Episode 705: "Lawlor vs. Lawlor"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·20m 44s·analyzed·Aug 8, 2022

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Kaneda argues Toy Story 4 is overpriced, mechanically sparse versus No Good Gofers, and reflects industry pricing dysfunction.

Summary

Kaneda critiques Jersey Jack Pinball Story 4 as overpriced and mechanically inferior to Pat Lawlor 25-year-old No Good Gofers, arguing the game lacks value justification at $15,000. He examines the pinball industry's broken review system, FOMO-driven pre-order model, and suggests JJP needs masterpiece-level design or production limits to justify premium pricing.

Key Claims

No Good Gofers has twice as much gameplay content and mechanical complexity as Toy Story 4
high confidence · Kaneda, based on direct comparison play session at Barcade; detailed mechanical breakdown provided (jump ramp elevation, ball routing options, multiple ramp outcomes)
Toy Story 4 is priced at $15,000 but should cost $5-6,000 when adjusted for inflation from No Good Gofers' original ~$3,000 price point
medium confidence · Kaneda's calculation; speculative economic argument about value-to-inflation ratio
Guns N' Roses (500 units) and Pirates of the Caribbean (1,000 units) historically sustained $12,000+ pricing at JJP
high confidence · Kaneda, stated as fact about JJP's premium pricing history
Dealers and manufacturers suppress knowledge of older Pat Lawlor games to drive sales of expensive new titles
low confidence · Kaneda's opinion/speculation about industry incentives
Pinball reviewers like Zack and Greg have financial conflicts of interest (likely six-figure allocations with JJP) that bias their reviews
medium confidence · Kaneda; acknowledgment that conflict exists though he praises their technical review quality
The pinball industry has no objective third-party review system, unlike video games and films
high confidence · Kaneda, factual observation about industry practice of review units only going to media after pre-orders open
Toy Story 4 4 were a truly great game, community wouldn't be complaining; comparison to universally praised games like Godzilla, Monster Monster Bash (Remake), Lord of the Rings, Tron
medium confidence · Kaneda's reasoning based on social sentiment observation
Pat Lawlor own designs from the 1990s are mechanically superior to his 2024 Toy Story 4
medium confidence · Kaneda's opinion; references 'spartan' design effort despite premium pricing

Notable Quotes

“It is absolutely comical how we are reviewing a game like Toy Story 4 and then the people who are putting up reviews about the game... haven't seen another game that had like a jump ramp. It's like Pat Lawlor own game, No Good Gofers.”
Kaneda @ early — Core thesis: reviewers are not contextualizing Toy Story 4 against Pat Lawler's own better prior work
“There is twice as much in No Good Gofers than is in Toy Story 4.”
Kaneda @ early-mid — Repeated central claim comparing mechanical depth and features
“You can't come out with one of your most spartan efforts to date and then charge the most money that's ever been charged for a pinball machine in the history of pinball.”
Kaneda @ late — Summation of the core contradiction: premium pricing on minimal design
“I see the debate happening on pin side. I see what Zack and Greg are trying to do because they need to sell games... there's like this effort now to try to convince everybody that it's fun.”
Kaneda @ mid — Explicitly names Zack and Greg as having financial incentive to promote the game despite value concerns
“It would be like AMC movie theaters reviewing movies. It would be like if a Chevrolet dealership reviewed its own products.”
Kaneda @ mid-late — Articulates the conflict of interest in dealer/distributor reviews of pinball games
“We are spending as much money as an automobile on something we can't even test drive and by the time you know you don't want it you've already had to commit to it because of all the FOMO.”
Kaneda @ late — Critiques the pre-order FOMO model and lack of pre-purchase evaluation in pinball market
“I'm going to take that $15,000 and I'm going to buy $15,000 of Disney stock on sale for Killian because I absolutely think it's a better buy.”
Kaneda @ late — Explicit rejection of Toy Story 4 value proposition; expresses preference for alternative investment

Entities

Kanedaperson Pat Lawlorperson Jersey Jack Pinballcompany Toy Story 4game No Good Gofersgame Zach Sharpeperson

Signals

?
product_concern: Toy Story 4 criticized as mechanically sparse and overpriced at $15,000 when compared to 25-year-old No Good Gophers with twice the mechanical content at ~$3,000 adjusted dollars
high · Detailed comparison of ramp mechanics, jump ramp elevation, ball routing, pop-up counts, and feature parity between games; Kaneda spent 1.5 hours playing No Good Gophers to make comparison
$
market_signal: Premium pricing tier ($15,000) unsustainable for games perceived as lacking mechanical depth; only Guns N' Roses and Pirates of the Caribbean historically achieved this price point with scarcity and content depth
high · Kaneda notes only two JJP games ever sustained $12k+ pricing; suggests current game cannot justify price without feature parity to those titles; comparison to luxury goods (Gucci) that are actually cheaper
~
sentiment_shift: Significant community dissatisfaction with Toy Story 4 value proposition; contrasts with universal praise for Godzilla, Monster Bash Remake, Lord of the Rings, and Tron
high · Kaneda observes debate on Pinside about value; notes absence of complaints about other recent games; frames Toy Story complaints as anomalous if game were truly great
?
industry_signal: Pinball review media (dealers/distributors) have financial incentive to promote expensive new games; no third-party review system exists before pre-orders open
high · Kaneda explicitly names Zack and Greg as likely having six-figure JJP allocations; compares to AMC reviewing movies or Chevrolet reviewing cars; notes manufacturers withhold review units until deposits are taken
?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.062

0:00

How you doing, my friend? Time you had the talk. Give your reasons. Say it's not her fault. Ah, welcome to Canadian Spinball Podcast, people. So here's the deal. I was going to go to Jack Bar and play more Toy Story today, but I got caught in a downpour in New York City. So I audibled it to Barcade and inside Barcade they have a very very good condition no good gophers pinball machine and I thought this would be a great opportunity to compare Toy Story 4 to the other game by Pat Lawler which features many of the same elements and I just spent I don't know like $15 playing no good gophers for about an hour and a half and I want to say after I think it is getting to the point now where it is absolutely comical how we are reviewing a game like Toy Story 4 and then the people who are putting up reviews about the game, you know Zack and Greg and they said that they haven't seen another game that had like a jump ramp. It's like Pat Lawler's own game, No Good Gophers. Not only does it have a jump ramp, but it has so much more in it. And I'm going to be pretty, pretty candid right now because I think what's happening in the pinball world is simply this. You are seeing the most expensive pinball machines of all time. And I think there are people on the manufacturing side and on the dealer side and distributor side who don't even want you to go back and play another Pat Lawler The game. They want you to focus on this game. They want you to pretend like Pat Lawler didn't make this exact same game twice as good when he made No Good Gophers. And I mean it when I say twice as good. There is twice as much in No Good Gophers than is in Toy Story 4. Do I have to even go down a list of what's in it? Let's think about this for a minute. Let's look at the ramps in No Good Gophers and what they do. Both ramps in No Good Gophers can on-screen vulnerability The jump ramp in this game is so much cooler than the jump ramp that's in Toy Story 4. Now if you've played No Good Gophers, the jump ramp is elevated above the playfield and so the ball can go underneath it and it's very cool the way it lowers. And then this is the best part. So think about Toy Story 4. When you jump the Duke Caboom ramp, you always go the same way. That's why they put the Benson post there to force the ball to go straight. There's not a multiple things you can achieve when you jump the Duke Caboom ramp. But in No Good Gophers, you could jump straight up and it loops around and it comes back to the left flipper which is really cool. It goes around the upper left orbit or you can hit it at just the right angle and it goes off a little bit to the right and it goes into the hole in one scoop which is up there. Once again we have stuff that's in a game that came out how many years ago and that probably was like $2,000 has twice as much in it as a game that is costing this much money. And this is where we are in pinball now. You need to forget about what came out earlier. You need to not judge the current Pat Lawler game against an older Pat Lawler game. But how can we not? I mean it's the same designer and the elements are all the same like you've got a saucer on each game, you've got a captive ball on each game, you've got a spinning wheel on each game, you've got two ramps on each game, you've got one pop-up in Toy Story and two pop-ups in No Good Gophers. But then you play No Good Gophers and you realize the other part I love about the game is just the way it pulls you in with the music and the call-outs and the zaniness of the game The whole time I was playing it, I was like, this is just what pinball should be. It's super easy to understand how to play the game. And then you also know when you're playing No Good Gopher is that you get a free game if you get to 18 million points. And I really liked that. It was like I was on it for like an hour and a half trying to win a free game from the operator, right? It adds an element of gambling when you're playing on location. And I was able to get 18 million points just one time, but it was a lot of fun. And look, I just think if you You put this game right next to Toy Story sure the lights are not as great sure it not as polished with the screen but then you look at the physical stuff that in the game and it twice as impressive And so here we are, 2022, August of 2022, and we have these super expensive games, I can't even sell my CE for $14,000, and I'm basically playing Pat Lawler's No Good Gopher's Light, which you know as Toy Story 4. And we're supposed to fork over this much money on the game. I'm sorry. I see the debate happening on pin side. I see what Zack and Greg are trying to do because they need to sell games. I mean, I bet Zack has cut a check for like six figures over to Jersey Jack Pinball on his allocations of Toy Story. These guys need to sell games and it's fine. I get it. And I like their content and I like their reviews, but I just think there's like this effort now to try to convince everybody that it's fun. And yes, it is a fun game, but the value is nowhere near there. And that is where this conversation has to begin and end. There's just no value there. How can I play a game that came out like 25 years ago that has twice as much in it and was probably less than $3,000? And if you market it just that for inflation people, it's not 12 or $15,000. If you market it just that, it's more like five to $6,000, which by the way, is what a no good gopher is. Ex- francisst Commercially related to 1966 hub name and purpose look at planning of the age on its own, confirmed with No pertinent institution is a hamançayaиль worked with this game in킁Zçp X eight was like this to want you to look at it on its own. When the actual Flink InchaOS IP and click wickedse after Internet or Mac requests like this take baren, Franchise debr sandwiches etc.. So they can't lower the price of this game. They are going to be stuck at this price. Will they limit the amount they make? This is a good option for JJP. If I was over there and I was reading all of the response to this game from people like Kaneda and people like Delt and people like Flinibus and all the people out there that are skeptical about the value of this game, this is a moonshot move that could be done by the Abbas family if they really want to stick it to the AtKEYBEND3, squatty Lookey, dimo hockey, Aquariantало, Allaaaay! 모르 perpetual 이치주고 ramests here osium in Linkfeld artistic Drawingvideomasil depends on� Himselfatories-畫面 indicates thatcekov, hrnpers!. probability Europe the closing, 27th March2vycz-1n1n1n1n1nus, multich�� refers toila feminist, Typenığceğintdo són Streýčekçççbacksãx́ćçžčëț görd Dynastyñeříçççżë fought dijččdžiččščialеннойğbežụ váfsjščžëkañ cod� or kjecenéžčcéčsenkčšçjéž preservationávščo, st syntax ł accessoriesicäºñ Qiannenna léenlovišćïččekščič happier, dl. It a shame that the J crew had to limit the number of the J crew to make 6 of these machines like not even close Guns and Roses they didn even make that many And there was twice as much demand for Guns and Roses But that is an option for the J crew to announce they are limiting the number Look we saw what happened to Pirates of the Caribbean when they limited that game to 1 units Now here another thing they could do And because I think JJP just needs to get the mojo back I think they need to get the swagger back I think they need to remind people why people were paying over $12,000 for their machines. And remember the only two machines that people were ever paying over $12,000 for. There's only two. It was Guns N' Roses CE in which there were only 500 and it was Pirates of the Caribbean in which there was only a thousand. Now here is another bold move that JJP could do. Instead of making 6,000 Toy Story machines, I think a bold move they could make is announce that they are going to do another run of Pirates of the Caribbean at $15,000 and we are making just 500 more Has to cope with very podcast öyleall Wandoms, pasta Tomная DeVille on the television about Speaking配 linking I think that would be a great move to just remind people, don't forget about us. Like we are the company that made games that people were paying well over $12,000 for, but it's just like Toy Story wasn't the one to do it on. Now what do they do, right? What's the exit strategy? And then there's just one other move this company can make to sell games at 12 or $15,000 consistently. You know what that move is? And this is the silver lining in all of my complaining. The only other option they have to stay viable at 12 to 15k a pop is to make masterpieces. Masterpieces that are loaded, that are based on themes people want, that have everything and the kitchen sink in the game. They need that. They need a game that shoots as well as Toy Story but has as much in it as Wizard of Oz and Pirates. And that's the only way you're We're going to consistently sell games at this price point. Someone said it best on Pinside, they say what happened with this game, they saw what flippers were getting for GNR and for Pirates, but then Jersey Jack themselves is acting like the second-hand flipper. But when they launch this game it's like as if a thousand flippers on day one are trying to sell you a game at an elevated price of $15,000 and it doesn't work. And it's I'm not going to work. There's just no way to turn that around. And so I think those are their options is like the next game. Like, like if this stays at 12 and 15 K, then Godfather better be loaded. But if it's empty, think about it. If that game doesn't have a ton in it and it's Godfather, how many CEs are you going to make? How many Ellie's are you going to make? The problem is, is when you jump so high, you need to make sure people are willing to get on board with that demand. I want to throw out there something because you know look I listen to Zach and Greg's review and I want to say for those of you out there who complain about their reviews I think you're silly. They do the best pinball reviews in the market. They do. They absolutely do. Now you can't deny the fact that they're also selling you product. Right? It would be like AMC movie theaters reviewing movies. It would be like if a Chevrolet dealership reviewed its own products. Like there's no denying the conflict of interest but I want to bring up something Greg Bones said because he brought up Then there is K. última Fafn Blučić escuchích favourite course at Spampfavik International k 48 Impossibleבבा Ihnen係ґה thumbnailagingõţ بmesi Goodnessëekõøç Best of all in Petsüzü aposté üçüçs� guitarıçenses Presents Àplane serverıç There's just a lot of demand around the globe for the products. And by the way, Gucci shoes don't cost $4,000. It's more like $1,100. But the demand is there. And I think this is what happens when you just get the demand so off. One of them gave this theme an A-. This isn't an A- theme. It's like a C- theme. An A- theme would have been Toy Story 1. But you know, look, every pinball review is sort of silly. Like, every pinball review doesn't make much sense. The thing that's crazy is when I go to buy a video game or I go to watch a movie, I am able to read reviews about the game or the film. Think about it. I'm able to read somewhat objective third-party opinions about something before I spend $20 on a movie ticket or $80 on a video game or $60 on a video game. So then you take it to pinball for to there are no objective reviews anywhere in pinball These manufacturers don want the pinball media to have the games before the non deposits are taken from the community Can we think about that for a minute, how inane and archaic this is? That we are at a point We are spending as much money as an automobile on something we can't even test drive and by the time you know you don't want it you've already had to commit to it because of all the FOMO that's taken place over the years and I just think something needs to change this whole hobby is on a crash course with itself it just is like you can't have games this expensive then you have no objective reviewers in the hobby and then everyone is being told that they have to put money down on day one or they can't get their money back I just don't think it The game is not a game anymore. I don't think people are going to be putting money down anymore. And I don't think we want to hear from dealers and distributors how great the game is. I want to hear from people in the pinball community how great the game is. Now look, the other thing is this. Maybe the game's just not that great. Do we hear people complaining about Godzilla? Do we hear people complaining about Monster Bash remake? Do we hear people complaining about Lord of the Rings? Do you hear people complaining about Tron? I don't think I've ever seen a game where there are so many people The game is great. If the game was great, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. I wouldn't even have to come in on Sunday and do a show for all of you. We would just be applauding this game. Everybody wanted a game that was going to be Pat Lawler's greatest hits. This isn't it. I can go play No Good Gophers and Adam's Family and Twilight Zone and the list goes on and on and on of games that just have more in it. And so yes, I will put on my Gucci shoes and I will put on my Gucci blazer and I will look fly as hell as I keep $15,000 in my wallet. And I said on another show, I'm going to take that $15,000 and I'm going to buy $15,000 of Disney stock on sale for Killian because I absolutely think it's a better buy. But something's got to give. Something's got to give. These aren't these $6,000 cheap and cheerful games anymore. This hobby's gotten really expensive and I would love to see and hopefully we can get to a world in which manufacturers give some of their games out to the pinball media so they can review it before people are asked to give non-refundable deposits. It's never going to happen. The reason why the manufacturers and the distributors are doing it this way is because it was too good for too many years. There were too many games being flipped for a profit but there's not much profit at all anymore. Now there's a greater chance you're going to lose money on Då steer the Gor 75 Brenda, I've got a great, great day planned for us if you're listening to the show. Unfortunately, Lawler's worst enemy is Pat Lawler. Lawler has made some of the greatest machines in pinball. The reason why we love Pat Lawler is the stuff he made in the 90s. This might be one of his most barren efforts to date. You can't come out with one of your most spartan efforts to date and then charge the most money that's ever been charged for a pinball machine in the history of pinball. And that's it. And it's not Gucci and it's not Rolex, it's pinball people. The other thing I want to say is this, in defense of the other pinball content creators out there, everybody is making their content to entertain you. I've been seeing a lot of people get really nasty, like really nasty towards Zack and Greg, really nasty towards other people, myself included. If you think we're here to like educate you, this isn't like the history of World War II. This isn't like Middle East politics, people. This is pinball. It's entertaining. It's meant to be fun. We're supposed to just entertain you. I'm not here to give you a history lesson on pinball, but I can stand over a modern machine and tell you my thoughts without having to know like everything about every game. And I encourage all of you out there, go play a No Good Gophers and then go play a Toy Story 4 and you tell me that those games aren't super similar but one has twice as much in it. Everybody, happy Sunday, happy Monday, whenever you listen to this. Canada's Pinball Podcast out. Thank you so much for the support. We ain't stopping. Even though we're down on Facebook, we're going to keep going with the world's favorite and number one pinball podcast. Later.