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Episode 24 :: The Electric Bat Cast

Electric Bat Cast·podcast_episode·1h 14m·analyzed·Mar 16, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Electric Bat Cast discusses Twippy wins and operator challenges in running pinball arcades.

Summary

Electric Bat Cast Episode 24 features hosts Cale and Rachel discussing their Twippy award wins (best location southwest and podcast of the year), answering listener questions about operating arcade locations, and exploring topics including machine selection for routes, operator maintenance philosophies, and earnings dynamics. The episode includes a mailbag segment with questions about classic pinball comparisons, location revenue optimization, new machine performance indicators, and maintenance schedules.

Key Claims

  • Metallica Remastered exceeded Stern's sales expectations and sold out immediately

    high confidence · Cale states Stern 'did not expect Metallica Remastered to explode like it did' and 'immediately sold out of LEs' with distributors requesting more premium versions

  • Deep Root Pinball conducted focus group testing with pinball personalities during development

    medium confidence · Rachel mentions 'Deep Root actually did this' and 'some of our friends got, like Crystal got invited, some more personalities, pinball personalities got invited to see it and give their opinions'

  • Dungeons & Dragons pinball had exceptional out-of-box reliability with minimal maintenance needed

    high confidence · Cale reports continuous 20+ hours daily play for first 72 hours with only one stuck ball in entire month of operation, requiring glass removal only twice total

  • Godzilla Premium shipped in perfect working condition requiring no adjustments

    high confidence · Pat Marino reports his 'premium Godzilla was plug and play' with no initial problems

  • Spooky Pinball machines historically ship with buggy code requiring operator attention

    high confidence · Rachel states 'we always talk about when we open up a stern because we do it differently... with a spooky like straight off the rip because they have some of the buggiest code in the business'

Notable Quotes

  • “We won for best location southwest... and we won for like podcast of the year... we're the undefeated best pinball podcasters”

    Cale @ ~04:30 — Announces Electric Bat's Twippy award wins, establishing credibility for operator/venue commentary

  • “You want to get a critical mass of machines that gets people to make the spot where your machines are a destination instead of an afterthought”

    Rachel @ ~13:45 — Core strategy for location-based pinball business growth; contrasts with just adding machines

  • “I think the first 72 hours we had it... somebody on the game continuously from 6 in the morning when we opened until after 2 a.m. when we closed... that's road testing beyond road testing”

    Cale @ ~45:20 — Demonstrates exceptional community reception and engagement with D&D pinball at launch

  • “I did not have to take the glass off that game until we had it for about a week or two and I had one stuck ball... that is unheard of with any pinball machine”

    Cale @ ~46:15 — Praises Stern manufacturing quality for D&D; signals manufacturing excellence comparative to other brands

  • “They did not expect Metallica Remastered to explode like it did. They immediately sold out of LEs, and distributors are asking for more”

    Rachel @ ~30:45 — Indicates Metallica Remastered exceeded internal sales projections and created supply shortage

  • “Some machines are much easier to operate than others... we still like spookies, we keep putting them in the arcade, we're excited to put Evil Dead out”

    Cale @ ~38:30 — Balances criticism of Spooky code quality with affirmation of brand commitment despite technical issues

  • “Our players do that for us... the regulars join [discord] and there's a channel... they're able to just let us know... it's not like they have to run us down in the arcade”

    Rachel @ ~50:15 — Describes community-driven maintenance model as superior to scheduled preventive maintenance

Entities

Electric Bat ArcadeorganizationCale HernandezpersonRachelpersonMetallica RemasteredproductDungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's EyeproductSpooky PinballcompanyEvil Dead

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Early market reaction (pre-release reviews) does not reliably predict long-term sales success

    medium · Rachel notes Godzilla received complaints about green color 'before it really hit the streets' but game ultimately succeeded; real indicator is first few weeks of sales performance

  • ?

    community_signal: Discord-based community reporting system enables operator awareness of machine issues without formal maintenance schedules

    high · Cale and Rachel describe Discord channel where regulars report issues; they respond quickly when alerted; players voluntarily maintain machines through continuous feedback

  • ?

    event_signal: Twippies awards restructured with new organizational team (Colin, Jamie, Kineticist) bringing fresh production approach

    high · Cale and Rachel credit Colin, Jamie, and Kineticist partnership with 'breathing new life' into Twippies; Jamie already planning improvements for next year based on learnings

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky Pinball continues to ship games with significant code bugs despite being knowingly accepted operator choice

    high · Rachel acknowledges 'buggiest code in the business' as documented Spooky characteristic; Electric Bat continues purchasing and installing Spooky games despite known issues

  • $

    market_signal: Metallica Remastered exceeded Stern's internal sales projections and created supply shortage

    high · Rachel states Stern 'did not expect Metallica Remastered to explode like it did,' with immediate LE sellout and distributor requests for more premium units

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.224

0:00
Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome to the latest episode of the Electric Batcast. My name's Cale. I'm Rachel. And in this episode, we're going to get into what is it like to win a Twippy? Why we don't do unboxing first impressions. And Rachel has two months of earnings reports. It's another special episode of the Electric Batcast. Today's episode of the Electric Batcast is brought to you by Stern Pinball's Insider Connected. Head to sternpinball.com to sign up today.
0:37
Marco's specialties, everything pinball, pinball parts and more at marcopinball.com. And Game Room Goodies. Check out gameroomgoodies.com for new and used pinball machines, arcade games, jukeboxes, pool tables and more. And now, the Sherlock and Watson of pinball, Rachel Bess and Cale Hernandez. Hey, what's happening? We're here. We are here. We're back. We've been gone for a little bit. We've been just crazy busy. Extremely, extremely busy. We've been winning twippies. We've been doing it up. Fixing games, playing games. I'm always adjusting my microphone. Having good times, sorting tokens. Having a great time. You know what we do here.
1:25
First of all, thank you so much to the sponsors of this show, Game Room Goodies. That's where we get all of our hardware from. Yes. Hardware meaning games. Big, heavy hardware.
1:37
And Marco's Specialties. We always order all of our parts from Marco's Specialties. Rubbers, flipper rebuilds. You name it. We've even bought play fields from them before. That's true. But when we redid our nitro ground shaker. That's right. They hooked us up with a very cool play field. And you can get all that great stuff, too. And at checkout at Marco's Specialties, if you type in EBA150, what happens? You get your shipping for free on any order of $150 or more. Man, I love that. And I'm sure everybody else does, too. And, of course, Stern Pinballs, Insider Connected. They have a lot of great stuff. Yesterday was Pi Day, I believe. Yes, it was. I got the Pi Day badge. Me too. Did you get it? Yes, I did. We got it on John Wick. We just installed, man, this stuff looks very cool. We installed the John Wick expression lighting speakers. The speaker, yeah. The speaker lighting. And the John Wick topper. That hourglass has like real sand in it. That's cool. Man, that thing is super dope. Yeah. And I can't wait to go back to the arcade and play that some more and get some more of these badges. They have a bunch of limited badges. They have seasonal badges. and um ty was showing me his i don't it looks like a cvs receipt of badges i would like to know if somebody has more uh badges than ty yeah they need release the data people let's get these people competing he's trying 100 it and we're going to talk more about that uh the insider connected stuff when we talk about the earnings report it is relevant so this is interesting two Two months of earnings reports. Earnings reports. That's very, very exciting. Also, what's coming up at the bat? What do we have going on? Well, tomorrow, Sunday the 16th, we have the Dungeons & Dragons launch party. And that's going to be a max match play tournament with an amazing race finals. We're going to have gelatinous cube jello shots. It's going to be awesome. So that is at 1 p.m. gelatinous cube jello shots yes what do these things look like they look like gelatinous cubes they're light blue cubes and they have candy bones and eyeballs in them man i'll tell you what nobody does dnd pinball like you babe it's my thing i think they made this game for you i think they might have um also we have uh new games do it our latest one was was dnd yes and i think we're getting the the new spooky machine soon yeah evil dud should be there i think that later this week yeah so and we're hearing a lot of good things about that we're going to get on that and then uh uh we're going to get into the mailbag oh yeah this is the first electric backcast where we have callers that's right we ask people to record some messages and send them to us keep us under a minute and if you want to do that too you can you can submit it via email to electricbatcast no no electricbatarcade at gmail.com there you go you got it right I'm a little off today and you can also drop it in our discord if you want to join our discord go to the electricbatarcade.com click on the podcast tab or link and then you'll have a way to join our discord it's a lot of fun we have what you know 350 400 people in there lots of conversations talking about all kinds of cool stuff yeah It's active. It's a good time. And they talk about pinball repair, high scores. They even get into some rumors and games they wish that people would make, and it's a lot of fun.
product
Stern Pinballcompany
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Deep Root Pinballcompany
Twippiesevent
This Week in Pinballorganization
Kineticistorganization
Wormhole Pinballorganization
Godzillaproduct
Retro Ralphperson
Marco Specialtiescompany
Game Room Goodiescompany
Stern Pinball Insider Connectedproduct
John Wickproduct
James Bondproduct
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Electric Bat's relationship with Stern spans years; arcade operators have established industry connections

    high · Cale states 'before we did this podcast or owned an arcade, we used to work very closely with Stern. So we've always had a great relationship with them'

  • ?

    product_concern: Dungeons & Dragons pinball demonstrates exceptional manufacturing quality with minimal maintenance requirements over extended play

    high · Cale reports 20+ hours daily play for 72 hours with single stuck ball in month of operation; only two glass openings required total

  • ?

    business_signal: Location revenue growth requires 'critical mass' of diverse machines creating destination appeal, not just incremental additions

    high · Rachel explains that adding machines requires building player base through variety and destination appeal rather than expecting proportional revenue increase from each added machine

    • 5:18
    So let's answer a couple of questions. Let's do it. Then we'll get into the earnings report. All right. And then we'll take some calls. That's awesome. Right? Yeah. All right. First, we have from Jim M. via email. Okay. Thank you so much for your message, Jim.
    5:40
    Just finished watching the state finals you guys streamed last weekend. The commentary was fantastic. That's Serge. That has to be Serge. Serge is our resident commentary guy. Best in the business. Best, man. Gold standard. He knows all the rules. He knows. Photographic memory. He's just a wealth of knowledge. And about our specific machines, which makes it even more fun for us. we know which ones you have to tap on the left to make to make the feed right exactly how you want it or and it's so much fun to watch and if you want to watch those you can head to our twitch channel where they're stored and i'll eventually have them on our youtube channel cool i need to do that soon because and for all of you streamers um i just noticed on twitch they are lowering The amount of storage you have for past broadcasts, uploads, and highlights, they're limiting that. Mr. Bezos is limiting that to 100 hours. He's cutting you off. Yeah, so if any of you Twitch folks were storing stuff on there, just be cognizant of that. Go into the back end and download stuff. Put it on YouTube if you want to archive it and all that good stuff. Anyway, back to Jim. I got into a rat hole there.
    7:00
    So his question is, Classic Bally versus Classic Stern. A nice little game for us. Oh, okay. And a great way to open up the podcast. Open up the podcast for the game.
    7:12
    Okay, which do you prefer? So this is Classic Bally versus Classic Stern. And we enjoy both of them. We enjoy Stern Electronic Games and the Classic Ballys. First of all, bowling theme. Okay. Strikes and Spares versus Memory Lane Strikes and Spares I'm going to have to say Strikes and Spares also because we know it so well, we own one It's a beautiful game, it's got nice simple rules, I like it It's great to look at There's a lot of yellow If you like yellow, that's your game Memory Lane's a great game too, but we just prefer Strikes and Spares, we would like to own both though Underwater theme Okay. Fathom versus Trident.
    7:56
    I'm going to go Fathom on this. I like Fathom. And I'm going to go Trident. And when you say Fathom, you mean the original Fathom, not the one by the company that went out of business. Right. I don't even remember their name. Haggis. Oh, Haggis, yeah.
    8:13
    Okay, so we're split on that one. Okay. And that's okay. That's fair. We can still hang out. We can have differences of opinions. It's not a problem. Not a problem at all. This is my favorite.
    8:25
    B-level wide body. Okay. Future Spa or Flight 2000. This is easy. Flight 2000 is a far, far superior game to Future Spa. One of my least favorite games of all time with that gap on the right. Right, right, right.
    8:49
    I agree. you're right with um but the one caveat future spa has much better art much much better if you get the like rainbow lenticular i don't even know what you would call what is that like a reflector thing going on with that back glass i don't know like holographic something i don't know what it is but it's good and that artwork is second to none if you could put the future spa artwork on flight 2000 you'd have a hit man wouldn't you have loved to have been in the art room when like oh we're going to do one called future spa make some stuff that you think that might look like like all right let's let's go let's drop some acid or whatever it takes some mushrooms just bring it on let's microdose something was going on in that room yeah yeah so there we go we got strikes and spares we We were split on Fathom and Trident, which is fine. And we both loved some Flight 2000. That's right. Yeah, good deal. Thank you so much for your questions. And Jim actually wrote some more stuff, but it had to do with, like, some products that are coming out and all that stuff. And we might talk about that in the future. Thank you so much, Jim. Cheers. Cheers to Jim. One of my favorite things about both those classic Bally's and the classic Stern's is that they share the same board set. And that's why we have so many of them. Yes. Because we can just, like, they're easy to work on, and you can swap boards in and out. They make the Alltech Ultimate boards is what we generally put in those. And you can get those from Marco's Specialties. That's right. And how much do they cost? Well, I mean, it depends on which board you're looking at, but like $100 to $200, depending on. And that would be a perfect time to use the EBA 150 at checkout. Yeah, grab yourself one. Right on. And cheers, Jim. thank you so much for reaching out um we're always here if you want to quiz us some more maybe this could be his thing his regular thing yeah he's like this or that yeah this or that with jim okay um you know what i i totally forgot i can't believe i glossed over this but can we talk about the twippies for a second yeah i totally forgot about it so uh we won two twippies if you if you haven't been paying attention to the pinball world and what's going on there was a little bit of hubbub on the internet about it it was great it was great um so we won for best location southwest yes thank you so much everybody and we won for like podcast of the year this thing that we're doing right now so we're the undefeated best pinball podcasters that's wouldn't you say i would guess so we've been in the running one year and we got We took down the heavyweight champ. Here we are. We've been working out.
    11:38
    And that's been a lot of fun. Yes. And we were really caught off guard. Yeah, it shocked us as much as it shocked you. It really did. But thank you so much. Thank you so much to Colin, to Jamie for teaming up and breathing some new life into the Twippies. And I think this combo, the team from Wormhole and Colin and the Kineticists and This Week in Pinball, isn't that his other site? Yes.
    12:14
    The combination here, it's just going to get better and better and better. I was actually talking to Jamie yesterday on the phone, and they're already thinking about how to make it better for next year. Because you learn by doing, and they did. they had a couple of hiccups and he also had some high moments you know some great great skits and you had the weatherman in there that was that was my favorite part was eric stone pointing at the different arcades that was great yeah but it turned out to be a fantastic show and an absolutely memorable show uh also uh thank you so much to ralph yeah retro ralph aaron winnick Aaron Winnick, yeah. And they all did a fantastic job. And anybody else at the Wormhole who is behind the scenes, I'm sure we'll get to know more about that. And you guys did a great job. And thank you so much to the people, the fans who voted. Mm-hmm. And, okay, now we can get back into the questions. All right. We're excited. I can't believe we don't have the Twippy here. We said we were going to bring it, but we left it at the arcade. We have been. People like seeing it out there. Yeah. And playing with it.
    13:24
    So this is the next question is from Evolving Scott via Discord. Okay. I appreciate this is hard to answer, but I'm hoping you can think through the data. And do you say data or data? Data. Who's the guy on Star Trek? Data. Okay, data. So this is data. Data. I'm hoping you can think through the data and give a good gauge for an answer and maybe even numerical guess at percentage of change. So the question is, when you add new machines do you see an equivalent uplift in total spend on site or do you see the spend redistributed across machines i.e if you have 10 machines and take a thousand pounds that's uh not not weight it's money i'll say dollars so 10 machines weighs a lot more than a thousand pounds i'll convert it to dollars just by saying dollars not the actual conversion because I don't want to have to Google stuff anyway. So if you have 10 machines and take $1,000, do you add a machine making it 11 machines and then see a further $100 spend? Or does the $1,000 spend just spread across more machines? I'm only just starting but have three pins on location. I'm about to add two more. Should I expect 66% more takings or just each machine getting less takings with roughly the same total spend? As I said, I appreciate it's sort of an impossible to answer, but your views are the most valid as far as I'm concerned. Thanks in advance. Thank you so much. That's a great question. That is a fantastic question. And I know you have a fantastic answer. This is something that you and I talk about a lot in the back room. um so i think you're looking at a couple of different things you want to get a critical mass of machines that gets people to make the spot where your machines are a destination instead of an afterthought it's like oh i want to go get pizza at kale's pizza palace because i know there's seven machines there right and it's going to be we're going to have a good time instead of going to some other not pizza palace right right so so there's that part of it you want to make sure that there's enough machines that more and more people are going to be showing up it's not necessarily you've got the same 10 people that are just going to spend two dollars more because there's two more machines right um you you ultimately are going to and it's it's a long game you want the people to go more and more to your spot it also depends on the on the machines are they different enough right if you have five identical machines those are that's cool that's great but it may be better to have a mix in there because then you've got um you're appealing to people who like different types of games so when you're talking about mixing up a classic uh a mid you know 90s era and then some moderns um that will all help so i don't think right off the bat i don't think you're going to see from 10 games to 11 you're not just going to see that same amount increase but over time if you have that mix um interesting enough you know of course it goes without saying that all these have to be working and you have to because people will get turned off if they show up and like half of them get turned off the machines will get turned off right then it won't work at all so um as long as you keep that going i think over time you're going to build up that bigger player base or customer base however you are looking at it and you're going to see that number increase um more than just the 66 but it's i don't think you're going to see an immediate 66 percent gain from going from three to five machines yeah does that make sense absolutely awesome yeah and you have experienced all of that i have experienced all that you started how many machines did you start with and in the bat when for the first few months of electric bat we had 13 pinball machines so right off the rip you had 13 so you could hold a pretty big tournament yeah Like 20 people? 30 people, more.
    17:50
    And then we, pretty shortly thereafter, we doubled in size. Or we added another 20-something machines. We were at 30 machines. And then after a year or two, we doubled again. So now we're at like 65 machines. And each time we doubled in size, we probably have seen a doubling in player base and in earnings.
    18:18
    So part of that's a linear effect, but part of it is also like we have the capacity. Because you and I are doing a lot of other things, too. We are actively building our community and building that base in other ways, too. So it not just if you build it they will come Certainly marketing plays a big part Marketing which you are the goat The goat Yeah The goat marketer Mm-hmm.
    18:44
    Cool. That was a fantastic answer to a seemingly... I think that's a great question. And it's something that people ask in roundabout ways.
    18:56
    Everybody is trying to figure out what the secret sauce is. How do I make more money? Do I put two machines here and three machines here? Do I put five machines in the same place? Do I start selling hot dogs? Yeah, all that stuff. What's the most effective way to get to cash capturing? Yeah, fantastic question, Evolving Scott, and a fantastic answer to an ostensibly complicated question. Cool, very good. Now, here's Pixel Pete again. Pixel Pete. Not Pistol Pete. I called him Pistol Pete last time. That's different. Only one time. I mentioned them three times, and one time I called them Pistol Pete, and that's a place I used to stop on the way to Vegas. That was a lot of fun. It was in the middle of nowhere. It's a place we used to eat pizza for kids' parties when we were young out here. Pistol Pete's was our Chuck E. Cheese showbiz pizza thing. We didn't have that. We just had showbiz back in New Orleans, you know.
    19:52
    So, Pistol Pete, hey, Rachel and Kale. from talking to pinball manufacturers when do they know when they have a high sales potential pinball machine is it in development or not until sales come in that's it's it varies i would say all of those things right in development they know that it's got high potential or they wouldn't be developing it right right so we know lots of stuff has has been in the works and then gotten the axe because they're like well for one reason or another right this is not going to work out so in development yes right you're shooting for that but then but um also sometimes they will bring you know i don't i don't think stern or jersey jack does this but some of the more boutique I've heard of them actually bringing people in to look at something they're working on and say, hey, what do you guys think about this? Focus grouping it. Because sometimes when you're building a machine, you're in such a bubble, you might think everything you're doing is wonderful. And I know Deep Root actually did this. And some of our friends got, like Crystal got invited, some more personalities, pinball personalities got invited to see it and give their opinions on it. Yeah. And sometimes that's how they learn. Well, they maybe should have invited them a little sooner. That example didn't quite work out.
    21:26
    But then once it hits the sales, right, like right out of the box. But if you remember, Godzilla, people were whining and moaning about the color green before it really hit the streets and people had a chance to play it. So I wouldn't think that the first impressions are really what they're banking on. I think you're looking at the first few weeks of sales, once they start to hit the floor, what the reaction is there and how those sales keep coming in after that. And then, of course, when you still can't keep it in stock years later, they're certain. But it also seems like with Stern and the distributors, they know when Keith Elwin releases a machine, it has built-in sales. It has built-in sales. You get the pre-orders. You've got the reputation. And you want to build that as a company. You need people working for you that have track records of very high percentage of success. Right. And on the other side of the coin, and we know this from talking to people at Stern, they did not expect Metallica Remastered to explode like it did. That's right. They did not see that coming. I mean, they immediately sold out of LEs, and distributors are asking for more of those premiums. And we've seen it with the coin drop. People love, love this game. They really, really do. And that's so interesting for a game that has been out, you know, in a similar form for years and years and years, to have that much excitement about, you know, just the remastered version of it. And we are very much looking forward to future remasters. Yeah, I think this is going to open the gate for them to really maybe free up some funding to justify to the accounting department that this is a good idea. And they're going to get to do more of them. So some of the stuff that we enjoy from years ago are going to get a fresh face. Yeah, good deal. Hope we answered your question, Pixel Pete. Thank you for sending in another question, and you know where we are. Ask us some more. This is from Pat Marino.
    23:41
    Via email, our friend Pat, he said, Hi, would love to see a new segment in your podcast, Unboxing First Impressions, when setting up new pins, spooky sterns, JJPs, etc., what problems you run into, switch adjustments, bad code, etc., Or are they perfect out of the box? My premium Godzilla was plug and play. And, for example, and give a monthly review on stability repairs in first month. I pretty much think you're the only podcast that doesn't shill that much. Maybe on sterns a little.
    24:20
    We're not shilling for any of it. This is our real world experience. Right, right. We have no reason to lie. Yeah, right. And we love Stern Machines. We love everything Stern does. And before we did this podcast or owned an arcade, we used to work very closely with Stern. So we've always had a great relationship with them and we love their products. We don't shill. We just love it. Yeah. What do you call that?
    24:48
    Honest. Super fans. Okay. And dishonest opinions. Yeah. His second. Well, let's hit that first. Yeah, let's talk about that. So we kind of do that.
    25:01
    It's not like a segment, but we always talk about when we open up a machine, and nobody wants to see us open up a stern because we do it differently than anybody else. We do it with a box cutter in as few seconds as possible. Yeah, we throw that thing up. That would be a boring video.
    25:20
    But anyway, I think we do all this stuff. We open up the machines. I mean, we've always said what a nightmare it is operating a spooky like straight off the rip because they have some of the buggiest code in the business. No pun intended. Yeah. And they're getting better and better. But, you know, we talk about all of these things. It's just spread out. I mean, I think that this is what our podcast is about. Absolutely. And that's not even a we like or don't like. We obviously still like spookies. We keep putting them in the arcade. We're excited to put Evil Dead out. It's just some machines are much easier to operate than others. And luckily we're experienced enough to be able to handle some of those curveballs. But yeah, I think we do do this already. Yep, we do that. So there's your answer. We do do it. Just stay tuned.
    26:18
    Let's mention Dungeons & Dragons. that game was played for the first few days it was on the floor. I think the first 72 hours we had it. There was somebody on the game continuously from 6 in the morning when we opened until after 2 a.m. when we closed, and then the staff was playing it. So it was getting continuous over 20 hours a day play, which is, I mean, that's road testing beyond road testing. and it was that way for the first three days before there was ever just like a gap um i did not have to take the glass off that game until we had it for about i think a couple of a week or two and i had one stuck ball and i think in the entire time that we've had it so we've had it for just over a month i've taken the glass off twice yes two stuck balls that that is unheard of with any pinball machine yeah that that that is uh kudos to stern for that um yeah he's got another question were you done with that part i'm done with that okay and then uh pat marino would also like how often do you replace plastic coil flipper sleeves do you wait until they start sticking up or do you just replace them every 1000 plays love the podcast go easy on jjp's they do make great games lol was that a was that a joke or why is he laughing yeah why is he laughing they do make great games haha jersey jack's great we love the folks out there uh thanks pat thank you for your question pat and thank you for being a consistent listener with the the the coil sleeves we do not change anything preemptively we don't change any parts on a schedule no we kind of we're under the hood of these machines so many times we kind of you look at them you go that needs to be replaced yeah that's starting to feel right like there's some slop in the flipper so let's rebuild it john shopple um keeps track of whenever he rebuilds a flipper he will write down the number of plays on the coil sleeve or not the coil sleeve the coil stop yeah with the fine point sharpie he'll put the date and the number of plays so that way we build up an idea at least of the games that shopple does the rebuilds on of how long it it generally may take but that's just kind of data for our information we we don't usually um we don't ever actually say oh this game has x thousand number of plays since we've changed it, so let's do it again. We wait for there to be some sign of where. There's 65 games on the floor. We would be, plus all of the other things we have to do, that doesn't make sense. We're lucky enough that we're there all the time, and players will let us know real quick if they detect the slightest bit of something could use improvement. And we're happy for them to let us know that, because it means that we don't have to open up every machine all the time and test it we um right our players do that for us yeah and if you are operating an arcade i think one of the best things we've done is start a discord because the regulars join it and there's a channel in discord with arcade issues and they're able to just like you know it's not like they have to run us down in the arcade and stop us they're just like oh we might be in the office yeah and they're like hey um the you know creature from the black lagoon right flipper is sticking up sometimes but not all the time so you know it's like might not be something you need to get on right now but we know and and they love it when i like you know we'll pop out of the office as soon as they send the message and they're like oh that you know that's so funny you guys are paying attention yeah absolutely we want these games to run properly coin jam and playboy walk out fix it yeah we also have the little piece of papers for the people that are not into discord multiple ways for people to let us know something right needs help yep Yeah. Good deal. Thank you so much. And that was, oh, I lost the page. That was Pat Marino. His second question. Our buddy Pat Marino. Let's move on to L.I. Pinball Society Mike. I think that must be Long Island Pinball Society Mike. What if it's Little Italy Pinball Society? That would be cooler. Or, okay, what's the... All right, L.I. Pinball Society Mike. Thank you so much for your question.
    31:00
    I really like this one. You haven't seen this one yet. You're going to dig it. Because we're both going to have fantastic opinions, per usual, on this great question. If you were starting today and were going to route two games, one modern, Spike 2 or equivalent era, one older, which would they be? The only stipulation is that the modern game can't be Godzilla, Jaws, or Deadpool. Those are all great choices. Yeah. I just feel like those are easy choices, and also pretty much every location by me has one of those. I ask because I would like to start a small route this year. I do have an older game in mind, but curious to see your thoughts. Hint, mine is roller games, but feel free to tell me if it's a bad idea. We have roller games and we love it. Yeah. And the fans love it. So... Roller games. Roller games.
    31:58
    Go for the wall. Can I choose Dungeons & Dragons? You can do whatever you want. This is your time to shine. Go with it. Okay, well, I would choose D&D, but I think that may conflict with the spirit of the question, since that is a new and very popular game. But the reason that I choose it, D&D is a fantastic game for depth. There's a lot of different ways you can play it. There's some strategy. Lots of different strategies. So it's a more complex game.
    32:32
    And then I would choose an older game. Roller Games is perfect for that. And he already owns it. He already owns it. So, yes, I support your Roller Games decision. I would choose, from our collection, I would choose 8-Ball. It's not even 8-Ball Deluxe. It's regular old 8-Ball. Because that game is mean. It's fast. and people want to play it again and again and again to try and get revenge and put it on like we have ours on five ball for 50 cents or 70 man that's a deal and it keeps people in there playing it the upkeep is simple yeah you that might be the best answer but i'm going to give it a shot okay what you got i'm gonna say for okay for for my modern one which he says is spike two or equivalent okay i'm gonna go with james bond oh okay james bond and for my second game a redemption machine oh that's real smart well he didn't specify it didn't specify it just says one older machine. You found a loophole. We have an older redemption machine.
    33:48
    The reason being, first of all, I think the redemption machine is going to keep you in business. Yes. They make a lot of money. They do make a lot of money. But also, that combo, a pinball machine, a redemption machine,
    34:02
    people are going to watch. Pinball is not necessarily as intuitive as a video game or or certainly not and people might be scared to approach it you know i'm gonna put a dollar in this and it's big it's loud it has lights people are gonna look at me while i flail around and try and figure out what i'm doing yeah for sure and there's still people out there that don't know what a pinball machine is uh for example i was playing dnd a couple of months ago and this guy walks up next to me and starts and coins up deadpool okay and i'm playing i'm playing did i say dnd i meant jurassic park okay did i say jurassic park no you said dnd okay yeah yeah i was wondering how you were playing a couple months ago but so um i'm playing jurassic park and uh this young guy comes up next to me coins up deadpool coins it up hits the flashing action button to start his game looks around pulls back the the plunger and launches the ball and watches it bing bong bang bang and then just go down the drain and he was like and he was kind of like oh okay cool and he does it again he thinks he's playing pachinko he does and and so and this was like a like a college age kid right and so at that point i i let my ball drain i go hey man let me show you how to play this and so i was like okay after you plunge this ball and I showed him beforehand, check out these buttons on the side of the cabinet.
    35:39
    These are your flipper buttons. The right one operates the right flipper and the left one operates the left flipper. And he was like, oh my God, this is much better. This is a true story. Oh no. And so on his third ball, he actually hits it a couple of times. And the smile comes on his face and he realizes like, whoa, there's much more to this. and then so i i pulled out my keys opened up the coin door and gave him a couple of credits i was like now play it like that and so and and that's so people i think if there's there's a game it's not a pinball machine it's a little bit easier to understand uh it it allows people to watch other folks play pinball and like go oh i see i'm now i want to try that i can control the ball i can i can do this and that um and if if you don't want to mess around with a redemption machine I'm telling you, these things are good, and these things make money. I think all arcades should have at least one.
    36:37
    What also works is a shooter, like a gun game. And a great option is the machine we have now, which is the Big Buck Hunter. Yes. The reason this thing is great, now, before that, we had a gigantic alien shooter machine with, like, these machine guns. And that thing was amazing, and it made money. It made great money every month. But it took up the space of two pinball machines. And it's intimidating to operate because it's got some kind of older computing that's very specific to the game. Right. The guns are very expensive. Hard to work on. If you going to be somewhere where there going to be kids that are going to be jerking them around and dropping them that going to be it can get labor intensive and cash intensive You're exactly right. This big buck hunter game, this new thing, it's smaller. It takes up the space of one pinball machine or one arcade cabinet. And people love it because it has so many. It's not just hunting deer. There's a zombie adventure. There's Walking Dead. There's Terminator 2. or just Terminator in general from the Terminator universe.
    37:44
    There's also, like, monster hunting games. This thing's great. And if you want to take it to another level, you can take it online. You know, you pay, like, a subscription fee and, you know, compare high scores of people all over the nation, maybe the world. I don't know.
    38:01
    And that's a great choice. That's a really good answer. and now you've made me embarrassed about my answer that it wasn't as good as your answer. Oh, you should not feel like that. So I take my answer back and say, or if you have room for three, do three. Do a classic, a modern, and a redemption. I don't include the redemption. We have one called Suck It Up. Instead of a claw, it's got like a little vacuum suction cup thing. I don't include that on the earnings report because it's on a separate spreadsheet and I just don't. But if I did, almost every month it would be the top earner. Oh, yeah. Certainly. People love that thing. Cool. Thank you so much, LI Pinball Society. Mike, I hope we answered your questions. If not, drop into the Discord and let's have a conversation.
    38:56
    Here's a good question. And for the Batcast, that's us from Frisco Pinball. What features or improvements are you hoping to see in new Stern pinball machines powered by the Spike 3 system? As operators, what would make the experience better? You know what would make the experience better? If we don't even notice it. If it's just more powerful. If it's just adding more stability, more features, more lights. As an operator, you don't even want to notice there's a change. And I think that's what we're going to see with this. I want to see something that makes sure that Insider Connected is always online. Every once in a while, it will drop out. Not often, but that's never a good feeling when you're like, oh, I'm having a great game. I forgot to log in. You go to log in, and it's like, bleh. And we solved a lot of those issues with a more robust Internet hub, right? Yeah, you did that. Right, the wireless, very robust wireless system with rack mount equipment. That solved a lot of those issues. It did. I don't know for sure, but I think what the issue is that Spike 2 was never meant to be something to go online. They have the dongle. If it was intended, then it would be integrated into the... Yeah. But they pulled it off, and it's awesome, and people absolutely love it. Yeah. I guess it's a proof of concept, right, before you invest in creating a board set with that. And I don't know that it's going to be integrated, but I would just imagine moving forward that that would be something that they'd be looking at. Yeah. And we're excited for it. The rumor is we're going to see Spike 3 in the next game, which might debut in a month or two. Oh, okay. Cool. So that'll be very cool. I'm ready for that. We're so ready for it, yeah. I'm going to open it up and look around. Yeah, right on. Thank you so much, Frisco Pinball. Good deal. Here's another question from our good friend in Texas, Mike Flanagan. Oh, Poison Girl. Yeah, that's right.
    41:05
    Batcast question. For your games, do you use rubber, silicon, or Titans on your games? As an operator, I love Super Bands for longevity and ease of cleaning. But as a player, I prefer real rubber. That's his first question. We'll tackle that. First thing I want to do is clarify. I know this can be confusing because so many different companies have their brands of pinball rubbers. But you basically have three types, right? You have the natural rubber. Right. And that's like the classic red flipper rubber. Mostly red and black. And you've seen, I've seen some yellows and blues. But for the most part, those are the red and black traditional flipper rubbers. Yeah. And that's natural rubber. It's not like 100% natural. Or black and white, if you're talking about the rings. Right. It's some type of compound, but it's like a natural rubber. And then you have the silicone, which are... Titans.
    42:00
    And that is Titans. Yeah, that's the point. They are real stretchy and they're easy to put on, your flippers. They're a pleasure to work with. They're a pleasure to work with, but they just don't last. We've seen that they don't last for us. And then your third option, you mentioned super bands. Those are made out of polyurethane. Those last longer than any of the other options. Sometimes can be harder to install on your flippers because they don't stretch very much. Right. But Tony from Rec Bar in Louisville, he taught me a little trick that I still use to this day. Take a zip tie. Yeah. And don't connect it. And so when you're putting on a super band, put one end on the fat end. And, of course, you're going to have your flipper already installed in the game. Put the end of the super band on the fat end of your flipper bat.
    42:57
    Loop the zip tie through it so you have something to grab and then pull that over the skinny end. Oh, okay. So you don't have to, like, fit the super band and your fingertip. Right. Man, that hurts. It does hurt. And so you do that. We always tell you to come do this. And then once you have it mostly installed, you can pull out the zip tie. Because you haven't connected it. You haven't connected it, and then you just push the other end down. So it's a nice little tip from, I learned IRL from Tony at Rec Bar, and I still use it today. Thanks, Tony, if you're listening. So those three all have very different feels. And I think almost, I would say the majority of pinball players prefer the feel of natural rubber. 100%. If you have a route that is kind of far away and you're not servicing as often, then it does definitely make sense to have super bands. 100%. Because, you know what, I prefer more than having no rubbers on the flipper is rubbers on the flipper. so super bands are they're not going to snap they're always going to be there and so and also if you're in um like if it's not just a bunch of tournament players that are going to have an opinion about this uh back to kale's pizza palace super bands are going to be fine i would i would not necessarily put super bands on something like a slingshot because that really affects the play of that slingshot a lot it really drastically reduces the throw of of that but we do put super bands on um very difficult places to get to on dracula bram stoker's dracula like post rubbers post sleeves yeah love super bands yes post sleeves we put them everywhere like black knight sort of rage those post sleeves get hammered and we put super band post sleeves on And that has saved us a lot of taking apart and replacing those. Those are the most durable. And the silicone ones, we have those. I think we have some on TNA. We have them on some games. So we use a mix of all of those. For the most part, we use a natural rubber. For the flippers.
    45:13
    For the flippers, yes. And when I used to work at Market Specialties, I had a couple of operators that would call me.
    45:21
    And these are not arcade operators. They would have like one or two machines here and there at pizza places. Movie theaters. Movie theaters, laundromats. They loved super bands. And they would call in and have me create kits for them. So we'd create a kit for like Aerosmith, ACDC. So every ring in that game would be probably your thing. Because they last the longest. They don't want to have to drive across town. Cool colors, too. Yep, to change a flipper rubber that broke in two weeks. So I guess that does happen. Yeah. So I guess that kind of, it just depends on what your use is, what your use model is, which one makes the most sense. Right, right.
    46:04
    Second question, also from Mike Flanagan. Does a game have to pull its own weight earnings-wise before you move it out to swap with something different? For instance, we love Jackbot. It's one of the greatest competition games out there. But to a casual player, it stinks.
    46:22
    Yes. No recognizable IP, and it can be brutally punishing. That's all true. And brutally punishing to watch. People plunge over and over and over. For the play field validation. Oh, my gosh. That is, you know that I'm, today, we're moving around games in the arcade. And we're moving because it's much easier for us to stream the games that are in the big room. And I am so sick of watching Jackbot on streams. That was the first one. I said, we are moving this out of the streaming. this is not going to be on stream for a long time okay so uh back back to his question does a game have to pull its own weight earnings wise before you move it out to swap for something different this is another really great um complex question i mean it's a straightforward question the answer is a little bit more complicated because i believe and i believe that i've been shown to be correct that you get more overall coin drop by having a fantastic mix of games. Your classic games aren't going, for the most part, to out-earn your modern games, but people will come into the arcade and play longer. More types of players will come into the arcade if you have that full mix. so no i don't rely on um strikes and spares to make i don't expect it to make as much money as metallica or jaws it's uh it's not going to but i but the arcade overall makes more money than it would without those there interesting so i think it's always important to keep keep them If you are lucky enough to have the space to have a very diverse lineup, I think you absolutely should. Right. They don't all have to be top earners. No, no, no. The low earners are still really, I mean, just think about what you go around and play. You, Kale, or you, you know, listener, do you just go and play all of the modern games or do you mix it up? Are you happy when you go into an arcade and you see like, oh, these are games that I don't see everywhere else? I think that's really important. Yeah, fantastic. And Mike's third and final question, finally.
    48:47
    Tournaments are such a big draw earnings-wise, but do you worry about tournament oversaturation? How much is too much? Part of the desirability of our tournaments is that they are special occasion sort of things, biweekly or monthly. does having too many tournaments too often result in people, including the operator and tournament directors, getting burned out? An additional aspect is we are friends with most of the other operators around town and don't want to siphon away players from tournaments they might be running or want to run. Oh, that's another great question. Right? So the first part of that, I'm going to answer the last part of his question.
    49:36
    We're lucky enough that Tracy Lindbergh is extremely organized, and she has been keeping a WordPress site of all of the tournaments anywhere in the Valley. I think John Schaupel runs it now. But we have some dedicated players with organizational skills that keep a calendar. And we also have a Google calendar that we share between all of the tournament directors in the Valley. So we don't step on each other's toes.
    50:14
    And there's tournaments. You can play a tournament in the Phoenix area every night of the week. I think if there's 30 days in a month, there's probably 32 tournaments. Okay. so uh organize organize with you it helps that you're already friends with these people so get together and just create a google calendar it's super simple right and um you don't need a website yeah you don't need all that google calendar is free and shared amongst the local tvs yeah you got that uh at one or two a month you're nowhere near tournament fatigue in my opinion right um we see players there are there are players that play 20 tournaments a month yeah at monthly and bi-weekly there should there shouldn't be any fatigue um if there is and we've talked about this before it might be the length of the tournament yeah and the format yeah you nobody wants to be at a bunch of tournament you know a tournament every week that's eight hours long right so that that's a great point yeah um keep a keep it shorter and um have you know come in have fun go home yeah do it repeat isn't i think it feels like to me the sweet spot is three hours i would say between two and three hours is the sweet spot yeah so keep keep that in mind and Especially if you've got newer players, like brand new players, possibly even less than that. It may depend on how experienced overall your player base is. If they're used to doing these slogs of tournaments. But to get new people into the hobby, you need to keep them a little bit shorter than that. So figure out a format that works. Max match play can be great for that. Or just adjusting your match play overall. just group match play less rounds yeah yeah there you go thank you so much mike we enjoy your questions um right now let's get into the earnings report let's do it and then we'll take some take some calls and uh what's special about this earnings report this is the second time you've done two months in a row yeah and this is great yeah so you get a direct comparison you get and And I'm ready. I'm going to be quiet and listen. Go.
    52:44
    All right. So this is January's. In 10th place, I have them all on this note card right here. Very cool. In 10th place, Medieval Madness.
    52:56
    In 9th place, Black Knight Sword of Rage. Great game. 8th place, Batman 66. Another banger. 7th place, Jaws. sixth place big buck reloaded okay that's that's a video game that's a video game because there is a big buck uh pinball machine right we don't have it right yeah we have big game similar similar theme right uh fifth place judge dread and that was the first month that was on the floor so that that got some good play uh fourth place x-men third place pulp fiction okay second place godzilla first place metallica remastered right so and that shot right up to the top well over godzilla what month is that for this is january's earnings and some notes about this is midway through the month we um also put adam's family on the floor okay so adam uh our friend adam suspected that adam's family may be near the top well it was only it wasn't out there for the full month it did not even make the top 10 so now we can move on to february still in 10th place medieval madness so this we know it's due to one super van right he i think has a medieval magic madness budget that he spends every day and the earnings on medieval madness are uh they're separated they're fifty dollars difference between the two yeah he was he was in the arcade yesterday teaching some of the younger guys how to play medieval madness that's so cool it was fun I was working on John Wick, installing the topper and all that stuff while he was doing that. It was really great. He was giving tips and tricks? Yeah. I mean, who knows it better than the guy who plays it every single day? He knows it better than Brian Eddy.
    55:06
    Mr. Eddy. Yeah. So, yeah, he only plays that game. And Adam's Family. And Adam's Family, right. Okay. Ninth place, Batman 66. 66 eighth place john wick made it on what happened they dropped just like you know we we we prayed for it and stern dropped some more limited contracts limited contracts and i'll be damn it worked it shot the earnings up like clockwork yeah like 25 at least yeah um of increase in that just like it really we not wrong when we say that this works i have data right all right uh falling to seventh place this month i can do a casey casem voice but that was we were listening to casey casem this morning yeah that was cool that used to be a quick tangent when i was a little kid i had my get in shape girl radio and would listen to casey casem in you know i think it was saturday morning and i would just lay down and listen i just wanted to hear like the rankings of all of those things and it just kind of reminds me like and now you're doing it yes now i am i'm about to case him who knew rachel's top 10 so ladies and gentlemen seventh michael mcdonald pinball seventh place is pulp fiction still steady at number six yeah big buck okay uh in fifth place iron maiden and this is due to another super fan who has recently started coming to the arcade uh very regularly and is now there i would say 12 hours a day he also he's there so much he asked us for a job yeah uh we couldn't possibly give him a job because he's paying for me to have a job right right i've We've got to keep him pumping the quarters in. But he started out by only playing Iron Maiden. And he was seriously playing it for at least six hours a day. Right. And I was like, man, you know we have all these other great games. And it took him a while. But he finally decided while he's there, he's like, oh, you guys are having a pinball tournament? I want to play in it. And this is the first pinball tournament he's ever played. And he did it when all of the hotshot pro players were in town for SPF. So that was his introduction to pinball tournaments. He's playing with some top 100 people, like a bunch of them. Yeah, many, like top 20 people were there. Right. But he stuck with it. Yeah. He had a great time, and now he tries to join whichever tournament we have. And most importantly, he's playing other games. Right. uh uh spooky looney tunes is one of his favorites now uh he likes uh he doesn't like andromeda i tried to turn him on to andromeda but i did turn him on to joker poker oh i heard you explaining the rules to him and him saying like oh i did the thing now this makes so much more sense right so he's he's he's uh branching out excellent yep fourth place still x-men in third place godzilla Second place, Metallica. And drumroll, ladies and gentlemen. Number one. Rachel Bess is top ten. D&D. Of course. So here's the thing. I've never seen, there were lines for this game. Like for consistent lines, this game went out on Valentine's Day. So it only had half the month. It had 14 days to earn. Right. It blew away second place. And our current reigning champion for the most dollars in one month is Elton John. This game, in two weeks, very nearly beat the Elton John four weeks record. Wow. So, this game has serious potential. It's a fantastic earner. did you notice what was not on rachel's top 10 the earnings report for february galactic tank force well that is not even in the arcade so that you i'm glad you noticed that it wasn't in the top 10 adam's family was not in the top 10 yes because people people think adam's family right that's people many people's grail game it's the one everyone loves to remember including me and you know you would think you're just getting into this how do you think oh that's going to be the big earner but no sir um so that's a a cautionary tale for the people that want to go to the pin side top 10 top 20 games like these are the games i need for my arcade right that probably is not the case um i had adam's family at the house and you always were asking like why don't we put this on the floor this seems like an obvious no-brainer right it's it's famous it's well loved it's the best selling pinball machine of all time did it was in 22nd place this month i looked just so i would have that information so i mean it earns fine it's a good earner right that's still the top third of earners but uh the data has spoken yeah and there you have But ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for Rachel Kasem's top ten earning pinball machines at the Electric Bat Arcade. Right now we have some callers on the line. Oh, well, let's not keep them holding. And this is the first time we've done this. If you want to send in your voice recordings, you can record it on your phone. It's an amazing technology we have nowadays.
    61:11
    They all have fantastic microphones and compression built in with the software and all that stuff. and you can just make a voice recording. Please keep it under one minute, and you can email it to us at electricbatarcade at gmail. Is that correct? That's correct. Or just drop it in the Discord. And on the line right now, I think we have Gutter Ghoul. Let's check it out.
    61:33
    Hey, Rachel and Gale. Gutter Ghoul here with a question for the Batcast. What's the announcement of that D&D-themed tournament? I was wondering what other avenues you can have for tournament alternatives. Not necessarily match play, but something like that D&D-themed golf-style tournament, maybe the Amazing Race-style tournaments. What other theming or game strategies can you implement into your arcade to liven up the regular rigmarole of normal tournaments? Great, great question. That is a great question. And what he's talking about, about the D&D themed tournament, is not our D&D machine, but rather an RPG style tournament that I'm creating using pinball machines as the mechanism to build your character, your RPG character. And so that's coming up. I think we're going to start doing that maybe a week from Wednesday, start building up some stuff. But these are tournaments that are not for Whopper points. They are for fun. And that allows you to have some extra creative control over how you're rolling it. I think it's a great idea to have a mix of the tournaments for points and then just throwing in some cool things. And there are a lot of, there's like pin bowling. We haven't done that one specifically yet.
    63:14
    But Chewy did a cool one that was team-based where you had three player teams and each player played either the first, second, or third ball. And that was cool because that was like co-op. God, that was fun. I forgot about that. We have to get Chewy to do that again. Yeah, we're going to have to bring that back.
    63:33
    I mean, gosh, whatever you want to do. We did, with Chewy's Bats Night Out, we did Split Flipper. Yeah, Split Flipper's great.
    63:46
    Now that you mention it, I mean, I totally forgot. That team play where you have three player teams and one person does the first ball, one the second, one the third, that was so cool. Because you were really thinking about strategy, like who's your finisher, who's your anchor guy, who's great on their ball one. That was a lot of fun. We need to do that again. Let's do it. Yeah. Cool. Let's see who else is on the line. I think we have Wiley here, east of the Rockies. You're on the air, Wiley. Hey, Rachel. Hey, Cale. What I want to know is, let's say a wealthy investor came along and gave you guys, say, $10 million. How would you spend it? Would you buy as many pinball machines as possible? Would you renovate the existing electric bat space? Or would you move to a hip location right near ASU on the main drag? I'd also like to note that I asked John Schaupel this same question and he had a cool response, he said that he would put all money into tournament prize pools to get as many people playing pinball as possible but I'd like to hear your thoughts what would you do with say 10 million dollars thank you so much Wiley, I tell you what, if I had 10 million dollars, I'd play two pinball machines at the same time what do you think you could do that with two dollars oh nice reference um john chopper really would give 100 of the 10 million dollars to prize pools and that is the coolest answer that's definitely he's got the best answer i would do some renovations we um man building that prize pool seems like a good what would you do i would go on permanent vacation i would buy a boat we live in arizona there are very limited you could put that in the canal you're assuming i would i would be in arizona i would be i would be traveling around the world in my cool boat okay um no but realistically um yeah i would i would uh you know just some slight modifications i love our space yeah and the feel of our space it's in a if you haven't been to electric bat arcade it is in a like a 50 60 year old strip mall yeah and it just has it has a cool vibe that you cannot get with it with a new location no um it's it's uh it's just wow and i love it but i'll do like minor minor upgrades you know like a like a new bathroom or two um uh upgrade the bar um but but as far what's what's are you thinking about something what's so funny i think we are trying to do those things right now actually oh yeah right but it would be a whole heck of a lot easier yeah uh if we had a bank account that could support it right right do a little little palm grazing to some politicians absolutely okay here okay i thought about it here's what i would actually do in addition to those things because 10 million dollars is a lot of money we could we could do yeah multiple things i would pay john shopple and chris bliznick from firebird pinball an incredible uh local tech to teach classes to all of the people that come in every day and say hey i want to follow you around and do what you're doing i want i want you to teach me how to do this right um we have no time to be teaching people that's a very very time consuming and energy consuming process but people want to learn and they should be able to learn and it's kind of a hard thing to do right so we would pay people so that they could learn how to do it and then once they became proficient i mean i can pay people for a long time with 10 million dollars right then they can work for us yeah and run the arcade 100 and that's when we get in your boat i think there you go there you That's the path to... We'll just show up for a Tuesday tournament. Yeah, we'll show up. Pull up in the yacht. Yeah, maybe we could pay or someone to run them. That's really great. And about education and about pinball repair, that's very great. And there's a lot of good resources online. But that would be cool to boost it up with, like, in-person classes. And that would be recorded, you know, for archival reasons on YouTube. and give folks some hands-on you know solder some stuff yeah yeah right on do we call this segment art bells and chimes oh i think we do east of the rockies you're on the air all right so we have a another question right here are you ready for this one i don't know who this is so this is going to be a surprise okay all right caller you're online hello bats this is pinball hans yes in southern california and my question this time is how to grow a pinball league starting my fourth season of a good league at a solid brewery and can't seem to get over the 10 12 threshold we have mostly repeat players and would love to expand it to like 20 to 30 so any suggestions you have i would certainly appreciate as you guys are king and queen of the league thanks thank you so much pinball hans great friend of ours yeah wonderful person yes um how can you build this league up the thing that we talked about earlier keeping it at a nice uh time length keeping it not too long will make it more approachable yeah for a newer player i think consistency is key you and i do not take any tuesdays off there is no break between seasons league this last year i think was on christmas or it was either christmas or christmas eve And that's a known thing with business, with marketing, that's just human psychology, that people like a regular schedule. It's built into our DNA. And that works, you know, whether you're streaming on Twitch, you know, whatever you're doing, people, you know, are creatures of habit. They want to know when, you don't want to have to think. There's that extra step. Is it tonight? Is it not tonight? Do I have to look it up? I don't feel like doing that. Never mind. I'm going to go out to dinner with my friend. So even if you don't think anyone will show up on whatever night that is, assuming the place that you're at is open, always keep it consistent. Keep it consistent. Make sure it doesn't go too long. Yeah. We talked about that earlier. Yeah. Right. Good length. Make it fun. Make sure that you don't tolerate jackasses. Right. If somebody starts jumping around, slamming on the machines, let them know that they can choose to be cool or choose to be elsewhere. Right. Go to Colorado. Go to – what if they're already in Colorado? Go to some other state. Go somewhere else. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's basically it. You want to make it fun. Make sure it's not too long. Be consistent. We like every week.
    71:34
    We've built it like that. You've always been like, no matter what, we're having it on this certain day every single week. And people are programmed. They know what's going on. I'm not going to make any plans. This is what we're doing. This is what we do on Tuesday nights. This is what we're doing. And offer cool prizes.
    71:52
    Prizes help. That's really helped us out a lot. And it doesn't even have to be like pinball related things. I don't know where Hans' tournament is, but, you know, if they have food. Yeah, a 24-inch pizza. Gift certificates for the food, all that stuff. Yeah, people love, even the smallest prize people love. Something that they can just, a tangible object that represents their win. Right. Something that they can look at on the shelf. I did that. Something for show and tell. Mm-hmm. Yeah, good deal. Cool. Well, we do have a bunch of other questions, but I'd like to save that for the next episode. So if you send something in and you haven't heard anything, don't worry. We're going to get to you. But we have a lot to do today. You might play in a pinball tournament. Well, I think that started 36 minutes ago. Oh, no, it did. A little bells and chimes action going on at Atomic Age Modern. Yeah.
    72:50
    Well, we're probably going to go to the arcade and get some work done. We're going to do that. To tell you the truth. That's what's going to happen. So we'll see you there. Yeah, right on. Thank you so much for joining us. If you want to ask us any questions, you can do it via email. You can get in our Discord. Or you can just come to the Electric Bat Arcade because we're, most of the time, always there.
    73:11
    Absolutely. And I want to give a special shout out to Brandon, our bartender. Oh, man. We're going to miss him. What's he doing now? He is working for Southwest Airlines. Good deal. So he got a different job. He's still going to be working for us from time to time. He's not off the payroll. Right. But his regular schedule is being taken over by some awesome people that we are so excited to have working for us.
    73:35
    Amber is going to be working during the week for us. Fantastic pinball player. If you've seen our stream, you've seen Amber. She's an incredible pinball player. So I'm excited to have her just even in the building a few more nights a week. And then also Sky, super cool, friendly. Yes. And she's also a great pinball player, fun pinball player. We're so fortunate. Yes. So, Brandon, we will miss you. Welcome, Amber and Skye. Yeah.
    74:04
    That's the switch up on the bat team right now. Welcome to the family. Yeah, welcome to the family. Brandon, you're still in it. Always. You can never leave. You can never fully leave. Yeah. So, thank you so much. And thanks again to everybody for all the Twippy votes. Yes, thank you so much. Let's do it again next year. and for now the bats are out bats out we'll see you next time bye bye everybody