I can't live with or without you. I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said. Ah, happy Monday morning everybody. Welcome to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, With or Without You. That feels like the vibe right now with the community and Stern Pinball. I feel like this dichotomy, these opposing forces. People love Stern Pinball. People love Stern Pinball games. They just want to see Stern Pinball make some different changes every once in a while. They want to see them not go back to the well and charge twice as much money for games that were half the price. And they also just want to see some different art styles make their way into Stern products. I mean, it's really not that hard. You know what no one is saying in the pinball world? Stern games don't shoot great. Nobody says that. They're not saying Stern Games don't have great code. Nobody's saying that for the most part. They're saying a lot more positive stuff about this company than negative stuff. But the new in box thing is an issue. There is a thread out there on Pinside that basically says, how much money have you lost in the pinball industry on a new in box game? And it's like a really interesting thread as people are being transparent and honest about the huge amount of money people have lost. And all of it's in the last four years. Nobody lost this kind of money if you bought stuff pre-COVID. Before we get into this, though, I want to say a huge welcome to our new club members, Tom Carroll, James Schaffner, Pinstein. Who else we got here? DJ R Pinball. Christopher Franchi is now a member of the Canada Club. Mr. Franchi, welcome. We've got Jesse Meade at $10 a month. Also, James is also $10 a month. So thank you, gentlemen. We've got Alexandros, Jason Long, Craig Holt at $15 a month. I'm going back maybe to May now. I don't know if this is all this month. But hey, everybody, welcome to Canada's Pinball Podcast. And if I have not given you a shout out and you'd like one, just hit me up. Let's do this. So look, we've got Beetlejuice this week. We've got a community giving a lot of feedback to this Walking Dead remastered. We've got people waiting on their Winchesters. We've got Predator trying to sell 200 games by the end of the year. We've got some new news on this episode of Canada's Pinball Podcast. I am hearing Stern has reshuffled the deck. I'm going to tell you on this episode what I hear is next, because definitely they are feeling the heat and they definitely need another ginormous hit. This company is not used to this. They need at least one hit game a year that carries them, becomes like the red thread that lifts everything up, where they get so many orders that throughout the year, they can continue to run pros and premiums on that game. The LE sells out pretty instantly. It hasn't happened in a really long time. And threads like this one about how much money have you lost on new and box games does not help the narrative. And this has been the thing with pinball over the last five years. And I know there's like the people out there that say, hey, look, it's an entertainment device. Buy it because you love it. Play it and don't worry about the resale value. Those people are not wrong. But there are also those people that, hey, I don't want to buy a game if I pay 15 for it. And in six months, it's worth $10,000 because, hey, I'm willing to wait six months and let the depreciation happen because that doesn't happen in the watch world. It doesn't happen in the car world. It doesn't happen in the video game world. It really is a pinball thing that you can spend $15,000 on a game, right? Accessorize it out. And in six months, they're trading for 10. It's a significant loss. It's like a 40% loss in the value of the game. And the guy, I think, had a Foo Fighter LE and he sold it for around like $8,000. That's $5,000 loss on a Foo Fighter if you didn't buy the topper. If you bought the topper, you're talking about a $7,000 loss if you put that topper on the machine and sold it for like eight grand. So look, I'm just here to tell you right now that you guys are all smart. If you're a member of the Kaneda Club, I don't worry about you. You're here for a reason. We talk about this all the time. And it's funny to me that there's people in this hobby that say, why do people give Kaneda $5 a month for his podcast? And yet these are the same people saying to everybody out there, it's okay to spend your money on a game because it's meant to entertain you and you're supposed to put it in your house. It's convenient. Have fun with it and don't worry about the cost of ownership and the depreciation. And these are the same people that say that it is insane to give Canada in Connecticut $5 a month to be entertained for hours. There are people in this hobby, and you know who you are, that you actually listen to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast on a monthly basis, maybe more hours than you do play pinball. And what I don understand is it all just entertainment It how we decide to spend our time When I think about a single game experience which is pinball, and then I think about how much fun it is to play certain video games for like $60, $70. Like if you play Donkey Kong Bonanza, I'm still playing it. After you beat the game, a whole nother game wakes up where you have to go back and get all the bananas and it's so much fun. And to those people out there, spending $15,000 on a single game experience is ludicrous. And that is going to be the ultimate test to see if these Pokemon fans will come over to the pinball space when most of them have been enjoying Pokemon through Nintendo games, through a card game, through Pokemon Go. millions and millions of people love Pokemon because it's really cheap to love Pokemon. Now, here's a bit of news I'm hearing. I am hearing as of like a week ago, Stern Pinball is now putting Pokemon next. It's not going to be Transformers. The order is now going to be Pokemon finished by George Gomez. Jack Danger started the game, but George Gomez is going to finish Pokemon. George Gomez is amazing, but isn't he like 70 years old? Can you imagine George Gomez sitting down and watching Pokemon? And do you really think they're going to nail it? Now look, I hope Keith Elwin, because I heard he's a Pokemon fanatic. I don't understand why Keith Elwin, the greatest pinball designer Stern has, and the biggest theme Stern has ever had, would not do Pokemon. I'm going to say this right now. I'm going to go out on a limb. I'm going to go out on a limb because I heard this rumor first from Jason Knapp. You see how it works? You give credit to people who actually say something first on like that weasel over at the Kineticist that steals my Beetlejuice exclusive, takes my watermark off it, and then releases it as his own exclusive. That shows you what kind of man that little weasel Colin is. But Jason Knapp said something. He said, Chris, Keith Elwin is a humongous Pokemon fan. And I think that he's going to be lending his talents to this game. But here's the problem. Stern has publicly gone on the record and said that George Gomez is finishing Jack Danger's next game, which everybody thinks is Pokemon. So I don't know. What I do know is this. I really hope Stern doesn't make the same mistake again. They should have had Keith Elwin do the layout for Star Wars. If they take his talents and apply it to Fallout, which isn't even in the top like 30 of like most valuable IPs in the world. If they take his talents and apply it to Fallout and then give the number one, the biggest IP in the history of pinball games, Pokemon, which runs circles around Star Wars and Harry Potter and Hello Kitty and Super Mario and Sonic, you name it. Pokemon is by far the biggest IP in the world. And you're not going to have Keith Elwin design that game. This is the issue. I don't know what's going on over there, but they keep making this big mistake in my honest opinion. As long as they keep making these mistakes. And as long as they don't work together as an organization, they need to work together. There's a great scene in the movie that I know a lot of you still have not seen, and it is the best movie of the year. I don't care what age you are. I don't care if you have kids or not. If you have not seen K-pop Demon Hunters, you are missing out on one of the best movies of the year and maybe the best animated musical of all time. Better than Frozen, better than like Moana, better than Lion King. It is that good. And there's a scene in the movie where the three women who are in the band called Huntrix, their fans are down and out on them and they're feeling pressure to sort of release a hit. Does that sound familiar? Does that sound like a company we know? And they all get together and they say, hey, look, we need a new song that brings our fans together. And when I heard that in the movie, it reminded me of what Stern needs to do. You need to put George in a room with Seth, with Gary, with Jack, with John, with Brian, Eddie, with Keith Elwin. And they all need to sit around a table and they need to say that one simple thing. We need to make a game as a company that brings all of our fans together again. And it needs to have the support of all of them, Zombie Yeti, all of them. And I don't think they're doing that. And as long as they continue to make these games in a silo, not listen to the feedback, attack the community when we give feedback, and only have these blowhard Stern Army people try to act like that dog in that meme where the house is on fire. Everything's fine here. I mean, everyone can see right through these Stern apologists and what we want from Stern and Zombie Yeti and all the people over there. We're not looking for anything other than you guys putting all of your talents together to make a game that brings everybody together again, the way Godzilla did. And it's going to have to be even better than Godzilla because Godzilla was for the LE And if you guys don get that that the expectations are higher because you raise the prices of your company games by 30%, but you can do it. You absolutely can do it if you all get together and say, how do we make a game that brings everybody together? this Thursday night at midnight, we are going to see a game that brings everybody together. We are going to see a game that I think universally puts a smile on everybody's face. We are going to see a game that has an art package that I think is going to be the sexiest game we have seen to date. We are going to see a game that is going to have the value that's better than anything else in pinball today. It is going to be based on an iconic 80s theme that has a lot of prominence and a lot of pedigree. It's going to have a musical soundtrack that's going to be incredible. Danny Danny Elfman is going to set the foundation for what they build upon. It is going to have campiness. It is going to be colorful. It is going to have mechs. It is going to be a stunning head-to-toe game. And it is going to be $9,999. And they are only making 999 plus 80 show games. But it's going to be showtime. And midnight on Thursday, Don is going to have his party. They're going to open the doors and have a midnight launch of this game. And everyone's going to get to see it. It's an exciting moment. I love the midnight launch of the game. I love staying up late and seeing it. And then the order banks, here's the funny part. Then the order banks to order one of these games opens up at 10 a.m., I believe Central Standard Time where they are in Benton, Wisconsin. And here's the deal. Every other game is sold out. So I don't know how many games Spooky is selling directly, but you better be on speed dial. You better be trying on the website, which I think is gonna crash instantly. There's no way the website's going to stay up. And then it's all going to be about phone calls. And if you're like me and you have their personal cell phones, ah, you know, there you go. How many people have asked me for their personal cell phone numbers, which would be the easier way to get an order in? But I'm not going to give it to you. Don't worry, Bug and Luke. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to dox you guys. I'm not going to give out your numbers. It's going to be a frenzy to get one of these games come Friday. And then on Friday the 14th, we are going to see the stream of The Walking Dead. Now, look, The Walking Dead has taken a lot of arrows in the back. It has. Like, it's not as bad as people are saying. And I mean that. I mean, the art is not as bad as people are saying. The game doesn't look as bad as people are saying. But it does not feel like it's special. And that's the thing. And so Friday's stream is going to be very important because the code itself has to elevate this thing. Of course, the lights are going to be better. The sound's going to be better. The mechs are going to be better. But I'm curious to see how they take all the animations from the DMD game and put them onto this new platform. Because what we've seen so far looks pretty bad. It does look like AI generated graphics, and it just feels a little strange and awkward and weird. And I know they're trying to spin this narrative, but I have from very good sources that Wison is working on this game. And I also heard he was more of the leader. I think they're not going to ever announce he's the leader again, even if he is leading a project. But this is coming from my sources. Again, it doesn't matter, man. And it's like, I don't wake up and like think about Wysen. Like every time he touches something, I hope he does better. You know, I don't have any personal vendettas against any of these people. All we want to see them do is nail it. Like I just want to see them nail it. When they come out with a game and the art package is overly bright and colorful, I can say like you didn't nail it. Like you didn't nail King Kong. I don't think they nailed The Walking Dead, right? If you nail the look of a game, I don't think there's nearly as much blowback. Like, are people complaining about the Winchester art? No. Are they complaining about the art in Dune? No. Are they complaining about the art in Harry Potter other than the AI triple dragon eye thing? No. Are they complaining about the art with Evil Dead? No. But are they complaining about the art with King Kong? Yes. Are they complaining about the art with Star Wars? Yes. Are they complaining about the art with The Walking Dead? Yes. So that is why people say when Zambietti is leading the art department, the art director at Stern, yeah, it's not a good six to eight months for the guy. You don't want to hear complaint after complaint after complaint. And the thing with him is he didn't even do two out of those three art packages. But somewhere, I don't know what it's like working with these licensors, but for some reason, the decisions keep being made to make these things so overly colorful. And the thing is this, you can't really blame Stern because when they get it right, they really get it right. Like, look how good X-Men looks, how good Deadpool looks, how good Batman 66 looks, how good Ghostbusters looks. You know, Godzilla, I wouldn't say is the greatest art package. It's OK. Jaws, like it took a while. It took a while for people to warm up for Jaws. But Jaws, again, the Jaws that works is just the movie poster. The illustrated stuff was terrible. And here's the thing about Jaws. they were going to put the illustrated trans light on the LE Again it just goes to show you it like whoever making the decisions over there doesn really get it And it was a last minute decision to make the Jaws Translight look like the movie poster. Duh. Like, why would you ever even try to do anything other than the iconic movie poster? So I think Beetlejuice is going to be a game that just unites people, excites people, and then enrages people. And the enragement part is coming. I don't think Spooky's used to this, what's about to happen. So they're only going to be able to make 1,079 people happy when maybe 3,000 to 5,000 people want the game. They will never have had a game in their history. I think they've made something like 12 games. They will never have made a game before. And I mean everything. Rick and Morty, you can name any game they've made. They will never have had a game that will have more angry people banging on the door trying to get one of these games. And they're going to get vitriol and they're going to get people screaming and crying that they deserve one. Because, you know, there's nothing more fun in life than seeing in a world in which the global medium income, which means that's what people make for the entire year is around $8,000 and to see primarily wealthy Caucasian men being told they can't have something, fighting for something, saying it's unfair that they didn't get one. It's really a fun place to be. I can't wait. I got my popcorn ready. And knowing that Canada has five games for Canada Club members, that's going to spark a lot of anger. Only five? I mean, Come on, Don got 20. Don got 20. I got five. So don't be mad. And I love what Don is doing. If you got a special VIP invite and you make your way to Benton, Wisconsin, you get a game. If you're a Canadian club member, I'm going to figure out what we're going to do. We're going to have something fun. We're going to do something that's really going to trigger the babies. You're going to get a game. Five of you are going to get a game courtesy of Canadian club. And then people wonder, why do you sign up? Why do you listen to that show, man? Meanwhile, these are the guys that are on Pinside spending half of their life arguing with each other on page 78 of a forum that makes everybody there look silly. Nobody looks silly here. You guys are doing it. And look, unlike pinball and Pinside, you could put me on when you're going for a jog, when you're driving to work, when you're doing something else. Like this is passive entertainment. It's really hard to do passive entertainment when it comes to something like Pinside because you gotta click to the next page. That's active. It's not passive entertainment when you're playing pinball. You gotta be playing the damn game. This is the greatest five to 15 to 10 to 30 to $100 a month people could spend for passive pinball entertainment. So thank you for being a member. I'm super excited for this week. We're gonna have a lot. We're gonna get to see Beetlejuice in all of its glory. I have not seen it yet. They have let other content creators see it. I don't want to see it. We are going to do a midnight launch party here. We're going to watch it live here. Now, one thing that is unfortunate for me personally is my little boy, Killian, is getting his tonsils out Thursday. So he's going to be in pain and I need to be a good dad. And so hopefully he's sleeping peacefully and knocked out and I can find a quiet space to do the show. And then Friday, we're going to have all the frenzy of people trying to get a Beetlejuice. Then we're going to get the streaming of The Walking Dead. And then Saturday, we're going to get the Barrels of Fun factory tour because the local show is happening there with those guys. And so we get to see our Winchesters on the line. Some of them have gone out. And I think the show games are out. Like some of the locations around the world have them. I think only four of them are out there in the wild. And I look forward to that game making its way to consumers and entering into the conversation more. Because right now, I still think about 95% of people who ordered a Winchester Mystery House have never played it. They've never played it. And I am shocked. I mean, good on you guys. I am shocked that none of you who has a spot flipped it for a profit. I think you guys are making a mistake. I do. I think you're going to be able to get like three to five grand right now, get the money. And by the time they're at game number 300, you're going to be able to pick one up for like 9,500 bucks. I'm just going to say that. And if you had made your three to $5,000 profit, then that $9,500 game is a $4,500 game. I love doing the math on this stuff. It's fun to talk about these things and to cover the pinball market. I think for those out there that don't want to talk about the prices, good on you because that just means you're so rich you don't need to worry about money. But the rest of us on planet Earth, we've got to think about these things. Life is expensive, carnal. It ain't getting any cheaper. And the only good bang for the buck left in all the pinball now is Beetlejuice and Canada. Canada out. We go without you We go without you I can't live We're going back to We're going back to