Episode 1196: "Stern's Surprise Pokemon Stream & Beetlejuice Scoop-Gate?"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·17m 29s·analyzed·Mar 7, 2026

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Pokemon stream analysis & Beetlejuice early feedback on scoop design concerns.

Summary

Kaneda discusses Stern's surprise unannounced Pokemon gameplay stream featuring George Gomez, Jack Danger, and Tanya Kleiss, noting the lack of promotion and concerns about Pokemon Company's protective licensing limiting code updates. He expresses skepticism about Pokemon's basic gameplay depth and competitive appeal versus recent releases like Godzilla and Foo Fighters, while predicting code quality will be critical to the game's long-term success. He also addresses emerging early feedback on Beetlejuice regarding excessive scoops and upper flipper design issues, arguing these are fixable calibration problems and recommending players avoid spoiler streams.

Key Claims

Stern did not advertise or promote the Pokemon gameplay stream; it just appeared on Friday.
high confidence · Kaneda describing the Pokemon stream rollout
Pokemon Company is one of the most protective license holders on the planet, expected to limit code update frequency.
high confidence · Kaneda explaining licensing implications for code updates
Walking Dead Remastered has gone three months without a single code update due to licensor approval delays.
high confidence · Kaneda citing Walking Dead as precedent for licensing delays
Pokemon LE secondary market prices have already dropped from aspirational $20,000 asks to $17,000-$18,000 unsold listings.
high confidence · Kaneda monitoring secondary market LE pricing in real-time
Pokemon's gameplay is basic and will not excite players accustomed to recent flagship releases like Godzilla, Foo Fighters, Jurassic Park, and Steve Ritchie games.
medium confidence · Kaneda's personal assessment after watching the gameplay stream
Beetlejuice has three scoops, which is excessive and breaks flow compared to designs by Keith Elwin and Steve Ritchie.
medium confidence · Kaneda reporting feedback from multiple Beetlejuice owners
Beetlejuice's upper flipper is under-designed and lacks the kinetic satisfaction of upper flippers in Harry Potter and Elton John.
medium confidence · Kaneda synthesizing owner feedback on flipper design
Pokemon requires Premium or LE features (magnet, secret entrance, ramp, moving Pikachu) to be compelling; the Pro version would be boring.
medium confidence · Kaneda's opinion on tier value proposition
Sonic the Hedgehog is expected to ship with complete code, unlike Pokemon's early code state.
medium confidence · Kaneda speculating on competing game release timelines

Notable Quotes

“Really weird that they didn't like advertise this. They didn't promote it. It was just like up on Friday.”
Kaneda @ ~2:00 — Highlights unusual marketing strategy for Stern's biggest IP reveal; signals possible Pokemon Company control over promotion
“It's starting to make people feel a little bit nervous that a lot of this is being controlled by somebody called the Pokemon Company.”
Kaneda @ ~2:30 — Identifies community anxiety about third-party IP control and its implications for development autonomy
“Will the code be enough to make this game that has a very basic layout exciting enough and enticing enough for the pinball community?”
Kaneda @ ~5:00 — Central thesis: Pokemon's success hinges entirely on software depth, not mechanics
“The games aren't even out yet. What will happen when the games get made? I still think there are a lot of question marks when it comes to this game.”
Kaneda @ ~6:30 — Expresses uncertainty despite LP enthusiasm; emphasizes code quality as make-or-break factor
“This game needs more depth than just collecting Pokemon. That can't be it. They just can't have you do the same thing over and over and over again.”
Kaneda @ ~7:30 — Core design critique: collecting mechanic insufficient without evolution/training systems to match IP depth
“I think this is the one where you need to go above the pro. If you strip out the magnet, strip out the secret entrance, strip out the ramp, strip out Pikachu moving, then I think you've got the most boring, barren game of all time.”
Kaneda @ ~8:00 — Challenges common wisdom that Pokemon Pro tier is sufficient; argues mechanical depth needed
“You don't really see many scoops in anything that Keith Elwin makes. You don't really see many scoops in games that Steve Ritchie makes. It's just a design decision.”
Kaneda @ ~22:00 — Contextualizes Beetlejuice's scoop count as outlier vs. industry design patterns

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyGeorge Gomezperson Jack DangerpersonTanya KleisspersonPokemon Pinballgame BeetlejuicegamePokemon CompanycompanySpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

?
announcement: Stern released an unannounced, unpromototed 25-minute pre-recorded Pokemon gameplay stream on Friday featuring designers and code team with live-stream appearance but no real-time interaction.
high · Kaneda: 'Really weird that they didn't like advertise this. They didn't promote it. It was just like up on Friday.'
?
licensing_signal: Pokemon Company characterized as extremely protective license holder expected to create approval bottlenecks limiting code updates and promotional autonomy.
high · Kaneda: 'It's starting to make people feel a little bit nervous that a lot of this is being controlled by somebody called the Pokemon Company' and 'one of the most protective license holder, if not the most protective license holder on the planet.'
?
code_update: Walking Dead Remastered cited as cautionary example of three-month code update drought due to licensor approval requirements.
high · Kaneda: 'Walking Dead Remastered, I think, three months have gone by and not a single code update.'
?
collector_signal: Pokemon LE secondary market prices declining rapidly; early $20,000+ asks already down to $17,000-$18,000 unsold units within two weeks of stream.
high · Kaneda: 'there is now a game unsold for 18. And we always see this, right? The hype hits big.'
?
gameplay_signal: Pokemon gameplay assessed as basic and unimpressive compared to recent flagship releases; layout straightforward without mechanical wow factor.
high · Kaneda: 'Of course, it's very basic. There's no way around it... this game is not going to excite you that much... this is the one where you need to go above the pro.'

Topics

Pokemon Pinball gameplay reveal and marketing strategyprimaryLicensing constraints and code update delaysprimaryPokemon game design depth and layout assessmentprimarySecondary market LE pricing and FOMO dynamicsprimaryBeetlejuice early feedback: scoop design and flow issuesprimaryCollector psychology and spoiler fatiguesecondaryCompetitive game landscape (Sonic, Transformers, Winchester, Goonies)secondaryDesign philosophy comparison: scoop usage and flipper mechanicssecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.45)— Kaneda expresses genuine enthusiasm for Pokemon's IP and visual appeal but significant concerns about gameplay depth and basic mechanics. Positive about Beetlejuice's long-term potential despite early design issues. Underlying anxiety about licensing constraints and code delivery timelines. Frustrated with marketing strategy and collector hype cycles.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.052

Wasted years but kept my soul. I always knew my home was rock and roll. And days are short before I go. I want my casket laced with guns and roses. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Welcome everybody to a Friday evening edition of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. I'm your host Kaneda. It is 7.35 right now. the kids are home, so you might hear some screaming in the background, warning for everybody out there. But here's the thing. What has happened in this week in pinball? So we finally got to see Stern's official gameplay of Pokemon. Really weird that they didn't like advertise this. They didn't promote it. It was just like up on Friday. It was just up on Friday. Out of the blue, George Gomez, Jack Danger, Tanya, they were all in the room playing Pokemon, and it was like a 25 minute pre-recorded. You know, you're on like Facebook. It looked like it was live, but it wasn't. People were putting comments. They weren't responding. Really strange that they did it this way. It's starting to make people feel a little bit nervous that a lot of this is being controlled by somebody called the Pokemon Company. And we're not going to get code updates very often because they're dealing with what is one of the most protective license holder, if not the most protective license holder on the planet. Ever since Stern started releasing games to the public with all this pending licensor approval on the screen, those games take a long time to get code updates. Walking Dead Remastered, I think, three months have gone by and not a single code update. So will Pokemon be the same way? I think everybody hopes that's not going to be the case. I was watching the stream. I didn't want to watch all of it. I don't like to spoil a game I know I'm going to get. So for those of you out there, if you're getting Beetlejuice, why do you want to watch somebody play it? It's like, if you are going to see a movie for the first time, do you want to go to the movie and see it for the first time or watch somebody watching the movie for the first time, spoil the whole entire thing. And I will say this, as someone who stood over a Beetlejuice, I implore you, don't pay attention to the streams. Wait till your game arrives and enjoy it in the right way. We're going to talk about Beetlejuice. There's some feedback coming in we have to discuss. But back to the Pokemon gameplay. Of course, it's very basic. There's no way around it. I was watching it. I'm like, okay, that looks fun. What I did like was it doesn't seem like it's going to be an incredibly long ball time game. I don't think it's going to be a game where you're going to be sitting on it for 20 minutes a ball. These guys were having a hard time catching one single Pokemon. Nobody waiting to see the Pokemon stream was expecting to see a game where the gameplay was going to blow you away. But it does look fun. But I think for so many of you out there who have been banging on Godzilla, banging on Foo Fighters, banging on all these other games, banging on Jurassic Park, banging on Avengers, banging on King Kong, banging on Steve Ritchie games. I think this game is not going to excite you that much. I just feel that way. I don't think the gameplay is bad. It's just not at that level. And it's going to create a really interesting thing to sort of look at over the next year with this game. Will the code be enough to make this game that has a very basic layout exciting enough and enticing enough for the pinball community. Because I am still not convinced that Pokemon fans by the droves who are not into pinball are gonna come into pinball now because of this game. I'm not convinced. And we can see it already with the LE prices. We're gonna talk about that. They're already coming down. They're already coming down. As I predicted, after so many people were trying to get $20,000, we're gonna take a look at that. They're already now, there's one for $17,000. in And here the other thing It unsold So if you have one and you think you going to get 20 you not So we already down to 18 The games aren even out yet What will happen when the games get made I still think there a lot of question marks when it comes to this game It's not the layout. We know how the game shoots. We can see the layout. It's all right there. I still think, though, there's a lot of people in the thread that are like, oh, there's nothing in the premium and LE over the pro. The pro is the way to go. I disagree wholeheartedly on this game. This game doesn't have much in it to begin with. The Hydra Balloon is not that amazing. I think you need those other things to make this game amazing. If you strip out the magnet, strip out the secret entrance, strip out the ramp, strip out Pikachu moving, then I think you've got the most boring, barren game of all time. So I think out of all the games I've seen, this is the one where you need to go above the pro. Now, if you're an operator, you don't care. You're going to go pro. So it was a little interesting that the stream came out of nowhere. I don't think it won people over. I don't think it turned people off. I'm still loving, man, just seeing Pokemon on the screen, seeing an anime on that screen, the music, the call outs, the colorful nature of this game. It's still so much fun every time I look at it, but it's going to come down to, I think, one very simple thing. This game needs more depth than just collecting Pokemon. That can't be it. They just can't have you do the same thing over and over and over again. For this game to really do the theme justice, it's not about collecting Pokemon. It's also about upgrading them. It's also about training them. I mean, you're a trainer. That's the whole point. You train them. You go into battles. And then they evolve. Each Pokemon has three different stages of evolution. If that doesn't happen in the game, then you're really leaving behind what people love about Pokemon. That really doesn't make much sense. And I know Stern keeps saying stuff that's a little bit nebulous. Like we're in talks with the Pokemon company to do stuff like that. And the Pokemon company has really big plans for this game. But nobody knows. Nobody knows. It's still very early on. So I think out of all the games I've ever covered, like this is obviously the biggest IP that's ever hit pinball. I still think there's a really, really big question mark on what direction is this game going to go in? Is Stern going to make it so that it connects not just with the pinball community, which it's going to have a hard time when you see what's coming out this year. But are they really going to capture the elements of Pokemon that everybody loves? And that is TBD. That is TBD. And that is why I think right now it's going to be a game where like the code is early on and all these LEs are going to go out the door in just like three weeks. And where's the code going to be then? Where's the code going to be in two months when we're probably going to get Sonic the Hedgehog with complete code? Where's the code going to be in four months when all these Beetlejuices are out there and these Winchesters are out there? and we start thinking about Transformers in four months. Remember, four months from now, we're going to be discussing Transformers, which is going to be loaded, which is going to have G1 Transformer cartoon clips in it, which is going to connect to your childhood more than Pokemon does for a lot of people. So it's just a great time to be in pinball. This game, though, again, I think it all lives or dies in the long run on the software. The software has a lot to do. Now, the great news is the source material should provide them more than enough to create a software and a gameplay experience and moments of pinball magic. There should be a plethora of that, but it's really going to come down to that. There needs to be more meaning in capturing these Pokemon. And there also needs to be like storyline moments that you can't wait to get to and unlock in Pokemon pinball. I'm still excited to get my Ellie. Killian is super excited to get this LE I think we're going to get it sometime in the next month Guns N' Roses is going to go out and Pokemon LE is going to go in let talk real quick about Pokemon LE prices because they been all over the place I mean we heard early on remember we heard like someone sold one for and I think we might see stuff hit 30 Well, that's not happening. Just two weeks later, there is now a game unsold for 18. And we always see this, right? The hype hits big. I love hyping these games and I still think this game is gonna do just fine. I don't think we're gonna see a lot lower than 18 or 17 right now. I actually think they're going to go up once they're made. I do. I think Stern is going to really, really, really focus on this IP and on this game. And it's George Gomez game. I can't underscore how important that is. If the game was Elliot Elliot Eismin's, do you think it's going to get all of the company resources necessary? This is George's game. And this is a huge game for Stern Pinball. and they brought a lot of people into pinball with this game. And I think they want to make sure that everybody who buys a Pokemon pinball and everybody that loves Pokemon leaves satisfied with what they've done with this IP. The one thing I couldn't stand watching the stream, and I'll just say this right now, I think I heard the word jackpot like 1800 times in two minutes. Feels very Lord of the Rings. Jackpot, jackpot, super jackpot over and over and over again. And I don't know, man, like if you keep hitting jackpots, it almost makes it feel like the jackpot means nothing. Shouldn't the jackpot be harder to get? And shouldn't you not hear it every time over and over and over again? And that's one of the unfortunate things about buying these games early on. You got really early code. And so you're going to get so much repetition and you're going to get sick of stuff really fast. and they're gonna like and they're gonna iron all this out they always do but it's just one of those weird things now where you drop thirteen thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars or seven thousand dollars and your product is a good year and a half away from being completed all right so we got that surprise pokemon stream now beetle juices are landing and they are landing every day carrie Hardy just got his. Other people are getting theirs. The Pinball Palace got their game. Kelly Daniel. I'm seeing people unbox this game. I'm seeing people play this game. And I'm just reading some of the feedback. Now, look, I played this game for about 20 minutes. I had a really good time on it. I didn't have any issues. I didn't feel like there was too many scoops. I didn't feel like the flow wasn't there. But I've been speaking to more people. I've been speaking to more people that own it. People that have been playing it over and over and over again. And yes, There is a little bit of a concern that there are a lot of scoops. I think there's like three scoops in this game, which does slow down the game in a lot of ways. It also breaks up flow. If you hit a shot and it's heading around in orbit and then it goes into a scoop and fires it back, you kind of lose that momentum. You lose that like forward kinetic satisfaction of seeing the ball like whip around and around and around because that's what flow is. You really don't see many scoops in anything that Keith Elwin makes. You don't really see many scoops in games that Steve Ritchie makes. It's just a design decision. And so to see three in one game, it is a lot. Here are the criticisms I'm hearing early on with Beetlejuice. Too many scoops. I'm hearing the upper flipper is kind of pointless. It doesn't really give you a ton of satisfaction. The shots coming off of that upper left flipper. It's not like nearly as awesome as the upper flipper in Harry Potter. like upper flippers and Elton John and all the Elwynn upper flippers where you get those great orbit shots it feels like they didn't really design that upper flipper area to have a mini gameplay experience that is kinetically very satisfying so that's what I'm hearing from people and I'm also hearing there's a lot of straight down the middle drains that happens from one of the scoops all of this stuff for the most part hopefully can be adjusted some of the stuff you might get a little worried about because if there's like unfair straight down the middle drains, that's hard to adjust. Sometimes with scoops, you can kind of unscrew them, put a washer here or there change the alignment a little bit to prevent that Guns and Roses was another pin that had a lot of straight down the middle drains until people adjusted their game So some of this stuff can be fixed with dialing it in. Some of it, we hope, is not just a cataclysmic design failure, which I don't think it is. But overall, I am not worried about Beetlejuice at all. I am not. I mean, I am not worried that this game is going to be epic. I am not worried that this game is going to be a masterpiece. I am not worried that Spooky, I'm not worried about the code on this game. I think Spooky is going to keep baking this thing all year and making it better and better and better. And then we're going to get Goonies. I mean, I think it's going to be a really, really good year. Here's the issue that always happens with these boutique games. Both Winchester is going to go through this. Beetlejuice is going through this now. The problem with companies that slowly make games for like half of the year, the majority of people don't even have the game yet. And there tends to be early on a lot more people that don't have it than do have it. And what happens there is this. Everyone at the very beginning when you order one is equally excited. The hype is really big. But as weeks and months go by and you see other people experiencing it, you see streams of the game over and over and over again, there's just a natural fatigue that happens that really does just eat away. A lot of people's excitement and hype to get it. Remember, when we buy a pinball machine, it is a moment of like instant gratification securing a pinball order. It's like instant gratification. I got one. And then the wait for it is anything but instant. So it's a real, real test of people's patience. Now, the wise man orders the game, doesn't think about it again until the day it arrives at his door. I know that's hard to do, but I do recommend for each and every one of you, don't watch the streams. Don't even play it at shows. If you really want this game, I would just wait till it arrives and enjoy it. See the movie you bought for the first time in your home. Don't watch everyone else watching the movie you bought. It's just a better way to live. Stay excited. This is weird to say, but the less you pay attention to Beetlejuice threads, the less you read other people's reactions, the less you watch of the streams, the more enjoyment you will have when your Beetlejuice arrives. The only thing I would do is maybe check out the mod thread every once in a while. There might be some mods you might want to get. It's always fun to buy mods early on and, you know, put them on the shelf and wait for your game to arrive and you've got your mods. And then day one, you got a really nice exercise in putting those mods into the game. I don't think this game needs a lot of mods. There's some sculpts people are making and putting them in places. I just don't think it needs anything. I think sometimes in games too. Sometimes it's nice to have some empty space. I saw someone post a King Kong and they're like, it's modded. It looks amazing now. And it looks tacky. They put all these trees all over it and it just looks weird. It's like sometimes like you don't have to put stuff everywhere. There's flat plastic or there's an empty space because you can. Because once you start adding plastic trees to games, you do take away some visibility. You just do. And it just makes it feel more crowded. It makes it feel more crowded. When I walked up to Beetlejuice, it was just like the right amount of everything. I think they nailed it. I think it needs no more. I think it's perfect. I will say this. I like doing this show better in the morning. When I wake up, my energy levels are higher. Everything's higher. At the end of the day, it's not the same. It's not the same. So I will be back Monday morning with an early morning show and I will do my Saturday morning spectacular tomorrow, but it's just different. I feel like on Friday, I'm a little bit tired. I haven't had dinner. It's not the same Canada. I really feel like I should just be doing a Patreon live right now and not be doing the podcast, but I wanted to get you something up. Thank you for subscribing. I will be my normal morning self when we do the next podcast. Never had a chance to be young. God damn. No one grows old while from God damn going through the motions all alone. God damn. I can't lift this weight off all my shoulders. God damn