This episode of the Eclectic Gamers podcast is brought to you by the Roanoke Pinball Museum in Roanoke, Virginia. What does the Roanoke Pinball Museum need with a starship? It doesn't, because it's an interactive museum dedicated to the science and history of pinball. Their mission is to cultivate curiosity in science, art, and history through pinball, while preserving and honoring its role in American culture. The museum is open every day in the Federation, except on Mondays, and it houses over 65 machines, with models ranging from 1932 to 2018. Of all the pinball museums I have known, Roanoke is the most human. Welcome to the Eclectic Gamer's Podcast. Today is Sunday, February 23rd. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. We're back. Back again. I don't... Eclectic's back. I don't... At first, I didn't think I'd know that song. I might, but I don't remember for sure. Sorry. If only they could have seen your... You were really into it. I was into it. You were? I had the dance. I had the... Yeah. So we've got some stuff I think we've got more video game stuff To talk about than pinball stuff There are only a couple pinball items I really wanted to talk about To be fair, the vast majority of the video game stuff It's got a lot written down But it's real quick to go through Hey, if it's a shorter episode People will just have to enjoy the fact that They don't have to drive for an hour and a half for once So Before we get going though It's update time You have updates I have updates I drove three hours yesterday. Round trip or one way? One way. Okay. Got a puppy and drove three hours back. Wow. So now we have three dogs in our household. I can't complain too much because the new puppy is mine and I chose her and everything. It's been a while since you've had a dog. Six or seven years. Less long than I realized. I think six. Yeah, it's between six and seven years. My youngest was right at two-ish. Oh, okay. When my last dog passed. And she's almost nine now. She's eight and a half. So it's been six or seven years. So what type of dog is this? Because it's not the same as your prior. No, my prior dog was a topper. He was a mutt, but he was a mutt of different Spitz. So he looked like he was a small German Spitz, which has a name in Europe. They're like German Spitz Kleins, but there's no actual breeder for it. It's just a small German Spitz type. But his coloration was more Pomeranian, so he's just a mutt, which is also based off the German Spitz. So he's just a mutt. But, yeah, he was very much a very obviously one of the Spitz breeds. I actually went with a Terrier this time, a Wirefox Terrier, which is a really rough-coated, like, hunting dog. Yeah, about how big do they get? The average size for a Wirefox is 15. Yeah, it's between 15 and 20. Okay. But based upon the specific one I've got, the breeder said she'll probably be, and that was for a male. For a female, she's already going to be smaller. And she said based upon the other ones that she's gotten from her other dogs, she's going to probably be between 13 and 15. Okay. So right in the same size as Topper. Yeah. Yeah, he was about 15 if I remember right. Yeah. I had my. Yeah, he was like 18 when we let him get fat. Oh, yes. But when he was in good shape, yeah. When he was in hunting mode. He was 14 or 15. Yeah. My last dog was a rat terrier, and he was about 10 pounds. And they ranged all the way up to like 20 or 25, depending on particulars. But he wasn't a purer either, so it wasn't too surprising. Now, to tie this into Eclectic Gaming, you have gone with a video game name. I've gone, yes. I've gone with a name that has video game ties and fantasy novel ties. And it started out I was going to go since my daughter's dog is named Dixie Reinhardt because she's a Dixie Reinhardt main. And he's a Boston Terrier. I was going to go with something Overwatch related. But I was going to go with May because May is Bay. Yes. Didn't fit the personality. didn't really like, you know, like Tracer or Sombra or something like that. And I didn't immediately think of Brig, but then I started talking about other names. And since, you know, they're from Robert Englunds, I was throwing out a lot of classical English names. And I was also pulling names from various fantasy novels. And then I realized that I'd skipped an obvious name from Overwatch that would work. And the reason I realized it was because we were talking about characters from The Wheel of Time, and one of the characters in The Wheel of Time has the exact same name. And I'm like, oh, okay, this works because it can be a double reference, and it shortens well because I went with Brigitte. Yeah. Which means I get to call her Brig. You do. That's right. And then when she's bad, you tell her she go to Brig jail. Yep, she has to go to Brig jail. She got nerfed. Yep. It's unfortunate, but make her controllable at least. So that's exciting. Wow. Six-hour round trip. Six-hour round trip. My oldest daughter didn't go with us because she didn't want to wake up that early in the morning. That's the truth. I believe you. Yeah. She spent this night with Grandma and Grandpa instead. We borrowed Grandma and Grandpa's van to have more room for everything. More leg room. More leg room. More space for the dog and everything. So we borrowed mom and dad's van and went down there and got her. But the youngest, she's not a huge car ride kid. She gets bored real easy. She did really good this time. That's nice. It all actually worked out pretty well. We went down right on the Oklahoma border. as in it took us three hours to get there. They can get to Tulsa in like an hour and change from where they are. Yeah, they said it's not quite two hours to get to Tulsa from there. And a lot of that's like going to get another rope. So, yeah, it wasn't too bad, though. It went pretty well. Awesome. Well, I did not get a dog. No, you got something that will be easier to deal with on a day-to-day basis? I hope. Hopefully. Should be. So probably with a bit more annoyance on the actual receiving portion of it? Well, there were some challenges originally, yes. But we're now past all those. So my neon sign finally, my, I shouldn't say finally. I got my neon sign arrived and I got it mounted yesterday because my dad was willing to work on Space Gambler, which my brother-in-law's pinball machine is in my garage. Right. And I had live streamed it. And at the end of my live stream, one of the mushroom bumpers broke. I did. You broke it. I did break it. Hey, that was an old mushroom bumper. So he got some old mushroom bumpers off of eBay that were playmatic ones. So we went to swap that piece out. And so it was like, okay, well, let's time it because I was hearing that the neon sign was going to be coming. And for those that don't know or weren't listening back in the day, I decided to get a neon sign, custom neon sign, for my game room many, many months ago. I think that was probably around September is when I contracted with Ryan Claytor, the artist behind Queen Op Carnival. And he's done a lot of T-shirt designs in the hobby and such. And he had been doing some neon design. And so I spoke to him about, you know, I was trying to get some cost information and such. And he kind of talked me into doing a project. So I was like, okay, let's do it. And he knew a neon vendor near him who could do that level of work. And so the sign was built and done and shipped and arrived in December. But unfortunately, the shippers drop kicked that. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Those aren't news beeps. Those are sensor beeps. And I mean, no, it was shellacked. I was shocked to the degree of damage. And so it took a while for the, you know, I put in the claim submission stuff and all of that. And just finally, we reached a point in that process where the bender asked if I could just send the sign back so he could salvage what he could. We did that. And so he was having to re-bend most of the glass. Some of it was okay, but not most of it. Yeah. And so that got done. And he, his brother, and his brother's brother-in-law drove it down here to me. So it sounds like, I was like, really? I know you talk about meeting them halfway. Right. Because the amount I paid could have either covered shipping or about a halfway meet. Right. So in my mind, it's like, OK, I need to probably go. And halfway would have been somewhere on the order of five hours. Right. So it's like, OK, I was getting ready to make arrangements to do that. And then it turned out they were coming down to this area anyway. His I guess his brother's brother in law's from Kansas City because he's like, I got to hit gates while I'm here. Where's the nearest Topsy's? He's like, okay, I have to look that one up. I haven't been to Topsy's in forever. And the mall is still the closest one. Okay. That's the only one I've ever been to. At first I didn't know what he meant. And I was like, I said, I don't know what you mean. He's like, you don't know Topsy's? And I looked at it and I was like, oh, the popcorn. I don't know what I was thinking. The elephant or something. And so. It's just popcorn. That's the problem. You're like, oh, popcorn? Well, it's pretty good popcorn. I mean, yeah, it's not bad. I always think about it for Christmas is the thing. To me, it's seasonal. Yeah, that's very much what it is. So I got the sign mounted and installed. They just brought it down, unpacked in the back of a minivan. All of it works. It's all great. Josh, who's with the neon shop, got it put together. I might share some photos to our Facebook page on it, but I haven't done that yet. But anyway, so I was pretty happy about that. so now we have exciting it yes i'm sure it's it's very big so it fills out the wall let's say that it fills out the wall uh and i don't know if i need to have the lights on in the room anymore i'm because there's so much light being thrown from here's the thing when we were down there we turned on the interior lights and there was no difference no it's it's uh it's expansive in it's light provision. I'm going to say you don't need interior lights anymore. I don't know. I might try to stream without the interior lights and see how it goes, if it's bright enough. I mean, I use a spotlight anyway to enhance the field. There's so much glass throwing so much light. Given the power consumption, it would be nice to leave the overheads off at this stage, probably. No, it's just money. It's not going to be that bad. It's not like you're leaving it on 24-7-365. That's true. But speaking of light, what an excellent transition topic to go into pinball. I only have a couple of things, and they're both stern pinball-oriented, that I thought were really worth talking about since our last go. Yeah, it's all I've seen. Yes. So the first one is the UV kit for Stranger Things. And this has been talked about. This came out just after our last episode. So it's been talked about a bit by a lot of people. Yeah. I've included an image for Tony so he can see kind of what the effect looks like in our internal notes. Because what has happened is the all pro-premium NLE, Stern Stranger Things games, had UV paint and artwork done in secret on all the playfields. There are mounting spots on all the playfields for this kit. They have now come out with the kit at a $280 price point for all three models so that if you want it, you can buy it. And supposedly it's about a 20 minute install. Unsurprisingly the discussion slash debate has been about is this appropriate to sell as an aftermarket add on or should this have been included with the games because clearly it was meant to be released because the art there the mounting holes are there but some people are really bothered by the fact that it's 280 dollars i guess what are your thoughts i've shared my thoughts on other podcasts already i'll reiterate i guess here but i'm curious what you think. I think I don't have a problem with it. I mean, it's a cost that if you're somebody who wants that art and you want that UV glow look, you're going to want it. But if you don't, why would you be paying extra, raising the cost of the machine to cover something that you're never going to use? It doesn't seem like something that you have to have to play the game. It's like a topper. it's an extra yes i agree with you my my stance has been in in my judgment it should have been given for free to the le buyers but otherwise i don't have an issue with it i can see the argument and but i've had a stance that i think if you're buying the le it should have everything that the factory is doing even if it comes out later like if there's a topper that releases a year later the original only to the original buyer if you've sold that le they don't know what that new buyer anything but if they want to send the original buyers toppers uh shape you know i think they should all come with shaker motors all of and some and they may now but they didn't always right is the thing shooter rod if it's factory then i think that's the le's pay enough of a premium that they probably deserve it uh the reason i compared this to dlc and the controversy of on-disc DLC. Yeah. And, yeah, so, because some people, I think, believe that this is only being sold as an add-on because for some reason it wasn't ready in time when the game came out at the end of December to actually be a production piece. I don't think that's the case. I think this was always meant to be sold as an extra. Yeah. So if you're thinking that some sort of manufacturing delay is why you're being asked to pay $280, I believe you're mistaken. I think they always meant to charge extra for this piece. And the reason why I think it's important to note it like this is, as you have specified, it's optional. You definitely don't need it for the gameplay. I can see the saltiness for sure, especially if you consider that a lot of people, especially those that were looking at the pro model and felt it doesn't have the projector, it doesn't have the physical ball lock, it looks pretty barren, that this would have maybe pushed them over the edge. But which would you have rather had? This and the Pro model, with the Pro model being another $280 higher, or the Pro model being at the current Pro model price without this being included? Because I totally agree, the Pro becomes more attractive if this lighting feature was in there, because it would have felt like there was something more substantive. But if they're going to ask for another $280, Stranger Things was $100 more than Jurassic Park, as I recall, on their MSRP. They kicked it up $100. So it's adding like $400 to the price from Jurassic Park versus just $100. That's a – Yeah, no. No, I don't think – I think it would have hurt sales. It would have. That's what I think. I think it would have hurt sales as well very much. And so it's because of that. It's not that I think it's a good idea. I mean it's a business move. So for Stern, it probably makes sense to sell. Did they generate a whole lot of bad will with this? They've definitely upset some people. But again, it's not like a feature that used to be included. They got taken away. As an interesting aside, Scott with Penn Stadium has a UV. I knew he did have the ability to do UV with Penn Stadium sets. Apparently, he has made a, I believe, UV-only solution that does integrate into the gameplay so that it will trigger at the same times. And I believe he's selling it for $100 less. So that's an option. Part of the Stern kit is a new apron, which I think does something with the throw. I've seen comparison photos. In my opinion, the Stern UV kit's light effect looks better than the Penn Stadium one. But if you want to see the art, they both deliver that. It's almost saturating with the level of light that the Penn Stadium approach does, to me, from what I've seen. It may not have been in his ideal of photography scenario also, though, so just bear that in mind. But anyway, so that's the big Stern controversy. So we've got to talk about it. Yeah, well, it's Stern. There's a controversy. Well, vote with your wallet. Yeah. So you don't have to like it and show them that you don't if you don't. That would be my position. And that'd be one thing. I mean, they don't sell a whole lot. It's something that they won't do this way again, you would assume. But I have a feeling they're going to sell a bunch of them. I think they'll sell a decent quantity. Oh, it's all over the place about Stranger Things. Everyone I've, and I've not spoken to a lot of people locally who have played, because we've had it on location for a few weeks now. The launch party was yesterday. I wasn't able to attend that. You weren't able to attend that. Obviously. But the feedback I have heard about the game has mostly been neutral to positive. I haven't met anyone yet who just hates it. The worst I've heard is people who feel it's too much like his other games. Yes, that's a big problem. But I've heard that as both a positive and a negative. Yeah. But I've not heard someone say, oh, this game's just not fun. Like I said, the worst I've heard is, I've played this game before. Yeah, I've heard, yeah, I've heard a, the rules are too similar to X, the layout's too similar to Y, Y usually being Attack from Mars, and why would I want to play it? Because Attack from Mars is right over here in the same place, right beside it. I could play that instead. Right. But the rules aren't done. The rules aren't done, no. And I know some people, some tournament types who are like, they already like where the rules are. So they're already happy at like 0.8 or whatever they played. And so it's like, okay. So I think it will end up being a perfectly competent game. Yeah. I don't know if it's going to be like an award-winning 2020 game. I don't think so. Well, we haven't seen anything else out yet, but if Elwynn's putting out another game, you know, that's like the bar now. Everyone's loving what Elwynn's doing because it's so different. And that's a fair comparison looking at this and things like this. You know, here's a UV kit, but it's optional. All the money, the premium differences are like a projector, a magnet ball lock, whereas the differences are a more feature-advanced Raptor pit on Elwynn's Jurassic Park and a T-Rex that looks like a brontosaurus that eats the ball and throws it. So basically, I think the comparison I'm trying to make is it feels like Elwin is exploiting the bill of – I think they're getting the same bill of materials, but it feels like he's got a way that – it feels like he's putting more in his games. Like he's making his dollars go further in ways that the players notice. I can see that. And that could be because of who he is in the industry. It could be because Brian Eddy hadn't designed a game for a couple decades, and he's rusty. Blow the rust off a little bit? Yep. And there's some really good looking things in that machine. Sure. Or I'm wrong and the bill of materials isn't the same because the Stranger Things license cost them more than Jurassic Park so they had to take that out on the BOM. You know, I could see that because – That was the theory with Star Wars. I could see – Stranger Things is so hot right now. I could see where it could be a much higher license fee than Jurassic Park. Yeah. Especially the Jurassic Park based off the originals, not based off the new stuff. Right, and they didn't take any of the video clip assets or sound assets or any of that with Jurassic Park. They just wanted the logo and theme. Yeah. So, you know, that can be a thing. And that was, as I was noting, when Stern did Star Wars, I think that was a perception. It was my perception. Like, why does the pro feel like there's no toy in it? And I thought it's because you paid for Star Wars. So all you had left was a little baby Death Star that doesn't even crack open like an egg. And when you go premium LE, then they had more money to put in the Hyperloop and stuff. So just a theory. I think it's a valid theory. I think it's a sound theory. Well, I do love my theories. Now, speaking of theories, let's go into the next Stern thing. This is officially announced by Stern, and that is that they are doing heavy metal pinball. And it will be coming out towards the end of March. officially it lists on the little poster they released which said what incendium presents stern pinball x heavy i assume times heavy metal 320 20 so here's what we know about it it's going to have hand-drawn heavy metal artwork appears to be based off of the heavy metal magazine which is still going i did not know that i did not know there originally was even a magazine i knew about I knew about the magazine. I didn't realize it was still going, but I knew it was a magazine. It's going to be a DMD display game. It will be coin-operated, so it's commercial grade. They said it has, on the other side of their poster, that it's going to have some sort of chameleon paint armor kit. I don't know what that means, though. I have no idea. There's going to be an original soundtrack. It's going to feature Sebastian Bach, Brendon Small, the Night Flight Orchestra, and others that have not been named yet. It's going to be an exclusive limited run made to order. And it sounds like, from what I'm hearing, that the layout is something like the Star Wars Home Edition layout. It notes in the features that it's got an OptoSpinner, which was a spinner that was on that game. Right. The Passive 2 Ball Lock, that to me is the giveaway. That's the giveaway, yeah. That they're doing this or some other. That was a cool lock. It was. That or some other iteration of the – again, because Star Wars Home Edition is essentially, in my view, an iteration on the Spider-Man Home Edition, which is kind of what the Supreme game is. Yeah. It's coin-operated commercial grade. So it seems like it's going to be kind of like that, but maybe more Star Wars layout than Spider-Man layout. so there's not a whole lot else to talk about you you can see in our internal notes I bang the mic there uh the my mock-up of the uh what the cabinets are said to look like a little bit it's kind of grainy it's hard to hard to really tell but the what are your thoughts on this as a theme. This is in my mind, it's just it's a side deal. It's just like the Pabst Can Crusher and Primus. And the Supreme. It's the same thing. It's a side deal. It's side money and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the actual pinball sales are only part of what it is for them monetarily. It's one of their side deals. Some company came up with them and said, hey, we'd like to do this, yada, yada, yada. They're like, okay, we'll do this. How do you like this? All right. It's a side hustle. Okay. Well, the reason why where I'm going with the theme is as one of those side arrangements was the original pre-Papst and Primus, and that was Woe Nelly Big Juicy Melons, which has gone down as very controversial for its artwork decisions in that vein of old school pinball that it was just so well a lot of that humor that was attempted in the artwork of woe nelly was over the top given how it was derived and just how much innuendo was there it to a lot of people felt like what they consider the bad old days of pinball where it was about exploitation Yeah. And that's not where pinball has been going lately. And my sense has been since that point that Stern has learned its lesson about that. But the thing is, and the reason why I bring it up with heavy metal is, and I only really remember the heavy metal movie, but it was very sexualized in terms of its artwork and in a way that would probably not be seen as empowering. so I was I don't know if that's the theme to the magazine in the current era or what but because I'm not sure on the theme of the magazine in the current right because I haven't seen it yeah so but I'm so that's my question is do you think that the art package gets blowback I know people wondered about that I don't know until we see the and with Elvira they're like actually see the art package sure because from the grainy bits we can see it looks like a guy with a machine gun and your standard fantasy girl with a sword, I think. Yeah. And I'm going to guess that they're mindful at this point. Right. But I wanted to bring it up because Wonelli wasn't very long ago. Wonelli wasn't very long ago at all. And you know what? Don't think I've ever seen one in person. No. No, I have not. And, I mean, I've only seen it on streams. Yeah. I mean I seen a Pabst in person I can remember if I did I think there was one at Texas several years ago Well I might not have seen it Here the thing about that whole Wonelly Pabst Primus is unfortunately even though and I really like the Pabst art package, and Primus art package has had rave reviews. Unfortunately, that layout sucks. According to everyone, I don't know anyone who likes that layout. In fact, as I pointed out before, Wayne Nyans, who did the original iteration of that layout, I think, Continental Cafe was the name of the EM he designed with it. He doesn't even like that layout, and he made it. He says it's terrible when he looks at it. So they can't all be winners. I don't know why they picked such a loser layout, but they keep using it, I guess because it's in the can and you can contract on it. Which might be why they went to this Star Wars home layout for this machine. Right, and that's been a theory that I think there are a few layouts. There's a theory that not just me, but others have had with that. Stern has a little catalog of a company like Heavy Metal comes up to them and says, hey, we're wanting to have a custom pinball machine. They're like, okay, here you go. It's kind of paint by number. So which one of these layouts do you want? Do you want the EM style Primus layout? Do you want the Home Edition layout? And maybe I've wondered if they would expand the Home Edition layouts to be like, it doesn't just have to be Spider-Man anymore. Now you can choose the Star Wars one too. Right. So you've got Spider-Man, which is what I believe Supreme did, is other than putting in the different D&D style, like the layout is the Spider-Man Home Edition layout. Star Wars is not identical to that layout, but you can definitely see the similarities when you look at it. I think you can. And so now maybe that's in the catalog. They're definitely related. Now maybe that's in the catalog as well, because that was a pretty well-received layout from people I've heard who played Star Wars Home Edition. Like, that's fun. The two passive ball lock thing, that's fun for a two-ball multiball. And the shots feel good, and it's a good layout. And I've heard that about Spiderman Home Edition layout. I have not heard that about Primus' layout. Yeah. But again, I think this and Primus and Pabst and Supreme, they're not made for pinball players. They're made for pans. They're made for pans. And they're made for fans of whatever group that is. Yes. I don't think we're going to see this one locally. I don't think so. We haven't seen any of the other ones like this locally. And, yeah, this is clearly not a regular Stern run, Cornerstone, or even non-Cornerstone. The fact that they've announced it a month early, that is not what Stern does. There's a reason Heavy Metal won it. They're probably to run ads for people to buy it in their next magazine. Probably. Yeah, so the flyer needed to be ready. So anyway, but it's pinball, so it's sort of interesting. So I thought we should mention it. I mean, the release date is immediately before, is the week before Texas. There might be one at Texas? That's true. There may be a distributor that brings one. I mean, Marco usually supplies a lot of the new Stern stuff at Texas. So if anyone were to be to bring it, I would think maybe they would with the hope of offering a show special or something and selling the floor model. Which is normally what all those distributors shoot for, as I have learned as time has gone by from the distributors. And I see all their offers or them contacting me. Hey, you can save $500, Dennis. You can buy this. You buy this one, just let us play it on the floor. Which it's a good deal. It is. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. But I'm not in the market for a pinball machine right now. But what I am in the market for, Tony, is to talk about video games. Market trends? No. Oh, no. So, tell me, Tony, for this video game segment, should I crack open a Corona? You should probably crack open a Corona. Okay. Or a Bud Light Lime to counteract the Corona. Hmm. But in all seriousness, we will start there. The coronavirus updates. We talked last time about the Overwatch League and several other leagues had canceled events due to coronavirus. And Overwatch has announced the reschedule of at least some of them. They've rescheduled the games for the Dragons, Charge and Spark. They'll be played during weeks 5, 6, and 7 in Seoul, South Korea. It's not been announced. everything hasn't been announced other than the fact that it's happening. It sounds like from what was announced that they're just going to play them in studio without live audiences. Yes, that's my understanding. And we don't have the exact times of them or anything yet, but they're not supposed to interfere with any of the other planned matches for those weeks. But Overwatch isn't the only video game related disruption. From the outbreak that's going on. Square Enix has announced that their Final Fantasy XIV team has canceled their appearance at PAX East. Uh-oh. That's where the Sony canceled. Yes. And Sony also canceled out of PAX East. That's right. And PAX East is happening the 20th through the 23rd, or the 21st through the 23rd, I believe. Isn't that in Boston? In Boston, yeah. So it sounds like with the Square Enix, it's still going to have a presence there. But yeah, the Final Fantasy XIV team out of Japan is not going to travel. But I wasn't aware of an outbreak in Boston. There's not an outbreak in Boston. I think there's one confirmed case in Boston, but I think it has more to do with the actual travel. Ah, okay. They don't want to get into close, confined spaces and airplanes. Sure, I understand. And then go and have people travel from all over the place to the convention and then have issues. So is Sony going to actually do anything this year? No, because they canceled going to GDC. Oh, did they? I think so. Okay. Yeah. Sony PlayStation, Oculus, and Facebook Gaming have all pulled out of GDC because of the coronavirus. So, no, they're not. At this point, Sony has pulled out of every event for the first half of this year. They are supposed to still be doing some information releases and stuff that they're going to stream going through the year. but they are not attending any events so far. PAX East was supposed to have been the launch look at The Last of Us Part II before its May release. The highly anticipated sequel to, for what many felt, was the best game of the last generation. Yeah, and it's not going to happen now. So, yeah, we're going to... Now, Pax has made a comment that they are going with an enhanced cleaning and sanitization across the show, and they're following a bunch of the rules that the CDC has recommended. Right. But it's going to be interesting to see going forward as this continues to develop, if this becomes a larger trend, if it spreads farther than it has spread now, if we get to be a larger trend of conventions losing people or conventions being shut down entirely. Like I've seen some reports of some conventions in Asia are shutting down, not necessarily video game related, but other ones where it's too big of a public gathering for the risks to be taken. So it'll be interesting to see if these quarantine plans and methods control and if everything stabilizes, how we are going forward and as everything comes back under control or if it continues to ramp up and we start seeing larger outbreaks overseas and how it affects everything going forward. yeah I don't know I mean I don't think it's going to impact E3 since E3 is not in Asia and no one attends E3 anyway so it's not really a large gathering well it depends if it will how many people cancel how many people who are going to be there will cancel for it and how many people that were supposed to be there as like Sony when they pulled out not because they announced that a long time ago but how many other companies pull out with this as an excuse and then never come back to E3. Sure. Because E3's in a bad spot. I don't know if E3 can take a huge hit like that. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how well PAX Carl Weathers it. Probably fine, I guess. I think PAX will be okay. But if the turnout's lower because things people really wanted to see aren't there, I don't know. It also depends on your event insurance. Yeah. Because you can put in riders to try and make sure. But it's hard to inform. I mean, the insurance company will state that, you know, based off the ones I've seen, it'd be like event cancellation insurance. And I'd be like, well, nothing's making you. You basically need the hotel wiped out for us to say that you couldn't hold the event. Yeah. You're just choosing. You're just people choosing not to go. You're choosing to make sure people are safe. Right. You didn't have to do that. so that you chose this. Yeah. It's not like an asteroid fell and crushed the hotel. That wouldn't be in your pool. Well, an example I'm thinking of is one of my organizations I work with. They are looking ahead to trying to schedule out a few more years' worth of conferences, and one of the facilities they're looking at is undergoing renovations or planning to to expand their convention hall. It's supposed to be done by the time of the event that they're discussing, but what if it's not and if it's not done and they can't use it they can't have their vendors which is a huge profit area for the organization so the organization once is trying to discuss some sort of insurance provision in this case not with an insurance company but with the facility saying you have to refund us like you have to pay us what a hundred vendors would pay us if you actually aren't open in time and they're not comfortable agreeing to those terms. So we won't go with you this time. That's probably what will end up happening, which, of course, the facility doesn't want to lose that because they haven't had this organization's business in years because they've been seen as too small to hold enough vendors. And so it generates for them. I mean, they were looking at a gross income of probably at least $130,000 for the deal. but to have to promise something on the order of 80 to 85,000, if they can't facilitate the vendors is a big pill to swallow. Yeah. That might be one of those ones where they try to cut their losses and offer a better deal the following year when they can guarantee that the work will be done. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that, that would be what I would think they should do, but it's not my decision. Yeah. So, So much coronavirus. Yep. It will be interesting going forward. Also, it's like the port of the Outer Worlds for the Switch has been delayed because the team working on it is in one of the locked down cities. Oh. So they have been out, unable to work on it. They might be back to work by now. I don't know. I don't know what all the rules are. The last I heard was it was down. I know that there has started to be harder to get, especially some of the specialty Nintendo Switch accessories that tend to be Japanese exclusives because most of the factories were shut down for an extended period of time. So we'll see where this goes going forward. It's definitely going to have an overall effect on the video game industry even more than it has now. But going on to stuff that's slightly less discouraging, we spoke a couple episodes ago about the Star Citizen Crytek lawsuit. It is almost over. Officially, it has been settled out of court. Okay. They are both parties. They put in their request. They need 30 days to finish their agreement for a joint stipulation of dismissal. which means whatever they decided outside of court, they don't have to tell anybody. We have no idea what the outside decisions were, but they've got 30 days to put it in to the judge to have the entire thing dismissed. Okay. So we'll see if we ever learn what it was. My guess is more likely than not they cutting a deal where Crytek doesn have to hand over that entire bond Oh okay That would be my guess is that Crytek trying to cut a deal so they don have to hand that entire bond over Yeah. But who knows? We'll see if we ever learn anything about it. Well, I mean, are either of these companies publicly traded? No, I don't think so. Then probably not. Because while they could keep the terms quiet, it would be possible that they were publicly traded to maybe identify income on a public – Right. You'd be like, oh, well, this miscellaneous income seems like maybe it came from the lawsuit. The only one I think Crytek might be, but I don't think so. It probably isn't. Well, I mean, I guess it's good that that's finally going to be said and done. Yeah. Yeah, they've just, there's been a lot of, what's the, fanfare on the Star Citizen front lately. They've just put out a new big patch that's added a lot of stuff, and it's been getting really good word of mouth. But Star Citizen, until they actually put a game out, they're just going to sit there and just keep pocketing millions and millions of dollars. because people are still just handing them money hand over fist. I mean, we've commented on Star Citizen so many times now, it feels like, but it just, in a way, it reminds me of the banking crisis from 2008, and it's almost like at some stage, probably very early on, Star Citizen became too big to fail. And now I don't know if people are just, because I can't understand people staying this excited for this many years. So in a way it feels to me like people are Probably the same people are throwing more money at it More out of fear that it will fail Than out of an actual desire to see it succeed Maybe? But I don't know I don't know There's always been a lot of zealotry behind There has Chris Roberts has a bit of a cult personality Where people kind of worship everything he's done in gaming And I've liked a lot of his games So I see where it stems from But most of the others that are like this, like Sid Meier and Carmack, don't have people just shoveling money in their face. And one of the things is, in addition to people shoveling money into them to buy ships and buy assets for in-game and all that, I mean, they have a subscription system that you subscribe to for $8 a month and you get insider information. But that's come under fire lately because the subscribers haven't actually been getting anything or the information they've been getting, they've been getting a day before it goes out. And there used to be a lot of subscriber-only video chats and vlogs and stuff, and none of that stuff has happened in forever. Yeah, insider info stuff. I mean, we've seen a few companies and groups try and do it on pinball's side. And the big issue is about the balance with leaks. And it's really hard to keep things – like for a while on Dutch Pinball and Big Lebowski, They have their own private group where the buyers, the pre-orderers talk, but all the key stuff leaks out of that within like 12 hours. Yeah, which isn't a surprise. No, no. In a situation like that, yeah. It would be really hard. I just don't think it's a good incentive if your goal is to still keep the information secret. I just don't think it – things like the video chats and stuff, those are good perks. Yeah. But you have to do them because those haven't been happening. But yeah. we'll see what happens. They're still selling multi-hundred and multi-thousand dollar ships. Chris has a good gig going. That's all I can say. I mean, geez. That definitely wouldn't be a complaint getting into something like that. Let's say it handed me more money and I haven't done anything. I mean, they've done stuff. They're putting out playable versions of the game. It's just like the early access model. yeah it's not vaporware but it is definitely kind of crazy um talking about leaks uh i don't can you call it a leak i don't know if you can really call it a leak when the president of the company posts the information on his linkedin page would you consider that a leak well uh or just it may It may not be a deliberate leak. Yeah, it's more like... It's either an inadvertent leak or it's a deliberate leak. Yeah. Well, like, sometimes, again, on pinball, there's been some people that suspect that some of the leaks that happen out of Stern are actually done by Stern on purpose. I think so. I don't. I think almost every one of those examples I've heard, I have heard inside Stern, they're furious. Oh. Now, there may be certain things that were done that way. Right. Some of the bigger ones, like the Stranger Things video coming out a day early. No. I don't think that was on purpose. My sources say they were furious. I don't think that was on purpose. No. Now, my sources may be wrong. No. I think the leaks that I think are, or that I've always thought, if they're not intentional, they're not massively damaging, are the ones where we start getting a hint of what a new machine is going to be a week or two before the actual information drops. They have some sort of marketing scheme they're trying to execute. But no, you're right. That video leak, I don't think that was... was some people think that it was on purpose that all those initial like when the when the photos leaked of monsters that that was on that was another one i heard no that no they did not want those out see i don't think those are on purpose because i think they have a very crafted image that they try to release at the release time and having the stuff drop early just damages their plan right but when people find the private video link and it's their video that they'd already uploaded. Sometimes they think that it's the company sending it out on purpose. Most of that stuff that I've heard on has been, no, they're actually angry. They haven't been able to control it. It's usually the distributors. Someone in the distributor chain typically, it seems like most of the leaks have come out because they get briefed about a day before. Right, which makes sense. They have to be ready. Right. Anyway. LinkedIn. LinkedIn. The president of Activision Blizzard, on his LinkedIn page, put in notices that they were working with Netflix to put out an anime-style adaptation of Diablo, kind of like the Castlevania. Yeah, Castlevania's pretty good. Yeah. That could be fun. I mean, they both have that kind of dark horror theme. I think it could go over real well. And it also included a mention of selling an animated series based on Overwatch. which I think I'm amazed it took this long to do. Yeah. Yeah. They have the comics. Of everything in the Activision Blizzard stable, Overwatch is the game that lends itself most to having either a show or movies or books put out about it. Yeah. Well, that's because it's the one they've done the most world building and character development on that's active. That I'm aware of. Yeah. Because, we'll see. I mean, Diablo, I think I'll watch it. Yeah, I probably will. I mean, I'm not going to go out of my way, but I mean, I'll watch it. I mean, I'm not a huge Diablo... I'm not the person who... One of the people who got upset and swore off Diablo when they killed certain characters in Diablo 3. Because it's like, oh, Diablo's dead now. I mean, I'm not. Yeah, you're not a, you're not a, you like Diablo, but you're not a Diablo fanboy. Right. Not like Sonic. Oh, yeah. You know, Sonic. I mean, that's just. That's my. I've already seen the movie 47 times. I haven't. I haven't even seen it. I haven't seen it. I don't plan on seeing it. But I'm hearing, I'm hearing incredible, incredible things, Tony. I've heard. Incredible. I've heard incredible things about the Sonic the Hedgehog movie. As long as you keep the caveat that it's a video game movie. Yes. It has already, for sure, become the highest opening weekend video game movie. And that really surprised me because I really thought Detective Pikachu would hold that. I did too. But Detective Pikachu opened with $54.36 million. It's opening Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Sonic opened up with $57 million in the same period. And if you include Monday, which was a holiday, they hit $70. So it was a huge opening for a video game movie. Yes. I mean, we're not talking Star Wars numbers here. We're not talking Fast 37 here or whatever Fast and Furious they're up to. but for a video game movie that's huge and from everything I've heard from people who've actually seen the movie this isn't Super Mario Brothers it's pretty okay okay well Super Mario Brothers is pretty not okay yeah but I'm just shocked because to come back from the CG original choice for Sonic because that's all they've been changing was to make him look more like the game and less like a thing with human teeth. Yeah. And I guess that's all they needed to make it decent? From everything I've heard, again, having not seen it, Jim Carrey is the reason this show is good, this movie is being done pretty well. It was really obvious even from the trailers that he is doing some serious scenery chewing. Yeah. From everything I've heard, Jim Carrey is old school Jim Carrey. I mean, you know, the mask Ace Ventura level Jim Carrey in this movie, which is what he's supposed to make. He's supposed to completely steal the show. Okay. So, I might see it. Not in theaters. Yeah, yeah. I don't think I'll see it in theaters. I have so little time to go to theater, to movie theaters. I have a hard time going to, because here's the thing. I don't really like Sonic games. They're not my thing. Well, a lot of us didn't grow up with the Genesis. Right. We were more the Nintendo group, and so we just didn't really experience Sonic for a long time. Yeah. I think I've played Sonic. Like, the original Sonic, I think I played it a few times on friends' machines at their house. But I never really put time into it. I've won it. I got a port of it on the 360. So I've won a few of the older Sonics But obviously not for years and years after There were no more Sega hardware releases or anything So this is not the same for me I just did it because it was there Oh, I did finish Assassin's Creed Origins last night Oh, did you? My main story I still got some side quests That were higher level than the main story So I would basically do whatever was the lowest level in my list So I don't know if I want to keep going and work on a few more things or move on because I've got a pile of stuff I need to start. Or maybe focus more on Wolfenstein Youngbloods and try and finish it up because I was kind of playing them both together. I started putting more and more time on Assassin's Creed to get through it. Get it done with. Yeah, I can understand that. Man, I play video games that I can play while doing other things. Hardcore. I've still been playing just like random player created maps for... Mario Maker. No, no, not Mario Maker. Arc World 3. It's basically a tower defense game. Okay. I've been playing that. Mobile games. And that's it. I've been doing a lot of reading. I've started rereading some series that I haven't read in years and years and years. So most of my downtime lately has been reading or watching shows. My video gameplay has been very light compared to what it has been at times. We'll see. I go in waves like this. Yeah. So. Well. I've got. I do have a couple games I want to get started on. Every time I go to start them, it's like, I got to go do something else. Well, we'll go do something else. We will. You can reach out to us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We're available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we'll see you in two weeks. I'm Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye. See ya.