarize it for you right now. And I'm more than happy to share these documents with anybody who's interested. But I can tell you right now, after we confirmed that Centaur is going to be the next title from Haggis Pinball, nobody really cares. Nobody really cares. Nobody is clamoring for a $10,000 Centaur. And if I were Damien and I were Marty, I would read the room a little bit. I think they need to show something original. They need to show something new. They're not going to get 250 orders for a game that you can go buy today for much less money than this. It doesn't matter how sexy you make the game. It doesn't matter what you do with the code. I think people are clamoring for an all-original new game. And if you've got War of the Worlds and you want to show us what Marty can do, and you're going to make a modern pinball machine with modern everything, I think that's the smart move to do next. The problem is with Haggis, they've boxed themselves into a corner. Remember he sold those like series tickets deposits that were like good for the next five remake games? Five remake games? They barely can get game number one out the door and they've already taken deposits on four additional titles. All of this from day one has been a red flag to anybody who's been following this hobby as long as I have. Most of you have seen this movie too. This happens. It's like these people, they love pinball. They take their own money and they run in and they think it's going to be easy to scale up pinball manufacturing. So let me summarize what these documents are saying about Haggis Pinball. First bullet, Damien currently owns Haggis as a sole shareholder. This is strange that there aren't any other equity investors funding the company. Tied with the fact that Haggis doesn't have any debt secured against the company from an Australian bank means that he has financed the creation and running of the company purely from his own cash reserves, which is pretty unusual. Right there, you kind of understand now why everything has been turned off, why they have not been transparent. And look, all of us, we have to have a level of empathy for Damien to start a company like this and put all of his passion and his love into pinball is an admirable thing. But what happens to all of these people who get stars in their eyes around pinball is simply this. Manufacturing kills everybody, especially when you try to scale up manufacturing. It is so expensive to get your arms around the overhead cost of becoming a decently sized pinball manufacturing company. remember Spooky Pinball wasn't paying for any costs associated with like their warehouses because the town of Benton Wisconsin was giving them like the property for nothing or the buildings for nothing and then remember Spooky Pinball built their company with family right it's like their family and friends are who were putting these games together I think it still their family and friends I mean the entire population of Benton Wisconsin is basically building spooky machines But for Damien to go from building like 50 Kelts machines to building 500 Fathoms you then going to have to hire people You're then going to have to do a lot more work and you're not used to it. And the fact that all of this is out of his own pocket is kind of scary. He's a father. He's a husband. I think he worked in IT or some other area and made some money. But as my friend John at Jack Bar always says, the fastest way to make a million dollars in pinball is to start with five million dollars and you quickly lose everything as you try to become a pinball manufacturer. All right. So here's the other document I got about Haggis. It's the known debt stuff. And this is the part where like it gets a little bit concerning, but it also makes total sense why they need to raise revenue. It says Haggis has a number of trade creditors, wood, plastics, and printing who have registered secured debt charges against the company because they have purchased goods for the production of pinball but not paid them. The way these debts have been registered means that Haggis Pinball is selling pinball machines which are constructed of parts that other companies currently have a registered security interest over. All right, so look, I don't know the ins and outs of pinball manufacturing. I don't know how you work with vendors. I don't understand why a vendor would send a company its goods or services if they weren't paid, right? If you're selling haggis wood or plastics or printing stuff for them, why would you send them stuff if they didn't pay their invoices? But this is how the world works, right? A lot of times work is done and stuff is given to contractors before the invoice is paid. And so look, it's not a mystery to any of us that Haggis Pinball is probably in a situation financially that is not the best. And here's my advice for Damien and Marty and everybody associated with Haggis. You're not going to claw your way out of where you are if you remain in secrecy. We've seen this before. You're not going to claw your way out of this financial situation by announcing your next game before you finish production of The Fathoms. The only way out, and I understand this, I know this is the hardest advice for them to take, the only way out for Haggis Pinball is to be honest, to be truthful with a community that will understand what you're going through. But if you continue to hide and hide your feet in the corner of a fake production room, if you continue to go radio silent, and then you're going to try to pull the wool over people's eyes by announcing another game when you still have 200 plus fathoms to build, nobody's going to go in on it. And look, nobody wants to see any company fail. Nobody wants to see any company fail. But going about it this way, we've been burned too many times by boutique companies doing this. They robbed Peter to pay Paul. And the red flags around this company are everywhere. And look, it's Damien's company. It's Marty's company. And look, if someone were speaking about my pinball company, right, if some blowhard in New York City had a podcast and he went on the airwaves to his subscribers and he said, hey, look, this company is in a little bit of trouble. they're self-financed and now they're going to try to pull a fast one by selling another game when they haven't finished production of the current game you think i would just sit back and take it if i knew what that person was saying was incorrect no and look i get it it's a horrible place to be and you're probably staring at the numbers if you're damien and the numbers don't work out nobody made these companies grow as fast as they grew and i think haggis's biggest mistake is unlike Spooky, they didn't grow slowly. They barely sold any Keltz machines. And then instantly they had a big factory. Instantly they had all this room, all this overhead. And then they also had nobody to build the games. So you got the orders, but then you couldn't build the games. Every day that factory is not turning out machines, you're losing money. And the more days you're in the red than the green, it's not going to work out. So look, we'll see what happens. But as I say to everybody, be very cautious about giving deposits. Make sure they can make the games. Don't buy a game until it's in a box, especially from a company that has proven they are not going to get you the game when they say the game will be ready. And I do challenge Marty and Damien to stop hiding. Come out. Defend your company. Talk about your company. Nobody's going to be fooled by some polished video you're going to put out. Nobody's going to be fooled anymore by some jovial tone of voice. We want to see a factory tour of Haggis Pinball, Damien. Come on, Marty. You go on your own podcast and you deflect, deflect, deflect for a year. Enough deflecting. Go on Facebook Live. You took people's money. You tell people you want new money. So simply go on Facebook Live, walk around Haggis Pinball, and show us what's going on on a random day. If you can't do that, you don't deserve anybody's money. Oh, man, Canada's all heated. Let's talk about He-Man. Enough about Haggis, right? Stern is going to sell more He-Man pinball machines in one day than Haggis Pinball will sell of pinball machines ever. All right, so He-Man. Do I love this theme for pinball? One hundred percent, yes, I love He-Man. I'll tell you why. It's a cartoon show that anybody who was a kid in the 1980s grew up watching He-Man and Skeletor and Ram Man and Battle Cat and She-Ra and Castle freaking Grayskull and I've got the power. The show is on air. I believe it was 1983 to 1985 or 87. I think it was 85. I think there's like three years of He-Man. So here the crazy part It is the 40th anniversary of He Now look if we follow what we been saying that Stern going to make anniversary editions of games does this now maybe suggest that He-Man is going to be what they show at Comic-Con, and it's going to be the 40th anniversary of He-Man shown at Comic-Con? I still think it's going to be Venom, but let's talk about He-Man. We already know Venom is in the works. Let's talk about He-Man. Who is going to be designing He-Man? Now, Jason Knapp said it's probably not going to be Jack Danger. And Jack Danger has been teasing He-Man now for a while. Now, after coming off of like Foo Fighters, I think people are very excited that the designer for any future Stern machine might be Jack Danger. Jason Knapp seems to think it's going to be John Borg who takes He-Man because Jack Danger wants to do something else. Now, I thought John Borg was going to do Indiana Hilton Jones because he made the other Stern Indiana Hilton Jones game that wasn't very good and he wanted to make up for that failure and so look I don't know if you ask me who would you rather have design He-Man Jack Danger or John Borg I mean that's a tough one people Jack has one game John's got many many games I mean everyone would probably just want Keith Elwin to design everything if we were to be honest like let's be honest for a minute like at some point everyone would rather just have Keith Elwin because he's just a level above everybody right now. And that's a good thing because everyone else underneath him at Stern is learning from Keith Elwin. Like this is how you get better. You have someone more talented on your team and they improve your gameplay. Like everyone else is Scottie Pippen and freaking Keith Elwin is Michael Vecennia Jordan, right? Scottie Pippen doesn't become Scottie Pippen without Michael Vecennia Jordan. So in terms of who's designing it, I don't know. Now look, as a theme, this is the part where I'm like, is this a dream theme for me? Is this a dream theme for the pinball buying community? Now, look, it's a subjective thing. For me personally, it's not a dream theme. Like, I haven't been mentioning He-Man all throughout these years as a pinball machine I would love to see. But what this machine has going for it is the most powerful thing emotionally when you think about stuff that you click with on an emotional level. And that is nostalgia. The power of nostalgia is extremely powerful. And when you get it right, it's really hard to resist. And so if Stern Pinball can make a He-Man machine that needs to be loaded with toys, it needs Castle Grayskull, it needs to have I have the power. I was thinking about like the code in the moment when He-Man says, I have the power and the lights are going crazy and you feel like you're going from Adam to He-Man, that transition and the game and the music and everything going on, it just is perfect for pinball because it's so much fun when that happens in the show. But it needs to have toys. It needs like a medieval madness kind of castle, gray skull castle. Like if they make He-Man and there is not a drawbridge that comes down, then what are we even doing here in pinball, right but the most important part of getting this game right unlike ninja turtles is they need to get the clips from the original cartoon that we grew up with i don't want to see some reanimated version i don't want to see new voice actors i want to hear the voices from the cartoon i grew up with i want to see the show i grew up with they need to get the original he-man rights if they can't do it that way. Don't even bother making the game. It was really weird with Ninja Turtles. It's why a lot of us, when we saw the pinball machine, it just felt weird. It's like, why are they reanimating these classic scenes that already have the show animated and animated better than Stern could ever do? So I was disappointed in that in Ninja Turtles. The other thing about Ninja Turtles that nobody really wants to talk about, it didn't really feel like Ninja Turtles, right? You're not really battling the Foot Clan. There wasn't really that many interesting toys in Ninja Turtles. It just felt a little stale. And then the game itself was very hard. When you ask people why they really don't like Ninja Turtles, it's because it's too hard. Like, John Borg made it way too hard. The ball drains on the left side of that game all day long. You never feel like you can get into the game. And I do think you need to make He-Man, Masters of the freaking Universe, you need to make it a game that's a little bit more inviting i'm tired of themes that get ruined by brutal gameplay because brutality is bad design i mean this when i say it a brutal game is a bad design pinball machine you can still make a pinball machine hard without making it brutal to play like ghostbusters is brutal it's not fun to shoot that game and there are some games out there that are just ruined by brutality of gameplay. Games like Rick and Morty are like that. You're just holding on for dear life. You never can really get into the game. And I know the excuse is like, I don't like long ball times. I want a fast game. It mixes up the monotony of my collection. And I get it. Yeah. If you have a huge collection, then you might not mind a game that plays like that. But I think He-Man needs to be a game that's a little bit more inviting. Dare I say it, I wouldn't even mind a damn fan layout. Who cares? There's a reason why a fan layout is so popular, because it's damn fun to shoot. And you can get through the game, and you can hit the shots, and you know where the ball is at all times. A fan layout. It's why so many classic games have utilized it, if they can do it right. The other thing is, who's the artist going to be on He-Man? Because He-Man has such a distinct art style. Now, the rumor is, it's going to be Randy Martinez. And he said that next to Star Wars, He-Man is one of his favorite properties. Now if you go look at Randy Martinez artwork I like a little bit of a mixed bag because he done one He thing that kind of weird I hope his style syncs up properly with the He look and feel And we haven seen Randy Martinez do anything other than the Mandalorian Arguably, the Mandalorian is a nice looking game. So I don't want to get too down on whether or not he's going to crush it until I see it. But look, it's a safety with all Sterns right now. It's like, who do you want to design it? Keith Elwin. Who do you want to do the artwork? Most likely Zombie Yeti. And look, Zombie Yeti's art style is perfect for comic book stuff. So it's like perfect for stuff like He-Man. I would argue his art style is better for He-Man than it would be for something like Jaws or something like Godzilla. So, He-Man from Stern Pinball. Now look, when might we see this game? This is the other big question because I thought we were going to get Venom in like two weeks, which I still think it's going to be Venom. Then what is next? Keith Elwin's game is going to come out next February. The rumor there is that it's going to be Jaws. So who knows? But I'll say this. Stern is moving into its new factory in August. So we all have to remember that. That Stern was on a three cornerstone schedule when they were in their old factory. So what do you think is going to happen when Stern Pinball moves into its new factory with even more room and more ability to manufacture? will they get to a point where they have four cornerstone games a year? Every three months, a new Stern. It already feels like too much, right? Because there's only so many times you can ask people to spend like $7,000 to $13,000 before your own buyer base runs out of room and money. But I think because He-Man is a super fun property, I think because He-Man is campy and nostalgic, I think it's a great theme for pinball. and it hits the core pinball buying demographic on the bullseye. But here is the thing I think Stern needs to do. I don't want to see 1,000 LEs that all look the same. Because He-Man is such a special property that has heroes and villains, I really hope Stern makes 500 He-Man editions and 500 Skeletor editions. I think they need to do that. Make the Skeletor editions purple. make the He-Man like the green and the red and really try to mix it up a little bit because for this much money we need to see Stern put more of an effort to make these LEs truly special remember they did stuff like this with Transformers with like Autobots and Decepticons we've seen them do multiple LEs with games like ACDC and stuff like that and now that these games are costing twice as much money as the Transformers, they surely can make us a He-Man and Skeletor edition of this game. Okay, so that's my take on this. Stern's just not going to stop, and this is why Stern is so successful. They're going to give something for everybody. Think about the ends of the spectrum. Led Zeppelin on one end, and He-Man Masters of the Universe on the other. Like, if you like 80s cartoons, they're going to give you stuff. If you like music, they're going to give you a ton of music to select from. If you like movies, they've got so many different iconic movies in pinball format, not to mention TV shows. They get all the big properties. And then reality starts to set in that almost every single property that you want to see made into a pinball machine. Stern Pinball has first dibs probably at everything. Everyone else is just making the leftovers that Stern doesn't want. If you want to see G1 Transformers, who's going to get it? It's not going to be Jersey Jack. And that's why when we see Jersey Jack getting a property, think about it. They never get any assets. They never sync up the video with the voices. They never get everything. And it's like, those are the deals that Stern doesn't want. And remember, Stern hasn't made a game ever the way Jersey Jack is making them. They don't show you clips from the movie that are just muted left and right, they at least get voice actors to go over the voices, or they do an all-original adventure like Jurassic Park. Like, they kind of still know what people want, and they still try to get as close to the source material as people remember. But He-Man, for me, it's a non-negotiable. It has to be the original show, has to be the original voices, or I would never go in on this game. So we will see what they do. Will it come out in a few weeks? Will it be Venom? This is why I love pinball podcasting. I love all of your support. Thank you guys so much for being a member of the Canadian Club. More great episodes coming. And look, you got back-to-back episodes. No one else is doing it like this. Oh, my boy Don, he just interviewed Jason Knapp with the volume levels, Don. He got to get the volume levels up. It sounded like Jason Knapp was down the hallway when I was listening this morning to the show. Everybody, tons of great content out there. Tons of great reasons to be happy and alive in this world. Every day above ground is a really good day. We got some more bad news in the family this week. I don't want to go into details about it, but I'm going to say this right now. Your health and happiness are the most important thing. And every day we are above ground and we get to argue and complain and get excited about pinball is a blessing, people. It really is. Love all of you. Thank you so much. Later. He meant He meant He meant He meant He meant