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BDYETP 86: Alice in Wonderland | Jaws Topper | AP WTF Revisited | Is Pulp Fiction a Baby Game?

Bro, Do you Even Talk Pinball·podcast_episode·1h 47m·analyzed·Jun 30, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Hosts criticize Dutch Pinball hype strategy; praise The Princess Bride shipping timeline and transparency.

Summary

BDYETP episode 86 covers Dutch Pinball in Wonderland announcement (Q3 2024), The Princess Bride shipping in August with positive production updates, Stern's new Jaws accessories line ($1000 topper, art blades, armor), and a frustrated deep-dive into Pinball Adventures' vaporware game catalog. Hosts express skepticism about Dutch Pinball execution history and reveal strategy, praise Multimorphic's transparency, and critique inflated accessory pricing and the state of pre-announcement hype cycles in the hobby.

Key Claims

  • Dutch Pinball in Wonderland will release in Q3 2024 through Dutch Pinball Exclusive sub-brand

    high confidence · Kevin Manning and Nick Lane discussing Alice in Wonderland announcement; claim based on official Dutch Pinball announcement

  • The Princess Bride batch one shipping starts in August 2024, on schedule with original summer 2024 production timeline

    high confidence · Kevin citing official Multimorphic monthly update from Jerry (company owner); corroborated by production schedule alignment

  • Stern's Jaws topper costs $1,000; art blades $100; shooter knob $149.99; armor $249.99; speaker light kit $200

    high confidence · Kevin presenting official Stern Jaws accessory line pricing during news segment

  • Jaws came out approximately six months before this episode (recorded June 29, 2024), so around December 2023 or January 2024

    medium confidence · Kevin stating 'Jaws came out like six months ago now' on June 29, 2024

  • Kevin is concerned about Dutch Pinball reveal strategy and delays, citing Pirates of the Caribbean's production issues causing loss of hype and poor sales despite game quality

    high confidence · Kevin discussing announcement strategy ineffectiveness: 'Otherwise, it's going to follow the Pirates of the Caribbean track where hype was really high. They had some production issues...People lost interest.'

  • Dutch Pinball took '10 years to ship all the Lebowskis that they promised the people'

    medium confidence · Kevin Manning expressing skepticism: 'Dutch Pinball took 10 years to ship all the Lebowskis that they promised the people. My expectations are really low.'

  • Kevin is streaming The Princess Bride upon arrival and hosting a 'The The Princess Bride party' for Buffalo P3 owners

    high confidence · Kevin stating 'As soon as I do, I will be obviously streaming that. We're going to do a little The The Princess Bride party here in Buffalo.'

  • Pinball Adventures' website previously had various accessory products (flipper button holder, playfield support) that are now gone from inventory

Notable Quotes

  • “Dutch Pinball took 10 years to ship all the Lebowskis that they promised the people. My expectations are really low.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~10:40 — Expresses deep skepticism about Dutch Pinball's production track record and ability to deliver Alice in Wonderland on promised Q3 2024 timeline

  • “Why would you do this to yourself? Why would you do it to yourself? Indeed, no one ever learns.”

    Kevin and Nick (alternating) @ ~13:50 — Meta-commentary on industry pattern of early announcements followed by production delays, using Alice as case study

  • “Just do what Barrels of Fun did. Barrels of Fun did excellent execution. A lot of people didn't see this coming. They had the product ready to go. They showed video. They showed it, and then they started shipping it.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~15:00 — Contrasts effective reveal strategy (Barrels of Fun) with Dutch Pinball's approach; identifies execution as differentiator

  • “The underside of a playfield? Seriously? Are you nuts? Who cares? Who cares about a jumbled mess of shit underneath a playfield?”

    Kevin Manning @ ~13:20 — Criticizes Dutch Pinball's teaser image strategy (showing only playfield underside) as poor marketing and anxiety-inducing for consumers

  • “Jerry from Multimorphic...he does these pretty much monthly which is awesome. I think I like that direct communication with the owner of the company.”

    Kevin Manning @ ~21:00 — Praises Multimorphic owner's transparency and regular updates as model for manufacturer communication

  • “I think price is really kind of punctuating the emotional and the negativity...what's driving this a lot is that prices are really high on everything, and people are feeling hurt.”

    Nick Lane @ ~38:00 — Analyzes root cause of community criticism toward accessories (like Jaws topper) as pricing resentment rather than design critique

  • “I think I'm really confused. All right. Well, I think people want baby games...Sometimes I just don't know what people want anymore in this market in pinball.”

Entities

Dutch PinballcompanyKevin ManningpersonNick LanepersonAlice in WonderlandgameMultimorphiccompanyThe Princess BridegameStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Dutch Pinball's history of extended delays (The Big Lebowski took 10 years to ship) creates low confidence in Alice in Wonderland Q3 2024 delivery timeline despite official announcement

    high · Kevin: 'Dutch Pinball took 10 years to ship all the Lebowskis that they promised the people. My expectations are really low.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Hosts criticize early announcement with minimal playfield details (only underside image) as poor marketing that creates hype-to-shipping gap, citing Pirates of the Caribbean as cautionary example of lost sales due to delay

    high · Kevin: 'Otherwise, it's going to follow the Pirates of the Caribbean track where hype was really high. They had some production issues...People lost interest. They sold very few of them.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts observe declining community hype cycle for new machines compared to 2-3 years ago when 'everything that came out was an amazing game'; attribute to pricing fatigue and changed expectations

    high · Kevin: 'people aren't getting themselves hyped up for pinball machines like they were a couple years ago...I think that probably factored into things too.'

  • $

    market_signal: Community criticism of Stern's Jaws accessories (particularly $1000 topper) driven primarily by pricing resentment rather than design critique; high prices making people 'feel hurt'

    high · Nick: 'I think price is really kind of punctuating the emotional and the negativity...what's driving this a lot is that prices are really high on everything, and people are feeling hurt.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Multimorphic's monthly direct owner (Jerry) updates to community praised as best-practice model for manufacturer transparency and production accountability

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.324

0:00
All right, coming up on this episode of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball, we've got Alice in Wonderland, all right? We've got some Jaws accessories. What an exciting topic. We've got a new fan favorite section.
0:13
WTF is AP Thinking. I think that's what we call it. And then also a new segment inspired by real-life events is Pulp Fiction, a baby game. All that and more coming right up. Double Super Jet Pod!
0:30
I need a ramp. I need a loop. I want targets I can hit. I need the scoop. I need a double super jetpack in my life.
0:52
That's right. And now, the Hall and Oates of Pinball Podcasting, Nick Lane and Kevin Manning of Buffalo Pinball. Woo-boom shakalaka!
1:07
Hello and welcome to episode 86 of Brody Even Talk Pinball for Saturday, June 29th, 2024. I'm Kevin, that's Nick. Nick, what's going on? Hey, everybody. Uh, hi. So, how is your, uh, how's your month? is it is crazy i know you've had a crazy month but let's uh i've i've been home for like four days out of the last like four weeks i feel like so i've been uh it's really busy for me in work right now i've been absolutely traveling all all over on the road and uh yeah life life's been crazy so i'm uh i'm just trying to chill man it's uh it will slow down a little bit in the next few months but um it's been uh it's been a little insane yeah things that things are like crazy for me but in like the dad life way so it's you know between our personal lives and work lives that's the way we've kind of scaled things back a little bit but we we always love bringing you guys the latest pinball news and and talking about the hot pinball topics every month on the podcast so uh let's get into it but before we get into it why don't we uh start by thanking our partners you want to do the honors here nick i'd love to all right so if i premiere partners We've got Pinstadium, Pinstadium Lighting Kit, iOS, Apple-controlled lighting kits for your pinball machines. And for whatever reason, even though pinball machines have more LEDs and lights than ever, they're still dark AF, especially Stern. So I highly recommend checking those out.

high confidence · Kevin discussing update from Dr. Blueberry Johnson: 'a couple years ago they had all those weird accessories on their webpage...Well, none of that exists anymore.'

Kevin Manning @ ~45:00 — Expresses frustration about unpredictability of market reception; sets up 'baby games' segment to follow

  • “You just said a bunch of words. I heard words, and I recognize the words, but I don't know how they come together to form a coherent sentence that one would understand.”

    Nick Lane @ ~63:00 — Response to Pinball Adventures' incoherent game descriptions (Sushi Madness); captures hosts' frustration with company's poor communication

  • “This one just says one of the greatest pinball machines ever made well this pinball machine has never been made because it doesn't exist so how can that be true”

    Kevin Manning @ ~70:00 — Sarcastically points out logical fallacy in Pinball Adventures' marketing of vaporware; critiques company's delusional self-promotion

  • “This is like classism the pinball machine...are you worthy of flying first class? Do you make enough money? What's your social economic status?”

    Nick Lane @ ~75:00 — Sarcastically critiques Pinball Adventures' 'First Class' game concept as tone-deaf and pretentious

    • Jaws
    game
    Pinball Adventurescompany
    Barrels of Funcompany
    Jerryperson
    Owen Grapevineperson
    J-Popperson
    Ian Harrowerperson
    Blood Bank Billiardsgame
    Pirates of the Caribbeangame
    Zach Sharpeperson
    Pin Stadium Lightscompany
    [name withheld pending review]person
    Tim Kitzrowperson

    high · Kevin: 'Jerry from Multimorphic...he does these pretty much monthly which is awesome. I think I like that direct communication with the owner of the company.'

  • ?

    product_launch: Multimorphic Princess Bride batch one shipping August 2024 on schedule with original summer 2024 production announcement; machine toured at major festivals (Golden State, SPAQ, Pin Brew, Pintastic, Texas, Midwest) for consumer exposure

    high · Kevin citing official Multimorphic update: 'batch one of Princess Bride are going to start shipping in August which is right in line with what they promised...August is very much summer.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Hosts question mechanical/electrical design of large PCBs positioned directly under playfield with mechanical components, citing potential reliability and vibration concerns

    medium · Nick: 'they love these huge PCBs underneath the playfield, which never seemed like a great idea to me, because you have all this mechanical stuff happening here right next to all your digital computer board stuff...you really want all that motion and friction happening next to your delicate electronic components?'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball Adventures' catalog (Puny Factory, Forsaken Ninja, Sushi Madness, First Class, Volts Electric) consists entirely of non-existent games with AI art and incoherent descriptions; hosts express frustration with company's continued promotion of non-functional products

    high · Kevin mocking Pinball Adventures: 'This one just says one of the greatest pinball machines ever made well this pinball machine has never been made because it doesn't exist so how can that be true?'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Owen Grapevine (Jaws/Godzilla designer) has elevated community expectations for packed playfields; Jaws perceived as disappointing relative to Godzilla hype despite hosts' personal praise

    medium · Kevin: 'Owen did a great job with Godzilla, and I think people have a certain expectation of him now to have this super-packed play field...I was just really surprised that people weren't doing backflips over Jaws.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Barrels of Fun identified as model for effective product launch: finished product ready, video demonstration shown, then immediate shipping—contrasted with Dutch Pinball's protracted announcement-to-delivery model

    high · Kevin: 'Just do what Barrels of Fun did. Barrels of Fun did excellent execution...They had the product ready to go. They showed video. They showed it, and then they started shipping it.'

  • ?

    business_signal: Dutch Pinball created new DPX (Dutch Pinball Exclusive) sub-brand to handle Alice in Wonderland, suggesting possible operational restructuring or attempt to separate troubled mainline brand from new projects

    medium · Kevin: 'they're going to start a second company so they're going to run two companies simultaneously...I don't know.'

  • ?

    content_signal: BDYETP adding new sponsor Pinball Life (established parts retailer since 2011); hosts personally vouch for product quality and long-term customer loyalty to leverage trust

    high · Kevin: 'Pinball Life, my God, I've been a customer of Pinball Life since 2011 when I got in the hobby...I'm stoked to have them on board.'

    • 2:36
    Recommend the Pinstadium Neo Adams for the low profile. Use coupon code BUFFALO to save 10% off that. And we'll get to the giveaways soon. We've got some giveaways going. and I will highlight those after the partner thanks. I don't want anybody to miss that. And then our other premier partner, Flip and Out Pinball. Once you go Zach, you never, never go back. He even cares. I've said this before. He cares about his customers. You know how I know he cares about his customers? Because he had a whopping two people. That's right, two people reach out to him wanting to buy the barbecue game, and he told both people, are you sure? That is, he valued their happiness over the dollar. He's a good guy. Check it out. I just bought another game from Zach. I'll talk about that later. And then we want to shout out to all of our other partners who we love and adore. Comet Pinball for LED lights. We've got Titan Pinball for silicone rings, pinballs, and other goodies. New, new sponsor alert, Pinball Life. Pinball Life, my God, I've been a customer of Pinball Life since 2011 when I got in the hobby. You and me both. Yeah, yeah. I'm stoked to have them on board. And shout out and thanks to Scott Denise for reaching out to us and being the bridge to make that happen. And apologies to everybody. I totally messed up because I just can't catch my breath. They were going to do a giveaway.
    3:56
    They were going to do like a discount, and I didn't get that in place in time. So we will do that moving forward, but super excited to partner with Pinball Life. So thank you, Scott, and thank you, Terry. just you know I told Terry like told them I've been a happy fan since 2011 so wholeheartedly endorse them all right let me just can I just give my two cents on my life too because you know this is awesome I'm scrolling through the home page and seeing things all these things that I bought recently so these slider things for your the back legs of your pinball machines those are great the new p3 low profile button box I got those those are amazing I got the enhanced io board for my pirates the flippers are better than ever i got you know flipper rebuild kits i'm going to talk about how i've been working on my games later all that stuff came from pinball life so um they were one of the first places i ever bought pinball parts from and stoked to have them on board yeah and listen if you just bought a new pinball machine you might as well stock up on um their coil stops because stern doesn't care about their customers and have been releasing junk on that for the last i don't know is it up to 10 years now something crazy well so you can You get this ultimate Mallard duck mod, too, so who doesn't want that? Crazy stuff. We love you guys. Thanks for joining on, and let's give a thanks to everybody else, too. Is that for Big Buck Hunter, the duck mod? You can put it on any pinball machine you want. They actually have a duck multiball in Big Buck Hunter, I believe. There you go. All right, let's keep the train rolling. We've got Playfield Protectors, a newer sponsor this year. Again, I'm a big fan of their products, Playfield Protectors, especially if you've got a classic game. Go ahead and throw that on there. You know, don't ruin. Pinball is art. Don't ruin it by not protecting your game. Pinside.com. Oh, man. Pinside.com. We've got a segment this month. We've got a couple segments this month. It's the gold mine known as Pinside.com. It's a gift that keeps on giving. And then last but not least, Multimorphic.com, makers of the P3.
    5:57
    More to come from those guys later, yeah. Everybody in my close Buffalo friend group has a P3 but me, so there you go. We got the P3 covered in Buffalo, that's for sure. There's literally one on my street a few blocks away. No, it's not literally on my street. It's like a house. It's around the corner. I can walk there in 10 minutes. There you go. Dave never invites me over to play, though. Come on, Dave. Let's talk giveaways, shall we? I've got to play some billiards.
    6:20
    You want to do giveaways? Yeah, let's talk giveaways. Yeah. All right. There you go. I'll do this, and Kevin, you can come rescue me. So, my God, you've got to be like past $5,000 worth of giveaways from Penn Stadium. Penn Stadium is giving away a set of Neo X Atoms, a little profile lighting kit valued at $399.95. Of course, if you use the code BUFFAL, you'll save 10%. That's no joke. So do that. The one caveat with this is, and I agree with Scott, is you guys are awesome. And there's been repeat winners multiple times because there's some viewers who are amazing and they watch every show and they understand how to type hashtag win in the chat and watch live. So they've gotten good at winning.
    7:09
    Scott wants to make sure that we have some other people who have never won before. So we're going to – if you do win this and you won it before, we're just going to go to the next person. So please let us know. We want to spread the love. And, of course, Scott and Penn Stadium have been a great sponsor, but we want to get this in the hands of more people because it's a great product. We're also giving away, or Scott has given away, Penn Stadium is giving away a set of Penn Stadium Xenomounds valued at $50.
    7:39
    So we've got two winners here. Yeah, so these are cool because they let you attach your Penn Stadiums to the play field. So normally they adhere to the sides. This, like, attaches them to the play field so you don't have to take them off when you lift the play field and stuff like that. I had them on my GNR when I had that. So that's a cool upgrade, especially if you've got a super nice machine that you're like, I'm going to make this top of line. I'm going to trick it out all the way. I want to do nothing but the best. Definitely upgrade and get yourself one of these, too.
    8:09
    That looks good, right? Because then you don't have to actually put it on the art or anything, right? Yeah, if you've got art blades. Yeah, it avoids having to put it on there. As it shows on the jaws you've got there. Okay, perfect. Love it. And then Titan Pinball. We got a $50 gift card. There you go. Straight up 50 bucks. Go nuts. I mean, I guarantee there's something at Titan you want and need. You can put it towards the mat if you don't have one yet. This is your own opportunity. Where's the hardware? Somewhere around here.
    8:41
    They have like a clearance sale somewhere, and I got nut drivers for like two bucks each. They were these, but I don't know. They're on here somewhere. If they still got them, grab those. because they didn't have the quarter inch and I already had a quarter inch. So grab yourself a set of those and some other good stuff. I've got the nut drivers. I recommend it. Yeah, they're good. You need those. All right. Let's have Tim Kittrow introduce our news. Here we go. Here's the tip. It's the latest pinball news. So hot, it's on fire. All right.
    9:12
    Alice in Wonderland. Yeah. So this is a thing. So remember this? This is the game that way back when J-Pop was like, bro, I'm going to make a pinball machine all by myself in the garage. And one of them is going to be Alice in Wonderland and Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland was another one and all these things. And they're going to be purple and it's going to be great.
    9:36
    But apparently Dutch Pinball is going to make it. So this is a look at the machine he made out of paper and cardboard, which is the inspiration for it. and apparently it's going to follow this style, I guess. I don't know.
    9:52
    I got to be honest. We're digging. There's not much pinball news this month, okay? And I don't really care about this game, and I'm not going to buy this game. And the connection with J-Pop is shady, and Dutch Pinball took 10 years to ship all the Lebowskis that they promised the people.
    10:10
    My expectations are really low. Let's just say that. it's got Zombie Yeti art I guess but they're also bringing in other artists to work on this I don't know I haven't really followed this closely all I know is it's going to be a thing maybe and they're promising it in the quarter three of this year through Dutch Pinball Exclusives their new second company because they couldn't keep their first company going so they're going to start a second company so they're going to run two companies simultaneously I don't know I don't know. Do you care about this, Nick? No, it's Kevin Manning based AF this morning. The channeling little Nick Lane. I love it. It's good stuff. I can't care. Yeah, I don't. Like, why is J-Pop even a thing right now, right? Like, look, he had his time. He messed up. Just go and do something else. Why does anybody attach their star to it? This looks busy AF as well. Sorry for saying AF. I'm trying not to swear in the first 10 minutes. But, like, yeah, I mean, everything about, like, look at the back. everything is just busy. Not whatever. So I don't know. I mean, maybe J pops do for a win at this point, there's been so many losses, but don't care about the theme. Don't care about J pop. Don't care about Dutch pinball. Sorry guys. I mean, you burned me. Um,
    11:29
    wish you luck. Hopefully it works out. I do want to see more pinball companies, right? So just, uh, not excited. Don't care. Uh,
    11:39
    I'm not holding my breath on this. hope it's good but yeah what's weird too is like they're announcing that it's coming out in like quarter three they're not showing anything of the actual game they showed the bottom of the play field and then this you know here's these old you know mock-ups of jpy i don't know who knows if it's even gonna look anything like this um i don't know like It's a weird strategy. Are they trying to get on people's radars because they want people to hold their money from buying anything else? I don't get the reveal strategy here. Usually you want to announce a game and then get it into people's hands as quickly as possible while the hype cycle is high, right? Otherwise, it's going to follow the Pirates of the Caribbean track where hype was really high. They had some production issues and concerns along the way. They had to hold it back while they adjusted those things. People lost interest. They sold very few of them, even though it's an amazing game, one of our favorites.
    12:45
    I just feel like, why would you do this to yourself? Why would you do it to yourself? Indeed, no one ever learns. So you get it out there. So, I mean, thank you. So we can shit on it, right? And then Pinside can get the bingo cards out. then somebody on Pinsight can say, well, why do people have opinions on games before they even play it? Because you're not allowed to have an opinion on something unless you actually have it, right? Like you can't watch a trailer for a movie and be like, well, you didn't see the movie, so you can't have an opinion on it, right? Like you have to buy and experience every product in life before you have any kind of opinion. Now, it's not an informed opinion, right? There's evidence we're taking in and we're talking about what we're being presented with. But also, when they release information like this, going on a Jason rant, when they release information on this, they want you to have an opinion on it. Right. That's the whole point. They want your attention. So, guys, come on. Just do what Barrels of Fun did. Barrels of Fun did excellent execution. A lot of people didn't see this coming. They had the product ready to go. They showed video. They showed it, and then they started shipping it. That's it. And also, the underside of a playfield? Seriously? Are you nuts? Who cares? Who cares about a jumbled mess of shit underneath a playfield?
    14:06
    That thing's just an anxiety attack from you waiting to happen. I know. They love these huge PCBs underneath the playfield, which never seemed like a great idea to me, because you have all this mechanical stuff happening here right next to all your digital computer board stuff. I'm not an electrical engineer or a mechanical engineer, but it seems like a questionable design choice to me. You really want all that motion and friction happening next to your delicate electronic components? It's crazy. Crazy, if you ask me.
    14:37
    And if you're going to do this, just like other companies have done this. I remember, I think it was for GNR. JJP did a teaser image, but it was the day before they showed off the game. They were like, oh, here's this picture of the underside of the playfield. we'll show you the rest in six months. It's crazy.
    14:56
    Anyways, thanks for giving us something to talk about. Uh, Dutch pinball, exclusive, whatever. I guess, I guess. Thank you. Like, I don't even care. It is. It is a pinball. Yes. It is. It's a pinball machine. We can confirm it's a pinball machine. Look at that. It's got shiny chrome armor. They say down the rabbit hole, Q, Q three 20. Is that when they're just going to reveal it? Or is it going to be ready for purchase? Who knows?
    15:25
    I'm guessing that's when they're going to show it. There's no way it's going to be ready. Oh, Jesus. Stop hyping up the bullshit already. Like, just come on. I know. Just come on. Stop the bullshit. Who's not sick of it at this point in the hobby? And, like, listen, if you're new to the hobby, you've been around for a couple years, maybe this stuff is fresh for you. But, like, Kevin and I are battle weary. they just had a front row seat to this nonsense for well over a decade and it's just so old and it's just who cares like let's show the game when it's ready let's go and then we can talk about something for real for real all right before i move on i do want to give a quick shout out to the uh we use a lot of um pinball news sites and i try to contribute uh all the time when i'm pulling news but we don't always get to them so just shout out to nap arcade pinball news uh Nudge we're going to go to. Those are like the big ones. So thank you all for doing what you do and helping us kind of round things up every month and share it all with everybody. This next one comes from Namp Arcade. It's our Multimorphic update.
    16:29
    Actually, it came from Jerry, but I'm showing it to you on the Namp Arcade website because they do a nice job of summarizing it. There's some nice graphics, which works here.
    16:41
    Jerry from Multimorphic sent out an update. he does these pretty much monthly which is awesome I think I like that direct communication with the owner of the company so kind of the takeaways are that batch one of Princess Bride are going to start shipping in August which is right in line with what they promised from this is like their original announcement and in their teaser video they said production begins summer 2024 so boom they're nailing it August is very much summer as far as I know, at least in the where we live in the world. Not for everybody around the world I understand, but he's talking about the United States, because that's where they're based.
    17:23
    And they've been taking pinball machines on tour, so the Princess Bride has kind of gone all over the place so it's been at Golden State Pinball Festival SPAQ in Quebec Pin Brew, Pintastic Allentown, Texas Pinball Festival Midwest Gaming Classic, so they've been doing a good job of getting this game out there so people can get their hands on it. And check it out. And so I'm looking forward to getting mine. As soon as I do, I will be obviously streaming that. We're going to do a little Princess Bride party here in Buffalo. All the P3 owners want to try it. So I'm going to have folks over to check it out. And then what else? Oh, Blood Bank Billiards.
    18:04
    I had the honor of doing the reveal stream of Blood Bank Billiards with Ian Harrower of Ian Harrower Games. You may know him as Yamagote on the internets. This is a cool game from him, his third-party game on a third-party module, the Drain module, from Nick Baldridge. And if you've played the EM Classic Target Pool, it's very much in line with the feel of that. So you're playing billiards, but it's got a vampire theme, so it integrates nicely with the Drain playfield. And, you know, you're syncing pool balls with vampires, and it's a good time. So I wanted Nick to come and play this because I know he likes the drain play field a lot. But, of course, you know, he's gallivanting around in one of his many places that he likes to visit for work. So we'll get you over here. We'll get you a play on this because it's fun. I think you're going to dig it. No, I really want to play it. So I'm trying to get an invite over to Dave Sousa. Oh, yeah, he's got it, too. I like the drain play field.
    19:04
    It was fun. I kept on hitting the start button when I played that. I don't know, almost a year ago at the time at your house. Yeah, yeah. So I think you're going to dig it. We'll definitely get you over to play it.
    19:16
    Yeah, I think that's all the multi-morphic. I've got some other personal multi-morphic updates. We'll talk about those later.
    19:23
    From Stern Pinball, holy cow, what an announcement. We got accessories. So Stern showed off the latest line of accessories for Jaws Pinball. they have a topper for a thousand dollars art blades for a hundred bucks a shooter knob for 149.99 armor for 249.99 and a speaker light kit for 200 bucks uh so we can i can show you some of these um there's the topper and keith ellen showing off the topper oh my god it's just probably easier if i just show you the the picture so there's the topper uh i saw some critiques of the topper um because they took like still image grabs from a video and put it them online but the topper has got a lenticular view so if you view it from different angles it looks different so it doesn't photograph great but i i kind of like that it it kind of reminded me of the uh whitewater topper a little bit it's kind of a nod to that which i like um with the lighting and water effects and things like that um so i'm looking forward to seeing that i think that'll look better in person and i'm a big fan of the fact that it does not say jaws again on it right above where it says jaws on the back glass so it gets a it gets a uh plus one for that gordon yeah i didn't give gordon enough time to do a topper talk so this is we're doing a little uh nick and kevin topper talk here we're covering it right here in the main main section of the show um uh they got speaker light kits which uh pinball life has speaker light kits and uh Speaker upgrades. Maybe just get those instead. Just saying that. Hashtag sponsored. They've got Jaws side armor with the bite taken out of it. There's the art blades. They look cool. I like it. I like that it's like the ocean. Integrates well with the play field art and the barrel shooter knob. So there you go. Get yourself some Jaws accessories. Nick, are you going to get any of these for your Jaws? Actually, I already did. I haven't installed it yet, but I have Art Blades waiting to be installed. So one of these days, one of these months, I'll pop those bad boys in there. I'm not a huge accessory guy, but I do like Art Blades. I think that they look good. Usually I stop there. But I'm glad that Stern offers, like, official accessories that integrate well with kind of the art and the style of the game. Because, I mean, look, they're the ones who made everything in the game. so you get the same artist to do it, right? It makes sense. I'm really glad that they offer accessories. They're smart for doing so. It took a long time to do it because clearly there was a demand for mods and accessories, and all those mod makers had a nice runway to make a lot of money. But, yeah, Stern's doing a good job. I think the only critique is that they're really slow on releasing. I mean, Jaws came out like six months ago now, and we're finally getting accessories. Hopefully they get their timing better in terms of releasing that. But it looks good. great stuff. I saw people making fun of the topper, and I think the topper's fine, right? I'm not a topper guy. I think everything right now, what we're seeing in these games, is just a function of price more than anything. I think price is really kind of punctuating the emotional and the negativity. I mean, it happened with Wick. I mean, people have been losing their minds with John Wick, and it's not like the critiques are valid or invalid, but I think that But what's driving this a lot is that prices are really high on everything, and people are feeling hurt. So, you know, topper prices have been crazy for a while.
    23:01
    I'm not a topper guy, but, again, that's like a few hundred dollar topper to me. Yeah, totally. What they charge is, you know, that's when people can kind of go nuts on it and really pick it apart. And I don't blame them for that, for that when you put the price into the equation. Yeah, I do love that they have art from the same artist as the play field. That's important to me, especially with something like an art blade. You want a cohesive look and feel to the whole game,
    23:28
    not just like some random different artist or somebody pulling clip art from somewhere and slapping them on the inside of your game. I'm a big fan of that, so kudos to Stern. And besides, to your point of timing, like half of the uh the pin side owners probably sold their jaws already they're very sure some people in this uh hobby a very short attention span so they may have uh they may have sold it already so stern's probably missing out on some sales although the second secondary owners could still buy it i guess but yeah this is a anecdotal somewhat but i was surprised you know there's been discussion when john wick came out and people are like oh i like Jaws way better, or I like Wick way better than Jaws. Jaws is no good. I've seen a lot of people not like Jaws. Even though I was just, well, you're talking, Ken, I'm looking at owners, so the game seems to be selling well. I love Jaws. We're going to review it at some point. I keep threatening to do that when we have more time.
    24:26
    But I think the I think I'm getting really bad or worse at predicting what people like or don't like these days. I just I don't know. Have you seen any hate towards Jaws or just some negative opinions on it. It seems like people are just kind of like meh about it in general. I don't know. Yeah. I just, yeah, people aren't getting themselves hyped up for pinball machines like they were a couple years ago, back when everything that came out was an amazing game and that the hype cycle was huge and they were trying to pump up the prices. I think that probably factored into things too.
    25:01
    But yeah, so I don't know if overall enthusiasm has cooled off or if just general perceptions have changed.
    25:10
    Owen did a great job with Godzilla, and I think people have a certain expectation of him now to have this super-packed play field, and I don't think it always does, even though Jaws isn't super-packed, but it's got a lot of physical, neat little tricks that it does. And Jaws, especially if you play the pro, it's pretty straightforward, like a bunch of shots, but they're cool, right? It's fun to play. so I could see on like first impression being like oh this isn't as cool as Godzilla and I don't have any money to spend anyway so I'm going to kind of be like whatever that's the only thing I can think I look forward to talking about it I don't want to spoil it all here because then we're just repeating the review but I was surprised by that I think I'm out of step with maybe the market even if I don't like a game I can understand why a game does well or that people like it I was just really surprised that people weren't doing backflips over Jaws. I think it's way better than Godzilla. I mean, Jaws is my favorite L1 game for sure. I think he crushed it. Sometimes I just don't know what people want anymore in this market in pinball. They want baby games. We're going to talk about baby games later. But it's a long-playing game too, so I don't know. I have no idea. I'm really confused. All right. Well, more to come in our Jaws review, but that's what we got so far. We got accessories for now. All right, Nick, you're going to like this one. Okay, good. Let's check in on Pinball Adventures. Remember these guys? Holy shit. This is a thing still? Yeah. Remember these? Oh, my God. Yeah. All right. So I saw a thread. It may have been in the Pony Factory thread, and I believe it was Dr. Blueberry Johnson who posted the update He likes to keep tabs on these guys saying that like remember so you remember like I don know a couple years ago they had all those weird accessories on their webpage It was like the thing to hold the flipper button in place and the thing to hold your pinball machine play field up. Well, none of that exists anymore.
    27:16
    All of that is gone. And the only thing in their shop is a Puny Factory standard and a Puny Factory wood engraved.
    27:24
    So I don't know why those are gone. So I was like, okay, that's weird. So let's see what else. Nobody wanted them. Well, yeah.
    27:32
    So let's see what else is going on on this website. So Pony Factory, you knew about elements they had. I think it was TPF and everybody said it was terrible.
    27:42
    And now there's like this Forsaken Ninja game, which I feel like there was a ninja game, but it was not called Forsaken Ninja.
    27:51
    Okay, so there's that. there's like AI art that they got. Okay, great. So there's no picture of a pinball machine or anything. It's just nonsense.
    27:59
    Sushi, what used to be Sushi Mania with a like super racist art is now Sushi Madness. Let's just read the description of this one. The sushi has been exposed by contaminated soy sauce and it's gone radioactive. You must become a master chef to defeat the attacking sushi and finish serving all your customers. Try a skill shot into a bowl of hot noodles. will that Asian money cat give you good or bad luck? The Rock Chop Pinball Game of Ramen.
    28:30
    You just said a bunch of words. I heard words, and I recognize the words, but I don't know how they come together to form a coherent sentence that one would understand. Agreed. I have no idea what any of those words mean when you put them next to each other like that. Again, this looks like it's AI, but I believe it's the person who sat down and wrote this. Oh, I don't know what happened there. I think I just broke the webpage. don't click on the pictures because you'll break the web page there's volts electric this one just says one of the greatest pinball machines ever made well this pinball machine has never been made because it doesn't exist so how can that be true and i don't even what is this like a proton pack from from uh ghostbusters i like i'm very confused this guy's delusional i swear i love him though i do i was happy to see the first class was still in here yeah this is one i want to see come to fruition fruition everybody okay everybody who wants your original themes here you go this is your company original themes all day first class pinball uh ah first class the passengers they get to board the plane first sit at the front of the plane and seem to have settled in with a glass of champagne before anyone else has even lined up we all know first class tickets are more expensive than the other seats but let's get into the nitty-gritty are you worthy enough to fly first class are you holy shit holy shit by the way i just want to point out that the top picture is a private jet that's different than first class you moron you effing moron seriously that's a good point you elitist douchebag yeah this is like classism the pinball machine oh are you worthy of flying first class i don't know do you make enough money what's your social economic status. Let's see.
    30:22
    Are you elitist and do you value things? Do you want to pay more for high quality stuff? Then this is not the pinball for you because it's a piece of trash that doesn't exist. Here's the juxtaposition, which is kind of amazing. Okay, first class quality, you're willing to pay a premium price for premium service. Fine, fine, fine.
    30:42
    Pinball Adventures is not a, first of all, they're barely a pinball company. They're not a premium pinball company. This is like the Greyhound fucking bus of pinball companies. The Greyhound bus had one bus and it broke down every five miles. And they made one or two buses. That's all that was in their fleet. Yeah, sorry, Greyhound bus. You deserve better.
    31:04
    That's really insulting what I said to liken you to Pinball Adventures. I just don't know enough shitty bus companies, so you're going to have to take this hit. That's what they get for being top of mind, having that brand awareness. I was just poking around and I was like oh it's on the contact page so their head office is in Vancouver British Columbia Canada apparently there's a Confucius quote where he said why did the joystick go to therapy it had too many control issues or maybe the quote above is from Confucius success isn't about how much money you make just choose a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life I feel like Confucius didn't say that No, he did not. You're a philosophy guy. I don't know Confucius like that, but he didn't say that. I'm confident. I'm confident he didn't say that. Common sense. Let's look at their Instagram. I'm just curious. Kevin's falling down the trap.
    32:01
    They're taking pre-orders for a Pony Factory game that's been out for a year and a half now. When did that post? How recent are their posts? Because that's the interesting thing, right? I want to see. This is pretty recent because it's got this new stuff from Elements. Oh, we didn't look at Elements. Sorry. I meant to look at Elements. I'm very into this.
    32:20
    Ah, spoilers. Sorry, guys. This is our self-indulgent Nick and Kevin relay. All right, forget it. The Elements looks like trash, so just go with me on that one. I'm giving you spoilers on the next segment, though. American Pinball. What are they thinking, American Pinball? What's the segment called? I can't even know my own segment. What the fuck is AP? WTF is AP Thinking? I think that's the official name, yeah. You know what? I failed. Again, this is a time issue, but I will start clipping these, and we'll have a nice playlist on Buffalo Pinball YouTube at some point, so you can just sit back and just watch them all.
    32:55
    We need to get Tim Kitzero to record an intro. We got to hurry up, though, because I don't know how long this company is going to exist for, so this could be a really short run of segments. Yeah, there's not a long tail on this segment.
    33:11
    All right, so American Pinball, what's going on at AP? Let's check in with our fine folks over at American Pinball. So this is from our friend Digital Jedi. He kind of was way into virtual pinball, and then he got into real pinball, and now he's in our league and all that stuff. So he actually recognized that this ad that went up, I don't know, a little over a month ago for Memorial Day. It was weird because like, there's this picture of Legends of Valhalla. And I was like, that doesn't even look like Legends of Valhalla. And he goes, well, it's a, it's like a virtual pin, like tribute game. So the screenshot, so this is an official American pinball graphic. And they have like Galactic Tank Force and Oktoberfest and Houdini and Hot Wheels. and we'll get to Hot Wheels in a sec too because there's curious things happening there. But Legends of Valhalla, I'm like, what is that game? He's like, oh yeah, this is a tribute game.
    34:10
    So it's like in the VPN world, they'll make a game that like if a pinball machine comes out, somebody will make a game that's kind of like themed after it, but not an exact recreation of it. So this has kind of the look and feel of American Pinball's Legends of Valhalla. But it's not the game. Like the game is not laid out at all like this. especially with the inserts and things like that. None of this is like that. So in that little thumbnail, like why are you, use the art from your actual pinball machine. Why are you getting the weird V-Pin version of,
    34:42
    that's like the, that we want Legends of Valhalla and we have Legends of Valhalla at home. That's what's going on here.
    34:50
    So first off, why would you do that? So, and then what they did was, so in V-Pin, in the like preview where you're scrolling through the games, you have a little preview that pops up and this is like the little teaser preview for that so like going on the internet googling legends of valhalla finding a graphic and slapping it in there when they already have all the art like you made this game why are you doing this um so that's weird and then somebody else noticed that in the hot wheels there's a water parking watermark you can see an as a so it says like sample this is like sample art really faded here in the watermark but You can see it. Like, why are you using, again, you are an official licensor of Hot Wheels. You should have official approved artwork. You don't need to be using sample art or a V-pin art in your advertising. So that's weird.
    35:42
    Nick, any thoughts on this? Yeah, why would you give this money, company your money? Why would you give, this is, there's zero attention to detail, zero care. You know, I mean, from everything from the marketing to the game, to the rules in the game, to the quality of their games. I don't know how they're not done It's insane I don't know why you would give your money to this company But it doesn't end It's just always like WTF Everything This constant It's just constant, it's crazy I don't even know No attention to detail, no quality control So then you fast forward a month To 4th of July It's all back Sample art even after this was pointed out on pinzide like there's a whole thread about this on pinzide same little wheel art same sample art just reconfigured fourth of july sale the other thing is like they're having sales all the time now so why would you ever buy a machine at full price when they're having sales you just wait until they have the sale right like if this is going to be a regular part of your strategy i like nick you're more of a sales guy than i am Do you understand the thinking behind this?
    36:53
    There's no thinking behind this. What is there to understand? All I know is that these games aren't selling.
    37:02
    I'm just mystified that they're rerunning games like Houdini. Who's buying Houdini? That's crazy. They're so proud that they can rerun their back catalog. Who the hell wants these games? Who are they finding to buy them? Sorry, guys. I mean, if you like the games, I know people, they'll like, see people say they like Houdini and all that. That's fine. But, like, really, where's the market to keep on making these games and stock parts for I'm confused. Also, Kevin, can you go back because you know what I'm going to go and nitpick on. Okay. Here we go. All right. This one.
    37:41
    Oh, yeah. Here it goes. I will scream it from the rooftop. I will have organized a campaign out of my own money. We've got to stop this. It's not called – let me read this to you if you're listening to it on podcast. It says, 4th of July, sale, $500 off on all pinballs. Kevin, how much is a pinball? It's about $1.50. Yeah, you can get – for $1.50, you can get a pinball from Titan. Highly recommend it. I don't know how you take $500 off a $1.50 pinball, but somehow American Pinball figured it out. They're not pinballs. I have in my basement pinball machines. Okay, I have pinball machines. I don't have pinballs. I do have pinballs in my basement. They're in a box that I pull out and I replace the worn out pinballs in my pinball machines. Okay, how are you doing a company? How is this company and they can't even get it correct? Again, attention to detail. Can we talk about you're in communications, I'm in business development, sales, marketing. Like all of that stuff matters, right? it's a quality, it's attention to detail when you're trying to compete in the marketplace and sell to customers. You think these are, we call it nitpicking, but it's true, though. It matters it adds up. They don't know what they're doing. Why would you spend your hard-earned money on a game from American Pinball where you can get something quality from Stern or Jersey Jack that are crushing it? Why would you do that? I mean, maybe if you have all the space in the world and all the money in the world and you do it for the memes or the lulls and you've got to scratch that itch and buy everything new, fine. But other than that, for the rest of us that have limited space, limited dollars, why would you give money to a company that doesn't even know what a pinball machine is called?
    39:28
    You make a great point. Where's the confidence? All right, speaking of questionable decisions, do we want to talk about Dave Fix on the Pinball News, Pinball Magazine podcast?
    39:41
    I guess we should. I mean, we talk about what goes on in a company, and unfortunately, again, I've said this before.
    39:50
    We know Dave. He's a Buffalo guy. Dave probably hates me at this point, but he's now heading up a company, so we talk about what's going on off a company. And unfortunately, we try to understand what's going on in American Pinball, and Dave has chosen. He reached out to Pinball Magazine, so they didn't invite him on. he reached out and said he wants to come on and talk to them, which this, this is the kindest thing I can say right now. I doubt Dave's listening, but you're not doing yourselves any favor, man. Just head down and build. Um, but that's not what Dave did. So let's go forward. And we try to understand as part of the continuation of the segment is WTF is American pinball thinking. So now we're going to get into this. Um, this was a very long segment by the way. Oh, uh, yeah. He dug himself deeper and deeper the longer he went. Yeah. Again, You're not doing your – I don't know how you think this went, Dave, but it's not good.
    40:47
    And credit to Pinball Magazine. You know, I don't really listen to pinball podcasts, but I know they're respected and have been in this space for a long time. They asked some hard questions, and they didn't give Dave a pass, and they kept on coming back to some things that I think are on people's minds. So a couple takeaways. It's been a few weeks since I listened to this.
    41:08
    Dave said some interesting things here that doesn't make sense. So when Dave was on Pinball Profile several months ago, you know, God bless Jeff. Jeff gave him a nice softball interview to hit the thing out of the park, and I still don't think he did, that Dave did. But anyways, Dave was saying that they're doing original themes because, and we talked about this on our podcast at the time, you know, people want original themes. Look at the top 10 games on Internet Pinball Database or whatever it's called, and the original themes. And we broke that apart. Wow, that's just crazy. Now on this podcast a few months later, he's saying that they're doing these original themes because they're mandated by their parent company. All right. So this is a totally, totally different story. And what doesn't add up is that, you know, in trying to understand what's going on over there, Dave was saying that Hot Wheels didn't sell well because of COVID. Like it came out during COVID and because of COVID it didn't sell well. Well, that makes no sense at all. Anybody who's paid attention and was in pinball at that time knows that pinball machines were flying off the shelves. Stern couldn't make games fast enough. Jersey Jack had Guns N' Roses, just a massive hit for them because everybody was stuck inside. You might remember, it's only four years ago. You're stuck inside. You couldn't do anything but just spend money at home. So Stern went and built a whole bigger factory. It's like they thought this party would never end. But somehow Hot Wheels didn't sell well because of COVID makes no sense. It's such a cop-out. It's such bullshit. And I don't know if Dave believes that or if he's just making things up, but that's insane, guys. Like if you don't – your game didn't sell well because of COVID. It didn't sell well because people didn't want it. And I thought that that game actually, compared to other games, did quite well. So anyways, that is the excuse because it didn't sell well. Something along the lines of the owners didn't want them to do another original theme. So this was totally contradictory to what was said a few months ago, which is, again, why I would just head down and build. But it does sound like we are now going to get some themed games and licensed games. It sounds like the next game is Cuphead. Dave did not say this, but this is a speculation. and things that Dave on that podcast would lead one to believe it is Cuphead. Again, is Cuphead a great theme? So many people don't know what it is. I don't think it is. At least it's a theme. At least it's something. At least there's some emotional attachment to it. Yeah, I don't think there's a lot of pinball buyers who are like, oh, yeah, I love Cuphead. You know what I mean? Like, I know what it is. I'm a video game player too. My son likes it. He's 17 years old. So I don't think a lot of 17-year-olds are buying brand-new pinball machines. Dave, so I'm trying to read the comments. I know the chat is good. So Dave, at one point, this is Digital's Jedi, points this out.
    44:14
    Again, credit to the guys at Pinball Magazine. They really kind of did their best to hold Dave's feet to the fire here and push back, which makes for a better interview because it's everything that people are thinking and wondering. So this is what people want. And they're like, but Dave, what is Barry O? They were giving him a hard time because nobody knows who Barry O is, and they were suggesting that if you're going to do a barbecue game, at least go out and get a Food Network star, maybe someone that's known for barbecue. I don't think anybody thinks that's a great idea, but I think most people would say if you insist on doing that, that's a better idea. Dave's response is, who is Aunt Jemima?
    44:54
    I don't know if you thought that was game, set, and match at that point. I was ready for this. It was like he was doing his debate prep and he had that one in the chamber. You know what I mean? I got that. I have it locked and loaded for when they ask me who Barry O is. Go listen to yourselves. Go listen to that. It's something else if you're wondering what's going on over there. What was interesting and what the Pinball Magazine guys kept on coming back to, so it sounds like the parent company is Ametron. They're based in India, and they're going to be offering an IPO, so they might go public. And what begs the question, and they ask this, is like, are you afraid that when they offer the IPO and it becomes a publicly traded company, that they're going to look at American Pinball and say, this is not profitable, right? It's not successful. Why are we spending money on it? And obviously, we need to raise the share price and sell shares. Are you worried that they're going to get rid of it? And Dave just 100% dismissed that. So I think the – I agree with the Pinball Magazine, what they're getting at. I think the death blow for them is that if they do become publicly traded, all the financials become public. And this thing is an anchor around Ametron. It can't be making them money. It's a passion project by one of the current owners of it to keep on throwing good money at this bad product. So that's going to be game over. So my prediction, I think my prediction is up in March or April 2025. I'll have to go back, but I gave them two years. So we'll see. we'll see what happens what uh the thing about the the ipo question too was it was like one of the first things they asked him and then he went off on this ridiculous tangent like talking about all sorts of other stuff and then they came back to him and he went off on another tangent and they came back to it a third time and he finally like sort of answered it he never really answered it he's like well they have they have uh they like pinball over over there like you know we take machines over there and they play them.
    46:59
    That's not how this works. It needs to make money, especially when you're a public company, you need to return value for your stakeholders and your shareholders. That's what it's all about. I'm sorry. They don't care if it's fun. It doesn't make money.
    47:13
    And something along the lines, there's some people that like pinball in India. Well, American pinball doesn't need to exist. It's made it in the US. They can just buy a Sterner Jersey Jack and have it shipped over. So nothing makes sense. I don't know what to say I mean it's something else I am pulling punches right now but Dave probably hates me anyways it's an unfortunate situation but this company hopefully they can turn around and I'm going to say this and anybody listening to this I don't want to see American Pinball go under I've wanted American Pinball to do well since the get-go. I want more competition in the marketplace. I want it to drive innovation. I want it to help keep costs reasonable because there are a number of companies striving to make the best games and be competitive on pricing. Then all of us listening who are not in the pinball business, we all win as consumers.
    48:13
    So that's very important to me. I just don't see how any of the decision-making that's going on in American Pinball, I don't see how they survive at all. And I don't see how their next game is any better. When talking about the next game, it sounds like it's another game that's being created by a committee, which how on earth is anything ever good that's made by a committee? Everybody having input there. He was saying that the license holder are pinball fans. Great. And they're making input design decisions. Like, okay, but as the pinball magazine guys point out, this is not me even saying this. It's like, well, being a fan of pinball and making a pinball game is two completely different things. And I don't think that people realize that. Like, me and Kevin could not make a pinball machine. I have an appreciation for pinball rules. I could never do pinball rules. Sometimes I know what works and what doesn't, but I couldn't come up a lot of times with something better, right? Like, Kevin and I are huge fans, but we know our limits. And I don't think that's recognized over there. I don't think anybody knows their limits. The sky is the limit. they like pinball a lot they can do whatever there was also um it's kind of coming back to me now it was there's a lot yeah i keep thinking of things dude dave keeps on coming back about like oh the game's not selling well so that's great for collectors yeah but that's not yeah dude you're running a company who cares about great for collectors in in 10 20 years you this company's not going to exist you need to sell games that people want now that's it so dude i don't know all right i just shake my head i know let's move on this is uh this is sad i got two more things i need i need to just say these before before we move on so the the barrio game that he came out and at tpf was all about you know this is barrio's final design it's uh you know a tribute to barry It's, you know, his final, you know, parting design before he passed away.
    50:23
    So apparently, he says all that at TPF. But then on this podcast, he talks about how he had asked Barry O to make kind of like a game. So think of, you know, how Stern takes a design and then they rework it for different themes. so you know they've used the star wars home layout for a bunch of different games like supreme and uh heavy metal etc etc spider-man um they so it actually started out as spider-man um that's what they wanted to do because if a company came to them and they wanted a pinball machine they would have this design kind of in their back pocket and they could like take it out and be like hey this is it we can slide your brand on here we'll make you a couple dozen of them or whatever and off you go so that was really that was what barry designed and then he died and then they kind of took that design and put all this barrio stuff into it and so it went from being and now on the show he's like oh yeah well that's we made it as a tribute to barry but it's going to be a white label game which is not a bad idea right like if you're getting enough inquiries where that makes sense have something ready to go that you can retheme and make it straightforward but you know you got two different stories two different sales pitches from from dave on that and the other thing uh digital jedi chat reminded me of this earlier he said the current games weren't selling well because it's a presidential cycle it's it's an election season thank you kevin kevin thank you thank you i couldn't let that go let's all right let me jump in i'm gonna tag tag me and here we go there you go you got my attention guys this is easily i've never heard this before in my life. Sure, cite the sources. I'm here to learn.
    52:08
    So, games aren't selling well, not because you made a game the market doesn't want. It's not selling well because it's a presidential cycle.
    52:17
    So this is easily verifiable. Last presidential cycle was 2020. Eh, that doesn't make sense because games were flying off the shelf. They couldn't keep up. There was a backlog of games from Stern. If you wanted a game from Stern, you'd have to wait sometimes a year or two for that. It makes no sense. You can go back to 2016. Does anybody remember games not selling well in 2016? I don't. Go back to 2012. Games were selling well and doing well in 2012. So, again, just complete bullshit. Like, it is easily verifiable. It is easily verifiable. So,
    52:51
    I don't know, man. I'm going to go back to what I started. You're not doing yourself any favors. Stop talking into a mic. Head down. Build what games that people want. it's uh the best advice possible yeah yeah he thought he could talk his way out of this and and like smooth it over but he ended up making it worse highly recommend if he if you got if you're you know you got a long road trip ahead of you and you got some time to kill you got a couple hours you just want to settle into some get yourself all fired up with some day fix check out the pinball news pinball magazine podcast uh the latest one as of right now uh with the day fix interview and just you know buckle in and and settle in and enjoy dave's dave's not gonna listen to me i promise you because he's never listened to me in my life but um my other here's some good advice you might listen to get if you're gonna you're not gonna take that advice then lean into it and get a documentary crew to follow you around and document american pinball and the next games you're making because i would love to watch that on netflix or hulu and your comment just reminded me of another thing there are so many things in this spot this interview he blamed uh poor sales of his games on pinball influencers it our fault the games were sold He had so many excuses It was crazy Zero accountability Right Everything else, everybody else.
    54:07
    There you go. Go check it out. Thank you, you guys over at Pinball News, Pinball Magazine. You really. You guys crushed it. You gave us something to talk about this month. So thank you. Thank you. And they've known Dave for a long time. So it can't be easy. But that's what you get. You know, this is the world we live in, right? Right. Thanks for the question. They're asking the questions. They're doing what they were supposed to do. Hey, Calvin, let's play this game. Okay, here we go. I like to bring this game up. How many Berrios, according to Pinside, how many people own Berrios? We'll do combined, classic and limited edition.
    54:42
    I'm going to say... I'm not talking about public location. So including public locations? No, no, just owners. Okay.
    54:50
    I'm going to say 12. Oh, my... Dude. You did it? Did I nail it? Yes! Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. That's amazing. They sold 12 games to people on... Amazing. Wow, man. How much money do you guys think that they make on a game?
    55:07
    They charge $7,000 for this or a per limit or whatever. How much money do you think they made on that? God. Well, they didn't make any money. No, they lost money. They lost money because of the development costs and everything. like revenue wise you know or profit wise they probably made a couple thousand dollars like 12 so if they're selling for uh what seven thousand dollars ideally they're making 3500 off of a sale right if you're businessing right uh times 12 whatever that comes out to be that's where i would put it how do they pay their employees and you sell 12 games yeah i mean it's all that aimtron money all the aimtron money oh my god another reason why they're not gonna keep that business around once they go ipo i was gonna say something and i forgot it was great thought so maybe it's maybe it's a blessing that uh to american pinball that i i didn't think of this thought i'll come back to it if it pops up on the podcast oh my god we were talking about pricing and units sold right what uh now let's move oh i had a i was wondering how many they actually got housed at barbecue joints how many you think they how how many barbecue places did they call they took them up on that well we have that segment to send us a photo if you find it housed at a barbecue game and i've we've got no emails around that that i'm aware of i might have missed it but yeah i think it's a safe bet that i didn't miss in there's just been none yeah probably not you get it housed don't buy it just house it thank you and and still you know i know you're busy making barbecue for everybody but let me talk to you about pinball oh oh they were talking so they have been here's what i wanted to go with um there's been layoffs hard hard to imagine so how do you see i was there i was there so much so much uh so they had to let dennis norman go which fine he's he's not contracted that makes sense you can't keep him on the payroll although you you kind of do need somebody who knows what they're doing to help design these games so So I don't know. Maybe he's there some way. He said they had to let go of their art department, which I started. I almost spit my coffee out. Like you guys said an art department.
    57:19
    Really? Yeah, that is adorable. I never called Fiverr my art department, but apparently you guys seen the art and the animation on Burials Barbecue. Like they that was an art department made that. Okay, that's all. Last thing. We got to look at some pictures of this when you say art department. Look at that. Art department.
    57:42
    Look at that wood. That clip out of the wood. Look at that wood. I agree that it was a good decision to let that art department go. Yeah. I mean, I don't disagree with that. Good job. You made a good decision. Yeah.
    57:56
    All right. Never fails. I mean, like, selfishly go on more podcasts. So next month we have something to talk about. But for your sake and American Pitmull's sake, don't. So I don't know. Either way. They also let go. So, like, during that, the first round of, you know, spin doctoring that he was doing after the launch of Barry O's BBQ, they were talking about how they didn't have any service people. And they were bringing in all these new service people.
    58:24
    Lloyd was one. And I forget the name of the other one they had in-house. That person's gone. So their in-house service guy is gone. They still have Lloyd, thankfully. Lloyd knows what he's doing, but he's not in the building. He's running his arcade. So, Maurice, there you go.
    58:40
    So somebody said they're making – so bear chat. I'm going to try to do a better job of paying attention. So they are making money off the commercial purchases perhaps, so location machines. Okay, so I can look at the data that we have, which, again, self-reported. It's not the complete picture. so i'm gonna kevin what do you think is the combined total for barrio's barbecue on location remember chat this was their big this was their big play they were going to get it housed on location yeah and they they pushed these out and they had so they had them out at locations at launch so and there was some agreement i've heard you know people have posted on pin's eye that they were offered a discount to be part of the launch, which makes sense, right? Like, help us promote our game, get a game for, you know, it's a promotional thing. So maybe they broke even on these. Maybe they're not even making a profit.
    59:39
    Locations, I'm going to say 20. Well, if that's optimistic, there's 16. Oh, okay. I was a little high. So if you think 16 is good and they're making money off that, then yes. quick back of the envelope calculation math I'm going to say no. That's a no from me, Doug. That's a no, Doug. They're not doing it.
    60:03
    Everybody says they'll be happy to drop a few quarters in it on location, but you're not going to find this game on location. It's not.
    60:10
    Unless you go to one of those original places, this is not going on location. We need a t-shirt and the merch. It's a fun game, but I'm not going to buy it. That's right. that's right it has to start with i want an original theme not that original theme yeah i'll play it on location for a few quarters you know that's like the the the the the pyramid inverted pyramid yeah all right let me let me just take a quick uh break here for we got a lot more people watching now so if you haven't yet uh hashtag win in chat to get in to win our pin stadium uh giveaways and our titan pinball giveaways if you're a subscriber to the channel you get two times the entry. So you get double the entry. So if you got an Amazon Prime, drop the Prime, then hashtag win, you get double entry. So there you go. We'll pull the winners at the end of the show. You got to be in the Twitch chat, though. It doesn't work in the YouTube chat. Our robot doesn't coordinate with YouTube. So thanks, y'all. And just, again, for Kevin to add on to the PSA, if you've already won a set of Penn Stadiums, it's only for people who have not won yet. So let us know what to draw again if that's the case. Maybe we'll draw a couple times in case we need backups. But all right. Thanks, guys. All right. On with the show. All right. Let's talk. I feel like we haven't talked about competitive pinball in a while, so I wanted to throw this in there. IFBA 19 took place a couple weeks ago. And congratulations to Jason Zoller, world champion, former player in the Buffalo Pinball Summer Open. Did he win the one we did at the Oc Club? I think he did, didn't he?
    61:48
    Maybe I can't remember. Yeah, it's been a while. It's been a hot minute, but he definitely played and did very well there, too.
    61:56
    Yeah, so there we go. There's some photos from that. I think the highlight of IFPA 19 was that Bad Girls was one of the prominently featured pinball machines. So people are finally starting to see what we've been seeing for all these years. Bad Girls is amazing. uh stonks are going up on on bad girls after the the highlighting in ifba 19 so good job everybody out there i know you know and kudos to everybody who helped put this together it's not uh not easy to run events like this so your top four were jason zahler arvid flagraer uh johannes ostermeyer and escher lefkoff so uh the kids are doing good you'll love to see it uh congratulations to all that but like you said on the wormhole podcast what else do they have to worry about really right they're just playing pinball they don't have to worry about all the stresses of adult life yeah they don't wake up in a cold sweat thinking about what's going on in this world and bills they gotta pay and where they gotta be and where they are it's easy I can crush it if I was 14 years old crush it you win everything left and right your reflexes are at the top of your game they're ever gonna be and you know what do you got to worry about as I said on that their biggest concern is like what time is ice cream you know there you go all right let's uh let's do some chicago gaming talk and this is gonna lead into a segment that you're all gonna like i think so uh uh there's been some news with chicago gaming uh but i thought this was interesting because butch peel used to do the amazing manuals for jjp and he left there and everybody was bemoaning the fact that he left there because he did such a great job they're like oh it's amazing chicago gaming picked him up because he does a great job. He's pretty well liked. And now he says, quick message to let all my pinball friends know that I resigned my position at Chicago Gaming Company this past Friday. This was on June 18th. I've enjoyed working with CGC and play mechanics on great games like Cactus Canyon and Pulp Fiction. I wish them all the best in their future endeavors, but I felt the need to step back due to differing priorities within the company.
    64:05
    It's so weird. Like, he does a great job. People like him. Like, why does he keep leaving these companies? Like what's, what's happening? Um, I don't know. I, I don't know, but just thought that was another interesting thing. I wonder if there's quality control issues or something. I don't know. Yeah. Makes me, makes me worried. Exactly. Cause he's a, he's a, um,
    64:27
    he's an attention to detail quality guy. Right. And I think like you and I are like that, Kevin, right. And a lot of people in the hobby and, and, and generally, and I think that's why we have like derision towards companies that don't even come close to meeting basic standards, right? And we laugh and we joke about it because we do have high standards.
    64:47
    So yeah, that's too bad, man. What a great guy. What a quality all the way. What a loss. Yeah, and also, you know, it brings that level of credibility to the company. You know, they were playing mechanics. He's never done a pinball game before. Butch Peel's working there. Like, they know he's got that attention to detail. They brought a lot of good people around, but I don't know. It's just weird. so that that brings us to the next update which was that they're uh about the pulp fiction le's these are the thousand bad mother flipper editions that they sold i don't when did these go on sale like early last year right yeah yeah because they had it yeah they had in april pin brew april 2023 so it was announced you know a couple months before then yeah yeah so the the they're not scheduled to start shipping the Pulp Fiction LTEs until over the course of late September, October, and November of this year. So you still got, you know, what, four or five months to wait until these start shipping? I think that's for the best. I think there's some quality control issues going on with that game that I've seen. Yeah. I don't know how widespread.
    65:58
    Some play field shipping in some areas, some people are reporting like, well, they're showing shooter lane chipping, which, like, it really shouldn't happen.
    66:07
    Like, excessive, what I would consider excessive wear compared to, like, Stern or certainly JJP, which just, you know, it's been fine. The scoops seem to be taking a beating as well. And then there was one post on pin side where around the right orbit, like maybe where the ball kind of hits from the shooter lane, it's just, like, chipped there and gone. So that game is heavily milered. and you know that company Chicago Coin Up Gaming or whatever is that what they're called? Chicago Gaming yeah.
    66:42
    They've been known for like no play field issues and things have been good so it's really disappointing.
    66:48
    I don't know if they're not control boards or there's some boards in the game that aren't registering and working right. It just seems like there's some things to be concerned about. Again maybe not super widespread spread but i've been hanging around in the owner's thread uh because i i will talk more i pulled the trigger on that game i pulled the trigger on that game last week and i'm getting it monday so despite the the concerns like why did you why did you pull the trigger oh man because i know like like you're the type of person like chipping and pulling like will bother you like if it happens on your game uh so this is a game i know it's it's it's an it's an emotional decision not my rational self that's normally restrained is not super in control.
    67:34
    The honest answer, Kevin, is at least I'm self-aware and honest about it. I don't give this as advice to anybody, but I've wanted that game for so long. I've been saying for over a year I'm going to buy that game. I've been waiting for so long.
    67:50
    I played it again like a week ago and Zach had some available. He wasn't going to have it available until like the fall. He had some available and I was stressed out of my mind and I needed a dopamine hit. So I hit order. Okay. So now I'm stressed out of my mind again because of like, did I make the right decision? The only, you know, Patrick talked me off the edge because I reached out. I was talking to him about our friend Patrick and he's like, dude, don't worry. Zach will take care of you if there's an issue. And I was like, that's true. That's why I buy from Zach, you know? So, you know, the owner's thread says Mylar, certain locations. There's some people that are actually really helpful, and they're like Chuck Wirt is a good guy, like Mylar the scoops and stuff. So, yeah, I don't know. It sucks, right? Like I don't mind waiting. I don't know how widespread it is. I don't know if it's certain things. I don't know if I Mylar and there's not an issue. I just don't. I don't know, Kevin. The other thing is that I don't like moving pinball machines in during the winter. I really can't. Like, it's just, I got to set that game up in the garage. I got to take the head off. I've got a car parked in there. It just kind of doesn't work. So that's all the kind of, I backed into it using rational arguments, but really it's just emotional weakness at this point. And next podcast you might hear me just totally break down because my game is falling apart and it's not working and I hate myself. And I'm kicking myself and I'm crying and complaining. So that's the usual new game experience for Nick Lane. I mean, I bought an alien, so I'm a glutton for punishment too, right?
    69:28
    I have an alien update that I wanted to talk about this month, but I think I'm going to talk about it next month.
    69:36
    I'm waiting for a resolution to happen before I go all out on my alien update. I can't wait. Next month might be spicy. Spicy. Just meltdown. Exactly. Nick and Kevin. um a question for you nick uh speaking of pulp fiction why are you such a cheater why do you cheat when you play pulp fiction i'll tell you what i've it's a long story so give me the back let me go to the bathroom um do you want to do game room updates yeah i'll give my game room update a couple minutes i'll be right back let's go to the bathroom all right you give me a solo for a minute all right so i've been doing a bunch in my game room uh i don't know why but and this is something that i should be doing in the winter when it's terrible weather out but i got the bug to go through and like rebuild the flippers in my games and shop them out and wax them up so tron and pirates were the two that needed it the most so i did full teardowns on those on the top side cleaned everything waxed everything re-rubbered everything did flipper rebuilds. Shout out to Titan and to Pinball Life. They're the two companies I got all my stuff from. Hashtag sponsored. And the lineup's looking good. I went through and I gave Godzilla a quick once-over. Replaced the rubbers. Quick wax. Didn't take all the topside stuff off on that. Alien's pretty good because that's still pretty new. Same with Godfather. Oh, the P3 I gave a good once-over to as well. So that's playing nice and fast um yeah for just for some reason i really wanted my games playing good looking good um and uh i do still have my open spot over there i think i talked about how i sold um rocho rocho's gone uh because i had somebody yeah i did i definitely talked about this um sold that so i have the luxury of an open spot and some cash so if a good deal comes along on a game that i want i can i can grab it or uh kind of hold now for the next jjp because i hear it might be one that I'm looking for. So there could be a JJ. I could be back up to the three JJPs over here sometime soon.
    71:54
    So yeah, that's kind of what's been going on with that. What else? Oh, my son bought a pinball machine. He got his first pinball machine, which, you know, as a father and a pinball enthusiast made me proud. He's like, I want to buy a pinball machine. He worked all summer last year. He's like, I want a pinball machine. I want a project. I want to learn how these work. So we found a taxi and it was on Long Island. And quick shout out to Rob Flash 71 on Pinside of Hall and Oates Pinball Moving in the Northeast. If you need somebody to move your pinball machine, I talked about him last month.
    72:30
    Definitely have him do it for you. He does a great job. Brought it back from Long Island. We got it home and we took it to Logan's school. So it was set up in his science classroom. His science teacher was into like learning how to help him fix it and get it on coin drop. So he made some money off of his peers at school. So he's got his first like little business venture and we've been working on stuff. So we got the bottom display working. I dug into my old parts man and I had a system 11 display. We took the bottom display off of that one and put it on his taxi display and it was up and running. What else did he do? He's been working on the sound. He's been re-rubbering it, cleaning it. We're going to put a new cable on it because, you know, somebody pulled the ground pin off it because, of course, they did. And he's been learning a lot. He's got a logic probe. He's been reprogramming ROMs. Thanks to Digital Jedi, let us borrow his ROM programmer. So he's been doing all that. And, you know, I told him he wants to get into engineering. I said, this is a great way to kind of learn how things work and put something on your resume.
    73:42
    Look, I tore apart a pinball machine and put it back together and fixed it up. So that's definitely a plus. So that's been fun.
    73:51
    The other thing I did was I got those new low-profile P3 button boxes from Pinball Life. I put them on my P3, and what's cool about them is they're flat against the cabinet. They got a couple of cool features. That's the first thing you're going to notice. and the second thing is it gives you the option to on the fly switch between single button for all the flippers or uh lower and and secondary buttons for for for the flippers so does that make sense so second secondary buttons for the upper flippers uh which is how it comes stock you can do that in the settings for the p3 uh you can but you would have to switch back and forth in the settings so what's cool is you know you can on the fly like if i'm playing and I prefer it one way and Nick's playing and he prefers it another way, you can switch back and forth and everybody can play it how they like. It's also got stage flipping. So if you, you know, most traditional pinball machines, Alien, Alien just goes on. There's no stage flipping stock on my Alien.
    74:50
    You can push that flipper button halfway in and it only activates the lower flippers and then if you push it all the way in it'll activate the upper flippers. So that's an advanced skill that you might be able to do and so that brings that option to the P3 as well. So that's one of the cool things about the P3 is all the modularity and the options. You can kind of get it all set up the way you want. And it's fun to see the third parties making some of these things happen that people have given feedback about how they want the platform improved. So good stuff.
    75:20
    Was there anything else? Oh, a couple pinball playing updates. I went to the May Monthly at the Rochester Pinball Collective last month. congratulations to them. They've expanded, so if you've been out there and haven't been recently, they have, like, double the space now. So lots more machines. They run a good tournament. They take good care of their games. And I really like the selection of games they have. It's, like, a good mix of everything from wood rails on up to the most latest machines. So if you're looking for a spot to play in the, like, mid-New York area, central New York area, check them out. Good stuff over there. and uh just last night we were up my son and i were up in toronto and we went to see the yankees stop the blue jays and we went to a place called rec room on the recommendation of joe chervino uh he's like they have a bunch of redemption games and some pinball so we went and we were playing uh they had rush because it's canada of course they had rush and uh 007 we were playing that and then they wheeled out a godzilla as we were standing there too so they they ended up having three machines and uh logan left some initials on on 007 uh the games were clean but they were functionally there was some weirdness like the lock shot wasn't working on 007 and uh what else they it's like it was really old software so they looked nice but they they didn't play great so that was kind of a bummer but it was pretty cheap it was like it was way cheaper to play a pinball machine you got way more time on it versus playing one of their uh one of their redemption games. So, um, if you're going to a blue Jays game and you want a place to play a couple of pinball machines ahead of time, it's right across the road. So, so check that out. It's a rec room is the name of it. So there you go. Those are my updates. Nick, what do you got?
    77:08
    A ton of game room updates. Uh, personal update was on, uh, wormhole podcast a couple of weeks ago. So thanks to Jamie for having me on that. And I had a couple of people reach out and said, uh, they liked the interview. So if you're, for some reason can't get enough of this, go check out me on Wormhole's podcast. You know, one thing that Jamie said, Kevin, on that, which I was just spent that day, so I didn't follow up on it, but I asked him this morning because it kind of stuck with me. He was talking about, like, DLC coming from Stern or, like, the idea that you would have to buy more, you could buy more code from Stern. And I was like, really? And he's like, yeah, it's coming. and I asked him I was like did you do you know that that's coming or you think that that's coming I didn't say that on podcast and it stuck with me he's like no I think it's coming so I just wanted to clarify that who knows what's coming from Stern yeah I just on that subject I just it's cool that they're doing accessories maybe they do like DLC where you can change the soundtrack or something I just don't I don't see how you do it from like a rules and mode perspective. Not that that precludes them from trying. I just think it's just, the juice isn't going to be worth the squeeze kind of deal. It's just not going to work out or make sense. So I'm a little skeptical on that. I don't know how they really monetize and do DLC into pinball machines. I don't think, to me, it's not straightforward or easy. Yeah, it's weird too, because it's like, are they just holding things back that would have normally been in the machine to be paid add-on? You know, something like a P3, you can change the whole game, right? You're not just adding modes to an existing game. You have third-party people making brand new complete rule set games for existing play fields. So it makes more sense on a platform like that. I don't know. It seems weird to me.
    79:03
    Yeah, anyways. There's that. And like I mentioned earlier, I'm getting a Pulp Fiction. It's coming on Monday. So I'm looking forward to that. I have zero time to play it because I'm going to be traveling and going on vacation. but I'll have it. So there's that. All right. You want to go back to story time? Yeah, yeah. Give us story time. Speaking of Pulp Fiction, take us back to a couple weeks ago when you were in Las Vegas. So I want to dedicate this to Josh Sharp. I told him I was going to do this. Josh Sharp plus Pinsight has given us some content for this one. We're going to clip it because why not? So story time. And you guys can help me sort this out because I'm both confused, intrigued, maybe a little insulted.
    79:52
    Not really sure where to begin with it. But I was in Vegas for work a couple weeks ago. And I'm not a Vegas guy, so the nerd being I am, I noticed that there was a place that had Pulp Fiction. I think it was called Player One, which is a cool spot. I would recommend it, although you have to pay like a covered, like a fee to get in there. is like seven bucks and all the video games are free, but the pinball is not, which again, makes sense. Otherwise those games would be beat to shit. So I'm cool with that. I was also with a coworker who's kind of gotten into pinball because at my office, we've got a pinball machine. I kind of inspired that purchase. So I've got that to my credit, getting more people into pinball. And he loves the idea of a Pulp Fiction machine. So I was like, let's go play. So we're playing Pulp Fiction, it's him and I, and I've played the game before at Ohio Pin Brew for the past two years. I think maybe the first year I've played the game maybe like five times, maybe six times. And then this past few months I played one game on it And Kevin you remember at Pin Brew when you were there it was like late at night and I was lighting the game up right Yeah you were playing it forever I was playing forever Forever
    81:08
    I really didn't know what I was doing, but I was playing forever. Couldn't lose. So, at Vegas, and mind you, this is a game that, this is a location that they do IFBA tournaments, and they actually had the launch party on that game a couple weeks prior. It looks like they have, like, Monday tournaments every other week. So it's a player's place. They know what they're doing there. I played a couple games with him. I didn't do anything crazy. The ball was draining pretty fast. Maybe I had to start, like, one multi-ball, and that's it. On the third or fourth game, though, I could not drain. Like, I lit that thing up. Like, I felt like I was playing forever. And I started feeling bad because my co-worker was waiting for his turn. And I was like, I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. Like, it's like, no, no, no, no, this is great. And so I was having a blast and I was just motivated to, like, I want to hear the callouts. I want to really see this game, right? I want to see the modes. I was, like, really excited to start the next mode and see it all.
    82:07
    Before I know it, I had gotten to Divine Intervention, which I was like, hey, everything in the grid's filled up.
    82:16
    I think this is the end of the game. one thing that uh i think i only had one extra ball uh one thing that prior to getting to divine intervention i had everything in the grid filled except for the um pawn shop multi-ball i was like why don't i have that filled i played it i was like oh maybe i didn't get like a certain jackpot in there so i had i played that again i did the thing and then i started divine an invention.
    82:48
    It has you basically play through the game again is the way I would describe it. I think it's a multi-ball. You play through it again, I think. It's kind of like a blur at this point. The sound effects were a little weird in there. I'm not sure what that sound effect was supposed to be, but I did that.
    83:05
    And so this is like, you know, between Pinbrew and this, this is like maybe 10 games I played on it. I have never quote unquote beaten a game this quickly. And this is a game that I've been wanting. So I made the mistake of going into the pin pin side owners thread and saying, Hey,
    83:24
    I got to divine intervention. I didn't beat it. I got to it though. I got maybe a couple layers deep into it. Uh, is that it is, is I'm worried that the game might be too easy kind of deal. And my God, Kevin, like I must've been naive to think that, that I was just shocked by the backlash that I got. Like, one person outright called me a liar. Like, Yancey, I'll call you out. I don't even know who the hell you are. You've been on Pinside for 12 years. You called me a liar. Like, that's insane. Like, why would I lie about this? Other people are like, the game's malfunctioning. What's the pitch at? Five. Like, I got so much fucking hate. It was the weirdest thing ever. And Josh Sharp reached out to me. You've been five minutes of that post, and he's just like, it's like memes, like congrats and quotes. It's like he was highly skeptical. So now I'm really confused of what the hell is going on because, again, Kevin, you've witnessed me just like playing that game forever. So you see me. I had a coworker see me do it. I got to the thing, but everyone's like acting like this is the hardest game in the world, and what I did was climb Mount Everest, right, or I'm lying. Like, it was, I had no idea. So, like, a couple of motions, I'm like, was something wrong with the game? Like, was it malfunctioning? I mean, I know I played a long time. That's real. I know it went to Divine Invention. That's real. I didn't notice anything weird about it.
    84:56
    Are people just, like, it's just like an insane cope that they have because then they feel like because they've not done it that they have to defend that or their egos are hurt? That's not my goal. Somebody said a nice, humble brag. I'm like, dude, I'm never on pin side bragging about scores. I literally am thinking about – I hadn't pulled the trigger on the game at this time. I'm literally thinking about buying the game. I just wanted to know, is it on the easy side, right? That's it. And you know how it is, Kevin, sometimes.
    85:28
    It's funny. I'll say this. Whenever you have your best games, it's like when you don't have enough time to play the game. You've got to go somewhere. I'm going to play a game quick. or somebody's waiting for a turn. Right. Like a non-pinball person. Then you're like, and that's how you blow up a game and you get into a flow state, which anybody who's played pinball long enough or is a golfer or do any sports, like there are times in life when you get into a flow state and everything just lines up in life and you can't train, you can't lose the ball. It's super rare and it's super enjoyable and that's like what I live for in pinball.
    86:00
    Never had people try to take away an accomplishment so quickly and put it in doubt. So now I'm like, was there something wrong? By the way, I didn't have a picture of it. My co-worker snapped the score. I didn't even think to take a picture of it because I didn't even know what kind of like what happened or if that's such a big accomplishment. It must be if Josh Sharp is like, hey, I've had the game for four years and I've only done that three times. So basically, I don't believe you. But also, guys, like I've been playing pinball since 2011. Like I'm not a bad player. Like what the fuck? Like, why can I not get to the end of it? I don't know what to say. But if somebody is out and plays in those tournaments and leagues and happens to listen to this, if you don't mind, can you take a picture of it? And, like, I put my initials in. Josh was saying, like, the Divine Champ thing, there's a special thing for it. Like, if you could do that, that would be nice. Like I said, I got to it. I got a couple, like, rounds deep into it. I didn't beat it. Josh says he's never beat it.
    87:01
    I had somebody privately reach out to me on pin side who must've been so scared to post because everyone will just cut your throat in that owner's thread because there's people are nuts. Um, he's like, yeah, I've heard from other people that, you know, they've been getting pretty far into it. So who knows guys, listen, I just wanted to know, um, Josh said to me, like, he's like, go get the game. He's like, get the game. He's like, Zach, we'll give you a loan or get the game from him. Zach has them in stock, which I got to thank Josh because if that didn't happen, I didn't know Zach had him in stock. This is Kevin. So this is why I kind of ordered it. I think I got bullied into ordering it. Or like I was in such an emotion.
    87:41
    He's playing 4D chess. The guy is amazing. I love Josh Sharp. So that's also, I think, why I ordered it. Like I just lost my mind. Like it was just such a weird state of mind I was in for like that period of time. So I did order it.
    87:57
    But he's like, I'm going to give you the Carl challenge. Get the game. I'm going to set up a live stream. I'm going to give you $666, but every attempt you fail to do it, a dollar goes away. It's like, dude, so the only way you can validly beat the game is on camera? Like, I want to think – I hope Josh is right that the game is hard. It's because here's the way I look at it. One, I went either way because if the game – if there was something wrong with the game, if somebody comes back and says, hey, you know, that game on location, we put it to easy mode where of course Nick got through the game. That's fine. That means that I'm getting a game in two days and I'm not going to blow through and beat it because it's like the kiss of death when you beat a game kind of. For me at least. It's hard for me to keep it. I want a hard game. Or they come back and say no actually the game's normal and we use it in tournaments. We had a launch party on it and Nick's initials are up there and he beat it. Like okay great. And it's even a sweeter victory when everybody's crying and saying that there's something must have been wrong and I couldn't beat it. So this is the thing. Question to everybody. Is Pulp Fiction a baby game? I'll know more in the next month. I'm not going to set up a stream and torture myself. My life is hectic enough. Why would I do that? It's also not at all the same situation, right? Because if you set up the camera and you put up the stream, you're in a totally different mindset versus just like i'm gonna step up and play this in an arcade right now now you're playing with like this expectation of oh my god i have to do this otherwise they're gonna call me a liar and then it didn't really happen and look it took me 40 tries to do it on camera but it's just you're just a totally different mental state and two things one why why what would you get out of lying about getting to the end of this game on location like and it's not like you were jumping on the thread bragging like no i see that a lot like oh look i blew up this game i got to the end oh my god is that all there is to it uh yeah okay that's great like look at my massive score yeah sure you you had it on 10 ball like and the the outlanes were closed but you still just put up your score like no you played on location where it was set up how it was set up you didn't take the glass off and do anything weird you know playing on location is legit right you're not even like setting up in your house the way you want so i've never i've never on pin side bragging about scores i don't i don't know yeah you're not one of those people maybe in 14 years of being on pin side you can find one post i don't even know if you could right so i'm never that i've talked about wanting to buy this game since it came out for more than a year, it's the most legitimate question I can ask. Right? Like, before I spend $8,000, have to set the game up in my garage, have somebody come over and help me, take the fucking head off, drag it down, deal with potential issues that the game's having, maybe I want to know, is this game on the easy side? That's all.
    91:05
    So, I don't know, guys. Betterhelp.com. Let us know in the comments below on YouTube. That's how you do this, right? You get the engagement going.
    91:14
    Either way, let me know if there's something that somebody knows about that game and show me. Great. Kevin, I'll have an idea of how it is.
    91:23
    I don't know. I've beaten games like Led Zeppelin. How many times have I played Led Zeppelin in my house and I beat it once out of 300 times? You know, that's whatever. We'll see.
    91:37
    I'll dig into it. We're going to review it. We'll let you know if it's a baby game. I look forward to it. All right, we got one more hot topic coming up, but between that, I'm going to break it up with a little, one of our favorite segments, which is mods you don't need.
    91:53
    I have a great, I totally forgot about this, and I loaded, so I have like a document that I keep during the month when I see things or somebody sends something to me, I throw it in there. I was like, what was this mod you don't need? So I loaded it up, and this is on Reddit. it's a oh my god is that what i think it is in it oh they've done it they've done it oh god this is like when when this must be the same satisfaction that when arby's created the meat mountain they're like you've done it you genius like we're just gonna put like uh leds absolutely everything on a pinball machine uh so if you're not watching this uh please go to the youtube channel and skip to this this time in the in the podcast and take a look at this it's leg bolt proof of concept or you just google it leg bolt proof of concept reddit um i don't know why i don't know why what a time to be alive kevin now yeah i mean you do you know do what Makes you happy.
    92:59
    Be the light you wish to see in the world or something like that. I think Confucius said that, right? Yeah. Put it on the website. Definitely.
    93:08
    There you go. We do not need this. You don't need luma legs. Well, I guess if you got luma legs, you might as well get these to go with it, right? If you're going to do it, go all out. Get yourself some luma legs, some LED leg bolts. You'll be good to go. I don't even know why you buy a pinball machine at this point. Just get a bunch of LEDs and a jumbled ball and put it in your basement. play some music and off you go you got the experience all right there you go um nick did you end up going to uh um pinball hall of fame or no no i was debating going to pinball hall of fame and uh people told me not to go there and uh when i was flying out to vegas i was looking at the thread and like everyone's like you know people said it's bad and uh against my best you know judgment i went and oh my god it's even worse so i was still going to go because look i mean we do this with show for content so i'm yeah i would i would talk about it um and it's like well i'm in vegas anyways but the thing is they didn't have pulp fiction and i and again i wanted to uh go play that uh with my co-worker and um so it wasn't easy i only had time to really go to one place and we went to that place where apparently i cheated on a game okay so never never yeah we got content out of it either way. Yeah, I know.
    94:24
    Doors, windows, God, and opening, closing shit, that's how it goes, right? Confucius said that too. Yeah, he did.
    94:32
    I like the callback to the earlier segment. You get rewarded for going all the way through the podcast. Nothing better than a good callback. You know what I mean?
    94:42
    I do like, as somebody pointed out, I did like the idea that Tim yells at kids. Man after my own heart. I pulled this up in case we ended up talking about it. So this is on TripAdvisor. I was, like, scrolling through the pictures. I was like, okay, there's a sign.
    94:58
    Above the toilet. Or no, I don't know where this is. I thought it was above. I guess it's not above a toilet. But it says inside voices only, please, with a sarcastic smiley face up there. I got some EMs.
    95:12
    Okay, here's some of the signs. This is not a playground for children. Expensive machines follow the rules. It's got their hours and no alcohol, no vaping. Okay, fine. House rules. No screaming, parentheses, indoor voices. No running, no hopping, no skipping, no jumping, no swinging arms around, no bouncing balls, no roughhousing. I love it. Do you think he'll sell that sign to me and I'll put it on my game room? I kind of like it. You know, just screenshot this and print it out. You've got to have house rules. Yeah, there they are. It's on the change machine. and then he's got these little handwritten notes on his machine these are like the old location though the new location is like a massive airplane hangar of a location so those are still fun so there you go good job Tim you made Nick Lane's dream arcade really yeah I like signs like that in life when I was also in Vegas there's a nice pool I stayed at the fountain blue or whatever it was whatever uh but the one of the signs set by the pool like don't go in the pool if you have diarrhea i think that's good advice i think that's good yeah yeah i think you don't do i mean a better advice is like you've got diarrhea just don't do anything just you know lock yourself in the bathroom till you feel better then come out yeah at some point there was an issue and uh people got together and then they had to say like what do we do about it and somebody's like well let's put it on a sign if you have diarrhea you can't go in the pool and then they had to get that sign made and they had to say who's the vendor for the sign to create that and then the the sign vendor had to read that he's like says no diarrhea you as a joke like no no no please put on a sign no diarrhea don't go in the pool so signs are important i think we all know and unless it's on a sign everything's permissible that's right that's right yeah i mean there was no sign i went it reminds me that the the place that i take my son to play soccer in the winter is this indoor sports facility where in the off-season they train and stuff. And there are signs everywhere. It is plastered with signs to the point where they have a sign that says, read the signs. It cracks me up every time I go in there. Every time. Well, the logical conclusion is if it's like, well, the sign doesn't say I can't do that. I mean, logically that makes sense. Yeah. And from the other angle, it's like, well, if I put it on a sign, then it's not going to happen. So I'm going to put everything I don't want to happen on a sign. And then it's on the sign, so it's not going to happen. Not like, oh, my God, I'm overwhelmed by the number of signs. I can't possibly read all these signs. I just want to get my kid to soccer practice. Yeah, so Scribble in the chat is following the logic train. And Scribble says, so you can go to the Pinball Hall of Fame with diarrhea. It's absolutely true. There you go.
    98:05
    We did it. We should just end the show on that. But we do have one more segment. It's a spicy one. Nick threw this one in the last minute. This is an audience participation one, okay? I'll let you take it from here. You can put it in the chat here, or if you're watching on YouTube, you can just throw a quick comment. If you want to expand on it, fine.
    98:29
    So the other week, I guess 21 days ago, a few weeks ago, I saw this thread on Pinside, and I was like, oh, boy, here we go. Zeppelin is better than Godzilla. It just is. I was like, now listen, Lord knows I'm a Zeppelin pinball fan, and I have both games. I've got a premium Led Zeppelin, a premium Godzilla. Actually, Martha owns a premium Godzilla.
    98:54
    And I was like, man, this is going to get ratioed. People are going to lose their mind. This is like poking the bear. And surprisingly, a lot of people are like, yeah, I kind of agree. Not everybody. It's divided. But there's more people who thumbs up that than thumbs down. I was shocked. Now, I agree with that. I agree with that sentiment. I just thought I was in the minority due to Godzilla's number one on Pinside. People shit on Led Zeppelin. It didn't sell well compared to Godzilla.
    99:26
    I think there's some interesting comments in there. there's some yes no but uh i think it's a classic case of like you look at the individual parts of each machine and like this the sum of the parts for godzilla or the sum of the features it's like ah it's like maybe technically a better game but i think zeppelin is more fun and i like zeppelin better and i think uh i guess i guess i'm not alone people are starting to come around to it so interesting thread again you you're welcome to put in the comments uh where you where you side on that and if you want to i don't even care if you want to justify your opinion just go ahead and throw it in or if you want to write a book about it go ahead as well oh kevin and i do read the comments one thing about the comments on youtube if you're going to start off by insulting us or calling us names uh that's it we will not engage but other than that we'll i try to engage i try to read that and i uh i appreciate when people do take the time to uh um share their thoughts with us yeah it doesn't have to be all sunshine and roses and we can disagree but we can just have a conversation about things. It doesn't have to get personal. You know what I mean? Yeah, you don't have to call me. Somebody literally called me a shill because I signed the last podcast that I'm interested in John Wick. That person couldn't wrap their mind around the fact that I might just legitimately want that game. They said I'll never get it and I'm a shill.
    100:49
    I just of all the things I've been called, God knows I have no filter. I just do what I want to do. but that's a testament to that game. That game has caused people to lose their minds. Yeah, yeah. Somebody is under the table slipping me money. They're just like, here's the deal, Nick. This game, it's not going well. We need you to go out there. I know you guys got a lot of trust. You've been podcasting for eight, nine years now.
    101:18
    Great podcast. People really call you authentic, and they like how you call it like it is. Can you pump John Wick's bags? Can you just go in there and say that you're thinking about getting this game that you even say, you know, you can couch it and say, I don't, you know, like, I know it's not great or, like, it's an emotional thing. Can you just say you're interested in it? All right, that's all we need you to do. Please pump it.
    101:41
    In that person's mind, I swear to God, Kevin, that's what they believed happened. You know, I sent you that comment, and I was like, this is why I don't, like, engage with people on the Internet. And you're like, I'm going to reply. And you tried to, like, have a conversation with this person, and it was, like, so obviously not going to happen. Well, here's the lesson learned. One, I try to engage. I try to, like, in good faith.
    102:05
    But the person just called me a shill out of the gate. So I should, like, I'm not going to address anybody that's calling us names or calling us liars, right? That's insane. So if somebody wanted, like, here's a better way to frame the argument. and let me this person obviously is emotional over John Wick right he probably came to our channel because we we do go after games unfiltered that we don't like and you know entertaining funny and he's probably surprised that that didn't happen and then because he's lost his mind that was the response that he put right the only possible explanation was that you're shilling I try to always buy the best games regardless of theme is not the most important thing for me and I've said this before and I don't think it's the most important thing for Kevin either the game shoots great, has great rules has great presentation I'm interested, like I wasn't interested in Jaws because theme did nothing for me, I played it and went out and bought it immediately Godfather, I've never seen the movie went out and bought it after seeing it and playing it so like, it's kind of I like the fact that I'm not super emotional about themes, but once in a while themes come along that it drives it a lot for that emotion. And I don't always buy the quote-unquote best games. I have a Mandalorian Premium and that's not the best game. It really isn't, but to me it scratches the niche and it's fun. I'll have it for a while. I think that you know, I think John Wick might be a purchase at some point, but I don't know either. So to tell me that I'm not going to get the game when I don't even know is insane. And I even said on, like I went over timestamps on it. He'd be like, look, you say you're going to get this game. And I'm like, bro, if you go a minute, if you just listen for one more minute, I literally say, I'm going to wait to see how, there's like no gun in my head. I don't need to buy it right now. I'm going to wait to see how it develops. There's no gun to your head because there's no guns in the game. Oh, shit. What a way, what a way, what a way. Kevin nailed it. So I don't know. I don't know, guys. All right. We want to give some stuff away? let's do that all right so let's jump over here uh first one will be for the uh let's do the the $50 gift card for um titan pinball first okay because anybody can win that uh and that's going to go to rlm rlm congrats congrats rlm he gave some great advice just in chat don't talk to crazy people. I usually know this. It was a moment of weakness. A moment of weakness. So RLM wins the $50 for Titan. Thanks to Titan for giving those to us. Now we'll do the Penn Stadium Neo Adams. They used to have to go to a new winner. Actually, let's do the Xeno. Should we do the Xeno Mounds and the Neo Adams together or separate? Let's do it separate so we get two winners. Okay, so we'll do the Xeno Mounds next. Those can go to anybody. Well, does it make sense if you get the Xeno mount, so you're going to probably want to set up Insidium, so it might not do you any good if you don't have a set. All right, let's do it as one. Let's do it as one. All right, so, all right, here we go.
    105:18
    Xavier Height. Xavier Height, are you with us? I don't recognize that username. That might be a new chat. That might be a new person to chat. I thought I saw that pop up. So, if so, this is remarkable.
    105:31
    So, as far as I know, that's a, all right, that's a yes that's a hype all right awesome congratulations to you that's a uh like a 450 value congratulations thanks for watching uh i will connect with the winners via twitch whisper or rlm uh i'll hit you up on discord we chat over there so um xavier how you watch your your private messages on twitch i'll send you a message there we can get your info and get it over to scott at pin stadium to get your your prize so congratulations thanks everybody watching and for participating. It's always a good time. There wasn't a lot of news this month, but I think it was fun anyways. It doesn't always have to be news. And we'll be back with the good stuff for you next month. Keep the checks coming, Stern. All right? I'll hype your shit all day. We weren't even invited to the show fest. I know. Come on. Jesus. Stern, I don't think they hate us, but they're just like, well, not those guys. No, absolutely not. Yeah, we weren't. We're on the biggest podcast. We weren't invited to the thing. I wouldn't go anyways. I mean, that's nice. I would love to do this Stern tour when I'm out. I might come out to Expo. I'd love to do that. I'd love to do JJP. Yeah. Sounds fun. I don't need to spend a week, take time off out of my week, go out there just to help them sell a game. I'm interested in seeing the factory. And I'm not saying those guys are shills who went out there at all. But my point is, look, we didn't get an invite from Stern, okay? I don't think they have much love for us No, exactly, it's fine I'm to the point In my pinball career where I'm just like I'm going to buy the games that I like And forget all the rest If I like the game, I'll buy it I'm not going to worry about the rest of the stuff So, hopefully y'all do the same And as we always say Buy pinball machines that exist Don't buy pinball machines that You hope will someday be manufactured And if we learned one thing in this podcast, it's that I'm a cheater and a shill. And that Confucius had lots of interesting things to say.
    107:35
    And somehow Pinball Adventures is still a company that's technically alive. All right, that's a good month. Let's wrap it on that. We'll see you all next month.
    107:45
    And hopefully later this summer we'll have Princess Bride to show off too. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time. Bye.
    107:56
    you