Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. Thanks again for the ongoing support as a Pinball Show Club member. Enjoy this exclusive TPS content and make sure to visit the Pinball Show Club Discord to chat about the bonus material. Diving deeper into the 2025 Chicago Pinball Expo. Were you just sad a little bit that you didn't go? Uh, yeah, a little bit. Okay, alright, that's fair. I was sad that I didn't go either. I wanted to go. Just didn't work itself out this year. Just wasn't in the cards. You know, I did get to. Just wasn't in the wall of cups. That damn wall of cups. Yeah. It was pretty cool, though. But nobody puts baby behind the cups. Whatever. I did get tickets for the pinball at the beach. Hmm. Huh? I don't like sand. It gets everywhere. It's all gritty and rough. I don't know if I'm going, but I bought tickets. I still remember the TPF where you were like, I might come down. I might not. I'm going to get a plane ticket. Maybe I'll cancel it. Did I show up to that one? All I knew is there was no way you were going. I couldn't believe you were even acting like you were going to. Maybe I was here. I showed up as Mandalorian, made the cameo at the Twippies. That time was pretty cool. Yeah, I don't. For some people, that was the only highlight from that Twippies. That poor Twippies. That one was rough. It was rough. R.I.P. Man, I still get residual hate and lack of coverage because of my outward. Let's talk about Patreon. Yeah, so Expo. Deep dive. We got snorkels. Okay, so we talked about Winchester. Once we get our hands on it, we'll talk about what we like, what we don't. Not surprising that was the big talk of the show. You know what? Shout out and praise to Barrels of Fun. Again, earned the right to buy their number one, serial number one Winchesters. I did Dune, so that was wonderfully appreciated. But I think they're going to take it back to the shop, look it over a little bit, and then they're going to ship it back out to me. So we'll have that, hopefully some video and gameplay of that here soon. I was more excited about that than I have been about a lot of games, so I really want to get my hands on it. People say it's a bit difficult of a shooter. Not impossible, a little bit more difficult of a shooter. Okay. I'm usually okay with that. There were predators at the show. Oh, well, you know, ever since True Death, never. Oh, man. That poor license has been through the depths of hell and back, hasn't it? well i mean you think they retheme it to catch a predator or no they probably moved more units because i bet they could use the face of was it chris hansen face like oh that's the whole that's the whole thing zach is i mean it's kind of not their fault but it kind of is in that it's not their fault that the whole license with predator and arnold schwarzenegger my like it's not about the pinball game it's it's really messed up it's like there's a whole thing going on but you and i i think would both agree zach i think we've talked about this that if you can't have arnold you might as well not do it yeah you might as well not and so instead of like just having a close-up on his pecs and then having the world's worst voice like they had me do the voice work it was that bad actually if i had done it probably been worse but but i wanted that fake Arnold to do the call outs for How to Catch a Predator. I want that fake Arnold. I want him to do your next Flip N Out Pinball commercial. That's right. Flip N Out Pinball! Get to the Wall-O-Cup! Behind the Wall-O-Cups. Okay, the Predators. So they did make it there. They had the little vines and stuff. I like they had the cameo or the special guest and all of that. They're still, man, that company's been just frustrating. What a frustrating company that is. Behind the scenes kind of stuff, because these people keep it between us, right? It frustrated me a couple weeks ago. So the first, there were two months post getting the right timeline for our first bundle of predators to go out. But, you know, two months late is better than nothing. Got those out. And then I had bought around early summer. I was like, okay, they're running out of aliens. They got one left. All right, I'll buy that one. And then they were like, well, what's that? Oh, I think we've got two left if you want the other one. And then I remember I was like, okay, I'll buy the other alien. Yeah, I remember this part. My job as a dealer. So I bought the other alien. And then I got the bill for him. And I was like, well, wait a minute. And I went back and was like, well, now this is the same price as you're charging the public. I'm running a business here. I can't just buy them at more because I have to pay to get them to ship. And I'm not going to charge a customer that. So it's like, wait, I'm paying more than the customer would? And they're like, well, you can sell it for more if you want. I'm like, oh, for fuck's sake. Like, what is wrong with you? No, guys. This is the juice I love being behind the Patreon part, hearing about this stuff. Like, guys, I think sometimes when they – I haven't seen anyone, like, make a comment about this in particular. But sometimes I wonder if some of the listeners get upset when I've made statements that basically indicate or imply at least that some of these pinball manufacturers, like, the people behind them are not, like, the sharpest knives in the drawer when it comes to business. But it's stuff like this that I've heard about from Zach, which is why I think it's confirmed. Like, that is an idiotic position to advocate. Is that, hey, charge more than we list on our website to sell the game. At that point, who would do that? Who would buy that? Who would do that? I mean, I know people like your service, Zach, but that's too blatant to charge over MSRP. Well, and out of box, these have more issues than most games in the industry. I mean, that's just, again, facts. It's not probably the best thing to say publicly, but it is what it is. And just know that I work really hard to maintain really good business relationships with individuals. And I go above and beyond to really try to give them as much as I can before finally I'm like, fuck. At this point, yeah, I'm fine discussing. I'm very careful with the business relationships I have and what I share and what I don't. It's a fine tightrope. but yeah it gets to the point where i'm like i don't mind being transparent about those kind of things so needless to say i told him i said respectfully guys can i'll take the alien that's already shipped but since you didn't ship them both and actually try to save me some money can we just the other one just either refund me or can you just put it towards one of the predators i have on order because we had quite a few predators on order yeah we can do that all That was months back. I said, I never heard about this credit. And then the bill came for the first bundle, and I was like, hey, any credit? I didn't hear about anything, so I just paid the bill, whatever. I'll catch them on the next bundle. Then they were like, hey, we shipped to your first bundle, so the remaining bundle, essentially, we need the payment for those. All right, well, the other time you gave me an estimate, it was two months late. And so before I pay you an obscene amount of money, any way I could get a timeline on when you actually are these ready to ship? If you're asking me for six-figure kind of thing, that kind of thing, you know. Maybe I'd like to know. Well, pretty soon. Not feeling good about that, guys. I don't like paying for it. I've been in this boat before, and I'm a little timid. So let's get. And I said, and besides, can I get the credit for that alien that I overpaid on? And then they came back. Here's what makes me mad. And again, I tried to resolve it before even discussing it here. Management came back and said, you know what? That's right, the alien credit that you purchased. We'd be happy to put that towards a new predator, another order. And I said, no, God, please. And so I said, essentially I said, hey, just let's pretend you didn't even say that. Can I just put it towards the ones I have on order that we're already trying to fix a little bit of? And they said, well, look, you know, we told the one guy wrong. So, yeah, it would have to be a new predator. I'm like, okay. Really? We're going to die on this hill, right? So needless to say, I was forced to order an additional predator in order to get – just decisions like that make me question everything that's going on with the company. It doesn't mean they're a bad company. It just really makes me question what are we doing here? Is this really what we're wanting to fight with one of your salespeople for? I would think not, but if you're – It sounds desperate. But in the main show, we talked about what I felt was the defensiveness, the weakness of advertising your not-yet-released game on the day of someone else's game coming out. And here – I think this is far worse, though. This is a – we can't give you the credit. That's what my mind jumps to is we can't give you the credit on what you already bought. We're so desperate for money. We need another sale. Yeah. Or the lights are going to get turned off. So that was frustrating to me. Which doesn't – it's not helped by them being like, eh, you'll get them soonish. Yeah, I need communication here. What the manufacturer – some of them, I think all of them would say that we have a really good relationship and all that. The one thing that manufacturers would tell you about me as a businessman is that I don't do well whenever terms are changed and they're not discussed or agreed upon prior to changing them. So if I have a business relationship with you and you change the terms of our agreement willy-nilly and you have no remorse or no – I take issue with that. And we've had that this last year with some manufacturers. They'll tell you one thing, thus you sign up or you give money for it, and then all of a sudden those terms change. And you're like, well, no, that's not how business works, guys. All right. Sorry. So the two predators, did they – have you seen an increase in sales thanks to them being at Expo? there was some renewed interest. Absolutely. And then what I've heard at Expo were people actually were good with the way it shoots. People really like it. The biggest travesty was that there's not Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is the deal breaker. It's the deal breaker. What's nice to know that the geometry is decent. I do think that people could go in on this if they had Arnold and if these things would hold up a little bit better. That was the other complaint I heard. Just didn't feel as well made as other games that they played at Expo. And we've heard that through some of the Abbas, through Queen. Yeah, that's not particularly surprising to me. No. So needless to say, hopefully we don't lose our ass on selling those things. But that is what it is. Dutch Pinball. Let's just roll right into that. Speaking of Dutch, isn't that Arnold's name in Predator? Dutch? You need an expo award. I assume this is all part of your plan. Nope. Nope. You totally just linked that up. You get an award. It's a Dutch pinball. Oh, this one. This is the piece. Oh, this is exciting. Every move Dutch pinball makes fascinates me. Do you really think they're going to sell 333 Rosses? No. It's the moves that fascinate me. So they announced that. They didn't show it, but they announced it, which tells me that there's nothing really that's going to be different because otherwise you wouldn't announce it. But they said something. I can't remember if it was at Kineticist or Knapp Arcade or where I read it. I read something, though, where there was some talk about, like, well, because the geometry has some issues, they were going to put magnets to help the ball get up around. Attaboy kind of. Yeah, you gotcha. Just like, what is it from football? Tush push. Tush push. Yeah. Got to do tush push on that ball. The tush push. That's right. Touch push. The Philadelphia Eagles. That's right. We might as well re-theme it. You'd probably sell more selling them to Eagles fans than you will with Azraza. So you might as well. And I heard it from, I think it was Kerry Hardy. So there was a couple media people that are close, very close to Dutch. We talked about it on a previous episode. Chris Kouleris claims to be best friends with Melvin Williams, one of the co-owners of Dutch Pinball Exclusive kind of thing. So he kind of alluded to this company is in trouble, and they're going under if it isn't for Melvin Williams paying them out of these Alice Kepham. Is that why they're doing those figurines? No, that's a different company. But Melvin's involved with that. Melvin is involved because he's a partial owner of Lior's stuff now. So anything Lior makes basically is Melvin's thing. Melvin seems like a good business person. He seems like, you know. He's got his finger in a number of pies here. Then again, still, flipping out pinball, not distributing for them. So still, I think they're allergic to money. I've said that before. So then Kerry Hardy comes out and says, basically, Alice kept Dutch pinball float. So he confirmed as well. And those are the two media people that they rely on for coverage. Right, right. So, all right. So then now they're announcing. I think they're getting worried about those, at the end of the year, people with Alice deposits that don't have their game. They can opt out and get a refund. I think they're worried about that because now they've got this new thing that says, if you're one of the 500 Alice buyers, we're going to give you the first 500 games for Back to the Future. You get those. So that way they can just hold on to that precious deposit. Well, because there were those promises. They so desperately need. Those promises like you can back out, no problems. And this, why do you not do things when you are a company that is incapable of keeping your word on production, which they're not alone. This would be a struggle for many of them. That's why this promise was stupid, but it was a way to bait people in. And now they're not changing the terms per se. You still have to opt. So full credit, this is fine. But again, it's weak. It's showing weakness. Yes. You're 100% correct, Dennis. And what it reminds me of is whenever – I always thought it was the tackiest thing – is whenever dealers years back couldn't get rid of certain games, so they bundled them with another game. Remember that? Oh, I forgot. But, yeah, you used to see that. If you take this Led Zeppelin Pro and this, here's the new price for it. And it's like you can have an LE of this new game, but you've got to take one of these games that we can't get rid of. That's what it feels like to me. I hate this move I can stand this move but if they hurting for money what else should they do I mean it a good way to I mean back to the future is what people want So it probably a good way to keep people locked in because I don know how many of the Alice buyers who are still waiting really want Alice at this point This year has been a lot of games that didn't have trailer parks in the art. Yeah, I don't – I do not know who would want that game at this point. But it is so short-sighted from a business perspective. You're cashing in all of your brand equity because you are hurting for future sales and current deposits. I hate this because of this. Back to the Future is a license that can set forth, in my opinion, if done correctly, another 10 to 20 years for a company, a pinball manufacturer, if done correctly. what they have done is shot themselves in the foot and they've said you know what we're just banking on 500 because if i'm a back to the future person that wants back to the future and i'm willing to pay a lot of money which i am that's my dream theme i'm really not liking that at minimum even if i was the first one to order i'm 501 what am i looking at 2029 for fuck's sake like they have killed every single they could sell three to five thousand these units but the 2500 to 4500 people are gonna have to wait really far like i just that that is a killer like someone was gonna have to wait that long anyway absolutely but some of the some of the fun in collecting and getting one first is like being able to jump in and be able to jump in soon enough where you're going to get one in a decent time so for them 500 fuck it'd probably be over a year but it's not five years but now you're telling me no no you're gonna be at the end of the line just to start that is a that kills a company well who would want to do that for what again what are you really gaining here you're gaining a couple like what are you gaining a 50 to 100 pre-order deposits for fuck's sake if you're hurting that bad guys i you should get rid of the back to the future or find a way to collaborate with somebody because you should be able to pay out of pocket hundreds of deposits i i that's terrifying to me but i'm nervous but if they're if they're in that position like if it's between this and survival zach here here's what i hear because we're we're we're safely quasi i couldn't get myself in that situation this makes me feel like they can't afford to do the refunds of the alice deposits like they could they don't got the cash and i mean there's a scenario that that who knows yeah good again it's i'm merely speculating i have no inside knowledge i'm just saying though that's a that's a perception i get when i see this style I think Melvin Williams is loaded, but only – but even very wealthy people. Yes, that's true. What's the old joke? What's a great way for a billionaire to become a millionaire? Run a pinball company. Oh, jeez. But, yeah, it's like, no, if he's – if the company is that bad off, I mean, you know what this – and, again, I don't view this as tacky because this is still, as it's presented, voluntary for people. but when haggis came to tpf and then after tpf they lifted the limits and broke their promises and made more fathoms because there was so much demand interest out of it oh yeah 2.0 like i get it it was a fun game but it looks like what do you do to your brand when you when you when you break your own word and they're not the only company that's broken their own words stern has done it too but haggis stern's in a position where they can break their word quite frankly because they're so big haggis it it was a sign of weakness that they needed those fathom sales so bad and i'm one i'm sitting here wondering what is the reason not just to do back to the future why don't you have ready i don't think it's designed not ready they've had this thing for years like what are you waiting this is not a company that has ever been nimble about anything zach they are still riding off of the fumes of the very popular uh gameplay and game layout wise game the big lebowski but that was a disaster of a run i still don't understand why this company exists i don't understand why they didn't finish their lebowskis and close up a 10 year production cycle and it wasn't because it was super popular now we got tariffs and stuff joe cam and cal there's just if if anybody knows him reach out let him know that i'm begging him like you made this work make it work no take it somewhere else zach why you don't even need to care according to my rumors they don't got they don't got christopher lloyd they don't got Michael J. Fox that it's like they got the clock tower and maybe the car. That's it. I guess it's going to be another license that I continue other manufacturers to... Just... Start inquiring, please. Start inquiring. Spooky. Please, Stern, JTP. Maybe in five years, Stern can do back to the... No, they'll do another Star Wars. You'll pat him on the back for it. Absolutely. Just somebody do it. I want one in this decade. That's my goal. To get a Back to the Future pinball machine before this decade. That makes sense still. I wonder if the license holder Back to the Future, like somebody told him, hey, if Stern can guarantee you by next summer, not only will they produce and create this, but then they'll also sell 6,000 units of it, guaranteed. And if not, they'll pay this much for every one of them, guaranteed. why would that IP holder not be like yeah let's do that I don't know if Stern wants it I don't know not that argument again I'm not doing there's other stuff nothing angers me more than that argument okay well that's fair as Joel would say but what I would tell you is I think Stern rather than Back to the Future would rather in two to three years just do Harry Potter no i don't because harry potter was a success already yeah but so was the last star wars game and that didn't stop stern from doing it again why not do a harry why why leave harry potter money on the table in fact maybe the license will be cheaper the second go around you know how many people i have on a list for a back to the future no you know how many back to the futures I could sell. No. I'm not convinced that company is looking. There are companies out there that I'm not convinced are trying to sell product. For example, this is skipping ahead, but I mean the roll with the punches here. Whirl-O-Ball. Yeah, Whirl-O-Ball. I'm not convinced that this company is looking to sell products. Now, Zach, why in the hell would you say that? You're just being facetious. You're being an asshole. You're being prickly. You're being kind of mean. You should be happy. You just saw the little girl dribbling all of her ice cream all over. You should be happy. That sounded not good. But you know what I mean? I should be happy. I just got back from. Here's my evidence that they don't like to sell a product. Who sells the American pinball products or Orbit games? Who sells those products? I have no idea. To my knowledge, you're not selling direct. But then again, my knowledge. Are you selling them, Zach? I would think. You don't know if you're selling Whirlpool? That's why I'm convinced that there are companies that don't want to sell products. I shit you not, we at this point, a week after they've revealed it, have not been notified of what it costs, when it's going to be produced, pictures on how to sell. I don't know anything. All of a sudden, it's just Whirl-O-Ball at Expo. So why would you put in the work to make this if you don't want to sell it? Am I taking crazy pills? What is going on? Maybe it's proof of concept of some sort. I don't know. I haven't looked at it. I don't know anything about it. Oh, God. I don't get it. So these companies, man, some of these companies, they're fucking head scratchers. Head scratchers. Okay. That's world low ball. We've seen it. Why have we seen it? I don't know. How much is it? No clue. When's it coming out? I don't know. Don't know. Did it have a reveal flyer or photos or? Nope. Not to my knowledge. I have no clue. What if somebody saw that and said, you know what? I would love to purchase that today. I'd say you can't. Well, when can I? Interest wanes. Then on out. It's gone. Piss away any interest that you had in that product. Oh, well. See you later. Thanks for all the hard work. What was the person that was doing coding over at American Pinball? I think the last survivor, creator over there, Casey something. Oh, the direct employee. Yeah. It was a coder, programmer. Right. They are now with Spooky Pinball. Right. Yeah, I heard about that. Look, I think a lot of people are still just in mourning that they're not ever going to get to play Cuphead. But I don't. You know what? I sympathize with those who designed it. I don't sympathize with. Here's the thing. And, hey, people can write into the pinball show at gmail.com and correct me. But I think most people weren't going to buy that game. But it would have come down to its gameplay. Like could it have become exponential? Maybe. Maybe more so though if American Pinball didn't have such a reputation that they were going to basically fold pinball no matter how Cuphead did. But it's strange. I told Ken and Greg, I said, talk to American Pinball this weekend. See if you can't buy a couple GTF signatures. Like, again, I'm trying. I'm willing to inventory stuff. I don't even understand when you, Zach, see the writing on the wall why you don't just go, you know what? I don't need to distribute for this many entities. Because I'm really good at what I do, and if I see a nice business opportunity, I will take certain risks. Yeah, but after Haggis, I would think your caution meter would be like, at some point, I got to – I'm not looking to buy 50 of them. Well, I would. If the price is right, I would. You buy an extra Predator. But anytime we've gone to them and been like, hey, well, how about we buy – you've got to get rid of these things, guys. We'll buy 10 at this price. No, thanks. Oh, jeez. All right. And then two months later, it's cheaper than that, and they're trying to sell them during the Pinnoween deal. Okay. Are they doing Pinnoween this year? They did. Awesome. They just launched it. Their stock just went up a couple points for me. Pin-a-ween. It's too bad they don't have a good Halloween theme. I mean, Oktoberfest is a good October theme, but it's too bad they don't have a real good Halloween theme. Released in July. Okay. This is some interesting news that nobody's talking about yet. Chicago Gaming Company. Okay. Telling people that they will be running more Medieval Madness Merlin editions come 2026. This is great news for mostly everybody. Yeah, pretty much. They sold, how many did they sell? A thousand? I want to say a thousand. I want to say a thousand. And the demand is still high, where I think they can probably make another thousand pretty easy. I would gladly inventory probably a hundred right now. Isn't that crazy? That's a lot of pinball machines. It's a lot of a 90s game, but it's evergreen. It really is. Anytime new people get into pinball, that's going to be one of the ones they would like to buy. So they're going to make some more. Now, there are some caveats to that. They reached out to dealers and told us this prior to Expo. Right when Expo, they said, look, we're going to be verbally telling people that are asking that we will be running this next year. They did that goofy thing where they said, we're going to run them internationally in 2026. It was like a month ago. But we're not committing to the people that buy them here in the States. I don't even know why they're verbally announcing this now. I guess because they had a show and people were going to ask, whatever. But they also indicated to dealers, I like this move. They said, you cannot, as a dealer, take any orders at this time for this game, for this additional run in 2026. Any dealer found to be taking pre-orders and taking people's money for a 2026 allocation will forfeit said allocation for this next run. But in this case, Zach, people do know what they're getting because they've seen Medieval Madness Merlin before. Yes, they at least know what they're getting. But again, trying to get everybody to play by the same, because we don't know what our allocations are. They say allocations aren't even going to go out until early 2026. So dealers, even if we're all encouraged to take an interested list, but I don't know where that list cuts off. I don't know if I'm getting two or 200. I have no clue. But if we did know that number, then basically they know that there's some slimers out there of dealers that are going to start taking money. And where's that money going? Like just into a convenient interest bearing account. Then again. All right, we'll finish that and then I'll pitch something to you that I've been thinking a lot about lately. So, yeah, allocations 2026. You can get a Merlin edition. Congratulations, Zach at flipping out pimple dot com or Greg or can it flip? Let me know when they do attack from Mars again. I think it's coming up. I think I've got Doug convinced. but if he's going to be making medievals for the next couple of years, shit, uh, make whatever works. But I think attack is coming up. Just picture it. It's going to be the SE with the RGB lighting, which even Ellie doesn't even have that. It's the only title that doesn't have RGB integrated GI lighting and everything. It's going to be really cool coming soon. Get on the list. But I like that they're pushing. I like that they're communicating. They're saying, Hey, we are going to run some more. We don't know what the size is going to be. I just let the door open at this point. There are so many medieval madnesses out. What I would do if I was in their position, I would contact the dealer, and I would say, hey, I can guarantee you an initial order. Whatever you present to me as an initial order at minimum I will guarantee that There might be a possibility that we can take additional orders in the future but it going to come down to parts and everything in our schedule because we do have commitments for 2026 to be unveiling another game later in the year etc But your initial order, I'll make sure that we get enough parts to do that. That's what I would do. And then it guarantees – that's probably going to guarantee at least 1,000, probably right around 1,000 units. And then roll with that. But nobody asked me. Sometimes they do. Okay, Cactus Canyon remake with upgrade kit was on the floor at the show, and they are now shipping. We were shipped some of ours. And I think we may have one or two in stock, actually, which is nice, because the sad thing is those upgrade kits by themselves still haven't – I don't think we've got half of what we have ordered, which is frustrating. so at least you can buy the game with the kit already installed and those are shipping what I was going to say is maybe we did talk about the pre-order did we talk about pre-order stuff? I'm so sick and tired of these companies that take forever to make games taking pre-orders and holding our money you and I have talked about it privately it's starting to rub me wrong because if it takes a year for a manufacturer to make a title? Why are we, whether it be the business partner, distributor, or a consumer, why are we putting in nonrefundable deposits? I started crunching some numbers, Dennis. It's a lot of money for an interest-free loan. You're giving an interest-free loan. And you know what? I've talked to some finance people. and they projected some numbers in which I, for my business's livelihood, I've seen what kind of just money that that could make. If I had the money in my pocket instead of in the manufacturer's pocket, they're making a lot of money off of my and consumer's money. Potentially they could be. I don't know what they're doing with that money. we're talking considerable I mean think about this what if there was a game out there that a company had over six figures of my slash customers money on that's a lot of money just at like what a 4% rate shit why should that go to them I'm just throwing it out there I'm starting to really not like this whole idea of non-refundable they're fine if it's again agreeable terms I do respect Dutch for giving some timelines end of the year you don't have your game the terms read that you can have your deposit back I like that because otherwise the consumer has no leverage. They're just giving money out there for another company to be making money off of with no communication as to when they may or may not get their product. Wait a minute. That doesn't feel good. And then their safety net is just to throw their dealer in the way of the train and say, talk to your dealer. Wait, wait, wait. It doesn't feel good. Zach, it's the Kickstarter model. That's what it is. The Kickstarter model is the pre-order model. Just the difference, though, where I think because I've met not really with you, not here so much, but I've griped a lot about Kickstarter, wellfully acknowledging like if I was a small upstart or maybe not even a small upstart, I'd probably use it, too, because why wouldn't you? You mitigate all of your risk on your potential future customers. And if it fails, they're holding the bag. And if it doesn't fail or as it goes along, you have their money to invest on your behalf to make money for you to accomplish whatever goals you have. And these are not all like small things. You know, you've mentioned the six figure funds of preorder deposit money that these pinball companies get. I just went to pull a list from Kickstarter of their highest like their highest funded sort of projects. some 3d texture uv printer 17 800 backers 46 million dollars oh my gosh that was given over to this company and this is what this philosophy is and the pre-order philosophy in general that i think we're starting to see with pinball has been let's we don't need to why zach it's hard money's hard why should i have to figure out how to make enough money ahead of time or get a loan like they used to to build my games and sell them and have faith in my product, what if I avoid all of that and make you all pay me to develop it? And then I make money after I sell them. And if it all fails, well, okay, I can go into the hydrofoil business. Or you can just say it was nonrefundable and you don't have to. But the middleman, I can't really do that. I would torch my company if I just turned my back on all those customers. I would torch them. My company would be done if we were like, well, sorry. Well, if their companies fail, they are done. It's just they're done. It's not like, well, if you have a company that you work with fails, you've still got a portfolio of six others you need to support. Some of these are well-known companies. Some of these are companies that have made many, many products, many games. Why do we need it? Why? It's not about me. It's the same. You may disagree a little bit. I'm going to push. And some of this is coming more from the video game side, but you're going to see the parallels with pinball and the whole, why do we need to have code done when we release games? Okay. I see where you're going. Yeah. This is the way it is now. We just sell unfinished shit. That's how it works now. It's just reality. And pinball didn't start that, but it's in pinball at this point. And some people like it that way. And I think most people kind of don't. I'm just getting to the point in my career where I'm seeing opportunities to expand, whether it is manufacturing myself, whether it's doing some contract work within a current manufacturer. And just looking at numbers and talking to experts about all this, the more and more I realize time is money. Kickstart. I love the term time is money because there is nothing more true. Time is money. So I'm like, well, then why am I putting in a lot of work? Why are the customers putting in a lot of money? I'm putting in a lot of money. For a manufacturer to sit on that money and time, of essence, is money. They're making money, and they're not doing anything yet with it. They're making money off of your time and your money. that no no no no no that's it's common and it's not just pinball it's common like this is i don't know what you want to call it but i think there's better ways of doing is what i'm saying there are but and i think at minimum what i'm arguing here is at minimum i think there needs to be some push back i think there need to be some clear agreeable terms there's no strength in this hobby for that Bullshit. There could be. Not enough. There could be. Not enough. There could be. There could be. Rebellions are built on hope, Zach. The other thing that I've learned is a lot of people, a lot of enthusiasts, a lot of people listening and watching this show right here are very wealthy people. It doesn't take many whales to giant over some of these competitors if they see them as terms of competitors. I understand that. And some of our listeners will hear this. They'll see themselves in my comment I'm about to make, but they know I always try and be honest with everyone. But we've got plenty of people. They participate in our happy hours and stuff who, like, we're talking, we've been talking CGC here about the Merlins here just a bit ago. Like, CGC has a reputation that should be toxic in terms of how long it takes to get products from them. you still don't even have all of the CCR kits and those were well before the versions I order a game from CGC and I can expect to get it in two years but they keep buying that's what I mean when I'm like let me not use the word strength because it can be a little polarizing there's no appetite for this sort of rebellion they like the product in the end too much to want to rock the boat to the degree that you're proposing what about in addition to i mean i don't i don't know how you get i don't know how you have your cake and you eat it at the same time you create a system to showcase over time how it can be done better and then that becomes the norm and stand um possibly i again i maybe it's not an issue you know no it's just let's say you like you were a manufacturer and you you're like i don't do pre-orders. I don't do Kickstarters. Everyone will praise you for it and they'll buy your stuff, but I don't see how that makes them not buy the other people's stuff if the other people's stuff is still seen as good as or better than your stuff. I think that over time what happens is it gets into our head what is right and the right thing to do, a standardization if you will. Once they're treated appropriately for over time, something subconsciously will sour on the alternative. Even Even if it's a slow bleed, it will sour until they either change course or they have to create products that just are terrific and rival everything else. But it's just weird. Once I started looking at the numbers, I was like, damn, they've been making a lot of money just putting this in the money movers. Understand, though, from the manufacturer's perspective, why should they change? This is like the best of both worlds. They make money off of people ahead of time. They get to earn the interest off of that money, and the people still want the products. Like they're not – the relationship from their perspective is great. The people clamor for their stuff. Why pick something that ain't broken? That's why whenever people are like, we don't need dealers. This is like the example of why I want to bring up – this is not a system, people, that you want a direct manufacturer-to-consumer relationship. I really don't think – because, I mean, the proof is the pudding. They're showing you right now what you would get. It's nice to have somebody in between. Believe me. I don't know. I've heard about dealers that they accidentally send you premiums. They don't let you keep them for free and stuff. So, really, I'm not sure the distributor model is all that it's cracked up to be. Man, I'm going to keep pushing for the best of this industry, whether it kills me or not. Hexa announcing their next game title. Yeah. Oh, boy. It's better than Space Hunt. This is a known, non-licensed, non-original theme. Is it? Three Musketeers? You don't like the Three Musketeers? I like a Milky Way better, but I'm fine with the Three Musketeers. I like the Disney iteration of the Three Musketeers. Is that your favorite iteration or is it the only one you've seen? It's probably the only one I've seen. What other iteration is a common place? There's the Mia Jovovich one that came out with Orlando Bloom. Is there? That's very steampunky in a way. Resonantly. There's one. I don't remember who directed it. It might have been John Woo. It's a kung fu style. I'm not familiar with that one. I think you'd find it a lot. The fight choreography is very, very good. It's the only good thing about it, but it's very, very good. And then, of course, there's some of the classic ones from like the 70s and before and older versions. I assume you've never read it. Oh, God, no. I have. Okay. And none of the versions I've ever seen has actually been particularly faithful to the book, which is interesting. But anyway, neither here nor there. Personally, they were going to do a – and they're a French company, and Dumas is a French author. Perfect, yeah. Doesn't it take place in France? Perfect. Yeah, they're the French king's guards, bodyguards basically. But I still – like if we're going to do a Dumas story, even though I think Three Musketeers is the most famous one, Count of Monte Cristo was the best pinball theme. I was about to say Count of Monte Cristo. Isn't that Three Musketeers? But yeah, I guess – It's the same author. Same author, okay. But it's not about the Three Musketeers. He did write three books about d'Artagnan. Three Musketeers is the first one, but d'Artagnan is in two other books of his. I've not read those books. But Catamount and Christo has a prison break. Like there's a whole setting you could do with the incarceration to build the world under glass around that I think could be really fun. Nobody gives a shit about this theme. I'm sorry. No, Three Musketeers, it is – again, if you want to do something where you didn't have to pay for a license but people already know the theme, you go into the public domain. There are a lot worse picks than this. This is not a bad pick. Okay. All right. It's not a deal killer. Yeah. No, but I also don't really think it's going to move a bunch of units because it's not. Again, if they had one and you got to see Tim Curry as the Cardinal, that had moved units, at least for some nostalgia purposes. But no. We'll see. What do you think of the art on it? Yeah, they did do the they showed some of the animation. So that's kind of what you're going to get. And that's what kind of, it wasn't the sexiest space hunt to me when it comes to the animation. But maybe it's a better game. Big Trouble in Little China. They announced that almost as if it was its own game. It's a homebrew by Kyle Smett. He did Friday the 13th. Really well done game. Yes, I've heard very good things about the 13th. I've not played it. And I've seen video of Big Trouble in Little China gameplay and such. and the details, it looks like another very solid offering from Kyle here. So a lot of credit due to him. The theme, I think, is niche enough that it works for pinball. It's almost like that Total Recall kind of thing. Maybe not the hugest of those actors' movies, but it's that 80s, 90s schlock that a lot of us love, a lot of us pinball buyers love. Yeah, I like the movie a lot. However, I would never recommend it as a production pinball theme. I'm not sure it actually moves enough units. Though maybe Kyle becomes the latest barrels designer. It feels very much like that type of theme. And hey, they wanted to do a limit. Here's 525 big troubles. I bet they could do it. It seemed like just an overly competent built game. Almost like it was almost safe to me. I don't know. I'm like, oh, that just seems too well done. Like, where's the risky shots? I don't know. It just looked very, very well done. So credit to where it's due. Big Trouble and Little China A lot of people were loving on that Yeah my main thing with Big Trouble is if we doing a John Carpenter I mean obviously Halloween already had We all know what we want That's right. The thing. Exactly. We all want that. We all want that. I would be sorely tempted. Oh, I do love the thing. I think we will see Spooky or Barrels do the thing. I'm calling it right now. I think so. It would really be in the wheelhouse of Spooky for obvious reasons. And do we have a Arctic snow scene pinball machine? No. I don't know. I've thought about that once before. Like, I don't think we have a, not a holiday based one, just a. Right, right, right. No, I shoot. Not really. I don't think we, not that I can think of. Not that really. Ice fever, but I'm talking about more modern. Right, right, right. I was trying to think of maybe some of the design in Game of Thrones maybe had a little bit like that. Oh, okay. Yeah, premium. Because of the winter. Yeah, because of the walkers and everything. No, nothing that's jumping out as just a really obvious sort of snow setting. If the thing has not had, manufacturers, you've all failed thus far if you haven't looked into that. Okay. Okay, another homebrew, Monster League Hockey, Jake Danzig. Now, he did the, oh, gosh, what is it? Dukes of Hazzard. Thank you. Dukes of Hazzard, Daisy Dukes. He did that one, and people love that from the Paragon. Now, this is, I don't even think this is a re-theme. This is fresh, his own thing, I believe. And what I'll say is I'm still not sold on the joust-esque head-to-head pinball format. I don't find them fun. I don't even know if it's pinball. It is pinball, but it's not what we know as pinball. It's like cocktail. It's like, is cocktail pinball pinball? Eh, yes. I would argue that it's more pinball than maybe the head-to-head stuff. So it's not my style of gameplay, but damn, this thing is beautiful, and it looks like a lot of fun. Maybe it's a gimmick. Is that fair? Maybe it's a gimmick. I mean, it's a pin game that takes a twist on what it was. I'm trying to remember. I spoke with him before he revealed the theme, and I didn't know what the theme would be. I thought he may have based it off of – used a – I was trying to get a confirmation because I haven't read up on it. I think at the time he told me he was leaning towards getting a Capcom. There was a Capcom head-to-head game and using that as the base. Flipper football? No, it was – Yeah, yeah. Okay. So maybe. Yeah, didn't Ali G have one too? Don't remember. Or Alvin G? Yeah, I don't remember if Alvin G did or did not. But the look of the cabinet, I know, was very much like – unless I'm thinking of – maybe it was Alvin G and not Capcom that I'm thinking of. It all – unfortunately, those 90s ones all came together to me. It was a gaming name that I had played before. There was an area collector that had one that I had tried. But Joustass, that's the one I think most people think of. It's sort of that head-to-head format. Yeah, it's – I mean it's one of those things where it's like – obviously, it's not traditional pinball. And I think you could argue a cocktail isn't really traditional pinball, more so because of just the vastly different play field. But it's a different way. Instead of playing score to score, you're kind of playing score to score but simultaneously going at each other. The closest traditional pinball got to that I really feel was what they tried to do with NBA Fast Break where you could link them. Oh, yeah, yeah. That way you could have your traditional experience. That was cool. It was still head-to-head in a way. Didn't really work. or I should say work as in take off. But yeah, I think that's a pretty cool idea. Yeah, I think there's a good chance that this is the best head-to-head pinball machine game made. I mean, you're competing against Joust or Alvin G or Slash Capcom or whatever that is. It's more modern. It's more beautiful than any of the other stuff that's out there. So yeah, I think it's a big mark in the hobby. but I don't know if, I mean, it's a homebrew, so it's not made for resale or anything, but I'm just talking bigger theme. I don't think that those head-to-head things work as a product. I don't know how you would ever. Well, it could be why it's such a good choice for a homebrew then. Perfect, yeah. Speaking of homebrew, there's a big homebrew area, bigger than we've probably ever seen in any show. So are you liking the whole – I love the fact that people are making pinball. I think that that is how we get some of the best things that have come in this hobby. I don't have as much fun playing them, but I love that people are making them, and I love the fresh ideas. I would rather study them and look at them and watch them more than I would play them. But, yeah, there's a huge homebrew area. My personal favorite would be the Monsters, Inc. game that someone created because I love that theme so, so dearly. Yeah, it's interesting. It's always – I feel homebrew for a really long time. I shouldn't say always, but there's a – it's a niche within the field, just like you've got your competitive scene. You've got your collectors. You've got your arcade-only players. You've got the restorers. You got the people that just like to fix up broken stuff but not do full – you got all these flavors of people involved in pinball. And the homebrew one is – and it's perhaps them and maybe the repair folks are the ones I feel are kind of like the strongest about feeding off of each other. Like they're very – it's really insular. It's maybe a good way. I'm not saying that they're not welcoming to outsiders, but I mean, they're very insular in the sense that they're kicking off ideas with each other and brainstorming. And it's popular enough that we've seen like a cottage industry, like fast boards and multimorphic, you know, really catering to providing products to allow people to bring those dreams to fruition. And even within them, you've got all these subsets. You've got the people that take an old game and then redo it, but use the, you know, they don't go into the designing the new shots, but they reinterpret how a layout could have been. Sure. You've got others that want to do it from the ground up. And then you've got others that maybe even whether you want to count it in the Humber or not, I kind of would where they they take a game and they're just like, this game is good. The rules are sucky and we're going to fix them. And some of those have become so popular that those rules packages are more popular than the main game packages. That's a good point. It's such an improvement. So there's a lot there. I don't play them too much in part because the lines are really long. The there are a couple of things about about it. It depends on the person. And I don't want to be too negative and judge and judgy about it. Some of it feels a little bit like some of it feels very resume building now. Like I'm I'm real. I've decided that if I do this, I'm going to be in the pinball industry. and almost like they're trying to – and again, I get it because that's – isn't that how Dennis Nordman got his job? He designed a cabinet and he showed it to Bally and they brought him in. So I get it, but some of it feels a little forced from some people. People have seen that it works. Yeah. Look at – Avatar would have never been what it is without Metroid being made as a homebrew. So I think we're seeing a bigger surge in this because we've seen that it's working for some people. And so some are trying more because they want to work in pinball, and this is the avenue they think they can get. There's not a lot of people out there that are capable of being pinball designers. So if you can create and design a pinball machine that is good, you're probably going to get picked up. I think they should be looking at it a lot more. I just – it's weird. I kind of wish like if that's the thing that's going on, I just I wish it was more structured. Like I wish the manufacturers are a little more clear about that. They're looking for this. And maybe there was some more like, is it really to be buried into a section in a show? Or is that really a celebration of the enthusiast and those that are? I don't I don't know. I almost feel like I wish I hadn't said any of this. But I just I well, no, I've got a lot of shit last year for when we covered the expo thing. I was nice. no it's it's just i i've had some again it's not been like at the shows with me and my interactions with people and like i've you know i like jake loves custom he has a whole custom facebook like i know plenty of them they're totally into it um as a as a content creator my only gripe with humber and against only some people is sometimes and you brought up how you've had taken backlash oh man i got i got nailed last year i do not like and and please i hope people i hope everyone understands where i'm coming from i do not like when homebrew people act like i'm supposed to talk about them like they're industry people yeah no you're homebrew i i talk about homebrew pinball far more than i talk about homebrew video games on my other podcast like you're not in the industry you are thus not industry news i'm sorry you're not not yet unless you really come absolutely and that becomes a part of that great story like archer and elwyn and you know and mark seiden and all like and how scott rose from the ashes i mean they're great stories great stories but i do not think ryan mcclay's gonna i do not view a pinball news oriented podcasts which most of them are as necessitating covering the hobbyist side of creation i just don't yeah now i haven't taken too much crap for it but i definitely don't cover it very much because it's just because the reason why i don't like to do it isn't anything about disliking again these games are cool but but no one can buy them so it's like who like i'm informing you like what is this nanani boo-boo you can't own this that's true aren't you glad I rubbed it in your face that you'll never get it. If you don't go to shows, you'll never get a chance. Yeah, I got some backlash last year. I was told that. Yeah, I can't remember what it was that you said. I was being boycotted. Behind the scenes, the Slack channel or something, the homebrewers were saying that they'll never buy from Flippin' Now. I'm like, oh, God. And I was like, God, what did I do? Because I said some of them last year I got shit because I said some of them just – Some of them weren't ready for prime time. Yeah, they're like unfinished. Come on. I know it's hard, but you can get them a little bit more before you show them. Their pushback, and I understood their pushback, because again, all these different personality types, some of them aren't taking their game to a show to try and impress anyone. They want it so that other people can give them feedback, and they're using that as group learning. They're crowdsourcing the review of the game to finish it. And we have a lot of customers that are homebrewers, and so they understand me. My philosophy is if a show doesn't want them to do that, they need to make that a rule of the show. But otherwise, it's fair game. If they want to have a section and they want to have unfinished stuff there, and like if I was a creative type that was doing this, I could definitely see the value of crowdsourcing because we've seen what happens when people hide testing stuff. and that's when we run into issues like hey look this ball doesn't fit properly into this death star or into this demogorgon because stern won't won't put them on location to test them because they don't want them to be leaked early so well and i think the another interesting thing from the carl d'Python Anghelo hire is i think we may see a trend over the next couple years of known entities designing more pinball machines. I really think there might be something there. If they're going to use this smaller niche little boutique model to move some units of some smaller IPs, they may just attach themselves to a brand that already has a bit of a following. I could see it. And this happens in watches. Oh, okay. Yeah. Collaborations, Like collaborations with media websites and stuff. They'll be like, here's the worn and wound version of this watch. Here's the Hodinkee version. We've seen that in pinball before. Jack Guarnieri. Yeah. Remember? Yeah. I did that with Stern. A lot of that stuff. Pinball. I don't know how much mileage you like. I don't know how many different people you can really get very far. Like if you were to like come to me, like I'm not getting you anything. Like I'm not. I'm a nobody basically. So like attaching Dennis to a project isn't really going to move units. So there's a level and a lot of people like me are below that level. So I don't know. I think that there's a, if you come in somebody with no brand and somebody with brand, I think the odds of selling more with a established brand is always going to be better than no brand at all. I could, I mean like if it was a brand new manufacturer, I could see the desperation to turn to someone like me. I don't think it's desperation. Down to my, like, you would, trust me, you would rather start with Escher, Lefkoff, or someone with some name recognition. But a more established, already existing manufacturer, like, I don't know. You want a certain number of something, certain number of followers, certain number of claim to fames, you know, something. I don't know. It's tough. I get the idea, but there's definitely a value to it because I've seen it in my other hobby. It does work. Like that method has sold. Again, a lot of times those things are limited and they cap them. And you might create a brand out of it. If Carl D'Python Anghelo is a good designer, we now have a brand, the D'Python Anghelo brand. Assuming he wants to keep designing. Yeah, assuming he wants to keep designing. That's a good picture. I feel like these people got deep enough. I hope so. I felt like they got an actual, like a real episode. They're probably all like, what is this? You guys weren't even there. You know what? All we ask is for you to tell you, I'm talking to the audience now. Yeah. Don't talk to me. Tell, tell one of your pinball friends that's not signed up to patrion.com slash pinball show. Tell them, you know what? Man, now might be the time to get in. Those guys are really, those guys are really hitting on, on all cylinders over there as you will. or don't. We're going to be here regardless. I don't know. All right, Dennis, I think that's it. Can we tell them to stop? Yep, you can turn this off. All right, that's good.