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We Are Pinball #18 "New Stern hype! Community love!"

We Are Pinball (WAP)·podcast_episode·1h 22m·analyzed·Dec 23, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

WAP discusses Stern vaulting strategy; celebrates Patreon growth; emphasizes honest reviews' impact on $10k+ purchases.

Summary

We Are Pinball episode #18 features Don and Genghis discussing Stern's new 'vault' strategy for older titles (Deadpool, Iron Maiden, Star Wars, Avengers, Elvira, Foo Fighters), celebrating Patreon support milestones, and emphasizing the importance of honest game reviews and post-purchase support in the community. The hosts stress that authentic recommendations drive purchasing decisions worth $10,000+ and thank supporters like Velvet Steve who funded custom mods and infrastructure.

Key Claims

  • Stern is vaulting six games (Deadpool, Iron Maiden, Star Wars, Avengers, Elvira, Foo Fighters) with a minimum 2-year vault period

    high confidence · Stern official statement quoted directly in episode; hosts confirm dates and titles

  • Foo Fighters was released 'last year' (2024) and getting vaulted is 'fairly new'

    high confidence · Don directly states 'Foo Fighters last year' and notes surprise at early vaulting

  • Deadpool's popularity resurgence came during COVID when supply was constrained

    high confidence · Genghis explains: 'it wasn't a hit. The code wasn't there. But something happened at the COVID situation. Deadpool was a game that many people wanted, but they couldn't get this game. So it gained popularity.'

  • Avengers layout is Keith Elwin's best shooting game

    medium confidence · Genghis opinion: 'when I dissect Keith Hilbin's shots on layout, including Joe's, I really feel like Avengers is his best shooting game'

  • Foo Fighters' design philosophy mirrors Jack Danger and Keith Elwin 'having a child together'

    medium confidence · Don's comparative assessment of game layout and shooting design

  • Dungeon and Dragons Pro is reportedly 'really bad'

    medium confidence · Genghis: 'I have heard the upcoming Dungeon and Dragon, the upcoming Stern game, the pro is the way to go on the upcoming Stern game the pro is really bad' — presented as secondhand information

  • Velvet Steve purchased Texas Pinball Machine (Transform Massacre) and is awaiting delivery

    high confidence · Hosts note: 'he has ordered the Texas Transform Massacre' but waiting on game arrival before joining show

  • Star Wars Pinball has sold more units than almost any other recent Stern title

    high confidence · Don: 'And they have sold so many Star Wars games. And I can say on location, Star Wars still makes money like crazy.'

Notable Quotes

  • “If you're not enjoying this, then what are you doing? We're just, man, let's just enjoy it and have some fun.”

    Genghis (quoting Retro Ralph) @ ~15:00 — Core philosophy underpinning WAP podcast ethos and community engagement

  • “Because you, me, we make a video and people go and they listen to a 20-minute long video and they purchase a game for $10,000. Wild.”

    Genghis @ ~52:00 — Highlights content creator responsibility and influence on major purchasing decisions

  • “I'm just honest. I don't tell how it is. Don't blame me. You blame yourself. Yeah, then just do a better job. It is what it is.”

    Genghis @ ~51:00 — Establishes content creator's commitment to honest criticism of manufacturers

  • “The layout, Johnny. Yeah, this is a weak theme on a great layout, which is like the only reason we talk about this game.”

    Genghis @ ~38:00 — Critiques Avengers' theme weakness despite strong mechanical design

  • “I don't want that play field. you can't even see through it and I have heard the upcoming Dungeon and Dragon, the upcoming Stern game, the pro is the way to go on the upcoming Stern game the pro is really bad”

    Genghis @ ~47:00 — First mention of Dungeon & Dragons Pro design concerns; leaked/secondhand information

  • “We started this because we're having fun with pinball, right, and just wanted to talk about it. But the people who reach out, they're like, we want to support this and be part of it.”

    Don @ ~10:00 — Reflects organic growth of Patreon model driven by community enthusiasm

  • “He's like a social jellyfish, man. He's how I met, like flipping out people was through him. He's connected to everybody. He's friends with everybody.”

    Genghis (describing Brian Cuzz) @ ~9:00 — Highlights community connector role and Brian Cuzz's influence in pinball ecosystem

Entities

DonpersonGenghispersonVelvet StevepersonBrian CuzzpersonJeremy FordpersonRetro RalphpersonJack DangerpersonKeith Elwinperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: WAP Patreon launched ~2-3 weeks ago with rapid organic growth; Velvet Steve catalyzed expansion by commissioning custom mod tier ($100/month) to differentiate support levels

    high · Hosts attribute sudden Patreon surge to Velvet Steve's intervention; multiple new supporters mentioned (Brian Cuzz, Jeremy Ford, Brad Kay); Don notes calls supporters 24 times daily with updates

  • ?

    community_signal: Brian Cuzz identified as central pinball community connector; opened River City Arcade in Danville, Virginia; described as 'social jellyfish' connected to major pinball events and personalities

    medium · Genghis: 'He's like a social jellyfish, man... He's connected to everybody. He's friends with everybody. He's the coolest guy'; hosts suggest checking out River City Arcade

  • ?

    content_signal: Content creators' video reviews directly drive $10,000+ pinball purchases; hosts acknowledge responsibility for honest assessment given magnitude of viewer purchasing power

    high · Genghis: 'Because you, me, we make a video and people go and they listen to a 20-minute long video and they purchase a game for $10,000. Wild'; examples of Looney Tunes and Jurassic Park buyers citing videos as motivation

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jack Danger credited with innovative cross-field shot design on Foo Fighters; hosts analyze his design as synthesis of Deadpool's katana focus with superior wire-form geometry

    medium · Don: 'Foo Fighters has that like it's like that's what it feels missing from Deadpool is like one big circular ramp'; Genghis: 'if jack danger and keith elvin had a child together it was just wow'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.249

0:00
Yeah, yeah, yeah Saturday morning at the crack of sunrise Think the man upstairs will let me open my eyes Oh, and the Mac-10 in my ear holes tells me it's time for another We Are Pinball episode. We gotta be up to number 17 or something by now. Numbers, not important, especially here in the Southern Hemisphere. We're on the road, wopinating across the globe.
0:30
with you and your bathrobe. So let's get into it. We got Cengiz here with me somewhere. What's up, buddy?
0:36
What's up, Donnie? What's up, everybody? Welcome, welcome to another WAP show. So I just called Donnie up. I was like, man, it's late in Denmark. How are you doing, Donnie? Amazing. And Donnie was like, man, it's about 4 o'clock in Australia with an Australian accent. And I was like, 4 o'clock in the morning? Why aren't you sleeping, Donnie? Oh, yeah. It's like Mallorca out here. It's like California mixed with Europe, mixed with Miami, mixed with mullets, man, is how I would explain this place. It's like I haven't even been to bed yet. Just kidding. I'm about 16 hours of jet lag right now. So it's noon at home. It's 4 a.m. here. I don't know what's going on. But I'm awake and I'm recording, and I can't wait to talk about, of all things, Chex List pinball on this – was it Monday? Is it Sunday? What day is it where you are? I have no idea.
1:26
Totally. It's jet lag day. I mean, this is not scripted. This is nothing. I just called you up and, do you want to do a WAP show? Yeah, man, let's go. I'm so happy that you always have this, yes, let's go mindset on. I'm loving it. And people, peeps, you should see the view. I'm looking at Donnie. He's at the right side of the camera. But behind him, the ocean, the sun is coming up in Australia. Australia is such a beautiful country. I have so many friends in Australia. Wow, man. So wait, wait. Hang on. This show, I'm going to go. You live near Z-Land, right? Because I'm right near New Z-Land. There's another one. Yeah.
Stern Pinball
company
Spooky Pinballcompany
Deadpoolgame
Iron Maidengame
Star Warsgame
Avengers: Infinity Questgame
Elvira: House of Horrorsgame
Foo Fightersgame
Looney Tunesgame
Jurassic Parkgame
Dungeon and Dragonsgame
Mad Pinballcompany
River City Arcadecompany
Patreonplatform
Texas Pinball Machinecompany

licensing_signal: Avengers game theme characterized as 'weak' and potentially non-movie version; hosts speculate movie version would require prohibitive licensing costs

medium · Genghis: 'It's a weak theme on a great layout... Do a movie-themed version with, like, clips and call-outs and stuff. But I just don't think the finances would make it worthwhile'

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market saturation of vaulted titles (Deadpool, Iron Maiden, Avengers, Foo Fighters) indicates overproduction in COVID era; hosts confirm used availability and cheap secondary market pricing

    high · Don: 'They're sitting at distros, you can go get them on the used market'; Genghis re: Avengers 'very cheap out there'; Foo Fighters noted as heavily overproduced during COVID demand spike

  • ?

    product_strategy: Star Wars vaulting creates urgency for comic art variant ordering; hosts note current production runs of comic variants amid vault announcement

    high · Don: 'Star Wars comic bros and premiums... they just did another run' — immediately before vault announcement, suggesting strategic timing

  • ?

    product_concern: Dungeon & Dragons Pro edition reportedly 'really bad' per secondhand information; hosts express this as leaked feedback requiring first-hand verification within weeks

    medium · Genghis: 'I have heard the upcoming Dungeon and Dragon, the upcoming Stern game, the pro is really bad' — presented as unconfirmed secondhand claim

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Positive community sentiment toward We Are Pinball podcast; hosts report receiving messages praising show's happy, positive, non-toxic approach contrasting with other hobby communities

    high · Hosts reference message: 'this show is so fun to listen to because every time you're laughing, we're laughing'; Retro Ralph endorsement of positive philosophy; rapid Patreon growth attributed to show quality

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern officially implementing 'vault' strategy for six titles with 2-year minimum production pause, explicitly framed as scarcity/FOMO creation to drive immediate sales of comic art variants and current production runs

    high · Hosts quote Stern statement about vaulted titles and immediately contextualize it as demand-saturation management; Genghis: 'they're trying to make some sort of scarcity... officially say, you know what, we're going to put these away for a while'

    • 2:10
    Folks probably don't know this. The original Z-Land is the island of Copenhagen's on, right? Yeah. I live in the old Z-Land, and you're at the new Z-Land, man.
    2:20
    Oh, man. It looks amazing. So we have a – you should not say we have a packed show today. because we have this and this and this, but to be honest, we didn't write anything down. We're just going to freestyle and talk about pinball, love, and passion because the support we're getting, the messages we're getting, people are saying this show is so fun to listen to because every time you're laughing, we're laughing while we are listening. It's so good. So let's keep up the high energy. Let's keep up the entertainment up. Let's start with thanking our Patreon supporters. Oh, my God, man. I can't get a break because we're always on the clock now with all these duckets that are coming in, man. Appreciate the love. Velvet Steve really kicked off this sudden surge in popularity. Holy crap. I mean, before we enter the Velvet Steve talk, because we have to thank this guy every time. Absolutely. So after Spooky Luke, we were like, this is so cool. We have Team Spooky in here.
    3:24
    And two days ago, we made a show with Retro Ralph. It was so entertaining. It was such a great time. All of a sudden, bam, we got Brian Cuzz in the house. What up, Cuzz?
    3:37
    I think it's an air horn. So Cuzz is our newest citizen supporter on Patreon. We are so happy to have you here, Cuzz. Thank you for joining. Thank you for supporting, dear friend. And Donnie, every time we get these new supporters, you hit me up, and you called cause for something. Pinball, supporting God, something. What was that? I have no idea. Whatever popped in my head at the moment. He's the most supportive guy out there. He's like the secret ambassador, man. This guy is everywhere. He's like a social jellyfish, man. He's how I met, like flipping out people was through him. He's connected to everybody. He's friends with everybody. He's the coolest guy. Danville, Virginia. Go check out River City Arcade. Just opened his first location, man. He's taken over the world, Brian Coz. Shout out, man. Shout out to Coz. And now he's in here supporting this show also. Thank you, dear friend. It's just so good to have you here. And we didn't start this as just a money-making operation or anything. We started this because we're having fun with pinball, right, and just wanted to talk about it. But the people who reach out, they're like, we want to support this and be part of it. I'm like, well, of course, dude. Yeah, no good ideas are refused here.
    4:50
    Absolutely. You guys, actually, when we started this, people reached out after episode two or something, and they wanted to join the WAP show and be a part of it. And I remember we said, let's just wait to show number 10. Let's get something on the legs. And about show number five, six, people were like, hey, we want to support this. You have something good going on here. and from there we talked about creating Patreon and we created it for two, three, two I think we had, what, two weeks ago so yeah, it took some months to create this, but yeah, now it's rolling and we have to thank these people because when they support us we need to thank them because it makes you happy, it makes me happy we talk more about it, but after Brian Cuss, you know what happened Donnie, he hit me up and he was like, dude, check this up jeremy ford there we go 50 dollar supporter producer level supporter jeremy ford i mean jeremy ford we have to give him a nickname and i'm thinking yes jeremy ford you should be named the mustang american muscle car i met this i met this fool in person man and he is muscle bound as a muscle car so unless he's a chevy guy i think we should go with it yeah the must i man jeremy ford thank you for the 50 bucks support it's so we really really appreciate it and you know when you do this produce a level of support you are always welcome to join the show and we will ask you who's your daddy and what does he do it's very important yeah hit us up hit us up and And if you want to join, join. That could be awesome. So, wow, man. We're going to thank you on every show. $50.
    6:42
    That's magical, man. So after that, Donnie, we got a message from our velvet Steve. What is going on? Mr. Josh Cox, what a great guy. He's like, no, no, I do not want to be topped in support level. So I'm going to double down literally, and I'm going to take care of those Zencaster fees for an entire year. He jumped in the chat. 100 bucks. Golden Steve. What a great guy.
    7:10
    I mean, Velvet Steve, he contacts us. All right. We're writing. We have this really nice thing going on on Patreon. So he was writing, and you were in the plane. You were flying. And I was hitting him up with Velvet Steve, and he's like, guys, what are you doing? You're selling yourself too cheap. 50 bucks is nothing. You're two guys. You have to share this income. So, and I don't, I want to be number one, he says. He wants to be the top dollar guy. So he says, please, do something else. I want to be a bigger supporter. 50 is not enough for me. And I was like, whoa, I need to talk to Donnie about this. And he was like, yeah, man, just make 100 bucks. Okay, 100 bucks a month. call it something new but it has to be something like 100 bucks and you get an awesome custom mod sent out by Donnie to install in your pinball machine I fell in love with this idea how awesome is that to get your own WAP avatar in your machine this is the ultimate pinball flex right here you are the wish makers we are the wish grantors You were the dreamers. Heck, yeah. We're the dream granters. We're the pocket pickers. We're that – whatever you want, man. I will make it for your machine for sure. I will put my face on a flipper topper if that's what I need to do. Oh, heck, yeah, baby. So, yeah. So you were the plane, and I wrote – we were like, Donnie, this is – you have to go in and check this one out. And you checked it out, and you were like, I love this idea. And Donnie – Yeah. Dear listener, Donnie was like this. And I said to him, okay, we can make this $100 and call it not the citizen, not the producer, but the executive producer level, okay? Yes, absolutely. $100. And I said to him, and if you get another guy like, well, that's Steve, then you could, you know, send him a mod. And this Don guy, he was like, yeah, man, I'm going to send him a mod. and I have another mod in my mind, so I'm going to send him another mod. And I was like, take it easy. Let's just, first of all, just send one mod. And Daddy was like, we're going to mod this guy. Yeah, we're just going to get a bag of stuff, dude. It's going to be awesome.
    9:38
    It's so cool. Yeah, so, dear friend, thank you for joining. And dear listener, Wilbert Steve, he actually said that we have this on writing. He said if anyone else joins at a $100 level, he wants us to make another level that tops that. I'm stacking levels like pancakes over here, man. We'll go as high as you want.
    10:05
    Yeah, and he sent us the coolest message, some personal stuff that I can't share here. But if he wants to join the show, he wants to join the show, but just not right now because he's waiting on Spooky because he has ordered the Texas Transform Massacre that we're going to talk about in a minute. If we keep stacking these levels, forget joining us on the show. They're going to have to join us in the hot tub. I don't know where it's going to stop.
    10:33
    That could be awesome. I mean, yeah, but as soon as he gets his game, he's going to join the show, and we're going to have a little chat with him here. But the coolest thing he wrote to us is his story with pinball, and he ended that message by saying that our show was the best podcast show. Well, that's objectively true. I mean, come on.
    10:59
    I mean, that's so good. We're having so much fun with this. Like, what an incredibly humbling experience. But, yeah, like, flipping balls, man. What a world. When we made this Patreon, you and I, we were talking. You have Patreon on your show. I have Patreon on my Facebook. And we were like, we don't think that people will do this. But in a couple of weeks, what's going on, man? So, yeah, we are so humbled, so grateful. Thank you, guys. And, of course, like 36 minutes ago, Brad Kay from Canada, he also joined. Man, it's we. We absolutely are pinball from around the globe. Literally, it's happening. People in Australia to Denmark to Boise, Idaho. Let's make it happen. Yeah. Brad, welcome to the show, buddy. This is just awesome. We are so thankful. I mean, yeah, every time anyone jumps in, Donnie's so happy. He calls me up. I'm talking with Donnie 24 times every day. It's perfect, man. So this was a thank you for joining segment. So let's just dive in to some people's fun. Yeah, we got a message from a guy that said, I just listened to your show you made together with Retro Ralph. And Retro Ralph said that he likes the way we do this, happy and positive. And Ralph said, if you're not enjoying this, then what are you doing? What are you doing? Yeah. And he wrote to us, Ralph is so right. If you're not enjoying this, then what are you doing? We're just, man, let's just enjoy it and have some fun. I've been in hobbies before where I start getting salty and getting into petty arguments and things. And then you know what you do is you move on to something else. You're done with that thing. If you're not having fun with it, what are you wasting your time doing, man? Whole world out there of stuff to do.
    12:56
    Exactly, man. Exactly. Do something else. Yeah. So we're going to jump in and talk about Stern vaulting their games. Yes. Have you heard about this, Donnie? Yes. Yes, you have? So they're looking at games that they're not going to have any plans for any future production, Which doesn't mean they'll never make them Because absolutely that's not the case But now they're characterizing it As if these games are getting locked away In the production vault and they'll never be made Or planned to be made again I guess the point of all this Is to say, you know, go and buy them Before they're gone forever But in reality, these are games that The demand has been met They're sitting at distros, you can go get them on the used market And so there's just not a point on making Another 500 Deadpool pros right now So what you're saying, they're trying to make some sort of scarcity? Well, that's them every day is trying to find ways to leverage some people into buying some of their games. But it was just a way to officially say, you know what, we're going to put these away for a while. We don't have any plans that they're going to come out in the next year. And that opens everything up for all the other games that aren't currently in the vault, like freaking Jaws. You know, Wick will hopefully have a resurgence. I'm sure X-Men will come back at some point. But, like, when it comes to Foo Fighters, plenty. Deadpools, plenty. Iron Maidens, even. You know, they just did another run of Star Wars comic bros and premiums. So I think, you know, they've probably satiated everything from the past, I don't know, like eight or ten years. And so with all the new games that are about to come out, including one that might get released, like, this next week, you know, after Christmas, you know, there's just no room on the line for any more of these older games right now. So Stern is writing, vaulted titles are removed from active production. Titles put into the vault will remain in the vault for a minimum of two years, and many will never return. The following titles will officially enter the vault at the end of 2024. So number one, Deadpool. I think Deadpool is back from 2018. I remember when this game came out, it wasn't a hit. The code wasn't there. But something happened at the COVID situation. Deadpool was a game that many people wanted, but they couldn't get this game. So it gained popularity. But I feel like right now we're about to hit 2025. I think on the secondary market, a lot of Deadpools are out there. So I understand this move. Do you understand this move? Yeah, I get it. It's been out for ages. I think anybody that wants one has got one. And it's one of them Gomez games, if you're into that. It plays a lot like Bond, I think, where there's, like, one really good shot that I like. I like the theme for Deadpool a lot better than Bond. Oh, yeah. And I still haven't crossed any of them off on ever coming into the personal arcade, you know, at some point. It is fun to play. But, yeah, not, you know, of, like, five other games that run out and buy right now, not one of mine.
    15:53
    But, yeah, I think it had a good run. Love the theme. I love the theme. I also like the game. I like the call-outs, the music, the audio package in Deadpool is one of my favorites. I enjoy it. I'm always laughing, something, something. Call-outs, when you're playing Pinball Machine alone, the call-outs, I have been saying this for so long time, the audio package, come on.
    16:18
    I just listened to Bob playing Evil Dead, okay. So he hits the cellar shot, the ball goes down there, And Ash says, oh, the cellar, that looks safe.
    16:35
    I mean, come on. I can't wait to lock myself in a room with Evil Dead and just go through all the call-outs. That looks safe. So cool. Yeah. Next game they vaulted is Iron Maiden. This is the first game from Keith Elwin that's getting vaulted. But Iron Maiden is from... It's got to be. Also 18, I think. It's from that era, yeah. Yeah. Awesome game, don't you think, on Iron Maiden? Yeah, I got myself a premium during one of the last runs that they had of them. Had the game, loved it, made it over, got it on. Cool game, love it. Music's cool. What's not to love? Music. Music is awesome. Shots and layout, awesome. This one getting vaulted, I'm pretty sure that they will open this one up and build some in a few years from now. This game will come back. Deadpool will come back. Some of the other ones maybe not, but they'll run more of these in the future years. Great game. The next one, Star Wars and Star Wars Coming Out. This is from 2017, I think. Yeah, what a seller too, man. What a successful game. Haters can, you know, you don't have to like everything. It's fine. I'm not going to say you're all on some hateration or nothing. But I love my Star Wars Premium. I don't have the comic. And initially I was like, that's probably the one I want. But after playing them, I think I prefer the movie graphics. It may make me an outlier. The fact that I like Star Wars to begin with makes me an outlier. So whatever. But, yeah. Is there any better theme in the world of pinball than Star Wars?
    18:14
    No. absolutely not. I think it's the biggest thing. Yeah, Monster. Now, they could put out a Star Wars game every two years, and I think it'd be fine. Just take different ways. And I will buy it every two years. Come on. We need more Star Wars. Yeah. It's getting vaulted. All right. And they have sold so many Star Wars games. And I can say on location, Star Wars still makes money like crazy. Yeah. The next game is another Elven game. Avengers. Yeah. Infinity Quest. This makes so much sense. And this is one that I wouldn't expect to see again on the production line. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't – I mean, Avengers came the day after we got Turtles. I think it was three weeks or something. Avengers killed the Turtles hype ASAP. It was so odd that they had so – that they launched so close to each other.
    19:08
    People to this day still doesn't get the code of that game. I have no idea. The best thing about this game is the layout. The layout, Johnny. Yeah, this is a weak theme on a great layout, which is like the only reason we talk about this game.
    19:24
    When I think about it, when I dissect Keith Hilbin's shots on layout, including Joe's, I really feel like Avengers is his best shooting game. I mean, wow, it's just combo, combo, combo. It's so good. Yeah, but yeah, it gets – and you don't think that they will build more? It won't come back in five years? For what? No. No, use the layout for something else, but don't make more Avengers. God, come on. And if you check out the secondary market value, Avengers are very cheap out there. Yeah, I mean, I'm not bad. The game's good. You can pick it up for a good deal. It's fun to shoot around. It's not a game to have for five or ten years, but it's certainly fun, man. I love that layout. The magnet on the tower is cool. Dropping to the flipper is fun to get the Hawkeye shot. As far as what's going on in the game, I have no idea. But it's whatever. It's a throwaway theme. It's comic adventure. It's not the movie people, which would have been awesome. Do a movie-themed version with, like, clips and call-outs and stuff. But I just don't think the finances would make it worthwhile to do that. And, you know, imagine if this game, when you shot the spinner disc thing. Who's that guy? Dr. Strange. If it just went to a subway to a Vuck and shot back at you, it would be so much more fun than this like slow like multiple drop target whatever is going on in that subway I have no idea I have no idea what going on in the game to begin with Some weird matrix You know it like I hate when I have to do homework Let's play the pro then. I know, yeah. But I like that cool wire form shot, man, the anti-gravity Captain Marvel shot. I like it. I dig it. Yeah, yeah. You're not a pro guy. You want all the toys. You're not a pro guy. I'm a pro guy. I mean, I'm the kind of guy that wants to get best bang for your buck. Oh, for sure. If you're trying to make money, pro is the way to go, yeah. But, like, if you're just buying the game, it's going to be a financial sinkhole, and you just want to have the full features, that's why I go premium. But, you know, if I was just operating.
    21:21
    It's not to make money only. It's also, I mean, we had Iron Maiden early, and I enjoyed Iron Maiden pro more.
    21:31
    There's arguments to be made for that. And for like half the cost, yeah, of course. Like the X-Men now. It makes no sense to get the LE when the Pro is so packed.
    21:43
    Right? I mean, I'll buy that. Unless you really want those cool features, which that's why I got it. But, yeah, for sure. Unless you love the theme, that's something else. Listen, with Iron Maiden, with Deadpool, with 007, you're getting a lot of value for that Pro. Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro, absolutely. I don't want that play field. you can't even see through it and I have heard the upcoming Dungeon and Dragon, the upcoming Stern game, the pro is the way to go on the upcoming Stern game the pro is really bad I have not heard that, so that is good to know, I'll be able to tell you here in a couple weeks, we'll get to that in a little bit here but yeah next game on the list I'm a bit surprised, how do you feel? it's Elvira, House of Horrors oh man, god I love this game I've owned two versions of this game, and I wouldn't cross off having it again. I do really, really like it. Like, this is my theme. This is a fun layout. This is code I understand. There's cool things hidden in there, too. You know, casually playing. You don't get very far. You don't see these other things. Like, there's still multiballs in that game I've never played. So, yeah, like, I dig it, man. I dig this game. It's a cool game. Cool theme. Shots and layout. Fun to shoot. Open play field. that house at the back it reminds me of something like medieval madness i love it that that the flap that's go goes up you shoot down to the cellar or what's it yeah there's several different ways to enter that house laps go up and down yeah wow man when this game got released uh at the at the first price it came out for stern didn't produce that many because the rumors were there were so much in the game and for that first initial release price they didn't make that much money on them. So they waited until the prices went up from $8,000 to $13,000 and then they produced some more. You got a limited edition, you got a special edition, you got a 40th anniversary edition, then a Blood Red Kiss edition, which is just like... Sofa edition, premium. Yeah, yeah. You got bits of her panties in one of the games. Yeah, it's nuts.
    23:53
    They produced a lot of these, but I think this is one of them titles they will get something something 40 year no 45 years anniversary something it will pop up i'm sure popular game good game very very good game and the last game on this vault list is a fairly new game this surprised me full fighters oh yeah i like two fighters i think it's a good game it's really really early man i mean star wars 2017 iron maiden 2018 full fighters last year Yeah. I mean, come on. It's a good game. Yeah, definitely a game that came out right at that apex of the COVID, right before markets started to soften and everybody wasn't just buying everything anymore. So a ton of these got bought. Jack Danger, we love this guy. We loved his innovative layout. It was super fun and flowy. It was a music pin that had a story. So there was so much in this game. And to this day, people dig it. But a lot of them were purchased. And a lot of people have played through everything, myself included. and there's new stuff out there and we want to keep things fresh. So there's a lot of Foo Fighters available already. And there's just not a ton of orders for full-price new-in-box Foo Fighters right now. So this makes perfect sense to put this in the vault for two years. Absolutely.
    25:12
    And get some scarcity maybe and then just release it again. Bam! Amazing. This game has got amazing layout, man. When I played it, I was like, whoa this is if jack danger and keith elvin had a child together it was just wow i loved it from ball one yeah and when you have played 20 years you know ball one you know if it's a dot or a great shooting game i i reviewed for a month ago x-men le first ball whoa this is a shooter's game oh man online um there were some talk about bbs and butthead and i said yeah man they should really produce bees on butthead but only if jack danger is the designer i accept nothing else and jack danger he popped up there you know taking notes and i was like dude yeah i hope i hope you will make this it could be awesome could have kept it safe with just like a generic kind of layout with a couple of ramps and stuff and people have been like oh okay it's it's all right but the fact that like he pushed for these cool shots whoever designed these or helped on that was was awesome like the cross field shots that flow from one end to the other this is like you know I mean Deadpool's got that great cross field shot that goes to the katana ramp and stuff and when it works it's fun but like you know it doesn't really have a good satisfying like big wire form and Foo Fighters has that like it has you know a short wire form that's easy to hit with the van but then it also has that big one that circles around and comes back like I love that it's like that's what it feels missing from Deadpool is like one big circular ramp that kind of comes back you know I know they have the katana is the focus but you know i like this game more than deadpool i like shooting the katana not with the proper shot but shooting that sphinx uh target and it goes up there yeah that's awesome i like that yeah so yeah they are vaulting scarcity creating so if you're looking for a star wars comic art they're building them right now go ahead and order your game from where should people order from donnie i don't have no we don't have a sponsor for this show i get my stuff from jeff at badpinball.com he always hooks it up and doesn't have years-long waiting lists so that's awesome but you know ask around you know find somebody that you know that owns games see who they get their games distributed by and then you know maybe that's the place to go go to someone that when you order your game you get it you don't get picked around and you get your messages returned because i think that's important you know you don't want to order and then that's important but also getting great support afterwards. That's also important. Man, Donnie, this is, you know what? So, for example, I unboxed on my YouTube channel, I unboxed the Looney Tunes. Cool, cool game. So I show under the play field, close-ups, everything, and I play the game and I show the thing. On that video, you can go into the comments and people are like, whoa, this was retro Django. We were not looking after this game. We were not interested in a spooky game. We're only Stern Army guys.
    28:15
    But we want to buy this game. And one of them wrote to me personally, and he was like, dude, do you really mean this is a good shooting game, Looney Tunes? And I said, yeah, man, I love shooting this game. And next day, I wake up, he writes to me, dude, because of your video, I just ordered one from Zach. And I was like, oh, great. And later, a couple of weeks later, he got his Looney Tunes. So he writes to me. I unboxed it. I played it. I have this issue. Can you help me out, Cengiz? And I was like, dude, call Zach.
    28:48
    I cannot give you support here selling those games for him and all of that. But, of course, I couldn't say call Zach. But, of course, I just helped him out. It was a minor issue. So that was perfect. He's really enjoying the game. The other guy also bought it. So, yeah, just pure happiness. Support after purchase is very important. You see these games. And you watch the flashy videos when the things are revealed or whatever, and you watch some people stream them online, and it's like, okay, but is it actually worth having? Am I going to get this thing and regret my purchase? So I think that's why it's so important to get these in the hands of actual people that bought them and like, okay, what's their owner experience like? What's the service like? Those sorts of things. So that's awesome that you're able to do that. I try to do that myself. I mean, I get excited about games, and I end up hyping my own self up. But I try to share what my actual experience is and when things go wrong, how did I fix them, how long did it take. You don't want a game with downtime. And so, yeah, that's awesome, man. I mean you have to think about what you're saying. Yeah. Because you, me, we make a video and people go and they listen to a 20-minute long video and they purchase a game for $10,000. Wild. I mean, so you have to be honest. You cannot just say happy, happy, go, go, because if I don't like a pinball machine on the box, I'm honest. I tell it as it is, and the designer or the company hits me up, and they're like, Cengiz, this is not cool, but I'm like, then do a better job. I'm just honest. I don't tell how it is. Don't blame me. You blame yourself. Yeah, then just do a better job. It is what it is. But yeah, but you have to be careful, absolutely. But the power of, you know, recommending these awesome games to people and they go ahead and buy and have some fun, have a lot of fun with it. I'm getting screenshots. I unboxed, you know, when I unboxed my JP, what's that? Jurassic Park.
    30:50
    I sold, because I have made Jurassic Park Pro unboxing, Premium unboxing, and Ellie unboxing. to this day, I'm still getting pictures of game rooms and they're like, Cengiz, this is because of your video, man. I love this game. Thank you.
    31:05
    It's so cool. If you're a marketing guy for a company, you've got to show these games as hard as possible, no matter what. But for us, it makes no sense to hype up a game that we ourselves don't think is a good product. What's the point of that? Don, you said ABBA's the greatest flipping game ever. What are you talking about you get it and then you're unhappy with it that sucks nobody wants that of course uh i'm looking at i'm looking at abba tribute show billboard right now so i brought it up how's it going with abba in the u.s i know people happy i know one guy that's got it and they're happy because they're abba fans um but that's that's one guy um i think they need more than that oh do you know of anyone unboxing the um What's that clown you shoot in the mouth? I forgot again. What, Funhaus? Yeah. Do you know anybody having Funhaus in the U.S.? There's one on the location near me. They bought the classic version, but then they also bought the upgrade kit for it. So they have the 2.0, but it's the classic one. And it's probably like the greatest playing Funhaus ever.
    32:12
    That being said, it's also Funhaus. So you know what you're getting with that. It's cool. I'm not getting one. I don't think it's a bad game necessarily, but for the money, there's just 10 more things I'd rather get before I got to there.
    32:26
    But yeah, it looks good. I like the idea of taking these older games and making them brand new so I don't have to go and rescue an old funhouse and then fix it up and switch everything to LEDs or get yelled at because I switched everything to LEDs. I can just get a new game that plays well. There you go. It's new. Have you restored any games yet? I've got a wipeout that I'm working on, working down the list there. I'd love to do a full restore on it because I think it would be really cool. And it's kind of a rarer Gottlieb game, right, that skiing snowboarding game?
    32:57
    Yeah. Do you like playing the game? That's important. I do, especially for the price I got it at. You know, it's not like, you know, the best flowing game at all. There's fun stuff to do. Yeah, Gottlieb. Yeah, it's got that ski lift that's kind of fun. It's got that slalom, which is kind of fun. You know, for pinball, I prefer having fast ramps and things. Wasn't it like $800 or something? It was exactly that. Yeah, I rescued that out of the basement. Now, I have to say, for that price, I had to take it up some stairs that were not conducive to a dolly or anything. I mean, I've got a stair-climbing dolly that did not fit on these stairs. So it was tragic trying to get this thing out of this basement. But you did it. I should be charging myself $1,000 just for dragging it up those stairs. It was a mess.
    33:46
    All right. Cool. Yeah. The next topic I want to talk to you about, now this is not scripted, but I'm just going to say it. Let's do it.
    33:54
    JJP just released the final Wizard mode on Pirates of the Caribbean after five years or something. I wish I had a wimpy trumpet I could play. Just a... Do they have the music now?
    34:12
    Thank you for doing the minimum there and finishing it, I guess. Of course it's a good thing, but this should have been a while ago. My hope is that they redeem themselves by announcing a 1,000-run Black Pearl edition Pirates of the Caribbean with full code. Introduction soon. Order now for the holidays. That's what I want to hear. I'll get excited for that. I'll give them a beep for that if that happens. Yeah. I mean, we have LE and Cs already, but if they make a Black Pearl Super, but they have to include something on that Black Pearl. Because if they make the Black Pearl, the prices won't be $8,000 or $9,000 like we paid back then. It will be, you know, $13,000, $15,000.
    35:01
    So it has to have something more. They're looking at these games selling for $16,000 and like they want in on some of that, you know. But it would probably take a $21,000 price tag new in box for them to get around to making it, probably. I'm just saying. It would make so much sense if they made just 1,000 of these. 1,000. Do it. Yeah, that's cool. But get the music. I really love that music. Get the music. I think you could lose like 40 of the characters, too, and it would still be plenty.
    35:31
    I like playing it. But the thing is, I hope that this final wizard mode is like you have single ball and you have some amazing tasks that you have to do. And next task opens, next one opens, next one opens. Just task deep. I hope it's something. If it's just another multiple mode, Donnie. Oh, man.
    35:55
    Pirates of the Caribbean victory multiple. Has anybody streamed this new wizard mode yet? I don't know. I haven't seen it. Do you watch gameplay? I don't watch gameplay videos. No, I get bored. But I would watch the Wizard Mode just to see what it is. Or I would listen to somebody recap it in two minutes. Yeah, for sure I would do that.
    36:13
    Wait. When Joel streams a game that I'm interested in, then I watch it. Oh, yeah. And I enjoy it. Oh, my God. He knows how to stream. He could stream eating a bowl of ramen and I would watch that. I don't care about Joel and his brother's Gameplay Some people are saying their level is not Highly competitive I don't care The quality, the audio, the picture Everything is Perfect set up And after I told Joel I want high audio I want to listen to what's going on And he always makes sure the audio level Is perfect So, yeah, another shout-out. There's 300 tournament live streams going on right now if you want to watch tournament-level players play pinball, you know. Why can't I hang out with Joel and his brother in the basement and watch some people just playing a game with, like, excellent audio and streaming quality?
    37:10
    Dude, I watched. I wanted to see Stern, an old game. Was it Sea Witch or something? An old Stern game. Okay, so I searched for it. So it was on a tournament, so I jumped in. Donnie, you can hear EM games in the background. Bling, bling, bling, bling, bling. 400 pinball machines, okay. You could hear Godzilla screaming. You couldn't hear the game that they were playing. It had no volume, nothing.
    37:45
    What a stinky experience. That's, yeah, nothing for me. But some people are enjoying it. Let them enjoy it. But if you want to find out about music, a game, everything, Jules. What's it called? A shout-out. Is it Jules? Flipping Out With Friends.
    38:02
    Flipping Out With Friends. Nice. That channel. Another shout-out to me. I want to watch people playing the game and exploring all the stuff. If I'm watching a tournament, I'm going to watch somebody spamming the same exploit over and over. And it's like, all right, great. And maybe they're not even having fun. They're just going through the motions to try to place the tournament or something, which I get. But it's definitely like that's the vibe for tournament. But I don't play that way. I play to try to make the cool stuff happen, even if it doesn't score me the most points, right? I mean, you and I, it's all about shots on layout. Just shoot and have fun. Yeah, man. Crazy Rams on Hall of Fame. I want to see the machine do the thing. I want to see the thing. Whatever the thing is, that's what I want to see. I want to do it. I want to load the balls up and then make it happen.
    38:44
    Destroy the building. Destroy the UFO. Destroy the castle. It's fun. Bring it down. Donnie, man. Yeah. Yeah, usually we share stuff like this on Patreon, but I think we should share the Stern invite. Yeah, so this just happened. Got off the plane, fired up my email, and then it turns out that there's a media day for a brand new Stern Pinball Cornerstone release, and that it's happening soon. It's happening on January 7th in Chicago on location.
    39:15
    That's soon, man. Nice. So, yeah, I'm assuming this is going to be another itinerary. So it'll include, you know, meet and greet with the other creators, which is where we get to see the kind of media forward. Here's kind of why we made this game. Here's what's in it. Here's some numbers that don't make sense to you guys, but here they are anyway. And then it's a factory tour, which is always fun to poke around in there. And then it'll be some time, like, hands-on playing it. So I'm assuming this will be similar to the John Wick event, the Metallica event, the X-Men one that we had, where, you know, the game will get revealed online, with a teaser and then a full reveal. And then a week or so later, they have a media day where we can all get in there and kind of give our impressions. And so I think it's a nice way to roll out the game. I love that they're doing this because this is a way for, like, real people to play this and then get it out to, you know, listeners and people that subscribe. So it's like, all right, so we saw the slick marketing stuff. How does the game actually play? What did you think of it? Like that part of it, which I'm totally into. I love doing that. you you you and you usually stream i mean i love this happened this this stuff like this happened after john wick yeah so yeah stern contacted uh non-p non-pinball people for the release and pinball media got really angry and now and then uh george gomez he was on all the shows and he was like, hey, we acknowledge you guys are there and we just tried something new. And people were still angry. And then they invited all the media people over, which was a great way to, I don't want to say apologize, but it was a great way to, what's it called?
    41:01
    Make it right. I don't know. It feels so weird to get angry about that kind of stuff Because I don't feel that Stern Pinball owes me anything. Likewise, I don't owe them anything. I don't owe them a new in-game purchase every time something comes out, right? Yeah. What was his name?
    41:20
    Kongo something Oh B Kong yeah Cool guy I finally met him at Expo What his name Did you say B Kong is what his YouTube channel is B Kong yeah I mean I didn know about his YouTube channel and he showed this game I think it was awesome. More people, more channels. That's cool. So here's where we can be helpful because, like, yeah, they invited B. Kong. He's got an arcade one-up channel or whatever, and he does a lot of arcade and things streaming, and he's getting into pinball, which is awesome, right? That's what brought us Retro Ralph. Love the guy. But the problem was, you know, this guy's in L.A. They brought him to an L.A. marketing office. They brought him into the game for like five minutes. I don't even think he played a full game. I think he played two balls. And he just had his iPhone recording or whatever and was getting weird angles and things that didn't really convey what was in the pinball machine in the best light. And, like, that was the first thing. And I think part of the reason they got this pushback was because we're all anxious to see the brand new game that just got released, and here's somebody streaming it. We don't know this guy, and then we see the footage, and it's like, oh, God, if we were there, we could have captured this in such a better way. That would have made so much more sense. We would have played a full game. We probably would have played seven full games, and then we could talk in terms of pinball. And I think that's what then Stern picked up on, that the marketing agency, they were just probably looking at numbers and things, because by far these arcade streamers have much bigger audiences on YouTube, on TikTok, on everything than Pinball does, for sure. For sure. Oh, yeah. They're adding Pinball to their repertoire, which is fine, you know, because they'll get it out there, bring more people in. But, like, you know, in terms of, like, talking in terms of Pinball or streaming or capturing footage in terms of Pinball, like, that's what we do. Like, we're great at that. And thankfully they were like, yeah, yeah, we've got to talk to these guys too. Like, let's make it a whole thing. So, you know, and we got there, you know. They took the feedback and now everything's great. So, yeah, that's awesome. I'm not angry about nothing.
    43:17
    No, and now see where we are at. Now every time they launch a game, they call in the pinball media. Yeah. So cool. I love this. I can't wait to go play it and tell everybody. Instead of getting a trailer, you will get a gameplay video in six weeks. What's that? Yeah. You know? Now it's just bam, bam. So seventh next year. January 7th, yeah. Oh, and there will be food too. Last time they got pizza and hot dogs, and I was so happy. So, yeah, more of that, please.
    43:48
    So that means this week they will release the game? They will release the trailer? Yeah, so I think there's a holiday coming up this week, so that might not be the best time, or it might be the best time, because everybody's going to be surrounded by family just opening up things, sad at the socks that they got. They want to take their Stern gift card that they got in their stocking and go run out and put a deposit on a game probably. So I'd imagine like – I think around the 27th or something. I think so. Yeah. You don't want to have everything drop on Christmas when the office is closed and nobody's in there to field phone calls because they're going to have to reveal this game and then immediately talk to distributors about how to order, what your allocations are, and all that. So you need people in the office to process these things. So I would say the 27th makes sense.
    44:32
    Yeah. Absolutely, man. And then you're going, right, the 7th? You're going to – I'm going to be RSVP'd already, man. I'm going to be going in. I don't need a hotel room. I'm just going to drive on in the morning.
    44:45
    You live so close. I wish I did also. Yeah. Well, now, right now, hang on. In Wisconsin, it's 10 degrees right now. Dumping snow. You've got to be out there shoveling. Now, I'm here in summertime. The solstice just happened, the southern hemisphere, so I'm not dealing with that. So I see the birds in the background. The best way to deal with this is to just lay on the beach all winter, you know, in Australia, and then go back to Chicago to go play the new games and then just come back out again. It's easy. I'm going to visit our dear friend of the show, Enzo. I'm going to visit him. Yeah, I'm flying out to Perth today, man. I'll go hit up Enzo, see if I can get him on. We can do some more recording.
    45:22
    Man, I love me some Enzo. If he is up for it, let's record another show with him. I haven't met an Enzo I don't like, man. I ordered a pizza from a place called Enzo's Kitchen last night. It was great. So, yeah, shout out to Enzo's Kitchen.
    45:36
    Yeah. Good guy, good guy. Friend of the show. Absolutely. all right so donnie yeah man we gotta i want to say a strange male i think this is pretty strange i love strange male this this is a youtube this is a podcast about pinball but a supporter of the show he asked about addiction. He asked, are you guys addicted to smoking, drugs, or alcohol? Do you need to drink beer when you play pinball machine? How is it for you? Is he looking to sell or buy? What is he looking for here?
    46:26
    I don't know. I think he's fishing for can you play pinball and have some fun without a six-pack. Oh, okay. Sounds to me like he's fishing for a connection and needs to make a sale or a buy. I don't know. He's just asking. I mean, you're a doctor.
    46:42
    Have you been a smoker? You're not a smoker, right? You don't smoke. No, no. Have you been a smoker? Never got into it. Lived in a house with smokers. Everybody I knew smoked. Everybody I know in the house still smokes. But I don't. We live in a smoke-free house now, thankfully. My lungs are thinking. Just never got into it. And, I mean, part of that was because it seemed like everybody was doing it, and so I wanted to be a little counterculture. But, yeah, maybe I just skipped the addiction gene when it comes to that.
    47:11
    Oh, nice. I still have vices, but, you know. I was from our – I think I watched Predator when I was 12, and the day after I started hitting the gym and working out. And my gym buddies, we were the big guys as teenagers, you know, and smoking back in the 90s it was popular but we were like heck no we're not gonna put that in our lungs we need some protein shakes and pump some iron pump some jeans you know how it was so we never smoked never sometimes we were drinking when we were you know out but it wasn't because we watched something i think it was arnold that said that if you drink whiskey you will like go three weeks back in your workout training so it was oh my god if you drink this it was catastrophic so if you're at that level yeah yeah i could see that yeah man and i love this today we had um through my work i don't wanna i never tell personal stuff but through my work i was like asking some teens about smoking habits and stuff like that and we entered my son's school he goes to a private school and he they get they got the same questions and i was like do you guys smoke these private school kids donnie they were like oh i have to translate it to english but this girl she was like and she was in my son's class she was like we live in a informative age we can you know google everything it's so stupid to smoke and the whole class they're like 13 14 years old i was so proud my son was sitting there and smiling it was this new generation yeah that's so good that's absolutely what i'm seeing too you know because i mean i see everybody and you know sometimes the worst of everybody and definitely a trend i'm seeing where like yeah the younger generations just not getting into it um which is great because i mean the The nicotine and smoking and the social part of it and the habit of having something to do is very physically addicting, very difficult to get off of once you're on it. And it's not like people smoke because they're having fun doing it. It's they smoke just because that's what helps them feel normal because their bodies got so used to it. And that's a hard thing to break. And people that have broken finally long term, like they love the fact that they have quit. But it takes like several tries sometimes, you know, and people, most people. end up failing, going back to smoking. That's usually normal, but it makes you feel terrible, and then you don't want to start again because you feel like a failure, and it's just a cycle. It's hard to get out of it.
    49:55
    And you have the cravings in your brain. It does nothing good for you. It just destroys you and costs you money. That's it. That's how I feel. Now, that said, alcoholism, alcoholic, I mean, I don't drink. after I hit 40, I can just feel if I drink two beers, I can feel it the day after. Last time I had a drink was at New Year's. I had a glass of champagne. I don't need beer to be entertained. I have some friends when I'm over there. I'm from Denmark. We have Tubor. We have Carlsberg. We have a huge beer drinking country here in Denmark. I have friends that have got beer – what are they called?
    50:41
    You know, otterwood. Craft beer. Yeah, they craft their own beer at home. When I visit them, we play pinball. Then I taste their beer, stuff like that. But other than that, I think when I have friends over, I don't need alcohol to have fun. If you have good pinball machines in well-playing condition, and some of your friends that are not into pinball, just say, shoot the castle and you will have fun. Just explain about the rules. I'm guaranteeing you, you will all have some fun. And the competition.
    51:17
    When non-people, they learn about points, scoring points, and you're playing four-player games and they want to beat you. It's so much fun. So I don't have no addiction, and I'm so happy about it. You don't either. It's definitely a fortunate thing. With alcohol, I can take it or leave it, honestly. And I'm fortunate I don't have that craving gene that every single person in my family seemed to have had growing up in the military respects. Now, I drink maybe three times a year, and just because most of the time it just doesn't occur to me that that's a thing that I should do. But not that I have a stigma against it or anything. and anything that's done that is negatively impacting your life can be problematic, alcohol included. It doesn't mean it has to be.
    52:06
    I would say beer and pinball go together so well. The craft beers, breweries, they have the pinball lineups there. You can go get a drink, play the tournament and everything, and that's fun. I live in Wisconsin, which has more bars per person than anywhere else on the planet. Most places have churches and things. We have bars. And Milwaukee's like the home to like every You know every liquor Brand that's existed in the form of Beer anyway And the old fashioned is a state drink So like I get it you know For like the culture and stuff but I mean Anything you're doing if it's too excess And negatively impacting everything else in your life You know is problematic So I don't know I don't even know what the question he was emailing About is I think it was a fair question because He asked about, I mean, do you need to drink to have some fun with your friends playing pinball? But he also went into addiction. Are you guys addicted to anything? Because he writes, actually, he lost good friends and some family members because of drinking habits. So he was very, very against it and how we felt about it. You know, you can have these cup holders. You can mount on the legs and, you know, put your beer or whatever. I know you put your Coke diet in there. Oh, God. There's my addiction, yeah. Yeah. So Donnie, he drinks his diet cola. And, yeah, I just drink water. I think at my late, late 30s, I had this sweet, sweet new girlfriend that was so much into coffee. And coffee is – Denmark is the – per people that lives here, is the highest coffee-drinking country in the world. Okay. So she was like, yeah. So she was like, you need to drink coffee. We have coffee places everywhere. And I was like, no, man, that black stuff, I'm not going to drink that. Give me some, you know, something. Back in my 30s, I drank, you know, energy drinks and pumping and all that. So I tasted this coffee, and it was just so magical. It had caffeine inside, so I could work out more.
    54:15
    For the next six months, she brewed a lot of coffee, and we were drinking coffee outside. The sun is going down. I stopped playing pinball machines and it was just coffee and talking with her and her friends over it was just so cozy, so perfect but you know what, after about 6 months I couldn't sleep well I just couldn't sleep well that was the first thing, the second thing when I woke up, I didn't want to have breakfast I wanted that coffee smell it was so weird I had this craving I needed to have this coffee I'm picturing Cengiz in a wool sweater with an earthenware mug like sipping on this stuff yeah i just needed it and from one day to another i was like nope i'm taking a cold turkey now i hate addiction and i just dropped it if you drink coffee every day just a cup every day and you just drop drinking it do you know how much headache you will get i called my doctor i was like what's going on here and my head is exploding three days ongoing and she was asking do you drink water and I'm like yes I'm working out I drink water so she went into coffee and I was yeah I stopped drinking coffee oh that's your brain it's cravings your brain is fucking you up if you take your breath one month donnie a month yeah if you're using every day like that you've got to step it down you know you have to like take a little bit of caffeine every day lower your body's tolerance and then then then go off of it because if you just abruptly withdraw yeah you're gonna have some withdrawal headaches and they're awful cold turkey man bam so it is what it is yeah but that's like five years ago and i still every time i get that coffee smell oh my god i want to take a zip but i'm not touching it no way i never i never got over the fact that it just tastes like burnt sticks and i was like i just not into it ah donnie it has to be brewed yeah the quality is so i don't want to go into coffee podcast now but yeah we're not addicted to anything and we're happy about it uh people that are addicted i hope that get they get help and get out of it it's not good it's difficult to do it on your own if it's actual addiction that's part of the problem you know yeah because the drive to continue your addiction is stronger than your drive to stop stay away from it so like no matter what it's just so easy to fall back into it and that's why you need other people in a support group and that's why support groups are so helpful for battling addictions yeah yeah that being said you me and you the listener everybody in this industry we are all addicted to pinball they multiply we buy one we want another one we buy we just got we just got x-men we just got a metallica Now next week we'll get Dungeons & Dragons. And you know what? You bought those two games and you're thinking about, should I get the new game again? Yeah, I'm feeling like I'm missing out on Ninja Eclipse because I didn't get that one. And it's unreasonable to think that you can have every single game that comes out, right? You know, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I'm like, ugh. But I played it. I didn't really like it that much. I shouldn't be wanting it as much as I do, except you just have to have everything. I will say I sold some games recently, and now having a little bit less in the house feels so much nicer. Like there's more room now when I walk around. Like I like it. Yes. On top of that, you're lucky you have brand new games. If you had old 90s games that you need to repair every time you play something, if you have the Star Trek Next Generation, all those optos on the replay field. Yeah, so much. You don't have that headache. But having 25 games and reducing them to like 16, you will feel this kind of zen in your body. It's fun, yeah. Yeah, it's fun. It's so good. Oh, I need to give you some distro info here again. Oh, I love it. Usually we do this on Patreon, but… Cenk is in the distro corner. Go ahead, buddy. Yeah, okay. This is the Patreon corner. We have got so much Patreon support this week, so let's share this. So last time we got all of this, JJP, $2,500 off. It's so cool. Blah, blah, blah. Right? Everybody's happy. Yeah. $2,000 off. $2,500 off. It's so cool. So it is what it is. It's so cool. Thank you, JJP. Right? It's so cool. Good. Right? This just came out. Everybody's happy. Good. So we have this company that visited one of our places, and they were like, whoa, this Toy Story 4 is such a fun game.
    59:12
    We're interested in buying this game and having it at our company. And then they played Deadpool from Stern. Whoa, this is a great game. We're interested in this one also. And they swooped around about 100, 150 pinball machines. But those two, Deadpool, they liked, and Toy Story 4, they liked. So can we get a Deadpool? and we were like, sure.
    59:36
    But Stern has no distros in Denmark. You have to order from Norway. They were like, what? That's dumb. That's so stupid. And yeah, we don't want to be sub distros for Stern. It's stupid. We want to be main distros or nothing. So they said, no, then we don't want to buy the Deadpool. Then we want to take another round and test some other games. Can you deliver us JJP's Toy Story 4? Sure. were main distros for them. Of course. So, and we said, you know, in this room we have all the J.J.P. games. So they tried and they fell in love with Elton John also. Cool. Yeah, there you go. So they were like, we want these two games. And my bro was like, oh, this is so awesome. You know, $2,500 off. It's so cool. Let's just get an updated price list. So we got that list yesterday from J.J.P. Nice. Yeah. Oh, I cannot share the buying prices here. But the thing was, those minus 2,500s, they were not there. So if we ordered those two games to this buyer, we need to pay the full price. So was that just on... This is so stupid. Was that just Guns N' Roses? Which games were... It was Toy Story 4 for full price. And you can see everybody has got 50 Toy Stories.
    61:11
    So they just did like $1,000 off recently. But I haven't been following if that carried over or not. I mean, they mailed us. They said that, you know, you can have some great offerings here. I can't go into prices. But, you know, they wanted to sell us some games. And we were so happy. But that offer is off yesterday. That got shut down. So it's full price. What the heck, man? What the heck? Isn't that crazy? Yeah, come on. Another Patreon update. So on our last show, let me just put this last thing in because this is so cool. This is so cool. So on our last show, I think it was on Patreon, we talked about Spooky's Evil Death. Yeah. And one of the interested buyers here in Denmark, they need to pay $12,100 instead of $9,000 plus 25% VAT. And yeah on top of that But we were talking about this tariff stuff that Donald Trump will do 20 on top of everything And we found out about there are some stuff we can do to get past stuff like that. But we hit one of the customers up. This customer is so much in love with the theme. You know what he said, Donnie, when we talked about tariff and all that? He was like, dude, I don't care.
    62:39
    He's made the game for $12,500 plus shipping. What a legend. On top of that, 25% VAT. On top of that, if he gets 20% tariff, he doesn't care. He still wants to buy the game. On top of that, give me barter cabinet on the able bed. On top of that, give me the topper. I'm like, what? Spooky, if you're listening Send this guy a t-shirt or something My god He doesn't care He loves the theme So yeah, wow man Anybody else, we're like Oh, we don't know what to do This guy just gave me the game So yeah So yeah, so we're getting him a Give him our Patreon address too That's where you're at Yeah, he should join us man Yeah, talking about Evil Dead and having some fun. Guys, we actually got a – can we say from another – no. We got a mail from some guy that said, guys, what is your secret? Because we are trying to get $2, $5 supporters, and you just opened this Patreon a couple of weeks ago. You're getting $100 or $50, $100 supporters. What's your secret? I mean, I think, for me, I think it's the love and passion. How do you feel? Do we have a secret? What is it, Donnie? It's got to be because we're solid gold and worth greater than our body weights in amazingness.
    64:13
    No, I don't know. I think it's part of just either it's a reflection of a greater movement that's going on within the pinball content space or we're just awesome and value. And we're putting value out there. So, you know, Patreon should be a virtual tip jar where it's like, I like what you guys do. Here's something for you. I don't expect much else in return. And we're like, heck with that. We're going to give you so much more in return. And I think that's what really helps. Because what I've noticed, even on my own, the Don's Pinball Podcast channel, as I started doing, you know, special bonus episodes, bonus content, you know, posting things there first, I saw an uptick in people that are like, yeah, I'll pay the admission fee of five bucks to come in the door, you know. So if you're operating it as just like putting down a hat, a little tip jar, you'll get some people that come by. But if you offer something else extra, I do giveaways for Patreon folks.
    65:06
    I get so much stuff from pinball companies. It's like I can't keep it all, so I'd rather spoil them. And so I think doing that, but particularly it was the bonus episode content that you put out. I'll come up with a script for a show, and I'll kind of cover the news and everything that's going on, and that will be the main podcast. but then I hang up and it's like well I kind of have more stuff to talk about with this but it didn't fit into that format so well let me jump on Patreon and be like alright here's what I'm really hearing here's what people are really saying and people really love that and so they're like yes take my five bucks tell me the dirt I want to know what you know alright let's go we were talking about we will make when the pinball episode is over we will make 10 minute extra show but some of those shows we put up Donny they're like 45 minutes, an hour long show on Patreon. And as I said, the first show we put out on Patreon, it's Donnie 2.0. I like everything you're saying here, but on Patreon, you're a loose cannon like me, and I love it! I know for a fact industry people listen to this, and so I don't want to be a shill, but I don't want to obviously crap on somebody's release plans and projects and stuff. and whether I ask for it or not, I get information fed to me pretty much consistently now. Emails, texts, random people I've never met that are like, hey, this is happening or hey, look at the screenshot of this art for this thing or hey, by the way, I was out shopping and I happened to see the new Translate for this yet unreleased game. Here's a picture of it. I'm like, whoa, NDA, what the heck's going on? And these companies put 18 months of work into getting these games out. They want to have them in a good face. In the last weeks or so, I don't want to do anything to just virtually crap on them. At the same time, I'm so excited I want to talk about it. Where can I do that but behind a paywall where at least there's a level there? Behind a paywall, yeah. We have a little bit more time to talk about how do you really feel about it though in a way that may come off rambling if it was just on a scripted episode or something.
    67:14
    Our stuff is not scripted. I don't know. I think, yeah, of course, we do produce more shows for our Patreon supporters. We do that. But we also have an active channel on Patreon when we talk with the Patreon supporters. That's really fun, man. I love it. It's much, much more personal. And we have the Facebook group and the messenger on that. We are Pinball Facebook group. That's an active group also. That's also fun. But all in all, I think for whole 2024, I have been saying all new in-box pinball machines should cost under $10K. And spooky pinball won that. And I want to say 2025, the new thing I want to talk about is fuck the pinball haters, the negative nurses. Let's talk about that for a second. That's it, man. Fuck those guys. I'm so tired of this. It's so negative. What's the point? Do something else then. I mean, this week we'll get a new pinball machine. I'm so excited. Literally, the least you can do is just sit and complain. Come on.
    68:25
    That's like doing just about nothing. Now, how about this? I saw this during the pinball cup thing that Stern just put out. It's got its issues and things, but, you know, it's free, and you are not required to participate in it at all. yet people are still getting wasting time being upset about it. It's like if you're being upset about something that doesn't cost you any money and you're not required to do, what are you doing? Why waste a minute on that? What are you doing? Go do something, anything else. Go watch Bluey, for crying out loud. Go to the beach. Go touch grass.
    68:58
    People are saying, well, this isn't fair because if someone just sits there and grinds, they're going to be like number one. Well, yeah, that's what it is. I can't argue it's not going to change that. Let Stern know what you want him to do, but come on, man. Come on. I mean, to be honest, my fuck was aimed at other content creators. Oh, I love that. Yeah, that too. Not pinball users on Pinsight. I don't use Pinsight. But content creators that has got huge – I mean, in this industry, if you have a couple of thousand followers, you have huge followers because it's such a niche product. and if you sit with your thousands of followers and adjust this don't support this company don't buy i'm negative i want to cry i i get i need more punani fuck off man do something else talk about some talk about coffee whatever not pinball that's just how i feel i love this and your positive energy every time you call me up donnie i love it all your mods all your insider knowledge we share it's so much fun and last week with retro ralph so much positivity when i was with you two guys i'm old in this industry but getting all this new positive energy it's re-energizing me man i'm loving it i think that's that's the well the truth the truth of the matter is like i i mean i don't waste my time on stuff that's not fun you know like i mean i i pay taxes when I have to. I go to work when I have to. But for the most part, when I'm on my free time, I'm just doing fun stuff nonstop. I mean, I had this week off, and I was like, well, heck it. I've never been to Australia. I live right next to Chicago. Let me grab on a plane. They'll fly me there. So I did that. And I'm hanging out in summertime in the middle of December, dude. Like, this shouldn't be happening. I'm going to go to some theme parks today. I'm going to fly to the other side of the country for reasons. I'm going to go play disc golf in Perth. Yeah, I could do that down the street from my house, but it's so much fun out here. and so when I come on and record that's just my mindset, I'm doing fun stuff so yeah it doesn't occur to me to waste time on stuff that's not fun too much negativity it's too much work fuck them, that's just how I feel I don't want to that's real, that's 100 when you listen to negative stuff you get that negative energy and it's just I don't want that but something else that Velvet Steve said Don't sell yourself too short because, you know, this other media creator, he said that, you know, $2 to $5, maybe you should remove the $2. I don't know. I don't know what the secret is, to be honest, because he said you guys are two guys there. Why only $50? I mean, make it $100 because you have to – I don't know. Maybe you should remove the $2 and have $5 as minimum. I mean, you should know your worth. You should know your worth. For perspective, now that I'm kind of new on Patreon this last year, I went around on there and found some other, you know, you may like this podcast. And there's a podcast that's, you know, one of those true crime kind of things. It's more about exposing criminals that are in, you know, levels of power and stuff. And their monthly take is over $100,000 in Patreon members. Oh, nice. They got like 17,000 people subscribing at all of these levels. And I'm like, my God, you know. I'm looking at the algorithm like alright I got a new $5 subscriber this week that's great and then I got some perspective and I'm like holy garbage man so yeah there's definitely a market for it right and myself included like you know I subscribe to other people's podcasts and things they create some that have nothing to do with pinball just because I really like the stuff that they do and I like the things that I like what I get back from it so like I happily give my $5 to this guy because I feel like I'm getting more in value in return right and so i think if we continue to drive value and engagement uh in this medium that we have i think that's helpful and you know it's a tangible way that people can also participate in it as well so that's amazing and we're having fun we're laughing and the listeners laughing also that's i think i think that's so important donnie instead of negative and hate just having fun the show's called wop right we started with the music and our email address got taken so I was like Donnie what do we do and you were like we will call it we are pinball 69 it's so dirty it cracks me the hell up we had retro Ralph on and we talked about his childhood trauma being duct taped to a chair forced to watch evil dead and now he's like too afraid to even get a horror-themed pinball machine. So the other day before I was packing for my flight, I made a mod of him strapped to a chair duct-taped looking at an Evil Dead monitor. It's a Texas Chainsaw Massacre right now. It's absolutely going into Evil Dead, and I already have a waiting list of people that want to put that in their games as well.
    74:04
    Do you want to send that mod to Robert Z? Oh, he's absolutely getting one, yeah, for sure. With TCM, I mean, wow. That mod is, and I love the placement. On the left slingshot, Retro Ralph is sitting there taped to a tear. Yeah. And at the right slingshot, you see the TV mod where it says Evil Dead, and a hand comes out. It's so good. And Retro Ralph, he was like, what's going on?
    74:32
    It was so much fun, man. Hopefully those will be out in about a month, yeah. Talking about TCM, Donnie. Yeah. So, yeah, Velvet Steve, he's still waiting on his TCM, but he got a message from Spooky Team. They were like, we're about to be ready with your game. So he's very excited to getting his game. It's so cool. But I also feel in the pinball industry, people like TCM is like trending up right now. Don't you feel it? It is. Yeah. Now, when this game came out, I was following them with the Spooky guys. I'm like, so which one's doing better, right? And they were essentially neck and neck at first, and then Looney Tunes slowly started pacing ahead, which makes sense because you can put Looney Tunes anywhere. TCM, you can't just throw anywhere. That's already a thing. Yeah. But now what I'm seeing is, like, people have slowly been getting them over the last few months and spending some time with them. And now all of a sudden I'm seeing chatter where it's like, you know what?
    75:30
    I keep wanting to call it Turner Classic Movies. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, they're, like, really digging it. like the family modes that are in the game, like where you're playing with the members of the family, are super fun. I did the homework and read the rules for the updated code now, and so now the game makes a ton more sense to me. And so I'm in there, like, playing Grandpa. I'm draining blood from the field. The crazy call-outs from the family members are, like, insane. And, like, I love putting the balls. When you lock the balls in Texas and they go down there, it shows a scene of a woman going up on a meat hook and just being hung there. And it's like, oh, my God, that's so brutal. I want to do that so much more. Like, the game is fun. It's nuanced. It's deep. It's got some complexity to it. And it shoots great. And it's got this cool vibe, man. Like, it's so different than Looney Tunes. The layout of this game, you know, the most important shot for an amateur that comes up and plays is the middle shot. The middle shot has got this bashing door. and you keep on hitting it and it opens and you shoot the ball inside. In front of that, it has a magnet that grabs the ball.
    76:40
    Every designer should have something fun in the middle. It's so important. And if you look at top 30 games, they have got some magical stuff in the middle of the, you know, just like strains of things. The middle shot, it's okay. The drop-down targets are crazy to do, but when you open the door, it's so, so cool, right? Like Medieval Madness and everything. And it just works on this spooky design. Loving it. And in TCM, there's a mode where there's a woman locked behind that door, and you can see her trying to open it.
    77:14
    It's like, no, you hit the door, boom, slam shut. She's trapped in the freezer. Oh, my God. And still, Donnie, this is not S.H.I.E.L.D. This is nothing. This is really how I feel, okay? So the trailer comes, and it just goes dark. and you can hear this lady, she's afraid, you can hear her breathing, and then all of a sudden, whoa, that chainsaw runs, and he grabs the girl, and the door locks, and you can see him spin on the pop bomber, the audio, everything,
    77:49
    Zach, many production. I still have that trailer, was it 10-second trailer or something, that's just implanted in my brain for life it's so good i really wanted yeah i really wanted something and i wanted to experience same thing with evil dead and all of a sudden evil that got leaked and that experience got destroyed for me and i was just so angry so people please next time Again, invite Zach. Let him do the – I love those trailers. Let him do the trailers and just do it better than TCM. Zach, do it better than TCM trailer. I mean, that screaming lady. Oh, my God, Donnie. You have to check it out after this show again. I have to watch it again, yeah.
    78:40
    It's so good, man. Oh, man, it's so fun. Donnie, the sun is up at the background as I can see. It looks beautiful, man. Are you going to sleep? You just did an all-nighter. I'm going to go to the beach, man.
    78:55
    Well, it's exactly 9.30 in Denmark. I have to jump into the family. All right. This is fun. Okay, I'll upload this right now, and everybody can go dig in on some of this. And even more to come once I get packed up and unpacked again on the other side of this freaking continent that I'm at. Yeah. If Enzo's offered, let's do a show together with him, right? Yeah, we'll figure it out. We'll figure something out. All right. Yeah. All right. Should we go back out on some music here?
    79:23
    I think so. Yeah. I have one thing to say. Give me one more minute. Sure. Go. It's Christmas in two days. Oh. Wait. Wait with the music. I need to say this. Okay. It's Christmas in two days.
    79:41
    So we said on our last show that we wanted to have David fix over. He agreed. he wanted to come and enter the WAP show. Yeah, yeah. But David Fix got interviewed at Loser Kid Pinball Show, and those questions at the Loser Kid, shout out again. Interview of the year. Journalism. I mean, go and check it out, Loser Kid Show. It was just absolutely perfect. So we don't need to have him here and ask the same questions, but when the new game comes out, we can invite him. Oh, that's right. They do have something new coming soon-ish. Yeah. The thing is, now that David Fix has been in there, Donnie, this is my question. Now he has been at Loser Kids. We have a locked Patreon show.
    80:30
    David Fix has shared a lot of details. Some of the details are the same details that you shared on Patreon, right? Yeah, yeah. Should we say this is out now? should we, because of it's Christmas release that one show as a Christmas present just lock it up so everybody can listen to that show, because you played this upcoming game should everybody listen to it, what do you think? honest opinion I think we should ask the listeners what they would like I say if we get a ton of emails to wearepinball at 69.gmail.com asking for this to happen and they're going to listen to it, I think we could put it out as a Christmas bonus episode. The Patreon people have already had time to soak in all those early impressions that are revealed to them without any, you know, like, NDA breakage. No, no, no, not NDA, but you have played the game. That show is so good. I mean, just look at the feedback. People are like, whoa, we're really excited about this American Pinball show. You have played it. It was a great show, but it's locked. Yeah. You know what we have to do? we have to ask the producers because uh yeah they they run the show so if the producers think it's a good idea yeah yeah that's a fun one okay okay that's cool man if they say yeah we will make a christmas special the release of that awesome show with american pinball all right i dig it man that email address is we are pinball 69 at gmail.com get in on this action patreon.com backslash wearepinball to get in over there. The Facebook page, where else are we at? Where aren't we at? I'll tell you where I'm not at. I'm not in Wisconsin right now. I'm freezing my butt off.
    82:19
    Oh, my God. It looks so good, man. Jump in the water, man. Heck, yes, sir. Who put the pictures down there?
    82:26
    Come on. Later, everybody. Bye.
    82:38
    And we coming with that Backyard Boogie