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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 53: Black, White, & Travis Is Late

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 36m·analyzed·Jul 14, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Triple Drain debates Godzilla B&W premium edition strategy and light accessories.

Summary

Triple Drain hosts Joel and Tom discuss Godzilla's new black-and-white premium edition, analyzing Stern's multi-tier release strategy and its impact on collector psychology. They explore how unlimited releases affect purchasing behavior, debate the value proposition of variant editions, and discuss light show accessories (expression lights, speaker lights) as monetization opportunities. Travis joins late with John Wick strategy content, diving into job/adversary mechanics and Insider Connected's engagement tactics.

Key Claims

  • Godzilla black-and-white premium is essentially the same artwork as LE but uncolored, at $4,000 cheaper

    high confidence · Tom directly compares the two versions; pricing differential is stated as fact

  • Godzilla black-and-white has no time-release or production limit, will remain available 'as long as there's demand'

    high confidence · Travis cites George Gomez's statement from promotional video; no FOMO artificial scarcity

  • Godzilla is 'one of the best selling games of all time' for Stern

    high confidence · Travis states this as market fact; thousands already in circulation with color

  • John Wick has AI-based enemy placement mechanics that adjust difficulty by blocking shots

    medium confidence · Hosts discuss this as established but note they haven't personally verified node board code; Travis qualifies with 'we've been told'

  • Insider Connected badges drive repeated gameplay: Travis turned around from work to complete Wic contracts

    high confidence · Travis describes own behavior; Joel notes Jaws addiction with 500-harpoon badge challenge

  • Jurassic Park 30th and Elvira Blood Red Kiss were highly limited and sold out, creating secondary demand

    high confidence · Travis references this as precedent for Stern's dilemma with unlimited releases

  • Expression light kits are in high demand but potentially not regularly in stock at distributors

    medium confidence · Joel states this based on personal observation; exact inventory data not provided

  • Jersey Jack and Spooky games feature RGB color GI; Stern has never implemented RGB GI bulbs

    high confidence · Travis and Tom discuss this as established technical difference; Stern uses separate white/red/blue bulbs

Notable Quotes

  • “as long as there's demand, we'll keep putting it out”

    George Gomez (cited by Travis) @ ~mid-episode — Official Stern stance on unlimited Godzilla B&W production; key signal of FOMO elimination strategy

  • “I'm getting to a point where like I don't want to buy the limited editions anymore because I don't know if in a couple of years they're going to come out with an addition I might actually want to buy for a cheaper price tag”

    Tom @ ~15min — Collector sentiment shift: unlimited rereleases creating purchase paralysis and devaluing LE premium

  • “it's going to be a long tail sell. It just is... they all like I know. So spoiler alert, all the ones out there right now have color on it.”

    Joel @ ~22min — Market analysis: existing colored Godzillas compete with new B&W, slowing adoption

  • “If you're totally guided by money right, on your money purchase and all that, again, probably not the right hobby for you in terms of getting new in-box pens.”

    Joel @ ~35min — Direct critique of speculation mindset in pinball collecting; challenges financial ROI expectations

  • “you essentially you just lean into using the enemies. You don't even worry about them. You want them out there now.”

    Travis (on John Wick strategy) @ ~5min — Meta-strategy development: working around/with AI difficulty scaling rather than against it

  • “it's addicting... I'm addicted”

    Travis (re: Insider Connected) @ ~12min — Direct acknowledgment of engagement mechanics effectiveness; praise for Ben at Insider Connected

  • “does it make money yes if it makes money and it's profit then yeah i would say it's probably worth it”

    Tom (on speaker lights retroactively coded into old games) @ ~45min — Rational economic argument for accessory revenue; questions Stern's profit motive calculation

  • “until Stern goes to RGB GI, which they've never done, as far as I know, all there if they have color GI, it's because like Godzilla has white bulbs and red bulbs”

Entities

JoelpersonTompersonTravispersonGodzilla 70th AnniversarygameJohn WickgameStern PinballcompanyGeorge GomezpersonBenperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Unlimited variant releases (Godzilla B&W, past LE iterations) creating saturation that extends sales timeline and reduces purchase urgency

    high · Joel: 'there's so many out there already... there's not going to be extreme FOMO up front'

  • ?

    community_signal: Insider Connected badge system driving repeated gameplay, machine visits, and content creation through achievement mechanics; system designer Ben receiving direct praise

    high · Travis: 'it's addicting... shout out to you ben... there's the addiction is real'... turned around from work to complete contracts

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Stern maintaining speaker lights as forward-looking accessory for WIC/Jaws while older games lack this feature; suggests future games will include native support

    high · Joel: 'They've made it very clear that they're going to have the speaker lights probably in every game moving forward'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Expression lights and speaker lights reacting to movie clips (not player actions) creating potential UX confusion for casual players; some mistaking mechanical effects for malfunction

    medium · Travis: 'I talked to a lot of other people and they had no idea... There was multiple people that thought the machine was malfunctioning'

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market dynamics: existing colored Godzillas now competing directly with new B&W premium; current owners must resell to upgrade, extending inventory cycle

    high · Joel: 'You still got to resell that game. Right? To get the funds, to get the space. That's going to take time'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.290

0:00
the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast tom joel um it is 10 24 uh eastern time it's 9 25 yeah and when did when would when was the start time uh nine o'clock nine so 24 minutes 24 25 25 minutes we've been sitting here and uh waiting on travis travis yep and uh why because his uh mixer wasn't working technical difficulties shocker yeah and he finally got it working and so we go to start and what does travis do he's got to go get a cup of coffee he leaves he leaves and goes and gets coffee because you know your time my time the listeners time yeah who cares right right exactly but He could probably hear all of this right now. Yeah, he's probably taking a big dump, too, because he just doesn't care. Well, we'll hear it if he flushes, right? I would hope he knows how to mute a mic right now, but maybe not. So I'm just going to start. You feeling good, Tom? I'm feeling good. I'm feeling pretty good. All right, here we go. We, we, we, we're three guys who like to talk and ball. So we came up with a clever name. We're Joe and Travis Dumbleton involved and we call ourselves Triple Train. We're Triple, Triple Train. We're back. We are. Two of the three. He must be grinding those beans, you know. Maybe he doesn't pour over. I think he's practicing. I don't know. He needs to practice. He always drinks green tea, so maybe he doesn't know how to make coffee. Maybe he's calling Monica to say, Monica, how do I do this? It's probably a Keurig, too. That's right. Yeah, the K-Cup. Oh, Lord. All right. Or he's just standing right off camera and he's just waiting. But I don't know. We're here. And hey, to all the listeners that are here and clicked on it, thanks for clicking on it. It's been a month. This is probably the longest, I don't know, break we've had in a while. It wasn't planned. It just kind of happened. There was just no news. It was a combination of holidays. I had some work travel and no real news, nothing crazy to report. And so I started to get a few messages, like, is Triple Drain dead? What's going on?
2:41
No, I don't think so. No, we just, you know. It's probably because I was releasing videos. So his own content, yeah, which was good. But I don't know. we're here or at least you and i are here tom right correct yes um i appreciate you too joel thanks thanks um well let's talk about a little bit of your content tom oh wait wait hold on hold on that schmuck look at this guy he's always gonna go play a game of pinball oh there he is there he is are we live oh yeah we sure are we've already played the song We've already done all of it. How's your coffee?

Tom @ ~50min — Technical specification of Stern's lighting limitation vs. competitor capability

Insider Connected
product
Jaws 50th Anniversarygame
Jurassic Park 30th Anniversarygame
Elvira Blood Red Kiss Editiongame
Iron Man Vault Editiongame
TNAgame
Black Knightgame
Cactus Canyongame
Doug Speaker Lightsproduct
Expression Lightsproduct
Speaker Lightsproduct
Stumbler Modsproduct
Diddy Modsproduct
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Spooky Pinballcompany
  • $

    market_signal: Unlimited production (no FOMO) on Godzilla B&W expected to create 'long tail sell' with extended adoption timeline through Q3-Q4

    high · Travis: 'there's not going to be extreme FOMO up front for this'... 'I think it's going to take a little while into quarter three, quarter four'

  • $

    market_signal: Godzilla B&W premium released at $4,000 cheaper than LE with nearly identical artwork (uncolored), directly undermining LE collector premium positioning

    high · Tom: 'it's almost the exact same artwork as the limited edition but it's just not colored... it's also at a what four thousand dollar cheaper price tag'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern differentiating games via accessory bundles (expression lights, speaker lights) synced to movie footage rather than gameplay; potential retroactive retrofit revenue opportunity

    high · Discussion of speaker lights synced to WIC movie scenes; speculation on retrofitting expression lights to Godzilla; mention of Doug Speaker Lights universal adoption

  • ?

    product_concern: John Wick AI enemy placement scaling creates mode difficulty variance; community working around mechanic rather than embracing it as intended challenge

    medium · Travis describes strategy as 'leaning into enemies' and ignoring progression goals; hosts note they've been 'told' about AI but haven't verified code

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern planning speaker light kit sales for WIC; expression light kits in high demand but supply-constrained at distributors

    high · Tom: 'They haven't even sold technically the speaker light kits yet. So is that, is it worth like, I think they'd sell a lot of them'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Collector sentiment shifting away from rushing LE purchases due to variant re-release pattern; consumers now adopting 'wait and see' strategy

    high · Tom: 'I don't want to buy the limited editions anymore because I don't know if in a couple of years they're going to come out with an addition I might actually want to buy for a cheaper price tag'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern unable/unwilling to implement RGB color GI (vs. Jersey Jack, Spooky), limiting mood/mode differentiation through dynamic lighting

    high · Tom: 'until Stern goes to RGB GI, which they've never done, as far as I know'... JJP/Spooky games have RGB; Stern uses separate white/red/blue bulbs due to ball tracking visibility concerns

    • 3:24
    It's fine. I had to call Monica and see how the thing worked. All right. We are here. All right. Let's talk about your content.
    3:39
    Tom has become a reaction video type of guy. That's, you know, I love it. He's got his thumbnail. There's an art to the thumbnail. You know, you got to get your face on there. You got to act. What? You know, there's a thing. You got to pluck out the gray hairs on your beard. Hey, thumbnail's a thing because Travis, every pinball company video he releases, he shows us about eight different thumbnails. I say us. It's us and the Loser Kid guys. And he's like, which one would you click on? My answer is none of them. I'm like all of them. My answer is none of them. There's a method to the madness to see what the CTR is and all that.
    4:15
    Click-through rate. That's what that is for people. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, click-through rate. So I assume the listeners are much smarter than I am. So they know what's up. I think he just says numbers, assuming that people are just letters. Just say some letters and it makes you sound smart. Something will stick, right? Yeah. But you're I know you released and it got a lot of clicks. What was it, Travis? You released a John Wick like launch party tutorial. Is any idea if that's still accurate with the latest release? It is a little bit. I actually recorded another one because there's legitimately like three different strategies to it. I only went over one. And so I have the other one that I recorded earlier this weekend. Even with the code update, it's still the same thing. So I actually got to film that or the audio after this podcast and then get it up later today. Oh, cool. That way everybody can win. It works, too. See? Look. Your audio? No. Oh, you got it. The strategy works. Joel, see this? Have you ever won one of these, Joel? Sure. Sure haven't. Dang it. I told you. You need to challenge your family to a tournament.
    5:23
    I'll make the trophies for you. It's been a while since I played WIC, but I do know, I think it was you that actually brought to my attention, that one of the things that the code, AI, right? AI is placing enemies in front of you based off of your progression of the game to get your way. So we've been told. That's what we've been told, right? That's what we've been told, yeah. It's a lie. It's all a lie. I haven't verified that there's AI built into the game on the node boards or anything, so I don't know. I mean, they move, so that's something.
    5:58
    Is there a Chad? Chad GPT or whatever? Yeah. Stern GPT. That needs to be something where you ask it a question and it tells you the answer immediately, like how to do this shot or what is this or what is this mode? But that would mean a microphone is now built into your pinball machine, which people would be freaking out about. But my question, what you had brought to my attention was the fact that, you know, to get through a mode, let's say the mode takes eight shots. But if all of a sudden a bunch of enemies are now in front of you, the enemy, you can't actually hit that shot or the shot doesn't count until you get rid of enemies. Right. So some of these modes can become drastically harder because of this enemy and this enemy type progression that's blocking your path. And I had never I didn't really consider that. I honestly, when I had the game, I don't know if I ever beat a mode. I don't even know if you could beat a mode at the time.
    6:54
    But I don't know. How do you work around that? I mean, what is that fun? Is that well, so for the newest strategy that I use, it's you essentially you just lean into using the enemies. You don't even worry about them. You want them out there now. OK, which sounds weird, but essentially there's so there's jobs, right, which are your modes that are attached to the factions. And then you have adversaries, which are basically your solo battles. But you have to get to 16 enemies defeated in order to qualify those. Right. Yep. Yep. So naturally, if you got to defeat enemies, well, you know, then why does it matter if they're out there? So then it becomes working backwards and picking the jobs in which the most enemies are out there. Yeah. It has the most scoring available. Right. And it's the safest shots that you can do. So overwhelmingly, that's Rescoroma, which is a center ramp yellow mode attached to or it's the job is assassination. I'm already confused.
    7:57
    How do you change job? How do you change job to get to that? It's just the shots. Like any major shot pretty much changes the job. So before you hit the crate to start your job. Basically before you go into the scoop. Yeah. You want to make sure you've hit the center ramp. Center ramp was the last shot you hit. Yeah. I mean, there's some of the other jobs, like they score just fine. But ideally, it's your center ramp job and your right orbit job. so it's Rescoroma and the Marquis de Gros-Mont or whatever it's called so it's the jobs I know it gets confusing but it's simply put jobs have their own names like assassination, gather intel those are two main ones those jobs are attached to factions which are shown on the inserts on the play field so those are essentially the only two you really need to know because it's hard to survive anyways or stay alive so you know you might as well play the ones that give you the most bang for your buck and so rescaroma it's just enemies everywhere like i think i count damn tom it's too much around you what's in your coffee this was tea oh yeah sure it's boba tea and you didn't know it it's just to keep it purely simple so that way tom doesn't like die on us just play ruscaroma because i found it has like 10 or 13 enemies right off the bat somewhere around there it might be like 11 12 so you're saying don't even are you even focusing on progressing through the mode or you're just you're just using it to hit enemies i do but i don't like i want to get my enemies but in that mode as soon as you knock down the enemy yeah if the yellow insert still lit then that's your target to assassinate yeah and then that's where your points are at and it just like the points just keep going and going and then of course if you never miss a shot and you just play the ramps mode just combo ramps the whole entire time like that's literally the two things that you do i wouldn't even do anything else as it is don't do anything else did you get your contracts no i've not got any contracts i had a couple I went for it. I don't have a Wiccan award. This was limited to 200 people. You didn't get it. It's red. I did. It says earned. Got to look close. I just saw red thinking it was... It's red because it's closed. That contract literally came out as soon as I left work after filming on Wic. It knew. Yeah, I was halfway thinking, should I really turn around and go back to work? You should have. But, hey, what does that tell you, though? What does that tell you about Inside Connected? like there's i gotta give props i know yeah it's addicting ben i'm addicted ben was the guy that talked to us at the stern tour he's the insider connected guy shout out to you ben i know you're listening there's the addiction is real because i know i had jaws during the week uh fourth of july week so there were all those jaws badges and it's like you know one of the badges was uh Shooting a gazillion harpoons, like 500 harpoons. Don't look at Dalton's message.
    11:07
    Shooting 500 harpoons over the course of the week. And it's like, it's a fun little mode, but I would never play that mode that many times during the week. But I want to do just get that little badge. And, you know, it's like, oh, quick shots. I need to get 10 of those. Let me pay attention. Let me focus on those. It's what a creative way to force you to try to play the game in a different, you know, or focus on different areas of the game than you're used to. So I know we come off as stern shills pretty much every episode, but they're doing something right with Insider Connected. Well, it gives you a reason to play the game, too, and to play it differently. And that's the key to longevity. You need to give the end user. Turn around your car and go back to work to play the game, you know? I was just going to make more content. Don't worry about it. It wasn't for pleasure. It was to make money. Well, okay. Making money, making content. And Tom made a reaction video to Godzilla's black and white. So let's just go around. I mean, what are our thoughts on that? We're going to have a reaction to Tom's reaction video? Is that what we're doing right now? We should play it. We should play Tom's reaction video to react to his reaction. I haven't got a chance to watch it yet. Was it good? Did you do a good job, Tom? It was terrible.
    12:17
    It was good. I mean, Tom, you want to summarize your reaction real quick? Yeah. I mean, I was basically like, premium came out. It's all silver. it's all gray toned um i i have some issues with it but i understand why stern's doing it it's to make money what's your issue um i don't really like the fact that one it's almost the exact same artwork as the limited edition but it's just not colored um my my other issue is because it looks limited even though it's not it's also at a what four thousand dollar cheaper price tag than a limited edition so you know i'm getting to a point where like i don't want to buy the limited editions anymore because i don't know if in a couple of years, they're going to come out with an addition I might actually want to buy for a cheaper price tag. Yeah.
    13:28
    So it's, it just, like I said, I understand why they're doing it. But, you know, as a consumer, I'm kind of like, well, maybe, maybe I don't need to rush into buying these things. so then here's the question then if that's what it's leading you to think then what if would you feel the same way if you were a premium buyer and that's all you were getting instead of le's if you're just getting premiums only yeah because maybe i wanted the black and white edition and now i have to sell my colored one to get the black and white right so you still feel the same way It's a car package, obviously. Let's ask this then. If the three of us were in the market to buy a premium Godzilla today, would you be placing an order for the normal colored version, or would you be getting the black and white version? And here's the thing. I would not. I'm not big on the black and white. So to me, no. What about you, Travis?
    14:34
    I'm in between. I really like the look of it, but I'm also really lazy and don't want to pull my machine upstairs up the basement. That's what I'm saying. If we if if no collection, you don't own a Godzilla and you're you're a new buyer. I'm ready. I'm a new buyer. I'm ready to buy a Godzilla. Oh, yeah. Brand new. Like black and white. Probably. I'm a brand new buyer. I mean, it's the weird part with this machine. It's going to be a long tail cell. It just is because one, it's one of the best selling games of all time, let alone just Stern's like just of all time. It's a great machine. So there's thousands out there already, which means they all like I know. So spoiler alert, all the ones out there right now have color on it. So that means pretty much that the options are those current customers either have to offload that game, sell it right against the competition of their of now the other option being black and white. But they got to sell it in order to go get a black and white. Enjoy the enjoy the hit on your purchase. Right. So that's kind of like that's kind of where everybody's at. So that's why I think that this is going to be like a long tail thing. And especially now, it's not limited in any sort of way. There's no time release. There's no limited production. It's just all like even Gomez said on the promo video. Right. As long as there's demand, we'll keep putting it out. So there's really no rush to come out and get it at this point. So it's like what's stopping somebody from just even setting on their color version. Right. and waiting for a used black and white version now. Well, you know, I think that there's just ways. I think that the end consumer is going to get very savvy when it comes to these different models with how to get one if they truly want one. So I think that's what we'll see. I mean, the cabinet, the cabinet, the actual like foil. Yeah. I mean, that that's nice. Yeah, I think the game looks dope. It looks cool. But Joe, wouldn't you wouldn't you have wanted the foil on your colored version? So if I answer that question, if I had no Godzilla right now and I was going to place a new order, I would go black and white. And the only reason I go is it's unique. I think it would stand out in a collection. Just like when I had, Zach, let me borrow the Elvira Blood Red Kiss Edition. I was just going to say, what if you had a Blood Red Kiss? If I did, no. Then it would become a, I don't need two black and white with red highlight games right next to each other. To be fair to the blood red Elvira is spectacular. It is. There's not many games that look like that. And I've heard that even from all the previous Elvira adopters that they're like, holy crap. Travis, that's kind of the same story I was talking about. I mean, you know, how many versions of Elvira were there? You had the premium and the LA. Shut up. Keep buying them. There's a lot. You're absolutely right. I think it's the 40th. Right. Right, right. And I think it's clear that the strategy is keep using the license as you can and figure out a way to kind of make it new, but still the same. And as a manufacturer and a distributor, I totally get that. But as a collector and a consumer, that's where my issue lies, I guess. Right. I think that's a good issue to have. I mean, it's great feedback to give. I think it is important for the people that are spending money on these products to speak up because, I mean, Stern's been clear. They're going to listen. You know, I think a lot of pinball manufacturers out there want to listen to the consumer because obviously they're going to guide decision making at the highest level in terms of like what themes to give or go get, what type of models to put out. So, you know, I think any feedback is good at this point. What about, Tom, have you ever had a game that then was vaulted?
    18:37
    And then, like, were you in a position where you own the original Iron Man and then they release Iron Man Vault? Absolutely. And did you play the game of, like, wait, should I upgrade? Yes. And what did you do in that situation? I did not upgrade. And why? Like, what was the justification? Because I didn't feel the need to. Okay. I mean, that was, you know, I already bought it. It's almost the exact same game with the exception of the magnets. Yep.
    19:06
    I mean, I guess I could have took a drill and put a bigger magnet in there, but I wasn't going to do that. But, no, I just felt like, you know what, I'm not,
    19:20
    I'm just going to be happy with what I have, which is fine too. Yeah. And I was in the same boat with TNA. I mean, I have an original TNA. And when they announced that they were going to do a new run with, like, new cosmetic stuff, better screen, better back box hinge, or the drop-down panel for the screen is different. Like, I had that thing of, like, I love my TNA. I've got it dialed in. I got all the mods or everything. I've done all the cosmetic stuff that they are adding in the new version. I've already added manually. but I was still very curious. Like, this is the better version. This is a keeper pin for me. Should I be upgrading? So I get it.
    20:02
    I totally get it. And I also understand why Stern is doing it. But you've said Stern is listening. I will tell you right now, spoiler alert, I'm really considering getting a Jaws. I love Jaws. I've really enjoyed that game. That's great. But I know I'm not getting an LE. They're gone. So to me, it's like at some point I need to get a premium. Do I feel that I'm in a rush? Wait three years. Well, that's the thing. It's like, do I feel like I'm in a rush that I have to get a premium as soon as possible? No. But then you get these type of re-releases or new cosmetic releases. It almost makes me wonder, like, is there a chance that down the road they would do a new Jaws art package and maybe I would prefer that one over the premium that I would get? I mean, I think that's a great question. Yeah. If you if you base your today decision on what ifs. Sure. You're always going to be spinning your wheels. Right. Because there's always a new game coming out from a manufacturer like Stern has three cornerstones a year. Yeah. You got Jersey Jack putting out games. You got spooky putting out games. So, you know, I think that the whole wait and see thing is just kind of like it's just up to you. like how you want to approach it. But, you know, facing facts, wait and see, usually leads to just waiting in perpetuity because then the next shiny thing comes out and then you're kind of frozen still, like, well, should I get this? And then the next thing comes out and then you're like, well, should I get this? Yeah. And that's kind of, I don't know, it's just like it paralyzes the consumer when they get in that vortex, right? As opposed to if you really like the game and it's available now, Why not just get it now? Enjoy it. And then when you don't want it any longer, sell it. Simple as that. Now, if you're totally guided by money, right, on your money purchase and all that, again, probably not the right hobby for you in terms of getting new in-box pens. Because you might as well do day trading. Because it's hard to tell, like, up and down, right? It's very hard to tell. And I think there's a lot of people that came into the hobby in 2020 that were used to everything just going nuts. Like every LE would gain value. Premiums would gain value because, you know, there wasn't enough supply going out. Yeah, that's typically not the case. Exactly, yeah. Can you answer whether or not, like, are these selling well? Have you got orders for this? I would think so. Have you seen, Travis? Is what, the Godzilla selling well? Is the Godzilla black and white selling well? It's just like I said. So I'm not going to give exact orders, but I will say it's going to take a while. Are you buying a new car? Am I what? Are your kids going to college? That's the question. All right. No. But that's the reality, though. For the reasons I stated, there's so many out there already, and there's not going to be extreme FOMO up front for this for somebody to feel like. Yeah. Because it's not. JP 30th or Elvira Blood Red Kiss. Right. And that was the lose-lose situation that Stern was going to be in regardless because remember what happened with Jurassic Park? Yeah. Like those still sold out, but yet everybody else lost their minds about it. So now on the other side, their answer to that is these anniversary editions don't have it limited. Well, if it's not limited, that means you're going to affect the behavior of who's purchasing these as well. I mean, that's just what happens. So I think people are going to wait a little bit. And the people that want to get the black and white, well, if they already have the color version, they still got to resell that game. Right? To get the funds, to get the space. That's going to take time. It's like you're not going to see 2,000 Godzilla premiums go up for sale, and then they all sell instantly in order to get the black and whites. Right? I think it's going to take a little while into quarter three, quarter four. You know what I think would be cool is like if you could buy like the little Godzilla model that gray and put it in your colored game
    24:18
    You know, do things like that. That would be cool. Or apparently, I mean, they're going to release the topper in black and white. Apparently all the art blades are going to release. I will tell you what's comical is once I saw the game, one of my first thoughts was, what about the mods? Like, I have every Stumbler mod in my game. You can kind of see right there by my shoulder, like that's the burning subway mod. Every single Stumbler mod I have in the game. And I'm thinking like, shoot, is Davey going to remake or like sell, you know, like instead of the main board, like would he sell a black and white version of the Tokyo sign? Just the plastics for the people that already have, you know, or like, I don't know. I know Diddy, Diddy Mods, he's already announced that he's remaking his in black and white versions. And that's kind of crazy. Like, I have the speaker lights from Doug at Speaker Light Kids. Like, those are awesome, but would that look cool on black and white? I don't know. Speaking of speaker lights, the fact that Jaws now has speakers by Stern, WIC now has speakers by Stern. They've made it very clear that they're going to have the speaker lights probably in every game moving forward.
    25:30
    My request is, are they going to go backwards? because I'll tell you right now, as much as I love these, if I can have speaker lights that interact with Godzilla, I'm getting those. I mean, is it worth Stern's? Maybe that's a question for you guys. Do you think it would be worth Stern's time to pay somebody to code in additional light shows in previous games to sell that accessory? 100%. Does it move more units? Move which unit? Does it move more accessories? Yes. Does it move more games? does it make money yes if it makes money and it's profit then yeah i would say it's probably worth it well they well you know like there's there was a huge demand for expression light kits for i mean i still think they're not technically in stock at most distributors like there's there is a demand for additional light show mods but i don't know the profit margin i don't know what Stern's profit margin is on, on expression light kits or speaker. They haven't even sold technically the speaker light kits yet. So is that, is it worth like, I think they'd sell a lot of them, but is that, is that worth their time? I don't know. I'm not the, um, I feel like this would have been a great question to ask during our Stern visit a couple of months ago. Well, they didn't, at that time, they hadn't really talked about that. They were going to sell that as an accessory. They said they were going to sell it for WIC. So, So I think, yes, I think anything you can put on a machine that makes it more useful for somebody to enjoy is worth exploring. Now, whether it's worth it from a monetary standpoint, I don't know. Like, it's hard to say just because obviously you've got to buy in bulk. You've got to decide, OK, what's what's your workers time worth? What's and all that. So, right. That's all business stuff. But if the end user likes it and it's something that appeals to them and it's something that causes them to see a pro in terms of buying the product. And yeah, that's worth exploring. Well, yeah, I think it's I mean, honestly, if they announce that they would consider it or do that. I don't know. I mean, I have speaker like kids in all my games. I don't currently have one in Black Knight because I'm borrowing it. I know Tom is look at his back row. So it's like once you step into that realm, it kind of when a pin doesn't have it, it looks odd. And so, you know, I know Doug Speaker like it's that's what he does. I know pinwoofer now is in the lighting game. Musel mods is in the lighting game. Like, yeah, it's interesting because I've actually talked to a few people that played the WIC LE because there's one on location that's nearby. Right. So it has like the whole like during one of the scenes, the shaker motor will go nuts with the gunshots and all that. And it flashes. And so, like, I think that that's really cool. Like, I like that type of interaction. And then I talked to a lot of other people and they had no idea that that was what was happening. Like over what it was. It was so funny. I had a good laugh about this. There was multiple people that thought the machine was malfunctioning because they're like, I'm just playing and I'm hitting a post. And now the machine's just the shit's just shaking out of it. And it's flashing everywhere. I don't know what's going on. I'm like, oh, should have told the added switches to post. Yeah.
    28:54
    Yeah. I was like, that's the dynamic gunshot scene thing or whatever. So, yeah, it's it's kind of like it's one of those things that almost if you know it's coming, it's interesting. But if you don't realize that that's what's happening, I could see how all of a sudden it's kind of jarring that the machine's just like shaking to death. And you're just like, I don't feel like I'm doing anything. but apparently the machine is saying I'm doing a lot, but that's kind of like what, what the feedback was initially that was getting from people. I, and I get it. I know what they're doing with wick is unique. This, this, the fact that the speaker lights and the expression lights are reacting to the movie clip, not necessarily to your gameplay. They should have put that on Godzilla 70th. Every time it hits that little pop, Godzilla just roars. Well, I'll tell you right now, if they would have, if Godzilla 70th had expression lights, I'm kidding, Tom, they shouldn't do that. If they would have done something like that. Go ahead.
    29:46
    I'm saying if, if for Godzilla, if, if Godzilla 70th would have had expression lights, I would really be tempted to, to like, that really would have, but does it need expression lights? It doesn't need it. No, it doesn't need, it doesn't need it. Like I still, I still associate expression lights with like a concert in a box and wick. It kind of makes sense just because of the scenes, the very scenes have unique lighting and everything, but something like Godzilla, I think it's, I just think it's an immersive, I think it adds just like color GI. Like the fact that I think it adds a lot. I think it really changes. I mean, even so Cactus Canyon, Cactus Canyon has color GI, but when you're in different, when you're playing different modes, the whole GI color changes. Sure. I don't have a crazy light show like GNR or something, but it's just like this mode feels different than that mode. And why is that? It's the lighting. And so that's why that on the play field, though, directly and not on the sides. It is. But if if until Stern goes to RGB GI, which they've never done, as far as I know, all there if they have color GI, it's because like Godzilla has white bulbs and red bulbs. So there's times where only the red are on and there's times that only white. I know Star Wars had like white, red and blue, like, but these are separate bulbs until Stern creates a RGB. bulb like all jersey jack games have have our color uh rgb lights i think most spooky games do i mean but i i know stern's views probably and how easy is it to track that's what you're doing in those games if all of a sudden your mode all your gi is blue it's a lot harder to see the ball if there's no white light on so i so that's i get why stern is saying great that's what expression lights for but i do genuinely feel that the change of lighting does change the mood of whatever you're doing. So if Godzilla, if they were to add speaker lights that reacted to the game, to me, it's like, just do a burning pattern for a track mode, make them flash red every time your red GI flashes, and then maybe just have the lights be different color when you're in different modes, or maybe do what Jaws does where the chum line is showing progression. So you can see a similar progression because every mode has, you know, Gigan's eight shots. So maybe have the speaker light change for every shot you hit you know it's like there's simple things you could do for some of these previous games i think but with something like that would you as a player would that make a difference like would you be able to tell that the speaker lights are doing something not a player that is a trick question well i'm just saying like somebody that's standing off to the side i'm just kidding looks cool yeah yeah but if you're actually engaged with the game and you're tracking a ball, does the lights going off like up here out of your view, like it's in your peripheral still, but does that affect like how much you're enjoying it? Because it's just kind of like for me, if I'm wanting to design pinball and I'm thinking of cool things to add on, I'm trying to think of ways that I can make somebody that's currently playing how to make their experience even better. And that's why I'm like always like about the LCD movie clips just because it's it's hard to track so i'm thinking of related to going to like a concert or a movie you know or something like that you know where like do you want mono sound do you want stereo sound do you want you know it could be the best artists in the world but if they're not you know if there's not like flashy lights and stuff like that you know it's just more it's just more immersive so what we need to develop then guys nobody else like everybody else pause the podcast right now so you don't hear this great idea we need to develop and have it out by tpf 2025 like the immersive like light system for sterns to where you just attach it at the top of the box you drape it over your shelf it's blacked out has lights what i will say we're not going that crazy so my tna million dollar idea tom my tna i had tapped into the speaker lights and i actually put rails on the back at my game so if I play TNA with the lights off, my entire room changes colors based on where, and I know, okay, I'm yellow. That means I'm one. I need to hit the scoop to start the reactor. Oh, I'm red. I mean, like the whole room changes color. So that's a little dramatic, but I also know Travis, you're the extreme where you can play a Star Wars, a Stranger Things premium and not know it's a premium because you don't actually look at the projector. When you, you've admitted, when you play, you're only looking at the front, the first half of the play field, like all of your measurements and alignments, you align to the art and the inserts on the play field. I look at things like if I'm trying to play a game, I will look at things that matter to the gameplay for me, like what's going to change the ball path? What's going to light up? Where are the flippers at? Where are the post at? Where are the rubbers at? Like those are things that I hone in on. Now, other people, they may look at stuff like, oh, cool artwork. Oh, there's a projector. And that's perfectly fine. It's just not something that I actively look for. That being said, the last time I played a Stern or a Stranger Things premium, I knew it was a premium. Because we have one set up in our showroom, and I know it's a premium. There. Because that's, but that, I know, you've admitted that before. You just don't, you don't notice some of these things. But I think in this- It's like, do you look at the artwork on a ramp? Like, how often do we do that? Every time I hit the freaking ramp. I'm watching the ball. You just stare at the art. Yeah, you're watching the ball, not the artwork. But it's there. Okay, so art is one thing, but lighting is just like, it drastically, like, maybe this. I'm focused on the ball, Joel. When you're playing Jaws now, now they make it where when you're in Night Swim, the whole GI dims down. You notice that, right? Even though you're looking at the ball, you notice it's darker, right? Yeah. So lighting does affect you. Screw it. Black and white games forever. Of course lighting affects everything because lighting guides you as a player. So that's what we're talking about. But you're saying if it's on the back box. You're talking about a projector screen. No, I'm saying it's so. Like, what are you talking about? Back box speaker lights, you're saying, would have zero impact on your play experience. Well, yeah, because the pinball is underneath the glass, not up on the back box. It wouldn't affect me at all. Well, it's – Joel, you're talking to – It has speaker lights. Do they affect your play while you play at all? No. I'm not looking at it. Tom, I tell you, you're on my team here. Joel, you got to remember. I am, but – You'll learn this. Joel will figure this out, Tom. That stuff on the LCD and that is more for the group of three that are in your group watching you play. I mean, to be honest.
    36:59
    I know this might be shocking, Joel. When you play pinball, you watch the pinball and you watch it move around. I will say, since I got the Jaws topper, I have actually looked up to look at the Jaws topper, though. The Jaws topper. What is it doing? It's awesome. But that's the key, though. If you are going to add in topper stuff and you're going to add in lights, then you have to automatically do something in your game with what the layout allows. And you have to make the rules around having the ball stop. because then you're creating that moment in time for somebody to stop watching the ball and it directs their attention somewhere else, whether it's on the speaker lights or on the topper. Because if all that stuff's going off and you're not able to even look at it for even if it's like three seconds, right? Because it's like, those are decisions that got to be made. And that's what makes it tough. Like to give a prime example of this, InDisc 2020, Tom might remember this that black knight there had the topper on and this was in disc 2020 so january of like four years ago yeah when i was at the old uh museum right and i know i played that game four times didn't even realize i had a topper i talked to other people like isn't the topper cool and you're like what topper right like yeah like 80 of the players didn't realize the topper was on there now it's not saying like that doesn't take anything away from it it's just if you're in a situation where you're so focused on one instance of the ball moving, and of course, in a world championship, hopefully you're watching the ball and not looking up at the topper. But yeah, it's just that just shows you like human nature. You're going to track what's moving and you're going to track with where your attention's at. Like it would be cool. I don't even know if this is possible. If a ball stops and then like maybe like on jaws, right, that post comes up, the ball stops and the GI like lead your eyes to follow all the way up to the topper. Then the topper does something like, I don't know if any games ever done something like that. I don't even know if it's possible. You could do it. Yeah. I, okay. So I will agree with you that yes, while you're in the middle of gameplay, I mean, Tom has admitted it. He's got the speaker lights on jaws. You're not, while you're actively playing the game, you're probably not going to see those speaker lights. Maybe if he turned all the lights off in his room and that was the only game on, maybe there would be some residual lighting coming off of that that would impact him maybe but i do think expression lights i do think expression lights because of how much they are because it's in the game it's in that that is that makes an impact just like color changing gi and jjp games or the hot rails and jjp games or the color gi in cactus canyon or some of the other cgc like there can be an impact i i totally get that um but i just i don't know to me maybe this bridges us into the conversation of just pinball enthusiasts i think there's a lot of people that that the gameplay is actually one of the lesser reasons they own the game like they own the game because of the theme the way it looks like the way it makes their their arcade room i I mean, Tom, if Stern did that, if they made backwards compatibility for every one of those Stern games behind you, how many of those kits would you buy for the speaker lights? Oh, for the speaker lights? Oh, yeah, I would buy them. I mean, honestly, I probably would. But that's just this. It's an aesthetic thing.
    40:33
    100%. But I think what's interesting, I think a lot of the pinball podcasts out there, There are people like yourselves that are tournament-focused or they're streamers, they play a lot, or they're people that are just active pinball players. But I'm meeting more and more, let's call them enthusiasts, just people that just love pinball. And if you try to have a conversation to them about code or what's your favorite mode, I mean, it's just they just don't care. They just don't care. And I'm starting to really appreciate it. Like they just, it's almost this just sense of like, what I like about pinball is that feeling of just watching the ball fly around.
    41:14
    Travis and I care, we care about the code. Well, yeah, we do. But we talked about this, I think like a couple of podcasts ago after the Wick Ellie thing and all that. You said the top two things were art and is it just theme?
    41:28
    Theme and art. Those are the two things up front every single time. I mean, just put it this way. If code was really that important in terms of getting somebody to adopt day one. Right. Don't you think like every single manufacturer would put a premium on that to have it so fleshed out at the beginning of it? Like, I know there's obviously barriers and different reasons for the code being at various stages. Yeah. You know, and there has to be a use afterwards of seeing how it works in the real world. But, you know, it's obvious that the things that are fully fleshed out as soon as a game releases is the theme. Right. And the art like those are the two things overall. Yeah. Well, OK, so code. Let's actually talk about this game behind me. Black Knight Sword of Rage. Zach swapped out Jaws, which honestly, my brother, my whole family loved Jaws. My dad told me he's like, I have turtles. over there right now. He's like, if you want to get Jaws and swap out Turtles with Jaws, I'd be okay with it. Joel's dad's like, don't bring your golf cart to me anymore, son. Get Jaws. My dad, who's not a pinball guy, but it's just, they've really killed it with just the theme immersion, just the overall, there's something about that dreary, that just gets you. My mother-in-law had a great time on it. That experience of hitting the fin when it pops up, you know, building, shoot it, now, now. Like, they've really done a great job. Were they commenting, well, why doesn't Jaws eat the ball? No, never. Never happened.
    43:07
    But I really, really, really love and enjoy that game. And my brother and I have streamed it a handful of times. Zach gave us a topper. I have a stream out there with the topper cam. The topper is actually awesome.
    43:19
    I get it. It's expensive. But for what it is, the light shows are. There's some really good light show integration. Another thing they pointed out is it changes based on the time of day. Same with just the background screen, the clip of the boat just in water. That changes on the LCD during the day. So if you play at night, it's a picture of the boat at night, which, I mean, that's clever. So the lighting changes.
    43:45
    It's just it's very well done. And Elizabeth was on the streams with us and explained the code. But what my brother admitted is as much fun as we've had during that game, he's like, you know, sometimes I just, pinball is so complex that it's just like, he gets overwhelmed. He gets overwhelmed. And I've, I've had that feeling as well. You know, when, when I've had coders on to explain a game where, you know, they're so excited about these, these, these little things that they've added. And well, if you do this and this and this and this and this and this and this, sometimes it's just fun to just turn on a game and play it and immediately know what to do, immediately understand it and just play the game. And that's, that's what we've experienced with Black Knight. Black Knight, I tried to find some tutorial videos out there. There's not a ton.
    44:33
    But what I've realized is you can explain this game very quickly. And so for us on stream one, we stepped up and just kind of immediately knew what to do with chat, helping us out with a few minute, like small things. It was really, it was like a breath of fresh air. It was just nice to just play it get our butts kicked but have a good time and so i think it's funny that a lot of people talk about monsters being super easy or like the code just being so small nobody says that about i mean maybe i'm just not hearing nobody says that about black knight but i feel like from a code standpoint no offense to me or anybody it's just the code here is very simple it's very simple it's very i watched eric stone beat the game beat the game defeat the black knight he did it in like 10 minutes you can't do that on godzilla you can't beat like maybe you can maybe i don't know but it's like you can't like beat every beat every bad guy in the game 10 minutes nobody i am i missing something do in the tournament scene or do people talk about this game being shallow ever or too simple i mean it is i've ever heard black knight called simple on the tournament scene i I mean, I get it. Like, from a rule set point of view, it may not be as complex or deep. But if it's set up right, it's like you're not even going to get to the end of the game regardless. The brutality of it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just one of those things. Like, it plays quick. It plays like a modern solid state to me. That's kind of the way it feels. But I will tell you, the stream ended. And my brother was like, I loved that. He's like, I really had a lot of fun with that game. and I was like, well, if I could call up Zach right now, would you rather me get Black Knight or Jaws Premium? And he goes, Black Knight? I was like, what? What? Give it a few weeks. I know. But I'm just saying, but that really, that alone, it's just comical to me because there have been times that Zach's reached out to me and he's like, hey, what about streaming this game? And I always say yes. Like, yeah, let's do it. But some of the games he's mentioned, I'm like, all right, this might be painful. I think there's always like a euphoria when you get a new game. True. The honeymoon stage, right? The honeymoon stage. But there was – And then your wife wants you to take out the garbage. I just had low expectations. Anytime anybody's ever asked me about Black Knight, I just say that game's brutal. That's all I've known about the game. The game's brutal. The game's hard. It's fast. I never really knew anything about the code because it's brutal. You're going to drain before you can experience any of it. but once you start to find the shots, that game's a ton of fun. I just, it, I mean, honestly, cactus Canyon. I, I didn't have big expectations for cactus Canyon when Zach let me borrow it, but we just have fun. Like we just had fun with it. And that's where I ended up buying it because I had so much fun with it. So I don't know. I mean, what are your thoughts on black nights? As tournament players, have you beat the black night? Is that's the game that you can blow through and it's just like, that's fun. Not in a tournament, but like on a location. Just playing on location, yeah.
    47:48
    But I mean, so to put this easily, you can do that on, or in terms of like enjoying a game, right, just for what it is. You can do that with any game. Like there's nothing out there that says because a rule set is deep or wide that you have to do everything in the game to enjoy it. That's where a lot of people went sideways with Avengers Infinity Quest. They got so caught up in what the gems did that you could have easily just ignored it completely not worried about it and just played through your battles and all that So there a lot of games like that like Godzilla for instance you could just do your battles and not worry about anything else. Even if the side stuff starts, you can just do that, right? You can, you can take that mentality over to any game possible. Same thing for Star Wars. Everybody talks about the multipliers, right? Like, Oh, I'm confused because the multipliers, you could just park it on the left ramp, never touch that action button. until you're in video mode, and just play it. Like, there's nothing that really says you have to do that. So essentially, that's the way that I look at some of these rule sets that are less complex, like your Black Knights, your Munsters, stuff like that. Sure, it has some nuance to it, but it doesn't have the extra on top that gets you sidetracked. It just feels easier to stay focused on what you're currently doing. Okay. Does that make sense? It does. And you can do that across any game. You do not have to get hung up on a bunch of sites. Like take Jaws, for instance, right? Yep. Hit the captive ball enough times to light your encounters, right? From there, you have a choice. You can either keep bashing the shark to get your encounter bonus, 2x scoring, all that. Or you could just start your encounters and just play through those. Yep. And not worry about it at all. Not worry about beachgoers, nothing else. So, I mean, that's really the reality of it. You can play these games without doing everything in it. And in tournaments, oftentimes, that's how you'll play it. You'll stay very focused on one strategy.
    49:53
    Hi, doggo. Tom's dog is on camera. Yeah, I get it. But I think one of the key is, like, Jaws. If my mother-in-law steps up to Jaws, does she know or care about beachgoers? Does she know or care about any of even the modes? I don't even know if she'd know if she was in a mode. But what she does know is when that shark pops up, she wants to hit it. And when she hits it, it roars at you and it goes down like that's satisfying. Or if you hit that wave ramp and now all of a sudden you're on that upper play field, every shot up there, that's like there's a kinetic satisfaction part that's important. And if you get to the part of multi ball where it's like, wait, the fin pops up and I have a time shot. It's there. There needs to be something interactive that like I mean, that's what I like about Cactus Canyon. You got Bart back there. It's very easy. Every time you hit him, his hat flies up. People love that. Oh, drop targets. Bad guys are popping up. I can hit those. People love that. Godzilla, you got the building. Oh, the building. Like the whole game reacts when you hit that building. The building's going down. Mecha's going down. There's. I feel like we're talking about two different things, though, because you're talking about somebody that's basically brand new to pinball or doesn't know much about it compared to somebody that has played pinball for a while. Right. Like you and your brother. You guys have played for a long time, so you already have a foundational set of what your opinion is, a fun pinball and not fun pinball. You already have a baseline understanding of that, so that's going to be the prism you're going to view this from. Compared to somebody just off the street that doesn't know what a ramp is, doesn't know what an orbit is, doesn't know what a pop bumper is. They're going to zero in on a shot right up the middle that's a bash because it does something. Yes. Whereas like you're talking about mechanical. Right. And your brother, he's enjoying black night and that's after playing everything else he's played because he has that baseline foundation to appreciate other nuances that a brand new player would not understand. Well, it just wouldn't. You use star Wars as an example though. And my problem with that is did any of the casual, did my mother-in-law enjoy star Wars? No, no, no. Why not? Because there's nothing in the game. Is she a star Wars fan? But there's nothing in the game. Like is she a big fan? No. I'm talking like. No, she's not. That's what I mean. That theme is squarely for Star Wars fans. Okay. But I'm saying the game itself, the kinetics, we know the toys in Star Wars, the Death Star is awesome. But how many times did I experience the Death Star the whole time I had it? One time. You need to find a new mother-in-law. That's what I'm saying. The Hyperloop is awesome. But it's a challenge to experience that Hyperloop. everything else in the game for a for a normal a casual player they're not there's really just nothing there and even my brother who you've said like did he enjoy star wars kind of did i enjoy star wars yes because my skill level is high enough that i can explore the modes well create a strategy create a strategy and kind of work my way through the game well you're getting into design theory too yeah like that's a steve richie decision on to have the pin play like that and have a design like that and that's i mean that just shows you how difficult this job is that oh yeah people have to take a theme and they have to think of okay what's going to appeal to the most people so and that's what makes godzilla great because it does have something right up the middle it makes sense and then it has various shots that's still challenging for even an average player to an above average or even a world-class player there's different challenges to it that's the key to a great game this this conversation we ended up you know we stream it's it's now 12 o'clock at night i walked jared out to the car and we're talking and he's just you know i said honestly we've we've gotten lucky in the last two years we've had some you know some bangers there's been some really fun pins and we start rolling through them on and the question was like what what you know were there any pins that were hard to stream or not as fun we we did say um james bond but we had super early code now that game's great but one of the games that we admit we struggled with streaming was Godfather. Godfather was, and even Eric Minyer was on the show. He was awesome. He explained everything, but the complexity of that game is, it's so complex. It's so complex that even like just trying to wrap our heads around, how do we want to tackle this to, to create an enjoyable path? It was really hard. It was really hard for us. And Jared was asking why. And I started and and I know this is a critique to a lot of JJP games, which is what's his name? Keith Johnson. Keith Johnson. Keith Johnson code is extremely complex and extremely deep. That's what he's known for. That's just what he does. So my question is, if JJP is rumored to have Harry Potter, one of the greatest teams ever, everybody all age ranges love harry potter but if you put keith johnson on harry potter code is there a chance that they create a game that is so complex that has seven books worth of stuff in it that the casual my mother-in-law that steps up to it is gonna is gonna just be overwhelmed or have no idea like how do you balance that or maybe she'll love it because there's so much of the theme in it i don't know or maybe they'll take the wands out because wands are dangerous that could be it i mean it's tough because let's face facts like toy story right it was a shallower code yeah but it's still a fun game to play so it's a really fun game you got to find a balance between i know that there's a lot of manufacturers out there struggle with this too. It's with where the prices are. Sometimes it might feel like you have to justify a price tag by adding in extra stuff, but you got to be careful with how the code and the rules are that it becomes so bloated that, yeah, it becomes convoluted at that point where your end user has no idea what's going on. And the tough part with pinball is, and even if you get to be an average player, above average player, you have to develop a lot of skills that become automatic to where you don't have to think about live catching, drop catching, dead balancing, trapping up, stuff like that, right? Those things have to become automatic because if they're not, you're just purely focused on that and you're not focused on anything else. So good luck figuring out a Jersey Jack pinball rule set when you're just fighting the pinball anyways. And you have no clue where you're at. I think if they have Harry Potter, I would say if they can develop a rule set that is not super easy, but not super complex and super deep, just something mid-range, I think that that would be beneficial. What if you coded a game in a way where the complexity, like you don't unlock it until you get past step one in the game? Like what I mean is like I think multipliers, I think multipliers for a lot of people get very like that was a problem with Star Wars was if you think about how many lights you have your mode shots, but then you also have the combo. You can move the combo. You have you have the multiplier lights. It's like, what light am I looking at? It's like a plus, like kind of like a console game, like you defeat the game, then you play like another playthrough. And it's like, oh, I'm thinking like something like that. What if the first mode you play, there are no multipliers? You can't use them. You can't do it. It's just that way the first mode you're playing is just very clearly focused on the mode. But once you get through the first mode, which most casuals won't, every mode after that, you have more options. You can do more things. My question is, does somebody who is not into pinball even realize a game like Star Wars has multipliers? Probably not. They have no idea. But what they realize is – I promise you, I have no idea. But all the lights, that's the problem that I think, like Deadpool, what I like about Deadpool is the light show. When you're in a mode, the only lights that are on are the mode shots. Like there's nothing else in the way. And then for you to cash out, every light's off and it's like boom. It's like strobing. Hit that. And that's – you get the opposite in a JJP game. Every light's on all the time. And so it's very confusing to know what to hit. And, you know, we've avoided that. I mean, maybe one way you avoid that is you don't allow – you can't stack a mode and a multi-ball that way you don't have multi-ball light show and mode light show freaking out i just i maybe maybe we're in a whole nother topic of just communication during what if the game taught you how to play the game um yeah a tutorial option would be cool especially with light shows i and i think some games are better than others with choreographing like insider shot is or this you log in and it goes okay hit these three shots this is going to start your multi-ball and then you do that and then ball trainer yeah like a pinball trainer like i mean it's just kind of like the heads up tournament like i i would agree something like that would be great i think it's just it's very tough because again the only people that are reading the rules right on the little scorecard or a little rule card. Well, the only people that read the little rule card and even pay attention to the play field art are people that are already pinball players, right? They've already played for a long time. They know what to look for, but there's people that even play pinball for years and they still don't look at that stuff. They just don't. And so there's already a lot of information out there. So I'm not so sure. Like I, I personally think a tutorial on IC would be pretty cool, but I don't know how useful it would be to the masses. Because there's a lot of people that still don't even know that you can hold both flippers in to change game modes and to go to DJ Mixer. There's a lot of people that don't even realize that still. And they own the games. We talk to people all the time that have owned a game for two or three years, and they're like, I just now discovered this. Is this a new code update? And I'm like, it's been in there since 2022. It's been a little while. But, yeah, it's just hard to discover some of these things. Half-shell challenge. We put on the Flippin' Out, we put a half-shell challenge video, and people are like, I've had this game for years and never knew it was in it.
    60:23
    I just think I know we were talking about, like, when a game is released. This was when we were at the Stern Factory, and I think I was talking to Team Owen.
    60:32
    And basically the idea is when a game is released, if it's not at 1.0, which pretty much none of them are, like, what do you prioritize in the code? And I know some designers, they want to show the depth. They want to show how much they're going to put in the game. But I remember Keith was like, no, on release day, I prioritize the first 10 minutes. I want to make sure that the first 10 minutes of the game is as buttoned up as possible. Because that's what people are going to experience. It's opening day. 95% of people, that's all they will say. The first 10 minutes. Initial reactions are everything. Look at Bond. I mean what if how bare bones that was and and a lot of people won't even touch it anymore I I'm with you so that's what I'm saying awesome game now from a design standpoint what if you carried that not only what if you carried that past though what if you carried that past the initial release and just like how do we make the first 10 minutes that's why when you you when you put the Death Star as the best toy in Star Wars that's not a first 10 minute experience you've got to beat multiple modes to get to wizard mode to blow that thing up to me it's like how do you build as much fun as possible into the first 10 minutes and to be fair on Star Wars that kind of put Dwight behind the 8 ball too because that death star shot on a premium in L.E. is not an easy shot it's very hard and you don't want to destroy the death star is the grand finale you don't want to destroy the death star in 30 seconds of getting the start Right, right. So it's kind of one of those things to where, yeah, if you're figuring out what to do early on, if I'm thinking of pinball, I want to design something in which 98% of people that come up are going to be able to experience the thing because it's very easy to do. The 2% that don't, they're literally five-year-olds just coming up and chimp flipping. They have no idea anyways. So I would want to do that. And then, yeah, just like you talked about with the rules and everything, I would want at least bare minimum your first five minutes on a game to be, like you said, very buttoned up, very tight in terms of, oh, I do this, this will happen. Then I do this, this will happen. And that leads to a path of discovery. But I know it's not as simple to do something like that because there's just so many moving things going in at once. But I definitely agree. I think that rule set wise, it would help that things are much cleaner up front in terms of understanding how to do something immediately. And I think that's probably why Black Knight appeals to you guys, too, because you know immediately what do you need to hit to light your modes. It's right there in front of you. Yeah. Right. So it's like you could accidentally start that. That's one of the key things. You don't have to skillfully start it. You could just flip away a silverback and accidentally get into something or accidentally start it at that shield. So I think there's just a lot of nuance that comes into this. I mean, I'm not a game designer, and I have nothing but respect for the people that do it because it's got to be near impossible to find. Like even Godzilla, as great as Godzilla is, one of the flaws or one of the things people complain about is like there are people that never experience a mode. It's because the scoop shot's hard. You know, like if I had my wife come down here and play the game and that's all I – you know, it used to be you had to hit the left and right ramp. They changed that. Now you just have to hit two ramps. So it's great. Hopefully somebody can get up that right ramp twice. Boom, boom. But then they still got to hit the scoop. and they got to do that. But the good thing about Godzilla is even if a casual or novice player doesn't experience a mode, there's a chance that they're going to hit that building enough to see it go down, even if it's one step, and then they're curious, what just happened? Unless it's a pro. Or they're going to hit Mechagodzilla enough. Or it's virtual locks. They're going to see it spin. But it's just like there's enough there that I think a novice or casual player could have a really fun experience in that first five minutes, first ten minutes. So what about this then? What do you guys think about this? Because I've thought about this like for way too long, probably much longer than I should. But I've always thought it would be cool if a game started. And obviously, like, I always like the idea of picking your mode at the beginning. Then as soon as you plunge, it's like you're picking your own adventure. You're in the mode already. Like Guardians? Right. Okay. But I understand the point that there's not any skill to that. You're just automatically in. So I've always wondered, what if you have a game in which you start your mode off the plunge, and then if you get through that, you unlock your tier two or level two modes. Instead of it going in there automatically, that's something that you could choose to bypass a mode up front on the plunge, and instead you have to hit that shot to start it. or something like that. It brings both worlds together. It's kind of like what I was saying earlier. What if you locked the complexity? So you can choose the mode to go, or you skip it, and then you know when you get into that mode, it's going to be more complex. Right. Basically, you start your ball without anything going. You just decide to play it old school, and then you've got to hit a scoop, ramp, orbit, whatever, to start that level two mode. Let's say you apply that to Godzilla. You're saying you would hit the start button, and it's choose your fight, you know, pops up or whatever. Gigan, you could just do it and immediately be fighting Gigan. Or you can say exit and do your normal thing of qualifying it, hit the scoop. But when you do it, it's either worth more points or it's worth more whatever. Or you just go to another level, something like that. Yeah. Yeah, I could see it. Something to make it more complex, maybe risk-reward on the player to feel like, okay, there's a reason why I need to do this. And then for the extreme, extreme casual, and again, that's nobody listening to this podcast. We're talking about just the grandma that's walking up with the grandkids, and they have a bag over their shoulder. They're kicking your ass at Pinnberg, but that's neither here nor there. And you just come up to the game, and yeah, you make it accessible for a younger kid or somebody that just wants to see something. I've always wondered if that's – I mean, obviously it's possible, but I can't think of any game that really does something like that. that puts that together. That could be a feature that Stern could add that, or even insider connected where it's just like auto mode start or something where when you hit start and that would be a really cool feature also for teaching or training, because it's like, I want to practice this mode instead of having to qualify to practice it. You could just go straight to the mode or you could pick your mode. But if that was a setting you could turn on at home, or maybe if you were an operator, you would allow it. My kids would love that. My wife would love that. I would love that. Yeah, that would be a field day because there's too many times I want to practice one particular thing. And sometimes I don't want to wait and do all the things, so I'll just take the glass off, get there quick, and then just play it as is. You could put it in Insider Connected pretty easy, which would just be practice, and then it allows you. Like free roam mode or something like that, like a sandbox gameplay. That'd be cool. I think I could see something like that. If I had Black Knight and I said, practice, start, what if it immediately acted like I've already qualified it and I've hit the shield and I'm already at the point where instead of starting a character, it allows me to pick a character and boom. From there on, be a normal game. It would just allow me to get straight into a mode or allow me... Yeah, something like that would be interesting. I don't think you label it practice, though, because you want to appeal to as many people as possible. So maybe if there's like a sandbox gameplay, like free, like that's what I was thinking. Free roam or whatever it could be. Because stuff like that was popular with Halo and game like making your own map. GTA. Yeah, exactly. It makes sense. That's what's kept GTA around for over a decade. Absolutely. It makes the game, it keeps the game relevant. It makes it fun. They've already, I mean, they're already doing it with the challenge modes in a way where you can skip to. And by the way, clarification on the black and white Godzilla. But there are – it's different. So if you own a topper, you get the King of Monsters time attack. Time attack, it's a completely – that mode is different than when you get to King of Monsters within the game normally. I got yelled at. Yeah. We just pivoted, didn't we? Well, I'm just – this is clarification. We're talking about toppers again? It's just clarification. So that is – I'm just clarifying it. So if you have the topper, you get the time mode, and the whole point of the time mode is it's never-ending ball save. You get five minutes. It's a fun mode. What mode is with that BART topper behind you? Well, that's the shooting mode. I don't know what it's called. Shootout or something? It's really fun. Does it have, like, a special mode attached to it? It does. It's not in any other game because there's lights on the topper. It's not. You have to have that. But anyways, on the Godzilla 70th that just came out, that challenge mode I'm pretty sure is just going to be like you just warped to the King of Monsters mode that's already in the game. So back to what we're saying. So challenge modes, we're already doing that in challenge modes to get to some of the wizard modes that they put time into. I guess how popular would something like that be, though? Who would that appeal to with what we're talking about? Like, yeah, it would be cool to us three to do. I think it would be huge. Would that be something like the majority of people would care about? I do. I genuinely think, like my dad, every single time he goes down to play Turtles, Can he get into Turtle Power, the pizza multi-ball? Yeah, normally he can hit that enough to get into that. If you pick Scott Donatello, he's one ramp shot away from getting into Turtle Power multi-ball. But has he ever felt like he achieved something in that game? No, because he's never gotten into a mode and then beaten a mode. Compare that to Deadpool, where Deadpool, all you have to do is fall into a scoop and you're in a mode. like I've had novice players at my house beat bad guys in Deadpool because they're one shot away from experiencing being in the mode and then it's clear enough to know what to do that they're like I'm playing it again I'm not this cat guy Sabretooth I'm playing him until I beat him you know they just keep doing it because they know they can do it they can pick him well the end of the modes too are brilliant yeah on that game the fact that yeah it just like just focus you on the scoop completely it kind of reminds me of gorgor in that way that you hear like the music just kind of change and pump up you know i'm talking about tom i know joel i have no idea i do yes you know what gorgor is yeah what is it it's it was the game that had the first speech in it oh you do know have you played it before i have it was i mean i honestly i've missed me being bad no it's just some of these older games it's like i appreciate it for what it is but i just I'm over it. You don't like the devil on the back glass and half-naked women? I appreciate it for what it is, but I'm not a tournament player and I'm not going to ever own that game. I'm looking at it right now, Joel. I also have LaserQ right next to it, which is totally different than Gorgar. You know what LaserQ looks like? I've actually played it. It looks ridiculous. But it's great. It has dudes in Speedos and muscles out playing Space Pool. That's a great theme.
    71:57
    I think you have a good idea, though, Travis. It's just maybe it's sandbox. I just don't necessarily need it. I just wish there was a way that novice players could just get straight into experiencing a mode.
    72:13
    And maybe that doesn't have to be coded by default. Because my only fear with that, like the thing I don't like about Guardians is when everybody always plays the same mode. So you watch it. It like there eight modes in it but you always starting with the same one And that what I kind of like about Turtles is I like that i not picking the mode sure you could change it but same thing with stranger things you can technically change the mode and stranger things but to change it you have to go back in the pop bumpers how much control do you really have by all hitting pop bumpers think of the video game world like you play a video game for the first time it kind of walks you through like how to do certain things Like, oh, I mean, not every game does that, but. Except for Elden Ring. No, it doesn't do that. No, it just beats the shit out of you the whole time. It's known for being brutal, yeah. Like some of the games like Call of Duty or something, you have like a mini intro campaign in the beginning of the game where you actually learn how to play, you know. So I don't think it's something like you would do initially, like when you hit the start button, but maybe through Insider Connect. I think that would be an awesome idea.
    73:30
    Just like, how do you start this multiball? I would like to see, if possible, if Stern would actually start doing tutorials for their games. Like they actually play, they edit it, they do the full-on tutorial for it, and then maybe offer that on the screen itself. So it's like an option that you can go into. So it's kind of like you have like Carl's attract thing that shows up, which is cool. But then imagine if that video, like if they can play a video, that's a promo on there. Surely they can get a video. That's like a tutorial on there. Absolutely. Two and a half to five minutes, however long you need it. That's for the home user to say, Hey, okay, here's what it is. You play this game and it doesn't have to go in. like super depth, but no, you just have the designer or the rules person show up and explain it real quick, like a quick promo. Cause they could still have it on YouTube. You'll still get the views and all that. And then there would definitely be value in the tutorial. I just think, I think you're right. I think if, if it was linked to insider connect and there was a way, I don't know if you tag your profile with a skill level or have a QR code, learn how to play the game. But I'm just saying if, if my wife came in and she home team, goes to her name and then hit start. You know, like Venom. Venom would say, as soon as you hit start, it would pop up and it would say, like, I don't know, it was like, save progress or no progress. If at that moment, it would pop up, boom, and it would say, like, I don't know, beginner, use whatever you want. Maybe not even tutorial, but if it was like beginner mode or normal mode. If she picks beginner, sure. Normal. Call it Joel. Carl. But I'm saying, I would love that the easy mode, I'm not saying the easy mode needs to have less shots. What I'm saying is, if the easy mode, if she picked the easy mode in Jaws, what if that means whatever shot she is, she's one shot away from a mode? Hasn't that been done before, Travis? I mean, you can kind of... Batman Forever or something like that? Yeah, I mean, there's certain ways that you could do it anyways. You could go into the install menu and install Super Easy or whatever it is. And there you know where the comp install is and all that. Now, of course, obviously you got to get into the coin door to do that so if we're speaking on accessibility for somebody that's just playing it on location no it doesn't have access to that yeah it it would the nicest part to it what i would love is if you had the ability to take your qr code from insider connect and then choose what difficulty this game is going to be set on as soon as you log in like that's that's what i would like to have access to well to me that would be cool Because I totally agree. I would love to play, if I was playing a one-on-one game with my nephew, and I log in with my account, I'm playing on normal. He logs in, he's playing on easy. I'm fine with the score. I want to compete with that handicap. But if I'm playing Godzilla, I'm fine with easy mode saying as soon as he hits start, he's already in the scoop. Technically, he's picking his battle. He's starting right into a battle. I mean, you could set that or have the designer choose. maybe he already has one ball virtually locked you can't but you can't play two people on the same game with different difficulties why not because you have to set that in the menu well i'm saying like with the qr code like why could yeah why could they not isolate it to each player because i could go on a console game why can't you huh and play like borderlands right and i could be in the same co-op group with my family and i could be playing on the hardest levels and they could be playing on just the cannon fodder level i'm with you like ball say be double whatever it normally is but i'm also not a coder so i don't know how difficult this would be to do some coders like you sons of bitch travis travis if ray if ray can code a game i mean it can't be that bad right joel joel ray that's what joel said i didn't say it ray he's so high on you playing led zeppelin the only way the only reason i call him out is because i know he listens that's it see now the real joel comes out see now you guys know what i go through behind the scenes anyways i don't we if you haven't noticed the news is light so this we just wanted to have a fun conversation if you agree with any of us or disagree or tell us we're dumb or if you can call us right you do it on youtube write the comment or write it on pin side or shoot us an email at triple J and gmail.com. Let us know. Do you agree with this? Do you not? Whatever. I mean, I'm, I, it's an interesting thought, but to me, we're just, we're just talking about accessibility. I just, I do really what it boils down to. I just think the games that have stood out to me are at least the ones that have been more and more receptive by my, my friends and family that get to play them. Sure. Mechanical satisfaction. I do think having an interactive toy is important, but it, I'm realizing you're right. Like, Black Knight, you can be in a mode in two shots. Godzilla, sure, it's three shots. But one of those shots is challenging. Like Cactus Canyon, you can really be in, like, I don't know, just trying to think of that shallower experience. You're talking about just easy to learn, hard to master. Yeah. Which is typically how a lot of your 70s and 80s pinball machines were as well. That's why Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness, that's why they're so popular. for that exact reason, because you know exactly what to do, right? On attack from Mars, it doesn't mean everybody's getting to total annihilation. You guys still hit the shots. Yet anybody could destroy a little saucer up the middle. You could do that by accident completely. I've watched my three-year-old do that in the past. Okay, another question. And do you agree with this statement that this is a statement from my good friend RetroSungo? So he says that 50% of the pinball experience to him is audio.
    79:37
    Audio makes. Do I agree that it's 50% of the experience for him? Do you agree for your personal experience when you play the game? I mean, I know your answer. I know the answer. But do you feel that audio is 50% of the overall experience to you, good or bad? with my headphones on or with off my with my headphones on like what like what time are we playing this joel i think okay if you're at home a home collection you're you're committed to you know you're focused on not tournament because i know tournament you'll drown it out and listen to whatever t swift while you're playing a game but um when you're at home like you really want to experience a game maybe that's your question what percentage would you put audio being as as how important as audio 100 of my enjoyment is when i hit a fucking shot okay 100 of my enjoyment's when i hit start and i just crank up the volume and i just get out my lawn chair and i just sit there and watch it i watch all the pretty lights go would you ever play the game muted would you ever play it yeah i do it all the time and that's fun for you at home well because i'm playing pinball i'm just focusing on the shots and everything i get lost in it the sound package Joel, I'm weird. Okay, so here's the thing. I love the sound packages. Like on some of these games, I have like Iron Maidens over there, right? Yeah. And Godzilla, Jurassic Park, all these games have subwoofers on them. So if I want to listen to the music, I will crank it up. Like it is cool hearing the Jurassic Park, right?
    81:05
    Like that's cool. Then there's other times I just want to pop on a podcast and just play the game. Yeah. Because I get lost in it. Like when I play pinball, I don't think about anything else. Like if I could have the most stressful day ever, I'll step up to a pinball machine and I'll just get lost in it. Like I was 15, 20 minutes. So, I mean, and you just audio party experience. Yeah, of course. You changed the sound package on your iron maiden to like in sync, right? What did you hip hop made in baby? It's awesome. I miss it. Not that one, but on my Ellie that I had. Okay. Clearly audio is important. I mean, I have headphone adapters on all my games. Pinwoofer makes amazing products. A lot of people upgrade their speakers. You said you had subwoofers. I know when I stream, I'm doing direct capture of audio. My brother and I are both wearing headphones. We're trying to hear everything about that game. The reason I asked the question, though, is when we stream Black Knight, Black Knight's sound package is fantastic. It's fantastic. Metal guitars, you know, blood pumping. It's fantastic. But one of the guys in chat said, hey, there's an alternate sound package on that game. you should try a game with it on.
    82:16
    I turned it to the alternate sound package, and it completely changed the experience for us. Maybe not completely. It wasn't a, it wasn't, but it was, it was a drastic change in a positive way. Oh, okay. It's like, it's like orchestrative. Every mode, instead of it just being more metal guitar, it's like the modes are very different depending on the sound. And it just completely changed, like, I mean, heart rate increase or adrenaline or like Jared and I just got sucked into the game even further with this audio package change. And it was something that I would consider a good audio package. And then the change. And I just, once again, it just, I, I, the more I'm into pinball or maybe it's just streaming with headphones. The, the, the importance of a good audio package is slowly increasing in my mind because you take a game like toy story where that audio package is painful like i would struggle to own toy story because of the audio package but if you told me today they they they release a code update and they they they change the songs or improve the audio package in toy story it might it would be like well okay maybe i would own that game or something now if we now the real question is is the importance of audio like in terms of priority i think audio is right behind like lights and actual gameplay okay in order to complete the full experience for you like i would put that ahead of lcd a hundred percent audio audio is everything and it's like that for any experience whether it's obviously music but movies right That's why a lot of people get fancy sound bar surround sound or you get like the 4K DVD with the immersive Dolby Atmos sound or whatever that is. Yeah. So, yeah, it's I mean, music is an audio package is everything. That's why call outs are important. Little SFX stuff. Oh, yeah. Is super important. So, yeah. I mean, for the overall package. Yeah, absolutely. Like I would say it's 100 percent important. Well, I think that's what Cengiz was basically saying. Unless you're muting your game or you're putting headphones on to listen to your podcasts, you can't ignore the audio. You are going to hear it. And that's every time, like it doesn't matter what you're how focused you are on the ball. The audio is still coming into your ears. And that's that's what I'm realizing is I agree. I would rather have, you know, no movie clips or terrible 3D animation or static images. Like, I don't care about any of that. But if you have good audio, that's Pulp Fiction is a perfect example. Like the sound package in Pulp Fiction. sure the movie clips are some of our grainy because it's original movie clips from the sound packages from the thing but the rest of the music really i don't know it really adds the sound tees up an emotion for you that guides what your behavior is going to be like do you feel rushed and doing something like just like we were talking about gorgar earlier that's what makes it popular because the sound like starts going faster faster you may not even have a shot anyways it just causes you to want to move faster so yeah it's in pulp fiction there's once you get through all the scenes you get to the shot the shot is what it's called and that's the adrenaline and it is the craziest sound experience one of them probably like top three i've experienced in a pinball machine because you like here you're you're the girl i don't know her name but like so the sound is kind of coming in and out the background noise and all you hear is this heartbeat it's the craziest but like what an experience what like what an awesome so i mean jaws does that too oh yeah as soon as you as soon as you hit start it does like the happy whimsical music but then what's cool is as soon as you get that ball out on the play field and you're technically in the water oh yeah that's when like jaws theme starts and that's what's pretty cool like that's immersive to me i totally agree and that's the grin that i saw in my dad's face when he was playing the game of just like immediately being sucked into that. And I, I mean, I think Godzilla does it really well, but honestly, it's like, I just think when people are like, what, who's on that design team, you know, sure. We want to know the overall designer. Cause we want to kind of have an idea of what the shots are going to be like. We want to know who's on the code. People want to know who did the art. Oh, this is a zombie at a game. This is a Christopher French game. You know, he wanted to know that. But to me, it's like more and more who's on sound. and if you tell me you hired out the sound like jjp has done on a few games they hire out the sound to some i don't know cell phone casino company it's like that is such a gut punch to me of it's just like why why would you do don't cheap out on that sound is so important so i don't know it just it i would encourage anybody to watch if you haven't heard the alternate sound package you can check out the stream that jared and i did on on flipping out youtube and basically halfway through we swap that's where this was going tom i'm not trying to this is a self-promotion it was a full-on promo don't don't go there but good luck check his desk does he have notes from zach right now uh yeah it's me it was my fault uh if i have no idea how i'm gonna cut this together but if you were just hearing and then all of a sudden there was a blank it was me at least you're willing to admit that I was getting so upset what happened is I moved my GoXLR which is funny because that's the device Travis was having issues with this isn't about me but anyways I moved the GoXLR it unplugged it which killed my sound and what was surprising is on Zencastr it immediately stopped the recording. So what they were bashing me because apparently I was plugging my YouTube channel. What I was going to say is good luck finding the alternate sound package anywhere else. Zach's YouTube channel. Okay. Yes. The live streaming. I will take ownership for. That's true. But it is on flipping out. You do do great content. I'll give that to you. You do have great content. Thank you. So anyways, try to find if you, and if you happen to be a black Knight owner, if you didn't know it, go to your adjustments. I think it's setting like a hundred and try the alternate sound package. It's freaking awesome. It's really, really good. But wait for the white night to come out.
    88:50
    The white night. Okay. Uh, just to clarify, cause. And go to Joel's video first before you do that as well.
    89:00
    Yeah. Check out my like and subscribe and thumbs up. Yep. No, uh, just so, so Tom and his reaction video is, he's like, is there going to be a jaws black and white? Is there going to, I would hope they don't do any more black and white unless the original content was black and white. Elvira, I understand because all the movies are black and white. I know it makes total sense with Godzilla, but it really didn't with Elvira, in my opinion. I got a rib cramp, sorry. But when John Wick black and white comes out, it's going to be awesome. It can't because they're already doing the noir thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, okay, what other games do they have that could possibly be black and white?
    89:42
    A Stern game? Yep. Like current games that they have. I mean, Turtles you could technically do black and white, but you'd have to redo the entire art package. That's true. I forgot about that. You're absolutely right. Eastman or whatever.
    89:58
    Spider-Man Black Edition? Oh, shit, they did that. They already did that. Yeah. Already happened. Tron. I mean, the bigger question is, theoretically, every game could have a new edition. You could do another art package for almost every game. But it just goes back to like we talked about. Buy what you see today, what you like today. If you decide to sit on the sidelines because you think something else may happen in the future, then so be it. It may happen. It may not happen. Jaws Blood and Gore edition. Which was, and we do need to wrap up, but it was just one of the things Travis said, because I was talking about Black Knight while I was fixing all this crap. But it was, you know, just if you're enjoying a game and you're thinking about buying it, yeah, do it, Travis. Just go ahead. Buy it, enjoy it, play the heck out of it. Worst case, you sell it. Best case, you keep it.
    90:48
    I know some people that are selling Godzilla, not because it's not an amazing game. It's because they feel they can play it at their friend's house or play it at the bar, you know. give, I mean, that was kind of the bigger aha for me with Black Knight was I had completely written the game off. Completely written it off as like, I heard it's brutal. It's just, it is what it is. Get it here in the house. Play the heck out of it for a few hours now. Having a blast. So if you're bored of your collection or you find there's games in your collection you're not playing,
    91:22
    trade them in. Sell, sell, sell. Do the whole yeller thing. Take it out back. Yeah. That's what you gotta do. There's some really great games out there That it's worth a shot Or make some friends in the area and swap That's something I've done before I know it's a pain, lugging and moving those things around But it's like, hey, let's swap this game for three months You know Yeah, it's a pain for like that one hour And then you have hours upon hours Yeah, I've done that before It's totally worth it Your game sucks, I want my game back Well, yeah, I mean But, I don't know, it's just Joel will trade us the game were like, Joel, why do you have everything down all the way on the end and these badass rubbers everywhere? I thought about it. I thought about it on Black Knight. I was like, I know this game is brutal. Maybe I should go ahead and close the outlanes a little bit. And boy, are they hungry. Boy, are these outlanes hungry. But honestly – Is it your Magna save? Oh, boy. I did it a few times. But you've got to be like a precog and know the ball is going in that direction to actually save the ball. but what I will say is like on a three ball game, I've gotten through three of the creatures. So it's like, it's right. It's, it's the, the chance of me potentially facing the black night on a three ball game. I feel like it's, it's possible.
    92:39
    Are you trying to collect night letters at all? I have. Yes. And I've, I've gotten to one of the, one of those multi balls only one time. So it's like, it's achieve, it's achievable, but it's going to be a challenge. So I'm fine with where it's at. but Zach challenged me or he challenged Jared and I on stream, set the game to six ball, play one player, but alternate the two of you. So it basically created a co-op game. And he said, if I could defeat the black knight, then we could, he would give away something. But in that we had gotten to the fifth guy. We had gotten to the fifth guy and I blew it. I did. I blew it. Do you know how the power sword or whatever, do you know how that works? it's it's brilliant the mode's a little bit easier for you makes them easier but to activate it you're hitting the deadliest shot in the game and that's the problem is i had it activated i'm like what do i do do i take a shot straight up the middle at that to make my life easier use your right flipper it's so if you go right flipper aim to the right of it yeah then you'll be fine i need to that's I need to get that. I need to, like, find what I feel is safer. Because to get into another mode, if you don't know in Black Knight, you have to hit the Black Knight, which you're either hitting the flail, the big stand-up right at his belly, or you hit his shield. Those are the three shots. So they're all rough. So it's like, which one's the safer shot? And to get further in the game, you have to hit him more. So it's fun, but it's a be prepared. This ball's coming right back at you, so you've got to hit and react. so what's i've been backhanding the shield but even that doesn't feel it's not 100 safe i mean it's yeah it's a fun challenge you could go straight down the middle shot as well but okay well that's uh we got to wrap up um i gotta go jill's in trouble with his wife she's got to make a call for a patient we got to figure out lunch so um sorry to everybody that this was a month since last time we recorded hopefully it won't take that long again but uh yeah let's go ahead and plug it up starting with tom uh i am fox cities pinball on twitch youtube and facebook and instagram uh you can find me there but uh i have well the podcast probably won't be out but uh watch our pin skins coming up uh this sunday pin golf thank you tom nice uh Travis? Yeah, I'm Travis, and I'm on here on Triple Drain Pinball Podcast, found on the TPN network. Are we on Spotify? Oh, it's under the – Apple, Podbean. It's on all the things. Yeah, so you can find me on all the things with these two knuckleheads and the pinball company on YouTube doing tutorials, videos, stuff like that. Absolutely. Those are good. I'm Joel. I do the Flippin' Out Pinball stream every Wednesday night on YouTube. Check that out. That's also good. We have merch. My brother and I, we worked with Johnny Crap. He helped design a pretty cool logo and kind of just fun art piece. So we have merch now. Check that out on Silver Ball Swag. I know Fox City's pinball merch is on Silver Ball Swag. Triple Drain merch is on Silver Ball Swag. So buy a little of everything.
    95:54
    But, yeah, we really appreciate the support. All the people that support us on Patreon. If you want a lunchbox, go to Zazzle. All the good stuff. But I think that's it. Tom is like decked out. Oh, he's got all the Triple D stuff on. Yeah. Joel, Joel pays me well. We didn't even do a Tom talks this episode either. Like, I'm sorry, Tom. I told Joel we're going to do that. And Joel's like, shut up. We're not going to do it. If you need more Tom talks, go to Foxy's Pitball YouTube and you got all the reaction videos. Nobody interrupts him. It's all Tom. It's great. It's all Tom. I interrupt myself.
    96:33
    You get the last words. Goodbye.