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Four Little Words

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·51m 8s·analyzed·Jul 18, 2018
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Brad Baker's cryptic 'there is a plan' comment sparks pinball licensing speculation amid Scientific Games video poker development.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss a mysterious four-word comment by Brad Baker (VBCabs) saying 'there is a plan' regarding Scientific Games' Williams/Bally pinball license and potential digital recreation plans. The hosts explore speculation around Scientific's apparent video poker machine development and its relationship to digital pinball licensing, while debunking theories that Planetary Pinball's license was revoked. They also cover Zen Studios cabinet licensing, This Week in Pinball newsletter, and medium-form article writing.

Key Claims

  • Scientific Games has been developing slot machine versions using Williams/Bally themes (e.g., Fun House with Rudy)

    high confidence · Hosts confirm videos exist showing Scientific's slot machines with pinball IP, though videos are reportedly 2+ years old

  • Planetary Pinball did NOT have their license yanked alongside Farsight's Williams/Bally removal

    high confidence · Chris and Jared explicitly state they don't believe Planetary lost licenses; people are confusing correlation with causation

  • Farsight was restricted from modifying Williams/Bally tables during their license period (no LEDs, no sticker additions)

    high confidence · Hosts cite specific examples: Cactus Canyon stickers and Black Knight LED modifications that violated original design specs

  • Farsight likely could have acquired full Williams/Bally license in 2012 but missed the opportunity

    medium confidence · Speculation: pinball resurgence hadn't picked up yet; WMS Holdings (then licensor) may have been more flexible

  • Brad Baker (VBCabs) recently posted Shark Tank investor engagement and VP Cabs running Arcuda software publicly

    medium confidence · Hosts note Brad was interviewed 2 years ago; Shark Tank backer still engaged; VP Cabs users posting Arcuda software screenshots

  • Zen Studios cabinet licensing is non-exclusive; licensees pay royalty fees on top of consumer licensing

    high confidence · Championship cabinet manufacturers and VBCabs both pay licensing fees to promote/use Zen IP publicly

  • Zen's cabinet mode requires contacting Zen for a cabinet key; setup involves screen resolution configuration

    medium confidence · Chris discovered FAQ documentation; backglass images are not included in cabinet files and must be sourced separately

  • Scientific Games is not developing the Williams digital pinball game themselves

    high confidence · Hosts argue Scientific only does art-swapping on poker machines; they lack video game design expertise and no business rationale exists

Notable Quotes

  • “there is a plan”

    Brad Baker (VBCabs) @ ~mid-episode — Cryptic four-word comment on Facebook that sparked widespread speculation in the pinball community about Scientific Games' licensing intentions

  • “There is no competition, folks. Slot machines, completely different beast from a pinball machine.”

    Chris Freebus @ ~20:00 — Core argument debunking theory that Scientific yanked Farsight's license to pursue slot machine competition

  • “I side with people when they say that they don't believe that scientific will develop... But I don't side with the opinion that they're just going to completely shutter this and lock it in the closet and not do anything with it.”

    Chris Freebus @ ~25:00 — Nuanced take: Scientific likely licensed IP passively rather than locking it away entirely

  • “They couldn't actually put LEDs in the game. But then when they redid Black Knight, basically the lights were essentially LEDs.”

    Chris Freebus @ ~32:00 — Demonstrates Farsight's licensing restrictions and how they worked around them

  • “Why would scientific decide that they can develop a digital pinball game? What's in it for them?”

    Chris Freebus @ ~41:00 — Central skepticism: Scientific has no business incentive or technical capability to build pinball software

  • “We've done so much speculation on this already... if you want to hear what we have to say about this then you need to go back to all the speculation episodes because it's laid out for you.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~48:00 — Indicates hosts have already extensively theorized on this topic and are moving past it

  • “So it's just different art. But it's still interesting to go, so what does Brad know?”

    Jared Morgan @ ~44:00 — Captures the core mystery: what does Brad Baker's cryptic comment actually mean?

  • “It's just swapping out art assets most of the time.”

Entities

Brad BakerpersonScientific GamescompanyFarsight StudioscompanyPlanetary PinballcompanyZen StudioscompanyVBCabscompanyThis Week in PinballorganizationWMS HoldingscompanyChris Freebusperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Farsight Studios restricted license terms prevented design modifications (LEDs, stickers); likely missed opportunity to acquire full license in 2012

    high · Specific examples: Cactus Canyon stickers and Black Knight LED modifications violated original designs; hosts note pinball resurgence hadn't peaked in 2012

  • ?

    community_signal: This Week in Pinball newsletter achieving full-time work status (30 hours/week) and seeking patron support for sustainability

    high · Founder explicitly seeking $2-25/month patronage; hosts praise site's free comprehensive pinball news curation

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Scientific Games holding Williams/Bally IP but developing video poker machines with pinball themes instead of pursuing digital pinball

    high · Hosts confirm Scientific has slot machine videos featuring Fun House with Rudy mechanic; speculation exists about potential mobile poker app development

  • $

    market_signal: VBCabs maintaining Shark Tank investor engagement and deploying Arcuda software publicly with positive community reception

    medium · Shark Tank backer posted recent photo of investor playing VP Cabs; multiple community posts showing Arcuda running on Vertigo machines

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Brad Baker's cryptic 'there is a plan' comment regarding Scientific Games' Williams pinball licensing intentions

    high · Direct Facebook post by Brad Baker stating 'there is a plan'; hosts note it sparked immediate community speculation with no clarification from Brad

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.153

0:00
this is the blockade podcast with your hosts chris and jared you are listening to the blockade podcast i'm gonna take that again because that was terrible jared you are listening to the available take three you are listening to the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris freemus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world jared morgan hello hi hi sometimes you know the old brain just kind of uh farts out like last last time when i was trying to figure out what those those column type jewel games are is yeah but jewelries bejeweled how hard is that for me to remember? I played the crap out of it. Bejeweled.
0:55
When it was PopCap and not EA and they didn't start gouging you with smoke berries. Yeah. PopCap. Rip PopCap. Rip.
1:07
So yeah. Howdy, folks. We're here again. We promised that we do this now and then and that we do. Now and again.
1:19
Now and again. Hey, we're going to start with one of those tangents that we love so well. I went and saw this movie called Sorry to Bother You. Oh, okay. It is the most bug nuts, crazy,
1:37
bizarre film I've seen in a very long time. Is it a mainstream release or an art house release? Well, it went mainstream this weekend. So it started out art house. I don't know if they do this in Australia, but in America they do it all the time where they'll release it in basically New York and L.A. on like four screens. And they'll leave it out there for two weeks where it earns a buzz because people are like, hey, the movie was sold out and I can't get in.

  • This Week in Pinball founder spends ~30 hours/week on the site and is seeking patron support

    high confidence · Direct statement by hosts; site founder is turning it into full-time work and requesting $2-25/month patronage

    • Jared Morgan @ ~43:00 — Explains why Scientific has no incentive to develop custom pinball software—their poker machine expertise is shallow

    Jared Morgan
    person
    Blockade Podcastorganization
    Cactus Canyongame
    Black Knightgame
    Fun Housegame
    Arcudaproduct
  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community fatigue with repeated speculation about Scientific Games licensing; hosts closing discussion and referencing previous episodes

    medium · Jared states 'we've done so much speculation on this already... our position stands. Exactly. No news has come out since we've done those speculation threads'

  • ?

    business_signal: Scientific Games likely licensing Williams IP passively rather than actively developing digital pinball or aggressively restricting competition

    medium · Hosts argue 'they give the keys to the car... Don't crash' approach; Scientific has no business rationale or technical capability for custom pinball software

  • ?

    technology_signal: Zen Studios non-exclusive cabinet licensing model with royalty fees; championship cabinets and VBCabs both paying licensing costs

    high · Hosts discovered Zen's cabinet licensing is not exclusive; multiple manufacturers paying royalty fees for public/promotional use of Zen IP

    • 2:08
    And then people start talking about it and get excited about it. And then they'll all of a sudden dump it on, say, 1,200 screens. so it's a little easier to find and take care of or to go see so yes it's an art house definitely an art house because it's not a studio film but no one's getting advertisement on TV and all that jazz but it is I went into it having just the vaguest of concepts which is basically that a guy a A black guy goes and gets a job as a telemarketer and finds success only by speaking in a white guy voice. And the white guy voices are overdubbed by David Cross and Patton Oswalt.
    3:01
    So it's not like somebody imitating what the white guy voice might sound. It's an actual, you know, somebody else doing it. And I thought, oh, okay, this is going to be kind of, you know, say office space with social commentary. okay yeah right and then within minutes of the movie starting based off some of the visuals that are happening i went oh okay maybe this is more like what a charlie kaufman movie would be charlie kaufman did adaptation and being john malkovich so they're kind of that bizarre you know it's it's a world you recognize but it's hyper stylized um and obviously not the real world yeah and so i was like okay you know we'll go with that and it just gets weirder and weirder and kind of loses focus and then the third act hits and it is so completely out of the blue that you could just hear odd people in the audience go what you can actually hear the game what's going on yeah absolutely absolutely and then while the even while the credits were rolling there were some people behind me and you know they were young in their 20s and you can tell they were struggling. They really wanted to be cool and say, yeah, I liked it. But they couldn't get past the third act. And they were like, no, I really did enjoy it. I'm just not sure about it.
    4:23
    It's a pretty big giant thing that's going to determine if you like the movie or not. That's for sure.
    4:30
    It's either yes or no. You don't need to try and wheezy way. And it's one of those things where it was like, I really appreciated it and I'm glad it wasn't some cookie cutter movie and there's not a chance in hell I would recommend it to anybody unless I absolutely knew what their movie tastes were very acquired taste is what you're saying very yes I mean no spin of your nose you saw it with your movie pass so you're all good there that's fine but yes it's one of the it does sound very bizarre indeed yeah yeah but my choice my other choice was to maybe go see skyscraper and so i probably think i actually made the better choice do they be pushing that over here like it has been on very high rotation it looks like a really bad die hard what that's there's some of the people have even and i think they actually did official marketing where they did posters to make it look like Die Hard. I saw a fake trailer that made it look like if it was made in the 90s. And it used, it's the exact trailer that you see currently, but it used the In a World movie guy.
    5:48
    And they overdubbed the kind of the cheesy 90s music that they would do with, say, like, you know, Die Hard 2 in those trailers. And it just, yeah, you watch it and you're like, oh, totally worked. totally worth it. It's diehard for. What even better was that they, they screwed up the, the image to make it look like it was coming off of VHS tape. Oh, did they? Yeah. So it's all, it's kind of washed out and, and kind of double copied and the sound is popping, you know, it's, it's in four by three instead of 16 by nine, you know? Yeah. I would actually like if they're, knowingly making homage to Die Hard I think you can go into the movie understanding what it's going to be like there's no Die Hard, maybe that's an insult to Die Hard because Die Hard is a good movie but I think if they're pitching it towards it's Die Hard with a big modern skyscraper yeah, go along for the ride with that one maybe yeah, I'm going to have to get myself into the frame of reference of when I went and saw Hurricane Heist and just kind of play with that. I don't know what that is. No, I don't want to know.
    7:05
    It's a movie, Jared, that I went and saw that I knew would be absolutely terrible. And I was hoping it would be so terrible that it would be fun and that hopefully it knew it was terrible and then therefore it became fun. And it was. Oh, fantastic. It knew it was cheeseball. It knew it was a ridiculously stupid premise. And it just rode that wave and had a good time doing it. It was fantastic.
    7:29
    And what's funny is that there was a couple of movies that came out afterwards where I was just like, you know, I hate to say it, but that craptacular movie was actually better because they at least had the sense to know that they were having fun. Yeah. So. All right. I see. Yeah, I don't know. You're going to have to see it anyhow because it is going to be free. It'll happen this week. I can't wait to see your medium review for that one. I've discovered something about writing on Medium, and that's if I'm not either overly excited about something or overly angry about something, then it becomes really hard to write the review. Because it's like, no, it's all right. Exactly, and that gets kind of boring to write. And that's the end of the article.
    8:15
    So I think I did that recently where I was like, yeah, it's all right. Oh, hey, why don't I go ahead and review two TV shows that I watched the second seasons of also? because otherwise the medium article would be 30 seconds read that's right oh jeez I've read a medium article that isn't related to movies it was 57 minutes estimated read time what the hell why are people writing novels this was an article about how one guy decided to get into development and it was like a chronicle almost like a blow by blow chronicle about he how he transitioned from financial background into full stack development and it was long and it was designed to be long because he it was essentially he's like uh documenting his journey yeah but dude break it up yeah i yeah it's not an ebook you know we're going to a website and there's that ebook well i know i know but you know what i mean this it's that thing where and i've had this where you're reading an article and it gets to a certain point where you go, okay. I really want to keep reading, but jeez. But I also want to go look at other things. I happen to click on you, and I'm reading, and I'm reading, and I'm reading, and it keeps on going, and if I click away from you, then I'm going to have to come back at some point and try and figure out where I stop reading, and that's just too difficult.
    9:33
    So breaking it up into individual articles and linking them through is a good approach, but at the same time, I think if I hadn't sat down and read this from start to finish in one sitting, I have a feeling I would have lost a lot of the context by doing that. So I think, and also too, if I have a jump off point, I'll probably won't jump back to it because there's so much other stuff trying to grab my attention. So actually just having, I just left it up on one of my tabs in my computer and just sat there. And I came back to the tab and went, oh, yeah, I haven't actually finished reading that. I'll keep reading it now.
    10:11
    And, yeah, it was literally an hour read. It was quite the same. But it was good. I will say I would much prefer that as opposed to the clickbait things where they write two sentences. You won't believe. And then go click next. And you're like, oh, come on. Yeah. It takes longer for your page to load than it does for me to read what you actually wrote. Oh, yeah. Just because there were more ad imprints. Yeah, it's gross. Yeah, as soon as I see that something's doing that, I click off. Click off. Because usually they're also insanely badly written. Written, yeah.
    10:47
    Because they have to be. They need to produce content so they can host their ads. It's all about the actual content. It's about the ads. Right. Yeah.
    10:55
    And inevitably what I hate, too, is those clickbait things. They'll show a picture. They're like, you'll never believe what this person looks like now. And you're like, oh, okay, no, I won't believe it, will I? And then you click on it, and then the article is, 20 people that don't look like they do now. And you're like, oh, let me guess. They're number 19, the picture was that I was interested in. Yeah.
    11:15
    Yes. and yes you're right so that's why I just do a google search a google image search and what's funny is because sometimes they'll show like a side by side picture but half the picture is blocked out by text so you obviously can't see what the person still looks like right and then you come to find that wasn't even the same person they did it on purpose to make you think that this is maybe what they're going to look like you know but they use a completely different image so yeah I hate those people This is content for content's sake to support advertising. Yeah, they're horrible. The good thing is that Google is downrating all those sites now. So the clickbait, the attraction of clickbait in articles is actually becoming less and less useful from an advertising perspective.
    12:00
    So that's good. Maybe we need to make our website clickbait. You won't believe the two things we learned about playing with no tilt on a pinball machine. News at 11 Can you imagine It'd be like We have news about Farsight Click here Before we get to the news about Farsight Let's talk about these five articles That are on digitalpinballfans.com That's right Oh yeah That would have to be the model It would be gross And it would take so much more time to write So no Speaking of our website You guys you need to go check out last week episode post that Jared did So go to blockadepinball slash episodes Yes. And look at it. Jared went and, you know, we read off or I read off all the rankings of all the pinball games that are on Steam from that leak. Jared wound up linking every single table so you can see what the tables are. Yeah.
    13:15
    Which is really kind of nice because it kind of, I had to first write down hand, write down things on a piece of paper. And then I went to steam and then I was, you know, typing in the names and finding them. And it took me some time to look at everything, but man, if I had have had that article, I would just went click. Oh, there you have click. Oh, there it is. Hey, look at that. You know, it would have been so much nicer. So yeah. If you ever want to see the kind of fun that Jared has with our podcast post-production, yeah, on there, that's a prime example of why you should visit because he'll take a lot of the work out of it for you. No searching required. Just click. The cool thing about Medium is it lets you adjust the titles of your links. So I even put the show timing notes, the actual timing for each part of the section, into the link. So it was pretty slick. I was like, ooh, that's quite nice. I like it. That is quite nice. All right. Let's address something that has been kind of sprung up this week, and apparently it's sending all sorts of people to a tizzy. And it's not just – what's weird about this is it's not just the digital pinball people. It's the physical pinball people because it deals with scientific games. our friends at scientific friends at scientific so obviously scientific has licensed out at some point they had done this licensed out the williams stuff to planetary pinball planetary pinball was making pinball parts uh with the williams uh design basically yes patents now planetary also correct me if I'm wrong, Jared, they're the ones that did Medieval Madness? Yes, they do the remakes. They're doing the remakes. Yeah. Okay.
    15:07
    So when the license got pulled for the Williams and Bally tables for Farsight, apparently that also sent the physical pinball world reeling because they were then suddenly wondering what's going on with planetary pinball. Yeah, right. because now I'm not sure if I'm getting my information correct here or not. See, this is what happens when you don't frequent real pinball sites and you're only on the digital ones. But did Planetary get their licenses yanked also? I don't think so. I think this is what people are worried has happened, which I don't think it has at all. I don't think so. The reason why people are worried is because all of a sudden they're finding video of the slot machines that scientific has done that have like one that's called fun house and look, Hey, there's Rudy on the spinning wheels and, and all that kind of jazz.
    16:08
    Now, the funny thing is that these videos apparently are old, like a couple of years old, but only now people are seeing it. And they're trying to draw conclusions.
    16:20
    Right. Yes. So the conclusion being that Scientific yanked these from Farsight so that they could not have competition and have slot machines. The funny thing about that is there is no competition, folks. Slot machines, completely different beast from a pinball machine. Very different. And very, very completely different from a digital pinball game that you would play at home. Yeah.
    16:51
    Now, some have said, and I don't know if this has been a thing yet, that Scientific might be making these... When we say slot machines, we're not talking about the old three reels. These are now fully... I mean, God, last time I was in Las Vegas and I saw one of these, I was like, it's a video game. Oh, yeah. I didn't even know what the heck was going on because there was like ten... Ten reels. 10 rows down and things could match up diagonally and, and not just in straight lines, but there'd be, I honestly, and I believe that's the point is you confuse the person to the point where they're just like, I don't know. I'm just going to keep on feeding dollars in until I win. The reason why they do that. And cause I used to work at a poker machine company, um, doing phone support. Yeah. Ages ago, back in the year 2000. And the reason why they do all those extra lines and all the different combinations is because it actually makes you feel like you win more with the three real um like crossways and diagonal ways um you don't have as much chance of actually getting a payout so it makes you feel good when you win so you win more even if it's 20 cents yeah it still makes you feel like you're winning which is why they have the multiple lines now or like you know You can win 30 ways on one poker machine. It's like, yeah, that's the reason.
    18:16
    Because it taps into that little part of your human brain that goes, oh, I won. Oh, that's a little trick, whatever it is, the chemical that makes you feel happy. Yeah. That one. And, yeah, it just keeps on basically trickle-feeding that chemical into your brain, and it keeps you putting your money in. That's how it works. So apparently, Scientific might be looking to make mobile apps of their slot machines. Okay. Now, I don't know if that would be purely for fun or if it would wind up becoming real gambling or not. It's scientific. It wouldn't be just for fun.
    18:48
    There'd be some reason for them to actually put all the effort into making a video game with poker machines in it.
    18:56
    Well, but part of it is if you get people addicted to it at home on their phone. And then they go and play the real thing and they can actually win money at it. They'll feel like they... There's a film in there. They walk into the casino and they see it and they go, oh, wait, I played at it. And look, I win all the time on my phone. Exactly, because the odds are like 50% return instead of like 10% return. Yeah, exactly. I know the first time I ever went to Las Vegas, I had a gambling game on my old Mac Classic.
    19:31
    Wow, that's a long time ago then. Right? and boy I was so good at playing Pygal on that and I was pretty good at playing Blackjack and I was like practicing the crap out of that before I went to Vegas and then I went to Vegas and it was just like how come it's not like in my game I don't understand so yeah I imagine that that would be but anyway point being is that people are thinking that this is why it's all being yanked but it's not pinball.
    20:05
    And it's a completely different thing. Now, I side with people when they say that they don't believe that scientific will develop.
    20:17
    There's no money in it for them with the pinball aspect. But I don't side with the opinion that they're just going to completely shutter this and lock it in the closet and not do anything with it. I think, if anything, it's they give the keys to the car as well as the car and go, hey, have fun. Don't crash. You know, pretty much. I mean, geez, I think it's scientific if they wanted to. They make T-shirts with bloody Billy Williams stuff on it. If they thought there was money, like, honestly, they're in the business to make money. Because Farsight really thought that they had a line on it. And this was a little bit ago to get the entire license to the point like right now. or I shouldn't say right now, what it was with Farsight, they couldn't do any modifications to the tables. They had to put them out exactly how they were on production release. There's where you take Cactus Canyon and you go,
    21:11
    well, actually, I think Farsight cheated on that one. There wasn't supposed to be stickers on the front of the pop-ups for the gun shootout. The webpages were supposed to be black, were they? They were just blank. That wasn't part of the production run. In the
    21:27
    you know, the designer's version, yes, those were there. So, I mean, little innocuous things like that where you're like, well, why not put that on? And things like LEDs. Like, they couldn't actually put LEDs in the game. But then when they redid Black Knight, basically the lights were essentially LEDs. Right. But they were supposed to make them look like incandescent. Yeah, which they didn't. They were bright as anything. Which was good because you really needed it on that table.
    21:56
    So that was their deal. they were really shackled by the fact that they couldn't do anything to them. And so they were, they thought that they were on the track to be able to get the license outright and be able to do then whatever the heck they wanted.
    22:14
    Um, and that now we know didn't happen. It just went on to be season seven or six and seven instead. And that's where it stopped. So I got to believe that if, scientific has given the keys to the car to somebody else,
    22:34
    that's the deal. It's pretty much going to be like, you know what? Don't bother us, please. Just go do the thing. And kick us a check, and we'll be happy. I think that maybe, in hindsight, if Farsight made that approach to scientific in 2012, and said we want the lot, can we have it outright? Right. Right. Maybe because the pinball resurgence really didn't pick up at that point. So they probably could have got it then. Well, not only that, but well, here's the thing, though. Scientific didn't have it back then. Oh, that's true. It was still WMS Holdings back then. Right. And I don't think WMS Holdings was willing to do that. So I think when everything shifted over to scientific, the Farsight just kept on doing what they had been doing. and I don't know if they assumed that they had to stay within that model or not, but I think that in an effort to not rock the boat, they just kept on doing business as had been done previously. Business as usual. So, okay, why are we bringing all those up? Bringing it up because there was an article posted in This Week in Pinball which is those of you who don't go to This Week in Pinball which would be probably very few of you it's basically the guy who runs the site his name escapes me but he puts so much time into reporting on Pinball News it is incredible and if you haven't checked it out you should go yeah he said he basically spends about 30 hours a week on the site now it's essentially a full time job for him so it's so good and it's all free and it's really really it's such a good service for the pinball community so do check it out. Well, actually, I'll go.
    24:24
    Because it's taking up so much of his time, he's actually looking for people to now kind of be patrons of the site.
    24:33
    And that's fair enough, too. Maybe worse for kicking two bucks his way to doing 25 bucks a month kind of things. So, by the way, happy anniversary to This Week in Pinball because that was the other thing. I'm not sure how long it's been up and running. It's not that long. But anyway, it's not been long at all. Yeah. But anyway, it's an excellent site to go to. He does a really good job of kind of grabbing all the various news that's been happening in the pinball world and putting it into a newsletter form. And now and then he dips his toe into the digital realm, which is why I had written an article for their site about digital pinball. so here we go again with dipping into the digital pinball thing and the uh the article is titled rumors about belly williams digital recreation license and what this came from was a facebook exchange between some people basically talking about scientific and how it relates to planetary pinball
    25:39
    And not, and as one person said, regardless of who owns the rights, I think this is a bad look. I know there are a lot of pinheads who turn their noses up at virtual, virtual pinball. Yeah, there are, but it can be a coincidence. The meat space pinball has grown in popularity since pinball arcades have been out. so meet space in this context is where you go and actually play physical pinball on like actually yeah exactly i thought there was something very i thought it was a play at words for like you know um facebook pinball or something like that like meet space right on social media site it was like my space they were very good that i went oh hang on meet space is a new dating app um It's quite right all the time.
    26:28
    So the conversation kind of goes back and forth with talking about planetary and how they're involved with it. And yeah, the general look of this and everything.
    26:37
    And then it kind of goes with, again, it's question, question, question. And then all of a sudden, our friend Brad Baker from VBCabs types in these four words. there is a plan.
    26:53
    And that has sent everybody into a tizzy. Because whatever you mean, Brad Baker, what plan might you be referring to?
    27:05
    And, of course, because he's the first person that's come out and said anything in the, like, with the idea that he knows something, of course, everybody's going, let's just go back and go, right, mate, spill it. What does Brad know and why would Brad know anything? Brad makes VP Cavs virtual pinball cabinets.
    27:26
    Brad has maybe talked to Scientific Games, and maybe Scientific Games has talked to Brad because Brad has, like with how he's got the license for Zen Pinball on his cabinets, maybe they're going to go and do an exclusive license with him to do Williams Tables.
    27:43
    Yeah. Well, here's the problem, folks. Brad doesn't design software. and scientific designs poker games.
    27:56
    Well, you call them poker machines, don't you? We call them poker machines, yeah. We call them slot machines. I guess in England they call them fruit machines.
    28:04
    We call them pokies, actually, here, because everything has to have an IES or an O on the end. It's like Garbo for a garbage collector or pokies for poker machines. It's an Australian thing. So they're thinking, oh, that means maybe scientific is making the game and again i just kind of go why would scientific decide that they can develop a digital pinball game what's in it for them they're already making and and throwing the bare amount of effort of using their williams license to make it on the slot machines why would they just an art swap that's all they do is simple things yeah yeah has nothing to do with designing physics and getting into the video game arena,
    28:52
    which is, I mean, completely different market. Absolutely. But that's not... There really is only on poker machines about three or four different software variants that you can run. So the patterns and everything like that, it really is just swapping out art assets most of the time. So it's... Yeah, it's just different art. But it's still interesting to go, so what does Brad know? And then did he get this information from Scientific Games?
    29:24
    Which would be weird because unless he has signed a contract with them, I would suggest that they wouldn't be telling him anything. Why would they? Like there'd be no reason for them to go, oh, hey, over a steak and a beer, for example. oh hey, we're doing these licenses are up for grabs and we've already got someone doing it why would they do that? So it makes you wonder, doesn't it? It does It's one of those things where it's like, I mean we've done so much speculation on this already and we had an entire episode about speculation and where our thoughts are and so there's certain leaps and bounds I'm willing to make that I'm surprised other people have not been making but I'll just let people make those because I don't feel like speculating on that anymore we're done with it if you want to hear what we have to say about this then you need to go back to all the speculation episodes because it's laid out for you Exactly. It knows. And nothing has changed in that entire time. No. That's the point, basically. No news has come out since we've done those speculation threads. That's right. So our position stands. Exactly.
    30:52
    You know, I did want to mention, with looking up at Brad and saying he even recently just posted a picture of his Shark Tank guy.
    31:05
    Damon or Demon? I'm not sure what it is. Anyway, the shark that funded him showed a picture of the guy playing one of his cabs. It was two years ago now when we interviewed Brad, wasn't it? Yeah. So they're still engaged. The shark that actually took up his proposal is still engaged in the business and working with him. And when all the Arcuda madness was happening regarding the software that was being released, a lot I saw quite a few posts of people with it running on their VP Cab's Vertigo machine.
    31:43
    So it was good to see his stuff out there in the public's hands. I was quite pleased to see that. Yeah, it was good. But listen, one of the features that relates to him is that he has a license for Zen Tables on his cabinet. Yeah, he does. He's not the only one. Yeah. And that was the interesting thing, eh? Yeah. We wondered what that was this week. Yeah, we did a little poking around, and what kind of got me was on Twitter, when Zen has been out and about doing any of their promotions. Yeah, trade shows. They've been promoting this championship cabinet that they have. And I was like, well, how come it's not the VB Cabs cabinet? Yeah. That's because they don't have an exclusivity on it. They just paid a license fee. And sure enough, the people that are making this championship cabinet, they've – same thing. They've got a license to use it in public, essentially. To use it in public that they've paid Zen to be able to do this with.
    32:52
    So further poking has established that they're not – it's not like their licensing deal. it's not that they basically went and purchased everything and loaded it for you. They're paying an additional fee.
    33:10
    There's a royalty fee on top of it of what you, the regular consumer are able to buy. Basically what that allows them to do is brand the outside of the cabinet with Zen art, if you will, and then use it in their promotional materials. They get access. I think that is part of the deal. They must get access to all the art assets that Zen has and then allow them to do stuff with it. Yeah. So I was poking around on Zen this past week,
    33:40
    and I clicked on their cabinet mode. Not that I have a cabinet, not that I have my screen oriented or anything, but for some reason I clicked on it and discovered some things. First of which, apparently you have to contact Zen, and then they will give you a cabinet key. Yes. I did not. was I kind of went into a frequently asked questions setup kind of thing.
    34:39
    And Zen's not the easiest thing in the world to set up either. You still got to set up how your screens are. You got to set up what the resolutions are.
    34:49
    It's very much like setting up your own game when you first load it up on Steam. You've got to do all that up front. Yeah, you've got to do all of that.
    34:58
    You also, So if you want the back glass, it's not in the file. Oh, okay. You have to actually get the back glass images elsewhere. And not from Zen, but it's almost like people are doing Google searches and finding them.
    35:17
    They give you some ideas of where you can find this stuff in that frequently asked question. But I was like, why isn't Zen just giving it to you? other than the fact that maybe because Zen never made a back glass.
    35:32
    Oh yeah. I mean, that, that is true as well. So I'm muting my microphone. It was like a lot of background noise happening at the moment because of the children. How dare they have fun.
    35:42
    I cannot wait until they go back to school. It has been horrible. Anyhow, I'll get back on mute and I'll unmute myself as you keep talking. Please continue. So yeah, I realized that until Zen started doing their VR tables, yeah, they had no use for a back glass. There was never any need for it. So I just kind of found that interesting. So I'm wondering if it's that users are generating their own back glasses for the Zen tables, and that's why they're not included with that. But that was really kind of shocking to me to find that out. Well, it's interesting because with FX2 VR, all the cabinets do actually have back glasses in the game. So Zen would have the assets somewhere for those. So it's unusual that... Well, I'm sure as they do more and more of the VR tables, that people will just use whatever Zen has made for the back glass.
    36:41
    They'll lift it, find it, and use that. But there's plenty of tables that obviously they haven't done in VR. and therefore Zen wouldn't have made back glasses for. Yeah, that's right.
    36:52
    Well, that is very interesting, isn't it? So you don't get everything. You get the ability to play it in a cabinet with the DMD sort of integration where it should be, but that's it. Well, and you realize, too, that even for a company like Zen, when they do cabinet mode, it's not just flicking a switch and going, ta-da, you have cabinet mode now. There's actual work that has to go into it. Yeah. actual development.
    37:19
    I know people kind of take this stuff for granted and then they see it in one company and they expect it in another.
    37:26
    It was interesting to have that revealed to me because up until this past week, I wasn't aware until I accidentally clicked on that button. Yeah. No, it does seem that there is more work than people think when it comes to cabinet mode. So yes, you're quite right. And I just don't think people get that. It's just one of those things they just take for granted. It's like, oh, it's just cabinet mode. It's just next to screens. Just make it work.
    37:58
    Two weeks worth. Go on, make it happen. The other thing that people have been screaming about this week, and I've now been, I've gotten emails about it. I've gotten messages on Steam about it. I've got messages or read posts in the Digital Pinball Fans site.
    38:16
    So Farsight came out with the new table packs or the new organization of table packs Yes And within those there are the three Stern games that were from Stern Pinball Arcade being ACDC, Mustang, and Star Trek. And Star Trek, yep. Problem being, they were put into packs of tables that people already owned all those tables of because they just went and bought all the packs prior to the license release or the license loss. The panic bought everything. Panic bought. Now, there's a pack that apparently has Star Trek and ACDC within it, and that's, I think, $20 or something of that nature, which is fine because each of those individually would have cost $10.
    39:09
    But then there's the pack that has Mustang in it, and that pack is also $20. And people are like, well, I have every single other table. I'm not paying twice the price just to get Mustang.
    39:22
    It's not worth twice the price. Right. So, of course, everybody's wondering, well, when am I going to – how do I get these? Do I have to buy them in a pack? Yeah. I can say this.
    39:36
    Be patient, folks. Just wait. Please, just wait. it took some time just to get the stores set up with the new organization of PAX I don't think Farsight is intentionally trying to hose you at all I went ahead and sent a message trying to find out is there going to be a time frame for when these tables will be available for individual purchase because people are starting to wonder.
    40:12
    But I'm not going to feel the least bit sorry for any of you that then went and double-dipped again because you couldn't wait. Just cool your heels, cool your jits, and wait. Keep your money.
    40:26
    And conversely, this hasn't come into effect yet, I don't think, but Fireside has also said, yes, they'll be crossed by if you'd purchased this stuff in Storm Pinball Arcade that it will be available in TBA. But I don't know that that's been implemented quite yet either. Probably not, no. Because I probably had to actually just get the storefronts set up first. Right. So again, cool your jets. Cool your jets.
    40:53
    Basically, what Farty did was they took what they did for the Switch since the Switch never had, other than that, one day for a few hours, never had Pinball Arcade. they are basically modeling their stores and the packs off of what they put out for the switch. If you're a switch owner, Hey, you're buying everything just the way you want to buy it. Ta-da. Um, if you're on any other platform, obviously you were doing the, the license scramble and you don't want to get hosed. Yeah. So it's just, it's, it's gotta be a matter of time. It's on the same hand, you can't buy any DLC currently for pinball arcade in steam. All you can do is download the base game. That's it. Every other, purchase you make has to be done in-app. Yeah. And I know people aren't happy about that either, but again, it's only got to be a matter of time before they post to Steam a proper storefront for the DLC. Yeah, because why would they limit it to in-app only? There's no reason they can't. I just don't know what's involved in actually provisioning packs in Steam. It must be a lot harder than we think it is.
    41:59
    Well, I mean, yeah, I really don't know. I know that setting up the stores for Microsoft and Sony can be taxing. Yeah, because it's all done with a spreadsheet, from what I remember. Right. It's pretty horrible.
    42:17
    Yeah. So, they might have been doing things to make sure they get it right at first. Then they can go in and do whatever tweaks they need to be able to do to these packs. Yeah. Yeah, again, just patience, folks. Oh, yeah. Patience. All will be fine. I know you're desperate for new-ish tables on Pinball Arcade.
    42:43
    Because it's tough. Like, the lack of monthly DLC is taking its toll on people's patience. Well, what's crazy is I don't hear anybody going, hey, Zen, you know, it's been four months since we've had a table.
    42:57
    No, they don't. They'll just go, oh, look, we know that Zen takes a while to release things, so when they release things, they'll release things.
    43:03
    Right. And that's the expectation. Because right now, we're pretty much due for an announcement from them for a new table, just based off of what their release schedule typically is. Yeah, that's right. Every three to four months, they drop a new table. Now, I will say that they dropped some rapid fire at the beginning of the year. Yeah, they did. Well, at the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, yeah, they dumped quite a few. And they have just released VR for, was it Universal? Or no?
    43:36
    Yeah, it was. It was Jaws and stuff. And Back to the Future, yeah. Back to the Future and E.T., yeah. Yep, yep. So, you know, there has been content released. But it's still kind of funny where nobody holds them to the fire for not having released anything. But boy, Fireside is like, what, they haven't released a table in two months? Oh, no, the studio is dying. Oh, no. How can they be financially successful? If you heard our podcast last week, folks, 550,000 downloads in Steam compared to 65, 64,000 downloads of Zen. in steam. Yeah. Do the math. Doing fine. Thank you very much for coming. They're doing fine. Yeah.
    44:23
    When you, when you have that many more downloads than your rival company and your rival company is a bigger studio.
    44:34
    Doing okay. Yeah. Um, yeah. So anyway, those are the, those are kind of the, uh, the hot topics this week. I just wanted to, uh, chime in. yes we're aware of them and uh that's our take on them that's our take on them just kind of like i know you're antsy for news but chill people chill just yeah just just wait particularly when it comes to buying things and fast like just wait like your money is not going anywhere no go to the stern app and play them in the stern app or you know if you already own them in the Stern app. If you already own them in the Stern app, yeah. That being said, I wouldn't be forking any money over to the Stern app at this point because things are going to be changing. Yeah, they know that they're going to be, like, we already know that that app is probably going to change dramatically, and that's why they're merging all the tables into the core app. So don't buy anything through the Stern, people like Kate, at least. Yes. And I heard there was one thread, too, where somebody was talking about Pimble Arcade and Stern app and, you know, why is there nothing and they're like then they went that's okay because Guardians of the Galaxy is going to be the next table.
    45:50
    It was like what? Really? Boy, you sure did put your stamp on that one, didn't you? Do tell. Where's this information coming from? Yeah.
    46:05
    It's like, oh really? Just drop that and leave, eh? Okay, fine. Ah, Farah. people. I don't know. I don't mind tooting our own horn when I say, folks,
    46:18
    trust us. We know Digital Pinball. We do. We are the only podcast devoted to it. We frequent the forums daily and scour through them.
    46:34
    Like I said, people contact me all the time and ask questions. We are in contact with Farsight. we are in contact with our kudo. That's not the software end of things. That's the hardware end of things. Yeah. But we've got our fingers where we need to have them. Right. So that we get advanced notes and news that, you know, we talk about. So that we can actually, you know, yeah. You know, yes, we love to speculate, but sometimes we can actually say things definitively. Because we actually know. We will always couch when we're speculating, you know, like with big waving flags. but other times we'll just be like come on this is a thing come to us for the laughs and leave with the knowledge in some cases laughs are definitely available your mileage may vary what's that? your mileage may vary but as one reviewer said I like to laugh at myself so there you go All right, we're going to draw this to a close then.
    47:45
    Make sure you go ahead and follow us on Twitter. The show is at Blockade. Jared is at Jared Morgz. I am at Shut Your Traps.
    47:55
    Be sure to also, why don't you go ahead, and if you are playing the Zen Pinball FX3, and you're going, I need some different variations on this. Have you joined my weekly tournament? If not, go into the tournaments tab in the filter, enter in Shut Your Trap, and there you will find the weekly tournament that I post. The post usually goes up on Monday, and it runs through Saturday, and so it's always a five-day tournament.
    48:27
    And it's a great deal of fun. The other week, I think I made mention where the scores were separated by less than 400,000 points. Yeah, boy, that was close. and sometimes competition is fierce sometimes there'll be somebody that just completely smokes you and everybody else and it's just like where did they come from it's a good time so make sure you go ahead and do that again search shut your trap join in on the fun visit the website oh write us an email why don't you can do that by typing in blahblahblockade at gmail.com dot com. If you have any questions, comments, things you'd like us to talk about, drop us a note there and we will certainly respond and see what we have to say. That's right.
    49:20
    Alrighty, beyond that, I guess I'll go and go see Skyscraper this week and give a report on it next. Die hard four of five. Six. Six. Oh, really?
    49:33
    You're fine if you completely ignored 5 because it is abysmal. It's forgotten. Oh my gosh. It is crap to the highest order that just makes you feel insulted that they are calling that a diehard movie. If you ever want to see the definition of Bruce Willis just doing it for the paycheck, and he does quite a few movies just for the paycheck, that one is a prime example of him just doing it for the paycheck because you can just tell he does not care he's going to just say his lines and go ah and fire a gun and that'd be the end of it there's you watch the first diehard shoot watch the first four diehards and then watch that one and it's like what the heck so what are you doing brucey yeah all right enough of that we're out of here folks thanks for listening talk to you again later next week later all right bye-bye wizard amusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter bugs easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration customization don't forget to leave a review on itunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that blockade is delivered to. We can't improve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some Gingol.