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Indiana Jones and the Mel Kirk Interview

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 50s·held·Dec 28, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Steve Kirk reveals Indiana Jones dual-platform release as FX3's 100th table, discusses licensing complexity and Zen's Unreal engine evolution.

Summary

Steve Kirk from Zen Studios announces Indiana Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure is coming to both Pinball FX (Unreal Engine) and FX3 (PX Engine) simultaneously, marking the 100th table for FX3. The licensing complexity involved voice actors, John Williams music, artwork likeness rights, and 3D model animation. Mel discusses Zen's expansion into Unreal 5 technology, the transition strategy from FX3 to Pinball FX with early access, and the broader pinball industry boom across manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack, Spooky) driven by post-COVID home game investment and increased mainstream visibility.

Key Claims

  • Indiana Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure will release simultaneously on all platforms: Pinball FX, FX3, Williams app, and Pinball Party on the same day.

    high confidence · Steve Kirk stated explicitly: 'all day and date we're not releasing one book you know pfx px fx3 and william should all be the same day'

  • Indiana Jones is the 100th table for Pinball FX3.

    high confidence · Steve Kirk: 'it's nice to be able to just pin this as the 100th table. It is. Yeah, it's the 100th table.'

  • The licensing for Indiana Jones was the most difficult Mel has encountered, harder than other major licenses currently in development.

    high confidence · Steve Kirk: 'there's another very uh very big game that we're working on i thought the licensing was going to be more difficult i've been told it would be more difficult not even close so uh this is probably in my opinion the most difficult one that we we could do'

  • Indiana Jones includes authentic voice clips from actors, original John Williams music (synthesized), and 3D animated models of the main character.

    high confidence · Steve Kirk detailed the licensing components: voice clips, music loops, artwork with actor likenesses, and 3D animation of Indiana Jones

  • Zen is transitioning from FX3 to Pinball FX built on Unreal Engine due to scalability and long-term platform availability, discontinuing FX3 support.

    high confidence · Steve Kirk: 'we had a really big decision about technology going into the future. And we can no longer keep up our engine. And so I really think that Pinball FX, built on technology that is going to be, you know, continuing to scale and available on new consoles, that is the reason why we made this decision.'

  • Only two tables from the FX3 library will not transfer to Pinball FX, and Mel is hopeful they may be rescued eventually due to licensing challenges.

    high confidence · Steve Kirk: 'we've announced we're only really losing two, and I'm hopeful that maybe at some point we could kind of rescue those. There's some licensing challenges'

  • Pinball FX will enter early access to test new physics, visual features (ray tracing, HDR, 4K), and content pipeline before full launch.

Notable Quotes

  • “Indiana Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure. And so there's a number of actors and people that you have to work through to make sure that it's okay to use those and get the proper rights. We're going to have all the voice in our game, which is really cool.”

    Steve Kirk @ ~15:30 — Explains core licensing complexity involving authentic voice acting—a major differentiator from prior Zen licensed titles

  • “This is probably in my opinion the most difficult one that we we could do i'm just really happy that we have a a launch in front of us very soon”

    Steve Kirk @ ~18:00 — Emphasizes Indiana Jones as Zen's most challenging licensing achievement, positioning it as a capstone accomplishment

  • “It's important for the love of pinball for the love of this game we wanted to do it this way we were trying to figure out... we just decided the right thing to do is put the game out on all platforms in all anywhere we can possibly get it”

    Steve Kirk @ ~12:00 — Justifies simultaneous multi-platform release strategy—philosophy prioritizing accessibility over exclusivity

  • “We might be in a golden era that we haven't seen before with pinball. I know that Stern is doing really well. I know Jersey Jack's doing really well... It's great to see that all three of those companies are really accelerating.”

    Steve Kirk @ ~50:00 — Industry-wide sentiment: optimism about sustained growth across competing manufacturers rather than zero-sum competition

  • “There's little concessions. If you want better visual fidelity, what happens to physics, what happens to friction on the table? So you find this kind of sweet spot, then you massage it.”

    Steve Kirk @ ~35:00 — Reveals the core tension in physics implementation across engines—trade-offs between graphics and gameplay authenticity

  • “You might as well just make the table again. It's probably not going to happen with anything in our library from before this.”

    Steve Kirk @ ~42:00 — Clarifies why retroactive conversion of older tables to full-motion video is impractical—design would require rebuilding from scratch

Entities

Steve KirkpersonChris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonZen StudioscompanyStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyWilliamscompanyDisneycompany

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure officially announced for simultaneous release on Pinball FX (Unreal), FX3 (PX), Williams app, and Zen Pinball Party. This is the 100th table for FX3 and marks a major licensing achievement for Zen Studios.

    high · Mel Kirk's statement: 'we just decided the right thing to do is put the game out on all platforms in all anywhere we can possibly get it' and 'all day and date we're not releasing one book you know pfx px fx3 and william should all be the same day'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Indiana Jones represents Zen's most complex licensing achievement to date. Multiple rights holders (Disney, voice actors, music composer John Williams) required approval; involved authentic voice clips, synthesized John Williams compositions, actor likenesses, and 3D character animation.

    high · Mel Kirk detailed licensing layers: 'voice, authentic voice clips in Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure... music, which is an original John Williams masterpiece... artwork which has a likeness of a lot of actors... and we wanted to animate indiana jones as a 3d model'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen is sunsetting FX3 (PX engine) and transitioning to Pinball FX (Unreal Engine) for long-term platform scalability. Indiana Jones serves as capstone for FX3; 98 of 100 tables will transfer to FX with only 2 licensing losses.

    high · Mel Kirk: 'we had a really big decision about technology going into the future. And we can no longer keep up our engine... Pinball FX, built on technology that is going to be... continuing to scale and available on new consoles'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Pinball FX powered by Unreal Engine 4 showcases marked visual improvements: ray tracing, HDR, 4K resolution, improved ball physics definition, enhanced lighting and particle effects. Future upgrade to UE5 planned. Represents differentiation strategy vs. other pinball developers.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.152

0:00
blockade pinball podcast this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris freebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world it's jared morgan hello everyone how you going Also joining us today in what was supposed to be just a, hey, how's it going conversation, but then a bombshell drop this week. Hey, everybody, it's Mel Kirk.
0:35
What's up, guys? Everybody watching? Good to be here. Good to see you all again. Yeah, a little bombshell this last week. Yeah, just a little. Just some news. Some minor that somebody might have been hoping for at some point in time.
0:50
It's been... I think the last time we had you on was in April. So almost nine months since we've had a chat. And, yeah, just a few things have happened in those nine months with Zen in general. Oh, my God. I swear it was just yesterday. I mean, seriously.
1:08
April? April. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, that's been a long time and a lot has happened, but it feels like it was just yesterday. I bet. I mean, just kind of a quick rundown of what's happened. Obviously, your designs were able to get back into the studio. You guys released Zen Pinball Party. You had told us in April that we would have 11 new tables to be able to play by the end of 2021. And shock of shocks, hey, there's a little, or at least we know of 11 tables. I should say three of them aren't actually playable yet. But yeah. And then this last week, you tell us that Indiana Jones is coming. and not just coming to pinball effects but coming to fx3 as well which like really was a shock of shocks yeah uh we just you know we've been working on indie for a really long time and uh i'll just say that a lot it took a lot longer than we thought we thought this game would be out and so when we look at where we are with the crossroads the pinball effects fx3 we just decided the right thing to do is put the game out on all platforms in all anywhere we can possibly get it because it's indie and we didn't want to put that game behind any anywhere any kind of platform that somebody didn't have access to so it's just it's important for the love of pinball for the love of this game we wanted to do it this way we were trying to figure out you would i had jerry trying to look it up and he couldn't find it you had posted a tweet that it was something of the nature of, ah, a Holy Grail license has come through.

high confidence · Steve Kirk discussed early access as critical for testing innovations and iterating on physics balance before day-one launch across all platforms

  • Zen Studios is currently unable to meet demand for pinball content across all price points and platforms.

    high confidence · Steve Kirk: 'Zen, we can't, we're not meeting demand at all. You know, the amount of content we can put out and all the first parties, everybody wants the pinball platform from Zen.'

  • Pinball Royale will scale from 4 to 64 players, starting with smaller player counts to ensure matchmaking performance and avoiding wait times.

    high confidence · Steve Kirk: 'we're gonna start we'll probably go from like 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 and if there's demand to 64'

  • The pinball industry is experiencing an unprecedented golden era driven by post-COVID home investment, mainstream media visibility, and cross-generational appeal.

    high confidence · Steve Kirk: 'We might be in a golden era that we haven't seen before with pinball' and noted all major manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack, Spooky) are accelerating and doing very well

  • “It should always just be building more with Williams and Zen titles... it's just this collection is going to keep growing and growing.”

    Steve Kirk @ ~58:00 — Zen Pinball Party will be additive, not rotational—clarifies subscription model expectations for long-term content strategy

  • “We can't even come close to filling demand. So at all price points, all the way down, you know, and everybody associated with the industry right now, feels like everybody is doing really, really well.”

    Steve Kirk @ ~52:00 — Supply-constrained growth narrative across the industry; demand exceeds production capacity at all tiers

    • Epic Gamescompany
    John Williamsperson
    Indiana Jones Pinball Adventuregame
    Pinball FXproduct
    Pinball FX3product
    Zen Pinball Partyproduct
    Pinball Royalegame
    IFPAorganization
    Curse of the Mummygame
    Netherworldvenue
    Akoshperson
    Joshperson
    Zachperson
    Zacharyperson
    Siennaperson

    high · Mel Kirk: 'there is a difference in graphical fidelity from what we get with Unreal... you're going to have a better look in some of the shadows, the rails, just things that the lighting, that's all going to be improved. But a lot of people are in Pinball FX3' and discussion of ray tracing, HDR, 4K coming in next Pinball Show episode

  • ?

    product_launch: Pinball FX will launch in early access on Epic Games before full release. Strategy allows testing of new physics, visual features, and rapid content pipeline iteration (bi-weekly first-party submissions). Feedback loop informs adjustments before final platform launch.

    high · Mel Kirk: 'early access period is really just to say hey everybody, here's a bunch of options... we want to test all this stuff it may work it may not... this early access period is really just to say... we can tinker with it either way when it feels really good and then deploy across all platforms to do that all in day one is not smart'

  • $

    market_signal: Zen Studios cannot meet demand for pinball content across all platforms and price points. All first-party manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack, Spooky) report strong demand. Post-COVID home investment and mainstream visibility driving unprecedented pinball market boom.

    high · Mel Kirk: 'Zen, we can't, we're not meeting demand at all... We can't even come close to filling demand. So at all price points, all the way down... everybody is doing really, really well.'

  • ?

    industry_signal: All major physical and digital pinball manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack, Spooky, Zen, boutique shops) are thriving simultaneously. Industry observers report this as rare/unprecedented—sustained multi-manufacturer growth rather than cyclical consolidation. Driven by cross-generational appeal and social media visibility.

    high · Mel Kirk: 'I know that Stern is doing really well. I know Jersey Jack's doing really well... Spooky recently... really accelerating... The industry is experiencing 'a golden era that we haven't seen before'

  • ?

    community_signal: Zen Pinball Party demonstrates cross-generational engagement: younger players (8yo) gravitate toward modern licensed IP (Trolls, My Little Pony); older players (11yo) prefer Williams classics from arcade familiarity. Suggests successful positioning as family-friendly multi-age experience.

    high · Jared Morgan's test: 'Sienna... really enjoyed going in there and seeing things like Trolls and My Little Pony' while 'Zachary... gravitated back to the Williams again because he's used to playing Williams in arcades'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen Pinball Party (Apple subscription) performing very well with significant new pinball player acquisition. Content strategy is additive (not rotational): Williams and Zen originals permanent; licensed IP permanent unless term expires and not renewed.

    high · Mel Kirk: 'With Apple, I'll just say it's doing amazing. It's doing really, really well for us. And a lot of people are playing. I think we have a lot of new pinball players from that game... it should always just be building more... it's just this collection is going to keep growing and growing'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Multi-engine physics implementation requires balancing visual fidelity (ray tracing, shadows, lighting) against game feel and friction behavior. Frame rate differences between PX (locked 60fps) and Unreal (variable higher) create collision detection and flipper angle variations. Critical issue in Indiana Jones dual-engine release.

    high · Mel Kirk: 'There's a lot of balance that goes on there... If you want better visual fidelity, what happens to physics, what happens to friction on the table? So you find this kind of sweet spot'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball Royale will launch at 4-player and scale incrementally (4→8→16→32→64) based on demand and matchmaking performance. Avoids day-one overload and player wait-time issues by phased player capacity expansion.

    high · Mel Kirk: 'we're gonna start we'll probably go from like 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 and if there's demand to 64 so we really just we don't want there to be people waiting to get into matches... we don't want matchmaking to be you know just sitting there waiting time out'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Mel contextualizes current pinball boom within industry's historical cyclical patterns but argues current cycle may not end and represents longest/most sustained growth period. Suggests structural change in market fundamentals rather than temporary cycle.

    medium · Mel Kirk: 'pinball has been cyclical for many many generations... but i think we're in a moment where this is going to be the longest cycle or it might not even end. We might be in a golden era that we haven't seen before'

    • 2:51
    I don't know if you remember tweeting that. We couldn't find it, so then we're like, maybe Mel had to delete it. But we were trying to figure out when that was, because that was, I think, our first indication that, ah, India is coming.
    3:02
    I did tweet that. I don't remember when. I may have had to delete it, but that's how long ago this all started coming together. I would say that the reason why we got Williams was because this moment was what we were after, and this is what the folks over at Williams and the folks at Disney wanted to see happen. It just took this long to get it done because the licensing is really, really complicated. Can you go into a little bit of what is involved with licensing? Because, I mean, previously I think everybody kind of figured, you know, Adam's Family, and obviously you guys haven't been able to do Adam's Family yet, but Adam's Family was considered a very difficult license to get all the disparate sections put together, with Indy pretty much everybody going, oh, that's not impossible. So what are some of the kind of aspects that you can actually reveal to us that go into licensing this kind of thing and getting it all put together?
    3:55
    Well, I have to be careful how I say it here because there's a lot of sensitivities on a lot of sides of this, but there's voice, authentic voice clips in Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure. And so there's a number of actors and people that you have to work through to make sure that it's okay to use those and get the proper rights. We're going to have all the voice in our game, which is really cool. You have the music, which is an original John Williams masterpiece, but then synthesized into a different kind of a form. And there's several loops, some of which are very short, some of which are long, some of which are, was this actually music or was this original? We had to sort through all of that. And that took a lot of time. luckily all the music from the original game is in our game as well then you have the artwork which has a likeness of a lot of actors some who are with us today some of who aren't and so you have to work through a number of rights and uh and approvals then you get to that and then and then you know our part of what we're doing is not just recreating um the game as it was we're doing this modernized version of it and so we wanted to animate indiana jones as a 3d model and that takes another set of uh of working through so you add all this stuff up and it's not it's not just clear i mean you have to get in touch with tons of people and then uh you know and then you make sure you got to negotiate the deals and you got to get it all done and at the end of the day once everybody is signed and everything is okay then you're actually clear to proceed with production so wow it was a long time um there's another very uh very big game that we're working on i thought the licensing was going to be more difficult i've been told it would be more difficult not even close so uh this is probably in my opinion the most difficult one that we we could do i'm just really happy that we have a a launch in front of us very soon yeah it's authentic it's 100 authentic all the voice all the music all the art uh everything and uh and every single part of the game is is being done uh faithfully recreated The rolling demo for it looks incredible. The one that's actually been revealed on the pinball show. It looks very, very sleek. All the assets seem incredibly high detail. And I imagine that's probably got something to do with your work with Unreal and what you've been able to get fidelity-wise in the game. With that particular title, because it's coming to both the PX Engine in FX3 and Unreal in Pinball FX, were there any real challenges trying to get the the the game over the line with those two disparate systems yeah i mean it was extra work i wouldn't say there was any any bigger challenge in any game we've ever done in px before or um the new work that's being done in unreal we haven't we get a lot more experience in unreal now we have multiple tables and games that have been released so the entire team now is very familiar and the workflow the speed at which we can do things is rapidly increasing, which is good news for more content in the future. But I would say we learned our lessons and cut our teeth on some previous projects. And so things were pretty smooth here, but there is a difference in graphical fidelity from what we get with Unreal.
    7:11
    I do think that you're going to have a better look in some of the shadows, the rails, just things that the lighting, that's all going to be improved. But a lot of people are in Pinball FX3. a lot of people don't have a PS5 or Xbox Series X. A lot of people don't want to go to Steam, whatever. We still want you to be able to play indie at this point. It's just like, this is kind of a capstone thing for us, like a moment for Zen in our pinball journey to say, we were able to accomplish this. So we just, you know, other things that matter kind of go out the window at that point. And we're just really happy to bring this. Not to mention it's nice to be able to just pin this as the 100th table. It is. Yeah, it's the 100th table. so it's exciting it's crazy right i mean 100 yeah what a way to close off right the legacy that is fx3 it's it's a huge legacy it's been going on for years now right yeah it is um i would i was really hoping it would go on longer uh i always go back you know i get asked the question still from people why is that you know why fx i'm like well we had a really big decision about technology going into the future. And we can no longer keep up our engine. And so I really think that Pinball FX, built on technology that is going to be, you know, continuing to scale and available on new consoles, that is the reason why we made this decision. And Pinball FX is going to have a legacy, I think, just as great, you know, as FX3, FX2. I think it'll be a game that we're really setting up for long-term future. Really happy with what we accomplished with FX3. Would have been nice to squeeze a little bit more out of it and maybe have more content there. But we did what we could.
    8:52
    I mean, 100 tables is just a small bit of content all the same, right? Yeah, and a lot of that going back all the way to 2010. Yeah, yeah. You've just been able to play the game. We just upgraded the platform and kept the collection intact. I'm really happy with how many tables are coming to FX. I mean, we've announced we're only really losing two, and I'm hopeful that maybe at some point we could kind of rescue those. There's some licensing challenges, but it's really good. So I'm kind of curious, with regards to you guys tackling this license with Indy, does that happen to raise the cachet of Zen in the minds of other people that might have been hesitant with their IPs? I mean, does it pave the way? Does it set a bar that makes it maybe easier to acquire some of these other licenses? Because obviously any content, all the rest of the DMDs for Williams and Bally are all licensed. If eventually you guys do sign up with one of these other pinball manufacturers, they're all doing licensed stuff. So I'm just kind of curious, does this help pave the way forward on that? I think it's a significant feather in our cap, so to speak. I think our licensing history is, you know, pretty robust and pretty cool when you think about it, especially when we're doing that as Zen Studios pre-acquisition days.
    10:16
    So there are some games that we were trying to go get that people were kind of they didn't know if it really comes down to bandwidth.
    10:23
    You know, is it worth it to do it? And it's like, well, do you want to be alongside this great collection? And we do you know, we do really well with these games. It is going to help open up some doors. But I would say that what we want to work on, we're definitely able to work on it. Nobody just tells us no, like bug off.
    10:44
    It's really just prioritization, which I think I always tell you guys. It's always like, what is the priority? We have a million things we could be doing. Yeah.
    10:54
    Let's talk about Unreal a little bit. did you happen to see the latest demo for Unreal 5 where they were doing it with the, was it Matrix Awakens, I think is what they called it or whatever? But they kind of broke down all the various aspects of, you know, some of the highlights of what is available in Unreal 5. I know you guys are doing with Unreal 4 right now, but there's a lot of things that popped up in that that I was just like, oh my God, this could work in a pinball machine so easily. So just kind of, you've hinted about in the pinball show that there's things that you guys have now discovered with working on Unreal. For instance, having the HD video being able to now be utilized and stuff. What are some of the things that you guys are looking to take advantage of with this engine? Okay. Yes, I did see the Matrix demo. I have it downloaded. I haven't played it yet. Been a little preoccupied the last couple weeks. I only watch the YouTube video, so. I do still like to play stuff I want to play it I want to see it myself but yeah actually in the next episode of the pinball show we are going to be showing off a lot of the things that we had hinted at so you're going to see gameplay with ray tracing you're going to see HDR 4K we're working on I mean the games are looking incredible I think that there is a marked difference between FX3 and FX. And what we are, you know, as we polish games and as we get into the details of the lighting, the things that are like bells and whistles, which we really adding into all the new games that we making I think that they really gonna shine And for us too this is a way to separate ourselves from any other pinball developers out there You know we still it good to have competition We see what others are doing. It's like, all right, well, ratchet up, you know, quality and awesome features and things that really push the limits of what can be done. Unreal affords us those bells and whistles. I mean, I think just as an example, for those that don't know, the pinball effects page has gone up, I guess, and you might call it on Epic Games. And there's some screenshots and one of those screenshots we have with the Curse of the Mummy table here. And just, I mean, the lighting on this is insane. You know, seeing little particle effects kind of floating up there. There's just this lovely glow across the entire thing.
    13:28
    This looks wildly different than the last time you showed anything on the pinball show. Yeah. And, you know, as our guys are able to spend time and like you're seeing a polished, finished, near finished product there. Yeah. You know, one of the really cool things about the evolution I think we're seeing here is the ball in video game pinball is always kind of seem to maybe float or just kind of have this like almost like it's in a cloud effect. It's not maybe the ball itself isn't very definitive.
    14:03
    There were some tech videos that came out a while back that showed it was like this hundred. It was a ball that was going through like a hundred different pinball fields. I don't know if you guys caught it. Yeah. Yes. I sent that to Akosh to check out. Maybe you sent it to him and he sent it to me. I'm pretty sure that's how it went because he hadn't seen it before I sent it to him. See, that is what we're pushing towards.
    14:26
    And there's definition of the ball. and it feels like it's different on the play. It's hard to describe in words, but when you play pinball and you see it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah. And so I think that that's what we're going to get to. And we'll go to Unreal 5 once it's in our hands and it's ready and we can do all that. But where we were in the dev cycle for PFX, it's UE4 right now, but the upgrade and all that will happen at some point. Do you think that there's going to be any issue with, and I'm going back to the comparison, basically Indy having been both created at the same time in both PX and Unreal, this is going to be the first time we were able to actually do apples to apples comparison of the two engines. but one of the things that has been noticed obviously with uh middle effects 3 the it was designed at 60 frames and although you could unlock it and have it run at a higher frame rate all of a sudden the ball started behaving differently um and i was noticing that the flippers it felt like you had more degrees of angle with which to shoot the ball but that it made it kind of more difficult. And I'm assuming that with the Unreal version, it is going to be running at a higher frame rate. So I'm curious to know, is there going to be any kind of problems to deal with the physics with that? Is there different collision detections that is going to actually cause the game to maybe play different between the two formats?
    15:57
    Well, there's a lot of balance that goes on there. And this is part of the reason why it's taking a while to get the game done.
    16:04
    You know, pro physics implementation is very important. it's clear to us that's the way that, you know, a large number of our players, probably the most vocal players want to have things. And so, yeah, I mean, all those things add up. There's little concessions. If you want better visual fidelity, what happens to physics, what happens to friction on the table? So you find this kind of sweet spot, then you massage it. Then if you want to, it's about time. How much time do you want to spend on it to tinker? and then still, you know, we always open ourselves up to people who are going to say, oh, this is, you know, this is not real. It doesn't feel good. It does feel good.
    16:44
    So we're going for the best, you know, like there's a sweet spot. Right. I'd imagine that, you know, and this is a pretty common way that Zen does things. They iterate rapidly and they get something out there, get the feedback and data on it, and then adjust it according to that data. so I'd imagine that you don't really want to gold plate this too much before you release it you want to gold plate it just enough but then look at the data get the feedback and roll it in incrementally after that yeah and that's why this early access thing is really important for us because there's even more surprises coming that we haven't revealed yet we want to test all this stuff it may work it may not but we've always been a studio that's not afraid to innovate and so this early access period is really just to say hey everybody, here's a bunch of options and here's what the gameplay is, here's what we think is really good we have new technology that has pushed this we can tinker with it either way when it feels really good and then deploy across all platforms to do that all in day one is not smart I think you do especially with how much content we're going to be pushing through there, the 100 tables obviously need to get done all remastered and pushed through and then, holy cow, the floodgates are opening for new ones. So, you know, this early access will help make sure that the game is solid and stable. The new things that are going on are well accepted and liked, or we just rip it out and we just say, okay, we tried something cool, it didn't work. Whereas before you would have been stuck, right? You would have just been, uh-oh, what do we do now? This allows us to finish development of those important things and also make sure our publishing pipeline is just up to snuff for what is coming. we're going to have to get in quite a rhythm of basically every two weeks is a major submission to first party so you know it is alive this game is living and breathing actually I was going to I was curious actually how early access on Epic works so if you've got a game on early access and it's got DLC in it do you just buy it through like you would normally and it just carries over to the new game is that how it works yeah anything you buy in early access carries over to the new game okay yeah and um like you know there's uh there's just there's gonna be new options for how you buy content how you can get it you know i'm dancing around a few big subjects here but um look it's gonna be january right the next time we talk to people and then uh february and then march so uh we're gonna it'll all it's been a massive project to uh to see if we can pull off what we want to pull off i know that you had mentioned uh and i've already hinted about it but uh you're talking about doing being able to do full motion video in the dmd well except it's not a dmd anymore now you're talking about a video screen with curse of the mummy specifically being the one that uh that's up there we've seen when we've seen footage of the uh noir it was obviously dot matrix um and then i'm thinking of things like even the mandalorian table where it was all dot matrix is there any kind of shift or any desire to go back and like no you know what let's make that full motion video instead yeah i mean there's a desire we'd love to do that you know look look at our library i would love to do with dinosaurs with Jurassic Park. I'd like to do with Jaws.
    20:17
    That would require significant... You might as well just make the table again. It's probably not going to happen with anything in our library from before this. Is that the same kind of thought that goes into if you were to colorize any of the DMDs? Yeah, pretty much. It's all logic. Those assets are very difficult to work on. There's not a lot of flexibility.
    20:45
    As with a lot of pinball stuff, it really requires a redesign and a rework entirely from scratch. There's only so much patience for that, as we've come to understand from our very passionate fans.
    21:01
    Curious, did Zen place its order for a Cactus Canyon remake? I know, you can't talk about that. What did you, though, So this kind of leads us into just like what's happening in pinball today, because obviously, my God, it's exploding. Like, it seems like the train was chugging, chugging, chugging. Now it's like just at full speed going forward again. We've got multiple boutique pinball studios making, you know, full-scale pinball machines. you've got these remakes happening of older machines that are looking incredible the added detail that they put on and then i'm thinking about i don't know if you paid any attention to that uh auction from the pinball and banding that the prices that were going for those just kind of what are your thoughts in general on what's happening in pinball i think it's you know pinball has been cyclical for many many generations you can say at this point but i think we're in a moment where this is going to be the longest cycle or it might not even end. We might be in a golden era that we haven't seen before with pinball. I know that Stern is doing really well. I know Jersey Jack's doing really well. We talked with Spooky recently. They're doing really well. It's great to see that all three of those companies are really accelerating. All the little parts and boutique companies that you talked about, I have a lot of friends there. They're doing well. I thought we're really good friends with the IFPA, Josh and Zach, you know, also affiliated with the raw thrills and with Stern. We talk, everyone was like, man, this is like awesome right now. You know, people just, I think coming out of, so with COVID, there could have been something where they weren't going on vacation and they were investing in their home game room and a pinball machine was like something that they had to have. Our arcade went up again. I go back to how crazy that is. We can't even come close to filling demand. So at all price points, all the way down, you know, and everybody associated with the industry right now, it feels like everybody is doing really, really well. Obviously, Zen, we can't, we're not meeting demand at all. You know, the amount of content we can put out and all the first parties, everybody wants the pinball platform from Zen. It's a game that is just, it's easy to understand. You put a license on it and it appeals to people. Huge, wide demographic. we haven't even started to get into Asia yet I mean just talking about the industry as a whole it's like Tetris or slots right and so it's just it's one of those things that is that people can enjoy and be casual with or hardcore with it appeals to all those so all these things and everything now that pinball is intersecting social media we have some streamers we have some personalities attached to it it's just helping all these little things are helping to elevate it and raise the game's profile even people who maybe thought pinball is a game for their grandfather or their dad's generation. They're discovering it. So it's becoming generational, and it's becoming something that generations enjoy together. So it's really a good moment. I think it's unprecedented in what we're seeing with the game today. Yeah, I think Jared can speak to the generational aspect because he introduced his kids. Well, he's got machines, and he's taking them to go play it, but we specifically had him throw his own pinball party in front of his kids just to see which tables they would gravitate towards. and Jared, I can let you take it over from there. It was a really interesting experiment because I knew that the Zen Pinball Party is all about bridging that generational gap with pinball. And I thought, well, let's put it to the test. And what I did is my kids are 11 and 8 and one's a girl and one's a boy. So I thought, well, this is a good test. Let's see what happens. And it was interesting.
    24:49
    I gave Zachary the tablet and said, go and experience. I said, go and have a look at the new ones first, like the new animated heroes tables. Play those. And he said, oh, yeah, okay. I went and did that. But then he gravitated back to the Williams again because he's used to playing Williams in arcades. He's had the advantage of actually going into Netherworld and playing these games that are actually in Zen Pinball Party. And he felt a closer affinity with those actual real-world tables. Then Sienna started playing the game and she really enjoyed the animated aspects of the tables She found them quote unquote hard but she really enjoyed going in there and seeing things like Trolls and My Little Pony and all these sort of really big IPs that resonate with her So that was really interesting to see how two different age groups, not that far apart, can find completely different things in Zen Pinball Party. And it's very much like an arcade, isn't it? Like you start the game up, you walk into it by actually starting up the game, and then you look around and you gravitate to things that interest you when you're going into the game. And that was really evident when my two kids were playing it. Yeah, that's great to hear. Thank you for sharing that experience.
    26:11
    Zen Pitball Party in particular does have a very wide variety in very wide appealing offering in terms of the IPs. On the one hand, you have the Williams, which appeals to anybody who grew up in arcades or knows those classic games. You've got some Zen originals, which are colorful and kind of have a few different themes. And yeah, Snoopy and now Garfield and Trolls and How to Train Your Dragon. I mean, it's kind of like fun for all ages that you're going to find something there that hopefully appeals to you. That's what we're trying to do is on Pinball Party.
    26:43
    I have to be very careful about what I talk about because it's a subscription service. With Apple, I'll just say it's doing amazing. It's doing really, really well for us. And a lot of people are playing. I think we have a lot of new pinball players from that game. If you can, I'm curious to know, is the idea with Zen Pinball Party that, like, some of the Zen Originals and some of the Williams tables are going to rotate what's in and what's out? Or is it always going to be building more? or what is the vision for that, I should say?
    27:15
    Okay. It should always just be building more with Williams and Zen titles. The other ones that we have licenses for, the new stuff,
    27:25
    with any license we have a term that should expire if they don't want to renew it. So that's really the only reason why those would ever go away. But it's not a rotational sort of a thing. It's just this collection is going to keep growing and growing. Okay. We were wondering if it was going to be kind of like when we discussed a long time ago the machine that you were going to have in the Dave and Buster's and all locations where you said that it was going to be kind of a rotation of what is in each week kind of thing. I was like, I wonder if Zen Pimple Party is kind of like the next phase of that kind of idea. So it'll just instead just keep on building. Yeah, Zen Pimple Party is like someone's got a game there. They subscribe to a service. they get that in the location-based game, which, by the way, we're ramping up again now that COVID's getting behind us. It's more about you don't want people spending a minute trying to select what game to play. Right.
    28:15
    Because that's about turnover. They want people playing the game and swiping their card to play a new game, and you've got to get people on and off. So you have less of a choice. You don't want to have 100 tables to pick from. Did I see correctly that Indie will also be coming to the Williams app? it is okay it's good all right i gotta make sure i have my coins then enough to buy it i used to always have a i'd always have enough surplus to in store so that then you know it'd take about three weeks to unlock everything and then i'd always have the coins to be able to upgrade to the next you know to get it up to level four or whatever and then when it was like oh we're not doing anymore i'm like okay well i don't need to have a collection of those anymore but i need to obviously make sure i do yeah it'll be there and if it wasn't clear all day and date we're not releasing one book you know pfx px fx3 and william should all be the same day i think that's important for the hype aspect uh because then everybody's having the same conversation as opposed to some people being angry that they can't be in the conversation yeah yeah um let's talk about a little bit about the funko pinboy royale in zen pinball party uh a lot of people are wondering is this what the pinball royale in pinball effects is going to be like or is this kind of like the test version of what eventually we'll be getting?
    29:56
    I'd say there's going to be, if I was to say that there's no similarities or some pieces that are the same, that's true. But this is a version for Zen Pinball Party and it's for a player.
    30:10
    Pinball Royale will be much bigger. Yes. The plan for Royale is to scale it up though to see what the limit is.
    30:20
    Our vision for the final version of it is like 64. player okay and we don't want to turn that on day one because in case there's not 64 players trying to get in it's gonna it's you know that's the problem so we're gonna start we'll probably go from like 4 to 8 to 16 to 32 and if there's demand to 64 so we really just we don't want there to be people waiting to get into matches we don't want matchmaking to be you know just sitting there waiting time out so we're gonna scale it up and see how many people want to be in a match together I have found that with Zen People Party being in the other side of the world when I'm sort of late at night, say around 10 o'clock at night I am finding that I am waiting a little while to actually find matchups in the game so I'd imagine that probably limiting matches based on time as well could be something to consider and actually try to get the play count down to a certain level at a certain time because it's really hard like time zones are hard this is going to be a worldwide game so you know finding someone up at the same time as you could be tricky right yeah it is um it is you know i think what we're trying what we're hoping for to see is that uh we are appealing to certain kind of streaming demographic that will say hey pinball is a game i want to play i want to stream this and you bring in a bunch of other people like i don't want to play a single player pinball game, you know, I'm just hitting the balls around, but I, it's fun to like be playing against other people in this kind of chaotic format. And so, uh, you know, we are trying to grow audience. We're always going to, you know, make sure we have plenty of pinball games and awesome licenses and stuff that our traditional players want, but we are trying to grow audience. And this is one way that we're going to test and see what happens with it. curious to know also just your i gotta imagine in terms of kind of leaning more towards the the one-up arcade side of things here and i know obviously that uh there's plenty that you cannot talk about because that's one-ups you know deal um but do they look at something like pinball party and go hey can we get that in a cabinet form and I'm talking about more of that socialized play of pinball.
    32:45
    Sure. Yeah. And I mean, we look at having an arcade one up machine in somebody's home is a huge opportunity. First of all, people trusted us to invest so much money in something to look, there's 10 games on it right now, but there's a lot of other games that could be on that machine and a lot of other things that they could do with that machine. I'd like to continue to increase the value of the machine. and keep people connected to it and let them experience all the fun game modes and social features and multiplayer action that we're developing right now.
    33:19
    You know, so, of course, they ask us, hey, when can we, you know, bring this over to the platform? And, you know, there's going to be announcements, I think, at some point next year with A1 up for new things. And, yeah, it's all, you know, whenever we find a good new feature, a piece of new content that really resonates, there's no question. Everybody, all of our partners want it. I was going to say, I've got to imagine that they're salivating and have an indie table. Don't get it. Everybody is.
    33:50
    I mean, we thought previously that Jurassic Park would be a natural next machine, you know, and put universal titles, but just having, obviously, since Stern has two different Jurassic Park machines, you know, it would be a natural kind of like, ooh, that'd be cool to have in the house. um that kind of brings up something so stern has they obviously just created this the pin version of jurassic park and by the looks of it it almost feels like a late 80s early 90s design and and play um and i'm kind of just what is your what is your take on stern's the pin version of things um i don't know how i'm not a good question but it's a strategy i mean they're trying to get to a lower price point because there's consumers who can't afford or don't have the space for the full-size one i think this one's more about price point yeah they're trying to find out where can they be to grow new audience you know it's the same thing we're all trying to grow audience it's much easier for us to to do that because our price points are significantly lower yeah and we have we can offer many things on one machine whereas they offer one thing on one machine the new insider program though or the connectivity thing is cool i think you know that they're trying to become and do things that video games do meanwhile we're doing things that video games do already and we're just finding form factors that are affordable for people to get a real uh like a more real feel for their game room. Right. So I think it's, you know, I think it's easier for us to go up and then it is for them to come down.
    35:38
    You've got some new designers at Zen. Obviously, I think we've now seen content from all of them. So if I'm not, it's Anna and Dolby and Peter. I'm not sure what his nickname is.
    35:53
    Is there anybody else that I'm, that I'm missing that are of the new designers? those are the new ones we're actually we have a new one starting in january he's been at zen for a while and uh so he's moving over from a different uh part of zen and he's going to be a designer so those are the new ones you named so i think we've got six that gives us six now uh active um if you know any more we're trying to get to 12. oh wow would you say that zen pinball party uh specifically with these new tables this is kind of a uh a good uh landing spot to get them up and running and how to create their own layout without it being full of all the bells and whistles and all the deep rule sets and everything else that goes along with a typical Zen table. Absolutely.
    36:39
    You're like, yep. Yeah, it's good, but it works. It's perfect because that ecosystem does really well with games that are there, the ones that you're seeing there. Yeah. And that's not to say they're any lesser or anything, but it's just different, and they work really well there, and the designers get good experience working on those games. Because even, I mean, I know me and Jared talked about it, like a game like How to Train Your Dragon.
    37:10
    Right now the code is very, let's just call it simple. It's do this, this, and this, repeat. Do this, this, and this, repeat. And yet there's a lot of aspects on the table that it feels like a more complicated code could be laid over the top of it using the exact same layout, but now all of a sudden you have a really deep rule set version of the table.
    37:33
    I don't know if that's intentional on your guys' part, but it certainly seems like it has that potential.
    37:40
    Can't say too much. Okay. Fair enough. Sometimes we try to slide in things and see if Mel will slip up.
    37:51
    It rarely happens. I'll just say we're very intentional. I still laugh sometimes about how I mean we been making pinball games now for over a decade and people talk to us like we don know what we doing Right Yeah Then they also also don understand what our challenges are as a business and what our um what we intend to do as a business is to have many many more pinball players globally yeah and so you have to do there are certain strategies that we're implementing to make sure that this happens i know there's not much you can talk about uh on the vr front uh but having worked with you know what you've seen with the the mandalorian table and star wars collectibles and dealing with uh you know this the oculus realm of things and i mean even to the point that if we go back to our not that page um this lobby that you guys have for pinball effects sure does look very similar to a certain star wars lobby that we're used to here um i'm just kind of curious to know where we are is vr still moving forward? Do we have plans that are just going to be revealed a little bit later for those of us that are thinking of spending Christmas money on a headset like me? Yeah, well, I can't announce anything or say anything today, but we are in VR. There's no way to say like Zen is not going to do VR in the future and that's not a big part of what we want to do in the future. It's step by step. Pinball FX is going to be a big platform that will last a long time and I can see a day when we have VR support. So we found that with Star Wars VR, the fan cave was a really big draw and it was really well received and people really liked it. And so we took that as a building block and we said, okay, well if people like that let's make sure that we, you know, there's no reason to start from scratch if we want to try to do this again sometime. So So, you know, I probably said enough there. I know I'd like to put in the personal pitch, and maybe this is, I mean, we'd love to be a fly on the wall during one of your whiteboard sessions for brainstorming for these things. But it's the, specifically with that lobby, when you have the table just sitting there, I'd love to be able to have a track mode going on for the Williams stuff when that eventually, you know, I don't know if that's, like I said, Since it looks familiar, I imagine this is what it's going to be like in PIN effects.
    40:29
    But to be able to have, and I know a lot of people have been asking this in general, just having the attract sounds of a particular table going off, that would be a wonderful thing. And then even if that table is the one that's loaded, to be able to have the ROM state stay in between each game until you load in the next table. yeah i think we've got something that we're working on that will uh give you what you want yay that's good what's the what's the other thing we're always asking for jared oh yeah uh the blockade team in a uh uh super uh super league football yeah that's right we want we want an official blockade team in there uh if that eventually comes back to things because we always have to mention that to you um there's a big event happening next year a little world cup thing yeah i imagine that if you time things right um i know that whenever the nba finals come around i'm always like come on fast break fast break time let's get it out um what else do we got jared you have any other things that uh i'm trying to think that we want to touch upon with Mel?
    41:42
    I don't think so, really. I think we've... Wait a second, I know. The beer. Oh, yeah, the beer. Whose idea was that? Was that Zen approaching them? You see my cans in the background? Yes. I got one, two, three.
    41:58
    Full set, yeah. No, what was happening, we were just, so we've been dipping our toes in merch. We've never really done it. We've had small, we had Zen slippers, we've had some Star Wars, pinball t-shirts we've had some other little things and mostly we've just given it away and um we didn't want to just do like we wanted to do something fun uh we got in we we i don't know we just thought that beer would be fun because pinball and beer have always gone together sure we we somehow met the guys from birdfish who were fans of our game also really in the pinball scene in ohio have pinball tournaments at their their their bar at their brewery um we just started talking we're like let's do pinball inspired beer no one's done this uh would be fun and let's just do a couple of trials to see what happens so we made three um one in conjunction with the ifpa which i thought was really cool because we have three um you know the three guys on there who are the top players right now so it kind of made it a little more into grounded into real world stuff they're all very good designs i think they embrace pinball culture they're our own recipes and brews. So it's been a really fun collaboration.
    43:06
    And it's setting the stage for something else that should be happening sometime next year. And so, yeah, we wanted to just approach like call it merch or derivative products some way just from a different angle and perspective and maybe be a little surprising. I love how much there's stuff that you want to talk about that you can't talk about. And it seems like it's not just one or two things. There's just like a tsunami of things.
    43:37
    Yeah. We doubled the size of the company in less than a year. During COVID. Yeah. And you mentioned earlier on that everybody got back in the office. No, we're not back in the office yet. We only come together for special occasions, holiday party, or we need to have an all-hands company like Big Speech or something like that. Everyone's still remote working from home so it's really actually quite impressive what our uh company did this last year uh we have really really great guys and team members girls and we have a lot we have a lot of girls now on on board which is cool because we were diversifying we're it's just it's really great what's happened at zen over the last year um at some point it's going you're going to see the output result from that we're gonna we're gonna get there um we're just about there and uh I'm just so excited about what's happening. Well, this is what I like is that it seems like the success that you guys have had, you're reinvesting it into the company to promote even further success rather than resting on your laurels and going, no, we're good.
    44:45
    Yeah, well, we announced our acquisition just over a year ago. Did I just freeze? No, I froze. Okay. I believe we announced the acquisition it was either October or November last year the deal formally closed I believe it was in January and it has just been like this is where we knew we needed to go it's like Zen like guys I need to double the company but it's really scary to do it just as Zen and then we found this awesome partner who's like Zen we also believe that you should double the company probably even more let's go do it don't worry about it just do it and so that's what we did I imagine there is outside of pinball there's other Zen video games that are on the pipeline too yeah actually we announced a new RPG Circus Electric we've had a very busy end of year like right after the game awards we announced an RPG then we released Garfield then we announced Indie so that's all happening and then we have other non-pinball projects in development right now but two thirds to even a little more is all pinball and we're not like still not we need more people so we're out with merch me and Jared agree that this came with the birdfish brewery stuff was the little coin holder I think solid piece of merchandising right there if you have the Zen logo on one of these for yeah yeah because jared wound up buying someone slapping netherworld logos all over here i did i actually went out looking at that bit of merch i went oh i have to have one of those so i went out there and got like a euro coin tube because that's the token size that netherworld uses and i painted it black and i slapped the sticker on i had some stickers and they just look so good um as a merchandise tool and everyone wanted one when i showed them i think even Netherworld when I showed them a prototype of it, they went, oh, we have to get those done. It's so cool.
    46:47
    Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, Zen ones of those would be very, very good. Yes. I'm looking at my list here. I think we touched upon everything there, Mel.
    47:02
    Good. I know, but we always say, let's not wait nine months to do this again. But here we are. Yeah, I think we tried to get together a while, but it's been a while. I think we tried about a month and a half ago is when we started reaching out trying to see what dates would align, and, I mean, clearly it took a while.
    47:24
    There's not a lot of downtime right now, but I can't say it's, you know, I don't mind it. Like, this is what I think, I don't know, everybody here has been dreaming about for a while, so it's all happening. What are, let's finish off with maybe some events that Zen might be making an appearance at in the coming year. Okay.
    47:44
    E3, if that's a thing. If it's a thing, maybe. Maybe if it's a thing. Consumer Electronics Show. We're not at CES this year, no. Okay.
    47:56
    Are there any pinball festivals that you guys have attached yourselves to? Look for Pinball Expo. I think we're going to do a big thing at Pinball Expo.
    48:08
    And there's Star Wars Celebration. Star Wars Celebration, okay. We're planning to be there. And let's see. We're getting a lot of requests. So part of what's going to happen in FX is going to give us opportunity to tie things together in real-world events. Oh, nice. So that's really what we're working towards. and then everybody, if we have something happening at an event, say a tournament or like a really fun event, we can also have it live in-game so everybody, if you can't come to Pinball Expo, you can still participate and feel like you're a part of it. That's cool. So obviously we can't ask you what licenses you would like to see within Pinball FX or just as a Zen table in general, but I think me and Jared can. So we'll throw out some suggestions. The Witcher seems like it would be a wonderful addition to pinball effects as would, well gee, now that you've got Indy I know there's an Indy 5 movie coming on, so maybe that would be a good thing to continue those licensing talks same thing, I'm shocked, actually to this day there's not a Matrix pinball yeah, me too it boggles my mind why there isn't and it's diehard pinball as well Like, that Die Hard trilogy is begging for an actual pinball thing. With a roof that explodes, by the way. Indeed. Yes. And then I think the biggest one that I've said for years,
    49:39
    why there's not a Quidditch pinball, well, Harry Potter pinball in general, but Quidditch specifically is so ripe for pinball, it's ridiculous. But anyway, just throwing out some requests. well you're like uh-huh good request yeah request cannot confirm or deny exactly exactly we we always have to throw those in all right mel um we're gonna let you go now but uh it's been a pleasure we're so glad that you took the time to uh to join us and uh yeah we'll we'll be talking to you soon cool guys appreciate it thanks for having me alrighty so that's it folks me and Jared we're not sure if we're taking the rest of the year off or if we'll have yet another show right before the new year but we'll let you know either way when we do have that show though we'll be talking about all those things that Jared loves so much which are stuff and things until next time bye bye see you later
    50:47
    you