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Episode 35 :: The Electric Bat Cast

Electric Bat Cast·podcast_episode·1h 48m·held·May 8, 2026
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Electric Bat Cast discusses Beetlejuice/Pokémon launches, league/streaming best practices, and Tilted Orbit Arcade's 2026 opening.

Summary

Electric Bat Cast Episode 35 features hosts Rachel and Kale discussing upcoming earnings reports for Beetlejuice and Pokémon pinball machines, Spooky's exceptional customer service, a Beetlejuice playfield giveaway at their launch party, and extensive advice on starting pinball leagues, streaming sponsorships, and operating new arcades. The episode includes a feature on Tilted Orbit Arcade's construction progress in Massachusetts and practical guidance on acoustic controls, streaming setup, and community engagement.

Key Claims

  • Spooky sent Electric Bat Arcade a Beetlejuice playfield for a giveaway at their launch party on May 30th

    high confidence · Rachel and Kale discussing the playfield giveaway; Kale thanking Morgan at Spooky

  • Bug at Spooky provided immediate support on a Friday while setting up at MGC, diagnosing a Beetlejuice machine issue by comparing mechanics

    high confidence · Kale praising Spooky's customer service during MGC setup

  • Electric Bat Arc has Tuesday Night League at 6:30 PM and holds weekly tournaments

    high confidence · Rachel announcing upcoming events at the beginning of the episode

  • Tilted Orbit Arcade's opening has been pushed from March 2026 to October 2026, with construction starting end of May and lasting 15 weeks

    high confidence · Amy's email read aloud; construction timeline explicitly stated as mid-September finish plus setup/training time

  • Pinball streaming requires thousands of dollars in equipment investment and generates minimal direct revenue

    high confidence · Rachel and Kale's response to Brian's streaming sponsorship question

  • Weekly leagues perform better than monthly leagues for sustained engagement and participant retention

    medium confidence · Rachel's advice to Pinball MC on league structure; recommendation based on Electric Bat's experience

  • Electric Bat installed sound deadening panels above pinball machines in their Flagstaff bar location due to proximity to live music venue

    high confidence · Rachel discussing acoustic controls at their Flagstaff location vs. Phoenix location

  • Electric Bat Arcade did not have acoustic controls installed at their main Phoenix location and experiences 90+ decibel levels on league nights

    high confidence · Rachel noting her watch alerts her to 90 decibel threshold on league nights

Notable Quotes

  • “As much as my friends at Stern hate it, I got to say something good about Spooky right now... Man, kudos to Bug over at Spooky.”

    Kale @ Early in episode — Demonstrates community dynamics and willingness to praise competitors; shows Spooky's reputation for service

  • “You need to do something that's going to be very habit forming for folks. So every week is what we prefer and what we have found to work.”

    Rachel @ Mailbag segment - Pinball MC question — Core operational advice on league structure based on demonstrated success

  • “Less friction. You're going for less friction all the time in everything you do in your arcade.”

    Rachel @ League discussion — Key philosophy for venue operations and community engagement

  • “Tough love. Yeah. Like that's a good point. It costs thousands of dollars to do a good pinball stream. And you do not get thousands of dollars in return. And I don't think you should expect to.”

    Rachel/Kale @ Brian's streaming question response — Realistic industry assessment about streaming economics

  • “I'm having trouble breathing. I've got anxiety. Yes. As people who have done this before, I would like to make a brief note of how intense opening any business is.”

    Rachel @ Amy's Tilted Orbit update — Authentic reaction from experienced arcade operators acknowledging business complexity

  • “If somebody is watching a pinball stream, they most likely own at least one machine. They have a closet full of pinball shirts. That's true. Hats or whatever.”

    Rachel/Kale @ Brian's sponsorship question — Characterization of pinball audience as dedicated enthusiasts with product affinity

  • “When you have 60 pinball machines in a room, that shit is loud... You get notifications saying you shouldn't be in here. This is too loud.”

    Kale @ Acoustic controls discussion — Practical insight into venue acoustics and customer experience impact

Entities

Electric Bat ArcadecompanySpooky PinballcompanyBugpersonRachelpersonKalepersonBeetlejuicegamePokémongamePinball MCperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Beetlejuice and Pokémon (Pro and Premium) pinball machines have recently shipped and are driving earnings discussions; Spooky organizing launch events

    high · Rachel mentions 'two juggernaut' recent releases; launch party scheduled for May 30th; earnings report planned around these titles

  • ?

    community_signal: Spooky Pinball demonstrates exceptional customer service responsiveness, building goodwill in competitive market; Bug's personal attention at shows differentiates brand

    high · Kale's extended praise for Spooky's support; Bug's immediate response on Friday during MGC setup despite time constraints

  • ?

    venue_signal: Tilted Orbit Arcade in Massachusetts represents significant new venue with multi-phase construction timeline; first East Coast arcade opening with bar and food service

    high · Amy's detailed update: zoning approval, liquor license obtained, building permit pending, 15-week construction timeline, October 2026 opening target

  • ?

    operational_signal: Electric Bat advocates for weekly (vs. monthly) league formats, low entry fees ($1-2 preferred over $15), drop-in welcoming, and heavy social media promotion with personal video engagement

    high · Rachel's detailed advice to Pinball MC covering league structure, pricing, promotion, and community engagement; framed as proven operational success

  • ?

    content_signal: Pinball streaming is economically challenging; direct sponsorship unlikely for mid-level streams; community support (subs/cheers) primary revenue; high equipment and time costs

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.326

0:00
What's happening, friends, from the low desert of the great American Southwest undefeated heavyweight Twippy champions and the last Twippy podcast recipients ever? The last ones ever. Because they canceled the podcasters. Indeed. Which I'm fine with it. Yeah. We're fine. We can move on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can move on to bigger and better things. And Electric Batcast is back. You know, people have been messaging me. Where is the we recorded three weeks ago? Yes, they are. They're already like, we want to know about the earnings. I've had I've had a lot of people ask me in person and big time people, movers and shakers in the Arizona business. Not just those regular plebeians. We're talking about Phoenix business. People of note. People of note, very important people like our friend Reva. Yeah. He wants to know about the earnings report because this is a very special, this is going to be a very special earnings report because some very popular games have landed. Two juggernauts. What are they? They're Beetlejuice and Pokemon. And the interesting thing about Pokemon, we have two of them. Yes. One premium and one pro, which is going to make the earnings interesting. I've got data about all that.
1:34
Before we get into that, the earnings report, can you tell us what's coming up at the bat? Anything special?
1:43
Well, we have our Tuesday Night League every Tuesday at 630. We have a Beetlejuice launch party at noon on Saturday, May 30th. And something really cool is going on.
1:59
Bug, Luke, the crew over at Spooky, they sent us a play field, a Beetlejuice play field. Yes, we have a Beetlejuice play field in our office. And somebody is going to win that. Yes, a random person. So you don't even have to be any good at pinball. You just have to be someone who participates in pinball. That's right. And you can win that at the Beetlejuice launch party on Saturday, May 30th at noon. You don't have to be good at pinball or even have ever played pinball before to win that thing. And thank you to Morgan over there at Spooky for sending that to us. You know, I have to say, as much as my friends at Stern hate it, I got to say something good about Spooky right now.

“Fire marshal will make you take that stuff down. Day one immediately. Like they won't leave the building if you have that up.”

Kale @ Acoustic controls segment — Regulatory reality check on sound dampening materials - fire code compliance critical

  • “If we were building an arcade from scratch... If we would have thought about this ahead of time, when we opened the arcade, streaming wasn't or podcasting wasn't even a thought in our heads.”

    Rachel @ End of episode - podcast booth discussion — Retrospective on how streaming/media became integral to arcade operations

    • Tilted Orbit Arcade
    company
    Amyperson
    Brianperson
    Marco Specialtiescompany
    Papa Shot Elitegame
    IE Pinballsperson/entity
    Fox City Pinballperson/entity
    Mark Pattenodperson
    Backhand Pinballperson/entity
    Chicago Expoevent
    IFPAorganization
    MGCevent

    high · Rachel and Kale's response to Brian: sponsorship tiers $50-$1000+, but most money from community; notes thousands in equipment cost with minimal direct return

  • ?

    operational_signal: Pinball arcade noise levels (90+ dB) create customer fatigue and churn; proper fire-retardant acoustic materials expensive but effective; Electric Bat selectively deployed at Flagstaff bar, not Phoenix location

    high · Kale's detailed explanation of sound dampening importance; Rachel's watch alerts at 90+ dB on league nights; discussion of fire code compliance and material costs

  • ?

    venue_signal: New arcade operators planning multi-system venue buildouts: bathrooms, bars, kitchens, golf simulators, sound control, streaming booths; requires deep regulatory and logistics coordination

    high · Amy's project list; Kale's reaction to complexity; Rachel's discussion of differences between owning vs. operating; months of permits and construction required

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball enthusiasts (especially stream viewers) highly engaged, dedicated buyers with deep product affinity; loyal to brands and merchandise; niche but passionate market segment

    medium · Rachel notes: 'If somebody is watching a pinball stream, they most likely own at least one machine. They have a closet full of pinball shirts'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Pinball streaming setup requires 2-hour setup time with dedicated equipment, multiple chairs, microphones, batteries, troubleshooting; permanent booth installation ideal but rare

    high · Rachel and Kale discuss existing folding table setup taking couple hours; comfortable chairs and troubleshooting time needed; permanent booths enable faster execution

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball community expanding geographically with new operators and league organizers; Nevada, Massachusetts, and other regions developing independent league infrastructure

    medium · Pinball MC in Las Vegas starting new league; Tilted Orbit opening in Massachusetts; Electric Bat receiving inquiries from multiple regions

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Electric Bat Cast hosts (Rachel/Kale) positioned as mentors and advisors to emerging operators and streamers; sharing operational knowledge across regions

    high · Multiple listeners seeking operational advice; Tilted Orbit owner (Amy) met them at Chicago Expo; Electric Bat framed as successful case study

  • ?

    product_concern: Pinball machines require ongoing technical support and troubleshooting; manufacturer responsiveness critical to customer satisfaction

    medium · Kale had issue with Beetlejuice machine requiring Bug's diagnostics; described as 'not a big issue' but required expert intervention

    • 2:40
    They're going to cancel me for this. Man, kudos to Bug over at Spooky. We had an issue with our Beetlejuice machine, not a big issue, and I was messaging him about it, and this was on a Friday. Yes. I didn't even expect – I did not expect a response, especially an immediate response because he's at MGC setting up at the time. Right. Not right now. This is the past we're talking about. Yeah. He's setting up his booth, doing all kinds of stuff, hanging out with people. And, you know, as soon as you show up to a show and you're somebody as popular as Buck, everybody's talking to you and everything. He immediately got back to me, took apart one of the machines that was on the floor to compare that mech to the mech we have. And we discussed it. We chatted about it. Like, who else is going to do that? Basically no one. Those guys are so great. Those guys are amazing. Thank you so much, Spooky Crew.
    3:50
    EBA150 is the free shipping code for Marco Specialties. Yes. How does that work? If you order $150 for the pinball parts and you type in EBA150 at checkout, you get free shipping anywhere in the continental United States. You get the hookup. And also, we've been talking a lot about this machine, the basketball machine, the Papa Shot Elite, specifically that machine. Papa Shot makes a bunch of different machines. Yeah. Lots of stuff for the home. Yeah, a lot of cool stuff for the house that's very inexpensive. Yeah, yeah. If you're listening to this, they have a machine that is 50 bucks. Yeah. And we have it. We have that in our house. It's in our kitchen. Yeah. So it covers the whole spectrum. You don't have to be operating to enjoy a Papa Shot. Go check out their website. But if you do want a Papa Shot Elite, Marco Specialties has them and you can't use the free shipping code, but they will they do a delivery. They have a delivery and setup option, which is very important for busy operators out there that might not have, you know, the couple of hours it takes to assemble one of those. They just want it delivered and put on the scene. Call Marco for that sales at marcospecialties.com. And we should also note, not sponsored by Papa Shot. No. Just stoked about the product. Yeah, yeah. They're not giving us any money. And, yeah, we just love the product. And we want to see more of these machines on the scene, on the streets. And we want operators to be successful. And this is one way to be successful. Yes. Diversify. Yeah. Yes. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. Okay. We're going to get into the mailbag and, man, we have a cornucopia of messages from people. No, well, speaking of Papa Shot, we have heard from like 20 people who have said, we got a Papa Shot because of you guys. We got multiple Papa Shots because you said it was so great. That's just people we're hearing from. Yeah, and we're going to the mall with all our money and buying all the things we want. Yes. From the earnings of the popper shot. So if like 20 people have gotten in touch with us, that must mean at least 100, two, three, maybe 300 people have purchased popper shots because of us. Five thousand. Well, yeah, we'll have to ask the company about that. But it's a cool game and we're having fun with it. Let's get on to the the mailbag. We have a lot of questions here. Great questions, too. You added all these. Well, you added some of them. This is from Pinball MC via Discord. If you want to join our Discord, go to electricbattercade.com, click the podcast tab, and then there's a link in there where you can join our Discord. Hey guys, I'm based in Las Vegas. I have run several tournaments in the past, but I am now looking to start a league inspired by the amazing work you have done with the EB League. I was wondering if you could share some insight on how the EB League first started. I would be very grateful for any tips you might have on how to launch, run and promote a new league. I have already created a website, though I am waiting for location approval before submitting it to the IFPA. Thank you for your time and for your inspiration. What do you have for us, Rachel? Well, that's super nice. First off, I looked at Pinball MC's website and it's very clear and I appreciate that a lot.
    7:30
    When we originally looked at it, it was a monthly league. So it was going to be like a six event, six tournament series spread out over six months. And my comments about that was that is just way too long to keep people engaged. Right. You need to do something that's going to be very habit forming for folks. So every week is what we prefer and what we have found to work. Weekly seems to do better than monthlies, although that's usually reserved for your larger tournaments. But for leagues, weekly is best. And that's what they're doing over there. And one thing I noticed is that it's like a $15 entry fee. I'm not sure if that covers your games. It does state that it covers your IFPA fee, but I don't know if that's CoinDrop as well.
    8:23
    I would make that clear to people regardless of this guy and everybody else. You and I have talked about league fees before and how both of us think the lower the better. You just want a very low barrier to entry because what you're trying to do is recruit new people. And that's how you're growing a league is making it fun and comfortable and easy for people who've never played pinball, who've never joined a league. Like start thinking like $15, like, you know, that $15 that you could do a lot of other things with $15. But if it's like $1, $2, something less expensive, it's, you know, no big deal. Yeah. Less friction. You're going for less friction all the time in everything you do in your arcade. The least friction is the best possible way. 100%. Do you have anything to add to that about leagues? You talk more about the promotion because you are the person behind that. Yeah, I will. But I want to get into this. I was wondering if you could share some insight on how the EB League first got started. Oh, well, we started, I don't even really remember if we started before COVID or during COVID.
    9:44
    Well, it was the league as we see it now, I think started right after COVID, but you were having tournaments as soon as the arcade opened. I don't know if it was a league though. I think we were doing monthlies. You were doing monthlies. And we switched over during COVID. We started doing like just self-reporting high score stuff. Yeah, we had these weird leagues because they didn't want people to touch each other or even be in the same city. Yeah. So the league as it started then as a weekly league started whenever we were able to open back up.
    10:24
    And and it's grown consistently ever since. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I kind of remember our league getting started first. As soon as they dropped these draconian laws about they didn't want people staring at each other in the same room and you were able actually to get in there and the IFPA was like, hey, let's all play pinball. If you're allowed, do your thing. Yeah. There were still – I make light of it now, but it was a scary situation. There were people that were really worried. Everybody was worried about dying. Yeah. But we were like, we don't care. Let's just let's do this. And I think we were one of the first leagues to crank back up in Arizona. I think we were one of the first leagues to crank up in the country because Arizona, you know, lifted their restrictions much earlier, which gave us a funny kind of jumpstart. It did, because people that wanted to play didn't have a lot of options. They were itching to play. People were freaking out. They were in, you know, and everybody came in, they wore their masks and we had a good old time.
    11:32
    As far as promotions go, promoting a new league, I mean, Facebook and Instagram. I mean, I think that's the way to go. You know, a lot of people say, well, spread your information across everything, TikTok and Twitter or X, whatever it's called now. That's fine if you want to go that far. I think you I find it to be overwhelming for some people.
    12:00
    And the great thing I do everything through Instagram because you can cross post. It actually makes things quick. You know, just do it in Instagram and it'll share to Facebook. But monitor both networks, you know, respond. Be sure you respond to comments no matter what the even if somebody is just being a smart ass and, you know, kind of being an asshole. You know, like, you know, interact with that person, you know, to kind of like bring the temperature down. You will you will get those people. But most of the most of the comments are going to be like super positive. And when they are, you know, don't just always just thumbs up or put a heart like take time to talk to this person that's taking their time out of their day to respond to your post. Make sure. I still see arcades making this this mistake where they might not even say where the tournament is. You're expected to know where the tournament is if it's at the arcade. That's fine. You know, if we say, hey, tournament electric bad arcade, of course, of course, we don't have to say where it is, where the tournament is going on is important. I still see some arcades not telling you what time the tournament is. They assume it's in the IFPA listing, so you'll look it up. Right. Again, this goes back to friction. Like you want people to have that information straight away. 100%. On your social post, be sure it's big as hell.
    13:34
    Kale's rules. The date, you know, the month and the number of the day, the number of the time with the colon. The day of the week, I would. The day of the week. It's sometimes cool to say this tournament might be two hours long, this tournament might be three hours long, and then let people know how much it's going to cost. Yes. Just your basic stuff. You don't have to be flashy. I know a lot of people are using AI now to do this kind of stuff, especially people that don't know how to open up Photoshop or Canva. Nobody likes that. Canberra. Yeah, a lot of people do. As viewers? Yeah, as viewers, they don't even know. I think people more and more every day are really just catching on to that. I see so many, and maybe it's because of who I'm friends with and follow and what I do. You follow a lot of artists, a lot of people in touch, and I've noticed the common people. In bars. Yeah. With flyers. The serfs don't seem to care. But just keep in mind, if you are using AI to do your ads, you're going to get some negative comments. But I don't know how you get around that if you're not a graphic designer. I would get around it by turning the camera towards yourself and saying, hi, this is Rachel. I'm at Electric Bat and you can come over and, you know, you many people here have seen the videos of me on the Internet and some of them are quite rough. But the information is there. And, you know, again, like I you are social. I'm socially awkward. Doesn't matter. The information is out there. Right. And that is a great segue. And that's what I was heading to. Everybody can turn your phone around and talk to the phone, you know, and that that is that there's that human interaction. You know, you can tell them, hey, we're going to have a great time. It's easy. You know, bring your buck. You know, you might need five bucks in tokens to play the games.
    15:44
    And then they're going to that face they see on social media is going to be the face they see when they show up to sign up for the tournament. Yeah, there's some there's a lot of subconscious things going on with this. And but making people comfortable. I mean, just imagine something if you were going to do something that you had never done before or weren't sure about. The more information, like the more you know what to expect when you arrive, the more comfortable you'll be, the more likely you will be to show up and then enjoy it once you do show up. And it's cool. Like that's the person that I know from the Internet, right? You already feel that you have some connection with somebody who's posting videos of themselves. Thank you, Pinball MC, for the question. Hopefully we can get to Vegas sometime and come hang out with you at your awesome league. Yeah, that'd be fun. Not that far away. As long as they don't mind drop ins. Most all leagues don't mind drop-ins, right? They don't, and it says specifically on the website there that drop-ins are welcome. I love that.
    16:44
    That's how you grow a league. That is how you grow a league. If you have any other questions, please let us know. I hope we answered everything. From Brian via email, hello from Western Massachusetts. You ever been to Massachusetts? No. Have I? I can't remember. What's in Massachusetts? That you would have been to? Yeah, what cities? I mean, like Salem. Oh, the witch place. That's where we would go if we went to Massachusetts. We might need to make a trip. Yeah. So Brian says, I've been doing live streaming for pinball leagues, tournaments, and tutorials on the side, and I've thought about reaching out to possible sponsors to assist the running of a stream. The equipment upgrades, time invested, etc. is a lot more than people realize. The last league finals I ran was eight hours of streaming. That doesn't count for setup, teardown and testing. What do you think good rates would be? Should I price per month or per league season? Thanks for everything. So he's talking about sponsorships for a stream. Like dollars.
    17:56
    Man. Okay. So first of all, I would say I don't know what your stream, but get in touch with us and let us know what your stream is. Did you put a link in there or anything? I don't recall. Okay. First of all, you have to be kind of popular. And I didn't want to say that at first because he might be popular. I just don't know. All it says is Brian. You have to have some kind of following, which is hard as shit in pinball because like, you know, we see it on Twitch all the time, YouTube streaming also.
    18:33
    Pinball is not very popular, you know, but some kid playing Roblox could have like 10,000 people watching them. So that doesn't leave you, you don't have a whole lot to offer people that want to sponsor, right? You usually see the big sponsors deal with the bigger streams. The IE Pinballs, the Fox City Pinballs. Fox Cities, Mark Pattenod, Backhand Pinball. Yeah. And the big events, right? We're getting at least hundreds of people watching. Correct.
    19:05
    I think most of your money is probably going to come from the community as it should, just like with an arcade. Mm hmm. Through, you know, keeping the chat entertained. So they're giving you bits, cheers, all that good stuff, subscriptions.
    19:26
    And I don't know if you're on YouTube or Twitch, you might be multi streaming. But, you know, be sure your chat knows that they can support you for free if they have a prime account on Twitch. You know, just connect the platforms. But I have we have both seen the spec sheets for like sponsorship for big tournaments. And it starts out like the first tier is like a couple of hundred bucks. And I think you just get your logo sometimes on the stream and then it goes up to like five hundred bucks where your logo stays on the screen the whole time. And you get some maybe some other mentions. And I've seen a tier where it's like a thousand dollars where you get your logo constantly on the stream and then you get a banner behind the commentary. And then even like commercials, like for commercial breaks. We don't see people paying for that very often. We also see it as low as like 50 bucks. Yeah. And I wouldn't as as Electric Bat, I wouldn't do that as a way to market us. I think we have. So. So you mean it like if we would sponsor a stream? Right. Like if we we we are unlikely to pay to sponsor a stream for the benefit of our own brand recognition. The reason we would do it is really just as a community thing to kick some money to somebody that's doing something cool. And that goes along with what you're saying with like your viewers, your community. Those are the people that are more likely to be supporting you because like you said, there's just there's just not that much marketing. There's not that much viewership, not that much to gain by running commercials on a on an average to, you know, middling to even above above average pinball stream. The one good thing about people watching pinball streams is they're dedicated. They are. If somebody is watching a pinball stream, they most likely own at least one machine. They have a closet full of pinball shirts. That's true. Hats or whatever. So basically all you need to do is like, you know, you can email these people that do like apparel for like pinball stuff. Maybe, I mean, people like Marco Specialties, Pinball Life, just reach out to them and then tell them what you do and if they would like to be a part of it. And then structure your, you know, pricing structure accordingly.
    22:12
    That's all I have for that. Okay. And also, yes, we realize that pinball streaming is insanely expensive and time consuming. Like it just is. And for now, that's how it is. Yeah. And we feel you on that. Yeah. Like that's a good point. It costs thousands of dollars to do a good pinball stream. And you do not get thousands of dollars in return. And I don't think you should expect to. Right.
    22:37
    Tough love. Yeah. Do it for fun. Yeah. We have a question from Amy via email. Hi, Rachel and Kale. Well, it's been a while since I last wrote. And since we met in person at Chicago Expo last October, I had hoped when we met at Expo that the Tilted Orbit Arcade would be open in March 2026. But we are now looking at fall 2026. That's how it always happens. I thought that that was actually a pretty good timeline. Seven months, I think, is what she says. Yeah, that's actually really good. Yeah, because usually construction, yes. You're doing a great job, Amy. It took us two years and like $50,000 to get air conditioning. To get just an additional unit. Yeah. Just one additional unit. All these regulations are insane. Okay, so back to Amy. That said, we have made real progress that makes the fall opening realistic. One, the town finally accepted the approval and zoning permit needed to change the building's use from a market to an arcade with a bar and food. Two, we got a liquor license. Three, we're submitting the building permit next week. The renovation schedule, which includes adding a few walls, a third bathroom, a bar, a light kitchen, and a golf simulator room, plus all finishes, is within 15 weeks and will start at the end of May. That's awesome. They're doing a lot of stuff. Amy's a smart cookie. Amy's great. Amy's going to be successful. It was a pleasure to meet her. No matter what. Can I stop you right there? Please. Just reading that list of the stuff that she has done and is doing, how does that make you feel? Like in your chest, what are you feeling right now? I'm having trouble breathing. I've got anxiety. Yes. As people who have done this before, I would like to make a brief note of how intense opening any business is.
    24:45
    But the differences between owning an arcade, because it's a question we get a lot. People that want to own an arcade versus people that want to operate. And I think, wow, operating in somebody else's business where someone like Amy, who has all of her ducks in a row, is doing all of this hard prep work, so much less anxiety. And it'd be so great to work with somebody versus having to build all that from scratch. Unless that's, you know, if you are the type of person that can and is willing to do that. So what we're saying is, Amy, we hope you can handle the heat. Move on to Phoenix, Arizona.
    25:29
    Come out here. Partner with us. We're going to partner up. So all of this building, 15 weeks, and we'll start at the end of May. That puts us at mid-September for finishing construction, but then we'll need a few weeks to set up all the games, Stock the Bar Kitchen and the Game Service Repair Area. Man, she just thought about everything. Holy crap.
    25:54
    We'll need to train staff and prepare for a grand opening. So I think Tilted Orbit's opening will be October 2026.
    26:02
    It's a bummer that it's seven months later than I had hoped. But with the progress we have made now, I can see the path to opening. Now, there was no question in there, but you wanted me to read this so people would understand the difficulty, like everything you have to think about when opening an arcade. Yeah. You don't move into, you don't just like call the phone number on the window, move your stuff in, and next week open up. Yeah. A lot of regulation, a lot of things have to be done. She has it figured out. It looks like they just set up a landing page.
    26:41
    And she sent us this question about like a week ago or something. It might be more than a landing page now. So everybody go check it out. TiltedOrbitArcade.com. And I think she's opening in Massachusetts, if I recall correctly. So it's another East Coast. Go visit her when she opens.
    26:59
    Who else was from Massachusetts? That first. Oh, the streamer guy. Yeah Maybe they know each other They might know each other They can hook up Go stream with Amy Oh you know that funny because I think one of her questions is about that She may already know Brian
    27:15
    Some questions have come up that I would love your feedback on. Did you install acoustic controls in your bar or do you recommend installing them?
    27:26
    And it goes into more money about that, but that's basically the, I mean, more context, but that's basically the question. So we have in when we open the bar in Flagstaff and the and the reason for that, we we added a coup or sound deadening panels to the ceiling above the pinball machines because the pinball machines were so close to the bar. Yes. And this was going to be the main bar supporting a giant rock venue. Right. The pinball was ancillary, so we did not want it to be obnoxious. Right. So we did do it in that situation at the flagship electric bat arcade.
    28:11
    We did not. We did not. And we she mentions that she has, you know, polished cement floors like what we have. And there is a lot of sound bouncing. And on league nights, my watch gives me a every damn an alert that I've. I'm hitting 90 decibels and it's. Why don't I get that notification? It knows where your bass hearing level. Yeah, it's like, well, this isn't. It's not going to bother me. Yeah.
    28:42
    I don't think it's important to do right away, but I think it is important once you have everything in place. If you feel like it's too loud, then be ready to do something that's wonderful that she's already thought about it. So she's probably already researched some options for different kinds of acoustic paneling or different things that you can do. Yeah, I think you should definitely be prepared to do that. But I agree with her, like, wait until you have everything else in place because there's going to be so many moving parts and so many things that that change, even though she's thought about like ninety nine percent of what is going to come up. And I'll give my professional opinion coming from the music business.
    29:24
    It is better if you do that in any situation, whether you have a restaurant, arcade, definitely a live soundstage. It is always better to add sound dampening panels to the walls, to the ceiling, everywhere, everywhere you can. It's actually better to have carpet, but I would never want to have carpet in our arcade. It would be nasty.
    29:56
    The concrete floors are perfect for us. The problem is proper sound dampening material is expensive. The reason why, if you want to meet code in most states, it cannot be flammable. Because a lot of people will buy like the cheap egg crate stuff like Matrix stuff and then like maybe spray painted black. The fire marshal will make you take that stuff down. Day one immediately. Like they won't leave the building if you have that up. They want to see receipts and the packaging to make sure this is fire retardant. Yeah, save that stuff. That is important because we have had situations where I've had to show fire marshals. This happened at ZapCon at a show that some of our materials there were actually fire retardant, not just me saying they were. So the good stuff, the good thick stuff that actually works is very expensive. That's one thing you need to think about.
    30:59
    That's all I have. Okay, great. But it's, man, it sounds so much better. We, you want, you want me to go into some backstory here about sound dampening? I love it. So, you know, I used to play in a band. Yeah. And we used to play at this venue in Murrells, South Carolina, that was run by audio engineers.
    31:23
    This soundstage was unbelievable, but it was like you were in a padded room. It was almost like a joke. Like when we showed up, it's like you're in an insane asylum. But it sounded like a studio, like there was zero reverberation. So all of your effects came off of the board. It was absolutely beautiful. And it was very, very few bars and venues are going to go through the trouble to do this. The only reason they did it is because it was run by three audio engineers and they understood the importance of sound dampening. I've been to venues that have been operating for like decades that still do not understand the importance of sound and eliminating reverberation. What happens with your customers and the fans of bands that come in, this applies to an arcade too. When you have 60 pinball machines in a room, that shit is loud. Yes. You get notifications saying you shouldn't be in here. This is too loud. But that much noise creates fatigue that your customers don't even realize is going on. This also happens in restaurants. They just feel like leaving. Yeah. Not because it's too loud. It's just like, well, it feels like it's time to go. So it is smart to think about something like this, but it's also very expensive. So there you have it.
    32:53
    And you can always start with something, add more. Oh, yeah. It's not an all or nothing venture. Add a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. And wait till all your stuff's in place. See what it's see what it sounds like. There you go. Question number two. You just did an episode where you talked about streaming and podcasting. We were just talking about streaming. It wasn't even just an episode. It was just like minutes ago. I wanted Tilted Orbit to be a social hub for people who love playing games. Excuse me. And an active supporter of the New England pinball scene. But streaming and podcast have been an afterthought. Although I think they are necessary components. You mentioned you have your own streaming setup. We can hire local people who have setups, so I'll do that. My questions are about the booth setup. One, do you have a dedicated podcast commentary booth at the arcade, and can you describe it? Two, should we do that, and then I'll go to the other ones? Okay. There you go, number one. Do we have a dedicated booth and stuff? No. No, I wish we did. We do not. And that means that every time Kale streams, we have to set that up. And it's a couple of hours, really, to get everything up and running and taped down. You can set it up much quicker than that, but like the fine tuning. I can set up and be ready to go within an hour. I don't like that. I don't want to be rushed. And if there's issues, you want time. There's always issues. Yeah. There's always issues in troubleshooting, no matter how long you've been doing this. You can ask IE Pinball, Tom Graff, all of them. You always run into some kind of issue.
    34:32
    But I have to we have a folding table. I bring out a big folding table, have two comfortable chairs. I think it's very important to have comfortable chairs, you know, all the microphones, the rig, make sure batteries are charged. There's a lot of stuff going on. If we would have thought about this ahead of time, when we opened the arcade, streaming wasn't or podcasting wasn't even a thought in our heads.
    35:03
    If we were building an arcade from scratch right now, I would have a streaming booth to where everything's just set up and you just have to turn the power on. Yeah, I would love that. I think I would like, you know, I would put a like a little little hole in the office to where you could oversee like a like a raised area where you could like oversee the arcade, the room where we stream in. So the commentary booth, the people could see live what's going on and still like, but you're sitting in another room. Maybe we do that sometime. Yeah. Just cut a hole in the wall. I've already I've been thinking about that. Well, hey, let's do it. Yeah. So we do not we have to every time we stream, we have to set it up for podcasting.
    35:47
    We this is like the most professional thing we've done because we used to do this in our bedroom. Yeah, that's where all the books were. You see the ones with the books. That's our bedroom. Yeah. So then we came in here to make excellent sound dampening, by the way. It was the best sound. A library is the best possible. Absolutely. That was great.
    36:11
    So then we decided to this is an addition to the house you added on a few years ago. And it is we it was used as you built it for the whole pinball machine, the whole pinball machines. But now we only have two pinball machines and some synthesizers. We used to have a drum kit in here. We moved that to Rachel's other studio that's outside.
    36:35
    And this became the podcasting studio. Yes. So that's what this is. So we're in a different room in our house. And it stays like this all the time and it's great. Yes. I can see very much why you want to have the streaming permanent set up at the arcade. The second question is, do you have one booth set up for both uses? No, but that's a great idea. Yes, do that. Yeah, do that. That would be awesome. Get in touch with Brian. Yeah. I don't know how. Is he in the Discord? If Amy and Brian both get in the Discord and hit each other up, then you've got a streamer and an arcade owner and there you go. Feel each other out. It sounds like a match made in heaven. Number three, how big is the footprint and what equipment do you need for it?
    37:26
    The streaming setup is a large fold-out table. Like a six-foot table. Yeah, like a six-foot table. Everything sits on there. We have lights, microphones, cameras, action. If you want to see the equipment that we use, I put a link on our website, electricbattercade.com, and I think it just says streaming rig. Click on that. It's not very well organized yet, and if you've never done any streaming before, I don't think it's going to make any sense. I need to go in there and add photos and better descriptions. But that is up there right now and has links to equipment. And of course, Amy, you can reach out to us if you have any more in-depth questions, because if you look at that list of equipment, it doesn't make you. You've looked at it and you said, I don't even know what's going on here. This is too much. So and the other thing is, is you've got like transmitters and receivers and all that sort of stuff. So the overall footprint of the entire streaming area, including where people sit, is probably like 10 feet wide by 6 feet deep. We've got like some barricade in front so people don't back up into the table while they're playing pinball. And they will. They do. I put caution tape everywhere.
    38:46
    Most people don't see that and still trip over things and faceplant into our lights and all kinds of stuff and bump our cameras. So that's going to happen. Be prepared for all that. We have a whole other question. I have to choose a POS system. This is a pain in the ass. Yeah, you call it a POS system. I don't even know if this is a good question, but... I have an answer for this. Okay, but the POS systems, they're all a pain in the ass and they all have pros and cons. I have to choose a POS system to use in the arcade. We have event slash room rental space and we will take online reservations, event scheduling and payments and in-person payments and require inventory management for the kitchen, bar, game slash repair service, merchandise, etc. I have done research and I haven't found a single provider that meets all of our needs, but I haven't talked to any POS companies yet. Do you have any feedback on what to think about when picking a POS setup? Any pitfalls or issues to try to avoid? POS, point of sale.
    40:00
    So I think what we do is probably what you're going to end up doing. We use Squarespace for our website and they have all of the financial, what do you call that? Invoicing. All the invoicing, all of the, so your reservations and your invoicing and all of the things related to that for like repair, all of those are going to, for us, are done through our Squarespace account. All of our bar stuff, our in-person sales, any inventory management is going to be done through the in-house POS. And like you said, there's a variety of pros and cons, fees, percentages, and you just kind of have to look at what those are and what do you think is going to be the best for you and choose that. But I think that you'll find that your life, I don't think there is one that's integrated in what you're looking for. If somebody out there knows of one, please let both us and Amy know because we just use Squarespace for our invoicing and reservations and all of that other stuff. And then all of our in everything that takes place physically in the location of electric bat happens on our other POS. And a lot of people use square toast, all those different things we have.
    41:20
    We're using spot on, which we are using because the bar set that up before I took it over. And so I'm just using that because it's there.
    41:32
    Very good. I don't know a whole lot about the POS systems, but I know I hear bar staff complaining. All the time. And you hear me going like, why does this not work the way you think it does? Even at other restaurants and all that stuff. Yes. Find an industry where someone is like just real satisfied with their POS. I would like it is just – it's something – it's like the internet companies, right? They've got – like you have to use it and people are just going to be consistently – all you're going to hear is, This effing sucks. Why can't they just do this in a way that works? And that's stating it nicely. Yes.
    42:10
    One more question from Amy Love. I love in capital letters. The games earnings report. Well, let me tell you something, Amy, you're going to be excited because I think we have the best earnings report in the history of the electric bad cast coming at the end of this show. So stay tuned. I love the data and hearing your commentary on the games. I will collect and analyze so much data from the arcade and I want to share it. I am wondering, would you be okay with me doing an earnings report for Tilted Orbit on a regular podcast? Please. Yes, please. We would love it. We would love that. And Amy, you're so organized and amazing. I think this could become a thing. Yeah. We're like. She she starts doing her podcast. She starts doing our earnings report. Ask other arcades, hey, let's share earnings reports. And so, you know, you know, we do our thing. And so you want to like do what we're doing and then bump it up a notch. So maybe you like find an arcade on the West Coast. You have one on the East Coast. Find one in, you know, the middle America, you know, find one in the South and do like a compilation. That would be very cool. The reason I think this would be cool is I hear a lot of different stuff from arcades depending on what area they are.
    43:43
    And what their player composition is, if it's more tournament players or more casual players. Absolutely. Our friend AJ, I'm at FlipperCoin, he was on the Wedgehead podcast talking about operating and talking about how like the same – he didn't mention us, I don't think, but like the same thing that works for us where like when we put a new Stern on the floor, those first couple of months, it crushes. It absolutely crushes. He does not see the same thing. I think he was talking about his Jaws never really did very well, so he ended up selling it. It was something like that, a game that's very popular for us. So, Amy, I think it would be great if you could compile your earnings reports with some other ones, and we get a national earnings report from different arcades. Yeah, that would be cool. I think it would be great. And anybody, look, we have not trademarked this. I don't even think we can. We'll want to. Right. Just sharing this information is so much fun. So please, anybody, we want to hear earnings reports from all over the place. I can tell you that there's a lot of data nerds in Pinball, myself and Amy included, and we would all love to hear more data. It's just fun. Right, right. Absolutely.
    45:04
    And I think that's it for Amy. Man, she's doing great. Good luck to you, Amy. Can't wait to hear more about how it's going. Thanks for sharing your time and thoughts, Amy.
    45:18
    That was really good. You know, it wouldn't be you think I'm about to talk about gutter ghoul, but I'm not. I did think that. Yeah. It also wouldn't be an electric bad cast if we didn't hear from Pinball Hans. He would be a great person to get earnings reports from. And I think, yeah. Oh, yeah. This needs to happen. Doesn't it? Somebody needs to do it. So, Pinball Hans is in our Discord. Question for a future episode. Well, here we are. Here's the future. We are in the future right now. How have you settled on the perfect mix of pins? Percentage of early solid state, 80s classics, DMDs, modern games, etc. And has the percentages changed over the years and why? Thanks, Pinball Hans. P.S. I bought two Papa Shots for one of my locations because of you and everyone loves them.
    46:20
    There you go. I'm going to have to ask for some money. Yeah. You know what? We said we weren't sponsored by Papa Shot, but we feel like we should be about to be. Come on, Papa Shot. You know, I think the arcade has always had about the same percentages as it grew from 13 games. James to 66 on the floor. It's always been a fairly even mix of early mids and moderns. Now, you have always taken into account whether a certain game would be good for tournament play. Is that correct? Yes. I always feel like nearly all of the games on the floor, just because of the size of our tournaments, needs to be a tournament playable game, meaning it's reliable, it doesn't play for three hours, so forth.
    47:14
    So that is one consideration, but we always strive to have a good balance of fast playing games and slow playing games. This is key. So we can alternate rounds of fast and slow. And that doesn't necessarily mean early versus modern because there are some, you know, Black Knight's a great example of a fast playing modern game. You're talking about the Stern, Black Knight Sword of Rage. Thank you. So we do keep that in mind as we grow the arcade and we think about what we're going to put on the floor and what to take back to the back. We do try and keep that balance because it is imperative that our tournaments run smoothly and reasonably quickly given just there's a lot of gears moving. So for people who might be wanting to start a league and don't understand this concept, could you get more into it? Like on the back end in match play, what are you doing? You're creating separate banks. Yes, I have a how many how many banks? So the way I do it is I just have A games and B games. I just have it separated into fast playing and slow playing. And I think there's about 32 of each. And what do you mean by fast and slow? So like in fast, there would be games that are like played very quickly. Is that over quickly? So when you think about classics, they tend for the most part to be over quickly. And modern games tend to run a little bit longer. And you can look at your game data and see what the average ball time, all of that information is and just going to tweak those banks accordingly. But so we run, we alternate fast playing rounds and slower playing rounds. So that way you have people finishing roughly at the same time. You don't want people having to wait around for 30 minutes after they've finished their game of Charlie's Angels for somebody to finish their game of Godzilla. I was about to use those exact examples. Really?
    49:13
    Yeah. So you want to have a you just want to have similar you want people to be having similar experiences, right? If you're playing a long playing game, you want the other people to be playing long playing games. You don't ever want a player to feel rushed because they know that there's 100 people waiting for their ball to be finished. That's not a good feeling as a player. Right. So just all around, it makes for a much more smooth running tournament if you're able to have fast playing and slow playing games divided and then just have everybody on all of one, all of the other. I think that's great. I think we answered Hans's questions. If not, Hans, please get in touch with us on Discord and ask us another question. Even if we answered it properly in a two-year… We just like hearing from you, Hans. Yeah, we love hearing from you, Hans. I hope everything's doing well. Hopefully we can make it out to your place someday.
    50:11
    What is it called? Hyperco Beer? I think that's what it is. Man, I cannot remember. I think it is. Come into Discord and remind us. What people's.
    50:20
    All right, here's a great question from Inclined to Play via Discord. Inclined. It's an incline. It's a pun. Yeah, it's very good. Or pinball. I like that. Yeah. Would be curious about some stories of getting games, something like maybe traveling to interesting places or doing whatever to get a certain title. We have some stories. We do? Then go.
    50:47
    This doesn't happen as much as it used to, but we used to get messages early in the morning from a friend of ours, a player. Should we mention him? I don't know if he wants to be mentioned or not. No, I wouldn't mention him. But he keeps up. He gets notifications if any game goes on sale in – The continental United States. This is the whole country. But it's like Arizona, Southern California, New Mexico, any place we can drive to. I have gotten some as far as the East Coast. He's telling us about games all over. And you'll get these messages at like 430 in the morning. And there's been there's only been one time when you woke me up and you said, I don't have any time. It's like a movie. I have no time to explain. Get your shoes on and get in the car. We have to go. And that was for Tales from the Crypt. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. And so we go to this guy's house to pick up Tales from the Crypt. And it's like a race. Like you have to have cash. As anyone who's ever bought a pinball machine. Mm hmm. And I know you don't think of the valley here, the Valley of the Sun, beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, as a hotbed for pinball and arcade. It is. There are a ton of collectors in this area. You know, you hear about the Pacific Northwest. You hear about Southern California here by the New York area. And of course, Ohio, lots of stuff going on there. But there's a there's a huge bunch of collectors around here. So when the bat signal goes out and there is a choice game for sale, you have to have cash on you. Yeah, there's no time to go to the bank. No, because you might have to do this early in the morning and you have to get there first.
    52:43
    And also, don't lowball people. Yeah, just don't. I didn't mean this to turn into a lesson about buying games, but this is all key. So we went to this guy's house. He was a horror fan and had this amazing room. Horror. Right. Yeah. Had this amazing room with all of this horror memorabilia. And do you remember which games were there? I think it was like Halloween. Maybe Freddy. Freddy Krueger, Nightmare on Elm Street, Tales from the Crypt, whatever. So he was gracious enough to sell us his Tales from the Crypt. And we took it back to the arcade and operated there forever. Sure. So that those are that happened. That does not happen anymore. For one reason, we don't have room for any more machines and we're not like it has to be a game like I would do this for an inexpensive frontier. Yes. Wink, wink. There's a very there's there's a list of like three to five games that I would because we have to get rid of one. Are you going to tell the story about Andromeda and Freefall when we went and picked those up? Absolutely. But I wanted to there was one other time that's notable where you first of all, we've we've never we have never traveled more than like an hour and a half to pick up a game. You know usually it was something that was that was nearby So this one time I can remember the machine I think it was like a blackout or something like that You said hey there a machine for sale Let go check it out We did not know this person We went to this house and it was like dark. He wouldn't turn any lights on. And it was like we went into this room that just had compute like PCs and some arcade machines and video games and stuff all in this room. We had to walk around a maze of it, and he would not turn the lights on. And you were like, I want to get out of here, but I don't want to be awkward. And I'm like, what the hell is going on here? And it wasn't a nice neighborhood, but finally we got to see the game, and he pulled like a towel off of it. And you immediately looked at the play field and was like, oh, okay, well, you know what? We need more time to think about this, but I knew what that meant. Yeah, thank you for your, you know, this is. Do you remember this? Very well. Yeah, I remember this. It was creepy. Yeah. And I'm someone who likes creepy and even creepy situations sometimes. This wasn't like. Do you remember how weird it was? Like when he revealed the game, he disappeared. He went to some other room. Where the hatchets are kept. Yeah. And I'm like, dude, this is. Okay. Anyway, we survived. Long story short, we survived that. And the game was pretty. Like it was roached. It's a lot of work, including a new play field. Yeah, this thing was roached.
    55:41
    So I think the coolest experience we ever had getting a machine was the – well, you've already spoiled what machines they are. Andromeda and what was the other one? Freefall. We got an email from a very nice lady who said, I have some pinball machines and other parts and pieces at the house that I would like to get rid of. And she didn't want to deal with a man.
    56:12
    And she said this explicitly. Yeah. Like, I looked you up. I found that there was a woman who was doing this stuff and I felt comfortable talking to you. Right, because she lived in the middle of the desert out in the middle of nowhere by herself.
    56:29
    So we didn't jump on it immediately because it was kind of odd. And plus it was like an hour and a half away. Yeah, in the middle of nowhere. There was no reason for us to be in this area other than picking up a machine from a lady we just met on the Internet.
    56:44
    So we finally go there. It was this beautiful log cabin style house in the middle of the desert surrounded by javelina.
    56:54
    We have this shoot. I think if you don't know what javelina, they're wild pigs. They're basically. And usually when they have the babies, they're very violent and will attack you. These did not. These came up to you like. With their brand new little tiny baby javelinas. Yeah, these things will come up to you. They were so cute. Yeah, like there were dogs or something. We had to like kick him out of the way to get in the house. So we finally get in the house. She's like, here are the machines. And I actually had never heard of Freefall or Andromeda. Oh, but your face lit up. We are getting these. Yeah. And I'm like, what? Why do you want these games? She's like, trust me. They also had a volcano. Gottlieb Volcano. And we knew somebody that was looking for one of those. Right. So and she had a narc cabinet. We didn't want any video games. She had a Missile Command cocktail that was in pristine condition, like brand new. Right. And we found out what the issue. The issue was that she was married to an electrical engineer. He had passed away and she wanted to, like, free up some space so she could move somewhere else and retire. And he had operated games and these were the ones that he kept at his house because these were the games that he personally liked. So they didn't get really very much operation. But it was very cool what he did because this was a Stern Freefall wide body designed by Harry Williams. He drilled holes in the side of the cabinet. This is cool to us. Maybe it wouldn't have been to other people. And had a fan in there to dissipate the heat. Of course, an electrical engineer would do this because the electrical component's worst enemy is fire or heat next to water, right? And so he did stuff, little hacks like that. That was great. So we ended up purchasing the Andromeda. I think we only took one machine at a time, right? Put it in the truck? Yeah, I think we would have had to because I don't think both of those would have fit. Oh, no. Did we bring Mark with us and then we put one in his truck? I don't remember. We went back to her house several times because she had some other stuff. She still keeps in touch with us. Great lady.
    59:15
    She had no idea what these machines were worth, but we offered her fair market value. We don't have the free fall anymore. We sold it to our bartender. We have the Andromeda. If you've watched our streams, you've seen that Andromeda. It is beautiful. Her husband, Martin, took care of it very well. We still have this little sticker on there. Martin's Funcoin. Yeah. Out of Prescott. Yep. So that was a great adventure. And we will say she did not live in Prescott. No, she did not. We were literally out in the middle of the desert. Yeah, we were in the middle of the desert. And that was like the most fun adventure because not only did we get those two machines, Andromeda is by a company called Gameplan, which is not around anymore. And the boards are notoriously hard to find. We opened up the cabinet and there was a box in there that said working game plan boards. A full set. So we have backup boards. That's unheard of if you're buying a game plan game. Not only that, she gave us tackle boxes full of just expertly arranged parts. Yes. Coils, switches.
    60:27
    This would never happen to anybody. But I think that was the coolest adventure in getting machines. And lots of javelina. That was my favorite part. That was a good damn tap. We did not get the volcano. No, we had way too heavy. We turned our friends on to it. System 80. Yeah. Thank you so much. Incline to play. I hope you enjoyed those stories. We're heading on to one from Meta Ted. Meta Ted hangs out in our discord.
    60:55
    Y'all host some of the best players in your league and monthly tournaments. And I'm a big fan of your Twitch stream and commentary. An extremely subjective question, I'm sure. But in terms of competitive pinball, what is the most exciting tournament moment in electric bat history?
    61:13
    This turned into a discussion on Discord. And the general consensus was the anniversary tournament that Walt Wood won. It was one of the most entertaining streams. It was not streamed by us. We were not streaming at the time when this happened. That was our first anniversary tournament. And Walt Wood won it. And there was one amazing game of Scared Stiff in the finals where I think he got like almost 60 crate jackpots. In a row. Yeah, in a row on a ball. And if you want to see that stream, I think it's Aimless Pinball. They streamed it, and I think it's still the VODs still up there to watch. If not, there are clips from it on Walt Wood's YouTube channel.
    62:09
    So go check that out. That was so good. Yeah. That's the most memorable one for me. I agree with that. I think that was great. And the runners-up are also Walt Wood whenever he's walked up and said, hey, I'm going to beat Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park, yeah. And then he did. And then I'm going to roll Bram Stoker's Dracula. And then he did. He did it. Yeah. Like, just, like, not, here's a bunch of tries. It was, I'm going to do this now. Would you like to stream it? Yes. Yeah. And if you want to see both of those and they're separate videos on our YouTube channel, just scroll back for a while and you'll see there's like Walt Wood beats Jurassic Park and the other one's titled Walt Wood Rolls Dracula. And those are very entertaining. He is fun to watch. Hopefully he'll come back soon. Yeah. Thank you, Meta Ted, for the question.
    63:07
    Got a ghoul. That's our friend. Like I always say, it wouldn't be an electric back cast if we don't get a question from Gutter Ghoul via Discord.
    63:18
    Oh, I like this. The marketing talents of kale brought to light how much business success rides on optics.
    63:27
    For your posts, are you just sharing things you like, having fun with your call to actions, Or is there a superhuman marketing brain whirling beneath the surface that's A-B testing the latest trends? There's some more questions, but we can stop at this because this focuses on me. This is your favorite subject. My second favorite subject. Next to you, you're always number one.
    63:54
    I just have like this understanding of how to get people excited about things. Yeah, and I'll speak on your behalf. I know he'll sit back and listen. Kale really has this innate knack for people and just what people want to – just interacting with people in a way that is especially amazing to me as someone who doesn't.
    64:21
    Everybody has special skills. Kale's yours is social interaction and that works out real well for social media marketing. So he's not – I would be the type of person that would be like A-B testing and like trying to figure something out. Ask and chat GPT. Kale has no need to A-B test anything. He just knows. It's just like a feeling. So just have that and you'll be very successful.
    64:54
    But we're just real lucky that you have that ability. Right. And I've talked about this on other episodes. I started using social media to market during the MySpace days. So I think I've been doing it for so long. I did the A-B testing throughout many, many years and didn't even know what that meant. Like, hey, this worked. This didn't work. Let's do more of what worked.
    65:24
    So I've just been doing it for so long and have a good feel for it. And you do so much of it. So you just are getting constant feedback about the way things are going, the way things feel.
    65:38
    Right. Now, I used to pay attention to people who talk about social media and the latest trends. I used to do SEO for a company and all this stuff. You do gray hat type stuff. And I learned like when when you're chasing all these latest trends and how to hack things like me and my friends, like one of my best friends does marketing. He's he's huge. He's a CEO of a marketing company. And we used to find like little loopholes in Instagram that you could do to kind of like hack the system to get your information spread to more people. It's removed a lot of that stuff you used to be able to do. So I don't even keep up with it. And you're just chasing your tail trying to find hacks. Just I found nothing works better than just being honest, putting yourself out there and just keeping it simple. Like this is me. This is what I do. This is what I'm into. We're having an event here. We own this business that we would love for you to at least come to one time and see if it fits what you do and what you're into. Like nothing beats that. You know, all the gimmicks, they die out over time. And then you have to find another gimmick. Yeah. You know, and so it's like if you just be honest with yourself and with your audience, you can't go wrong. And I think for people listening, think about the social media that you pay attention to, the people that you follow. How polished is that really? And what do those people have in common? It's really people being passionate about something authentically, and they're doing it with regularity. So it's not like freaking out and worrying about having the perfect thing. It's about knowing that nobody's going to remember this a day from now. So don't be afraid to try something and experiment with something and then just be yourself and then get up again tomorrow and do be yourself again. You know, if your hair isn't like totally clean that day, I don't think anybody is like, don't don't let little things like that stop you from showing your passion. Right. Every we all have short attention spans. We've moved on to something else before. We're not sitting there thinking, man, Cale did a really stupid post this time, and I've done some dumb stuff that just didn't work. And that's going to happen to you too. Everybody. And the funny thing is you'll do some stuff that you don't think is going to do well and it just blows up. We'll get like a million views. So that's what's up with all that. That's how we do it. I do it. I don't know how I'll figure it out. I think I've just been doing it for so long. Next question. With the assumed play, when you want league of Papa Shot, is this something Pinball can't adopt? I don't understand what that means. What does that mean? Well, I think what he's talking about is how Papa Shot records your scores. So if you're doing like a league for Papa Shot, Papa Shot knows what your team has earned, like your cumulative scores, your individual scores. So he's saying in pinball, could you do the same thing? Could we could me, you and Guttergool have a pinball team and all three of us play Metallica? And then either a cumulative score or average score, however you want to do that.
    69:18
    No, that won't work. Okay. Don't you agree? Well, I think Insider Connected is already doing what you're going to be doing. And there's some co-op stuff. If you want to do that, choose a game with co-op mode. Get on the co-op leaderboard. But my problem, like people bring this up all the time. And I know I understand why, because they want connectivity and to be able to compete with their friends on pinball machines. But pinball, maybe there's some way to do it. I don't see it. I don't see where it makes any sense.
    69:50
    You know, like there's even rumors that Jersey Jack's going to release this when they release Sonic the Hedgehog in a few months, where like you can see who you're playing on the camera so you can know whether they have the glass off or not. But still, you don't know what's the level of, you know, the pitch of their machine, what rubbers are on there. Do they add some other rubbers that give them an advantage? With Papa Shot. Do they add more ball save? Right. So that's what I was going to say. With Papa Shot, for the tournament, you have to have it on the standard settings, the standard regulation setting, so that nobody has any time bonus advantages. And there is nothing to adjust. Right. The hoop doesn't move or change. So this is you're comparing one to one to one to one across whether you're playing it at electric bat or whether you're playing it at tilted orbit. It's going to be the same the same game. Pinball is not the same game between two games in the same building. Correct. And it never will be. And that's the beauty of pinball. You know, it's a physical machine that is it's a living, breathing thing that is constantly changing while you're playing it. You know, rubbers wear down. You know, the play field gets more dirty. You know, it's not an even playing field. You know, and even if you look at video gaming, you know, Call of Duty or whatever you're playing online, there's problems there. You know, PC players use cheats, you know. Some people have better Internet. Yeah, yeah. You got a faster Internet, you know. But and I would say the closest you're going to get to that is to play the co-op, the games that have co-op. Get your group together. In person. Go for the leaderboard. On co-op modes. Another question. With Pokemon, assumingly bringing in a load of fresh faces to Pinball, is there a renewed onus on manufacturers to try to communicate the basics of Pinball? Is there no better way to explain what the start button is for or will we always need a helpful PinPal TM there to give us a Personal guidance. This is the difficult part about pinball. You know, I think the manufacturers have.
    72:15
    They've never really pinpointed a good way to do this. Stern has done a great job by adding. They have these little tutorials like here's the start button on the display. Yeah. You know, even, you know, they used to have Carl do some stuff. I think that's like the best stuff I've seen. But like who's seeing that? You know, not the people that we have to show where the start button is. Right, right. I think it's just like a owner operator thing. You need to be on site and help people out. Yeah. I mean, on some of the classics we have on the coin doors, like vinyl pointing to the start button. Yeah. Because, you know, you have a metal start button on a metal coin door. It's not obvious. I think that this is just this is a job for Serge and the pin pals because like let's just talk about Stern. The code and Stern games are so complex they can't even explain it. Oh, this is something really interesting I forgot to tell you about. Yeah. The other night when you were streaming and I was sitting beside some people that I had never seen before in the arcade. And the woman was giving the man she was with like the rundown of how pinball works. Oh, and I told you a little bit about how she was. She just kept saying, no, it's about ball control. People do know like this is because he was saying it's all random. And she's like, no, this is a real thing. There are rules and you need to be able to aim for your shots. And she was she was giving him the what for. And that part was great to hear. But then what she said is, you know, they don't even have I've tried to look up them. She used the word manual to learn how to play these. So I've looked up the manual and there's nothing in there about how to play. Like you don't know. So and that's what this is pointing to is you've got this tiny little dark rule card and a dark arcade that sort of gives you like a couple of tips about where to start. But these games, the rule sets are so deep that we were watching Serge explain some stuff on Rush that was very, very basic just last night. And you and I both had no idea. Correct. Right. We own the game. We own the arcade. We've played it plenty of times, still have no idea what these rules are.
    74:26
    So, right. And, you know, Stern's not going to be able to pull this off until they pull in a dedicated person to educate the public on stuff like this. But I don't even think that's on their radar. Their mission is to stay afloat by making machines, pumping them out. Make great games. Right. People will learn. I'll tell you, like some of the people at Stern don't even know the rules. There have been times when Serge and I have done a podcast and I got in touch with some of the programmers like, why is the game like this? And they even they they were on their own machines. They were like, oh, I didn't even I had no idea this was like this. And I was like, are you not reading the read me? You know, so it's like they are they're either either too busy. They have too much going on. I don't know if it's like designed by committee, but they are not equipped at this moment to be able to educate the public on the deep, deep rule sets they're putting out there. Also, I think there is this this culture with gaming and it goes for like all kinds of gaming, video gaming, board game. It's like, let's put this out there and see how the people use this and figure things out. So there's a little bit of that in there, too. But it would be nice if we if they had like a dedicated person educating people. You know, Serge is busy. He doesn't have the time to like, you know, be employed by Stern. Right. He has two full time day jobs. He's already doing 80 plus hours a week. He's just a special human being. But that is what's made it. You know, this this niche that you pin pals fill is a very important one. And I've learned so much just from, you know, listening to you all. And I think that's that for right now, that's the solution. You and Serge just have to keep them coming. And big time. And that makes a great segue because we have a question from Spicy Neutrino via Discord. And that is Serge. That's Serge. I don't mean to dock you, buddy, but I just did.
    76:28
    Spicy Neutrino is Serge. And if you want to chat with him, come on to our Discord. Long time listener, first time question asker, questioner. Is it questioner? Yes. Of all the many tournament formats, which one is best for building a fun pinball community? And why is Max Matchplay the worst for this? Explain there are there are different types of formats and explain to people what Max Match Play is. Max Match Play is a head to head format. So it is like me versus you, only two people. And you are playing a set number of rounds. So for us, it's 12 rounds. And then every once in a while, the tournament director will refresh. And so people who are waiting will start a new round with a different person. So you're always playing one on one with another person and you're not spending very much time in between rounds waiting. Right. And I see where he's getting here.
    77:38
    If your tournaments are always max match play, this is a terrible way to build community because people aren't hanging out and talking. And I know this might sound cliche to some people. I've stressed this over and over again. The Electric Bat Arcade is not as much about pinball as it is about people and getting people to hang out. The community is really what it's all about. And that's why I think the regular match play, the four-player group match play is the best tournament for building a community because it's almost like speed dating.
    78:22
    Speed friending. You're playing several rounds. It might be three, four, five rounds, however you set up your tournament, with three other people. You're playing four-player games. So especially in a place like Electrobat where 100 people might show up, you're very likely going to play a game with somebody you may have never met before or you definitely may have not even talked to. Somebody you've seen at the arcade but you've never talked to him before and this is the perfect time to get to know each other. And the reason I think this is so important because it's great for your brain. We have to have human interaction and we should have it daily. This is so important. This is more important than pinball. This is more important than anything else that human interaction, looking somebody in the eye and talking to them and getting to know them. And the reason it's so important to have this human interaction, it's great for your brain because it's one of the most difficult brain-intensive exercises you have to deal with, looking somebody in the face and having a conversation with them, picking up on social cues. It's the one thing. When you're just sitting there looking at a phone and scrolling through social media, you're not interacting. Yes, there are people on there and you're watching it, but you're not having to interact with and thinking how you're going to respond to this certain situation. And that's why I think it is so important for community building having people interact with each other, as scary as that might sound for some people. Right. It's just very important to have the physical thing to do as well. I think you're reaching different parts of the brain and there's certainly some dopamine rewards from all of the aspects of it, from the community aspect, the friendship aspect. And then also, like it sounds real weird to talk about it, but it's like brain training stuff. It's keeping you from aging. Aging. That's been proven. Yep. So that's, I mean. We don't want to lose that community. Community is paramount. And max match play. What does that do? It makes me sad. Well, it makes it so that either I'm playing or you're playing. We're never both not, you know, there's not a conversation happening there because everybody that's in the round is either playing or watching the other person play. And then once you're done with the round, it's not going to be too long before you start a different round. So it's a very less participatory in the community aspect of a tournament, which I know many people prefer, but it's not good for you. It's not good for you.
    81:20
    But side note that doesn mean don ever have max match play tournaments No they real fun and I like them They fun I do better at max match play than I do at group But don make it your league Don't make it a regular thing. Right. Yeah.
    81:35
    How do we do on that one? I think that's good. I would like Serge's feedback on why he thinks max match play is the worst. Should we call him right now? No, no, let's not call him right now. I think we did a great job. I think we did. Next question from Mike Flanagan via Discord. Question for the Batcast. I was wearing his shirt yesterday. The Poison Girl. Yeah. Godzilla shirt. That's in the regular rotation. I get so many compliments. I know. I know. I wonder if you can still get that shirt because mine's getting worn out. Might need a new one. Yeah, we'll talk to Mike. A question for the Batcast. With all of the remakes coming out, CGC, Pedretti, American, and most of the grail themes already taken, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, Attack from Mars, and Cactus Canyon, why are people still clamoring to make remakes? Who wants $8,000 new World Cup soccers when you can buy a nice original one for $5,000? To me, it makes more sense to make $5,000 to $6,000 classics, for example, 8 Ball Deluxe, Frontier, Classic Sterns, with next to no development costs using existing third-party boards. I can see a very viable market for 500-unit runs of these as I can buy nice versions of any of them for reasonable prices these days. I can't buy. Plus, the lower entry price might attract a newer market, much more so than Stern's versions of the home pin sold at Costco. Keep up the good work. Miss you guys. This is very interesting.
    83:15
    The first thing I think about is we've talked to guys at Stern about this years ago. Yes. When they did Beatles. Right. Because I was like, man, how cool would it be if you guys did like Meteor, like not rethemed as some modern IP. The Beatles are not a modern IP, but you know what I'm talking about.
    83:44
    And they educated us. Do you remember this conversation? Very well. They were like, people think the ramps add thousands of dollars or whatever. However, it is not – they basically told us if we were to recreate Meteor as Meteor and release it, we can't sell it for the $4,000 or $5,000 people think. And this was like years and years ago, you know, back when Stern was a little bit smaller.
    84:17
    You know, there is just as much development that would go into something like that as a brand new machine. Yeah, and also I would argue that the difference in price between $4,000 to $5,000 and $6,000 to $7,000 to $8,000 is not that – the people that have the disposable $4,000, like there's not a huge gap then to getting to $7,000. But the people that have a disposable $15 or $100, I just don't think that there's enough incentive there because that price point isn't that much cheaper. Correct. And for the IPs, one thing that we see and that I think if you look at what Stern, for example, chooses to do in something like a Costco model, they're choosing IPs like Star Wars because those are IPs. Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park that are recognizable, probably a Pokemon Costco edition or home edition. Those IPs are really, really important for the people that are getting into pinball that might be willing to spend $4,000.
    85:36
    Meteor is not. There is almost nobody who doesn't already play pinball that's like, ah, you know what? I think I'm going to spend $4,000 on this thing I saw at the grocery store called Meteor. Not going to happen. And also in the Discord discussion about this, Morgoth brought up a really good point that I thought was worth mentioning. And what he said was there, you're not just paying for a new World Cup soccer as is. There's usually some updates to it. So it's like a 2.0. There's some options there, like what we saw with Cactus Canyon. Now Medieval and Attack from Mars and Monster Bash, those were just straight reruns. But I think what we're going to be seeing with a lot of these other upcoming remake or remaster titles, you get a little bit of tweaking. So there's a there's a little bit of new new stuff on there.
    86:30
    I thought that was worth mentioning. Yeah. Yeah. One hundred percent. But what I do think should happen, Stern should tap back into that Bally Williams bucket like they did with Black Knight. Yeah. And like do like have Brian Eddy do like an attack from Mars, too. I mean, call it like something like that. Like, yeah. Medieval Madness, too. The legend continues. The legend continues. Because like think about like medieval madness is so damn popular that CGC can't stop running them. Right. And the prices keep going up. Yeah. You know, so I think doing something like that because they did that with Steve Ritchie and they like Black Knight was pretty successful, successful to the point where years after they re-ran the pros. Yes. So I think that would be a good direction to go in. Especially in this era of very expensive licenses. Right. And I think, well, you know, they still have to license it. Yes. From Planetary. But I don't think you're going to be looking at Pokemon level pricing or Harry Potter level. You're not in the millions and millions of dollars. Correct. For licensing. And this is even possibly if the rumors are true and Brian Eddy's working on Dracula, this could be that kind of thing. Yes. Where it's like a Bally Williams, it's got humor and it's a call back to the 90s. Maybe they've already thought about that and they're doing this. Right. But, you know, as far as bringing the prices down, you're not going to see any $5,000 machines. I actually think Stern is going in the other direction. They're going to want to do more stripped down machines, even cheaper to sell at big box stores to really get some revenue in. And because I think they're noticing even at the Costco prices, it's even though and they're selling a shit ton of them and they say they're selling out. I'm sure that, you know, Costco is selling through even that you see them at like deep discounts at two grand. Not that many of them. Right. Two grand, I think, is like the sweet spot. If they can bring it some kind of machine like extremely stripped down to that level. And I think that's something they probably want to do. Yeah. But I was thinking $999. I think you need to be amazing. But the problem is that is not going to be the machine that you or I want or Mike Flanagan wants. Right. It's going to feel like it's a one to two thousand dollar machine. It's not going to it's not going to be for people who already play pinball. Correct. All right. Thank you so much, Mike Flanagan, for the question.
    89:20
    From Tony Grossinger via Discord. Hi, Electric Bat. I'll be curious to hear how you organize all the parts you keep on hand for quick repairs. Whenever I place an order with Marco Specialties, I pick up a few extras of whatever screw, spring, rubber, etc. And at this point, I have developed a bit of inventory, keeping all the parts straight and remembering which go to which machines can be a challenging thought.
    89:49
    I'd have I'd have I'd love to hear how you've solved this problem. Thank you. How have you solved this problem with a label maker that you got me for Christmas? The label maker is great. Yeah. Right. I posted some photos in the discord right after this question. Yeah. And it's just shelves and shelves of different containers you get from the container store and you order from Amazon. Or just boxes. Just boxes from the post office. Tupperware. Yep. Tupperware. Tackle boxes. It's not elegant. It's not elegant, but it's all labeled. And any time something breaks, Rachel puts that in a list and orders a couple of more of those parts. We order parts probably every week, maybe every other week if it's a slow parts week.
    90:44
    And we do always what he's saying. When one part breaks, I order like two or three more. So we have extra in back stock. I leave them in the Marco bags because those are nice and labeled and tell me the part number so I can look it up. But then also, for example, all of our flipper parts. I'm not sure if this is in that photo or if you can see it, but all of the flipper parts are in their own section by era. So if it's if it's Bally or if it's Williams or Stern or in between, you know, whether it's WPC, WPC 95, like all the different eras of machines, we keep all of the flipper parts separated because that's the most common thing outside of rubbers that we have to replace. Right. And you don't want to be digging through stuff. Our fuses are labeled in a big separated tackle box type thing by value. All of our slow blows are in one area. Each section is by value. All of our fast blow are others. I think stuff like that's common.
    91:50
    But really organization is key and having that label maker so it's not just my handwriting on a bunch of painter's tape all over.
    91:59
    And we're still slowly improving it. And we have big IKEA shelves, those ones that people keep the records in, the big square things back there with just stacks of like flipper parts, drop target parts, pop bumper parts, rubbers. But it's all organized by era, size, value, style, all of the things that you can organize it for because there's also a bunch of us working back there. And I know that I'm still the one where it's like if somebody needs to know where something is, I have it in my head. So it may be in a weird spot. And I don't want people to have to come like, Rachel, where is this one weird thing? It's got a clear label on it. Yeah, it's got a clear label. It's over there like beneath five other things and behind a blanket. But there's a label there. So, you know, you want to have it accessible to everyone and obvious to everyone. Certainly cataloged. And you do an incredible job of that. Thank you. You know what I love? And John Schappel did this. He got one container that has dividers and put every single part you would need to rebuild a Stern flipper in there. Because, you know, the things always snap like the EOS actuator that snaps. Coil stops are always breaking. But like it's all laid out with even like a little torque wrench to get your Newton meters correct. How many Newton meters should you tighten? Eight Newton meters. John Shopolis figured out that is the sweet spot for tightening the – what is that? The part that holds the flipper link to the – Right. To the Paul. Thank you. Yep, yep.
    93:40
    Yeah, so I love that because whenever you have – you know, you check your Stern Insider Connected app for any issues in the arcade. If you have the pro account or whatever, you check it. You go, oh, the EOS, this EOS hasn't fired off in how long, and you know the actuator is broken. You just take that whole box, go over there, rebuild everything, and everything's great. And thank you so much for, John, for organizing that for us. Yeah.
    94:10
    Cool. Thank you so much. Hopefully we answered your question, Tony. Finally, we got one more question before we get on to the earnings report. We have from Hooper Triplett, who was just at the arcade. Him and his wife. I got to meet them. Unfortunately, I didn't. Where was I? I think you were streaming. I think you were on the mic. Well, I am sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to you, Hooper, and Miss Triplett, but come back. Come back soon. The question is, how did you settle on the music played in the arcade?
    94:47
    I wish I remember what was playing when he was there. I kind of wonder, too. But we don't know which day because I heard he came back in the morning and played some games.
    94:56
    Yeah, because sometimes it'll be experimental music. Sometimes it'll be like classic rock. Sometimes it'll be like 80s or if it's kind of gothy, you know, I did it. There is no rhyme or reason to it. We let our bartenders pick whatever they want to play because I think it's, you know, a lot of places don't do this. And even some bars that we were business partners of, the manager set a playlist and is like, no, this is the playlist. And that's the vibe I want for this venue. And we're not to stray from it. And that's that's fine. That's a good thing to have going on. What I like is I want the bartender to pick what they want because I want them to set the vibe and whatever is going to put them in a good mood because that good mood is going to spread to the customers and everybody is going to have a great experience. That's what we do. Sometimes they can't decide and they don't care and I'll go back there and put something on or you go back there and put something on. But it's always something interesting and moving and motivating.
    96:07
    I think we had Nine Inch Noise on. I'm guessing that's what Hooper Triplet was hearing was the new Nine Inch Noise album. Yep. Put that on for your next road trip. Yeah. Cool. That's all the questions I have. Yeah, but basically it's just everybody gets to put on what they feel like putting on. Yeah, yeah, there's really no rhyme or reason to it. We're just cool people that have incredible taste. Yeah, I mean, I might override something if somebody put on. I did override some Neil Young the other day. Rachel doesn't like Rush and Michael McDonald. Or Neil Young.
    96:45
    All right, Rachel, now is your time to shine, ladies and gentlemen. The earnings report. And this earnings report is for what month? This is for April. Is there anything notable about this month? Yes. Or April, not this month we're in right now, but April, the one we're about to go over. Yes. And what would that be? This is the first full month that we've had Beetlejuice on the floor. Beetlejuice was on the floor for one day of March. And then so April was its first full month. We had both Pokemons on the floor all month long. So we have a lot of data with those three machines. Okay. So the first thing I'm going to start off with is actually something interesting. For spot number 10, we had a tie. Not like an almost tie, but like to the dollar tie between Pulp Fiction and Evil Dead. And I was thinking like, man, how weird is that? Like what are the odds that we're going to have two machines with the exact same amount in the top 10? And it got me thinking about like like probability paradoxes. Do you know about the birthday one? Like how many people do you think? Oh, you know, I've heard you talk about this, but I didn't retain it. OK, so how many people do you think you'd have to have in a room to have a greater than 50 percent chance that two of them shared a birthday?
    98:13
    Ten. There are 365 days in a year. You know what? I'm the social media guy. Okay, well, okay. Okay, let me guess again. Okay, well, it's in between those two numbers. It's 23. To have a slightly greater than 50% chance, you need to have 23 people in a room. Wow. But for that to go up to 97%, how many people do you think you have to have in the room? 500. There are still only 365. So you are actually at 366 guaranteed. OK, so this is 50 people to have an almost certain chance. OK. And then for that to go up to over 99 percent, almost almost guaranteed.
    99:02
    That's only 57 people. But you would think it would be a lot more than that. And I think that's what I'm seeing here. Like there's just there's some some statistical stuff. That's just not intuitive. And I think this is an example of that. And I thought that was interesting. Yeah. So number nine, Jaws. OK, great game. Number eight, Big Buck Reloaded. OK, the video game, the video game. Number seven, Star Wars Fall of the Empire. Earning very, very well. So those IPs are important. Dungeons and Dragons is in number six. Oh, yeah. I've noticed that there have been a lot more people on it and it's not been the same person. It's been a big variety of people that I don't recognize. Right. So I wonder if something has gotten out into the zeitgeist that this machine exists.
    100:00
    Godzilla is number five. Oh, OK. So now you're starting to think, well, this is getting very interesting if Godzilla is halfway down the list instead of its usual number one, two, or three spot. Right.
    100:15
    So number four, we have Pokemon Pro. Oh, so you did it. You did the Pokemon separately. I did them separately. They're separate machines with separate audits. So I captured those numbers separately. So fourth place, Pokemon Pro. And in third place, Pop a Shot. Oh, very good. Yep. In second place, Pokemon Premium. Wow. You have two of the same machine in the top four. You know, this is amazing because, you know, when Pokemon was announced, we debated on getting two machines or not. And, you know, we got him from Zaget flipping out. And so we were like, no matter what, we want the pro. And I said, we might want the premium.
    101:12
    So as soon as he got a premium, he called me. He's like, I have a premium. You want me to ship it or would you like to wait for the next run? No big deal. And we we kind of thought about it for a little bit. Right. And by a little bit, you mean like three minutes because these aren't decisions that you have a lot of time on. And so I finally I made the call. I was like, you know what? We're getting it. Getting it. Rachel, you figure out how to pay for it. We're buying two machines. I was worried. I was very, very worried. Because if this didn't work out this way, there was going to be some problems. I had a feeling it would be quite advantageous to us to have two Pokemon machines. And holy crap, was it? Yes. Still, when I go into the arcade, the three machines that always have somebody on it, Pokemon Pro, Pokemon Premium, and Beetlejuice. Yes. And those are constantly occupied. And I think it's going to get even better once you have a Pokedex and you can see which characters you are, the Pokemons, or is it Pokezmon? Pokezmon. Pokemons. Which characters you're collecting. Once they have all that in the software, I think you're going to have people hitting these things even harder. I agree with you. And I'm so glad that you made the call that you did because, wow.
    102:40
    So if we added both of those machines, that would obviously be the top spot. But that's not how we do the math. I did do that math, and that would be the top spot if you added both Pokemons together.
    102:52
    I mean, and these are huge numbers. Like these games are going to be paid off very quickly. Like next month.
    103:00
    A little bit after that, but yes. Well, let's get to the number one spot. Hey, what do you think it is? Well, it has to be Beetlejuice. It is Beetlejuice. So how far away are spots one and two?
    103:15
    By a fairly good bit. Okay. Yeah. By 20%, 25%. Beetlejuice is crushing it. And again, this is important to note. We are on dollar play for Beetlejuice. Okay. The Pokés won are dollar or three for two. You get a little deal. So that math plays into it for sure. So the number of plays, Pokemon and Beetlejuice, Pokemon Premium and Beetlejuice are even. Oh, interesting. Beetlejuice made more money. Beetlejuice. Elton John was our one month greatest earner of all time. Beetlejuice made Elton John a joke. Are you kidding me? No, I'm not kidding you. So this is the best earning machine in the history of the Electric Bat Arcade by a mile. Wow. Beetlejuice is like. Like, it helps that it's been working, you know, 98.5% of the time.
    104:17
    It works very reliably. So it's up all the time. You have to have that. Unbelievable. That's good news for Spooky and the Crew. Great news for Spooky and the Crew. And it's one of those games where you see a lot of people, like Pokemon, that you see a lot of people coming and playing that wouldn't necessarily play Pinball. They see that that game's there is like, oh my god, I gotta play that. Yeah, what the hell is this? Yeah, and I saw the other night, I don't know if you saw her, there was a girl wearing like a Beetlejuice outfit. Like she just looked that way, you know, it was black and white stripes. Yeah, yeah. You know, she had tattoos that gave that vibe for sure. And I'm sure it wasn't planned. It was just like, oh my God, like this is my dream thing. They made a pinball machine with something I love. Like this is for me. This is for me. Where's the token machine? Yeah. Yep. It was that situation. And then she pulled like her girlfriends over and then there was all these girls playing Beetlejuice. That loved it. What an amazing time to be a pinball fan. But I think the fact that Pokemon combined is if you if you put those two numbers together, you're looking at 20 percent higher than Beetlejuice or more. I mean, these are like rough numbers, like quick math. But those. So if you could count the two Pokemon as one game that.
    105:32
    These are making insane amounts of money for an arcade. Just like great, great stuff. It's paying our bills. It's paying for our employees. It's paying, you know, it is.
    105:46
    They're good things. I've heard nothing but fantastic things from operators. And I'm seeing I'm hearing a lot from like new people who are like, I bought a Pokemon just to put on location. Yeah. And this is this is cool. This is a gigantic IP. I hope they dip back into the Japanese well to find some other. One piece. It needs to be one piece. They need to make a one piece machine. That would be cool. Yes. But we're probably going to get something like Punisher.
    106:20
    Have I mentioned the one piece? Sorry. All right. Well, I appreciate it, Rachel. What an exciting list. And I hope I can't wait to hear Amy's list. Yeah. I hope she does it. Yeah. She's as data driven as I can see that she is. She's going to do it. We're going to see some some info from Amy. Like everybody that owns arcades, I would love to see, you know, what I have and what's working for you. I want to get the zeitgeist of the arcades of America and see what's what's really going on. Because we're just a microcosm of the whole pinball world. I want to see what else is going on out there. You know, what's making money? What's going on? Anyway, thank you so much for compiling all that information. You did a fantastic job per usual. My pleasure. Do we have any things coming up? Could we tell people what's going on? Just keep in touch with our fantastic social media that is run by me.
    107:20
    Yes. And I'll let you know. How about check out the latest stream? We just put the latest stream on YouTube and it's so cool. It's a banger. You guys did a great job. Yes. Serge does a deep dive on Rush, talks about Star Wars, the latest Star Wars machine. What else is he going to? You're playing on that. So you get to see a really good couple of balls of big game played by Kale. I play some big game. You see some Twilight Zone. Twilight Zone. Yeah. So it's a lot of fun. Go check out our latest stream on our YouTube channel. It's the most recent. I was going to say it's the most recent video, but by the time you hear this, it won't be the most recent video. The most recent video is going to be this one. Yes. That's how time works. You're at the most recent video. All right. Thanks for joining us, everybody. We'll see you at the arcade. We'll see you at the arcade also in about a month for a new earnings report. I would love to see if things shuffle around. I want to see how everything, you know, plateaus or increases. I want to see all the all the changes, the movers and the shakers of the pinball machines. I am so excited about this. Yes. All right. The Bats are out. Thank you for joining us, everybody. It's been a pleasure. Bats out. Look at these numbers.