Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. Happy 2026, The Pinball Show. I'm Zach. This is Dennis. Dennis, how are you, my friend? I'm great, Zach. Hey, do you love New Year's? Is this a thing to you? Do you resolution stuff? Do you... I don't do the resolutions. I think we have this conversation. Maybe it's not on the TWIFT podcast. Yeah. Yeah, no, I don't really do resolutions, but it's a fresh start. A fresh start. I'm a data-oriented person, so I think of things often on calendar year annual bases. And so I like to kind of think about how did the prior year go? Do I want things to go differently? Cyclical for data reasons. Yeah. That's just a good recap time, too, because I like to take stock of what's already occurred. sometimes like to do a little bit of prognostication get that little crystal ball out my friend you're going to love this episode I already do this is a lot of data I love all episodes Zach as you can tell regardless of what the YouTube comments say there's always one there's always one Zach well they call you Mr. Perky I don't even go through and read all of those anymore I learned that from my watch YouTube channel which didn't have the growth You see, that was a 2025 review. I didn't do a lot of prerecorded videos, and my numbers show that. Plus, I'm inherently not all that interesting. That also is a factor. Speaking of not that interesting. More of a shower, not a grower. Zach, well, speaking of that, Joel of the Flip N Out Pinball channel didn't hit 10,000. He's over 1,000 short. Are you firing him? You know what? Flip, we had a goal. And one of my mottos, I have a lot, and I can go on T-shirts. What's your favorite motto? those is i don't know my bye bye bye probably yeah uh some of them but one of my favorite is i just don't make goals that i don't achieve so it's just a waste of time if i'm creating goals that i know i'm not going to achieve so i'm going to blame this one solely on joel engelberth yes because i would i would probably you might want to phrase it in a delicate way i would because he's a big golf cart guy. I'd maybe Ricky Bobby it and just tell him if he ain't first, he's last. That's right. Maybe he knows what to do with his hands. He doesn't know what to do with his subscribers, obviously. We had a lot of growth for myself at Flip N Out Pinball. We'll surpass the 10,000 subscriber on YouTube. If it wasn't for those meddling YouTube people here that are watching right now, come on. Go follow the Pimple Show. Did they not follow, like, and subscribe? ride they bet we're pretty low here too we just we don't push a lot but we didn't start doing the video thing until part way through the year like about half love the video they love the video okay again i don't go through all those comments so go 2026 is going to be one hell of a year i'm super excited about it because i was really disappointed uh because they he never wrote because he posted on pin side so i did follow that but there was someone when we talked about the screen size and spike three i want to again we're recapping 2025 here briefly um made fun of how small my TV is that you see partially back there. I started to put smaller TVs up and he never said anything. So now it's just back to the other one. I even was going to get one of those little tiny like LED little ones that you can upload onto a SIM card. For an ant. And for an ant. Yes, it was a TV for ants. And then I didn't even bother. I took it off my wish list for Christmas because I was like, you didn't even talk about it when I put the little like 13-inch TV up there. I was going to put a CRT up there. It made me chuckle every time. I'm not going to go to this effort. This is a follow through. That was a pretty deep little joke there that I loved. Every time I seen it, I laughed. Yeah, because you did notice it. But I was like, you know what? Sometimes the joke's not worth the effort. And I run into that a lot. But I know we're going to get into some data later. But speaking of recaps, it's been about a month because we took off for the new year. You had – like the end of an old 1960s Batman show, you had left us on a cliffhanger of prizes. Prizes that Flip N Out Pinball had sponsored for the show. Prize totaling over $3,500 worth of pinball items. So we were doing a nice what we called season shillings holiday giveaway here at the pinball show. Thank you for being a part of it, Dennis. And, yeah, really quick, I want to recap who the winners are. Now, we've reached out to these winners. Many of them are already responding, telling us what their addresses are so that we can send them spam. No, so you can send them their prizes. Have any of them, this will be another fun one for referencing Joel and your YouTube show, are any of them so far a non-U.S. resident that have replied to you? Have you seen it? I don't. I haven't looked. Okay. But I hope. I hope for the sake of my wife Nicole's shipping stuff. I don't. Oh, and I will preemptively apologize to the listeners. I am getting over a cough, and I don't expect Zach to cut them all out. I will try and mute if I do start coughing, but I'm fine. I feel fine. Okay. Is it swine flu? All right. So who won the Mando topper? Oh, the big Mando topper. Thank you so much for the support. Kyle W. Kyle W. is going to win that $2,000 Mandalorian topper. That's over half of the prize value right there. A lot of people are like, well, what if I don't have a – sell the damn thing. I don't care what you do with it. Or buy a Mando. Buy a Mando. Wait, sure. Yeah, buy a Mando. Either way. They've vaulted that Mando. Well, you can find them used. No, you can't. Never. Nowhere. You can't find them anywhere used. It might be hard to find one of the 21-page install wavy hand Baby Yoda instruction ones because after that much effort, do you really want to sell it? The Venom Armor set goes to Travis S. Travis S., congratulations. And for some of you, like maybe there's two Travis S's. Here's the deal. If you get an email from us, you know you won. If you didn't, then you didn't. I think you've sent all the emails already, right? Yes. Yeah. Rush Translite goes to Jeremy N. Jeremy N., congratulations. mandalorian shooter rod greg p go greg p john wick shooter rod summer c congratulations summer avengers infinity quest interior art blades jim s the mandalorian interior art blades chris f king kong banner julie f jurassic park banner chad a the godfather banner thomas g Jurassic Park player mat, Rich M. Hopefully Rich puts that under like an Avengers game. It's so specific. Why don't he put it under the data East Jurassic Park? Oh, well, that would work. Yeah. Flip N Out Pinball T-shirt, Jeff E. And an additional Flip N Out Pinball T-shirt, Scott G. Congratulations to all of the winners, and thank you so much for the continued support. Over 100 entries, so I'm pretty happy with that. I saw – because the email is alert on my phone too, even though I always tell people they want to talk to me to email through a separate email. I do actually see those. So I saw them pouring in with the screenshots from YouTube. So most of them were putting screenshots of their comment from YouTube. So I was like, wow, this is – apparently this was much – I won't say easier, but I'll say people definitely preferred this sort of entry style than our last year one with the audio clips because we didn't get nearly this many submissions with audio. And I don't think that the show was less popular last year. I think it was just the format was more inconvenient. I think of any of the pinball media out there, we are single-handedly on the pinball show giving more than all of them, giving back to some of these viewers and listeners. There's a dealer sponsoring all the prizes. How would all the other podcasts sponsor? We had a nice little hook there. Yeah, but I'm just saying because if you're not getting support from an outside entity, that could be – I mean $3,500 worth of prizes is a pretty big chunk out of Patreon for a lot of shows probably won't pull $3,500 in Patreon. Dennis, I think the content that we provide here at the Pinball Show is priceless. That's true. Can you put a dollar amount on that smile? I think what we can do is say you ain't first, you're last. That's right. Let's get into the top stories of pinball this year. Are we going to start with starting? So we're not going to do the 2025 recap this episode, everybody. That will probably fall into 188. So 187, what we've got for you is some pinistry news as well as we're going to break down some sales data, some pretty big sales data from myself as a distributor, what games sold. You might be really surprised on what sold better than others. I'm even going to I'm even going to I'm going to talk about and break down the percentages between the companies that we sold for because we know how big of a market hold Stern Pinball has in this industry or does it? Stay tuned to find out We'll talk about that What games really sold this year? Can you believe that that sold that well? I would have thought that sold more than that We'll talk about all of that But first, it's always Stern Pinball Where's my Pokemon? Production updates. Should be coming end of January, maybe. Question. Past couple of weeks, they've been doing nothing because the first two weeks of January, the line is shut down for inventorying purposes. So they're doing all of that. But we will get here in January, as we've talked about before, Metallica Remastered Premium back on the line this month, as well as Stranger Things Pro and Premium and Star Wars Fall of the Empire Pro and Premium. As well as, I believe that the new Cornerstone for 2026, this Q1 Cornerstone, will be debuted sometime this month. I do think that, and subsequently on the line, if I'm a betting man. I do think that they are, we're seeing it later than we typically do. Last couple of years, CES rolled around and we'd already seen the new one. So, you know, maybe it's later this month, maybe into February. I know that they're going to be building the new cornerstone into February. A lot of rumors is Pokemon. Yeah. Or Transformers, I've heard, too. Strong rumors are Pokemon. I still lean to Pokemon. Why do you think? Because I, and I didn't go back and research it. I probably should have. But, you know, I was thinking about this week how, yeah, like last year, I think the, you know, the teaser was in December. We've always, right? Like, we normally know by now. sometimes it's january early january but we're almost mid-january now and i like what do you i just was wondering do you have a theory about like what's going on because my normal my normal argument for delay would be if you're so busy making other stuff you might as well keep making what you need because the line's already busy but uh we know walking dead remaster isn't isn't doing and what Metallica did. It could have been that Jaws 50th push. Possibly. Because remember, they were building it to the end of the year, and that was kind of it. And we'll see in the data sets on sales that sold very well. Maybe it was that, because they don't have that big of a December push production-wise. I also believe it to be the case that it could be ramping up code for the new release. I wonder if the code's not as far along as they had hoped it would be. That's one of the bigger criticisms Stern has gotten, and if they don't have a licensing reason to have to force it out right now, maybe they were like, let's give them a few more weeks. Let's get another mode in there. Especially, we know that this release is going to be a little bit different if it is. Because George Gomez talked about this kind of being, I think, Jack Danger's game, and then he stepped away or whatever happened where he's no longer a designer and then George Gomez stepped in to finish the job out. So maybe that kind of threw a wrench into it too, delaying things. I don't know. It could be a licensor thing. I think that come February there's an anniversary for Pokemon, if it is Pokemon. So maybe there's more of a February push. I simply don't know. I don't know. But I still am hearing pretty strong Pokemon rumors. Yeah, I think it's Pokemon. And I would be totally fine if it is Pokemon. I'd be totally fine if we do a Transformers after that. And I'm coming around on the idea of the rumor Fallout, too. I really would like to see what they do with Fallout. If they're doing Fallout, is it going to be the show? Is it going to be the game? What's the art style? Is it really going to be Elwynn? yeah i actually and that's even kind of lower on my question mark list uh i'm just really curious what they would do i mean i um i commented on my other podcast eclectic gamers podcast that you we've just not been seeing the use of video games as pinball like everyone is like terrified and every time we think that's going to happen ends up not like cuphead but you know like from the homebrew side like that's where all the hype is sonic you know the all this other stuff is like just you know video games are a big thing and i think maybe the manufacturers would have done this sooner if there was still a as big of an arcade market as there used to be because it would like getting kids to drop money in you use a current video game it would make a lot more sense and i just think they've been really gun shy about i don't know if our buyers are the buyers that have the nostalgia for a video game that we can get the license to and do. So, you know, Pokemon is so many things. I didn't play the games. You know, there's the cartoons, there's the trading cards, there's, you know, it's just a whole little empire unto itself. So who knows what that ends up being. Fallout, though, it's either the TV show or it's the video game. Like, there's nothing else. Do you think, maybe I'm declaring 2026 and pinball as the year of the video game titles. I still think it'll be a minority of what we see come out, but I might be wrong. Let's think about it. Pokemon, Fallout, if those rumors fall true. If J.J.P., if the rumor of Sonic the Hedgehog video game. Yeah, unless they base it off the movie. What's the rumor of, what is it, Play Mechanics, their collaboration with Chicago Gaming Company? I didn't know there was a rumor. Yeah, there's a rumor that we, the rumor is Halo. Oh. Halo is the rumor. Huh. That's four video game titles, and that's not even counting the other manufacturers. True. Just saying. That's heavy. It is. That's heavy. So this could be, quite frankly, could be the year of the video game titles. And I think welcomed by a lot of people. likely. Okay, so that was January. So we're going to see this cornerstone here soon enough. March comes along and they're going to be making over at Stern Pinball Godzilla premiums. April, we're going to see Godzilla Pro, King Kong Pro, James Bond Pro, Jaws Pro, and premium. So April feels like a catch-up month. So that would kind of tell me that we're probably going to see maybe end of April, we may see a release from Stern, their second cornerstone, April-May, I would guess. Q2, Jurassic Park Pro, King Kong Premium will be on the line. As of right now, tentatively, these always change, but Q3, Metallica Remastered Premium, Star Wars Fall of the Empire Pro and Premium. Interesting to note, no future plans to build any more uncanny X-Men Pro and Premium, nor any James Bond Premiums. And I would guess probably no James Bond Pros after they build them in April. So jump on that. Stern did have a promotion they launched here in January, Dungeons & Dragons. For anybody purchasing a Dungeons & Dragons pinball machine of any model starting in January and ending at the end of January, they will be offered an exclusive highly collectible Dungeons & Dragons The Tyrant's Eye promotional banner as well as a D20 pint glass. What makes them highly collectible versus just collectible? Same thing. I almost bolded it in our notes. It was like highly collectible versus collectible. Maybe because you can't purchase them. So maybe that's what makes them collectible. I don't know. Collect them all. New accessories are released for Star Wars Fall of the Empire. Did you see these things? I don't think I saw all of them. The C-3PO moving his head around? Yes. Oh my god That thing is selling like bonkers That's unbelievable That's phenomenal I loved the release of that Especially whenever you put it next to Your other Star Wars R2D2 topper And then this guy talks That's cool So those should be shipping now And then all the other Stormtrooper shooter rod Expression lighting We've talked about that that's exciting stuff now what I did find very interesting I believe is that the Star Wars Fall of the Empire topper C3PO topper you can it can be used on the prior 2017 released game I think that's really cool I always get it mixed up with the Walking Dead if it's the Walking Dead that you can put on but no I think it's the C3PO one Also, a new topper released for Jaws 50th anniversary. What? So it looks the same. It just has a plastic placard that says 50th anniversary, and the frame around the billboard is red, mud red, instead of yellow. People poo-pooed that thing. It's always funny when people shit on it, and those are usually the ones that sell really well. That thing's been selling wonderfully, and they're limiting it. So they cut off dealers' ability to purchase them at the end of 2025. So that does not mean you still can't order one. It just means that whatever dealers have spots-wise, that's all we can sell. So you can still buy, buy, buy. But they're not making that until March. Well, that's not all that atypical, is it? It's just weird. I don't know why. You're announcing something, and then it's three months later. I don't know. Where is the R2-D2 top? Oh, wait, no, sorry. That was years ago. Flashbacks. Is Jack Danger making a new game? I thought he's the creative guy. Head of community. Yeah, head of community. So I know that Expo, they did a lot of, they're pushing right now, Stern's pushing a lot of marketing and media on the Drinks with Jack campaign. They're cutting up a lot of the reels and stuff for that. A lot of conversations that happened at Expo between some of the executives, some of the creators, and Pinball Jack and all of that. And one of them, and oh, what was that? The Dutch Open? I think it was an overseas convention that Gary and Jack were there. Seth Davis? I don't know. but they were talking about Jack doing this new series, a video series where they're going to walk you through. Stern's going to walk you through how a pinball machine from concept to production. Um, so they're doing a video series on that. And I think that Jack dangerous starting on that. And some video has surfaced from him showing some of the basic layouts of that. And it's, I think themed around tank girl, the comic series i don't know much about tanker i've not read it there was a movie years ago it's kind of a cult classic uh i remember the movie i've seen it a few times i just i don't remember there were there were dog soldiers i think they had little devices that suck the water out of people not the dogs oh people let's say yeah no but it was really really really zany uh that i I mean, maybe it's a really, really popular comic because I didn't really read comics. What a weird, like odd. No, I think it's super niche. Like this would be like, hey, let's let's theme a game and let's just base it off of Electric Six's Danger High Voltage music video. Levels of weird like which I don't know. You've seen that video. No reference. That's funny. Look it up sometime. It's OK. uh but it's fried would be my what my generation would call it it's a fried video and the song itself is very weird too uh so yeah i mean at least i i do know of tank girl um that movie didn't do well though but again you said the comic so so this is separate from so there's a video thing what's this drinks with jack thing i wasn't familiar with i'm just saying that's where i've seen a lot of marketing push on on that lately and it reminded me of jack danger and his upcoming Are they doing other vice integrations like Vapes with Vinacore? Crack with Carol? Vapes with Vinacore is a pretty good joke. That's a pretty good punchline there. Nicely done. I was wondering what the lead-up was. I was like, okay, I'll roll with it. You've got to let me cook a little bit. We're starting from a range that's turned off. I've got these things heating up. I thought I smelled gas. I wondered what Tank Girl was. I looked it up. I got to say the illustrations are beautiful. The comic illustrations are phenomenal. So that's very cool. I don't know the theming, but that's really cool. I can get behind that. But then I wondered, like, if it is Tank Girl, like you said, very niche. I think it is. Maybe I'm wrong. I mean, you know, it wouldn't be the first time. It feels like if they're going to do all of this work, they're going to sell a product. I have a hard time believing they won't. I mean, I guess. But might this be a specialty product? Maybe, or maybe limited. Yeah, very limited. Limited product that comes out. That's what it feels like to me. But we will see. The layout-wise, you guys think Deadflip has it on some of the video stuff. It's that quintessential Jack Danger type of layout that I'm a big fan of. So I'm already liking what I'm seeing. Does it have a rototarget? I don't. I could be wrong, but I don't believe so. Probably not. Well, maybe someday. It'll probably have outladen spinners, though. That's the thing. Sorry about the throwback. I feel like we're just going in the same cycle. How long have we been in this hobby? I mean, it is cyclic. I mean, that's why we're so thrown off. Like, we thought we'd be talking about CERN's release on this episode, and when it didn't happen, here we are. coming up with other stuff. Here we are. So I'm looking forward to all of that. Speaking of media, Monsters has a tutorial and James Bond has a tutorial from Joel at Flip N Out Pinball. So go to the YouTubes and check those out if you want to learn more into the depth of James Bond because Monsters you can figure out. Yeah. Just search on YouTube for pinball and then sort by least subscribed. The thumbnails are, I think the thumbnails are good. I'm sorry. I'm putting so much into those thumbnails, man. I think because I've not been doing straight down the middle stuff lately, I might have been doing a featurette. So, like, all of this energy is going to – Have you thought about letting Jared have his own spinoff show That true If I start selling Magic the Gathering cards I might But no like one of the thumbnails I was like an hour and a half in and I like Zach, what the fuck are you doing? Like, stop. Because Joel will do something. He'll give me some kind of challenge for a pose. And he was holding a pretend lightsaber without a lightsaber. So I had to CGI a lightsaber in there with shadowing and everything. Then the lightsaber has to shine. So what happens if it shines? It casts a color onto person. So I had to then find a way to shine green onto Joel as he – This is a lot of work for a little tiny thumbnail. I'm trying to run a compass. This is fascinating. Okay. Don't you stifle Joel's creativity. If you want a closer look video on the Walking Dead remastered topper, You can go to Flip N Out Pinball social media channels where I did a reel on that. Yeah. Yeah. Not that Stern will share it or anything, but, you know, whatever. They don't want to play favorites. That's right. The Uncanny X-Men gameplay video with the new topper. If anybody wants to see that new X-Men topper, you can go check that out on Flip N Out Pinball YouTube as well. A lot of fun stuff coming from the team over at Flip N Out Pinball as well as Joel in 2026. Barrels of fun. winchester's starting to ship nice finally you know you've had yours for a while for yeah i've had a long while number one for a while still love it man i love that game but where you're going to see them popping up at locations as well as in people's homes uh slowly but surely they are coming out they just want to make sure everything's right california is getting one i think the flipper room in california go check that out glow in the park in wisconsin it's like a miniature Oh, I love that name. That's really clever. I love it too. But they're really diving into arcade and pinball, so go check them out. Game Galaxy in Tennessee around the Nashville area. So they're popping up. They also, at Barrels of Fun, they had a final-ish call for Dune. So why do you say final-ish? Because I thought it was final. Because these companies can't commit. Committing is so tough for some of these companies because they didn't make all of the Dunes that they had limited it. I think it was like 1,000 or something. Right, right, yeah. What are they around? 700-ish maybe? They've made a pretty big, especially in Q4. We probably sold more in Q4 than probably 60% of what they sold in the first couple months of them coming out. You had been mentioning that. They've made a huge push. To me, I actually, I think it was yesterday, I saw on the Pinball subreddit on Reddit, hence subreddit, someone had asked about Dune versus Harry Potter. The comments were overwhelmingly Dune. And I was really surprised. Overwhelmingly doomed. How about that? Okay. All right. So the reason I call it final-ish is because they claimed that they're going to be taking orders up until the end of 2025, December 31st, from direct and from dealers. And we're past that now. So they cut them off. Now, dealers still have some. I'm dwindling and flipping out, but still have some. But they said ish because they said this is probably the last time that they'll build dunes. Okay. So they're leaving the door a little ajar in case they need to slip through sandworms through. So they're saying like if push comes to shove, they have no intention on doing them anytime soon. But they're probably still left with like maybe 200 that they could build before they reached 1,000. So they're like, yeah, maybe we come out with them in the future. But right now, we need to shift over to Winchester Mystery House production. And even if we're running two lines, we really predominantly need to start pushing those. I do know that they're going to build January, February, March for Dune. So a lot of those. So dual lines until they're hoping to get done with all of the orders of Dune by the end of March. And then they're moving on. They did announce a Dune topper, an alternate back glass. They revealed those while we've been gone. the order window from barrels now closed for the topper another weird thing they announced the topper they said hey we're going to take orders up until january 7th i believe um and then that's it but we're not building them until august so strange don't know why i some people were like oh it's because of this cash flow thing like i can see service levels thinking that and i don't know either way. I just say it as it is on here. But I can also see them revealing it because I probably would too. If I knew that I was doing a last call on the game itself at the end of the year, I wouldn't want to wait until August to pitch the topper. I would want to be like, not only are we closing out you being able to order a Dune game at the end of the year, here's what the topper is going to look like too. We're not making it until August, but might as well go in on that as well. So I get both sides. So I don't know what they're doing. But Dune's freaking killing. We're selling multiples of them every week. People knowing they're going to have to wait until March. Now it's hitting hard. Spooky Pinball. Production has begun on Beetlejuice. None have shipped yet, but we've seen them on the line. We've seen them wiring harnesses. We've seen them populating playfields. We've seen cabinets. something cool that they're doing this time around that they've never done before. Usually the first, I don't know how many, they didn't allow the butter cabinet option to be on because it takes a while to see how many batches you're going to make and all of that. So they've asked, hey, if you guys are selling any butter cabinets, let's make sure that those are after number 50 or after 100 or something like that. But now I think they've prepped for that, And you're going to see some of the first ones, some of the first numbered ones being butter cabinet games. That's kind of neat. That company is really building some good stuff over there and a brand and a company in general. So production has begun on Beetlejuice. A lot of people are excited for that. That might be the big hit of 2026. It seemed to leave the year with the most hype. But granted, no one had theirs yet, so that might explain part of it. Yeah, we do have on flipping out YouTube, Joel did a tutorial on Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He said that is the filthiest game. Like, it's just a gross game. So clever. It's kind of a cult classic becoming what I call a pinball cult classic because the code is really good. It's really clever. It's almost reminiscent upon Evil Dead code and such. And the rules. Did you have to CG a chainsaw in the thumbnail? I haven't edited it yet, but I can only imagine that's what I will be doing. Yes. Well, hopefully it doesn't throw gasoline light and you have to cast shadows. Maybe. Well, it's always about those shadows. What was the last one I had to do? Well, it wasn't easy. I had to cast a shadow on an image that I created. It was a gun. James Bond. John Wick. Oh. James Bond, that big old long gun. That's right. There weren't any guns in John Wick. What was I saying? That would just be the finger here. You have to cast the shadow of his dog on that. Maybe I'll really gross him out because he's kind of touchy on that kind of stuff and do a skin face for him. I wondered if maybe you could just superimpose it as a layer. I might do that now. That's fun. Or just take the Blur tool and just go. That's right. Mess them up a little bit. Dutch pinball. We don't talk about Dutch often. Not much. We talk about trailer parks, though, when we do. Grab my cools. Honey. Honey. Be a doll. Grab my cigs. I really wanted a CE edition with her holding a natty light. I love it. Oh, my God. sweat stains under a tank top. Yeah, boy. Just an old ass lawn chair. Pajama pants on. An old ass lawn chair. I always picture those vinyl plastic with the tubes, lawn chair, the ass is falling out of them. It's on her trailer patio. Be a doll and go get me a Mountain Dew. Alright. All right. That's pinball. Now, remember on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, they had a deal where if they ended up not making all of them by the end of 2025, because that was their goal, that people could get their refund on their deposits. The time has come and gone. And they were still short like $225, $220, whatever it takes. To over 200 orders short. I think they made over 200. But they're 200 short. So refunds are being requested by people, and it is what it is. But they doubled down and said, if you hold with us, then you'll be guaranteed one of the first Back to the Future games. Back. Which I said was sloppy. I don't like that move because you're just – Cash flow. You're not paying Peter to burn drama for people, but you're delaying your – Sure. You're negatively affecting your future products. Sure. I don't like that. But survival comes first, Zach. Absolutely. Absolutely. So that they're doing that. But the recent thing is there's been issues with the toppers for the Alice, and a lot of the people who didn't get the toppers in the past for their games, they're still waiting for their toppers. But then some people that are getting their games now are getting toppers. Bit of a mess over there. So I think that they, based on their production rates of right now, they'll probably be done with Alice in spring, summer of 2026. and then comes not back to the future then comes what everybody really wants retro atomic zombie adventure land from deep root or not from these vanity projects i can't really call them vanity projects it's not j-pop doing them but i i don't i don't know zach i just well i don't see how it sells before it rubs me the wrong way that's what rubs me the wrong way is this like they've just decided i know it's like one dude who's just decided j-pop's gonna be a like i'm gonna make it work kind of sort of and here we are like i when people played the deep root version i heard one whole person one who actually thought it shot well and that was it yeah i yeah i don't know who buys Raza. Now, this one's like ultra limited though, right? Like they're not making as many Raza's. They're making hundreds. They're still making hundreds and hundreds more than 88 or something. Now that's back to the future. That's how many weeks you'll wait if you are a brand new Back to the Future orderer because everyone else who bought the other stuff gets to come first. No, honestly, The sad thing is, if I were to buy a Back to the Future, I would be happy to get it in 88 weeks, that announcement. Because I don't think I would come close to that. I really don't. Even if it's a Back to the Future with no Marty, no Doc, no DeLorean, it's a clock tower and lightning. I think they'll have it. A Mr. Potato Head. I want so bad for Back to the Future to do well. I just, gosh, I want it to. I mean, I don't technically care since I'm not a seller of it to do well, but I want it to do well selfishly for my one game that I will buy. That's what I want. Okay. Well, I guess we'll see someday. But yeah, Roz is next. I don't. I just, again, I'm not trying to throw shade. I just don't see them selling a lot of those just because it's Roz. We've seen it, and we didn't like it. The only thing people liked was the art, but that's what J-Pop used to move everything was just this whimsical. It's not like he's the artist either, which has always perplexed me that people almost give him credit for it. But for Raza, the art wasn't that great. Why not do a magic girl or something? At least we love the art on Magic Girl. Granted, if you want color, you can just buy any of the last 20 Sterns and you'll have plenty of it. And I would argue that we love the artwork on Alice, but they didn't give us Alice artwork. So I don't know. We'll see what that company's got up their sleeve. I just – if they do have Back to the Future, there's no way they can build as – like there's no way that company – they have to have a game plan. What is their game plan? They have to. Not to get my danger all up. Why? Why? It's working so far. No. They made Big Lebowski. Ten years. Ten years of Big Lebowski's and people treat it as a success story. It's not a success story. Hardly anybody. I just don't know what they do with – just hopefully they have a plan. I just hope they commission it out to somebody else to build with. They're not doing that. You can't build them. Like, it won't – if they're building 200 games a year. They're only a little behind. At this rate, it's going to take them 15 years to build back to the future. It's like it's a loose loose. It's not like any other pinball company has it. But if you do – if you have a great product, it's going to take you 15 years to build. If you have a shitty product, then you're not making as many, but you're in trouble too. I just – I hope they have a plan. Again, like from their view – and I could see where people – I was a little – I suppose a little harsh. But I could see where people will look at their big Lebowski plan and by almost any metric, I would think you would say it was a disaster. But they did get them all done. Yeah, it took a decade. Yeah, they had all these – after what happened with ARA, their contract manufacturer on Big Lebowski, I just – I don't think they can – they like emotionally are post-traumatic, can't trust a contract manufacturer. I think they just can't do it. And you're asking them to turn to that, and they want to be like, no, we have to have the control. When we had the control, yes, we were slow, but Big Lebowski's, everyone who wanted one got one. and it just took a decade. So if it takes a decade to get people back to the futures, is that not better than failure? And you could argue it is. It's not success, but you could argue that it's better than failure. I wouldn't personally, but other people aren't me, and they have a different perspective. I don't know enough about it. I think pinball is hard, but in this situation, it's pretty easy to figure out how to do that, and hopefully they have a game plan. I just don't understand why they put Raza in between, because I don't think like Raza is about buying time to figure out a new game plan. Like they either have figured it out on Alice and they're ready to go or not. But maybe they're looking at like Highway and they're like, you know, Highway did full throttle. And then when they jumped to Alien, that's when like the demand was too high. They couldn't keep up. Maybe. But like you have said, surely they understand that Raza is not going to move the same units as Alice. So if it's about getting better at producing more, it's actually a step backwards. It seems like they need time to me. Do you think it's to develop the plan, or do you think that the game design itself is just not ready, and they're just buying time because it's not ready to go along the line? I think it's game. That's more logical. I would guess that they don't have a design finalized yet. So if they had a game finalized now, even if they ordered parts January 2026, it's going to take them six months to get all those parts. so they would have a big gap or they would have a gap potentially and they can't probably afford to have a gap I don't think the game is done code programming I don't know if that is done we heard that JP DeWin is not at JJP he came over so that's going to help that process I get that he lives in the country but I just and for the life of me like this whole like the topper, the topper. What have I said before? And again, not want to be negative, not want to start shit. But I said the Lior stuff is great. But anything the guy is attached to, it's delays upon delays, yearly delays for anything. So it's just really tough to bank on one entity like that. I think it was Lior that helped with that topper. I could be wrong. But there's just a number of things that hopefully they figured out. Because I do, I want Back to the Future to come out. And I want great games to come out. So, yeah. Good times. Okay, what else? Oh, I was excited to give people this. We, the last time, over a month ago, about a month ago, we did the Pinball Show Awards. Yeah. Which we choose for the purposes of this podcast. We gave the top three of each category. and then on the Patreon, patreon.com slash the pinball show, we gave the winners of those. Yes. And a month has passed. So I wanted you guys, cheapskates out there that aren't signing up to our Patreon and supporting us. Did I call you cheapskates? I meant lovely, frugal people that had a budget in 2025. But now that 2026 is here, why not make it one of your resolutions to sign up today to patreon.com slash the pinball show? But we're going to give you our winners for each of the categories of the games of 2025. And some of the things that we did do, we included Evil Dead and Beetlejuice. We included both of them because we were tired of it being so backlogged. We end up talking about the new spooky game a year later once it's already said and done. So we wanted to catch up. And we had not catched up on Evil Dead, so we threw them both in there. Controversial. That's how we do it. So best sound and music. we're just going to kind of run through these and congratulate the manufacturers for their wins Sound and Music Dennis Cho's Star Wars Follow the Empire by Stern Pinball whereas I went to Winchester Mystery House I took some crap for this one that I didn't do Dune and you know what fair they had good arguments they knew you liked Bebo Bebo I do But I also knew that I like that sand because it's gritty and it gets everywhere. That's right. And if you guys want to hear any of the details as to how or why we picked these, that's when you need to go to Patreon and listen to episode 186, the bonus content. We'll discuss why we chose what we did all there. Best call-outs? Dennis went with Dungeons and Dragons. He liked Worf. Yeah, Worf, the actor who did Worf, Michael Dorn, did Dragon. But they also have a lot of the cast that do Critical Role. I don't watch Critical Role, but they do an animated cartoon on Amazon Prime called Legends of Vox Machina, which is based on those campaigns. It's the same voice cast. I did not take crap for choosing this one. That's right. Those that knew, knew. I went with Evil Dead because I love the call-ins. Yeah, Bruce. Bruce Campbell. I mean, got to go with that. Best animation and display. We unanimously agreed upon Harry Potter. So nicely done. JP DeWin and team, and then he left. There he went. Best lighting. Dennis said it's Harry Potter. I said it's Dune. I could see the argument for both. So congratulations. Best artwork. We were unanimous as well. We went with Beetlejuice. that was a good one uh christopher franchi even over evil dead they're both good i mean both great yeah best toys and mechs dennis said i gotta have more dragon he went dungeons and dragons as well as gelatinous cube and you wanted more boomstick i did give me the evil dead and all the all the wonderful wonderful just new type of mechs that were done in that game best innovation overall. I think both of us kind of struggled with this. Your argument made more sense at the end. I think you went Dungeons and Dragons because of all of the cool ways to play that that are so much different than other pinball machines. And I went with Beetlejuice because of how freaking packed that is, the spooky speak. There was a lot of stuff as well. Best Hopper, unanimously we said Evil Dead. Bring Cheryl out of the cell. That was like the shortest discussion ever. I know. Well, some people still argue Beetlejuice, and I still – I get it, but it's Evil Dead. They both look great, but there's – Cheryl is more theme integration because of the sheer volume of her presence in Evil Dead. Anyway, that's all on the Patreon. They can hear that. Best theme, Harry Potter, unanimous. We said, yes, absolutely. Best theme integration, unanimous, Evil Dead. We agreed on a lot of these things. Best rules, Dennis said King Kong. You can't go wrong with an Elwynn Nagel game. You just can't go wrong with it. I said, yeah, you can. I'll go Harry Potter. I'm going to give the guys credit over there at JJP for Harry Potter. Really well done. Best design and layout. Which designer are you going to tickle? Dennis said the rookie. He's given it to Winchester Mystery House. Carl D. Carl. Carl. Carl. Nice job. Carousel. I forgive you for killing your mom Coral oh Coral I hope did he have to yeah it was his fault wasn't it oh I need to rewatch the seasons of Walking Dead spoiler alert for those that don't know what we're talking about we're not literally talking about the song we're talking about maybe you need to cut all that out so that we don't spoil that what 15 year old they might not see it on the remastered LCD screen, that's for sure. Where are we at on that? It's like .89 code. Come on. Damn. I love that game. I want more of it. Now, you didn't go Winchester. You gave it to the J.J.P. boys. Is he a veteran at this point? Eric Meunier with Harry Potter. Eric. That's such a good layout. You had a really good argument for it. It's unforgiving, but it's really, really well done. Best launch overall unanimously. We said Winchester Mystery House. That was easy. It snuck up on us. It was wonderfully done. I mean, they had so much in the can ready to explain everything. It was limited. It was good. Best accessory, Dennis said he's not familiar enough with them, so it was just me. I said Cactus Canyon 2.0 upgrade kit. Best surprise of the year, we both went Winchester Mystery House. Not only was it the best launch, but we had no clue it was coming, and it hit like a pile of bricks. People loved everything about Winchester Mystery House. Yeah. Then on best high-end product, again, I was like, I didn't even know what this category meant. So I was like, Zach, you're just going to have to pick whatever you mean by high-end product because I don't know. Yeah, so I tried to pick a product from the 30,000-foot view saying, hey, what looks like the most primo stuff here? what is the qualities, the materials they use, some of the enhancements, the add-ons that they put on their standard. What looks like a luxury product? And I chose Harry Potter CE. I really just – it's phenomenal. And I was arguing for the other artwork on that game more so than the CE because I wasn much of the novel person Yeah because of the movie preference that you had But now in 2026 I with you Dennis Give me the CE There just something very special about the looks of that art package on the cabinet and the translate and all that, or back glass, whatever. So I agree with you. Just best high-end product. A couple close ones with it, but no. Most improved from 2024. We interpreted this differently. Yes. I was looking more like what game made a better comeback in rules or the way it was perceived. You said what made a better comeback overall as a storyline or as just – I viewed it from a manufacturer lens, which I suppose didn't make sense given everything else was really about a game specifically. I can see. I like that we both took a different take. I viewed it more as the manufacturers doing moves that actually have been like, hey, you know what? Maybe we weren't on top, but we feel like we're on top now. Yeah, and you said rightfully so. Jersey Jack Pimble made a big bump from the previous year, 2024 to 2025, from Avatar to Harry Potter. And I only compared to the prior year, but yeah. That's a giant jump. I went with the Uncanny X-Men because while it had a phenomenal release, it quickly nosedived into the ground, and people were not buying it. They were not buying it. And then at the end of 2025, like a phoenix, more like a parakeet dressed as a phoenix. It's not full phoenix yet. Right. But it cacawed out a little bit. The rules people do like now. And it's almost upon completion. I still think it's got some more to be added. So I really have fallen in love with that game. All right. So now we come down to the big one. Best game of 2025. What we did do different was previous years we just said, hey, what's the best game? It's hard to quantify, but what's the best game? And then we said, is it the same as what your favorite game of 2025 would have been? And for Dennis, it was different. For me, it was different. But the best game, in our opinion, of 2025, Dennis said, Winchester Mystery House. if that doesn't tell you all you need to know about the high praise of that game Winchester Mystery House as your best game of 2025 ladies and gentlemen congratulations barrels of fun and I said the best game of 2025 was Harry Potter congratulations Jersey Jack Harry Potter sold a bajillion of them but I think that even selling something as huge as the license of Harry Potter it backed it up in pretty much everything else that was about that game. Design, lighting, layout, toys, mechs, illustrations, just sound phenomenal. So those were arguably, I can see a lot of people arguing for those being the best game of 2025. But it wasn't a Stern game. No. There's a lot of media talking about that. It's one of the little hot topics or hot button topics in talk pinball is Stern's not getting awards this year. I mean, they had a lot of good competition this year. Yeah. Was that the same as our favorite game? Our favorite game, Dennis said, yeah, it is a barrels game, but it's not Winchester. He went with Dune as his favorite game. And I think a lot of people are echoing that sentiment into the new year here. And I stuck with barrels as well. I went Winchester Mystery House. That was my favorite game of 2025. Just something so special about that game, the way it looks, feels, sounds, everything. So those were our picks, but I'm curious, Zach, what all the people that entered, you know, left those comments to enter in for those prizes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like what what did they think was the best game? I thought, yeah, I thought it would be fun to not only give away thousands of dollars worth of stuff, but also to use that data and give you something as a listener and as a consumer, something to pull out of it. So we asked as part of the shillings seasons thing, we said, what's the best game? 2025, easy, comment below. What's the best game of 2025? And many of you, over 100 people responded. And you guys said, and we compiled them. And the best game of 2025 in the Pinball Show Public Awards, Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Yeah, what should we call the public awards of the TPS public, the tipsies? That's what it could be. So Harry Potter. It wasn't really that close. No, pretty substantially. But those were pretty formidable of the people who were right there. Evil Dead was second. Evil Dead second place. And then Dune. Dune third. Over. One point over Winchester Mystery House. And then we had Kong, King Kong. Then Dungeons and Dragons. Then, for some reason, Star Wars Fall of the Empire still came over things like Beetlejuice. but Beetlejuice is kind of tricky because I mean people hadn't played Beetlejuice and maybe those three people that voted for Star Wars had fixed their Death Star that's right because that fix did come out so I forgot to say the fix did come out and it fixed it yes everything I've seen has been like oh this fix you take out a lot of screws but it's not hard to take them out and the fix does actually truly fix it like I haven't pretty much changed like a hundred percent success rate Damn it. Come on, Stinger. And Predator. Predator got a vote. Predator got a vote? Yeah. How about that? We did have a lot of people, I would say, up there with probably D&D and Kong. A lot of people said Jaws 50th, but that doesn't count because that's the previous game. Previous game. I think we had a couple that said Walking Dead Remastered. That's previous. I mean, come on. So, yeah, very interesting. Evil Dead in second to Harry Potter. So, nicely done. And we're having a lot of people in media and in the hobby right now saying what their favorites are to the point that I kind of like how I want to compile this. I don't know. I don't want to. I don't have too much work. You're too busy. Maybe Ralph. Ralph. Ralph. Retro Ralph. Joel. Ralphie. Sorry, Christmas story trauma. Some of the media people. Let's come together because there's no award stuff anymore really in pinball for now. Isn't there a Twippy? I think, but it's different. It's just different. Yeah, I did get the email. They changed it up. I didn't get the email. Surprise, surprise. There's an email. I didn't read it too closely, but I think it's just – I don't know. The show's entirely – I think they're doing a prerecorded and just – I think it's just the games now. I think they finally dropped the creator stuff. But I think it would be fun to compile all of the media, people's choices, into one graphic or one illustration or one maybe talking. You know what? Not that I want to run into Ralph or Jamie or who else? Don. All the media people. Kerry Hardy. Kaneda. Let's all like – it might be cool to do everybody present their – I just graphically want to see what everybody picked, and it might be fun to have an episode, a video episode of everybody, all the media people discussing that. I'm just now thinking of this, but I think it would be kind of cool. I don't know why, but it might be cool to – It's not a bad idea. It's a pretty big thing to assemble depending how you want to do it. If it's really just going over the results, that would be – Who takes on big things? I'm not going to. Another option would be if you were to say have someone please submit a 15-second maximum clip where you say – or like a 30-second. That's boring. That's boring. But again – I don't want to take it on, but if somebody wants to take it on, all you viewers and listeners – I don't want to do it, but if someone else will take on this multi-hour planned project. Look, we've taken on so much in the past. Is it not our time, Dennis? I'm not saying you're wrong to not want to just – I think it's fine to throw out the idea, but – I think it would be fun. Keep your expectations really, really low. The Marc Silk Road Chronicles, our buddies over there, they still – They're busy talking about JJP like it's ancient history. Like that's how they roll. So, yeah, somebody needs to compile that. That would be a lot of fun. All right, so that was that. Now, what people have been waiting for. They have the 2025, uh, some data game sales, what games sold the best, what didn't sell as well. The Sterns still have a hold onto the market. This is what people have been waiting. They got through. I don't know how many minutes of this show an hour or so they want to know. Now we'll say we're going to present some data. This is all, uh, caveats here. This is data based on the, on my career, which is distribution, my company. I don't know what other dealers have sold. I don't know what manufacturers have sold direct. So this is very skewed to only represent the data from my company, which I give myself credit, willingness to put out there publicly to some degree. I don't see anybody else doing that. I don't think anybody else is dumb enough to do that, frankly. and but to say this is a an extreme measure I don't think is accurate I think this is a decent pretty decent reflection as a whole maybe I mean it's a decent data point is what I'm saying what am I trying to say Dennis I don't think it's subtleties between distributors for example where certain things may perform better or worse depending on what their overall portfolio of companies are, the overall size in the industry is, and so forth. But you don't think you're such an outlier that this doesn't show you some broad trends to the actual circumstances that the manufacturers found themselves in. Amen. Thank you, Dennis. That's a perfect way of putting it. So this isn't gospel, but there are some trends that can be pulled from this. And if you want, we're going to give you some nice info. But if you want further breakdown, insight, maybe some conceptualization as to what this means for not only 2025 but going into 2026, the infamous dentist questions that put me in uncomfortable situations to answer or to not answer. If you want that data, you've got to go to patreon.com slash the pinball show. Sign up today and hear much more in depth on these data points. But this will give some of you budget-friendly consumers a grasp into what sales were looking like in 2025. All right. Overall, for myself, everybody wanted to poo-poo the market. There is no market. 2025 was dead because I didn't have a game with plastic ramps. Where is me? Where is me? Where is me? I like that. Do you think we'll get another Batman game? Maybe when a new movie... Well, they did have the Patterson one. I want Batman 89. And I did see it. It was pretty good. I want Keaton Batman. I just... I think eventually, but I don't think this year. Let's wait and see. So I've been told for five, six, seven years that the market continues to trend down. It's horrible. Nobody's buying games. Everything's shit. There. so uh and for our data point overall sales increase in 2025 from game shipped we shipped more games my company shipped more games in 2025 than we did in 2024 than we did in 2023 than we did in 2022 and so on so from now this i think varies more than a lot of the breakdown as to what titles sold amongst retailers. Because your own growth is a factor here that is going to be pretty unique. Yep. So, for example, when it comes to non-Stern products, I'm going to make a dichotomous there. Non-Stern products, my company was over a 30% increase in what we shipped in 2025 and 2026. Could you really quickly tell them what manufacturers you sell besides Stern? Absolutely. Okay, we sell for Jersey Jack Pinball, Stern Pinball, Barrels of Fun Pinball, Chicago Gaming Company, Spooky Pinball. We sell for Pedretti Gaming, Pinball Brothers, Incredible Technologies. They do this non-pinball stuff, but they do Golden Tee, Raw Thrills. They do all of the arcade stuff, Big Buck Hunter, that kind of stuff. Turner Pinball, American Pinball, Retro Arcade. They do the ice cold beer. Oh, okay. And then a couple other arcade ones that we haven't announced and that we're going to be announcing in 2026. I believe Escalera, but I didn't include any of that stuff because those are hands down. You just included the gaming companies. But it is that 30-ish percent. Is that just pinball or does that include your arcades? Let me pull this up. Yeah. I'm curious if the 30-plus percent increase was just non-stern pinball or non-stern everything gaming, so not Escalera. It was everything that was not stern. But I will say that we had virtually no growth in non-pinball stuff this year because it was not a focus of ours in 2025. So predominantly that percentage is non-Stern Pinball products. All right. I just thought people would find it interesting. That's pretty big. That is pretty big. I was not expecting that big of a growth. I mean, it's huge, actually. That is huge. But, I mean, there's so many caveats and reasons why it's like that. But Stern, look, poo-poo all you want, people about Stern Pinball. we've seen over a 10% growth in Stern games that we shipped in 2025, then 2024. So I think that's huge. I think it's around 13% increase. I'm extremely proud of that. Any company that can show that much growth in general is doing phenomenal. So I'm very proud of that, proud of the team. So that's good information to see that the sky is not falling for everything. It's just not. I like this data point. I don't know what it says, Dennis, but it reminds me of how big Stern is, how big of a monster and a production powerhouse they are. We have a lot of games ordered throughout last year. We have 20 times more. 20, that's a big number, but you can't even realize how big that number is. 20 times more non-Stern pinball machines that are currently backordered than we do Stern games currently backordered. Okay, so that was when you did the snapshot. Yes. Okay. So going into 2026, what do we have still on order at Stern that they haven't shipped us? What do we have on order from JJP, Barrels, Spooky? what do we have ordered that they haven't shipped us? And granted, a lot of that's going to be stuff like Beetlejuice, Harry Potter's, Winchester, Dunes now. So we get a lot of stuff that hasn't been shipped yet. But needless to say, virtually none of Stern. You can say that two ways. You can say, well, maybe that's because Stern is falling, and you're not buying as much Stern right now. Except you already covered the increase in growth on your Stern shipments, so that doesn't really work. Doesn't really work. but it shows that there was a bigger year overall for non-Stern stuff in 2025, or, yeah, 2025 than usual. So it does show that there were a lot of hits, but these companies haven't created them yet. They haven't produced them. They haven't shipped them. So we're still waiting for those to ship. That's why time and time again, year and year again, that's why Stern can produce four to five new titles, because they can just keep cranking them out. It's phenomenal. It really is. All right. Let's talk about the most purchased game. We're going to do this a little different. I'm going to list the most purchased games. This is going to be in chronological order, I guess. Is this chronological order of most to least kind of thing? No. Chronological would be the order they came out in. Okay, no. So this is the number. You're going to do them in descending order. You're going to start at your highest, and you're going to go down. Yes. Okay. So now we're going to do this in two ways. I'm going to give you this. This is a single game, single model. A skew or a trim level. Yes. Things like King Kong are going to be different between the Pro, the Premium, the LE. And that's what you're going to distinguish here. Yep. Harry Potter are going to be different between the Arcade, the Wizard, and the CE. But things like Evil Dead only had one model. Right. Things like, what else only had one model? Beetlejuice only had one model. Beetlejuice, yeah. so that's how we're going to do this one um it changes things between that and by just right when you combine all the trims together so so this one lets you know specifically about a particular a particular version of the game but when you add some of them together some of those with multiple trim levels may very well and i expect we'll move up on the list overall like yeah maybe Harry Potter CE might not be that I guess we'll see here, but might not be your number one game, but when you add all the Harry Potters together, it might move up on the list. Absolutely. And this is also restricted by availability. So some of these games would have been a hell of a lot higher, but I wasn't allocated enough units to sell. Some of these games I had more free range where I could buy as many as I wanted to buy. So this is a reflection upon that. So keep that in mind as well because that changes everything. Is this just going to be pinball or do you have the non-arcade? Just pinball. Arcage wasn't a focus for us in 2025. I would say data points are just minimal for that in general. So if we are including Beetlejuice, it's hard to know. Do you include Beetlejuice? Do you not? I don't know. If we're including Beetlejuice, believe it or not, Beetlejuice is our most purchased single game of last year. Okay. Well, one trim level so I can... Beetlejuice sold really good. Yeah, right. And they all sold forever. They all sold. It also says that we sold a lot of Beetlejuices. We've grown with that company to the point of being a major player in the spooky pinball world. So, Beetlejuices. Or maybe it just means that we didn't sell a lot of anything. It could be that too. It's not that, but it could be that. But if we're not including Beetlejuice. the most purchased single game was Harry Potter collector's edition. Harry Potter collector's edition was the, again, not a stern, a huge hype on that game. Yeah. So Beetlejuice, then Harry Potter CE. Does it surprise you, Dennis, that we sold more Beetlejuice than Harry Potter CE? No, no, it's close. Like I'm not, I won't say I'm surprised, but I wouldn't have been surprised the other way either. I know Beetlejuice had a huge amount of buzz, but I'm also factoring in a lot of people like you, Zach, had a preference for the movies for Harry Potter, and I thought they might end up going Wizard. And I also wondered if the arcade version, given that the geometry wasn't compromised on it, might do really well for J.J.P. also. So, again, we're not talking – like I would be more surprised – I would be very surprised if Beetlejuice beat all of the Harry Potter models when merged. but just one model, even if it's the most popular, I'm not as surprised. Because that was a lot of money to get into a Harry Potter CE. We've got to remember that too. It's a lot cheaper to buy Beetlejuice than it is to buy Harry Potter CE. A lot. Yeah, that is very true. Another talking point here that I find interesting is that the only reason we sold as many Beetlejuices as we did is because that's the only amount we were allowed to sell. I can keep ordering Harry Potter CEs I was capped at Beetlejuice of what we sold gracious to receive what we did but I could have sold probably double, triple potentially. CE Potter is only time limited and they have not ended that time yet so as much demand as there is that hypothetically that game can satisfy that demand and that wasn't true for Beetlejuice and we know that Beetlejuice was limited to what a thousand units? Yeah, around that. Plus show games. Also, another talking point just out of these two data points already is that I believe that at some time within the next maybe month, Harry Potter CE orders overall will surpass that of Beetlejuice. You have to remember, I'm still ordering. Right. Mathematically, I don't think that's surprising. Yeah. So I think we're close already. So probably the next order that we put in for flipping out for Harry Potter CE will surpass that. I knew several people who said they were really planning to buy Harry Potter CE, but since they didn't have to worry about rushing, they wanted to wait to see about some other licenses that they were interested in and see what the games looked like before pulling the trigger. So I think some of those people will pull the trigger in 26. The third most single-purchase game for myself flipping out pinball. and this comes in at like a 25% drop. How would I quantify that? 25% less items than Beetlejuice would be Jaws 50th. All right, that one does surprise me. Whoa, where'd that, Jaws 50th. This wasn't even a 20, the title itself wasn't even a 2025 release. They came out in 2024, the Jaws game did. This is just the anniversary edition of it. A premium edition, nonetheless. Jaws 50th as the third most single purchased game at my company. Wow. Okay. And then the fourth was Dune. Ooh. Hot damn. Dune. Would you have guessed that? I'm not as surprised now after what happened with that game once Winchester was revealed. But it would have been very interesting to see where it stood before Winchester. Because I don't think it was nearly this good. I think we've probably ordered 40% of our total sales or total orders. 40% of those came after Expo. That's nuts because it goes against my argument of that first week. That's the big. That's just the general rule, as you've argued. There are exceptions. The fifth highest single purchase game was Harry Potter Wizard Edition. The sixth is Evil Dead. Seventh was Winchester Mystery House. Higher up than a lot of people would have thought Especially because you haven mentioned a this year Elwynn yet I haven but I will mention an Elwynn next which is Godzilla Premium Oh, this is a surprise to me too. Godzilla Premium. My God, the game is so old. That was the first premium I ever bought. I think everybody getting into pinball buys Godzilla Premium. I mean, I still would say it's his best, but I don't know. I really like Jaws a lot too. It's a lot of fun. gosh wow still though all these years a lot of we've sold four years in one pandemic and it goes to show you that and i'll tell you maybe in the patreon if you can remind me dennis where it falls upon our total sales and company history and our flipping out pinball company history where that game falls i'll be happy to tell you i think all right so that's one two 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, that's 8. Number 9 on our most purchased single game was King Kong Premium. There it is. Finally. King Kong Premium, the L1. I think there's a good chance that we sell just as many in 2026 of King Kong Premium as we did in 2025. It's got a long tail in those L1 games. Next comes in is Medieval Madness Merlin Edition. Then King Kong LE. then interesting sold more king kong le than pros star wars follow the empire le harry potter arcade edition then dungeons and dragons le then dungeons and dragons pro then dungeons and dragons premium then jaws premium and then pulp fiction le I am surprised that D&D Pro exceeded premium. I know based off our past discussions, edit me if you don't want this said, but I think it's given your clientele, you almost always have better premium sales than pro sales. So I was surprised to see that you actually had the pro beat the premium for a game that came out the year that you're doing the analysis on. Because it doesn't seem to be the usual. A lot of enthusiasts, that's our primary. Right, right. Whereas if you mostly targeted operators, I could better understand having higher pro sales. And believe it or not, we find, and maybe that just skews to who we're pulling, but a lot of our first-time pinball buyers, oddly enough, they're not always pros. A lot of people go premium for their first game. I guess they get over the fact of how much these things cost, and then they get so excited that they bump up to that premium. Because a lot of times it's because they can't buy the at least because they're gone. Right. I think your theory is probably right there. I think for people new to it wanting to add, especially if they're thinking they're just going to stop at one. They're so innocent. They're already at $7,000 looking at the pros. And so at that point when you start seeing how much more feature-rich the experience is with all the toys and the stuff, the mechanical marvel that woos them into the hobby in the first place, They're not thinking about trying to clean the thing. So I think that's why. Well, now, as I'm looking at the actual numbers here, it's fair to say that when it comes to D&D, the Pro Premium and LE, they were pretty all neck and neck for that particular title for whatever reason. Pretty much sold the same amount, distributed very evenly throughout that. My argument would then remind you that I can order Pro and Premiums all I want. Right. The LEs are what I was limited to order, and I couldn't order any more. So, again, it's just a reminder about how many people actually buy LE models. I mean, you should see it in Harry Potter. For that to be a $15,000 item and outsell the $12,000 and $10,000 counterparts significantly should tell you a lot about this industry. All right, so that's just as far down as I'll run on the single purchase games. But conversely, if we compile all of that and we just look at the titles, Harry Potter, Evil Dead, Star Wars, Fall of the Empire as a title, Dungeons and Dragons as a title, including Pro, Premium, and LA, just as an entity, as a title, new product coming out, what is the most purchased game by title and release? Number one, Harry Potter. Hands down, if you're including all the trim levels, Harry Potter was the biggest seller of 2025. Then came Beetlejuice. Then came Jaws. There's that big bump. Then came King Kong. Once you put all those titles, that's why we say Stern. You include Pro Premium LE, there's your big sales. King Kong right there in number four. And that is arguably on JJP's best year ever and Spooky's best year ever. Stern right there with the three and four position and the five position Dungeons and Dragons. and the sixth position, Star Wars Fall of the Empire. So, that big picture there. Then was Dune, then fell Evil Dead, then Godzilla. It's still there. No special editions or anything. It's still there with pretty much the premium sales alone. Then Winchester Mystery House, Medieval Madness, and then Pulp Fiction. Also, when I'm looking at this, man, Chicago Gaming Company. We are such a big partner of theirs, but it just takes them so long to build stuff that the numbers are having a hard time competing here. Yeah. I mean, it's the complaint I know of CCG Collectors, or CGC, I should say. Yeah, they just – it's the only complaint, broadly speaking. Excellent build quality. They're doing the remakes people want. the weight i mean it's kind of one of those things where it's like you buy their accepted it and you live with it or uh you you just don't buy their stuff unless you can get it used because it's too frustrating to wait but obviously um sales-wise as popular as that i mean there was a lot of hype for that medieval madness merlin for it once you have all these merged together to see it this low So, like, I know the demand is higher than what that chart suggests. So. Yeah. But it is what it is. All right. The last points that we'll talk about until we kind of move you to the extra content at Patreon. This is going to be a breakdown by company. What products did Flip N Out Pinball sell the most of? Just by company. If you want to know the percentage breakdown, you're going to have to go to patreon.com slash the pinball show. And it's very, very interesting what those numbers are. And not to – I guess it kind of is a gimmick to pull you in. They will surprise you because it surprises a lot of people. Especially number four. It might amaze you. Three, four. I'd like to see number four higher, but that's what it is. and we'll talk about what sold and what didn't sell. There's some really interesting things, too, about what people think sell and what people don't think sell. It's like, don't forget. This game gets shit on all the time, but we still sold this many. We still sold quite a few of these things, so we'll talk about all that. But just really quickly, Stern still holds the kingdom when it comes to flipping out pinball. We sold the most products through Stern pinball. Second, this is in 2025. I can confidently tell you this has not been the case in other years. Second for us was Georgia Jack Pinball. Third, Barrels of Fun products. Then Chicago Gaming Company. Then Spooky Pinball. Wait a minute. How does that math add up? Well, that is if you're looking at Evil Dead. because if you're looking at Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice's haven't really, I mean, I don't know how to break that down to everybody. If we're doing Beetlejuice, then Beetlejuice would make spooky pinball, Beetlejuice alone, not Evil Dead. So which one are we going here? If we're going just Evil Dead, it puts it in the one, two, three, four, fifth position. If we're doing Beetlejuice instead of Evil Dead, still Beetlejuice only, then we would go, it would fall into the third position in our rankings of how much we're selling of each company. If we're going both, both Evil Dead and Beetlejuice, I don't know why you would do that because that covers two years. So we're not going to do that. It doesn't make any sense. So it's just which year representation do you want? I see what you're getting at. You know what I mean? Yeah. This is just for 2025. I think what that kind of represents, though, is that obviously your Beetlejuice sales are better than your Evil Dead sales. And Evil Dead did well for Spooky. It was sold out before TPF started. But it also reminds people that with the overhype of what people think Evil Dead really – Evil Dead, I could pretty much order what I wanted because it didn't sell out immediately. So I can kind of up my orders at that point. Whereas I wasn't given that opportunity on Beetlejuice. What I was given, boom, they were gone. So even more so. The next position would be one, two, three, four, five. Sixth position, Pedretti Gaming. Sold quite a few Funhaus remakes. Then Pinball Brothers. Then Incredible Technologies with Golden Tee. Then Raw Thrills. Down here for Raw Thrills with us. Then Turner Pinball. And then American Pinball, which comes as no surprise. I mean, American didn't have a game this year. Yeah, and that's just all products. I mean, I guess we could do both for Spooky because this was all the products. Even catalog games and stuff like that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Looking at your math that you've shown, it still would have been third. Yeah, third. So they're big. And then that's pretty much it. Retro Arcade was after that with the Ice Cold Beer remakes. And then some arcade stuff that we haven't really started selling yet. So I think people would find that interesting, Dennis, don't they? Well, I guess write into pinballshow at gmail.com and let us know if you did or didn't. Yeah. And what surprised you? Comment on Facebook in the post. What surprised you, good and bad, about those numbers? And also, just give us some feedback in general as to what you would like to see and hear in 2026. 2026. We've got an interesting position here in, in the podcast and the video cast that we do and that we're somewhat inside pinball. We can give you information. A lot of people can't. So let us know what you want to see, what you want to hear and what you do not. And I can't emphasize this enough. You can support us. We try to do as much as we can, not only in the industry, but you as a hobbyist for you guys support us by joining Patreon. That helps out immensely. Patreon.com slash the pinball show. and you can go into our Discord. It's private-ish. And then you can get all kinds of stuff and I don't know, notable things we'll talk about later this year. But go sign up today and hear that extra data and patterns. That's really cool stuff. Okay. We got to thank some people. I'd be remiss if we didn't say thank you to the Bobcat. He's one of our Screaming Goat Club members. and he's been with us for a long time. Percentage-wise, pretty long. We should have run dead on him. Rob, thank you so much. Panther, continually supporting us at the highest level and the highest degree. We appreciate that. Did you finish your Christmas gift from him yet? Oh, no. No, no. I only had part of that during our last... Oh, okay. Yeah, it was very... Which is coming up. Special occasion. Special occasion. Oh, it is coming up. I have it posted for the Patreon. Nordman level and above. Yeah, that's coming up this Wednesday. In two weeks. 21st. Yes, the 21st. Wednesday. The 21st at 8 p.m., yes. So be there or be square. Tip to be square. All right, Frank. Thank you, Frank, for not singing Huey Lewis in the news to us. Is that the next star in music, Pink? I'm a buyer day one. Give me a Huey Lewis and I am a buyer day one. Only if you can get the Back to the Future back in time. Going to go back in time. Love it. Do you think Dutch got back in time? I bet it was right at the top of their list. Do you think they got the score? No. Oh, no. Oh, no. They had to have gotten the score. Maybe. There, just make you feel better. Dutch, let's talk. help me help you please it's so hard saying it's just so tough charlie thank you thank you so much ding ding ding ding ding dong and thank you for being there for us william the dude so let me make something play all your doodness i don't like you sucking around bothering our citizens lebowski Yes Learned our lesson early on Adam Basha I can't get enough Papa Such a well rounded guy Love him And his freaking baby You know he's You are like Papa Probably reticently But he has sent me a couple pictures of baby In situations At the beach and stuff He probably regrets it But I'm appreciative of the baby pictures. Very sweet. And his baby's getting big now. Old baby. He's getting an old baby. And then, you know what comes next? Adam's going to have another baby. At some point, I bet Adam will have another baby. Not him. That'd be interesting. I'd watch the video of a man birthing a baby. Fasha! Push. Where are they going to go? What part is it coming out? Where are they going to go? I shit myself. That's just, having a baby just ain't too much at Cracker Barrel. All I ever think of when I hear Cracker Barrel is wicker furniture. Just wicker everywhere. I love Cracker Barrel. Greg Bone told me from straight down the middle. He told me last week his wife is out of town and his teenagers were being teenagers, so they didn't want anything to do with him. He went to Cracker Barrel by himself and sat at the table closest to the fireplace and enjoyed a dinner. And nothing is more effing wholesome than a Greg Bone and a cardigan at a Cracker Barrel being served solo. It's just I hope he got a beer. Does Cracker Barrel even serve beers? I don't think so. But honestly, I haven't been to a Cracker Barrel in at least 20 years. Oh, my gosh. I still like the Cracker Barrel. I just don't. Okay. So, yeah, Discord, we're all talking about all different types of things. Right now, they're going back. They're doing tech talk in there. They're trying to figure out tech talk stuff. But it's always fun in there. You know, drop a little nugget here and there throughout the Discord. You've got to have your ears open for them, but they come. In retrospect, you can look back and be like, oh, shit, look at that. so the next happy hour hangout is the 21st at 8 p.m central check that out dennis where can people catch you and they might reach out they can always email eclectic gamers podcast at gmail.com absolutely or you can emails here at the pinball show at gmail.com again you guys are making us look like bitches on this whole subscriber stuff like we're low we are low on youtube it's bad please if you're watching this video please dennis here subscribe thank you i by the end of 2026 oh no not a goal i need this show to be higher than joel wow and and the and flipping out pinball which is right now like almost at 9 000 so like i'm not saying you have to watch i'm just saying step it up it would be nice that's all i'm saying facebook it would be nice you get more from us if that algorithm hits so i might give 110 that's it instead of whatever this is it's unbeloved so email us there follow like and subscribe all that stuff straight down the middle video series i do please follow like and subscribe to there as well we get our urine close out stuff my new goal is let's pass straight down the let's do it no that would we're getting close I'm almost 20 on that. I was going to say, that would have been a big reach. You have a lot of people on Straight Down the Middle. Almost 20. We need to be higher. Well, when you guys put out new episodes, it tends to surge. It does. Okay, what else? Oh, we've got to thank the sponsor of this show. It is my company, Flip It Out Pinball. When I buy my pinball shit, I buy from Flip It Out. From toppers or play studios, I've got it figured out. Flip It Out. Figured out. When I make a pinball, I think Flip It Out. product showcase this week is uh the next stern let's just let's just cut to it you guys heard the numbers they don't lie and even if the all the non-stern people had such a phenomenal year stern still they're throwing haymakers i think 2026 is going to be even bigger and i would venture to say that Stern will have the biggest 2026 out of all those companies. They got some stuff coming. But you're going to want to be in on the next one. Yeah, you'll want it. You'll want it in your game room. So you can email, you can actually email Ken at FlippinOutPinball.com. He does a lot of our list stuff. I'd like to be on this list. I'd like to be on that list. Email him for that. If you want to do like a trade or something, that's usually where Greg at FlippinOutPinball.com. He does a lot of the trade evaluations. He does a lot of the warranty tech kind of stuff, but he does sales too. Or you can just email me at Zach at FlippinOutPinball.com. If you want to know if your accessories shipped and all that, that's Nicole at FlippinOutPinball.com. Okay, billing questions, that's Nicole. Joel's 50th, we still have them in stock. It's almost egregious that we still have free shipping on that limited product, so get those before those are gone. The Walking Dead Remastered. Wait, you'll want one at some point. I guarantee you. But we do have a couple LEs left and premiums. Star Wars, Fall of the Empire, pro-premium. We do have some LEs left. Medieval Madness Remake Merlin Edition. Interested list. Remember, they're running those. I just don't know how many we're going to get. Probably not enough. But Harry Potter. I think if you ordered one today, April, we may have a couple arcade spots in February maybe but April for the most part but order now because I'm telling you you're going to see June, July that game is going to continue selling but I'm surprised they haven't cut off the CE like when that was pretty artificial at this point I think given how high the sales have been they have in my opinion wisely said you know what let's just wait a little longer And once it slows, really slows, I think then they'll do it. But why not get as much? They ain't making money off of used sales, so why not do it? I think that we're going to see if it is or like a rumored Sonic, I think potentially fall. I agree. I agree. What's the reason not to? Okay, King Kongs I still have. I even have a used LE right now. Dungeons and Dragons, here's the deal. I did get one LE in, new, in the box. that hardly ever happens and I haven't really advertised it yet so if you want that I'm an idiot so I offer free shipping too so jump on that because those are pretty much gone everywhere pre-owned games we're doing some big stuff in 2026 but for the time being we just posted a lot of pre-owned games here in the last week so go to Flip N Out Pinball Facebook page in the future you'll be able to go to the website but for right now it's the Facebook page you can also go to Pinside at ZMini and I list them there too but Facebook page All the other Sterns, all the other games. Galactic Tank Force Signature. If you want a signature, there's only one place. Actually, a couple places. But Flip N Out Pinball is one of them. We only have a couple of those left. I did at the very end there when they were about to run out. I might have swiped a good handful of those. But we've sold two in the last two weeks. People are buying them. They're buying them. And I'm keeping one for myself. I love that game. Love is a strong word I really like that game though Oh Mike we didn't even talk about that Pinball Did you see American Pinball Putting up a now hiring No I did not And listing like It looks like they're ramping back up What are they doing They're looking for designers They're looking for line crew They're back baby Maybe stay tuned to the pinball show You might find out more Interesting American Pinball 3.0? Where are we at? 4.0? How many times? Maybe seven times a time. All right. What else have we got? Escaleras, Arcade, Big Bucks, Get Yourself a Golden Tee, Toppers. Order yourself a topper. Media channels flipping out. Joel doing the YouTube. Some grace over there. Love that. Tutorials. He's going to be doing some reaction stuff in the future. We've got a lot of fun things coming. And he streams every Wednesday at 9 o'clock Central. So go check that out. I don't know what he's streaming this week. Yeah, I don't know. But it'll be good, I promise. Actually, it might be a talk stream. Last week was Texas Chainsaw. All right, flipping out Pinball Podcast with Kenny Gregg. They just launched a new one. I loved their topic this week. It was like myths, pinball myths, and whether they're true or false. And they discussed those. That landed really well. I would, if you haven't heard the Flip N Out Pinball podcast, this is the one I would say I would highly recommend. It's a really good one. So in the meantime, go listen to the Patreon exclusive episode about even more game sales data, more numbers. And numbers don't lie. Dennis, teach them something. You know, my message is to Dutch Pinball. Like this, whatever is going on with this topper delay on getting the out, like I've given a lot of reasoning why I think, you know, what you're doing. I, I understand where you're coming from, but like, this is just like glue, some packs of Virginia slims on top of those games and just be done with it. Like we don't need there. The buyers don't need the real topper. Okay. You need to just embrace what this game is. And I think that's the answer that we're all really looking for so that you could go and skip Raza and just do back to the future. Come on, just figure it out. And always practice safe pinball. And all of you media whores like myself out there, all of you content creators, yeah, I'm talking to you. You feel good about what you did in 2025? Regardless, let's join together. I want to see what you guys gave the best of. Let's all get on a video podcast thing. I don't want to coordinate it, but I want somebody with the chops to actually be able to do it right. Some of the big ones. Let's see it. Let's hear it. I think you guys would, would you viewers enjoy that if you would? tag and message some of your favorite content creators and tell them, Zach and Dennis at the Pinball Show, one of us, both of us, we want to get something together. We want to really talk about what the best of this year really was. Mylar up? I don't know. How do I end these things?