Cause I'm preaching to the choir, can I get the mic a little higher? Give me your desire, I can be the star you rely on. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Happy Friday everybody, welcome to Pinball Expo's most invited attendee, Kaneda of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. It was a week ago that we got Stern Pinball. Star Wars, doesn't it feel like it's been out for months? And I'm going to say this, the reason why I know this game is not selling very well, I don't have official numbers, but I know a reason why. And this only happens when a Stern game isn't selling very well. I start to hear from people at Stern. I heard from Zombie Yeti about some of my comments. I heard from George Gomez and they never reach out to me unless the orders are not rolling in. I heard from a big distributor that only 25 people ordered Star Wars in like every trim available, right? You can easily get an LE. They didn't sell out. It's looking like the pro might be the way to go. And you know, going in the hype thread a week later, it's just kind of out in the world. I think all of us are going to jump on the game. I think we will enjoy it. The jury is still out on whether or not the game is going to have long ball times or not. I think it's going to be more brutal than people think because of where they put the pop bumpers. Those pop bumpers are really going to cause a lot of chaos and a lot of drains, and they are smack dab in the middle of each side of the game. I mean, not in the middle of the game, but on the sides right there. When that ball hits those, it's going to create a lot of drains. So look, we've seen the footage, we've seen the gameplay, and it doesn't feel like there's anything left in the tank. And that's the thing with pinball launches, right? You can tease a game and you can get people excited, but in the end, in the end, when the moment of reveal is upon us, when we see the game in all of its hopeful glory, it really has to excite us. And you know, I always say like FOMO is dead for Stern and it is. What's going to make FOMO come back for Stern? Do you think Pokemon is going to make each of you go crazy? Most of you couldn't even name three Pokemon characters. Okay. So we know Pokemon's not going to have that. The Walking Dead remastered is not going to have it. Are you going to have that over Fallout? And I just want to say this about Fallout. I know that Fallout is a hugely popular video game. I know it is a hugely popular show. I know it is a really cool dystopian future world under glass that they could create in a pinball game. I get it. And I get that some of you are huge Fallout fans. That being said, I don't think most people in pinball cross over and want to own a Fallout game. I know we're going to want to play it. I know we're going to have fun. See, this is the issue now with all of pinball, in my honest opinion. It's like, yeah, everyone's starting to realize that it's all fun. It's a toy. It's a pinball machine. This is not a root canal. And so when you walk up to a pinball machine, you're going to have a good time. Most of us, when you walk up to Galactic Tank Force, knowing you're not going to buy it, we'll have fun. Heck, I even had fun playing one ball. I guess I walked away from the second two balls of Thunderbirds. So I wouldn't buy one. And this is the whole thing, though. These companies, you got to remember this. They're not making games, for the most part, to steal our quarters away when we go to the the arcade. That was what Bally Williams was designing their games for. When they made games in the 90s, they were designed to steal our quarters, to pull us away from all the amazing video games that were inside an arcade. And that's why those games are still, to this day, the greatest world under glass pinball experiences and also the greatest mechanisms in the history of pinball. Nobody's making better mechanisms in 2025 than Bally Williams did in 1995. You got to remember that, okay? Because they knew who their audience was. They knew and they delivered and they delivered some of the greatest creative moments in pinball. Nowadays, it's different. They're not making these games to steal our quarters away. All of you listening to this, for the most part, just a few of you are operators, but I would say 98% of you listening right now, your coin slots are virgins Nothing has penetrated your coin slot and still your game has a working coin slot So nowadays the target is different They need to put something in front of us that is compelling enough for us to want to buy it And at these prices, most of the games now are not making a good enough argument for our money. And you're keeping your money in your wallet. $13,000 for a Star Wars LE. why would anybody pay that much if you've been alive over the last two years you know the way this game is gonna go you know this game is gonna be 10k in just a month the moment that the walking dead i don't even care if walking dead's better or not it's just stern's already gonna have moved on in a month in a month and by the time you get your game because you're not getting your le next week. By the time you get your game, you will be able to have saved $3,000 if you just wait it like a couple months. And I think everybody's learning that, that you just got to have patience. And here's the other part. By the time your Star Wars Elite is now available for $10,000, another game will be revealed. Beetlejuice, Christopher Franchi, Spooky Pinball, 999 total units for $9,999. And then which game are you going to want? Are you going to want the Star Wars that everyone's been ragging on for the last month and a half where there's no hype and no FOMO? Or are you going to want what is going to be the hardest game to get in the last five years? I mean this right now. Beetlejuice is going to be the most difficult game to acquire in the last five years. It's going to be way harder to get one of those than a Metallica remastered LE. You name me one game in the last five years that is going to have the kind of frenzy that Beetlejuice has. Because what people are forgetting is that there are thousands of pinhead collectors who have wised up and have not been putting their money against these newer machines and they're going to want Beetlejuice. Harry Potter CE, if they only made like a certain number of CEs, may have been the hardest to get game. It would have been. Even if they only made a thousand, Harry Potter is a phenomenal game. Everybody is saying it. I'm not the only one saying it. Yeah, the code isn't exactly how I would have liked it. It is a little overly complex, but that's just JJP's thing. I don't know. You know, for all these years, I've been telling them just simplify, simplify, simplify, and they still have to have eight things going on at once. But still, read the room, read the room. Everybody unboxing those Harry Potters is having an amazing time and the game is stunning, but it's not limited. So like two years from now, if I want a brand new Harry Potter CE in a box, I'll be able to get one. And of course, Harry Potter CEs will go down in value as thousands of them make their way out into the world. But I kind of like what Jersey Jack did. They're just like, you know what? Screw it. We're just going to make as many as people want. It's not about collecting anymore. It's about making something of quality and making something beautiful and making something amazing. And the money will come and we don't have to worry about creating FOMO because if it's good enough, it will always have FOMO. And Harry Potter is delivering on that philosophy. But Beetlejuice, forget it. Forget it. And I've been telling people to get on a list. Make sure you get one. And the other reason why Star Wars sales have to be like really in the gutter is this. They probably sold 8,000 Star Wars Steve Ritchie games years ago. And how much was that game? If we go back, I think that game, the LE I want to say was like $9,000. Okay, so you've got Star Wars LE. It might have been $8,500. I don't know what it was, but you've got 8,000 Star Wars pinball machines in the world already that are tackling episodes four, five, and six. And it's also those games were called Star Wars, not Fall of the Empire, which is a new made up name, which doesn't click. I know it's called Star Wars Fall of the Empire, but you know what I mean? It's a little weird seeing the original trilogy served up with a new name. Okay. Just, I don't know, weird marketing, but they did it. Okay. But 8,000 of those games are out in the world. And so now you've got a new Star Wars game. So Star Wars fans maybe, maybe already have one. So do you think all of them are going to absorb the new one. Some people will, but for the most part, you're significantly reducing the amount of homes that are going to want one who don already have the theme And so from there you really have to invite new people into the hobby And I hate to say this but you know looking at the video with all the YouTubers and the new Stern Schill army, did you see that first impression video? Poor Vic, Vic, I love you, man. They got Vic on camera. If I was Vic, I would have been sort of slowly backing up like Homer Simpson into the bushes because you don't want to be on that video saying how fantastic the game is and you can even see it in the people's impressions they're not really ecstatic they are like struggling to say something nice because they're a guest inside stern's like headquarters and i get it like they would have got me too like i would have said something i don't know man the leg bolts look really shiny on this version they would have got me saying something it's just seeing that video makes me really happy that I did not go. It would have been weird for me, the world's most prolific pinball podcaster who's been in this for 12 years, to go through that door and see that cast of characters that has no relationship with the pinball community. And Stern's biggest mistake still, and it's the big issue happening in all of pinball that they're getting wrong, is they still continue to avoid having the conversation with us. With you and me, guys and gals on Canada's Pinball Podcast community, they don't want to talk to us. The enthusiast pinhead is not who they are focused on. They are afraid of us. They are afraid of our feedback. They don't know how to engage us. Mr. Sharp over there is more concerned with tournament play and league players. He knows that community. He doesn't know the home collector, the home buyer. Do any of them? I really mean this. Do any of them? I sometimes feel like Gary could give two SHITs about us, the home buyer. All he cares about is that that big check comes from those distributors every new release. And the only game he cares about is the game on the line. He doesn't care that he sold you a $20,000 James Bond 60th that you lost $12,000 on. He doesn't care that he re-released Elvira because he got the big check from those distros. He doesn't care that he burned all of us LE owners with all of those remakes, he doesn't care. He did all those moves and Seth and George, I mean, who is responsible? I don't even know. You know, when people are like, it's all Seth's fault. It's all George's fault. I don't know. Collectively though, collectively, now that they've got a new CMO, collectively, that is the big shift that Stern Pinball needs to do. And I hate to say this, but until they get someone internally over there that represents, understands, and listens to the home collector, not Neil McRae in your ear kissing your ass every single day because that's who's coming over there all the time. I mean, he was at the media day, I think. It's like I don't even know. Like they listen to those people, but that's not who they need to listen to. It's not the fanboys that will forever shill you. You need to listen to the people that used to buy your product and no longer buy your product. And I think they've ignored us. And I think they think they can just like keep doing it the same way and get a different result. Because the thing they're missing is really, it's not even about each individual title. It's really people's opinions about the brand and people seeing moves the brand has made and no longer feeling like that's a company. I respect and want to support. And when I hear from like Zombie Eddie and George, look, I never question the passion of the people over at Stern. I don't. I never question the talent of the people over there. I don't. When I went over there, I told them to their faces, you have the greatest manufacturing, the greatest themes, the greatest talent, all of the greatest stuff in the world around this hobby. And then I pointed to their last four releases and showed them if people bought every one of your recent games at the highest trim level, people lost $17,000 in value. This is your number one problem. And either you're going to address this or you're going to try to ignore it. Now, they tried a little bit to address it by limiting the number of Metallica LEs. I mean, I do feel like I had a little bit, a little bit of influence on that move and that worked out well. But it doesn't solve the bigger problem because bringing Metallica back creates even more lack of trust between the pinball community than anything else. Because everybody who bought an original Metallica is now feeling like bummed out everybody the thousands of people that own The Walking Dead are going to have the same feeling in just a few weeks So remaking the classics kind of gets you one step further and two steps back in restoring your brand reputation with the hobby. I could walk into Stern Pimble tomorrow and call an emergency meeting and really make this the center point and the North Star for our mission in 2026. And then when you think about it through that lens, restoring our brand to this community, listening to the community, listening to the home buyer, you don't end up with fallout. You don't pass on Beetlejuice and back to the future. How do you pass on Beetlejuice and Back to the Future? They're going to witness, and I mean this, they're going to witness a $10,000 spooky Beetlejuice sell out instantly, and then they're going to witness on the secondhand market, these Beetlejuices are going to be $15,000 to $18,000 right away. I mean this. I know I said that about Star Wars, but I changed my mind. This time I mean it. There are going to be way more than 1,000 people who want one, and there's going to be a feeding frenzy to get one. It's going to be really fun to watch. I'm really excited. Happy birthday, by the way. Happy belated birthday to Mr. Christopher freaking Franchi. We've been through a lot over the years together. We're very similar. We've got that Italian blood coursing through our veins. We are very emotional. We are very short-tempered. He's much more talented on an artistic level than me. He's very talented on the podcast. Mike still created the world's greatest pinball podcast from a production standpoint. But it is, you know, whenever I would listen to his super awesome pinball show, it was absolutely like the most well produced show ever. Like we didn't deserve it. And I would tell him that I would literally tell it to Christopher Franchi every time I saw him, bro, like they don't deserve this hard work. And when he would do those interviews, I don't think many people realize when you actually edit an interview, not do what other shows do and just upload it with all the ums and likes and pauses and stumbles. No, no, no. When you actually edit an interview to make your guest sound great, it takes hours. So an hour interview might take four to five hours of editing. So the end listener has a better experience. And that is what true professionals do. when you're making a podcast. So happy birthday, Mr. Franchi. In the end, through all of the drama and all of his ups and downs in pinball, all of it put him in the best possible place with the best possible people making the best damn pinball machine we're gonna get. And I haven't even seen it in 2025. And he's not done over there. And now Spooky knows what people want. And they're gonna keep serving it up in the most stunning way possible. Unlike other art in pinball, the reason why Franchi's art never gets old is he's taking the source material and just making it better. Like I've been saying, what you really want with a theme integration is you want recognition and you want something that's relatable. When you see the King Kong art package, you're like, I don't relate to that art as a King Kong image. That's not how I remember King Kong. And so when we see Beetlejuice, it's going to be like, yep, that's the Beetlejuice I know and love. Yep. Sorry, honey. We're not going on that vacation because I just wrote a check for $13,000 because I got the butter cabinet. I got the topper. I got everything. And just so you guys know, we are going to have some examples of Spooky Pinball's Beetlejuice available exclusively for Kaneda Club members. So if you get shut out, you will have a second chance at this machine. Everybody, happy Friday. Is anybody talking about Canada out in the world? They're always talking about Canada out in the world. And I don't listen. I mean this right now. I don't listen to any other shows except for Electric Bat and Carrie Hardy. And I'll watch Todd when he does stuff. And of course, you know, I love my boy Jamie down there at the Wormhole Pinball, which is now going through like a crazy divorce. so sad. Like the story of it is just insane. It's not mine to tell. So if you ever see Jamie roaming around a show, ask him about it. It's nuts. I mean, damn. Divorce is rough. Kaneda out. Happy Friday. Now we runnin' wild You're down on your knees, I'm a bigger idol