Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. On an all-new pinball show, Dennis and I dive into Stern Pinball's release of the Uncanny X-Men. We also talk Stern Pinball production updates, Uncanny X-Men as a theme, the art packages, the layout and design, the game's toys and mechanisms, sales thus far, what we love, Our main criticisms of the game based on our first impressions, as well as other pinball discussions, such as Jersey Jack Pinball's launch of Avatar, the battle for Pandora, coming later this week, the pinball industry battleground right now going on between Stern and JJP, and how it affects the hobby overall, and a ton more. Oh yeah, and a proper pinball market trend. Now the pinball show club members get exclusive content this week covering spooky pinball news, and my recent trip up to Benton, Wisconsin. And we also chat about some pinball's cost co-agreement and the new Level Up Your Office program. Like the new Uncanny X-Men pinball game, this episode of the pinball show is big, colorful, loud, bold, and surprising. Enjoy. Pinball is a game of skill. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. It's time for the Pinball Show. It's pinball with personality. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Pinball Show. We're in episode 160. I'm Zach Minney alongside Dennis Creasel. Dennis, I've got to say, you know what? It was a close one, but ultimately, I believe you were correct. Sorry there, bubs. Yes, and for all of our listeners who said, what do you mean he's correct? Dennis is always right. No, but what we're referring to is we had this little, not a bad, it was just, we're always competitive here, Dennis and I, as to who's more in tune, tapped into the pinball, the silver ball it is. And we differed on our guesses as to when Stern Pinball was going to officially release. A reveal. Yeah, reveal their next cornerstone game, which now we know as the Uncanny X-Men. We'll talk at length here on the show about. But I said, hey, I think we're getting something in August. I'm looking at the production schedule. I think it's going to be revealed in August. Sure, they'll be building in September. But we're going to get the new cornerstone in August. It's going to be pumped up a little bit. And Dennis said, no, I don't see that happening. So, listener, what ended up happening is August 26th, 28th, Something came along where we only had a couple more days. And, in fact, Stern says not only here's your tease, but here's the reveal of the title of the game as well as feature of the game. The biggest feature of the game, arguably. They showed video of that. And a lot of the industry that consumed the show, of course, the most popular pinball podcast in the industry, they reached out on the forums, on the social medias. And some of them were damning you, saying you were wrong, Dennis. I had direct messages. I had indirect messages. I had, I think there was a carrier pigeon that just pooped out a little Zach Wins on my car. Zach Wins splat. That's right. Explanation splat. But I thought we were pretty clear that a teaser, even though, I think I see where they got confused. There was so much more in that teaser than Stern typically does. There was a shot of a toy. Yes. Which, yeah, I couldn't immediately think of the last time they revealed a major toy in a teaser. They even alluded to the design. It was a lot. It was a lot. But, in fact, we agreed on the last episode that that wasn't, that's not the, you know, you've got to give it all. You've got to give it all. Maybe not your tip. I had to do two things, Zach. And, you know, I hate doing work. You work all the time. Task one, for people that don't know how to listen, because I've found a lot of people who listen, maybe they're listening on like 3X because they don't listen well. Oh, no. Remember we had a discussion about the emotion versus logic? I won't go into that now, but numbers don't lie. Yeah. People don't listen. I agree. Anyway, so I had to provide in a couple locations a transcript of the discussion so that they could read clearly that While I had leaned initially towards allowing perhaps a teaser trailer, you pointed out as your veteran status in the industry, you're like, the teaser doesn't really show you the game. You have the theme revealed. You might have some art revealed. But you're like, I need the whole thing. You've got to give me the whole thing. So the other thing I ended up doing is my layperson, really dumbed-down approach was just to say, did you walk away from that teaser trailer knowing how many flippers are in the game? You don't know how many flippers are in the game. it sure as hell wasn't revealed. You don't really know the game. Yeah. So that was my simplified version. Oh, it was a close one. I think Stern liked messing with us on that one. And I was really busy at work that day, so I was getting really irked at all these times. Like, everyone thought, look, you all think you're so cute and creative. And it's like, I had, it's not even. Oh, my God. You all were thinking the same. Talk about being busy that day. Any guesses as to what I was doing that day? You were going, all right, kid number two's college is taken care of. No, not at that point. Really? At that point, I had Greg Bone saying, Greg Bone announced to me that they announced what the game was, and then immediately said in retrospect, I wish I wouldn't have just told you that, because I was hands deep in camera and audio equipment, filming. Oh, you were up in Benton. Yes. I forgot that that was your Benton day. Well, I mean, I could be in Benton. I could have been elsewhere. Maybe I was in Houston. Who knows? But, yeah, we were filming, and it shook my focus there for a second. I could see that. Because then my phone's like, bink, bink, bink, bink. Oh, yeah. I'm like, oh, no. That's right. We're going to take five, everybody. We're going to take five. What a couple weeks it's been since we've talked to everybody here. Let's jump into the top stories in the pinball industry, starting with the big one. It's Thurn Pinball, and we'll get into the uncanniness of the X-Men. But right now, we've got to give everyone a production update on this certain pinball. The past couple of weeks since, they've been building, as we said, Mandalorian Pro and Premiums. We knew those were coming. They sprinkled in some Rush Pros as well. Interesting. I did not expect that. Yep. We were waiting for the end of the month for those, but some Rush Pros have been shipping out. And then, I believe they are beginning that run of the Uncanny X-Men. However, it's not the Pro model. Oh, and they finally started doing the LE first? Yeah, they jumped into the LE first. Okay. There's been talk for years. We can talk more about that later, but the Uncanny X-Men LE games will be online right now, if they're not already, and likely to be shipping probably at the end of this week. Shipping that might be overseas. Domestic might be the following week, but we'll see. So this week, continued X-Men LEs. In September, we still have Rush premiums that are going to be produced and shipped, likely any time from mid to the end of September here. Also in late September, that's when we're going to see the pro edition of the Uncanny X-Men. They're going to be going to locations, and I believe we will probably see them build a big enough bundle that some consumers, residential consumers, will see some as well, probably dipping into the October month. Also in October, about mid-October, we're going to get the Uncanny X-Men Premium first-run editions and also that Jurassic Park Pro run that has been planned for months now. We're talking about Stern Pinball accessories updates. We're still waiting for the announcement of Venom, John Wick, and Godzilla 70th accessories. We did get a new accessory from Stern Pinball this recent week. They are now shipping not only the expression speaker lighting to this, but the LE-style kit for the expression speaker lighting. Joel will be for help. I already got his held back, and we'll be taking it to him Tuesday. There you go, Joel. Speaking of accessories, we at Flip N Out Pinball just added some following accessories. Very exciting. Back in stock. Deadpool toppers are back. They have been gone for a long, long time. As well as Jurassic Park toppers, Joel's art blades, Joel's armor, and the Stern Expression Speaker Lighting Kits. Now, the LE kits were on an allocation. allocation, so parts-wise they don't have enough to fulfill orders, so we didn't get a huge percentage of what we ordered, unfortunately. So we're taking pre-orders for the LE-style speaker kits, but for the regular ones, we have them in stock at the Pro and Premiums, ready to rock and roll. The time is now, Dennis. Stern Pinball officially announced this last week. Oh, yes. They announced... That was actually pretty good. Thank you. They announced... You can hire me for all your chiptune needs. Their third 2024 Cornerstone release, it is The Uncanny X-Men. So uncanny, I've never heard of The Uncanny X-Men. Have you heard of it? Are you a comic book guy? No, I'm not. I'm not. And so it vaguely sounds familiar because I know people that are into comics. You know, David Dennis, for example, with Silver Ball Chronicles, he collects comics. So I think I'd heard the name, but that's definitely not a property I was familiar with. I knew more about the cartoon from the 90s, which I also did not watch. So it's not been, like, I've seen the movies. Let's just put it that way. That's really my touchstone with the X-Men, but I do know people who were fans of the comics. When we talk about the X-Men as a theme, prior to any of this release or announcement, whenever we heard that theme, X-Men, a lot of people, including myself, were kind of, I don't know how to put this into text form, but A-H? Is that E-H-H-A? Yeah, that's how I spell it. And some people are like, we already had an X-Men. Well, this is Uncanny X-Men. Or this is X-Men 97. We already had a comic illustrated. What? This thing sucks. People didn't want this. A lot of people didn't want this. Which goes to show you, after we talk about what we do with this game, how theme matters a lot. but if you can check all the other boxes, then it's all good. And this was a theme that did not, it's not a turn-off theme. Right. Well, yeah, generally I'd say no. There is a bit of Marvel fatigue just in general. Yeah, that's true. But I don't think it's as prominent in pinball as it is in movies, for example. There are some themes that just simply will turn off people. Right. No, and I wouldn't classify this. Some of the maybe riskier themes or really strong themes, horror-based themes. Well, it's not polarizing. Polarizing is what I'm looking for, yes. It's not too much of a polarizing. Or even like Elton John was a turn-off for some people. But, you know, with music pins, that's always a risk. Absolutely. Plenty of people, like, there ain't a band alive that doesn't have people who hates their music. Yeah. So initially when we heard of that, so now we have the Uncanny X-Men. Just some specifics on this release. This is designed by Jack Danger. This is his, I'm going to call it his 2.5 design attempt. He originally did the home version of Jurassic Park, and then he came and hit the... But why .5? That's a full-size play field. Okay. All right. Yeah, that's fine. If I'm him, I want to be known for my first game as a food fighter. So Jack Danger. Okay, third game. He did Foo Fighters. He did Jurassic Home. And now he did the Uncanny X-Men. Artwork by Zombie Yeti, a.k.a. Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti). Lead programmer. Arguably first-time lead pro... Well, I don't know, .5? It's Waysen Chang. Now, Waysen did the Jurassic Park Home. He led on that. But he's worked on a number of games in the past from Stern Pinball. He's been around for a long time. A mechanical engineer was Kevin Koldzij. Sorry, Kevin. Custom animation by Chuck Ernst and team sound design by Jerry Thompson. Custom music and soundtrack by Charlie Charlie Benante of Anthrax and Pantera fame. Is he the one who helped with Black Knight Starter Rage? I believe so. Yep. And he's done that. He did Venom stuff. He's done some, maybe even John Wick. I don't know. There are three cornerstone models to the Uncanny X-Men, as we've become accustomed to, pro, premium, and limited edition model. No pricing changes this time around, which Stern said in our dealer seminar. This is continuing. They continue to hold pricing flat despite continued inflation two-plus years and counting. So do they want, like, a pat on the back for that? Just letting us know. I'm just letting them know it's because they raise prices so much to gouge that this has been easy for them. This is a sales, definitely a sales message. Let me just put it this way, so I'm not too snarky. It was a smart move for them not to raise the pricing. Absolutely. That would not have worked. Even if they knew it was a hit. Not as a spoiler, but looking at this game, they might have been able to get away with it. I know what I'm saying. But I do think that it will be appreciated that they did not. They did go one step ahead and wanted to, and they talked about this in the dealer seminar, this year and last falling into this year, a big goal of theirs is to try to increase and really maximize consumer value and how they're going to go about doing that. This time around, there was no price increases, which for most people, well, that's not really an added benefit, but they reduced the number of LE units that were going to be made. That's been something I've been saying for years. You have been. And they've been doing 1,000 units of the LE for, if I was a better podcast host, I'd go back and have that prepared. But at least the last five releases, they've been sticking to the 1,000 unit. They dropped it to 811. Yes. Which is significant to the comic, the Earth 811 for the days of use. Yeah, I get the silly number thing. But the important thing is that they shaved it almost 200. Which is significant. So that does create, if you have a good title, that does create a little bit of fear missing out. Okay, so a little bit of, yeah, big time FOMO. Because after looking at this game and the acclaimed hit that it already is, it could have sold 1,000 easy. Okay, let's talk about the product launch itself. They gave a teaser, as we talked about. But you know what's crazy? Right now, that little battlefield is among us in the pinball industry where we haven't seen anything new from a major manufacturer in six, seven, eight months. Like, we're getting... Really? So you don't count John Wick as new, new? From a different manufacturer, sorry. From a different manufacturer other than Stern. So, and John Wick wasn't the big hit that everyone would have liked it to have been. So, we've been without like a new... Everybody wanted something. People are hungry. Like this window of prime opportunity ending the summer, going into fall. Something big was due to happen here. And we've got Stern announcing. We've got JJP announcing this week. We already talked about Dutch pinball stuff with Alice. We've got American pinball getting primed but backing off a little bit. So there's some stuff going on. So it felt to me as if it wasn't just a typical teaser. Like, to me, it felt like we've got some big giants here that are pushing back and forth. We've got extended teasers. We've got little video animation teasers. Now we've got leaked teasers. Like, there's all kinds of stuff. It felt to me, I don't know about you, listener, it felt to me as if a little bit heavier right now with the whole jumping in front of things, getting teases out there. And I think a battle is among us. No, he's just... Well, I mean, I didn't pick up on that, but I think it's more of a that I the law, as you've noted, has been significant, especially compared to what we more obviously during the pandemic years. There was a lot of times where there just wasn't a lot coming out because a variety of reasons. And then, like last year, there was just a lot of stuff and a lot of it dropped all at the same time. You and I have discussed at length on one of our Patreon episodes, you know, kind of a foreseen next 12-month layout of production, which is pretty heavy in our projections. So far, we're rolling. Yeah, but so far, because of the lull, I just think that people are more hypersensitive to just seeing stuff because there's a, you know, even if the pinball market is cooler now than it was a year ago, there's still a hunger for new stuff. Oh, yeah. Because it's stuff to get excited about, and so people are just – they're latching on to everything at this point. And now that things are getting close to coming out of the oven, you know, these sort of things are coming out. And I don't know how much of it's actually because of the manufacturers, but there's – you know, people are sharing the stuff. For a while, I felt like we were finally getting away from all of these rumors, and now they're spooling back up again because people just – they need something to talk about. And Pinball does not produce enough stuff to constantly just have a new product every week. So they fall into the buckets of these rumors instead in a desperate attempt to stay entertained. And I think in the market that we are facing right now that is substantially different than a year ago or even three years ago, these manufacturers know that it's smart to kind of spread out a little bit. You know, nobody's blanket's going to be on top of each other. We can all spread out here at the slumber party. So everybody spread a little bit, but these two big giants here are both bullheaded, and they want to be the king. They want to be the king of that rock. And right now, it feels like Stern and J.J.P. are trying to climb up that rock. And Stern Pinball not only has climbed that rock, but I think they may have just stabbed that flag into its granite core. But we'll see. I mean, yeah, it's hard to say. It was always, in my view, going to be pretty tough for J.J.P. unless they had one of those banger themes. Or if they got it first. That could have helped. It could have helped. It could have helped. I don't know yet because I haven't seen the game. Absolutely. But we know from the leaks about Avatar. So, you know, Avatar and X-Men, okay, they're both sort of, I kind of put them in the same bucket. They're these inoffensive licenses that have made a lot of money, but they're not exactly like the highest demand things, but they can work for pinball. You know, so in a way, it's almost an apples to apples on a theme front. Neither one of them was hitting a home run with the theme. So I think that's why JJP was like, all right, I think, you know, maybe. And then if this was like a John Wick, you know, if this was a Venom, all right, you know, but this is something different, listener. We're going to talk about it now. So the product launch was teasers. Then we got the sizzle reel trailer. We got photos. We got even an extended product video that Stern's been doing lately, almost featurette light. We have, as of this recording, there's no gameplay video or stream. Yeah, I was hoping we would have some gameplay so I could have a better sense of it. Yeah. At least I know what the play field looks like. Yeah, as a hobbyist, of course, I'd be looking forward to that as well. As a business, if I'm Stern Pinball, or if I'm a consultant for Stern, I say, Hey, Stern, Zach here. So how are your sales going so far? Oh, really? Okay. All right. So on the gameplay video or stream, what's that going to help again? Remind me. Just so I know what your brain's at here. You can let people see how the gameplay. And is that going to increase sales substantially? No, it won't. No, from a business perspective, you're very subtle. You're very subtle. Maybe not. Maybe just don't do it. is what I'm saying. Don't do it. No, I totally understand where you're... I mean, there is a... Spooky's the case in point. Back in Spooky's past, there are plenty of games where people are like, you just killed the man for this because this does not look like a good game. We're talking more so like in the pre-bug era. Well, and look, even my discussion and my seminar last episode, even if it shoots great, which I think is going to be fucking incredible, even if it looks good, Even if, I don't know if it pulls more people in. I just, it's satiating people. I don't, I don't know what it does. Do you not want people satiated? Can you not slake their thirst for company? I like them satiated with their own product at their own home or at an arcade. Now, they're going to come out with a stream and stuff. I just, you know, start shipping some at a lease first. How about that? That's what I would do. All right, choice of the theme in the IP. We talked about it being an eh theme. Here's why Stern Pinball chose it, or some of the supporting elements to it. It is the best-selling comic of all time. It is X-Men number one. In 1991, sold 8.2 million copies. All right, that's a pretty strong argument, actually. Okay, yeah, for X-Men in general. That's not the uncanny X-Men, but go on. You know, it's the theme. Same theme. X-Men, the animated series from 1992 to 1997 television show, reached over 23 million plus households. Yep. It would have been a great art choice. Oh, boy. Here we go. The new X-Men 97 that is streaming now is 99% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a big, big fan base and revitalizing, arguably, an entire franchise. It's a Stranger Things move. It plays on the nostalgia. That's why it's so popular. And it works so far. And then X-Men films have spanned from 2000, year 2000 to today, with over $6 billion in box office gross. Even talking about the Deadpool and Wolverine, that's the highest grossing R-rated film already at $1.2 billion. We can't really count that as an X-Men movie, though. Is Wolverine not part of the X-Men? He is. Is Deadpool? I don't believe so. Okay. All right. What about the silver guy? Colossus? Yes. But was he even in the newest one? I don't remember him in it. I haven't seen it. I guess he was briefly as a camera. Yeah. Look, the X-Men and the Deadpool movies have been tangential. They're not X-Men movies. No. But they still help that brand. I guess. I mean, X-Men doesn't show up in the titles. You're right about the damn movie. Come on. Yes, but not X-Men. It's not about the X-Men. It's about Leia. Is it a fan? It'd be like if there's a movie about Magneto and you're saying, I mean, this is X-Men. It's like he wasn't even, I mean, I guess he was on the X-Men maybe at one point before he was the Brotherhood. I don't know. Was Logan an X-Men movie? Logan's just Wolverine's first name. Okay. All right. What are the objectives and the storyline on this game? Well, players are going to dive into the legendary X-Men comics like never before, featuring innovative mechanical elements inspired by iconic aspects of the X-Men universe and cutting-edge technology, including the never-before-seen Beast Lab. To save the world from a sentinel-ruled future, players must first alter the past. Did you ever see the cartoon Sea Lab? No, but I did. I'm just thinking of the intro song, and it's so stupid. I don't know that one. This is based on the legendary storyline Days of Future Past, which ran in 1981. It's like the big storyline through the X-Men comics where your actions in the past during gameplay will change the future. And elements of the story have been told in both the animated series and the films. The storyline takes place in both a current and a future timeline. Our heroes are trying to prevent a future where mutants are hunted by large robot sentinels. Are you stoked? Did I pull you in with my story? And it's, I've seen Days of Future Past, so I'm familiar with the storyline. And it was, I mean, that was a really good movie, I thought. The new X-Men is probably the best one. Storm! That was my original voice work, maybe. A storm is coming! Free Schubert-y. Let's talk about the artwork. We're going to jump into the categories here. It's Zombie Yeti. It's Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti). I think we can both agree that what he does in pinball is he creates very beautiful art packages for pinball machines that rival some of the greatest of all time. And pinball has been around for hundreds of years. Not hundreds of years. Hundreds of years. I remember when Eli Whitney invented the pinball machine. The cotton mill and the pen mill. We're 100 years, aren't we? Are we close? I mean, what are we counting? We're counting. Let's say 100 years is fine. All right. So for 100 years, arguably. Let's jump in. Let's look at the pro, the premium, the LE. I'm going to give Yeti credit because he provided three completely different back glass and cabinet art packages across the models for this title, which I've criticized in the past. I'd say, you know, the L.A. is just a mirrored version of the premium. Or, I don't know, Avengers Cabinet on premium L.A. are just different color schemes. Like, give me something. He provided that. So, wonderful job. You can't not see this game. This game looks like a living, breathing comic book, in my opinion. It is like everything else Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) does. It is beyond beautiful. And Dennis and I are going to offer some criticism here because we're podcasters and we know it all. But just know that our criticisms here, and I'm speaking for Dennis until he tells me otherwise, our criticisms here, in my opinion, are going to be more preference and style-based than actual merit and abilities here because he's proven himself. Even some of his worst art packages are better than 95% of the rest of the industry, historically the industry's best work. So what do you got, Dennis? Do you love this art package? Which one do you like? Backglass, cabinetless, jump into play field, all of that jazz artwork. You see that at first. What do you think? Well, which one do you want me to start with? Let's start with the exterior packages. Okay. Those I like. Okay. So, yeah, I think, again, it feels very familiar with what Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) likes to do, lots of bright colors. I agree with you. It's nice to see a different premium and LE in terms of Translight. I would say, in terms of my favorites, and I don't have a good, I haven't seen, or I'm not right now seeing a good side shot of the premiums cabinet. So I'm not quite sure what that one is. And listeners can follow along on Stern's Facebook, Stern's website. You've got Nap Arcade. You've got Pinball News. You've got Kineticist, all the different places. Right. So overall, I would actually say the exterior package of the LE is my favorite. Okay. Mostly driven by the Translight, which is always what I would notice the most anyway, because no matter how you configure your lineup, that's what you're going to look at. And setting aside even the cool little X logos for the speakers that are on the LE version, I just think because of the explosion backdrop, it's the more colorful one. If we're going to talk about back glasses, I'm going to agree with you there. I like the composition and the differences on the LE more so than the other two. They're all really nicely done. I'm getting too much open space in the premium with Colossus carrying subject. And then the Pro, the Pro, I really like the composition and the arrangement of Wolverine make me feel a little bit too much like Jeremy's work on the premium LE versions of Deadpool. Almost the same size, same articulation, very similar there, so it kind of pulls me back. What I do really love about all three of these back glasses, he puts this really thick red line on top. I don't know the significance of it, but visually, it works really, really well. I really like that. I wish Wolverine was a little bit bigger on the LE, but I like how big that signal is and the arrangement of the way they're looking. All right, I'm nerding out too much. I'm going LE on the back there. So what about the cabinet? Yeah, I would say LE there, too. I like that the LE is very much a, it's the X-Men's fan. Like, it is paying direct tribute on the LE cabinet art to the actual comic books of days of future past. Like, it is, it's uncanny how similar they are to the actual art on the cover of the comic book. I think the introduction to those, I don't know if it was 312, 330, whatever it was. it looks different on the other ones the premium pro he's looking like you know he's trying to just show off the characters and action sequences very neutral but on the LA it is a tribute to those comic books so I do love that Now being that I not a comic book fan or X in general for me give me the premium cabinet art I love the action sequence on it. I love that you've got Wolverine destroying a Sentinel in great size, and then you also have that Gambit timeline on there as well. I think that is the most beautiful. And then the pros, just like that's the cover art of a comic book. That's freaking gorgeous. I am happily going to be the owner of an LE, but the premiums where it's at for me, I think that does the most justice. Let's talk about the play field. I don't like it. Okay. It's fearful in our recent discussions. Yes, I knew I could smell your fear. Yes. What else do you like about it? If you like a character, he's on there, I promise. Oh, don't worry. I'm sure that's the case. It's extremely busy. Look, even fans of it say it's extremely busy. It's extremely busy, and it's the disjointedness of it. There's art that leads to a number of the ramp shots, for example. There's this attempt to segment that and show those, still provide the information. Everything's framed. You can notice a good point is kind of look at the center where you have that X grid with the inserts, and then you've got this weirdly shaped thing that's partly showing the sentinel head, but it's not like a normal triangle or a square or a rectangle. It's got a curve to it, so it's an atypical shape. So it feels to me like the decision was let's do it like a comic with panels, and sometimes they do have strangely shaped panels. But it just, so I get it from a theme tie-in. Hey, we're doing the comics. Let's do this like a comic. But it also, to me, just feels like a way to have disparate art all throughout. And because you've framed everything, it's okay. Instead of it being smooth. Now, here's my example that I would compare it to. Because the same thing bugged me in John Wick. Do you remember in John Wick above the sort of center circle inserts? There's like this 35-degree just panel angle with Keanu and him on the horse and stuff. That's what this reminds me of, but it's 211 because it's throughout the entire art package. With John Wick, I was like, why is this one segment here cutting through all of the rest of this, what could have been like contiguous art, you know, blending itself into each other so that it felt like one cohesive package? It's got to be, I mean, to get all of these different scenarios and characters, blending those into that would be maybe impossible. But I see your, I definitely see your argument. Because even the shapes of the cells, like you said, some of them feel like they overlap, whereas some of them butt up to each other. We've got the artwork of that computer showing the X-framed or the square-framed inserts again. That's been used again by Jeremy somewhere. I don't know if it was Avengers or if it was a – I forgot what it was. He's used that kind of thing. It might have been Foo Fighters. It feels kind of like that. It is very, very busy. It is very – a lot of work on this play field. Even – honestly, listen, you're not even a play field because it's very much that. But it bleeds into everything else it touches inside that box. The interior art plates, the plastics, the ramp stickers, the illustrated modeled figures. Like, the consistency of the style, you can't doubt that. There is definitely consistency everywhere. Yeah, it looks like someone took 50 X-Men comics and just shook them over the top of this whole thing. And it's everywhere. Well, and I get the challenge that you bring up with trying to integrate so many different characters. You've got to blend each scene with different colors. Right. But, you know, I was – to me, it felt like it was much better accomplished with, like – I mean, Godzilla kind of had that. Yeah, there are more characters here, so there is that aspect. But it felt more integrated to me with a – and I didn't love that art package for some – from some choice reasons. But, you know, with the – just in terms of the style. But the way it happened was, you know, you had the whole thing with Godzilla and he's fighting King Ghidorah. And there's the Mechagodzilla all kind of near the flippers. and then it just sort of flows into the spaceships and stuff just up above it, and then it just sort of flows into having the inserts and the cleanly lit shots where there's like the Eberra shot and Geigen shot and all of that. I don't know. When I look at it, even though there are different things going on, it's not broken up with the comic panel approach, and because of that, I feel like there was an effort to kind of make it visually integrate so your eye feels like it's a natural flow. When I look at this X-Men stuff, it doesn't feel that way. I see Magneto just below the Sentinel toy wrapped in pink, and then all of a sudden blue just appears beneath him. And then there's like this teal square thing with the inserts, and there's that weird Sentinel cut. I just, to me, I get it. It's the comic, and this is how comic panels are. I do not, I just don't like comic panels on pinball playfields. We get a little bit more space sometimes to let them isolate on the page itself. I think the thing for me is, and again, he's tried to do it right near the ramps and stuff. Jack Banger didn't help him here. I mean, look at the design of this game. You can't just stay and lay out these cells. So that's tough. That is tough. And given the theme is based on the comics, I get the decision. It's not a decision I like. and that's pretty much it. I like that Danger Room has some colored scheming. Yes, but you have to remember also for me, pinball art is also supposed to help tell you about the shots and stuff. It's not just supposed to be art all over the place. This does not. I struggle more with this one than others, and I know he can because I felt he did a very good job with Godzilla's art telling you what you were doing. I mean, for modern pinball. It's not like the old days where they just literally wrote what you were doing. On the play field, then it was mostly bare wood. So, no. No, the art on the play field does not appeal to me. But as you know, I don't buy games based off of art. Sure. I have a criticism or two as well. When it comes to this play field, I agree. It's super crammed. There's colors everywhere. There are characters everywhere. Like, it is a comic dump all over this play field. I will agree on that. And to that, I will say to Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti), nicely fucking done. I love that this thing is fucking hyper and loud, just like the layout itself. I love that. I think that if we took everything off this play field and hung this play field on the wall, it would stand out and look so damn cool compared to anything. And that's how a comic book should be. I think the issues that you raise are so true, but because of those issues, that's why I love it. I love that it is hyper times five. It is bright and pink and blue and orange. It's a screamer. I fucking love that. I love that it went above and beyond. It's like, can we get too much here? All right, now let's go two more steps. Let's just really go out and do it. So I can't complain about any of that because I think that's an asset here. Because the selling feature, like when you look at this game, it's not really the cabinet and stuff like that. It's not until you look at that playthrough and you're like, holy hell, what is going on here? So, yeah, I think it works here, even though in our minds we don't want it to because we're like, whew, that's a little pack there. It's a little crowded. But my criticism is I like Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti)'s artwork when the compositions are different. My criticism is because you went with the style, all your figures are pretty much the same size, and they're all smaller. You can't really show as many details in the play field whenever you have to include so many. I like whenever artists take a chance on different perspectives and sizes. So he did it a little bit with the Sentinel down by the flippers, where you've got a larger bust there. But I love, and I've been screaming this forever, I love when you put Deadpool in the middle of that play field really, really big. Like, I'm so sick and tired of, because when we print on playfields, they're not the cleanest lines anyway. So why don't we lean into that and make bigger figures so that you have some discrepancy between that stuff. I would have loved, like, a side profile of Wolverine, like, slashing something that takes up a third of the play field. Even if there's no insert. Like, I get the insert thing, and that's why. But I want maybe a game that's three times the size and then smaller figures. But when I look at this, it's very World Under Glass where everything's kind of the same size. And that's where I'm like, man, I would have loved something different in areas. I get it, but in defense of this approach, I mean, it is a commercial product. If you enlarge characters and do these elaborate things like you're explaining, he cannot have as many X-Men in the game. And people have their favorites. It's not all Wolverine. I mean, do you end up leaving Rogue out or something? I just feel like... Well, you look where you put her. You put her in. I know, I know. And sacrifices had to be made. But I think the point is that it is the X. Like, does Tyrone need to be in there? Well, it's just, it's the X-Men. It's not the Wolverine. And because of that, I think he basically had no choice but to. I mean, you're going to just, there will be people who will be like, you know what? I love the X-Men, and it broke my heart that Cyclops wasn't there. If I'm making a Kansas City Chiefs-themed pinball machine, I want Pat Mahomes bigger than I want Carson Steele. Like, come on. I get it. I get it. But there's a desire. I think they just, there had to be a choice made about, you know. A lot of artists do that. They end up too big. We can't really make the characters much smaller than they are. So basically you'd have to throw characters out to do what you want to do. Make them big. Pinball loves the montage. So I think this makes sense. We've talked way too much about that. Yeah, we have. It's so freaking bright, beautiful. Like, when I look down, that's the drug I want to do on the weekend. Whatever that is. I've joked about this for years. You pinball people. I'm going to put myself outside the box. You pinball people. All you want is the saturation turned all the way up. That's what you want. Colors. All right, Dennis, let's jump into the layout and some of the features. We'll focus mostly on the premium LED, but we'll talk about the differences between those models and the pro model. But I think we're looking at three flippers here. We are looking at two pop bumpers, I believe. and six ramps, question mark. Yeah, I'm having trouble telling the ramp count. Yeah. Let's talk about first the elephant in the room here is Spy Hunter. We've got maybe a shifted, what do you call this? This is not an Italian bottom. An offset flipper design? No, it's not a fan layout. What do we call the spy hunter? Like when the whole flipper arrangement is off kilter, it's shifted to the right and there's a left portion. Yeah, it's asymmetrical. Okay, an asymmetrical. This isn't an Italian bottom, is it? Well, I'm trying to get. Well, does the ball, I believe, yes. Because there are still inlanes that you can cleanly feed into and trap the ball. But there's no left sling. And there's an elevated right sling. The sling is not a key part of it being the Italian bottom. The Italian bottom is about how the ball is fed to the flipper. Okay. So we just have a big old outlay. You know, I'm trying to remember. I wrote a thing on this years ago. Oh, yeah. Kineticist recently popped it back up so people could read it. So if I remember right, I basically, I had Italian bottoms are, essentially if you have inlanes, you have an Italian bottom. But there are, you know, we have a standardized Italian bottom where you have the two slings and everything. And then you have all sorts of exceptions where the slings are different sizes or maybe there's one sling that's alive or maybe there's not a sling at all. But as long as that lane feature is feeding to it versus, say, a Stargazer. It's not the Stargazer left flipper. I know that. For the main two flippers, if they've got their lanes and you can trap up and all of that, that was what the Italian bottom is all about, is because it was a demand, as I understand it, from the Italian market to be able to trap up. And so you have that feed so you can cleanly do it without something interfering with it. But it is very atypical in this instance. It's not obviously, obviously, given how they've configured things. We know historically that Stern Pimble, they don't like to deviate too much, namely Gary Stern. Gary's retired. But he's still there. He's mostly in retirement. He's riding his motorcycle around Chicago getting casseroles that they call pizza. So I heard that Jack Danger had to go to some lengths to get this approved by Gary because this is a big no-no. You have slings, you've got in-lanes, you've got out-lanes. when you replace a sling with no sling and a pop bumper on top of it, and then you've got a whole left out lane that's its own playfield area with another flipper. This is a big no-no for Gary in a lot of ways. So he had to go at some lengths to do this. Did it pay off? I think in this situation it absolutely paid off, and it's probably why Gary approved of it. But I don't think we see this too often. No, I mean. Nor do I think we should. And that's, well, no, I would agree. So it's interesting. So I want to give Jack credit because he did say years ago they wanted to make pinball weird again. Sure. And you know me, I have a huge soft spot for, like, Gottlieb weirdness and stuff. As does he, apparently. And so, now, Spy Hunter is a turd. However, that does not mean that this is. I don't mind a Spy Hunter layout. It's not just the offset that causes Spy Hunter. And Spy Hunter's terrible, Zach. But I don't think it's really the offset aspect of it that makes it as bad as it is. So I think it's an important point of clarification. I think the reason why we don't typically see stuff like this historically, and remember, Gary Stern comes at Pinball from a very historic perspective, is when I look at this, my number one concern from an operator perspective is, are the ball times too long? because of the loss of the traditional layout where you have the trustworthy outlanes. I mean, most of the time when I lose my pinball, it's to our traditional outlane. It's not down the middle. Sure. Skilled players can keep it out of the middle. Yeah, yeah. So, again, Gary, back when most of his games were going to arcades and stuff, something like this, like, is this left side going to be babies first, never drain? You know, that would be the question that would come up. But we know, and here's where I do suspect this will play more generously, but that's in part because of this creative choice and in part because Foo Fighters is a pretty generous game player, time-wise. So Jack may just, and I haven't got any time on the Jurassic Park Home Edition, but I wonder if he favors easier layout designs. But I'll tell you something key, which I'm sure you've probably already noticed as a distributor getting calls on this game, the public loves easier players, too. For home collections, they love easy plays. Sales and ratings are always higher on easier, longer shooting games than they are difficult. I've said that forever. Difficult games just do not get rated high. They don't. So in this instance, Gary might be looking and like, I don't know if an operator would want to rely on something like this. With all this stuff, it's weird. Would people drop quarters into a layout like this? But I think from a home collector perspective, it's like, why not be bold? So I think let him cook. Let Jack cook. I agree. And they did. I agree. They did. And I give Stern a lot of credit for taking this start. We've seen more chances being taken lately. You know, weird pop bumpers down near the flippers and stuff. They've gotten a little getting rid of Gary's requirement of having to have a three pop bumper nest on the game. You know, Nathan. But who have we seen them through, though? We've seen them through Jack Danger and Keith Elwin. Yes. But they're also the newest designers. What games are selling the best over the last three to four years? Keith Elwin and Jack Danger. I'm interested to see how this company goes with design philosophies in the future because this one, we're just talking about the bottom third, but this thing blows the socks off of so much that we've seen, not only at Stern Pinball, in general. I said six ramps question mark because the overhead on this play field is so whimsical, curvy, confusing, that I think there's six. There's so much going on. And as a reminder, listener, we're talking about a certain pinball machine. You know when there's so much going on that it's hard to identify. Some of it is the art. It's hard to identify the ball paths and such and the combos. Like, Jack is becoming this multi-staged shot designer where he's okay taking one strong shot that feeds into another shot that then comes to this final destination. It's almost the Deadpool effect. That's when I've seen it done probably the most pronounced is the katana shot on Deadpool. It's, wait a minute, that's not one continuation. of a wire form or a shot, that requires it going on the play field on its own to connect to the next ramp that cannot be shot alone kind of thing. That's very interesting here. We've got hideaway shots that can trickle out of nowhere. I said six ramps because we've got left and right ramp, correct? Like the far right orbit is a ramp. The up left is a ramp. But we also, to the left of Sentinel Head, turns into Circus Voltaire Ramp that goes around the Sentinel's head. That's three. Then we have that continuation, figure eight. That technically is a ramp. I mean, you're hitting the far left figure eight. It comes down. It loops into that side shot, which is on the play field. Then it ends up on a wire form, thus a ramp, that continuation that comes down. We've got another continuation shot That when shot directly Feeds into the right of the playfield That comes up and goes around the apron Again, it starts on the playfield Ends up on a wire form above the playfield Thus a ramp Comes down into the danger room And then I believe That next one would be In the danger room There's another ramp above the pop bumper That gets you to the left flipper Back into regular gameplay There's a shitload going on There's even ramp diverters on this thing if we're just talking ball paths, two-pot bumpers, and interesting places that are going to – I think those might cause a little bit more – I'm thinking Paragon Beast area. Oh, they don't look that brutal. No, but bottom left, kind of in that same – it's not up clustered in three is what I'm saying. Right, right, right. No, they're creatively close. There's some Rick and Morty action down there by the left flipper. So that can create a little bit of havoc that the player's mind isn't typically accustomed to. When I first seen this, I was telling customers and friends that were messaging me, because I had seen during the dealer meeting, we see it an hour before. People are, oh, what's it look like? What's it look like? And I can't give away anything. But I told them, this is Foo Fighters on steroids. And they were like, there's no way. And so just wait an hour. And when this came out Everyone, I think The consensus was, holy shit This is fantastic That's pretty much what everybody said And it's because of the multifaceted Array of things that we have here It's the atypical Italian bottom It's the connecting shots, I would argue The interconnected shots I think it is the toys and mechs in this game Like no other, let's jump into that, Dennis Finally, finally We have another game that integrates a character, not Rudy-esque, but in that form where I've said all the time, if I was ever doing a game, I would do a game where there is a creature that is larger than life, that has multiple aspects of a game, almost like the Sega Godzilla, but moving. And that's finally what we get here. We get the big sentinel head that does multiple things. It's a bash toy. It's a kick target. It goes up and down like Circus Voltaire. But then you have, he's so big, the Sentinel, and as well in the comic books and cartoons and such, his hands are coming out of the play field, not just visually, they're sculpted on the premium LE, but they're interacting with the ball like we love on some of the games recently, as Stern's done with Godzilla, that it just freaking slays. Like his left arm rips down a wire form that the ball is responsible for traveling upon. So it disrupts that. and it just visually looks spectacular. And then the Sentinel's right arm, it pops up and his finger catches the ball and, again, interacts with the player. It blocks the player's shot, and it throws it back up the wire form ramp. So we have a central toy that is not only sizable, but it's interactive, fully interactive with the player. I think that's a big portion of this game. Yes. Yeah, it definitely is. I must admit, the hands stuff that they did for the ramps is some of the coolest. Oh, my gosh. One of the, maybe the coolest thing I think I've seen in pinball. It was very impressive when I saw it. The sentinel head is neat, but compared to the hands, it was much less so than. Yeah, I agree. Because why no sentinel lead ball? I'm glad sentinel doesn't need ball here. I'm actually glad because, look, I'm a sucker for a kickback. And I don't know how that kickback's going to be. I wanted him to do an alien, though, and then spit it back out. A little tongue come out. Yeah. No, no. He didn't have a tongue either. A little tongue. Grab it. It looked like he had a ball gag. He spit it out at you. And then he could say some double entendre in a robot voice. I like it rough. Yeah. No. Speak, Borg. I'm a sucker for a cake back. I love those Now I don't know how strong of a kickback it is It doesn't look like Dead East Jurassic Park or anything I don't know Stern's had some vicious ones Like Iron Man as well The same They're just like death kickbacks I hope it's like that It looks more like the Gottlieb kickback That Jack used on Foo Fighters Well you know my guess would be We'll be able to individually control its power Oh yeah that's true So you just turn it up to It's like they probably have a setting, Data East mode. Time Machine. Oh, is it Time Machine? Last Action Hero. I like those kickbacks. I do. I like kickbacks as well. I'm kind of glad it did that. It keeps it a little bit more fast. But the hands. The hands would be the reason why I would look at a premium. Those hands are just fun. And I love when you have like a substantial bash toy that then integrates magnets in front of it. So you get Labyrinth does this really good where it's got the Jareth magnet that throws it around. American Pinball was known back, man, with Houdini and stuff. Really cool magnet use. We practically called them American Magnet back in the day. Love the magnet use. And, of course, you can't have Magneto without a magnet. That was a gift. But, yeah, to integrate it like they've done here, it's like as if we haven't had enough, now we've got a magnet under the play field finally. Again, designers out there, if you're not using magnets in your game, you failed. I don't get why you're not using magnets. It's like the biggest asset for the freaking game, including a steel ball. Like, come on, people. But, yeah, thank God we got some magnet use. I've got to bring up this Macintoy to you because I always think of you when I think of vary targets. They're calling this an elevated captive ball vary target. That's very wordy. As if the connecting shots aren't enough with Jack Danger, he's designing connecting mechanisms where the first toy mech itself is captive ball-esque or target-esque, but then it converts that energy into a target two levels up that then pushes towards a variable rate, how far you go, and the very target. How do you feel about that? I am concerned that it won't be the most satisfying way they integrated it, but that's where, again, I need to try it or see it tried. I'm okay with, like, conceptually, I like how they figured out, hey, well, by elevating this, we'll be able to have it take up space without taking up space on the play field. But here's the thing. I have to go back to another Gottlieb, Buck Rogers from 1980. And it had a captive ball ground level. But, like, the black post there would be a captive ball on the inside, and you'd hit that and it would move the very target back, it's extremely unsatisfying. Because so much force is lost versus the more traditional where you would directly send your pinball in up the very target. So if they have, with modern technology, it should be easier to accomplish now. So maybe this will, because it's like this post, by hitting that, they're not going to lose all that kinetic energy. That's what I'm hoping. But that's my concern, is that it's not going to. But my default is I would have preferred to see an instance if you're going to use a very target where you're using the actual pinball you're shooting to move it directly. But this is creative, so I don't want to speak out of turn. I have some concerns about that it's not going to be as satisfying as a quote-unquote real very target. But maybe it will be. I don't know. Maybe it will. I get the spring action that I like on the older games, very targets. Very targets. Because vary targets allow you to do interesting things with rules, like going back and getting an extra ball or going back and upping your multiplier. Super Orbit has a really good vary target integration, or regular orbit if you want to go back to the EM era. I like that the ramps even do have a diverter. I know we talked about that. But just, again, changing the shot geometry. I like, design-wise, this wraparound wire form for the Sentinel. It actually is a wire form. and then the top ramp feeds into it. Do you see how that's done? It's really clever. It's using the same wire form, but the one goes from one level to the other. Right, yeah, and it's kind of masked by the plastic behind its head. Yeah, so that's pretty cool there. And then we've got a sculpted Wolverine, which what's the signature Colossus? It's a fastball special. Yeah, insert baseball term. I was listening to Loser Kid, and one of them said that they don't think that's the pose he's supposed to be doing when he's in the Fastball Special. I heard that. I don't know. I'll take it up. I agree with him. I don't know. Fail, guys. Go back and redo it. No clue. What I will say about that, it's a really nice sculpt. It's actually a beautiful sculpt. You don't get that on a pro. But I don't think anybody's talking about this yet. And Stern probably doesn't want me talking about this. But at a previous iteration, I could almost bet money that Wolverine moved. If any of you are interested, I mean, they showed the dealers the little CAD design a little bit, and it wasn't on there either. But the armature that they use with the Colossus plastic in the back, they use this metal armature that goes back behind the backboard, and it doesn't need to have any of that. That looks like it was a lever That moved the Wolverine personally I'm like is that a kit I don't know But it looks like Wolverine used to move This game's packed They could have put him on a spring They could have done anything Why have this slit out armature For this Wolverine Just things I see Also in the bottom This danger room This little single level side play field? Outlane? Yeah, that's probably a good way to describe it. Side play field. They're talking about this being Jack Danger's what he spoke about. Outlane spinner forever. Okay. I can't call this an outlane spinner. That's a very generous interpretation. This is not an outlane. It's not an outlane. It could be a pregnant outlane. It's expected. It's a herniated outlane. It's a bulging out lane. Yeah, it does. It's herniated, that's for sure. But to call it an out lane, I'll give it to them. We give it to them because we really don want to see a true out lane spinner Unless it got I argued unless you have a controlled kickback then that could be cool You got plenty of stuff to do in this side play field including targets a spinner loop a ramp If an under play field had this much stuff, we'd call it a success. So it does take up a lot of real estate. And you are, would you argue that you're saving? I guess you would argue that you are saving your ball at all times here. because there is no traditional outline. The drain is the – it's a drain. Right. And part of my argument about this making me suspect this game may have a longer ball time is obviously any time you go, quote, unquote, out the left, you have this opportunity. It's not even an opportunity to save it. It's not like a single flip Zacharia interactive ball save. You've got this – That we know of. Right, right, that we know of. Also, though, you'll notice over off by that little flipper over there, what do you see there? It's a center post. Yeah. A center post. And you know what? The main center drain, offset center drain, it has a center post, too. So there's a lot in here to let you try and save yourself. There's even a... And a cerebral lock, which I know we'll get to, but you won't even have a super, necessarily super fast return out of that danger room because they're using a magnet to buy you time there, too. Yeah, so they do have, like, a mechanism that can hold the ball from that Cerebro ramp. Which I thought it was interesting that they chose to use a magnet for that. Is it a magnet? I thought it was just a post. Like, it's a little metal. No, I know. Kineticist had said that the magnet briefly holds and releases the ball at the end of that trough, that wire worm. I don't think it's a magnet. You think that's wrong? You think it's a post? Because I was going to ask, why didn't they just use a post? Yeah, I think it's, I mean, it could be magnet integrated like a coil is. But no, I think it's just a metal post that just kind of sticks up and holds the ball. I can't really tell. I don't know. We'll have to find out. So it's interesting. It's new. It's novel. We know that. So who knows what it does. We'll find out soon. There's an outland target that you can hit. Yay. Like a fast drain and it comes across and hits that target. Yes. Is it like a snick? Yeah, but I don't know how you would hit it. It's an accident. It says hold bonus. Yeah, I think you might accidentally. My guess is if you're losing the ball, you might still be able to nudge it against that center post and then drive it into that and get the hold your bonus. That's clever. Well, I do want to also add, I didn't mention it in the art, but I did really, really like that for the premium in LE, they integrated the Sentinel into the insider card. That was special. I did see that. That was nice. It almost makes me hate the Pro because it doesn't have that. And another nice little touch. I don't know if anybody's talking about this. The wraparound wire form that's beneath the flippers, if it's not strong enough, guess where it drops? Right in front of that post so that you can bump it back up, the center post. It's got the wire form that's eliminated in that spot. So if it doesn't make it enough, it drops, bounces on that center post, and back into play. You can tell what I can appreciate with Jack's design here is you can tell he is a very ambitious, hungry designer because you can tell, like, this isn't 9-to-5 design work. Like, he's trying to prove something here, in my opinion. There's so much of the little nods that you just aren't going to get the first, second, or third time around designing this game. It's going to take, I wonder if this would work. I wonder if this would work. And a lot of trial and error, especially on these connecting shots. I can appreciate the passion here with that and taking risks because those pay off. All right, so what's the difference between the Premium LE and the Pro model? Some say not really a lot. Others say, oh, substantial things. What I've told customers that have inquired and asked, do you go pro or do you go premium LE here? I said, very much like Foo Fighters, Jack Danger is offering pretty much all of the shots that you get in the premium LE. He's offering that in the pro. You get all of the shots. You're not missing anything there. The premium LE, you're adding the immersion with the toys that you are losing, namely the sentinel going up and down the interactive sentinel hands those are very immersive features that pull you into the storyline and to the battling of this game so if you're a pure shots person and you're wanting to play the code in the game there may not be a more packed pro on the market but if you're going for some of the coolest immersion in pinball there's no way you're going to get it with that pro you're just, you're missing some again, it's like Godzilla you're missing one of the coolest toys ever made yeah, the hands I mean yeah, definitely the theme version is, that's the biggest change up, and you're getting like the beast flab the kinetic very target on the premium melee, on the pro you're getting a leaper target, which okay, yeah, that's where I'm kind of curious, I need to see how the elevated very target works to know of I care enough. Exactly. But if it's a satisfying shot, then yeah, no one's going to love the Leaper. In the pro model, you're also not getting the custom sculpted Wolverine. Yeah, you get a 2D plastic. It's not even the right fastball special. And it's not on that lever, I can tell you that much. I'm telling you that lever. Jack, reach out if I'm onto something there. He's like, shut up, Zach. Which model would you go with? Without playing, I mean, do you think there's substantial, are you more pro buyer here? Are you more premium LE? Not that you're buying it because you're not buying it, but what do you think people are leaning toward here? Premium and LE. And that's my normal reaction on most reveals. I'll see it and I'll go, wow, those toys are really neat. I like to see more stuff. I'm like just about everyone else. But ultimately, you know, okay, so it's so cool with the theme of emergency of the hands, but they both do, each hand does one thing, and it's like, eh, if you want to give up the visual of it and have the shots. I mean, this is not, this isn't one of those instances where I'd feel bad, like I was really compromising my layout for the pro, so I would probably end up pro, quite frankly, just to save the money, but my instinct would be to go premium. I never would go LE, as you know. In this hobby, spend a lot of money. Even though I like the art package the best. Again, I don't do this off of art. I think for me, it's hard to talk anybody out of the premium because it, damn. I'm in pinball for a lot of reasons. One of the main reasons is the immersion into the gameplay and toys and stuff that I'm not going to get on a video game. And that's where you, it's at the premium level here. The LE is going to be substantially higher, namely over $3,000 more. You're going to get expression speaker lighting system with X inserts and upgraded sound speakers. You get the Danger Room inspired mirrored back glass. You get the Future vs. Past cabinet art. You get Centennial Armor powder-coated trim package. It's like a beautiful, mirrored purple, almost Stranger Things LE-like, maybe a little bit lighter than that. The die-cut armor on the one side is odd. I don't know if you've seen a picture of it. I think it's supposed to be a Sentinel. It's weird. And then you get a shaker motor, anti-reflective plate-filled glass, and what? Wait a minute. What is this, Dennis? An Insider Connected LE unboxing badge? Oh, in the connected system? So this is new. Insider Connected, they're giving achievements now for unboxings. I don't like that. I love it. It's, uh... I love this. In the days, early days of Xbox, this came up in the idea of pay-to-win sort of achievements. You're not winning anything. No, don't like it. You're just achieving. So a little, just... Y'all had to just turn the tacky up to 11. I like, because it's like, you know, did you buy a second hand, or were you the one that registered? There's no... No, let me even phrase it a little bit differently. You're doing this all first time versus second hand. Let me do the other version, what this is akin to. Oh, shoot, I tripped and my wallet fell out. Oh, look at all the hundreds that just fell out of my wallet. It's a flex and it looks tacky. Look at my American Express flex here. It's a tacky looking flex. Very, very uncool. Uncool, Stern. Uncool. For those that get the premium, they get the premium boxing bag. Oh, look, you have less money. And what about the pro? Do they get a poor badge? I think you get a pro badge You mispronounced that A poor badge Yeah I think it's going to go Alright, rules and code is hard to say We do know that there's eight unique modes featuring X-Men fighting key villains So I think it might be Some of the modes may be fighting based I think Deadpool, Venom kind of stuff No, they're going to be modes based on negotiation Of course they're fighting I didn't know if it was like a, you know... Chancellor Valorum, will you allow Magneto to go and investigate these problems on Naboo? No, Senator Cyclops. Then I think it's time for new leadership. Three multi-balls. Feel free to use that mode, Stern. I'll let you have that. Even though I shouldn't after finding out about your poor badge. I say rumors are that we may see another Star Wars thing. I saw that in NAP Arcade. But finally, the trilogy that I wanted to see. Music, sound, call-outs, animation, display. Also, just difficult for us to provide first impressions upon. How does the uncanny X-Men hook up to the Insider Connect? What features are we going to see in this? Every game, we're seeing all kinds of cool stuff with Insider Connect. All different. Unboxing badges are one of them. We also extend the phone with the power of Insider Connect and Cerebro to recruit mutants to join the X-Men on their quests. Okay, so we're doing that through Insider Connected. Some of this is not coded, of course, yet. But every player who logs into the Insider Connected will be granted a mutant power to aid them with their online missions. That's kind of cool. Earn Sentinel parts to participate in Sentinel Rush Online Challenge. Okay, so, Shark Teeth. So we got some Insider Connected stuff to pay attention to as well. How's this thing selling? Probably well. Fucking wonderful. The reaction to it has been extremely strong. Whoa. And I've told people this. Pinball was due for a good, good game. Are you saying they're back? Yeah. Don't you dare do an ad like that with this. Yes. It's relevant. No. X-Men are back. No. They've still started. Don't you dare do this on Twitter. I'm already working on it. I forbid it. Yeah. Wow, Sinti's back. That's why I call him Sinti. Because he's not a sentient being, but he is a sentinel. He's close. It is selling very, very well. It's almost selling great to the point that I just want to bring up our episode 159 discussion on when do pinball machines sell? Is it based on emotion or logic? It's selling really, really well. I can only speak for myself with flipping out pinball. We sold out of our LE spots on the first day before 2 p.m. So we sold out within four hours. That's significant. And that's not to say that, you know, not divulging how many LEs we get, but, yeah, maybe it's because there's only 811 to go around this time, or maybe it's because it's an amazing-looking game. Now, that's not to say that LEs won't pop. Like, sometimes, I have to always explain this to people, So sometimes, like, whenever they go to the overseas market, I don't know if they hold something back. There are some sometimes that sprinkle in later on just because maybe the overseas dealers didn't take all their allotments, and then it opens up more spots to domestic, or maybe they were holding some for something and it didn't happen. So there could be some additional ones out there. But I think it's pretty safe to say that either this has sold out already or – So consider this a sellout. It's sold out. It's 8-11. It's gone. You might find some tricklers here and there, but it's gone. Premiums sold very, very well, too. Almost to the point that those first run in mid-October are being sucked up fast. And then the pros are selling well, too. But premiums, I was surprised. Premiums for us are still substantially outselling pros. I thought it would be closer. Now, it's closer than usual because this pro is really packed, but still, it's a premium buyer's market based on our customer base. So it is selling very well. And I can honestly say, Dennis, that based on what we sold, and we'll see, Sunday, so Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, within five days, we have sold more than we will in the first year entirely. I feel confident about that, which goes to show you a lot happens with the sizzle reel and with the photos. You know what Stern also launched? They launched a new warranty on all their games. They're now covering their games for one full year instead of like three to six months. That's good. That's huge. That's big, right? Well, so how does that work with like you, like people buying through a distributor? So, essentially, if you buy through a dealer, you have to with certain pinball machines. Well, unless you go to Costco. Hey. You will come. Sometimes they sell a few LEs on their website. Yes, they do. You would go to them directly for the 20 or so that they sell there. But, yeah, you would just go to your dealer, and instead of your dealer coming back and saying, hey, it looks like you purchased three months ago. That particular part is out of warranty. So, if you do want that, we'll have to submit an order for that, and you have to pay for it. now it's, hey, it's covered for a full year. So you're covered. We'll submit the warranty and you're good to go. We'll get the part out to you. So that's big. And also they're covering the remaining period on previously sold games. So that's cool as well. Everything that purchased a year ago within the last year here is covered up until, yeah, for a year now. So freaking awesome. And they claim that the reason they're able to provide this extended one-year warranty on all things now is because they've fixed their warranty and park backlog issues that they were facing for the last handful of years. They've solved that, and because of that has opened them up to the ability to provide extended support for that one-year warranty. Nicely done, Stern Pinball. There's some other Stern Pinball news, but we're going to hold off on that for right now. I want to jump into Jersey Jack Pinball. Okay. We talked about it earlier, Dennis. Jersey Jack is close to an announcement as well. We didn't know a month ago, was it going to be Jersey Jack? Is it going to lead to launches, or is it going to be stern? What's going to happen? And then we heard about the themes of both, and we were like, meh. But X-Men surprises here. Will Jersey Jack surprise us this coming Thursday when they officially release Avatar, the Battle of Pandora? They might. I haven't. I've seen a couple leaks, but there's nothing there. Like, I can't tell anything with it. So, these leaks, they started dropping whenever the Stern stuff started dropping, right? I think I saw some of the Avatar stuff a little bit before the teaser for X-Men. So, the same week. It was the same week. These quote-unquote leaks. And I say quote-unquote because... The enemy has many spies, nerds, beasts, and perhaps deliberate marketing campaigns. And I'm a dealer, and I'm like, what is it really? The first official leak came from Nap Arcade, and it was a very clear photograph that looked professionally done, showing us exactly what they wanted to show, they as in the leaker. And Nap's been hesitant in the past, like, do I leak stuff? Do I not if I get information? But he happily said, yes, absolutely. This is the leak. Here it is. Hope there's more to come. So that's one reason I'm like, this came from J.J.P. Controlled leaks. Do we see them often in pinball? Some people think so. I've thought no, but I don't know if I'm right or wrong on this. I don't either. This one feels like what would happen if there was a controlled leak by a manufacturer. Whereas things in the past I don't know I know that people accuse Stern sometimes And no Like no How do you know? Well now I'm saying the majority of what I've heard Like oh Stern's trying to get up No because I know the people there And I talk to them and they're like No that messed up our relationship with the IP holder So if the IP holder sees that we're going to be fucked Like no So I know objectively that's not right But this one feels kind of official And then It officially went to Canada's Pinball Podcast. Another leak went to them where it showed the... So the first one was an app arcade. It was like, there's the flippers, but they had a lot of glow to them. And you could almost see like, oh, this is Avatar. And then the second leaked photo to Canada's Pinball Podcast was like, the color of the trim package, the lockdown bar and the rails were like this zebra blue, Navi Blue, which looks like hydro dipping to me. Are you familiar with the hydro dipping process? It does ring a bell. Yeah, it's almost like where you dip it down and you shake it and then pull it back up and then it's like embedded printing ink, but it takes on the pattern, whether it's camouflage, whatever you dip it into. It's like a surface ink-based liquid. Interesting. I may need to read up on that. So I think this may be, if it is hydro dipping, maybe the first time that I know of that has pattern-based hydro dipping in pinball. It was very pronounced. I don't know if you've seen that picture of that. I've seen both of the weekend photos. What do you think of that trim package? Because that is very, like, it's loud. It's not one solid color. I mean, it's there to stand out. We just talked about that with X-Men, and loud and saturation and all that is what people seem to want. Probably smart. There's a fine line. I guess until I see the full thing, it's hard to say. And then the third official leaked photo came from the Kinesis, which showed, I think it was like a ball lock, coffin ball lock, like. Ah, yes. Okay. Yeah, I have seen that one. I didn't see it by the time I had done my EGP episode. So then it kept teasing. I think it's good that you get out the Avatar name because it is a theme that's not as strong. So you kind of get in front of, hey, maybe it's Harry Potter. Hey, maybe it's Beetlejuice. Hogwarts Legacy. You just get in front of that. So I think it was good. But timing-wise, it's kind of tough. Jersey Jack then subsequently came out with their own actual official, those stupid leakers, their actual official photos. One being a very blurry distant shot. Another then being once Stern started releasing stuff, then Jersey Jack's like, shit, give them video. So we saw a little video teaser of the world of Pandora with a little clue at the end where it flashed UV lights. Oh, we're going to get UV in Avatar. That makes me happy, Dennis, because look. I figured. You love it on Stranger Things. If we get it in a JJP game, though, I'll be able to see it from the Empire State Building. It's going to be bright and colorful and whimsical in the world of Pandora. I can't wait. launching September 12th. Are they also doing something different this time around? They're having a media event for Avatar. How do you feel about this? Was it scheduled for this Friday? Yeah, this Friday. The day after the reveal, they're having invited media inside, pinball here, pinball media to come up, all expenses paid to acquaint themselves with their new game. This is a wonderful gesture. Yay. I think it's a good idea. And for all those that are going up there, enjoy your time and enjoy playing some Avatar. Let's talk about this a little more, though. I'm going to call this next section the Pinball Battleground. Or should I call it Battlefield? Both sound violent. Okay, well, both X-Men and Avatar have to do with war. Whether it's a future past or a past future. Oh! Is competition on launch dates good for the industry? Let me say it in a different way. Competing to get your product out and the window being close to another product launch. Not is it good for a manufacturer. Is it good for the industry? Well, what is the industry? We're not talking the manufacturer. Is it good for the hobbyist to have this level of competition around the same time launching a product? It's like when Xbox and PlayStation are trying to have their new console, who's going to get the jump on it? Who's going to sit back? How far do you sit back? Is it good to wait? Oh, my God, everybody's buying the PlayStation. Shit, better hurry up. Like, is this good? No, I suppose. I don't really see an advantage to the hobby. Like, competition in general should provide an advantage, but then dropping up the exact same time, probably not. Okay. So do you think it affects both of these manufacturers in this specific case? Well, from the perspective of the manufacturers, one will – what's this thing? One shall live and one shall fall from Optimus Prime sort of thing. So, like, the manufacturer that can come out on top, this may be advantageous to them. They get the better hype out of it. It's seen as a vis-a-vis between two releases. Maybe that drives more to them for some reason. Maybe they lose sales because they're both, you know, stepping on each other at the same time. That's what I'm wondering. What if people are like, oh, X-Men looks great, but, man, I need to wait. I need to make sure that Avatar is not what I'm wanting. But that's, you know, it's too complicated, Zach, for me. Because it's like there's the same that will be like, well, do I want to get Avatar or X-Men? I'm still waiting for Harry Potter. I mean, you know, it's just the whole. I never understand the extended people. Because I've had a lot of customers message me and be like, hey, I know it's probably going to be three years until X comes out. I'm waiting for that. I'm like, three years? Mm-hmm. Well, again, you love to lose sight of how expensive this all is. So here's where I think it makes sense. I know how expensive it is, but if you're waiting three years, you're fucking dead in two and a half. Well, no. It may be like financially they may feel like they need to, like maybe they do a pinball machine every three years. Sure. See what I'm saying? Then I would say, be true to yourself and don't think that this particular machine is the one that's going to be. A lot happens in three years. Ride it out. Have fun. So anyway, they know exactly what they want. They're driven by theme. They're the emotional buyer that you love to talk about. And so that's the decision that they've ended up making. So that doesn't impact like that any differently. It's more of the, let's say, here's another example, which is probably quite a true example of people that exist in the hobby, of those that say, you know what? Every year, I buy a pinball machine. That is my treat to myself. I buy a pinball machine. But only one. That's a damn good treat a year. Sure. But let's say, so for those individuals, if X-Men and Avatar is coming out in 2024, they didn't buy Jaws and they didn't buy John Wick, though they might still, then they're like, okay, what do I do? Like, what's my leaning? The fewer games there are, the more likelihood it is for those that put out games to actually secure the sale. So, so far, it would basically just be Stern. JJP getting their game out this year for that sort of buyer all of a sudden puts themselves in contention. And it's not like you can, in years past, you could say, well, I'm going to buy this one because it's going to hold value anyway. And then when I get tired of it, I'll sell it and buy the other one. Now, you have to be a little more careful because some of these games drop substantially and then you're screwed. Yeah, and that's what's so interesting about the reaction to X-Men so far because I think a lot of people are going into this, hopefully they are in my opinion, going in knowing if I got a premium or I got a pro, this game will lose value. so I hope they're going and they're thinking that they're going to keep it for a while to get their money's worth on that depreciation which is how it used to be so that's another interesting thing is having that come out and looking at that and thinking you know what, I bet this X-Men Pro maybe loses about $500 as long as I put less than $1,000 plays on it and then they look over at Avatar and they're going to ask themselves the same question is it going to be the same dollar amount Because as you noted, historically, it has not been the same dollar amount. I think that helped X-Men at least substantially in this situation. It was the rolling snowball effect where people were already kind of tickled in the ears. Hey, not 1,811. Not 1,811. Jack Danger. It's Jack Danger. It's really bright. It's colorful. And the design is crazy. It's got cool toys in it. 811. And then, like, even if somebody didn't want it and they were like, yeah, that is a really cool game, Then the word got out like, oh, shit. And then they see posts. I'm buying it. I'm buying it. Oh, I bought it. And then all it takes is, oh, I heard this dealer is out of theirs. I had to go to this place. And then you get that rolling quick snowball and people are like, oh, shit. This is going to be one of those day one sellouts, which is indicative oftentimes historically of upholding its value better than previous titles. So I've very much seen a rolling snowball on X-Men LE. Right, but the LEs are in their own boat. And with JJP now, they don't even have their ridiculous, practically fake LE, LE limit of the 5,000. They've got their TEs, which are their LEs, but now they have the Platinum model where there's no limit. So that FOMO aspect, that doesn't exist here. And it hasn't existed at JJP for quite some time. Right, Guns N' Roses would have been the last time. But I would say that was a surprise one. That was a surprise one. That one was a lightning in a bottle sort of scenario. Exactly. Yeah. But that was one where people are like, even the 5,000 unit run may run out. So in this situation, though, if you're Jersey Jack Pimble, I'm worried. I'm absolutely worried now, more so than I thought I probably was going to be. But they had to know that Stern was going to drop something soon. Okay. But if I'm on the inside of JJP and I know, well, Stern's dropping something soon and they're doing X-Men again. And I'm like, all right, that's fine. It's pretty apples and oranges compared to what we are offering here with our theme. Our doing Avatar again from Stern and our pirates again from Stern. Yeah. Yeah. They're very different. Well, I see them as not worrying as much because they're stuck in their own heads, too. They're thinking they're producing the greatest thing, you know, known to pinball and all this stuff. So when they look down and see their game, they're like, ah, it's fine, it's fine. And then, but it takes, Jack Danger did this, if we all remember. He did this to JJP two years ago when Foo Fighters came out up against right in front of Godfather. It's the same damn thing happened. It was a theme that people got worried about and they're like, eh, it's not going to do anything. It came out, and holy shit, and I guarantee you, Jersey Jack, at that point, they're probably a week from launch of Godfather. They're thinking, well, this certainly doesn't help. Shit. And then, you know, we know what happened. Godfather probably sold well because we were still in that pandemic kind of thing. But it didn't sell as good as it could have if it was a different theme, especially during those times. So here we are again If you're Jersey Jack Pinball Do you find a way to Add distance I mean obviously they didn't because they're announcing this Thursday But I don't know As you've noted The matter is resolved They didn't I think this hurts Jersey Jacks Yeah but they can't pull out now No and a lot of those people are like You know they don't know enough that has to be coordinated with like the license holder and stuff and everything's going to be approved. So, yeah. I think it's very hard to stop the ball rolling once you're getting close on the release. And imagine what happens if you, I mean, because we do have an example from Stern, not related to other manufacturers, but remember what happened when we thought the whole announcement and everything was scheduled and they had to pull back on Bond and what that did to James Bond? Yeah. Yeah, we've seen that. I still know people that will absolutely not consider that a good game. So now that we're looking at it, do we think American Pinball did the right thing? If they are, in fact, delaying their investment? I mean, based off of this logic, the answer would be yes. However, I'm deeply concerned that they've got an added problem in that if Cuphead's their next game, they running into something that wasn the case with X and Avatar which is a known but not particularly beloved necessarily theme This is a theme no one cares about I've got other concerns besides the release schedule. I don't think the release schedule makes a huge difference for American Pinball. They've got other problems. I think when Stern Pinball announces a product such as this, Uncanny X-Men, with all of the variables attached to this new product, that every other manufacturer, if they're being honest with themselves, says, oh, shit, for at least six months. Yep. I mean, it's an industry mover whenever this many units of a product sell. And I'm not trying to be dramatic, listener, but this is a big seller. Now, keep in mind, this is 2024, the summer into fall of 2024. So it's still handicapped by that. But this is a, we haven't seen a day one. Keep in mind, whenever Jaws came out, I didn't sell out of Jaws on the first day. How about that? I think Jaws was sitting for a couple days. Didn't eat the ball. And one could argue, you know. Sentinel money ball either. I don't know. They've caved. They don't care about it anymore. How does X-Men do this? Wow. I could care less about that thing. Look at that game. So the pinball battleground is among us. We'll see how things shake out this week. I'm super excited for Avatar to be released. As I've said, we've kind of been teasing for a while, but Avatar is near and dear to me. I really do like that theme personally. I may have not chose that as a theme if I get to make that. Well, here's the thing that we didn't discuss because we haven't seen the game yet. No. But if Avatar is even more creative, new designer, even more creative than X-Men, that could actually have a negative impact on X-Men sales. Yes. Absolutely. Like, if it's like, hey, look, we just, we did, we took Spy Hunter, whatever, X-Men, we're doing Genie. Yeah, if it is, like, they're rumored six slippers. Like, they bring back the wide body and all that. Under playfields and lower playfields and UV. Yeah, and it's like, we got the upper and lower play field. We haunted house this thing and just, I mean, so. But my point is, a lot of people have sent me money already. Yeah, but, you know, they'll tell you, Zach, can I just move the money over? I've already got a couple. Just laughing. Can I just move the money? I know it's a non-refundable deposit, but if you don't, then I'm going to go on Penn State. I'm going to make a profit. There you go. There you go. Oh, shit. I'm just saying, there's a way. Man, I'm so glad we're getting so many cool things happening all at once here. This is awesome. This is going to lead up to a fun October for sure. I love it. And maybe a surprise or two in between. If we talked really quick about 159 episode, I discussed it a little bit as we've been talking thus far. The great pinball debate three. I will say, hey, listener, loud and clear, okay? I get it. I get your messages. All right, I read them. I rolled my eyes, of course, because you're so cute. But I hear you. Dennis was right. Nothing goes into the emotion of purchasing a pinball machine. It's all logic. Because after you play, we just got Chris sent us an email this morning or yesterday. Basically said, Dennis, right, everybody plays first. You play. That's what happens here. So by that logic alone, Dennis, I think, you know, everybody's waiting on this X-Men. There's not even been a sale yet. They're just kind of waiting until we get our hands on it. Everybody's waiting. You see, that doesn't make sense, right? That's not what I argued. I don't know why. Maybe I needed to transcript that part for you. No, I listened to the damn thing for hours. What I argued was that not everyone buys off of the emotional laundry list that you shoehorned everyone into. And that I said, no, go back and listen. Not everyone. I said that there are a lot of people that absolutely refuse to buy without playing the game first. This X-Men movie has in no way changed any of those individuals. Sure, but that opinion, that is not as specific as you presented on last episode. Well, I dove into the reasoning why they wait like that. It's easy to say, like, some people aren't going to buy X-Men because they don't like X-Men. Whoa. Sure. Just a genius there. Yeah, but you were the one who chose to make a mountain out of a molehill and get upset that I didn't universally and unilaterally agree with every point you made. And that was that there are a number of individuals where the gameplay is the first, foremost, and only factor that will necessarily matter to them in making the determination of the purchase. And you, go ahead and play it back. You can check. Even your edited version, that is still clearly conveyed by me. I said the majority of the sales. No, you went, because after I made my point, you went and you were like, eh, eh, you made that sound, eh, Dennis, you know, I don't know. I mean, no, I do know. I gave a lecture. I'm a big-time distro dentist, and I'm telling you, like, you do the right sizzle trailer, barbecue would have sold. I said it would do substantially better. Substantially better, exactly. And I'm like, no, it will not. It will not. I think the proof is in the X-Men pudding here. I ain't nobody got no dick. I never said that there were people that didn't buy just off of them. In fact, I thought I fully, I said I agreed with all of your points, but I had two things to add to it. Okay. One was that there's that step, and you disagreed that there was a step for those that have that additional factor. You were like, no, gameplay is not a factor for people. That's why everyone's agreeing with me, Zach, isn't it? Because they want to agree with me and they like me better. It's simply that I provided an out for a certain category of people that you neglected. No. Because you don't care about them like I do. The psychology of humans is why people are agreeing with you. I am their only hope sometimes to stand up against this wave, the wave of the disarray. Their somewhat sheepish response would be, somebody's saying I'm out of control of something. That makes me look bad. Why would I agree with that? Like, of course people are going to agree with you. You've got the point that makes people look good. No. I've got to take the hard stance here. I can see where it's coming from. There could be some people that would agree with me just because they didn't like the looking into the mirror. of what the points that you had were. Absolutely. No, I'm not just hearing that. But, like, you cited Chris G's email. Chris has no problem disagreeing with all sorts of stuff I say. I know. That's why I'm wondering why he was wrong here, too. No. Poor Chris. Love you, Chris. Some people don't like the debates. Oh, my God. They really thought, yeah, they get sad. I think they think that there was maybe anger or something. I don't know. There's numbers. They don't lie. I think that you were surprised and probably still don't completely agree of the timeline of sales of a machine. It's crazy. Chris didn't either in that email. I know. We're full of doubt. If only we had data from multiple distributors. We'll do that next time then because that was on our list here, things, because I was going to – I mean, we can use the data I have in front of me. X-Men. Travis, give me some numbers. and dealers are going to be different in how they sell. We can't use X-Men though. There's no post two weeks yet. That's a pointless data point right now. Exactly. But we'll see. We'll see. I know that I did look at loosely John Wick. That held up to my theory. I looked at Godzilla 70 if not enough time, but there's no way I'm going to sell that many of those in the next year. I think it surprised a lot of listeners, if true, Once I prove it, because Lord knows in this industry, nothing I say is ever believed until I prove it with data. And then only 20% of you still agree with me. Whatever. It's fine. Last episode, 159, of our exclusive content as a club member at the Pinball Show, we gave some lifestyle market trends. I just want to say we got a lot of feedback off of that. People didn't like my takes on Bucky. What? People look up for their Buc-ee's. So we talked about Buc-ee's, bidets, D23, Halloween, the season coming, and the Star Wars hyperspace lounge, or at least the door to enter. So if you guys are interested in any of that, make sure to sign up to support The Pinball Show at patreon.com slash thepinballshow. Starting at $10 a month, you can be an official club member and get exclusive content just like that, as well as other content. I think we threw in something there. We were talking about football and home theaters. We've always got something on there for people to listen to. They also get designated Discord communication. The whole club is in there talking and chatting. And then if they go up to another level, a higher level, you get live monthly hangouts, happy hour hangouts. You get decals. You get all kinds of stuff. And then if you go up to the Screaming Goat Club member, then the world is yours. Their oyster is our pearl. What is the pearl thing? the world's an oyster. We're just a pearl. Are we the pearl? Are they gnawing on us? I don't know what we are anymore. So go listen to that this week exclusively on the Pinball Show Club membership. If you sign up, you're going to get more pinball discussion. How about Spooky Pinball, their new factory? Greg Bone and I from Straight Down the Middle taking a visit up to the new factory and doing a live stream with them and and other stuff. How about that? You want to hear about that? Sign up. What about Stern Pinball? We'll keep talking about Stern Pinball and that exclusive club membership content, like them announcing a partnership with Costco, them leveling up your office, having a broken jaws topper mode, all of that and more as exclusive members of the pinball show. And not only, it's not about what you receive, it's about what you give because it helps support the show and what we're doing each and every fortnight and in between. And we've got to thank very much to the Screaming Goat Club members this week. Like Rodney. We've got to thank him. Thank you, Rodney, the bobcat of the pinball show. Okay, if he was an atypical layout, if he was a... Do you even know enough atypical layouts to be able to... I try tuning into... I don't think I do either, so... I try tuning into... If he was a pinball game, he would be Cheetah. I feel like every time I turned into Papa last night, was it the Papa World Championships? God, it was during the classics tournament. Yes. How do people play these games? They're so horrible. They're so dreadfully boring. It's so mean. The announcers on one of the games were like, and up next we're going to this game where all you do is shoot continuously the saucer. Man, that's going to be exciting here. Stay tuned. Like, no, that sounds like watching someone read. Look, you chose at Flip N Out Pinball to sponsor it. No, I didn't sponsor Papa. They didn't ask me. Oh, you sponsored Pinberg. Same thing. I mean, they have Pinberg. I can't tell them apart anymore. So that's the coverage for competition pinball. Like, it's just boring. It's so freaking boring. It's supposed to be how good these people are. I think I've decided that there's no way. There's just no way to make competitive pinball. To make it interesting to the masses. I just don't think you can do it. Oh, man. Right into the pinball match. Every week I get one of these. So thank you, Rodney. Rodney's a competitive player. Shut up. Oh, shut the fuck up. He loved everything you just said. Rob, thank you so much. Rob the Panther. A little kitten over there for supporting us. Frank, good call to you, my friend. And thank you for supporting the pinball show to the maximum degree. As well as thank you to Dave. Dave's got a new machine coming, and it's not X-Men. Avatar. He is on the list for Avatar, I believe. But he likes the twirling balls of Jareth and his labyrinth that's coming. Joe, thank you so much for the support, Joe. She'll pass on X-Men and say, eh, I'm good. Charles. Down there. Thank you so much for the support, Charlie. Do you think Charlie bought an X-Men? Um, no, I do not. You're wrong. Do you think Charlie? I'm wrong? What model did Charlie buy? Uh, Ali. You're damn right he did. William. Yeah, I knew if he was in, I knew where he was. Yeah, we know Charlie. Yeah. William, the dude. Thank you for your dude-ness. Are you employed, Mr. Lebowski? Wait, let me explain something to you. The dude ended up buying an X-Men. No, I was going to say, I thought he did. The dude buys everything. That's what I was going to say. He very much just abides. And look, you guys can be a... Instead of abides, he abides. I like that. And look, I'm a coin giver here. All of you listeners out there, you say, look, I got my own dealer and stuff. And that's fine. That's why we encourage you to be a Screaming Goat Club member, because you can support us in that way. You don't have to buy games from me. It's preferred. But see, even William doesn't buy Stearns from me, and that's okay. He's kind enough to support us here. Discord, what's going on in our Discord right now? They're talking about the uncanny X-Men and game purchasing behavior. Yes, and this is right. I always blame the player. Y'all are full of shit. I still like you. That's right, God. But it's a reminder that later on this month, we're going to have our Happy Hour Hangout. So be on the lookout for that. And until then, we're just stuck with a little thing called Pinball Market Trends. I like your style, dude. Last week's Ultra Cup edition just didn't work, Dennis. No, no, no. No, no. Take it out back and shoot it. Sorry, old smeller. Maybe I'll yell at her And then those next teams Oh my god You know what I might sign up for that I know what the wizard mode is Oh man You're just lining up that gun That shotgun Like wait for it Wait for it Oh man We have to hit each other I'll do it ma You got Yeller's leg Shoot again Oh no He's getting too close He's foaming You lose trending up this week. Look, it's Jack Danger Design. This whole market trend has got to be X-Men worthy. This is an industry changer. It's a mover, baby. And Jack Danger Design, I think, and I've argued this in our communications, now to the world, that I'm going to put this out here. Jack Danger, with this release of X-Men, has reached another threshold. And that's why, objectively, he is trending up on Femalemarket Trends because, I'm going to be frank, I'm going to be transparent because numbers don't lie, and neither do I on pinball market trends. But when Jurassic Park Home Edition came out, even – Jack, I'm sorry. People thought, oh, that's cute. That's nice. That's a home edition game. And you know what? They gave you kudos because they said, for a home edition game, that's a pretty damn cool game. But nonetheless, it's still a home edition game. Rules kind of were – and it fit the intended purpose of which it was created. Here's the thing with the home edition. I just remember when they talked about, Stern had an announcement about how it was this incredible success, and they only did one run until the hour with Costco. And I was just like, that doesn't make any sense. I didn't understand what you could consider a big success with a home edition anyway, but the bottom line is it didn't seem to be in production nearly as long as other home editions. Yeah, absolutely. Some people loved it. And there were lovers of it. And it did help because the designer is identifiable. It is a walking visual brand, if you will, not only Jack Danger, but of Stern Pinball, the face of Stern Pinball in a lot of respects. So when it came out, people were like, man, okay, that's too dry. We can get behind you and stuff like that. I'm being fully honest here. And then Foo Fighters came out, and that's when people were like, holy shit, this is a designer. But then we still got the whole, like, did it get lucky? Like, this is crazy great. He got a theme that is subpar, and he made it into one of the coolest games ever made. Did he have the help of Elwin? Did he have the help of Gomez? It's all a teamwork approach down there. But people just thought, man, Foo Fighters is unbelievable. But what the man has done now with X-Men is solidify himself in a whole other echelon. Just all it has taken is two and a half designs, but this one confirms for me that he is one of the greatest designers in the industry, and so much so his name will now sell games up there with the likes of Keith Ellin. You heard it, and I would put my name on that. He has passed Brian Eddy. He has passed John Ford. He has passed Steve Ritchie. You heard it. I'm putting my name on it because sales numbers do not lie. And you talk about playability and all that. I mean, Venom's getting a lot of play. Good for it. I'm just telling you what I see, and Jack Danger is now the only other person that name alone is significantly selling a game like Keith Elwin. I think, honestly, when it comes to String Pinball, those two assets are so big that I was kind of getting worried there for a little bit. Not a lot. I was like, man, what is this industry? Like, where are the shining moments? We got Keith Owen, and then it feels like the field. No longer can I say that. I think Jack Danger, with some of his stuff, I'm already, even if it's two games, I know it takes a long time, Dennis, but we're catching his style. And his style is ringing loudly to many people, creating fanships across all the products that we're going to see in the future. If he can put into what he has here and in Foo Fighters into his next games, He's taking themes that no one cares about. I'm emphasizing and being dramatic for effect here for Pinball Martyr Trans. He's taking themes that no one cares about and making them bestsellers. Was it Foo Fighters code that really got you, Dennis? Not really. It's great code. But so is Elwin's codes and stuff like that. I would argue that the codes in Elwynn games are more supported and worthy of stand-alone praise than Foo Fighters was. Than X-Men probably will be. I could be wrong. We haven't seen the code yet. But his design acumen is becoming some of the greatest ever. I think that right now, he surpassed the allure of an Eric Meunier. I think right now, he is the hot commodity in this entire industry. and I personally would have never guessed that five years ago as he was streaming pinball machines. So congratulations to Jack Danger, a very big asset to this industry and one that I think we're just seeing the beginning of because I can see the passion that he's putting into and the painstaking details he's putting into these designs and it's going to be paying dividends as it is already. So Jack Danger Designs very much trending up this week. Unfortunately, trending down. It all can't be roses. Trending down is any other new product on the market. It's such a wash statement, but so true. I said it before. Every other manufacturer, after you see this, for six months is like, well, shit. This will suck the life, green, and money out of this industry, and it will trickle like it has with Jaws, like it did with Godzilla. I would argue that this is going to be a stronger seller than Foo Fighters. even during the two years ago when Foo Fighters was a big... Oof. We sold a lot of Foo Fighters. This will have a long tail, Dennis. How about that? Any other new products right now, it's not your fault, other manufacturers. It just kind of is what it is. It's just... Ouch. This one hurts a little bit if you're trying to get money out of the same turnip. It's a big turnip. But all's not bad. Trending up this week. I thought trades were trending up a couple of weeks ago. I traded them up. I got to double down, Dennis. It's what I do. They are twice as hot this week, baby. Trades in general. And I think the market is to blame here or attribute it to the market. Because dollars are tighter now. Right, Dan Dan? They're so tight. They're tight. Not findable. Tight but findable. And I've said this to two manufacturers this week. One of them reached out. You know what? Here's some good guys and girls in this hot. I've had other manufacturers reach out and say, hey, look at what CERN's doing. What a fantastic product. I'm sure you're doing wonderful in sales. Good for you and all the work you put in as a distributor and good for the industry in general. I came from a different competing manufacturer, Dennis. And that right there shows how great some people are in this industry. But also I told them, yeah, and it goes without saying what I've said in numerous private meetings with manufacturers, consulting or just discussing business, a great pinball machine is market proof. It does not matter how shitty a market is. A great pinball machine will sell regardless. See, that's pretty bold. Man, I am bold today. It's like that play field on X-Men. No, I don't. I don't know. It's such a, the statement you made is so worthless. X-Men's market proof, Dan. No, there's no context. What does that fucking mean, that it'll sell a game? Okay. No. Well, in a good market, it'll have sold 2,000 units the first week, and in a soft market, it sells 1,000? Okay, well, that's a threshold. Sure, I'll agree with it. There. Okay. Mealy-mouthed bullshit statements. I'm a Melba Toast, baby. Sorry. Trades are definitely. up i am spending way too much time with you guys sending in trade offers and i love them keep them coming except don't don't do the 10 scenario thing y'all are killing me with my time i feel like a real estate agent looking up cops all fucking day like okay i'm interested in an x-men premium whoa boy you know how many x-men premiums we are trading a lot we're doing a lot people want x-men premium and they gotta get rid of something so they're trading them in but it's like when they're Like, I want an X-Men premium, and here's 17 games that I own. So give me individual scenarios for each of them. It's like, oh, fuck. Do you have, like, a top three you want to get rid of? Jeez, man. I got other shit to do today. I can't just. So, yeah, the majority of my day is just spent doing comps and scenarios and setting up shipping for used games, and I'm totally fine with that. People are itching for new games, like Avatar or X-Men. Why not just get rid of a game or three that you, I mean, come on, be honest with yourself. You really don't play anymore. There's two or three games that you really, I mean, can you really keep playing Sinbad that much? Sinbad's fun. It's fun. Just that's hotty. So the market right now, in summation here, Jack Danger Design is very hot. It's very up right now. Also up as trades like, you know, other people are getting their new machines. They're not letting any market get in their way. It's just they're trading off some of their older stuff that they didn't play as much for the new, the shiny, the bright, the yin. And then trending down is everything else that's new on the marketplace right now. It's just going to be a little tepid, a little cold. There's exceptions to the rule, of course, but that's kind of where we're at in the marketplace. And it'll be ever-changing, ever-evolving, shifting within two weeks. We'll see what Avatar does in the marketplace. We'll be here to report it. But until then, we'll give you a deals of the week this week. Buy, buy, buy! And the deals of the week is not Highway Alien because, Dennis, it's gone. It's packed up and it's left the building. You know how much I had to sell that damn thing for? Mm-mm. $6,100. Oh, shit. Oh! It was at this moment that he knew. He fucked up. For those keeping track, that was a $4,000 trade-in loss. Flipping out ten bucks. That's why people are trading in because they know I'm an idiot. As always, I may botch trade evaluations here or there. Just don't let Nicole know because I'm here to report the facts, to give you the best trade offers, and to give you the most colorful and boldest of takes because numbers do not lie, and neither do I. I'm Pinball Market Trends. Dennis, where can people catch you? They can email me over with a question. Gamer's Podcast at gmail.com. Awesome. They can email the pinball show at gmail.com as well. If you're really wrong and you want to email us, that's always preferred because it gives me a chuckle. Then you could go to Watches with Dennis if you want to freshen your palate with something besides mechanical toys. You could go mechanical toys. That's different. They're just the same thing. Or you can watch me on YouTube. It's straight down the middle of a video series. We've got some cool stuff. I don't know what Joel, I think Joel's doing a talking stream. I'm flipping out with friends this week. We do streams over at Flip N Out Pinball. Straight Down the Middle has some cool stuff coming out this year, though. It's been a couple months, hasn't it, since the last video? Man, I'm in editing purgatory right now. Just go off something cool. I feared that. Yes, that's where I'm at right now. That just means people have something to look forward to. When it's warm out, Greg's usually beer drunk in an above-ground pool, so, yeah, can't blame the guy. And as a reminder, the sponsor of this show, The Pinball Show, is always, certainly, Flip N Out Pinball. When I buy my pinball, shit, I buy from Flip It Out. From Copper, Charcoal, and Premium, I've got it. Flip it out. Flip it out. Flip it out. When I take a pinball, I think flip it out. Flip it out. Flip it out. When I buy, buy, buy, I buy from Flip It Out. Buy, buy, buy. Product showcase this week is the Uncanny X-Men. I can't sell you an LE right now, probably. I can put you on a waiting list in case I get more. But I can sell you a pro or premium. All right, Dennis? Now if you get the Pro, it's not the first game out of the factory. So I don't know what to do there. We do have first-run premiums still available. They're going quick, though. If you want one in mid-October, going quick. They claim that they're not going to make any more this year. So we'll see. We'll see. Godzilla 70th Anniversary Premium available. Godzilla Pro is available. If you want on the next JJP list for Avatar, All you got to do is email Zach at flippingoutpinball.com. Z-A-C-H at flip the letter in out pinball dot com. Bye, bye, bye. Pulp Fiction LEs should be produced starting the end of this month throughout the year, rest of the year. All the sterns we have, the barrels of fun labyrinth we have, the fun house pre-orders we have. Alien Ripley, I think I'm out. I think I'm out of Alien Ripley. Did you know they increased the price of Alien Ripley by $1,000? No, I did not know. Yeah. I didn't order anymore because I'm like, other dealers still have the cheaper ones, the $79.95. I think they bumped it to $89.95. That's tough. That's a tough one. Still a lot of value for that game. Elton John's, we got in stock. Toy Story Guns and Rose Jurassic Park. Look, if it's hot, you want it, I got it. I think I get my ABBA this week. Man, I'm such a dancing queen. Golden Tees, Big Buck Hunters, Toppers. Living out with friends, like you said, I think Joel's doing a chatting stream this week. He's been playing Iron Maiden. And then we'll get him an ABBA or we'll get him this X-Men Ellie. Or, you know what? Push comes to shove. This may surprise your listener, but we actually may get our hands on Avatar before even X-Men. Stay tuned. Teach these people something, Dennis. Well, I know a lot of people, if they're frustrated with anything about X-Men, it was that it's the uncanny X-Men, that they didn't do the movies, that they didn't do 97, that they didn't do... People want the movies? Probably not. Just work with me here. Okay. You're ruining my setup. Sorry. My setup is simple. The Uncanny X-Men is still better than a lot of other conceivable alternate universe versions they might have done, like the Backcountry X-Men featuring the Sittin' Y'all. The Sittin' Y'all. How far into the show did you think of that? Look, we don't need to dive into how that was crafted. The Sittin' Y'all. I'm not sure the Sittin' Y'all works very well either, but I decided I was sticking with it, and that is what it is. And you have a straw hat. Yes. In fact, he's going to be friends with Stewie. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Stewie. I want Stewie in it. Stewie and straw hat with a piece of wheat in his open, non-Bolly mouth. Sitting y'all. And always practice safe, Pimble. And as Professor X once said, to me, my X-Men, yeah, we're back. Yeah, for other reason, probably. tired. I got my flu and COVID shots yesterday, so I could not sleep. My arm is killing me. I had to put it all in one arm. Just ruin that arm. Destroy it. She's like, are you sure? And I'm like, yes, I'm sure. Hopefully your switch hit her. Hey, guys. Man, that game looks good. It does. It does. It looks so fucking good.