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Episode 208 - Kojima TWIPY Massacre

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 34m·held·Dec 11, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Spooky reveals Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes pins; Twippies Awards controversially cut media categories amid interpersonal drama.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast discusses two new Spooky Pinball game reveals (Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes sharing the same layout but with different design teams), their pricing strategy, and commercial viability. The episode pivots to addressing controversy surrounding the Twippy Twippies Awards, where the committee eliminated several media-oriented award categories (streamer, podcast, YouTube channel, website), triggering complaints from Chris of Canadian A Pinball Podcast, who has historically dominated the favorite podcast category. The hosts debate the merit of the database removal and broader award structure issues.

Key Claims

  • Spooky announced two new games using the same layout with different design teams: Eric Priepke leading Looney Tunes rules, Ben Heck leading Texas Chainsaw Massacre rules

    high confidence · Dennis, discussing official Spooky announcement

  • Both games will have equal production runs of 888 units each, unlike Halloween/Ultraman where Halloween was greatly outproduced

    high confidence · Dennis, citing production data

  • Texas Chainsaw Massacre features the full 1974 film assets and the ruleset involves playing as the killers

    high confidence · Dennis, describing game features

  • Spooky pricing for both games: $8,300 standard, $9,000 Bloodsucker, $9,700 collector's edition—a significant markup from Scooby-Doo ($7,800/$8,800/$9,769)

    high confidence · Dennis, comparing pricing across releases

  • Twippies Awards committee sent an email on December 6th eliminating favorite podcast, streamer, YouTube channel, website, and new versions of these categories for 2024 voting

    high confidence · Tony, citing email from Twippy group

  • Chris of Canadian A Pinball Podcast has won the favorite podcast category every year since the Twippies have existed

    high confidence · Tony, describing Chris's award history

  • Scooby-Doo was produced with 1,969 units total, while the combined Texas/Looney run is 1,776 units—a reduction of nearly 200 units

    high confidence · Tony, citing production numbers

  • Pinball Promoter Database Database (part of TWiP) that listed streamers, podcasts, and content creators has been completely removed

    high confidence · Tony, describing database elimination

  • The design evidence suggests Texas Chainsaw was the primary design with Looney Tunes as a secondary adaptation, based on toy placement and mechanical integration

    medium confidence · Dennis, analyzing playfield design and toy behavior

Notable Quotes

  • “Texas Chainsaw has the full 1974 film assets. So they've got everything. So we're going to get a topless scene in a Pinball Machine. Probably.”

    Dennis @ Early segment — Highlights the mature content approach Spooky is taking with the Texas Chainsaw license

  • “This is the safest Spooky layout I think I've seen since America's Most Haunted...Whereas most of the time with Spooky, we seem to get some weird upper playfield or multiple upper playfields...Whereas this I'm not saying this has good geometry because I haven't seen gameplay yet...looking at it it looks like it's reasonable.”

    Dennis @ Layout discussion — Designer perspective on Spooky's historically unconventional playfield designs vs. these new games

  • “I personally think that Spooky long term would best serve itself abandoning doing horror themes...But even all the way back into the 90s, horror doesn't sell well. It never has on pinball. It's just not commercially safe enough.”

    Dennis @ Commercial viability discussion — Expert opinion on Spooky's strategic positioning and market viability

  • “I think if they had made 1,776 Looney Tunes, they'd have sold them all out. Yes. And they wouldn't if it was Texas. So why do two? Why not just do Looney?”

    Tony @ Production strategy discussion — Questions Spooky's decision to produce equal quantities of a less commercially safe horror title

  • “The Tasmanian devil that spins around, spins way too slowly. It spins like a slow horror guy with a chainsaw spins...It spins like the [Texas game] was designed first and Looney Tunes was tacked on.”

    Dennis @ Design analysis — Evidence-based technical observation about design priority order

  • “Chris was mad because his podcast was no longer listed in the Pinball Promoter database...And ultimately what has happened is the whole database is gone. There is no promoter database, which personally I think is a great decision.”

    Tony @ Twippy controversy explanation — Summarizes the cascading effect of Chris's complaint leading to database removal

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanyTexas Chainsaw MassacregameLooney TunesgameDennispersonTonypersonEric PriepkepersonBen HeckpersonChrisperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Spooky Pinball announces two games (Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes) simultaneously using shared playfield layout but with separate design teams, balanced production runs (888 each), and distinct rule systems

    high · Official announcement with confirmed design leads (Eric Pripke for Looney Tunes, Ben Heck for Texas Chainsaw), production numbers, and pricing tiers

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky's continuing strategy of designing games with shared layouts but different themes/rules to spread production risk and serve different market segments

    high · Pattern noted with Ultraman/Halloween; Dennis analyzes this as risk mitigation for horror themes: 'I like this having two separate teams...I like their continuing move of doing multiple, using the same layout in multiple machines'

  • $

    market_signal: Significant price increases from Scooby-Doo to new games: standard edition up ~$500 (7,800→8,300), but collector's edition down ($9,769→$9,700); anomalous pricing structure

    high · Tony confirms: 'the standard has gone up quite a bit by a few hundred. The bloodsucker is only up a little bit, and the collector's edition is actually cheaper. So that surprised me'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Both games feature four-flipper design, four ramps, spinning toys, and physical back locking mechanism—characterized as Spooky's 'safest layout' since America's Most Haunted, moving away from unconventional upper playfield designs that may confuse casual players

    high · Dennis: 'This is the safest Spooky layout I think I've seen since America's Most Haunted...I'm not saying this has good geometry because I haven't seen gameplay yet...looking at it it looks like it's reasonable'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.283

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, December 10th. This is episode 208. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. We have a lot. We actually do have a lot. We do. We have a new pinball game reveal, actually two, that we're going to go over. We have all the results of the game awards to discuss. Well, not all the results, but all the key highlights. The highlights. And unfortunately, we will have to address the drama surrounding the Twippy Pinball Awards because of reasons. But we will get into that. Before then, what's been going on? Drama. Really? Oh, man. literally call it six hours after we recorded the last episode.
1:08
We had a sewer line burst in our basement. You did tell me about this, but that's the last I heard of it.
1:15
And we rent. So landlord had his guys come and fix everything. But it took a little while to get everything fixed and cleaned up. And the basement area is not used for anything. It's just like storage. We don't even store anything down there. It's basically just like the furnace room and stuff.
1:36
But it was just – it took a while to get all the repairs done and get everything. I mean, as it happens, but still it was just – it was stressful. It made for a stressful week because we had a lot of other stuff going on that week as well and coming to the holidays and everything. And then I mentioned, I think I mentioned, I had some knee issues acting up when I was on a trip back in October. Right. And they were thinking I might have like a tear in the meniscus or something like that. So for insurance reasons, before I can get MRIs to check stuff, I have to go do x-rays and PT. So I started PT. PT is going pretty well. The pain is getting better Overall But then the other day I was doing my I did all my PT Walked out to my car The car wouldn't start And my wife was at work And my mom was gone At taking Dad to an appointment So all this stuff So I ended up walking from PT to home which wasn't far it wasn't far luckily the pt place is pretty close by it's only a mile or so but uh f even that um but it was immediately after doing pt so i'm walking home with my laptop my work laptop on my on my shoulder after doing pt and my knees are just like i hate you got the car running again every all that later that evening but it was just one of those because I'd also, when I parked, the place I'd parked, I parked directly under a sign that says, no overnight parking, violators will be towed.

  • Horror themes have historically not sold well in pinball, even back to the 1990s, and remain commercially risky for home collectors

    medium confidence · Dennis, offering industry opinion on horror genre performance

    • “I felt that it was trying to fish for additional dramatic elements, and I'm not really interested in providing them.”

    Tony @ Twippy drama section intro — Explicit statement of intent to avoid escalating community conflict

  • “The problem with a thing like that...it's like, here's the problem. Most promoters, they come and go and they don't all announce it. Most of them don't. Like, is the streamer still around? Why is it in the database that they went away?”

    Tony @ Database maintenance discussion — Identifies core logistical failure of the Promoter Database system

    • Colin
    person
    Straight Down The Middleorganization
    Twippies Awardsevent
    The Kineticistorganization
    TWiPorganization
    Scooby-Doogame
    American Pinballcompany
    Zach Sharpeperson
    Pinsideorganization
    [name withheld pending review]person
    Zach Minnieperson
    Canadian Pinball Podcastorganization

    product_concern: Evidence that Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the primary design with Looney Tunes as secondary adaptation, based on mechanical integration: Tasmanian Devil spinner speed and physics optimized for horror theme rather than cartoon character theme

    medium · Dennis: 'The Tasmanian devil that spins around, spins way too slowly...It spins like a slow horror guy with a chainsaw spins...It spins like the [Texas game] was designed first and Looney Tunes was tacked on'

  • ?

    community_signal: Escalating conflict between Chris (Canadia's Pinball Podcast) and Colin (Twippy committee member) regarding award category management, leading to removal of Chris from Promoter Database, subsequent database elimination, and broader awards restructuring

    high · Tony: 'Chris was mad because his podcast was no longer listed in the Pinball Promoter database...And ultimately what has happened is the whole database is gone'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Twippy Awards committee unilaterally eliminated all media-oriented award categories (streamer, podcast, YouTube channel, website and new variants) effective 2024 voting, citing operational constraints but sparking community backlash

    high · Tony: 'the email...said that several of the favorite award categories were going to be dropped for 2023...they were all media oriented ones'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Promoter Database project (part of TWiP) failed due to lack of maintenance and complexity; non-comprehensive coverage, inactive creators remaining listed, no enforcement of updates, making it unsuitable for award voting or community reference

    high · Tony: 'Most promoters, they come and go and they don't all announce it...Most of them don't. Like, is the streamer still around? Why is it in the database that they went away?'

  • $

    market_signal: Spooky reduced combined production from Scooby-Doo's 1,969 units to 1,776 units for Texas/Looney (188-unit reduction), signaling either tighter manufacturing capacity or more conservative market outlook

    high · Tony: 'Scooby was launched with 1969...and here it's a combined total of 1,776 units, 1,776. So given that they've scaled back by almost 200 units total'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Industry consensus (Dennis) that horror themes structurally underperform in home pinball market vs. arcade era, yet Spooky continues horror focus; Looney Tunes positioned as commercial hedge for Texas Chainsaw's niche appeal

    high · Dennis: 'horror doesn't sell well. It never has on pinball. It's just not commercially safe enough...I personally think that Spooky long term would best serve itself abandoning doing horror themes'

  • ?

    content_signal: Straight Down The Middle (Greg Bone/Zach Minnie video series) released dual 20-minute featurettes with interviews about Texas/Looney design philosophy, indicating high-profile media coverage and likely industry visibility

    high · Dennis: 'they released two...20 minute long featurettes with interviews with spooky about each one's on one of the games...if you want to know more about the games...go and check those out'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Fundamental structural conflict between Twippy Awards' goal of recognizing community media/creators and operational burden of maintaining comprehensive, current database; elimination of categories reflects governance/resource constraint rather than philosophical shift

    medium · Tony articulates the dilemma: 'write-ins when you've got like a thousand people voting it's...a pain because people don't know how to spell...So the Twippy database was a way...to help kind of solve that issue logistically'

    • 3:29
    So I walked home, took some medicine, rested for a little while, jumped in my truck, drove my truck back up there, tinkered with the car, got the car to start, took the car home, and had to go back and get the truck later. You didn't walk back for the truck, did you? I did, because I'm an idiot. because my wife wasn't going to get off work for like another half hour. And by that point it would have been dark. So that's why I wanted to try and get the car running while it was light and halfway warm. So then I, I got home and I dropped the car off and I thought about walking in, going in the house and just waiting for her to come home. And instead I'm like, meh, I handled it before. And this time I don't have a heavy bag. So I walked back and I walked back, picked the truck up and drove home. so yeah i i i had a week you did wow i had a two weeks i mean that doesn't even touch all the crazy work stuff or any of the other interesting fun things that's just that's just a little bit of insanity right there the last two weeks have been special i'm gonna leave them at special How about yourself? basically other than putting in a little bit of overwatch two time uh like i normally do i i got some starfield play since our last recording i only played yesterday i put i put in some hours but i just hadn't because i get home after there's some project stuff at work so i get home and i'm just like oh i'm just gonna watch tv i just turn to the tv person so doing that and uh doing but also trying to keep up on on the wristwatch content so like last weekend i did my top five watch releases of 2023 and then yesterday i did my five worst watch releases of 2023 most people on the here won't care about that but i'll have links in the show notes if you want to watch them you can didn't you also do a best collection under something or other as a live stream yeah so every saturday morning i live stream and i try and do that pretty consistently and normally what i do is i talk about watch releases that i didn't do videos on and most watch releases i don't do videos on sometimes if it's like a big release i'll do a first thoughts video that's mostly because the youtube algorithm likes that and i get good views but it's easier to do the live stream format because i don't have to edit and then uh i have enough that watch in the mornings now that i can interact with the audience because i'll usually have somewhere between 10 and 20 people watching live so i'm able to use that and and we can play off of those questions and and kind of dive more and sometimes it deviates but long story short rather than there were more water like it's not like pinball like every week there are watch releases some of them that's what some of them are super scrub but right but it seems like there's constantly there are releases and i just didn't care about any of the ones that came out so i You didn't like the Oris ProPilot GMT? It was fine, but I just didn't want to do it. The Rose Gold? I just didn't want to do it. So I said, you know what? Let's do one of the watch journalists.
    7:11
    Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know if I'd describe it as a journalism site. It kind of is. It's so weird because, again, kind of like pinball where people get a little critical. You know, like I do the podcast with Zach, and some people get annoyed because he sells pinball machines and he's commentating on the hobby. Right. Which I totally understand. You need to go in knowing a person's bias. But that said, it's exceedingly common in these things. And like in watches, most of these sites either sell watches or they sell something with them, like straps. And they do collaborations with the businesses. I mean, there's all this. It's very interbred, however you want to think of it. So not all of them, but a lot of them. So anyway, this was one of those sites. But they had been doing a – they're based out of Europe. So they've been doing a what's the perfect watch collection for 25,000 euro. So, yeah, that's why I did the live stream. As I went through their four things to show like what they picked. And then I did because I'm American. I did twenty five thousand dollars, not euros. But right now I did that. And of course, the people are watching live or like saying, here's what I would get. I'd get one. If I had twenty five thousand dollars, I'd get one watch. I just want one watch. I'm like, OK, well, we're doing a collection. So we're not, you know, that's the twenty five thousand dollars would be a good target for. Nice, solid three-watch collection?
    8:26
    You could do, yeah, you could. I ended up doing four. It would also be a good thing for a nice, solid 300-watch collection. Depends. I would struggle to wear 300, so that would be why. You should need a different watch every single day. Sure. You need a lot of winders. You do. Maybe they just all need to be quartz. I don't know. But what I do know about is we have a pinball segment. We only have a couple of things to go through. We'll start with the optimistic, happy topic. And the one that I think is more interesting to the listeners. And that is new release. Who would have thought in December? All right. I mean, a lot of people probably would have thought it, Tony, because Stern historically does reveal a new game in December. But this ain't Stern. This is spooky.
    9:11
    Anyway, so they have released two new games using the same layout, kind of like what they did with Ultraman and Halloween. But this time it's Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes. Who knew the Texas Chainsaw Massacre would be our happy topic? It is, sadly.
    9:32
    But we'll get into that in a moment. So unlike with Halloween and Ultraman, I think the main thing to note is these games actually have completely different design teams. So layout aside, they're being helmed by different crews, different rules for both games. See, that's interesting. It is. It's an interesting twist up. So Eric Pripke is going to be leading the Looney Tunes rules, and then Ben Heck is leading the Texas Chainsaw rules.
    10:00
    Also, unlike Halloween and Ultraman, these are balanced in the sense that both runs are 888 units. So it's not – whereas for those of you that weren't around or don't remember, Halloween was greatly outproduced over Ultraman. Ultraman was a very small run.
    10:16
    So some other little tidbits before we kind of talk about what we think of the games. Texas Chainsaw has the full 1974 film assets. So they've got everything.
    10:27
    So we're going to get a topless scene in Penval Machine. Probably. I mean, with Spooky, you could. Looney Tunes has over 20 of the classic episodes or what I believe what they bill as the golden era episodes. So they've got those to work with. I do have several links in the show notes. In fact, I have three links in the show notes, all the NAP Arcade. Thank you, Jason. With summary details and breakdowns on both of the titles. Pricing wise, as usual, Spooky does their three tier models, somewhat akin to how Stern does. That's $8,300 for the standard edition, $9,000 for the Bloodsucker edition, and $9,700 for the collector's edition. because the layouts are the same it's notable that uh all games all both games use a four flipper design uh have four ramps uh feature spinning toys and feature sort of a physical locking mechanism in the back of the game i also have two links in the show notes i got lots of links in the show so many links i got two links in the show notes just straight down the middle the video series that greg bone and zach minnie do because they released two i think they're both about 20 minute long featurettes with interviews with spooky about each one's on one of the games so there's one for loony and there's one for texas again because they're different design teams so if you want to know more about the games and hear more about like what the thought process is go and check those out yeah i haven't had a chance to watch them i only got a little ways into texas but i got all the way through looney tunes so yeah they're well done as usual that's pretty normal for them let's not pat them on their back too i did watch the trailer just the straight up trailers that spooky put out those were interesting uh but yeah no i did not honestly expect a spooky release for another couple months yeah i mean they they're very consistent in their build speed um and there may be again either gain a little bit out ahead of you know scooby-doo builds are wrapping up so let's get ready for the for the next game so So, no, I would have thought that maybe they would have held a little while longer to, again, like if the plan is to have it at Texas, is Texas going to be the first show? I don't know. But with Scooby, they got those games at a show before Texas. It was at one show before. So maybe they're kind of trying to do this, and this is their annual cycle, and that's what they want to be on. I can definitely see doing that. I can also see the point. I mean, it's Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It seems like Texas would be the right place to do the first show as well.
    13:09
    So in terms of the game, and I'm not really seeing, quote-unquote, gameplay. This is very early in the process, and it's so hard. I don't like walking through layout on podcast because it's – It's hard to describe. Well, and unless the listener is looking at a photo with us, it kind of is futile, I think. But the way I would describe it when I saw the layout is this is and the word I used with Tony before we started recording safe, safest. This is the safest spooky layout I think I've seen since America's Most Haunted. And when I say safest, I don't mean long ball time safest. I mean, like, I think a lot of people will look at this layout and not be put off by it. Whereas most of the time with spooky, we seem to get some weird upper play field or multiple upper play fields. And there's a lot where you look at it and you're kind of like, it's different. Right. But is it fun? You know, it's just it's weird. And that level of weirdness may, you know, the uniqueness kind of comes at, in my opinion, a lot of times at the expense of good geometry. Whereas this I'm not saying this has good geometry because I haven't seen gameplay yet. looking at it it looks like it it's it's reasonable like it ain't gonna be weird stuff like where well halloween is probably the poster child you can't get the ball up the middle ramp the upper play fields aren't any fun other than the butt pretzel shot right everyone calls the butt pretzel shot because it's the butt pretzel shot like that was the one shot people liked on the game though the the servos lifting the ball up or slow and take forever you know just had all this stuff where it was like this is really unique and not fun right this looks like a safer layout commercially. People will probably look at this, I think, and go, you know what? That game looks like it's fun. Yeah. We'll just have to see how it actually plays and how it goes in person to see. I do like their continuing move of doing multiple, using the same layout in multiple machines. I like that because they tend to trend heavy on horror themes and that's not always the best seller. I think that's a good move for them. I like this having two separate teams so that the games aren't just a re-art acid version of each other as if they're going to have actual different rules and such I think that's a good move on their part I think everything about this is a solid move on their part as long as the game is fun to play I agree with you that it makes sense to do the two layouts given their decision to run with a horror theme on one of them I personally think that spooky long term would best serve itself abandoning doing horror themes.
    15:59
    I know that's like what, but that's it was formed to be a horror company. Yeah, I know that. But that was the wrong decision. And and I like horror. And I know there are a lot of diehards who love that spooky is dedicated to continuing to do horror themes. But even all the way back into the 90s, horror doesn't sell well. It never has on pinball. It's just not commercially safe enough. And now that we're not talking arcades, we're talking things that end up in people's homes. It's kind of like certain music pins where, well, like, what was the biggest problem with Iron Maiden? It's not the layout. It's the theme. A lot of people just hate Iron Maiden's icon, their icons, their graphic style, their choice, but even more hate their music. So in this regard, when you do safe horror like Scooby-Doo, it's one thing. When you do Rob Zombie and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's another thing. Right. Especially since I believe with the Texas Chainsaw game and the rule set, you're playing as the killers. Oh, jeez. I believe that's the approach they are taking. That's even – yeah. It's a bold move, Colin. That's bold. And from the artist perspective, I respect it. Commercially, it's not the right answer. They could probably sell. I mean, are they going to sell out of these games? Let me ask you that. Do you think so? I think so. Even in today's market?
    17:28
    I don't think it's an instant sellout. I think it'll take longer, but I still think they'll end up selling out. I guarantee the Looney Tunes will sell out. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I think, will probably take longer. But again it is Kind of Talking on a horror theme but it's even more of a Like cult horror theme and an older Horror theme I don't think If they had gone with Let me rephrase it it's not that I don't think I think if they had gone with a more Modern Horror theme it would Have guaranteed a Faster sell out than going for something That's quite So niche in the genre and I think that's just the nature of the beast in that case. If you're going to be putting a niche theme up in pinball's already niche marketplace,
    18:20
    it's going to have the possibility of having some issues on the initial sales. You can look at the Labyrinth machine. Some people would say Labyrinth is a niche, but I think it's nowhere near as niche as Texas Chainsaw Massacre. which makes sense why Labyrinth sold so fast yeah it's tough for me to say in the sense that I mean they're both I don't know which is like more famous than the other in that regard so we're thinking niche in the sense that do people know the license you know question mark if we're thinking niche in terms of have people ever seen the license I mean Labyrinth is a safer bet just because a lot of parents would never have let their kids watch Texas Chainsaw and who wasn't going to let their kids watch labyrinth sort of thing so so you you you end up with that sort of scenario as well it's it's i just think that especially hardcore horror like that i you're right they they could very well end up um selling out of of both they they're making less games now yeah so i was going and reconfirming so scooby was launched with 1969 1969 and here It's a combined total of 1,776 units, 1,776. So given that they've scaled back by almost 200 units total, it will take less for them to sell out. I think that was probably a smart move for them. In terms of pricing, the differences, because I was curious. I'm checking an old Pinball News article. So as we noted, the three tiers continue to exist. And I said Looney Tunes in Texas are $8,300 as a standard edition. Scooby-Doo was under $7,800.
    20:11
    So it's a significant markup there. Bloodsuckers Scooby-Doo was under $8,800. So the Bloodsuckers is not much higher than it was for Scooby in this because now it's $9,000. And the collectors on Scooby was $9,769, so under $9,800.
    20:32
    And this collector's is actually cheaper. So this is really weird. That is a weird. Like the standard has gone up quite a bit by a few hundred. The bloodsucker is only up a little bit, and the collector's edition is actually cheaper.
    20:47
    So that surprised me because I didn't. Yeah, that is an interesting. But back to your thing on niche and stuff. Yeah, ultimately they could both sell out. Here's the thing for me. I think if they had made 1,776 Looney Tunes, they'd have sold them all out. Yes. And they wouldn't if it was Texas. So why do two? Why not just do Looney?
    21:10
    I think it's because they still have that horror core, and that's their target. My assumption is when this layout was designed, it was designed around Texas with the Looney Tunes as a sub-theme to pad out the sales by doing the split like they did with Ultraman and Halloween. I mean, with the difference being in that split, Ultraman was the less well-known, less popular of the choices, where in this split, it's going to be Texas that's the less well-known, less of the choices. And that, I think, is the answer. And I think it is the design approach. I think it's pretty clear, looking at the toy placements and stuff and comparing the two games side-by-side, that Texas was designed first and Looney Tunes was tacked on.
    22:09
    And the case in point is the toy was the Tasmanian devil that spins around, spins way too slowly. I think that's the first thing that screams out to you. It doesn't spin like the Tasmanian devil does. It spins like a slow horror guy with a chainsaw spins. And when you see the other game, you're like, oh, it makes so much more sense in terms of how it's integrated. Same with the, I feel, with the ball lock, the physical ball lock in the back. It seems to make, it's not that they didn't integrate it well in Looney Tunes. It's just when you see the Texas one, you're like, oh, this was envisioned with the Texas approach. See, and that was all of my – that was my thoughts as well is that everything felt more settled on the Texas version than – like it felt more sensical. Like it was specifically designed where everything else felt like a – not a re-theme but just re-done to match what was on the other. I also would say that you know it's and this gets a little more subjective but like art wise I'm not enamored with either package but I get to me I kind of get that Halloween vibe with the art package to Texas whereas with the Looney Tunes it does sort of feel like they mostly slapped the Tasmanian Devil around on some spots and then just threw a couple Looney characters and is this kind of there It felt flat to me I don know but something about it felt flat I mean it colorful It eye But it didn feel quite as master integrated on Looney in my mind And also, I feel like the orange coloring on a lot of the parts, the ramps and the habit trails and stuff, make it feel weird. Yeah, that's actually – and you're not the first person I've heard mention that. And actually, when I saw it, my initial unfair – well, no, unfair. I'm being fair. My initial reaction was, oh, did they get the surplus parts from American Pinball's Hot Wheels game? because those orange look like hot wheels tracks right like these would be great ramps and hot wheels i i just was a little surprised but again they do run with a lot of brown and orange in the art so maybe that was the thought is yeah it's like i mean it's a common color palette to the looney tunes it's just there's nothing unusual they just didn't remember that the people remember hot wheels because it wasn't that long ago right it's not just pepperidge farm that remembers we all remember so anyway i thought i thought it was amusing but anyway yeah i i think this will do pretty well for them. I don't think, I think Texas struggles to make its full count sales-wise. You could very well be right that they get there, but it ain't going to be fast, I don't think. I don't think they sell out by the end of the year on Texas. Maybe they do loony, though, given the count is less than 900 of them. Any other final thoughts you have on those?
    25:08
    No, I think until we actually get our hands on them, we'll know then how they are, but It's definitely – it was an interesting combination to learn about. Okay. All right. Let's go to the topic that I do not want to talk about, but it is news, and there's some tangential involvement in the sense that there's a Pennside thread where I was mentioned a couple of times regarding some remarks I made before this announcement happened on the pinball show. And I've not responded to that thread. I felt that it was trying to fish for additional dramatic elements, and I'm not really interested in providing them. Though, of course, what comes out of this might end up meeting that. So let's do a quick nutshell summary for folks real quick. We actually did get an email from the Twippy group to our Eclectic Gamers podcast at gmail.com address regarding that they were making a change on some of their award categories. So for those that don't recall, the Twippies are a People's Choice Award that happens every year for the last few years for pinball. And there's usually kind of a split into two classifications. There's stuff that kind of recognizes the pinball machines and the people who make them. And those, as I recall, I always called those – those are usually like best. This was the best art on a pinball machine. Right. Best designer, best pinball design, best rules of a pinball. And then they have the favorites, which were mostly oriented around content creation and other quote-unquote hobbyist things or operator things like favorite location, favorite podcast, favorite streamer, favorite writer. The categories have changed over the years, some of them at least. Oh, it's like favorite convention. Yeah, there you go, favorite convention. Um, so the email, uh, I believe it came on December 6th said that several of the favorite award categories were going to be dropped for 2023, which that voting kicks off later this month. And they were all media oriented ones. So specifically elimination of the categories, favorite pinball streamer, new pinball streamer, pinball podcast, new pinball podcast, YouTube channel, pinball YouTube channel, excuse me, new pinball YouTube channel and pinball website. now why is this dramatic well okay if you if you know about the twippies and know how it's been over the years it'll kind of make a little bit of sense so chris who who hosts canadis pinball podcast and has been the favorite podcast winner i think ever since the twippies have existed he's won every single time launched what i'll i'll generously describe as a series of complaints calling out Colin of the Kineticist and TWIP and TWIP committee regarding the decision, though most of the blame has been falling on Colin. So we kind of covered this on a past episode. The Kineticist and TWIP this week in pinball is TWIP are merged now. So there's been like some sort of acquisition-esque thing that happened. Now, the TWIPs have a whole committee. Colin is now on that committee but it consists of more people than just colin and they make the decisions regarding the operation and you know they make the the twippies go because uh having won an award run an award before it takes a lot of work it's not it's not especially big ones it's not that involve a lot of moving parts it's not easy so um anyway there had been conflict between chris podcast chris and colin canessa's colin for a while now really since that it probably i think actually predates that that merger but the volume has been turned up over the the last little bit because there have been changes that have been happening to the twip website ever since it it came together so essentially i i don't want to go into a bunch of it because it's just i i this is So I'm – anyway, let me just finish the summary, and then we can – then I can sigh to my size content. All right. So basically, the nutshell on it is Chris was mad because his podcast was no longer listed in the Pinball Promoter database that wasn't originally a part of TWiP but eventually got added. It's where people could go and review. Like we had – like people would review our – you might not have even known about it. I'd heard about it, and I knew about it. I never looked at it. People would go and like could do reviews there. And it had like streamers and all these promoters in this sort of database. And it had him in a bunch of – it wasn't comprehensive. I need to point this out. It was meant to be, but it was not comprehensive.
    29:52
    And Chris's podcast got removed. He complained that he should be in the database. And ultimately what has happened is the whole database is gone. There is no promoter database, which personally I think is a great decision. because logistically, I don't think it was being maintained well. And it's such a huge project. I mean, I don't mean this as a net, like, dang it, Will, or whoever was doing it, you should have maintained it well. It's like, here's the problem with a thing like that. This is just, I know it's an aside, but I'm going to go all over the place on this. And I apologize to the listeners. Fast forward to, or hey, after I get done with this, a lot of you are probably not going to be listeners anymore, quite frankly. So, you know, I understand. We can't all agree. and I'm going to get into that, but I'm going to try not to be like Scott on Loser Kid and get really angry. You probably didn't hear his episode. When Scott is angry, it's like me. He starts talking really fast and you can hear that shaking rage. I get like that, but I'm going to be chill because I try and stay out of the stuff. You're a leaf on the wind.
    31:00
    Hopefully I don't die like that. Sorry. Possible spoilers if you have any sense of what we were talking about anyway the problem was with promoters they come and go and they don't all they don't announce it most of them don't like is the streamer still around why is it in the database that they went away it's that's that sort of thing and we had issues or we had heard issues like in the past the promoter database was being used by the this is why it's where it's kind of quasi-relevant for a while but not always the ballot for like choosing the favorites was using drop downs out of the promoter database because I'd heard about people that had become quote unquote promoter like streamers and then they weren't in the database because no one knew that or knew about them right great you know how great does that feel um but then they didn't get added and then no one could vote for them and when they didn't find them I mean it was kind of like too late and so anyway it it had issues relying on it I understood why they started doing it for the twippies because write-ins when you've got like a thousand people voting it's a we did write in stuff for the pinball awards and we would just have like the last year uh where we did them we had oh gosh i don't know a couple hundred it was a pain because people don't know how to spell they're they're some people are saying the name like you'll hear people uh i'll give you a good case in point one like someone will say we'll write in joe engelberth for for podcasts it's Like, okay, well, do you mean just another pinball podcast? Do you mean Triple Jane podcast? Does Joel have something we don't know about that's in between those two? Didn't you know about other podcasts? How do you count it? Or do you throw it out for not saying the name of the podcast? You see, it's right. How many different ways can one person's name be spelled? So the Twippy database was a way. I don't know if it was created with the Twippies explicitly in mind, but it was a way to help kind of solve that issue logistically because they have an unenviable task trying to count up write-ins. Holy crap, is that a nightmare. So anyway, so I'm starting to ramble. I apologize for that. But Tony has seen my – I have really detailed notes in here, but we ain't reading all of them because it just gets – a lot of it's just a lot of background. So anyway, so the conflict was already kind of there because of the removal of the database. However, the removal of the database does not implicitly change anything about the Twippies. Like the Twippy committee could go back to their old model without the database. In fact, that's what I assumed they would do when I heard there was no more database. So since then, though, this announcement came out because the I use the word toxic because I think that's a fair descriptor. There has been an antagonistic campaign about the stupid database thing that was turning up the volume. And in response to this, the TWIP committee has decided, let's just be done with these media categories and the TWIPs. And they pulled the plug on it, which then, of course, increased the volume more. Now, I've not asked Colin explicitly with a kineticist about this other than I've seen him post online saying that, you know, since that announcement came out, it's been fairly hard on him because this is where I don't know for sure. But based off of that, I'm assuming he's getting harassed at this point. And I have a problem morally with that. And I have a problem with people who don't. But I would like your thoughts. I think like you were saying, they were using the database for the media section to ease it out because of the sheer enormity of the write-ins. And I think it makes sense to drop the whole thing if you're dropping the database. The reasons behind dropping one person or dropping the database doesn't matter in the end because they're their own company. They can do what they want. That's literally part of it. They're under no obligation to maintain a database or maintain a voting system for any person because you want it in. They're under no obligation to maintain a category in an award show.
    35:16
    They have no requirement to do the award show even. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of effort, and it's something they're choosing to do on their own. So them dropping that stuff, I don't care. It doesn't affect me. I can understand why they would do it. It's one of those things that I feel too many people have gotten too tightly wound into their own personal being, the results of stuff like this. And maybe it's a good thing that it's gone. For a variety of reasons, I think you're right. But there have been a number of – and I'm not talking about Chris. There have been a number of other content creators who have expressed that they're pretty upset about this decision. And I agree with you. And I think a lot of people – even if they hate the decision, I think a lot of people do understand this isn't an election. This isn't a public thing. This is twips. you can and there are plenty of people are like mad that this upstart person who hasn't you know been in the hobby for 20 years or whatever has come in and gets to have influence and all of the stuff but it's like none of it is really in a way of your concern they chose to make an award i remember the first year the twippies happened and the vote was on pensai and people were criticizing jeff for creating the thing i mean it was there's always look there's always something There's always something. And we had the saying when the pinball was back, when it was first the pinball industry awards, we took some guff, especially the first year. Like, why are you doing this? We already have an awards thing. Why are you trying to undermine the Twippy? And they get over it. Like by the second year, there was hardly any criticism. And it's just how it is. Here's the thing with the to the other content creators who let me go ahead and cover my TPS comments really quickly first. So on the last The Pinball Show, I kind of threw out there as a – I wished that The Pinball Show just wasn't eligible, like wasn't in the list to win a Twippy for podcasting as a favorite. I just – because I don't like to be associated with drama. I don't like talking about topics like this. It's not why I'm in the hobby. I'm also not in the hobby to win trophies. Now, someone on Pinside, when that comment got brought up, I think the thought was that I had secret information, like I had seen some really nasty stuff that was leading me to not want to be associated. I see really nasty stuff every year that I don't talk about the drama. This stuff all gets shared amongst a lot of the creators. Now, all you all need to know, and I'm not linking the Pinside thread, but you can search it really easily and find it. And there are already posts on there now that weren't when my name was first brought up that have already shown you where Chris threatened to dox Collins phone cell phone number out. For me, that's reason enough. Oh, that's reason enough. That is beyond reason. That is completely unacceptable. I have talked to enough friends who are in not necessarily pinball, but video games, streaming, other hobbies where they are out there and they put out a lot of content. And I have seen some of the messages and the sheer number of terrible things sent to people. for every person who's like I was telling someone how much they love their content and how much how they like watching their videos or listening to their podcast you get people who are telling them that you're a terrible person and you need to kill yourself and and or if something bad happens and they talk about something bad that happened like losing a family member or something there are people who will literally send a message saying well you deserve that or you're a terrible person or why would you talk about this because this is one of those things that I don't listen to you to hear about sad stuff. Your job here is to dance monkey and make me happy. So please put out something that makes me happy. And that's for the male members, the female people I have spoken with and that I've interacted with the stuff that they get in their inbox is so bad. I won't even talk about it because it's rage inducing to a point that it cranks my blood pressure. There's a reason that whenever we've had done anything and i i've had had my like my daughter on or where she's talked about when she talked about pokemon or anything like that i refer to them just as my kids they don't have their names they don't have anything like that we carefully protect them in their own online endeavors just because of how horrible people are in stuff like that I have been teamed up with my eldest daughter playing in Overwatch 1 where she made the mistake of saying something in voice chat and it coming out that she is a young sounding female. and the sheer amount of crap that happened after that, the words that were said, the things that were said, and the way people acted. It is one of those things that is just completely destructive of your faith in humanity and completely destructive of your ability to think that there are good people out there. This is a reason why I agree completely with Dennis, that there's a certain level of morality that needs to happen to keep people safe.
    40:57
    Are people's information out there? Yes. Is my information findable? Most definitely is my information findable. But there's a difference between it being findable and somebody going out there and intentionally putting it out while putting it out in such a way that you are raising the stakes and angering people and trying to get people to call and message and do terrible things. That's a completely different level of toxicity. It is just one of those things that should not be acceptable in any way, shape, or form. Just like we always attempt to be very clear and we don't do things like we would have us sign NDAs. We don't do team-ups. It just, that's a morality thing that comes from us and how we see things and how we look. And when you're like talking about just awards in general, I am a member of a committee that oversees awards for something industry related in my field of work. and one of the rules that I put in and I told them when I went into that position that is a rule that I was doing because I'm morally bound by it is no groups in the industry that have direct connections to me will I allow to put in for the awards. I will not because I sat on the committee. It's against my thought. I won't even step out and let other people vote while I stay out of it because there's still a connection there, and I don't feel that's correct.
    42:36
    So it is just one of those things that I feel like is disgusting to the point of making you want to just not interact with people at all. Yeah, the I mean, and it's not like in this scenario. And again, you know, we very rarely talk about talk about Chris with with the Canada show. I don't I don't consume his content. I probably quit listening around episode 100 was when I saw I used to listen. And because a lot of people say, you know, if you don't like someone, just don't, you know, don't consume their stuff, which is, which is fine. I mean, that's normally how I make. I don't consume much of anything. And so just real quick on terms of the TPS comments, when I made those comments, this is every December. That's why I don't want I didn't want to be associated. I didn't honestly expect like Twip to pull us from the thing, make their life hard. It's just kind of like, you know, I just kind of wish because I don't care about the trophy. I don't I'd rather not be tied to any of the toxicity with it. And someone on the Penn site thread had said, well, but to be fair, Dennis and Zach were going to win the award. So was it I mean, who cares? Like what he wants? Why does it even matter? Well, I mean, it's it's it's kind of a fair point, but I mean, bluntly, we probably would have been top three. So my name still or at least my show's name still gets stuck beside something that I don't agree with. So I still think there's some relevance to it, but ultimately doesn't. That's not the main thing. And in fact, you know, in this talk, talking about toxicity and doxing. And as you know, like doxing isn't like Social Security number, like identity theft, taking people's information that can be found publicly. and then saying, you know, I sure wish this would happen. Here's a thing to get, you know, to connect with them. That's what doxing is about. And that's where things like swatting can happen. And here's the thing I feel I just I really want to be blunt with people. But so they understand where I'm coming from. It's not Chris that I'm concerned about. It just takes one crazy.
    44:41
    And there's crazy in this hobby. Yeah. And I don't want to put words in people's mouth, but a former pinball podcaster who was podcasting before we even started, who does not pinball podcast anymore, had something like that happen where they were concerned for their kids. That's what I worry about. So when I see people saying, well, maybe – and I'm going to quote. I'm going to quote what Chris wrote. This is on the Pinsight thread, I believe, this one. Comment to one of his original posts where he goes, tomorrow I'll post his cell number. No more content until my achievements are reinstated. Is this bullying or me standing up for my 10 years of hard work? Well, in response to the query, it is bullying. So allow me to set that aside because that is exactly what it is. The whole thing is an intimidation tactic. You're trying to get people to harass someone so that you get your way. The word most people would probably use is blackmail with stuff like that. But blackmail usually is the idea of exposing something that someone doesn't want to be made public. This is more harassment sort of thing. But this is not acceptable behavior, folks. And I sympathize that some of you are deeply entertained by the whatever Chris chooses to do with the show. And that's your right. And I but I don't I don't understand supporting this, defending it, piling on to it about a stupid piece of plastic on a corrupt voting system. And yes, and again, I'm not trying to call out the twippy people. This is where back to the topic of the other content creators who are upset about this. It's us for fun. This it's people's choice, folks. It's dumb. It's designed to be dumb. It's corrupt by design. Most people's choice systems know this and lean into it for the lulls. Like, hey, if you vote on TikTok, every vote you give counts for 10. Come back each day and vote. That's what people's choice are because they can't control it. There's another example, again, from Chris that he he shared, I guess, to his his patron people about saying how he wanted to get to a thousand first place votes. And he said, so if you get just one other person to vote, we will easily get there. How is it This is rhetorical How is it a celebration of pinball to get people who don play pinball to vote in a pinball contest It not But it not the Twippy Committee fault They can control that But it I find it laughable that people are like oh it wrong to buy votes It's wrong to bot votes. But it's OK. I mean you want to know what – if we – let's take EGP, which I don't think was ever in the top ten ever since they started doing the ridings. Oh, there's no way. So we're – we'd never win this, right? What if we put a call for votes in our work newsletters, our organization-wide work newsletters? We have at our disposal with 1%, if only 1% did it, it's more than the total Twippy votes, I believe. Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me. It's a joke.
    47:54
    It's like anyone can win this within the rules. You just have to. What's the difference between asking for a vote and buying a vote? One costs you money and one costs you friends.
    48:12
    No one likes to be asked for votes. That's why we used to share the Twippy ballot the first few years, and we stopped because it was like it's annoying. And that was part of my TPS thing was separate from this drama specifically. It's not even just been one podcaster. There have been plenty of years where we've seen some who, be it podcasting or remember when TPF and their news, they start emailing us because we're on the list because we buy tickets every year to vote for them in the Twippies. I'm like, I'm not on your email list for this crap. It pisses me off. It's obnoxious. The whole season is obnoxious. So that's where that was coming from. When you start running for your vote. It's like running for dog catcher. What is this? When you start campaigning for the votes, it gets weird.
    49:04
    And that's not even just this hobby. That's pretty much all hobbies. But also anything that involves online voting. That's how you end up with the Bodie McBoatface or Taylor Swift having a school for the deaf win a competition for her to play, do a concert at their school or who was it pitbull who was running the thing to do a concert somewhere and the place that one was like a town of 300 people in alaska i mean it's just one of the it's that's what happens with this kind of uh thing and honestly body but boat face and some of the other stuff i i understand why people did what they did from a humorous point of view. But that's different than talking about stabbing somebody or doxing somebody. We live in Kansas, and it wasn't that long ago that somebody was killed in a swatting call in Wichita, just a few years ago. I mean, that happens. It's a thing that happens, and it's an issue that anybody who has an online presence that has any real popularity has to worry about. Right. And I think supporting that in any way, shape or form is not acceptable. I just I think it's a British phrase, but it seems like a lot of you who are probably listening have lost the plot. I I'm sorry, but you you have allowed this notion, this fun. And I don't know if you it's because you just like the trolly nature of of this or it feeds the ego of someone you enjoy. Or if you just like to see the world burn. I don't I don't really know. But it's I feel it is. It's gone too far. I feel it's bullying. I feel those of you piling on are not either. You're not thinking about where you're doing or you have in a twisted form of logic decided that it's justified. and I really hope that you are not this way in real life because if so it's pretty sad and I'm just trying I'm trying to imagine people who who think it's okay to to bully and harass that I'm sure there's a line but I can't see it is the problem that I have and and maybe we were maybe we were wrong to not call out more of the bad behavior as it goes along but Like a lot of pinhead people, we just try and ignore the stuff that's stupid because we're not doing a podcast to get into these serious topics. It's stupid gaming stuff. This is a stupid podcast full of stupid gaming. And people say stupid things, including us. And in this instance, it's gone too far, folks. That you do not like Colin, you do not like the Twippy Committee, that you don't like the decision. Oh, that's all fine. Yeah. If you feel you need to articulate that, that's absolutely fine. Always exercise critical thinking is what I ask of anyone. And maybe that's too much again because this is a stupid podcast where we talk about stupid topics on stupid things. That we have to remember and that I think the Internet makes it hard to remember is that these are real people with real feelings. I think if you would not be willing to sit down across the table from this person and tell them the same thing you're telling them online, you probably shouldn't. And also, I think the thing that needs to be remembered is that all of these content creators, every single one of them, no matter your thoughts, is creating content because they enjoy it. At least they start that way.
    53:01
    And then later on, maybe some people get big enough that they make enough money. Then it becomes a job. But if you talk to a lot of them, when they've gotten to that point, the enjoyment's dead. Yeah. It is a very real thing because then it's work. It's the same reason I've quit MMOs because it was work. The reason that we're sitting here in episode 208 and going strong with no issues. It's because of Patreon. is because we thank you we thank you patreon uh but no really it's because this isn't the only thing in our lives this is something we do for fun and it has always been we've talked about it multiple times uh recently even about how this is something that it's basically just dennis and i recording the conversations that we would have normally in a slightly more organized fashion with less profanity and with much less profanity uh and also much less laughing and smart alec yeah people don't like it when i laugh too much they get annoyed uh and the like but i mean this This is, we do this for us and we put it out there because we wanted to. And we get good feedback and a lot of you really enjoy it. And we have some great conversations. And that is why we do this type of thing. Like Dennis said earlier, it's not about winning awards. It's not about, you know, becoming rich and quitting our day jobs. It's not about anything more than that we do it for ourselves. And it's one of those things that it hurts to know that somebody can be in this hobby and will just be like, oh, I disagree with your thought on this pinball machine, and I think you should kill yourself. Or I disagree with this, and I wish something horrible would happen to your family. or, I mean, this is just the kind of thing that you would see people online say, oh, you just have to ignore the haters and keep going. And you're right. You have to. You have no choice in the matter. We're not, you don't give in and stop doing something because, you know, somebody says that. You don't give in to threats. But at the same time, it's hard to continue forward when you see that stuff. And even if it's only one or two terrible, hateful, horrible things, it still affects you.
    55:47
    But at the same time, if you love somebody's content, make sure they know that you like their content. Send them a message that says, because that helps balance out the horribleness that I can guarantee will happen and that they will be getting. because that's how we have to live in our day and age.
    56:11
    And I feel like this is a problem that is plaguing not just this hobby. It plagues everything everywhere, from people making art and posting it online to people playing games and streaming or travel people or whatever. there's a line that some people are extremely comfortable crossing. And I think it has to do with the anonymity, but it is something I find very distressing. Yeah, and in this instance, because you're right, it's cropping up all over, and it's just something we'll probably have to live with online. My biggest concern, I think, that I have, and part of the reason why I felt, aside from obviously this has been a big piece, so it has been news, is that I worry that not enough people are speaking against when they see it happen in front of them. And I don't think it's because they're bad people. I think maybe they're jaded or something. But they're not thinking that, as you noted, like what's the psychological toll that this ends up having on people when you go in and you find out, you get all these emails all of a sudden, And then you find out someone was mad that you made a decision on something that's in your that, you know, that's yours, that you you bought, you own, you manage. And they've decided to, for the sport of it, ruin your day or ruin your week or maybe beyond their intention. Something more serious happens because there are some, you know, there are just some disturbed individuals out there that hang on the words of people. And you might not even think about it or realize it. You think in pinball, who would ever do that? Right. It's all just for fun until it's not. And I just feel like there's just not enough. I'm not asking people to agree with the decision of the of of the Twippy committee. I don't care if you agree or you don't. I think, honestly, most of you are so deeply not impacted by it that you've weighed in at all was for the sport of it. And that's fine. But I would advise you to please consider the potential damage that you are doing to people psychologically or if you're encouraging bad behavior to continue and just saying we expect this like this is supposed to be like it's I get it. Some people can take rage and turn it into cash. It's like a magical power. We see it in politics quite a bit. And so we see it here some too. And okay, that's not my concern. My concern is the true believers who lap it up and might do something really destructive. And I don't know what this hobby does when it picks up the pieces. they maybe just tell a bunch of jokes, but I don't think it's funny. And I'm getting real tired of people who are victimizing others playing the victim and people buying into it. So I'm telling you, you guys are wrong. And I would advise you, I can't make you do anything. I would advise you to try and do a little bit better. I'm not asking you to respect everyone even. Just be polite about it at least a little bit to close that out uh do i do i agree with uh the decision of the twippy committee the timing wasn't great i get why it happened when it did however ultimately yes i do think these categories are doing more harm than good and so i'm glad they've gone away uh if someone really cares i mean they'll there can be a new people's choice award i'm telling you it's a nightmare amount of work if you want to do it legit but honestly if you're doing people's choice no one will know if it's legit or not because that whole model is so easily manipulated but i've ranted about that for years yeah uh and um but i might actually attend the twippies this year at tpf because just not because of any of the drama or any of that dropping these categories might mean it's finally under two hours so so there's that aspect that i'm looking forward to and i as our transition over into video games i will note we just came out of watching the game awards are being me watching you uh researching and just as a comparison that's like the biggest award in video games now is it is ceremonial wise and that's a it's a mixed model they do it's a judging panel they have a people's choice they like have a couple people's choice awards and they have a people's choice factor which is so small that it can't actually influence anything which is kind of like what we did with the pinball awards it's basically as a tiebreaker it does have it does have the ability to influence but it doesn't have the ability to override expert judges right how do they handle content creation because one of my things has been we've been weird in pinball like it should be about celebrating the people who make the things we love not people who talk about or stream the things we love in my view it should be about the people making the games not the people talking about the people making the games or streaming the games or any of that other stuff not that what you do isn't valuable to people the value you get is in the eyes of every child the way with our sorry okay the value you get is with all it was with every listener and every viewer that you have that's your that's your the reinforcement game awards they have one award for content creator they do it in the pre-show because it's so unimportant they wedge it in just after they do all the esports awards which are also obviously in the pre-show because they're also unimportant the one difference is the content creator gets to make like a little 15 second speech because it was a vtuber so their v2 right whereas the esports people don't even get to say anything so they don't even hand the people the award it's like all pre-recorded and done and just like done they like get it in the mail we could learn a lot in pinball from video games speaking of tony what do you got for us since we've been talking about award shows. We're just going to continue talking about the awards. I mean, people like to talk about awards. Even with all my objections to People's Choice, I still enjoy talking about the Twippy results on the games. Right. That's the only part that interests me. So, we're actually going to talk about the Video Game Awards, but let's be honest, the Video Game Awards aren't really about the awards. They're about trailers. And game announcements. The official The Game Awards is a trailer extravaganza.
    62:42
    It's too long also. It's also too long So I was just going to go over Fairly quickly some of the trailers That caught my eye specifically Okay Pony Island 2 Panda Circus I don't know if you've not heard of Or played the original Pony Island It is an insane Meta Like fever dream Of a game That came out What like 8 years ago and it's short, it's cheap. If you like that kind of super crazy, surreal, very meta type thing, it could be for you. But the fact that they're making a sequel is hilarious to me.
    63:26
    No Man's Sky's creators have a new game coming out, which will be interesting because they have actually made such a name for themselves by reviving the giant failure that was No Man's Sky. Uh, the, the popularity of no man's sky now is much higher than it was at launch. They've done a good job and they're pretty well seen around, uh, video game circles for how they've supported that game. So the question is, is, will this game launch better than no man's sky? Have they learned their lessons? Uh, this one is called light, no fire, and it's a, an adventure survival game in a procedurally generated fantasy world and it's co-op. So they're going from No Man's Sky, which is, hey, we're going to generate the entire universe, to Light No Fire, which is based upon a planet the size of Earth.
    64:21
    Yes, it looked interesting. Yeah, I thought so. Exoborn post-apocalyptic extraction shooter. Yeah, I mean, the division didn't click with people. That's what's done. And I don't know if this is going to either. I don't know. I thought the art, the video, the trailer was interesting, but with how poorly the division ended up going over from having such a powerful original idea, it'll be interesting to see how this one turns out.
    64:58
    There's a new Monster Hunter coming out. Yeah, nobody cares. Nobody cares. Now, the interesting one, Visions of Mana. They're putting out a new Mana game for the It's the first mainline game in 15 years Yeah now that's a Square Enix And I don't think I ever played it before I've played Secrets of Mana Which was like in the early 90s But I've not played any of the other games But it was originally Like a spin-off from the Final Fantasy Type games It was like a different gaming style based off of them So but they're well regarded at least in japan uh so we'll see how that goes uh kojima has a horror game coming out can we can we can we briefly just briefly because i mean talk about like it's getting it's moved beyond like a meme too is this getting gross now like we kojima is like there every year and he gets this ridiculous amount of stage time to do nothing and this was nothing this was like this was even worse than the very first reveal of death stranding when he wasn't a very good which wasn't a good reveal and he got like 10 plus minutes to talk about it yes and it's like there's i mean there's running jokes about how the the jeff the host of the show is is so like in love with kojima and so coach honestly it does when you watch it it's cringe yeah that's what the kids say right it's correct it's cringe he's totally fanboying out on stage with this guy and i'm like stop this thing's too long as it is i've seen the running joke that the game awards were created so he could talk to kojima and you'd think after 10 years of doing it he'd get tired of it because by my count at this point he's been on stage for over an hour and a half and it's one of those things kojima is very much a cult of personality uh type creator uh a lot of people love him and that's fine and that's fine there's nothing wrong with that this is not the kojima awards it's the game award and i'm just anyway it's just the interesting It's so dumb. The whole Kojima thing has gotten so big. There is an entire documentary about Kojima coming out in the spring on Disney+. Like an entire documentary about it. So it'll be interesting to see.
    67:28
    Jurassic Park Survival. What did you think of the trailer for OD, though? We didn't actually talk about it. Oh, the trailer for OD was just... All people heard was me say, this is all dumb. Well, it's because the trailer was just like actors talking into the camera and then a door opened and someone screamed. That's what it was. There was nothing there. It was like just getting like – it was like weird panic reaction, like saying the same phrase over again and over again in different ways. And it was – it's the standard just, ooh, that's weird. Oh, it's Kojima, so it's got to be something weird. Yeah. As a weird teaser, okay, it does its job. But we didn't need anyone to go on stage to introduce it. Right. It's just, that's Kojima. So, dinosaurs. Typical Kojima. But, yeah. Jurassic Park Survival is set.
    68:20
    I just never thought. I saw this and I just, okay, go on. Okay. I'm sorry. Jurassic Park Survival, once again, is an interesting thing. It's a survival game. The survival games have gotten super popular lately. but it is a survival game that takes place beginning the day after the end of the 1993 Jurassic Park movie. And it basically amounts to when they evacuated the island, they forgot somebody. And you're that character. So you're now alone on the island.
    68:54
    The game, it might be fun. It could be fun. This trailer was hilarious. this this was the worst trailer of the show because of its hilarity it's a matter of perspective i mean like the od trailer was as dumb right as i noted this trailer was like if you were to take the was it was south park the member berries you take the member berries and you turn it into like a atropine shot and inject it into the heart that's all this trailer was is oh i'm the scientist who i was left behind now set piece set piece set pace hey look at her do the thing that ian did with the flare hey oh look at her play with the thing the sign that the t-rex had just knocked down remember the sign you remember barry the sign it's all the nostalgia let's see her hide behind in the exact same spots the kids did in the kitchen when the raptors were going after them oh remember barry that hey oh no she kicked the same ladle the kids made the noise with the late Y'all remember the ladle? Do you remember? Do you remember the thing that got Nedry? Oh, do you remember how cute of a sound it makes? Yeah, do you remember that hill he was on when he got spit on? She's on that hill with the same creature. Do you remember? Do you remember love? No, I only remember berries. You remember berries. And dinosaurs. This, ugh. Anyway, remember berries. Remember berries. I'm done now. You okay? Yes. All right.
    70:30
    It looks fun. I don't know. I'm not really big on survival games. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see what the actual gameplay looks like. I want to remember the part where she has to dig and find out if the T poop has poison berries in it I just like the fact that they decided to jump to the hole Let pretend all the other movies didn happen Yeah I don think she going to remember Barry holding her hand up in Blue face I don't think that's going to happen. You know, that's the ultimate weapon. You click the fire button and she holds her hand up in a stop motion and it just dinosaur stop.
    71:08
    The makers of Deathloop and Dishonored 2 are kicking out a Marvel Blade game. that could be fun I've played the two Dishonored games I didn't like the art approach to them but the gameplay was pretty fun but they're very stealth oriented and I don't know if Blade's going to I'm hoping Blade doesn't take that same exact that's actually my as you know the way we play stealth games is with M16s right you stealth by killing everybody because you can't be spotted if everybody's dead exactly Yeah. So we'll see how that one goes. I didn't see a whole lot. That was the one where every year on the Game Awards, there has to be like a crazy person who has had too much to drink. And this was the instance with the French guy who kicked at the camera like Crispin Glover on David Letterman style and had this coat. And he's all like, I'm from France. And we're like, dude, we see your coat. You're definitely French because that thing is way too much style. And he's just going around doing stuff, and then he just said every single stereotypical French phrase before he walked off. He went, merci beaucoup, s'il vous plaît.
    72:19
    Other French – I don't know. I don't know French. Anyway. Baguette. Yeah, baguette. Oui, oui. Escargot.
    72:30
    Rattrapante. Autorology. Skull and Bones got a new release date. It's got a real date with a day on it though now. The 16th of the Febs. We'll see if it actually happens. Looks like Sea of Thieves.
    72:52
    It's just like gritty Sea of Thieves. Gritty Sea of Thieves. Sea of Thieves without all the silly fun. Co-op with three players instead of four. Grit instead of cartoony.
    73:02
    Yeah. We'll see. That game has been promised for years and years and years. Now, here's what was my most exciting announcement that I saw. World of Goo 2.
    73:12
    Because, you know, the first one was a fun little physics puzzle game. I didn't play the first one. So it's another pleasant little surprise to see a sequel. Because, again, it's been a decade or more since that game came out. Exodus is a sci-fi action RPG that looked interesting and apparently involves Matthew McConaughey somehow. Yeah, I couldn't identify exactly if he was voicing one of the characters in the trailer. I didn't recognize his voice in the trailer at all. Yeah. So it was weird because they had him introduce it. Right. But nowhere in the trailer was anything that made me feel like it was Matthew McConaughey. I thought maybe it was just me. Nope. I thought the same thing. I actually watched the trailer twice. I'm like, did I just not notice his voice somehow? Did he change his voice that much? I've never known Matthew McConaughey to be the voice changing chameleon that some actors are. It's like, is this weird? We'll see but It looked like an interesting concept Because it does deal with Time dilation Through sci-fi And traveling Faster than light Having a time dilation problem So that's an interesting take Sega Announced five games All sequels To old Sega favorites So Jet Set Radio Crazy Taxi, Shinobi, Golden Axe, and Streets of Rage are all getting sequels. So they're all seeing a sequel. It's not just – I wasn't sure when I saw the trailers if there was remasters, like ground-up, like Capcom-style remasters or what. It sounded like their new games set in those, in that style. Okay, well, and it may not, given what those games mostly were, it probably isn't really relevant. This crazy taxi really have like a thread. I'm trying to think. Spirits of Rage, a golden axe might have had quote unquote stories. I guess Shinobi did too.
    75:19
    When I actually first saw this, because it was all together as one trailer. Yeah, they just like one trailer that showed all of it. I actually, and this was, I don't know what I was thinking. I was clearly getting too late because this was not, this made no sense. But I actually thought, holy crap, Sega's announcing a console.
    75:36
    And I'm like, that's really dumb. And then after it wasn't, I was like, I wasn't very smart to even have contemplated that as an answer. Who would do that? That would be very not smart. That sounds like something Google would do. Yeah. Oh, Stadia.
    75:53
    I remember someone one time, they were upset that we were too hard on Stadia. See, as an example, people wrote in, do it like the gamers podcast at gmail.com saying, could you guys quit being like, I think they were worried that we were going to sink Stadia.
    76:08
    guys, it's going to no, I mean, trust me, that's sinking itself. All we're doing is watching. We're just watching. What you should be asking is why don't you try and save it? And the answer is because we don't go and save any companies. That's not what we do here. We're Carpathia. We just watch.
    76:29
    There were a bunch of other trailers, but those were just some of the highlights that jumped out at me. Was there anything that I didn't mention that had jumped out at you? No, I actually overall wasn't particularly nothing blew me away this year wasn't like last year there were several that i got excited about nothing nothing here really uh you know i thought some of them were entertaining to me uh i'd say exodus is probably the one that feels like it has the most potential to me right but again i couldn't get a good feel for it yeah from what they had it was it's too early in the game development but there was it did feel underwhelming compared to previous years trailer extravaganza. There was still just as many. None of it really worked for me. And then, no surprise to anybody, Baldur's Gate 3 got six awards. So one less than they got at the Golden Joysticks. But they got Game of the Year, Best Performance, Best RPG, Best Multiplayer, Best Community Support, and they were Fan Voted Players Voice Award.
    77:31
    Alan Wake 2 is the surprise to me because they took home three awards and I expected one at best. But they got Best Direction, Best Narrative, and Best Art Direction.
    77:44
    So I thought they might get Best Narrative. But to have gotten all three was a surprise to me. Nintendo took home Best Family Game for Mario Wonder, Best Action Adventure for Tears of the Kingdom, Best Sim Strategy for Pikmin 4,
    78:00
    Armored Core 6 was Best Action Game, Street Fighter 6 was best fighting game And somehow Cyberpunk 2077 Got best ongoing game Yeah I guess that the Idris Elba DLC Has gone over extremely well But my understanding is that's the end of that game now So we're done with it It won't be ongoing again It won't be so yeah That was definitely An interesting bit So coming out of the game Awards and just general stuff One thing I didn't have in the notes here, but I did see when I was going through stuff the other day, is Harebrained Schemes, which I've talked about in the past.
    78:40
    They put out a new stuff they were contracted for, for Lamplighter League, and a new character and some expansion stuff, before they go their separate way, split off after being decimated here at the end of the year. But they have already gone out and said that they've been unable to acquire the licenses to do another Shadowrun game or another Battletech game. So, nobody really knows what's next for Harebrained Schemes.
    79:09
    Rockstar, on the other hand. Everyone knows what's next for them. Everyone knows what's next for Rockstar. The GTA 6 trailer was dropped early because it got leaked online.
    79:21
    And it's set for a 2025 release. And it looks like Grand Theft Auto. I've never gotten into the multiplayer, but I've enjoyed every Grand Theft Auto campaign. I've played Grand Theft. I'm old. I've played even GTA 1. I've played all of them. Oh, and the top-down view where you'd run over the people walking down the sidewalk. Oh, I do need a hedge.
    79:46
    Well, I believe I've played all of them. I don't think I finished San Andreas. I think I only tried it. but no I mean it's probably my question isn't is GTA 6 going to be a huge success because I'd be amazed if it wasn't my question is how many consoles was it going to come out on over the course of its lifetime before there's another GTA out because it's the GTA 5 has been out on three consoles now or three console generations I should say it's been way more than three consoles but it's three generations of consoles yep so that's a mystery that yeah my first thought would be a lot uh for just the most interesting little tidbit that came out of nowhere for me considering how much i actually have followed it uh their operations overall twitch is completely ending operations in south korea wow i did not know about this they are shutting down their entire South Korea operations at the end of February due to the high cost of operating in the country. They are actively assisting their streamers that are based in South Korea to move to other streaming services that are still active in South Korea while keeping their viewers, trying to keep their viewership intact as much as possible with such a shift. on the 27th of February all South Korean streamers will lose their monetization and all active subscriptions to South Korean streamers will be ended they will receive their final payout on March 16th they've been having issues operating in South Korea and have been operating in South Korea at a significant loss and they have stated that the fees in South Korea are 10 times more expensive than anywhere else in the world.
    81:49
    And they have stressed to their other streamers that this is a unique situation to South Korea and that there will be no issues like this with streamers anywhere else in the world. To which I say, I wouldn't trust that very far. This is the full-time streamer's worst nightmare. This is what they all are afraid of, that the platform will destroy them.
    82:21
    And this has got to be real bleak for those that were. I mean, yeah, if you're casual about it, whatever. But, I mean, this has come up. One of the subreddits I'm on because I do my YouTube channel for watches is the YouTube one where creators talk about stuff like that. And one of the big like some of the people who weigh in say that they're there. They make their entire living off of YouTube. And it's like you got to have a backup plan. You got to be ready. You got to know YouTube could destroy you through something not not related to demonetization due to copyright infringement or legal or anything like that. Just like if they could at any point take this away. What are you going to do? Because you can't even assume that you'll be able to transfer anything with you. Like you might have your videos, but your audience is gone. Right. And that and trying to help people navigate over. I mean, yeah, I'm sure Twitch is trying, but I mean, they're not integrated into these other systems. They're all competition. So that. Yeah. And the sheer number of people that watch people on Twitch because they watch Twitch. And we've seen that in the past when other streamers have left Twitch to go to Facebook Gaming, YouTube Gaming, some of the other systems is that they have major drops in their viewerships.
    83:43
    And so, yeah, that is just a devastating loss for the South Korean streamers. And like you said, that is a fear. I've seen and spoke to many YouTube creators who have had issues between demonetization or getting to a point where the algorithm doesn't really recommend them anywhere. So their viewership starts to stagnate no matter what they do or they lose large amounts. It can just be destroyed at any time, like you said. So it's definitely an interesting thing to happen in the ecosystem. And we'll see in the next few months how, what, if any, response there are from Twitch streamers. I know with Twitch's recent opening up to allow people to simulcast stream on other platforms, that could help some of these streamers. Not the South Korean streamers. There's no way they had enough time to build up audiences elsewhere, but it could help other streamers for the next time something like this happens. Because we've seen time and time again how big of a monetary issue Twitch has been having lately. So you whippersnappers listening to this show for whatever weird reason, don't become a professional streamer. Your life will just be stress. I know you sit there and you think, oh, wow, I would love to get paid to play video games. Yeah, so would everyone. But it's not unlike other entrepreneurship. You're because you're dependent on another entity for your platform. The biggest part, you're actually subject to the whims of someone else far more than you would be starting your own small business. So I advise against people like do it for fun, but don't don't make a career out of it. I think whenever I look at it and I see what all some of them do, especially the smaller ones, like three YouTube channels reposting, you know, slightly edited content, just desperate for ad clicks. I'm just like, that's no way to live. Right. I know there's a YouTube channel that I watch quite frequently that is history based. and they've recently had a video where they've just flat come out and talked about, because they're based in historical events, there are certain events that they've been flat out told they just can't even talk about.
    86:07
    And they put out a couple videos on some of the events and they were instantly demonetized and they got notes that basically said, any more of these and we're just going to kill your channel.
    86:18
    And they weren't even necessarily that recent of an event. We're talking about events from the 70s and 80s. But just due to what they were about, it's not allowed because they'll just shut it down. So they have to – they flat out said that they specifically avoid large periods of times, and especially more recent historical events that pertain to certain parts of the world because they can't talk about them because it risks the channel. So they talk about safer things from older periods and just ignore certain whole chunks of the world as if there's no history there at all.
    87:06
    Well, that was fun. That was fun. That's great. Oh, they're also ending the Nintendo app. Oh, okay. I'm sure that affects three people. Bethesda because they've not made enough money from Skyrim talking about things that have been on a lot of consoles and everything else like my fridge they are once again entering the paid mod category, they're attempting the paid mod thing again it failed terribly last time, this time they're re-entering the scene of paid mods. They have loosened the rules. One of the rules they had when they entered the mods originally trying to do the whole paid mod thing was all the mods had to be lore friendly so you couldn't have a mod that changed things so that it would affect the lore. Science. Laser. Right. So you couldn't mod in an M16 or make your character be Superman or whatever because that's not lore friendly. But we could mod in Starfield to make it fun.
    88:16
    I'll be honest. I am just waiting to the point where you find something in Starfield that lets you play the full game of Skyrim inside. You know what? It's probably there somewhere. And just, it hasn't been found. That's the Easter egg. That's why Starfield's install is so big is because it also includes all of Skyrim.
    88:37
    So, um, Capcom has also confirmed that they're going to continue doing Resident Evil remakes As they should What a shock Because 4 was up for Game of the Year And it's a bloody remake Didn't win anything but But it was up there It looks good But there is no word on what the next remake will be Because I think if they keep going It's like a toss up between Code Veronica and 5 Yeah my guess would be veronica but i'm just i was a blind guess blind guess i would guess veronica just because as i recall five didn't go over well it didn't uh but part of the problem was five was a co-op experience it was designed to be a co-op experience now from this that they you they would that would be an interesting thing they need to decide are we keeping it as a co-op experience or are we going to change it to be a single player approach the i played i played it both ways right It was super fun in co-op. Single player, it felt clunky.
    89:44
    But it would probably just being redone would probably just play better because of better AI companion performance and stuff. But I actually really like – but five was my first. So I have a soft spot for five. But having done it, I did multiple playthroughs both ways and co-op way better. It was a lot of fun in co-op. I seem to recall we played at least some of it, not all the way through, but some of it co-op. Yeah, one of my World of Warcraft Final Fantasy XI friends, that's why I got my Xbox 360, is he was like, will you buy this? And I don't know if he said please. I was going to say, please buy this, Dennis. And I was like, I hadn't played console in years. I was a PC gamer. I was like, I haven't done console since PS1. And he's like, I need someone to play Resident Evil with, and you need to buy it. I was getting tired of Warcraft, so I was looking to do something different anyway. Right. So I was like, you know what? Okay, fine. I'll do it. I remember because I got that game and I got Bioshock. And Bioshock to date, I just remember the game started. And it had been so long since I played.
    90:50
    I've been mostly doing MMOs on PC. And it had been so long since I played a console game like Final Fantasy VII. When you had Final Fantasy VII, it's what made me want a PS1. Right. Because that was such a cool-looking game. And the game Bioshock started and you're in the water like after a plane crash. And I thought it was still a cut scene because it looked too good. And then I realized, oh, I can move around in this. And I think how ugly that must be to me today. Oh, yeah. It was very, very surprising. So anyway, enough of them member berries. This ain't no Jurassic Park.
    91:25
    So I didn't list them all, but it is December. I didn't list any of them. I didn't write them down, but it is December. that means it is the time of layoffs in the video game industry. Yes. It's like the siding industry. Yeah. It's just, there are there, they're rampant across the board. Uh, multiple companies are doing layoffs of one level or another. A few companies have been shuttered. Uh, so it has been a kind of devastating, uh, to those groups. Um, so we'll see going normally. January is the real worst for that January, February, the start of the new quarter is where you see the most of those layoffs. We'll see if they're as bad as they were this year going in. And I want to just end on some fun notes. Baldur's Gate 3's developers, in the course of winning all these rewards, have been releasing some fun statistics about the game that I found really interesting. I thought we'd share. So far, 452,556,984 hours of gameplay has happened. So that's over 51,000 years worth of gameplay.
    92:42
    15.9% of that playtime has been in character creation. That equals 8,196 years worth of character creation. And you know what? That's true. I think I spent a half hour, 45 minutes in character creation when I made my first character. And I'm still on that playthrough. I haven't finished it yet. I'm getting closer. But it definitely, I spent a lot of time in character creation. 1.3 million people have finished the game. 1.24 million people have been turned into a sentient wheel of cheese. Don't know how that happens. I ain't found that yet in the game. But apparently it's something that could happen.
    93:23
    so those are just some interesting numbers that they've dropped out there uh just showing just how popular that game is so once again to the patreon or the discord members who told me to get that game instead of starfield when i took my vacation earlier this year thank you i definitely made the correct choice and the world agrees with you and that's all i've got all right well then the world agrees that we should end this episode so if you want to reach out to us you can email us eclectic gamers podcast at gmail.com you can visit us at facebook.com slash eclectic gamers podcast if you want to support the podcast with the dollars and it can be as low as a dollar a month that's over at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers we're available on twitch and instagram as eclectic gamers and we will be back in a couple weeks don't know there'll be a ton of stuff usually right at the end of the year not so much But we'll have something for sure to talk about. At the bare minimum, we'll find something to talk about. But until next time, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye. See you.