26:36brandon's listening sedacus is listening they're yeah oh absolutely literally zach you're you're famous you're world famous in pinball yeah not even in pinball have you not talked to people sedega's brother [ __ ] a coin taker customer oh hey listen once he hears this podcast he's gonna be he's gonna be flipping out for life oh i love you know what i would uh i would give jason sedakis a brand new pinball machine i would if he allowed me to film myself in like a greg bone driving to his place to deliver it yeah hey so that would be a great episode would it not sedaticus needs no money and he needs he has no time for me but hey celebrities even like free [ __ ] i've seen him at the oscars celebrities love free [ __ ] hey listen jason listen i can i can vouch for zach i think he should do it i know he's listening so let's just talk right to him oh yeah mustache rides all day hey you and greg that's the real comedy duo uh if you want my if you want my respect uh that's so much fun to watch you guys you've got this energy and this pop culture reference and yeah of course it's about pinball but it's also about you guys and no one else does that like you do and i know greg it's all the you know the love yeah okay but that's the easy that's the easy job you've got the hard job you're making that thing go and and your opinion sorry greg in his data east games and things like that weird but listen the right the right ratio is three times zack plus one times greg divide by four that's the right score oh you hear that boney you hear that and you know what while we're at it i'm gonna pile on everybody acts like he's just so superior he has such superior attraction and looks to oh you know what i'm no [ __ ] quasimodo like you know he's not leaps and bounds above me come on he's bet he's better looking no absolutely not there's the brains of the operation zach i'm sorry i'm i'm attracted to that yeah thank you very much and how here i got the wives that we have is beyond both of us so we let's probably a lot of us in the audience are lucky to have the wives we have why why can't our wives love pinball can you just help me with that zach i don't you know what i'm actually okay with that yeah because i think it'd be kind of weird i know a lot of a lot of listeners out there your spouses or your partners significant others love pinball with you and while that almost seems to be uh something that i would be jealous of i'm actually not i'm not it gives me my thing that i just love and and i get to hang out with like-minded people to do and i don't want my wife kicking my ass on pinball like that that would that would be tough i wouldn't like that at all oh i'm not so competitive i would love i would i'd be nice if you know i would i travel for to go to like good game rooms and stuff and i guess it is nice it is i guess it is a solo thing i i think it's only a solo thing not by choice despite necessity i wonder or do you think it's nice to have it separate it's interesting i think it's nice to have it all right so you know sedakis has got uh brendan they're pinball people now any anybody else that you know from uh boom chicago stuff that that fancies the pinball do you guys have a machine or something at the theater there we used to have games uh but they were not they weren't played enough and we had we had a great collection and it was the pinball people came in and that's nice oh that's that's funny there's a guy uh rvg and um he would rvg would have the high scores in our games and um i i'm not like i'm not like i'm saying i'm not so competitive but um on my own game and rpg who's this guy unfortunately regular bar players don't play enough pinball and you know that is a problem too you know there's the glory that you know the business is going so well for pinball right now but there is a second problem that is being hidden underneath that which is that nobody understands how to play pinball now i don't mean like they don't understand how to get modes and jackpots i'm saying is they don't understand that two people play against each other they don't understand what a ball is or a credit or that there's a plot you know that there it's i mean think of how hard we make it we in the industry zach you know uh you know when you want to play a game how do you play it how do you even know that two people play against each other you know it talks about adding credits okay what's a credit yeah you don't press press start okay starts easy it's flashing oh press start twice for two players you'll never know why is that yeah why but why is it that way i mean how about this how about you press start and it says how many players and then with the flippers you scroll through a number and it goes one two three four and then it says that yes there's a free one there's a free one for guys but that that's the first question is we i here's another we should make a mode in each pinball you start to see these like cooperative modes and things like that happening that's all step in the right direction but again you know you have to be a pinball nerd to understand down there yeah i mean you have to you know watch you know pinball shows to know that you know it's not like it's like such a carryover from the old days you know where you could explain the plot of a pinball machine on a card and now you just can't none of those words make any sense yeah i mean i can't even understand how to play games and i've played every game for for 50 years you know and you have you have to watch videos to really understand them but okay that's that's for pro level play we have youtube we watch videos no problem but there should be a simple mode for a beginner called beginner mode you know and that it just starts automatically and that simple mode is almost like hit everything to light up every light you know just like not light all lights that's that's the level of play that people should be having just ignore all the brilliant rules that we love and just make a game for first timers or just like hit the ball up a ramp you know and then give us a light show and call it a million you know like it's think about what how simple gambling games are slot machines are so something like that where it almost plays itself and just and then if you if you like it because people need to get pinball and most people they are attracted to it they play it once and they walk away if i'm there to explain it i can i can explain it to him and i can teach him how to make shots because that's even easier than people think you know like the sweet spot on the flipper and the butt of the flipper so that's my thing a simple mode that has nothing to do with the regular rules which is basically just like lock a ball hit targets no i like that i like that andrew because think about it just like you were saying have all the lights lit on the game especially the path lights have all of them lit and as they're flailing around if they hit a ramp of said light that light goes out then then it teaches them hey there is some skill and aiming here i've got these other lights that i need to knock out the lights to and then maybe that's that's your introductory uh course to you know pinball is more about just keeping the balls alive it's about identifying what the machine wants you to shoot and here's how it communicates how it wants you to do so right and designers think that by saying shoot flashing shots that they're doing it but it actually doesn't work you you can't shoot flashing shots with a big game of everything is flashing yeah everything's [ __ ] flashing like everything's flashing and you know yeah you almost have to turn everything else off but that but that's what but then they go like oh but the plot is so great we want people to play the plot let them graduate to regular mode or x or whatever you're going to call the plot mode but first just every game the same thing turn off all the lights it doesn't matter what it is turn off all the lights and just get them to play again and get them to want to learn more and then you hook them then then we've got them dead we got it what do you think hooks people like you were talking about getting sedakiss into pinball getting other people into pinball uh from your experience with it what do you think it is that that just switches that on for them than the like the the aha moment or the oh [ __ ] this isn't this isn't just the 70s you know a wood rail where i'm flipping around here yeah i don't it's first of all like the reason pinball continues is because it is mechanical like it's like billiard you can't play billiard on the computer i mean you can but it sucks you can't play all these pinball games even i mean of course the the the good ones are better but it's different you know the flipper mechanics and the stuff it really has to be that connection and i think that we as humans like the idea of like like a like a bat hitting a ball you know in baseball it's kind of that's that's what the flipper sort of shot kind of is so that is the core and that's why it competes against playstation 5 for attention but i think the thing that that connects people that really everyone you know starts swatting at balls and tries to keep the ball in play and there's like a nervousness that you have and then when it drains people always are like embarrassed even it's intimidating yes it's intimidating it's scary and it sucks like i hate playing i hate playing with novices who think like i'm just it's for me i'm not a competitive pinball i'm not a tournament pinball player at all that's a whole level of player that's better than me but i am i'm the best at pro amateur you know or whatever whatever we call us so they go they think that oh i'm playing badly and i'm and i'm embarrassed about it uh so when they can control the ball that is when that's when they work and you can do that in the first lesson and i almost say is the first when i teach people i go if you hit on the tip of the flipper it goes here almost to the side the sweet spot it goes right up that ramp here's the middle here's the butt of the flipper and then i'd say you know try to catch the ball and hit it up the ramp and if you catch the ball and don't of course everyone thinks that if it goes in the in hole and then it goes up the flipper and then drains in the middle that's the one you can't catch that's right yeah check that out but catch a ball and get it up the ramp and that the the joy that people have of hitting a shot and uh and i kind of i think that you need to have that fan or friend to sort of like give you mini goals unrelated to what the game is telling you to do and that's that satisfaction be able to control the ball that's when people start to open up to it yeah i completely agree i feel like there are stages uh andrew where the first is people kind of know what pinball is they know it's a physical type of mechanism a game a yumminess if you will that's what gets them there i think that another step uh you're right it's figuring out that instead of just batting it around like a chimp like you have aim you have goals you can shoot here if you look at where your ball is on your flipper just like a baseball bat just like a hockey stick you can control that it becomes more sport-like i think that next step then falls into the invention of multiball and the experience of what a multi-ball is holy crap this now i'm as a player i'm on another level here i've got all kinds of it's that immediate reinforcement right back to you that i've done something right because now i've got multiple balls on the playing field like a basketball court with five basketball right so you know it's a joy yeah i'm scared you get more points you get more exciting it's it's it's harder i mean it's it's a clear achievement that you just understand you know you know chimpanzees would understand he's put three balls in three balls at the same time wow yeah and then that next step is the one that i think we as an industry have the most difficult time bridging from that multi bowl to ownership to repeated playing which would be understanding that there are complex rules there's a story line here there is a finish if you will there are levels just like a video game that gets you to this final battle once they click into that there's no going back that's exactly right that's why you know you are a hobbyist that's why a lot of the people that play and talk about pinball that's what gets them there i i strongly feel like that you you talked to me before about you feeling like uh you talked about the 90s kind of being the glory days of pinball but you said honestly the glory days of pinball are among us right now they are it's you know so i agree you get you get grief for like oh zach loves every game [ __ ] yeah yeah but but every game is good i mean what what an era we live in i mean every new game and and and maybe getting better like how exciting is that like how about the joy you felt when you first played godzilla you know how how can there be with that the same measurements you know and the same you know flippers how could it be a game that seems so fresh and different but there it was right the building falling down there's just so much in that game that is perfect it's really perfect that magnet grab thing you know and how many different ways it grabs your ball and drops it on that top flipper wow it's it is it's so it's and every time a game there's there's no bad game i mean no because there are so many things going for modern pinball that's the thing and you're right it can and will continue to grow continue to get better but a lot of people ask andrew like what what's contributed to my thoughts as to why the glory days of pinball are right now and it's not a recency effect i think there's a couple things just a little pinball 101 here for you listeners let's see if you agree with me andrew i want to see if you agree with me with this i'm going to just give you some quick aspects of 101 on why i think the glory days of pinball you are correct they are among us now number one generational pinball machines are nostalgic they were created kind of at the birth of video gaming thus individuals who grew up during the arcade boom they have nostalgia ingrained into their neurological circuitry and now they have the means to purchase that for themselves to take them back to yesteryears of how they felt being innocent as a child i think generational i think you're absolutely right because when we were young and that is why so many people are in this age group not your your you've got some time zach but nothing i'm getting there but but it is because in in when you in the era of arcades you know for 25 cents you play the game and at some point as a kid you were out of money um and i think that that is something because lives were not unlimited and and balls you know ran out so when you had you know you had two quarters left in your pocket you know you it was you know six balls and then you got to go home fighting for that extra game extra ball yeah yeah an extra ball right that was more time you know so like that was that was really exciting so the uh the the limited number of guys ships and balls in the arcade is an important part of growing up of of my era and i think that is also part of it wasn't everyone loves the games of their childhood but there was something a different way of consuming it when you couldn't just restart a game when you had a bad first ball perfectly set number two another reason why we are in the glory days right now listeners that people don't go out as much and americans you know not not to stereotype americans kind of love collecting stuff social interactions relationships have become more and more virtual and online it's hard to take a pinball machine to your buddy's house that like you can a video game cartridge right right it's it's you take it down the stairs once and it stays there and it stays there that's that's uh that's kind of why you know you get them into the home these are the glory days because uh you couldn't do that in the past even one thing about that is dice too is it's something to collect that actually is fun to collect because you play it you know it's not just it's not just a a rare item or something you look at right right exactly this is rare i mean where the rareness is the value of course rare pinball machines and you know customization is a part of that too but at the end of the day you get to play your collectible yes and that is uh what else is as much fun to play what other collectible is as much fun to play as pitch collectible toy that you can play that goes up in value it's awesome yeah yeah another reason that the glory days of pinball are among us listener is the media look hate all you want but you know what happened as we started seeing pinball collecting and ownership take a sharp upward trend bingo come on remember everybody stern toppers they used to sit on dealer shelves they wouldn't even sell for 300 to 500 in hell that wasn't even but five six years ago it was also before flipping out pinball and straight down the middle sorry media is responsible for also creating a built-in relationship in my opinion with the creators never before in this industry andrew and listener have people cared about the designers the artists the programmers it wasn't even a thing media has painted the color into these stories and marketing and sales experts will tell you time and time again it's not always about the product it's about possessing something that makes you feel included and intrigued that's what media has done i don't care who says otherwise you know you're absolutely right i mean so to two interesting points there one is yeah that think how far down we go into the team to appreciate their work you know of course people always appreciated what the art is but did we know the names of the artists and you know code i mean code is obviously super key but i mean people didn't talk about code you know back in the day and who makes good code but i mean yeah we know the difference between good and bad code you know you can't tell the game without a scorecard you know that old thing is now you can appreciate the different people's different skills and then the second thing is is that customization isn't that funny to think that you used to just of course a pinball machine was a pinball machine and now toppers and uh and custom and mods and all these things that i want my game you know to be different and have some personality to it so it's the tinkering part of pinball and making new code and putting in you know new rules and all this stuff here like who would have thought that pinball is a mod thing but it is already and it's going to get even more obvious it correlates with our society's uh individual approaches to like social media right facebook twitter everybody is their own individual that's why so many people are not going into trades they're going into the showbiz they're going into entertainment because everybody has their own story and we get to broadcast it to everybody which is why we see some of these things like toppers or customizations really hit home and there's nobody that's going to tell you what you know i hate to say this listener but we need media to kind of tell us what we want and what we don't want what's in what's out that's what media does and that's why showbiz works and has worked decade upon decade upon decade it's the media that's funny like you you used to buy a magazine about movies because you wanted to know the story and that's how you got closer because it's not just the movie it's the story behind the movie and the actors behind the movie and that media that you're talking about allows us to be part of a conversation about something where we talk about oh you know what's what's you know keith's next game gonna be like and we know the backstory we talk to these people like that that is feeling cool that allows if you feel included absolutely we couldn't have that back in the newspaper days yeah another well there was no pinball newspaper maybe we could have but uh yeah another reason the glory days of pinball are among us listeners because of licensed intellectual property this is like i'm a broken record here but i'm piggybacking off just the point that before we were making about nostalgia in general it's just obvious now that known intellectual properties do sell same with like rules code depth enhancement these things have the depth of mimicking video games now remember when like arcade video games made this transition arcade machines are still stuck with lack of depth where pinball kind of evolved that's funny we we have these big honkin arcade machines you go into an fec or family entertainment center listener and you play these games they may only have 20 to 40 minutes of storyline you will beat them very quick and they they evolved because now they're home consoles but the arcade is very much the same whereas pinball has to be the same thing in both places so it has evolved with rules depth and code and if done correctly they can pull in that that first time player as well yeah yeah hey with the intellectual property question that's interesting so you know obviously you know the bands that picks you know are those that appeal to the you know 40 and 50 something like purchasers do we get a rap theme pinball machine ever because hip hop has gone from you know a niche feel of niche thing where you know white people did not know what rap music was i remember explaining it to people i had a rap music show in college and uh it was kind of an early adapter there and i remember joking once about you know imagine someday there's going to be rap music in a mcdonald's commercial and that seems so ridiculous to us in the 90s and one day we watched it i said well look at this here it is wrap music and mcdonald's commercial but as you know as rap music becomes the music of america of all america do we get a run dmc game you know sort of like a dad rap game a beastie boys game yes would that be funny we will get that we will get that and that's because of the 90s yeah the generation of pinheads before us that was the ac dc's that was the 70s the 80s guys growing up now that us 80s and 90s guys are getting older and we have means to do so yes we're going to see stuff like a dre we're going to see a snoop dogg those things are coming and they're going to hit you see this new dog the pinball machine that might be it i was wondering what is the first one but that that has he's got broad appeal out the way oh my god wasn't that fantastic it's coming it's coming we're right now we're still we're still giving uh given some of the guys you know their 70s and 80s stuff but the 90s is coming and i think over the next decade especially over the next maybe five years even we may see some sprinkle into pinball as well as everything else societally it has eminem another candidate oh eminem might be the bridge game yeah how about that huh i would love that other things that that really hit home for the glory days of pinball technology i mean lcd integration improved lighting is a huge huge thing we talked about just the physicality of what pinball it is as a society listener we've become numb to the experience of what audio video can do it's in our entertainment it's in our movies it's in our songs that you can't it's everywhere everything's digital everything's programmed results in physics everything is in the [ __ ] cloud pinball on the other hand still relies on physics it still relies on mechanical engineering you cannot program a ball bearing and what events can take place on that play field you can't program magnet reactivity ensures a health camp program the feeling in your fingertips or of a flipper as the ball hits it or the subtle sounds of hundreds of lights and coils working in unison as a symphony playing a piece that makes you simply want to cry you cannot program randomness no how about that shaking a ball out of an out hole and sometimes it magically climbs up and sometimes it doesn't why oh my veteran sex yeah oh shaking it out oh good oh hello oh almost done here listen this is my thesis for uh this week the glory days of pinball are among us i can tell you why because of collectibility in general humans want what they can't have part shortages have injected even more fuel into this feverish equation look add additional elements such as limited runs hand-drawn artwork aesthetics on high-end models additional features that are limited to only a few around the entire globe people want it and you can play it you could scarce