All right. What's up, everybody? We're here with another episode of the Electric Batcast. I'm Rachel. Do you know which one this is? Oh, and I'm Kale. We run the Electric Bat Arcade out of Tempe, Arizona. And this Batcast, which is a podcast, is all about operating pinball machines. And we touch on some video game stuff, too. A little bit of video game stuff. Amusement. We are about amusing. We certainly are. Excuse me. um you want to guess uh which episode this is 28 oh i don't i don't think we're there yet maybe we are i don't know you told me to guess that was my guess it's 20 something but you'll be able to see it in the description because we have no idea okay uh okay i'm not i'm talking to the people oh not you i'm talking to the people oh man uh let's uh let's get right into it uh first of all Let's talk about some sponsors. Stern Insider Connected. That's right. We love it. If you are operating machines, please be sure to have a leaderboard set up. 100%. Leaderboard, you know, it's on a TV. You can use a Yodeck to get all the information up on there, and that's a lot of fun. Also, did you know inside the Stern Insider app, you can play the… Oh, yeah, I saw that, the JAWS thing. Shark Hunter. Jaws Shark. You don't even need a pinball machine. You can play it in the app, and then when you play it in the app, you can get different badges, depending on how far you progress in the game. That is so cool. So if you're on the bus on the way to the arcade, jonesing for some pinball, you can warm up on your phone. That's right. Cool. It's fascinating. They're getting into the mobile app space. You have to diversify. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to nowadays. Come on. Like we say, we have pinball machines and shooters. Yes, we do. Diversification. Antiqui drinks. Antiqui drinks. Also, Marco's specialties, get at them for all of your pinball parts. And then if you use the code, we have a free shipping code, EBA150. What happens when you put that in at checkout? If you have spent over $150, you get your shipping for free. How about that? Nobody wants to pay for shipping. I've experienced it. I don't either. Bezos really set that mindset for everybody. That's right. And also Game Room Goodies. Check out GameRoomGoodies.com for all of your game room needs, pinball machines, video games. What else? If you want a claw machine in your kitchen and a skee-ball in your bathroom, air hockey, bubble hockey. Jukeboxes. Whatever you're looking for. If it is game room related, game room goodies, you know what they have? Tell me. Friendship. The most important part of an arcane. How can we forget about that? We love those guys, and they're great, and they deliver machines. They give you the white glove treatment. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, so check them out, gameroomgoodies.com. uh let's uh we have we have so much going on because we have two months worth worths of earnings reports that's right that's that's my area and that's really the only reason people listen to this so but we're not going to get into it yet because the way you do television you got to leave the best part at the end so people stay and they watch the commercials because that's how you make money right okay it's all about the pacing yeah but we're going to get into some uh the mailbag right now and if you if you want to uh ask us any questions you can get it on discord if you want to get into our discord go to electricbatarcade.com and click on the podcast link okay and then once you go in there there's a bunch of ways to listen to the podcast or watch it if you're on youtube you know you can also watch it on spotify oh cool i didn't know that so like if you have uh the app on like your smart tv your playstation your xbox your maybe apple tv i don't know that might have one so you can watch me on a playstation yeah you can you can just watch the video and uh time yeah so there's links for all that and there's a there's a link to get into the discord okay it's completely free we have a lot of fun we talk about more than just pinball so there's all kind of categories high scores uh you name it yeah but right now we're getting into the mailbag okay and it wouldn't be an episode of the electric bat arcade if gutter ghoul didn't ask a question so here we are thanks for your contributions gutter ghoul this is uh From Gutter Ghoul via Discord, how much does workability weigh in on your games at the bat? I have a Centaur II that lacks rails. It makes working on it a nightmare. Are there machines you avoid due to a nuance that makes it more trouble than it's worth? I'm sorry. Let's get right into it. Rachel, what do you say? I certainly know what he means Whenever you have to prop the game up with a prop rod Or you have those old stern pegs And it can be difficult to work on stuff Kind of in the mid-back of the game We have many games without rails And other issues that make them kind of trickier to work on That's not a reason that would keep me from buying a game But it is a reason that will make me curse at a game. And the major ones for me are some of our older wide bodies because that play field is so big and unwieldy and heavy that I'll have to call you. If I'm doing something to the backside of Hot Dog or Big Game, Kale, can you come help me get this play field lifted because I am afraid I will drop it. And I'm glad to help. Yes. That's just me. You're the muscles from Brussels. That's right. okay do we finish with that one yeah i think i think that that answer certainly it's an annoyance but not a big enough one to keep us from working on we're not scared we're i scared well yeah we'll try to operate anything all right let's move right along to david jansen's via email i have a question about playfield waxing. Okay. There's many people online that say there's no need to wax a modern stern. They say that because a clear coat is used, so the wax is not required. However, the stern manual supplied with new games still recommends that you wax your playfield. Do you wax your stern playfields? If not, how have they held up after thousands of plays? So first of all, I don't know if the stern manual actually recommends that you wax your play field i i haven't looked at that part of the manual in many years i know it mentions novice uh two as far as i know it's about cleaning your play field right and and this that may be the misunderstanding they may think novice two's a wax novice two is not a wax right it's a cleaner it's a polisher uh but let's let's say it does say that There's some holdovers in some of these manuals that just are maybe kind of old news that I don't know. Maybe some copy and paste from earlier stuff. I'm not sure. I do not wax my modern games. I feel like the best playing game is a clean game on a clear coat. But there are certainly some people that do wax those modern games. But I think if you do decide to do that, you really have to be careful to not overdo it because you'll really start to see that ball slide around instead of rolling how it should. So you get weird action on the ball and you don't want to do that. Yeah, so we don't wax them. And I can tell you that after many tens of thousands of plays, you know, like our Rush scoop hole is pretty beat up. But wax wouldn't have saved that. Right. So I think I don't think our games have suffered at all from a lack of wax. We definitely wax our older classic games because those have to have it or you'll just eat through the paint. Sure, sure. So I think the modern Stern we have that has the most plays would be Godzilla. Yes, I think that's correct. It's like over 70,000, and we don't have any wax on it. All we've ever done is just keep it clean, and it looks and plays like a dream. Yeah, yeah. And it earns so, so well. So. Ooh, chef's kiss. Yeah, thank you. Hopefully that answered your question, David Jansons. But, you know, it's your machine. You can do whatever you want with it. If you do wax it, just make sure you get a lot of that wax off the play field. The wax off is just as important as the wax on. Right, because, you know, sometimes people wax their play field, and then you see all those white bits around like star posts and all kind of stuff. And that just – Stuck up against switches is the worst. Yes. Because then you – that's not just aesthetic. Right, it dries out. It breaks free. Then it gets on the ball, rolls, and you get wax all over the place. It just makes it for a dirtier game. Yeah, if you do wax, wax lightly and wax off carefully. Yep, that's right. Thank you so much, David Janssens. We're moving right on to Jared from Joplin Pinball. This is via email. Question for the podcast with a preface. A preface. I'm on the precipice of a preface. I just reached being in the hobby for four years. What a milestone. Over the time, I've bought, fixed up, sold many older games and also went through a time of buying many of the newer Sterns as well. I've lost some of my obsession with the newer games and have started gravitating back to the classics and DMDs. One reason for this is I don't have time to play 15 to 20 minute games with my gaggle of kids. The question I have is what are some of the more popular shorter playing games within the last 20 to 35 years? And do you notice a point in the average hobbyist when they start returning back to the classics and are less focused on the shiny new inbox games? I currently own a Beatles, which I feel fits this niche nicely. Note, I don't get to play in leagues or go to arcades as I live in a pinball desert. I route one game, but it gets played very little. Congratulations on routing a game. That's fun. Absolutely. Put it out there. Especially in a pinball desert, he is doing what everyone needs to be doing. The Lord's work. Just putting a pinball machine out there. Put a game out there. Come on. Come on, people. Let's do it. Thank you so much for doing that, Jared. How would you answer that question? So you're thinking, or he's thinking about games, basically Williams, 90s era Williams and later. Yeah. My top pick for that would be Iron Man. Oh. I think Iron Man is a fantastic game that is fast playing. It has a nice balance between a very recognizable IP that your friends will be more likely to get into than maybe something like Raven. it's a fast player. The rules are fairly straightforward. It has a bash toy and easy to get to multiball. I think all those things make it a great game to play with your friends. Also, it's hard to get to some of those wizard modes and very satisfying when you do. What game would you choose for something from 90s and later? I would say if the kids don't mind the racist call-outs, diner. Right? No? You wouldn't go with that one? I like your caveat. If the kids don't – there is – it was of a certain era. Let me put Champion Pub in there at the same time. It's heritage. Oh, gosh. um yeah those things like whirlwind diner taxi all the right swords of fury here come the guards yep um those system 11 games are great sorcerer sorcerer that would be a great one yeah and i know what he's saying like when you're with you know he's talking about he's with his kids but like when you're with three friends like you don't you don't want to play godzilla right because you don't want to wait for everybody to have their turn right there's 35 minutes later and you get to play again you forget where you are and exactly um you want you do want that kind of fun fast and he's right the perfect game that fits what you know if you like that new in box feel the modern stern feel and you want also that classic feel at the same time beatles come on beatles is solid what a great game and that's that's a sea witch right that's a sea witch but It slightly, Gomez did some stuff to slightly. Yeah, it's different. It's a see which, but better. See which plus. And I don't know if everybody knows this. In the settings, you can actually set it for see which rules instead of beetle rules. That's pretty neat. Two in one. And pro tip, find Rachel Bess in the play field. Yeah. She's actually on the play field holding up a sign that says, I love Paul. That's true. Congratulations for that. Thank you. Immortalized. cool but there was another part of that question and it was about how like at what point or is it common for new people into pinball to go from the shiny new stuff oh 100 to the classics and we see this all the time because we see a lot of new players we see folks you know very entranced by the shiny new games the recognizable ips and that really sucks them into pinball and then they get to this like, well, what else is there? And sometimes you have these moods where you just want to try and hit down some drop targets without really thinking about deep strategies and having to look up to see what Travis Murray says I should do on this game. You want to just play some easy to think about pinball. So I think that we see this all the time and it happens maybe after a year or two of three playing, probably like between a year and two years is what I think. Okay. Right? Yeah, I like it. People go back to those classics. When I got back into pinball, you know, I was like, I played in high school all the time and then kind of, there was no pinball in the town I was at, you know, living in. And, you know, started working for Marco, got back into playing pinball. And then I was introduced to these new Stern machines and like, oh man, these things are freaking awesome. And that's all I wanted to play. And then we started going to pinball shows and hanging out with Mike Vinikour. And, you know, when I would hang out with him, I was like, oh, let's go find some, you know, let's go find a Star Wars to play or something. He's like, what are you doing? We can play Stearns anywhere. We're at a pinball show where people are bringing, like, rare and classic games. Let's go play some, like, old stuff. Absolutely. Some cool things that you're not going to get to see. Easy to learn, difficult to master. That's right. Like Go. Like Go. The game. The board game. The board game. You know about that, right? I do. All right. Thank you so much. And who was that? Jared from Joplin Pinball. Thank you so much. I hope we answered your question. That's a fun one. Now moving on to guess who's back. Guess who's back. It's Gutter Ghoul. Gutter Ghoul is back with more questions. And this is a question. He just finished listening to one of the episodes. I'm not sure which one it was. And he said, wonderful program. Kale has, I got to read this part. Kale has the best delivery and Rachel the best replies. absolutely entertaining banter as always you know what we aim the please this is this is us every day all right cues for the podcast with inventory management at a large scale you forecast your purchasing and velocity but subscale is a different beast is there any methodology to apply or is it by five cases when you're at two cases and hope for the best i think he's talking about managing the bar and right we did talk about that a little bit um yeah so when he says cases he's not talking about pinball parts i think it's alcohol beer what have you uh this is your wheelhouse go with it right well i will say i think it's in a small business is very helpful to have only one person doing the purchasing because then you can get a better feel for how quickly you're going through things through inventory. And so I just have this feel for how fast I think we're going to go through stuff. And I try and overbuy a little bit just so that we don't run out. And I do have like some minimum quantities that I like to keep on hand, but it it really is just a feel. And I keep spreadsheets and stuff, but it all boils down to, you know, we're in summertime, people are going to drink more Coronas and Modellos and more White Claws, less of the heavier stuff, and you just get a feel for all that. And with pinball parts, though, that's kind of the same thing. Just in case he is talking about pinball parts, we order stuff when we need it, but then also order extra. So if I'm buying, if a stand-up target breaks and I'm buying a stand-up target, I'll buy four to make sure that we have them on hand. So smart. Thank you. Here's another question from Gutter Ghoul. For the Punk Rock, it's hard to say. It is. Punk Rock swap meet how does a business handle that Is it free advertisement and supporting the community Or is there space rental and some light agreements for personal protection I think we need to explain what the Punk Rock Swap Meet is first. The Punk Rock Flea Swap. The Punk Rock Flea Swap is a takeover of sorts of Yucca Tap Room and Electric Bat Arcade. So all of the empty space where there's usually tables and on the stage, that it's it's uh like a farmer's market or punk rock punk rock farmer's market so you can get all different kinds of things punk rock adjacent and it's for for a weekend so how many booths you think there are set up in there 30 yeah they're everywhere they're throughout the the all three four bars yeah yeah so and as far as agreements go hey we think the stuff you're doing is really cool come do it at our spot it's like it's like a collab yeah like we're kind of helping each other out right because uh the people they bring out are maybe people that wouldn't usually be at the arcade right right and then vice versa the people that are at the arcade usually don't go to a punk rock uh farmer's market and so so here they are they all get the opportunities they get together but there's there are no contracts or anything it's basically you know haktua in your hand and then give them a handshake sorry there is no haktua all right part of us but also this isn't just for them like our ethos as a business is just are you doing something cool are you a cool person like let's do cool things together yeah right like if people wanted to have some kind of like fortune telling tarot reading conferences in the arcade that would be awesome hit me up we're down like whatever it is that you do if you're into something and you're passionate and you think it's fun um man maybe we've talked about having like remote control car stuff yeah in the big room of the arcade jiu-jitsu jiu-jitsu yeah that one we might need to have some some light some light agreements to protect or some extra extra insurance insurance on that good times one more question from gutter ghoul and finally like you said you're running out of space what obligation is there to have the latest and greatest at what point do you filter through your inventory and make some hard decisions well that point is now right um we are selling the Flagstaff location, so we brought those games back to Tempe. And that's obviously too many games for the space that we have, so we started selling some games. And the way we edit them out are just the games that, for one reason or another, are not sparking joy. Marie Kondo. It could be that they aren't as reliable, they're maybe not good tournament games, because we do have to really think hard about having as many games on the floor as possible that are great for tournaments or something that maybe we're just not, me and you are personally not that enthused about because this arcade is the arcade that is games that we enjoy and that's how we edit them out. From time to time, we do have to sell some stuff to make room for new things and that's how we do that decision making. Cool. I think that covers it. I think so. Yeah, fantastic job. moving right along to scoots s via discord he's in the discord i love the discord we do so much with the discord we do it's a fun group um one thing i really love and and um other arcades i think they should they start doing this in our discord there's a channel for game problems and that's that is so important for us to keep up with any issue because somebody would be like hey the light is out on the O on sorcerer or something, you know, and that's a great way for people. I mean, in like real time, they send it to us. We'll walk out of the office and fix it. So start a discord for your, you know, your local folks. It's true because we have the clipboard. So people can do it old school pencil and paper style. But sometimes you're in the big room and you're far away from the clipboard. You don't want to go walk all the way over there. Your phone is in your hand. So easy. Just punch it in. It is a great way for us to keep things working fantastically. It's really a lot of fun. Scoots S via Discord has a great question. Just listen to the latest episode. Great as always. The earnings report got me thinking. The last two D&D code updates have caused issue with the gelatinous cube multiball, and most recently the dragon multiball has been made so difficult that it essentially is unable to be started. It now requires 20 plus hits and resets when you drain versus previously requiring three hits that carry over from ball to ball. Two questions. Do you update code automatically and immediately or wait until you are able to hear feedback on it? And did effectively eliminating the dragon multiball seem to reduce earnings for the game? We hear so much about putting features close to the start button to hook players. but I wonder what happens when you basically remove them altogether. Interesting. Now, just to be clear, I don't think that, that might have not been a bug, the thing with the dragon multiball. Yeah, I don't know if that was intentional or not intentional. It did make it harder to get that multiball. Either way, it's different now because there's been an update since he sent us this question. Right, that question was a little older. So first off, we do have all the games set to update automatically. I don't know, there's 20-something Insider-connected games at the arcade. I wouldn't want to have to manually do all that. And also, I don't want to wait. I really don't care what other people's feedback is unless it's like this game is completely unplayable now. And that's generally not the case with these Insider-connected games. So we have those automatically updated, and we really are the place where people are going to play it to get the feedback. And when people hear there's an update, especially these major code updates that are going on now, like the revamp WIC and X-Men stuff that they're doing, people come out because they want to play that. So that's a good earnings opportunity for us, so I would never want to delay that. And when those updates come out, like recently with the X-Men and WIC updates, the software team has gotten in touch with us the day they drop. And, you know, they're like, please give us feedback. Yeah. So we know what to do. Absolutely. And we love doing that. As far as that D&D Dragon Multiball thing, that was going on. I did check earnings, but it happened right at the time that we brought one of the D&Ds home. so i there's no good way for me to tell how that may or may not have affected earnings i'm gonna guess it didn't i would also say that it didn't because i think people there's still other things to do in that game and then even someone telling me oh my gosh did you see how hard they made dragon multiball no let me go see and see if i can do it right see if you that's a challenge yeah yeah like are you telling me you suck or is this like that's um you know that that gets people motivated just as much as anything else that's a great point rachel thank you all right thank you so much for your question scoots s via discord moving right along we have trey via discord he's also in the discord question you have 60 ish pins on the floor at any point in time how many do you have in the back he wants to know what's going on in the back what's in the back Hey, what's in the back? Are they all in some state of major maintenance or do you keep a stock to allow you to regularly swap them on and off the floor? I'm curious how many inactive pins you can afford to keep around while they're not earning. Okay. So on the floor, we have, I think, 65 or 66 pins. And in the back, we have somewhere around a dozen, give or take. and those dozen, some of them work perfectly fine and they're just waiting to be swapped in. Some of them are waiting for a part and some of them are waiting for a part to be like manufactured. We might need to machine something. So it's across the gamut of repair state. Ideally, they would all be just waiting to be swapped in and out. But I don't look at it as a lost opportunity for earning having those in the back. I think it gives us a chance to keep the rotation fresh, just keep something new coming in all the time. And also having the space for those games in the back means that if something is on the floor and it's a major repair that it's going to take, I have the ability to take it off the floor so I don't have broken games on the floor. Okay. Don't you think that's a better? Yeah. Yeah, like a dozen or so in the back. Good deal. Let's move on to David via email. This is from the other side of the planet. The inside? If it is actually round. Hello from Sydney. I think that's in Australia. I love listening to the podcast. Always learn something new. I was wondering how you found the reliability of the Spike 2 system to be. They aren't as easy to repair at the component level as the older Bally Williams games, and I'm wondering how they have been holding up at your arcade after years of use. Do you often have to replace node or CPU boards, or have you been able to fix them? Have you noticed more electronics issues as the games have aged? That's a good question. And we have had, I think because of duplicates and things, wouldn't you say that we've had probably 30 Spike 2s? Yeah, I think something like that. In that number of games, we have replaced one node board and one power supply total. Yeah, that's it. We have not repaired any of them. Correct. They're right. Those are not easy to work on a board set. You need like tweezers and a microscope. Yeah, I'm not surface mounting stuff and diagnosing on that way. That's kind of above my pay grade. So I am just swapping out those boards. So in over 30 games, in tens of thousands of plays, one node board, one power supply. Yeah. Yeah, the electronics are amazing on these Stern spike machines. And this goes across all machines. When you talk about durability, nowadays it's the metal parts. Things with welds. Things with welds, metal parts after the ball is constantly. Yeah, after they're constantly hitting. Metal nowadays is not what it used to be. And I've gone, talked about this before where we like, we tested. Our friend has a metal testing device. He's in the precious coins business. And we would bring him different parts, like modern metal compared to like stuff from Twilight Zone, Adam's family. it's not it's not close to the same stuff that was so eye-opening to me yeah to know like it first of all that it wasn't just in my head and it wasn't just a matter of like when i was a kid yeah um that these really get off my lawn right that the actual makeup of the metal itself we're not talking about good old pittsburgh steel like that that's just not what we're dealing with anymore and so you're right those metal components seem to be more susceptible than the electronic parts do. That's right. Electronics have moved way up, in my opinion. Absolutely rock solid. We're riding these things hard. What did that road hard and put up wet? Yeah, these machines are on 20 hours a day. If there's some electronics issues, we would know. We would see them. But feel free, write us back in 25 years. Yep, that's right. Maybe we'll still be doing the podcast and we can talk about it. He's like 70. Spike six. Okay. Good deal. Where are we from? Here we are. Smidpins via Discord. Found you a couple of months ago. I've gone back to listen to the Batcast from the beginning. Love it so much, I ordered some shirts for the wife and I. That's great. Thank you. That's a great way to support the podcast. This is all free. We don't have a Patreon. We don't do whatever else it is to get money from people online. Buy some merch because it's a double-edged sword. And both edges are good. We get a couple of bucks from the sale of the merch. And then you get to pump our brand and tell everybody. They're like, hey, that's a cool shirt. Where did you get it? And you tell them all about us. It glows. Hopefully, I will get to come by sometime. But I'm in Florida. Thinking about operating a few games locally, what parts other than flipper parts do you keep on hand? Do we keep on hand? Well, I think it would blow his mind to see our shop. We should do a video of that sometime. Yeah, it's basically a small Marco's Specialties. We have everything in our shop. If you're just going to operate one or two machines, you don't need what we have. Right. If you see a pinball machine, we have 90% of those parts. In our back room. So. What is he going to need? What is he going to need? For a couple of games. So you definitely need your flipper rebuild parts. You definitely need every rubber that's in that game. I think if the game has optos, you need to have a backup set of optos. Yeah. Micro switches? Micro switches, I think, are a good idea. and if the game has drop targets, it wouldn't hurt to have the drop targets specific to those games. And they don't have to be, like if you have a whole bunch of System 6, William System 6 games, I don't mean like have them the ones specific to Firepower. Well, Firepower are stand-ups in most cases. Ours is a drop target. But just the generic ones for that era of games. what do you think? Balls. You need some replacement balls. Balls. I think that's about it. Those are the things that are going to keep your game running. Because any game-specific stuff, you don't really want to... It's expensive, like certain mechs and stuff. Right. Don't do that. No reason to keep that on hand. The game might be down for a few days while you wait for your order from Marco's Specialties. Do you remember when you were customer service at Marco when that guy bought a Batman? yeah and then he bought he bought basically a second batman but here's their parts but here's the thing he wasn't routing it i thought was just for home he was he still has 100 of those parts he had a batman 66 at his home he ordered a playfield the um the crane mac i mean this was expensive he he would we we totaled up like all the extra parts he bought he would be he would have been better off just buying an extra machine and keeping it in the box wow he bought everything don't do that don't do that yeah but if you want to do it because uh sure but i mean like not no we are not going to give you that advice yeah we got to keep everybody in business right um cool i hope that answered your question smid pins oh you know what shooter rod springs oh yes yeah that's good barrel springs both yeah both both of these shooter rod springs That's a good point. Cheap. Easy to keep around. All right. We have via email Agris Dulkavics. How do you pronounce that? I would say Delevich. Delevich. Arjus Delevich. I don't know Eastern European languages very well, so I'm sorry if that's not the right way to say it. And how did you know this was Eastern European? Greetings from a small country in the Baltics, Latvia. Latvia. How about this? We are following you. And there's a little smiley face. I love that. Thank you so much, Ardis. I'm following your content, and it inspires me to do the same here in Latvia, where pinball has not been known since the early 90s to early 2000s. There are no operators so far. People don't know what is pinball and only associate it with Space Cadet on Windows XP, which that's also a great game. Yeah. I started a few months ago driving around with my three to four pins that I bought since COVID at different bar locations once every two to three weeks to introduce people to the great hobby and experience that pinball is. Meanwhile, I'm building, painting, decorating my own location. Long story short, I want to create a local league night once a week like you are doing. But I have a question. You are collecting only one USD as the entry ticket, and those machines are on free play or people should buy coins to play. My idea was that people will come daily to practice via coins, and that night machines are on free play But now I thinking that only expenses Probably should ask for a few euros for entry because I not making up sales only to have the machines Thank you for your time. Wish you a success. What a heartwarming story. We are spreading pinball across the world. That is so cool. And it feels so neat to know that, like, I have a friend in Latvia. Yes. This is great. Thank you so much, Argus. So what he's talking about at our tournaments, we collect the FBA fees. This might be confusing because we collect one dollar for FBA fees. Right. But everything's on coin drop the whole time. It's never on free play. Right. And I think that's really important because once you give away something, what he would end up having is a bunch of people coming on free night and not as many people coming on. not free night um i think that it's always important for things to have perceived value and whenever things are free they lose that so i would definitely do your euro ifpa fee plus coin drop but also like how smart is it that this guy is starting an arcade and in lieu of traditional advertising, especially with something as cool and addictive as pinball, though I'm biased. He's taking his games around. It's amazing. Like, hey, come here and check this out. Yes. In a few months, you're going to get to play it at Agris' Playland. I don't know what it's called. That's incredibly smart marketing. It's also he's building community. He's doing everything right leading up to when he gets to open his own spot. But yes, always charge your IFPA fee. And it does. It takes, like, think about all these. His expenses are bigger than what he is maybe calculating. And also, you just want to always keep that perceived value steady. Right. And please join our Discord because we want to see some photos of what you're doing here. Very much. I would love to see these pinball machines at various bars all around Latvia. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. I am intrigued and I'm excited and it's just so cool that this is around the world. It brings us all closer together. Hooray pinball. That is so very cool and we need to see it. So hook us up with some photos. Thank you so much for the messages and the kind words. We're hoping to hear more from you soon. All right, next question is from NMRetroGamer via Instagram. Hey, question. I'm about to start a weekly tournament at the American Legion where I have my machines. Can you give me some tips about how to run a league successfully? Yes. Yes, I can. Mm-hmm. the first thing is going to be make sure you're really familiar with the software. So most likely you're going to be using MatchPlay. Right. And I think most people know how to set up a tournament in MatchPlay and kind of know how everything works within MatchPlay when everything in the tournament is working correctly. But whenever, say, for example, someone scores a game and first and second place get swapped. And that doesn't get noticed until after the round. So then you're going to have to go in and manually adjust points. And this happens. It happens. It's not if. Yeah, when. It's when. It's exactly right. So you want to be familiar. It's not a straightforward, obvious thing if you've never done it before. So you want to go through and figure out all of those edge cases, things you're going to need to do so that you will be more confident whenever the real tournaments happen. That kind of leads me to point number two, is be really confident when the tournaments happen. You are the leader of these tournaments. You set the tone. You set the pace. You know what? This is why you, Kale, are so good at announcing. All of a sudden, he's paying attention. Go ahead. You are so good at being the voice of our tournaments, running them. You announce when the rounds are up. You always have something kind of funny to say. Right. Your tone is fantastic. Thank you. And it always, like, I think that is uplifting to everybody that's there, right? If somebody was stressed out, it's like, ah, round number two is up. I think, you know, then it's like everyone is on edge and stuff. And I think maybe that comes from you, you know, every morning you're, like, strangling people or getting strangled by people. And so, like, you know, some weird call on a pinball machine is not going to get under your skin at all. NBD. No big deal. But I think that is something that people overlook, right? They think about all of the correct things, the things that they need to be doing. They want to make sure the machines work. They certainly do all those things. But I think really it's underrated how much your tone matters to everybody else. And I think a lot of times when people come back to the bat and they've played at tournaments and other spots around the country, and maybe they didn't have as good of a time and they maybe can't even put their finger on it, just like it's more fun at the bat. And I think that has a lot to do with it. So kudos to you for being fantastic at that. But I also think some of that is coming from experience and the confidence of having done this so many times before. We are running 120-person tournaments every single week. We have had the opportunity to see all the different things that can happen during a tournament. And we are very familiar with the rules, how to make calls. And that's something that anybody that's starting a league should do is print out, have a physical copy of the IFPA tournament rules. It's like eight pages or something. It's not long. And even after you and I have been doing this for as long as we have, I still flip through that and just kind of refresh my memory on some of those. Because there's a lot of stuff in there that isn't a call that you're going to have to make very often. But you want to always make consistent calls. Right. So if you have any kind of issue come up, you just want to be sure that that's never something that the players perceive as personal. So anytime you have the opportunity, try and ask questions whenever something goes wrong on a game. Player one, player two, player three. You don't want to know who those people are if you can help it. You want to know just like the facts of the situation. and then if those people don't you know if they don't if you don't know who they are then it's very hard to take that as a personal offense right so be consistent don't uh and there's going to be people you like a lot more than other people right like it's just the way it is i was a school teacher and people always thought like when you're a kid like oh that's the teacher can't like you know That's not, trust me, teachers very much like some students more than others. And TDs are the same way. I don't want any of those feelings to come into play when I'm making a decision. That always has to be just fair for everybody. That's an important part about being a good, running a good tournament, running a great tournament. But keep in mind that attitude, that you want to bring that kale feeling, that good time. That is the most important thing. You're hosting this tournament. You want it to be fun. You know, yes, it can still be competitive. But so many people from out of town, they'll come to our tournament. They're like, just this vibe is so great that the tournaments we have in our area are really stuffy and hyper competitive. And that kills your attendance. That that really does a lot of negative things for your tournament. I really feel like when you're hosting a tournament, you're selling a good time. Yeah. That's the deal. You want people to have the best time they've ever had so they're like, I cannot wait to go there next Tuesday. You know, because this is, you know, this is. It's a high point in the week because it feels good. It helps people. Right, right. Think about if you were inviting over 12 friends for a dinner party and you're in the kitchen and you're cooking the green beans and something goes haywire. All of a sudden you start flipping out and being all tense and weird towards your guests because your green beans got a little screwed up. Right. Everybody wants to leave. Yeah. Nobody cares about the green beans. People care about the camaraderie. They care about how it feels. Make a joke of your beans and keep going. Right. You know. Right. Yeah. I love it. I love hosting the people. I love pushing a good time. You know, and I think one thing that can really help everybody who's doing this stuff. I mean, this is this is sales. This is hosting. I read a book when I was like probably like just in I might have been like middle school when I found it. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Good old Dale Carnegie. And it's a it's a it's a short read and it's good. It's a you know, it was written in like the 30s or 40s or something. Something like that. Yeah. A hundred years ago. But it still makes sense. I mean, you'll be reading it and going like, whoa. I mean, this guy knew what he was talking about even back then. you can believe someone older yes yeah uh that's a good point but be be a be a good host absolutely and there you go and and one thing i would add go play some tournaments before you try to run your own 100 and you might have to travel a little bit but you need to experience somebody who is experienced in running pinball uh tournaments and see what they do they might do some stuff you don't like and you might adjust it for your own tournament but you're also going to pick up a lot of stuff that you really do like and enjoy yes great advice yeah good deal thank you nm retro gamer knows via instagram you shoot us a message on instagram too but the discord is just chef's an email is the best way to get stuff not overlooked you get a lot of instagram messages i do i look at it every once in a while i just i shut it because too much i can't that's a lot of people too shy for that yeah we're moving right along to frank s via email greetings from jacksonville florida most of the arcades within driving range are pay at the door deals from 25 dollars like the leaderboard arcade which has two locations in town to 35 dollars at pinball palace in brunswick georgia what business decisions have influenced you to keep the bat on coin drop instead of pay at the door or tokens. Keep up the great work. It's been a pleasure listening to the cast and getting caught up on the backlog. First of all, I think this person needs to realize we take quarters and tokens. Yes, we are primarily tokens, but the machines also accept quarters. And the pay at the door, lots of people call that free play. Right. And so why do you go with the coin drop instead of a free play model? um and there's there's uh you know both work yeah both work but we we we can't have free play and explain why rachel we are attached to yucca tap room and yucca tap room has music almost every night and different kinds of music so different people are coming so you're seeing a lot of folks that may just want to um pop into the arcade maybe they just want a tiki drink or maybe they just want to kind of walk around and see what it's all about right maybe they want to play like three games in between sets um it's just all of that would be really prohibited by having an entrance fee into the arcade and i and i feel like an entrance fee well i think free play arcade arcades are great for some destination arcades it is a friction point so if you're charging even if it's ten dollars to get in you and i always see groups of maybe four or five people and one of those people may not play any games maybe they just want to drink a beer and watch their friends play like they don't know how great pinball is yet but they're going to find out because they keep hanging out and we see those people turned into pinball players over time um i if you would have asked those people to pay 10 bucks to come in or much less 25 or 35 bucks there's no way no way those people would have paid that money sure and they would have missed out on um eventually becoming uh an electric bat patron right i think yeah i just really i like i like coin drop model sure and there's other weird things like i know some places you use wristbands and they're different colors depending on like if you pay for an hour if you pay for the whole day i don't ever want to kick anybody out yeah you're gonna hey you have a green wristband you're out yeah time to go buddy it's just a weird vibe yeah i think it goes back to being a good host you're welcoming people into your space and if they just want to walk around and just like look at all the pretty lights there you go go for it man we like having you in there And we see that all the time. Like somebody we've never seen before, they pop in and they start walking around. And I've seen them like walk around and look at every single machine. And then they're like they disappear and then show back up and put a token in, which means they went to the token machine. Yeah. Put a dollar five bucks. Yeah. And then they try some games out. You know, you would not be able to do that if, you know, we had to charge at the door. Yes. Fantastic. Thank you for your question, Frank S. And I love some Jacksonville, Florida. I used to go there a lot, you know, when I was on the East Coast. Oh, yeah. Man, it's fun. Good times. Good times. This is from Anthony from Instagram. Hello, Anthony. Dear Kale and Rachel, I didn't get a chance to thank you for your warm hospitality yesterday. So thank you. The electric bat is, in fact, far better than I thought it would be. It exceeded his expectations. What does that say about it? It was absolutely incredible getting a glimpse behind the scenes and watching you both work so hard and lovingly on the machines. I'm very new to pinball and got hooked earlier this year by playing a ton of Godzilla and listening to your podcast. Thank you for giving so much and providing a place for those of us that need it. You both rock. Peace and pinballs, Anthony. Wow, that gave me goosebumps. Thank you. I know. Anthony was great. I remember Anthony. We brought him into the office because he wanted to see some machines. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. He was loving it. Yeah. I'm so happy. So here he has a podcast question. I could have just. Yeah. Let's just leave it there. That was good. I could have just went with the question, but I had to preface it with all of this wonderful stuff. It makes me feel good. It makes you feel good. Very much so. I think it makes everybody feel good. Yeah. Here's this question. If you had to pick only one mechanic to keep and the other disappears from every machine, would you keep spinners or drop targets? I know what I would do. You want me to go first with this? Yeah, but it's an easy answer. Yeah, yeah. It's easy because we would keep spinners because the drop targets just use stand-ups, you know, and then boom. I just solved everything. Don't you love ripping a spinner? I mean, come on. You have lost your mind. Why? What am I missing? whenever i was like it's obvious i knew you were going to say drop targets because drop targets is the answer is it really think about games like eldorado or even like joker poker where you're going through that's a good point bad when you're nailing those drop targets and you get to watch them go down and stuff i mean spinners are cool i like spinners but if i had to choose one what do you want like inline stand-up targets does that sound fun yeah that doesn't work does it oh wait i i know how it would work you know the the rotating targets yeah so they're they're rotating inline stand-ups so when you hit it when you hit it it rotates out of the way ha now it would cost a million dollars and be broken so kale here wants to fix things yeah um no you know what you're you're absolutely right drop target but excuse me you got me thinking what if on all those games i just mentioned you replace the drop targets with a spinner oh so imagine now we're talking imagine joker poker with 15 spinners instead of 15 drop targets oh elwyn are you listening that would actually be really cool right like i have to hit first i have hit this like leftmost spinner then to get my like 3x i have to hit these two spinners in the middle yeah and then these three spinners on the side to get my four that would actually like that the accountant that's a twenty thousand dollar pinball machine yeah um that would actually be very cool but still drop targets are the only answer i am interested to hear your opinions throw them in the pod into the discord we'll talk to some people thank you so much Anthony I hope you get to come back we had a great time with you and thank you so much for the kind words and the really cool question yeah and you know what I know our friend Roland he was telling me a while back how much he loves spinners over drop targets And I thought that was just the craziest thing There was nothing like you know ripping that juicy juicy spinner Rachel But you hit that drop target and bam, it's gone. Like KO. We're glad we have both. Yes. All right. We're moving on to Ocean's Dad via Discord. Okay. Question for the Batcast. we're in a little town in northern wisconsin ashland population around 8 000 that is tiny that's tiny and have grown a pretty decent weekly pinball league numbers range from 25 to 35 players per season that's actually really good that is huge for 8 000 people that's like the equivalent of Phoenix having like 2,000 people in our league. Amazing. You're doing a great job, Ocean's Dad. So they have 25 to 35 players per season, and we almost always have everyone there on Tuesday league night. However, we also run tournaments once a month on Sunday, and I've seen the number of participants drop off a lot. A few players have told me that they don't think they stand a chance of winning, so it's not worth it for them. In fairness to them, it is always the same one or two players that win consistently. My question is, how do we make it more inviting for less skilled or new players? What are some options for improving turnout, getting more people excited and make them more competitive? Monthly tournaments where the same one or two people always dominate are not very enticing to other players. We obviously can't exclude those few top players, but we don't really have the player pool for a separate A-League or B-League. What do they call those? Divisions. Right. Yeah. Thanks so much for all the podcasts and great info. Can't wait to make it out there and see you guys in person someday. And then he's got some lightning bolts and some little bat emojis. I like that. Thank you so much, Ocean's Dad. What do you have for him, Rachel? Well, aside from the obvious congratulations on having a hugely successful league in a very small town. Right. Also, our Tuesday night league is our biggest tournament of the week. So we have between 100 and 125 players every Tuesday. And our monthly tournaments tend to be in the 60s. So, number one, I don't think that's that unusual. and part of the reason I think is Tuesday night it's very easy for most people to get away. On a Saturday day or Sunday day where you have other things you could be doing, your family for one, pool parties, barbecues, who knows, there's a lot more competition for your time. We certainly, when our league was just starting out and had 35 people, we saw the same thing. mark the shark won 90 of the time yep um some of the things that changed that were one he was very generous with teaching people how to play um so open with strategy very open with strategy so that's one thing you can do to build up your newer players and don't overwhelm them with the entire like rule sheet and stuff just for each game here's here's maybe two different things to focus on that will help build your score if you're looking for for something to actually entice people award-wise some of the leagues around here i know will give a most improved player so if you got maybe like 27th place last month but you moved up to seventh place you improve 20 slots that's the biggest improvement you get the most improved award so maybe that's like a t-shirt maybe it's a hamburger i don't i don't know maybe it's just like a call out on the microphone yeah but having that's an award that's that's people who are likely not going to win the whole tournament it gives them something to aim for right so then you're just working on becoming a better player um in general and can get that so i don't know what do you think yeah um i'm i'm a little bit different i'm just like toughen up buttercup you know you're in with the sharks um and it it worked at our league you know we've we have some top 100 players in our league and back in the day they were the only ones winning you know it was like you might as hand you might as well just hand mark pearson the trophy right he was going to win every week uh or will yeah you know um and then later john shopple john shopple um but these these new people that are showing up are die hard they're in the arcade practicing every single day they were getting incredibly well and it's been going on like this for a while now you have no clue who's going to win yeah it can be anybody and that's so cool to see whenever i mean it makes me extra happy whenever someone who's never won before um or even just someone who's always been kind of a middle of the pack player just all of a sudden has a fantastic night and wins and then they're like man i'm one of the big dogs now and it's important to let the and i I always tell people this that are like ask about tournaments, you know, before they play. And they always say they're not ready. Nobody was ready for a tournament the first time they showed up. Certainly. And this is how you get where you get ready by being there. Yes. And this is how you learn to play pinball. All players, they were open. They're open with strategy. They love talking about pinball, especially the top players. And when you play in a four-player game with these guys, that's how you learn. Watch them play. And they all have different strategies. Different strategies work for different folks. So that's how you get good. If you're going to say, no, I'm not playing with these guys because I can't beat them, yeah, you're never going to beat them. But if you keep at it, I promise you, you'll start to scare them, and then you'll start to beat them every once in a while. Dream, believe, achieve. That is a great, great feeling, Rachel. That's fantastic advice. Yes. Good. You know, that's the end of the mailbag. And so now it's time. It's my time to shine. This is what everybody has been waiting for. What do you say? This is, well, let's say that that is the case. So we have two months worth of earnings. And soon we're going to have July. So we'll pop back on with a podcast much sooner, I promise. May and June are what I'm going to go through today. So May in 10th place was Stranger Things. And it was only by less than a half of a percent. So this is a statistical tie with number nine, which is Medieval Madness. Number eight, John Wick. still still up there and that's before the new rule set has come along and this is interesting number six and a half it's tied so six and seven had the exact same coin drop you're kidding me like down to the quarter this has never happened before this has never happened this i mean it's it's a lot of coins uh jaws and pulp fiction cool tied both great games Both fantastic games, yes. In fifth place, you have the Big Buck Shooter. Okay. Not the pinball machine. The video game. The video game. And then in fourth place, we had D&D Premium, which combined with D&D Pro actually would have been the top spot. Okay. It's not fair to do that. I mean, it's two separate machines and things, but I think people find that interesting. In third place, we have Metallica Remastered. Ooh. That's a game that people... And now is that love? Did it get a bump from the there was a big update. I can't remember. This was before. That's before. That update. OK. Yeah. And you know what? Now's a great time to say Metallica is also the game of the month, the cash game of the month. I think that's around 100 bucks right now. So last time I checked it, it was at one or three. OK. Yeah. So get into the bat before the end of the month. You can win some money if you get a high score on Metallica. Yeah. In second place, Godzilla. Of course. Of course it is. Right. And then in first place, drum roll, ladies and gentlemen, for the second month in a row. Unbelievable. Looking at you, spooky evil dead. How about that? You know, bugs going to clip this. Whoa. I just fell back in my chair a little bit. This chair does that sometimes. Is it the chair or you? I think it would be more fair to say you do this sometimes. It's faulty. It's got a problem. Okay. Faulty. But evil dead two months in a row. Yes. Top earner at Electric Bat. How is it holding up? It's holding up really well. We've just had to do a couple of very minor things, not anything. Yeah, so this game is holding up very well. It's been on every single day. It hasn't been down for any reason the entire time that we have gotten it. So I would like to give a huge thank you and kudos to Spooky because you keep falling. you need to just sit up because we find that whenever like spooky has fantastic licenses and evil dead seems to finally be the reliability that we were looking for from those games and i'm just so excited moving forward i am just crossing my fingers that whatever games you know we've heard some rumors about what may or may not be coming up and all of those titles are very exciting to me so please whatever change you made that made evil dead reliable um keep keep those people on staff keep those people keep at it congratulations yes okay moving on to june okay so this is a whole another month whole other month this is one month later so we did march no march a long time ago i'm I thought it was May. I knew it was an M month. M-A even. Yeah. So now we're in June, which was last month. Okay. And these are those numbers. In 10th place, we have Pulp Fiction. Ooh. 9th place, John Wick. Nice. 8th place, Metallica. Ooh. 7th place, Jaws. Mm-hmm. 6th place, Dungeons and Dragons. Okay. The pro. This is the pro because we ended up bringing the premium home. Yep. Seems kind of selfish, but it was... Yeah, we... I love this game. We kind of deserve it. I work hard. I want that game. And then in fifth place, this is interesting, Godzilla. Oh, wow. This is, I think, the lowest Godzilla has ever done. But I think you'll see why as we get to the top. And it was just by less than 1% from fourth place. So it was just neck and neck with Big Buck Hunter again, the arcade game. in third place evil dead and then in june we put two games on the floor so two new games went up and that was in second place dune and then in first place drum roll king kong holy crap elwynn is back elwynn is back the king of monsters the king of kong but not actually yeah that is insane yeah um i know i just uh hope he is you know the rumors are he might be working on pokemon and do you know pokemon translated to english is pocket monster right it's another monster it's another monster game so king of the monsters that would be that would be such an ideal fit and that would make me a bunch of money and a bunch of fun i would enjoy playing that and i do not care at all about the i'll buy two charters charters charters chair zad yeah jahara's that what are they what are those guys you get razzmatazz that was razzmatazz they're uh water creatures air creatures all kind of good so i haven't played pokemon in so long i used to play it on my game boy advanced i think i just would get them all mixed up with magic the gathering name so let's do it let's do that one Yeah, magic. Please, someone do that. One thing that's interesting about the top games there, Dune. I am impressed that it came in second with as broken as it was. It was up and down a lot. We did a lot of work with that. So here's the thing. If it would have been up the whole time, we actually had to take it off the floor, bring it back out, take it off the floor. That would have won, I think. I think it would have won, too. And I think that's a really important lesson. First off, those guys have been barrels, all great people. They're great. Fantastic to work with. Yeah. But I think that comparison with Spooky keeping the number one spot for two months in a row, you're kind of dealing with similar issues with new companies and reliability and just the ability to road test things. And so I think you're right. I think that Dune, I mean, first of all, we were the only place you could play it in the state, maybe within several state area in some directions. People were really interested in that game, and reliability is just, in a location like ours, it's going to get, all those things are going to show. So I will make this offer once again. I've made it to any pinball company that just would like help, suggestions, any sort of input from us or i'll say me i'm not going to volunteer you okay hey we're in a meeting um for free i will help you do what i can to make these games so that they're reliable when they hit the streets and some of the stuff like you know i'm not a programmer i can't do that but i can tell you other things that would be uh incredibly helpful i think so So we want the success for all pinball companies. More pinball is better when it works. So please, hit me up. Fantastic deal. I would also like to add, unfortunately, we don't have Dune any longer. And the only reason I'm saying that is because so many people are still messaging us saying, when is Dune coming back? We don't have it right now. And I don't know if we'll ever have it. But, yeah, just so people know. Yeah. come play king kong come play come play evil dead oh yeah yeah right um come play you know we didn't talk about at the beginning of the episode we usually talk about things that are new at the bat oh yeah i think we skipped over that we got my grail oh so i have been wanting viking for how many years many years since i've known you yeah so i finally thanks to our friend Ben in Tucson for hooking me up with Viking. Now we have a Viking. It's on the floor. I'm so excited to have it. Come play Viking. That is so cool. What a fabulous game. It is. You love it so much. You can't stop smiling. I'm thinking I'm going to go as soon as we get done here, we're going to go to the arcade and I'm going to fix a bunch of stuff. But before that, I'm going to play a bunch of Viking. and you know what the other day whenever um we were leaving and shoppel was coming in and he was going to work on some stuff and there wasn't really that much to do and i saw him just kind of smile and open up viking and start playing it that's great i'm going to do this instead because the first time he played it in a tournament he rolled it twice that's so impressive not me i have yet to roll it yeah he's a world champ that's that's what separates many right on so yes i think that wraps it up. That wraps it up. We have some things coming up. What do we have coming up? This Sunday, which is the day after tomorrow, as we're recording this, is Tui's World Famous All Classics Bounty Knockout Tournament. And you know what's exciting about that? You don't have to be local to experience the fun. Oh. We go live on Twitch. Yes. And that's Sunday at noon. You will be streaming this Sunday at noon. Yes. So please, tune in. And that's always the last Sunday of the month. We don't run any ads, do we? No. No commercials. Yeah, no. You don't have to sub, right? Yeah. We don't bug you with commercials. You can if you want to, but there's no commercials. Buy a T-shirt. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Okay. Well, let's wrap it up here. Check out your Stern app and go play this game. It's Jaws the Shark Hunter. You don't even need a pinball machine anymore to experience Stern's amazing software. Look at this. I think it's cool. It's free. It's free. You just hit play and you do it. And the best part is you get some badges depending on how deep you get into the game. I love badges. I have one so far. I have to fight for the other ones. You know, Ty is going to get all of them. He's probably already playing this. Also, check out Marco's specialties for all your pinball parts needs. And use EBA150 at checkout for free shipping. Special shout out to Marco and the family who came and visited us this week. Yeah, the Marco. Yeah, Marco and Marco Specialties. We got to hang out for a little while. That was great. Good to see you again, buddy. Yeah, so cool seeing him and the whole fam. And also check out Game Room Goodies for all of your game room needs, pinball machines, jukeboxes. What else? Claw machines. Come dig an in-ground pool for you if you need one. They won't do it, but they'll turn you on. But yeah, GameRoomGoodies.com for all your machine needs. Right on. Well, this was an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for hosting this. Well, you are very welcome. Thank you for showing up. You're welcome. Yeah, right on. Well, I think I need to go get something to eat. I think I need a little protein. You know what I'm saying? So we're going to take off. And we'll see you guys actually really soon because Rachel is going to have a new earnings report. In about a week. There you go. Yeah, yeah. We'll see you then. thank you so much for joining us we'll see you next time see you at the arcade bats out it was the wrong well i can't reach with this hand you know there we go see you guys later bye