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DPP #86 "The Fix is in! Spooky reveal soon? Make a pinball machine!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·36m 42s·analyzed·Dec 6, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

American Pinball revealed to produce only ~300 games/year; Spooky teases new reveal with mystery parts.

Summary

Don discusses David Fix's recent podcast appearances addressing American Pinball production rumors, revealing the company produced only ~300 machines in 2023 despite claiming 15-20 per day capacity. He speculates on upcoming AP games (Food Truck and Yukon Yeti as likely next releases), analyzes Galactic Tank Force's poor market reception tied to supply constraints, previews Spooky Pinball's teased new game reveal with mysterious parts being distributed to content creators, and updates on Stern production completing Guardians of the Galaxy with Stranger Things Premium likely next.

Key Claims

  • American Pinball produced approximately 300 machines total in 2023, not the claimed 15-20 per day ongoing capacity

    high confidence · David Fix's podcast interviews on Loser Kids and Pinball News; Don's analysis of the math inconsistency

  • Galactic Tank Force has been 'dead on arrival' financially with poor market reception

    medium confidence · Don citing distributors in the industry; observations of limited machines in arcades nationwide

  • American Pinball's next four games will be: two unlicensed titles, then two licensed titles

    medium confidence · David Fix statement during podcast interviews

  • Spooky Pinball is rumored to reveal a new game sometime this week

    medium confidence · Don reporting unconfirmed rumor; game tease may have already happened or still pending

  • Pinball Expo 40th will expand to 5-6 days with factory tours from AP, JJP, CGC, and Stern

    medium confidence · David Fix confirmation during podcast interviews about planned expansion

  • Stern completed Guardians of the Galaxy production; Stranger Things Premium likely last game of 2023

    medium confidence · The Pinball Show production updates; Stern factory shutdown two weeks at year-end

  • Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro has very high secondary market demand with immediate resales

    high confidence · Don observing 37 Foo Fighters Pro listings vs. zero BKSOR Pro listings on Pinside

  • Spooky Pinball likely built over 1,000 Scooby Doo machines in 2023

    medium confidence · Don observing unboxing boxes numbered 1100s-1500s; Spooky production data estimation

Notable Quotes

  • “The only way this makes sense, that you're looking at a target of 15 to 20 games made per day from your factory with a total production of 300 per year... is if the production isn't actually ongoing each day of the year”

    Don @ ~15:00 — Core analysis of American Pinball's apparent production contradiction

  • “Where the heck is this game? Like, I'm just not seeing it anywhere. ...If games aren't leaving the factory, people aren't getting to play it, people aren't getting excited about it to the point that they should be, then they're not ordering the game.”

    Don @ ~25:00 — Explains link between supply constraints and Galactic Tank Force's market failure

  • “Conceptually, I love this thing. I love the hokey art. I like the sound effects. It's kooky... And every time I do step up to it, I'm like, all right, let's go. Make me want to bring you home... Then I play it, and it's like there's just several things standing in its own way”

    Don @ ~35:00 — Articulates the disconnect between GTF's appeal and execution; quality issues undermining design

  • “Spooky. You wear the clothes of the small town hero, but you're playing in the big leagues now with these numbers, guys. I just love that. We love the success story.”

    Don @ ~58:00 — Recognition of Spooky as emerging #2 player in pinball market based on production volume

  • “I received this piece that looked like a pair of brass knuckles with a sword attached to it... it looks like it would be a little mini upper play field”

    Don @ ~65:00 — Description of mysterious Spooky teaser component received by multiple content creators

  • “Black Knight Sword of Rage... there's none. Every now and then one pro pops up and one pro is sold and that is it”

    Don @ ~115:00 — Demonstrates extreme secondary market scarcity for BKSOR driving remake justification

Entities

David FixpersonAmerican Pinball Inc.companySpooky PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyGalactic Tank ForcegameScooby DoogameJawsgameBlack Knight Sword of Ragegame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball producing only ~300 machines/year despite claiming 15-20/day capacity indicates fundamental production bottleneck or strategic under-utilization

    high · David Fix's contradictory statements analyzed by Don; production numbers don't align with stated capacity; explains scarcity of GTF in field

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Market is buyer's market in late 2023; soft pricing on recent releases; new-in-box purchases only justified for compelling licenses or strong designers

    medium · Don's analysis comparing Food Truck vs Jaws commercial viability; recent games available cheap used; scarcity of 2023 releases in field

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Spooky Pinball emerging as #2 player in market with 1,000+ unit production capacity and strong sales momentum

    medium · Don observing 1100s-1500s serial numbers on Scooby Doo units; Spooky's success contrasted with smaller manufacturers' struggles

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Galactic Tank Force conceptually compelling but execution undermined by mechanical quality, flipper feel, and shooter rod consistency issues

    medium · Don's gameplay experience; contrast between attractive design/theme and frustrating playability; recurring shooter rod problems noted across multiple locations

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo 40th anniversary expanding to 5-6 days with pre-show factory tours across multiple manufacturers

    medium · David Fix announcement of expansion; factory tours from AP, JJP, CGC, Stern planned for first 48 hours

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.110

0:00
Don's Pinball Podcast, episode number 86. Let's just get back into the swing of things. As they say here around the Walt Disney World Resort, we're coming to you from the Animal Kingdom Lodge here, and I was just remarking about what a magical and fun place this is, and I can't wait to get into all the details of how much fun I do have on these theme park trips. Pinball-related stuff, too, but also the theme park side. And boy, am I excited to hear that you, listener, are just as excited about tubing and a lot of feedback and some hype. So I think I will turn into a little splinter action off of this and get into a little bit of theme park-based podcasting sometime soon. So look for that. I was riding up in an elevator tonight with Neil Patrick Harris, of all people, and just remarked just what a fun-themed environment this is. It's almost as if I'm under glass here because it's nothing but, you know, great theming everywhere you look. And speaking of great theming, let's talk about Mr. David Fix, who's been doing the circuit of the podcasters lately. I heard him on two different podcasts today. Our friend the Loser Kids are right back at it after giving us that bombshell podcast earlier this week, where they held no bars were held on their feelings about certain personalities within the pinball ephemer here, the diaspora, and how positively, positivity is really what's warranted here, especially as we're coming up into the awards season. But Mr. Fix, he's been resurrected. Remember a couple of weeks ago, months ago maybe, everything we were talking about was where's David Fix? Where's the Galactic Tank Forces? Where's David? Is David okay? David, blink twice if you're all right or if you need rescue. Well, he's now not only appeared on the Loser Kids podcast, but also the Pinball News and World Report, the news magazine that goes off with Martin Arab every month and his co-host there. He dropped there too. So I don't know if this guy is just responding to rumors that are circulating around in the greater diaspora or if he's got a marketing push or something. But there was some really, I guess, anytime these guys do this, there's always more questions than answers. it seems. So it seems like you wanted to come out and kind of dispel some rumors, right? There's these rumors that have been going around that the next three pinball machines to be produced from American Pinball, your friends and mine, because of Legends of Valhalla, as well as Hot Wheels, as well as whatever Oktoberfest is, as well as the ice cream-ravenging interplanetary cow game Galactic Tank Force, which on one hand can drive through your living room, on the other hand can drive through your budget, but apparently is having trouble driving out of a factory. So he said, dear listener, no, no, that was malicious rumors that our next three games will be all unlicensed themes. Turns out only their next two games will be unlicensed themes, and the next two after that are apparently licenses. Now, I'm not sure what there is really to gain by forecasting out the next four games. That's two years in the future. Nobody else does this. JTP doesn't do this. Stern definitely doesn't do this. Spooky Pinball doesn't even do this. They don't tell you forecast what the next two years of games are going to be like. So I'm not sure exactly what the angle here is. But there was this other question, though, and this one persists. Pretty much everybody except Spooky, how many units are actually being produced? What's leaving the factory? How many are actually out there? When these pinball companies come out and reveal these games, they'll have limited edition numbers. Up to 1,000 of these will be produced. There's up to 5,000 of these J.J.P. limited edition Guns N' Roses will be out there. Whether or not those are actually made, who really knows? You know, I mean, not everybody that buys a game lists it on pin side in the database, so we can't really track that, but we can kind of get a rough sense.
Loser Kid Pinball Podcast
media
Pinball Expoevent
Kerry Hardyperson
Jason Knappperson
Donperson
The Pinball Showmedia
Mad Pinballcompany
Barry Oslerperson
Food Truckgame
Yukon Yetigame
Stranger Things Premiumgame
Zach Manningperson
  • ?

    leak_detection: Spooky Pinball distributing mysterious teaser components (brass knuckles/sword, subway ramp, back plate) to content creators Kerry Hardy, Jason Knapp, and Don

    high · Three separate components received; pieces fit together; listener corroboration of similar mechanism in older game; potential skill shot/sorting mechanism

  • $

    market_signal: Galactic Tank Force positioned as dead-on-arrival financially; supply constraints created self-fulfilling prophecy of market failure

    high · Don observing GTF absent from most arcades nationwide; distributor feedback on financial failure; limited availability preventing customer excitement

  • $

    market_signal: Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro commanding strong secondary market with zero inventory on Pinside; justifies manufacturer rerun despite initial poor sales

    high · Don's Pinside inventory analysis showing 37 Foo Fighters Pro vs zero BKSOR Pro; individual pro sales at ~$6,300

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern completing Guardians of the Galaxy production with Stranger Things Premium as likely final 2023 release before two-week December shutdown

    medium · The Pinball Show production data; distributor timeline guidance; Stern factory closure schedule

  • ?

    product_concern: Galactic Tank Force has persistent mechanical quality issues (shooter rod jamming, inconsistent flipper feel, ball jumps) undermining otherwise appealing design

    medium · Don's direct play experience; reports from multiple locations; some machines playing 'terrible' while others fine; later builds improved

  • ?

    rumor_hype: American Pinball's next two games rumored as Food Truck (Barry Osler design) and Yukon Yeti (White Water spiritual successor)

    medium · David Fix confirmation of food-themed game and prior-game continuation; Don's deduction linking rumors to designer context

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern appears to be completing 2023 without announcing next cornerstone game; no Spike 3 adoption or new platform announcement evident

    low · Don speculating no production of next cornerstone game in December; uncertainty about post-Stranger Things roadmap

    • 3:59
    So, I don't know, this is really weird. There was some speculation that American Pinball was doing a game based on 300, which is kind of a weird theme to go with pinball, but whatever, because there was all these posters of 300 all over the factory apparently in the background of, you know, candid shots throughout the factory and whatnot and what have you. He said, no, no, this was motivation for the folks in the factory and the rest of the team that that was their magic number that they needed to hit by December 2023, which is where we are now. And at first I'm like, well, surely he means, you know, get the first 300 Galactic Tank Force Deluxe Editions out there or the first 300 tank cabinets or some such. But no, he kind of walked that back a couple times. It was like, no, no, no, this is like 300 machines total. And so then the loser kids were quick to jump on this and say, so you're looking at roughly finishing one game per day at the factory on average, 300 games one year, 365 days, 1.36 games per day, right? Is that what it works out to? And he said, no, no, no, no, we can do 15 to 20 games per day, but we're looking to hit 300 this year. So, math majors out there, you can already see where I'm going with this, that those numbers do not add up at all. So we have to surmise a little bit from what can we gleam from this juicy nugget that he was able to share with us. The mustachioed hero, we'll call him.
    5:23
    The only way this makes sense, that you're looking at a target of 15 to 20 games made per day from your factory with a total production of 300 per year. The other way that that works, dear listener, is if the production isn't actually ongoing each day of the year, and I think that may be the case. When they're in, say, production mode, right, making these Houdinis, again, for who? Ask Dua Lipa or, you know, she'll go Houdini on you.
    5:49
    Maybe when there's a production, they're like, okay, well, let's build 250 Houdinis, and now we're building them at 15 to 20 per day. But that would only be 10 days, 15 days of production to hit those numbers at that rate. So what happens the rest of the year there? Still a mystery. So I guess what I could take it, if I'm taking David at his word, and he's got the face that I can trust, it seems that they go through little spurts of production and then periods of, I guess, development between there. 300 a year, that seems crazy, because they're making Legends of Ahala, they're making Houdini's, and they're making Galactic Tank Forces of four different trim levels. you know they have the tank cabinet the limited edition their signature edition was the tank cabinet with some extra paint on the 3D printed parts some titan bands and that particular back glass of which there's 200 of those right so they're going to need you know the better part of a year to make those 200 and then they had the deluxe model which is essentially the tank tread model with frankly better cabinet art and without the tank treads or the turret and topper. And then down the road they could do like an even stripped down version of that, apparently. But what kind of numbers? Now, looking back, I travel around a lot. Y'all know that. I go to a lot of arcades when I do travel. You know, Ace Goge and Van Nuys and their other location. Get some Korean barbecue, play some games. Galloping Ghost, Ethereum,
    7:18
    various places around the Madison region. I went out to a couple spots in Arizona, you know, among others. I get around. I get around. Electric Bat Arcade, I was there. And when I go to these places, what I don't typically see is Galactic Tank Force, right? They're at Interium.
    7:35
    Electric Bat just got theirs, but didn't have it earlier when I was there. I've only seen Galactic Tank Force at a few areas outside of Expos. And I gotta think that, you know, if this game is actively in production, I mean, it should be everywhere, right? You know, Venom goes into production, leaves the factory, it's everywhere. Foo Fighters leaves the factory, it's everywhere. Godfather, it gets everywhere when it gets out. I think in the next two weeks we're going to see Elton John start to saturate all the typical places that get early releases of games. But Galactic Tank Force has been really kind of slow to go out.
    8:05
    Aside from Ethereum, which seems to have one of every AP game, they're really kind of in short supply. And this whole year I've kind of been waiting. This is the big new game, big marketing push. A lot of film clips were filmed for this game. A lot of code is in this game. A lot of artists worked hard on this game. I'm like, where the heck is this game? Like, I'm just not seeing it anywhere.
    8:29
    You know, and the places I have seen it, I've seen some that were playing in okay shape and some that were playing in terrible shape. You know, I've got reports from the Mad Pinball Crew out in Ohio. They've got one out there on location, and it's doing fantastic. They're not having any problems with it at all. You know, but they've got what I think is a more recent build than the ones that were earlier that I was playing in Pittsburgh, you know, at the beginning of the year that seemed to have shooter rod problems where the thing just seems like it's jammed up all the time. it's not consistent at all as far as you know being able to hit a skill shot balls are jumping off the wire forms you know ricocheting off the tank yeeting over the flippers you know and all that but if they only made a total of around 300 games by december 2023 since january now that all suddenly makes sense to me Like that a narrative approach that I can appreciate So I don think he lying when he telling us that their goal is to hit 300
    9:20
    Is he twisting the truth, though, with the 15 to 20 games per day? Or if that is true, their production goes in fits and spurts, and maybe more spurts than fits, I think. Well, which one is the production? Is it the fit or is it the spurt? Ask your parents, grown-ups So it was an interesting listen This guy's a total character, man I love what he does with Expo I love the hat and mustache Don't lose that, it's identifiable I like that he goes to IAPA I like that he travels, that's cool He says he's selling a lot of games But how can they be doing that when they're not making a lot of games? Unless they're running through back inventory Somebody help me out here You know, because I listened to the Loser Kid podcast all the way through that interview, and I'm about 75% of the way through the Martin and Lewis on the pinball news, and it's just not quite shaping up to me. Let's talk about future games, okay? The next four games that are coming out, two unlicensed and then two licensed, and the one from the Sonic Kid, that's going to be a licensed theme apparently, and it's at a flippable Whitewoods stage. So if that's the third game down the road, or even the fourth game, then I'm not really worried that they're in a flippable whitewood stage now. These next two games, though, apparently are probably finished, I would think, or ready for production. They're looking at doing 1.2 games per year or something like that, 1.4 games per year. I think that means like one game every two years, or around two games a year, but maybe nine months apart. Either way. Either way, what's the gestational age of an elephant? but somewhere between a giraffe and an elephant. I think that's what we're looking for, the production capacity or frequency from American Pinball there.
    11:01
    But the two unlicensed teams. So here are some rumors that I heard. I heard this on Apple floor that there was a food-themed game coming next from a designer that is no longer with us. And from that, I can surmise that it's Barry Osler. And I heard the rumor of Food Truck. And I'm hoping that Food Truck is a codename for something and it's not actually a Roach Coach taco truck kind of themed game because I think that's a really weird theme for pinball. But then look who we're talking about here. So, okay, so they got a silver food truck that's going to be throwing out food. Now, one of my favorite games from back in the day is Diner, and it is a very silly game where you're getting frankfurters and chili burgers and root beers to a cast of characters that they pulled out of the taxi game. So, you know, that game works for me. So I don't think this theme is completely dead on arrival or anything. But could this be what they're talking about? Like this will be the next game that they're going to release? Is this right for the market now? Let's get to that in a minute. What else? What is the other rumor we heard? Well, our friend, yours and mine, David Fix, he went ahead and confirmed that the next game, one of the next games that they'll be making, is a continuation of a prior game, right? And then not only that, but it's not a continuation of an American pinball. prior game so we can surmise one level deeper this probably pertains to the rumor of the yukon yeti that i've been hearing this would be the the spiritual successor to whitewater right uh very good original theme one of my favorites i love the plastic vacuum formed ramps the little roller coaster rapids that you go on you lock the ball in the cave or some cool animations there's a yeti up there with a diverter there's a lot going on really cool skill shots and just lots of ball paths and some vacuformed mountain ranges in the back um so that is a very fun game i fired up on the vp all the time um just to get my white water fix i like the call outs i like the music it's from very much of that era of fishtails and diner and and medieval madness and and it's from that school so a spiritual successor to that a white water 2.0 with you know tire feeling shots and more modern code implementation and maybe some LCD screen edge, you know, more satisfying video mode. Okay, yeah, I could be around that, and that really would fit with the American Pinball that you and I know, the American Pinball of Oktoberfest, the one that's a little bit out there but can make something a little bit zany. So, yeah, so it looks like if I was putting my $5 on the line now for what the next couple of the games from AP are going to be, I think they would be food truck, and I think we're going to see this Yukon Yeti Whitewater 2.0, both unlicensed themes, both consistent with the rumors that I've heard over the last year to months, and from Fix's mouth or himself, I think this is what we could surmise. So where are we at? Now, I have heard from folks, you know, distributors in the industry that also have podcasts, that also had episodes that came out recently, that financially speaking, GTF, Galactic Tank Force, dead on arrival. Just flat, just dead. If games aren't leaving the factory, that jives. If games aren't leaving the factory, people aren't getting to play it, people aren't getting excited about it to the point that they should be, then they're not ordering the game. I could see that.
    14:26
    Also, I'm talking about Zach Manning, he made a very clever point that the pinball enthusiast side of him, the one that likes quirky weird stuff that takes chances really likes Galactic Tank Force I kind of think I'm in that same camp too, this game has everything I would like if I had never seen GTF before we go to the multiverse and I go to multiverse me and I'm like hey we got this game it's about outer space and cows and ice cream and it's got two wire forms and it's got multiple magnets, and it's got a bash tank, and it's got a robot that pops up and down. Oh, and there's a swinging UFO cow target, and there's a diverter, and there's an LCD screen with a bunch of wacky things going on, and there's a version of it that has a turret on top so you can fold down the back box and have it look like a tank, and it even has some treads on the side with LEDs going around it, and I got Sonya Blade from Mortal Kombat 3 to be a character in the game. I'm like, where do I buy this game? I want to have this. Conceptually, I love this thing. I love the hokey art. I like the sound effects. It's kooky. Like, I should like this game. I like this game's concept so much. And every time I do step up to it, I'm like, all right, let's go. Make me want to bring you home. I want to get excited about a game that I want to have. That's why I'm in this hobby. That's why I play pinball. Because I want to get excited about a game that's going to come home with me. I want something great out there that I, you know, throw caution to the wind. And, you know, I want to act completely financially irresponsible. And I want to get this thing in my downstairs. I want to have a fantastic time with it. That's what I want. That's why we want good games from the hobby. But then I play it, and it's like there's just several things standing in its own way, you know. The flipper feels terrible to me. Or the shooter rod, you know. The plunger. But not on every game. But on some of them, it feels like it's just getting jammed up. Like I can't get any kind of consistency. You know, sometimes I play it, and I'm playing really well. and then the ball jumps off the wire for him for some reason. And I get yelled at by Anoya. And I'm like, what the heck, dude? It wasn't my fault. It was your fault, game. What the heck? So, you know, there's just like something standing in the way. The other thing is there's not 20 of these games in boxes at my local distributor where he's looking to cut deals and get one into my home. And now that we're hearing that they only made 300 games throughout the rest of the whole entirety of the year, now we know why. So I don't quite understand. It's like there's three little decisions that if they were made, we'd have a great company churning out awesome games at high quality, high quantity with highly satisfied customers and that we're not there. And I don't really know what it is because I don't have the inner workings of the company. But still a fascinating listen to Mr. David Fix. He's got two podcast interviews out. maybe he'll come on the show and I can ask him the gripping questions that I really want to I saw him around at Expo, I didn't want to bug him apparently he was at APA too, he must have been busy I didn't run into him I'm not going to want to bother the guy but I've got these questions I'm intrigued but I'm still left with more questions than answers the more I learn about the American pinball industry now, the cool thing is he's also involved in Pinball Expo and we've got Expo 40th coming up and he's going to expand it to like five or six days, which is bonkers. So dug into him a little bit through these interviews, and we found out that what he means by that is the first couple of days, there'll be 48 hours before you get to the whole trade show floor aspect of Expo, and there's going to be factory tours through multiple factories, AP, JJP. I think he said CGC and Stern will both have tours, like two each day for a couple days. It'll be a little preamble for folks that can make it there earlier. Will they still do the fan tour on Friday or Saturday or whenever it was I think that would still be a good idea to do at least a fan tour At least Stern could do that But I think I might pop down a little early so I could walk through these factories and kind of get to see everything for myself I think that would be super fun. I like that David and American Pinball are invested in the homebrew community. So if you do something cool and compelling and you've got something to offer, they're open to that. I just haven't seen anything come out of it yet. And I know it's a slow burn process, and I get that. I do. I just want interesting compelling games to play and I get Hot Wheels is a good seller and it doesn't break down when it's on location but I've had some good games on it but it's not compelling enough for me it's a little bit bland I think I'm rambling on American Pinball at this point check out the interviews, I thought they were interesting the market though the market is very much a buyer's market right now prices are soft, we need compelling themes if we're going to go new in box for sure so jaws is going to come out jaws is going to be available new in box for new in box prices there's going to be no used way to get into it if you want to be within that launch period of the first 90 days or so you know so like jaws is a compelling enough license from a compelling enough company with a compelling enough designer with insider connected code and all that that i i think that will sell just fine in this market if its competitor was food truck new in box sitting there You know, in this market, when you could really have anything, anything that's come out in the last two years even is available super cheap. Would you go new in box price for something like a food truck? I don't know. But even then, you know, how many are they going to make a year? A hundred? You know, if they're still making, you know, another hundred signature editions of Galactic Tank Force and whatever. So maybe it's a moot point. I don't know. I just don't know how you release Food Truck sometime in the next six months and expect it to sell with this competition that you're getting. We'll see. I'll continue to provide my speculation. I don't have any inside track on this. I haven't talked to David myself, but would love to. I'd love to get some insight. I'd love to come down to the factory. I'd love to help out any way I can if it means that I get compelling, interesting games that I get to go play with myself and with my friends. So there we go. So 300 games a year. that I don't want it to be true but it probably is because it explains a whole lot I mean spooky pinball we don't know the official numbers on Scooby Doo but they're up into the I'm seeing people unbox 1100s and I'm seeing boxes that say like you know 1500 on them 1300 so I think they've sent standard editions to Europe I think they've built well over a thousand Scooby Doos this year and we're going to look at them getting into their next game let's talk about spooky now man you know talk about like what's probably becoming like the number two player in pinball, man. Believe it or not. Spooky. You wear the clothes of the small town hero, but you're playing in the big leagues now with these numbers, guys. I just love that. We love the success story. We want them to continue to improve. Spooky pinball. They were rumored. This came out of nowhere. I wasn't even expecting this, but they were rumored to have a drop of their new game or a tease sometime like this week. It still may happen. It's still not Friday. I think it's only Tuesday so far.
    21:29
    I'm going to get beat. I'm going to be getting home. Wow, my English is suffering. I wonder what my first language was. I wonder if I'm better at that. I'm going to be getting home, and I'm thinking of taking my piece, my prototype piece, and I'm going to reach out to Jason Knapp, Cary Hardy, see if I can get them each a copy of it and start fitting things together and see if we can start piecing together clues in the meantime. In other ways, if we do get a reveal this week, though, we may have a better clue on exactly what's going on. Now, a listener of the show texted me some photos from an older game he got from a screen cap. I didn't catch exactly which game it was, but it had this interesting skill shot mechanism that really kind of matched up to the piece that I received. So I received this piece that looked like a pair of brass knuckles with a sword attached to it, right? There was four holes there that were obviously the size of pinballs because they fit through there just fine. And this looks like it would be a little mini upper play field. So there was this older game where up on the upper right area of the play field, there's four holes in sequence with little metal guides to come into them from each direction, almost like concentric circles. So as you would plunge, the ball could go up and then go down a series of five or six different ball paths, which would all correspond to a different level of hole for a skill shot. So it looks like mechanistically that's probably what it is. It's probably not a place to trap balls and have them wait to be released for a multi-ball, although I think that still could work. this may be for some sort of shoot the ball up and have it go through a hole either as a skill shot for points or as like a Harry Potter sorting hat house, who knows, they haven't revealed yet, but it could be any one of those things I thought that was interesting, so thanks for reaching out with that what else do we have, four balls for the skill shot it's an upper play field shot TPS shout outs all places fit together oh, the pinball show yeah, TPS, I was thinking TPF can't even understand my own notes so they were remarking that I think the piece that Kerry got, the piece that Jason Knapp got, the piece that I got, these all fit together somehow and that kind of makes sense, I was alluding to it a little bit before in the last recording and that's why I kind of want to get my piece to these other two guys so they can start fitting things together and see what else we can come up with but it would make sense for the four holes on my piece to be for some sort of skill shot or sorting things and then they can drop down into that little subway ramp that Kerry Hardy got and all that would mount into the back plate that Jason the nap got sliding bookcase. I don't know. Slide it in your ear. Maybe that was a red herring. Maybe it's important. Maybe it's not. Um, but maybe we might hear something here soon. I haven't really heard a peep out of spooky yet, so they may have some more plans in place. Um, I've reached out to some other content providing people and, uh, nobody else is anticipating a gift package soon. So I think this little media blitz may be over and we'll get a big reveal soon. How fun would that be? I can't wait. What else do I got? Uh, Stern, end of your production. Yeah, so I'm data mining the pinball show from today. Great show, guys. They're giving away some awesome swag, too. So go listen to it and then like, share, and subscribe to the pinball show. They're giving away toppers. They're giving away banners. They're giving away all kinds of cool stuff. A play field, some sort of zombie yeti one. So either like an Iron Maiden or a Godzilla or some Avengers maybe. Get you in on that. They're going to be doing the drawing soon. But they always have the best production updates on the pinball show, and I love it. Because they're a distributor, they get inside information on this, and then they have friends and contacts throughout the industry, and they kind of help us forecast when games are going to be made. So if you do want something new in box, it's helpful to know if your Foo Fighters Premium is going to be made in the next three weeks or if it's going to be made at the end of the year or Q3 next year so you can do some budgeting and things. So we're in December, we're in the end of the year. We know that there's going to be a two-week shutdown of the Stern Factory, and we know Gardens of the Galaxy is probably just about made, which leaves us one more game to be run this year, and I think that's going to be Stranger Things Premium. I've heard some good things back from my buddies over there at Mad Pinball. If you want to get in on some Mad Pinball-age, email Jeff at Mad Pinball and get you a topper. He's got my Black Knight Sword of Rage topper coming. My Elvira Blood Red Kiss Edition is finished. It's in a box. It's somewhere in the network between where it was made and my room, so I'm happy to get that. I've got another game coming from them soon and Stranger Things Premium should be hopefully the next one. Maybe we can do a double unboxing. How much fun would that be? So if you want yourself a Guardians of the Galaxy, they just got made. Email Jeff over at MadPinball. Get yourself a Black Knight Sword and Rage Topper. Be like one of your other buddies here that maybe has one too.
    26:10
    Toppers. Also, Data, my name is Jason Knapp. Godzilla, Mandalorian, Avengers and James Bond Topper got rerun man. Remember when that thing was selling for like two grand or something because there was only 500 but they weren't officially like any kind of limited edition. They did get run again. So the Topper fairies have been hard at work. They deserve a little bit of a break and I think they're going to get it. Stranger Things Toppers were made. Still haven't heard about the accessory kits. It's probably going to be after the first of the year. Guardians is done. So Stranger Things may be the game that finishes out the year. Now, the pinball show seems to still speculate a little bit that there might be another announcement or maybe a production of the next Cornerstone game from Stern. I don't think we're going to see it there. I'm not putting my $5 down on that. Possibly something would be revealed over the next few weeks to start taking pre-order deposits and things prior to the end of the year. But I don't think we're going to see anything else made at Stern Pinball in December until January when they reopen. When they do, are we going to see Black Knight Sword of Rage made again. This is a game that I still see people saying, Don, why should they remake this game? It didn't sell very well and it's all available and blah blah blah and to that I say, no sir, go look at the dang Pinside Just recently a Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro just came back on Pinside and I think it already pending again came up at 6300 or something not sure quite what it sold for but that game man i want to own that game i can go to foo fighters right now there's 37 of those things listed black knight sword of rage there's none every now and then one pro pops up and one pro is sold and that is it i would think that the pro would be an easy one for them to run and get out there I think there's a market for that because where are they? Where are they sitting around unsold? I'm not seeing it. If you've got a Black Knight Sword of Rage Pro that you would like to offload to me, I'd be most gracious to have it. Let's talk turkey. I'll make it worth your while. I'll work a trade. I'll work cash. I would like to get a Black Knight Sword of Rage to go with the topper I just got.
    28:13
    Now, somebody else was speculating. I'm going to dip it into Pinside. that if Stern were to make more of the Black Knight Sword of Rage limited editions, they'd piss off everybody that had a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We know that argument. We know that story. We know it's crap. The reason I don't think they'll do it, looking at the market right now, I mean there's like four Black Knight Sword of Rage LEs. There's four premiums right now on the pin side. Very rarely do I see them pop up on the Facebook pages. So there's not a whole lot out there that are for sale. there's a whole lot out there where people have their diamond claw hands around and the funny thing is that the le and the premium are both going for around the same price range do you have around eight thousand five hundred dollars you could pick yourself up an le you could pick yourself up a premium they're both up there some of them have toppers some of them have a visiglass some of them have shakers and some of them don't but they're both out there for that and then some mad lads are trying to get 11.5 or 12.5 for their editions and you know one of them only has 200 plays and has got 12,500 listed. I don't know. I think that's a bit of a reach, bro. I think you should put out OBO. I think I'd trade you a Venom and $1,500 for an LE if it had good accessories with it.
    29:26
    But I could see a premium sell. I could definitely see the pros sell. I think if anything else, they should run the pros. And if anything else past that, I think they should do one tiny run of premiums, a big run of pros, and then just put it in the casket. But I think there's a market for that for sure. The reason that I do is because when I look, the market is showing me that none of them are available. And people want them, and people are listing them for money. The premiums that are listed, there's like two that are listed for under MSRP. The other two are for over MSRP. So I think the market is there for it. What do you think? Email me, DonSpinBotPodcast at gmail.com and let me know what you think. I'm at Disney World here. Last day, I'm flying home tomorrow. Can't wait to get back, hit through Madison, go play a little labyrinth on the way home. Let's get nuts. Let's get crazy. I run into people every time I go to Florida now. This is so fun. Ran into a friend of the show, an all-around cool guy, Ernie Silverberg. He runs Titan Pinball. He's got a YouTube channel. He's in the homebrew game, like deep, like where I want to get to. He's living my best life in the homebrew industry. This is the guy that made League of Legends pinball. This is a guy that's working on Beavis and Butthead, both of which I played at Expo, both of which blew my mind, and I'd be beyond myself if I could make something at this caliber. So I tried it in pinball on Pinside. I want to give him a shout-out because I am a future customer of his. So he's done something cool. He's assembled a homebrew kit that he sells on Pinside, which essentially is kind of plug-and-play to get yourself a flipping whitewood is how it's designed. So for $23.50 plus $60 of shipping, here's what you get. You get a flippable whitewood with computers and wires and programming and switches. So you get yourself a mini PC running Linux and Mission Pinball. You get yourself a Cobra pinboard. What that is, I'm not sure yet, but I'm going to find out because I think I'm going to get one of these things. You get power supplies. You get a pre-cut whitewood. Bro has a CNC machine or at least access to them, and he can cut you a white wood with slots for the flippers, for some pop bumpers, for the ball trough and everything.
    31:37
    You get jigs to cut inserts and jigs to cut for, I think that's how you cut for the pops. You get slings. You get flipper mechanisms. You get pops. You get switches. You get a ball trough. You get ball guides. You get a grip of wires and a wiring diagram. And the best thing that comes from this is one-on-one support from Ernie himself. So we hung out there at the exit gift shop for Pirates of the Caribbean for about an hour last night, just talking pinball and strategy, and I just keep getting hype, right? I've got some ideas for games that I don't think would ever be made, because the licensing is just too complicated. But I've got some, like, good ideas for what would be some compelling gameplay in some fairly well-known and beloved themes in pinball. Now, the custom pinball scene, you look over there, and you're seeing like this has got to be like a niche hobby for this one person, you know, that they built Ghost in the Shell, that they built Beer Fest, right, that they built Animal House. Like, you know, some of them are conversions. Some of them are ground-up installations. League of Legends is a game that Ernie loves, and so he made the game, and you can tell he loves that license. And I can tell myself that I know nothing about it because I never got into League of Legends.
    32:48
    But, you know, for the people that like that, like they really get it. But his follow-up game, Beavis and Butthead, what a broad-based appeal, right? Much in the same vein as South Park, as Rick and Morty. That's where Beavis and Butthead lives in my life, and I love that he tackled this and did it in a way that's fantastic. There's a spinning cornholio. There's a big bowl of TP that a wire form runs through.
    33:14
    There's screens all over the place. It's really kind of a passion project for him, but it also plays really well, right? So I want to get into that space and bring something that kind of crosses across the cultural zeitgeist like a scimitar blade through hot butter like a Beavis and Butthead does. So if you are like me and you want to get in on this, I don't have any inside discounts for you, but check it out. Try to pinball on Pinside. Ernie's the guy. I'm on a Facebook group for the custom pinball, all things there. Jake Danzig runs that. He did that makeover and made Dukes of Hazzard, among others. So it's a fun little part of the community And even if you don't want to You're not insane and you want to throw yourself away Into a project like this At least follow along with what's going on These guys are creating it From the ground up The pool of talent that is out there Is immense And I think this will bring a full circle back to David Fix He's smart enough to realize that And so if you can tap into that passion I think that's going to lead To compelling projects in pinball Look at us. We got to the end of episode 86, man, here. We're churning them out, man. I'm trying to keep up with everybody else. There's so much new content out there. Go check it out. Go listen to the Pinball News, Pinball Show, Loser Kid, among others. Check out Fresh Pinball with my homeboy, Jeff, at MadPinball.com. Order yourself some stuff. It's a buyer's market, man. You know, if you've been sitting and waiting and you don't have a game or you didn't buy a game this year, now is not a terrible time to go and get yourself one. Wheel and deal. Make an offer. I've got two games up for sale right now, both loaded, both fantastic. both with full powder coats, both with shakers and knockers and everything that I would want to have in there. And I'm running out of room. I've got to move things along. I've got to open the budget up so I can bring in some more. So if you think it's time for yourself to get a Foo Fighters premium, talk to your boy Don. It's autographed by Jack Danger. It looks like an LE, man. And, you know, it's available or best offer. So make an offer. I've got an offer of $8,500 on it right now. So, you know, if you want to get it for around that, go ahead and talk to me. If you've got something to trade and you want to trade for something else, you've got a black and white sort of race, let's wheel and deal, man. Part of the fun part of this hobby is just, you know, getting a game that you haven't had into your house so you can play the heck out of it. And then, you know, when that newness is worn off and something new and sparkly is there, it's okay to move it on to somebody else. You know, I'm not looking to make any profit on these. I'm just looking to keep the ball rolling. So if you're interested, Foo Fighter Premium or my sweet-looking Venom Premium. I like this game. I don't even really want to sell it. But it is available or best offer. Just call me and sit down. I'm interested in it. Here's what I'm interested in paying. And let's work back and forth a little bit. And then we'll both end up happy, you know. As long as both sides of the deal are cool with it, I think there's nothing wrong with that. And shipping can be arranged. I'm shipping games all over the place now, man. We'll handle it. I've got shipping brokers. I know how to pack. I've got a stack of shipping blankets. Let's make a long-distance trade work.
    36:16
    Don's Pinball Podcast at gmail.com is the best way to get to me. If you've ordered something, that's how you do it. Patreon members, I've got the holiday shirts. They're ready to go out here soon, so look for that. More merch and stickers are always coming. And it's not too late to sign up for the giveaway that's coming out on December 15th. We're giving away the Godzilla banner to a random Patreon member. $5 will get you in the spot. It's like buying a raffle ticket, man. What do you got to lose? Come on. Later, guys.