Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, July 6th. This is episode 249. I am Tony. I am Dennis. Tony, you went on an adventure. I went on an adventure. Are you going to tell us about the adventure? I will. Yeah. I didn't think it was enough to throw in like a whole new tabletop section. I just thought I'd cover it here. Well, I will note before you cover it, though, that we – speaking of new, we have several new Patreon members. I guess people wanted to hear about the horror movie discussion. So I just wanted to say welcome to Eric C., Don G., Jeb G., and Fat Slapper. Fat Slapper. They picked their names. It's a beautiful. I love it. We appreciate you support. And Kaz on our Patreon asked if we would cover comedy movies. And Tony, I talked about it ahead of time. So we will record a comedy one after this. Who knows how long it'll be? But we'll throw that up for the Patreon members. Patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. Any price tier. It's as low as a dollar a month. We'll get you access to that. But obviously it won't be pinball or game related. It will just be about movies. Right. But you have something game related. Not video game related, but tabletop related. Yeah, I went to CanCon, which is a local gaming convention here in the Kansas City area that takes place in the summer. Kansas City has three big conventions. One's in the spring, one's in the summer, one's in the fall. CanCon's the only one I've ever really gone to, though I think I might go to the one in the fall this year if I can get a chance. It's in mid-November. Lots of games, lots of stuff going on. I played, I spent a full day playing the original 1977 Traveler with the 1977 Traveler rules. No, none of the modifications, none of the later stuff, just the original rules as written. Okay. It was a lot of fun. For those of you who don't know about, like, the old Traveler, it has this, I really like it, character creation system where you kind of decide your character's background. And it's not necessarily fun to put your character's background together because there's a bunch of different rules and a bunch of different roles you have to make. And it's basically you sitting there looking at a bunch of tables and rolling on tables while you get your character's background assembled. The interesting thing about Traveler's character creation is it is 100% possible for your character to die or be crippled during character creation as just the results of the rolls. We actually had somebody's character die during character creation. We had another person's character be pretty severely injured during character creation. And they just kind of have to live with it. Like with the character who died, he had to roll up a whole new character. so but our our dm uh had set up a thing to make it a bit more interesting than us just staring and rolling it on tables as he built a kind of um board so it was more like a board game as we would roll around on the board game so he had like all the important information from the tables in front of him but we were more like rolling and moving on a board like it was doing a board game just to make it more interesting. But that ended up being a really fun game. It's one of those things that there was some – I'm not going to go too deep into it. There was some fun stuff. The GM put together an amazing game that we had a lot of fun with and was evil because it was very – since Travelers is a very sci-fi oriented, thing, unlike D&D or something like that. We had a computer hacker. I wasn't a hacker. I was a pilot. But we had a computer hacker, and every time he would hack into the system of this place we were infiltrating to complete our mission, the GM would put out a map for us to look at and to plan around while we were hacked in. and then he would take the map away every single time as soon as we were done looking at the map or done hacking. It wasn't something that just stayed in play. And it took a few rounds of us hacking and doing this and that to realize the frickin' map was changing. He had like nine maps, and they all had slightly different layouts and slightly different pathing. And it turned out we found some things that weren't on the maps, like some hallways and rooms that weren't on the maps, because we were fighting an AI. So every time we hacked in, the AI was just converting and changing the map so that we couldn't actually get to where the AI was. So it was a lot of fun. And once we realized that, it's like, oh, no. So we started sitting there with our notepads, like scratching out our own maps, trying to figure out what is and isn't there and what does and doesn't work. And every time we'd see a new map pop up, it's like comparing it and trying to figure things. It was good. It was a lot of fun. And because we were in an area where, like, everybody was in suits because of that. Like, the AI was, like, tapping into our comm system and sending random messages to different people saying, ah, this person's going to kill you and all sorts of stuff like that. So, oh, don't trust this person. They're working for this other group. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. We had a ton of fun. I also played in a Dungeons & Dragons Spelljammers game. It was an Adventurer's League Spelljammers game. And it was basically Top Gun Maverick. Like there was a super weapon and we were flying like two-man little Spelljammers to go and destroy, like clear the path so the guys groups behind us could come through to like destroy the super weapon and all of that stuff. It's like, you know, trench run the whole nine yards. It was hilariously. I mean, it was hilarious because my character is a gnomish artificer, uh, armor because he was severely injured working as just a regular artificer when he was young with his family in an accident and like had lost his legs and arms and stuff. So he became an armorer because that lets you create a suit of armor that regenerates you, like, prosthetic arms and legs and stuff. But what it amounted to is I was a little gnome guy sitting in the pilot seat because I have really high intelligence of this, like, super fighter while I'm basically, like, puffing away on my pipe and we're flying combat through a canyon. And we're yelling out random stuff. Like we were rolling into combat. We were like the number two fighter. Like the first fighter had to like clear the way and like mark the target. And then we were the second fighter, so we had to go through and like open it up so like the third fighter could get in. And then the fourth one could try and get the final shots in. So as we're clearing the way, as we enter the canyon, I'm just like, we're in the pie, pie, pie, pie. It's just like every cheesy. Like when we launched into the, when we started it, they had a big touchscreen monitor laying on the tabletop that they were popping stuff up and music and video scenes and stuff. So when the actual launch sequence started, they did like old 1978 Battlestar Galactica launch sequence where you get the Battlestar Galactica original series music going, and then the sound says everybody starts launching out the tubes. It was great. And then we're running through, and we're doing everything, and there's like Top Gun music playing, and Battlestar, and the last Starfighter music playing. And as we failed, me and my co-pilot failed on making our exit. And, like, we juked a whole bunch of missiles and almost got away, and the rest were coming in. And it's like, yep. My co-pilot was like, yeah, we're going to have to eject. And I just go, then we die. He's like, no, no, no, no, we can eject. I'm like, okay. You needed your little gnome eyepiece to pop down. Right. So then we ejected, and it had the whole run thing, and it ended up – we had to, like, run and find another aircraft, like steal another airplane and take it off. Just like Top Gun. Just like Top Gun. Yeah. Except for in this case, it was more like stealing a U-Wing from Rogue One. because it had like door gunners. And they were like, several of us had gotten shot down. So we're all doing it. And it's like, well, you're a better pilot than me even, so you fly this thing. And that person is going to be co-pilot because co-pilot has to be physical stats, not mental stats. So we're doing that. So me and the other guys were door gutters the whole time. I'm just doing the full metal jacket thing. It's like, how do you shoot? women and children you just don't lead them as much and we're like trying to shoot down the missiles coming it's like get some get some yeah get some it was this the tropiest just jokiest little but it was great it was hilarious but yeah it was basically top gun maverick in dnd 4 but it was it was fun because the way we were doing everything is since the pilot and co-pilot had to be synced, we were rolling dice together to succeed on checks and stuff. And there was also like, well, I succeeded. I didn't. Okay, well, we can succeed, have a partial success, and be maybe okay. Or you can burn a hit die and roll again just don't burn a hit die down to the point where you go unconscious and we will succeed and if it's a perfect success we avoid all things and we gain our hit die back so you might as well try it yeah there was a point where i was sitting on one hit that's like i'm gonna go unconscious and i'm piloting this but we managed to get a perfect uh perfect sync on the first roll so we gotta it was a lot of fun it was it was really well done so uh I definitely I had a lot of fun I also played a bunch of board games just random and they had a little garage sale area where people could sell board games that they didn't play anymore and I did not buy anything but that first night I thought about it because somebody had an unopened still in the shrink wrap of the kickstarter giant super edition of Steve Jackson's Ogre which was like a massive box and I'm like that's like 80 bucks I don't think I actually want Ogre that bad I'll think about it and when I walk back somebody bought it so I didn't have to think about it anymore. Problem solved Problem solved but I had a great time a lot of fun the convention was pretty well attended I actually ended up not I was only there the first two of the four days that's why I didn't play that maybe more, otherwise I've done a lot more role playing, but, uh, my daughter had a musical on the third day. And then when I'm then on the fourth day, when I woke up, I woke up and I, I went for a long walk and I was starting to do stuff. And then I just realized it's like, oh crap. It's, it's already like, like I ran errands, ran to the store and did all that stuff. And I'm like, oh, it's already almost noon. So yeah, not going to bother heading up there. So I only went for two of the four days. It was a good time, though. Good. I didn't do anything. Surely you did something. Not nothing interesting. Oh, well, that's totally... That's what my weeks normally are like. I did. I haven't played any Yakuza because Game Pass on Xbox, Core Game Pass, the most basic Game Pass, finally, has vampire survivors. which I think is commonly referred to as if Brotato was good. And so I've been playing a lot of vampires. I think I kind of like Brotato better. Probably since I've heard you barely talk about vampire survivors and you've talked about Brotato a lot. Yeah, I played a lot of vampire survivors, but it was a couple years ago. Yeah, it's very old. It's very dated. So I've been working my way through that. Now, I don't know if it's available on Xbox. Who knows? You can look, but I have started playing a new game called Tactical Breach Wizards. That sounds like a Steam game. It was a Steam game. Okay. But it's literally a turn-based thing where you're wizards, and you basically, like you're a wizard strike team, and you break into a room and have to take out the enemies and complete your objectives to break into another room. It's got a great, fun storyline, and it's just a fun thing Because one of your wizards is like, he can see into the future. So if you break in and there's a whole 4C phase, and if things go wrong, you can back time up and start over. Okay. I've played some games where you have that kind of reversibility to adjust, and that's a big gameplay mechanic. I've had mixed results with it. It's an okay mechanic. It's not one of my favorites, but interesting. It works pretty well in this game. Also, it's hilarious because it's literally you're wizards, but you are in like you're like kitted out like you're a SWAT team or like a special operator type. Like one of your guys has it looks like an AR-15 with a wand jammed in the barrel. It's an assault staff. This is so stupid. let's matchify things just stick wands and stuff in regular gear it looks like a rifle with a fool with the staff sticking out of the end instead of the barrel stick a wand in their flashlight it's a it's a magus light it's like oh my god don't don't ever play that again um so okay well let's jump to the pitfall segment i guess the game is fun okay i believe you um there we we have a new reveal kind of to cover so there's some of this we won't spend much time on it uh so stern uh revealed their jaws 50th anniversary premium uh we all knew this was coming um i actually have a link in the show notes to an article i'm not familiar with the site but i searched for an article with images and bloody disgusting came up so you're gonna get bloody disgusting article wow yes i think they cover horror stuff so that makes sense yeah but anyway um i do want to say uh first and foremost thank you kudos congratulations let's do a little maybe me do a little golf clap for stern it's not a black and white with red which is what they've been doing constantly that's very true nauseam ad nauseum they did not do that it's not black and white at all. The main change-up seemed to be there is a blood-red armor on the sides of the game, and I have some internal images, Tony, so you can look at the close-ups. They did, like, a brass powder coat on the wire forms I like that look I don know how well it hold up but I like that look Yeah I mean most powders I think from Stern have done okay So, yeah, again, it kind of reminds me of what you might think, you know, brass and boats kind of feel together. It has some, like, glitter embedded in areas of the art, which is something they've done before. Like, one of the Elvira games, I think, had that, for example. Yeah, like a little glittery art. um so i guess overall um i think the way you might describe it is when you look at because aside from the brass and of course the the glitter which i don't think is particularly noticeable in the pictures it's really that trim the armor and the sides of the cabinet and stuff and it i guess it really follows sort of that poster look right where it's like that you have We've got the Zac Stark blue, white, and red. It looks eye-catching. My one issue with it is, and I'm still glad they didn't do black and white, so I'm going to say overall it's a win. But the size of the cabinet, that white is a lot of, I mean, I guess pun intended, white space. There's a lot of white space, and it looks a little jarring because you have the person swimming, but it's way in the back of the game. So you just see this huge – at first I thought it was armor. Like it was white armor that was running along there, but they decided really extended armor. I was like, why would you have extended armor past the flipper buttons? And no, it's just – it's that – I think it looks good in the trans light, but on the sides of the cab, it just looks like there's too much white. Like it goes up too high, especially when you get to the back. Because a lot of the white on the trans light is filled by jaws, where on the side cabinet, there's nothing. It's just white. It's literally the percentage of white space because they didn't – like what do you do after you get done showing the poster? I guess you just extend the – I get the logic of it. I think the front of the – like around the coin door and stuff and the translight, that looks okay. But that huge chunk of white wood on the sides, I think it doesn't look very good. I think I agree with you. I mean it's not like terrible. It's not like deal-breaker. Again, this would be stuck in many people. myself included my jaws uh in the lineup you can't it's not where it's designed to let you see the sides anyway like right so i mean it's just if you're picking an in an end game to go on the end of a row so that you the sides are easily visible this isn't the game you pick but again i'm not i don't love brass powder coat and glitter enough to want to get rid of my jaws premium for this version of the i do think the red looks really sharp though like overall i think this was a pretty good execution i don't um there may be some people that still hadn't got a jaws that were wanting to get a jaws and this is the one they end up picking but i don't think i heard about people who like got rid of their godzilla premiums and got the black and white godzilla premiums i don't think there's a high volume of people that would be like i have to have this art package instead of the prior one but anyway um that's all i wanted to say on that did you have anything you wanted to add to it because again it's the same game otherwise as we've been talking about no i i think i think the important stuff has been hit all right well speaking of important stuff we've got another new release to briefly cover um and that is an announcement from uh for amusement only games that's Nicholas Baldridge's uh company that he formed um he has announced a new p3 game called steel bound don't know if he says it like that but that's how i say um i have link in the show notes to pinball news they have an article about this basically uh think original ip uh role-playing adventure where you do dungeon exploration and and i guess fight in giant robots um but you do a variety of of choices so like you're you're i guess just out of high school and you have to like shots and and gameplay stuff will have you like pick your friends that you're going to develop bonds with and what your career path is going to be and all that to sort of shape your character's future. Some of the gameplay elements, dungeons that are used in the game are procedurally generated. I think Nick's done some procedural generation in his game work before. The game is also going to be designed to work with all of the currently existing P3 modules, but which module you use is going to determine availability in terms of like which music you can choose, what locations you can choose, which characters are available to you. And so there's not a lot to say here yet beyond any of that. I wanted to know what your thoughts are. I think that's a genius idea that I can freely admit. I had no point thinking about the P3 that I ever think about somebody designing a game that could work with any module. Well, a few people have done it before. And Nick, I think, took some games where maybe it started – I can't remember which one – where he started with – I'm going to say the wrong one. I'm going to say like the heist module. And then later on he made it so that he could do other modules that the game would still play. But, yeah, the idea where it reminds me of those – what were those, like Meebo's or Meebo's? What were they where you could have like figures and you'd put them on a thing and it would unlock? Oh, yeah, the Amiibo's. Amiibo's. Yeah, for the Nintendo stuff. kind of reminds me of is like the playfields are i mean not in the same way in that like you don't plug in the heist play field and well maybe you do but i'm assuming you don't plug that in and like unlock permanently unlock a character that you could then play on the lexi light speed play field but the idea that what's available to you is different depending which module which module you end up using is a very interesting idea versus just kind of trying to accommodate the gameplay across multiple layouts, I guess is what I'm saying. So that is curious. This reminds me of kind of a blend of concepts that I'd say we're familiar with from the video game side. Obviously, giant robots fighting things. Always good. Hey, it's a popular... You'd think it'd be more popular... It's more popular in anime than it is in video games. But video games that let you be in mechs are usually... They've got their fans. Let's put it that way. They've got their fans. There's occasional fans who like playing mech games Who would know Have you ever heard of a mech What's a mech game that you can maybe think of Tony Because the listeners might be struggling I don't know what's that Isn't that new one just come out Mecha break or something like that It might be that also Isn't there one that involves a lot of tech that fights There is Like armored core or something like that I mean That's a core one sure but there's this one where it's not about winning the war. It's about winning, I think, winning a battle. You might not win the war, but you could win a battle. You could win the battle. You could definitely win the battle. I think there's one themed around that also. It's like some sort of battle tech thing. Yeah, something. I don't know. Anyway, it's a space that you – I don't even look at my hours anymore. I can't imagine how high they are. Hopefully the listeners aren't completely confused because I think I don't know how much more obvious these things could be. So anyway, there you go. Now there's a pinball coming out that will let you get your mech needs met. There are not very many mech-themed pinball machines. There are not. So a game centered around that. The one part I don't fully understand yet is like the future path, like picking, like, again, like that spell jammer aspect. You know, you're going and you're building your character. This post-high school – like what are the bonds going to do or what are the – what's this career path have to do with the – like I don't know any of that yet. So that's the part that I'm – I don't know. It will be interesting to see how it fleshes out your character and helps generate what do you – like buy-in or attachment with the character. Yeah, I'm curious if it's like going to be like bonus aspects. I again I wonder on balance like is there going to be one friend that's like well this is the best friend to have if you want to get rid of this game I mean sort of thing everybody has a best friend to have sure but kind of like a I'm thinking of like with pirates when pirates from JJP came out and you had like those 22 characters and there were like 6 that were good and the other ones were like nobody plays these characters I don't know but anyway it's very interesting so another like the games where when you're at tournament play you see someone pick a character you just go i win because they picked wrong there was one time when game of thrones was at 403 club and i played i don't remember it was like baratheon or something and i set the parathian high square because no one touches that no one to whatever family i took no one touches it because it's like not the right way to play that game right but i was just in in warm-up time and i was like i'm gonna play this i've never played this family and no one everyone says don't so I'm going to. Right. And it's like, no, it was terrible. But I got on one of the high scoreboards because everyone knew it was terrible. Right. So speaking of things that aren't a surprise, this is – I have a link to an article in Nap Arcade, which covers several things, but it covers this as well. So I wanted to include it. I mean, hold on to your shocked emotions, Tony, your surprised Pikachu face. Keep it contained because reports have come in that Chicago Gaming Company has missed their self-imposed expectation that the Cactus Canyon expansion kits would ship in June. They did not ship them in June. Purportedly, per NAP, they are now hoping to get them shipped by the end of this month, July 2025. Remember this announcement in 21 when the whole Cactus Canyon thing started? No, I swear, no one, nor would I expect them to. No one with CGC listens to any shows I ever am on because all I feel like I do anymore when this company comes up is whine about how terrible they are at building anything at speed. Their quality is well-respected. Their game choices are well-respected. Their prices are actually seen as quite reasonable by people. But, wow, do they come across as completely unconcerned with anybody's timeline, including their own? Mm-hmm. I remain amazed at how, because honestly, it feels disrespectful. But, I mean, I guess. This is pinball. It's a joke. I know collectors who have every CGC remake, and they will say, yeah, I always expect to wait two years. And it pisses me off. But I love their games, so they buy them anyway. Yeah. I mean. I mean, it is what it is. But there you go. If you guys were hoping for your expansion kit, maybe you'll get it in a few weeks. we will have to wait and see. Last item for the pinball section, because even though we had some announcements, there wasn't a lot to show. Not that we can show anything, because we're a verbal medium. We did have a discussion topic come in from Sean L. So Sean wrote in and said, not sure this is worthy of discussion, but being in the hobby for well over a decade now, I have moved and bought many games. My question is, when are you a collector versus being a pinball player? Consider this. I have seven games in my house. There are weeks that pass where I won't play Lord of the Rings or Godzilla, just because there are several other choices. I put lots of plays on my games, so I'm not someone who sells a game with 30 plays on it. At what number of pins are you a collector versus a player, or is it more about how many times you play the games? Are there games in your collection that just don't get played much? If so, why keep them? Thanks, Sean. Well, thank you, Sean. Tony, collector, player, these terms, they're not defined anywhere per se. How would you answer Sean's question? What are your thoughts? One, if you own a game, you're a collector. If you're a player, you go places to play it, to play a variety of changing games and a variety of adjustments. If you are willing to set aside any space in your house large enough to hold a pinball machine, something that is going to overall be used as rarely as a pinball machine tends to get used, even if you play every day, that's still a large amount of space set aside. You're a collector. Okay. Finally, we have a topic where we are in disagreement. so uh not on your player definition i'm if your definition of collector is one more machine than what you currently have i'm not i'm not going to say this ain't one of those like live laugh love signs i'm not going to say something that's just direct no no you might not you it'll make sense to you you won't necessarily agree with it but it will make sense to you so first first for Sean, you can be multiple things. You can be a collector and a player. So let me say, like, it's not binary. So Tony's definition of a player I would define as a, are you a location player or not? If you own a game or games and play them, you are a player. If you go on location and play, you are a player. If you play pinball, you are a pinball player. It doesn't matter how often you play. I would just say that if you, with some degree of regularity, play, and it can be a once-a-year thing. You'd be like, no, I go to one guy's casual tournament once a year and play. You're a player. You're a player. You might be a casual player. Play is going to play. You might be a casual player. You might be a consistent player or whatever, but you're a player. So that, Sean, that you play your games means you were definitely a player by definition. Are you a collector? I do not believe it is possible to have a collection of one. So I have to disagree. If you own one – I'm not a car collector because I own a Toyota Corolla. I'm not. I'm not. I'll let you finish. Okay. I own a bicycle. I don't collect bikes. And owning multiple of something does not mean you're a collector either. It's also a mentality. So, for example, I might consider my DVDs a collection because I have a lot, though there's no real structure, rhyme, or reason to how I assembled them other than their films I like. I have a lot of cups in my kitchen. I'm not a cup collector. So it's not just numeric. There has to be intent behind it. My normal, because of that, because you must have multiple of something to collect, in my view, you must, you'd have to have at least two. And then you could call yourself a collector. Is two enough? In my headcanon, it always has been. I will say one of my other hobbies, as I've mentioned multiple times on the show, is wristwatches. There is a content creator in that space who has really emphasized that in his view, you must have at least three of something to be a true collector. At that point, you're showing that you're doing creation. and there's thought behind a strategy of like there's some theme or something that you're able to express and it would take at least three to achieve that. I don't personally subscribe to that, but I do agree it is impossible. There is no such thing as a one-watch collection. There's no such thing as a one-pinball collection. You have one of something. You can't have one of something and you didn't collect anything because you've only got one. And like anything can have – anyone can have one of something. That's not a collection. So that's my view. So he's a collector as well because he has more than two games. He has two or more games. That's how I do it. I can see that. I think that the reason that you can have a collection be considered a collector of one is because unlike a car or plates or cups, this is something that does not have a more mundane use, and it does not have a secondary use. I mean, I would consider myself a collector of mugs because I have a whole bunch of mugs that have different things on them that I like and several of them sit on a shelf and aren't actually typically used. But even if I had just one because it had secondary uses, I don know that it would count as a collection But a pinball machine is a singular thing with a single use case It not like a car I mean I have or a bicycle that has you could be used for commuting or health reasons or just because you enjoy riding bicycles. I do agree with you on something that has secondary uses that are probably primary over whatever the point of the collection type thing would be. you would need multiple but smaller things i can see having collections of one because there's no guarantee that you're not going to end up with more eventually i mean if you start out with uh if you only have one watch but it is a curated specific watch you specifically picked a rolex deep sea because of whatever reasons you're interested in it. Do you have a Rolex collection? You have a Rolex, and you specifically curated it. You picked that one for specific reasons, and there's no reason you're not going to eventually add a second Rolex to it. I don't see what you might do in the future. It's not like probationary collection status to me. I agree it's not by nation. Because you either are or you aren't. Being a collector is binary in that regard. And so that you might become a collector in the future has no bearing on being labeled a collector currently. I curated my car for that. I mean we curate. But again, you're – Curation alone is not enough to be a collector in my view. Here's how I can distill it down. And again, you may very well disagree, but I will rest my case on if you were to tell someone, Tony, because you have campus, you have one pinball machine. If you were to tell someone or ask someone, hey, would you like to see my pinball collection? And then you show them one game, they're going to say, where are the others? Because you don't have a collection. You have one game. Collection implies multiple. and a multiple must have at least one more. That's why I literally must rest on the number two. I must. It doesn't matter how much thought, how much curation. If you have a yacht, you're not a yacht collector. No matter if you custom built it, custom build a motorcycle. You're not a motorcycle. You need two. Then you might not still be a collector. That's up to you, but you could be a collector with two, but you can't with one. You just have really good taste. That's what it is. You just have really good taste. I mean, I have – do I have a collection of paintings? I don't consider so, but I have several original paintings. I have like three. If I only had one, I definitely am not a collector of paintings. I'm just not. I just have one painting that I bought because I liked it. You've convinced me. Two. There you go. Two. Two is the minimum. I think when you start saying, well, you must at least have three, I think that starts to get a little in the snobby space, and I'm not into that. Again, quality is not this, again, the level of curation. The idea of curating is merely you want the thought behind it, and this is a thought on collecting in general, is people have themes to how they collect. But what that theme is is entirely up to you. The theme can be, I like how all this looks. Or in pinball, I like how all this plays. There are others that do more literal, obvious theming. I collect all Keith Elwins. I collect all CGC remakes. I collect everything from Stern or Spooky. So I collect three Flipper games. One thing I do in Watch is I collect different brands. I limit myself to no more than two of a given brand in the collection at a time. Those are just rules that I make up because they achieve something for me. I used to do that with pinball. I wanted different manufacturers for – I wanted different designers in all of my games. I'm too lazy to care. You wanted variety. Yes, and the same with watches. What I was trying to do is force variety, variety by edict. And the reason for it is to make myself see what I like. But for other people, they know what they like and they don't need to do that. But we're going way off on the weird path there. So, Sean, you are, I think, regardless of which version of Tony's definition, even pre-Dennis words or post-Dennis words, you are a pinball player and you are a collector. Case closed. There. I think Sean feels better about himself. And the listener will feel. We should finish the second question. What was the second one? Are there games in your collection that just don't get played much? And if so, why keep them? Because they're too hard to sell. I mean, that's valid. I'm lazy. That's really what it is. Are there games in my collection that don't get played much? Yeah. I actually don't play my games a whole, whole lot anymore. Currently, the ones I don't play very much, I don't play Buck Rogers very much, don't really play Victory very much. Those are probably the two standouts that don't get much time. Granted, they're in the garage. Sinbad's in the garage too, but I still put a little bit of time in on Sinbad. Yeah, no. I had them. I played them. Or Victory needs a little bit of work. That's part of the reason why it doesn't get played much. But Buck Rogers, yeah, I'm done with it. But I just haven't gone to the trouble of selling it. I'm not keeping it for any – why keep it – I mean, if you wanted reasons, aside from that, is like for one of my – I think it was one of my birthdays. My dad got BG Resto to restore the back glass on it. So I could say, well, I don't want to get rid of it because of sentimental attachment to that gift. That's not the case. I would be willing to, sorry, I would be willing to sell a, you know, I got my enjoyment out of the gift. It's okay to move it on in my head space. But for some people, they wouldn't be able to do it. Hoops, if I, even if I don't play Hoops as much as my other games and I don't, I don't know that I enjoy the gameplay and it would be hard to get one again. Right. And that kind of weighs in as if I like, if I wanted to sell Star Trek, I know I can find another Star Trek pro. They made a lot. I'll always be able to find one. I'm not going to lose sleep over that. So there could be things like that. But I think the biggest reason why a lot of people might keep a particular game is nostalgia. I know some people that they're not able to sell the first of something. I remember someone in our Kansas City community questioned when I sold Skylab because that was my first pinball machine. They're like, you're going to regret selling that. It was your first game. Do you regret it? No. In no way do I regret it. I had my time with it, and I'm glad I owned it, and it taught me a lot. And I also hate it because it got me into pinball, and there's been a price to that. There's been a price. There's been a price. But no, no. I actually generally – again, everyone's personality is different. I know people – well, like Zach, many that I do the pinball show with, especially back before he was a distributor. But now, I mean, now it kind of makes business sense. But even before then, he's brought back in games that he used to own. To me, that is a foreign idea. I have never sold something that I wanted to buy back because why would I have sold it? You see, I'm not saying I couldn't have it happen. Like I made a mistake or desperation. Maybe it's like, all right, I need to raise money quickly. Like I could see scenarios, but I mean, like people who literally sell a game and then they go, I wish I had that game back. I've known people who've done it repeatedly, like people who've owned Lord of the Rings four times. That's crazy. And I'm just like, just keep it, bro. Come on. Just to me. Keep it, bro. Come on, dude. Come on. What are you doing? Find a way to keep it. You clearly always want it. But for some people, they don't mind because they can get it so easily. It's like, why would I have it take up space if I can get it again later? They just see it in a completely different light. So the main thing for me is in terms of that question of games in the collection that don't get played much. I still might fundamentally like the game a lot. As it's gone along with my games, the ones I own, by and large, are games that I really – that's why Buck Rogers is an easy answer. I don't really like Buck Rogers. Buck Rogers was – I had an arcade game. There was a local guy selling Buck Rogers. It was – I got it on a lark. We traded. I gave him Millipede. He gave me Buck Rogers. And it's like, cool. Let me experience a new game I had probably never played before at the time. But these other games like Walking Dead, Star Trek, Godzilla, I like these games. So even if I'm not playing them, do I like John Wick more than those games? Absolutely not. So why would I let a game I like go for a game I don't like as much? and as the as the collection has been curated down to things i really like winning a spot is a lot harder there are a lot of collectors that just they want new stuff and they bring in all the new stuff or a lot of the new stuff i am not like that you gotta you gotta fight to get a spot in the lineup at this point or zach sent you a game and but he tries to send me things that i like so well that's good it's very generous but that's part of the problem i would like i wouldn't have too many games that wasn't i'm not gonna complain because that's a that's a stupid thing to whine about but uh yeah i have maybe he would like to buy my buck rogers zach let me know if you need a buck rogers in your life i'll let you have my little like glow ball or whatever i put in it that plays faster than the regular steel ball i didn't buy a ceramic ball because i'm really cheap which won't in no way surprise him but i use like one of those um some other style of ball uh like what they i don't think it's a literal glow ball like in viper night driving it's like the same weight anyway it does play a lot better with that ball though really yes yeah because that game is slow that game is so slow yeah and for me i've got i've only got the one game and it was a grail So I don't play it constantly, but I have no plans on it exiting my collection of one. Your collection of one. I don't have any plans of it exiting my ownership. Let's go with that. Maybe someday I will be somewhere in a location where I can have more than one machine and I could consider getting something else. If you just clear out that five-mile desk, you could have an arcade. Except if I cleared that out, I'd have other things that would probably be of more use because, again, it's like eating unhealthy foods. Pinball is a sometimes thing where there are other more often, more useful, more often used items that would be better in that same amount of open space. Yeah, it's a struggle. It's all a struggle. Are video games a struggle, Tony? Oh, my gosh. How much of a struggle are video games? Part of it's not going to be a huge struggle because starting today in like two hours, Summer Games done quick starts. Oh, yeah. They're going to do all sorts of stuff. They're doing all sorts of stuff. I threw together a quick little list of things I'm interested in. This evening, they're doing glitchless all bosses Sekiro run. I'm still mad that I own that game. I hate it so much. I mean, yeah, it's a Souls-like. I know, but I was told it plays different than a Souls-like, and it does, but just in a worse way. Right. Which I thought by default it had to be in a better way, and so I'm so disappointed. Oh, it's completely different than a Souls-like. It's much harder. Yes, that's basically what it was, and I'm angry about it. Visually, it's an incredible game. Souls games are training wheels for Sycorra. Oh, my gosh. kind of except they teach you the wrong things they teach you to dodge and then you get in the securo and it's like you need to learn how to parry now right but there's a dodge button but you don't want to dodge you'll never win if you dodge i'm like but in souls everything was about dodging you didn't get to parry you had to dodge everything and sometimes you need to dodge and parry you need to decide which attack has maybe elden ring is baby's first securo maybe i should do for pelton i'll probably hate it i probably hate it i know you'll i will uh i'm also interested like three in the morning tonight so i'll watch a video later uh un squadron speed run a un squadron uh which was a game i had on super nintendo and i loved it's actually based on the anime area 88 but i remember there was a local bowling alley slash ice skating rink slash arcade place that we went to at one time for like a school event, like a fun trip. King Louie? Yeah. Oh. Which is like the arts and heritage center. It's the arts and heritage center now. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. It was King Louie. Yeah, King Louie. It was a bowling alley and it was a rink as well. Right. And now it's like a museum. But they had UN Squadron Arcade. there. So I remember playing it there as well as playing it on my Super Nintendo at home. I'm interested. Monday night they're doing a speed run of Blueprints. I'm curious. This is a new game. I'm not familiar with Blueprints. It just came out like a month and a half ago, two months ago. But it is a game that is very driven by the fact that everything is completely random. because you're – to complete the game, you have to, like, find your way through a layout of the house, but the house's layout changes every day. And you kind of decide the layout of the house because you get tiles and you place down tiles every day, and it starts anew while you're trying to find the specific spot in the house. And it's super randomized, so I don't know how you can speed run it. That's why I'm curious. It's like how can you speed run something that is randomized? But we'll find out. Resident Evil 7 is going to be speedrun on Tuesday night. Doom the Dark Ages Thursday. They're going to be doing the Dark Ages. I remember the first time I watched them run the second Doom Eternal. Or no, the first Doom game when they speedran it. And I felt bad because the speedrun of the first Doom game was under 30 minutes. I'm like, oh my God. I still, that was one of my favorites simply because it gave me some tech that I then used because I hadn't finished the game yet. Right. And I used it to win. The BFG pausing? Yes. Oh, it made it so much easier. I bet it did. They're doing Monster Hunter Wild's Lockout Bingo Friday night. And I like this specifically because I liked last year, or not last year, back in January when they did Lockout Bingo on Elden Ring. Yeah. Because the lockout bingo is where there's a bunch of set goals, and you have to complete all of them in a line, down the cross diagonal, whatever. But once a place is taken, nobody else can take it. So it's a race. It's multiple people playing. But you're also trying to strategically take things to remove the other person's ability to complete. It was a lot of fun. Friday, they're playing Final Fantasy IX, one of my favorite Final Fantasy games. I actually not played that one. Yeah, I always really liked it. I liked it a lot more than 8. And their bonus game, which they always hit the bonus games, especially the last bonus game, which is what this is, is Mario Kart World that's been out a month. Yes, with the cow. The cow can drive a car. It can. It's a moo cow. Yeah. I wonder, do you think they'll meet the bonus incentive to have them drive a cow? they'll meet every bonus incentive they have to okay to they're never gonna not meet a bonus incentive it's kind of a joke at this point but it's what they do to raise funds yeah we'll see we see how it goes uh those are just the ones i looking forward to we see normally i just have it running in the background as noise And we see when I really get caught into stuff After all of the runs of all these new Xbox games coming to PlayStation, PlayStation is for the first time ever putting one of the Sony-published games on Xbox. Helldivers 2 is coming to Xbox in August. I'm thinking about playing that one. It's good. My big issue is just that I find I don't – I really don't care about multiplayer games that much. I enjoyed it while I was – Isn't that like a PvE game? It is. It is. But I still – I find that I still tend to just walk away from games too often to make it – it's hard to play anything where I'm playing with other people and they don't expect me to – or they expect me to be there and it takes more than like five minutes because it is not uncommon for me in the middle of a game to get up and walk away for a half hour to go do something. I thought that would reduce as my kids got older, and it has not. Not because my kids, but just because there's other stuff I need to do or I need to go look at something or I decide I need a snack or whatever. I'm really bad about just getting up and walking away in the middle of a game. So I have a hard time being a good multiplayer sportsman. EA. EA, dream big, I guess. They are reportedly expecting Battlefield 6 to have more than 100 million players. That is three times more players than the best-selling Battlefield game ever. i i long for a good battlefield game because i always favored it as a it's probably my most favorite uh multiplayer shooter like i i never really got into online call of duty i don't do a lot of multiplayer shooters in this format um i halo's okay but i i i don't i've only ever really played it casually i used to put a lot of time though doing like capture the flag and stuff in battlefield um but the last couple especially the last one like battlefield one was good but since then it's been battlefield 2042 terrible i and it's been out for several years and it's only sold 22 million copies and they've and they've patched it but it was too i mean they just they went they went rainbow six siege on it they're like they made operators they tried to make you feel like you identify with the character you know custom named people with their own and It's just like that's not what Battlefield was. Battlefield is like pick one of four different class types and go at it. Like you want to be a sniper? Do you want to be an engineer? And you had kits built around that. And I heard they started to change 2042 to align with that. But there was just a whole – it was just – the maps were huge. You were running around. The vehicles were in different – it was just – it was my least enjoyable Battlefield experience I have ever had. Ever. and I've played quite a few of them and there were some lackluster ones but that one was like peak for me, peak Battlefield was Battlefield Bad Company 2 Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4 those three were all very strong since then, not so much though, Battlefield 1 being World War 1 really limited on a lot of things but as a game it was still a really well designed game, so I did put a lot of time on it, but 2042 I played it like a month, and I was like, this is stupid, and I'm mad I spent money on it, and I just quit. Yeah, a lot of people did. But this is so ambitious. It's so unreal. I know the reason. The reason is because the last – like Call of Duty Warzone, the free-to-play Call of Duty, went over $100 million in under a year. Yeah, that's Call of Duty. Right. And the last – what was it? Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, whatever. It went over $100 million in about a year. And Fortnite's over $200 million. And this is the kind of things they're targeting. I just don't think it's realistic for a Battlefield game to target those kind of numbers. I just – I don't see it. I mean, I guess we'll see what they come out with. But here's my concern. If six flops, I think EA, I wouldn't be surprised if they kill Dice off. That's my assumption. At the very least, no more battlefields. I would assume this is laying the groundwork for that. That's my assumption. I don't see how they hit this number. I think it's so far along that they don't want to cut it, but this is where they're putting out a level of something they consider as the minimum acceptable that is impossible to hit so they have a reason to shut it down and not do anymore. That's my guess. And then the last thing is Xbox's layoffs. We saw rumors of this. I first saw rumors after our last episode. Yes, and I saw someone was reporting, and then they backtracked really. You sent the link, and then I went, and I saw that person then immediately backtracked. Not entirely. They noted that whatever their source was, it was like heard from a heard from a heard. Right. It wasn't – well, their source wasn't too wrong because Xbox is laying off 9,000 people. Well, I guess it's Microsoft that's laying off 9,000. Well, Microsoft is 9,000. Because I saw – Xbox has definitely hit pretty heavily with it, though I'm not entirely sure what amount is theirs versus – well, you have some of the details. Yeah, and let's see. The King division is laying off 10% of their staff, which is around 200 people. Yeah, so that's a small portion of it. ZeniMax has canceled a couple of titles and laid off a large number of people, but I haven't seen any solid numbers on what the ZeniMax layoffs are. Raven Software has done major layoffs, but again, no firm numbers on Raven Software. where they're one of the three Call of Duty developers. Yeah, they rotate through three. Turn 10, they do Forza Motorsports and Forza Horizon. The entire motorsports team is gone. Motorsports is gone. I don't know how well that one has been selling. Horizon is definitely considered the better one. Yeah, well, and I agree. I haven't played a Forza Motorsport since the 360. Yeah. uh rares ever wild was canceled as was perfect dark uh uh the initiative is the company that was working yeah they got rid of the entire company yeah now that one that so that was the one gaming division i saw was eliminated outright and that one was so they hadn't put out anything the initiative was the one i remember when it was announced when microsoft had said that they were They were establishing a quadruple-A studio. Now, I read an article since this announcement came out that Perfect Dark was nowhere near ready, and they were struggling mightily with it. Like, their vertical-slice game demo wasn't a literal video play-button thing, but it was heavily scripted. There were parts of it that weren't in-game footage. They were video-imposed, and that it just, like, they weren't. And that one may, I mean, obviously, Microsoft doing this when they had record profits, none of this, I'm going to say, is a right move. But I will say that this game actually sounds like they put it out of its misery. Yeah, that's kind of what I was hearing, too, is that it was nowhere near where it should have been for the other time. Whereas the other stuff, like, I don't know on, like, Everwild. Everwild was announced in, like, yeah, it was an MMO announced in, like, 19 or 20. And nobody's really heard anything about it since. So who knows? Undead Labs, the makers of State of Decay, they took a big cut. Romero Games, created by John Romero, they had its new IP ended, and all staff has reportedly been laid off. Okay. I hadn't heard about Romero Games. They're completely done. What I find also interesting, and I didn't put it in the notes, is they laid off huge swaths of the Xbox R&D user staff, like half or better, of the people whose whole they do is all the research into user experience. They laid off like half that staff, including like the entire staff of the people whose specific thing is like child-proofing games for, you know, that kids aren't supposed to play, doing that whole stuff. And then, yeah, and then Microsoft's other layoffs across the board. Phil Spencer's memos and comments were really bad. And one of the articles I read took his comments, because his comments is like, oh, Xbox has never been stronger, so we're laying everybody off. One of the articles I read, it took and lifted, and it said, when you combine the direction Microsoft as a whole has kind of turned in the last year and Phil's comments combined with the layoffs, it looks like Microsoft is leaning hard into AI, and they're dumping everybody to concentrate on AI development. Yeah, I've seen the same article. I saw several pieces, but – so we already know because it's a publicly traded company. Microsoft has been – they had a very good year. Yes. Monetarily, they have made a lot of money. Assuming Phil wasn't – and honestly, with the tone deafness of his memo, it may be time for Phil to go. Oh, he's not going anywhere. But, I mean, assuming that what he said is true, and I wouldn't assume he would just lie, but assuming what he said is true, Xbox actually has done very well, that it has made money for Microsoft. And that it was their best year in their history in terms of games played and all that and everything else. Even though, again, they make their money on the software. It's not been about their consoles, which we know have always been in the toilet for a long time, for the last two gens. But that Microsoft is trying to win this AI battle. They need a lot of Nvidia chips. And that the thought was firing 9,000 various Microsoft employees, which are not just Xbox, but are everything. They're taking stuff all out of non-AI areas and legacy areas. so that they can put that cash into buying more equipment to brute force their way through AI or whatever is going on there. So, I mean, we know they're really leaning heavily on AI, and it does sound like in an effort to, quote-unquote, win that, they decided that rather than burning cash, they'll just free up cash by burning payroll. And now they have all this extra overhead freed up that they can spend on AI stuff. That's the theory. and that, yeah, no, Xbox is doing great. Yeah, they're doing wonderful. So they should be able to coast along just fine with some projects killed off and a whole bunch of staff gone. Yeah. And I guess we'll see. We'll see how that works out. I mean, PR-wise, they've had some rough PR-wise. Well, because they already had a big purge earlier in the year. Yes, they did. This brings their total purge for the year over 15,000. And one of their execs put out what might be even more tone deaf than Phil Spencer's memo, a tweet that he has since deleted. But being the Internet, nothing goes away. Nothing escapes. Where he put a thing talking about he knows how hard it is for those people who've lost their jobs or think they're about to lose their jobs. And he really pushed them to embrace AI to help them through these troubling times and use AI to punch up their resumes or to help them deal with the stresses and all the – oh, it was bad. Here's Microsoft's AI. Yeah, right? It is – yeah. They're going hard on the – I mean, I understand that that's the frontier that all these companies are fighting over because I get it. They don't want to be like – in Microsoft's case, I imagine they, as a company, look back and they go, gosh, look at how we missed the boat on phones. Right. The Windows phone came out way too late, just like Zune came out way too late versus the iPod. They've been behind the curve on so much stuff. They've been at the forefront on cloud. Yeah. So cloud computing, they have big – and, I mean, they make a lot of money off of that. They make a lot of money of people renting their infrastructure to host cloud stuff. And I think they're like, we got to – Google's doing this. Apple's doing this. Whatever Elon's doing with Gronk is doing this. So was X is doing like they're like, we got to be in this space. Yeah. And I again, as a from a gaming perspective, it's it's concerning. I mean, I guess Nintendo and Sony aren't going to be shifting into AI. So we'll still have that. It's just it's very weird because it almost when I first saw this, it kind of remind me of embrace. Maybe not to the extreme of Embracer Group, because at least I see the logic here. But it's like you went to all this trouble to get all these studios and build this all up. And per Phil Spencer, it's working. Like you've got the revenue coming in showing that the investment is working. And I mean they didn't – it wasn't, again, not like Embracer where they just shed everything. It's mostly they just gutted a bunch of staff out. Yeah. And they're trying to trim this down to be the – but again, when you look at something like the initiative, which was like that was supposed to be super ambitious from the ground up like this wasn't vampiric microsoft coming in this was them building up a brand building up a studio and they're just like now and maybe it was screwball poorly led 3d realms meet star citizen and it just had to have the plug pulled i don't want to say you know there are bad investments that happen but right i'm just like it's a bad look it's a bad it is especially again when from a gaming perspective you look at the company and you're like let's let's talk let's talk more late stage capitalism record profit so let's fire a bunch of stuff just like ea a couple years ago that yeah and again it's not it's not unique to any one particular brand but this again it may i do think it is probably the ai thing uh i mean i'll think otherwise if they do a whole bunch of stock buyback which is you know another favorite side so let's fire staff on a record year and then do stock buyback to raise the price so that i get a bonus right but i think i think it's the the ai thing makes sense and the one of the big things is with them owning all of those studios they have all of that code to feed through the ai to train so they can they did that that's all stuff they own that they can legally feed into their ai maybe Battlefield 7 does exist as an AI game. Procedurally generated Battlefield. Yeah, and maybe it can play itself. Maybe. If it's like Battlefield 2042, it'll spend 30 minutes walking and just get sniped. God, that game was terrible. Well, Dennis, that's it. Well, thanks everyone for listening. You can reach out to us at collectthegamerspodcast.gmail.com or at Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast, or you can support us over with Patreon.com slash Eclectic underscore Gamers for as little as $1 a month. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. And we should be back in a couple weeks. Until then, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See ya.