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Festivals, Operators & Transformers | Ep. 4

Erika's Pinball Journey·video·55m 40s·analyzed·Jun 27, 2026
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Event coverage + operator vs. home buyer dynamics in pinball machine purchases

Summary

Erica and Manu discuss their experiences at two contrasting pinball events: Golden State Pinball Festival (community-focused, pinball-only) and Fanime (anime convention with pinball arcade area). They detail logistics of bringing machines to shows, technical issues and solutions, and introduce a framework distinguishing operator vs. home buyer priorities in pinball purchases, noting that ~70% of Stern games now go to home collectors rather than commercial locations.

Key Claims

  • 70% of Stern's games go into the home now, with only 30% going to arcades/locations

    medium confidence · Manu cites this statistic during discussion of market shifts in pinball purchasing, though attribution to 'someone' is vague

  • Multimorphic machines weigh approximately 400 pounds

    high confidence · Erica states this directly when discussing difficulty of transporting her P3 machine to Golden State

  • Golden State Pinball Festival sold an in-box Labyrinth machine at the show

    high confidence · Erica mentions this as a positive sign for inventory movement at the event

  • Pokemon Pinball and Dungeons & Dragons each received nearly 900-1000 plays at Fanime over the weekend

    high confidence · Erica and Manu discuss specific play counts from Fanime event, with Pokemon at ~900 plays and D&D at ~700

  • Nicholas Baldridge (Nicholas Baldridge) is the senior tech at Multimorphic

    high confidence · Erica identifies him by full name and title when discussing technical support at Golden State

  • Rewind Pinball is a dealer for both Stern and Barrels of Fun

    high confidence · Erica explicitly states this when discussing Rewind's involvement at Fanime

  • Operators prioritize serviceability, software stability, location configuration, and uptime/revenue ratio in game selection

    high confidence · Manu outlines this framework during discussion of operator vs. home buyer purchasing criteria

  • Home buyers prioritize strong license use, music/sound/presentation, deep rule sets, attractive lighting, and 'wow factor'

    high confidence · Manu presents this checklist when contrasting home buyer preferences with operator concerns

Notable Quotes

  • “Emoto is such an inspiration... She is a treasure for pinball. We are so lucky to have her.”

    Erica@ 5:41 — Demonstrates deep appreciation for Emoto's community contributions and educational work in pinball

  • “A game at an expo gets probably more play than the factory puts on it. You have random players lined up nonstop.”

    Manu@ 15:32 — Illustrates the intensive operational demands of expo machines and why technical support is critical

  • “Nah, dog. I'm actually just here to watch Pikachu play this pinball.”

    [name withheld pending review]@ 22:31 — Shows how themed pinball play at a pop-culture event can create unique, engaging moments for casual audiences

  • “Everything is going to break. You're dealing with a steel ball running around damaging your game every play.”

    Mark Seiden (quoted by Manu)@ 40:39 — Industry designer perspective on the inevitable wear mechanics of pinball machines, undercutting false expectations about durability

  • “70% of Stern's games go into the home now... that feels like crazy numbers.”

    [name withheld pending review]@ 35:50 — Key market shift indicator showing collector/home ownership dominance over commercial operator purchasing

Entities

EricapersonManupersonEmotopersonGolden State Pinball FestivaleventFanimeeventNicholas BaldridgepersonNicholas BaldridgepersonMultimorphiccompanyStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Golden State Pinball Festival received praise for volunteer organization, community involvement, and creating strong player experiences despite machine technical issues

    high · Erica: 'the show was so fun. You guys run this so well' and 'it's all about community' and discussion of volunteer effort

  • ?

    venue_signal: Fanime demonstrated significant potential to onboard casual/anime audience into pinball through themed integration (Pokemon cosplay gameplay, ~900 plays), suggesting anime expos viable pinball venues

    high · Pokemon machine had near-constant play (~900 plays), attendees new to pinball were excited, newsletter signups collected, Adam sold a game at show price

  • ?

    product_concern: Erica's Multimorphic P3 experienced multiple ball-stuck issues, start button failure, and flipper bushing breakage during intense expo play, requiring tech intervention and module swaps

    high · Hamster wheel stuck balls, drain tube screw blockage, start button failure on Weird Al, left flipper bushing break requiring 3D printed replacement, back orbit ball stacks on Heist

  • ?

    operational_signal: Expo machines require dedicated technical support on-site; Erica and Manu both acted as techs, with Nick Amusement providing Multimorphic expertise, Pinball Traders providing 3D printing, and Toys Unlimited monitoring machines

    high · Multiple tech interventions needed across weekend, Manu hired to tech Stern games all weekend, Nick called in for Multimorphic issues, 3D printer used for bushing repair

  • $

    market_signal: Stern reports ~70% of new games go to home collectors vs. 30% to commercial operators/locations, representing major market shift from arcade-centric model

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.167

0:00
What is up everybody? This is the Pinball Minority Report. I'm Erica. And I'm Manu. And we're two pinball addicts that are bringing you real stories, interviews, crazy pinball talk, everything that has to do with the world of pinball. Honestly, it's just a lot of fun. So, Manu, what are we talking about today? I'm glad you asked. We have talked about Golden State and Fanime, which we both attended. I'm going to talk a little bit about operators versus homebuyers for pinball purchases. Just some some stuff I have on my mind. And the Transformers. I mean, that just came out. Erica was doing the robot, which was good.
0:49
But your noise was just not the noise Transformers make. Thank you for watching. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for watching. I love her too. She's my treasure.
2:56
I mean, you have to share sometimes when I come over. Fair enough. Just so I can talk to her because she's just amazing too as a woman. I'm really in awe of her. And she does a job that is so important and means a lot to me as a woman.
3:12
She's an OB, by the way, for the audience who's keeping track, OBGYN. Yeah, so she takes care of the ladies. She can cut you and then she can heal you.
Rewind Pinballcompany
Barrels of Funcompany
Pinball Traderscompany
Marco Specialtiescompany
Weird Al (pinball machine)game
Heist (pinball machine)game
Pokemon Pinballgame
Dungeons & Dragons (pinball machine)game
Beetlejuice (pinball machine)game
Harry Potter (pinball machine)game
Transformersgame
Lord of the Ringsgame
Rad Junkperson
Toys Unlimitedcompany
Mark Seidenperson
Pinball Mapproduct

medium · Manu cites statistic and questions accuracy but confirms market shift; Stern's marketing emphasizes 'buy one for the home' as primary message

  • ?

    community_signal: Clear emergence of distinct purchasing priorities between operators (serviceability, stability, configuration, ROI) and home collectors (aesthetics, rule depth, licensing, 'wow factor')

    high · Manu articulates two separate checklist frameworks; notes Beetlejuice great for homes but potentially difficult for operators; context of Stern's 70/30 split

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Fanime exposed significant knowledge gap among new players (plunger mechanics, flipper usage, multiplayer rules); Manu had to create visual instructions on how to play pinball

    high · Attendees pressing action buttons without flipper understanding, shoving plunger back in, setting up 4+ players per game, not knowing about Pinball Map

  • ?

    design_innovation: Multimorphic's modular P3 design allows rapid game swaps (2 minutes) and 3D-printable replacement parts, enabling quick fixes at expos without full machine downtime

    high · Erica swapped Weird Al to Heist in 2 minutes, later swapped back; Nick used 3D printer file to replace bushing in 5 minutes, fixed game in 30-45 min total

  • ?

    content_signal: Fanime's integration of pinball with cosplay/anime audience created unique content moments and media engagement ('Pikachu playing Pokemon pinball' anecdote, costume theming)

    high · Attendee watching Pikachu costumed Erica play, Erica filming Pinball University content simultaneously, discussions of potential tournament streaming for next year

  • ?

    business_signal: Rewind Pinball sold at least one Stern game at show price during Fanime, indicating events as viable sales channel and customer acquisition touchpoint

    medium · Manu mentions 'Adam did end up selling a game' and notes newsletter signup for customer leads

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Manu transitioning from hybrid role toward operator/technical focus; Erica planning to expand tech skills through upcoming opportunity; both developing expertise in machine maintenance

    high · Manu self-identifies as 'drifting into operator territory' due to technical focus; Erica states 'I plan to learn how to tech a bit more in the upcoming weeks' and notes upcoming opportunity

  • ?

    community_signal: Strong informal support network at expos: Pinball Traders offers 3D printing, Toys Unlimited monitors machines, Nick provides specialized tech, Marco/Emoto organize education

    high · Multiple vendors and techs assisting without explicit compensation structure; Erica noting 'I have like a little bit of a relationship with pinball traders' and gratitude language throughout

    • 3:24
    All right, that's enough. All right, well, I think that's enough about that. Let's get into what we were going to talk about. So our first topic we wanted to talk about was we went to two pinball events. We went to Golden State Pinball Festival, which was in Lodi, California. And then the weekend after that, we went to Fanime, which is in San Jose, California. Now, two very different events. One event is solely about pinball. The other event is about anime. For those of you that got a chance to go to Golden State, I hope you had the most fun time. I know I had a great time. There's definitely a lot of involvement from the community. And I just want to give a shout out to like the whole Golden State team because like, honestly, the show was so fun. You guys run this so well. And I don't know, I had a blast. I just think that it's such a great thing what you do for the community. And that's what these shows are really all about, right? Like, it's they're community driven. And I feel I feel so strongly about that. Because it's just like, these people are putting in a lot of time and effort and volunteering when they could also be playing, they could also be doing things, but like, they want to make sure other people are having just an amazing amount of time and getting the opportunity to play games you might not get to play, because you don't live somewhere. Thank you for watching. They opened a new in-box labyrinth, and so they actually sold it at the show. So that was very cool, too, for them. I was glad that they were able to get that inventory moving. And yeah, just like a fun time. I did Pinball University with Emoto. And freaking Emoto is such a, she's such an inspiration. And she really, she works so hard, like in the pinball world. Marco Pinball. Marco Pinball, Emoto.
    5:41
    She is, she's a treasure for pinball. We are so lucky to have her. She wants so much for people to love pinball and to be aware of the history and how to fix your game. And she just wants to bring people into this community so bad. And I hope to be able to emulate even half of what she does because I'm always in awe. Honestly, I was a fan when I met Emoto at the show, actually. Oh, really? At Golden State? Yeah, at Golden State. And I remember like when I was first getting into pinball, so here's a little story then I guess. When I was first getting into pinball, I had no, I didn't know anything. I didn't know there were leagues, right? I didn't know there were events. And I bought my Lord of the Rings pinball machine with like absolutely like no knowledge besides watching a few YouTube videos. Thank you for watching. I saw a moto and Kyle there and I was like, Dad, she's the girl from the video. That's a moto. Oh my God. You look down and you saw a moto. I just remember that it was, we love her. We love her so much. And it's like, I remember like, I was so shy. I like I've, I've worked on movies and TV shows. Right. And I talked to celebrities like they're like my neighbor or something. Right. But like here I am meeting this like YouTube personality being like, OK, I mean, maybe I don't want to bug her. No, I shouldn't say I don't. I don't. I remember I was like sweating, almost like trying to like grow the courage to come up to her and tell her thank you. You know, and I eventually did. And me and my dad, we came up to her and we were like, thank you so much for your videos and what you do. And then they gave us some shirts. They gave us some Marco T-shirts. And I was like, oh, I love this. This is so cool. Emoto is so awesome. And then like from there, like we just kept getting in touch with each other and seeing each other. And we have our friendship that we have now. And hopefully she'll be she'll be here with us one of these days. We're going to figure out a time. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So I think that when it comes to these events like Golden State, it's all about community. Thank you for watching. Golden State that your particular pin has seen, right? Yeah, so it's the third time this machine has been at Golden State. The first time was when I wasn't the owner of it. It just was debuting Weird Al as a pinball machine for the first time at this event. So if you played it then, you played my machine. And then the second time was last year where I brought my Weird Al pinball machine when also Portal was there brought by someone else by the Spinner's Lit crew. I know one of those guys, I can't, his name escapes me at the moment, but I remember that he brought Portal and then it came this year and it had a few things that happened, but for the most part, my game played the whole show. When it came to bringing my Multimorphic to the show, it's a lot to bring a game to a show. Like this game, I say it all the time, this game, a Multimorphic is heavy. They're like 400 pounds. They're heavy. And so I moved this game. I'm so grateful with my assistant and my roommate helped me take this game out of our garage so that I could like bring it to the show. And so we like take it. The good thing is the Multimorphic kind of comes apart, right? So I take the module out. Thank you for watching. So it was nothing that wasn't, I'm glad it was nothing that wasn't like not repairable during the show. Because you helped me with the first thing, which was my hamster wheel. Something with the hamster wheel and Weird Al stopped working. So balls would get stuck there.
    11:00
    Yeah, and I'm probably going to talk about this in topic too a little bit, but it's very important to, and it's not just a multimorphic thing. It's very important to have text available for every game at any expo.
    11:14
    Right. So let's just put it out there right there. Yeah. All games have issues and problems. And so it does. Especially at an expo, though. Yeah. Just nonstop. It's like a line of people. Erica, before we even had the game set up, there was a line. It was like four people waiting in line to just hammer on the game. Yeah. And so it felt really cool, though, because I was just so excited. And I had so many people thank me for bringing the game because like these games, the P3 platform isn't as common. You know, like there are very few there's very few arcades that like host a P3. And most of the time you'll only find it in someone's home. Now, I do understand. Like I said, this machine was like, it's a big feat to move. It's not easy. I'm literally like, I need to get strong for pinball. I need to lift and get more muscles than whatever this is to get the machine off the ground. I should do a whole miniseries on getting buff for pinball. Like, jeez.
    12:21
    But yeah, I had like five little issues that happened that the hamster wheel and then I had a random screw like show ups in the there's a tube. There's like a PVC pipe that like the balls when they go out down the when they fall down the drain, they go down a thing and they go down a tube. And that tube was blocked by a random screw, which I still don't know where. I think it was fine. You didn't have a tech specifically. I wasn't available for the weekend. Even when we did Fanime, which we'll talk about in a second, I was hired to be a tech on Stern Games. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching games of pinball the entire weekend so like I was doing everything I could to just keep making sure and I kept checking on it like it was I was like this is my baby I kept like going back and I have to give a shout out to Rad Junk. Rad Junk showed up to the show and I'm a big fan of Sam and like what she does with her channel and like it was so cool to have her and her husband play my game. I also have to give a big shout out to Nick Amusement. Nick Baldridge. Yeah Nick He's the senior tech at Multimorphic. He saved me of the issues that happened. It was mainly just ball stucks, right? Then once I fixed the ball stuck situation, the start launch button wasn't working on Weird Al. So the great thing was I brought Heist. I had a second module. So I actually brought two modules because I was going to switch them out through the weekend for people to get to play both. So I switched out. I took out Weird Al, put in Heist. It took me two minutes, which is amazing. It wasn't like a crazy thing. I put Heist in, start button worked. I was like, cool, I'm going to let that be because I got to go back and record some other stuff. So I do that quick fix and then Heist plays like the rest of Saturday. And then it's like Sunday morning and there's a bunch of balls getting stuck like in the back right orbit. So someone was playing and they're like, there's no balls coming out. And then like I looked at it and it's just like a stack of balls to like in the back orbit. I'm like, oh, they're all getting lost back here for some reason. So I was like, I'm just going to take this module out, put Weird Al in, and hope that the problem with Weird Al fixed itself. And lo and behold, it did. It fixed itself, and I didn't have to do anything.
    15:32
    A game at an expo gets probably more play than the factory puts on it. You have random players lined up nonstop.
    15:44
    Yeah, I have videos. I kept taking pictures and videos. There was always like at least six people in line like waiting to play it like it felt for me it was like a cool thing because it was like my machine being played all weekend like people are enjoying it like that felt really good for me to know that people were getting this opportunity to play this game. And the last thing, what happened was the left flipper had like a bushing break. And I was like, I don't have a replacement for this. But the thing is, some of Multimorphic's parts are actually like 3D printed. Or can be 3D printed. Can be 3D printed, yeah. And so shout out also to Pinball Traders because they had a 3D printer. And what's so crazy is that Nick watched someone's walkthrough. Whoever did that walkthrough, I want to thank you so much. Somebody posted a walkthrough of Golden State Pinball Festival and Nick watched it. And then Nick was like, hey, I saw in a walkthrough there's a 3D printer there. Can you ask them? And I have like a little bit of a relationship with pinball traders. They are so lovely and they've helped me get into pinball shows in the past. I was so grateful. I was like, hey, if I send you this file, could you print this for me? And they're like, yeah, no problem. It literally takes like five minutes to print that piece too. Yeah. So he like set it up and then he, he fixed it. And I knew there were only like four hours left in the show. Like this is where I, like the crazy, crazy woman in me was like, I was like, there's four hours left in the show. I technically, is it worth it? And I, I was in the middle of, I feel that Emoto, I'm so sorry. I was in, I was like halfway in the middle of filming something for her and I was like troubleshooting this at the same time. So I mostly got to capture footage from the event we were filming from Pinball University. But I did leave to like go save this machine for those last four hours so that people, I really wanted people to enjoy it. And I didn't want people to be like, oh, the Multimorphic was broken the whole time, so I couldn't play it. Like that was something I really wanted to achieve. I think I would have done the same thing. I would have done the same. And the fact that it was so small too, it was like amazing. I was so grateful for Nick. I also want to thank Toys Unlimited. They helped watch my game like the whole show because like my Multimorphic was set up like in front of their booth. And so they were watching people play and then they'd be like, oh, you had a ball stuck. We helped you out or we did this. And they were just so lovely. I've actually bought a pinball machine from them before. I bought a Hot Wheels from them. Nice. Yeah.
    18:46
    Thank you for watching. Within 30 minutes, 45 minutes, that whole fiasco of my left flipper like breaking and then people being like, oh, left flipper doesn't work. I'm like, what do I do? Oh, 3D printed. He 3D printed it. I'm going to put it in. And I was like, remember stressing. My partner's like, just slow down. Like, you'll fix it. I was like, I need it to be up and running for the show. So, yeah, it was really, really great. So that was Golden State. Talk a little bit about Fandomay. Oh, man. That was my first Fandomay. Your first Fandomay. Well, no, no. Now, I want to hear your first impressions, though, before I talk about my Fandomay. Because I've been talking this whole time, let's be honest. All right? Well. We got to switch to you now because this isn't the Erica show. This is the. I'll tell you this, though.
    20:06
    The Erica monitor. I'll tell you this. It was my first time. I don't think I would have ever gone without you asking and Rewind hiring me to tech the event.
    20:19
    But I had a blast. I was there maybe an hour and I was like, this is probably one of the coolest expos I've ever been to. I absolutely, now, you know, pinball aside, I was incredibly impressed at the people who were there. They were absolutely 100% into their costumes. Their cosplay was really important to them. What I thought was cool was that there was an etiquette there of like you go up to someone, you say, hey, I really love your costume. It looks great. They say thank you, whatever. And then if you want to take a picture, you say, do you mind if I take a picture with you? And they'll say yes. And there's this whole kind of, there's no creep. I mean, every place has a creep, right? There are creepy people everywhere. But the majority of the people that I met there were super cool, super nice. And I felt underdressed after a while. Like, Erica got me to wear a stupid Pokemon outfit. Thank you for watching. I don't know, Erica. It was amazing. I just, I loved it. It was terrific. It was terrific. Pinball aside. It was so fun because I remember when I wanted to get some clips of playing Pokemon pinball as the Pikachu with you. We did Split Flipper. We did. And I remember there's this one guy that I could hear and someone's like, oh, are you in line? He's like, nah, dog. I'm actually just here to watch Pikachu play this pinball. For real? Oh, wow. That actually happened? That made me smile. So I was in the costume and I was just like, oh, my God, this is so cool. He's like, and his voice is so deep, dude. No, dog, I'm just here to watch the Pikachu play the Pokemon Pinball. So you guys know, like the Rewind brought Pinball. I think we mentioned it last week, last show, but Rewind brought Pinball, two Pokemon pros and a Dungeons and Dragons pro. Yeah, so Rewind Pinball, they are a dealer for Stern and Barrels of Fun. I was so grateful for Adam to agree to doing this for me. It was sort of like a selfish thing too because I was like, how cool will it be to bring an anime game to fanime? Like, Pokemon Pinball is the first and the most, like, correct game to bring. 100%. Thank you for watching. You could have logged in on your like third ball or like afterwards so that right you're playing without any stats. Yeah, Dungeons and Dragons, just so people know, will take your current characters and your level progress will affect your score. Yeah. So maybe some people that kept coming back and like their scores weren't getting higher and they were like, what the heck, man, I got just two hours ago I could get this. So I did realize that later, but people still had like such a good time. My favorite thing about doing this was seeing people be so excited for their scores. People were like, oh, I'm on the board. I'm on the board. So we put up these TVs. Yeah, thanks to Insider Connected. It's Stern. Yeah, thanks to Insider Connected. These people were hooked. There's this huge new shift for some of these people. Like, wow, I think I'm a pinball person now. I really want to do this. And I tell them about Pinball Map. If you don't know about Pinball Map already, this you need in your life. If you are going to be in pinball at all, pinballmap.com is or the app. The app is even better. Like just use the app and then wherever you are, you can find out where there's pinball. Like you can do all sorts of things with pinball map. I highly it is the number one app. I think every pinballer should have like hands down. Thank you for watching. It made me so happy, dude. Honestly, I was being Pikachu. I was walking around. But I was so tired, though, because I was coming off of Golden State. And I had two days. And then I was prepping for a job that I did a day after Fanime. So May burnt me out. I was working too many hours. I feel like it was a great thing to have pinball there because especially what it was competing against in the arcade area, there was all the dance games from every era, Dance Dance Revolution, Step Step, Para Para, The Washing Machine, Dance Fusion, every single rhythm and cool game ever. And to see the Rewinds booth full and busy non-stop was pretty dang cool. I mean, pinball, right? Yeah. I think Pokemon had 10 seconds of downtime. Yeah, barely. To see people just jamming on that stuff was terrific. It was played all weekend. There was very few times where I saw it with nobody on it. Right. Like, it was, I want to say like I never saw it with anybody on. The only time I saw nobody on something was because when, unfortunately, Dungeons & Dragons went down from a single court. Yeah, that was a shipping thing. I was ready to dig deep and go to town and I lifted the play field and I saw that the trough, little Molex collector just slipped off and I plugged it back in and back up and running. I talk about that in the operators area real quick For sure Yeah but otherwise I think Fandomay was really successful Adam did We were selling the games for a show price Adam did end up selling a game So that was also really cool. I also had a newsletter sign up for people. So we collected a few emails to see just like, hey, if you want to learn about pinball releases or if you're interested in buying a game. It just felt so good. Honestly, it felt like I was doing something to really bring joy to people. And that made me, yeah, I don't know, that felt really good. I hope that made you feel good too with Brandon Pinball and the people. Yes, I'm Scrooge McDuck, but it made me very happy. I was really happy to be there. And I bought a lot of cool swag, so that was good. Oh, yeah, I was going to say. I bought some posters. We both had a great time. I'll do it again.
    28:38
    Oh, sick. Yeah. Fandomay was cool. You guys should go too. Yeah, definitely. If you're in San Jose and you want to enjoy people and cosplay and I mean the game area to give perspective, though, for like the gaming area, the gaming hall is what it's called. It was a whole hall. Yeah, there's a whole hall. It had so many other things going on in it as well. Like you could watch from our booth. People were like playing Tekken on this big screen or people were playing Mahjong. Bajong. Yeah, there was all sorts of Yu-Gi-Oh, Magic the Gathering. People were and so we were actually thinking like how fun it would be to maybe even stream a pinball tournament or maybe make it a bigger. I don't know. Well, we're going to look into what what next year looks like for Fanime for us. The games all got almost a thousand plays. Both Pokemon were at 900 something plays each and Dungeons and Dragons probably be because it was down for like that. That amount of time with I was Manu was not on site yet. And so I was like, I don't know how to fix this problem. But now that I know I'm like, oh, that would have that would have taken me two seconds, like, but I wouldn't have known where to look. So Manu fixed it. And then the game was up and running. But also Dungeons and Dragons, I feel plays a bit longer. What was the number on Dungeons & Dragons though? Yeah, digressed. Dungeons & Dragons was almost 700 plays. 700? Okay, yeah. Pokemon didn't go down, just stuck balls. I don't know. Did you fix anything on Pokemon?
    30:12
    No, I think so. The one thing I do want to add on about Fanime though is that people, some people didn't know how to play pinball. And I actually had to create like I created this like visual to tell people like how to play pinball. And through the weekend, I like kept updating it and changing it. And I got to like a solid point towards the end. But it was just kind of interesting to me that people were just like pressing that top action button and like waiting for the flippers to flip. And people were putting in multiple players on games. And I turned that off quick, though. Yeah, Monty, when you started Saturday, you turned it so only two players per game. I made it so that you can only play two players. Do you still have that document?
    30:56
    Yeah. It'd be nice to offer to people, I guess. Yeah, I made this thing on how to play pinball, and some people were like, oh my god, that was so helpful, I didn't even know. And I had one guy come up to me and be like, you make me feel old with having to tell people how to play pinball.
    31:14
    Yeah, right? I don't know, dude, because the most painful one that I watched, there was someone that grabbed the plunger and shoved it back in. Oh, didn't notice that there was a spring? No, and they did it multiple times until I was like, please. Please stop shoving the plunger in the game. No, don't you know the ball? Don't you feel the pressure? Just let it go. And so this person was just like grabbing it and just shoving it back in. World's greatest lover.
    31:53
    Yeah, that one was, that one was. Brown chicken, brown cow. But otherwise that was, that was Golden State and Fanime. A lot happened. So it was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for coming with me, Owanu. And yeah, man, like you have stuff about pinball to talk about too, right? We're talking about some crazy operator stuff. You were telling me some stories earlier. Well, it's just that I just wanted to bring this up. I thought it'd be interesting for people to hear.
    32:24
    I've made an observation that there are two types of buyers for pinball as there are maybe for arcades and stuff like that. It comes down to operators versus home buyers and what your intent is for your game.
    32:43
    Crack open a Coke. What do you crack open? A Coke? The Diet Coke. Is it Diet Coke? It does. Yes! I get it sometimes, you know. That's what I'm talking about. This is for Jamie. I picked up a Diet Coke. Actually, I normally have Diet Coke or Coke Zero. I don't judge. Operators and homebuyers. Sometimes I feel like we were trying to be a little too ambitious with pinball design. Now, this doesn't come down to a Beetlejuice issue. It comes down to an operator and a home buyer issue because I took a step back, Erica, and I said, well, why am I being critical? Because I'm about to be critical, but why am I being critical about this particular title? And it's because I'm seeing it from an operator's point of view. So I felt it was important to make this distinction, and some people know this already, so it's nothing new. But there are two types of buyers, right? There's a buyer to own and a buyer to operate and make money, and they are very separate. What do you consider yourself, Erica, probably a buyer to own? Buyer to own because I don't I've thought about operating pinball machines and I plan to learn how to tech a bit more in the upcoming weeks. Actually, I've been given an opportunity to. But at the moment, yeah, I don't plan on operating any games. Right. So. So. I'm a little bit of both. I tend to drift more into the operator right now because I'm being very technical about pinball and I'm fixing pinball and I'm geeking out on homebrew and stuff like that, right? So homebrew is more on the technical operator side because they're literally building a pinball machine. So they want to – hopefully they want to build a game so that they last. Soon to be operator then because I am planning. I have my kit there. Yeah. So you're drifting into that territory too. Yeah. So I wanted to make a distinction of what owners like and what operators like. So what owners are looking for, owner being a collector, owner being someone who's going to buy the game for their house, which Stern is heavily promoting. I don't know if you've noticed in their marketing or their games, they're heavily promoting buy one for the home, play one on location. Well, the buy one for the home is the first, is the leader line for them. Buy one for the home and play one on location. Mostly, probably because the market has shifted since the 90s to, oh, I can own one of these? I'm going to buy it, even though they're $10,000 and $11,000 and $12,000. I think the stats someone had said was like 70% of Stern's games go into the home now. Isn't that crazy? That feels like crazy numbers. Like 30% are going to arcades, which means like how many, I'm going to do some math, find out how many arcades there are. Let's go to Pinball Map and see what they can tell us. There you go. Nice callback.
    36:12
    So for owners, I have a list of what owners like. So owners tend to like strong uses of a license. If it is a license, it's usually a licensed game. Strong use of a license, i.e. Beetlejuice. Excellent music and sound and presentation, right? Because they want it to look pretty and nice in their house. They want to be able to impress their guests or whoever. This game is great. I absolutely have a blast playing it. Oh, well, so far, Beetlejuice is checking each one of these boxes very strongly. Deep Rule Set with lots to do. Check.
    36:43
    Okay. And this is anything. This is like Beetlejuice, Harry Potter, Transformers, Pokemon. Maybe not so much Pokemon, but Deep Rule Set. It'll get there.
    36:57
    I believe. Yeah. Attractive Lighting Package. And then finally, it's like good player appeal and a quote, wow factor.
    37:08
    It's all about art. Oh, so pretty. Art? Yeah, art. Franchise art on it. Oh, Franchise. Yeah. Yeah, Franchise art on Beetlejuice. So to take Beetlejuice as an example, everything checked on there. A home person would absolutely love this game.
    37:24
    It's a home run. The same way a Harry Potter. I'm going to put both of those. I'm going to put both because I would say both. I tech both, yeah. So Harry Potter, once again, same thing. Great use of license, excellent music, sound, deep rule set, attractive lighting package, and a wow factor. So the home user is set. The operator, on the other hand, looks at a different set of checkboxes, one being serviceability.
    37:53
    Okay. How difficult is it for me to fix a problem when I come in in the morning and someone last night found an issue?
    38:04
    There's software stability. Anytime software has a problem, your customer, your paying customer has an issue, whether it be an issue with the game or with an issue with the game rules or something didn't seem fair or whatever. This is affecting your bottom line. Location configuration.
    38:25
    How difficult is it to get this machine around in your, wherever you're putting it? What configuration does it need to be in?
    38:36
    And then there's uptime versus revenue. Am I making enough money to justify the amount of time I am servicing this thing? Is it down mostly or is it running and I don't have to think about it? And this is something for operators who operate games away from their location, right? They have games at a local bar or something like that and they leave and then something happens and the local bar turns the game off and doesn't tell them.
    39:14
    And then they're not making money now. Yeah. So in my – I'm just putting in random quarters. All games down. Here you go, buddy. I got you. Well, we got the people who go, maybe if I put more quarters in it will work. Don't do that. Don't do that, guys. If the first few quarters don't work, stop putting money in. Yeah, stop putting money in. Don't put the wrong quarters in too. If they need tokens, put their tokens in. Don't put the wrong stuff in. Don't screw people over. Don't find your own thing. So, Beetlejuice is probably an example of a game that's beautiful, wonderful, everything. As far as serviceability, it's a difficult call for me specifically because I am in every single game. I have had to, we've had Beetlejuice, and this is only indicative of the Beetlejuice that Christian gave us, I said it's the only one right now because I've seen seven of them run at Golden State and they were all fine. But it's not just an issue of if something's going to break because everything is going to break on a pinball machine. I literally asked Mark Seiden about – remember when we were at the Avatar thing and he goes, is there any questions? And I said, yeah, what's going to break first? And he said, well, everything is going to break. Like he wasn't even sugarcoating. Sugarcoating, he's like, you're dealing with a steel ball running around damaging your game every play.
    40:46
    How easy is it to get to the fixes though? One thing that I, one issue that we had on Beale Juice, it was very difficult for us to navigate the underneath of the play field. Extremely difficult. There are wires everywhere. There's like rails that don't, you can't, there's some issues. It's not to say that it's a bad thing, but it's a thing that will stand in the way of an operator making money as opposed to, say, Harry Potter where if you look at – if I look at – and once again, I'm saying this is my personal opinion. I'm not trying to cast dispersions on any manufacturer. I think it's a brilliant game, both Beetlejuice and Harry Potter. But when I lift the play field on Harry Potter, it clearly looks like a former operator has devised it so that everything is serviceable. And easy to get to. There's a big difference. And this is not an opinionated thing This is not a subjective idea This is objective if you live both I will even give Turner a huge huge thumbs up because you know Turner at Chris Turner and the Turner Pinball Yeah. Yukon Yeti. Yep. Yukon Yeti. I Love Our Kids.
    42:05
    Yep. And Ninja Clips. I specifically asked Chris, can I look under the playfield? He said yes. He lifted the playfield, and it was the cleanest, most accessible thing I've ever seen in my life. And I was like, this is going to be a pleasure to work on. If everything breaks one day, I can get to everything. Okay. And it means a lot to an operator. So Beetlejuice is amazing. We've had basic pinball issues with it, but a couple of the things I found extremely difficult to get to, like the drop target underneath Beetlejuice himself was a nightmare. And the fact that they use so many components that I don't think they should, but it's not up to me. I'm not the engineer. They're all easily fixable, but they're all very easily breakable. Yeah. So I'm just maybe I'm Erica, maybe I'm grumpy old man right now, but I only have but so much time to work on a game in the mornings.
    43:09
    Some games never give us any issues and they're like like Adam's family. Yeah, that game is what, 40 years old. That game is ridiculously old and it never gives us any issues. I think sometimes manufacturers are getting a little ambitious with their designs.
    43:29
    But on the flip side, you have to wow. You have to wow people. You have to do something different. You have to do something different, yep. Yeah, I have only lifted up a handful of play fields myself, right? So like lifting up Lord of the Rings, that's something I've done. I've lifted up play fields for these guys. I got some EMs behind me, right? Those are tough. Those are tough too. It's like, woo! But they're just like really mean all together. They had to make sense. They were going down the line. And I mean, for the Spooky Crew, from my understanding, they've been like constantly improving and working on their designs. Because from my understanding, though, it's like each spooky game, when you lift up a play field, they've been changing out parts. It's like a new thing to learn, almost. But I don't specifically own a spooky game. I haven't. I almost did. I almost owned Halloween at one point. I was very close to trading for Halloween. But yeah, I mean, that does sound frustrating. I do understand, man. Like you're just trying to you're trying to operate your business. You're trying to make money. You're not in your home where you'd be like, oh, that can be down. I can work on that this weekend when the kids are doing something, you know, like you're like, hey, you're keeping this up and running. I'd be interested to hear, too, where because I just listened to Electric Bat and Beetlejuice is their top earning game. I wonder if they have any tips or tricks on what they do to keep the maintenance. It's doing fine at the shop. It's not in the best location ever, mostly because we didn't put it in the best location ever because we need to test the waters, right? We need to feel it out and see is this going to be – for the most part, that specific game. And once again, I got to say if anybody from Spooky is listening, your game is amazing. It's amazing. But as an operator, I would like to say, hey, maybe next time put a Molex on this coil so I don't have to – Clip your zip ties, desolder a thing so I could take a component off and put it on my workbench. Maybe give me a Molex in between those connectors, right? For the price, I feel like you'd be doing the operators a big favor. And the people on Pinside wouldn't be so crazy when they complain because, you know, the complainers love to complain. Yeah.
    45:55
    Some quality of life issues on the under the play field will do operators a lot of good. If you're a homeowner, you're probably playing your game two, three hours a week. So you probably will belay these errors and physical issues for a really long time. But for a place like an expo or a place like Free Gold Watch in San Francisco where they get hammered, We're going to see those and I'm going to feel it as an operator if I have to desolder a thing to move it to the workbench. That's going to affect the bottom line of the entire shop. Plus, if a game is down, it's less about not earning the money. It's more about the people who come in and see a game with an out-of-order sign and they're sad because they can't get to play the game. We had NBA Fast Breakout for one day and I know people felt that. And it's Fastbreak. I know people are like, oh, where's Fastbreak?
    46:57
    When's it going to be back up? Yeah, that's a tough thing. Pinball maintenance, man. It's tough. But I've never thought of it much from that perspective. And I'm really glad we get to talk about it here. You get to bring it up and talk about what it is like teching on games and what you would prefer. I'd be interested to know in the comments, too, if you guys want to. I'd be happy to make some open discussion about what games you feel could be more operator friendly. I think it's important because if you're going to fix a game and if you're going to make things... I remember Eric when we went to... Eric Mignier. He was the lead designer of Harry Potter. Yeah. And so I remember him talking about how he was an operator. Yeah. And that he's like, I can't have something have more than three or four screws. I don't want things to be super crazy to take out. Like I want it to be boop, boop, boop. And like here's this thing that comes out and here's this thing that comes out. So I do – yeah. He wasn't kidding though either. It wasn't just all talk because the first time I lifted the play field and I saw an end of stroke switch on a Molex, I emailed – I texted him at that moment and went, dude, thank you.
    48:12
    Thank you so much. And here's the thing. Spooky will get there. They will get there to the point where their design on top and their design on bottom is going to be spot on. But if you don't mention it, they don't hear it. And sometimes it gets slower to uptake if you don't mention it. Yeah, definitely. The game's great. I absolutely love it. The game is really fun. I hope that these fixing challenges that they – whatever you fixed, you now know how to do it too, and you can just like kind of just go in there and transform.
    48:49
    And transform. Transformers. Okay, I think we have – Like our next topic. We have a second to talk about Transformers. We're running out of time. Yeah, we're getting close here. All right, one out of ten, Transformers. You didn't get to play it though. You didn't even get to go to Stern. I didn't get to go to Stern. We didn't go to Stern. I, the thing is with going to Stern for these games, so the amount of head time I have for them, like I do understand like you know that they, they have their schedule and like they can only give us so much time ahead and me doing these trips. I spend anywhere from four to $600 to make it out. It's a little expensive. It's a bit expensive, you know, I'm not like a. I'm now freelancing again, so my finances are very different.
    49:38
    And at the stable job I was when I started my channel, I was at my job for like three years and got laid off and then found another job and then quit that. And now I'm doing freelance full time because I'm creative like that. So I've been very lucky. I've been getting a lot of work, which has been nice. But yeah, it's tough to make it out to these events. Like I have the time. It's just like the funds. And this time I didn't have the time because it was like right before Fanime. And I was like exhausted from Golden State. And then I'm like, I know it was Transformers. Like I remember hearing rumblings about it. And I was like, you know, as much as I'd love to do it, I'm not a – if you're a fan of my channel, you've been following me. I'm not a very timely releaser. of my videos. And so I was like, I'll play Transformers when I play Transformers. I'm, I also feel I'm not a Transformers fan. Pokemon, I was like, oh my God, I gotta be there. But like Transformers, I don't have this feeling. The game though looks spectacular and I want to play it 10 out of 10 for sure want to play. My emotions towards it. I'm super happy for Elizabeth. I'm super happy for the team. And like with Elliot, you know, like that's so cool. Actually, fun fact, I have Elliot's autograph in one of my old phone cases. If you ask me about my phone cases, I now get them signed by designers and things. So I got, yeah, yeah, a little fun, little fun fact about me. I'm a pinball nerd. I'm going to do this just for the folks who may not be keeping score, Erica. Transformers More Than Me CI is Stern's newest game. The game design is by Elliot Eisman, which Erica is best friends with. Software by Elizabeth Gieske. So it's exciting to see – God, I hate saying this, but I feel like I have to say it. I hate saying it. It's exciting to see a woman's work in a pinball machine, which is a shitty thing to say because there always should have been women working on pinball. I think the perspective that Elizabeth – you know what? When I saw – oh, music by Jerry Thompson. When I saw the stream for Transformers, this was one of the first times in a long time for me to look at a Stern and say, holy smokes, that looks fun. I don't even – I'm not – I've never really cared about Transformers. I didn't rush home to see it when I was a kid. I was like an Inspector Gadget kid.
    52:36
    I didn't run home to watch Transformers. Probably Pink Panther too, huh? Yeah, Pink Panther. But watching Jack and Elliot and Elizabeth play Transformers on that stream and the excitement that was in Elizabeth's eyes and the actual proof on the play field, It proved to me, I was like, this looks fun. I didn't care it was Transformers at that point. It looks fun. Yeah. No, I'm excited to play it. I haven't, like we both didn't get to go. I also know they had it at the Northwest Pinball Show, but I guess shipping didn't happen in time. So they only had the one limited edition Transformers there at the show to play. So I do, my heart feels heavy for the opportunity to play all the games and not get them out in time for the show. But I'm glad that there was still a game at the show and apparently Elizabeth was on it and she was talking to people all weekend for it. Yeah, I'm excited for this game. I mean, I love new pinball day. Like it's a fun time. I know Stern's gotta like be making those games. They gotta run the line. They got their business. And yeah, it's an exciting time for pinball. This year, I think there's a lot coming that is going to be really exciting to see. And yeah, I don't want to talk about more pinball stuff coming out, but we'll maybe see some really cool things.
    54:12
    Transformers is one. I can't wait to play on location. You don't know what that sound is, though. You just sound like... Transformers.
    54:23
    All the old people are going, Manu, you nailed it. You got it, dude. I'm choking over here. Oh my gosh. Manu, thanks for chatting with me. And thank you guys for listening in. If you guys are enjoying the podcast, thank you for tuning in. And yeah, feel free to let us know too if there's things that you're interested in hearing us talk about. We do have some planned interviews in our near future. and I feel like some more fun pinball things we bring into you guys. So, yeah, stay tuned. And is it me or you this time that does the outro?
    55:10
    I'll do it. I think it is me. Okay. I'm so professional. Thanks for listening to the Pinball Minority Report. Check out our socials. Search YouTube and Instagram for Erica's with a K. Erica's Pinball Journey, the Mystery Pinball Theater 3000. Thanks and see you next time.