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The rest of 2022 as we see it

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·57m 9s·analyzed·Aug 22, 2022
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Digital pinball market heavily concentrated in Zen; competitors stagnant; LOTR licensing acquisition opens future possibilities.

Summary

Chris Frebus and Jared Morgan discuss the state of digital pinball in 2022, focusing on Zen Studios' dominance as the only active commercial digital pinball publisher. They analyze Arcade1Up and AtGames' stagnant product pipelines, Embracer Group's acquisition of Middle Earth Enterprises (which could enable future Tolkien IP pinball titles via Zen), and project that Zen is on track to release 21 tables in 2022, meeting their stated goal. The hosts express concern about the lack of innovation in consumer pinball cabinets and speculate on future licensing opportunities.

Key Claims

  • Arcade1Up pinball cabinets are not readily available in retail locations; no stores carry them physically

    high confidence · Chris states he discovered 'no store carries them' during his research, though online ordering is available with 5-day pickup at Best Buy

  • Zen Studios took a one-month vacation, creating a news gap in digital pinball coverage

    high confidence · Chris opens: 'this is what happens when Zen decides to take a month of vacation' and 'there's not a lot to talk about'

  • Embracer Group's acquisition of Middle Earth Enterprises could enable Zen to create Lord of the Rings pinball without needing to license from movie studios

    medium confidence · Discussion of Zen's ability to 'go straight from the lore of the books' and create caricatures independent of film versions, though licensing complexities with Amazon/New Line Cinema remain

  • Zen released 10 new tables in the first ~8 months of 2022; projecting 21 total for the year

    high confidence · Chris lists: World War Z, Mandalorian, Star Wars, Collectibles, Bride of Pinbot, Sword of Fury, Indiana Jones, Grimm's Tales, Curse of the Mummy, Pinball Noir, Sky Pirates; notes 5 remaining months for additional releases

  • Arcade1Up's ability to now support NFL Blitz suggests improved video card hardware that could enable 1080p pinball cabinet output

    medium confidence · Chris speculates: 'if this thing's muscly enough to basically handle disc-based content...their video card is strong enough to bump it up from 720 to 1080 for pinball'

  • AtGames has not released new pinball cabinet content since the Taito Packs in late 2021

    high confidence · Chris: 'they just came out with an announcement about making a Dr. Seuss pinball, which is like the first new table release it seems like they've announced in a very long time'

  • Zaccaria last released a new pinball table (Postal) in 2021, with no new releases in 2022

    high confidence · Chris confirms: 'the last table that they released was Postal. And again, that was back in 2021...Nothing in 2022'

Notable Quotes

  • “we're all about commercial digital pinball here, and it kind of speaks to the fact...that there's not a lot of commercial pinball options other than Zen around”

    Chris Frebus @ early segment — Establishes core thesis of episode: Zen's market dominance and lack of competition in digital pinball

  • “Zen doesn't have Stern. And that's what I'm saying. You don't have Jersey Jack...And then you throw in that to the mix. That's a lot of things you don't have.”

    Jared Morgan @ mid-segment — Clarifies that despite Zen's LOTR IP access via Embracer, physical pinball manufacturers (Stern/JJP) remain separate licensees

  • “How could you not? That'd be like—again, it's signing up with Disney and then Disney saying, oh, but we're not going to let you touch Marvel or Lucasfilm. Then what's the point?”

    Chris Frebus @ mid-segment — Expresses confidence that Zen will pursue Tolkien IP for pinball given the acquisition context

  • “They are the only company, commercial digital pinball company, that's releasing any content at the moment.”

    Chris Frebus @ late segment — Summarizes the competitive vacuum—Zen as sole active digital pinball publisher

  • “I hate that kind of tactic. But we do actually see the occasional Arcade1Up cabinet on the floor at Costco here. Um, they do. But it feels like we're getting the dregs.”

    Chris Frebus @ mid-segment — Indicates Arcade1Up's retail presence declining; criticizes marketing deception around price 'discounts'

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonZen StudioscompanyEmbracer GroupcompanyMiddle Earth EnterprisescompanyArcade1UpcompanyAtGamescompanyZaccariacompanyMelperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Competitor digital pinball platforms (AtGames, Zaccaria, Arcade1Up) in stagnation; Zen monopolizes commercial digital market

    high · AtGames last released content Dec 2021 (Taito); Zaccaria: 2021 (Postal); Arcade1Up: no pinball cabinet planned for 2022; only Zen releasing new tables monthly

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts express disappointment at lack of consumer pinball cabinet innovation and retail availability

    medium · Chris: 'all that hype and all that excitement of people bringing in a physical digital pinball machine into their home at three-quarter scale has just withered'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Warner Brothers/Discovery merger creating licensing uncertainty; hostile environment for new IP deals during 'dust settling' period

    medium · Chris warns against pursuing LOTR film/New Line licenses during merger turmoil; 70% HBO Max scripted content slashed; discovery CEO prioritizing 'cheap' non-scripted content

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Embracer Group's acquisition of Middle Earth Enterprises significantly expands Zen's access to Tolkien IP without direct movie studio licensing requirements

    high · Chris/Jared discuss Zen's ability to create original designs 'straight from the lore of the books' independent of film versions; Mel likely had advance notice per Jared

  • $

    market_signal: Arcade1Up pinball cabinets unavailable in retail locations; stock clearance from Sam's Clubs suggests declining consumer demand

    high · Chris found zero stores carrying Arcade1Up pinball physically; must order online; cabinets appear only 'occasionally' at Costco in 'dregs' condition

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.171

0:00
Blackade Pinball Podcast This is the Blockade Pinball Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Frebus, a.k.a. Shut Your Trap. Joining me, as always, halfway across the world, is Jared Morgan.
0:38
Hey, Chris. Hi, everyone. How's it going? Yeah, so I feel like we've been away for a while. It feels like a while. You know, this is what happens when Zen decides to take a month of vacation.
0:54
Yeah, there's not a lot to talk about. Ah, the dozer on the summer. well yeah that's true yeah but it makes you like you know we're all about commercial digital pinball here and it kind of speaks to the fact which we're going to be talking about in the show today that there's not a lot of commercial pinball options other than zen around yeah yeah for sure so for sure it was it's interesting interesting uh position at the moment which we're going to explore a little bit further today yeah so uh i don't know if i mentioned this last time but i picked up yet a new position uh oh did you just get another one yes all right that's nice um yeah so so now i am uh what we call a uh black spire outpost facilitator which means anybody that's getting hired on to work at black spire outpost i am now training them how to be a proper batuan and I spent a week having my brain melted trying to memorize a 36 page script that basically takes you through an 8 hour day because we're supposed to know it by heart what? really? that was fun oh jeez that's brutal mate even better we weren't allowed to take the script home really? yeah so all day long we were just going over it and trying to rehearse it and trying to get it and learn it and rehearse it and do it again. But it was freaking all of us out. And then we finally got to take it home during the weekend. And then I had my very first session just this past Tuesday to deliver the content. And it was with a – there was three other trainers there. That's how they do it. They have four of us delivering the content. And it went so much better having them around because basically you only have to deliver a tiny section of the content then.

  • Pinball FX console release was initially scheduled for summer 2022 but has been delayed

    high confidence · Chris: 'Initially, it was a summer release. Obviously, summer's just about done. So there's been some complications there, I would think'

    • Warner Brothers
    company
    Discoverycompany
    Amazoncompany
    Pinball FXproduct
    Legends Pinballproduct
    Pinball Partyproduct
  • $

    market_signal: Arcade1Up employs deceptive discount pricing tactics, advertising $150 'sale' on machines previously inflated to $750

    high · Chris criticizes tactic: jacked-up prices now advertised as 25% off, reverting to normal MSRP while implying discount

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball FX console release delayed past summer 2022 target; originally promised for 2022

    high · Chris: 'Initially, it was a summer release. Obviously, summer's just about done. So there's been some complications there'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen Studios on pace to release 21 tables in 2022, matching stated goal despite August release gap

    high · Chris tallies 10 confirmed tables through August; 6 additional from Pinball Arcade potential rollover; 5 remaining months (Aug-Dec) allows 21-table target if release cadence continues

  • ?

    technology_signal: Arcade1Up's successful NFL Blitz port suggests hardware upgrade enabling potential shift from 720p to 1080p pinball cabinet output

    medium · Chris speculates Arcade1Up may have 'cracked' disc-based game support, implying beefier video card capable of higher resolution pinball rendering

    • 2:54
    Right. Is that normal? Is that how it works? Yeah. And then even if you forget some of what you're about to say, then one of the other people will pop in and continue to say it. That's good. So essentially they've got it set up so you're there to support each other throughout the process. And that's good because if you've ever been – there's people who are watching the show who have sat through training before for anything. It's normally really boring. And that's what they're trying to make it sound like. It's more like we're just having a conversation rather than spewing PowerPoint. You know what I mean? Yes. Yeah. No, that's a really – it's a really good way of delivering training. And I like the fact that it sounds like by having multiple people, you're probably also going, well, even though it's scripted, there might be the ability for new inductees to actually ask questions and then have a broader response. Well, that's exactly it. Yes. That's exactly what happens. And that was the part that was missing from our training was, you know, you get to these sections where you're asking people questions and there was nobody to ask the question to. so instead of having time to think about what's coming next and actually maybe have what's coming next be flowing from what the person is asking you're just like in a void then you're like okay and now i'm gonna ask this question to nobody and i'm gonna ask this and now we're gonna move on you know so it felt weird it felt weird but man i have not had to do any kind of memorization of this nature since i was in college getting my theater degree right yeah um it was it was kind of fun dipping dipping the toes back into that you know methodologies of how to memorize and learn things but right yeah i envy those people with a photographic memory yes it is just rote learning what you're doing there yeah yeah yeah yeah so anyway that was uh that was where that was that's a that is uh quite the quite the thing well the the week for me has been a weird one So Sienna wasn't well when we did the changeover. But, you know, just like sniffles. Nothing. It's winter here, so it's like, you know, the regular sort of things you see. So anyhow, Monday comes around and her ketone levels are higher than we'd prefer. And Kim couldn't get them down. So she spent pretty much the whole week in hospital. Oh. and just, you know, it went from ketones are high, which means that, you know, there's lots of cortisol in the bloodstream, which is a reaction to sickness if you're a type 1 diabetic.
    5:41
    But, yeah, it took, you know, a dextrose drip to bring it back down again because it's weird. If you're sick and you've got high ketones, you've actually got to eat so that the insulin has um carbohydrate to unlock in the system and then enter your cell wall so um if you don't have any carbohydrate in your blood you get this build up of insulin in there not doing anything and not being able to unlock the cells and and transfer energy so you kind of got to eat and if you're feeling sick like in the stomach and you don't want to stomach food you it the process doesn't work oh right yeah so yeah you need dextrose which is obviously sugar um to go through your system so you can dose and so everything can work so it's a it's a bit of a vicious cycle anyhow um she got out on friday so i had zach for the week and it was kind of cool because we just got to chill out as dudes and you know just uh go out and eat the food that we always prefer to eat that normally is a bit tricky because Sienna has specific tastes that she enjoys. Right. And it's often not the stuff that Zachary and I like.
    6:58
    But, yeah, it was kind of a chill week. And then, you know, the other news is that we had the... I got my big gaming PC. I was tossing out whether to go and get a virtual pin, but I decided my money would have been better spent buying a lounge room PC that I could just connect up to my Sony TV and play Steam and Epic on my lounge. And I made the right decision, Chris. Yeah, because you found out, didn't you? Because it's really good to play video games on your couch, on your really big, powerful PC. That was the hardest part about deciding to abandon console pinball for playing it on the PC. So I was like, I enjoyed sitting on the couch, you know, 65-inch TV playing. And now I'm sitting, you know, in front of a 27-inch monitor playing. You know what I mean? Now, granted, you're closer, but it's still not the comfort of your couch, you know, doing that way with your feet kicked up. So, yeah, there's a difference. It's good. Like, it's really good. And the TV I've got, because I've upgraded the car significantly, so the laptop I'm using here behind me, that has an RTX 2060 in it. And the one I've got now is a 3080.
    8:29
    So it's a significant jump up, and it does ray tracing. Nice. So what I'm finding is in FX, the tables, I was trying to describe it to you before we started the show, but it's sort of like a hyper-realism layer that gets applied to the table. Everything looks just a little bit more photographic, and it's quite a surprising thing. The flashes are really enhanced. The lighting, obviously, big given ray tracing, it makes all the light sources really pronounced. um so it's it's quite a different feel when you're playing it um so yeah that was my week it was good good and bad um we're going to dive into some pinball but before we do that just uh for those of you that uh want to stick around till the end of the show at the end of the show uh can we talk about that new predator movie prey just putting that out there um oh heck yeah yeah so yeah stick around for that okay so um the biggest news um which i didn't even know about it and i don't think jared knew about it we got a got the the heads up from pinball was 45b was that uh the embracer group who we all know has absorbed zen um as well as other companies they went ahead and absorbed another property and that is they now have the rights to uh tolkien and yeah rings and such it's it's a massive deal it's the they've acquired the um the middle earth Enterprises and that's significant because Middle Earth Enterprises owns the worldwide rights to Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies as well as a whole lot of other stuff. Games, books, everything. So they're like the umbrella organization that literally sits on the massive pile of gold. Yes, they own the IP and can determine who gets to play with it. Yeah, that's exactly right.
    10:33
    And it's from It was originally owned by the, I think it's Saul Zaint's company. Okay, yeah. Which I'd never heard of, obviously. But they've owned everything since 1976. So obviously, when the Tolkien Estate became available in 1976, they took it up and they've been sitting on it ever since and helping people license from it.
    11:00
    So the question is, what does this mean for us? and Zen, and Pinball. A couple of thoughts. First one being, and for everything I read was kind of saying the same thing. Obviously, Amazon has their TV show coming out just literally,
    11:23
    was it two weeks from now maybe? Yeah. This has nothing to do with an Amazon deal. No, no. If, let's say, as we know, The whole purpose of all these mergers and everything that got Zen excited was because it's going to open up a whole bunch of new IP to them. Obviously, if Embracer has this IP, that's going to allow Zen to potentially play with it. But does that mean that Zen would be doing this Amazon show or even being able to do the New Line Cinema movies?
    11:59
    No. They still would have to seek a licensing agreement with those companies. Yeah. And there's still actors that need to be paid all the usual stuff that goes along with the licensing that we bang on about. But if they wanted to create their own designs and their own caricatures of those characters. Of the books. Because they could go straight from the lore of the books. They would not have to worry about what was there in the movies. They could literally ignore it and make their own worlds up. Yep. They'd be more than welcome or be allowed to do just that. Heck yeah. It's kind of... Will Zen go that route? Don't know. But I have a feeling Zen's going to be playing with this property. I mean, how could you not? That'd be like... Again, it's signing up with Disney and then Disney saying, oh, but we're not going to let you touch Marvel or Lucasfilm. Then what's the point? I'm sorry, but no. No, they are going... I don't think it's going to be... Obviously, it's way too fresh. The ink is not even really dried yet. but coming into like i reckon mid next year to potentially the end of next year 2023 we're going to start seeing some pretty interesting creations coming through from zen on this if we put zen into the it takes them nine months from to finish uh to do something yeah i think that's the sort of time we're going to be looking at but But we've got to remember, too, that this isn't the only thing that's on their dance card. Like, this is new. Oh, yeah, this is brand new. Yeah, exactly. So other things have to get shuffled about. There's a roadmap already at play. And unless this was in that roadmap, then it may even be after everything, or things may be shuffled around. I'm sure that Mel had an inkling that this kind of thing was going to be happening. You know what I mean? It's just... As with all licensing things, it's, hey, we're going to sign this license. We just need to fill out the contracts, push it through, you know, all that kind of thing. And I imagine also I mean we keep on talking about Zen There other game studios that are within this Embracer group I sure the property is going to be getting spread around
    14:25
    So you could think of it like this, too. You could go, okay, so Zen has a couple of routes here with this material. They could cut their own world and universe, or they could do what they've done a fair bit recently in some of their newer tables and collaborate with another studio in the embracing group to do it. We saw that with World War Z.
    14:48
    So once the property is set it up, then they use base a pinball game around that universe because all the properties are there and they don't have to invent something brand new. So they could do it themselves or they could wait and then do an adaptation of something that comes out. So, so many, so many opportunities here to do something really cool.
    15:12
    As for should you get your hopes up over, you know, Zen doing Stern. Lord of the Rings. Stern, Lord of the Rings. Or even JJP's. Yeah, yeah. Any of these.
    15:25
    I mean, have they signed licensing deals with either of those? No. Yeah, no. Has New Line Cinema, have they cut a contract with them? No.
    15:33
    Speaking of, you think about this. So New Line, who's owned by Warner Brothers, Warner Brothers is currently going through their own merger right now with Discovery.
    15:43
    Oh, really? Oh, you didn't know this? No. Oh, yeah. This went through – the paperwork got signed at the beginning of the year, but right now Discovery is starting to flex all their muscle, And that's why HBO Max is suddenly getting hit with a slew of cancellations and content being pulled.
    16:07
    Because 70% of their scripted programming, which was not for HBO, but for HBO Max, right? So HBO is the cable channel. HBO Max is the streaming channel that carries HBO content. But there was certain content that was being developed exclusively for the app. well 70% of that content has been slashed whoa 70% maybe not the content but the staffing got slashed it got ugly really fast and a lot of people went what the heck are they doing and what everybody's afraid of is the Discovery who is basically it sounds like Discovery is the one that acquired HBO not the other way around Discovery's boss is basically you know they're they're really good at uh non-scripted entertainment and it's cheap and oh yeah so they're thinking that he's trying to push through that kind of content to then send to the streamer to which everybody's like this ain't what we signed up for we don't want this no we want original all this to yeah all of this is to say um you're gonna have a difficult conversation with Warner Brothers right now if you were trying to.
    17:25
    Sounds like, based on what you told me, you wouldn't have a conversation because they'd just go, yeah, nah. It might not be the time. You need to let the dust settle before you start approaching that. I wouldn't get your hopes up, folks, for the existing physical machines that are out there that are based on Lord of the Rings. Well, I mean, and the other point is, well, Sin doesn't have Stern. And that's what I'm saying. You don't have JJP. You already don't have those. And then you throw in that to the mix. That's a lot of things you don't have.
    17:58
    So I think you're more naturally going to be seeing... Could I see them licensing with Amazon? Yes. Oh, yeah. That, I think, would be much more possible. And because that is actively in production at the very moment with the actors, getting all those contracts done up and everything would be much easier than yep going to a property that's 20 years old you know in the theaters oh and trying to dig up the archives no way no no you're right doing an active license and like an active engagement with that with that franchise is being produced now would be an easier get i'm not going to say it's an easy get because licensing is never easy chris no but plausible i would say yes yeah so that got us thinking that's obviously down the pike and in the future um what's the rest of this year looking like for digital pinball and so i started kind of nosing around and going oh that's interesting oh that's huh huh and having a lot of huh moments i thought that we would uh we would kind of hit upon some of those and kind of give our take for what we expect for the rest of the year. We did this last year, probably in September, I think, or late August, right around the same time, because basically we should know the roadmap for physical products by this time. This is when everything is announced that it's going to be coming out for holiday. For Christmas, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because if you've been into a Costco recently, they've already got presents. They just haven't gotten the Christmas trees up yet.
    19:42
    Oh, yeah. Even down here in Australia, we're seeing – well, at the moment, we're seeing Halloween stuff. Right, but there's all the gifts that they always have. There's always an uptick in Lego at this time of year, right? Every single time, there's more and more big Lego sets. I think I've got an app walker in there at 160 Australian at the moment. Someone's going to be happy to see that underneath their Christmas trick and tell you that.
    20:09
    So one of the things that got me thinking about was, because we talked about this last year, was are we seeing a Gen 2 of either app games, Legends Pinball, or Arcade 1-Ups Pinball? so I went and nosed around and my first thing with Arcade 1-Up was how readily available are these things where I discovered no store carries them you can order online but nobody has them physically in on the showroom floor you can order them up from Best Buy and it'll take about 5 days to arrive at your location to pick it up if you go onto the website for Arcade 1-Up, it shows there, again, you can order them up. When I say crack up, it's not really funny, but it's kind of funny. So you guys remember that they jacked the prices up on all the machines? Yes. Right, well, now they're on sale for $600. Oh, so they're back down to the normal price. They're back down to the normal price, but with a big old tag saying $150 off. I'm like that's such a jacked up way of A if you bought one at the 750 the inflated price why did you do that you should have known better and then B that now they're advertising it as if it's on sale good guys arcade one up there giving you a discount aren't they nice you know I hate that kind of tactic but we do actually see the occasional arcade one-up cabinet on the floor at costco here um they but it feels like we're getting the drinks but see i was fully expecting to see last christmas uh a pinball cabinet at costco and we didn't um yeah and i think the only machine that they had was uh nba jam or yeah we just got nba jam down here in australia hey like in the last month and a half, that's when they actually had them on the floor at Costco. So that shows you the delay and just how long it takes to get down here in Australia. Yeah, so then I was kind of nosing around Arcade 1Up's site, and just in their arcade machines, they just made the announcement about NFL Blitz, which the exciting part about that is they didn't think that they were going to be able to do that not on the vid card that they were using. so either they cracked something in the code or they've beefed up their video cards um which would be a very good thing in terms of a future pinball cabinet because maybe that means it could actually run at 1080p instead of 720p um that would make sense yeah yes um because that's all it was lacking was the muscle to to run it at a smooth frame rate um so if this thing's muscly enough to basically handle disc-based content, which is what the sticking point for NFL Blitz was, because it ran off of CD-ROM as well as boards. If they've cracked that nut, I would imagine that their vid card is strong enough to be able to handle then whatever oomph is necessary to bump it up from 720 to 1080 for pinball.
    23:38
    NFL Blitz was... So it was a hard disk, which always... Yeah, it was a hard disk game, a hard drive game. And the hard drives always failed. So it was always hard to find an aftermarket board working after a few years because the platters just died. But also, I seem to remember that era of game, and people in the comments, please do correct me here, but it was like using the current 3d graphics engine voodoo i think at the time so you're that was like the you know the very first notion of a video card based solution with like a gpu separate to the board like it was a 3d graphics i think williams used it on their carnival games as well um so that was floating around very early gpu based board systems so you're right there's going to have to be a much beefier board in those games to be able to support that and the other one was um the um what uh capcom versus marvel marvel yes so that's another one that just either got announced or it just came out um which is a massive deal for fight fans because this has been held up in like legal red tape for years now but i feel like it's been announced for a long time um yeah and that's been rumored outrageous yeah so that got me looking at the the other cabinets that they have and it's like yeah they got their tron cabinet and they've got their dragon slayer uh cab those kind of had gotten people excited but there's been kind of a drop off just Arcade 1-Up also, just in terms of... Because it seemed like for a while they were announcing a new cab like every two months. A new Pac-Man cab every two months. Well, yeah. Well, they're still making those. I'm sure they are, yeah. So all this is to say I don't think we're seeing another pinball cab from Arcade 1-Up definitely not this holiday season. I think your speculation there is 100% correct because a while ago somebody found the roster of games that they were playing and releasing and there was no mention of pinball on there at all.
    26:05
    So, yeah, I think you're right on the money there. So that's pretty disappointing because I feel like all that hype and all that excitement of people bringing in a physical digital pinball machine into their home at three-quarter scale has just withered. and that brings me over to AtGames who also has done nothing new with their cab they haven't added anything they haven't redesigned anything there's no hardware iterations that I've seen anywhere again correct us if we're wrong we're not super in AtGames anymore again because everything dried up and there was nothing and again there is when I did a search for local Sam's Club, because I know that's who was carrying it, it was showing nothing within 250 miles of me. Which leads me to believe that for the most part, it got cleared out of any of the Sam's Clubs. And so if you're going to order it, you're ordering it from AtGames. Or ordering it from Sam's Club and having them order it from AtGames and ship it to their location.
    27:14
    But even with AtGames, they just came out with an announcement about making a Dr. Seuss pinball, which is like the first new table release it seems like they've announced in a very long time, ever since the Tato Packs. Yeah, the Tato Packs were the last original tables they bought. That was last, again, that was all by December of last year. Yeah.
    27:43
    Yeah, there's been a drought of content. Yeah, and so I wish I knew what these guys had up their sleeves, if they have anything at all up their sleeves, if they're planning on doing upgrades and stuff, or are they just content now to sell the units at the price they're selling it, knowing full well that then people are going to just spend more money on it to mod the crap out of it, rather than them trying to keep up with the modders.
    28:12
    If they're going to do that, though, why not just make a shell? Right. just make the thing a shell and put rather than putting in hardware that can run the games on the device make it essentially like a dumb terminal using an old Unix term where you just have a screen and a computer and everything gets connected externally You can make it so it easy to plug your PC in make it so all the connections are internal in the cabinet nice and easy to get to.
    28:45
    Just make it so people can mod it really easily. Even putting in interfaces for Solenoids and stuff, I mean, it wouldn't be hard for them to actually make up their own interface board that lets people just drop in a PC and off they go. Yeah, I don't know. It's kind of interesting.
    29:02
    So I didn't watch the actual announcement with Dr. Seuss. Again, not having Legends Pinball. I'm kind of like, I mean, I can sort of pay attention to it. I know it's coming, but I'm not going to talk about it. But it's a very small market that they're targeting. Well, and I'm not going to talk about just an announcement.
    29:24
    No, because it wasn't a lot of information. The press releases, okay, yeah, the Dr. Seuss table is coming out. Here's a list of Dr. Seuss properties that will be involved, book titles. Right, but it's not like it was showing play field art or modes or talking about the actual gameplay or anything. It's just the fact that they got the license. Yeah. So at some point we'll see these tables, but that's the news. We've done our part.
    29:51
    We've done it. We've covered all the digital pinball. So then I looked over on Steam, over at Zacharia, and realized the last table that they released was Postal. And again, that was back in 2021.
    30:09
    Last year. So we're not quite at a year since they've released anything new, but it's been a long while since they've released anything new. Well, they released the Tato Tables in conjunction with that game, so they would have been busy on that. given they have a small studio. Right, but again, all that came out in 2021. Nothing in 2022. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's where it comes down to when people are complaining that Zen, you're not releasing things. Well, let's actually look at what Zen has released this year.
    30:42
    Because I think legitimately, this is where our last hope is in terms of what the rest of the year is going to be is literally just table releases from Zen.
    30:55
    They are the only company, commercial digital pinball company, that's releasing any content at the moment. So here's the big goalpost that we know of. One, I know all you console people are waiting for Pinball FX to come out.
    31:14
    Initially, it was a summer release. Obviously, summer's just about done. So there's been some complications there, I would think. Clearly.
    31:26
    I would pretty much guess that Xen is doing everything in their power to have this come out in 2022.
    31:37
    Yeah. I'm sure that that's got to be a goal of theirs. Oh, you'd think. Because they want to actually do it so it's at least in the year that they're talking about it, right? Yeah. And once it comes to console, that's the end of early release, which would then also release them to being able to put things out on Steam.
    31:58
    Correct. So that date is fast approaching, but it probably hasn't felt like it for folks who refuse to play in the Epic sphere. But that's coming up pretty fast. Yeah.
    32:12
    Interestingly. So that's kind of coming up in the forefront. We've got a new pinball show coming this week. which I'm sure that we'll get some announcements out of that. Again, since they've been off for a month, there's got to be something that they're ready to talk about.
    32:29
    Otherwise, why help? I reckon it's going to be quite a big episode, potentially. Potentially. I reckon they've probably been saving up a whole lot of stuff to drop. So I'm kind of looking forward to this one. There might be some interesting tidbits in it. Yep. So there's that.
    32:45
    Their pinball party. That's been ticking along, hasn't it? They've been updating content for it? Releasing new... I don't know. What happened to release new? They haven't released any new tables. They might be adding in older... They've enabled content in it, yes. Yeah. But in terms of the newest tables, I think Garfield or Snoopy, one of those two, was the last of the new to get released on that. Yep, true. And that was... Was that a year ago? Or, I mean, excuse me, Was that in December when that came out?
    33:21
    Garfield? No, the Pinball Party itself. The app. Oh. I'd have to, you know what? I'd have to go back through the show notes and have a look at our website. Because the reason why I'm asking, if these things were on exclusive agreement, and it was maybe for a year of, or maybe coming to the end of that cycle. um i think i would think it's getting there yeah so why am i saying all this because mel had told us that the goal was in 2022 that they were going to be releasing something on the line of like 21 tables um now i'm basing that off of his previous statement from the previous year when he said oh But yeah, they'll be releasing, what did he say, 11?
    34:16
    And it wound up being 12 tables because of Indiana Jones. By the end of 2021. But then he said that their goal was to be ramping up to the point of getting to maybe 22. Definitely releasing one table a month was the idea. Well, if we look at what they've released so far this year, and I'm not going to count legacy tables in this so just purely new things we've got World War Z Mandalorian Star Wars Collectibles Bride of Pinbot, Sword to Fury I'm going to throw Indiana Jones into this mix just because that was the official first table of pinball effects Grimm Grimm's Tales, Curse of the Mummy Pinball Noir and Sky Pirates.
    35:11
    So that right there is 10 tables. If you count the 6 tables from Pinball Arcade, if those happen to roll, you know, like license goes and all of a sudden, hey, these are coming to Pinball FX. There's another 6 tables. Now we're up to 16. That leaves us, well, we still haven't got an August release. Maybe we're getting an announcement from that with the Pinball Show. I don't know. August, September, October, November, December. There's five more tables coming. That would put us at 21 tables for the year.
    35:44
    Yeah, which would meet the quota. It would meet the quota. So while you've been talking about that, I've gone back through our shows. And blockade number 2G7, titled Zen Brings Apple to a Pinball Party, that was August 24, 2021, when they announced Zen Pinball Party. Oh, they announced it, but was it playable at that point? I'm scrolling, I'm reading.
    36:13
    I'd say it was out the month after that, so maybe September. Yeah, I think it was out in September. That makes sense.
    36:23
    So if it's a year, and that was the deal, which seems to be the usual sort of exclusivity period that Zen cuts with all their releases.
    36:32
    Yes, okay, it was September 6th that we did a walkthrough on Zen Pinball Party. So next month is the end of the exclusivity. We could even say September 30 is the end of the exclusivity period. Yeah. So there you go. There you go. So the possibility of those tables finally getting into pinball effects and for a lot of people to be able to play it for the first time.
    36:57
    And I would certainly want to play it for the first time on a big screen with a controller in my hand rather than thumbs.
    37:07
    Yeah, and who knows? I wonder if, you know, when they actually make the jump over to the more, I guess, quote-unquote, growing-up version of the platform, whether we're going to see a change in rules with some of these more basic tables. You know, that was a criticism at the time. We did think that perhaps there was an opportunity there to actually bump the rules and make them a little bit deeper. So that would be nice. It would be.
    37:36
    Because they have good layouts. So, that's kind of where we're at with what we think is coming. It's literally just going to be tables and potentially, well, I shouldn't say potentially. I've got to believe they're going to do everything in their power to get those consoles up and running by December 31st. Well, that's all they've got. I don't know. I'd love to get Mel on and talk about consoles. I don't think we're going to see anything in VR, which, speaking of, even those headsets, with regards to the new meta... Oculus Pro. Oculus or whatever, yeah.
    38:26
    That's kind of been like anybody's guess as to when that kind of thing is going to be coming out. so I don't think we're going to see anything I don't think we'll see anything VR related from Zen until A. after the console is released after early access is done and after they've gotten cabinet mode worked on again I think that's the next big piece that cabinet mode it's interesting we bring that up because I have a feeling that strategically that's going to be quite important in 2023 you know well maybe that's why we haven't heard anything from Arcade1Up.
    39:06
    Because obviously Zen is going to be wanting to promote pinball effects, and we heard Mel talk about how online to him is an important feature.
    39:20
    So if it's a case of getting a cabinet that can run pinball effects and run it online, then the cabinet mode would make sense for them to work it out for the pc get all those kinks run out how to run two monitors and all your back glass so they can send that info over to arcade one up to then manufacture according to those specs so you're right that becomes new baseline that that is probably the reason why we have not seen any pinball support this year from any of the manufacturers um and we we know that the moment the cabinet support in zen pinball effects is limited yeah um and they they make no apologies for that they said it's here it you could use it has no limitations deal with it until we have time to fix them yeah i got asked if i've made uh back glasses for all the new uh games i was like no because i'm not gonna bother if zen is going to do official animated back glasses. Yes, there's zero point for that. Nope, I'm not going to put in that effort. Thanks, no. No. I'm good.
    40:29
    Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I mean, it's kind of disappointing that we don't have anything truly exciting to look forward to in terms of, you know, last year everything was new and shiny coming at us, and now it's just tables to get excited about.
    40:45
    Yeah, so it's really down to content now. And, you know, sure, minor improvements to the actual underlying platform. Yeah. But I guess, you know, if we look back, we've got things like programmable tournaments now. Yes. Which we never had before. Well, that's definitely good.
    41:03
    But I think there's still a fair bit of work to be done on the engine side. I think there's a lot of rough edges still that need to be smoothed out before they can cut console releases if they intend to go down the multi-platform route with Unreal Engine across all platforms, which they are, probably.
    41:29
    So they need to get the house in order before they cut those console releases, and I have a feeling that's the reason why they haven't done consoles yet. Because we know in the past the challenges of actually publishing consoles, they're non-trivial to release for, So you've got to get it right.
    41:49
    So, yeah, I reckon that's an explanation as to why. So there's that. I don't know. What do you all think there?
    41:59
    Does anybody have any good rumors? Yeah. We want to know what the rumors are. I was searching for rumors, like what are digital pinball rumors from at games or arcade one-up, and the latest rumors were all from 2021. There's like nothing from 2022. to so uh if you've heard any we haven't heard anything so i'd love to know if you've even if you haven't heard anything if you have a logical bit of speculation that could make us go oh okay you might have a point please drop us a note uh down the end the old twitter there uh or fire us off an email at blah blah blockade at gmail.com or if you like to do things in more real time join us on our new Discord. Oh, that's right. We have a new Discord, folks. You guys had kept on asking us and we kept on going, no I don know And then one day Jared went hey Chris I created something I did a thing He did a thing You know what It actually came off the back of all the interactions we were having about VPX in YouTube There was a couple of comments on there. He said, you know, it's a bit hard to have conversations about this in YouTube comments. And I thought, you know what? Fair point. That is actually valid. It is actually harder to have long-form comments in there. So let's do it in Discord. So what do they need to look up to find us, Jared? Um, that's a, that's a very good question. So I think the, the forum itself is a public forum. So that means you can search for it in the, um, uh, in the communities. Um, and if they do a search for Black Ape Pinball Podcast, they should find it, but I'm going to put, um, a link to the, the server in the show notes. And we'll probably have it right here also on the old YouTube down below. yeah so if you want to go feel free if you're wanting to have longer form comments like you know we love comments on on the videos but yeah if you want to go longer form come and join us over in in the discord and introduce yourself over there so we can get to know everyone there's an introductions channel over there and um we've got one for episodes and if you've got any ideas for the show as well you can go and pop those in there too so yeah it's i think it'll sort of over time as people learn more about it they'll probably want to jump in and have a go so uh yeah we'll get you if you're interested just uh have a look around our socials and we'll do things i think we can we can do an invite link but they expire yeah so um it's a little bit tricky to sort of um have a perpetual link out there that people can just click on and join but i'm sure there's a there's a way of doing it out there i'll look into it um all right we're going shift gears to what i teased at the beginning there so um well before we before we talk about prey i uh i showed my son just i was like i i don't know if he's gonna like this or not but fine whatever showed him heat and he heat is just it's an amazing movie it's just so awesome but it's also one of those movies that i realized that a lot of it might have been of the time because of how fresh and new it was then. And a lot of movies since have taken elements that they did and used them in their movies, so it doesn't pack the wall up to a viewer now who would be experiencing it for the first time. But anyway, showed it to my son.
    45:27
    He followed along with it. I'm not going to say he dug it, but he was interested the entire time. I went, oh, okay, well, that's interesting. well he's also as 16 year olds of this generation are very into meme culture oh yeah forever telling me no dad that meme is dead these are the new memes oh my god yeah your memes are stale dad completely um well which teenagers will do on a on a ready basis to you as a father so he's got uh he kept on mentioning that breaking bad is in a lot of these memes and I went, you know what? Fine. Sat him down. Put on Breaking Bad.
    46:08
    Dude, he is so into it. Well, why? Yeah. No, I didn't think he would. It's an amazing show, but it's a drama and it's slow. It is a slow burn. And I didn't know if it would hold his attention. And he didn't know if it would hold his attention. We got done with the first episode, which is a two-hour movie. And he just goes, I don't know why that fascinated me but he's like that was really good let's watch more so we've been binging the crap out of it I mean I think we literally only started two weeks ago and we're already halfway through the third season and then I'm like that means we get to watch Better Call Saul and I have not watched this last season and I'm not going to until he's caught up and then we'll watch it together so been avoiding those spoilers that's hard to avoid they're everywhere at the moment. I know. So I basically, when I view the internet right now and I'm scrolling through feeds, it's kind of like instant blur on my eyes. If I see anything that even remotely says salt, I'm not seeing anything. Scroll past that. Okay, never looking again.
    47:13
    Yeah, that's hard. I've done it before on many shows, though. But anyway, so then the other thing, because I was like, well, I'm not going to wait to watch this, but so new Predator movie called Prey comes out on Hulu.
    47:27
    And he's never seen a Predator movie. but he was in the room I threw this thing on and pretty quickly he sat on the couch and just decided to watch the rest of the movie it was great it is so good it is easily the second best Predator movie I mean obviously you got the original first one is the best and then this movie it's classic Predator tale the formula is there right oh yeah But the fact that it's set in the far past. 1719, to be exact, on the plains of the American West with indigenous people doing what indigenous people are doing, which is hunting and living off the land, which is kind of the ethos of a predator. and there's also that idea of you need to go out and prove yourself um whether it and for the males of the tribes it was always through the hunt and here you have a gal who's like you know what i don't want to be a hunter i don't want to be a gatherer i want to be a hunter and prove myself in the same way and so it just mirrors that of the predator life um if you're at all familiar with Predator lore, that's a key component of it. They do, yeah. And then on top of that,
    48:55
    it visually looks good. The cinematography is beautiful in it, too. It's got a slow burn tension in it.
    49:06
    So I just recently watched Jurassic Park Dominion, or Jurassic World Dominion, and I was so just like, whatever. Yeah, I had the same reaction. Because gone is the wonder and amazement at dinosaurs, and in its place is just, here's your dinosaurs.
    49:26
    Yeah. There they are, acting not at all like an animal, and instead acting like, you know, a machine, like it's a Terminator.
    49:35
    And I just couldn't have cared less. I was just like, whatever, not to mention, I mean, had a host of other problems, but the main thing was I just couldn't care about any of it. It was just like, is anything interesting going to shock me? It was dinosaurs by numbers. Yeah, yeah. And obviously, these later Predator movies have gone kind of that same route where it's like, well, you're not going to be shocked by a Predator anymore, and you know what a Predator is, and we're just going to throw it up on the screen and let it run around and do its thing. And this movie respected the idea of maybe you don't know what one of these is, and we're going to play it off like that. And it worked really well. yes i mean at the moment it's easily going to make my top 10 for the year and it's probably easily in the top five right now because it just has stood out to me um that's just a really quality quality movie so if you haven't checked it out and you happen to have hulu by all means uh watch that you probably would have already checked it probably would of already it's i mean it's already being listed as hulu's most watched original film ever yeah while you're over at hulu as well do check out the latest season of solar opposites as well because that's funny as solar opposites so it's it's another justin roiland um uh production where these aliens come from this planet um and they they land on earth they crash on earth and they hate it like they hate earth um and it's got the like it's got the classic sort of it's got justin roiland doing a gruff rick as the main character's voice and it's you know it you know who it is the humor is there it's it's funny and it's got the classic roiland story arcs in it um it's highly entertaining the episodes are like 30 minutes solar opposites check it out really really really good series more content to watch there's so much content i have to watch more content added to the i've got let's see i've got westworld season four and i still need to watch haven't even cracked that um i was waiting for this week to get all 10 episodes of only murders in the building season two finished so then i can watch all that um what else have i got on the uh the docket i don't know there's like five shows that i'm just like they're there um yeah oh they'll stay there yep oh and i'm watching just because it's easy to watch while i'm like feeling like just numbing the brain uh new beavis and butthead is now out oh actual episodic beavis and butthead yeah i haven't i haven't got onto that yet i've seen the movie you saw the movie they put out I saw the movie and it was classic Mike Judge. Yep.
    52:29
    As are these. I'm sure they are. I love those guys. They're hilarious. Anyway. Yeah. Yes. But you're right. It definitely is turn off your brain and just let it flow over. Oh, yeah. The other thing I got into, and this is a bit late for me, but I watched the first season of Reacher. Oh, yeah.
    52:52
    Great series. Yeah. Really enjoyed it. Great story arc in it. Loved it. Well put together. I love how it's designed for streaming too, where the episodes just flow into each other. It's like you could just watch them without breaks and it'd be a contiguous eight-hour long movie. Yeah, it... Who was it? Who was the creator that was saying he hates that?
    53:16
    I'm trying to think of the show because the show was really good and I was just watching it. Anyway, there was a guy who was saying that his shows that he makes, because he came from doing episodic, weekly episodic, but now he's got a show that is streaming. Oh, it's the guy that made The Boys.
    53:34
    Oh, right. He purposely designs The Boys as if he was doing weekly episodic, that each episode has a beginning, middle, and an end.
    53:44
    He's not creating an eight-hour movie. He's creating eight one-hour TV shows. TV shows, yeah. He said that he feels that this idea with streaming and doing an eight-hour movie is excessive and it's leading to bloat in some of these shows where they could have been telling a much tighter story had they been designed for beginning, middle, and end. I get what he's saying, but I can't deny that I love it. Yeah. I love having not had to skip. If you're watching the episode directly after the first, it's like, I don't need the recap. Fast forward, fast forward. It sort of breaks the flow of the show, whereas if the next show comes up and immediately you're in there, it's cold open. Cold open straight into the episode without any sort of title or anything.
    54:38
    It makes sense for the audience. I'm already gearing up, though, for once we finish Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, what the next series is, then I'm going to introduce my son. and I'm thinking Mr. Robot is on the agenda. That's a good one to introduce him to. Yeah. Anyway.
    54:58
    Best of that, we are going to... Obviously, we won't be back next week. No. Especially since I'm working on a Saturday for once. I haven't had to work one of those since Christmas.
    55:10
    But we're going to be... We'll hit you guys up probably in about two weeks. obviously commenting on whatever it is that's in this latest pinball show and we've kind of thrown out the feelers to mel just again we like to talk to him at least twice a year and we're coming up on that time where it's going to be needing to get him in and he's a busy busy man so we gotta throw out those feelers early and if we always say it's an open invitation with him so whenever he's available we'll make it happen no matter what we had planned otherwise. Yeah, we'll throw out a show where we've done that before. So do we think that we're going to have Mel on next episode? No. Just saying. It'll be between now and the end of the year. Yeah, exactly.
    55:54
    That's our roadmap. Exactly. And hopefully we can get an actual roadmap from Zen as to where they're going. It was nice having that little you're going to have a Williams, you're going to have an original, you're going to have two Williams and then an original. I hope that they give us some of that. And that's not giving away too much but it just gives the community something to hold on to and it really does actually help to manage the expectations it's good so that pattern should continue and it creates that buzz and that conversation on the discords and on the reddits and all that stuff alright well that's going to do it for us as we just discussed next time it's going to be Jared's favorites stuff and things until then folks bye bye see you later
    57:08
    you