Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast November 2024 recap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·1h 56m·analyzed·Dec 3, 2024
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Spooky announces Evil Dead; JJP unveils Pinball XP redemption system launching Q1 2025.

Summary

Spooky Pinball unveiled Evil Dead, a wide-body collector's edition game limited to 888 units at $9,999, featuring Bruce Campbell voice work and Christopher Franchi artwork. Jersey Jack Pinball revealed Pinball XP, a new redemption system for FECs that integrates with cashless card systems, launching Q1 2025. Jack Guarnieri discussed both products and his attendance at the inaugural Melbourne Pinball Expo.

Key Claims

  • Evil Dead is a wide-body game with the most mechanisms Spooky has ever put in a game

    high confidence · Jonathan and Martin discussing Evil Dead features; Martin states 'most mechs in any of their games so far'

  • Evil Dead collected deposits for over 500 units within 36 hours of announcement

    high confidence · Martin Eyre: 'they took deposits for more than 500 of the eight within 36 hours'

  • Evil Dead topper sales exceeded game sales, with over 600 toppers sold vs 500 games

    high confidence · Jonathan: 'apparently they sold more toppers than games. At least once the toppers went on sale, they sold over 600 while they had only 500 games sold'

  • Pinball XP works with all Jersey Jack games from Wizard of Oz through Avatar with software mod

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri: 'it will work in every game from Wizard of Oz all the way up to Avatar'

  • Pinball XP launches in early 2025 (Q1: January/February)

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri: 'Pinball XP launches in early 2025' and 'Next month, January, February'

  • Melbourne Pinball Expo inaugural show drew 1,200-1,400 attendees across multiple sessions

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri: 'They had about 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 people signed up for this show'

  • Jersey Jack Avatar CE sold 13-14 units at Melbourne Expo

    high confidence · Jack Guarnieri: 'And it sold like 13, 14 games, which I think was great'

  • Evil Dead features custom voice work by Bruce Campbell and is based on the first two Evil Dead movies

    high confidence · Martin: 'custom voice work by Bruce Campbell, who plays the protagonist Ash Williams' and 'based on the first two movies'

Notable Quotes

  • “They have decided to limit it to a maximum of 888 machines. I don't know what that 888 limit relates to.”

    Martin Eyre @ ~02:45 — Highlights industry trend of limited production runs; 888 appears to be a recurring number for Spooky (also used for Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes)

  • “Apparently they sold more toppers than games. At least once the toppers went on sale, they sold over 600 while they had only 500 games sold.”

    Jonathan Justin @ ~08:30 — Indicates strong collector demand for premium accessories; topper sales exceeding game sales is unusual market signal

  • “It's an online redemption system. It's a progression system with leaderboards. It seamlessly integrates with major cashless systems.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ ~13:20 — Clear explanation of Pinball XP's core functionality and integration with FEC ecosystem

  • “The better you play, the more you win. So a lot of redemption games are set up that way because they need to be skill based.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ ~22:15 — Addresses legal compliance for skill-based redemption vs. chance-based gambling

  • “An inaugural show, it was one of the best pinball shows I've ever been to.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ ~28:45 — High praise for Melbourne Pinball Expo from industry veteran despite personal travel inconvenience

  • “Our games here are not really well seen. There's not a lot of them on location. There's a lot of them that people own and they're loyal buyers... a typical brand new CE game sells for $22,000, $23,000, $24,000.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ ~32:20 — Reveals Australian market pricing premium (vs US $15k-$17k) and limited location presence; indicates strong home collector base

  • “So there was no way I could get here without missing Thanksgiving at home. So I traveled on Tuesday because I can't travel Wednesday the day before Thanksgiving.”

    Jack Guarnieri @ ~35:10 — Personal detail about industry executives' travel burden and schedule constraints during major shows

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyEvil DeadgamePinball XPproductJack GuarnieripersonJonathan JustinpersonMartin EyrepersonChristopher Franchiperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack pursuing FEC market penetration through partnership-based model with Creative Works and Diverted River rather than direct installation

    high · Jack Guarnieri: 'we wanted to involve other partners that have relationships with different parties in the industry' and 'we didn't have to take every dollar and not share it with other people'

  • ?

    event_signal: Melbourne Pinball Expo demonstrated healthy Australian pinball community with strong collector base and international manufacturer participation

    high · Jack Guarnieri: 'The pinball community is really healthy' and 'my distributor here sold more than 20 games for real'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Christopher Franchi's artistic evolution evident on Evil Dead; noted significant improvement in style and atmospheric quality

    high · Jonathan: 'Very clear his hand in designing all this stuff. It's very much him, and it looks fantastic, I'd say. Very atmospheric'

  • ?

    event_signal: Inaugural Melbourne Pinball Expo exceeded expectations with 1,200-1,400 attendees despite overseas organizer challenges

    high · Jack Guarnieri: 'An inaugural show, it was one of the best pinball shows I've ever been to. They had about 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 people signed up'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Evil Dead game features characters from first two movies with references but excludes direct assets from Army of Darkness third film

    high · Martin Eyre: 'features the assets from the first two movies' but 'It doesn't actually include any of the assets directly from Army of Darkness, although there are references to it'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.350

0:00
Spooky reveals Evil Dead. Ooh. JJP reveals Pinball XP. Ooh. Interview with Jack Wannary. Ooh. Hi, I'm Jonathan Justin. I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine. and welcome to our monthly pincast where we discuss the relationship between men and women and the strange hobby that we call pinball. Wow, we've taken this into new eras, new areas I should say. And I'm Martin Eyre and I'm the editor of Pinball News and I'm here to try and keep some level of sanity in this look back at the event in the pinball world in November 2024 in our monthly pincast. Well, so far you've done an outstanding job. Well, thank you. It was honest to try and ground it a little bit. But, yes, as you can tell, we're in a little bit of a light mood at the moment. And a slightly spooky mood as well by the sounds of those headlines. Well, if you're talking about Spooky Slaves Game Evil Dead, it gives me the creeps. Then it's already a winner. That's very good. Yes, we said last month that we thought that Spooky would be revealing their next title either around about mid, well, probably around about mid-December, but they came out before that with the announcement in the middle of November. And Evil Dead, indeed it is, based on the first two movies in that franchise. I have no idea how many movies there are in this franchise, but okay. No, still, same here, I'm not across Evil Dead at all, and which always seems to be the way with spooky titles pretty much. Well, not for my chance, yeah, and Scooby-Doo. Yeah, but things like Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre are not my cup of tea, I'd say.
2:11
Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. But anyway, it seemed to get a very good reception when it came out, and a lot of people seem to be looking forward to it. It's a very packed game and I'm happy for Spooky that there are so many people supporting Evil Dead as a theme.
2:30
Absolutely. Congratulations are in order to, of course, the design team of the game because it looks like a really packed game.

  • “The system knows whether the game is in play or whether it's in attract mode and adapts, and completely it's responsive as well... If the game on the far left-hand side starts to get played, then the attract graphics compress to the other four monitors.”

    Martin Eyre @ ~26:30 — Technical praise for dynamic UI adaptation in Pinball XP display system

    • Bruce Campbell
    person
    Ben Heckperson
    Eric Munierperson
    Creative Workscompany
    Diverted Rivercompany
    Melbourne Pinball Expoevent
    Avatargame
    IAPAevent
    Wizard of Ozgame
    The Hobbitgame
    Pindemptionproduct
    Texas Chainsaw Massacregame
    Looney Tunesgame
    Matt Montgomeryperson
    Matt Reistererperson
    World's Greatest TVmedia
  • $

    market_signal: Topper accessories generating revenue exceeding base game sales; over 600 toppers sold vs 500 games for Evil Dead

    high · Jonathan: 'apparently they sold more toppers than games. At least once the toppers went on sale, they sold over 600 while they had only 500 games sold'

  • ?

    announcement: Jersey Jack Pinball officially revealed Pinball XP redemption system at IAPA trade show targeting FEC market

    high · Jonathan Justin: 'JJP reveals Pinball XP' in opening; Jack Guarnieri detailed full system capabilities and partnership structure

  • ?

    announcement: Spooky Pinball officially announced Evil Dead pinball game with specifications and limited production details

    high · Martin Eyre: 'Spooky reveals Evil Dead' as opening headline; detailed specifications provided including 888-unit limit and $9,999 pricing

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball XP already in test deployment at multiple FEC locations with monitoring for tweaks prior to Q1 2025 launch

    high · Jack Guarnieri: 'We have a couple of units out on test where we've been monitoring it and making tweaks and things like that'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Evil Dead positioned as single collector's edition model only (no Pro/Premium tier variants) representing different manufacturer strategy vs three-tier norm

    high · Martin Eyre: 'they haven't done what they did previously and used the same playfield layout to make two different titles, which is good. So this wide-bodied game is certainly packed full of mechanisms'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Australian pinball market premiums revealing significant international pricing variations; CE games selling for $22-24k vs US $15-17k range

    high · Jack Guarnieri: 'Australian dollar is 64 cents. and a typical brand new CE game sells for $22,000, $23,000, $24,000'

  • ?

    product_concern: Evil Dead's extensive mechanical complexity (most mechanisms of any Spooky game) presents reliability question despite strong aesthetic reception

    medium · Martin Eyre: 'it'll be interesting to see how that rolls out over the next few weeks and hopefully they've improved some reliability of some of the mechs because they've got a lot of mechs'

    • 2:42
    Yeah, it's so packed it's a wide-body game and they have put everything into a single collector's edition. which is priced at US$9,999 plus tax and shipping. They have decided to limit it to a maximum of 888 machines. I don't know what that 888 limit relates to. I don't know. I haven't seen it written down anywhere. Anybody else knows what it is, whether it's something significant in the... Oh, you've been a little over. Yeah, my mind... Yeah.
    3:17
    Sort of. That was my mic stand, so I apologize for that. I thought perhaps you'd been got by one of the, I won't say zombies, but they're not zombies, there is a name for them, but that's what comes up in the game. Anyway, they're still here, that's the main thing. Yes, if I'm not mistaken, 888 was also the amount of games that they were allowed to make for Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes. Was it? Okay. It's a recurring number with spooking numbers. Okay, well, it obviously fits in nicely with their timeline and their manufacturing capability. So they obviously plan how many they think they can sell and try and hit that limit as well. And it has a certain level of exclusivity, of course, to the games. And especially that there is only the one model, the collector's edition of this. And they haven't done what they did previously and used the same playfield layout to make two different titles, which is good. So this wide-bodied game is certainly packed full of mechanisms. I think they said it's got the most mechs in any of their games so far.
    4:46
    They seem to be, as you said, and as I said, seem to be well-received, and they took deposits for more than 500 of the eight within 36 hours of it being announced. Which is very good, I suppose. Yeah. If I may interrupt you, in the meantime I did look up the meaning of 888, and there's actually various meanings.
    5:13
    888 is often seen as the number of Jesus Christ, and supposed to, or opposite of the 666 for the Antichrist. It would be 999, wouldn't it? Well, I'm just reading this from the internet.
    5:34
    And there's also a meaning for financial wealth attached to 888. There's a lucky number in Chinese or something. Yeah, it also represents balance, overflow, and financial richness, so to speak. It certainly doesn't over here, because it's the name of an online gambling company, 888. Yeah, well, if you're good at gambling, then... But, sorry, we completely drift off. I apologize for that. I just figured, let's do some homework while I should have done that ages ago. well yes I had a little look when I was writing the article about it for Bimbo News and I couldn't see any obvious relation to 888 but anyway it's a number that works for them and we were just saying this is a really packed game it features the assets from the first two movies in fact when you start you pick which of the movies you want to start with whether you want to start with The Evil Dead which is the first one or Evil Dead 2 Dead by Dawn which is the second of the movies. It doesn't actually include any of the assets directly from Army of Darkness, although there are references to it, which is a later Evil Dead movie. But it does include custom voice work by Bruce Campbell, who plays the protagonist Ash Williams in all those movies, in fact. I was going to say the first two, but also in Army of Darkness. and there's additional voice work by Laura Schleiter and Scott Innes, who's a familiar face and a familiar voice in spooky games. Software by Ben Heck, who's back again, of course, with Matt Montgomery creating the music, Matt Reisterer from Back Alley Creations doing the sculpts for it, And, of course, this is the first game where they have the spooky exclusive signing Christopher Franchi doing all the artwork for it, including the promotional material.
    7:49
    And I think it's significantly improved. Yeah, I was going to say, it's very clear his hand in designing all this stuff. It's very much him, and it looks fantastic, I'd say. Very atmospheric. even for somebody who is not at all knowledgeable about the film, or the films, it looks very tied in closely to the theme. Right, yeah. So, very well reception to the game, as you mentioned.
    8:28
    I haven't seen any gameplay yet, although it is already out there, but I really appreciate sleeping at night. yeah it was a nice rollout as well of the uh of the reveal on uh friday the 22nd of november they had a sort of schedule of what was going to be announced and released when starting with um pictures of the game and then promo video and then they opened orders up and then they did a um a full video later in the day and then just a Q&A, I think, as well. A live Q&A later. So very well planned and very well executed, I think. Of course, as you say, gameplay will be crucial.
    9:16
    We had it in the past where a lot of people, ourselves included, have been very wowed by the review of their games and the way they look and the whole presentation. but then in some cases the actual gameplay has been a little bit lacking or the quality control is maybe not quite there so it'll be interesting to see how that rolls out over the next few weeks and hopefully they've improved some reliability of some of the mechs because they've got a lot of mechs in this game as I said the most they've ever put into any game there's a lot of pop-ups lift ramps and various other devices, locks, swinging porch lock. There's a lot there. So, fingers crossed, it plays as well as it looks. Right, yeah. Did we mention the topper is... We didn't. No, I was going to say. So there is a topper, an animated Laura topper, which is basically apparently a character called Laura trying to climb out from under a floor or something, opening up a trap door and trying to climb out, but the door is chained, so it doesn't open up completely, which is available for an extra US$1,399.
    10:51
    Yeah, I mean, it looks great. I don't think it does very much, other than sort of just rattle a bit. Right, yeah. But it has lighting effects, of course, as well, which significantly changes the appearance of it during the game if you're in a suitably dark room. Right. And apparently they sold more toppers than games. At least once the toppers went on sale, they sold over 600 while they had only 500 games sold. So chances are those toppers will drop in value once all are sold or if they sell more than they are at the time games. I don't think they're limited, are they? The toppers?
    11:33
    Perhaps people are buying them in the expectation they will be limited as well and they'll be collector's items. Well, it could also be handy for your next Halloween party or something.
    11:44
    Yeah, a pretty expensive way of doing it. $1,400. Some people really go the extra mile. Well, I hope so, yeah.
    11:54
    Good. So that was Spooky's main news for this month, but it's not the only news. It's not all. That's right. No, there was also a, well, apparently there is a TV show or YouTube show or whatever you want to call it called The World's Greatest TV, and they visit all sorts of companies and then they do a sort of, well, they visit the companies, they make an episode. Now, don't get your hopes up. These are three-minute episodes, but it's still interesting because they really put a lot of information in there.
    12:35
    So there is an episode on Spooky Pinball, which you can watch on YouTube if you just simply Google World's Greatest TV and Spooky Pinball. you'll find it. Well, it's only three minutes, so it's not like you have to watch it for an entire hour.
    12:55
    Yeah, well, what have you got to lose? And I'm sure Jonathan will include a link to that in his upcoming monthly newsletter update. Exactly. So if you can't be bothered Googling for World's Greatest TV and Twiki Pimple, then click on the link in his newsletter. Yeah, coming out soon, probably in a week or three. that's that's uh give you a good window good well no no well anyway i tried to do it within a week after this one and then usually never managed to do so so all right okay so there's always a second headline which was uh about jersey jack pimble and what they've been working on and which they finally got to reveal at the iapa trade show in florida and for me it came as a surprise i have to say. Yeah, me too. I absolutely was not expecting that they were going to launch a new redemption system. Now, you may cast your mind back almost ten years ago to when they just got people introduced a system called Pindemption, which was a kind of bolt-on ticket dispenser, which attached to the side of Wizard of Oz and had a different set of rules in the game that allowed you to win tickets for achieving certain achievements during the game. And it's important to add that Jack Warnieri, who we expect to talk to in a little bit, actually got the patent on the term pin redemption, enabling him to be the only one or the only pinball manufacturer to actually do something in the combination of pinball and redemption games. I'm not sure exactly if that's completely technically correct the way I describe it, but at least there is a patent for pin-demption and the combination of pinball and redemption. Yes, but this is a very different system to that. That was very much a one-off... Well, you can make anything out of it. Yeah, connect this pendention system to your Jersey Jack pinball game. And if the software supports it, which I don't think any other game other than Wizard of Oz, maybe The Hobbit did, then you can use it. But what they've come up with now with Pinball XP is a whole new different system. It's a collaboration with two other companies called Creative Works and Diverted River. now Diverted River have a system called TACOA which integrates Jersey Jack Pinball's games with the ticketless and cashless card based rewards schemes that they have in these family entertainment centres you know you go to Dave and Buster's you go to any of these other ones you can buy yourself you get a card you load up credits on it you use them as you go along and you can win tickets which you can then cash in for prizes at the redemption centre or for other rewards, maybe money off purchases of food or drinks and that kind of thing. But it's all based around a card. You don't actually have paper tickets anymore. So there are a certain number of these systems out there and they're all unique. But Diverted Rivers system connects other games to these particular systems.
    16:31
    So that's what they do. What Creative Works do is they build and install a great big framework where it's kind of like a centerpiece, a showcase, where Jersey Jack pinball games are mounted, and they put cameras over the top and huge monitors above each one to show what's going on in the game, and it integrates with the software in the game. Right. And I think it's probably best that we actually ask the man himself, Jersey Jack to explain more and describe how they, how his company became involved in developing Pimble XP. Right. So we're joined right now live from Australia by the one and only Mr. Jack Guarnieri, Mr. Jersey Jack Pimble himself. G'day, mates. I'm down here. I'm known as Jackaroo. Okay. Cowboy. Okay. Good. One of my many nicknames. Okay. One of the many nicknames. This one you could actually use. Yeah, one of the cleaner ones.
    17:38
    Anyway, good to hear from you, Jack. Yeah, we were just talking about Pitbull XP and this whole new system. We already did this sort of discussion of the indention system and how that went almost 10 years ago now. but Pinball XP is a completely different product.
    17:59
    Could you explain it to our listeners, exactly what it is and how it works? Well, it's an online redemption system that has a, we're calling it Pinball XP. It's an online redemption system. It's a progression system with leaderboards. It seamlessly integrates with major cashless systems. So if you have a debit card in your FEC, it works for every debit card. We partner with a company called Devery River, and they have a Takoha system platform that a lot of people are familiar with. It also gives you jackpot ticket opportunities with a skill stop. So the game is 100% skill, and you're winning tickets based on your skillful play. and this is something I wanted to do for years. We have a patent on Redemption Pinball and it took us a long, long time to get this thing going the way we wanted to do it.
    19:04
    Right, so... The system, we're selling five games as a package that we'll link together and they're being sold by Creative Works. so creative works put together the whole display the uh the cameras the video cameras the monitors and um uh diverted river connects it all into the fec's cashless system is that right correct correct right okay so is it only available as a as a big a package of like five machines or is this something which a smaller arcade or FEC could also buy into?
    19:49
    Well, at this time it's available as a five-game system. Some people that have bought it already have two or three games, so they only have to buy a couple of games to fill in the five. So we had a, you know, you hear hype of people saying, oh, we had an overwhelming response at our show, but the truth is we had an overwhelming response at our show. We expect to announce major FECs that placed this unit in more than one of their locations. Okay, well, congratulations on that. So that's very good news.
    20:27
    And I suppose if an FEC buys this system and a new game comes out, they can rotate the games in there as well? They can rotate the games, and if we come out with some major blockbuster theme game, you can theme all five games in one attraction.
    20:49
    Okay. Right, right. So my next question is, does this work with all the existing Jersey Jack pinball games, and does it require any different software in those games in order to work with pinball XP?
    21:06
    Yes, it will require a mod to the software, which is easily downloaded, and it will work in every game from Wizard of Oz all the way up to Avatar.
    21:19
    Right, and is this a system where you earn points, experience points, or tickets, or rewards, just by playing the game in a normal way, or is it a more objective-based gameplay where you have to complete certain tasks in order to win awards?
    21:45
    Yeah, good question. At this point, we've introduced it in its simplest form, which is you win redemption points based on score achieved, and it's obviously a skilled game. At the end of the game, we're giving you an opportunity to be in a bonus pool where there's a screen that you see that scrolls just like a bass wheel type of game. And you get an opportunity to skill stop it with either a flipper button or the action button on the apron.
    22:22
    Right, so that's to earn bonus awards at the end of the game. right and you know it could be like let's say you had five locations and five of these set up you're in a big jackpot pool so you could win thousands of tickets in that jackpot pool right okay so my question would be what happens if Keith Johnson comes along or any other of the top ten uh, pinball players in the world, are they, um, likely to go home with a lot of tickets and prizes and teddy beers and, and what have you?
    23:05
    Well, look, the better you play, the more you win. So a lot of redemption games are set up that way because they need to be skill based. If they were based on a chance, there wouldn't be a skill based game. There'd be a game of chance. That would be a, you know, a gambling device. So the better you play, um, the more points you can accumulate. And then, of course, the bonus is skill-based only because you're stopping the reel from turning.
    23:34
    And if the reel was turning without you stopping it, it would develop an element of chance again, and that wouldn't be what we want. We want a complete skill game. Right.
    23:46
    Okay, so I'm really curious to see how this is going to perform in FECs and similar locations in America, I suppose.
    24:02
    Do you already know when we can see the first Pinball XP in action? Well, Pinball XP launches in early 2025.
    24:17
    We've accepted orders at IAPA, which we got some. I don't want to brag about that. And we have a couple of units out on test where we've been monitoring it and making tweaks and things like that and observing it. But, you know, it's very promising, and it gives you something more than a worthless item. It gives you something of value that you can redeem at the redemption center and you're saved right after you see it. Right. So now with a pinball game, we have a usually elite designer. And like with the last game, Avatar is sort of like Mark Seiden's baby. But is there an elite designer for this pinball XP? Or was it more like a group effort bringing together a couple of parties that worked together on this? How should we see that? Well, Eric Munier took the lead on this, and he's got a background as an operator, and certainly with my input and other people's input in the company, it's been a keen effort, truly.
    25:33
    Okay. And is this something which you certainly initially only see being available in the U.S., or is it something that can be rolled out worldwide?
    25:45
    I guess it's worldwide, because I think on a level of skill, the game is acceptable and legal in every 50 states, because you don't have an element of chance that's predominant in the gameplay and the awarding of the tickets. so you could have it anywhere in the world that has redemption right but you would need to have the equivalent of creative works to create the installation and I guess Diverted River probably works internationally but do creative works work internationally as well would they come and if you had a place in Germany you wanted to put five Jersey Jack games yeah I believe so and if they don't they'll figure it out they're very resourceful we figured that we wanted to involve other partners that have relationships with different parties in the industry we wanted to be the creators of it and we didn't have to take every dollar and not share it with other people that want to promote this product to end users FECs, where they have relationships that are very guided and very important. So we felt it was important to partner with these people.
    27:11
    And presumably you see, and have seen for some time, redemption as being the best way to get pinball into these FECs, which are all redemption-based and all card-based and aren't amusement arcades. They are family entertainment centres. So that's why you've been exploring the pinball XP system and to find a way to get redemption into pinball in this way.
    27:50
    Yeah, and, you know, again, involving other parties makes it more appealing and palatable. And I've been doing the redemption part of it since around, actually before I started Jersey Jack Pinball, I was writing the redemption patent that we have.
    28:11
    And, you know, my previous life, I created some redemption games that are top games in the industry still today.
    28:18
    So pinball lends itself to be a really great redemption game because of the skills factor. Right. So, okay.
    28:30
    Well, it's... Like I said, I'm very curious to see how this will perform. Obviously, FECs in America tend to have very high ceilings, which you definitely need with these 65-inch monitors mounted above the pinball machines. It's, I mean, this is not for your average garage, I would say.
    28:56
    No, but it's an, you know, it's an attraction, and it's really an experience. And that it takes pinball on location to another level really it does And the leaderboards and the competition level and you know we continue to learn from it and we build it out further I don think this is the end of it It's just the beginning of it. Yeah, I'll admit I looked at it and I thought that's a very impressive display and exactly the kind of thing that when you go into an FEC like that or indeed at a trade show and you see this amazing setting that you've created, this environment, it kind of wows you straight away. I especially like the way that the system knows whether the game is in play or whether it's in attract mode and adapts, and completely it's responsive as well. You've got five monitors above five games, and if the game on the far left-hand side starts to get played, then the attract graphics compress to the other four monitors above the games, and if somebody starts another game elsewhere, then it adapts to whichever games aren't being played and creates customized graphics for that. I thought that was very clever, and I certainly look forward to seeing it. And so you were expecting it to go live and become a product in, what, Q2, 25?
    30:31
    Next month, January, February. Oh, okay, Q1, right. January, February. I mean, like I said, we're already operating some test units in different locations and learning from them and getting revenue numbers. So we're very happy with the initial results. Okay. Any chance we're going to experience this pinball XP also at the Texas Pinball Festival?
    30:59
    I would say yes. That would be nice. you know I mean it's aimed at the commercial market right now it's aimed at the home market but I could see a product at some point in the future that's aimed at the home market with you know with different purpose outcome and results well I think people players and people fans and home buyers as well need to see what it is you created here because I'm sure it's going to look even better in real life than it does on video. And I think it's looking very impressive already. So that'd be great. I mean, I'm probably still the show if you had that, a five machine set up there in Frisco. And it's half the booth already, so.
    31:50
    Half the booth. Yeah, I mean, truly the idea was to, truly the idea was to make an attraction out of it because at IAPA you're competing with a lot of other big attractions. and to get on the radar of the typical FEC owner, buyer, you need to have something at this scale and also of the revenue and the return on investment needs to be there as well. It can't just be it's all show and no go, so it's got to make money. Yeah, you need that wow factor. But moving away from that slightly for a moment, the reason we're speaking to you from Australia, well, you are, is that you're there for the very first Melbourne Pinball Expo, where you were the special guest.
    32:36
    How was that? You know, I have to laugh. An inaugural show, it was one of the best pinball shows I've ever been to. They had about 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 people signed up for this show, and they do it in sessions. So they do a 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, a 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., and then an 8 p.m. to midnight VIP session. And then Sunday they have two sessions. So some of them have the same people. Some of them have different people.
    33:13
    And I don't know if you can tell by my voice, I talked a lot this weekend. And I took a lot of pictures and signed a lot of autographs. And there are a lot of happy people there. my distributor here sold more than 20 games for real. And he's got a whole bucket of people that want more information on our games. Our games here are not really well seen. There's not a lot of them on location. There's a lot of them that people own and they're loyal buyers.
    33:47
    You know, the Australian dollar is 64 cents. and a typical brand new CE game sells for $22,000, $23,000, $24,000.
    33:57
    So, you know, we know people complain about prices, but very loyal customer base. The Avatar CE was in a room by itself that was actually a round room with a dome ceiling in the room. It was a funny room to have at an event, but it was there. and dim lights and the game was in there and it just was phenomenal to play it and listen to it because there are a lot of shows you can't hear that game. And it's really a great game. And, you know, it sold like 13, 14 games, which I think was great. And there's a lot of followers. So everybody was happy. We had a bunch of other distributors for other companies here. So the people that played our games could see what our games are and they could see what other games are and make their decisions. So it was really a great show.
    34:54
    Okay, excellent. And that's not the only traveling you've been doing. You've been really collecting up your or going for your air miles the past month.
    35:06
    Well, I've been Dutch Pinball Open and I've been to IAPA and I've been to a couple of other places. I still have a few more trips. next Saturday on the 7th of December I'll be at Automated Services for their holiday party and then I'll be taking a trip to Chicago to the factory for a few days then the end of the month I'm in Seattle later in the month I think the 16th, 17th, 18th I think Charlie Martin has a show a holiday show with Avatar spotlighted on the 17th I think I'll be there and then maybe after that I'll be home the rest of the month. We'll see. You know, this show was interesting because George, one of the organizers, hit me up like in, I don't know, springtime and said, we're going to do a show in November. Can you make it? And of course I said, yeah, I can make it. And then sometime in October I noticed he was advertising for the show and I said, oh, it's November 30th and December 1st. That's okay. any advertising that I would be there. And I called him up and he said, yeah, we sold about 600 tickets so far. And I said, he says, they're a problem. I said, no, they won't be a problem. So there was no way I could get here without missing Thanksgiving at home.
    36:27
    So I traveled on Tuesday because I can't travel Wednesday the day before Thanksgiving. That's terrible. I can't travel. So I traveled on Tuesday. I got here Thursday morning. and the show was Saturday, Sunday. Sunday's the first day of summer in Australia and I'm talking to you from about 88 degrees right now. I want to go home. It'll be about 8 degrees when I go home. So I might want to take some of the weather with me in my suitcase. But it was, you know, it was worth coming. I mean, my family missed me and it is what it is. I'm not complaining about it. but next year I told him what dates to make it if he wants me to come next year. So hopefully I'll get those dates instead. Do they celebrate any kind of Thanksgiving or obviously not Thanksgiving itself, but have any sort of celebration or the Black Friday or the Cyber Monday events in Australia?
    37:27
    Yeah, they do Black Friday, they do Cyber Monday. Today's Tuesday, so that's why the Monday is over. they don't celebrate Thanksgiving they couldn't find me a turkey anywhere to be found they could find kangaroos and wallabies and you know you can stuff a kangaroo in multiple ways they did get me some crayfish they were really great they were better than lobsters so that was it there's a picture in the article on the pinball-magazine.com website for those interested.
    38:07
    Oh, cool. That's cool. Yeah, we took a lot of pictures and other people took pictures and I think everybody was really happy. You know, it was a good mood. You know, like I said, they celebrate summer. So it's something to celebrate. December 1st is the first day of summer in Australia. You know, when we have the first days of seasons, it's usually on the equinox. the 21st of the month around there. We do winter and summer and spring and fall in America. But they have the right idea here. They celebrate it early, and they're putting Christmas trees up, and it's a great place in the world. It's the other side of the world, but once you get here, it's not bad. Getting here might be a little difficult, or getting home might be difficult, but the people are great. The spirit is great. The pinball community is really healthy, and it was a lot of fun. It was worth coming. Excellent. Well, thank you very much for sharing your experience and telling us about Fibble XP as well. Safe travels and returning back home. And we look forward to speaking to you and seeing you again before too much longer. Well, speaking of that, I have one question left. Will we see you at the EAG show in January in London?
    39:26
    Well, that depends on Phil. I think Phil took a stand, and I'll be happy to be there and freeze my behind off like usual.
    39:34
    And we can go to our favorite Chinese restaurant, and you can leave your phone on record. There's still won't be at the dinner, I can guarantee you that.
    39:47
    Yeah, well, perhaps we will get our dinner with Jack segment in the February pin cast after all. And I just want to wish everybody a very happy holiday and a happy and healthy new year, and we'll catch up with you next month. Thank you very much, Jack. You too, and safe travels. Safe travels, Jack. Thank you. Talk to you soon. Thank you. Okay, well, thanks very much indeed for that, Jack. One of the other news items this month from the month of November, that is, looking back, we conclude in that month, the American phenomenon, which has sort of become global now, of Black Friday, which is the Friday after Thanksgiving in the US. And also accompanying that is the Monday after, which is known as Cyber Monday. And traditionally... Which is today. It's two days. It is today. Today is the day... Well, not for you, it's not, but it is still for me. The day we started recording this episode, it was Cyber Monday. Did you get any good deals, by the way?
    41:01
    Not for Cyber Monday, no, because I think I got some good Black Friday deals. But I didn't get the good Black Friday deal that Jersey Jack Pimble was offering, which was an amazing 1,000 US dollars off the list price of four of their popular titles. being the Elton John Platinum Edition, the Godfather Limited Edition, Toy Story Limited Edition, and Guns N' Roses Limited Edition. Wow. So $1,000 off. So if you were looking to buy any of those, you could save yourself a nice cool one grand come Black Friday. And that's always next year. So you wait for it. And there may be other ones, because we've seen this happen with, certainly with American pinball, which we'll get to a little bit later, where they do, every time there's a major U.S. holiday, they offer... Or a minor U.S. holiday.
    41:57
    It's Wednesday. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, well, that's why I hang on for that, which is an interesting sales technique because people get to know this is going to happen on an annual basis and they're going to haul off their any purchases, aren't they, until that time. unless they need to have the game in time for Thanksgiving.
    42:23
    Anyway, so yeah, $1,000 off those four titles. Not quite sure how that works internationally. We're still buying through a distributor there.
    42:33
    Hopefully they would offer the same terms, but that would depend on each individual distributor. But that was a nice deal to see and hope it worked out and nice to see the price of the games coming down, even if it's only for one day.
    42:52
    Yeah, of course, we were talking to Jack there, and he was a special guest, as he was saying, at the Melbourne Pinball Expo, which looks like it's a very successful show. He did send us some details and some pictures of his visit, which, of course, Jonathan has put up onto the Pinball Magazine website. pinball-magazine.com and you can read it. Yeah, Jack's first choice was pinballnews.com but they rejected the story.
    43:23
    Pinball-magazine.com was more than happy to pick up the scraps and... I kid, I kid, I kid. But yes, the story... Very good. The story, well, it's not much of a story but it was a new pinball show in Australia and Jack talked about it. If you want to see some pictures and so on, check out pinball-magazine.com. Indeed. Yes, absolutely. Okay, I think that about wraps it up for Jojo Jack Pinball for the month of November. Right. So let's move on to our next company, and I guess we're going to be looking at the dally of them all, Stone Pinball. Which, for them, I guess it's been a relatively quiet month, because they haven't had any new game launches this time. No. having been so busy in the previous month with both the Metallica Remastered game and, of course, their other title, which... The Uncanny X-Men, of course. Right. Which premiered at Expo in any quantity, and a good quantity as well. So no new launches for some people this month, but they have been, that's for sure. Right. They have added a range of Godzilla's 70th anniversary black and white accessories. If you were lucky enough to get one of those 70th anniversary Godzilla games, then they've brought out a whole bunch of black and white or monochromatic style accessories, including interior cabinet art blades, a monochromatic version of the topper, which is of course Godzilla destroying a city with his breath rag some side armour an illuminated shooter knob and also expressions speaker lights which aren't black and white they are full colour which would be a little disappointing if you spent all that money on them and they're only white so that's a new product range from Stern for Godzilla 70th anniversary.
    45:38
    And, of course, Godzilla was not the only game to get a whole bunch of new accessories from Stern this month. No, indeed, it wasn't.
    45:47
    Very unlike Stern, Metallica Remastered, which was revealed last month only, also already got their accessories revealed. And these include an expression lighting, side armor, speaker lights, a shooter knob, and a rather minimalistic topper, which only costs $1,000.
    46:17
    Basically replicating the Metallica logo, which you already have on the back glass as well. So I guess it's a Metallica logo in stereo then.
    46:31
    Yes. Yes, one above the other. but I guess more lighting effects on the topper one. Yeah, probably. It doesn't move. There's no animation, no physical animation, no motors or servers or anything like that, just lighting effects. Right, okay. What have you seen with, what case? People are very happy to pay that kind of money for an animated topper showing the same name of the game that's on the back glass. Right, yeah. Well, okay. If it works, it works. Yeah, absolutely. I'm sure they'll sell a ton of them anyway for those Metallica remastered buyers. Right. And there was also a lot of t-shirts merchandise becoming available recently as well. Usually we don't discuss that. And a bumper style set of three lights. yeah they're weird I couldn't quite work out how you'd use them exactly I guess they go on the wall or on a table and they just sort of light up and look like oversized pop bumpers in various colours and with the stem they go in the middle but I guess they might look nice in the game room on the wall right in a triangular pattern I guess so and was there any discounts on those merchandise offers for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and... Well, if you had bought them, and had spent more than 100 US dollars on accessories and merchandise from the Stern shop, you would have received free shipping if you lived in the US. However, that ended... Well, actually, it's probably going to end in about six hours' time.
    48:27
    Which is long after this will be published, so never mind. Yeah, but it was just free shipping, that's all.
    48:38
    And not a huge, not $1,000 off like we were talking about, the Black Friday sale from Jersey Jack. But anyway, nice to see something being offered there.
    48:49
    Now then, I suppose we get to the bit about new code, which is normally the point at which you set your alarm for five minutes' time. Yeah, something like that. But no, well, this is probably better handled by you anyway, but there were code updates for 24 titles. Oh, my God. Yes. Take it away, Mark. Not going to go through it all. now this is all tied into a new stern initiative um part of that insider connected thing called the pinball cup uh which we'll come to in a minute but in order to support that on all the insider connected games they had to bring out new code for all of them well nearly all of them 24 of the, I think there were 27 or 28 maybe, supported games. So they brought out new code for every game except the Jurassic Park Home Edition, John Wick, Foo Fighters and Led Zeppelin, in order to support this upcoming Stern Insider Connected Pinball Cup.
    50:04
    I'll say no details of, no full details on exactly what that is, but supporting things like that does show, as we said before, about the difficulty in adding a single feature like that across all your games, because you have to bring out new code for all of them, rather than just bringing out one patch which would add it.
    50:25
    Those games that didn't get the updates for the Pinball Cup, certain say, rather cryptically, that those games got recent updates anyway, but those recent updates didn't mention anything in the notes about support for the pinball cup but it doesn't mean it wasn't in there and they just didn't mention it so maybe it was hidden in there and not included or not documented anyway this stone pinball uh insider connected pinball cup is apparently um going to last is a month long thing so i thought it would have started the beginning of December, but it hasn't started yet. And it's apparently weekly races, as they call it,
    51:06
    around racetracks with competitors moving up and down or remaining within a group at the end of each week, depending on how well they did during that week, ready for the next race. So there are different categories, different groupings, different leagues, if you like. It was sort of publicised with a big push by Stern when it was first launched. But since then, there's been absolutely no mention of it anywhere in their social media stuff. And if you go to their website, it doesn't mention it anywhere. So it makes me wonder whether it's maybe not quite ready to roll out yet.
    51:45
    It feels like they're not quite there yet. But I think a lot of people were looking forward to doing it in the run-up to the end of the year. So maybe in the next couple of days, by the time you listen to this, Stirling would have rolled it out and gone big on it because they haven't launched any new games at the moment. So this is probably going to be their next major push. So, yeah, if you're into doing all this collecting achievements and badges and all that kind of stuff, then watch out for the Stirling Insider Connected Pinball Cup series of races, which will be coming to you very soon, no doubt. Right, and if you're interested in new game reviews, then you should probably keep an eye out for Stern this month, as rumors have it that we might see a new game by Brian Eddy and Dwight Solomon. I was certainly expecting something by the beginning of January, in time for the first trade show over there, and of course EEAG in London, in the middle of January. Right, and that game is rumoured to be themed around Dungeons & Dragons.
    53:09
    So we'll have to see whatever they come up with. But we're hopeful for a new game review later this month, and of course we'll bring you all the details in our next episode. Yep, okay, which we'll of course be bringing to you at the beginning of 2025, believe it or not. It's a strange thing to say, but it's only, what, four weeks away, or a little over four weeks away. So anyway, before we get to that, Let's move on with looking back at what happened in November and see what's been going on at American Pinball. Right. Yeah. So at the IAAPA trade show in Florida, which is one of the biggest trade shows in the U.S. for basically anything that has to do with coin-operated amusement, but also if you need a water slide for your amusement park or a mechanical dinosaur or a haunted house, you name it, you can find it there.
    54:23
    American Pinball was also present, and Don's pinball podcast talked to David Fix, which I'm sure you can find on YouTube as well but the long story short is that David Fix denied rumors of the Barry O's Barbecue Challenge game not selling well.
    54:49
    It's not like they're hiding them in a warehouse and all that kind of stuff that's being talked about on the internet.
    55:01
    According to Don, and this is not coming directly from David's mouth, but from Don, apparently American Pinball's next game, rumored to be Cuphead, is already on the line and scheduled for a January or February release. So, well, we were just talking about a new game review, so it looks like January or February we might get another one. And Martin, well, you've already played that game I have had a chance to play American's Next Game, indeed It doesn't seem, from what I saw, unreasonable That a January or February release could be on the cards Yeah, absolutely It was that level of completeness It was more a software development that was needed rather than hardware So what you played, was that a white wood or was it already completely colored in and artwork, everything in place?
    56:07
    There was artwork on it, yes, definitely. Whether it would be the final artwork or not, I don't know. Right.
    56:14
    Okay. Yes. But I don't want to say any more about it, obviously, because of confidence. But yes, it was a good-looking game as it was. So if they've developed any further, it can only be more than the same, I'm sure. Yeah, okay. So do you think they have a winner on their hand?
    56:39
    I would not like to make any comment on it, as far as that goes, because I think anything I say about it might be reaching confidence. So, and also, you know, there's quite a lot of development going on in, not just in the software, but in various other aspects as well. So, but no, not major stuff, but minor stuff. And I think I'll wait to see the finished product because, you know, some of these games, I was talking to Jack about what,
    57:16
    his experience at the Melbourne show. And it's something which has been reported many, many times, so that people don't necessarily have great expectations for games. Particularly like Elton John, people didn't like the theme necessarily, but they get to play it, and they are completely turned around 180 degrees and love it. And the orders come flooding in. So, you know, theme alone is a factor, but it's not the big factor that you might think it is, if the game is sufficiently good. So just bear that in mind, that's all I'll say. Okay. Now, I'm just wondering, so we just talked about Stern announcing Pinball Cup. And here we have American pinball with a rumor titled Cup Head.
    58:11
    Pinball? Cup? Head? Hmm. I not sure whether I can make anything of that but Well it sounds like you trying but Yeah if you come up with anything get back to us Oh well anyway Anyway yeah we were talking earlier about Black Friday offerings including Jersey Jack offering $1,000 off four of their titles and offering free shipping. Wow! On accessories. Woo-hoo-hoo! But I think the biggest reductions for Black Friday have to go, the award for that has to go to American Pinball, I think,
    58:54
    who are not, as we said before, not unknown to offer good deals around holiday times or public holidays. Or whenever it's Wednesday. Yeah, or it's Wednesday or it's R in the month or whatever. but this time I think this is their best offerings yet across a whole range of games including games they hadn't previously discounted so a quick look at that was that they were offering probably the best deal I guess is the Galactic Tank Force signature edition where it was offering a whole 3,000 US dollars off the 14,995 price, bring it down to 11,995 Wow. Barrio's Barbecue Challenge had a more or less $500 off, but it's much cheaper going anyway, so it brought it down from just $6,000 to five and a half. Hot Wheels Classic also had $500 off, bringing it down to $6,900.
    59:57
    Houdini Classic also had $500 off at the same price, $6,900. Legends of Valhalla Limited Edition had $2,000 off. That's a big cut. bringing it down from 8.04 to 6.04.
    60:11
    Unfortunately, those offers were only for 24 hours from, as they put it, from midnight the 28th of November to midnight the 29th of November. It doesn't say what time zone. No, it doesn't say whether midnight at the start of the day or midnight at the end of the day either. But I think the intention was that it would just be for the duration of Black Friday. and of course that's in the US. If you're buying or you're purchasing from an American pinball distributor overseas,
    60:45
    then you are relying on them offering either similar or matching discounts. I have to say, in the local currency as well,
    60:57
    in the UK here we have retro arcade specialists who are now the exclusive American pinball distributors and they very generously were offering those same dollar discounts but in UK pounds. So it's like £3,000 off the price of a Galactic Tag Force Signature Edition, £2,000 pretty much off the Limited Edition, Additions of Valhalla, and £500 off the Deluxe Editions of Hot Wheels and Houdini. and 650, I think, of... It might be more than that, actually. Those are the deluxe editions, but the classic editions, 650 of those, including Barry O. So some very good discounts there. And they're also throwing in a £100 store voucher for parts as well, if you bought from them.
    61:54
    So that was a very good offer from them, And it's going to show that some American people distributors are offering equally good deals to American people themselves.
    62:05
    Right. And then we have Cyber Monday, of course. Well, yes. The good deals keep on coming. Well, they kept on coming and they're expired right now. Yes. It was just, again, a one-day deal for Cyber Monday being the 2nd of December. and having done deals on machines, this time they're doing deals on parts and merchandise, which was for the whole of Monday, so on a Monday in a US time or wherever your time zone is, I suppose, if you're buying from a distributor, 30% off all parts and merchandise from American Pinball. Right, okay. So not bad if you wanted to buy some parts or merch from them. Right. And that rounds it up for our news about American Pinball in the month of November and early December. Yes, absolutely. So let's move on to our next company, or pair of companies, perhaps it's safer to say, because we're going to look at Dutch Pinball and Dutch Pinball Exclusive. Ta-da! Yeah, and, well, basically, Dutch Pinball issued a last call for The Big Lebowski. And basically, well, they said it like this. With the upcoming start of production in early 2025 of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, the end of production of The Big Lebowski is in sight. if you want to grab one of the big Lebowski machines being produced and enjoy full immersion in the world of the dude in a classic Bally Williams style pinball then this is your last chance unless you buy a second hand game but ok so basically last call and I can also confirm that well at least early achievers, but I assume also other people who registered their gain for support, received an email that there's also a last call for parts, if you want to order specific parts.
    64:29
    Not that the parts will not be available anymore, but they would like to know how much they should order in their last order for parts.
    64:40
    Stock parts. Yeah, stock parts. So they want to have a certain quantity on the shelves, but if certain people are looking for, I don't know, plastic ramps, and they should order extra, they would like to know now, so they can order them for the last batch of Lebowskis that are being built.
    65:04
    Okay, good. Do we know if this means that the license is running out and not going to be renewed? I think Barry already confirmed that like probably a year ago that he was not at that time intending to renew the license for the big Lebowski.
    65:24
    Okay. but you know never say never as I say the demand is there exactly well but for now that's it I think it's been I think you've probably fed up with it by now no no no come to think of it well I think if we have to think about the longest continuous run of a specific pinball machine.
    65:57
    Well, continuous, as in not building any other games, I suppose. Yeah, or at least continuing to build it, I think the Big Lebowski might hold a record there.
    66:12
    Well, yeah, I suppose so. I mean, I can think about a remake game like Medieval Madness, but that hasn't been in production for 25 years and then it was taken back into production so there's a gap there but the big the bounty this was basically well it took a bit of time before the games actually got produced but once it started being produced and more and more games got out I think we've seen probably one of the like I said longest production runs not necessarily the most games builds but longest production runs of a single title yes Exactly. So maybe we should make an award for that.
    67:01
    It's actually going to be the Guinness World Records. Right. So anyway, so while we're on the subject of Dutch pinball, there has been some speculation. Oh, good.
    67:15
    Where will the pinball world be without speculation? Exactly. So what happened, and I was aware of this before it actually hit the internet, but very recently a CEO of Dutch Pinball was spotted visiting Stern Pinball after Pinball Expo. Or just after the factory tour, not during the factory tour, but either during Pinball Expo or right after, while he was in the Chicago area.
    67:48
    He visited Stern Pinball, which is kind of unusual because Stern Pinball has a policy. Well, first of all, you can't take any pictures. And employees of competing pinball companies are excluded for any factory tours. And apparently, Barry got one from Seth Davis himself. Well, you could argue that Barry's not an employee, because he owns the company. Right. But still, oh well. Anyway, so even before that got public, I already asked Barry about that. And he confirmed to me that he had indeed visited the Stern Pinball Factory and got the factory tour upon an invite from Seth Davis.
    68:36
    And as you have it, people are clearly wondering, why was he there? And that sort of, well, starts living its own life. and well the main rumor that I heard was people thinking that Barry was looking to either sell the back to the future license to Stern which seems odd because if you have a license for a certain amount of time that doesn't mean you can sell it you don't own it so that makes no sense and the other thought was that maybe Barry is looking to outsource production to Stern for well back to the future title as Stern has their production capacity way better organized than Barry has in the sense that they can produce a lot more games quicker than Barry ever can.
    69:53
    So I asked Barry, how about it? And his response was, well, of course he had already confirmed that he was there and he just got a factory tour. He didn't go into any details, but he did express that he never confirmed Dead Back to the Future or any other title, for that matter, as an upcoming game. And he's also not sourcing out anything. That's also what he said. So make of that what you want. We can only report what I have been told, or I can only report what I have been told. I'm not reading too much into this at the moment it's not even for Barry that he got a factory tour and if there is some sort of collaboration with Stern maybe in the cards then oh well I wish them best of luck it would not be unreasonable for them to talk about potential ways of working together should tariffs be imposed on import or export of pinball machines to or from the US as a result of their change of presidency. Now, that may or may not come to pass, but it might be an idea just to put the idea out there and say, you know, if there was like a 25% tariff on products coming into the US for products which could be made there or indeed are made there, would that impact on Dutch Pinball being able to sell their games in the US if their price suddenly went up 25%?
    71:57
    If so, maybe it would make sense for some kind of manufacturing or finishing of the games to take place in the US. Right, but would such a tariff not be applicable to parts?
    72:15
    I'd have to see what the definition of the product is. If assembly is taking place in the US, does that mean it's free from tariff? It's only complete products. Well, what you're suggesting does remind me a little bit of the Argentinian situation back in the 70s, where the import of pinball machines was forbidden, but it was not forbidden to import pinball parts. So what happened was playfields were shipped separately and cabinets were shipped separately and they were put back together in Argentina and they had pinball. Yeah. Yeah, the same kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I'm not saying that's definitely it, but it would be an idea to put a few ideas around, see what people think, and be prepared in case anything like that suddenly appears, because, you know, incoming President Trump has said, you know, he's going to tarry us from day one. So this could happen very suddenly and could have a serious impact on one or more people companies. Right. So, yeah, worth just having discussions about that, amongst other things, of course. Yeah, and keep in mind, this is all pure speculation, because as Barry said, there is nothing going on, nothing to see.
    73:46
    Just move along, and if there's any news, we'll report on that in upcoming episodes. Yep, absolutely. So as we only do news and don't speculate, let's move on to some more news then. And this time back in the U.S. where we were just talking. And down to Texas and Multimorphic Company who are busy building the Princess Bride. They're building full machines and modules. and their module manufacturing is now moving on to the second batch of builds, having completed the first. Customers who place their pre-orders for the Princess Bride game modules will, if they were in batch three and four of those, and there are, I think, a hundred at a time, then they will be contacted soon, if they haven't already, about when they need to be ready for their machines or their kits to arrive. Right. So good news that Multimorphic are working through all those. And to go with that, there's a new software update coming out soon for The Princess Bride. May even be out by the time you listen to this. Which fixes some bugs, of course. There's always bugs. and rebounces some of the scoring as well within the game to make it a little more logical. So watch out for that if you own a Princess Bride or expect to get one fairly soon. Right. And there's also a new product which seems a little odd to me, but I'm sure there will be a demand for it.
    75:38
    We hear a lot about toppers when we were talking about them earlier. Not everybody is able to actually put a topper on top of their game due to a low ceiling, or because they have no light fittings in the way, or various other reasons. But they still like the topper, and they like the interactivity of it as well. And some people want to put it to the side of the game, or on a table, or somewhere else. Well, now MultiMorphic have come out with a topper extension kit, which allows you to wire up your topper in a remote location so it doesn't actually have to be on top of the game anymore. It doesn't have to use the connections that are up there on top of the back box. You can put it anywhere else you want and this kit extends the distance between how far away you can put the topper from the back box. So now you can put it on top of the playfield. Yeah, you can put it on top of a different game and really confuse everybody.
    76:37
    You could start swapping your toppers around. It's lots of fun. Imagine putting a labyrinth topper on top of a princess bride and vice versa. And playing for them.
    76:54
    Yeah, well. Then you could have the labyrinth topper criticising your play for a game you're not playing. Right. That could be fun. That's pretty elaborate because I think this rounds it up for Multimorphic. I think so, yes. Yeah. So moving on to Barrels of Fun.
    77:17
    Well, the good news is if you're into pinball merchandise, Barrels of Fun merchandise is now available on the collectfun.com website, collect with a K, that is. and current merchandise includes t-shirts, hoodies and a cap.
    77:40
    I'm sure there will be more products coming soon. Oh, absolutely. That's the start of it. So, and, well, a little bit of European news. The first Labyrinth games are ready to ship to the UK, destined for its local distributor, who we already mentioned also as distributor for American Pinball, retro arcade specialists. Yeah, and those games are being flown in, not coming by ship. So I think they posted on social media a few days ago saying they were about to leave and should be in the UK having clear customs both sides of the flight in about 12 days. so maybe by the time you hear this they'll be available for sale in the UK if not already sold that's true, yes, some certainly are yes, I know that and also very interesting I think, well, last month we had the Dutch Pimble Open Expo where we actually recorded our pin cost and we had David Tannes of Barrels of Fun as a special guest on that episode live from the Dutch Pimble Open.
    79:01
    You may be pleased to hear that he had a wonderful time at the show and lots of positive feedback to the Labyrinth Games. So very, very happy that David came over. And I'm also very happy that he enjoyed his trip so much. A big thank you to him for joining us on the Pink House last night. Yeah. And during his first seminar, because he did two, not only did he surprise Edson Deaves with three bitter balls, a typical Dutch snack, he also surprised Gerard van der Sande from the Dutch Pinball Museum with some prototype labyrinth items that he donated to be exhibited in the Dutch Pinball Museum.
    79:53
    And at that time, David had not been there, but a couple of days later, he did visit the Dutch Pinball Museum, and he was very impressed with it. And he posted some pictures on his Facebook as well, if you're interested. So do check that out.
    80:12
    Yeah, absolutely. So nice to see a good collaboration there between manufacturers and museums. Right, yeah. So then, well, since we were discussing the Dutch pinball open,
    80:29
    one other pinball manufacturer that was also present and very impressed with the show, it was their first time attending, we're talking about Pinball Brothers. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And, well, there's not that much news from them other than that they're still building and shipping ABBA games. But on social media, several videos surfaced or were published of Benny Anderson of ABBA, it's a Swedish pop group you might have heard of,
    81:12
    who was actually playing ABBA pinball, or at least a little bit his son, Ludwig Andersson, was also involved in the well was very involved instrumental I would say in the development and production of this ABBA Pimbo machine, he was also present along with Helena Walter Higgins who is a very well known Swedish tournament player I would say and you can find many of those videos on her social media as well so if you want to see some Abba playing Abba then you know where to go yeah and as with David a big thank you to Daniel Jensen from Pinball Brothers for joining us for last month's Pincast to bring us all the latest updates on what's been going on with Pinball Brothers even though as we said here there wasn't an awful lot of news we seem to manage to get quite a lot of discussion going about what's happening with Pimble Brothers and software updates coming to their title so thanks again to Daniel and I look forward to speaking to him again soon right so now let's head over to Homeping in Taiwan although Mike Kalinowski as Jack Pornieri just mentioned, was actually at the Melbourne Pinball Expo last weekend as well. Yes, he was. Mike Kalinowski, the owner and founder of Homepin in Taiwan.
    82:59
    I did not hear anything about Blues Brothers Games being present at that show, but I can't imagine them not being there.
    83:07
    Yes, I haven't seen anything about that, but I've been fairly quiet on social media about that. and been sharing pictures of building mechs in the factories for Bruce Brothers, as well as soundboards and printed apron cards. Right. But nothing about the game itself being at Melbourne Pinball Expo. No, it did say that a small run of the Bruce Brothers game will be shipping before Christmas.
    83:39
    Yeah, that's right. But that's still three weeks away. So, yeah, that might explain a little bit, I suppose. And other than that,
    83:52
    Homepin has been building belly transformers, replacement transformers, that is, where apparently there is a huge market for those, or at least a big enough market to ship at least a hundred of those.
    84:14
    Apparently, I had no idea, but people were sacrificing Transformers for other users, and that made Pinball Machine unplayable, of course.
    84:26
    So apparently there's a lot of games in need of a new Transformer so they can be played again. Right, okay. Well, I'm surprised at you, but I'm sure you wouldn't be building them if you didn't know there was a demand for them. So good to see that demand being filled. One of the sort of staples of Homepin's business, really, isn't it, building replacement parts? That's how it started, I guess. Yeah. So good to see that business to fill up and running alongside the development of the Blues Brothers. Right. And, oh, well, that's all the news, I suppose, for Homebind. Yeah, that's right, yeah. Okay, so let's go back to Texas, where we were before, with Barrels of Fun and with Multimorphic, and look at the newest company down there, Turner Pinball. And not much news from them, but Cary Hardy did do a tour of the factory on his YouTube channel and interview with Chris Turner as well. So if you want to see what goes on in the factory there, then go to look up Kerry Hardy's YouTube channel and a very informative tour of the factory, which I haven't really seen before. So a nice first look there. Right. So now speaking of factory tours, of course last month we both were in the position to tour the factory of Chicago Gaming which happens to be the next company we're talking about so the first Pulp Fiction limited edition games have left the Chicago Gaming factory and they're heading for Europe as far as I know not by air but probably by boat Games destined for North America Will start shipping in December So Yeah And a New run of Medieval Madness Will Happen in 2025 But we're not sure when Although Sounds like the sort of story we've thought every month Doesn't it With the time scales flipping Month by month Yeah, so, well, last month we said spring, so let's say summer.
    87:00
    Yeah, okay, next month we'll say, it didn't happen in 2024, it might happen in 2025, 2026 though, definitely.
    87:09
    Anyway, so, well, at least they're busy and we're happy to see Chicago Gaming cranking out the games. And there's still no news on when the new saloon mod for Cacus Canyon will become available. So once we know more you will know it as well Good I was looking at it just the other day thinking I wonder when that going to be available Yeah right No news yet on that Okay, not a lot of news either from Pedretti in Italy, Pedretti Gaming, Pedretti Pinball. But they do have some deals on offer, not Black Friday or Cyber Monday specifically, because they're ongoing, but they do have deals on parts accessories on their pinballremakes.com website shop. If you go there and have a look at quite a lot of them, they have markdowns on lots of things. Too many to mention here, but all kinds of different parts accessories. So if you missed out on any of the Black Friday, Cyber Monday deals, you can always get, well, not always, but at the moment you can get a good deal on the Dressy Pinball remake parts on there. pinballremakes.com website. Okay, well, that's good to know. So, well, there is this Canada-based company called Pinball Adventures.
    88:38
    So you say. Yes, well, I've seen a few of their Polly Factory games popping up here and there at various shows, and all the ones I've seen so far have had the engraved black wood cabinets. It looks very nice Yeah, it did look nice and very shiny as well there seems to be quite a lot of those around I think those people who did buy the game seem to have all plumped for that particular finish on it which is a good call, I'd say but apart from that, no news from Pinball Adventures on their social media feed been very quiet for quite some time as indeed they said they would do and would be so probably won't get any news on them this month and maybe something in the new year. Oh, yeah. So, instead, let's move to a company where we do have some news, and that is over in France, and that's Hexapinball. Yeah. Who were actually, yeah, made their presence felt at the Dutch Pinball Open Expo last month with the two Space Hunt games, which I think we both got a chance to play it finally. Although we also played it at Expo. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I didn't get a chance to play it at the DPO Expo, but I did get a chance to play it in Chicago Expo. So for the first time. So that was, yeah, I could see why people were getting excited about it. But news from them, quite significant news as well this month, And that news is that they have teamed up, basically, French video and board game maker Ancama, A-N-K-A-M-A, has bought a stake in Hexapinball. Yes, that's right, they've invested in the company. They make the free online RPG game called Doofus, D-O-F-U-S, amongst several other games. and they have decided to branch out into pinball and bought into Hexapinball. So Hexa themselves say this in a fairly corporate turn of phrase, this strategic partnership marks a key milestone for us, equipping us with the necessary tools to accelerate our development and enrich our offering while reinforcing our values of excellence and innovation. It could have been a certain pinball press release. It could have been any company's press release, not even the pinball one. But the key thing is they've now got some extra backing and potential new distribution markets as well. And maybe even, as I said, new themes for upcoming titles based on Ankama's established titles. So maybe we'll see a doofus pinball next.
    91:47
    Okay. Again, speculation, but interesting that they looked at Hexer and decided that's a worthwhile investment for them. So I suppose a confidence through the Hexer team. Congratulations to them. And looking forward to seeing where that leads them. in the meantime in France they don't do Black Friday but they do do a different thing called Les Jeux Tricolores which is a celebration of French made products and of course Hexapimble being a French company based in Bordeaux their space hunt game is made in France and so between November the 22nd and December the 2nd. Oh, look, you just missed it again. No, you can enjoy, or could have enjoyed, an exceptional discount of €500 on the purchase of a Space Hunt classic or elegance machine if you went through their website using the promo code LATRIKOLOR2024. However, you missed it now. So, however, that's not to say there won't be a repeat of that if you may find that they are available still with that discount if you ask nicely at certain places. So, not Black Friday, but the Jeu Tricolore in France, a discount on Space Hunt. Right. And then the most important news regarding Hexapimble, of course, was they ran this quiz for a period of 10 weeks and every week they would post a question on their social media and you had to reply in the comments with the correct answer and these were multiple choice answers asking about one week the question was in what year the first pinball machine with flippers was released.
    94:05
    There was a question about Roger Sharp's testimony in New York. Well, some generic pinball history question. And you had to answer for 10 consecutive weeks in a row correctly, of course, and keeping up with the quiz, because if you kept a week, then you were no longer eligible to win. Right.
    94:42
    So they took, I think they had like three winners. One, I have no idea what they were actually, but there were like... The first three won a Space Hunt mug. Ah, okay. And then there were 10 or 11 others, including myself, who won a Haxa pinball cap. Wow. Oh, yes. I can see the list of winners there, including yourself. Yes. Wow. I thought I'd mention it. Well, congratulations. I'm a winner. I hope you'll wear it with pride. and that rounds it up for Hacksaw Pinball but thank you for hosting the quiz and I'm very happy that I won I'm so happy I think we need to see you wearing said cap we'll think about that ok I think it's going to be there next month certainly I'm sure it will have arrived But anyway. Well, congratulations. It already arrived. Oh, so we've got it. No, no, no, I don't have it yet. I will get it Wednesday.
    95:59
    Oh, okay, in time for Christmas. Christmas come early for you. Jolly good. Well, moving on then. Go back to Australia where we were just talking to Jack earlier. We're really going all over the place. We are. Well, we cover the world, so let's bounce around all over it.
    96:21
    Vector Pitbull were at the Melbourne Pinball Expo as well, along with everybody else, where they had both their 8-ball Fury game and their Peter Brock King of the Mountain.
    96:34
    But both models were there and seemed to be well-received, from what I can tell. That's all I know. don't know anything there were no announcements about any future titles there just the current ones I think the Peter Brock one is the future title so far there's only prototypes and they're taking orders or pre-orders what have you yeah for both versions of that game now that we're discussing a Australian pinball company any news from Haggis pinball absolutely none no there's been There have been no developments, no reports from liquidators, no, as far as I'm aware, no charges have been leveled or brought up as far as trading while insolvent, which was something the liquidator of the company had claimed was taking place. But as we all know, these legal processes take a long, long time to proceed. And also, as Jack was saying, it's now summer in Australia. It's after summer, so I suspect a lot of people will be taking time off, especially around the end of the year. So don't expect any developments there. But certainly no further news from Liquidator about recovering of assets or any other legal proceedings taking place. Okay. So, then we have, I'm going to skip one on the list, and move to Wanderland Amusements.
    98:15
    Yeah. Well, they showed up at Pinball Expo with a cabinet, basically. That was pretty much it. Yeah.
    98:27
    Yes, an empty cabinet. About 80% the size of a normal pinball machine. Yeah, has scaled down mechs, has scaled down ball as well. But they are, well, as we've reported on them before, they are aiming to produce home game, physical home pinball games at under the US$1,000 price point. Wow. Now, of course, one of the things which that relies on, which we were just talking about before, is that they need to manufacture the game in China and ship it to the US.
    99:07
    Whether that's going to be impacted by future tariffs, we don't know. It could blow their business model out of the water. Or it might not. Anyway, what they have done, they have been showing some video of the first flipping, not first flipping Whitewood, the first Whitewood that is flipped, of their upcoming game. We knew it was going to be an Alice in Wonderland game, but they decided to call the game Alice Goes to Wonderland.
    99:41
    I wonder why. Yeah, yes, not to be confused with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which we were talking about earlier. So this Wonderland amusement, they kind of already showed their hands what they're going to be seeming their first game on from the side of the company. Yeah. So, yeah, Alice Goes to Wonderland. So they showed a video of the white wood being flipped. It had two flippers, two ramps, two plastic ramps with wire-formed returns on them back to in lanes, three pop bumpers, a captive ball shot, some stand-up targets. not overly complicated, I would say, in any way. Certainly better than a Zizzle-type game, that's for sure.
    100:33
    In the video, one of the things I did notice was that all the three pop bumpers fire simultaneously when any of them is triggered, which presumably means they have a single solenoid driving them all. I was looking to see whether the slingshots were the same, but I don't think they do from what I could tell. It's very hard to tell because it's sort of like in the video the ball hits one and then fires straight over to the other one and then straight off fires straight off that so it's hard to see whether they were firing independently or at the same time but I think they were independent. But of course they want to keep the price down they need to reduce the number of solenoids in the game so having all three pop bumpers driven once is a known tactic in doing that. Right. Anyway, no artwork on the game at this point, and it seems to flow well, seems to look all right as a game. It's obviously not a fully featured game that we're used to reporting on, but I suspect it will find its place in the market.
    101:47
    Hopefully for them it will. Now I'm wondering, so we have Wonderland Amusements and the first game is Elves Goes to Wonderland.
    101:59
    If they change their name after this game, maybe they could change it to Neverland Amusements and do a Peter Pan type of game. Peter Pan Goes to Neverland.
    102:12
    I thought for a moment you were going to do a Michael Jackson game. Well, that might be your twist. Nobody sees coming. Yeah, it's a joke. I'm not going to make that. But, yeah, okay. Yes, maybe.
    102:27
    Oh, well, I kid, I kid. They call themselves Land of Amusements, and they could do Wonderland, Neverland. Yeah.
    102:36
    Disneyland. Do a license game. Ooh, yeah. So, anyway, so, heading back to, I suppose this rounds it up for Wonderland Amusements. I think so, yeah. Yeah, okay. So heading back to Europe, Spain to be more precise, Bitronic.
    102:57
    Well, the only news I can tell you is Tokyo Perfect Drift, the game designed by Quetzalpinball, is in production.
    103:09
    Woo-hoo. I haven't seen any evidence of the game's shipping yet. But I know there are several distributors in Europe, like RS Pinball and I think Freddy's Pinball Paradise is also distributing the game. And I have no idea how it is for other countries, but the game is in production and I expect to see them popping up somewhere soon enough. I have to say Stefan Riedler of RS Pinball did bring both a Super Hoops and a Tokyo Perfect Drift produced by Bitronic to the Dutch Pinball Open Expo and the game looked really good it did, yeah I'd like to spend some time playing it again it's been a long time so first get my hands on that game I'm sure it's changed significantly since but yeah, always was a good looking game and that element of it certainly hasn't changed no, the code has and we're just curious to see how and that's all I got ok, fair enough then we can add I think a bunch of other companies which we have no news as well no further news anyway including Cardona Pinball there's no news Tilt Bob in the US, no news there STR Pinball, no I think there and, of course, Circus Maximus, which we include, just because we can't be bothered to take them out of the list, I think, pretty much.
    104:51
    However, there is some other news. Here it comes. Yes, our ongoing coverage of the Deep Root developments.
    105:03
    Following the Security and Exchange Commission's Victoria civil case against him, Robert Mueller has been criminally indicted on eight counts of wire fraud relating to an alleged scheme to defraud investors of millions of dollars, it says. Actually, not that many millions of dollars, but the indictment says a large proportion of the money invested by individuals was used to repay earlier investors their principal and interest, the hallmark of what is known as a Ponzi scheme, which we've heard all this before, of course. However, the SEC's case was civil. This is now a criminal case, which could see jail time.
    105:49
    Each count of wire fraud carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine. Prosecutors intend to seek forfeiture of certain property from Mueller if he is convicted. so presumably to pay the fine the indictment reads beginning at a time unknown to the grand jury but believed to be no later than April the 8th 2019 he unlawfully and knowingly devised and executed a scheme to defraud the victim investors and to obtain from them money by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations and promises hmm, doesn't sound good Bad boy. Exactly, that's what I'm saying. So each count, remember eight counts here, so each count relates to an individual investor varying between 100,000 US dollars and 1 million dollars, with a total sum involved of 2.44 million. As we know, there was around about 60 million in total invested in these funds, but these eight cases only relate to 2.44 million. of that if convicted well would there be other charges forthcoming related to investments i suspect not this is probably a sample eight cases robert claims he doesn't have the money to pay for an attorney to defend him he's a lawyer himself uh not criminal lawyer though uh well not in that sense um so he has he has requested a publicly appointed attorney to be assigned to his case and one that has been, someone who's actually quite well-versed in these kind of cases.
    107:38
    There is the suspicion put around that a plea bargain deal has already been agreed. They seem to be going very likefully on him, given the sums involved and the number of cases, in that he's been allowed to sort of self-surrender to the court. he didn't appear at the arraignment hearing and pleaded not guilty without being there but he did it through paperwork there is no published date for the next court hearing yet I suppose there will start discovery soon to try and get all the details for the prosecution and the defence will then be able to find out what the prosecution have against him as if they don't already know of course unless a plea deal is in place and that makes that all unnecessary and he'll serve, well, if he pleads guilty to it, probably getting a minimum, very low security jail time and a slap on the wrist and a fine that he can't afford to pay. And they'll probably see some property to try and pay it.
    108:42
    But that's all assuming that he is convicted at some point. At the moment, the wheels have started turning on the criminal case, but it seems to be towards the lower end of severity compared to what it could be if they really went hard on him and chased the full missing funds, shall we say.
    109:07
    Anyway, that's where that is. As soon as we find any more details of next court hearings or any settlements, we'll let you know and of course there hasn't been any settlement yet on the amount that the SEC's case will involve, because he has to pay fines on that. So that is yet to be set by the court. Right. Hopefully that's going to happen this month. No, no, there was a whole series of cases, wasn't there? That's right. Yeah, it goes into January and February of next year before one side says this, the other side gets to respond and then goes back to the SEC and then the court decides. So, yeah. We've got a couple of months on that one, yeah.
    109:49
    Okay. Well, thank you for your deep dive into these deep root developments. I see what you did. You did? Yeah. Very clever.
    110:04
    Yeah, so the other thing we wanted to talk about was, because we recorded last month's Pinkard at the Dutch Fingal Open Expo, where we gave a sort of summary of it, of what was going on at it. We did it on the Saturday? No, the Friday. Friday, Friday night. It was actually before the event publicly started, although the tournament had started. So tournament players were allowed in, but recreational players and other regular visitors were only allowed in Saturday and Sunday. But it was a great event. And I'm not just saying that because I was partly involved in it and my role in it was very modest, I would say. I have to thank you, Martin, for recording the seminars on Saturday. And I wish I was able to help out more than I actually was able to due to other obligations. That's all right. It wasn't intending to be there, but I saw how many seminars there were and thought they should all be recorded. so that took up a lot of my time and then on Sunday I ended up back in the seminar room helping with the talks as well so I actually didn't get to see as much of the show as I'd hoped but that was just me and didn't get to take as many pictures as I wanted to either and missed some of the tournaments like the kids tournament or the youth tournament I should say and the digital pinball and some of the side tournaments as well like the flip frenzy and the pin golf just because I was in there helping seminars. But anyway, it was a good time. I'm with all of those as well, too. Oh, there you are.
    111:50
    It was, yeah, I think it was bigger and better than last year. Certainly the seminar schedule was, which I think we can thank you in large part for organising, along with Marcel, of course. Yes. And I think that holding it in a place where it was held last year removed a lot of these unknown factors about exactly how the place worked, where you could get the assistance from. And I think the hotel and conference centre were, again, very helpful in making sure it was a big success. And the number of new games there, the number of manufacturers represented, the number of people from the business who were there, and the variety of games. And the tournaments as well seem to be much happier down the end of the room and much better organised. They were well organised last time, but they didn't overrun to the same extent this year as they did, well, apart from the women's one, which I noted.
    112:59
    I think the ladies' tournament finished at some crazy time. Oh, no, that's all right. I'm meeting her up with Pinball Expo. There you go. There's been so many tournaments over the past few weeks.
    113:12
    But, yeah, I think it benefited hugely from working in a known space and everybody was able to improve on last year, which was excellent by itself. So, yeah, congratulations to the whole team who are working on that. I know a lot of people work a huge number of hours to make something like that a success. I think it was very satisfying for the organizing team especially to see the positive feedback that the event got on social media. Not only by people who attended the event, but also the pimple manufacturers that were able to present themselves at the show or be there in the form of a special guest like Jack Bonieri, Gary Stern, David Sines. But also, Pinball Brothers and Hexa Pinball were there, and they expressed how good of a show they thought it was. They had not expected it to be this big and this good, and they will definitely be back for the next edition next year. Even Gary Stern said in his seminar that he had seen quite a few pinball shows, including Pinball Expo 40 the month before, but he suggested that Rob Burke should come down and see what we're cooking up here in Holland, because there's a few things that he could take from us, which is very, very humbling, of course, hearing from someone like Gary Stern such a comment. So, yeah, so congratulations to the organizing team. And I can only say, if you're in Europe and you're looking for a pinball event that you can't afford to miss, I suppose it has to be the Dutch Pinball Open Expo. Yeah, I agree. In fact, I make sure I don't. That's it. Right. And next time, make sure that you actually see the show and not just the camera. Yes, that's right. Lessons learned. My bad, my bad. I think that kind of wraps up for the pinball world this month of November 2024.
    115:49
    We will, of course, be back at the start of the new year in January. God, Lord, can you believe that? With our next pincast, looking back at all the events in the pinball world throughout this month of December. I'm sure it's going to be an exciting month one way or the other. It's already started off well, and we've already looked forward to some of the things that might be happening. Right. So until then, from both of us, we hope you have a fantastic rest of December, amazing Christmas, New Year, holiday season, however you celebrate.
    116:22
    And we look forward to joining you again next month for the first Pinball Industry News Pincast of 2025. So from me, Martin Aheb of Pinball News, and from me, Jonathan Houston of Pinball Magazine, we wish you a very merry time and we'll see you next month. Bye.