you're listening to the head to head people podcast find us on facebook Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is episode 69 and my name is Martin and with me, oh my, it's Ryan C. And another special guest, Marty, all the way live from not Las Vegas, thanks to Ryan's poor reading of information. It's Christopher Franci for the second time, the guy who runs the Super Duper Mega Extreme Podcast. He's here today to tell us about his first episode Ladies and gentlemen, Christopher Franchi Well, first of all 69 I am so honored to be on episode 69, that's awesome In fact, I might turn around and face backwards when I speak Not sure that's how it works, but keep going Yeah, yeah, especially back from Vegas We screwed up the time a little bit, so I've been sitting around in my office waiting for you guys. But, hey, that's all right. You're worth the wait. And happy to be here. Awesome. Thanks. We aren't here to talk about your podcast because it's kind of not really out there. Well, let's get it right first. It's the Super Duper Extra Awesome Pinball Show, not podcast. Okay. Okay. Does it matter yet, Frank? It doesn't matter. Where is it? It's just like a title blowing in the wind right now. Great. great art. It looks awesome. Yeah, it's like the only show in history that has as much swag as we do for a show we haven't even done yet. You know, we have coffee mugs and magnets and all this crap, and we haven't even done a show. But we're working on it. The reason why it takes a while is because it's not like what most people do, which is sit down and talk pinball, because we don't want you know, why muddy the waters? There are other people that do that. There are other people, including yourselves, that would do that better than us. what we wanted to do was sort of a like a morning show about pinball so it's mostly going to be kind of humorous and you know not super newsworthy but though I'm sure some of the things that we do will be related to what's going on you know in a timely fashion in pinball but it's like the Carol Burnett show of pinball so it takes a while to put the stuff together you know and you're like doing other stuff like producing artwork for pinball machines and stuff that gets you paid? I think I went from one game in 2016 to 2000. Actually, it came out in 2017, and then two games this year, and it looks like three, if not more, next year. So it's getting crazy. I need more arms or something. But that's kind of cool now that really your career is so much about pinball art, right? Yeah, yeah, it is. because I do several different things, and every day I keep thinking to myself, you know, I should just bail out on all this other stuff and focus on pinball full-time. I could do more, and I really enjoy it. But I don't know. You know, we'll see. It also depends on what, you know, people have to offer. And, of course, when I work with Stern, you know, I'm sort of locked down to work with them. And so it depends on what they give me. Plus, I also work for Joe, and Joe Camico, he's tied into Stern, so Stern's fine with that because his games go through Stern. Well, the thing about working for Stern is that they're the ones that are producing the most PMO machines. I mean, if you're working for anyone else, then I guess it might be one or two max a year. Right. I guess if it was Deep Root, it would be like a million games a year, right, because that's what they're aiming to do. So anyway, Chris, last week we talked to Joe Kamikau, and he gave us a bit of insight into the, you know, obtaining the Beagles license, and he said you were kind of heavily involved with, you know, the pitch to the Beagles proof for that. And we didn't dive too deep into it last week because we knew we were going to have you on, and I guess you're the guy who's producing, you know, the pitch in terms of the artwork. So tell us a little bit about that and when you kind of joined in on the pitch for the demo machine? Well, it all started about a year and a half ago, early summer of 17, and Joe and I had been talking about what the next project was going to be. Joe's kind of adopted me as his go-to artist. He really liked what I did for Batman, so pretty much, you know, whenever Joe's got something to do now, he wants me to do it, which is flattering and awesome and cool because he does very interesting projects. But anyway, so we were talking about what was going to be next, and he said, you know, what do you think about the Beatles? And I said, well, that would be amazing. And he had said he'd been trying for like 10 years to get the license. And I don't know what he tried. We didn't really discuss what, you know, what those 10 years were like and what had happened. But he just basically told me, you know, we talked about it first. Like, you know, there were two different avenues that he wanted to pitch to me, which, you know, like he asked me what I thought. And I don't want to mention the other one because I don't know what deals with that. But the other option was 64 Beatles. And to me, I thought that, you know, if they ever, I don't know if they're ever going to make another one. there aren't any talks about it, but I thought if there was, you know, why not start, you know, where it all started pretty much. It just appealed to me to do that version of the Beatles, and the other version, the other version wouldn't be so much, oh my god, I don't want to, I'm trying to dance around this. The other version would have been so, it wouldn't have been so straightforward, let's just say, you know, regardless of how much hair they had or beards, It wouldn't have been such straightforward artwork. And I wanted to draw the Beatles as the Beatles, as humans, as people. And so – Did they morph into something else later on in life? Did they – Don't try and pull it out of me. So anyway, so I told Joe, I said, you know, if I was going to do it, I'd do 64 Beatles. And he pretty much just said, okay, go. put together a back glass in the cabinet do what you want, we talked a little bit more about it I said that I thought it would be great to do like a retro vibe to the artwork not knowing that I think he had already planned on the sea witch, on redoing the sea witch and so we talked about the artwork and I said I wanted to do that retro thing and he said just do it up because the comp that I came up with didn't have a play feel. It was kind of like, you know, blurred and ghosted back. There was some kind of business going on in there, but you couldn't really tell. It was really just a pitch on the artwork of a back glass in the cabinet. And that was pretty much more or less what ended up being the gold version of the game. That was the first version that I'd done. and he submitted that and his pitch, which was a very expensive pitch. And it went through all the normal Apple channel. Basically, there's a guy here in the States, Joe, and he kind of coached us a bit. and it went from him over to Robert Englunds and then it went to the big four, which would be Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Olivia, George Harrison's wife, and Yoko Ono, and they liked the approach that we took. And I don't know how... Is that purely based on pictures? The soft pictures that we're seeing now of the goal package, is it like that with, as you said, a blurred play field? Is that what they're seeing? Yeah, that's what they saw. But what we were doing by doing that was showing them what everything was going to look like. You know, the play field would have matched the same theme, the colors, the artwork, the, you know, the era of the Beatles and whatnot. They understood that we couldn't go through the process of designing a whole, you know, pinball game and then pitching it because if they said no, then, you know, we'd have wasted a year of time for nothing. Yeah. So. But they wouldn't have cared what type of machine it was, really, as long as the visuals of it are in line with the brand, I'm assuming. Yeah, well, they liked the idea of it being a retro game. They didn't know what that was going to be, but they understood that it wasn't going to be ramps and all the crazy stuff. But they probably wouldn't have even known the difference, really. I couldn't say. I wasn't there. Fair enough. But, you know, I would imagine they're going, well, you know, are they still making pinballs these days? Oh, yeah. What's a pinball? Yeah. Sounds great. How much? Yeah, I think they just liked the concept of where we were going with it. And what, you know, I guess what's really important with that is that it opened up the door. And the door is still open. So, you know, where that can go, the possibilities of where that can go, who knows. But it took getting that door open, you know, to make anything possible here on out. And so Joe basically came back to me and he's like, they bought it. And he was so happy with what I had done. I don't want to say art director, but he kind of put me in charge of working with Stern in a larger capacity than I normally would. and especially with the guy who was doing the video. So when you say larger capacity, you mean like previously when we spoke to you, they're ultimately giving you the direction, you show them what they've done. Is it this time around you're the one that's saying this is how we're going to do it, you need to kind of like it, I guess? Well, more or less, more or less. I mean, it's a stern game as well, and that's not to discredit any of the efforts that everybody else had put into it including George Gomez but when we first talked I told George I said it's like a memorabilia vibe and it's like a retro vibe you know so as far as what you know I'm not going to tell George how to design a pinball game he's George Gomez for God's sake you let him do his thing but for a little bit of guidance or just to steer the wheel in a particular direction that would make everything cohesive. I had a little chat with him up front just about that stuff. So then he went, obviously did his thing and made it work with, once you put the retro art in there and all that, it just comes off looking like an old school game. And working with, we'll just say a guy from the casino industry who does fantastic animations. This was his first pinball machine and, you know, I don't want to take too much credit because, you know, he did a fantastic job. But I sort of said, you know, this is what we're looking for. Here's the color palette. I gave him a bunch of artwork. I did special artwork just for the video screen. And, you know, some things I designed, like the match screen. I had an idea that I just kind of fell in love with and I told Joe Kamenko about it and he loved it. So I did the artwork and I can send him an email saying, okay, when this happens, the numbers come out of here and you can animate this and you can do that. So that's something I would never do on any other game. I just do the artwork and I send it in. So it was interesting and fun and challenging to do that as well. But it certainly helped to make everything more cohesive and get everybody on the same page. Well, yeah, it's one complaint that people have kind of had about certain games. I'm not saying certain games. It could be any game within LCD is that the whole cohesive package thing, the trans light and the artwork and the cabinet art and the side art and the LCD things, usually one or two of them are off and haven't been designed by the same people. Not everyone was in the same meeting saying, this is what we're going to go for. So are you saying that you, did you create most of the artwork which was then animated, or did you give him a direction and the guy who did all the animations went from there? A little of both, actually. I gave him a bunch of artwork. I also gave him all the artwork that I did for the game. Yeah. You know, the game itself. I gave him all that stuff in layers. You know, I gave him some backgrounds, you know, some, you know, 60s-looking pattern backgrounds. and I created some new artwork. And then I did sort of the template for, you know, the way things, you know, the way the screen appears. When you're just in normal play mode and there's no special feature going. Yeah, yeah, I created that. Well, what is that? Because we haven't seen it and I'm guessing we're going to see it soon, but what is the default screen on the Beatles? Is it the band's kind of like shuffling left and right or something? It's a cool retro kind of thing. It's a surprise. Is this the score wheels? Yeah, the score wheels take up the bottom third of the screen. And one thing I told Joe is that if we couldn't do, you know, the old reel numbers, could we at least do them in animation? And he agreed. So the score wheels, the numbers are, they do look like the old EM score wheels. And then up above that, there's sort of a TV screen sort of a thing. The little heads around the right and the left and the center of the TV screen because we had to format everything to fit the old-fashioned TV because the footage that they were given to use was basically that aspect. So we had to have a smaller screen and then put artwork, frame it around the sides. But when you go into different modes, different things happen. You've seen the few capture screens that have been going around. There's no framework on that whatsoever. It's just crazy backgrounds and sparkles and stuff like that. The vibe I get from it when I see it is like 1960s Vegas. It's definitely retro, but it has that shimmer and sparkle of Vegas, which is exactly what we wanted. The guy who did the animation, he kind of teased it a little bit up front, and when he was showing me what he was doing, I'm like, you know, do more of that because that looks good and that really works. Well, I mean, that works for, I mean, the psychology of playing slots is that you want to get the people excited whenever something happens and the people that design slots are experts at doing that because slots must be millions and millions of dollars every day. So you said before that, you know, when they did the pitch and ultimately what was shown really became the gold, Have you had to change much going from the pitch to what you've done now? I mean, obviously, you know, play field, you've had to do extra, but as far as cabinet goes, has that been pretty much the same? Any of the tweaks that we did were on our end, on my end. You know, it was things that, you know, once I could digest, like, hey, they're going to go for it, and this is going to be it. There's no reason to just stay with what you had. It's like, okay, they like the vibe a bit, but, you know, how can we make... Now that we have time, you know, we've got a whole year to do this, how can we make this better? So it did change, but only in, you know, where I thought I could improve it. And then, of course, there were two more, you know, designs to do, the, you know, the platinum and the diamond. And as long as we kept that vibe, but, you know, I wanted to do things, you know, kind of drastically different with, you know, staying in the same color palette, in the same, you know, retro vibe, but doing different things. and as long as it fell in line with what they approved, they were good with it. And as a matter of fact, there were very, very, very little changes once we were done with all three packages and we submitted them. There was hardly any changes at all. Yeah, because that's what I was asking Joe last week was, I know that he was sort of saying that you get to pitch to them every year, but that doesn't mean they don't review things throughout the year. Or is it that, you know, the proi are the ultimate people that say, yep, let's go with the pinball machine, but they've got a team of people that will then start doing all the approvals. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. It's got to get to them. And everybody between us and, you know, the big four know what they're looking for. So, you know, it was a lot of them holding our hands just to get the proposal ready so that, you know, because if you got one shot you can't blow it you can't just keep well how about this it had to be right the first time so once we did it we had the help of Joe from Bravado which is the agent in the US and Apple as well very few changes but still their knowledge and their expertise and direction was just a huge help in getting this done just right so that when it got to them, they would approve it. And as far as I know, it's true that they only get together once a year. So do they, you know, if it's, you know, I don't know, do they trust somebody to approve T-shirts and stuff like that? And then they just come together for the big projects? I don't know. I don't know how that works. But I do know that if we missed the window, then it was going to wait another year. And so luckily we didn't. And it took a lot of effort and a lot of time and a lot of sleepless nights, just like Batman, to get it done in time. But we pulled it off. Okay, so now it's out and it was released. So let's talk about people's reaction to it and your reaction to people's reaction. My reaction to the reactions? Yeah, meta. Well, people whose opinions I value have praised it, you know, which I'm very thankful for and very happy for. You know, when you get into a job like this, sometimes I think people think you just kind of sit down and do whatever you want and you don't consider anybody else in the process. But when you're a commercial artist, if I'm drawing Bob Ross paintings and I'm selling them at a gas station corner while you're standing in line to go to some amusement park, the painter dude. If I'm a fine artist, I'll do whatever I want. No one's going to tell me what to do. But I'm not a fine artist. I'm a commercial artist. So I have to do what people are going to like. you know so a lot of thought went into what we did and sometimes i think you know from some of the reactions i read i don't think people think that we thought at all or we thought let's draw something everyone's gonna hate you know um because i did go to pin side i was in vegas and uh when they released it and i just kind of sat in my room one night and i scrolled through pin side and i'm just like well what an acid bath you know like jeez pin side is it's a great concept and it's great for information. I'm not going to knock Pinside, but that forum is just a cancer for the most part. And you can tell there's people in there that, I wonder how many people have got run off from that place because they'll come in and go, how do you like that? And then 12 people pile on and go, you know, and sorry I shared my opinion, you know, because it doesn't match yours. But what's funny about all that is I equate it to like if Taco Bell came out with like a new Chalupa if you didn't like it would you stand on their front lawn and go hey your fucking chalupa sucks no people don't do that they just don't like it I tried and I didn't care for it well why can't you be like that show a little fucking class and just be like you know I didn't really like it or that one color I just don't really suck that fucking unicorn threw up all over the place what a bunch of shit what those people do it's like a troll fest and what they do is some guy will come out with an insult and then the next guy just wants to beat the insult he might actually secretly like the game but his goal is to come up with a funnier insult and then it's a snowball that just rolls down the hill it's the upvotes it's people competing for the little green icon next to their name that says they have more than four upvotes and And, I mean, everyone has an opinion and everyone wants to express it, but I guess it was more of a surprise to other people than it was for us and for others. But, I mean, that first video that was shown, yeah. The detriment to that, it's when people know, like they're scrounging around, what's coming next, let's call all the licensing places, let's see if we can find out what game is next. And then they have a year, once they find out, to build the perfect game in their head. And rarely is that ever going to match because you've got 800 heads out there that are designing a game in their head. And what are the chances that whatever me and Stern come up with are going to match those 800 heads? It's just not going to happen. Artwork, yes. but, I mean, people were also complaining about the layout and it was kind of, you know, well enough known that it was going to be a sea witch layout. So then, like, I don't understand why people were upset about that, you know? I was, I just died laughing whenever I saw that, like, these guys are like, they'll put a picture of a sea witch and then they'll put a picture of a beetle. Like, they're going, hey, what are you trying to get away with here? It's like, what? I know, and it was this one guy that had a picture of a sea witch and then put the beetles, like, in, like, a bit of paper over it. Who was that, Ryan? I was trying to sell my sea witch for $50,000 it didn't work okay I was trying to cash out I mean the original video Chris that was shown I mean even now when I look at the pictures that that Jeff has put up on this week I know it's the official release but Jeff's got them all kind of together in a nice format Even when you zoom in on, when it shows the gold trim, it looks like gold with gold flakes through it. And then that's the close-up picture of the apron. And then when you scroll up and you look at the picture of the whole cabinet art, it looks mustered. So how hard is it to accurately depict what the actual machine looks like through pictures and video? Because the video looks different than the pictures, and the pictures look different than the pictures. Apparently it's pretty difficult. there are a couple problems in getting that stuff together one of them was the video the video had been brightened up in editing because they didn't for whatever reason they didn't add extra lighting when they shot the game and usually you do because everything is going to show up darker in video and they didn't do that so they took the video and they brightened it up and their video editing, and that's what kind of blew out the artwork and made the colors, some of the colors more vibrant than they actually are. I know that they're redoing the video. I don't know where they are in that, but I know they are redoing it. So, yeah, when that thing first came out, I'm like, what happened to my artwork? And then the pictures, actually, to tell you the truth, the pictures are a little bit, saying they're a little bit closer, but they're still a little bright and they're still a little saturated to the real colors. Because me and my daughter went to Stern on Expo weekend and we played the game. And it was exactly how I had hoped it would come out. And when I saw the video, I'm like, that's not how I hoped it would come out. But the video came out after I saw it. So I wasn't worried that the game didn't come out right. because Greg Freres and Stephen Martin in the art department worked very hard to match all of that stuff. And when I saw the game, they did a fantastic job. It looks great in person. And then another thing I asked Joe about was whether it's collectors or whether it's pinball folk that this is really appealing to. When you were sort of setting out to do the art, was it just for you in your mind what you liked and what you thought looked good? or were you thinking about the pinhead or were you thinking about the Beatles collector? I was trying to think of all three because, you know, obviously I think I have a good sense of what is correct for the job because I've been doing this for 30 years. That doesn't necessarily mean that's what's correct for a pinball collector. this was a special project that wasn't supposed to exclude pinball people not at all it was supposed to also appeal to Beatles collectors and that's why we were very accurate just the average pinball person they don't care because there's a lot of memorabilia and stuff in the game I illustrated actual products I did drawings of actual vintage memorabilia of the Beatles because I wanted to make sure that when Beatle collectors saw it, they'd go, hey, what is this crap? They never made that puzzle. Because people are just as nerdy as everybody else. They're like, oh, that handle on the bag, what went there on the right, it's on the left. Exactly, exactly. And actually, the only change, I made one change, and I'm going to blow the Easter egg, though somebody already did find it, one of the Easter eggs. Anyway, yeah, the hexagon. I swore after Guardians of the Galaxy I would put a hexagon in every design. If you look in the lower play field where the song inserts are, there's a little close-and-play record player, and on the inside lid is the brand of the record player, which incidentally says Gary Cuban, which is the guy who, I'm sorry, Mike, who designed the original Sea Witch game. So that's the brand of the record player, and the shape around it is a hexagon. So if you're looking for the hexagon, that's where it is. Crystal Gemley got that, so well done, Crystal. Did you say that you're going to change that? Is that what you said? No, no, no, I'm not going to change it. Oh, sorry, I thought you said something about changing it. Okay. So, yeah, there are other Easter eggs hidden around the play field that people haven't found yet. Well, yeah, there's one that's kind of out of sight, like the one that I did for Guardians, where if you unscrew the metal ramp in the shooter lane, there's something under there. If you unscrew the upper left orbit plastic, there's a little extra something in there for you that I won't ruin. So get your screwdrivers out. Ruin your machine just to get the Easter egg. Off the top of my head, there's two other things. My daughter is in there. There's a plastic right at the mouth of the left, or sorry, the right orbit that has like three swooning beetle fans, and my daughter's the pink one right in the middle. And a friend of mine who a lot of people know through Marco, Rachel Bess, she is a fan in a crowd of girls holding up a banner that says, I love Paul. And obviously Ryan and Martin are under one of the ramps somewhere, So we've just got to find that. Oh, sorry. There's no time. Ryan, it is up in the center. On the right-hand side, the Beatles are coming off a plane, and it says Pan Am on the side. And there's a group of girls waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs, sort of, and she's in the upper portion of that. She stands out because she's standing up above all the others. Okay, yeah. I can see now. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So you've obviously, you know, you've read the criticism and there's also been praise of the art as well. How hard is it for you to almost ring-fence your feelings about the criticism towards the art when people are also talking about layout and the fact that it doesn't have ramps? And, you know, we sort of mentioned this as well, but you've talked about it. When people have in their mind what they want, you can never live up to that expectation because you don't know what in another person's mind what they're thinking. let alone thousands of people, what they're thinking. But, you know, people aren't just being critical of the art. It's the whole thing. How does that affect you? I'm not going to say it's disappointing, because then I won't feel that I've done my job right, and I feel that I have. It's unfortunate that it can't please everybody, and you know, it's just you're in a tough position. It's like with these digital pinball, you know, if we did a Jaws pinball game, would somebody bitch because there's not a moving ocean in there with a shark that jumps up and quench you know, like you just can't do this stuff but your head can conceive of it. So like I said, people have a year to sit there and scramble around in their head what would be so awesome to do and you know, well, you know you can't do that. Just think you're doing a retro game. You can't include all that crazy stuff, because then it just wouldn't look like a retro game. But to pick, you know, God, I would think they did a great job picking a title because I'd say either, you know, between that and S.T.A.R.S., you know, you can't go with a more popular vintage Stern game. So, you know, we work with what they have. But, you know, people, you can't please everybody. And it's unfortunate. And, you know, half the negative, oh, I should say half, 90% of the negative things just roll off because I consider the source. Where's it coming from? It's coming from trolls on Pintide. So what does that mean? Yeah, exactly. Like I said, anybody that's opinion I value, and that includes people that have been doing artwork and designing games for decades have said amazing things to me about it and that's what I cherish and that's what counts. That's what matters to me. Like I said, I don't set out to displease anybody, but I know I'm not going to please everybody. So, you know, you just, you do the best job that you can and then, you know, everyone else does the best job they can and you end up with a product that, you know, frankly, I'm extremely proud of, you know. I think everybody did their job to a T and came out with exactly what we hoped for. So, you mentioned before about, you know, the fact that people have expectations in their heads because they know of the title and it seems like it's very hard these days for the name, at least, of the title to stay secret. So, in your mind, would the perfect release be no one knowing anything and Stern just says, bam, here's a licensed Pimor machine? Or would you think more of a surprise would be eliminating the expectations of art because the theme is original like a Steve Ritchie or Boggs blah blah game and you doing the art for it It a difficult position because like I actually pitched to Joe Kamenko like what if we did, like, a three-month-out teaser? And I actually came up with all these cool ads that had, like, the Beatles from, like, the waist down dangling from, you know, in these jumping poses, dangling from the top of the page and at the bottom there's lyrics to a Beatles song that says, listen, do you want to know a secret? And then it would just have the Stern logo, the Kapow logo, and the Apple logo. So obviously that says, hey, the Beatles are coming. We talked about it and it just ended up not coming to be. But the thing is I don't understand pinball marketing. I don't know that world. I'm not familiar with it. I don't know the difference between people knowing what you're coming out with before you're even done designing it and just letting people know, like, ta-da, here it is. I don't know. From my standpoint, I like the idea of people not knowing so they don't have an opportunity to build up any expectations and they'll just judge it for what it is when they find out about it. And I do know that extra measures are being taken on future titles to make sure that this stuff doesn't leak out because it's been like a sieve, you know, the past year. You know, just everything just seemed to fly out there. It's so hard when people, as you sort of mentioned before, where people are... It's almost like they've got a laundry list of all the games that they want and they're ringing up the licence holder saying, hello, I'm from XYZ Pinball Company and I want to make a pinball machine for this licence. Can I have it? And they're like, oh, no, look, sorry, somebody else has already got it. Aha! Machines. Like, that's what people are doing. We are so fucking bored that rather than playing pinball, we're actually searching and ringing these companies up just because people are desperate for an exclusive. Yeah. And I feel awfully bad for Robert Mueller and Deep Root, and I'll tell you why. Because if they, in fact, do have Back to the Future, if that game does not have a DeLorean that smokes and shoots sparks... actually goes back in time. People are going to hate it because, you know, Jeff from This Week in Pinball said, like, you know, they're trying to work out how to do sparks and how to make smoke and all this, and everyone just instantly went, oh, they're going to make the DeLorean spark. You know, so there's their expectations. And then when the game comes out and it had nothing to do with that game and there's no DeLorean shooting sparks, oh, what the fuck? They're bullshit, you know. And it starts all over again, you know. So you just can't make anybody happy. I'll be sitting there in the corner saying, hey, it's better than the data he's on, okay? It's better than nothing. That's what people don't think. Don't compare it to something else. It's better than not having it at all because that's your choice. You either get this or you get nothing. So, you know, that's what I guess I can subscribe to Stern's or everyone else's concept of marketing as far as trying to keep a lid on it because that's the worst thing is people just developing expectations and just pie-in-the-sky ideas for what you could do to something, and then you've got to bring that down to earth, and it's got to fit your bomb. You have to be able to afford it. These companies, heaven forbid somebody make a profit. Well, you know what? If Stern doesn't make a profit, they don't make any more pinball machines because they've got a huge building with several employees, hundreds of employees that they have to pay because that's how this stuff gets done. You're talking about advanced concepts, Chris, that people don't understand, okay? The whole running a business thing, okay? Apparently, yeah. We try to talk about that kind of stuff. And look, I would say the flip to that, and I think we've probably seen where it can get a company into trouble, is Jersey Jack with Pirates of the Caribbean and also their preference machines where they, almost like a year before the machine's out, are doing a release and then showing the art. And that can... Well, it has actually been a problem for the Pirates of the Caribbean because they've had to make changes and some of the changes have had people with pitchforks out, right? Right, yeah, exactly. So I think there's merit in... Here's the surprise. It's unfortunate that it can only be a hypothetical situation because of these people that are constantly scouring the world looking for people that have already got license agreements. So I don't think it's about trying to stop it, even though you said before that there's greater measures. I think the companies probably have to evolve how they can manage to fall out when these things are released. Right. Yeah. And another thing people don't think when they're talking about, a lot of people are bitching about the price. It says they're like, well, it looks like we're getting less, but we're paying more. I don't know that the amount of what it cost to get this license was released, and I'm certainly not going to say that now because I don't know if anybody's talked about it. Did Joe tell you how much it was? No, he didn't. Okay. All right. He said it was the most expensive one ever. Right. I'm pretty sure he said it was the first million-dollar license, I think. I can't remember. Or if people are just saying that as a way to describe it. Well, you've got to take that number and you've got to divide it up into 1,964 games and add that to the cost of the machine, which I can say easily, being on the inside looking out, I know was a lot more than most licenses are, than any license was. So when you want to talk about price and all that, you've got to consider all that stuff. Stern isn't like, well, it's the Beatles. Let's charge $1,000 more. you know that's not what they're doing they're like they take what it costs and then they take their normal markup and there's your price you know it's not more for the Beatles it's not more for Star Wars it's not more for Batman because they think they can get it it is what it is and that's the formula that's given them success and they're going to stick with it so no one's charging more just to bilk anybody you know it's just it is what it is and the amount of money that it costs all around in development manufacturing, artwork my bill's very expensive and everything else you know, it is what it is so... Yeah look, and I guess I can say, again you said it before, you know it's better than nothing but it's not that it's better than nothing, right, because we haven't played it, it's something that we said last week this could be the most fun game we've ever played, you know Well I never said it was better than I said you either get this or you get nothing. No, but I know. Okay. So I sort of changed that slightly. But it's the same sort of thing where you're looking at it and saying, well, you had to recover your costs of the Beatles license. That's probably why it's putting you at a price point. But it's still a good machine. Oh, yeah. Right. People have looked at it and said, oh, well, if I don't have my ramps and I don't have my deep rule set and I'm paying more money, where's the value? Well, play the game. could be the best experience you've ever had. I don't know that a lot of people are aware of this, but George Gomez redesigned it so that it would function better than the original. Because a lot of times it was very difficult to get that left orbit, and now it's not. You know, some of the things that just didn't work properly in the original one have been re-engineered. And plus he added a lot of cool stuff. He added the magnet at the top, and there's this super jackpot that's behind drop targets, and the ball drops down the plastic and pops out into your left-in lane. You know, you get the spinning record and all that. You know, they didn't just take the engineering drawings from Sea Witch and slap new artwork on it. It's completely redesigned. Yeah. And we know on Kimball that, you know, millimeters matter, and there's more than millimeters here. You know, I play a lot of my Sea Witch, and I know the pitfalls of it. and yes, this is, I would say completely different, but the small differences that George has made will make a big difference in the way that the game plays. Oh, yeah. Yeah, my daughter played it, and now my daughter's not a pinball expert at all. She's just kind of, in the past two years, gotten into it through me, and I bring her out to the shows and stuff, and she played it and had a blast, you know, and that's important to me, that somebody who doesn't have pinball skills and isn't aware, you know, She's aware of modes and how that works because I've taught her over the past two years. We've got a few games, and I show her that stuff. But I didn't say a word about the Beatles. We just walked up to it, and I said, ladies first. And she started playing, and she had a blast. And that was very important to me because a lot of people don't make games like that anymore. And when you're opening new markets for something, you're doing something very unique, why not pick something like this project to make something that's approachable to anybody? because it's going to open new markets. You're going to have Beatle collectors getting this. Joe Schmoe, who likes the Beatles, who wants one of these games, his family hasn't played pinball. He may not have even played pinball, but they can play it. And so can diehard pinball people. It's not that it's so shallow that anybody who's into deep moves and all that is going to have a horrible time. It's enjoyable for everybody. Chris, was it frustrating to kind of be there at Expo? Because you said you played this, you know, after Expo, or I'm not sure if it was before or after or during. But was it frustrating to know that it was kind of in a form that you could play, but it wasn't there? Like, you went to Expo, you could have shown the world, you know, the Beatles in person so they can play it and see how fun it is. But it was revealed, like, just a week after? It was horribly frustrating. I was counting on it. I was hoping that they were just trying to pull a fast one on me, you know, like don't tell them and then we'll show up with it. Because no one would have anything else to judge it by other than the game itself. You know, there wouldn't be an overexposed video and photos out there. And the same thing happened to me with Guardians. Like a week after Expo last year, Guardians came out, and it was the same thing. I'm like, damn it, you know. It would be nice to go to an Expo and have something new to talk about. But when we did the Guardians thing, I had a whole presentation for Guardians for a seminar. And at the last week, I had to throw it away and do a seminar for Batman, which was a year-old game that no one really, you know, wow, that's fascinating. We already know all these stories through interviews and everything else between now and then. We really had nothing interesting to say. So, yeah, it was very frustrating. And I didn't ask anybody what had happened. I'm sure it was just basically the fact that it wasn't ready yet because these guys want to get these games out as soon as they can. It's not like they just sit on this stuff and go, let's just wait until after Expo. There must have been something where maybe something wasn't approved yet or whatever, I don't know. But, yeah, it's frustrating. I would have loved to have talked to everybody about that rather than, again, a year-old game. You can do it at like KPF or whatever the next big show is going on. Yes, yeah, at TPF I will be there I'm already signed on to be a guest at TPF And we can definitely talk about that And I've got to put some kind of presentation together But who knows, you know, there might be another game out by then We'll talk about it as well You mentioned last time you were on the show That you were kind of working on two games To possibly be out by the end of the year Or maybe at the start of next year I guess we've seen one and we'll be waiting to see the next one, right, after that. Very soon. Very soon. You know, we've already seen some leaked images. Come on. What? What? I'm eluding you guys. That's going to be frustrating for you as well because, you know, we're not even sure whether... Well, okay. Let's talk about ImageGate. You ready for it, Ryan? If I talk about it, sure. We can talk about it. So this is when people, and it's happened in the last couple of weeks, where people have found images that have either got a watermark or they've got a logo, right? Brian knows exactly what I'm talking about now. And... Deep crude. Deep crude or something. You know, anyone can get an image, anyone can slap a logo on it, and anyone can put it out there. and we did see that obviously with Munster's Capadon but I'm not here to talk about those images whether they're right or not but isn't it frustrating for you that you're just sort of working on it and you have no control over what actually gets released because it might not have even been the final art anyway. Yeah, it sucks because if it's not the game then it's not final and of course it sucks if somebody puts out something that's not actually artwork and they claim it's something that Stern's doing or whatever, such as the case with Mr. Danger and his Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I don't know what that was all about. That's not coming from Stern. My comment to him wasn't meant to be like, oh, dude, you're going to get busted. You let the cat out of the bag. It was more like, dude, man, Stern is not going to be happy with that little game you're playing. yeah you know it's you know I can't talk about anything that's you know been released one way or another it's tough you know because there's you know obviously pinball people are passionate people and part of me says well you know people are just excited about this stuff so they're just manufacturing shit for fun you know because it just keeps the conversation going and part of me is just like look at these idiots trying to pull a fast one over on somebody so I just wish people could wait I wish people wouldn't talk about it because like I said the more you talk about it the more it's just pine sky bullshit you don't know what's going to come out so the more you talk about it the more wouldn't it be great if I had this wouldn't it be great if I had that well you know what you're not designing the game so it's probably not going to have whatever you want. But it's kind of like what we do with the podcast, right? So, you know, we record for two hours each week. You know, we want to talk about what's on our mind, and that's kind of what we do. And if people want to listen, if people want to like it, that's great. And if you think about people that go to Pin's Eye, or even, you know, last night I went to a pinball meet in Melbourne, and everyone talks about pinball. It's really funny because I'm sure this happens to you as well, Ryan, but people come up to me and say, all right, sorry, what are the next three machines from Stern? or, you know, what are the secrets? People just want to have conversations. There's a certain amount of time that they want to dedicate to social channels to talk about pinball. They've got to fill it up with some sort of content. Well, I understand that, but think about this. What usually happens when a game comes out? Beatles comes out. For the next two weeks, people are going to be praising it. People are going to be bitching about it. And then it's forgotten. And then that's it. You know, there'll be a gameplay video, and people will talk about it. And then the speculation starts. you know it's like wait we spent a year making this game don't you have more to say than as soon as the game comes out like all right well there it is all right what's next you know the society's so disposable now that once they get what they want they just kind of set it aside and they start looking to the future well not necessarily because i mean the people that are playing the game aren't you know playing with one hand and on the other hand they got pin side open and saying oh my god i'm playing right now and it's so cool you know that they actually, as I discussed last week, people like pinball because of pinball, like actually playing it. So when you don't hear that much chatter about it, again, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's forgotten. It just means that people are probably playing it and enjoying it. But we're talking about people who play and enjoy games and people who talk about shit on Pinside. Those are two different people. But you're right. I kind of agree with you because again, like Deadpool you know Deadpool it's been out now in Australia for how many weeks Ryan four weeks five weeks yeah no one's talking about it yeah it's like thanks what's next you know and it's not it's not pinball it's society everything right you know yeah everything's just disposable these days and well there's a lot of there's a lot of games that are coming out right now so if you know what I mean like if there's one game per year from one manufacturer then yeah we'd be talking about that one game for the entire year but But, you know, when Stern's releasing four or so, Jesse Jack won and Spooky won and add it all up together and there's 10 games a year, then you really only have one month window to kind of capture that hype and the sales and sell as many machines as possible, right? Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. I talked to George Gomez today and I told him, I said, you know, George, with all the people that you've been hiring, you could almost kind of break that quota and go from doing four Cornerstone games a year cornerstone games a year. They're doing like six or seven or eight, you know. I won't tell you what his answer was, either way. But, you know, it's interesting to think about. You know, he could always squeeze out more. Well, no, I think I asked him that during the TPF Expo because I'm just like, he was just like, and Brian Eddy's joining the team. And I kind of put my hand up and I'm like, well, you know, does that mean that designers get more time per game? or does that mean that more games are coming out per year? And to be honest, I can't even remember his answer, but I guess everything else has to grow equally, right? You know, Cern are kind of like just catching up with code on everything, and I guess it'll be pretty soon where, like, everything is caught up. But I guess they don't want to then release, you know, more games and then be behind again, unless games are somehow going to be simplified like the Beatles. But, yeah, I guess that's... Oh, I don't think that's going to happen. The Beatles thing was like sort of a one-off special thing. I don't think they're going to start going, let's keep making retro games. Yeah, no, that's not going to happen. Cool, man. With the good and the bad, are you glad that you're now, you know, a pinball artist? What do you mean with the good and the bad? that comes along with the job? Well, just look, Ryan and I were talking about this during the week because, you know, we'd seen the criticism and, you know, we talk to you on a regular basis. So I couldn't help but think, fuck, you know, this is Christopher Franchi you're talking about. This is a really great guy that you're being really, really critical. It's really hard as an artist to put your art out there and it gets instantly critiqued. If you were an artist that put a painting up in an art gallery, you might hear some reviews, but you're not going to hear, unless you've got a microphone next to the painting, every single person walking past going, oh, I like it. Another person going, oh, that's a shit painting, right? So this is the difference. As an artist in pinball, your work, which you put hours in, and I know it's a paid job, but it's more than that. I think art is an extension of you and your mind and your emotions. So you're out there and you are exposed You've got the good and the bad You had a good response I believe you had a good response with Guardians And then this one Are you glad you took part of it? Very much so I've loved pinball all my life And I didn't own a bunch of games Actually I only owned two in my lifetime but love pinball and when the door opened and I did it I had such a good time doing Batman and then Guardians I got to do the entire game and I had a full year to do that and enjoy the process of what it was like because Batman was just kind of an animal all its own. I had three weeks and I couldn't explore or ask questions. It was just get the work done. So with Guardians that was more of an eye-opening experience as to what it's like to do that as a job full-time under normal circumstances. And yeah, and I love it. Being a commercial artist for 30 years, I've been in licensing, I've been in all this stuff. The two things I have to look at is, am I doing the property justice and do I like what I'm doing? And that's all that really matters, honestly. You know, I mean, because I can't, you know, I can't talk to every single pinball collector in the world and then come up with, you know, artwork that's going to please them all. You know, it's going to piss somebody, you know. I'm going to get 400 different opinions. So, you know, how can you please all those people at the same time? You can't. It's impossible. You can't take 400 opinions and go, okay, this artwork is made up of 400 different opinions it doesn't work that way so there's going to be people that don't like it and there's going to be people that do like it and as long as Stern is happy with it and as long as the people that are my friends industry people and all the people that I care about and value their opinion as long as they like it, I'm happy I know I'm not going to please everybody it's just impossible but you know I think the thing that makes it difficult is like I said there are those people that you know you know like I said the guy the guy stands on the lawn hey your fucking chalupa sucks you know in pinball that happens in the rest of the world it doesn't but if you look at I'm going to go on Taco Bell's Facebook page after this and I'm going to find someone complaining about some dumb shit yeah but you know but they're not standing on a soapbox yelling it out. They're just like, I tried your chalupa, it's really not that good. You don't have people like in pinball that are like, I'm going to rent out a billboard and tell everybody that the Beatles sucks. And I'm going to ring up the license holder and tell them that whoever has got the license has done a bad job with the license. Yeah, you know, it's a thing all its own and it is what it is. You know, like I said, I want to please everybody. I don't set out saying well half the people aren't going to like this I want to please everybody I want to do the property justice and do what's appropriate for that and when we got the feedback from the Beatles it was unbelievably positive so I knew that I had done my job and everybody at Stern was happy with it I got emails from everybody on the day it was released telling me how great of a job they thought I did and that's what matters to me And, you know, if I could please everybody, great. You know, I certainly don't, you know, somebody on pin side who actually has a valuable, honest opinion that hated it, I'm sorry. But I'm also not sorry because, you know, I did the best I could. And if you don't like it, that's unfortunate. But, you know, I did the best I could. Well, it's not even just the best that you could. You actually did a great job. By any chance, you actually did a great job. art is personal right so people that don't like it doesn't mean that you've done a bad job or a mediocre job or a less than fantastic job you just have done a different art style to what somebody expects yeah you know in critiquing in general though I mean how many times have you read a good you know critique on a movie everybody pans everything all the time because they're afraid to say it's good because if you go if they say a movie's good and you go see it and you thought it sucks you know these critics think that they lost their credibility or something. I don't know. So this is easier to say that was bullshit. That's not how I expected. Well, don't expect anything. Just get what you get and then go, what do I think of this? Oh, Godzilla movie's coming out. All right, I'm going to imagine what that's like. And then when it comes out, it wasn't what I expected. Don't imagine what it's going to be like. Someone else is making it. Someone else is writing it. It's not you. It has nothing to do with you. They're not calling you and asking you for advice. So when it comes out, you either like it or you don't. But I'm pretty sure anybody who made Godzilla, you didn't like that movie, they're not going, oh, damn it. Let's go back to the drawing board, you know. All right. Chris, I just made up a new segment while you were talking over there. This week in Taco Bell social media. This is from Bree Swift. Train your employees to read. Why do you always put jalapeno sauce on my quesadilla every single time? when I ask you nothing. It's not hard to not add an ingredient when it says no jalapeno. Another $4 quesadilla in the garbage. Thanks again. Aaron Richard, your Taco Bell, your chips are the most disgusting things I've ever tasted, strictly because the chip doesn't even taste like a chip. Right? Thank you, everyone. But, you know, across the board, like Reddit and all that stuff, no one's going to take the time to say, I went to Taco Bell and my tacos were delicious. they're just not going to bother but if something goes wrong, oh look out look, you know what I think that social media I'll tell you something people know, I run a call centre and we look after the we call them consumer care lines for very, very well known brands that you would buy in a supermarket, I'm not going to mention them but if you had a bowl of cereal in the morning, chances are it's one of those products that we support. And you would actually be surprised, and we would take, let's say, 50,000 to 100,000 of these calls a year, that the actual majority of calls that come through are people actually ringing in and also emailing in to say how much they like the product. It is actually more positive than the negative complaints. And the complaints that we get are people saying, oh, look, unfortunately there was something wrong with my product, but I just wanted to let you know. So people are, by and large, wanting the positive, but I think in social channels, that's where you just get the negative side. I was just going to say, Marty, if you're writing a personal email to a company, that's a lot different than if you're saying something that, you know, everyone else is going to see. I don't see a whole lot. Like, if you go to, like, you know, you're looking for a new restaurant, and you go to Reddit and you read the, you know, or not Reddit, Like, what's the one? I don't know, whatever. One of those websites where it tells you what people rate the restaurant at. Yelp. People just, nope. You know, like one out of ten is like, oh, we went there and had a great time. And that was probably the owner's cousin. And everyone else is like, you know, I had a cannoli and it was a piece of shit, you know. Or whatever, you know. People just love to bitch. And, again, you know, they put a lot of stock in how creative they are with their bitching because somehow you get points for that, you know. so you know it just is what it is whatever you know it doesn't bother me it really doesn't if anybody's sitting there on pin side kind of trying to write an insult i know one guy i don't even give him any credit by saying his name and i don't even know how to pronounce it anyway but uh he said he called the artwork on uh the beatles hack job art now if he's rolling around right now thinking that he got some press. No, he's just an idiot because I'm not going to say my art is the greatest art in the world. I have my own heroes and people that I look up to, you know, and there are, you know, hundreds of artists out there that are better than me. But I will say this. I know that my artwork isn't hack job art. So when you say that, you just come off like a jealous asshole because I know this guy is also an artist. And I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think he does children's books or something like that. So, look, check your next book aisle in your grocery store for his latest work. But whatever. I don't know. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. Anyway, Chris, we need two promises from you live on air so that you can't back out of them. Yes. I know where you're going. You can't say no because then he's going to pass us an arsehole. I would never tell you guys no. Okay. Can you come on our show the next time a new Kimmel machine is revealed that has your name on it? Can we get a... A PS. A PS? Okay. And our logo, all right, is absolutely disgusting. I won't even wear a T-shirt with our logo on it. And apparently I approved this logo before we started the podcast, but I don't remember that. I'm denying it. If you have time in your week, I know you're a very busy person, can you spend, I don't know how long it takes, something very basic, let's be just the name, head-to-head panel. I now know how you feel, Chris, because that is what I'm saying. It is the most disgusting logo he's ever seen, and I can make that logo. There you go. There you go. Hey, your chalupa sucks, dude. Four dollar down the drain again. In public, no less. Do you have any shame, Ryan? No shame. No shame. I would be happy when I have time. You know, when I say I have time, that doesn't mean you're going to wait six months. It's just, you know, I can't give you something tomorrow. but I would be happy to do a logo for you I did one for the straight down the middle guys not even at that level I don't even need my face or Marty's face on there literally just see now you're walking on thin ice Ryan because if there's one thing I hate because I've got a ton of friends who come to me and go oh you're an artist will you just knock something out and then make my job seem so trivial and easy just take a shit and then I'll take that I've seen your photoshop work when Zach Sharp had a baby, you photoshopped Jeff Teolis' face on his phone. I know you can knock that up. Don't bullshit me. If you want that for a logo, go get it. You can have it. You make it into a Pez dispenser. You photoshop the triceps thing. Okay, so I know you can knock that up. These are visual whims, though. You want me to design something that's going to represent your show. It has to represent it properly. And it has to be something that you can market. it's not just a photo editing thing I think what I'm trying to say needs to be better than my shitty attempt yeah I'll take anything I will take your trash Christopher Franci okay somebody Mrs. Pin told me that she wanted me to send her all of my David Hankin sketches because she was going to sell them because she wanted one and I'm like I just throw that shit away she's like what so she's got to pay for her swag somehow oh my gosh but see I take pride in my work too I'm not going to give you guys anything that I don't think is the best I could do. So, you know, you'll get something good. It's going to take some time. You know, we'll do it right. But, yeah, we can do that. So that was the logo. What was the first one? Oh, the will I be on your show. Why would you ask that? Of course. I was on your show for Guardians, wasn't I? Yeah, yeah. I mean, exclusive. Like, exclusive. Oh, exclusive. No, no, it's just the first. First. But these podcast guys these days, in the past year, they've changed. a year ago, they would take whoever they could get. Nowadays, it's like, oh, you're doing head-to-head? Well, fuck off. I don't want seconds. And it's like, well, what if I just tell them half the stories and I give you guys another half? I'll say it just because I feel bad. The guys at Special Winlet asked me to do the Beatles And I had forgotten that I told you guys I would do it And so I told them I would do it and then I had to go back And actually, you know, there were other things involved, and I had to basically tell them that I couldn't do it, that I had to do your show. And I felt really crappy about that. But, you know, at the same time, I told them, like, well, I can save half the stories and all that. And, you know, I think it just takes the shine off when, you know, hey, we're going to have this guy on. Like, wasn't he just on that show? You know, I guess I understand it, but, you know, it is what it is. So, I don't know. Maybe I owe those guys one. Maybe the next game, you know, I might have to do their show. I don't know. I will definitely do your show. Awesome. Okay. Whether it's after. They tend to have, you know, a shorter show, too. So if I only do a 15-minute interview with them, I've still got 45 minutes of shit to talk to you guys about. So we'll see. On the other hand, if you're going to beg me for more free artwork on the next show, I think I might be busy. Hi, Chris. Thanks, mate. Awesome talking to you again for the second time on our show, and we will speak to you soon. You got it. Thanks for having me. Love your show. You guys are awesome. Keep up the good work. There is, sorry other podcasters, there is nobody better. You guys make me laugh. They've all got better logos, though. You make me laugh every week, and you do a great job. And do I smell twippy? Or is that a chalupa? Hey! No, seriously, thanks for having me. Thanks for the kind words. And everybody else out there who's sent me messages about the artwork. I definitely appreciate it, and I'm glad you like it. That's obviously what I'm striving for. So we'll see what happens in the future. We've got some fun, fun, fun stuff coming out. Awesome. All right. Good stuff. Thanks, Chris. All right, guys. See you. See you. So, Ryan, that was Christopher Franchi on our podcast for the second time. What did we learn this time? Christopher Franchi loves chalupas. Chalupas. I had to look up what chalupas are. We're not very well versed in Mexican food, are we, Marty? Well, we're... Chimichangas, chalupas, there's too many... It's all the same thing, right? It's literally the same food, just packaged slightly different. It's meat, some vegetables, diced up, but it's like you put it in a soft taco roll, you wrap it, you wrap it this way, you wrap it that way. It's the same fucking food, right? Well, I'm sure a lot of Mexicans would differ. I think when you go Tex-Mex, it all seems the same, But, you know, proper Mexican food, there is a lot of variety. So, anyway, we're not here to talk about Mexican food. Let's talk more about Beatles, more Beatles, more Beatles. Beatles, Beatles, yeah. So, what did we learn, Ryan? So, I mean, Jonathan Duesen, this past week, also interviewed Joe Kaminkow, like we did, and Gary Stern. And there was kind of an interesting thing that Jonathan asked Joe, and Chris kind of touched on it as well. and I guess we can, it's one of those weird questions where they answer it, I guess, as truthfully as they can and they don't want to be caught out in a lie. And Martin, do you want to read the question and answer? I will. If you would like. Okay. Obviously, the Beatles made a lot of music in their career. Assuming this game is going to be a success and all games will be sold, would there be a chance in a couple of years you might say, you know what, why not do a Sgt. Pepper's? There's a relation with the licenses. if they like what they did before, could it work? And Joe responds, I certainly wouldn't preclude anything, but nothing is in the works. Right now our focus is let's finish the game, get it in production, get it in the hands of the consumer, see how it does in the marketplace, see how people like it. And obviously there are a lot of different eras of the Beatles, whether it's making a white album or Rubber Soul, who knows? Or Sgt. Pepper's or Yellow Submarine, who knows? There is always that possibility, but for right now we're just going to keep our focus on what we're putting in the market and then we'll assess that and other things we've got, we'll talk about for the future. Obviously, building relationships with licences and having good experiences and having them happy with the result of your hard work, you always keep relationships intact. Now, as I said, like, he has to say that because he's going to say, no, this is it because if that opportunity presents itself and the Beatles flies off shelf, then why would you shut that door and then be called a liar and this, this and that? I don't know whether it's necessarily that. I mean, there's also then saying, nope, this is it, this is exclusive, 1,964 machines are being made, and that's it. So, you know, he's also got to have that balance of saying, nope, this is exclusive, versus, well, we're going to keep the door open and maybe we might do a yellow submarine later. I don't know. Marty, if it took him 10 years to get the licence and he's finally got it, why would he just have a one? I mean, if he's selling it as a collector's piece, and let's be honest, this might play like an absolute dream, but with what they're pricing it at, it's more of a collector's piece than something out there for the masses. So why would you close that door if it took you 10 years to get it? I'm not sure whether he would close the door. And obviously, we're speculating on this. I'm sort of questioning why he would say that anyway. If you're talking about how exclusive these things are, and he said a number of times, you know, this is it. Once you buy it, that's it. Now, obviously, that can be related to once you get these 1964 Beatles, that's it, there's going to be no more 1964 coming to America Beatles. But, you know, I also don't think, like, if in a couple of years he says, you know, due to it being such a massive success, we're now going to do Yellow Submarine because everyone's been talking about it, I don't think people are going to go, oh, you liar. I think some people are going to go, damn, I got the Coming to America one and I really wanted the Yellow Submarine one. But I don't think people are going to sort of begrudge the fact that he's gone, let's do another run with a different Beatles theme. I think the Beatles, the current one, would have to do so well. Like, not only, like, sell out, it would have to sell out and there'd have to be that kind of demand that it would hold value. And, you know, that's yet to be seen. because even though if there was a new Beatles, it would have different art and a different layout and different music, et cetera, it's still a Beatles pinball machine. So how much demand is there? How many extra Spider-Mans did they sell based off a reskin and new art? I don't know. Stern hides those numbers. It was interesting. Gary Stern was also interviewed by Jonathan and he kind of made mention that They're only doing 1,000 this year, so the other 964 will be made next year. And like I said, this is a small run, and we usually make two or three or four times, I think it's not a direct quote, of that amount. So are we to believe that each title, like Iron Maiden and Deadpool, they sell way more than 2,000 units? It's like, what's the multiplication of that? 4,000, 6,000, 8,000? I don't know. They could do it. I don't know. Yeah, they could. You know, I've heard anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 machines they make a year. Now, it's going to be somewhere in between that, I reckon. Probably closer to the 10,000. I've heard between one and a million. It'll definitely be in between that as well. Definitely in between those. So just going back to, you know, Christopher Franchi, really good having him on. and it was kind of good that he sort of had that point of view that, you know, we sort of talked about as well, is that, you know, everyone's got a voice and, you know, your chalupa sucks or whatever it is. And he copped a bit of flack for this one because, you know, it just hasn't been what people expected. But, you know, good on him. I think it looks great and, you know, thank him for coming on the show. I've noticed a couple of things, Marty, about the layout that I wrote down for last week's show. I've been holding on to these absolute amazing nuggets for a week. The skill shot on the B2P1 machine, Marty, sucks because there's no skill involved. It's whitewater, but worse. Like, whitewater, you have to kind of go up that massive ramp, and then it gets your flipper, and you can hit it shut. With this, the gate is, like, right there, and as long as you plunge, like, slow enough, it'll hit the gate and go into the skill shot area, but there's no skill because you can do it a thousand times, like just slightly more, slightly more. Yeah, but, you know, when you've got a lit in lane up the top, that's barely a skill shot either. So, you know. Well, I mean, okay. I mean, the reason I'm saying it is that on Sea Witch, that's not the skill shot because it's impossible to kind of get that shot, but it's advanced the bonus three times. Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how they implement that. The Mystery Award, Marty, is very, very early because it's literally just below the three bank target on the left. And it's really hard for me to hit the bottom target on the three bank to begin with. So that's even lower. And people can chat inlanes and I can't do that. So I guess there's no late shots if you can chat. The last one is if you spell 1964 in automatic, you get bonus points. But all those targets are in the pop-up area. Yeah, it's a bit ragged. So, like, if it was, like, the orbs thing, right, like, the first... What was it? Was it fab? What, fab? Four? So, four. So, fab's on the left, four's in the middle. Yeah, because there's four targets. So, if there's four targets in the middle, then that's skill. But if it's the four targets in the pop-up area, that's just pure luck, and it's fucking impossible to get that. So, just some things that I've noticed. Yeah, unless they have, you know, like the old Solistate Williams, where, you know, they reset the targets if you don't get them in order, if that makes sense. Yeah, I doubt they'll do that, but, you know. And there's also no rubbers. There's no rubbers on Deadpool and there's no rubbers on The Beatles. And they're both, I guess, George Gormez designs. On the outline, you mean? Yeah, I'm just wondering, like, why do that versus just putting no, like just putting a bigger outline or a more adjustable outline? because when you put no rubbers, that means that you can't kind of nudge and I don't know. It's weird. Yeah, I agree with you on that. I think that's a bit odd. Anyway. Anyway, 30 coming to Australia only out of the first 1,000. That means three diamonds, six platinums, and what's the other? Yep. Gold. Yeah. How many does that mean? Six or three? No, it doesn't make sense. Oh, sorry. Yeah, 21. 21 golds. Platinums are sold out. Diamonds are sold out. the Australian distributor kind of works in conjunction with the two other sub-distributors. So I know people are having a hard time in the US getting a straight answer as to the question, how much does a diamond cost and how much does a platinum cost? Well, we know, don't we? Well, in Australia, it was fairly simple. It was $13,500 Australian dollars, including tax for the gold, $2,000 more for the platinum, $2,000 on top of that for the diamond. So, $17,500 Australian dollars, which equals, I think, about $12,600, I think it was, US dollars, including tax, which is cheap in comparison to the numbers that people are throwing out in the US. Well, considering someone, I'm not going to say who it was, sort of alluded to the fact that they might go for $50,000. Well, hey, no. Someone even posted on Pinside that in, like, some European country or something, like, he got quoted $50,000. It's valid. $50,000 what? I'm ashamed of some of the rumors that have thrown out there, but that one was not false. No, because that came from a distributor finding a customer and saying, hey, the new Diamond Beatles is going to come out. Do you want one? I've got one coming in, $50,000. Yes. That's where the rumor came from. Done. Anyway, moving on from Beatles. Well, yes. So, speaking of licenses, though, and Kapow. So, Kapow did put out there a bit of a survey on what would you want Kapow to do next. This was two years ago, Marty, and a lot of people have forgotten about this, haven't they? I know. There were some interesting titles on that list, including the Beverly Hillbillies. Okay. Well, how would you think? If someone came out and said, okay, the next title from Stern and Kapow is Beverly Hillbillies, how would you feel about that? Stern could sell anything right now, mate. They're going to be selling the Munsters. I just don't get it, okay? I'm not old enough. I maintain, and I'll get to me, I was playing Adam's Family last night, and I was playing it thinking, I wish they could remake Adam's Family. And there you go. Munsters. Done. Okay. Done. So, the titles that were on it were The Three Stooges. What do you think about that? Yeah. I mean, it would drive you crazy after a couple of months, but sure. Monsters, Willy Wonka, Beatles, Beverly Hillbillies, Young Frankenstein, A Christmas Story. I don't know what The Christmas Story is. What is that? Is there like a Christmas movie called A Christmas Story? I think so, maybe. Or is it just a generic, we'll do it Christmas-themed? I'm Googling it right now, Marty, because I know people are just screaming at us saying, you don't know what Child Ahead is? What the hell? Christmas story. It's a 1983 comedy that has 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, which means it must be good. 89%. Amazing. Big, nerdy little kid's glasses. It's like the young Harry Potter. I have no idea what it is. Surely this is not like a thing. Anyway, Young Frankenstein. Yeah. Isn't that just like a really shit movie? Or is that something... I'm thinking about something else. Was Jean Frankenstein the one that had another Gene Wilder one? Was that? Yeah. Okay, yeah. Yeah. You're right. Yeah, there you go. 1978. It was a popular movie. I probably should know this. Yeah, I don't know. This is 10 years before I was born, guys, so I know you're screaming. I mean, it was a fun film. I mean, you know, there's, you know, not much that Gene Wilder did that wasn't funny. So, yeah, we know and we're pretty sure that Mugslid is coming next. So it's funny that literally from that survey, I remember being at Expo and everyone was like, really, these titles? Like, sure, they wouldn't make these titles and it would be possible, but that's two titles from that list. So that might possibly give an indication of what would come afterwards. Well, was it in this Willy Wonka? And, you know, we were talking about this during the week because I've made you download an iOS game. Yes, and my phone ran out of space when I deleted it before I played it. Very good. What was it, Willy Wonka's World of Candy or something? Yes. You know, it's one of those match-three-things sort of games. Very, very high quality, I've got to tell you. And, you know, we've heard before, you know, Joe's talked about, you know, teams of people, and I know other people that talk about Teams, people that... These apps. There's like 1,700 people on these Teams. How many? Like 70 to 100 people work on these apps. Okay. And these apps don't cost anything, but then you have to pay for extras. So it's big business, this stuff. Anyway, so Willy Wonka. So it's a Vinga game. Mm-hmm. Right? Which is affiliated with Joe. Mm-hmm. But the rumour is that Jersey Jack's doing Willy Wonka next. Correct. So what does that mean for the license? Joe Kaminkow doesn't have it. What do you want it to mean? Well, yeah, I just want to work out whether somebody is the license holder and they can then farm out certain things. I'm just, yeah, I guess, well, it's either two things. Either Joe's got the license and they're not doing it, because no one's confirmed that Willy Wonka is the next Jersey Jack Pusher, have they? Well, no one's confirmed. The Munsters either, Marty, have they? Hmm, have they? Anyway, and there's actually a thread that's on Pinside saying, you know, will Willy Wonka be the next, you know, JJP title? Who knows? Jack knows. Just on JJP, last week I made two mistakes when talking about Daldin and Pat Lawler. one is that the dulled in code the new code leaves the sim card lit that's not true that's just the person that I was playing the machine was cheating and I forgot that wasn't the default setting so no it's still the same rules and I also said that Ted did he say his last name Ted Essies did the code on Twat Zone which he didn't I realised that as soon as I finished the podcast it's not him his first game was Demoman So correction on that That's it Hey Marty Prime a Stimble Machine What about it? Do you know what the layout is? No Okay Do you? Yeah Cool Awesome Move it on Is it like an old Stern that they're remaking? So Jeff Teolis did an interview with Joe Balsa this week about Oktoberfest, Marty Yes Yeah Are you moving it on really quickly? Yeah If you don't know, you don't know, Marty. I'll tell you after the show, just to tease everyone and to be really fucking annoying. Jeff Wallace interviewed Joe Bustos really good. We'll link him in the show notes. He was an hour and a half interview. Jeff, he's really good in the pinball profile thing, Marty. No more five-minute interviews. They're getting long. And I think the information out of that interview was that Observer Fest should be shipping around January. He's fixing some little things, including the screw projections, which I think Jeff mentioned when he was on the show with us. And the Apple Flipper might, and this is, like, it's possible via software, but Jeff was talking about how Roller Games, one of your favorite pinball machines, Marty, will do the automatic flip thing. And Joe said, you know... Automatic flip thing. Sorry, it saves the ball for you automatically, and you say, don't flip. Flip. Well, yeah, it holds the ball at the tip of the flipper. Yeah, and as long as you flip, you make the shot. There's no skill except for flipping when it tells you to flip. Wait, what happens if you flip when she says don't flip? Does it still count the shot, or is it like... Yeah, it does. It does. I mean, you're trying... It's really they're yelling out to you saying don't flip. Most people flip anyway, and it's... Is it like settling the ball down sort of like... Okay, okay. I know my theater of magic, it wasn't like calibrated properly, and whenever you would use that, the MagnaSave down the outlanes, whatever it's called, would activate, it would still be wobbling when it lets go, and it would just always chuck it down the lane. It was so frustrating. Anyway, so Joe Buzzard said it is possible to kind of make a thing flip, so I guess Phantom Flip, where it'll detect where the ball is from the magnet, let it go, and automatically flip and get it up that. Yeah, but that's all in timing, and that would be, I guess, very dependent on the pitch of the game. so we'll see so yeah we'll leave that in the show notes awesome so do you know I'm just going to reveal to all our listeners a conversation we had a few weeks ago Brian yeah where I'm not going to say who said what to who but someone said we should make a book we could do a pinball book they're really easy that's a private conversation mate I'm not saying who said it okay but we've had a bit of a a bit of drama in the publishing slash pinball book world this week Ryan yeah and it's to do with Todd Tucky and I think I can't remember when we first talked about Todd Tucky getting a 10 book deal where we just like no Kickstarter you know just you can find a book when it's ready go and support Todd but we didn't really know what was no we just reported any old shit yeah and we just told people to go buy stuff and then we're like oh shit like let's not tell people to buy anything don't buy anything definitely don't take our recommendations is the summary of this story so Todd Tuck he's a a YouTube sensation he has a YouTube channel but he's also basically a I'm not sure if he distributes pinball machines but basically he buys and he repairs and he repairs yeah He employs a lot of people, and he's very well-known in the pinball community because of all these videos. He has 1,500 videos on YouTube, thousands of hours. So basically, he got a 10-book deal with a bunch of people, and he announced dates. We were actually going to get him on the show, Marty. And not just an idea, let's get him on the show. We rang him up, and we were ready to record. Okay, let's just quickly let everyone know what's happening. The book deal has kind of fallen through. The first book came out. It wasn't really to Todd Tucky's liking. There were mistakes. It wasn't proofread, I guess. There was a section that wasn't meant to be in there, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors. There was a section that was duplicated. The paper was on phone book thing quality. It was just not great. And basically, Todd, people were kind of asking questions in the thread and kind of complaining, and then Todd was silent about it, and then a couple of days later he said, you know, sorry, guys, you know, I'm parting ways with the company. You know, I enjoyed doing the book, blah, blah, blah. But the next kind of nine books won't be – I won't be involved with them, and I wish them all the best. And that was it, and everyone was like, okay, like, something has up. There's a story here, and then the guy came on, and, man, we thought Jeff Gillis was harsh when he came on our show. he just let loose as a Canadian. This guy is just the worst Canadian out there because he's just... I don't know if you've read... I copied and pasted what he said, Marty, but the thread is now like a couple of hundred posts longer where it was just Todd Tuckett did this and he asked for money on this and his business is going down the drain and just all these kind of outlandish comments with kind of no proof to back him up. If you like drama, I will link it in the show notes and you can get your drama fixed very easily. It's an interesting read. And here's the thing that's really interesting about this is you've actually got very different sides of the story. And we don't know, but what is truth? Ryan, what is truth? All we know from our end is that, as I said, we want to get Totsaki on before Expo, and we thought, you know, talk about the book for a little bit, what's in the book, he can plug it, and then he can ask me about all the funny stories he's had along the years. So we rang Todd, we messaged Todd, and he said, I want to have the book in my hand when I talk about it. I'm not going to be advertising and telling people how cool this book is and pretend that I have it in my hand, because I haven't actually seen it. And that was a bit weird to us, because we were like, well, I thought you were making it, but he was just providing the information for someone else to make the book. Yeah. So that kind of dragged on for almost like two weeks. I haven't got it yet, haven't got it yet, haven't got it yet. And then people started to get it even before Todd. And then we actually called him because he said, I'm going to get it on Friday. So we called him on Friday and he's like, oh, you know, I still don't have it. And like he flat out said, like, I'd rather do this kind of like next week. But we already had someone booked on the show, so we couldn't do it. But that says something to me personally that he didn't want to plug his product if he didn't know what it was. Yeah. Well, and he said that the first he saw of the book was when he received his copy like everybody else. Yeah. So that says something about his character enough for me to know that, you know, as I said, he could have been on the show saying, oh, yeah, I love my book and this, this, that, but as I said, he didn't have it in his hands. So he will be on the Special Endlet podcast, I think, this week. Hopefully they touch on that situation and we get his side of the story. but if you're not into drama, then be clear of the link in the show notes. No. It's just... Anyway, we're not doing a book run. Okay. Fine. It was like a five-second thought. I was just like, hey, we can just like... We can talk about it for a few hours. Yeah. All right. Fuck you, Marty. One day, one day, we'll do a book. Is it time for a special mini-watch? Yes, it is. Wait, wait. Do we do that, or do you just insert that awesome sound that you just last played? I'll do both. I may have pre-recorded a whole heap of voiceovers from the same person. If you guys don't know, that's literally from everyone's childhood about Channel 7 and 209 News. Anyway, social media watch. The ISPA companion app, Marty. If you're into the international flipper, pimble, what's that? Yeah, the pimble association. Yeah, okay. I am totally, totally into IPA, yeah. Have you downloaded the app yet, Marty? Yes, I have. Like, literally, like, right when I told you with the show. No, I've downloaded it. I haven't opened it. Okay. Well, it's, yeah, it's not on Android, but I saw the guy asking for suggestions on tilt forums, and this is the number one feature, which I always thought was so weird. Like, if you run a comp money, and you've done it before where you were, like, doing Facebook ads, and you're like, how do I get people to know about my comp? And my question was even simpler than that. I'm like, there's so many people that play competition pinball in Melbourne, but it's so hard to, like, I have to, like, spam everywhere where they are. It's like, tell your friends, like, this comp is on. Whereas if you have the IPA Companion app, it might be possible, and I'm not sure if this is a feature yet because I don't have the app, but you register your location and your IFBA number, it knows where you are. Whenever there's a new tournament registered in your location, it'll let you know. And hopefully it'll be smart enough that you click a button, add to calendar, boom. You've just like, there's 1,000 people in Melbourne that might rock up to your comp now. More like 50, but, you know, I'll say 1,000. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. A follow-on from last week's. It was in Social Media Watch where Jersey Jack announced that Pirates was number two on Pinside. Oh, that was a great idea. It's number 12. Yeah. Pins sliding down. It pins sliding. It was always going to happen. I know. Yeah. But, you know, I made it back up to number five. Okay. Hey, Marnie, we talked about IFBA. I was about to segue to, did you hear about Pinball Jesus? No, he suppressed himself for our sins, and now he's back. Really? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know why Bowen Kieran's back. We had him on the show, but we never... He's back. He's currently number 12. Yeah. For people that don't play pinball, basically the IFPA introduced this deal in the US where if you want to register a competition, each player has to put $1 towards this big key that gets divided up into state championships and national championships, etc. I'm probably getting that wrong, but anyway. Yeah, it's for the state national championships and the promotion in general. Yeah, sure. So say if I ran a competition that was free and I had 50 people, I would still have to pay $50 to have it as an official event. That hasn't hit Australia yet. I'm not sure if it is. Probably not yet. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, maybe. Anyway, a lot of people complained about Charries, this, this and that. Bowen Kierens didn't agree with it. A lot of people didn't agree with it, but he said he wanted his profile, kind of like his ranking, suppressed. He didn't have... Big statement at the time. Yeah. And, I don't know, I was having a look at the results for the 24 hours at the slington, and he's back up there. Yeah. I don't know why. I'm not sure if he's made an official statement. Welcome back, Bowen. It's good to have you back, mate. Yeah. in time those ranks. Marty, YouTube. Are you a fan of YouTube? I am. In particular this week, I have been watching a lot of YouTube. In fact, a sample of my pasta. So, keep going. A sample of your pasta? Yep. What are you talking about? I'm going to totally link this. This YouTube clip has been in my head. It's not pinball related, guys. Daniel Pongwreck he will know exactly what I mean it's a song that is a complete earworm and it is stuck in my head so anyway there you go save all of my pasta but you know you tell your story okay we now have a head to head YouTube page Martin really go on YouTube and type in head to head pinball okay do it what am I gonna find you're gonna find every fucking episode we've done converted to a video file and uploaded, Marty. Thanks to Andrew Clark, who created a script for me to literally convert all of the MP3s into MP4 files. So thank you, Andrew Clark, very much for saving me hours of scratching my head. Awesome. Well done. Yeah. Do you know how long it took to upload that, Marty? Four days. Really? Anyway. Yeah. Great. Well done. YouTube. YouTube, yeah. So, okay. So, I guess... It's an example of my pastor. So we are linked. So, yeah, I guess every week now there's just one more thing we have to do. We have to upload it to YouTube. I guess it's stupid to watch the show on YouTube. It does convert to basically the same amount of data as listening to audio because it's just a static image. It's not video processing as well. So you're not going to use more data if you listen to YouTube. but a lot of people have YouTube Reds or Premium or whatever it's called so you can listen in the background. So if you want to subscribe to us on YouTube we'll also upload some videos and cool stuff there. I'll link it in the show notes, mate. Yeah, good on you, mate. Good on you, son. Awesome. Is that it for social media? Go to your store and put some toys in them. Some pinballs in the toy hall, same. That's a follow-up to the story we did ages ago but I don't care about it now. It's a great story. So, yeah. Gave it as much attention. A Black Knight and a Star Wars, Marnie. Oh, okay. Black Knight's a great game. Yeah, it is. I love the multiplayer rule in it. Are we ready for Ping Slam? Are we doing it, Marnie? Yep. You didn't think of a new segment? No. All I've been thinking about all week, but no. Every time I think of something, I'm like, oh, someone does that. Well, someone messaged me and said, the games that you're doing, like, hardly anyone really knows about, you should take suggestions from people and say, like, you know, what's better bang for buck? You know, the Beatles' Spinwall Machine or Mafia or something like that. I'm like, well, that's actually probably better, but that's this or that. But then I was like, well, can you say this or that's a top one? Like, we've already ripped off another, enough of other podcasts. We don't need to do another one. Okay. We'll come up with something fresh and exciting. Anyway, Pinslam. So last week Corvette was mine and you got Centaur 2 And you are shitty Yeah I am You are Because you said, oh, Marnie didn't even say one bad thing about Centaur. Yes, I did. I said it's overpriced and it's like the Super L.A. But overpriced what, now or then? No one cares how much a pinball machine was 30 years ago. No, but here's the principles of pin slam. You created this shit segment, so you know, it's, you can either slam the other machine, or you can promote further your own machine. And I talked about Corvette some more. Okay, I will make a new pin slam. Yeah, you won. 50 to 45, and Marty absolutely like jizzes, bags of jizz over censor, so everyone's fooled. They really were. You have to choose your own gift now. I'm not choosing. Because that was my gift that was fucking amazing of that little kid driving in slow motion in the Corvette. So choose your own fucking gift. If you're going to beat me, just buy your own gift. I'm going to gift strike. I'll do my gift. You do your gift. Anyway. All right. Let's do it again. Please generate a number from 100 to 200. Sure. 111. Is firepower? Firepower. Of course it is, Marty. And when I generate yours, let me just do it. Yes. Got this. Let's go. Okay? Is that what it is? Please generate a number from 100 to 200. Okay. Okay. 166. Maverick Love it It almost Could have been a worse game Oh my god Just Okay I'm gonna I'm gonna work this one This is gonna be amazing Okay Firepower Firepower Marty Sold 17,000 units. Everyone always quotes the numbers of Adam Stanley, but this is right up there, and this is before the pinball, you know, the 90s pinball resurgence. Steve Ritchie, game, Marty, you love Steve Ritchie. We talk about innovation and pinballs of its time. This pinball shat over any other pinball in terms of innovation, because, Marty, did you know that this was the first fucking pinball machine with multiball? Now, that might not seem like much now, but back in the day, that was a new thing. You got one ball, here you go, more than one ball, okay? And as I said, it's very hard to think about that now, but it's like, because we don't know what else to do with pinball. We always say, well, there isn't much more we can do. Like, it's just repeating things over and over again. Can you imagine if there was a new machine that came out from Deep Root or whoever, and it's just like, here's this new thing that you've never seen before. first pinball machine with lane changing features Marty, so you don't have to sit there and bump the shit out of your pinball machine 5 pound Marty beat that with Maverick, what are you going to say about 1994 Maverick in actual fact it's Maverick the movie it's full title it actually yeah Did you love playing it at Pinwheel Paradise, Marty? Did you love playing all, like, with just breakdown and stuff? It's actually, it is actually a better game than people give it credit for. The worst thing about this machine is the back glass. It is just horrendous. The art in general is kind of okay. Sorry, Morgan. Have you seen the movie, Marty? No, I haven't. Okay. I haven't. But this has actually got a decent layout. It's actually got a good rule set as well. It's got, you know, the boat as well that you lock the balls in. Sometimes it works. It's an interesting game. Maverick, the movie, whatever. But the game, thumbs up, buddy? Yeah, it's actually a very enjoyable game. I think it's very underrated. It's got great rules by Lonnie and Ryman. So, you know, the two L's, you can't go wrong with that. Okay. Yeah. Maverick isn't fun, and that boat, it just takes too long. You know, like if they got rid of that boat lock thing where the board just takes forever, it interrupts the flow of Playmari, and we don't like that. We like flowy games like Steve Ritchie's Firepower. And I've already said enough. This game is just full of innovation, and it made operators just insane amounts. It changed the industry. All the games without multiple money from 1980 onwards, like all the shit that Stern was producing, yes, it's getting popular now because people are fucking bored, but back then it was like, if you were a distributor, if you were sliding pinball machines, why would you get anything else but games that had multiple, like Firepower? I remember, just one more thing, I remember reading a story on Aussie Arcade where a guy wrote this story about how he was an operator back in the day, and there was this pinball machine that came out, and the bowling alley called him and said that the machine's broken after like a day and he went down there and it wasn't broken. It was just, there was so many 20 cent pieces that were stacked up because there was a crowd around the machine continuously and it was like, guess what the pinball machine was? And no one could guess it. And it was like, it was firepower, man. multiball made people pay attention. Firepower. What can you say about Maverick? Has it ever had a crowd around it, Marty? Yep, it certainly has. Trying to fix the lock. More like, yeah, a crowd of Totsaki's employees throwing up a roof. I'm not going to talk about Mavic. What's been said has been said. Let me tell you about Firepower. In fact, let me talk to you about a machine called Balls-a-Poppin'. Have you ever heard of that game, Balls-a-Poppin'? No, mate. No. I know you know what it means. Okay. It was a 1956 game by Bally. Without any flippers, Marty. It was the first game that had multiball. Sorry? What's that? Is that silence, Ryan? His argument is a fucking lie, everybody. Lie. Vote for Maverick. At least I told you the truth. Yeah. It might have worked last week, Marty. It might have worked last week, Marty. Also, the artwork on Firepower is really bad. It actually is really bad. And also, all you do, light the spinner and hit spinner. Spinner, spinner, spinner, spinner, spinner, spinner. Boring. People didn't know that when they were pumping cork. Well, we'll talk about that now. Right? Yeah, and what do you do in Maverick, Marty? You fucking stare into Mel Gibson's face and a bag of jizz just comes out. He's got bedroom eyes. He's got rapey eyes. All right. That's pin slam. Slam the top pin slam. That'll be on Wednesday or Tuesday. You can vote on who is the winner, and Marty will have to choose his gift. What are you going to do? You're going to do a male Gibson gift? Yep. Okay, I'm going to appeal to the males out there. I'm sorry, any females. It's going to be a chick holding, like, guns and firing in a bikini. Firepower. She has firepower. Okay. Go the chick way. Yeah. Right. So, you know, a vote for Ryan is a vote for sexism in pinball. yeah sure I'll take it sure you need everything you can get to win I am really pulling everything out so alright this weekend pinball money do you want to go first yeah sure why not so I decided to do something a little bit unconventional when I streamed last night so I went to friend of the show Eric's place again he's got 35 machines and I decided to stream two of the worst games that have ever been made. In tourism. Like, side-by-side, back-to-back. Pat Lawler Classic. Adam's Family and Twilight Zone. Everybody's fucking throwing food at the TV now, going, boo, get off. These machines are terrible. But I thought I'd stream them just because, side-by-side, you know, have a bit of a revisit of them. They do this every year, Marty. You're like, I just wanted to have one more chance for the machine to change my mind, and guess what? I still fucking hate it. Guess what? Is that what you're going to say? Guess what? What? I hate Adam's Family. I don't hate Twilight Zone. Okay. You've come around to Twilight Zone. I have. And what's really interesting is when you play them side by side, what you realize is that Twilight Zone is a much improved Adam's Family. in the sense of what? In the sense that it's got a very similar rule set and very similar in what you do, you know, hit the ramp and then hit the scoop. But because it's a wide body, you've actually got extra ramps and extra things to do. And yes, it was punishing as usual, and that left out lane was an absolute nightmare, as it always is. But I just felt I was having a lot more fun with it than Adams, that's all. Yeah. Yeah. And you could almost, I mean, if they ever create a robot to play pinball, I think Adam's Family and Twilight Zone would be, you know, one of those modern games where you could, there wouldn't be that much programming to get a high score, right? You know, like, trap the ball, wait for it to feed. But yeah, anyway. I'll tell you another thing that happened. I had a glass-related incident, a GRI. Okay. So I was putting in... Before I got my Iron Maiden, you gave me a little Iron Maiden figurine. Yes. Which I gave off somebody else. Yeah, that's right. So thank you, whoever that person was. You were amazing. Jason. Thanks, Jason. So I decided to put it in my machine. Now, that sounds pretty easy. All I had to do was get some double-sided tape, or I used carpet tape that you gave me, and I placed it on there, and that's fine. but this we're going to categorize this under Marty should really not be anywhere near pinball machines because what I did was I lent the glass of it in the front of the next machine ah you never ever do that Marty it goes in between the machines I thought this would be really quick yeah so the glass fell onto the floor but it didn't break because just as it happened, I managed to get... And it was because of that freaking PDI glass, you can't see it. So I just managed to put my foot underneath it just in time. But that could have been an absolute disaster. So I shouldn't be touching my machine. So you need to come over, even if it's something as simple as... I'm not coming over. No, you have to. No, fuck off. No, you do. Now, I learned a long time ago, I think it was my kid when she was like four years old. I mean, I did the same thing. You put the glass leaning on the machine next to it in front. and what happens is she goes up and grabs it and she almost fell backwards with the glass on top of her. So I never ever do that anymore, regardless of how old they'll be, because you also forget and you move between the machines to catch the edge of it. So I put it in between, sandwiched in between the machines, and that way no accidents can happen. And I saw you do that, and I've been doing that. With this one, I just thought, you know what? This will be a two-minute job, no big deal. Yeah. You also came over to pay some Demoman money. That's in the both section. Okay. So I also went to a pinball meet. So thank you, Curse. Curse is the one from Aussie Arcade that's been organising the monthly meet and it was at his place. And you weren't there. No. But you know what was there. Pinball party boss. Pinball party boss was there. Hey, nice Facebook live video, Marty. Yep. Enjoyed watching it. No, because I was waiting for you to turn up so we could do a Facebook Live video, and what happened? I fell asleep at, like, 10 o'clock. I was just... And it was Chanel's birthday the next day. I just couldn't do it. I'm going to turn... I've made a promise to myself that I'm going to turn into a bigger arsehole than I already am, and I will say no to more things if it's not suitable for me. Fair enough. Okay. And I'll be a happier pinball person, money. Okay, cool. Anyway, it was a great event. somebody might have been playing PSVR and might have... I heard about that. What happened? Someone was playing... Yeah, someone was playing... So, okay. The friend of the show, Phil. Hi, Phil. Hoddy. He has built a... Almost like, you know, the last... The front, let's say, a third of a pinball machine. and as sort of almost like an arcade cabinet on legs with a plunger and slippers, and then you put your PSVR helmet on and then you play pinball, right? Yeah. So, you know... What software is it using? I don't know. I think they just hooked... I think it's almost like they've hooked... They've unhooked the PlayStation controller up and, you know, wired it all together. So I played pinball on PSVR quite a lot, and it's fun, but, you know, you've got a controller in your hand. Yeah, you know what he's doing. What actually happened when I played this, and I was only playing one of the pinball FX tables. I think it might have been Back to the Future. And as the ball nearly went out, I fucking nudged that machine, just instinctively. And it was that moment when I went, okay, this now feels like pinball. Does it have nudging technology in it? Yeah, apparently it does. Okay. Cool. So it was a massive surprise. But because it's hooked up to a PlayStation, you can actually play other games with PSVR anyway, right? So someone was playing this game. It's a soccer game where the ball comes to you and you've got to bounce the ball from your head into the goal. Okay. And, hmm, so what happened, and I happen to be watching all of this, was somebody sort of lost their balance a little bit and went to grab something in front of them like you normally would, but there's nothing there. Nothing left there. Okay. So instead, their head hit the corner of a cabinet. Okay. Was there blood involved? There was blood. Okay. Yep. I don't know why I'm laughing. I'm laughing. Is there footage of this? Are there pictures? I am very disappointed that there is no footage. But what was really interesting was it was like, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God. Okay, everyone, next round of shots. Yeah. It was awesome. And the last thing that's happened in my week, I'm leaving this to the last minute, I know, but I have actually now purchased all my streaming gear. And the problem is, this is for Flipout, and we're going to go into Flipout later in detail. It's all going to arrive the week before Flipout. That's just so silly, Marty. You're just going to stress yourself out. Completely. Building a computer. Okay. So, there you go. Why didn't you buy it from Australia? Because it's a lot cheaper to buy it overseas. Okay. A lot cheaper. Even with our exchange rate, it is still so much cheaper. Exchange rate, shipping to someone in the US, US to Australia is for cheap images. Correct. So one of the things that I bought was the capture card, right? Yeah. So I won't tell you how much it was. Yeah, why was it so much? Okay, anyway. Because it's a card that goes in your computer that allows you to have four HDMI inputs. Thank you, Caldeangelo. It was the best piece of advice you can give me. So even with the exchange rate and shipping, it's still probably about $200 cheaper to go overseas than to buy it locally. Okay. You've put a value on your stress that doesn't cost $200. If that's just one item of all the things that I bought, I've probably saved about $1,000. Okay. Anyway, there you go. Streaming is expensive. Lucky you have all those subscribers on Twitch that just give you millions of dollars in money. If you can go to a tier 2 sub, guys, that would be great. Okay. That was my week. Together you came over to pick up some stuff and we played. Some mirror plays. Yeah. Yeah. We played a game. That's how we met. Yes. It was like a meme for the first time. So romantic. We played some Demoman and I'm guessing you're going to tell me that you still hate it. No. Not at all. Okay. Not at all. I am actually now really warming to that game quite a lot in fact. Because you understand the rules again. Because I understand the rules and also because it has it does have an awkward layout. It just does. Alright? Yeah. And in particular, you know that right ramp? It's really awkward, but God, it's satisfying when you hit it. It's satisfying shots. The whole game has got what I thought was a really awkward, unconventional, just never felt right layout, I'm now finding really satisfying. Yeah. And I know you don't like games, Marty, when they're too hard. And mine was set up. I mean, it took us, like, I don't know, like 20 games to get into the second multiball or something. Mine set up pretty hard. Anyway, this week, Marty, I announced last week that I'm part of the Stern Army. Go Stern, go Stern. I got my Stern Army package just today, and it's freaking huge. Did a little unboxing video on the Melbourne Timberland's page. It was super low resolution, so don't bother watching it. But I didn't know it was in there, right? It's like trans lights. There's all this cool stuff I can get away with. The dog tag's muddy. Yes. You have one muddy. I have 50, bitch. I feel like, and I'm not complaining about this. It was just, I was trying to figure out, like, what I'm going to do with all these items. I feel like they just kind of went by, like, I don't know, like, the plastic section out the back and just, like, got a handful of stuff and just, like, chucked it in. because there's like target decals for ACDC and there's a couple of plastics for ACDC. But the weirdest fun might be that there's a sticker and if you open up Iron Maiden, you'll see this sticker in your coin door that says optional slam tilt. Right? Have you ever seen that before? It's a sticker. Okay. How many stickers do you think they sent me of optional slam tilt? 40. Okay. 325. Why? First of all, why do I need one? Why do I need 300 and 300? Why? I'm not saying this about Stern Army. No, I'm not bagging them. I'm just saying, I don't know what to do with them. I have to write an email saying, do I give these away like 40 to each person or something? I don't know. So what is the sticker saying? Optional. Optional slam tilt. Maybe it's meant to be a joke. Put it on the back of your car. Optional slam tilt. Oh, slam into my car, please. Anyway, that's it. It all makes sense now. Yeah, so lots of cool stuff to give away at the next Tickle Paradise meet. I got that car. What else did you get? Like, besides the stickers, you also got, like, trans lights and stuff as well, didn't you? Yeah, there's, like, nine trans lights, keychains. I got a lapel pin for me with my ranking. I'm not sure if the more I rank up, I get, like, a new ranking. Yeah, I don't know. I guess that means I have to wear the same clothes every single time I go to a sports event. Well, you do anyway, so. Hey, don't make the pinball cult two days in a row, Marty. Gotcha. Sea Witch, Marty. I finally got the flappy dappy bit for my Sea Witch, and wow. One little bit that was wrong in my pinball machine for 14 months or something just makes so much fucking difference. It makes the plunge different. It makes the feed different to the upper flipper. I looped three times in a row, Marty, and it feels fucking amazing. It's so fast. And, yes, I feel like a complete idiot for not realizing earlier and Sea Witch now works like it's meant to work. Awesome. I love Sea Witch. Yeah. Unless I get against it on Sam the Top 100 and then it's a terrible game. But sure. It's already been done. Oh, good. Except the Jesse Ellis episode. I think it won because the other thing was like Alien and... Yeah, it was up against some crappers. Yeah. Bought another machine this week, Marty, for no good reason at all. Yeah. Is that the one that I already know about? Yeah, yeah. Lethal Weapon 3? Have you had much of a play of it? Like, has it arrived? No, no. Just... This is what happens if you pay someone before you get the machine and they live in the same state. They're like, okay, well, now I can just sit there on the machine and not give it to you. Right, okay. No, I mean, I could go and pick it up, but they offered to bring it for free, so I'll just patiently wait. Fair enough. Well, I mean, I'm part of the Stern Army now, and data is part of Stern, so I just wanted to show my extra support towards the globe brand that is Stern. Yeah, okay. Yeah. It's not Simon Sol's Grand Prix yet, though, money. I don't get that. I do in a way that I just don't think people really know that machine all that well because it just came out at a bit of a lull. There wasn't that much pinball around, so people don't know it, but it's such an underrated machine. Guess what, Marnie? I've got three emails about the machine. There's a couple of mobile offers that I tomfuck off, but three questions about the machine. One, will you please tell me your demolition man that's in the background? No. It was literally like right, right in the background. Second email, is your ACDC for sale? No, it is not. But. And the third one, hey, you don't have it pictured, but you don't have a chance to have a No Good Gophers or a T-Duff. I really want a golf game. No. Fucking hell. Not one question about Grand Prix. Oh, hey, like, does this look good? I've got to take a video because I'm now starting to think that people actually don't know what Grand Prix is. Like, they haven't seen any footage of it. They don't know what it is. How about we come over and stream it on Wednesday night, and then you can link the stream? No, that can't be fun. I can be either. All right. There you go. All right. Mailbag. So, mailbag. Okay. So, the first one. So, we've had, really, a couple of emails sort of really kind of telling us what Child Ahead means. Yep. So, we didn't know what it meant. So, did you notice that, like, all the explanations are pretty much different? Well, kind of. Well, we do obviously know that people that are from New Robert Englunds, I think, are obsessed with seafood and, in particular, a clam chowder dish. So, they call them chowderheads. So, yeah, that was answered by George and Nixon. Yeah. And also, we were also told that, you know, sanctum took place in Connecticut, not Cincinnati. It's like the sea in Cincinnati. California, Cincinnati. Not bothered. You know? Yeah. It's like, do people listening to this podcast know the difference between Melbourne and Sydney? No. Probably not. We're just in Australia. We've just got, you know, koalas and kangaroos in the street. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we do. Got anywhere from G? Yes. Yes, here we go. I said, hey guys, love the show. As someone who grew up with three pins, two EMs and one early solid state, who recently started playing in a local league, I thought I was a pinball aficionado. Thanks for showing me how much I have to learn and keeping me entertained. Have you ever considered interviewing a homebrew designer? No. And you know why? It's just me and Marty, I mean, a lot of people are so deep into the hobby, and the hobby just keeps on spiraling deeper and deeper and deeper, and I have to stop myself from being interested in things. Like, I'm only interested right now in Stern's Solid State, not because I think there's anything wrong with the Bellies and the Williams of that time. I just can't afford, I don't have space, and I can't invest any of the small brainpower I have left into learning about all these other games. and homebrew is amazing. And once I'm into that, I will interview people that are into it. But am I into EMs? I just can't be. I can't be into everything pinball. It's already too much as it is. It is quite a lot, if we're honest. So, you know, when I went to the meet on Saturday night, someone said to me, you know, you really should interview the Hackers guys. so hi Axel it was Axel the last and I said yeah you know what not now yeah when they have something to actually talk about yeah that's right because they're already talking about the stuff that like every week there's a new episode on Haggis Pinball so they're telling us what they want to show yeah once they reveal a pinball machine and we can actually you know and if they don't talk about it enough we can dive deeper into it with them that's exactly right you know we'll watch all the videos and then hopefully we'll have a question that they haven't sort of given us any information on. So I'm kind of like that in that I'm interested somewhat in homebrew. But, yeah, you're right. There's still so much that we need to just be keeping up. And the other thing about the homebrew is that we never, I mean, we talk about a lot of stuff that people don't get access to, but a homebrew pinball machine, that's a one-stop. Like, you know, we talked about for five minutes about that machine that you played at Pinfest. but if we did a one hour episode on it people don't necessarily know exactly what we're talking about for an hour so if we talk about the Beatles then everyone kind of knows about the Beatles so it's hard and there have been awesome interviews in the past Jeff Giles has done a great job with Nightmare Before Christmas one that was done a couple of weeks ago so they do exist it's just probably not from us for now there you go hey Marty we should make a pinball machine fuck the book how easy could it be I've got a camera you know what Marty this is going to sound dumb but after I fixed the orbit on Sea Witch literally the first thought that came in my head was I want to make a like 1980's style kind of like TNA but with you know pinball machine Mafia. Mm-hmm. No. If I made a Pimor machine, Marty, people would fucking hate it, right? Because it would be hard. It would have no theme at all. None of the call-outs from any of the shows you like. No. But I guarantee I would spend 90% of the time... Telling everybody how good it is. No, yeah. I'm going to give you the first thing that would be good about it, just the sounds, Marty. the standards would just be out of this fucking world. You would be meticulous when it comes to sound design. I would just sit there for, like, days working on the spinner sounds. The pitch, the frequency. Anyway. I can't wait to play that. Hey, well, okay, one question. Can you make them easily on, like, the virtual pinball stuff? Didn't you say, like... Yeah, and I had actually made a couple on virtual pin. Yeah, you can. Is it literally just dragging and dropping stuff, and, like, can you associate sounds with... Yes, you can. and then can you just like give it to American Pinball or Spooky and can they make it win exactly what you can do okay alright I'll have one next week ready there is a learning curve so you know to dragging and dropping dragging and dropping is easy yeah okay cool you know what I'll make a Rick and Morty pinball machine yeah just do it because nobody else is going to and everybody wants a Rick and Morty pin but there'll be no modes it's an 80s Rick and Morty pinball machine okay just can sure cool okay You'll be a sucker dad now, mate. The next email says, can you talk about Flip Out in more details? And absolutely, I can. So anyway, if you're not in Australia, you can switch off now. It's right at the end of the episode. So, okay. It's wanting to know how the competition will run. So there's actually going to be two competitions. The main tournament is going to be qualifying on Saturday, followed by the finals on Sunday. And how it's going to work, subject to availability of machines, is this. Your entry fee will give you eight entries into the machines. And there are eight machines, so it's effectively one each. And you put up a score on each of those machines, and depending on how you score compared to other people, you will then be given a certain amount of points. So, for example, if you get first on, let's say, ACDC, you will get 100 points. If you come second, it'll be like 95 points and then 92, then 91, 90, and then all the way down to zero. If you then... So, let's say you get first on ACDC, you get second on Sea Witch, you get 95. So your combined score is now 195. Do that over eight machines. That gets you your final score. You add all those together. And then the top 24 people after the end of the day, and you can enter as many times as you like. So you actually get eight entries, but then you can buy further entries after it. I've completely ripped this off in disk. However, I believe in disk next year we're going to the card system. Wait, Marty. So if I do really well on four machines and do really poorly on the next four, if I enter again, are all those scores kind of like wiped if I don't beat them overall, or is it just the best of each game gets added on? So the best score that you manage to get on each of the machines. People are going to spend a lot of money on this one. That's why they call them pump and dump, right? And that's what it's like. You might get six good games and two real shitters, and so then you'll just pump more money into those shitters to get those scores up. That's the whole idea of it. And yes, it's an absolute money sink, except for the fact that all the money that goes into this is all being spat out as prizes. So it's good. More people put more money in. There's more prize money to go around. I'm not actually making a cent from it. So, and I can't tell you the amount of money I've spent on the streaming here. So, anyway. So, you better win, mate. You better win. Is that what you're saying? Get some of my money back. So, what happens is that the top 16 qualifiers then qualify for A Division finals the next day. The next eight will then go into B Division finals. And then on the Sunday. Is anyone restricted, Marty? No. No? Okay. No, I'm not doing restrictions. we're not big enough for two restrictions just yet so then day two