I'll take your hat, your hair looks wild. Mind if I move in closer? What's the sense of hurting my pride? Baby, don't hold out. Baby, it's cold outside. Welcome everybody to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. I'm your host Kaneda. Happy holidays everybody. I hope you're spending it with your families. I hope you're staying off of the online drama that can never escape Canada's Pinball Podcast. And look, we haven't done as many shows this week again because I'm enjoying so much time with Brenda, her sisters, Kelly. And it's that time of year. And we all have to learn how to turn off all the negativity and just enjoy what we love about this hobby. And there's a lot about to happen in pinball. Who amongst you just can't wait for Jaws to come out and blow up every old conversation we've been having about 2023? Now, we did do our People's Choice Awards, and I'm going to announce for you on this episode all the winners of the People's Choice Awards. It's the only pinball show at the end of the year where the pinball people got to decide. We will see how close we are to selecting the winners when, I don't know, when the Twippies one day announces who's going to win their awards, which used to be in March, but we don't know now. We don't know now, and I don't even know how many people are even going to contribute, but this is how it always should be at the end of the year. Let's just look back and celebrate what came out the year prior. All right, before we do that, though, we've got some news items I want to discuss, and I have some news for each and every one of you. I'm reading on Naps Arcade what I told you was going to happen. Two things I'm reading on Naps that we talked about for a while. One of them is that Pedretti Gaming, is that Rick over at Planetary, signed a deal with Pedretti Gaming, and they're going to make remakes of Bally Williams games. Now, I've been saying this now for a really long time. I'm happy that it's up on Naps Arcade because now it's like official. They are forming the Euro Pinball Corporation. sounds so formal. And here's what I am hearing. You know, not only are these games going to be made using fast pinball boards. So congratulations, Aaron at fast pinball. He's going to be making more money a year now than Keith Elwin. I love it. I love that Robin on pin side makes more money than every single pinball designer. It's incredible. You know, sometimes the best way to make money is be on the peripheral of the thing people love. You know, you want to make that Intel chip. Don't make the computer. Make the chip that runs every computer. That's where the money lies, people. Don't make a pinball podcast. Make the software that people need to podcast. All right, so let's talk about this for a minute. So now, in a world in which we already have so many games coming out, we have so many people running out of room, we're going to throw more remakes into the mix now you kind of have to look at this and say it makes sense because chicago gaming company the delays are just abysmal you gotta wonder like how long are these guys gonna hang on always making people wait over a year more than a year usually by the time you put your deposit down you are not getting your game for more than a year it is probably one of the biggest delayed companies in the history of pinball sure they make a great product but what does this mean now for the future of these Bally Williams remakes, because here's the other part. If you've collected Medieval Madness, and you have Attack from Mars, and you have Monster Bash, and you have Cactus Canyon made by CGC, do you think you're going to get as good, if not better, a quality of product from the European team over there? Is Pedretti Gaming of the same caliber and the same quality as Chicago Gaming Company? Do not forget something, people. Chicago Gaming Company was Churchill and Churchill made all the cabinets and all the playfields for Stern Pinball and Churchill quality is amazing so is the quality over at Pedretti Gaming as good as it is at CGC the other thing is this right it's like it says Chicago Gaming Company on all those games and Chicago Gaming Company would go and still make those games look like throwback games with DMD Dots and there was a lot of work done by Chicago Gaming Company to make the remakes not only look like the throwback games but make them a little bit better right the screens were bigger but they still were DMD Dots and they did a lot of work redoing all of those DMDs from those classic games and putting them into the modern versions of the remakes now what's going to happen over at European Pinball Corp are they going to do that are they going to go widescreen with the DMD Are they going to go more traditional LCD screen that we're seeing in games today? A lot of questions to be answered. Now, here's what I'm going to tell you right now in Canada's Pinball Podcast that nobody knows yet. The rumor is they're making one Bally Williams remake game next year. People are saying it's Twilight Zone. Remember how many times I told you Twilight Zone? I'm not here to tell you what the themes are, but I think it's going to be a very popular theme. Is it going to be medieval madness? I know that Planetary had the parts for Medieval Madness. And I think that's going to be the first game we see is Medieval Madness remade again because the parts were already ordered by Planetary. And I think we're going to see this new company come out of the gate with Medieval Madness. But here's the other part I'm about to tell you. They're not just making one Bally Williams remake next year. They are making two. All right, so here we go. What's it going to be? I know people would love to get a Theater of Magic or a Totem. I know people would love maybe to get a brand new Addams Family. I don't think it's going to be Addams Family because of the licensing. I think it's going to be more of an original IP Bally Williams game. This is all happening, right? This is all happening. And at the same time, we know that the Pinball Brothers are going to be coming out with another music pin. I'm hearing the music pin they're coming out with is going to be Scorpions, you know, Wind of Change. And so just think about this for a moment. European Pinball Corporation, Pinball Brothers, just that entity alone might have two to three games coming out in one year. We're going to see another game from Dutch Pinball. We're going to see how many games from Stern. We're going to have to see a new game from Jersey Jack because Elton John is not selling. We've got two new games from Spooky Pinball. We're going to get another game from Multimorphic. We're obviously going to have to get another game from American Pinball or American Pinball will close its doors like that has to happen. And you start to add up all these games and I'm probably missing a company or two as I list all these games. And then you have to head scratch and be like, how can this hobby absorb all of these games? How can this hobby make like 8 to 12 games a year? The truth is, and we all know this, at most, this hobby only needs about 3 to 4 new titles a year. That's all it can really absorb when you think about the fact that people have to free up room and free up money to buy these games. And if you're a distro, just think about it. Like where do you even invest? I didn't even mention Haggis and Centaurs are coming out. Add that into the mix. And then all of a sudden you realize there's just like way too much. There's too many offerings and the cream will rise to the top. And we know the other rumor Jason Knapp said which I been saying here at Canadian Pinball Podcast for a while is Jaws Pinball will be at CES on January 9th And so if the year kicks off with Keith Elwin and his game is as good as everybody's saying it's going to be, and he sells like 5,000 to 7,000 versions of Jaws Pinball, that's going to eat up 5,000 to 7,000 pieces of real estate that people have in their homes and on location and also is going to take tens of millions of dollars out of the potential pinball buying monetary market. And so then what's going to happen there, right? I mean, Stern is going to be the one who gets all of the money right away when 2024 starts. And how many of you have forgotten that you also are going to owe fairly soon a check for around $10,000 to buy your Pulp Fiction? And how many of you through the holiday seasons, I don't know about you, I know about me, every time you go out, every time you do anything, every time you cross the street in this damn city, you're spending a ton of money. And so a lot more money is going out than ever before. And I don't know about you, but how many of us have increased what we earn since 2019 40% on top of what we were earning? And so it's a very expensive world. We each have to start making very selective choices on what we're going to invest in. And as excited as I am for the pinball market landscape of 2024, I'm very excited. I'm just wondering to myself, who is going to buy all of these games? And I'm going to throw another news item into the mix. Another game is coming out. It is a mystery game I've been talking about. I said it's going to be beautiful. I said it's going to be aimed towards collectors. I'm not going to tell you exactly what it is, but I'll tell you this. I'll give you a little bit of a hint because I'm starting to hear from some of my friends overseas and they're sort of catching wind about this title. This is going to be a game that is by a designer from the Bally Williams era. And this is going to be a game that you probably thought would never see the light of day. And it's coming out. This one's going to be very limited. It's going to be targeting collectors. And I think the way they're going about it is smart. and I think it's going to work because, again, very limited. In a world in which all of these games are oversaturating the market and there's too many LEs everywhere, I think if you go this approach and you make only this many, a small number, and the game has to deliver. I mean, it didn't work with James Bond 60th, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. James Bond, Keith Elwin, all the James Bond IP into that game. You know, I think the reason James Bond 60th just didn't work is there's no denying the fact that when you stand over the game, it just feels cheap. Like there's nothing about it that feels like it's worth $20,000 or $15,000. And that's really what happened with James Bond 60th. If James Bond 60th came out and it was priced where it should have been, which is like 8,500 and only 500 of you can get one, each one would have been worth like $13,000 to $14,000 on the secondhand market. And look what happened now. That's where the price is that? Like, it's so stupid. Stern should have passed that value on to the customer. Instead, they burned everybody that bought one. All right, so that's what's happening. You know, we've got more games coming from Europe. We've got Jaws right around the corner. I can't wait for Jaws. As somebody that's been taking so many personal attacks this holiday season, I just can't wait for Jaws to come out. I want to thank everybody on Pinside for 10 more pages of telling me how I'm an attention-seeking narcissist. Thank you, everybody, for working hard to inflate my ego. Every page they put up about me on Pinside is another layer of my narcissistic castle that they keep building for me rent-free. They act on my behalf and they just send more people to Canada's Pinball Podcast. We are now over 700 paid subscribers. Thank you so much, everybody. And then we're at the end of the year. So let's talk about the winners of the 2023 first ever Pinball People's Choice Awards. We did this on Facebook. Polling was opened up for a few days. I did a fun show with Cengiz yesterday. Check it out in which we talk about all of these in length. Be warned, it is in length. It was over an hour and a half. And you know me, I like short, digestible content, but I wanted to join Cengiz on his show and we had a good time going back and forth. But don't worry, Canada fans, I'm never going to turn into a 90-minute back and forth content creator when it comes to pinball. I will always get right to it. So let's get right to it and I'm only going to tell you who won in each category and we will see how closely this aligns to the Twippies. but at least we can deliver these results as they were voted by each and every one of you. I also recuse myself from the categories because I did not want there to be any controversy that there was bias or I was starting an award show to give myself an award. The Twippies are dead. I remain on the iron throne of pinball podcasters for all eternity. Nobody can ever beat me now, which is more amazing than having a show every year in which I have to keep working hard to maintain my title. All right, so the best homebrew machine with 38% goes to 8 Ball Beyond. Congratulations to 8 Ball Beyond. That game is stunning. If you haven't seen it, Google 8 Ball Beyond and look at that homebrew machine. Very, very stunning machine. The best rule set in a game with 37% of the votes goes to Tanyo and Ray Day for Foo Fighters. You know, it's always hard to beat Stern Pinball in these People's Choice Awards because so many people own Stern machines, but we will see some upsets that I was not expecting in this People's Choice Awards in which Stern did not take it. Favorite pinball streamer. There are many streamers out there with 32%. A new person to the pinball streaming world, Jamie over at Wormhole Pinball. Now, Jamie, congratulations. You clearly mobilize the wormhole fan base to get those votes in. And that's the way that people voted. I know there's always a little bit of controversy with the content creators because it's like, we're all lobbying for votes, but that's just the way it works. It's like the all-star game in Major League Baseball. The fans vote. And if you play in New York, you're just going to have more fans than a team that plays in Pittsburgh. It's just the people's choice. This is what the people consider to be the best based on the people's populace. All right, so next, best call-outs in a game. This one is not surprising because the call-outs are coming from famous Hollywood actors in one of the most iconic movies of all time and a movie with some of the most iconic lines ever. It's no other than 44% for Pulp Fiction. This game is not shipped to a single person and it is going to win a few categories in 2023. But again, I think it's well deserved. Remember, Pulp Fiction came out. It sold out instantly. We didn't see any other game have that level of hype all year round. The best sound package in a game with 34% goes to the Foo Fighters. If you've played this game, the sound is phenomenal. The moment you hit start, that game pulls you in in such an awesome way. We're going to hear the Foo Fighters be called out a few more times, as you can guess. But Jack Danger and the team over there, Tanya, Ray Day, the inaugural effort, Zombie Yeti made the art package on this game Jack Danger inaugural game is going to win a lot And I think it well deserved And this game just sort of blew everybody away because you know when we heard the name Foo Fighters we were not expecting much And I think Stern did such a great job letting this team be extra creative and making a wow game We had a new category, Best News Site. And the reason why I wanted to do Best News Site is that, you know, Pinside wins every single year. And it's a forum. It's not a news site. And I wanted to give this man a chance to be in a category with other news pinball websites like Pinball News. We had Kineticist. We had Nudge Magazine. But with 93% of the votes, this is the largest margin of victory out of all of the categories of this year's People's Choice Award. 93% of you said Naps Arcade is the number one pinball news site. I don't know what the other 7% of you were thinking, but Naps Arcade is the de facto, the go-to, the greatest place for pinball news, rumors, and speculations. And I love Jason and I love what he does because he allows us to stay off of pin side. You can know what's going on in pinball simply by listening to Kaneda, listening to Kerry Hardy, and reading Naps Arcade. I'm telling you, he's always spot on. And ever since Jason decided to go into more rumors and speculation, this site is 10 times more interesting. All right. So congratulations, Jason. Favorite YouTube channel with 48% of the votes. A little shocking here because there's a lot of competition in YouTube. You got Todd Tuckey. You got Straight Down the Middle. You got Flip N Out Pinball. You got a lot of content creators on YouTube. And with 48%, Mr. Hold No Punches, unless I'm being sponsored by Penn Stadium, Mr. Kerry Hardy. Kerry, congratulations. I love your content. I think everybody does. And I love the way you look at different cameras and it's just you. It's my favorite part of your show. And I'm sure most of us have watched Kerry Hardy. I love that he's provocative. I love that he's balanced. And I love that he also has a sense of humor. Some of his funniest videos have upset manufacturers to the point where they don't want Kerry to go to shows, much like Kaneda. But he doesn't take this stuff down. He has a sense of humor. I think all of us, if I could give all of us one bit of advice for 2024, it's just pinball, everybody. Everybody needs to lighten up a little bit. I think we've all been a little bit cranky. The games weren't the best last year. We weren't super excited about the prices. You know, we're all like middle-aged men just struggling a little bit and we're easily triggered. We all need to lighten up. We got best theme in pinball with 46%. It is no other than Pulp Freaking Fiction. Of course, Pulp Fiction was going to win best theme. Did you think it was going to be Looney Tunes? Did you think it was going to be like Elton John? I think Elton John got like 1% of the vote or maybe even 0% of the vote. And I think the best theme category is really a very interesting category for manufacturers to study. Because if you're ending up at the bottom of that list, then your marketing department set up your design team to fail. And I mean that. You want to be in the race when it comes to best theme. Best animations and displays. 63% for Foo Fighters. Can we just say for a minute? I think Foo Fighters has the best animations Stern has ever done. The issue I have with Foo Fighters is not that the animations aren't world class, because they are. The gameplay is so fast when you're playing Foo Fighters, you don't really get to look up and enjoy everything that's going on on that screen. And I think it's perfectly done, it's perfectly balanced, and the way they made the Foo Fighters all animated like an episode of Scooby-Doo, it is just genius. you know imagine that game if it was like concert footage of foo fighters it would be terrible i mean it not nothing against their onstage personas their onstage look but it would just have been terrible if this game was just a basic music pin and you see like when you go down a more unique creative road how it opens the door for every aspect of your game to be better the animations are better the music's better the callouts are better everything becomes better when you decide to make a game that's the Foo Fighters trying to protect planet Earth and all these different cities in which they're playing their gigs from an alien invasion. I mean, that was such a smart move by Stern and Jack Danger. All right, what else we got next? The best mod in a pinball machine, and there's a lot of mods, and I'm telling you this. This is why we made this a write-in section. and people could add their mods. But the runaway winner with 28% of votes is Atomic Godzilla. Godzilla mods. This game has been out for two years now. It has some of the coolest mods in all of pinball. I don't think there's any other game in which you can mod it more than Godzilla. It's also funny that when Stern made Godzilla, Godzilla figure did absolutely nothing. This is always so funny to me. It's like Stern always stops putting money in before they should. Like, how can you make a Godzilla pinball machine in which Godzilla does nothing? He doesn't breathe fire. He doesn't stomp his feet. He doesn't eat train cars or step on tanks. He does nothing in the game. So this atomic Godzilla mod is super cool. All right. Best topper in a pinball machine running away with it with 56% is Pulp Fiction. The topper is amazing and it was easily going to win in that category. The best bang for the buck, 33%. Pulp Fiction Pinball. We keep seeing Pulp Fiction and not a single person owns it. The best art package in a pinball machine in 2023. Did you find it funny that the Twippy said to be eligible, you have to ship your game to customers before December 1st. Now, I was one of the first people to come out and say that makes no sense because if a game is revealed in December and your voting opens up December 18th, Things like the art package and the theme and the topper are not going to change. So why not just let people vote on it? And I'm glad they changed their mind and included this because the winner, he beat out Zombie Yeti's Foo Fighters. He beat out Zombie Yeti's Venom. The winner for favorite art package. And this guy was on like four games last year with 27% Christopher Franchi Elton John Platinum Edition. easily the most stunning game of 2023 and the game that nobody's buying. I mean, just think about that for a minute. It's one of the most beautiful pinball machines of all time and nobody's buying it. Same thing with Galactic Tank Force. Looks stunning. Nobody's buying it. Godfather didn't sell very well. Eventually, Mr. Franchi is going to get his art package on a game that's also a hit game. And we know it's not going to be the anniversary edition of the Big Lebowski, which he shared the artwork for. I'm debating whether or not I should release that. He took it down, but I have the images. It's not like Kaneda to hold back and be a nice guy. Maybe let's not create any more drama this holiday season. We've all had way too much. So congratulations, Mr. Franchi. Best new pinball content creator with 57%. This man has put in the hard work and Don over at Don's Pinball Podcast. You know, he is the only guy, after all these years when Kaneda's been winning, he's the only guy that came out and followed the same playbook. The same playbook Kaneda has. You do like two to three shows a week and they're like 20 minutes long. That's what Don does. Go on Facebook Live. That's what Don does. Let people into your home. That's what Don does. Wear fake Versace sunglasses. Well Kaneda got the real ones but everything I done Don has followed it And guess what people I not mad about that It works It smart And he enjoying himself And that the way you should do it And it's exciting to see Don with 57%. The only thing that makes me sad is Don will not win a Twippy now because when the Twippies first reintroduced the media categories, they started with best new content creator, and then they adjusted it. And now it's like every single content creator competing with themselves and then they removed the previous winners so it's like Don's now going up against the pinball show against Naps Arcade everybody they threw into one blender and it doesn't make any sense so Don I think you should have been up on stage I think you should have been at Texas and I'm sad that you're not going to get that moment best toys and mechs in a game you know and I will say this when I looked at 2023's games none of the toys and mechs were that impressive. This was not a year in which you looked down at games and said, wow, how did they engineer that? Wow. Look at the multiple layers of engineering going in there. Look at what the ball does when you shoot that. Did you see the ball disappear? Did you see the ball fly across the game? Did you see the ball like get grabbed by a magnet and do this? There was not much mechanical wow. And winning in this category is no other than a game that probably had one of the most simple mechs, but actually one of the most wow mechs in pinball, proving that sometimes simplicity can create magic. And that is with 34%, Foo Fighters Pinball wins best mechs in a game. And that dead save post is absolutely amazing. And I think that's the one that people love the most. The Alien is really cool as well, but again, nothing in it that's nearly the level of the kinds of stuff we've seen in games like Godzilla and Jurassic Park and so on and so on. All right, so what else we got? We got a few more favorite pinball podcasts. Who's the favorite pinball podcaster out there without Kaneda in the mix? Now, this one makes total sense. You know, all the years I've been doing this, whenever you want to make something and you want to become better at what you do, it is important that you have competition. Imagine if there's no competition in the world of manufacturing pinball machines, right? There's only one company. Remember when there was just Stern Pinball? They were not going to get better. They were not going to innovate. Jersey Jack is the reason why Stern finally put LCD screens into its games. So some competition is good. And I understand that competition does get nasty at times. And when you've got a lot of like alpha male personalities making content, it's really hard for everybody to get along. But when I saw these results, I absolutely agreed with them. And 26%, your favorite pinball podcaster is the pinball show with Zach and Dennis Creasel. And again, they put in the work. They do the work. They've got the audience. We know the numbers are there. The only thing I could ask of Zach and Dennis, we know you guys get good numbers. We know you say the numbers don't lie. All we ask is just share the numbers. You've got them. Of course you've got more listeners than Kaneda behind a paywall. So congratulations. You've always finished right at the top of pinball podcasting. And I can say this. They've made me make my show better. And I bet they would say I have done nothing to make their show better. But anyway, everybody, it's good to see the pinball show recognized by the people. And that's what matters. All right. Best game design with 56%. Jack Danger. Foo Fighters. His first game. He comes out of the gate and he makes a game that everybody loves to shoot. I would even argue that I sometimes enjoy shooting Foo Fighters more than Godzilla. Godzilla is a lot more difficult. Foo Fighters is fast. It's fun. There's unique shots and there's just something about flipping that game that is a lot of fun. And if this is Jack's first entry into pinball design, well, it's kind of like his second. He was doing a lot with the homebrew space. This is his first production game and it is phenomenal. I know who amongst you is not really excited to see what Jack does next. Is it going to be Pokemon? He-Man, what's it going to be? I don't know, but whatever it is, I can tell you I'm excited because it's not just Jack designing these games. He's got the best team behind him over at Stern. I think sometimes we forget this. It's not like Keith Elwin's going to refuse to look over what Jack is thinking about. It's not like John Borg's not going to walk in and lend some ideas or George Gomez. when you've got this much talent under a roof, everybody at Stern Pinball's products are going to benefit. And I don't feel that way when I look at other companies. I mean, think about it. If you're Ryan McQuaid and you're designing a game at American Pinball, who's walking over to your game to give you some pointers? Who? Steven Bowden? David Fix? You know, Dennis Nordman's not even over there. Like, who's actually helping them out? You know, and I think what's exciting about Steve Ritchie being over at Jersey Jack, at least he's going to help those other designers think about layout a little bit. I mean, I hope so. All right, what else we got? Jack Danger, you know, best designer. And look, it would be criminal if you win best game design and don't win best game of the year. It's like when someone wins like best director at the Academy Awards and then they don't win best movie. It doesn't make any sense. How can you be the best designer or director if the thing you directed or designed is not the best in itself? And so the game of the year with 48% of the votes is no other than Foo Fighters, ladies and gentlemen. Not a surprise, not a mystery. When this game came out, it just felt like it beat Godfather, it beat Tank Force, it beat everything else. The only thing that was going to potentially beat this game, the only thing that could have beat this game for game of the year was Keith Elwin. There was no way it was going to be Venom. Venom landed with a thud. Venom was dead on arrival. Elton John's been dead on arrival. Galactic Tank Force was dead on arrival. Godfather sales are plummeting. There's not a lot of hype around that game. There was just nothing else. You know, nothing else came out. The two most celebrated games of the year, Foo Fighters and a game that no one can even play, Pulp Fiction. That's really what's defined 2023. When you zoom out a little bit, I know we got the two new Spooky games and that's exciting. Spooky's now got four games on the line at Spooky Pinball. Can you think about how amazing that is? They're making four separate games right now. Looney Tunes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, TNA, and also Scooby-Doo's. Four games. Jersey Jack Pinball. You have like 10,000 times the resources as Spooky Pinball, and you can't make more than one theme at a time. Everybody, come on. Happy holidays. Welcome to Canadian Spinball Podcast. Thank you for the support. And we're going to have so many great shows coming up. So much is about to happen. Everybody have a great Christmas on Monday. Obviously, I'm not going to do a show on Christmas Day, but we will get some more podcasts out next week. I've got nothing but time. There's something dangerous, right? When Kaneda's got nothing but time, he's got a whole week off surrounded by espresso martinis. I think everyone's just hoping I don't drink too much and do something stupid to once again invite the haters to say what a miserable person I am. I don't know. None of us are that bad. Everybody lighten up and I hope you get everything you wanted for Christmas. And at these prices, there probably will not be a pinball machine under the tree for any of us. Later. Baby, it's cold outside