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We Are Pinball #34 "Mad Jeff tells us what games are hot!"

We Are Pinball (WAP)·podcast_episode·1h 29m·analyzed·May 11, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

Mad Pinball distributor reveals King Kong/Dune sales data and exposes gap between internet negativity and actual market demand.

Summary

We Are Pinball hosts Jeff Cernava of Mad Pinball (a U.S. distributor) to discuss the pinball distribution network, sales dynamics, and market reception of recent releases. Jeff shares insights on King Kong and Dune sales performance, reveals that internet sentiment often misaligns with actual sales numbers, and discusses distributor relationships with manufacturers like Stern, Barrels of Fun, Jersey Jack, and others. The episode also announces Mad Pinball as WAP's first official sponsor with a discount code (WAP) offering free white glove delivery and branded merchandise.

Key Claims

  • King Kong LEs sold out within one hour of Mad Pinball's announcement; all additional allocations obtained from Stern also sold out

    high confidence · Jeff Cernava directly states 'within an hour, we had all of our LEs' and 'all of ours have shipped and are in their new happy homes'

  • Internet community sentiment (Pinside, social media) often contradicts actual sales data; games heavily criticized online frequently sell out quickly

    high confidence · Genghis states 'game getting brutalized or bashed' online but sales 'sold out in an hour on LEs.' Jeff confirms 'Wiktopper getting dogged everywhere' but 'we sold out in minutes'

  • Dune received strong sales response despite being positioned as a non-legacy IP theme, with both home collectors and location operators placing immediate deposits

    high confidence · Jeff: 'immediately we had Dune enthusiasts and collectors coming to us' and 'half a dozen locations...immediately like, yeah, we want this game'

  • King Kong Premium sales were 'insanely strong' with Mad Pinball having only 2-3 first-run premium spots available as of the podcast recording

    high confidence · Jeff: 'as of last night, I had two or three first run premium spots still available'

  • Stern changed King Kong production strategy to build LEs and then build Pros and Premiums in tandem (simultaneous) rather than sequentially

    high confidence · Jeff: 'we're going to build them in tandem. We're going to build them together' to give consumers real opportunity to choose tier without artificial scarcity pressure

  • Barrels of Fun announced 1,000 units of Dune with a goal to complete the run within 12 months

    high confidence · Jeff: 'they announced that they're going to do 1,000 on this run of these and plan to try to complete them within 12 months'

  • Chicago Gaming Company does not respond to emails efficiently, making it difficult for Mad Pinball to secure a distributor contract

    medium confidence · Genghis: 'they're about as quick at responding to emails as they are at building games. So it's been a process'

Notable Quotes

  • “What the Internet says and what the sales say are not always the same.”

    Genghis @ ~18:00 — Core thesis of the episode: contradicts assumption that online sentiment reflects market reality

  • “Within an hour, we had all of our LEs. Within an hour of announcement, all of our LEs were spoken for.”

    Jeff Cernava @ ~28:00 — Demonstrates King Kong LE demand exceeded expectations; establishes benchmark for Stern release velocity

  • “We cannot even produce games fast enough, so we don't need another distro.”

    Jeff Cernava (reporting Spooky's position) @ ~42:30 — Indicates production constraints limiting distributor network expansion; suggests supply-side constraints dominate demand-side

  • “That list for us filled up quickly with deposits. We went back to Stern and said, hey, can we get a few more?”

    Jeff Cernava @ ~29:00 — Illustrates demand-driven reallocation process; shows flexibility in allocation during hot product launches

  • “I think there's this Godzilla pinball machine coming...How as a normal human being do I get this commercial equipment into my house?”

    Jeff Cernava @ ~11:00 — Origin story of Mad Pinball; illustrates consumer friction in distribution channel that motivated business creation

  • “Dune enthusiasts, huh? Yeah, the Dune enthusiasts, I was surprised and pleasantly surprised.”

    Jeff Cernava @ ~56:00 — Indicates Dune resonated with passionate niche audience; suggests IP licensing strategy successful despite non-legacy theme positioning

  • “It's not My Little Ponies. It's not Matrix. It's not Harry Potter. It's not one of these ones where people are just going bananas for something.”

    Jeff Cernava @ ~55:00 — Establishes IP tier hierarchy; positions Dune as mid-tier in desirability vs. legacy entertainment franchises

  • “We're going to build them in tandem. We're going to build them together, which I think then gave the consumers the real opportunity to not look at it and go, well, if I want to get it first, I have to get this.”

Entities

Jeff CernavapersonMad PinballcompanyCorbin AngelipersonKing KonggameDunegameStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball declined distributor contract expansion citing production constraints as limiting factor; manufacturer states current distributor network already at capacity relative to manufacturing output

    high · Jeff reports Spooky declined contract: 'We have enough distros. We cannot even produce games fast enough, so we don't need another distro'

  • ?

    community_signal: We Are Pinball implementing first official sponsorship with Mad Pinball using discount code (WAP) and offering white-glove delivery, free shipping, branded merchandise, and exclusive distributor sales data sharing to listeners

    high · Genghis and Don describe WAP code structure: free shipping, t-shirts, deal-of-week used games, and distro information access for customers

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Dune positioned as mid-tier IP (not legacy tier like Harry Potter/Matrix/My Little Ponies) but achieved strong sales from Dune enthusiasts and location operators, suggesting niche IP can perform well with targeted marketing

    high · Jeff: 'I don't want to call it a niche theme, but it's not one...the response was strong' despite being 'not one of these ones where people are just going bananas'

  • $

    market_signal: King Kong LE allocations sold out within one hour across Mad Pinball and through secondary redistribution from Stern; strong Premium tier demand with only 2-3 units remaining in first run

    high · Jeff: 'within an hour, we had all of our LEs' and subsequent requests for additional allocation all fulfilled and shipped

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jeff Cernava's career transition from arcade technician (Arcade Jeff) to pinball distributor owner indicates growing professionalization of distribution sector with specialized expertise

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.268

0:00
What's up WAP Nation here with episode number 34. We are pinball. We are back together with a friend. We're here with Jeff Cernava of Mad Pinball to talk everything pinball, everything U.S. distribution and such. So Genghis and myself are going to jump into this conversation. It's a whole hour and a half long. So buckle in. And this is going to be pretty amazing. So, Jordan Wap's special guest here, Mr. Matt Pinball himself. You know him from the internets and the Facebooks and all his postings. Jeff Cernava, I believe is how you say that, from Matt. How you doing, sir? What's up, gentlemen?
0:42
Welcome. What's up, Jeff? Welcome to the show, buddy. Welcome to the Wap Show. It's so beautiful to have you here, Jeff. How are you doing, buddy? I'm doing amazing. I can't believe I'm on here with a world traveler and then an international man of mystery both. Like this is – I'm starstruck right now. I'm working my way up to man of mystery. I hope to make it there someday. But, yes, definitely the Danish prince himself, Genghis, over here.
1:08
Oh, I forgot to mention, you also know Jeff from the Fresh Pinball Podcast. Shout out to that show. Love it. Good roundtable discussion covering all things operator and distributor, which is part of the reason we want to have you on because we love that distributor perspective, especially in the U.S.
1:24
Yeah, there seems to be a little bit of a curtain of mystery behind the whole distributor network and how everything works and, yeah, all of that fun stuff. So maybe today we can start to pull back that curtain a little bit and talk about some fun things and everything pinball. Perfect. Make it make sense to me, Danny. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, to the listener, let's just say it as it is. So we got hit up by Jeff from Mad Pinball. Now, throughout this show, this WAP show we have been running for like six months, almost on every show, Donnie, he said, oh, check out my distro, Jeff from Mad Pinball, Mad Pinball, Mad Pinball. And I was like, what's going on with Mad Pinball? So Donnie loves to buy from Mad Pinball, which is great. I have only heard positive things about Jeff from Mad Pinball. So all of a sudden, we got hit up. Jeff from Mad Pinball, let's do a collaboration. Let's support the show. Let's support each other. Let's get a sponsorship.

  • Spooky Pinball declined additional distributor relationships, stating they cannot produce games fast enough to justify adding more distributors

    high confidence · Jeff: 'We talked with them twice now, and they're like, you know what? We have enough distros. We cannot even produce games fast enough'

  • Mad Pinball customer base is not primarily composed of hardcore Pinside users; many customers don't engage with pinball forums or social media communities

    high confidence · Jeff: 'a big portion of the mad pinball customer base...don't operate on a daily basis in all of the pinball groups and on pin side'

  • Barrels of Fun changed allocation strategy between Labyrinth and Dune from first-come-first-served order queue to volume-based priority system similar to Stern

    high confidence · Jeff: 'with dune they changed it up a little bit to where more of a stern style system where the more volume you do, the more priority that you get'

    • Jeff Cernava @ ~30:00 — Describes Stern's production strategy change for King Kong; attempts to remove artificial tier scarcity pressure

  • “All we do is what I expect whenever I'm making a purchase of this magnitude...people are forking over, in some cases, $15,000, like they should be able to get ahold of you.”

    Jeff Cernava @ ~22:00 — Articulates customer service philosophy; frames high product cost as necessitating responsive distributor support

  • “I have a Keith Elwin list. I literally have a list of customers that say every time there's an Elwin game, I take it sight on scene.”

    Jeff Cernava @ ~37:00 — Demonstrates designer loyalty as purchasing driver; shows designer brand equity creating demand independent of theme

    • Barrels of Fun
    company
    Don/Donald Garrisonperson
    Genghisperson
    Jason Knappperson
    Hexa Pinballcompany
    Wiktopperproduct
    Keith Elwinperson
    Brian Savageperson
    David Van Nessperson
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Pinball Brotherscompany
    Colin/Kineticistperson
    Cointakercompany
    Fresh Pinball Podcastorganization
    We Are Pinballorganization
    Godzillagame

    medium · Jeff: 'people called me Arcade Jeff before this. I repaired people's arcade machines' before transitioning to pinball distribution

  • ?

    announcement: Dune officially released by Barrels of Fun with ~1,000 unit production run planned for 12-month completion; features new lighting system and decal art improvements; location placement underway within 4 weeks of launch

    high · Jeff: 'they announced that they're going to do 1,000 on this run' with goal to 'complete them within 12 months'; specific location placements confirmed (Cleveland, Canfield, Canton Ohio)

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Dutch Pinball post-Alice game rumored to include 88-ball multiball feature in next game; suggestion of potential '88 super psycho special edition' at $12k price point (speculative)

    low · Genghis: 'I heard they're going to have an 88 ball multi-ball in that game I just want to put that rumor out there...wait and see'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community perception gap: online forums (Pinside) criticize games heavily but retail sales data shows rapid sell-outs, indicating disconnect between vocal online community and broader customer base

    high · Genghis and Jeff describe games 'brutalized' online but selling 'out in an hour' and 'in minutes'; attributed to non-Pinside customer base making independent purchasing decisions

  • ?

    business_signal: Barrels of Fun shifted allocation strategy from first-come-first-served queue (Labyrinth) to volume-based priority system (Dune) mirroring Stern's model; indicates manufacturers consolidating allocation governance to incentivize distributor volume commitment

    high · Jeff: 'with dune they changed it up a little bit to where more of a stern style system where the more volume you do, the more priority that you get'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern implemented simultaneous Pro/Premium production for King Kong (tandem build) vs. sequential builds, reducing artificial tier scarcity pressure and allowing customers to choose based on preference rather than availability timing

    high · Jeff: 'we're going to build them in tandem...gave the consumers the real opportunity to not look at it and go, well, if I want to get it first, I have to get this'

    • 2:30
    This is just so awesome. So I have been mailing with Jeff for a couple of days. What a nice guy. Jeff, you seem like a nice guy.
    2:41
    So thank you for everything right now. I'm so excited about this. Our first official sponsor of the show, Mad Pinball Distro. Donnie, aren't you happy with this? I'm just happy to have fun in pinball with other people that tend to have fun in pinball and seem to be a little bit of the crazy, which I think I share as well. You know, this is a guy that, you know, got one of the only punny factories that was publicly available and just put it out on locations in Ohio for people to play. My very first time streaming in public was on a punny factory of all things at Quarter Up. Remember that back in the day? You'll never forget your first.
    3:27
    Dude literally just handed me the keys to the game and was like, have fun, lock up when you're done. And it's just like me and some punny factory quality time. That was awesome.
    3:36
    Yeah, definitely. We do things a little bit on the wild side, whether it's Putty Factory or on Wednesday night, Thursday night, me and the boys got together and we were going through Haggis Fathom Mermaid Edition number 22 and trying to figure out what's unique about that. Or, you know, we're working with, thanks to you, Don, with Hexa Pinball. We're on the precipice of announcing a distribution deal with them, and we have a game on the way over to Stateside. So, I mean, yeah, we sell games. Yeah, we show up at events and we do whatever, but we're just pinball nuts, pinball enthusiasts at heart that are just out here having a good time. Jeff, to be honest, when we got in contact with each other, I called Donnie and I said, Donnie, so who is this Jeff? Is he just another distro? Because I have 20 years of pinball madness in me. And I have seen for many, many years, there are some decent distros that loves this. But I have also seen car dealerships that just have, you know, or popcorn machine sellers. They also sell pinball machines. So those kind of shows also that give horrible support and all of that. So Don said, yes, man, Jeff, he has pinball in his heart. He has got a pinball podcast show that I haven't checked out yet. So he says, you have pinball podcast. You do some location pinball. You import game from France. You do so much positive stuff for the hobby, for the community. And I was sold. It was like, this is not just a distro. He does so much content. He does so much stuff for our community. We have to do some business with this guy. So, wow, man. So you have Pinball Podcast Show. Yeah, so we, myself, partner, and then our partner in Mad Pinball, Corbin Angeli, his brother Zach, and then our really good friend Kyle just do a little. It's literally imagine you're sitting around in your basement or your game room having a couple adult beverages and the conversations that you would be having, you know, that just pop up naturally. That's basically what we talk about. You know, while so many podcasts are out there reading the news, you know, hey, what's new, what's hot, what's whatever, we're literally probably talking about pinball 2000 or we're talking about what our favorite system 11 is or any of that stuff and just whatever pops up so that's our our little thing conversations that we were already having it's like you know what let's put some microphones in front of faces and just have these conversations and maybe there might be a few of our friends or a dozen people that are interested and it's between you know don kind of promoting it a little bit and everything else we have a pretty cool little listenership awesome man and it's called fresh pinball podcast show the freshest of the fresh man fresh fresh fresh jeff is a whole yeah yeah jeff i want to talk a little bit about uh my partner in mad pinball corbin angeli because you guys talked about uh you know my history and my whatever uh but corbin and his family he's actually a fourth generation, what we call here an operator. They've had games in bars, amusement centers, all of that literally since about 1920. So when he and I hooked up a few years ago and started doing a lot of this more seriously, like all of the event stuff, all of the location play, all of the other things that like are just so hard to do on a, as a one man show, it's like he's just come in and made this blown it up. Yeah. It sounds awesome. So how long time have you been into pinball, Jeff? Yeah. So it's interesting, at least interesting to me. We'll see if it's interesting to anyone else. But I was people called me Arcade Jeff before this. I repaired people's arcade machines. I did home repairs, restorations, all of that stuff. And as what happens to many people, that hobby transitions over to pinball. So, you know, we're pre-COVID a little bit and I'm starting to dabble in, you know, an old Stern Electronics Meteor and this, that and the other. And it was like, you know what, I think there's this Godzilla pinball machine coming. You know, I hear like this could be this could be cool. Like maybe I want to get one of these machines. How as a as a normal human being do I get this commercial equipment into my house? So it's like, well, I'll do what everybody else does. I'll hop on the Google machine and find myself a pinball. looking at like some of the websites that were around and hey you know this is how you get in contact with whoever it was like i couldn't like i literally couldn't figure out how do i buy this pinball machine so i go to my local arcade i meet corbin i'm like hey when you buy your pinball machines who do you get them from he's like oh i have this distributor and so on and so forth and this is what you have to do. So the game comes out. And of course, as we all know now, it's the king of all the games. You know, you just can't get them. So it's like, well, this is ridiculous. No one has I can't find any decent websites. I can't get a hold of anyone. I can't talk to anyone. What does it take to become a pinball distributor? So I hooked up with a gentleman out of Maryland that already had a Stern pinball distributorship and said, hey, let's start working together. And it's just been a rocket ship ever since we built an awesome, what I think is an awesome website, very active on social media, very accessible, just out there having a good time. So literally me doing this as a direct result of not being able to find an easy way to buy a pinball machine. Wow. What a story, man. And well, after you sent me the friend request on Facebook. Now I can see what you're posting, and I'm telling everybody,
    9:44
    Jeff, Matt Pinball, very, very active on social media, on Facebook. Love to follow everything you're doing. And also, on top of all of this, Jeff,
    9:57
    a couple of months back, I saw Jason Knapp. He posted that he bought a Dungeons & Dragons, as I remember now. Yeah. And he wrote Dungeons and Dragons. I don't remember what version, but he wrote there Dungeons and Dragons on his page. And he wrote from Mad Pinball, and he was happy with his game. And I clicked on the comments there because I wanted to know what is this Mad Pinball company all about. all the comments on jason maps posts about his new purchase from mad pinball all the comments in there were positive and i just enjoy reading people like yeah man mad pinball the best mad people this mad people that i just fell in love with it i was like this is so cool because i love when a pinball distro gives the proper service to the buyers. So what you have been doing, Jeff, wow, man, amazing. So as I understand, you have been doing this for like four years, and people are loving what you're doing. Yeah, I mean, all we do is what I expect whenever I'm making a purchase of this magnitude. I mean, essentially, you know, people are forking over, in some cases, $15,000, like they should be able to get ahold of you. If they drop you an email, they should get a response quickly. You know, if they text you or call you, you should pick up the phone. Like I just, I do what I would expect people to do. And, you know, we work with a lot of like-minded people. I connected with Jason Knapp very early on and we just have a lot of common headspace. Same with Don. Don was a customer before he was anything else. Yeah, man. I mean, all of those things. I mean, I was in that same situation, like looking all over for one of these Godzillas. Cause I was just getting into like pinball at this level. And I'm like, Oh, I thought a Godzilla game already came out. Wait a minute. I played it at a TPF and I'm like, this building collapses. This is, I can stick a ball to this guy's belly. I got to get one of these, you know, let me get the money together. Okay. I'm just going to go to a distributor and find one. And then found out that you had to be on a year long waiting list at this point to try to get one. Jeff just enters the chat. Like if you want for MSRP, We got a spot. And I'm like, this has got to be 100% a total scam. Who's this guy with, like, just an MSRP? I got one right now. Everybody sold out everywhere. I put this guy through the ringer, you know, went to the Stern page, verified he had, like, a distributor agreement and all this business. And then I go ahead and get myself a Godzilla Nuen box before the price increase for MSRP. And I was like, bro, this is awesome. What a real dude. Yeah, it's been fun ever since. Like, anytime I have a crazy trade deal or something, hey, dude, meet me halfway in Toledo. We'll do this swap. He's like, bet. I'll be there. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. And it's, like, negative 20 degrees, and we're both standing in some random parking lot shivering like a couple of fools. Like, what kind of hobby did we get into? Yeah, we had a dark parking lot. Hey, man, you got the expression lights? You got them? Oh, yeah, yeah. You got what I need.
    13:06
    Yeah. That's so funny. But I think there are some great like-minded people that are in this, you know, Don, obviously, you know, Jason, Colin from the Kineticist. There are just some really great individuals that we align easily with and, you know, can create these fun partnerships. And it's, you know, it doesn't have to be this cutthroat world of, oh, man, buy from me and don't buy from anyone else. Like there are many, many times where we don't have something that someone needs or they need something right now. And it's like, well, go to my friend Jason down at Classic Game Room or give Melissa over at Coin Taker a call. I know that she can help you with that right now or talk to so-and-so. And, you know, a lot of us help each other out and scratch each other's backs. I mean, it's a big, fun community. You know, are there a few of us maybe that don't get along as well as others? absolutely but by and large i mean we're all in this for the same thing to to grow pinball to keep pinball healthy and not ever see any of these dark times that we've seen in the past where there's the threat of pinball going away that's just just makes me sad wow man i love that i love that they're doing it like that that's that's that's just awesome so our listeners we have we have patreon page and on patreon we actually asked that uh we're maybe about to make some stuff with a distro what do you think about it because don and i we were like we don't just want a sponsorship and start each show by saying buy from mad pinball buy from mad pinball that's just all people at patreon they were like don't do it like that we're just fed up with stuff like that So we're not going to do stuff like that. What we have thinking about doing is, listen, people, when you buy your next pinball machine,
    15:06
    your King Kong, your upcoming Harry Potter, whatever you want to buy, let's just say King Kong is up now, right? Go into Mad Pinball. When you order a game, use the code WAP, W-A-P. It's up, ready to go. When you do that, when you buy the King Kong from Matt Pinball, you will get white glove delivery, free shipping. The game will be shipped to you for free, white glove delivery. So cool. Stern Games. Right? On top of that, when you write WAP, Don and I will make sure you will get sent a beautiful WAP t-shirt with WAP logo and Matt Pinball logo on it. You will get that also. Isn't it cool? And we have been talking about, on top of that, now we have direct access to a U.S. distro. So we will get distro information. So Kong just came out. Dune just came out. This game, that game. Harry Potter is on the way. How are the sales of this game? I asked Jeff, and he's like, sure, we can give some distro info. so we can get some cool numbers. On top of that, we're not done yet. On top of that, Jeff Jackson used games. So if he has, you know, a couple of games he needs to move out fast, we will do some sort of deal of the week. We will announce it here or on our Patreon page or on our We Are Pinball YouTube page and write, go in, you can see this game for this price. use the code WAP and get like $300, $400, $500 off of a used game. Isn't this cool? I love it.
    16:56
    Let's talk King Kong a little bit. Let's talk about sales. Let's talk about reception from the distributor side, all of that stuff, because this whole world fascinates me because I try to be very in tune with what's being said on social media about the games, what's being said amongst friends about the games, And then what's the reality of what our sales look like? Because you'd think they'd all be in alignment. But let me tell you, gentlemen, they absolutely are not. Oftentimes, you'll see on pin side or social media just a game getting brutalized or bashed or nitpicked or what have you. And then Don will come to me and say, hey, how's this game doing? It's like, dude, we sold out in an hour on LEs. And he's like, but the Internet says. I'm like, dude, what the Internet says. and what the sales say are not always the same. Yeah, I mean, how many people out there are, like, not involved with Pinsight at all? It's like most of them, you know, never go on there and post, don't care what the market is doing. They just know, like, their game came out and they want to get it. And even, like, with things like the Wiktopper, I was like, man, this thing is getting dogged everywhere. Hey, Jeff, you know, how are those selling? And you're like, we sold out in minutes. Minutes. And I often wonder if maybe while we do sell, you know, to hardcore pinball players and buyers, I wonder if part of what we see is that we're insulated from that a little bit because we have built our own client base of people that exactly like you said, Don, don't operate on a daily basis in all of the pinball groups and on pin side. and they see things and then objectively decide for themselves whether it looks cool or they want to spend their money there, which is, you know, a wild thing that they don't need a massive posse of people to tell them to make their buying decisions for them. Yeah. So let's get into Kong. How's it doing? Yeah. So Kong with us, within an hour, we had all of our LEs. Within an hour of announcement, all of our LEs were spoken for. So as we normally do, then we have the opportunity to go back to Stern and say, hey, you allocated us this number. We're going to take all of those. And if any others shake free, go ahead and send those over to us because you might have a distributor who has allocated a larger number and decides, hey, I'm going to take a few less than what that number was. And then Stern will redistribute them out to people who are looking for them. So that's what we did on Kong, and we were able to get a few more and then move those. Like, we had essentially a wait list at that point. So our LEs were spoken for and then some right out of the game. So our breakdown then of pros and premiums usually are, since we sell a ton into homes and game rooms, are a lot of premiums. And Stern did something interesting on this one where they announced, hey, we're going to build the LEs first again. But then when it's time to do the second part of the build, we're not just going to build pros for two weeks and then premiums the following two weeks. We're going to build them in tandem. We're going to build them together, which I think then gave the consumers the real opportunity to not look at it and go, well, if I want to get it first, I have to get this. If I want to get it second, I have to get this. It was, hey, I'm a location. Do I want the pro or the premium? What do I want? And our premium sales were insanely strong. again, the allocation process is there where Stern gives us X number of games. That list for us filled up quickly with deposits. We went back to Stern and said, hey, can we get a few more? And I think as of last night, I had two or three first run premium spots still available. So again, a really strong seller for us. Nice. I love this. So the internet is saying that Kong LE is not sold out. And you're telling us, as a U.S. distro, your allocation sold out. The extra you got sold out. So if you contact Stern, you cannot get more LEs? It's done and gone? Yeah, so all of the LEs, so as of Friday, they should have all been built and shipped out. And, you know, I try to stay with the pulse of the social medias and everything else. And I did see, you know, I'll see a distributor. Like I think I saw San Diego Amusements post on Wednesday or Thursday that they had a couple still available. I think Tilt Amusements had still a couple available. So there are some out there to be had, absolutely. But, again, for us, it's the number that we were given were spoken for quickly and out the door. All of ours have shipped and are in their new happy homes being loved. How does this work with kids? I'm so happy to hear this. With getting the LE numbers, like when a game is going to be released, like do you get some like a heads up a week before? Like, hey, we got a new cornerstone coming out. Figure out what your LE numbers are. And then is that release day just like a mad dash on trying to get your allocation in your spot? I wish I knew a week ahead of time. Or is it like, you know, you got like 70 last time. Like that's your number. And then everything kind of gets sorted out. because it seems like kind of chaotic during launch day for you guys trying to gauge, like, what's the interest of this going to be? I want to make sure I have enough but I don want to buy too many And then do you have to fork over your deposit money like that day when you get your allocation It definitely a dance you know because some games are more desirable than others Some licenses are more, you know, desirable than others. Some designers of games are more, you know, like we have a Keith Elwin list. I literally have a list of customers that say every time there's an Elwin game, I take it sight on scene. It could be My Little Ponies, and they want the Keith Elwin My Little Ponies. I want that too. So that side of it is very, very, you know, it's fun and interesting and chaotic, but exactly what you're saying is then there are times where a game is announced and we have to then let Stern know within a certain time period, typically about 72 hours, we're going to take our full allocation, we're looking for more, we're looking for less. So it is a dance. I think when it's Keith Elwin, then most of the distros will say, allocation plus 20 percent right and see just give us some more right but it's interesting with the keith elwynn side because we're very in tune with everything the three of us we know who keith elwynn is and whatever else but a big portion of the mad pinball customer base knows what games they love well i love jurassic park i love godzilla and it's like well those those are all the same guy so you're gonna love the next thing that he does as well so a big part of what we do is the The education process of how to maintain your game, how to, you know, when you're ready to trade in your game, all of those things are just part of what we do. And, yeah, is it easier if we just sold to pinheads only who have been doing this for 20 years and we don't have to answer any of these questions? Sure, that would be easier, but that's not growing pinball, and that's what we're in the business of doing.
    24:03
    Nice. All right. That's Kong Talk. Beautiful feedback. I'm loving it. Do you sell for Barrels of Fun also?
    24:14
    Yeah, so we have most of the major manufacturers, Barrels of Fun, Pinball Brothers, Spooky Pinball, of course, Jersey Jack, American Pinball. Basically, the only contract I'm still chasing at this point is Chicago Gaming Company. And as it turns out, they're about as quick at responding to emails as they are at building games. So it's been a process. We actually also want to sell for Segeiro Gaming Company. We talked with them twice. We sell games here in Denmark. We talked with them twice now, and they're like, you know what? We have enough distros. We cannot even produce games fast enough, so we don't need another distro. So they're – I mean, we just gave up on C2C. Yeah, I mean, they make amazing games. Their remakes are top shelf. Their quality is amazing.
    25:10
    They have the ability, whenever you make a product that everyone wants, they have the ability to tell people, hey, no, don't need your help. We're covered. So this was just another example then for us of we work with Cointaker on the CGC and the Dutch side of it of, hey, somebody comes to me and says, I'm looking for a Cactus Canyon Lyman kit. I send them over to Melissa, and Melissa takes care of them. when Dutch Pinball announces what's coming after Alice then we're going to have a relationship with Cointaker to be able to get people their game that they want to try to get up to 88 miles per hour and all of those things so it's about the relationships I heard they're going to have an 88 ball multi-ball in that game I just want to put that rumor out there I hope they will make a 88 super psycho special edition versions for 12,000 let's wait and see But you'd asked about Barrels of Fun. I didn't mean to jump topics there. Yeah. So Barrels of Fun, they just came out with Dune a month ago. How was the sales of Dune? Is that a big seller? How is it? Because we don't get no numbers, no nothing. Was it a disappointment? I don't need the strictly numbers, but how was the sales? How was the interest? So you want to talk about chaos and game launch chaos. That was a very interesting one. And, you know, we kind of knew, had a good vibe of the title coming. We had a good idea kind of of when based on invitations to come down and check out the game. And then all of a sudden, you know, 530 Eastern Time here in the States, I'm out cutting my grass and I get an email from Brian Savage and David Van Ness that says, hey, in an hour we're launching this game. I'm like, oh, OK, like, let me run in and load all these things onto the back end of the website and get stuff ready. So did that and didn't really have expectations of what it would do because we came in on Labyrinth a little bit late to the game. It was maybe a week after launch, so we kind of missed the initial little crush of it all. But with this one, immediately we had Dune enthusiasts and collectors coming to us, throwing down deposits. And then it was kind of surprising to me, we had maybe half a dozen locations that were immediately like, yeah, we want this game and we want it out there. So it was a great response, better than I expected for what I consider, I don't want to call it a niche theme, but it's not one, it's, you know, it's not My Little Ponies. It's not Matrix. It's not Harry Potter. It's not one of these ones where people are just going bananas for something. But the response was strong. It's not like a legacy tier theme. Yeah, so it's kind of hard to know how this was going to do. But Dune enthusiasts, huh?
    28:05
    Yeah, the Dune enthusiasts, I was surprised and pleasantly surprised. And then whenever I talked to the fellas down there, you know, in Houston, it was like, okay, this is how we're doing it. we're going to get some of these location games out within the first four weeks. So if you have some priority locations, let us know. And we, you know, kind of started to map that out with them, and we should be seeing these games pretty shortly out there. And I know, Don, you've had hands on the game. You got in front of it and all of that, but I'm excited to see, you know, their new lighting system and the thunder from down under and, you know, their version of the decal art, you know, is this like a rad cal sort of thing. Like, I just think they're bringing some interesting things to the table. Oh, for sure. Definitely like some nice quality upgrades that they're doing to their trim line there. Small price increase. I'm still wanting to see the topper, but I guess it's interesting to know, you know, like, are games actually leaving the factory yet? Because that was their whole deal. We're not revealing until we've got, you know, a steady bunch of games here. And then, of course, you had like the most chaotic launch week we've seen since that March TPF with Galactic Tank Force and Pulp Fiction and everything launching on top of each other. So, yeah, it's good to hear that it's getting out there, especially with locations because, yeah, more people should be playing this. Yeah, we have a great relationship with Joe over at Pinball Star, and I know he had a couple of them out at Allentown. So I know those were out there and landed with him. and then I saw Zach over at Flippin' Out had one that they got into, you know, because they obviously do an amazing stream over there. So I know those ones got out there, but I'd heard some little rumbling that, you know, maybe they were trying to get some more code going or get a few bugs out of things before they really, really got them out to a ton of locations. So once they get out there, I think it's going to be in full force, and I think people are going to be excited.
    30:01
    Cool. Nice. how does the barrels of fun do the business is it like stern you get your allocation or can i the reason i'm asking like that are you sold out with dune games at mad pinball or can you just order and get some more how is it how is it with barrels of fun so great question so on labyrinth i'm not sure that they knew what they wanted entirely so it was basically they have a back end of a website they had I think they announced 1100 they were going to do of labyrinth and then you order them and then in the order that you order them is the order that you get them whenever they build them and it worked really well for us we sold a nice number of labyrinths they shipped exactly in sequence of how barrels of fun told us that they would and then with dune they changed it up a little bit to where more of a stern style system where they allocate some more of a stern style system where the more volume you do, the more priority that you get and things like that. So to answer your question with Dune, we are not sold out. We do still have deposits available on those. They announced that they're going to do 1,000 on this run of these and plan to try to complete them within 12 months of the announcement. So based on where your order comes in and where our allocations are would be then when your game comes out. But, yeah, we should be seeing three of our location ones here within the next two to three weeks. So if you're in the Ohio area, come on out. A super electric pinball bar in Cleveland will have one. Birdfish Brewing in Canfield, Ohio will have one. And Finney's Arcade in downtown Canton will have one. So you'll get some time there with the sandworm. Awesome. I love getting this type of distro, U.S. distro info. And I hope our listeners are happy with this. I'm loving this. Are you selling games for, what was the Ninja game?
    32:04
    Oh, Turner Pinball. Chris Turner is like, he and I are just, every time I talk to him or see him, I just want to hug him. He's just my squishy bear. Yeah, we sell Turner Pinball. So Ninja Eclipse is very interesting. A lot of people know the saga of, you know, three years ago they show up to Expo with this weird-looking cabinet and no coin door and whatever else. And I'm always interested to talk to new manufacturers, whether it's Chris Turner or anyone else. And we started a little bit of a dialogue at the booth. And I handed him my card and I said, Chris, if you ever have any questions, you just want to talk, you want to vent, you want to whatever, give me a call. And it turned in very quickly to every couple of weeks, Chris and I would have like an hour long conversation about logistics or about locations or about what operators expect in their games and all of that. And it was just very friendly, you know, friend to friend sort of conversation. So then fast forward a little bit and you see the version of Ninja Eclipse now that they're shipping this first edition and they had two prototypes. And he said, Jeff, you know, we're just, we're not getting the traction that I want to try to sell 100 of these. What do you think we need to do? I said, if you want people to embrace your game, you need them to play your game. So my advice would be get one or two of these, both of these prototypes out in front of people. Once they have hands on the games, once they experience the game, they're going to sell. So he ended up sending us up one of two of the Ninja Eclipse prototypes in the old pin pod that we've all seen on social media. The big pin pod. So it shows up and we have a good relationship with the Midwest.
    33:54
    I wouldn't call it a family fun center. It's almost like an adult playground called Pins Mechanical Company. They have them here. I went to the game buyer and I said, hey, let's get this around a couple places. So he had it in Pittsburgh, he had it here, he had it there. We get the game back, and then we started touring it around Ohio. We got it at some tournaments, some events, some whatever else. And then it's expo time of last year.
    34:20
    Chris then expanded out with Pinball Star and Zach at Flippin' Out and a few others. And next thing you know, all 100 are spoken for. People are receiving their games. and by all accounts, I mean, I don't think I've seen a single negative thing on these games. People in general just seem to be absolutely delighted.
    34:39
    Nice. So how are the sales of his new Merlin scheme? Yeah, so Merlin's Arcade to me was one of the headliners of TPF this year. I think just by happenstance it was, hey, there's nothing else mega big other than I think Portal was the other headliner that came out. So when they announced and Chris got on with Kerry Hardy and did that awesome stream and all of that, it really gained some traction. But we're in an interesting market right now where, since a certain gentleman that goes by the moniker Jersey Jack told everybody to save their money, a lot of people took that to heart. I mean, even with King Kong and others, there are a lot of our regular people who are on the wait-and-see train. So I think Merlin's Arcade is, you know, selling strong and definitely, you know, not hurting by any stretch, but a lot of people are waiting and seeing. There's a lot that's happening. You know, there's more coming on the horizon, and we all suffer from it. I know Don does of, man, I only want to have X number of games. I only have room for so many games. You know, which one of these, which is my least favorite child right now? Like who's, who's not making the list. So it's, it's a tough time right now. So that's why I think this continual growth of pinball, of having a bigger install base of people, having them at home, of having more out on locations, whether it's a brewery or a restaurant or a whatever. It's like, let's, let's get pinball out here and let's let people experience it and realize this is a new and relevant thing. Hmm. Yeah. Are you getting some traction in Ohio there with people that come out to tournaments and then convert into being homeowners of machines? That's absolutely the biggest thing is because I'm a casual player at best. I am not a guy that can go and play a weekend tournament and grind for three days. I just don't have the capacity for it. So we're very much the show up at a comic book shop, show up at a Pokemon card shop, show up at a toy store, show up at a winery. and put these games out, have a good time, and get people involved and interested. And, yeah, I think that's why we're insulated oftentimes from the normal pinball ups and downs that I hear a lot of other distros going through because our customer base is just different.
    37:08
    Yeah. I think you hit the nail on that one when you said with Jersey Jack saying, do not spend a dime before you see Harry Potter, right? So interesting thing is I talk with Pinball Brothers about their upcoming game, and I talked about launch day with them. My first advice to them was actually wait until JJP releases their game first and then find the release day. And I think they are listening to that part, and I think everybody should wait and see because big license, pumped-up game, the CE is like one of the most beautiful pins coming out there. And I think people are holding back. And I think that's maybe some of the reason where these internet keyboard warriors are riding. The thing to remember though is, you know, Godfather was also one of the most beautiful games ever made, but like the gameplay didn't really resonate with people. And so, you know, I think that's part of what's fueling this God Potter rumor that we've been here in anticipation of Harry Potter. But look, this may be like the second coming of Wizard of Oz, too. So I think everybody's kind of in this limbo, like, if this thing is devastating, then my money's gone for that, and I'm, like, out of the market for a while. Versus, like, you know, if Harry Potter comes out and does underwhelm, I think you'll start seeing everything else just kind of, like, flying off the shelf. Well, Don, I know you did an episode a few months back, and it was more tongue-in-cheek than anything else, but it was Harry Potter Will Disappoint. Yes. And when you did that episode, like that connected with me because with these A++ plus licenses, no matter what you do as a designer or manufacturer, there are people that are going to go, oh, well, it's missing this or, oh, it's missing that. Like, I come from the theatrical world. I managed movie theaters for 20 years, and it's the same thing, you know, whenever they read, when they did episodes 1, 2, and 3 of Star Wars, or 6, you know, 7, 8, and 9. It's the same sort of thing where you're going to, people are going to, some people are going to be let down no matter what. So as great as this game will be, I have, from everything that I hear in terms of what the assets that they have and what the build of materials on this game is going to be. It's going to be absolutely amazing.
    39:34
    Mark my words right now, when the game comes out, you're going to have the terrorists out there telling you all of the things that it's missing and why you shouldn't buy it.
    39:44
    That's for sure. Actually, now mentioning Star Wars, I just want to have a little input here. So, Don, on Patreon, I think when you was back from TPF, tpf yeah you uh we made a show i think you were at tpf we made a show while you were there this was only patreon only show and you mentioned that uh you talk with people about star wars episode one two and three from stern so we shared all that info a couple of months back and yesterday canada he said that new game is coming star wars episode one two three now it's news donnie so it's Out now.
    40:29
    Yeah. So – Do you have a new Patreon member? Is his name K-Man? What's – is that where he's getting all of his info? We're happy to feed the info to anybody with cash in their pocket. So you're perfectly welcome to come join. I listen – he made a live show a couple of days ago. I listened to it this morning, and I'm telling you, it's one hour and 30 minutes about King Kong, not selling and how expensive it is and how you lose your money. And then he had a free podcast show where he tells that all pinball content creators that has got distro sponsorship that we have from today on, you cannot trust what they're saying.
    41:17
    That is a tough line to walk, isn't it though? Like if, you know, obviously what we're doing together is very new and whatever else, and you guys will learn who I am very quickly. Don already knows. But it's one of those things where I can imagine that there's that pressure of, and with any industry, hey, I need this, I need to move that, or hey, you can't say this about that. It's like that doesn't help anyone. Whenever there's a game out there and the reality is this game is a dog with fleas, it needed to be out there that, hey, this game needs help. This game isn't what we wanted it to be. and then the manufacturers learn from that. If everything is the next greatest thing ever in the history of pinball, it's like how long will you trust someone that's constantly saying that, oh, yeah, this is the greatest game ever, and the next game is the greatest game ever. It's like you need forces, whether it's podcasters, distros, friends in the community or whatever else that are just going to be honest with you and say, hey, yeah, I like this game for X, Y, and Z, but it has its flaws, or, man, this game is just a turd, and then the manufacturers learn a lesson for the next one. I think that's important.
    42:31
    Absolutely. I mean, Don and I, we're called Pinball Shields because Pinball release day, we are so excited.
    42:40
    Like, it's, yeah, you should see how we are when we hear about new games. And also when we, you know, pay a lot of money and unbox a brand new game, we are very excited. And for the last, like, 10 years on my YouTube channel, I have unboxed most of the games. But that being said, when I unboxed Venom Pro. I love that video.
    43:06
    I'm sorry, but I am excited. And when we order a game, we pay full price. On top of that, 25% VAT. So when we buy a Pro here in Europe, we pay the premium price for you guys. So I unboxed it and filmed it. I was disappointed on the pro. I played, you know, under 10 games. I'm like, when it's not good enough, when the shots are not fun enough, I'm honest and I'm telling it as it is. So just because a content creator is getting sponsored by a distro, that doesn't mean that we are just complete shill. Everything is perfect. Everything is great. It doesn't work like that. I mean, if it was like that, then we will lose all the listeners. And to your point, then, let's take Venom as a case study here a little bit. Don't you think then Stern learned a little something on a pro there? Let's look at X-Men Pro. Let's look at D&D Pro. Those are some of the most loaded pros you're ever going to see. Like, that is a direct result, in my opinion, of the reaction to that game was, hey, we need to give the consumers more. so I mean we have the power as consumers and players if something doesn't speak to us and it's not up to our standard and it doesn't meet the what we want for the price point then you speak with your dollar and I think that's happened with games to where there there reaction to it and it it for the better yeah I excited to see see how this goes The chatter in the community now is regarding you know Stern LEs and putting some value in there that is exclusive to the LE. You know, right now with Kong, like, great game, but you're getting the same play field for less money with the premium. And then if you look at the LE-only upgrades, you're getting the same art with the foil embellishment. You get that awesome back glass, and I love the side armor with that Art Deco cut, but then there's not, like, a compelling powder coat. There's no extra shot in the game. There's no, like, extra sizzle. Jersey Jack does a great job of doing things like, you know, we got sparkle in the clear coat on the collector's edition. You don't get that anywhere else. You get the gold lions, Don, and the only way you get them is with this collector's edition. And, like, there should be some unobtainable things that are only in that LE if you're paying that premium price. and not something that a knucklehead like me could just go and retrofit in there. So I think they're going to take some of that pressure and, I don't know, maybe just put expression lights in every LE or something, something like that. You're getting signatures. Baking the value, I know. What am I going to do with the signature? It's bad enough I have to clean that glue off the back glass.
    45:47
    Here's tape, Stern. If anyone over at the factory is listening right now, packing tape is not your friend when you're attaching certificates of authenticity to the back glass. painter's tape is your friend manila folder tape it to the coin door that works just as well and i don't have to sit there with goof off trying to you know fix my mirror back glass yeah i don't want it to come across as i'm dodging your point or your question about you know kong le or at least ellies in general my takeaway always in pinball is this and this is a very unpopular opinion but you know hey anyone repost this out there if you want pinball is not an investment pinball is not the stock market. Pinball is not an investment. If we're out here and I'm out here buying LEs or I'm buying pinball in general, I'm buying it as a luxury product, a luxury item. And I have, I should have no expectation that if I pay $13,000 for a game that then it's going to hold that, hold that value. Like it's like anything else. The second that you open it up, the second you drive the car off the lot, it loses value. Are there the, you know, albatrosses, albatross isn't the right term, but the ones every once in a while where it's like, oh, it's a Metallica LE, and there were only 500 of them, and now they're going for 18k. Absolutely, that's going to happen from time to time, but that's not the rule. That's more of the exception. Yeah, I think about it as I have an entertainment budget, you know, a certain percentage of my income or extra shifts goes to that and during this latest round you know i didn't get a dune i didn't get a merlin's arcade i didn't get a portal i got plane tickets instead this time so you know i i took myself on a couple of trips i got another one coming up and like that's where my entertainment budget went there and a plane ticket is definitely not an investment you're not going to get a return on that in terms of like monetary uh you know gain but you're going to get that uh you know just that entertainment experience, those memories that you have. And as long as it's coming out of like that entertainment part of the budget and you're not, you know, laid on rent to do it, you know, I think that's fine. So I see pinball slotting in at that same spot. You know, part of the fun for me is trying to allocate these funds and judge what game's going to come out. And it's like, do I really want to have that more than I want to have another Disney trip, you know? I think that's the tricky thing with pinball in general coming from, you know, theatrical exhibition space that I came from. we would know years in advance hey avatar's coming in december of 2027 or this movie's coming and it's slated for now and it was very easy to plan things and ball man they love they love to keep us in the dark and love to operate in you know kind of that in the shadows to where starting you have a pretty good idea of what their schedule is even spooky we know what their schedule is or has been kind of what that whole cadence of release is. But the not knowing what title's coming next, I mean, isn't that really specific to pinball in a lot of ways? Movies, video games, all of these other entertainment and art forms, you know years in advance what's coming. Pinball just hides a little bit, and I wonder if it is fear of what's happening with Harry Potter of, hey, if somebody knows this game's coming next year, maybe they won't buy what I'm building this year. And, you know, maybe that's the right move. I don't know. But it's definitely coming from other spaces was was very foreign to me. But, you know, Jane, as you had mentioned earlier on about release schedules and those sorts of things, you know, in the movies, whenever I started, it was, oh, well, summertime is when you release all the blockbusters and you never release the tent poles, you know, in January or March or these other times. and then we wait again for Thanksgiving and the holidays, and that's when we release games. I fear sometimes in pinball with manufacturers that they look at these release windows the same, like, oh, well, this is the month where games are released. And it's like, why don't you guys all get into a room together and talk about this and spread this out a little bit because I think you're going to get people that can budget their money a little bit and then buy more games if they know what and when it's coming. Spooky's over there like, no, don't tell them that. We love our release window. Nobody else is dropping games in November, please. How well has that been working for them? There's no one else doing anything, and they're the only game in town. It's like it makes perfect sense to me. Yeah. I've been saying this. The most clever company is going to release two weeks before Spooky's next release. That's it.
    50:28
    But coming back to pinball as an investment. Now, this topic comes from older collectors in the industry, people that have been doing this for 10 years. We were used to buy a Stern LE for – let me give an example. We have seven locations here in Denmark. Before, like seven years ago, when we got whatever, Iron Maiden, right? The pro, why? The premium, never, never ordered premium. That was seven years back, 10 years back. It was the worst investment, in quote. The best thing to buy on a location was the LEs. We paid $7,500, got an Iron Maiden LE, ruled it for a year, and sold it for $11,000, $12,000. That was how it worked. And if you want to keep a game, if you like Iron Maiden, whatever, more location, we cannot get more, then we just order some pros. Pros were like $4,799 or something. Real cheap, you know. Premiums, they lost value the day after. So we bought a lot of LEs. And we were used to stuff like this. So we saw it as an investment because the games were limited to 500. And when a Stern game got released, everybody was on top of each other. We were like, oh, we want this game. Some people that had great relationship with multiple distros bought two or three of these games, hid them away for three months, and then came back, I have an Iron Maiden new in box. Oh, my God, $13,000. Stern saw this happening. And I was out on my YouTube videos. I was like, can you imagine how Stern must feel? All those workers out there, they're building these machines. They're putting their heart and soul in them, shipping these LEs up for 7.5, 8.5, whatever. And this jackass gets the game, unlocks it, and says it's for 12.5. Stern saw this happen year after year after year, Jeff and Donnie. And this happened. Now they get the money, but the world economy right now, with your dear, nice Trump president, he just shook everything. I mean, the economy is just so crazy right now. So that's why I think that's one of the reasons that King Kong didn't sell as they usually do. And on top of that, it got released with another game, Dune release. On top of that, like two weeks before, it got P3, Multimorphic, and Merlin game on top of that. It was just everything on top of each other.
    53:32
    Wow, man. I think it's just a huge combination of all of that. So that's why those older guys like me still talking about investment, investment. But Jeff, you're right. Pinball is not an investment. Yeah, it's interesting. Since I've been working with Corbin and the operating side, it's opened my eyes to a lot of things over there to where they buy a machine and they put it out and it makes X number of dollars after six months. And it's like, okay, well, now if I want to move that machine, some of my depreciation or whatnot has been mitigated because of the money that I've earned. So, you know, I'm buying a premium at MSRP, you know, in U.S. dollars of $9,500, and I route it for six months, and I've made $2,000 off of that. It's like, okay, well, I've already knocked my cost on this game down to $7,500. If I can sell this game for $8,000, I'm ahead, you know, if it's not doing the things that I need it to do. So that side of it's been interesting to me. And I think sometimes on the hobby side, and I fall into this as well, is we forget that these are intended to be commercial equipment. Yes. And having these games on occasion, some of the games we had Kaelin here from Electric Pinball. The Electric Cat, I believe is what it's called. Electric Cat.
    54:59
    Yeah. So he said that when he bought a Stern game, it earned itself, was it like three months or something? He's heavily trafficked there, yeah. He's got a return on that stuff. So this would, you know, buying and having a location for like six months and then selling, you get your money back and you make maybe $500 or $1,000. But on top of that, as a location owner, you keep everything fresh. You get the new game in. This fresh pinball podcast value is so important. It's so important. One of our locations in Copenhagen is a heavily tournament players location. Like when normal people walk in there, these tournament guys are like, go away, we own this place. They want the newest games. They want the newest Elwynn. We ordered the Elwynn game before we knew what it was. No one cares. It's Elwynn. Competition players are like, ah, get that game.
    56:02
    Oh, yeah. Well, it's interesting that you bring that up. You know, I'm going to make a little bit of a turn away from that, but kind of on the same line of, you know, let's talk earnings a little bit. So being more involved on the operations side, as I said, it opened my eyes to some things. So we have a spot where Don streamed Honey Factory for the first time where we maintain between 20 and 25 pinball machines. And it's from the newest turn to the newest pinball adventure game. Whatever it is, it's probably going to show up there. so you know there's a jaws premium there there's a labyrinth there a big lebowski a pulp fiction we just put evil dead there last month spooky pinball and i don't know if it's because it was the first one in the area or what it was that evil dead ce number 89 has out earned anything that we've ever put in there over a 30-day period. And not by like a little bit, but by like a large margin. I'm not going to talk number of plays or dollars or anything else, but by a very large margin. And I was just shocked, absolutely shocked. I love it. And Spooky, they're just, oh, my God. Everything they're doing right now, it's so perfect.
    57:24
    I want to ask you, how about J.J.P. games? Can we route JJP as well? You know, it's tougher, if you guys listen to the Electric Bat podcast, to where it's a tougher pill to swallow when you're talking about a $12,000 game going out. That's a huge investment. That's almost two Stern Pros.
    57:46
    I'm very fortunate that since I work with Corbin to where they don't really sell their games. They just accumulate games and keep opening new locations to put this stuff.
    57:57
    But, you know, Godfather would be one where Corbin would be the first to tell you, like, man, that game was just doesn't earn. Never earned for us, just doesn't earn for whatever reason. Why? It doesn't make a ton of sense. You have a topper on there that has a machine gun going off. You have hot rails that are doing X, Y, and Z. You have all these awesome accoutrements on it that should make people walk up and want to play it. And for whatever reason, that game has never earned well for us. Now you look at something like Toy Story or Avatar, phenomenal. I had mentioned earlier that we work with the Pins Mechanical folks. They just opened a spot down in Austin, Texas, and the game buyer said to me on Wednesday, you know what our top earner was for our opening month? Elton John. It's just, you know, some of these games are just timeless and works of art, and people can't walk by them without putting money into them. I want to be a bit I probably shouldn't say this but I'm going to say it anyway alert everybody alert I shouldn't say this because we sell JJP games so I should just be shilling JJP but I'm going to say it anyway because it's the truth so yeah you just mentioned Tor Story amazing earner still to this day Toy Story is an amazing earner on location. JJP Games, when we sell them to private homes, private owners, rock solid games, love it. But, dear JJP, on locations, I'm so sorry to say this, I shouldn't say it, but the USB cables under the play field, or those internet RJ45 cables, those connectors, they fall off.
    59:56
    And it's not on one JJP, it's not on two JJP, it's just, I don't know if it's because of the shaker motor or people are smashing these games on location. So we had some issues with this. And the worst thing is, in the middle of the day, drive out to a location to lift the Playful Home, put in a cable in, right? We hate it. So this weekend, my bro, he drives down to France. This is a huge location, and they were talking. Everything was cool. We were on the phone, and he was buying games from them, and they had a lot of pinball machines. And all of a sudden, this huge location in France,
    60:37
    they're saying exactly the same thing to us that I'm saying right now. No. yeah exactly the same and we were like okay and we were talking third guy comes by french talking very very bad english talking guy while they are talking he mentions oh he visited stern he really wants to buy stern and we're like What? Buy Stern? What the heck? And, you know, very bad English. Yeah, he wants to buy Stern. Stern is for sale. Did you guys know this? Oh, I did hear rumblings of this a while ago, but I didn't know the veracity of this rumor. This is not rumblings. I mean, Gary Stern wants to sell this company.
    61:31
    Jeff, did you know something about this? I've heard rumors as well. we actually have pretty good dialogue with George Gomez and he's you know George can stick his foot in it and you know he says things sometimes that maybe Stern doesn't want out there and I think it's like any company to where yeah anyone's for sale for the right number but I can tell you the number that it would take to buy Stern pinball not a lot of people have that sort of checking account well i don't know how much money he has got but yeah i was like what crazy so that's the first thing and the second thing this with jjp at your location do you have any issues with those usb cable yeah yeah we learned from our friends up in benton wisconsin that whenever we have connectors that won't stay connected uh we get out our trusty hot glue gun and we give it a dab hot glue and we never think about it again so yeah it's definitely i don't want to call it a flawed system but it is the jjp games are exactly to your point where when they're in a home and they're on for an hour a day rock solid no problems whatsoever but if you're in an arcade that's rocking for 12 14 16 hours a day you know the heat that's you know it's just a heat thing and whatever else it's like you throw in a dab of hot glue and your connector problems are solved That was my question because I've got my 3D printers got a lot of electronics in it, and I'm replacing one of the drive motors. And as I'm disconnecting the little connections there, there's like this silicone glue or something that they put over these to keep them from rattling loose. And, you know, it's got very fast-moving parts in there. So I was going to suggest, like, is it as simple as just taking some silicone or some hot glue and put it over these connections just to help hold it in place? And then, boom, yeah, that's what you guys are doing. Yeah, and the nice thing with the hot glue is as opposed to like a real epoxy is, you know, it comes off easily. If you do need to replace a board or, you know, remove a connection or whatever else, you can just pull off the hot glue and you're rocking and rolling. Yeah, because it's not really like a glue as much as it is like a silicone that sets up firm and then can mold to whatever the connector shape is. But you can't just peel it off, yeah. Exactly. But guys, JJP is just a luxury. they're just luxury pinball machine manufacturing makers if JJP shipped out Harry Potter with glue under the playfield hot glue, blow bulbs under the playfield how would the community on Pinside react to that yeah they would have their pitchforks out for sure that's why they have us add the hot glue later actually I think that Carol Hernandez also said this on their podcast show. So part of me thinks I shouldn't say this, but it's the reality. And the reality is so hardcore that for the past, like, two, three years, my brother was like, okay, when Harry Potter comes out, we're going to have, you know, seven Harry Potter on locations.
    64:42
    Yesterday we talked. Of course, we're getting the CE. We love JJP. Nothing there. But my bro was like, I'm not sure if I should buy this for our location.
    64:58
    I mean, think about that. This guy is the biggest JJP fan. Like, he loves JJP. We're going to get the CE's, but we're not sure because we're tired of these cables. but maybe we should try the hot glue stuff. Just a little dab. A dab goes a long way. There should be some kind of locking interface you can do with these where you can plug it in and then close a little plastic clip just to hold it, like a little plastic collar or something. Or maybe I need to fire up the 3D printer and have an aftermarket mod here for JJP. I think we should just not use those USB cables. You know, have something, a locking system, bam, on a cable. Yeah, instead of the USB. Something happens. I don't know. You also have the same problem with your computer. Sometimes USB doesn't, you know, connect, react, so you have to check it out, put it in again. So, yeah, it's just so sad. When you buy a game for $15,000, you want it to, you know, take care of itself on a location and just our games cost like $3 per game and just print money, you know? yeah i'm not one of the more interesting things though like as a distributor and getting games into homes and what have you and we've talked about this on our podcast on the fresh pinball to where it's one of the few items to where it shows up you know it's not a refrigerator or an air conditioner or whatever and you don't just plug it in and away you go like there's always a certain amount of tweaking and for me like i'm a little bit of a car guy and a gearhead so that part appeals to me. But then when I got onto the distribution side of it, there are a lot of our customers who, you know, they have, they always get the white glove delivery because they just want to never have to take the glass off. And pinball inherently is, you know, a glass, plastic and wooden case holding in these metal ball bearings that something eventually is going to break So just it such an interesting it like the niche of the niche hobbies It a hobby within a hobby And there just so much money and time and everything else wrapped up into it. It's just, it's a really fascinating case study in general to me of like the human, just being a human of pinball in general. It's like what, what makes people tick and what makes people do these things. And pinball is just like such a big part of some lives and other people out there have zero idea that pinball is even still being manufactured it's very interesting actually you're saying this because not everybody goes into these pinball pages on groups on facebook or or pin site and takes some people are like hey we tried this on an arcade we have arcades on big malls and could be fun to have a pinball machine i can give you an example so i had two guys they were maybe in their 30s they are they they want to buy a pinball machine so they come up and i show them demolition man from 1994 bella williams right yeah yeah so they're like they're these two guys they're so excited they're like they're just in in hue humor just just having fun and they're just whoa this is so awesome and i was like yeah this is a pinball machine and you uh i just want to show you you have to replace these batteries so i open up into the back box area as soon as i open it up they're like they see all these cables and boards and all that on this game from 99 to 4 and they're just they're just speechless they're they're woohoo humor just disappears and they're like oh my god they don't dare to buy this they i could just feel it they were like no we didn't know it was like this we're not interested i could just feel it okay this is this is going nowhere and i just and this is okay come look here we have got this game from stern spike 2 it's called aerosmith do you love the music yeah aerosmith great music okay i how does it look in the back alright so I opened to the back box on the Stern game and I was like look at this it's so simple so they dropped Demolition Man and they bought Aerosmith from us and they were so happy so we made the deal and they were so happy and at the end of the deal they were like yeah and we're so excited about this and we just want to say we're gay and I was like alright we live together and we're going to have some fun with this game You can visit us anytime you want. I'm like, well, good for you guys. I don't know why I should get that information, but happy gaming, right? Hey, and that's a hot tub invitation, man. I mean, think about it.
    69:49
    Isn't it exciting, though, whenever you get that energy from someone when they're getting their first game or second game or whatever it is, and they just are so amped up and so excited to bring this into their home, And you know that this is going to be a focal point of their life for days, weeks, months, years, whatever it is. Like, is this the jumping off point to where they go from having one pinball machine to having 12? Is this, you know, how they're going to spend their Friday nights? It's just so fascinating to me, and I just love the energy. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. And this, with all the chaos in the back box and all sort of stuff, not everybody are experts in this. So some people, they, Jeff, when you sell them a game, they're like, this game. How long warranty do you have in you? We have two years in Denmark. How long warranty do you have in the U.S.? Yeah, so in the U.S. on Stern, they now have it in writing that it's one year, which is phenomenal. Stern has always been awesome with us, supporting games even when they were out of warranty and beyond. But, yeah, it's a year. And then Mad Pinball-wise, if it's not a local person to us, we're fortunate enough to be connected up with a network of very good techs slash enthusiasts that we've leveraged to help out folks. We recently had one where a Godzilla 70th showed up to a gentleman's house in Nashville, and it had a little bit of a bumpy ride, and it needed new back box hinges before it could be completely set up. I gave my buddy Jason Wilson down in Smyrna, Tennessee, a call over at Game Galaxy and said, hey, can you help me up? Help me out. He ran over there, took care of it. We just have these people who all across the United States who want to see pinball be successful and are willing to spend their time and energy making sure that people who are new and getting into it are having the absolute best experience. If you look away from pinball, if you buy a refrigerator in the U.S., how much warranty does the government say they have to give you? Don't you have a standard?
    72:02
    Yeah, it's a little different over here with this sort of stuff. It's usually maybe like the store might back you for 30 days. The manufacturer might back you for 30. There's not a whole lot of consumer protection. Can you imagine if the government had consumer protections for America? In 2025, you don't have a standard. When you buy this TV, you have at least two years full warranty. You don't have stuff like that over there. No, no. It's completely on either the retailer or the manufacturer themselves to kind of be good about those sorts of things. So I think for us, when Stern came out and said, hey, here's the letter of the law of our warranty, we're going to back everything to the nth degree for a year, it was very reassuring for a lot of people to have that in writing. Awesome. The thing is, when we sell games, people are like, okay, pinball people, they can, you know, open up a box and fix anything there. But there are also people that are like, we had this couple that the man, I think he was 50, and his wife wanted to just give him a present, you know? So they know nothing about pinball, and they're like, which themes do you have, which movie themes, and they don't care about shots on layout, music, nothing, just which themes, and she just bought a present to her man. So people like that, they just expect, I just paid $15,000 plus 25% VAT plus $1,000 shipping. We just paid all that money. we expect this game will work rock solid for the next two years that's a given they don't know anything about taking the glass off they just expect the game to work for two years that's the worst part about being a distro here in europe two years i mean i want to just disconnect all Shaker Motors.
    74:01
    Yeah, it can be an adventure some days. I mean, I love the education process of new pinball owners and first-time pinball owners, but it is the biggest investment. You know, we have customers who have been into pinball for 25 years, and they order a Kong LE, and they receive their game, and they say, thanks, Jeff, I appreciate it, and I don't hear from them again until the next release. and then exactly as you're describing, sometimes a game will land with someone for the first time and I'm literally on the phone with them every day describing to them, this is what the lockdown bar is and this is how you take off the lockdown bar. This is the playfield glass. Make sure that you put corner protectors on your glass before you set it down on your tile surface or anything like that. And it's time-consuming, but it's also rewarding then when that person orders their second machine or their third machine or then has a friend over and then they introduce that friend into the hobby. So while it's a time investment and sometimes it can be frustrating, ultimately that's how we're going to keep this thing going is through those folks that, hey, the wife ordered a pinball machine as an anniversary present for the husband, the husband falls in love with it, and now we continue to grow this. My bro over here is the most honest guy that I know, Jay. I love you, brother. So when he sells a pinball machine, he looks the customer in their eyes and he says, yep, you're going to get this game for 15K, and I guarantee you it will break down. Oh, yeah. Without a doubt. He says this to the buyer, it will break down. So, yeah. You have to set the expectation, and I think that's important. It's not about being a car salesman. It's not about making the sale. It's about being realistic with folks.
    75:55
    And what value am I? Don talked about value earlier with LEs. I think with Sterns, it's important to talk about the value you do get with a Stern. Like, Don, we know with Stern, we're going to get, as much as people cry, we're going to get consistent code updates. We can expect within 12 to 18 months the game is going to be code complete. We know that there aren't going to be a bunch of bugs in there that are breaking it down. We know that if a part goes down, that they're going to be able to supply us with that part. We know that we're getting the Insider Connect system with that, which for a lot of people in the younger generation is insane. I can scan in and I can get achievements and I can chase these quests and I can pin save on D&D and I can get contracts with John Wick, which they're doing contracts again. And it just I think there's a lot of value in all of that that can that needs to be perceived that, man, there's a lot that goes on on the back end of people's salaries that they're paying to make all of that machine work. And it's just something that when someone asks me about a game, a lot of times it's, hey, let's start you out with a stern. Let's start you out with this title, and let's get you hooked up with Insider Connected and all of these things. And that, I think, is my best chance of turning you into someone who's a pinball enthusiast. And then on a second or third game, let's talk about these other manufacturers. Let's talk about just getting you a game based on theme. But let's get your feet wet with what I consider to be one of the best manufacturers out there. Yeah. And most manufacturers, they give great warranty because when you sell a game and there's something wrong with the game, they just ship out a new part so they can just replace it, the customer. But there are like 10% of the customers are like, I got this coil. What do I do with it? There's also that part of it, you know? So you want to talk about the best service in the industry, and this will be me shilling or whatever, but this is based on experience. It's a spooky by far. Before I was a distro for them, we had out, you know, America's Most Haunted and Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper and all of these crazy games. And, oh, hey, this part, this one-off part that you guys made for this game went down. AJ, oh, yeah, I shipped that out to you. Not here's an invoice, not here's, I mean, we're talking about a 10-year-old game and you're still shipping me free parts? It's just, they're crazy up there. There's something in the water. Love those guys. Yeah. Any kind of issue at all, like, they'll show up to my house and fix it. Like, it's crazy.
    78:39
    And I just love the little things that they do for everyone. Like, Don, I know on your Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw, it's like they did the little placard that Don's pinball podcast, and then I saw Retro Ralph got his Evil Dead, and it had the little custom, you know, placard on it. It's just they get it. They really get it. Yeah. Each one of these games is their babies, And so, like, the thought of, like, an Alice Cooper out there that's underperforming, they're, like, not going to have that. Yeah.
    79:07
    I know for a fact that Buck, he really quality controls all the games. I mean, he is so busy, you won't fathom how much that guy is working. He really puts his heart and soul into their games. and just like Jeff said they are they get it Spooky is a young team right they use Facebook they they use media they're out there they're with the content creators they're out with the buyers they're just all over the place and look at the feedback right they're just they're rolling right now, the only thing I would change with Spooky right now is it called constancy? I don't know the word, but constancy, yeah. You know, keep on doing stuff more and more. Be constant.
    80:08
    I think, what's it called, Donnie? You want to say it? No, no. Consistency. Now I'm having trouble saying it, damn it.
    80:18
    Yeah. I just think Spooky does everything right except one thing, and that is they only release one game a year.
    80:30
    Yeah, they should really sit down and change that because this summer Evil Dead will be old news. Spooky, with this success, right, with this support from the whole community, no one says nothing bad about Spooky Pinball right now. they should you know instead of saying for the next 12 months we're gonna build 888 for the of these games they should say for the next 18 months we're gonna build evil dead but we will this summer present another game and build 400 of them i'm gonna talk with them about this they should do this not just one game here that that's the only thing it would spook i know like i know me and them you know we talk about themes all the time i mean everybody that comes up to them is talking about like the five themes they want them to make. And, you know, there's good ideas and things, but they run into a backlog where they're like, listen, we've got like five games in development right now. Like we literally can't take on another one because it would be six years until we make it. And that would eclipse the license terms, you know. But I do like the idea of them doing games like this Motorhead homebrew that was made that they'd like to put in development. I think like a small run of that, like 300 games, drop it in and do like parallel production or something. and get that out there. Could be fun. But, you know, piggybacking off the success of Evil Dead, Jeff, what does your spooky list look like for the next game? Do you have an interested list there? Oh, my gosh. So, I mean, Evil Dead has been obviously gangbusters. We sold more of Evil Dead than anything else from them combined. And then, you know, I maintain a wait list of people of, hey, if somebody drops off a deposit, you know, I want to be next up. So that list is extensive. And then for what they announced, you know, this fall or winter, my list is very, very long because Evil Dead has has fed the beast. You know, that is FOMO of man. I missed out on Evil Dead for whatever reason. I am not missing out on the next thing. So, yeah, we are maintaining a list for the next game. So if you want to hop on the list for the next spooky, just drop myself or Corbin an email. Jeff at Mad Pinball dot com or Corbin at Mad Pinball dot com and we'll get you on the list. And, you know, if you've dealt with another distributor before and you never really know where you are on the list or are you part of the good old boys or the good old girls club of, you know, priority, we literally go in the order of the list. With Harry Potter, I have people on the list from July of 2022 and they get first opportunity of the first one off the line. It's not the person who spent 200K with us. It's the person who's on the list first. So if you want to get on the list, drop me an email.
    83:18
    Remember the code WAP. Yeah, for sure. Email or website. If you're dropping me an email, just say, hey, heard about you over on WAP.
    83:31
    Interested in a machine. Let's do something. And the boys will – it sounds like they've got some – Don's going to get in the lab and create a cool shirt. I dig it, yeah. I'm ready. The print shop is going. and I got shirts already ready to go.
    83:46
    Well, I feel like I've probably talked everyone's ears off at this point, and they probably don't want to hear my monotone, baritone voice anymore. But if you guys have a final question or so for me, I'm happy to answer. I have one final question. This is a bit personal business info question. I'm going to ask it anyway, and you can just say no way. Okay, Jeff. So Internet Warriors, they're saying, pinball is not selling right now all the distros are just burning in with 2 000 games in their warehouses i want to ask a u.s distro jeff are you burning in with like 85 venoms right now do you have some games where you have you know 80 100 of them this is going to be the most um sound like the most distro answer of all time i have zero venom pros new inbox in the warehouse I have one Venom Premium new in box in the warehouse, and I have zero used Venoms in inventory at all. John Wick, same thing, no new in box pros. We sold through them all. We have one new in box John Wick Premium in stock, and we had Don's John Wick LE, and that actually went to a gentleman up in Buffalo, the Nickel City Pinball Club. He scooped that baby up. He was loving all the mods and all the little details that Don had added to it, and he picked that up over at Pinbrew. That's awesome. Man, we're just a different sort of distro, man. I hear these things on the Internet, and I see people speculating, oh, man, they're just stacking up games to the ceiling in the warehouse, and games get announced, we get our allocations, we make our orders, and we sell our games. And is the market different now than it was during COVID? Is the market different now than it was a year ago? Absolutely. I'm not going to sit here and say anything to the contrary, but we are very, very fortunate. We've developed a great customer base that we take care of, and they in turn take care of us. So those are Stern games. How about, let's say, J.J.P. games? Are they burning in with, you know, older J.J.P. titles? No, we're not. But it's a different sort of situation for us, too. Like, we don't over-order. We order what we think that we can sell in a reasonable amount of time, and that's what we do. We don't succumb to pressures from manufacturers of, oh, if you want Harry Potter's coming, and if you want a certain number of CEs, you need to order this many avatars. We do what we think is best for Mad Pinball, and then inherently, in turn, what's good for our customers. It's not good for our customers for us to be, you know, drowning in this, that, and the other.
    86:40
    We're very fortunate in a lot of regards. But, no, if I walked out to the warehouse right now, there's nothing that I look at and go, man, I'm still sitting on 16 Led Zeppelins and 14 Ninja Turtles and whatever else. Like, whenever Stern a few years ago did the price drop on a couple games and said, hey, you can sell Led Zeppelins for whatever. I think they took MSRP off of it altogether. It was like people were coming to me, oh, my gosh, I won a $5,000 Led Zeppelin premium. I'm like, I haven't had Led Zeppelin premiums for years.
    87:15
    Sorry, we got them, we ordered them, we sold them to the people who wanted them, and we moved on to the next thing. So, no, we have complete transparency and honesty. Yeah, we have games in stock ready to ship, new and used and otherwise. But, yeah, we're far from drowning in anything. Well, Jeff, I appreciate all the insight, man, and thanks for coming on. We've got to circle back around in a couple weeks when Harry Potter is flying off the shelf or not and then see how those are doing. Yeah, absolutely. No, I look forward to definitely speaking with you gentlemen again. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have a good gut feeling about this collaboration, and we can share U.S. distro information with our listeners. I hope everybody is happy with this sponsorship with Mad Pinball. This has been awesome, Jeff. Yeah, we'll see if I'm ever allowed on this podcast again after all of our friends from Stern and JJP and everyone else hear the podcast. They'll be like, Jeff, you know, maybe you shouldn't go on that show anymore. You're saying things that maybe we don't want you saying. We love you, sir. Welcome in our hot tub anytime. Do we have any questions to the WAP team? No, definitely. I've been enjoying this conversation to get to know you better, Jengas. I already have a pretty good relationship with Don, and we chat on the regular, so I look forward to talking more and getting to know you a little bit better. We here at We Are Pinball would like to thank our guest, Jeff Cernava of MadPinball.com, for joining us for this fantastic interview session. Be sure to email us at WeArePinball69 at gmail.com to get at either one of us. the conversation will now continue over on Patreon. That's patreon.com backslash wearepinball to join. Five dollars to get you in the door for more fun and amazing awesomeness with Jenkins and myself. Take care of each other, and we'll see you over at the green room for the Patreon show. Bye.