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Episode 23: My Cringe Gary Stern Moment, Your Voicemails, & 2025 Pinball Rumors!

The Flipside Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·59m 35s·analyzed·Jan 19, 2025
6879acc4-8f3a-4b09-b266-45406ea3df15
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Retro Ralph reviews cringe Gary Stern CES interview, takes voicemails, previews 2025 pinball rumors.

Summary

Retro Ralph hosts an episode of Flip Side Podcast featuring a self-reflective look at an embarrassing 2019/2020 CES interview with Gary Stern where Ralph demonstrates minimal pinball knowledge, followed by listener voicemails and discussion of 2025 pinball industry rumors and forecasts.

Key Claims

  • Stern claims 85% market share for mechanical pinball games

    high confidence · Gary Stern quoted directly in 2019/2020 CES interview segment

  • Stern released three cornerstone games per year as of 2019/2020, plus vault/studio games

    high confidence · Gary Stern in CES interview clip: 'three of those a year'

  • Stranger Things was Stern's first game with a projector system, projecting on ramps, drop targets, and screens

    high confidence · Gary Stern explaining new Stranger Things technology at CES: 'We have a projector...projecting on the ramps we're projecting on the drop targets'

  • Insider Connected may not have existed yet at Stranger Things launch

    medium confidence · Retro Ralph speculation: 'I don't think Insider Connected existed yet because the first run of Stranger Things did not have Insider Connected'

  • Stern's presence at CES 2019/2020 was minimal—essentially one booth pole with games around it

    high confidence · Retro Ralph observation: 'This booth is minimal, man. It was one pole...And just that's it. It was games around that pole.'

  • Stern's marketing footprint at trade shows has expanded significantly from 2019/2020 to present

    medium confidence · Retro Ralph commentary: 'They have these big, massive booths now...bigger canvas to work on'

  • AC/DC Pro Vault Edition pricing was approximately $5,499 MSRP at time of interview

    low confidence · Retro Ralph attempting to recall from old price sheet: 'I want to say...was like $5,499 or something like that, I think'

  • There was minimal pinball media presence at CES 2019/2020

    medium confidence · Retro Ralph reflection: 'There wasn't a lot of there was no one in the pinball media today that was at this show'

  • Stern was planning to stream AC/DC Premium Edition from Chicago the following week

Notable Quotes

  • “It's a ball and bat game. You cannot...think of a video tennis game. It's not tennis. It's video tennis.”

    Gary Stern @ mid-interview segment — Defines pinball's core mechanic and philosophy; Stern comparing pinball to baseball/sports, distinguishing mechanical randomness from programmed simulation

  • “The ball is wild...George Gomez calls it the randomizer. And that's what it is.”

    Gary Stern @ mid-interview segment — References pinball design philosophy and historical designer Harry Williams; emphasizes unpredictability as core feature

  • “We're a global lifestyle brand. And we're 85% of the market.”

    Gary Stern @ mid-interview segment — Market position claim; positions Stern as dominant manufacturer even with emergence of new competitors

  • “There's so many more things we can do. We've added...Stranger Things on the first time ever. We have a projector, and we're going to project...on the ramps...on the drop targets...”

    Gary Stern @ end of interview segment — Details Stranger Things' technological innovations; demonstrates Stern's R&D direction toward projection/digital integration

  • “Is it Walmart that he sells this game through?”

    Retro Ralph @ interview segment — Ralph's embarrassing Walmart question demonstrating lack of pinball market knowledge; Gary Stern reaction indicates premium retail positioning

  • “I can't believe they still make these.”

    Unknown visitor to Ralph's home @ contemporary anecdote — Recurring consumer perception that pinball is defunct; demonstrates market awareness problem Stern addresses in marketing

  • “Don't stream this. Don't stream this.”

    Gary Stern @ booth walkthrough segment — Stern whispers instruction about unreleased content; indicates media control and embargo concerns at CES 2019/2020

  • “I truly had no clue that pinball was still a thing, which is crazy to me because I was so entrenched in the arcade hobby.”

Entities

Retro RalphpersonGary SternpersonStern PinballcompanyWasonpersonGeorge GomezpersonHarry WilliamspersonStranger Thingsgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern maintaining premium retail positioning; does not distribute through mass-market retailers like Walmart; uses specialty dealer network

    high · Gary Stern response to Ralph's Walmart question implied such distribution would be inappropriate for premium brand positioning

  • ?

    community_signal: Flip Side Podcast has active listener voicemail submission and community participation; listener stories about performance anxiety and pinball fandom

    high · Episode segment featuring listener voicemails from Chad D (Rhode Island) and John (Ontario, Canada) sharing pinball and gaming experiences

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Retro Ralph demonstrates significant growth in pinball knowledge and community integration over 3+ years; initial complete ignorance of pinball market in 2019/2020 contrasted with current active tournament participation and content creation

    high · Ralph's self-aware commentary on CES interview: 'I truly had no clue that pinball was still a thing'...now actively playing tournaments and creating pinball content

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern's pinball design philosophy emphasizes randomness and unpredictability ('the ball is wild') as core mechanical principle, distinct from programmed digital simulations

    high · Gary Stern: 'The ball is wild...George Gomez calls it the randomizer. And that's what it is...The physics are not the same [as video games]'

  • ?

    event_signal: CES 2019/2020 Stern booth featured minimal presence with single pole setup; Gary Stern personally conducted interviews and product demos

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.179

0:00
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Flipside Podcast. I'm your host Retro Ralph, and today we have a lot to talk about. It's going to be a little bit of a different kind of an episode because we're going to look back at some history that I have with pinball and some not so good history. It's actually kind of embarrassing and maybe even a little cringe. Maybe a lot cringe, actually. You know, and recently there's been people that have said, you know, in comments, it's not like a lot of comments, but every now and then I'll get a comment that says, well, you don't know anything about pinball. They're like, oh yeah, buddy? Well, you wait till you see this clip. Then I really didn't know a lot about pinball. I think I've learned a lot over the last three years where I've really invested into this hobby. But hey, if you really want to see where I didn't know shit, then stick around because that's what we're going to do first. We're going to take a look back at some embarrassing moments with me and Pinball at CES. I think it was 2019 or 2020. I can't remember. But anyways, we're going to do all that. We're also going to cover a little bit about you guys. So we're going to finally get to those voicemails. You guys left a lot of voicemails. And then we're going to look forward into 2025 a little bit. A lot of the rumors I'm going to cover have been sort of speculation for a while, But we're going to kind of maybe discuss just for a little what seems to be rumor versus what seems to be almost more factual that we think that might be the direction that one or two companies go. So anyways, I'm going to wrap the music here.
1:36
I appreciate every single one of you guys listening and tuning in. We published a show about on a biweekly basis. But before we start, just a quick ad from our sponsor, Flippin' Out Pinball.
1:52
Are you looking for a new pinball machine, a used pinball machine, or to trade in your old pinball machine for something new? Look no further than Flippin' Out Pinball. They can handle all your pinball needs. They ship anywhere in the United States, and they will give you the best experience in the business. Check out the link to Flippin' Out Pinball in the video description for more information. Now, back to the video. okay the first topic we are going to cover today is that's me in front of pinball machines back at cs and i think this would have been 2020 i think i'm trying to remember because it would have been the year i believe stranger things came out in 2019 so i can't remember but anyways this is it's it's old it's like five years ago so i happened to be looking around and it was funny because someone had left a comment on like one of my videos being like you don't know anything about pinball. I'm like, okay, cool, whatever. You know, I blow all that stuff off, but I was like, how can I use this and harness this energy for, uh, for the podcast? And I was like, yeah, maybe there was a time where I didn't know shit. And that's true. There definitely is. And I, and I was looking up old pinball content that I had published and I forgot that I interviewed Gary Stern. Now, why this clip is so funny is because, all right, I've met Gary in person. He's a really nice guy but this this but this was before i even really knew like i knew who he was but i didn't really know a lot about him and in this clip you're gonna see that we're gonna we're gonna walk through it together we're gonna watch it together and i'm gonna comment uh i say some things that i'm like oh my god like you didn't even do your research at all you didn't know what you were walking into and he was a good sport the whole time but it's embarrassing now when i listened to what I was asking and what I was saying, just because I wasn't plugged into that hobby at all, right? So I knew, in effect, really, I didn't even know that pinball, I said I knew, but I really didn't know. I didn't really know that pinball was really even still popular at this time. And if you look at this CES booth, it's really small. So I think, I don't know what the pinball hobby was like back in like 2018 2019 but the presence they had at cs was extremely small and you're gonna see that a little bit in the video so anyways we're gonna play it we're gonna talk about it it's pretty funny actually because i say some stupid things the only thing i will warn you is this was i think one of the last days of the show so gary's voice is like very hoarse right because he's been talking all day long probably for multiple days in a row But this was the show where they had featured Stranger Things. Now, the only reason why I stopped at the booth is I was looking around at CES for other stuff. I was just exploring the floor.

high confidence · Gary Stern in interview: 'we're going to stream it next week from Chicago'

  • Expected 2025 Stern lineup includes Dungeons & Dragons, King Kong (rumored), plus standard three-game format

    medium confidence · Retro Ralph analysis: 'This year so far, we've got Dungeons & Dragons, the rumored The King Kong, and then whatever's going to come next'

    • Retro Ralph @ post-interview reflection — Self-aware critique; demonstrates visibility gap between arcade and pinball communities even among adjacent hobbyists

    AC/DCgame
    James Cameron's Avatargame
    Dungeons & Dragonsgame
    King Konggame
    Star Warsgame
    X-Mengame
    Jawsgame
    John Wickgame
    Farsight Studioscompany
    Flip N Out Pinballcompany
    Zach Sharpeperson
    Theatre of Magicperson
    Fred Marcoperson

    high · Ralph observation: 'This booth is minimal, man. It was one pole...And just that's it. It was games around that pole.'

  • $

    market_signal: Stern's marketing footprint at trade shows has expanded significantly from 2019/2020 minimal booth presence to substantially larger contemporary booths

    medium · Ralph: 'They have these big, massive booths now...bigger canvas to work on' compared to single-pole 2019/2020 setup

  • $

    market_signal: Stern employs content embargo strategy at trade shows; Gary Stern instructed Ralph not to stream unreleased game footage from CES booth

    high · Gary Stern whisper in Ralph's ear: 'Don't stream this. Don't stream it.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Retro Ralph transitioned from arcade-focused content creator with minimal pinball knowledge (2019) to active pinball community member producing regular pinball content (2024/2025)

    high · Ralph's trajectory from CES 2019 ignorance ('I truly had no clue that pinball was still a thing') to hosting Flip Side Podcast with tournament participation

  • ?

    announcement: Stranger Things was Stern's first game to feature projection technology system, projecting onto ramps, drop targets, screens, and animations

    high · Gary Stern: 'We have a projector, and we're going to project not only the LCD screen, but we're projecting on a ramp that comes down...on the drop targets'

  • ?

    product_concern: X-Men pinball code has ongoing issues; repeatedly joked about Wason needing to 'fix the X-Men code' throughout episode

    medium · Ralph: 'Wason...when are you going to fix the X-Men code, bro?' and multiple subsequent references to code problems

  • ?

    rumor_hype: King Kong positioned as 2025 Stern cornerstone game; described as 'rumored' indicating unconfirmed status

    medium · Ralph: 'This year so far, we've got Dungeons & Dragons, the rumored The King Kong, and then whatever's going to come next'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern was positioning 'pinball everywhere' concept in 2019/2020 through digital games (FarSight Studios, Oculus VR, Switch), but appears to have pivoted back toward mechanical focus

    medium · Ralph speculation: 'I think that's why they're focused on the mechanical now...they don't have that relationship with Farsight Studios anymore'

    • 4:37
    And Stranger Things was very, very hot and popular at this time. And I remember hearing some sounds that sounded like Stranger Things. And I look over and I see a pinball machine. And the first thing I saw was this projection screen that was projecting clips from the show. I was like, oh my gosh. And so I stopped for a second, and then all of a sudden the projection screen comes down, and there's a Demogorgon back there, and I'm watching this guy play, and he's shooting pinballs at the Demogorgon. And at that moment, I was like, oh my gosh, how do I not – like what am I doing? Like how do I not know that this exists? So I got in the booth, and then one of the marketing gals was like, hey, do you want to interview Gary Stern? And I was like, okay, cool. It sounds good. But it was live. So I also had to see the chat rolling as this was happening, and people were saying the weirdest stuff. And I'll get into that in a little bit. So let's just dive into it because it's kind of funny. So let's see. Let's get this teed up right now. I'm going to watch it and provide a little bit of commentary along the way.
    5:36
    Hey, guys. Retro Ralph here. I'm here with Gary Stern, the president of Stern Pinballs. This is the only part I probably got right. I at least knew he was the president of Stern Pinballs. So there we go. so the reason why i wanted to stop by and have gary talk a little bit is because there's all these newer generations of folks getting into pinball all of a sudden but they're getting in in the virtual pinball space and i think why why would i go to a company that makes mechanical pinball you know traditional pinball and then talk about virtual pinball like it was the stupidest thing but i will say at this time stern was investing in pinball everywhere They had this concept, a marketing concept of pinball everywhere. I think now they've really even I think they've really just pivoted back to traditional pinball. But so it wasn't that off base, but it's just a weird opening question. I think they need to understand a little bit of the past of where pinball came from and then all the way to now where you've got all this newer technology you've integrated into the product. So maybe you can give us a little bit of a pinball history lesson, if you will. Well, first of all, I have to ask why you guys are watching this. Why aren't you working? That's a really good question. I mean, it was literally the middle of the day live streaming, so it was a valid question by Gary. Even though he's trying to be funny, it's true. Like, what are all these people doing watching this shit in the middle of the day? They should be working. This is 11.15 in the morning.
    6:56
    Anyhow, I hope somebody... Oh, there's Wason in the background. Hey, Wason, when are you going to fix the X-Men code, bro? All right. He's watching.
    7:05
    He's like, in the future, I won't do the X-Men code. No, just kidding. All right. Sorry, Wason. if you're if you do listen to the podcast i'm sorry but dude you got to get on that x-men code of course we make terrestrial pinball see he's walking around in the back he's not wasting get back to work but we do everything pinball um we have um uh private i love that gary's being i'll stop i'll stop commenting in a second i love that gary's being a good sport here though he's talking about all the other things like all right look this knob job just came up to my booth he doesn't know shit about bimbo i'll just i'll entertain him for a minute label co-branded uh the patch with ribbon can crusher supreme we have um you know besides our cornerstone games uh it's a stranger thing being the newest one with pro premium le three of those a year now i don't know if you caught what gary just said he said our new cornerstone game so for those of you that are newer to this right if you're listening to this podcast and you haven't been in the hobby for a while. What Stern calls its major releases are cornerstone games. And he threw in three a year. That's what we saw last year. Think about it, right? So last year, and for a lot of years now, last year we saw Jaws, John Wick, The Uncanny X-Men, plus a remaster. So that's kind of what we would expect this year. So this year so far, we've got Dungeons and Dragons, the rumored King Kong, and then whatever's going to come next, right? But we'll get to that later on in the episode we also have uh sometimes a vault game we bring out of the vault sometimes a studio game so he said vault game or studio game there now what's interesting is really what we're getting now seems to be the remaster so i guess that would be considered the vault and you know you know we covered it on another episode they had recently put a bunch of games into the vault that they're not taking out but i think what they're going to do now for i think two years i think we're going to see more of this remaster idea so three cornerstones and a remaster i think is going to be the standard going forward we have our digital games with farsight uh and and vr with oculus i play better now they tell me they slow it up for that so any of it but also stern pro tour uh we have a stern army we have uh insider we have accessories we have merch oh look at that so it's interesting they said insider i don't think insider connected existed yet because the first run of Stranger Things did not have Insider Connected. I think it was right on the cusp of Insider Connected. I believe. I could be wrong if someone wants to correct me in the chat. But if you look back, while you're watching this, if you're watching the video version of it, if you look, Jack Danger is playing or streaming something in the background. I think it might be Stranger Things because that would have been the launch game. I can't recall. Some of that. Can we get that here? No, actually, it looks like he's streaming Star Wars, it looks like. No, not here. Online store. I'm doing a lot of comments. I'm doing a store. So we have some of everything.
    10:03
    It's all, you know, and we're making it. We're a global lifestyle brand. And we're 85% of the market, at least, according to market studies. Having said that. He said, it's interesting. He said they're 85% of the market. I got to think that's probably still pretty much the same. I got to think even with all the other new companies that have popped up between now and then, like Barrels of Fun. I don't know if Spooky was around back then, probably.
    10:30
    You know, there's been a lot of other companies. You've got Barrels of Fun. Did I say Barrels of Fun? I think I just said Barrels of Fun. Sorry, I haven't had my coffee yet this morning. But, yeah, I don't know. Like, I wonder if it's still 80. It probably is close to that. He said 85. Maybe it's 80 with some of the newer companies. I'm not sure. I don't know how much share they're really stealing away from Stearns, and Stearns is kind of the biggest one, making so many games a year.
    10:51
    I'm talking about terrestrial games. um we um um and you're gonna you're asking about the uh the video yeah what do you think about that video simulators okay just like we have we have games on the phone we have games on on uh uh
    11:12
    switch and what have you yeah yeah and there's a place for that and it introduces people to pinball and introduces especially with these kind of things young people to pinball the uh so i don't know if Stern still believes this concept, but like, I definitely, he's, he's very much being a nice guy. Cause I was talking about all the digital stuff, but that's not what he wants to talk about, right? He's a sales guy. He's like, why are you, why are you asking me about this crap kid? But he did bring up a good point. It does bring new generations in, but I kind of feel like my opinion now, I think the reason why they really pivoted away from the digital stuff, cause I believe they don't have that relationship with Farsight Studios anymore. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they don't. So I think they're, oh, geez, sorry. That was a big burp. I apologize. I think that's why they're focused on the mechanical. I think that's, but it's weird. He says terrestrial. I haven't heard anybody refer to that. It was only at that time where he kept saying terrestrial, terrestrial. And terrestrial is like something on earth, right? And I was like, let me just like look up the definition of terrestrial. It says living or growing on land, belonging so it's it's interesting that he's using that term i don't hear people use that anymore but maybe the reason why they were using it then is because they were really trying to invest in this pinball everywhere concept but anyways let's continue as simulated games uh did you see here in our smaller footprint cabinet although we have our home game here as small as what you have, not that small.
    12:45
    There's a place for that. Keep, FYI, I'm about to ask a super embarrassing question. I'm embarrassed to myself so bad coming up. This was so dumb, but let's just wait for it. It's really stupid. We'll get introduced to football and so forth. It doesn't replace, you know, those are programmed. And we're a ball in action. The physics are not the same, right? It's still not perfect. You have to program it. and it's all programmed. Ours are random. As Harry Williams, the great pinball designer, said, the ball is wild. And that's, you know, George Gomez calls it the randomizer. And that's what it is. It's a ball and bat game. You know, baseball is ten. I love Gary. He's like, it's a ball and bat game. He's kind of getting a little bit of like, hey, bada-bing, it's a ball and a bat. I don't know. I never heard him say ball and bat game. Maybe he's said that for years. But in recent times, I haven't heard him say ball and bat game. It's kind of funny. It's golf, and it's just a ball and bat game. You cannot, you know, think of a video tennis game. It's not tennis. It's video tennis. But it's still a great place, right, because that's going to introduce more people to pinball.
    13:59
    It's at a price point that somebody can have something in their home. Even our home. Not quite a game that we have here. I wish I still had it. They gave me a price sheet for Stranger Things at the time, and I want to say the Pro, I want to say if I remember right, the Pro was like $59,000 or maybe it was $5,499 MSRP. I can't remember, but it was definitely significantly less than it is now, I think, if I remember right. I want to say it was like $2,000 less than it is now. So if you figure it's, what, $6,900?
    14:37
    I think it was $4,900. It was anyway, it was like $5,499 or something like that, I think. I could be also wrong on that, but I can't. The funny thing is is I still see this sheet as being shared with me but I can open it anymore of What retailers is that sold through There a couple of retailers you guys Okay I think he just said the home version is I don think that would have been the, shoot, I missed it. I'm not going to rewind it, but well, I guess we can, we'll leave it. But look, I'm asking him who it's sold through. This is so embarrassing and so cringe that I would even say this. I said, is it Walmart that he sells this game through he's like no no no no we would never sell our shit to walmart he's like what do you what do you think this is kid some kind of jabroni company we're not selling our stuff through walmart kid get out of here but he's super nice to our dealers and a couple billion stores and retailers and so forth and that's the it's the actual physical mechanical pinball yes and it's got a full-size play field it's just a little bit smaller god i don't know why i had such a boner for digital pinball at this time like that's not the digital stuff right this is physical terrestrial pinball right like why am i so hung up on digital i don't know what my deal is i'm like oh is that digital is that the digital pinball got that uh it's star wars here it's a little bit smaller okay we'll take it we'll end up taking a look at that a little bit later yeah perfect well i mean i just i had nothing left to say at this point because i had no idea what i talking about and look at gary's face he's like oh my gosh guys seriously who who booked this interview with this jabroni i just love that you took the time to talk to us oh it's a pleasure you know and and i pleasure go back to work go back to work in closing i mean what do you gary's so cool man like he's just cool like how could you not like this guy gary is so cool he's the coolest guy i mean he's like get out of here go back to work and buy some pinball you feel like What's the future for pinball? Is it? Oh, you know, the technology in the ball and bat game, in the mechanical game. There's so many more things we can do. We've added here with us Stranger Things on the first time ever. We have a projector, and we're going to project not only the LCD screen, but we are projecting on a ramp that comes down, but we're projecting. It's also a big screen. We're projecting instructions. we're projecting uh uh uh animations we're projecting on the ramps we're projecting on the drop targets but we can change what they mean so you can i'm pretty sure i had no idea what he was talking about like drop targets yeah yeah drop target i don't know i really didn't i mean i did not know crap back then i honestly i really until i walked by this booth i truly had no clue that pinball was still a thing, which is crazy to me because I was so entrenched in the arcade hobby. So it's crazy that I wouldn't have. I don't know. I just it wasn't what I was into. So I just kind of ignored it, I think, which is which is so weird because I think that's for a lot of people. I think about all the people that ignore or have no idea or come to your house if you if you have pinball machines at your house and they say stuff like I can't believe they still make these. That comment comes up a lot. I know Stern uses it a lot, but it comes up a lot. People don't think that these are still made. I actually had a guy come in my house to pick up a game, which we'll get to before the end of the episode, that was going back to Zach at Flippin' Out. And that guy, when he picked it up, he's like, oh man, so cool that you have all these retro games in here. Now he's talking about modern Stearns. I'm like, no, these were all made in like the last five years. He's like, what? So it's very common. You'd be surprised. But by the way, while you're watching, Wason looks like he went back to work. He's over my right shoulder. He's doing something. He's not working on X-Men code. But if you look, I'm kidding, buddy. If you do, if anybody, I know a couple of the guys from Stern watch this. I'm just kidding. But seriously, though, get the code figured out. But this booth is small, man. It was one pole. See that pole that's like above my head? It was that pole. And just that's it. It was games around that pole. So think about where we've come from 2020. I think this was about 2020 or 2019 to now. They have these big, massive booths now. I mean, not massive, but they go to every show, and they have a presence at every show, really. And then they work with Marco at the local regional shows. So there's a lot more that goes on now than did back then, as far as the amount of money that they're willing to put into the marketing at a trade show. And it's a big, bigger canvas to work on. We barely scratched the surface. Now that's on the pro, I mean, on the premium and the LAS trade show things. This is a little bit of a very bright room for it. So we're going to stream it next week from Chicago. And we'll put the first pictures of it. All right. And I think for Inky. So that was important. He said, we'll just stop it here. I don't say anything else interesting, but it is kind of cringe. You know, it's cringy. I was cringy. So he does say we're going to stream it next week in Chicago. When I took the camera and started, I was still live streaming after this. He whispers in my ear, don't stream this. You can't stream this. But think about it. Right. That's how small there wasn't a lot of there was no one in the pinball media today that was at this show. Or if they did, I did not run into any of them. But I feel like I would have remembered it. There wasn't a lot of people around there streaming and doing that stuff like it just wasn't. so I'm wondering I wasn't in the hobby back then but in 2020 like were there not people going that were from the pinball media to CES because this would have been I think the unveiling of this game I'm pretty sure because they had not done the stream or maybe they probably had done the launch trailer they had definitely done the launch trailer but this I think would have been the first public appearance of the game and there was no pinball media to be found I don't think so anyways I obviously wasn't looking out for it and I wasn't part of the pinball media myself at that point. So, yeah, I just thought it was fun. I clearly didn't know anything of what I was talking about. And he was he was such a good sport in the marketing galley. You can kind of see in there. I'll see if I can pull it up. She was really nice. Let me see if I can pull up that part of the. I'll pause it and see. She's in here. She's kind of. I think it's toward the end. Oh, this is when I was walking around the booth. So for those of you watching the video version, when I was walking around the booth, this is when he's whispering in my ear. He's like, yeah, yeah, don't stream it. Don't stream it. And I didn't. I listened to what he said. But the marketing person, I play, and then I play the home version of Star Wars, and I do terrible because I don't know how to play pinball at this point at all. I'm just whacking the ball. That's the lady right there. She's like over my shoulder. A little bit more pinball. I want to thank Gary and Stern Pinball for letting us do this. yeah i don't know if she still works for stern but she's the one right and she had shared the pricing sheet with me at that time and she was doing a good job she saw that my badge said media and was like hey do you want to do you want to interview gary i thought i thought it was pretty cool it's a cool opportunity at the time but what was funny is in the live stream everyone was calling gary uh bernie sanders or rick flair they were like and they were like in the chat going and I'm like, dude. And so I'm seeing that as I'm walking around. And so, you know, you tend to laugh at that stuff. I don't really think that he looks like either one of those people, but I don't know, you could maybe say he could talk sometimes like Bernie Sanders, maybe a little bit, but I definitely don't think he looks like Ric Flair. But hey, I don't know. I'm sure back in his days, Gary was probably, you know, what's Rick Flair's line? Oh, shoot, I can't think of it right now.
    22:29
    It's not the best there is, the best there was. No, what the heck's his line? Hey, Rector Ralph! Woo! It's the Nature Boy, man! And I'm telling you this. I am Rick Flair, and I'm the styling, profiling, limousine riding. Woo! Jet flying!
    22:48
    Kiss dealer, wheeler dealer, son of a gun! and to be the man you gotta beat the man and if you don't like it learn to love it and you're watching retro ralph the one and only the man woo retro ralph do it my man retro ralph woo i bet i bet gary was a kiss stealing wheeling and dealing guy back when back in his youth right don't you think he probably was all right anyway so let's go to voicemails real quick and then i want to talk a little bit about the future i hope you had fun with that i did i know i was like oh my gosh what am i doing and what am i saying it was definitely one of those things where i don't know i don't know what the hell i was doing but anyways let's pull up the voicemails of course i don't have them handy let's see if i can find them okay the first voicemail I do not listen to these prior so so just know I don't know what a lot of them are going to say I think I watched I I opened up one just to see the general length of it um that's all I really do this first one's a little long so I'm not going to play the whole thing but I'm going to play a little bit of it this one I do I did listen to a little bit but for the most part I don't listen to these prior so I don't really know what they're going to say so anyways let's let's bring this one up this one's from Chad D out in Rhode Island hey ralph um i like what you said um in your last episode about how you went to play pinball with a buddy and because you know you were with your buddy and you probably wanted to you know show him how good you are you know he ended up not doing so well very very relatable i think we can all relate to that any playing games or you know pinball or whatever um and it reminded me of I probably had the shortest Twitch streaming career ever.
    24:39
    I set up the OBS software, and you see the game, and you're heading the little screen for the camera. And I set all that up, and my plan was to play Super Mario Maker levels that I made myself. Okay. And I hooked up to Switch, and all that stuff. I hooked it all up. but and and i i went online and i introduced myself and you know probably cracked a few jokes and then i had i think i had six people watching me oh this is pretty good this is good you know my first one you know that's not bad no to have any audience at all when you first start anything is good right i mean hey you got to start somewhere my first live stream i ever did on youtube i think i had 10 people 5 to 10 people so i think that's pretty normal um and but then i started playing and i played terribly just because i had people watching me and this these were levels i made myself dude okay i'm gonna stop it there but you get the point he's basically saying look i think i had talked about on one of my live streams that i went to uh you know i went i went to probably the arcade bar or whatever with a buddy and uh We're playing games that I own at home, and I'm doing terrible at them. There is something to be said about it. I feel like I'm getting better at tournament play, but my main reason why when I don't do well at tournament play, it's because I get in my own head, the mental part of it. Some people are just really good at, they just go in with this I don't care vibe, and they play like they play at home. When I play like I don't care, meaning the stress of it isn't getting to me, I actually play pretty good. I'm not the best pinball player. I've gotten way better, though. Like, I'm very happy with my progress in pinball. Actually, Tom from Triple Jane, he gave me a video that's like this pinball. He didn't give it to me. He told me about this video that's like a pinball 101 video, and I've learned so much from that. A lot of the stuff I knew how to do, but then there's things in there that I was like, oh, okay. Like, I could probably perfect my post pass a little bit more. and in games where like you need shots from your right or left flipper and sometimes wherever the ramp fed is not the right side you want to be on it's a valuable skill to be able to post pass it's a valuable skill to be able to dead flip it's in those things in most of the skills that you learn in pinball are about ball control and sometimes i just get excited when i play on so chad that's totally normal and i bet if you had stuck with your twitch streaming you would have gotten over that but it's this pressure to perform like oh man i gotta these are games i know i'm good at this and then all of a sudden you play and you're not but but you know you are it's just it's just tough it's just the pressure sometimes gets to you all right that was chad thanks buddy we're gonna go with john uh i don't know how to say john's last name his first name is john so let's let's go with john see what he's got to say hello retro ralph my name is john I'm from Sarnie, Ontario, Canada. Okay. I just want to tell you that, you know, pinball is definitely not dead after getting back into it, after being away from it for almost 20 years.
    27:55
    I live in an apartment building and strangely enough, I managed to fit seven pinball machines in my apartment. Wow. Which is kind of strange, but, you know, I've been getting, I've been meeting new people on pinballs and, you know. buying pinball machines locally whenever I can. And, you know, it's great, you know. It's awesome. I enjoy having them in my place when I'm not working. And when you watch TV, you can only go so far to watch TV, and then you just shut it off and go play pinball, which allows you to enjoy some more time. I hear you, brother.
    28:36
    What you want. And I collect the games that I played in my youth. Like I have Supersonic, Galaxy, Future Spa, Circus, Sinbad, Slick Chick. Ooh, Sinbad. And in the new year, I plan on buying some new Stern pinball machines so I can have the insider-connected games at home. See, here's an old-timer. I mean, he's saying that he's not, not that he's old. Sorry, John. But, you know, he's a guy who's collecting pinball machines from his youth. I can tell by the games he was rattling off that he's probably a little bit older than me. But the thing is, like, he's even interested in Insider Connected. And I think that's kind of a, to me, Insider Connected has been a big game changer for pinball. I'm surprised that more people haven't done it. I mean, I'm loving and enjoying the Pinball Cup. John, I'm not going to play your whole voicemail because it's four minutes, so we got to get back to the show. But I do appreciate the comment. and I agree, pinball's not dead, it's super exciting. If anything, it's gaining momentum, I think. Especially location play, which, you know, I get a lot of times people say, oh I have to buy them to play them You don have to buy them to play them You can play them for a dollar at your local pinball bar Just go find out Go to pinball map Figure out where that is Go to IFPA It show you where there local tournaments There plenty of places to play for a dollar a game And for a dollar, you're getting a good value, in my opinion. So, John, thank you for the comment. Sinbad, I didn't play Sinbad until I started playing more consistently at Electric Bat. I get it quite often when we're on tournament night. I like that game. Game's actually pretty fun. It's fun how, like, all four of the flippers at the bottom, when they go up, they all open. so you have to be very aware of when you're flipping so you can kind of get into some danger there. So thank you, John. I appreciate it. And we're going to go on to the next one, and then we'll get to the rest of the content here in a second.
    30:25
    Hey, Ralph. I've been playing pinball my whole life, and it's time for me to get a machine. Should I get the Avengers Infinity Quest, or should I get the Avatar Battle for Pandora? Oh, no. No. no you're leaving me that is so tough okay uh see that's hard for to make a decision for someone else especially because you just named two games where one i i was kind of disappointed by right i adventures infant i'm not not sorry not avengers um avatar looks beautiful but it's just and i play it a lot when i go to low when i go to electric bat usually after tournament plays over rudy and i go play avatar well although lately we've been playing total nuclear annihilation that seems to be the our like go-to game after the uh tournament's over that game's not usually in the tournament i don't think so anyways what would you choose so i will be honest with you i have not put a lot of time into avengers infinity quest i love the layout and the shots look amazing i love that little pop-up that's got the subway that goes underneath i think there's a lot of really cool things in that game i just hear i this is again i i have not invested enough time to say that this is my opinion. It's just what others have said. I feel like others have said that the rules get very complex on Infinity Quest. But that might be great if it's a game that you want at home. But I'm just wondering why you're limiting it to these two games. I don't know, man. I'd say maybe with a lot of great games around the corner, maybe you wait. But if those are the two that you are most interested in, I would probably go Avengers Infinity Quest over Avatar. but that's me not really have invested a lot of time in in infinity quest but that would be my although i will say this they both have really deep rule sets supposedly i know avatar does because i've played it it's very deep so it would be good for that longer term at home play i just don't think the gameplay is as interesting as it is as it could be but the layout of infinity quest is really cool so i think if you looked at if it's just these two i think the layout is better on Infinity Quest. I think the shots are more fun on Infinity Quest. And to me, if it's got the deep rule set that everyone says, it might be a really fun game for you to have at home for a while, because it might take a while to master it. So anyways, that's my two cents. Obviously, hey guys, help him out in the chat. He's given two options, so I don't want to open things up. My suggestion would be maybe to wait, but if those are the two games he's most interested in, you guys let him know. What do you think? Do you think Avengers Infinity Quest or Avatar? I don't know. I'm Infinity Quest on this. All right, next one.
    33:08
    I'm going to rip through these. Hello, Retro Ralph. Scott from the UK here. I just wanted to say you're doing a great job. Keep it up and have a happy new year and a merry Christmas. Challenge for 2025, I think, is about time that you added a Bally or Williams game to your collection.
    33:28
    Now, think about what kind of game you'd have and maybe address that on your next podcast. It's interesting to see your thoughts on what 90s or 80s era game that you'd be after in your collection.
    33:39
    Scott, I love it. Thank you for the support from the UK. And guess what, Scott? I have a Williams T2 now in my collection. I did do a video for it. So some people I've noticed, they've discovered me in this pinball space, but they don't realize that I have a YouTube channel as well. So I have two YouTube channels. I have Retro Ralph Live, but some people have only listened on Spotify and Apple, so they don't actually know. But there is a YouTube channel called Retro Ralph, and I did a video recently about my Williams T2 pickup. So definitely go check that out. I'm having so much fun with that. I've already – I'm proud of myself because I've now finally gotten under the hood of a 90s game and really gone through and figured out how to fix a couple things and stuff. So there wasn't really anything really broken with it, but I did get under the hood to kind of check it out. So that's pretty cool. All right, we're getting long in the tooth in the episode. It's getting kind of long. So I'm going to kind of breeze through these next ones real quick. This one says unknown caller. I have no idea who this is. It's 32 seconds. So your guess is as good as mine. Like I said, I have not. The only one I had listened to a little bit was Chad's. So all these have been unknowns for me.
    34:46
    G'day, Ralph. It's Jeremy from Australia. Firstly, keep up the awesome content. You do an outstanding job for both the pinball and arcade community. So here goes my question, the question of all questions. When you purchase a new machine, what thought processes have to go through your mind to determine which machine has to sadly depart from your existing awesome lineup? Thanks.
    35:15
    Man, coming with the difficult questions. I don't know. This is so hard. I'm going to admit something here that's going to get me. I don't know. I think there's going to be certain people that are going to get upset for this. But I'm going to reveal it here now because that's what we do. We got to be open and honest with each other. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to say it. But I'm going to say how do I decide. And then I'm going to actually share with you one that I recently got rid of. So I'd say how I really decide. In the beginning, I didn't have a lot of good logic behind it because I don't think I was really. When I first started with pinball, I wasn't understanding how deep and complex but also how fun pinball could be. because I wasn't investing enough time into it. So I'd say that first year of discovery with pinball, I wasn't playing enough.
    36:01
    So back then, I don't think I would have had a good, I wouldn't have had good logic to say why I'd get rid of something. I probably would have just got rid of it and moved something in. And in effect, in that time, I probably didn't give it the benefit of the doubt and I probably didn't play it enough. Like I'd say Jurassic Park would probably, I'd probably still own it if I had the skills I have now when I bought it back then. and the appreciation and the understanding of the code and the rule set, and also going and discovering other podcasts that talk about these things because I'm not an expert in discovering it. I can get so far on my own, and then I usually go to, like, Joel at Flippin' Out or the Triple Drain guys or Travis at the Pinball Company to really understand the rule sets. So anyways, they're experts at it. They're so good at it. So I wish I was that good at that. So I do use them now. But the thing is, like, I don't know. I just didn't have that, like, what's the word I'm looking for?
    37:00
    I don't know, man. What am I looking for? I don't know. I can't think of the word I'm looking for. But anyways, it's just I didn't have that, like, wonder about it then. Now I do. And it's been over the past two years I've really gotten there with pinball. So how do I make my choice? I think I look at the games I have. I look at the layouts they have.
    37:25
    You know, like when I had Venom, Venom being a fan layout, I feel like I got to a point with Venom where I was like happy with my progress in the game. I understood the rule set very well. I had progressed through. I had beaten Null multiple times. I had gotten through most of the characters. So I had felt like if I got rid of it, I could still play it on location and it wasn't a big deal. So Venom, that was easier for me to decide. Then I think it comes down to which games am I playing the most and what's the reason why I'm not playing those other games and then I'm really honest with myself as to why and so I had put I bought a X-Men LE uh Uncanny X-Men LE I think when I got rid of it which I just did I want to say I had over 600 plays on it so I put a good amount of play into it I mean it takes a long time to play 600 pinball games right I I played a lot of it and I might regret this, by the way. I'm being completely honest with my feelings on how I got rid of it, and it was mainly because I felt like the missions or the modes just didn't have enough in them. It was very, actually, if I compare it to other games, it was very simple. It was like, hit two ramp shots, it locks the, or it starts a mode, you pick the mission, you complete the mission. Now, I will say I never completed all the missions in one game, but I had completed all the missions in separate games. So I'd gone through all of them. I knew what content was in them. It just didn't seem like enough. But I will say, man, it's a shame because the shot layout is so good. The shots are so good. It's something unique. It's something we've never seen before. Not never seen before, but it's taking elements of games that Jack Danger creatively put together, and some of it's unique, and some of it might be inspired by other games. So I have to say, the layout and the shots are so fun, but the software just wasn't there for me. Now, keep in mind, I will say that if you're newer to this and you buy a brand new Stern pinball machine, typically it takes about a year for the code to evolve to where it needs to be. So I'm not giving it that chance. I just, I don't know. I just decided I wanted to get rid of it. So, however, that does break my logic a little bit because I did play it a lot. I played it a lot, but I got to a point where I was like, look, I think this isn't as fun as it should be, and so I got rid of it. So I think the basic logic I go by is, am I playing it a lot? Am I having fun with it? Does it give me moments of excitement when I'm playing it? And if it doesn't, or is it challenging? Like, John Wick is actually staying, and Uncanny X-Men is going. That's kind of interesting, because you could argue that, very easily argue, that John Wick code is not very good either right now. But I enjoy the difficulty of John Wick. I feel like John Wick has made me a better player because the shots are so tight. The right and left ramps have gotten fairly easy for me now. The middle ramp I can consistently hit with the right flipper. The red circle club is still a hard shot for me. I can't consistently hit that. But I'm getting pretty good at all the other ones. So that game has become more fun. Now, I will say, though, the accessibility of John Wick is challenging because it is so difficult. So I can see where someone that's newer to pinball would not really gravitate toward John Wick. But someone that's been in pinball for a while and appreciates and likes the challenge might enjoy John Wick. So anyways, I'm not saying Uncanny X-Men was easy, but I can definitely more consistently hit the shots in Uncanny X-Men than I can in John Wick.
    41:01
    Anyways, that's just how it is. Anyways, I will say also one more time, but I will say this. I will say that. I don't know where I'm going. I'm, like, freaking losing my mind. Now I'm having Red Bull all over the place. But if the code gets better, there is a chance that it will return into my collection. And if it does, it is not returning as a premium, and it's not returning as an LE. It will return as a pro. The pro is fine for the X-Men. You get all the stuff. I mean, the Sentinel head isn't there. The wireform breaking hand isn't there. and the flick finger thingy isn't there but honestly and the beast mode or beast tavern beast cave whatever it is beast lab i think it's beast lab it's but the beast lab annoys me anyway but yeah the beast lab just has this little like thingy that flicks up instead of having um the captive ball and the i i i think it might still have a captive ball anyways you guys that have played it know what i'm talking about um yeah it might return as a pro because i think the pro is capable enough and the sentinel head coming up it is cool but all those three or four things that i'm talking about i feel like the pro is is perfectly fine for that game and you get you get basically the same experience the wire form break ramp thing on the on the right just kind of an annoyance in my opinion it's cool but it's kind of annoying all right next one is from wilfredo this one was one from like around the christmas time that i never played so i'm gonna play this real quick and i'm gonna wrap things up with my last topic i know it's a way longer show than normal so I appreciate you guys sticking around hey Ralph do you think that distributors should have like a layaway plan for the promotions like an example if you want to buy a new one in box and you have the full-blown money you can just pay monthly quantity until you pay it off completely and then they can send it to you because you usually do that for like when you get like a pre when you try to like how to say this pre-order? When the machine is still not built you can put up a deposit and then you pay the whole thing but it's not a layaway it's more of a pay everything before the machine gets here to the distributor so I think they should do like a layaway plan? That's a good question. I mean, I don't know. I think there's probably a lot of risk if a distributor decides to do a layaway plan. I think there's that financial payment service. I can't remember what it's called. Some of the distributors use it. I can't remember the name of it now. I think that's probably more likely. And you can split that into payments. So maybe that's kind of the way to go if you're someone that wants to pay over time. That way you do get it when it's ready and ships, but you just have a financial obligation through that payment plan. I just think layaways would be really hard for the distributors to manage. And then if for some reason that someone, with the layaway, depending on how it's written, the contract, there may be more risk in it for the distributor. So I don't think that, I mean, obviously we used to do, as a kid, we used to do tons of layaway stuff. I remember we, I grew up on the East Coast. There was a couple of places called Apex and one called Caldor. And I remember if there was something I wanted as a kid, my mom would always, if it was something, I even remember like my mom, you know, I think you'd get like layaway slips. I think there were times where I think this is I think this is how I how I found out that Santa wasn't real. But it was like one of those things where you know hope no little kids watch this I going to be the bearer of bad news But it was it was like I saw a layaway slip for something that I knew I wanted And I like oh that weird Like Santa doesn Santa don do layaway man. So so I thought that was really weird anyway. But thanks. It's a good question. I think probably those payment plans. And I can't think for the life of me of that financial company that does that with a majority of even PayPal. You can even do pinball machines through PayPal as a payment plan for some of these companies. PayPal is tough, though, because sometimes if it was a more expensive pinball machine. I think they have a limit to how much they'll do on that. But yeah, anyway, it's a good question. So I'm going to round out this episode. We don't have that much time. So maybe we'll actually hash through some of these topics in another in another episode. But I did want to say real quick, a reminder before I get into the last topic here is the Twippies are still live. There's only a couple more days. You have two more days to vote. I'm nominated in three categories. So how do you do this? If you want to support me or any of the other great creators, you visit www.twippies.com. You can find my name under these three categories. So I'm under breakout content creator of the year. That's for the podcast. So I am nominated for the podcast under that section. So if you love and enjoy the flip side and you think that it has been out for a little less than a year now, so it would qualify for breakout. So it is there. Best video content creator streamer, I'm under there as Retro Ralph. And then content creator of the year, I'm under there as Retro Ralph. But there's tons of great content creators. That's how you do it. Go to twippies.com. You'll see the categories that I'm involved in. There's many more categories, favorite game of the year, all that kind of stuff. So great stuff. I will be hosting the Twippies with Aaron and Jamie and Ian from Nudge Magazine. So I'm very excited about that. And that's going to be at the Wormhole in Houston, Texas. So if you get a chance, I don't know if tickets are still available, but you can go live if you want to see the show live. And it's going to be broadcast over the Internet. So I'm very, very burpy this morning, and I really apologize for that. It's kind of offensive. But anyway, that's it. So please support myself and all the other creators out there, the manufacturers. So let's do last topic of the show. What's next for 2025? We can't do it justice in only 12 minutes, but I'm not letting this show go over an hour long. These are way longer shows than I normally do, but I just thought, hey, we got a lot to talk about. News is a little slow at the moment. So here's what we got last year. We got from Stern, we got, we're going to talk about Stern specifically. We got Jaws, John Wick, The Uncanny X-Men, and one remastered game in Metallica. I think they're going to follow that same theme this year. And this year so far, we got Dungeons and Dragons. The rumored game is King Kong. And then it's, it's, the question is, what's the third game? Is the third game going to be the one that was tossed around for a while? Everyone was throwing around this rumor forever that Jack Danger was working on Pokemon.
    47:26
    I have no idea. I have not heard. That rumor has seemed to have cooled down, so I'm not sure. But the thing is, will the third game, because technically they're going to release probably four games this year. So that third game, who knows what that's going to be. But the remaster, I don't know. Everyone keeps throwing around Tron. I would love if the remaster was Ghostbusters, personally, because I think they could do a really good job with Ghostbusters. So anyways, I'm not really sure what Stern's going to do. Well, it'll be to be determined. I'm sure as we get closer to Kong, then that's usually when people start heating up the rumors on the third game of the year. So I would expect if Kong is real, and I think we all believe that it is at this point, that that'd probably be around April timeframe. So that's Stern. So if we look at Spooky, Spooky's been rumors for Beetlejuice and Goonies. I kind of think Beetlejuice, I, Beetlejuice is weird. I like the movie and I liked it as a kid, but I don't revisit Beetlejuice much. And I didn't see the new movie. I had no interest in the new movie. I felt like that was one of those movies that should have just stayed. I don't, and I heard, and I haven't heard really good things about the new movie. Goonies to me is so much more iconic and better for a pinball machine than Beetlejuice all day long. So if Beetlejuice was really the one I'd have little to no interest in Beetlejuice, but Goonies I would have a ton of interest in. so I had heard that there was rumor that Goonies is not the next one from Spooky. There's also rumor to say that they don't even have the Goonies license. I don't know who has the Goonies license, but it's always been tied to Spooky, at least from the places I read, like Nap Arcade and things like that, so I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen with that, but it'll be interesting. Next we'll go to American Pinball. American Pinball, everyone knows, it's no secret, Cuphead was the next game, But with David Fix losing his job or resigning, I don't know exactly what the official word is on that. That's kind of interesting because I don't have a lot of faith that that company is even going to continue to exist. I mean, I watched all of Kerry Hardy's content on American Pinball.
    49:33
    I don't know. It's weird. But then you look online on Facebook and they're hiring people to do make game or, you know, to be on the manufacturing line over there. So I don't know. It'd be a shame if Cuphead doesn't come to fruition because a couple of people that I know have played it and have said that it's really good and that the artwork's great and that the actual IP holder for Cuphead contributed to the artwork or did the majority of the artwork. So it's really, really good. So I don't know. Anyways, and I heard that the game is fun to play. So it'd be a shame if American goes out and they're no longer a company and the last game was barbecue. Because barbecue, I'm sorry. I don't say bad things about games, but if there was one game that I played last year that I was like, holy crap, if I could erase this from my memory, I would. It was Barbecue. The game was just, there was nothing to it to interest me whatsoever. So yeah, Barbecue was, Barbecue is Barbecue.
    50:35
    Barbecue is just bad. Multimorphic, honestly, I got to be honest with you, I don't really care what they do. I played it. I appreciate the technology. I really do. I think it's a cool concept. But it's clear to me that the community really just doesn't care that much about multimorphic. I think we want traditional pinball. I like the idea, though. I think the idea is really cool. But I just don't know. When you play it and you realize that the front of the play field is really an LCD screen and everything's shoved in the back, it's not for me. So I don't know. But I will say 100%, I really appreciate the technology and the innovation that went into creating it. I think they've got a lot of cool software features with online stuff, but I'm just not into it. Turner, everyone seemed to love Ninja Eclipse, but what's next from them? I have no idea. Will they go and try to license a theme, do a license theme, or will they do another one of their own? I'm not sure because I know they have a lot of assets from that other company that they sort of absorbed, and I can't remember if it was Deep Root or what it was, but I can't remember. but but yeah that's that's one of the ones barrels of fun did labyrinth and i really enjoyed labyrinth however i feel like with labyrinth for my age range i watched that movie a ton as a kid i do have nostalgia for labyrinth i did not buy labyrinth but i do think that fans of the movie and people that that bought it really did enjoy it and it seems like it's a very well built machine I've played it on location in Denver at the 1UP Arcade downtown over there, and it was in great shape for being on location, and that place gets quite a bit of traffic, so that makes me believe that their games are standing up on location, so that's a good thing. So I'm pretty excited to see what they do next, but no idea what it is. I have no clue. There were some rumors, I think this was from Kaneda, where he said he gets very upset apparently when you don't reference him, so I want to make sure he gets credit for it. I believe he said that Goonies, that Barrels also had Goonies, or rumored that Barrels had Goonies and Spooky had Goonies, which is kind of interesting. So I don't know if that's true or not. if I had to say who would make the better Goonies, I don't know, because Barrels is, Barrels made a very quality, very high quality first game, but Spooky's also, Spooky, even though I haven't played it, I feel like Spooky really did a good job with, uh, with, uh, Evil Dead, I mean, it looks awesome, so, I don't know, we'll see, so that leaves JJP and then Chicago Gaming Company, so JJP, the rumor has been so hot, red hot for a while that it's Harry Potter, and also the two rumors for jjp is harry potter and the matrix i want to buy a jgp i want to buy a jjp game but i just haven't had one that blew my mind yet i think i think harry potter like i said in prior prior podcast episodes it's just not my thing but if it was a really fun shooter and had some really cool mechanisms and fun things to just like bring the excitement level up and it was done well for the theme i think i could get behind a harry potter game but i still don't think i would buy it but i'd be excited to um to play it especially on location and then the matrix would be a would be a buy for me i mean i just because i love that that series so much that i just think you could do so many cool things now jjp they they have this tendency to go like quality wise they're always there but it seems like there's something they miss and i don't know why that is but it's like they get there but they don't get all the way there but i have this feeling that this year is the year that they're going to get there i really do i know they've been a company for a long time i want to say they over they have over 10 games now i think this is the year that they're going to have a game where people go and it might be harry Potter where they go, I have to have this. So I really do hope that I wish that for them. There's such a great group of folks there. So I want them to have a win. So I hope this year is the year that people are like, holy shit, I got to have this JJP game. Then there's Chicago Gaming Company. I don't follow them as closely. Pulp Fiction, I am in love with. I love that game. I play it every time almost that I go to the electric bat. If I have time, if I show up early before the tournament, I'm always jumping on Pulp Fiction if it's available. I almost bought a Pulp fiction but i i held off but that would be one game from them i would buy and then uh the rumor is twilight zone remake which i think would be great a lot of people love that game but halo was rumored now i think halo would be a or some kind of video game property if it was halo i loved halo on the original xbox and i played the later the latest version of halo it's probably i don't even know if it's the latest anymore when the xbox series s and x came out i did play a little bit of Halo. I've always enjoyed that series. I think you could make a really cool game around it. I just don't know. Like, if you think about it, the people that play those kinds of games, I don't know if they would make the kind of investment. So I don't know if you'd get that whole, like, I don't know if you'd get like video game players that are used to paying $60 a game or whatever it is now to buy a pinball machine. But I do think there's a lot of people like us that probably grew up playing or or played halo on the original xbox so there is some nostalgia for it maybe i think it could make a cool game but i just don't know if it would be like a big seller i don't know and that that's the thing right do you go and invest the time and money to make a game if it's not going to be a big seller i i would like to think that most of these companies do that research up front to see like how big is the property is it appealing to our demographic and all that um and that's kind of it uh i think the most excited thing i'm about that the thing i'm most excited for is not even on this list and it's not even what we talked about and that would be back to the future i've i just feel like the original back to the future just isn't good but but holy crap with modern tech back to the future could be so good now i don't know how difficult it would be to get assets nowadays because you know i don't think you could probably get a lot of the original voice actors to do those voices the same way or as good as they did when the movies were out especially Michael J. Fox, unfortunately, because of his health conditions. But I think there's plenty of audio clips you could pull, so maybe you wouldn't have to re-record a lot of those, and maybe with modern tech they could use AI to sort of regenerate some of them. But, yeah, and make it sound believable enough. I don't believe the first machine. The first machine was weird when I played it. I can't tell if it's partial original voice acting and not. It sounds like Doc, the real Doc Brown, but I don't know. I don't know enough about it. I've played it a couple times, and I was very underwhelmed with it. But, man, you could do so many cool things. And then if you've ever played any of the virtual stuff, because, you know, I'm wicked into the virtual stuff. Ask Gary. What is this kid? He's asking me about virtual pinball. Get out of here, asshole. Anyways, he was like – yeah, anyway, I don't even know what I'm talking about now. Guys, we've got to wrap this up. We're almost coming up on the hour. It's way too long. Way too long. Let me know if you get frustrated about these long episodes. I won't ever do this again. But I really, my intent always was, I'm going to keep these to, you know, 20 minutes. But clearly, there's a lot to talk about. So I don't know. Maybe I'm packing too much into an episode. Maybe it should have just been a response to my, that funny Stern thing. But anyways, that's it for now, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to vote for the Twippies if, you know, just participate. Whether I'm the person you vote for or not, definitely participate. So you can just go over to www.twippies.com. There's all the categories are there for you. All you need is your email address. You don't have to answer all the categories either. So I know there's a lot of them. Some people have said they've been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of categories. But feel free to fill out what you want. And, yeah, I hope you participate. I know myself and the rest of the Twippies, the committee and the hosts of the show, would really love your involvement. Colin, you're the man, dude. I got to spend some time with Colin in Chicago. I love that guy. He's just a really nice guy, positive guy. And I think it's pretty awesome that he's willing to bring this back no matter what, you know, what negativity is out there on it. He doesn't care. He's like, we're doing it. It's for the community. Let's do it. And I have no, no doubt that it's going to be an awesome show. I know I'm going to give it my all. I know Ian is. I know Jamie is. I know the rest of the staff is. Aaron, we're going to kick ass. We're going to kick ass. We're going to have a fun time. And hopefully you guys watch it online. and you participate by voting. That's it for now, guys. We will see you on the flip side.
    59:30
    Take care, guys.