You! You are still dangerous. You can be my wingman anytime. Bullshit. You can be mine. I'm coming in hot below the hard deck. It's Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. Welcome. Why is it that we are more excited about the April Fool's themes than we are about the actual pinball themes we've been getting over the last three years? I want to talk about this because the thing is this, people. I know that Stern Pinball has a new CMO. I'm happy for them. I know Seth Davis wants to pick the right themes, but the reality is this. These pinball companies, for the most part, have not been listening to us, to what we want, and what happens when you treat your target audience like they are not the most important part of the marketing mix. We're at the top of the funnel, people. In the end, who's going to buy these games? It's not the dealers, it's not the distros, it's not the operators and the barcades. The majority of pinball machines need to sell to gentlemen like you and me. And when you go on Stern's website, do you see gentlemen like you and me represented as their lifestyle brand? Nope. The complete opposite of what the pinball buying demographic looks like. It's because this is what has happened in the world. And it's not just pinball. It's happened at Disney. It's happened at other places. You lose touch. You lose touch with your target audience and you think the only way to grow your brand is to become attractive to a new audience that doesn't think about you, that doesn't You knowлег is the one that went true in鬼อย So when I look at the pinball landscape and I look at who we are, it's so easy to me. It's so easy to me to pick themes that people want in this demographic. And so why is it that we are getting so many things that this demographic is not excited about? And then you couple that with charging the most you've ever charged for this product If you're going to end this industry in the history of the industry, you're going to charge this much money across the board and expect new people to come into the hobby in a world in which everybody is now nervous about what things are going to cost, nervous about keeping their jobs, nervous about customers going out and spending money. I mean, everybody's nervous. The damn manufacturers are nervous about tariffs. We're all nervous about should we be spending money on things we don't really need when everything is very shaky right now. Are you going to go out and travel to pinball shows now knowing that your finances are not going to be as strong as they were a year ago? Are you going to get that tax return? Are you going to be one of these crazy people that's not going to pay your taxes because you think the government's not going to be paying attention? I'm just here to say right now, it is a new climate in pinball like never before and everybody needs to wake up to the new reality. The reality is this and yes, it is based on common sense. If you want to sell pinball machines for $7,000 to $15,000, you need to release a game that is based on a theme that gentlemen The Pinball Machine, age is like I don't know now like forty or like thirty seven to sixty find appealing. The primary buyer at this higher price point is going to be an older buyer. So first and foremost, if you're gonna go down the road to make a pinball machine that this demographic wants, you need a theme that they want. What a theme that you wanna make, a theme that they want. Anything that comes out now at these prices that does not achieve that step one of the marketing funnel, a theme they want is gonna be dead on arrival. The Out of the way and that is not hard all you need to do is Open up something called the internet and look at the top Musical acts the top movies and the top TV shows starting in year. I don't know. Let's say 1978 to 1999 if you just make From my suicide пов р fortsprus promptly после Siri 2014ted, realying modай Даже with防 przest Niagara and otherorus, who하신't owners and livelihood achievementinst时候,ő mrflowingko̓e ℏgeldя astГā Fall geld Jegijā paidärainä я第一個 festivalover in Čhfach màđäðṘ¹ågøeRõ most likely g國ό still aršitătäg� Spartancäppäจะれyle speed interrupt Давайте duringvalesă Hong Kong au pe 절� BTS winners Trends Uçeşişiş assembly Inform Another C B K B D K K R So, it is a real simple playbook and how can these companies be swinging and missing so damn hard when it's all right there. You also if you only need to sell a thousand games and you're a boutique company you can pick something in that timeframe that's not gonna cost you and arm and a leg, okay. There's a lot of movies out there a lot of cult classics that will be successful So pick a theme people want okay. It's not that hard I just put up on my Facebook page would you rather have dune pinball or? Tremors right tremors the fun Kevin Bacon movie so much fun that movie is it's way more fun than a dune pinball machine theme and guess what predominantly Most people want Tremors over Dune. Now look, I hope Barrels of Fun's next game is Tremors because I love that movie. It's most likely gonna be Dune and we saw their shaker motor, their teaser yesterday. Nobody cares. If this company is making Dune, they're doing it all wrong. They're basically letting people for the last few weeks or a couple months Win اليou will btwo, Tamiya Pir mattip onzi ni çekid, nof tiposae peciyeru Wanted and you gotta make them want it They not doing anything These teasers are not gonna work Trust me when I say this David David Van Es is waiting too long and he gonna release this game on top of everything else and it just Not gonna work out. I'm gonna get back to this But I think all of these guys are missing what's happening in the pinball buying demographic right now And it's gonna bite them in the buttocks. Okay, so you get a theme people want. All right. Awesome. Yeah Okay, then the other thing you need to do is read the room. COVID is over. This period we're in now where everything's going to be so expensive and we're supposed to just accept it. We're supposed to not just only accept the high prices, we're also supposed to accept how much money every single one of these games is going to lose and we're supposed to just like, okay, cool, I'll just buy it, lose four or $5,000 and then I'll just move on to the next machine. It's not going to happen. supercom probabilistic of a pinball I could not都有. Can avoid this anymore. So couple that with the fact that there are thousands of Unsoldten showcase sitting new inbox that are just inventory that have nowhere to go. When those games go out into the world, what do you think that's going to do? Here's the other thing. It's like, we need to limit the supply. There's too much. You get a theme people want. Don't make it forever. 23 character And I'll put a beginning of대차 Hoshiaha Chitose останий attenday $83,910 Li wit some cool Waiter, I saw Unớ 죄송 brighter æ pinball predecessor by Keeleyаци, priedble The every single Jersey Jack CE is gonna cost either 13 or $15,000 regardless of who designed it Regardless of what's in it regardless of the theme regardless of the demand So imagine if Porsche charged $200,000 for every single Porsche Atputting ibahee while streaming hintenfully », discret volleyballCOVER, new video and tools for beginners and content marketers without the h Sund This is the problem. This hobby could operate when everything was $6,500 for an LE, right? When it was that cheap. And again, remember people, we used to spend $6,500 on LEs and I just won't accept the excuse, well, everything's just more expensive these days. Sure, sure, but to a point. And we didn't just get to a point. We flew past what would have been the acceptable amount for any pinball machine. The most collectible pinball machine in the world We used to joke that the hottest machine ever might be 10K by Christmas. And now you've got basically mass-produced games for 15 grand by both Jersey Jack and Stern. Yes, because if you put everything into a Stern LE that's in a Jersey Jack CE, you're talking $15,000 and you're just gonna make a thousand of them. And now you're gonna make unlimited amounts of Harry Potter CEs. But gang, here's the real issue. These pinball companies all these years got away with it. They got away with it. They didn't ask us what we wanted. Have you ever taken a legitimate survey until recently from a pinball company asking you what you want to buy? What features would you like to see in a game? And don't forget this. The only time we ever got invited as pinball media into the doorstep The only time they opened the door to media is when John Wick sales were horrendous. Now you got to think about that for a minute. You've got pinball people that are out there that love your product that have been spending six some people seven figures on your product and you never invited a group of them into The The pinball machine is a pinball machine that can be used for a certain purpose. The pinball machine is a machine that can be used for a certain purpose. The pinball machine is Hi guys I thought you hitting P P. to I just wanna say a couple other questions. Second question that I havecido I did for the Blackpool in my class. One is, do Chrystler have a mega collection whichever year is it's coming. Definitely the G name server, 很uanashing initiate tournament in oblig saleside Daily V sistema sitencing period Belίο Serebrio Dign份u,하�еко helping people€£1€¦£aÏ Nutr krijgen£ata¯£³£¬£¦¬ª¢³¬¬¬¬£¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬££¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬£¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬� At YearZoneX Us It almost like they are ashamed of the very people that have kept that company in business When was the last time Jersey Jack did a focus group about what you want Jersey Jack has been making games just for him. Nobody would have greenlit Toy Story 4. Nobody, nobody would have said make the Godfather. Nobody would have picked Avatar. All of these decisions, all of these years, nobody is immune to the reality. These companies think they know what we want. David David Van Es, I've been speaking to him. He's gonna make the same mistakes. I'm saying it right now. He thinks he knows what you want. He doesn't know if it's Dune. That's it people. Another example of people with resources, With talent, with the ability to make a product, but they did the carnal sin. They didn't ask the pinball buying demographic, what would you like? Go secure a few licenses and then go do some focus group testing and then make the product. Look, it's not even hard people. It's not even hard. It really isn't. And that's why like yesterday when I saw all this stuff, I'm just like, here we go again. I feel like the joke's kind of over. It's like the joke's on all these companies. If they think they're gonna keep selling product, and if they think like the pinball buying demographic is gonna keep going back for more and more and more, and just lose a fortune on every game, it only works if every single game they've got is Harry Potter or Star Wars or Ghostbusters or Back to the Future. King Kong, it's gonna be 13.6, it's gonna be more money. A lot of people are gonna hesitate. I mean it. I don't know, like why do you want to go in right away when they're going to make so many of them? And with Harry Potter, it's like, yeah, like I can't wait to see it, but if they're going to make like a few thousand CEs, I mean, you almost have to have your head examined to buy it on day one because you're going to be able to go get it for so much less. Look, I love covering this hobby, but you see it happening, man. People are getting burnt out. They're getting burnt out by the barrage of games that are about to come out. They're getting burnt out by like Pinball You, too, can take followup questions by sending questions toве cementprie winnerクラウ DP, Katie sem sempre on divkaistv, as always,еди apaerine, Je That's all. Now, you're going to start writing checks for $7500 for a new Stern pro? A pro that they're going to make thousands of or need to make thousands of? So in the end people, in the end, the same sentiment that people feel towards Disney right now, the same sentiment that's sweeping across the world. If you have a product that has a niche audience, you double down on that niche audience. The way you get more people into your industry and into your product is you just make the best damn product you can that is appealing to that niche audience. That will pull in more people like them. If you want to future proof pinball to a new generation, just keep making great games that appeal to your target audience. Cuz don't forget, we are all just children inside. The things that human beings will be attracted to won't change. We were young kids when we got excited by games like Adam's Family and Twilight Zone. For some of you, you might have been in your This is a very exciting moment in the 2020s when you got excited by Stern Machines like Metallica and Tron and Ghostbusters and ACDC. It's like if your game is amazing and it speaks to the target audience, you will attract more people, you will attract the next generation by doing it that way. But if you try to make a game for them that excludes your target audience, You are gonna fail. A great industry to look at is the cruising industry. I used to work on Royal Caribbean. You know what they do? They just keep making better and better cruises. And the cruisers who love it, even the older cruisers, they love seeing what's next. How far can we take the cruising experience? Of course they wanna get new cruisers on board. And guess what happens? When they target the core audience and just keep making the Antonio Cruz experience better, that's what makes younger people now more attracted to cruising. But if Royal Caribbean was like, I'm going to make a Antonio Cruz ship for Gen Z, this is going to be everything Gen Z wants on a Antonio Cruz. Guess what would happen? They would not get on board and your target audience would not get on board. And you know what's interesting about pinball people? It's such a small industry that any mistakes get magnified larger than they should. Any mistakes can be much more destructive because it's hard to pivot. Remember, when Stern gets the themes wrong and they've got like four to five games in development and they don't have like four to five appealing themes to the target demographic, it's going to get rough. It's going to get real rough because then they're The only solution to get out of that quagmire is to rerun older titles and then you end up just burning all the old collectors that thought they had the last version of Metallica LE or Walking Dead LE or Ghostbusters or Tron. Like that's not a winning strategy either. So yeah, Stern's got a new marketing guy. He's a CMO. I heard he's a great guy. He's got his work cut out for him. In the end, gang, I mean this. I mean Gary probably needs to retire. Sandby from Statues of NES, The Pinball Price is now this and it not going to change This industry is going to decline by 40 to 50 over the next three years The moment the SHIT hits the fan for people financially and it looks like we might be headed there it over It absolutely over You all know Frank Sinise gear modal Cont pernah big therapy for short loose tell first time A lot of transitional I think prices need to come down and I think themes need to get better. They got greedy, they priced everything as if it was still COVID and that's it. Any other pinball news? Tim Sexton left Stern. I knew that. He's now over at CGC Play Mechanics. He's probably going to do the code for Halo. It is what it is. John Wick owners, you know you're screwed. Dude, you guys were screwed long before Tim Sexton bailed on the code. You were screwed The game. Anybody who bought John Wick, examine their heads. Because if you knew anything about pinball, you knew this title was gonna tank just like Venom. And you went in on it? What's wrong with you? Some of you are a gluttony for punishment. Everybody look, a new day is coming man. The world is kinda crazy. Everyone's feeling anxious, everyone's feeling stressed out. 1, 0 1 oat 1壓 estoไม 1 ŽŽŽŽŽżżŽŽ рассaient отсDaypes characteristic 2 facilit5 reu va gicken Irllerbeike gaâ يurch議η company signing sponsorshippatient, sponsor明! but your friends and your parents they were more successful than their parents and it just felt like we were gonna keep climbing we were gonna keep having good vibes, That's it man the world was filled with good vibes and now 2025! think about it right. Where's the good vibes? Where? Where? It's just hard. It's hard to find you know it's almost like you have to create your own bubble and live in it got to tune out the media you got to tune out all the negativity, you got to diving in and happilyastartoirowie O sure, All the negativity, you gotta tune out Kaneda's Pinball Podcast and you gotta just live in your own little bubble, but that's not what the world used to be. Mainstream culture was the good vibes. Mainstream media was the good vibes. Like when you plugged into stuff, everybody universally was having a good time for the most part. They were, I mean at least in my world, you know because look it was before the internet. I mean maybe we just didn't have a place where everybody could complain. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the pinball machine. I mean, maybe that's the difference about today versus then. But it was better. It was just so much better. You could wake up and be in the present. Nobody was putting pinball machines in their homes unless you were Richie Rich, you know, or Silver Spoons, you know. We used to walk into the arcade and play a pinball machine. We didn't have to spend an entire paycheck to buy a pinball machine that was going to lose 40% of its value in six months. Nobody was doing that. The most expensive pinball machine in 1986 was probably $8,000. Inogi, C bastante, Gloria K drauf, Dennis Raton, We're not driving people to collect every single little thing. Sure some things had collectability around them, but for the most part there was one version of Nintendo. You know one of everything. There wasn't like all this variety to sort of make these people feel the FOMO. The only FOMO that used to be fun was like the hot Christmas gift that nobody could get. The Tickle Me Elmo's of the world, the Nintendo systems that were sold out, that was fun. How do I get my hands on one of these? It was a lot of fun when there was no internet and you actually had to like drive over to the toy stores and see if they got a new shipment in. Everybody look. Rest in peace Val Kilmer. Unbelievable loss today, 65 years old. I mean it when I say it, like his death, like it shook me this morning because I was just like these were the characters of my childhood that left such an indelible impression. These were the sort of male figures and role models and characters that we wanted to be, right? And they became caricatures of our gender and what masculinity was. And I mean this when I say this, it's over now. I walk into work every day. I have to become the most emasculated version of me to survive. You can't even bro out with anybody anymore in these companies. Like everyone's nervous. Men can't be men. Women can't even be women. We've just created this world where you gotta walk on eggshells and what I love about the 80s, it was unapologetically the caricature of like our genders to the extreme degrees, right? To the extreme degrees and guess what? Guess what the vibes were? People loved it. Go look at a music video, right? Go look at a music video from the 1980s. Go look at Here We Go Again On My Own. You've got his supermodel girlfriend, you know, on the car. Henry Spandiver, daggler, vimeo to a Question for the chinst European I'm going to go on Stern's website in four months and see a dude that looks like Neil McCray in a t-shirt or they've lost the narrative. Everybody peace out. On Friday 9th of October 27th December at St Louischio, millimeter display Store artworkwork draw and ganada & etc Knapp Arcade, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast.