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Does Censoring Pinball Kill the Buzz?

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 0m·analyzed·Oct 16, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Blockade hosts praise Williams FX3 release; debate Zen's censorship standards on paid vs free tables.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss the Williams Collection release in Pinball FX 3, praising the physics improvements and community reception. The podcast shifts to analyzing Zen's censorship of classic pinball tables, particularly Fish Tales (free table with strict content standards) and Medieval Madness (paid content with unexplained modifications including removed blood, cigars, and altered artwork). They question whether paid digital pinball should face the same content restrictions as free offerings.

Key Claims

  • Mel at Zen stated that sales of the Williams Collection have been phenomenal and off the chart, exceeding expectations

    high confidence · Direct quote attribution from Mel regarding Williams Collection sales performance mentioned by Chris

  • Williams Collection physics improvements were completed in approximately four weeks, with additional two-week polish period before release

    high confidence · Chris and Jared explicitly discuss the timeline of Williams beta iterations and release schedule

  • Fish Tales is a free table bundled with Pinball FX 3, requiring stricter content standards due to non-opt-in distribution

    high confidence · Chris explicitly states Fish Tales is free and discusses the regulatory distinction between free and paid content

  • Medieval Madness artwork was modified to remove blood from sword, remove cigars from orcs, and add armor to tower maiden character

    high confidence · Jared details specific censorship changes on Medieval Madness backglass artwork

  • Multiple Zen tables have had sprite/animation modifications including mermaid in Fish Tales changed from bikini to one-piece and beer cans changed to soda cans

    high confidence · Chris lists specific modifications discovered in Ars Technica article about Zen censorship

Notable Quotes

  • “Sales of the Williams Collection have been phenomenal and off the chart and more than they ever expected.”

    Mel (Zen) @ ~33:00 — Official confirmation of Williams Collection commercial success, supporting future investment in physics updates and Zen's platform expansion

  • “If they do put in these physics for old Zen tables, I will go ahead and buy old Zen tables. Because imagine—because that was always a huge hang-up for people.”

    Jared (paraphrasing community sentiment) @ ~28:00 — Identifies physics as the primary barrier preventing purchase of legacy Zen catalog; suggests huge revenue opportunity

  • “It's that extra effort to make everything just, you know, beautiful upon release. That any complaint people are having and focusing on are just that minutiae.”

    Chris @ ~38:00 — Dismisses remaining criticisms as hyperfocus on minor details after substantial polish work; characterizes critical community as perfectionist

  • “But I paid for this. So why am I being so protected from—I chose to purchase this thing. Why is it being protected?”

    Jared @ ~55:00 — Core tension between paid content and applied content restrictions; questions legitimacy of censorship on purchased products

  • “Zen washed the car when they released the Alpha. Then they put five layers of cut and polish over it and buffed the bejeebers out of it, and then released it.”

    Chris @ ~37:00 — Metaphor for iterative refinement process; establishes high quality standard achieved through rapid beta cycle

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorgzpersonZen StudioscompanyMelpersonBlockade Pinball PodcastorganizationPinball FX 3productWilliams CollectionproductFish TalesgameMedieval Madnessgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Williams Collection success creates potential licensing/revenue opportunity for physics updates to legacy Zen catalog, addressing long-standing player complaints

    high · Jared: 'If they do put in these physics for old Zen tables, I will go ahead and buy old Zen tables' and Chris: 'license to print money. All they need to do is tweak the physics'

  • ?

    community_signal: Zen implemented live activation/deactivation toggle for animations (dragon on Medieval Madness, etc.) allowing player customization of visual preferences

    high · Chris: 'It's not difficult to move your thumb and hit the button and turn it off' and 'That live activation/deactivation feature is just fantastic'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Shift from early enthusiasm about Williams Collection to frustration with content censorship rationale; community questioning cost-benefit of modifications

    medium · Chris and Jared transition from praising release quality to questioning why paid Medieval Madness content faces same restrictions as free Fish Tales

  • ?

    product_concern: Content censorship on paid Zen tables (Medieval Madness) raises customer satisfaction concerns; hosts question legitimacy of modifications on purchased products vs free content

    medium · Jared: 'But I paid for this. So why am I being so protected from—I chose to purchase this thing. Why is it being protected?'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Venom mini-playfield exhibits inconsistent physics (full-power cross-shot worse than backhand flip to same ramp); indicates incomplete physics tuning on Zen platform

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.181

0:00
this is the blockade podcast with your hosts chris and jared you are listening to the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris freebiss aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world jared morgan g'day how's it going you know it's going rather well uh we have had the first rain in southern california in months right and it was even even better than the rain we got something which we rarely get which was lightning and thunder last night wow so a proper almost tropical storm like we have here yeah and and i gotta say man i love thunder at night it's just there's something cozy about it i don't know why but i i enjoy it Well we've had lots and lots and lots of rain We've got a low sitting over us here at the moment And it's the same story for us We haven't had rain for ages And our tank was empty And then within a matter of two hours It was full So it was good to see Yeah It's just been I don't know what it is but there's a low just hanging over us And it's going to be like Raining for the next week or so So it's times like this in Australia, you wish you had two water tanks instead of one.
1:28
It's not that we rely on tank water here. It's just that it's used for flushing the toilets and washing. So it's plumbed into that line and when it runs out, it switches over to town water again.
1:42
It's one of those things. The rainwater is better because it's softer and you don't have to use as much detergent.
1:50
Yeah. Yeah, because from the sky, how can it possibly be hard water? It can't be hard water. It can't be impossible.
1:58
Ars Technica
organization
Pinball Arcadeproduct
ESRBorganization
Venomgame
Adventurelandgame

medium · Jared: 'There's this one ramp on the right-hand side that you can hit it with a full power shot from your left flipper, and it makes it up halfway and then rolls back down'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Zen subject to ESRB compliance requirements affecting content across both free and paid tables; unclear whether modifications represent regulatory mandate or corporate policy

    medium · Chris notes ESRB involvement but article appears incomplete; hosts question necessity of modifications on paid content

  • $

    market_signal: Williams Collection sales exceeded Zen's expectations, validating the gamble to rebuild physics engine and create new animations for classic tables

    high · Direct quote from Mel: 'sales of the Williams Collection have been phenomenal and off the chart and more than they ever expected'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Williams Collection physics differences create hierarchy between game modes: Standard flipper angle vs Tournament/Classic Arcade with shallower angle, mirroring Gottlieb vs Bally/Williams hardware differences

    high · Detailed discussion of flipper angle differences between single-player mode and tournament mode affecting catching/cradling difficulty

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen implemented flipper trick mechanics (live catch, cradles) in Williams Collection requiring genuine skill execution rather than pre-programmed zones

    high · Chris: 'By Beta 3, they started adding in all the flipper tricks' and detailed comparison to Pinball Arcade's pre-programmed catch zones

  • ?

    technology_signal: Williams Collection demonstrates capability to rapidly iterate physics engine (four-week development cycle during beta), suggesting feasibility of retrofitting legacy Zen tables

    high · Jared: 'basically the usual lead time that Zen has between announcing a table pack and then releasing a table pack, they did all that work in a month'

    • Unless it's got acid in it. Then you get really cool looking jeans. That's right. It's like an acid wash by Proxy, yeah.
    2:08
    There's a fashion trend that I'm glad has not resurged. Man, you see pictures... And believe me, I had a few pair. I'm sure I probably did too when I was young. I'll see those pictures and I'm just like... Oh, those are horrible. Yeah, they look like a really, really old pair of jeans. They just, you see them and you just go, hmm, late 80s, early 90s. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it is absolutely. And then you're looking to see if there's a girl in the background. And if there is, she probably has a perm.
    2:42
    Probably has a perm and a big floppy jumper on, like off the shoulder. Yeah, you bangs. Yeah, exactly. Oh, man, what a strange era.
    2:56
    They're all strange eras when you come to think about it. I was tripping out. When I was growing up in high school, which was late 80s, there was always this, the 50s seemed like forever ago back then, right? And it was just this, oh, poodle skirts, and oh, listen to that music and everything. And I realized that today is the same amount of time back in the 80s. is now the 50s yeah which trips me out to no end it's just true yeah it's really hard for me to wrap my head around that and because it doesn't seem old to me but if you're new if you're like us back in the noughties or whatever or like in the 80s looking back at the 50s it like you know it's it was a an age ago and ages ago yeah so yeah i'm sure the kids today go oh yeah look at these see these consoles they only had 16 bits in them you know or you know eight bits in them like how do they even run you know my favorite was and this was all i this is a few years back and i think it was my niece that said this but um she was referring to a a record as a disco disc well fair enough i was like okay um but yeah you know it it is kind of kind of freaky And I always say that too with when I talk about movies.
    4:26
    If I'm talking to somebody that's in their 30s, I have to realize that you probably haven't seen a lot of these that I'm referring to. Maybe you saw it on TV one time, but why would you even bother watching it? It's old to you.
    4:40
    There's no reason for you to watch it because it's probably been reinvented five times already. Oh, my God. I know. We had a thread. it was actually one of our last podcast thread the topic of horror movies popped up whether or not I was going to go see the new Halloween and I said I've never seen any of the Halloween movies and I was like I'm just not a horror fan in general and then I came up with my short little list of horror movies that I actually do recommend or that I actually enjoy but it was one of those things where also you just realize like yeah now I kind of get why maybe they're rebooting some of these because I wasn't into some of these yeah it's the franchise that time forgot so they just bring it back again it's the evergreen franchise yeah oh um hey folks I suppose you want to talk about pinball don't you hmm you know it is a thing that we come here weekly for so one second here Jared I gotta do one little thing there we go okay so on the pinball front this last week we actually had William Stables released in Pinball FX 3 so everybody got to get their grubby little hands on it play the full versions if they paid for them and all the console people got to get their hands on it too and it's been fun seeing the response because you forget about all the people that were on console that didn't get a handle on it. And it's that, oh my god, you guys weren't lying!
    6:27
    It's like, yes? We were. And then what I'm really finding fascinating is all the people that I realize never played Zen, period. They're brand new to Zen. and so all the UI all the navigation that's all new to them and they're going wow this is easy yeah you know these questions of you know what are wizard scores and what are super scores and it's like oh yeah if you have not been in their ecosystem you don't understand what the scoring internal scoring of the game is beyond just getting high scores within a game I don't really know what those things are either to be perfectly honest but that's fine It's always been a vagary to me, but basically within a table, you have a whole collection of stars that you can collect. It's for completing all the challenges. It's for getting high scores.
    7:27
    So within any table, basically, I think there are 250 stars that you can collect. If you get all 250 stars, that's your wizard score.
    7:37
    Okay. basically you've completed that table, if you will. It's their version of goals, like Far Side has. Just none of them are annoying.
    7:51
    That's nice. I might actually pay attention to them then, in that case. It's pretty much, by and large, if you finish either the wizard mode, or if you finish one particular chain of events, you'll get your badge. There's only one badge per table. but that's how you get your badge. But then within the Williams tables, one of the things is if you reach certain milestones, you'll also finally get the flyer badge. You can actually look the flyer or not, but they've included it as one of these things that you can actually get. That's cool. Yeah. So then you have what's called the super score. And the super score is it looks at all the tables that you play. Right. and you can get basically a mass score for all of FX3. And that score can be compared to your friends. So I may have beaten all my friends' scores within a table, and then all of a sudden what will start popping up is, oh, you have this much more to beat your friend's super score.
    8:59
    So you're always chasing. It's a way of always having you chase a score, keeping you engaged, rather than just going, I'm done with the game. I beat. I win. I'm out.
    9:09
    That's cool. There's always striving for more because it's always changing because friends will do better in some tables and then you'll be chasing that. That's really cool. That's a great way to bring them back. Bring them on back. We still have people that are confused by the table views and are discovering which table views work for them.
    9:27
    That's fine. You've got to experiment with these things. It took me a while to find the one I liked as well. What did you wind up settling on? I think it's usually around, well, certainly the Williams Collection, it's the DMD and table view, which is eight, I think. Okay, so view eight. Yeah, view eight. But it depends on the table in Zen. I usually go for the one that's full table view with no scrolling, and I think that's number – That's two. Yeah, that's two. Yeah, that's the one I live on. Yeah, two is good for me. I don't like zooming into bits of the table. Yeah, I hate to zoom in. I will can tolerate beyond that is view 5 because what view 5 does is it doesn't scroll up the table it doesn't zoom in what it does is it basically acts as if your head tilts up so it's more focused on the lower half of the play field but then as the ball moves the whole thing just tilts up and then tilts back down as soon as the ball comes down so it's more of a natural head movement if you will I still find it a little bit distracting but it's the least distracting of all the other views that I find number one I found that when I first started playing with the power cord out of the service book 2 all the scrolling views caused it to chug terribly because of course if it's a fixed view all it's rendering is the ball and the animations so it's very resource friendly that way, but now I plug in, I could probably do the other views and it'd be fine.
    11:01
    I just don't really like them. I don't like the aspect of scrolling like that. For me, it's view two or view eight. Yeah.
    11:11
    A lot of people are surprised at how much they like the animations on top of these tables. I think it's awesome because they're really cool looking and there's no doubt about that. they really do freshen up the look of like a 30 year old table. They make it, make it even like the things like the mirror blades and stuff they've got on the side of the cabinet and stuff like that alone, make it go, wow, like this game has either been super pimped or, or it's just being completely like redone. Like if they just stripped away like the animated characters and stuff and just had the mirror blades and like the snow, the subtle snow on the top of the Matterhorn and stuff like that, you know, that alone is enough visual difference just to make it enough. Well, and it's that thing of, like I said in a previous podcast, with the getaway, almost everything, well, I shouldn't say almost everything, but the donut shop and the mountain, I've seen that mod on a real table. Yeah. And the mirror blades, we've certainly seen stuff like that. Those everywhere. Yeah, exactly. So these aren't off-worldly mods. These are ones that you can kind of get. Yeah. which is kind of good. And the, what was I thinking the other day when I saw some of these? Oh, that's right. Have you noticed that the animated characters, there's a couple of shared animations that they have? Oh, no, I haven't noticed that. Yeah, there's the one where you drain the ball, like the copper and the fisherman. They both, yeah, no, they laugh at you and they slap their legs or something like that. And it's both the same animation. So it's almost like they're a skin. over the main character. But there, of course, is unique animations for the copper where he actually scans your ball, like speed scans your ball as it launches. And, of course, a fisherman throwing the pole in the water and actually jumping around the boat. So those two are different animations. But, yeah, it's clear that they've used some sort of skin or common animations, which is logical enough, I guess.
    13:23
    Some people do not enjoy the dragon flying around on medieval planets. That is a little distracting, I will probably say. I don't have any issue with it, and I think that's because it's something that has appeared in various forms. Other Zen tables. Yeah, like there's a couple of Star Wars tables. Skyrim, for example. Money in the House is doing the same thing. And what about Skyrim, when the dragon flies over the table? Right, right. So I think it's just like having that happen on a table that it doesn't normally happen. Yeah. That's the thing that's interesting. And also too, having it happen on a table with much tougher physics than the other tables as well makes it different. He only makes two passes before he lands too. So, I mean, it's like, you know, you just got to survive those first, first 10 seconds of multi-ball. And I imagine that, you know, you probably have your ball save on during that time anyhow. So even if you do lose your ball, it'll just come back out. And the other thing is it's not difficult to move your thumb and hit the button and turn it off. Yeah, you just push the button. If you really hate it. That's true. And that's the great thing about it. That live activation deactivation feature is just fantastic. I do agree. Some people are wanting all the animations gone but they still want the scores popping up as you hit. And I think there's a valid point for that because I personally have learned so much more about these tables with the scores popping up than I ever knew about them.
    14:59
    It amazing right Because they actually show you the individual scoring that a plot bumper gives you like 10 points for example I never knew that that was it because you can look up at the DMD and do the mental math to work it out. And it's fantastic. And you can tell that by doing that, they really have hooked into the ROM. Oh, yeah. To be able to pull out that data and display it in real time. Like there is some serious integration with the ROM going on there for them to sniff that daughter out. Another thing that they need to make an adjustment on is when you're creating a custom tournament,
    15:37
    you can set it for classic arcade and tournament settings. It will, especially with tournament, I believe,
    15:48
    it'll use tournament rules. It uses tournament slope. What it doesn't do is they'll use the flippers. It uses the same Zen flippers, so catching and cradling the ball is still just as easy.
    16:05
    Oh, interesting. I must have just forgotten to put that switch in. Yeah, I don't think they... Because there's a difference between, for those that didn't know, if you're just playing regular single-player mode, the flipper angle is much steeper. It's actually the same angle that's used in Pinball Arcade. As opposed to if you play it in classic arcade mode and tournament mode, the flipper angle is a little bit more shallow.
    16:29
    And that affects how difficult it is to keep the ball in play. It's like the difference between Gottlieb super catch flippers and regular Bailey Williams flippers. Exactly.
    16:39
    So that's one other area that they need to make an adjustment in and get that coin going on. But by and large, everybody is really pleased. I've only read just a scant few comments where the person was like, I don't know if I really think it's all that much better. I'll probably just stick with TPA for now. Okay, have a nice time. Yeah, I know. It kind of blows me away. I'm like, really, you didn't notice a difference? Which makes me then question, did you even try arcade and tournament mode? Because I'm going to say you didn't.
    17:15
    Yeah, because it was, yeah, I don't know. I don't have an answer to that. which again if you're not a zen player you wouldn't understand and this is where I wish they would relabel it you wouldn't understand the difference between single player and classic single player they sound like the same thing to me no it should be fantasy and simulation yeah well yes or yeah or zen and simulation right you know it's an interesting branding tactic but I guess it's one of those things you just need to understand before you do it and they do actually like when you're on board into the game they do have pop ups and stuff which most people would just click through and go no I don't want to read that I want to play the game so I think what they would be interesting to do is after the first couple of times through a table they then start showing you the tips that would be a better thing because it's like the first thing you want to do as a customer is you want to go well I want to play the game oh nag screens okay uh get through them and start playing but there's really important information in those onboarding screens that would be better to show maybe five games in after you've popped a cherry and had a bit of a play you know what i mean or just something that says hey have you tried this mode yet yeah just a quick a quick thing popping up yeah you're right just some sort of way to stage it i might we might suggest that to mel and see if they can change the way onboarding happens in the game. And again, this comes from it comes from I feel the people that have long ago, back in FX2, gone, nope, I don't like Xen, and they're only just now downloading FX3, they're only downloading it for the Williams, and so they don't know the ecosystem. No.
    19:08
    It's almost like we need a hey, you like Williams? Then start here with Xen. And sort of like, right, if you if you're really liking the way the Williams tables are presented, then don't go and buy the core packs from five years ago. You know, start with maybe the star Wars ones and some of the best star Wars tables that you can do. And then, you know, go back from there and see what's, what else is available, you know, because otherwise it'll be too jarring for them to go, Oh, what is this? And they'll go back to, I hate Zen again. Yeah. And then with that kind of on the table, I've heard plenty of comments of people going oh my god if they do put in these physics for old zen tables I will go ahead and buy old zen tables because imagine because that was always a huge hang up for people they just no libel in the rubbers imagine if that was just oh yeah it's fixed or maybe it was like original mode and reworked physics mode or whatever they want to call it like add another add another muddiness to the different mode names that they can have you know because it's funny i've been this week in in my custom tournament we've been playing venom and i'd never really given that table time of day turns out pretty much only one shot to do over and over again that carnage carnage and that just gives you a massive amount of points once you're into the second screen mode of Venom, which is a mini playfield, basically, that you're playing on. But the physics on that mini playfield are terrible. Are they? Oh, my God. I don't know what slope it's supposedly on,
    20:59
    because it's not vertical, but it's also not regular flat. There's this one ramp on the right-hand side that you can hit it with a full power shot from your left flipper, and it makes it up halfway and then rolls back down. The safest way and easiest way to make it is instead to do a backhand off the right flipper up to it. Which is like, wait a second, this is bizarre. Why is that shot better than a full power cross shot? Hitting things that are directly dead center up in the middle. You've got to wait for the ball to get all the way to the edge of your flipper to flip. but anybody that's been playing medieval madness and trying to hit dead center of that gate knows that you've got to flip almost the second it starts rolling on your flipper in order to get it dead center so it's one of those things where it's like wow this is completely different than how everything else is playing on this and I couldn't help but think oh god this would just be so much more enjoyable with real physics and better physics pretty much make the whole FX3 collection brand new again.
    22:11
    I'm going to say not much effort, but that's probably wrong because we know that in our interview with Mel, it's like retuning the physics and all the tables is non-trivial. Well, and also, as some people have pointed out, there are certain tables that cheats were involved with the ball, where it's going. And because these were never on whitewood, because these weren't having to be put through real test of physics. Shoot, all you have to do is look at Adventureland with its loop-de-loops. Yeah, there's no way that those could actually happen. There's no way that that would actually happen. But they've put it on a railroad in order for it to happen. so that's kind of the that's where they have to go in they couldn't just dump the physics and walk away they'd have to put the physics in and then actually go and tweak yeah, put the rides in and all the meshes and all the collision areas, they'd have to redo all of those on the tables it would be a big undertaking but it's one of those things that would be very good if they could spend the time, even if they did like one table per three-pack table release or something like that and just slowly work their way through them. It would be very good. And like I said, I think a lot of people would jump on board with buying more of these, the older catalog.
    23:38
    It's one of these things where, and we'll get into it in a little, kind of the crux of our podcast, is this article that was on Ars Technica.
    23:48
    But within the myriad of stuff that's talked about that, Mel dropped a quote where he basically said that sales of the Williams collection have been phenomenal and off the chart and more than they ever expected. Wow. That's excellent because the gambles paid off, right? Yeah. To me, it's like, okay, so now, you know, you don't got nothing to worry about. Everybody's excited for this. You can literally go all in to the belly Williams ecosystem. Right. So all the, all these safety nets that you were, you know, planning for and worried about, you don't need to worry about this anymore, you know? Yeah, give it to them. So, so I'm curious to see, uh, A, how that affects, if it affects any of their plans going forward. But more importantly, that might be the impetus that, you know, the, the push needed in order to do this with the physics where they're like, holy crap, we just got this many more users into our game. and we can sell them now all this stuff that they've never purchased before. Because they haven't wanted to. Because they haven't wanted to, yeah. Yeah. So this is basically a license to print money. All they need to do is tweak the physics, and they've basically got a brand new audience that they can market to. Yeah. So pretty good. Considering how fast they were tweaking physics within this, just these four tables during the beta. Gives you an idea of how rapid they can actually roll them out. Yeah. Hmm. This is it's it's definitely illuminating what happens when you have lots of people that can work on pinball.
    25:27
    You get lots of stuff done is the short answer to it. Yeah. Which is not surprising, but at the same time, kind of surprising because we haven't experienced it for a long time. Yeah. And we had thought about talking a little bit about the interview with Mike Lindsay last week and some of the issues that were going on. uh, within the Stern pinball arcade VR app. But it's also just kind of like beating a dead horse. It's, these are not new problems. These are nothing. None of us have expected. And it's more just, you kind of go, really? You just, ah, it, and all it is, is it's that what I would call the final 10%. It's just the final 10%. A lot of people will tell you that's the hardest percent of anything.
    26:23
    But it is so critical. It's so vital. And looking at, so if we looked at the beta for the Williams in Pinball FX 3, the very first beta that Jared and I played that wasn't available to the public, we lost our minds over.
    26:43
    Then it got released to the public, and it wasn't that beta. It was kind of an easier beta. And we were kind of like, oh, it's good, but it's not as exciting. It's not as exciting as it was, yeah. And all the people that were now playing it in public, they were excited, but then they started pitching in all their ideas. So then you get beta 2, and it was just like everybody went, oh, wait a second. We're going in the wrong direction, you know, and it's being way too easy. And then by beta 3, they started adding in all the flipper tricks. and we went, oh, okay. Oh, hey, okay, this is better. This is better. We're still out there, but this is better. And then beta four was literally feeling pretty good. The release that we have now, to me, is every bit as exciting as that very first beta that we played with the added benefit of having the ability to do these flipper tricks. Yeah. And the flipper tricks are not easy either. It's not like they're just gimmies. Yeah, they're not well-rated. Yeah, I saw somebody go, oh, it's so hard to do a live catch. Yeah, it is. Yeah, you try doing one of those for real, it's hard to do a live catch. It shouldn't just accidentally happen when you flip it. Which is what it was doing in Pinball Arcade because it was pre-programmed to do that. Yeah. There was a spot on the floor that was a live catch zone. There is a reason why professional pinball players are professionals.
    28:06
    Because it's bloody hard to do these tricks. If everybody could do these tricks, we'd all be professionals. Then it would just come down to who knows the rules the best. That's right. That's not the thing, you know. No. So, yeah, so the release has been quite amazing. And you think about it, all those tweaks, all those things were done within,
    28:31
    I want to say a four-week period. Yeah, it was about four weeks. So basically the usual lead time that Zen has between announcing a table pack and then releasing a table pack. they did all that work in a month.
    28:47
    So... And then they did an extra bit of polish during the two weeks that nobody got to play it. Yeah, that's right. Right before we did it. Yeah. So that's a lot of stuff. Yeah. But that is that 10% of polish. That's right. It's that extra effort to make everything just, you know, beautiful upon release that any complaint people are having and focusing on are just that minutiae where most of the people just go, really, that's what you're, okay, fine, I get it. That's your beef.
    29:22
    Exactly. So basically, you know, Zen washed the car when they released the Alpha. Then they put five layers of cut and polish over it and buffed the bejeebers out of it and then released it. And it's so shiny. And now somebody's out there with a microscope and a high-powered light going, wait, I'm seeing some white speckles here. No, I can't, I cannot accept this entire vehicle because it's got little tiny white speckles in this two inches. That's right. Send it back.
    29:51
    Not worth the money. Yeah. I'll go play TPA. Um, now this does lead us into, uh, there was an article in Ars Technica. Jared will uh uh share the link or if you don want to wait for Jared to share the link just go to my Twitter I posted a bunch to the Blockade Twitter account Yeah. Which, hey, you should do that anyways. It's at Blockade. Easy peasy.
    30:21
    And that article was delving once more into the censorship of the tables that Zed has had to do. it is kind of one of those things where it's like oh boy here we go again just this thing starts settling down it lights back up because most of it had to do with artwork now we all knew about the artwork changes that were needing to take play within fishtails i don't think we knew how many artwork changes happened in fishtails little subtle things like instead of it being a beer can, it's now a soda can. There's the pelican with a pipe in his mouth. There was never smoke coming out of the pipe. Now there's bubbles coming out of the pipe, because you've got to make it look like it's a toy, I guess.
    31:12
    The mermaid is now wearing a one-piece. I do got a question. When did bikinis become bad? The 1950s probably accepted bikinis as something a regular person would wear out in public. I mean, I remember that there was a... And when I say I remember, I remember hearing about it as a kid, even though the show had aired before I was of age to watch it, but I Dream of Jeannie, it was a big thing of, can they show Barbara Eden's belly button or not? Because a belly button is scandalous. Oh, absolutely it is. And that's where I just kind of go, wait, you didn't change the bust line on the mermaid, you just covered up her stomach. So there's something wrong with a stomach? I don't understand.
    32:08
    There's this... To me, it's almost an overreaction censoring. Now, with fishtails, as we stated, we understand also why, though. It's a free table. If you download Pinball FX 3, it's just there. You didn't – there's a thing with cable TV where by you paying for the TV, you were consenting to a certain degree of content that you may not have agreed with if it was free television. So that's why networks are held to – at least in the United States. I don't know how it is in any other country, but in the United States, our networks are held to a different standard because it is free television. the minute you pay money, you are consenting with your purchase to the fact that there is going to be content.
    33:04
    And if you don't want that content, then you stop paying and that content will no longer be available to you to watch. Right. So fishtails being the free table.
    33:16
    Fine. I understand that they have to put it up, edited extra, extra sensitive to things that could get them in trouble just to maintain the sense that nobody's going to complain about it. Yeah, just because you can't opt out. You have to have it. Yeah. What I didn't know was the things that were changed within Medieval Madness. Now, most of it is up on the back glass, which we're not really looking at during the game anyway, so of course I'm not going to notice it. But it was subtle little things. For instance, I never noticed that the orcs are wearing or smoking a cigar. No, cigar has been removed.
    33:58
    The sword that is in Medieval Madness in the title had blood on it. Blood is gone. There is a basically it's the maiden of the tower is also drawn on the back glass art. She's now wearing armor rather than wearing showing flesh, basically.
    34:19
    So it's little subtle things, but there's where the question comes, but I paid for this. So why am I being so protected from, I chose to purchase this thing.
    34:35
    Why is it being protected? Now, they do have the ESRB to deal with. and in the article, basically, Zen at one point had gotten in trouble with something that was in Infinity Minigolf. Yeah, Infinity Minigolf, yeah. You've got to imagine that they got a slap on the wrist from the ESRB, probably with the looming hammer of doom of, if you ever repeat, we're really coming down on you. So I get it if they're being gun-shy about that. That being said, there are plenty of games that are rated E10 that have simulated gambling, tobacco use, alcohol references, any number of these things. Somebody posted a whole slew of them within the Digital Pinball Fans Forum under this discussion of a particular game that had these very things. But again, as Mel pointed out, they have to resubmit to the ESRB to get the new ratings for this kind of content. So are they going to resubmit every single table pack? That becomes the question. That becomes expensive. And that becomes expensive. So you almost wish that they would make a pack that is the worst of the worst of Williams and submit that and get their blanket, all the references that are going to be put into this game. So then they're free and clear to do everything else, and they never have to worry about resubmitting to the SRV.
    36:06
    Like the three dozen of pinball. Right, right. now ultimately a lot of people are kind of blaming the esrb and saying oh why is them being gunshay about this but i don't think people are paying attention to another factor regarding this it's not just the esrb that they're trying to please they're trying to please the people that they have licenses with currently for all those tables within uh pinball arcade or not within in FX3.
    36:42
    So you're dealing with Fox, you're dealing with Universal, you're dealing with Valve. Disney. That's the big one right there. What does Disney control? Marvel? Star Wars. What makes up half of all of Zen's original tables? Those.
    37:04
    So a little story. Two years ago, I worked on a Disney channel kids show. And basically there was a rule that cleavage was absolutely 100% not allowed. Forbode.
    37:22
    So any wardrobe that any of the women were wearing, obviously it's a kids show, so any of the young kids, they're not going to be wearing plunging necklines or anything like that. But you do have the adult actresses that are on the show. Excuse me.
    37:42
    Adult females. I don't want to say adult actresses. Adult females that are on the show. And all of their shirts had to be high necklines or had Mosky covers or whatever. Absolutely no cleavage. Here's the funny part. The very first episode of that season takes place in a water park. How did they get around that? They get around with it by making everybody wear either rash guard style shirts or tankinis or in the case of our lead actress who was showing just a smidge of cleavage they threw a cover-up blouse on her
    38:24
    ross here's the thing you're verging you're going so far the opposite direction you're now body shaming anybody that dares to, any woman that has curves of any kind.
    38:39
    And it becomes this thing of curves are bad, men aren't able to control themselves if they see this. It'll give them bad thoughts. Here's an idea. How about we put the blame on the men and just leave the women alone. I don't know.
    38:56
    Look, I get it. In pinball, if you draw a woman, she's going to be kind of exploitatively drawn. Yeah, well, that's been, like, ever since the 30s and 40s. That's the style of pinball. It's right or not is up for debate, but, you know, it is what it is. And by this point, it's culturally part of it.
    39:18
    I think there's extremes though, right? Because there's Wonelli type of art, and then there's, like, the odd bit of cleavage here, and they're, like, on fishtails with the mermaid, which really is, I didn't even, it didn't even get on my radar. Whereas Big Juicy Melons, you kind of can't see. It's front and center.
    39:37
    Think about the name of the game. It's pretty much what it is. There's no escaping what they're trying to do there.
    39:45
    But by and large, the artwork, hey, I get it. If you've got to make changes, you've got to make changes. In terms of the audio call-outs, so long as all you're using is the factory call-outs,
    40:01
    I'm fine. It's if you then go on top of that and start editing out call-outs that's where I'm like, wait a second, it was perfectly fine an effort was made let's let it slide. That's right. The thing that really ticked me off was doing things like in Pimble IK where they took something like Last Action Hero and made it a Spaghetti West and Big Guns ACDC track instead of just the MIDI track oh right just like that sort of stuff just like it's so because they wouldn't pay for the music license yeah yeah but it's so jarringly obvious and it just goes what what when you hear a call out or something that is non-original it just jumps out at you no matter how much of a past filter you put over it to try and camouflage it it's that whole thing of you know generic music when you hear it within a TV show. Yes. You just, because it sounds generic.
    40:59
    Yes. The only bit of artwork where I would have an issue is if they did Elvira. And I just say, that is the character. If you alter her appearance, she's no longer the character. Yes, she is.
    41:17
    And if you tame the call-outs, if you do all these things, you're stripping it of the very character the very theme that this is being based around. Yeah, you may as well not bother. Right, and so don't even bother. Don't even put yourself in that situation, because all you're going to do is tick off a lot of people.
    41:38
    And I don't even know if Elphara would be okay with it, to be perfectly honest. Like, if that was being... If she was having to approve this or do something with it, because she would be a license holder. I don't think she would be okay with them censoring the bejeebers out of her because it's her. It's her character and it's her trademark. Well, and I've pointed this out too.
    42:04
    She is an amalgamation of essentially Morticia from Adam's family and Lily from the Munsters. The thing that is distinguishable that separates her from those is the plunging neckline. And is the innuendo filled humor. Yes. Otherwise, she's just generic version of Morticia, generic version of Lily. Yeah. So, again, that's why to me that would be if you're going to have to alter the artwork on that, just please don't. Just don't even bother with the table. I'd rather it not be here at the moment. So every time I look at it, I feel disappointed. Right. Basically. Yeah. Right. Now, within the same article, there's one thing that does make me scared.
    42:56
    They briefly mention that within Champion Pub, there might be a mode that they would have to edit out because it deals with gambling.
    43:07
    Yeah, no. Now, I don't know why gambling is suddenly an issue. It's not real gambling, folks. You're playing cards. Well, this to me is the whole thing of why pinball in general was banned for years is because it was said you're gambling. You're not gambling.
    43:28
    If that card game resulted in you winning back your money, like, for example, a bingo, a pinball, like an EM bingo, then yeah, okay, let's call it gambling because that's exactly what those bingo machines were. This is not. This is a video game that allows you to get points in a game. Choosing to risk points.
    43:48
    That's all you're doing. You don't get to take it with you. To the extent that I would even say it's you have multi-ball, super jackpot is lit. However, you know that if you shoot and miss, it's a center drain. You're taking a gamble.
    44:01
    Whether or not you choose to shoot that lane or not has to do with do you want to actually risk losing a ball in the process? That's the exact same thing of choosing, hey, do I get the cash payout right now or do I go for double or nothing? And the problem is if they're willing to edit out a mode in something like Champion Pub, what the heck are they going to do for Jackbot? No, it's going to not be in because it's basically a gambling-themed pinball. It's casino.
    44:29
    What about things like, not that they are going to do it, but World Championship Poker? Well, that's a stern. But they could do – what about Riverdale Gambler? That's a Williams title. Yeah, that's right. If it's not Gambler, you're not going to be able to do that. What about any poker-themed table? Yeah, gone. Jokers, gone.
    44:50
    Well, maybe. I don't know. I think you could probably have things like... Oh, no, Jokers is blamed. Yeah, but you can have that in there because there's no direct interaction. You're just playing cards, basically. But even still, playing cards. What about throwing dice? There's various games that do throwing dice.
    45:07
    Anything... Where do you draw the line? And that's where I say, look if this is really an issue right now that you not sure of if you going to cross the line or not Don be sure of it Just don do it I rather it not be there Don edit a mode out Artwork is one thing Putting in family friendly audio is another thing. Changing a video mode? No, no, I'm not cool with that at all. No. And, and the reason why I'm not cool with it is because it's being done out of fear and uncertainty. Now, if you for sure go to the ESRB and the ESRB says,
    45:39
    no, you can't do that, that'll raise your rating, then fine, I understand. And again, let's just not do it.
    45:46
    They mention that maybe there's a workaround, maybe there's a way of not releasing the tables within FX3, that they become their own standalone thing. I'm kind of surprised that they didn't really do that to start with. I like the fact that it's in one product, but we've seen that on mobile, at least, then have released their eSports versions in a separate package because there is a gambling aspect to it. And that allows them to do what they want, and I'd much rather them segregate the titles. If that's how it's going to have to be. And what I'm going to ask is that,
    46:25
    go ahead and segregate, like, fine, you don't sell the title within FX3. You buy it outside of FX3, but then if you so choose, you can import it into FX3. It's readable within, And essentially FX3 becomes a launcher for all of the, for all of the different license versions that you've got.
    46:46
    So you could use that as your launcher, or you could go directly to the package and just play that. Because again, once you pay money, you are making a contract agreement that you are fine with the content that you are paying for.
    47:01
    Yeah, exactly. That's how it's done. That's how they get away with it. And the thing is, if a pack was rated, I don't know how it works. Obviously, DLCs aren't separately rated, so you can't go, well, the core pack is ESRB, whatever the rating is, 10+. But this pack is teen. So if you buy this pack, understand that you need to be of teenage and you accept these license conditions and off you go and buy it. But is that the same with other games? Is there adult content in other packs that offer, other games that offer DLC, like first-person shoot-'em-ups and stuff like that? Is there a precedent?
    47:43
    Well, but a lot of those are just rated MA. Oh, right, which solves the problem. Solves the problem. What's funny is a lot of those games, you can turn off all the blood, violence, and swearing.
    47:54
    Because it's a different game engine, too. It's a different game engine, but the point is that, come on, If within our TVs we can set, based off the rating, what a person within your, you know, you can lock the TV, basically. And if the person wants to watch content that's of a certain rating, then they actually have to enter in their passcode, and then poof, it can come up. Why can't the same restrictions be put within FX3? if we're really so concerned about kids within your family wanting to come and play pinball you should be able to just put that age restriction where it's like hey this game has been flagged you can't play it sorry they just won't let you play without putting that in the game would be fine and then if you're the adult and you made conscious decision that you wanted to offer this as available to your kids in your home on your main TV, then you would just deal with the nag screen saying, hey, I'm over 18. Yes, I am because I'm an adult. And you just deal with it. It'll be fine.
    49:05
    And the thing is, it's not even asking for over... It's not asking for over 18. It's asking for over 13. That's it. None of these tables... And I will say this. There is not a single pinball table out there that I would feel weird about letting any age kid play. Yeah, because number one, they're not going to care if there's a cigar hanging out the mouth or something. They're not going to care if, arguably, they're not going to really care if there's a curvy woman because that's what they're focusing on. They're focusing on, hey, this is a pinball machine. I'm flat out just tracking the ball to play, you know. Yeah. I don't know. It just seems like much to do about nothing. But, you know, licenses are important. You have to protect your intellectual property, et cetera, et cetera. I don't know but I don't mind in summary I agree I don't care if the art is tweaked slightly for the rating but don't touch the core game code keep your grubby mitts off it because you're not to be altering that that's sacrosanct do not touch it and if you have to touch it just delay there's a ton of other games within the license that you bought that you can put out and not tick anybody off with your alterations. And in the meantime, you can go and figure out and talk to the people that you need to talk to find out. Do your due diligence.
    50:33
    Right. Right. Let's not play this game of, oh, we don't know, so we're going to play it safe. No, go find out. Go find out. Well, now about Judge Dredd, you start thinking about the stuff that's in Judge Dredd, for example. And, you know, I'm just thinking of stuff that would be in that thing that would actually make it know it's not really fit for you because there's a lot of innuendo in that game as well so that's one that could be up for contention as well and well like I said and I brought this up to Mel when we had him on you play Alien Isolation and if you miss hiding in the tool closet or whatever the alien will jump down and slash at you and your screen turns red I guess you could say that it's indicating pain but I always indicate it as blood it's indicating damage probably it's like when in Doom the screen flashes red there's a reason why you use the color red and it's not you're blinking green no so clearly there is room to maneuver within these things they just need to find what the balances and I think that's just going to come down to them working closely with ESRB and being very upfront with them which I'm sure they're doing now. But again I also think it comes to having that conversation with Disney. Yeah. Is our license in jeopardy with you if we did any of these tables? Yeah. And I'm sure that's exactly the conversation that they're having now with them. I hope it's the conversation they're having with them now. Yeah. I think that this is not their first rodeo when it comes to appeasing multiple license holders. And this is just yet another license that adds a different aspect or parameter to their negotiations. And it's probably something they're working on actively now. And it's just that it's taking longer to actually resolve. So for now, they have to censor the table so they can get around the problem. It's one of those things. It's probably a workaround. It's not a permanent solution, I'm hoping. The funny thing is Mel kind of threw Farsight under the bus where he just basically said, oh, I think that they violated their ESRB rating multiple times and nobody was paying attention. We brought it up in a previous podcast when we were doing all the license discussions. We flat out said that, well, hang on, TPA were allowed to get away with it. They imported stuff into their license, into their core product for another product. What he was saying was they never submitted it to the ESRB. And nobody at the ESRB has probably even noticed it being there to begin with. Probably not. So, basically, Farsight was playing the game of it's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission, and Zen is not going to do that. They're going to ask for permission first. They're just lucky enough that they haven't been pinged yet, and they probably won't be.
    53:30
    Well, they won't be pinged now because most of those tables aren't available for sale, although I still say, whoa, Nelly, is how that's gotten giving them... Yeah, that slipped into the core product without it being completely and utterly modesty ridden. Yeah. It is just a double-sick. I would even go so far as to say I'm more offended by Big Buck Hunter hunting animals than I am with gambling.
    54:05
    Sorry. That's just my personal things. so you know it becomes a matter of well whose moral high ground are we sticking to right yeah if we're going to play that game ultimately none of this stuff offends me I don't care I recognize it for what it is it's a game yeah that's right you know it's very simple but anyhow but alright enough of that enough about that we just we feel like you know Mel mentioned in the article that there is a very vocal minority.
    54:42
    I realize... We're part of that. We're not the very part of it. I know that there's other people that... We'll still play the stuff. There's other people that are just hands down like, nope, I'm boycotting. I'm out. I'm not going to touch it.
    54:55
    And that to me is kind of a silly reaction too. My point is, hey, we still have to put the pressure on. We have to raise our voices to let them know that appeased yet, and we really do want them seeking out a solution. And by everything that we've heard, they're not slacking off. They're not just washing their hands on it. They are actively seeking a solution.
    55:23
    But as with any negotiations, you've got to take a hard line to get the negotiation to go more your way than not.
    55:31
    Exactly. It's one of those things. Time will tell, I guess. Time will tell. Okay, whew. Look at that. We've hit our time. Yeah. Hey, folks, have you gone and boughten? Actually, have you just gone and visited redbubble.com and typed in blockade? Go do it. Redbubble.com, type in blockade. You're going to see one or two shirts pop up. Click on those. From there, you can click the collection. You're going to see a whole myriad of things. There are probably about, I don't know, 10 different styles of T-shirts, hoodies, tank tops that you can purchase. On top of that, you can choose between two different logo styles. And of those logos, whether it's logo in white or logo in black, you can select whatever color shirt you want to slap it on. Pick your size. You're off to the races. if you don't want to be wearing a shirt. Hey, we've got mugs. We've got commuter mugs. We've got stickers. We've got phone cases and tablet cases.
    56:37
    So... Oh, boy. Yeah, I'm about to get... Oh, my wife is threatening to show our old logo. That's not... I know you like the old shirt. And people, you can still buy the old shirt if you want. It's still available. Just not available. I reckon we should do vintage. We should do a vintage range. Eventually, we'll do a vintage run. Yes, we will do that soon. But go check it out. The prices are reasonable. The shipping is quick. You'll get it rather fast.
    57:03
    So, again, redbubble.com. Type in blockade under the search, and you'll find all the stuff. I mean, prices are as cheap as like $3.50 for a sticker all the way up to, I think, $45 for a hoodie. So everything in between. we get a small proceed cut from that that benefits the show being able to host the show and keep it up for all the archived episodes on that jazz so speaking of archived episodes you will certainly want to go visit blockadepinball.com slash episodes there you will find all of our past episodes that Jared has so lovingly put timing notes and links and videos on as well as just other articles. I've kind of tapered off on the movie reviews because I just haven't felt like reviewing any of the movies I've seen. Also, MoviePass is hard. MoviePass is hard, yeah. It's rather frustrating.
    58:04
    But once I get a little bit further on doing the microcab, I'll have another post regarding that, and that's where you find that. Be sure to follow us on Twitter. Again, the show is at Blockade. Myself, I am at ShutYourTraps. Jared is at JaredMorgs.
    58:22
    And I think that... If you follow me on Instagram, you'll see a lot of pinball repair photos. Yeah, I'm pretty much getting towards the final point with Star Race where I'm populating the playfield now.
    58:38
    So it's just waiting on boards, really, to get done, and then this thing should be flipping. Good stuff.
    58:46
    So yeah, certainly There's other things that we don't talk about in the podcast that then happen on our own personal accounts. So visit those, subscribe, and be happy in that manner.
    58:57
    All right. I think that's about everything that we can possibly talk about this week. We'll have more stuff to talk about next week. Like, I don't know. Yeah, something. We'll work it out then. Things tend to pop up during the week, just as this whole censorship thing popped up during this week. That's right. As I tweeted out, this is why we don't mark anything in pen on our calendar. We mark it in pencil.
    59:21
    Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Because we were going to talk about the Stern Pinball Arcade app and couldn't care less about it this week. That's right.
    59:34
    Again, my kick a dead horse. Yeah. So thanks, everybody, for listening, and we look forward to talking to you all next week. Bye-bye. See you later. wizardamusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rides easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10% off your order wizardamusement.com sales restoration customization don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that blockade is delivered to we can't improve unless you tell us how now stop listening and play some pinball
    60:15
    Thank you.