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Arcade 1UP Interview

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·56m 4s·analyzed·Jun 28, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Arcade1Up confirms virtual pinball cab details: $500-600, fall launch, Zen partnership, no Wi-Fi.

Summary

Arcade1Up (operated by Tastemakers) announces three virtual pinball cabinet lines launching fall 2025: Marvel Pinball, Star Wars, and Attack from Mars. Director of Marketing David McIntosh reveals key specs: $500-600 price point, three-quarter scale, custom Zen Studios optimization (not direct ports), plunger inclusion, haptic feedback via solenoids, USB updateability (no Wi-Fi), and U.S.-only availability initially. Partnership with Zen Studios positioned as competitive advantage and licensing accelerator.

Key Claims

  • All three pinball cabinets (Marvel, Star Wars, Attack from Mars) launching around the same time in fall 2025

    high confidence · David McIntosh, Director of Marketing: 'They'll all be coming out around the same time this fall.'

  • Price point is $500-600 for pinball machines

    high confidence · Host asks 'price point somewhere between 500 and 600' and McIntosh confirms 'Correct.'

  • Games are custom-built for Arcade1Up, not direct ports from Steam/mobile versions

    high confidence · McIntosh: 'they're not unlocking a certain feature that would be available on Steam for a custom pinball machine. They're going in and making sure the aspect ratio is optimized...viewing angle is also adjusted'

  • Pinball cabinets will include plungers as standard

    high confidence · McIntosh: 'However, it will come with a plunger. That has been speculation on some of them. Our early prototypes didn't have plungers, and that's a big deal.'

  • No Wi-Fi connectivity on pinball units; USB update capability only for patches/emergencies

    high confidence · McIntosh: 'these won't be Wi-Fi-enabled units' and 'you will be able to update them um through micro USB or USB...only for like emergencies'

  • Online leaderboards were accidentally revealed in promo video but will not ship with initial units

    high confidence · McIntosh: 'we had actually had an online leaderboard leaked in that, and unfortunately isn't going to be on this version of the unit'

  • Arcade1Up launched in October 2018 with arcade cabinets and quickly sold out

    high confidence · McIntosh: 'we launched in October of 2018 with some major retail support and we quickly sold out'

  • Virtual pinball considered after mechanical option deemed too expensive and high-maintenance

    high confidence · McIntosh: 'We actually had originally looked at mechanical, but it's just so expensive and so high maintenance to do those. So we figured virtual pinball was just the best solution.'

Notable Quotes

  • “For $300 to $400, you can get an arcade experience. And if we were going the mechanical route, we would be way out of that price point. So we stuck to what worked.”

    David McIntosh, Arcade1Up Director of Marketing @ ~8:30 — Explains core business strategy: affordable price point as key differentiator, why virtual over mechanical was chosen

  • “They're really going a long way to make sure the games are developed properly to fit on the tables and to make sure the experience is beyond immersive but just truly captures that arcade experience you know and love.”

    David McIntosh @ ~10:15 — Emphasizes Zen Studios' commitment and custom development approach for Arcade1Up cabinets

  • “The number one accessory for an Arcade1Up machine became another Arcade1Up machine.”

    David McIntosh @ ~14:00 — Documents phenomenon of high attachment rate and completionist mentality driving repeat purchases

  • “If it was a direct port, we could have done this last year and we could have really rushed it out to market. But the idea was you want a unique experience.”

    David McIntosh @ ~27:30 — Justifies development timeline and explains custom optimization vs. direct porting strategy

  • “We had some of our licensed partners come out to us and say, hey, you know, you guys are our number one royalty paying customer.”

    David McIntosh @ ~34:45 — Signals Arcade1Up's strong market position and revenue impact with IP licensors

  • “We don't condone piracy. We don't condone illegal use of intellectual property...if you're going to enter the market, do it right.”

    David McIntosh @ ~36:30 — Addresses competitive threats and enforcement of IP licensing standards in emerging market segment

  • “There's a whole difference between even just playing with a regular controller on a console and going up to a machine standing there and throwing your hips into it.”

    Host Chris Frebus @ ~38:15 — Articulates core appeal of physical cabinet vs. digital-only experience; underscores market expansion potential

Entities

Arcade1Up / TastemakerscompanyDavid McIntoshpersonZen StudioscompanyMel KramerpersonMarvel Pinball (Arcade1Up)gameStar Wars (Arcade1Up)gameAttack from Mars (Arcade1Up)gameChris FrebuspersonJared Morganperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Arcade1Up positioned as top royalty-paying customer to multiple IP licensors, indicating significant revenue scale and negotiating leverage in virtual pinball market.

    high · McIntosh: 'you guys are our number one royalty paying customer' per statements from licensed partners.

  • ?

    community_signal: Arcade1Up conducting market research via pinball forums and community engagement to inform product specifications and features ('go to the forums, the V-Pin forums and really take what's really important to them').

    high · McIntosh describes process of consulting community forums to validate design decisions.

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Arcade1Up acknowledges imminent competitive threats from imitators but expresses confidence in differentiation via quality, licensed content, and form factor. Monitoring for IP piracy/illegal content.

    high · McIntosh: 'when we first announced the products, we knew right away there would be people ripping us off' and discussion of ensuring 'clean' market competition.

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Zen Studios partnership opened new licensing doors for both companies. McIntosh indicates retail/box availability (vs. digital-only) unlocked IP approvals that were previously unavailable.

    high · McIntosh references Mel saying 'it opened up some licenses that were, as soon as they knew that there was now going to be a retail, something in stores in a box, it opened the doors'

  • $

    market_signal: Arcade1Up maintaining U.S.-only initial launch to ensure quality customer service and distribution infrastructure. International expansion acknowledged as strategic priority but dependent on finding suitable partners.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.168

0:00
blockade pinball podcast hey you are watching the blockade pinball podcast episode number three two hundred two hundred yeah two hundred not bad and uh I'd be Chris Frevis aka Shachatrap joining me as always halfway around the world it'd be Jared Morgan hello everyone it's sort of like I don't know we're in our 200s which means does that mean like we're in our 20s in podcast years? I don't know how it works I don't know how that would I didn't know that there was a dog years or anything else like that I just know that we're woefully behind the people that stream every day yeah but this is true it takes a special kind of something in order to uh to be able to to commit to that special kind of something called being oh yeah paid paid that's right yeah that's right it's called a job and yeah it's it's a thing yeah you know if i was making the money that they're making for doing full-time streaming i too would commit to it like a full-time job yeah but no we do it We do it for the love. For the love. For the love, yes. And we're trying to make some improvements here, and we saved them for Episode 200. As you can see, now we're doing split screen. Ooh. Mmm. Special. I know, right? So anyway, we've got special stuff planned for today. We're going to kick things off with an interview that I did earlier this morning. We're going to let that play out. And then joining us after that, we have special guests. So, you ready for this, Jared? I'm ready for it. All right, here we go.
1:57
Okay, joining us now, special guest for this 200th episode, we have David McIntosh, the Director of Marketing and Communications for Tastemakers. Welcome, David. Hey, thank you so much for having me. Glad to be here. Absolutely. We After seeing your guys' CES show And seeing the announcement Regarding The pinball cabinets That you showed there You had the prototype of I believe Attack from Mars Up there and then you also announced Star Wars Obviously Digital pinball community went a little nuts And are very excited about that And then you guys come and Just what was it last week Two weeks ago dropped the news of Marble pinball cab, which is actually, I believe, coming out first. Am I correct on that? They'll all be coming out around the same time this fall.

  • Arcade1Up is U.S.-only initially; international expansion in development

    high confidence · McIntosh: 'For right now, U.S. only' and 'we're going to start in North America because we feel like we have a good grip on it right now'

  • Major retail partners to be announced; will be available on Arcade1Up website and through retailers

    high confidence · McIntosh: 'It will for sure be on our website, if not for purchase, for more information on when you can purchase' and 'we will have major retailer support'

    • Blockade Pinball Podcast
    organization
    NBA Jam (Arcade1Up)product
    Lucasfilmcompany
    Forbesorganization

    high · McIntosh: 'For right now, U.S. only...we're going to start in North America because we feel like we have a good grip on it right now'

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball cabinet game lineup being strategically withheld from public disclosure to maintain announcement momentum and retail interest through phased information releases. Strategic similarity to movie marketing.

    high · McIntosh: 'strategically, we've held back a significant amount of information...like a movie approach where you advertise, you show the movie, you show a trailer months in advance'

  • ?

    announcement: Official announcement of three Arcade1Up virtual pinball cabinet lines (Marvel Pinball, Star Wars, Attack from Mars) with confirmed fall 2025 launch window, $500-600 price point, and exclusive Zen Studios partnership.

    high · David McIntosh confirms all three launching 'around the same time this fall' at $500-600 with custom Zen development.

  • ?

    product_strategy: Development timeline extended beyond initial targets to ensure custom optimization vs. rushed direct port. McIntosh indicates 'last year' would have been possible if simply porting existing versions.

    medium · McIntosh: 'If it was a direct port, we could have done this last year and we could have really rushed it out to market.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Early prototypes lacked plungers; now confirmed as standard feature. Haptic feedback via solenoids (currently one per flipper minimum) being engineered to replicate authentic pinball button feel.

    high · McIntosh: 'Our early prototypes didn't have plungers, and that's a big deal...However, it will come with a plunger' and discussion of solenoid haptic feedback implementation.

  • ?

    product_strategy: Online leaderboards and Wi-Fi connectivity initially planned but removed from launch version due to testing constraints and past PCBA recall experience. Outlined as future potential post-launch.

    high · McIntosh: 'we had actually had an online leaderboard leaked' and 'these won't be Wi-Fi-enabled units' but confirms USB patch capability and notes leaderboards as future consideration.

  • ?

    technology_signal: Arcade1Up deliberately chose virtual over mechanical pinball due to cost/maintenance barriers, positioning virtual as accessible entry point to pinball collecting at $500-600 vs. thousands for mechanical/DIY rigs.

    high · McIntosh: 'We actually had originally looked at mechanical, but it's just so expensive and so high maintenance...So we figured virtual pinball was just the best solution.'

    • 2:49
    Oh, fantastic. Okay, that's good to know, too. See, we're learning things already, folks. Question before we get into the specifics.
    3:00
    Arcade went up with the three-quarter cabs. That's been happening for, what, about two years now? Yeah, we launched in October of 2018 with some major retail support and we quickly sold out and realized we were onto something special. So from there, we started to diversify some of our offering, which you saw in our countercade format. So, you know, head to head cocktail cabinets, our party cage. So we really started to hit every single category. And for us, a natural progression was virtual pinball as a next step. How long how long did it take you guys to kind of think, oh, yeah. And was it kind of with what Zen was offering, or had that kind of been in the back of your guys' minds the entire time? So when we got into the business, it was new for us. We started in the toy industry, believe it or not. We were making toys, like plush toys and collectibles and dolls and stuff like that. So Tastemakers has a history. It's just not in video games. And once they started manufacturing these three-quarter scale arcade machines, we started to learn a lot about the, I wouldn't just say the industry, but also the fan base that comes with it. People started collecting these things, not just one or two, but dozens. They had probably five to ten arcade machines in a room, and they started building dedicated rooms for our products. From there, we're saying, you know what? We've really hit something on the head, and we've captured the essence of an arcade.
    4:23
    How do we evolve that? How do we keep adding value? For us, the next natural progression was virtual pinball, and that's what really opened the conversation for us. I think it's been about a year in the making. We started looking into virtual pinball, three-quarter scale pinball. We actually had originally looked at mechanical, but it's just so expensive and so high maintenance to do those. So we figured virtual pinball was just the best solution. With Arcade 1UP's success, a big part of it was being affordable. For $300 to $400, you can get an arcade experience. And if we were going the mechanical route, we would be way out of that price point. So we stuck to what worked. We started to look into virtual pinball and we quickly learned that there was somebody out there who I think you're either going to feature before or after me in this podcast who had a huge library of amazing content. And that's Zen Studios. We started conversations with them. They were thrilled about the project. They're in on this almost as much as we are in terms of, you know, the resources they're putting behind it. they're really going a long way to make sure the games are developed properly to fit on the tables and to make sure the experience is beyond immersive but just truly captures that that arcade experience you know and love yeah it's uh it's funny that you say with the uh people in their arcades i've been looking on youtube recently and seeing some of these amazing arcades people have been putting together and i've kind of come up with a theory of you know when you have just one cabinet it's yeah you can shove it anywhere in the house and then when you get two cabinets, well, you kind of want them side by side, definitely at least in the same room. And then as soon as you go three, well, now you just have to have the arcade.
    6:02
    Yeah, you're trying, it's like a completionist type of mentality where you have one, you're like, oh wait, it looks empty now. I need another one, you know? And when we first launched, we had a very high attachment rate for risers. People, everybody who bought an arcade machine, I think it's like 60, 70% of the people wanted a riser as well to bring it up to a standable height instead of sit down. And once we started bundling our arcade machines with the risers, the number one accessory for an arcade one-up machine became another arcade one-up machine. So we found that people said, you know what, these look great. I love the artwork. I love the visual aesthetic. I now need to complete this. I need to complete the visual aesthetic. So they're adding tens of these machines into their homes. And it's the modern game room for a Gen X or Baby Boomer is now an arcade one-up game room. And we're thrilled to have been a part of that.
    6:55
    That's, yeah, no, it's quite amazing seeing what people have done. And the artwork on these things are absolutely phenomenal. Let's dive into a little bit then specifically about the, I guess you're calling it arcade one-up pinball for the official title for these. Yeah.
    7:13
    Let's get this out of the way right off the bat. With the Marvel pinball, everybody's been dying to know what the tables are. Now, obviously, whenever you announce any of the arcade one-up cabs, we learn what other machines are going to be included in that software-wise. But with Marvel, if you're somebody from outside the usual pinball world, and obviously these have never been in physical form out in the real world, maybe they don't know the titles. But are you able to tell us what the ten titles are going to be included?
    7:43
    Unfortunately, we can't. I'm sorry to say, strategically, we've held back a significant amount of information on these machines, not just the pinball, but some of the other titles we announced at IGN Digital Week a few weeks ago, around June 10th. We had come out with the idea of like a movie approach where you advertise, you show the movie, you show a trailer months in advance, build up the anticipation, build up the hype. And then once it's available, you trickle out some information that wasn't available before. And there's many reasons behind that. But one of the main ones is so that the fans have something to come back to. You know, if we just if we announced everything at once, you know, there wouldn't be any newsworthiness in the foreseeable future after that. So we're sitting on the titles and we're hoping not that they just bring more eyeballs to the product, but that the people who have been waiting are thrilled and understand that the wait was well worth it. Is it safe to say that the tables that we saw, though, in the video, those will be included? Correct. Okay, good. We can deduce from there. We're really good at that.
    8:52
    Yeah. Be careful, though. I apologize for that. Yeah, so it's tough because some of these are still pending approval in terms of, you know, gameplay, and some of the artwork is still subject to change. So even though it may show something, it still may change when it's final. So you may be able to figure out which games are on there by the visual, but that may not tell the whole story. As is the nature with video game development in general.
    9:20
    Looking at the actual physical cab, my initial concern was when I saw the DMD screen, obviously using a 14-inch screen, I believe, for the DMD display on the back box. I'm not entirely sure. Okay. The dot matrix. Yeah, I think it's eight inches, to be honest. Okay. The diameter. Yeah. Because it's still retaining kind of a 16 by 9 look, and it looked like the DMD was squeezed. But then in this latest video, it looks like the DMD aspect ratio got shrunk down and stretched across, and then you're throwing a whole other batch of info on top of that, which looks like, if I'm not mistaken, the pop-ups that would normally, like the score pop-ups, telling you that you're close to reaching certain landmarks. Can you go into any detail about that? Yeah, so it's funny that in our rendering, something had slipped, and I don't like bringing attention to something like this, but it's not going to be online. So everybody listening is probably going to go back and re-watch the trailer video, but we had actually had an online leaderboard leaked in that, and it unfortunately isn't going to be on this version of the unit. So these won't be Wi-Fi-enabled units. We had had speculation on that. It's our own fault.
    10:36
    Unfortunately, that's just not going to make it to this round of the table. However, it will come with a plunger. That has been speculation on some of them. Our early prototypes didn't have plungers, and that's a big deal. We're still working on the accelerometers and nudge detection, so it feels as close to an authentic pinball as you can get. But unfortunately, there won't be any Wi-Fi capabilities there. And so what the screen will tell you is, you know, what your high score is. It'll have some animations in part, most likely, that kind of bring the story further to life. You know, as the game progresses, there are animations which tell more of the story, whether it's Star Wars or Marvel or Attack from Mars. The story evolves as you're playing the game, which is something you wouldn't normally get from a mechanical pinball. So it's really cool in that aspect. And the team over at Zen Studios did such a fantastic job developing the game. itself that it's just it's it's very very immersive when you're playing in fact there was an article that went out by forbes when they had first played on it uh claiming that we had closed the gap on virtual pinball realism and i think that that's really something that we're proud of wow yeah i would that would be uh i know the part of the reason why people are thinking wi-fi too is just because you just came out with it for nba jam um and apparently everybody is saying you guys have knocked it out of the park with for a first time attempt it's like dang they really hit it um will there be any like will there be any way of connecting usb say to if there needs to be a patch to the game or anything like that or is it going to be a completely self-contained uh system yeah the idea is you will be able to update them um through micro usb or usb or whatever the case is that will only be for like emergencies you know what i mean if there's like a bug slips through testing or you know if there's a newer version of the game that needs to be updated um the beauty of wi-fi is that you could do that over the air but we still do have a back end where we can fix those issues if anything does arise um back in 2018 i believe we had an issue with one of our pcbas and it had a glitch on like a certain level for a handful of units and it cost a small fortune to rectify because we ended up selling sending everybody who could confirm they had the issue a new PCBA. So that point on, we decided if we ever do have to patch something, let's not go through the effort of providing everybody a new computer, having to install it, and then pay for shipping to their house. So yeah, that was definitely a learning experience for us. Everything hereafter will be something you can update. You mentioned that the plunger, for sure we saw it on the marble table, is that going to be also included then for the other two cabinets? Correct. Awesome. Another thing that's kind of being a question is with the button inputs. You know, obviously on a standard pinball machine, the button for the flippers is different than what is on a standard arcade machine in that it's actually a leaf spring, has some recoil and bounce to it. It's not just a micro switch. I'm curious to know, are you guys going that route or are you sticking with the micro switch route? I actually, I can't say this with 100% certainty, but I believe it's a microswitch. Yeah where they going to come back with the try to replicate that feel is with the haptic feedback with the solenoids they putting in there Do you have by any know is it like one solenoid per flipper Are there solenoids for the pop bumpers Or do we have any kind of a number of what we might be looking at solenoid-wise? No, the last prototype I played on had two, and it was one for each flipper. I don't know if that changes for the plunger. They may use the flipper from the same side. so meaning the right side is where the plunger is as well as the right flipper so if you were to use the plunger that may activate the solenoid on the right hand side. I'm not entirely sure they could have gone in and added a third but if I'm being honest based on cost I doubt that's the case. Okay fair enough. The pinball legs are these standard height from what everybody's used to? Are you guys getting a custom built or are they actual real pinball legs?
    14:51
    I don't think they're real. They're custom made. They are adjustable for height wise. And unlike our pinball machines, these are closer to scale. They're still they're not 75. I believe they're 80% in terms of actual scale. But if that's not tall enough for you, you can always go underneath and tweak the legs slightly to be taller. Okay, so that's where the adjustability factor comes into. Yeah. Okay, great.
    15:21
    Let's see. Can we move in a little bit to the software arena? And there's where a couple of things that Zen has done that I'm curious to know that will be incorporated into this. Point number one would be, is the view of the playfield locked, or is that adjustable? Because currently you're able to actually kind of cycle through various views. That I'm not sure. I would say they're probably closer to locked at this point. The reason I'm saying that is because Zen's going through the effort of custom designing the games to be compatible with our table. It's not like they're unlocking a certain feature that would be available on Steam for a custom pinball machine. They're going in and making sure the aspect ratio is optimized, the games are optimized to run with our processor, as well as the viewing angle is also adjusted so the way the screen's recessed based on the design is optimized for the playing field. Now, I don't want to say definitively you can't, but I'm quite sure that you cannot. So, you know, I apologize for that. No, that's okay. I mean, this is why we're all curious because, I mean, from what it sounds like, this isn't just a port of the Steam version or, you know, an Android version, but this is actually being custom built and adjusted for one up. Exactly. Yeah. So that's what's taken us so long. If it was a direct port, we could have done this last year and we could have really rushed it out to market. But the idea was you want a unique experience, you know, you could have played a lot of the games already on, you know, steam or maybe consoles, mobile devices, whatever, you know, pick your poison. but the whole experience of playing has to be as close to the real deal as possible. So they're going in, they're adjusting lighting, they're adjusting some of the graphics as well. They're going through and they're making sure that the haptic feedback is as accurate as it possibly can. They're making sure the accelerometer detects all the nudges correctly. And they're going the extra mile to really develop this game properly for the machine to make it a completely separate experience than what you're used to with their products. This is not just one of our hero items for the year. This is one of theirs, too. So they're really going full steam behind it. The other software bit that people are wondering about, within Xen, you're able to do challenges, like a one-ball challenge, five-minute challenge, that sort of thing, which unlocks kind of power upgrades.
    17:58
    Some are passive, and then you have, like, wizard upgrades that you can actually actively boost scores or do rewinds on the tables and stuff. Curious if that will be transferring over too or again if this is going to be basically a straight pinball experience I have to be honest I don't know the answer to that I'm sorry Questions for Mel Feel free to tell him David sends his regards and all the hard questions your way You're more than welcome to take those on Mel Thank you for your help In the past whenever we've asked him anything he's like It's up to Wannabe They get to tell you I'm like, okay, but there we go. We'll jump on that.
    18:37
    Let's move into just kind of the general ethos of one-up pinballer with what you guys are trying to do. You already said that all three are going to be basically available around the same time.
    18:51
    Is this for the U.S. market or is this worldwide? For right now, U.S. only. and just for the fans, international fans, it's not by choice. For us, it's a no-brainer to be in every market possible. We have the capacity to do so. We have the inventory. We have the supply chain. We're just trying to find the right partners. We've tried certain experiments in certain markets and when you try to rush it, we've seen the repercussions. They're not there for customer service. They're not there for quality assurance and not saying that every single partner we've tried this with is the case, but to build an international business isn't something that happens overnight. So I'm only elaborating on this because we get a lot of flack for our four-foot machines as well. We do want to build the business internationally, but we're going to start in North America because we feel like we have a good grip on it right now. And then we're going to expand internationally, hopefully soon after. Awesome. In terms of store availability, I know currently around me and from the online checks that I've done just with the video game cabinets. It seems like Walmart's the only retailer that carries in stock of Costco maybe during the holidays. Is that something that will expand during the holidays, or is this pretty much going to be online purchasing only, specifically for the pinball machine?
    20:12
    Yeah, we haven't announced which retail partners are going to carry us at the moment. It will for sure be on our website, if not for purchase, for more information on when you can purchase around closer to pre-order dates. and then uh we will have major retailer support we just haven't confirmed that at the moment okay and then i think i had heard price point somewhere between 500 and 600 is that uh what we're shooting for here correct yes okay um at the same time as you guys announced at ces there seems to be this explosion of these three-quarter scale pinball machines suddenly um a couple of other companies have also announced theirs i'm just kind of curious to know do you guys feel that there's enough room for everybody? Do you have a theory on why suddenly there's this expansion? Because previously all that we've had are these full-size cabs that cost thousands and thousands of dollars if you wanted to get a virtual cab, and all of a sudden, bam, these sub-500 machines, like, whoa. So I'm just curious to know if this caught you guys by surprise or if it's a trend that you've noticed was coming inevitably. Yeah, when we first announced the products, we knew right away there would be people ripping us off. That's why strategically speaking, there's certain information released at certain times. We had some of our licensed partners come out to us and say, hey, you know, you guys are our number one royalty paying customer. We would never do anything to hurt your business. However, there are people contacting us trying to, you know, replicate what you're doing, you know, heads up. And once you start to get those heads up from multiple different licensed partners and multiple different, you know, third party vendors and stuff like that, you really you're mindful of what's going on around you. And for us, you know, we know what our unique selling proposition is. We know what our position is in the marketplace. And any company or any product that sells out at multiple major retailers, there's going to be somebody who tries to replicate that to get a piece of the business. So we knew it was coming. We've done a lot of stuff to secure our place. But again, we're not too worried with any of these, you know, multi-cade kind of knockoffs or all in ones. I think, you know, people value quality and they value the licenses we have, the form factor that we bring to the table. and there's there's something unique about what we're doing and the way we're doing it can't can't be ripped off so uh for that reason we're not concerned about it we honestly think competition is healthy it's forced us to think smarter and and work harder uh it's forced us to make some tough decisions at times but also to expand our ideas on how we you know make sure that what the decisions we're doing are the right ones because one misstep and somebody's willing to take your place. You know, you miss an opportunity and somebody's willing to take it. If there's a podcast, if there's a media outlet, if there's a retailer that you don't necessarily go full out on, you know, they will. They'll take that opportunity. So for us, it's sticking to the startup grind what got us here, you know, having that hungry mentality and not forgetting that because as soon as you ease off the gas, somebody's going to catch up to you. So that's kind of, that's where we are and we're not too worried about it. We do think the competition is healthy. The biggest thing for us is just for those who do enter the marketplace to try to do it clean. We don't condone piracy. We don't condone illegal use of intellectual property, stuff like that. So if you're going to enter the market, do it right, and then try not to do it dirty because it doesn't help anybody when we all get a bad rep for people who are illegally promoting content or promoting illegal content, stuff like that, within their machine. So let's keep it a clean fight, and we're happy to get in the ring. Because obviously your licensors will be much more amenable to striking deals if they know it's all being done cleanly. It kind of helps everybody out that way. I know that we're really excited because we think that this is going to open up an entirely new set of pinball fans, basically. There's a whole difference between even just playing with a regular controller on a console and going up to a machine standing there and throwing your hips into it. And I think it's exciting times for digital pinball in general because I think that's really going to step things forward and uh you know hopefully we have such a good run on this that you know deluxe models like what you guys were showing at ces where you're having your refrigerators in the bottom of your cabs and stuff things like that can be uh implemented on pinball machines too definitely um last kind of bit of business that i'm curious about and we asked uh mel this same question i'm curious to know what uh it comes from on your end and that is partnering with Zen, how has that affected licensing opportunities? Has it opened certain doors? Has it solidified contacts you guys have had? I know that Mel said that it kind of opened up some licenses that were, as soon as they knew that there was now going to be a retail, something in stores in a box, it opened the doors for them to go, yeah, okay, now we want to jump in. I'm just kind of curious, you guys having been in it for two years in the physical space, Has there been an effect of having that partnership with Zen with regards to licensing?
    25:49
    Certainly, yeah. So Zen, they're just known for having the largest and top quality of content in virtual pinball. So for us, it was, you know, there's no harm done. If anything, it's been tremendous in value. When we go to retail partners and say, hey, look, we're not just doing this. We're doing this with the biggest library of virtual pinball content. and these guys have been in the game for a while. They have a good rep. They have tremendous reviews. If you just take a minute to read some of their reviews online, it's fantastic. So for us, it's only adding value for the strategic partnership. If anything, it's also opened more doors for us because other people, even though it is an exclusive contract, don't get me wrong, we have had conversations with Mal and Zen and we have in no way felt like it has crippled us or taken any opportunities away, if anything. Some of our retail partners who are virtual pinball fans recognize them and understand that they are the kings in the V-Pin world, and it does add a lot of accreditation to us. Yeah.
    26:58
    Part of that question is self-serving also, because as soon as you guys announced NBA Jam, I went, oh, my God, we might be able to get NBA Fast Break, because you guys were able to negotiate what seemed like an impossible license out of the NBA Players Association.
    27:15
    And I'm like, oh, if we can get that. And then, of course, my head starts spinning with the Wi-Fi aspect because that particular pinball machine can link to other pinball machines and go head-to-head. So keep that in mind.
    27:27
    Hey, I really wanted to thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. This is a lot of information that I know that we were all just dying for, even the stuff that you're not able to get at. It's all good because we've learned plenty that we didn't already. So, again, David, thank you so much for joining us. Best of luck, and we'll be looking for those machines coming up this fall.
    27:52
    Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. Take care. All right. Bye-bye. Get my hands on one of these beauties Yeah Oh you don have to wait much longer We supposed to be releasing this fall Jerry I sorry what country are you in I in Australia We hope to have some units in Australia by this fall. Oh, that would be very nice. So that's all in the U.S. That's like Christmas time over here for us. That's perfect. Yeah, that would be very good. That would be nicely timed.
    28:22
    Well, these days, I think direct-to-customer is becoming more important for us. But our bread and butter is retail for sure.
    28:31
    I'm not the software guy. I'm only the business guy. And, you know, we'll tell you Brian and Bill's back story. But when you want to talk about specs, I'm only on the very high level. What I do know is we've been working with Mel and his amazing team at Zen Studios and really provide the best VPN experience possible outside, you know, the really expensive do-it-yourself ones. So we're trying to, you know, take those cues and put them in a commercial product that everyone can enjoy.
    29:03
    Oh, for sure. It was a natural extension. You know, we didn't know when we first started about two years ago how big this category. We didn't even think it was a category. We thought it was just a couple products. but as time went on in a very short period of time they become almost like high end collectors collectibles and so our community as well as your heart community in the pinball machine they own multiple cabinets and we started seeing that so as we're starting to go down and looking at what we can make in the future we go well I think these man caves need something else and so when we started talking about pinball we have, well not me I can't say I'm an expert pinball. I love pinball. But, you know, we we have experts in our company kind of just go to the forums, the VPN forums and really take what's really important to them and say, you know, we can actually make a commercial product for them using our manufacturing capabilities and go from there. Now, let's see how this first three cabinets go. You know, the reason why, of course, we be partnered with Zen Studios for a couple of reasons. We know they're number one in the space. They have all the content. And because we share the same partners, whether it's Marvel, Lucasfilm, you name it. And so getting back to the question. Yes, we'll see how this goes. But we also see if there's a demand for multiple pinball machines. Likewise, you know, with our machines here that you see behind me, a lot of it's about the artwork. So if people like these first waves and if we can start seeing people who want to collect more and really have that aesthetic of a, they like the artwork of the pinball, yeah, it's possible we can continue to produce more for sure.
    30:52
    You see the glow-in-the-dark carpets from the 1980s. You see all the neon lights. It's really amazing. And it's really giving people kind of my age. I won't divulge how old I am. I'm close to 50. Okay, that's why I did it. But it really, you know, we never thought we could actually have a home arcade, right? Because they're expensive. Each arcade unit run anywhere from $3,000 to $8,000, and it was super heavy. But this really gave us a chance to kind of relive our childhood dream of having really a home arcade. And part of that is also having pinball machines, too. I mean, pinball machines, as you guys know, those stern pinball machines run anywhere from 4 to 9K as well. And we're trying to find, you know, we can't get that same level of experience. But I think there's something to be said of combining Zen Pinball's experience in digital pinball with our experience of manufacturing and really kind of giving that ideal experience. If you've never felt it before. I know a lot of people have seen our demos at CES and other trade shows. And it really tricks you with all of our, you know, solenoids and everything like that. You really feel like you're playing pinball, but for a fraction of the price and the weight.
    32:13
    Well, while you're working out the final points of that, Chris, I'll ask John a question as well. I've noticed that with the latest announcement, you're actually moving forward for more interesting things to put in your home arcade, like gun shooters. That's pretty exciting. Oh, yeah. Before we start, I mean, we really want to make all different types of arcade cabinets. You know, we've had the traditional beat-em-ups and we've had one-on-one fighting. And now the next stage, you know, we have shooting games. So we have Big Buck Hunter that's coming out this fall. And it's one of those bar games that I've played when many of you drinks in. And it's super fun. But, you know, one thing that we had to solve is that, you know, basically light guns on LCDs don't really work too well. So we found a technology called Sinden technology that really solves this problem. Basically, all the technology is within the gun itself and you don't need, you know, those arrays around the outside. Correct. They basically have the border and it's really more accurate. So that is going to be a lead up into a whole bunch of light games that we do in the future. but it's about really trying to get different types of arcade games in there. I can really see like obvious choices for that. I mean, I'm just looking at the range of cabinets you've got in the background with Space Invaders and stuff like that. Like a logical progression there would be things like Point Blank or, you know, Gunblock as it's over there, you know. That's like the grail, right? Yeah. Oh, man, Point Blank was one of my favorite, you know, gun games. I think, you know, in the future once we can get it right, maybe a Point Blank slash Time Crisis cabinet would make sense, right? I mean, I think everyone would love that. I think you'd sell thousands and thousands of units. But I love that you say point blank, because, you know, I mean, like, not too many mainstream gamers know about it, but if you really played it, it's just so addictive. And it's hard to find ones working in the arcade now, because the light guns are really tired. Like, you get that recoil into the light gun, like, you've got the solar noise already in the machine, getting that recoil in the light gun, man. It's going to be pretty special. We're working on that. No, I bet. We'll see if that works.
    34:24
    Mel, I think you're on here, right? I'm here. Yeah, Mel's there. There he is. I was trying to say congratulations earlier, and I was just echoing all over the place. So congrats on 200 episodes, guys. That's quite a milestone. Thank you, Mel. Thanks, Mel. Apparently now I'm checking the Twitch stream. I had muted myself at some point when we went to the four-screen thing. So, Mel, you dropped a little nugget of info on Twitter this morning, and I can tell you already it's sent some of the boards into a frenzy of speculation. But why don't you go into it right now for us all?
    35:03
    Yeah, you know, we stay close to the community, so we know when there's doubt or there's people getting angry because we haven't launched anything in 2020. We put a few announcements out earlier this year about what was going on, but obviously time has gone on. The announcement we were going to make has been delayed. We haven't launched a pinball game this year, which is the 13th year of our history making pinball, so that's like a little strange. All I can tell you is that what we're working on now is all about the future, and we just thought it was important to refocus, stop worrying about trying to get out a bunch of pinball tables this year, and build for the next 10 years. So back in like 2009 or 10, I was in Budapest. We were in a dark, lit room, and we wrote this vision, some words on the board, and it just said pinball everywhere. And that was our mission, and that's been our mission from 2010 to 2020. And at the end of last year, we needed to kind of look and have a gut check where the industry is going, where technology is going, services, new markets, you know, projects like RK1Up. And we just kind of hit the, hey, we need to get strategic and set out the Pinball Everywhere Vision 2.0. And so that is what we're actively building right now. It's big. It's massive. It's ambitious. It's multiple projects. It's multiple technologies. It's new licenses. It's licenses we've worked with in the past. It's entering entirely new territories, new countries where we think pinball can be very successful. It's partnering up with John D again. I don't know if you guys know, but John D. and I worked way back in the day on Street Fighter pinball. He took a chance on us in the Capcom, and that was our first licensed table. Wow. So now, like, here we are building, I think, arcade units and pinball cabinets for people who've always wanted one, but they didn't have the space or the price range was out of reach. That's just one piece of what it is we're doing. So the message today was just letting everybody know that, no, we've not abandoned pinball. Yes, we're very aware that we haven't released any tables this year or any games. We haven't given you much to go on. But the stuff we're working on is so big in scope. It just requires a lot of work, strategic planning. The partners are big and massive. You don't just suddenly talk about it one day. We're planning how we really roll this out because we're going to 10X pinball. And that's what we're planning on.
    37:25
    That sounds pretty exciting stuff. Well, he has three big products coming this year. Yeah. We are going to ship something. We are going to ship something this year. But, you know, this is big. This is bigger than what Zen's ever done. That's awesome. I mean, you promised that it was going to be a wild year. And up to this point, it's kind of like, where's the wild?
    37:52
    Yeah. What happens is you start building something, and then you share it with somebody or a partner or potential something else. and John knows this from 15, 20 years in the industry. It starts snowballing and then it morphs and then somebody else comes in and pretty soon you're just like, oh my God, okay, this is another eight months before we can even talk about this. That's just what happened.
    38:17
    So Mel, in our interview that we had with David, he kind of deferred on the software side and said you can go ahead and maybe elaborate on a thing or two. so I want to see if you can elaborate or if you get to play the dicey game of nope can't tell so the first thing was regarding with these the one up pinball are the table views going to be locked it's only going to be one table view or will there be multiple table views that people can select just like they can with the consoles and such is that something we're allowed to say John tried to keep me in check I think we could say But I think what it makes sense to really have it on vertical though Yeah, well verticals Standard, but you know the different views where we all the game to shift up and down Like we're still working with the size of the screen and all these games are optimized specifically from the size of screen and And everything so there are some views that maybe like don't make sense, you know So it's not gonna be as robust as like an FX 3 where you've got eight views plus some of the same ones with wide It does just don't make sense So, you know, we're working on the best experience. We do want to allow users to, players to, like, have something that is best for them. So, you know, that's all pretty close to final. Okay. It was one of those things I only noticed because I've been playing vertical now for basically six months, and there is still the ability to shift the view. It's pretty minor with what goes down, But I didn't know if you guys were going to be maybe like having just a top-down view or maybe a slightly perspective and have that as an option kind of thing.
    39:59
    Well, I mean, it's hard to say. Like the glasses, you know, the play field itself is settled, right? That doesn't tilt up and down. So whatever view we give you is done in software. And there's some times where it, you know, the wide views don't make so much sense. you cut off the edges of the table, or sometimes the scaling gets a little messed up. So we're getting views that make sense with the hardware and the spec that we're running on. Okay. The other question then was in regards to the different modes, because currently we have obviously where you can do the five-minute one-ball and survival challenges, and those open up the passive upgrades and the wizard power that you can activate. Is that a feature that is going to be part of these, or are we just talking about this being straight pinball? These are pinball tables. There's not really a – it's not an FX3 platform-style game. So, you know, that's another level of development. It's another level of licensure approvals. It's a whole other thing. So to get stuff out for this year and to put our first step forward, you know, you have the pure pinball experience. You're not going to be doing the kind of side modes and challenges that you find in pinball FX. Okay, so it's definitely a matter of changing our perspective. And I kind of got this from David that, again, this isn't just a port. You guys are actually custom developing this to go into these particular cabinets. It's not just shipping over an Android version or a Steam version of this. So, yeah, it's going to be a little bit different there. There's mapping. There's hard coding done to the hardware.
    41:34
    And, you know, it's funny because we've been working on pinball cabinets, you know, with the DIY community and some others in businesses. So we had a running head start. Even with that running head start, it's taken us, what, John, a year and a half, almost two years? That's correct. You know, to get a real-world simulation correct in digital and with a response you want from physical parts is, you don just upload it to a cloud and expect to play it streaming or something You know I mean it just doesn work that way Fair enough Last thing regarding software and it was something that Jared was talking about a little bit also and I noticed with the video it regarding the DMD screen We saw that in the video that was released a couple weeks ago that the DMD got narrowed down on the total screen size so it was actually the proper aspect ratio. But then the information that was popping up on top seemed to be the information that was typically popping up on the screen itself where it would say that you're near a particular point total or that you've moved up on the leaderboard. Obviously, the leaderboard would be online, but in this case I would imagine it would be local only. But is that what you guys are developing something else to add information-wise onto that DMD?
    42:49
    So is that a question for me or for John? Whichever of you can answer it. Yes. I just said John so I don't pause there he's got that look on his face like he's frozen is he frozen? sorry can you hear me? go ahead and answer that so the leaderboards are local right now the online connectivity is not there this time around and this also goes back to one of the things I'm not talking about what I alluded to in building big stuff that is next level and so So, you know, this time around, it's going to be a pure pinball experience. There's fantastic tables. The game feels great. The DMD will display, you know, game feedback and things like what you would expect your DMDs to do. Leaderboards are local. We do have local, you know, hot seats. So there's some co-op. There's a whole bunch of quality of life things we just put in the game. I haven't actually verified the list. But we went through and did a whole bunch of just, like, you know, quality of life things. And so there's a lot of good features for the local at home, friendly matchup pinball experience. And we're confident with that going out the door this first time around.
    44:01
    Fantastic. OK, good. That's that's the amount of hot seat grilling I was going to give to you. Because those were all questions without notice. So we got a pretty good result there. So thanks for that, Mel. We got to look at this like John does a certain thing here now. I do a certain thing here now. I'm not like we're not in the daily minutia of what's going on with this. But at the end of the day we sit back and we say is this the pinball experience that is going to satisfy The player and the customer is the hardware for quality parts and our performance good We're hitting all the benchmarks and then meanwhile John and I are like scoping out. Okay. What does this look like two years from now? You know how to raise the bar and that's what we're hard at work building the team on the ground daily They're in and out there. They're they're working hard and doing awesome things things. It sounds to me that although you would not be able to confirm nor deny this at the moment, it's very much a case of this probably won't be the last round of pinball machines we see in stores or distribution channels anytime soon. Certainly not. Can you guys hear me okay? Yeah. We're taking this first round and getting customer feedback. And if there's features that the community wants to see, There's always ways to update this. So this is our first round, and we really want to focus on the true pinball experience first. And then when we talk about leaderboards online, those are things that we can look through during the next waves or so. Look, and two other things. It's no secret our cable and up games love to mod their hardware. So that's something. And two, good old USB and good old download a file, put it on the USB and slam it in there. So if we have to get old school and hard, you know, like what we used to do things like I used to update my PS4 with the USB or not PS3 was history. So, you know, this is like we're our platform. We're hardware. We're software. We're integrated. It's not an old wrong. This is new, fresh stuff. This is really this is a breakthrough pivotal moment where retro arcade games meet a modern day arcade game in modern day hardware. I mean, it's awesome. Well, I'm sure I'm echoing sentiments here. Like, I can't wait to get my hands on it eventually when there's distribution partners down here for Australia. Christmas is going to be good. I want a big box underneath my tree this Christmas, that's for sure.
    46:24
    We're definitely working hard to make sure we have some in Australia this fall. I know that one of the videos I was watching featuring a guy that had collected every single one-up machine in there, and he made mention of the pinball cabinets and he was like, I don't know if that's really for me. If I want one, I'd get a full bore machine instead. And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, I'm like, dude, you've already got the addiction. And I think you're going to probably buy one anyway and as soon as you get your hands on it, you're going to be like, okay, this is rad. Here we go. Yeah. And you know, also, you've got to catch them all, right? You've got to have all the Arcon 1-ups. I mean, if you already have 45, you need a company with a beep in. I mean, I'm a long-term borrowing a friend's Street Fighter 2.
    47:15
    Yeah, he's modded it and added keys and all sorts of stuff like that. But it's one of those things where I didn't realize just by having a machine there in the living room how often you just kind of wander over and go play a quick game. And that's the beauty of it. It's not booting up your computer, loading up Steam, getting into the program and everything else like that. It's literally just going over, pushing one player, and away you are. And I can only imagine what it's going to feel like doing that with pinball, which I truly love, as opposed to the arcade games where I'm like, oh, yeah, that's nostalgia fun. But, I mean, my addiction is obvious.
    47:53
    No, that's 100% correct. You know, on one hand, a lot of people just go through their arcade boards and look at it like a piece of art. But what's really great about it, it's really easy to get into, just like in the old arcades, you step up, put in a quarter. At least these don't need quarters at all. But if you want to play a quick game, you have time between your Zoom calls, maybe 10 minutes, go for it, and you're in and out. I mean, the simplicity of it is awesome.
    48:19
    But, yeah. Well, and that's just it. Retro gaming, that was it at its core. It's quick games. It's never meant for long, massive sessions. So pinball being the exact same thing, that's why it's beautiful to just be able to walk up and do it. It doesn't take any thought at all. And I know that I've, I had to remap some things because he added a PC to his cabinet. So I had to make buttons work entirely, but because I can now play pinball on it also. We threw in, he threw in keys on the side. But once I got it all mapped in, it's just wonderful to be able to do. And he actually bought some of the one-up boards because he's very, one thing about him is he's very much about doing everything absolutely 100 above board legal and so yeah he went and bought up bought the boards and has those themselves so i got you know multiple things going on and it's i kind of love that you can treat these as just pieces of art and you can use them as uh absolute gaming machines they're they're a blast and the price point is totally within reach as opposed to the virtual cabs which i was just like i'm never going to see one yeah i don't have five thousand dollars to throw at this thing you know but do you think that's them wait oh yeah they're so heavy like you need specialist equipment to move them you know yeah i mean one of the favorite things that i have or that that's fun is just anything that you can modify or just kind of add on to you know and with these machines you can get it from a relatively price and if you want to upgrade the sticks or buns to sand wall or a app, you can do that. If you want to upgrade the, let's say, you know, the screens, that's possible. If you even want to put a new wrap, I mean, it becomes a hobby. Yeah. The interesting thing that makes me wonder, like, given that this is a, the pinball experience that Arcade1Up is building here with Zen is very much a bespoke experience compared to the Android platform and the Steam platform. It makes me wonder, would there be an appetite for people to, you know, set up streaming rigs like you see a lot of arcades and like for example deadflips well known for this like some sort of streaming rig system to actually stream these three-quarter cabinets in real time with you know the all the split screen action that you often get in these professional feeds you know this it sounds to me like you could with the right maybe in a future iteration you could make that a lot easier with certain interfaces in these machines like you You can have a feed out that would allow you to just mix these feeds in easily without any rig. Because those rigs aren't cheap.
    51:00
    Well, it's something we're looking into, right? You're talking about having an HD amount so you can kind of show the gameplay on a different screen. And if you're taking a YouTube video, you can show yourself as well as showing that screen. Yeah, I mean, that's something that we're definitely looking into. And, you know, we want to support content creators. So it's something that for the future, for sure, is a definite possibility. Definitely sounds exciting.
    51:27
    We have a little bit of a problem at times with DCMA type of stuff because of, you know, license IP and music and, but, you know, that's always a challenge when you're dealing with a license property. Yeah, I mean, streaming games too is different, but I thought the question was more like if you want to have an HTML out and then and then stream it for youtubers or twitch i think that definitely will support we even but i mean that's been a problem for pinball to overcome is like you know someone's to stream star wars pinball or something and there's the the beautiful music playing
    52:07
    yeah well yeah licensing isn't it fun video games in general Yeah. I mean, the headaches that go involved with behind-the-scenes stuff, I mean, it's so easy for us to think that, oh, yeah, we've got a product. Why can't I just throw it up on Twitch and everything? But, yeah, the business side of it is kind of severe.
    52:29
    People want to get paid. Yeah, definitely. We do this. We pay them. Yeah. I can only imagine. We definitely pay them.
    52:39
    Legitly. Mel, I'm curious to know how are things in terms of the guys being able to get back into the studio anytime soon in Budapest obviously there's things they can do at home and a lot of it they can do at home but when it comes to actually putting hands on a physical machine to compare to what's being done digitally, there's only one way to do that any kind of ETA for those guys being able to get back to that? Yeah, actually guys in Hungary get to go back to work starting July 1st We can go to the office. We're giving people the option to stay home or come in or do a hybrid. We find some guys have really embraced the work from home and we've seen actually productivity go up. There's times when it's nice to be collaborative and be together. And so I think from a creative process, we're happy that they can do that again in person instead of over screen.
    53:28
    We've been having units sent from Arcade 1 up to guys' homes. So they've been setting them up in there with other games that we're working on based on real machines. You know, guys have gone to the office if there's nobody there. So if there's one per, you know, it's a big office. So if there's one or two guys that can probably social distance. So it hasn't been like they've completely had to be away from the real thing. But that's the situation right now in Hungary. I think it's a little bit better in the EU than it is here in the States, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately for them, unfortunately for us.
    54:02
    Pretty much. But, hey, you know, what a good time to be having to be stayed at home when all these cabs are coming out. Yeah.
    54:10
    I mean, and it certainly seems to have shown, and I think that we read somewhere, John, that 1UP was seeing week-to-week improvement of something like 96% in sales. I mean, I don't know. The number, it starts getting a little bit confusing to me, but it seemed to be good.
    54:28
    Yes, we saw a huge uplift year-to-year, and it's because, I mean, home entertainment has become all the more important. you know right now it's a crazy time right it's a definite new normal and so i think people need an escape i think gaming becomes all that more important to kind of keep your mind off the heavy things that are happening right now with this pandemic and all the political outrage that's coming right now but at least gaming allows us really to have that you know sense of fun and so we're starting to see even with the sales at retail that ourselves have gone up because people need to make their home I guess have that safe and fun. I don't know if I said that correctly but we definitely see entertainment becoming more popular because of the times. No, that certainly makes sense.
    55:24
    Hey, I know Jared's got a meeting so we're going to end this. This was quite spectacular for our two-hundredth. More than we expected Believe me, we were trying to think of beyond the initial interview what else we could spin our wheels about. And then thank you to you, John. Thank you to you, Mel, for popping on. This is fantastic. Folks, we're going to just call it right there. So thanks for watching. Bye-bye. Jared, what are we going to talk about next time? I'd say there's a high chance of stuff and things being talked about next time.
    55:56
    Stuff and things is the way to go. All right, everybody, thank you so much. And we'll all talk again soon. Bye.
    56:02
    See you.