I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me. I can't change the way I am, you see. I think it's my responsibility to tell you I'm just as bad as I used to be. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast. Happy Monday morning in the summer. This is the best time of year to be out there enjoying your lives, connecting with the beaches of the world, with nature. And you know how I feel. Pinball is a winter sport, but we're going to go around the pinball horn because for some reason you and I are all obsessed with the world under glass. So let's go around each company. Let's talk about what's happening right now, the climate with each of the games these companies have in the marketplace. if I were to give like an overall feeling right now about pinball a lot of people are just waiting for their games like games are just trickling out King Kong's not selling that well and Stern's the company that can get people games quickly remember they're doing something like five to eight hundred games a week a week how many Harry Potters are being made on a weekly basis that's incredible how much Stern can make. The only problem is the demand for these recent Stern titles is nowhere near the supply of games they can make. That's a problem. Wouldn't it be nice if like other companies who had a hit game, imagine if Spooky went to Stern and said, hey, can you make all of our evil tits in one freaking week? Okay, so let's talk about each company. Let's go around the pinball horn. The talk of the town right now is obviously Harry Potter pinball. People are really enjoying this game. I'm in the threads. When you're not paying too much attention to the AI artwork part of the thread, it's people really enjoying the way the game shoots. I'm still not seeing, and I'm going to harp on this until they maybe fix it or they're not going to fix it. And I might just harp on it forever the way I harped on what Willy Wonka and not having any of the musical moments from the movie in the game itself I felt like that really missed the mark very much the same thing happening in this game I'm still not seeing even with the recent code update I'm not seeing the movie moments come through I'm watching the different streams I'm seeing everybody play the game and when you start a movie it's just like it's going from one scene to the next everything's lit up you're still doing other stuff while you're in those movie modes it doesn't really change the game when you start a movie and I think that's something that is a major major major problem for me with Harry Potter pinball and I get the game shoots really well and maybe And I think this just might be how this game ends up being. I think just maybe because the game is beautiful and it's fun to shoot and it looks twice as expensive as any Stern machine. I think owners are just going to enjoy having a JJP game that shoots very well and is based on a theme that people love. And I think that might just be good enough. I do. I don't think we're going to get this like major overhaul that's going to push the movie moments more full screen and more meaningful. I don't think it's going to happen. And I think what you see is most likely what you're going to get. So that's Jersey Jack, Harry Potter, the AI artwork debate. They have egg on their face. They do because Jack said they didn't use any AI. And then Eric said everything was hand drawn. And clearly that was not the case. And so look, Jersey Jack throughout the company history has had moments in which they tell us something that's not true. Now, whether or not that's a lie, what's weird about this whole thing is when AI debate sort of popped up that Eric and Jack didn't go right to Jesper, the artist, and ask him, yo, bro, we're seeing all this conversation. what's the truth before Jack denies it before Eric denies it they should have gone and figured out what the real story was and they didn't and that is another example where they're just going to tell us what we want to hear even if what they're telling us is not truthful are they lying or should they have made more of an effort to find out the truth absolutely I don't think people are going to care. When you stand over this game, trust me, the elements everybody's moaning about are small details on the game. You wouldn't even notice them even when they are there. And that's why I think nobody caught it. The other thing happening, and people have been sending me this this weekend, and look, I get it. Like some pinball bar out there in the world has decided not to have Harry Potter pinball because of JK Rowling's social beliefs. Okay. Now, look, I'm not going to kick that can down the road at all. It's that place's prerogative whether or not they want to put a game on location. Do I think seeing Harry Potter pinball is going to trigger or actually hurt people or telegraph that you are in support of her social beliefs? No, I do not. I think most grown adults, like 99% of us who are normal, well-adjusted adults can separate what she might feel over here and what this pinball machine is meant to do. If you're going to cancel everything that's Harry Potter related because of her personal beliefs, that's on you. But I don't think this pinball machine deserves to be like relegated or not represented in a pinball arcade because of those beliefs. Okay, so that's Jersey Jack pinball. I don't think we're going to get Steve Ritchie's game for like two years because they're going to be busy making this game. Let's go to Stern. Stern's big news lately has been a lot of code updates. We've seen code updates on King Kong. We've seen John Wick. We've seen X-Men. Getting the most major overhaul is X-Men. I'm in the thread this morning. Everybody who has the game is absolutely loving the new code update. And I'm loving the way Stern's talking about it, that this is the first of many to come major overhauls of this game. Thank you, Stern. Now, it is a day late and a dollar short for a lot of these dudes who bought LEs and lost a lot of money. You know, now it's going to get tricky, right? Because now there's a new precedence that Stern will actually do a major overhaul on a game that's coded like a dud on day one. Now, what I didn't hear is Jim Weisz and still over there. Are they still ever going to give this guy the lead coding job ever again after this happened? I don't think so. I don't think anyone would ever buy a game if Wysen's the lead coder on it. He had a chance on this. You know, you're only as good as your last coded game is what they say. Nobody says it. I just said it. So we've got that. I'm in the John Wick thread. And it seems like John Wick is now a lot easier. Stern's adding a lot of multi balls. I think that's making the game less fun for a lot of people. And I'm just going off of what I'm reading. I haven't played John Wick much at all. I don really like the game I played it a few times Every time I walk away I say to myself I good for the rest of my life on John Wick Pinball It just doesn feel like a game that compels me much to play it It's really fast. It's really brutal. And I just don't find it to be that much fun. So now they've added more multi balls, which are allowing people to get through the game a lot easier. It's a lot more easier to do the jobs, to defeat the enemies. and so people are saying hey I like that you made some changes but the changes have made the game easier and maybe that's not a good thing I'm curious with all these code updates like you don't be nice if all these companies had a way if they each had a way to more formally give feedback on a game's code do any of them like really have a formal way in which you can submit feedback are you just emailing stuff to somebody but I think that would be something that would be beneficial to every pinball company out there. Set up an official email address for code feedback and allow your consumers to give you suggestions because it's kind of tricky. There's so much great feedback that is given on Pinside about how a game plays and what can be done to make it better. But these companies are not gonna weed through all of the garbage and the alcoholic battles happening on Pinside. So I think that would be a good thing for every pinball company to implement. a code feedback email alias at your company so people can give constructive feedback. Now, I bet the trolls would go there and be like, oh, this thing sucks. I want my money back. No, I think it would actually be very beneficial. So John Wick and then King Kong, I'm in the King Kong thread and it continues to be a little bit of like a mixed boat happening over there. I think what I've noticed is a lot of people who bought King Kong are Keith Elwin fans and there's a lot debate happening amongst the Elwynn fan base. Is this game better than Godzilla? I don't think I see anybody say that. What this game is, is more challenging than Godzilla. With Godzilla, you're going to have a lot longer ball times. This game is harder. And also this game doesn't have nearly as much personality or soul as Godzilla does with all those assets. The game that I keep hearing the most. And I mean this. It's shocking to me. The game that I hear people loving the most out of all the Elwynn games, and it is simply because this game allows you to have a lot more moments of fun. We talk about this a lot. Pinball is a game where you want to go back for more when there are a plethora of moments that make you feel amazing. And the game that has the most like side moments and side quests and little things you can do and you can choose your own adventure, but it also pays you off with nice wizard modes. The game that everybody seems to universally love the most is Jaws. And Jaws is a game that like when it came out, it didn't mechanically light the world on fire. But boy, oh boy, does Jaws really do the theme justice. And I think the moment everybody saw that it had all the assets from the movie, that won everybody over. And it's just so hard to create all those moments of wow, when you don't have any assets with King Kong. Kong's going to end up being more one dimensional, a lot of climbing of buildings, a lot of just collecting of letters, but it just doesn't have the same amount of like side quests going on. And it just doesn't have the same amount of personality and fun as Jaws pinball does. So I don't expect King Kong to have a second life, even if they keep coding it. I just think people are going to wait. Keith Elwin's next game is most likely Pokemon. And I think the ship has sailed on King Kong. I do. And I think more and more people that love Elwin are going to look to get their hands on a Jaws. Now, speaking of Jaws, does that mean we're going to see Jaws 50th this week? And now would be a really good time to release it because if I'm looking to get a pinball machine and I'm reading the feedback on Kong and I want a great shooting game, that's a lot of fun. And Stern drops Jaws 50th, the 4th of July weekend. I think the game's going to move units. I really do. The other thing I was thinking about with these anniversary additions, I think Stern should do something. It's weird for me to say this, but I think they should give us all the bells and whistles on the anniversary edition and just charge us more, but make it look as spectacular as it can. I know it's so hard for me to say charge us more, but think about this. When they did Godzilla 70th, it was supposed to be an LE with the foil and the nice mirrored back glass and all that stuff. And they had to reduce it down to a premium. And so we got the $9,800 game, not the $13,000 game. And Gomez would tell me, he's like, Chris, I wish the world could have seen what this thing would have looked like if it was an LE. But I don't understand, Stern, why don't you just make a $13,000 Jaws 50th and just don't limit it, but just make it as nice as possible. Now for 13,000 Stern, I'm looking at you guys right now. You got to put the topper on top, right? It should come with the Jaws topper. It should come with some other stuff. Make it worth it. And then you don't have to limit it because I think the entire collector market is over. I do. I don't think pinball collecting is even a thing anymore. I think it's easy to get every game you want. I think unlimited Harry Potter CEs is another example of it just doesn't matter anymore. Nobody's fawning over LEs like they used to. So then just make the nicest Jaws 50th you can and just forget about the little number and the plaque and people would still spend $13,000 if you gave them $13,000 worth of a machine. So we'll see what happens there after Jaws and maybe Jaws 50th comes out this week. After that, we're looking at John Borg episode one through three, Darth Maul coming to pinball. It's going to be awesome or it's going to suck. It's going to be one or the other, right? There's no middle ground anymore in pinball. We either like something or hate something. Then I think we're going to see a remastered of Tron or The Walking Dead. Most likely The Walking Dead, but Tron makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? A new Tron movie is coming out in October. What better time to release Tron remastered pinball than October? So look, I think if Stern is smart and their new CMO is doing his job, that's the game that should come out. Nobody cares culturally anymore about The Walking Dead, but Tron's about to have a whole another blockbuster moment. So we shall see. Sturm needs sales and Tron would sell way better than The Walking Dead. All right. So that might happen in October and then we're going to get Pokemon from Keith Elwin in January. So there you have it, people. I think John Borg's game will come out in August or September. I think more likely in August and it's coming, right? Things are coming quickly. when something's not selling they're gonna move some of those cornerstones up a little bit stern knows it needs the code to be further along all right so that's stern jersey jack spooky pinball they're making these evil deads i don't know how many they've made they don't seem to be going out as fast as scooby-doos and some of the other spooky machines i think this is a more difficult game to make it seems like it's got a lot more in it so i don't know what number they're at, but that's the story over at Spooky. Spooky Luke, you listened to the show, brother Hit me up with a text message How many evil deads have you made to date and are you on pace to make all them by December After that we going to get Beetlejuice in December Christopher Franchi Beetlejuice. I'm telling you right now, it's going to be the game that sells the fastest. They're going to sell all 888 of Beetlejuice in like a minute. I've already got mine ordered and it's not even available to order. That's how fast this game is going to sell. All right, Let's go to barrels of fun. So Dune Pinball. I'm in the thread. There's not a ton of conversation happening because there's not a ton of Dune machines out there. What I do read about this game is predominantly positive. People who have jumped on it are having a good time. They need to get this game to shows. The problem is they were at Southern Fried Gaming Expo. They had a really good showing there. They missed the bigger shows, though, and they missed TPF. You know, they needed to miss it because the code wasn't there. And I've been saying this, this game, as it matures and as more code gets put into it, will have a better showing. You don't want to put a barren game in front of people with no code in it. So the more people get time on it, the more interest there will be in this game. I think this game is very atmospheric. Derek, I think when you cross shop the modern game, I think a lot of people are doing that now because again, the collector hobby is dead. The need to buy new in box right away and collect like the Ellie version. It's dead. It's over. Like I was sharing King Kong Ellie in less than two months has already lost $2,000. It's over. If you bought a Kong Ellie for 13, like how are you not kicking yourselves. And these are brand new games, people. These are people unboxing and putting 40 plays on the damn game. And then you can save two grand. And Stern made a thousand Kong LEs. Like they're sitting at dealers and distros. It's dead. So because there's no need to rush at anything anymore, you can cross shop everything. And that's what more and more people are going to do. I'm going to jump on Kong. I'm going to jump on Potter. I'm going to jump on Dune. I'm going to jump on Predator. I'm going to jump on Portal. And then I'm going to make up my mind. Now, the issue is this. When you cross shop everything, you're going to want Harry Potter. You're just going to want Harry Potter. It's just the nicest platform out of all of the platforms. It really does. It makes Kong look so dull. Something's happening over at Stern with their clear coats on their playfields. They just look dull. Like I think they were tired of the chipping and the dimples, but they made them too dull now. It's still nice and shiny over there in Mirko's world of making playfields. So barrels of fun waiting for that game to be made in larger numbers. It's slowly trickling out. Like I don't think they're going to get anywhere near a thousand units out before the year is up. So that's barrels of fun. What's next from them? I don't know. I know one thing that I signed an NDA around that's exciting to me, but I'm not sure if that's next. I don't know what the lineup is. I haven't spoken to David in a while. I owe him a phone call to see how things are going. David, if you're listening, I'm going to reach out. Let's catch up this week. Canada's taking the week of the 7th off. So all of 7 through 11, I will be on a staycation here in Connecticut. So if you're in the neighborhood and you want to hang with Kaneda, let's hang out, people. Frank, I'm looking at you. We're going to go golfing. Dave Frazier, I'm looking at you, brother. We're going to go do some stuff. Let's go damage our credit cards with some lobster rolls and Sauvignon Blanc. All right, so that's what's happening over at Barrels of Fun. Let's go to Pinball Brothers next. Predator, you know how I feel. Game is really expensive. There's not a lot in it. There's not a lot to shoot at. The gameplay videos have been underwhelming. I think the pinball buying community is going to move past this game pretty quickly. It's a dream theme for a lot of people. If executed right, I don't think it's executed right. There's like weird stuff in it too where you're building Dutch's crew and a player can die. Like one of his crew members can die and then they come back to life. Like I don't understand how that makes any sense. That's not what happens in the movie. and I think when you strip Arnold out of the game, you just strip all the soul out of that property and he carries that movie. I mean, it's all about him versus the Predator. It just doesn't work. I think they took a risk. I think they took a gamble and I don't think the gamble is gonna pay off and you know how I feel. I feel like this could be a company killer. I do. I don't know if they can recover from this. They haven't had a hit game. They finally got a theme people wanted but it's not executed in a way that's going to be a hit. But maybe the theme is strong enough. I've been saying this. Maybe the theme is strong enough to move those units. I just don't think it's going to happen, especially at these prices. Two-year door, this game is 15-5 all in. That's just never going to fly in the modern world. Harry Potter is $5,000 cheaper, and you could have it in a much easier way. Okay, so that's Pinball Brothers. Let's go to Dutch Pinball. They're slowly making these Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. If you get your game, it's not going to have a topper right now. They're waiting for the topper vendor to make sure the quality is going to be there. You're going to get your topper. You're just not getting it right away. I don't know what number they're up to. I think it's somewhere around 20 games a week. Melvin, correct me if I'm wrong. So that's happening. There's no drama over there. It's like people are going to get your games. And if you don't get your game by the end of the year, you can request a refund. And that's it. That's it. There's no drama. There's no this. There's no that. Alice is for a very particular buyer. Again, I think collecting is dead. I do. I think collecting pinball machines is dying. And some of these games that are meant to be collectibles, the only way to make it collectible moving forward is you have to go even more limited. You do. And you might have to charge even more because you got to make some margins. but maybe there are 200 collectors left that will spend 15,000 on a game. Fine. Make only 200 and then test that market. I think everything's going to be like that now. You're going to have to test the market to see if it's there. Nobody has a crystal ball. Nobody knows what the right moves are. But I do know at these volumes now, these LEs and these CEs and at these prices, it just doesn't feel like anything will ever hold value much longer in the pinball hobby. It just doesn't. And that's fine, right? It's like a car now. It's just going to depreciate the moment you buy it. So then it forces you to buy something you love and you don't want to sell. And that's not a bad thing. After Alice, the big wait, because we're going to get Raza after Alice, the game that everybody wants is Back to the Future. Now, what's the state of this? People always hit me up. They're like, Kaneda, you've stopped talking about Back to the Future. I have because I don't really have any news. I know that Dutch is going to make the game internally. They didn't ink a deal. I don't know how this company that can only make 20 games a week is ever going to take orders on Back to the Future. It just doesn't add up. Think about it. They're going to get 5,000 orders for Back to the Future. And then what do you do? You're going to wait five years for the game? So I don't know. I don't know how that's going to go. Okay so let go on to the company that we don talk about much anymore Chicago Gaming Company Where everybody Merlin editions of Medieval Madness Are they shipping It July this week They said summer That where we at A lot of you guys ordered the game and I just hope you get your game soon. The one word we never use when we talk about CGC and shipping games is soon. It took them forever to get people Pulp Fiction. We don't really talk about Pulp Fiction very much because it's just a readily available game now. It's out there. The game is fun for people who enjoy that kind of game. I think it's a game that's beautiful. I think it's a work of art. I think it's a really great theme for pinball. It can feel a little shallow based on the fact that there's no LCD screen and the assets are just call-outs and there's not that many songs from the movie, but it's still a cool retro throwback pinball experience. It's good for people that have a big lineup. It's not a game you should have if you only have like two to three pins. I don't think that game finds a spot in your game room. After Merlin's edition, this company is going to remake Twilight Zone one day, and then we're going to get Halo, which is Mark Ritchie's next game. It's a Raw Thrills collaboration. I don't know when that game's going to come out. I don't think people are going to want Halo. I don't. I don't think there's like a crossover appeal. If I want to play Halo, I'll spend 60 bucks and play it on Xbox. I don't think people are going to spend 10,000 plus for a Halo pinball machine. Let's keep going, people. We got who's next? Who's next? Let's go over to American pinball. Apparently they're not dead. Kerry Hardy is saying that Cuphead is going to be out in July. Well, that's this week is the beginning of July. And so are we going to see Cuphead in the next 30 days? Apparently it has an upper play field. Apparently it's ready to come out. Does anyone even still work at American pinball, like making pinball machines? I don't know. We shall see, you know, how I feel about this game. I think it's going to be dead on arrival. I just think there's too much bad blood between the pinball buying community and American pinball. And they've done nothing to win people over. Anyone who's bought their products has lost a small fortune. And you have no confidence that this pinball company is gonna be around. So are you gonna go in on this? Again, risky. It's just gonna become a game that's for someone that wants something different. I don't know, like that used to work when the prices were affordable, but at these prices, I just don't think people are like, yeah, like give me something different for like 10 to $12,000. That's not where you want to take a risk. All right. What else is going on? Multimorphic P3, Multimorphic Club. I was in there today, Jerry. I'm in the club and there's not much activity. Are they making portals? Have they made all the weird owl games? And have they made all the final resistance games? Like, I just don't know what the manufacturing is over at Multimorphic. Again, I just don't see people unboxing Portal and it's their latest game. And so, you know, when you release a game and then you're just waiting and waiting and waiting, it's hard to stay excited. And so that's where I'm at on Portal. I would still just like to know how many total units this company has sold of its platform. Nobody will ever tell me that. I have to imagine, again, it's less than 500 units over like 10 years. So again, for someone that wants something different and that's your cup of tea, I'm happy for you. I'll never be buying one. I just still think Jerry would have been so successful just making normal pinball. They have the best engineers over there. They do. Mechanically speaking, there's so much more in Portal than is in Harry Potter. So much more. And they have like the best engineers, but then they're like pigeonholed into engineering just a third of the game. Imagine if those guys could have a full play field to engineer on top of. It would be incredible. I have no line of sight into what's next after Portal. I'll tell you what's after Portal. Portal. Because it's going to take a full year to get the game if you ordered one. All right. Who else am I missing in the pinball world? I always feel like I leave somebody out. We got Turner Pinball, Merlin's Arcade, Chris Turner. Thank you for being back on the Patreon chat. Not sure when those games are going out. Chris, let me know. Again, gotta call it like I see it not gonna sell 500 le's at 90 whatever hundred dollars It's just not gonna happen chris's next move. He has to move past everything He learned at deep root no more deep root leftover games I think chris's next move is he's got to go get a license go get the last star fighter Go get something from the 80s something nostalgic and make an original game Because people will support you and they will buy it I just don't think people want any of these leftover deep root games. Even Raza, you know, yeah, you got to make only 300. Melvin knows this. It's just enough. Enough already. Like none of it was worth it. None of it is better than what we're getting in a Stern Pro these days. So it's just time to move on. Something about what Robert Mueller put in the Kool-Aid over there makes it hard for these people to just move past the entire deep root, John Papadiuk, Jon Norris, all of it. It doesn't add up to anything anymore. Like nobody cares, nor does anybody want this stuff. All right, who else am I missing here? We got Pedretti Gaming. I don't know what's going on over there. No one bought the Funhouse remake. Apparently, Toten is next. That's happening sometime soon. Are these the guys that re-skinned these like ABBA or Queen? I think they were Queen Machines got re-skinned into some Italian rock and roll band. I don't even know what the name is. I'm not even going to try to Google it right now. All right. Well, you got to use the parts somehow. But again, I think we're going to see some boutique companies close shop in 2025, 2026. There's just too many companies out there not executing at the right level. And it's not good news for these boutiques if you've got a company like JJP selling you a Harry Potter at 10. You're never going to sell a Predator at 15. It's just the way the world's going to work. Everybody, happy Monday. This show went a little bit longer than normal, but I want to thank each and every one of you. The month is coming to a close, and I know you're going to get that little $5 bill. I appreciate every single one of you who subscribes. I really super duper appreciate when people raise the roof a little bit and increase the amount that they give to Kaneda every month. For the amount of work I do, the amount of content I give you, I do think it's worth more than $5 a month, But I said, I'm never going to raise the prices. Some of you will just feel like you're getting more and you're recognizing how expensive the world's become. It really is crazy. It absolutely is crazy when you go to Dunkin Donuts and you get two large coffees and it's like $9 for beans and water. Everybody have a great Monday. We'll talk to you soon. I'm just as bad As I used to be I'm just as bad As I used to be I'm just as bad As I used to be I'm just as bad As I used to be