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Episode 25 :: The Electric Bat Cast

Electric Bat Cast·podcast_episode·44m 50s·analyzed·Apr 29, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Electric Bat discusses tournament operations, March earnings data, and manufacturer relationships.

Summary

Electric Bat Cast Episode 25 features hosts Kale and Rachel recording from Jamie Burchill's Tempe, Arizona Airbnb during a tournament visit. The episode covers community-building advice for tournament organizers, a detailed March earnings report from Electric Bat Arcade showing D&D Pro dominating revenue, and enthusiastic praise for Evil Dead manufacturing quality and Spooky Pinball responsive customer support.

Key Claims

  • D&D Pro earned approximately double Godzilla's monthly earnings when combining Pro and Premium one-day earnings

    high confidence · Kale reports March earnings data showing D&D Pro #1, and notes that adding Premium's one-day earnings made it earn twice as much as Godzilla

  • Evil Dead shipped with auto-launch code defaulting to 6-second auto-launch, requiring disabled setting for tournament play

    high confidence · Rachel describes the issue and the fix: 'it shipped to us with code that defaulted to having it auto launch after six seconds... so we pulled it out of the tournament... then as soon as we figured out oh this was just an auto launch setting fixed it'

  • Evil Dead has had zero coin jams in approximately four weeks of operation

    high confidence · Rachel states: 'I don't think I've had a coin jam in it' and 'This game, I don't think I've had a coin jam in it'

  • Silver Jets/chrome steel balls cause magnetic sticking issues in Metallica Remastered's coffin lock mechanism

    high confidence · Rachel describes putting silver jets in Metallica before tournament: 'in the coffin lock, you know, they're under the play field, and they're sticking together at the top part of it... it was basically the third game played with those balls'

  • Metallica Remastered has significant playfield changes from original, likely designed by John Borg with Ray Day contributions visible in code

    medium confidence · Kale states: 'we want to get, like, what did they change... Ray Day did a lot because you can see it in the code, but you can't see what Borg did. But whatever he did, it is magical'

  • Electric Bat Arcade operates 6 AM to 2 AM, 365 days per year with bounce-back tournament format called 'Rachel's World Famous All-Classics Bounty Knockout Tournament'

    high confidence · Kale describes operating hours and tournament: 'We were open 6 a.m. to 2 a.m., 365 days a year' and Rachel ran knockout tournament while Chewy was away on a boat

Notable Quotes

  • “Are you calling your friends enough? Not a text message, a phone call.”

    Kale @ early — Core advice for tournament organizers building community; references anecdote about 'No Sleeves Tony' in South Carolina using personal phone calls to drive tournament attendance

  • “So don't make the same mistake we made. Use standard balls in Metallica.”

    Rachel @ mid — Direct warning about silver jets/chrome steel balls causing magnetic issues in Metallica Remastered, based on operational mistake during tournament prep

  • “But you can't use them in games with heavy magnets. Okay. They will stick together.”

    Kale @ mid — Technical explanation of chrome steel ball incompatibility with magnetic pinball games

  • “If I get up at 4.30 in the morning, I want to be able to play D&D and see more of it. I love this game.”

    Kale @ late — Demonstrates personal enthusiasm level for D&D; justifies purchasing two units (Pro + Premium) for home use

  • “This game, I don't think I've had a coin jam in it... They have finally, finally made a machine that is like, this is as solid as it gets.”

    Rachel @ late — Exceptional praise for Evil Dead's manufacturing quality after four weeks of high-volume operation

  • “Bug and Luke for being so present in the pinball scene. The other manufacturers need to learn from this.”

    Rachel @ late — Specific credit to Spooky Pinball representatives for proactive communication and support model, implying competitive contrast with other manufacturers

  • “And now Bug. We talk like every week.”

    Kale @ late — Illustrates frequency and importance of direct manufacturer-operator communication for problem-solving and feedback

Entities

KalepersonRachelpersonJamie BurchillpersonElectric Bat ArcadeorganizationSpooky PinballcompanyBugpersonSpooky Lukeperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Big Buck Hunter Reloaded's profitability and low maintenance overhead creating operator interest from tournament professionals; gun mounting design superior to Alien Resurrection eliminates frequent $400-500 repair costs

    medium · Kale discussing John/Mike interest in Big Buck: 'I would say that I wouldn't either, but I do like paying bills. And let me tell you, that one pays bills.' Rachel: 'Because of how the guns are attached... with the alien shooter... people were always dropping the guns... Those guns are like $400 or $500... But because of the way these are mounted... we just don't have that same problem'

  • ?

    community_signal: Spooky Pinball Bug and Stern representatives maintain weekly direct communication with Electric Bat Arcade operators through phone calls, Discord, and Instagram DMs to monitor machine performance and gather feedback

    high · Rachel: 'Bug... messaged the electric bat instagram say can i have kale's number i want to stay in touch with him... he knows this thing is going to get played hard.' Kale: 'And now Bug. We talk like every week.' and 'We have people from Stern in our Discord. We have people from Spooky in our Discord. And then we get phone calls from people at Stern and people at Spooky every week.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Electric Bat Arcade operators implement direct feedback loops with manufacturers to identify and resolve issues rapidly before they reach home players; position themselves as 'road-hard' testing ground for early problem detection

    high · Kale: 'Because those issues are going to come up for us in the first week. It may take six months for the home user to see that, and you don't want them to. You want everybody to have a fantastic experience... we're the folks getting the road hard and we're happy to help'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: D&D Pro achieved #1 earnings ranking at Electric Bat Arcade in March, commanding significantly higher revenue than previous leader Godzilla, indicating strong market appeal and player engagement

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.135

0:00
Looking good in the neighborhood. Who's ready? I'm ready. All right. There it is. All right. Hey, what's happening, everybody?
0:08
Welcome to the latest episode of the Electric Backcast. And as you can see here, we're in a completely different location.
0:17
We're at Jamie Burchill's Airbnb in Tempe, Arizona. That's right. Yeah. Thank you guys so much for having me. This has been an amazing trip. I am so excited to be here. We booked this months ago, and it's just a coincidence that you're recording here at our Airbnb because you thought, hey, you're here. Let's come record. It's a really nice place. This is beautiful. We have a pool, a hot tub. We were going to record at home, and we were setting up, and we're like, why are we doing this? Jamie's right down the street. He's in town. We have to go over here. You gave us a nice area with a cool leather couch, and we're ready to do it. We're ready to do it. I was on our last podcast, Pinball Hans, our friend from California. I think he's in Southern California. I couldn't tell you where he was. It's a long state because you can be in either a southern area or a northern area. Right. I learned that when I first moved to San Diego as a kid. I would spend some summers there. and I was like, why don't we go to San Francisco? And then I found out it was 14 hours away. That's why. See, where I was from in South Carolina, you could get to any point in South Carolina within a couple of hours. About 35 minutes. You can't do that in California, and you're used to that in Texas. Two days. It took me a day to drive through Texas. Definitely. Yeah. Why is it so big? You know, I don't know the framers and the founders of Texas. history very very well let's look into it and have it for the next show if you ever have me back yeah i'll have but but pinball hans had a question about how to build up a a tournament uh a community you know people that are going to show back up and have a good time um and we i forgot one thing i think he said he had he was consistently getting around 20 yeah something like that and i forgot Not one thing. The most basic, basic thing. Are you calling your friends enough? Not a text message, a phone call. And the reason I bring this up, I remember when we used to play tournaments in Columbia, South Carolina, there was a guy named Tony who ran the pinball. No sleeves Tony. Did not believe in. No, any shirt he had or you gave him, he cuts the sleeves off. Did he have guns or anything? No, no, no. He was just a regular dude. Just like the freedom. Okay. All right. No Sleeve Tony. Hey, gabagool. Right? Okay. So No Sleeve Tony would call everybody in the league, hey, are you coming tonight? It's going to be a great night. We're going to have a good time. I was not into competitive pinball as much as I am today. I was just getting started. It was just kind of like, oh, that's a cool thing to do, hang out with some people. But that phone call made me go, man, that is really cool. What else was I going to do tonight? Watch TV or something? Of course I'm going to come hang out. You called me. You wanted me to come, and that felt really good. So that's another tip.
Stern Pinball
company
John Borgperson
Ray Dayperson
D&D Pro / Dungeons & Dragons Progame
Evil Deadgame
Metallica Remasteredgame
Godzillagame
Mike Flanaganperson
Johnperson
No Sleeves Tonyperson
Chewyperson
Marco Specialtiesorganization
Ralphperson
Big Buck Hunter Reloadedgame

high · D&D ranked #1 in earnings; Kale notes combined Pro/Premium earnings nearly doubled Godzilla's full month; Kale purchased two units (Pro and Premium) for personal use

  • ?

    design_philosophy: D&D Pro designed to prioritize character progression and story narrative engagement over traditional score-chasing, fundamentally shifting player motivation and engagement pattern

    medium · Kale: 'It's the really rare pinball machine where I'm trying to progress my character more than I'm trying to do anything else.' Rachel: 'So much fun getting through these dungeons. And seeing more of the story.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Rachel's bounty knockout tournament successful spin-off of Chewy's established format; two Houston operators (Mike Flanagan, John) planning to replicate tournament model in Texas market, indicating format scalability

    high · Kale: 'I think they're both talking about like taking this idea of a knockout tournament and bringing it to Texas, folks... They're going to rip this off completely... They told me in the car ride home that they're ripping this off.'

  • $

    market_signal: Spooky Pinball's 'thank you economy' approach contrasts positively with broader industry; emphasis on Bug's presence and responsiveness frames as competitive advantage over other manufacturers

    medium · Rachel: 'But in today's thank you economy, it is so important that as a business, as a leader, a representative of any of these businesses, is you have to be in touch with the public, be in touch with the community... The other manufacturers need to learn from this.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: D&D Pro and Premium editions have different earnings profiles; Premium generates significantly higher per-game earnings despite lower play volume in March (1 day of Premium nearly doubled Godzilla's full monthly earnings)

    high · Kale: 'If you add the one-day earnings of the D&D premium to that, it made twice as much as Godzilla. That's how... people love this game.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Evil Dead shipped with problematic auto-launch code defaulting to 6-second auto-launch, requiring operator intervention to disable for tournament compatibility

    high · Rachel: 'it shipped to us with code that defaulted to having it auto launch after six seconds... so we pulled it out of the tournament but then as soon as we figured out oh this was just an auto launch setting fixed it'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Silver jets/chrome steel balls cause magnetic sticking issues in Metallica Remastered's coffin lock mechanism within 3-4 games of play, incompatible with game's magnet strength despite compatibility with other magnetic games like Walking Dead

    high · Rachel: 'in the coffin lock, you know, they're under the play field, and they're sticking together at the top part of it... it was basically the third game played with those balls. No kidding. And what had happened is in the coffin lock, you know, they're under the play field, and they're sticking together at the top part of it. I mean, it caused problems. It's bad news. Like immediately.'

    • 3:31
    What do you think? That's just classic sales, right? It is sales 101. You could have your sign-up sheet with your phone number and, boom, build a list and get it going. But also, if that was happening weekly, I'd be like, oh, I don't want to answer the phone. It's time. But if you're starting like a monthly or something, then it's kind of like when the dentist asks you, so, Rachel, are you still sticking with that whole pinball thing? It's like the same question every time you see them for years and years. So there's a fine balance there. But for sure, hit up your friends first and make sure that they come have a good time and it's worth a phone call. And you should be talking to your friends anyway. A lot of people kind of forget to. spend time with their friends, but Jamie flew all the way out here. Don't make it weird. But just incorporate that into your community building. A phone call. And if you're a little shy, a little introverted, text message. It means so much more than just a Facebook post. Oh man, he actually personally took time to personally message me. It feels good.
    4:44
    That's good advice. There you go. That's excellent advice. We'll tell Mike Flanagan and John Space who are here. That's right. On the patio drinking beers. We kicked them out so we could record this podcast. We did. And we appreciate. I tried to get them on. I was like, would you be interested in asking them a question live on the back cast? Right. And they're too nervous.
    5:08
    They won't do it. We might have you run out there and get their question. Because Mike has asked questions before for Little Dipper. You know, he's an operator at Little Dipper and Poison Girl in Houston, Texas. And John hasn't asked any questions yet, but he's going to be billing you for consulting services later. For sure. After we have him. I'm going to be billing him. Yeah, that's true. That's true. No, you're not going to. Good call. He told us all about how his, it's not a card system, but the payment system he uses at, what's the, Eureka Heights? Yeah, at Eureka Heights and at 8th Wonder, he uses a NIAC system. So that's just a regular card reader.
    5:51
    So you're not getting a card that you put $20 on. You're using your credit card or debit card. Using your credit card. But here was the thing that was the showstopper for us. He let us know that if somebody tried to run a card, like tried to tap their card seven or eight times, after that it would put out like a fraud error and not let you play any more pinball. For not everyone, right? It really depended on the individual that set up their fraud alerts on their phone because one of the fraud alerts is they spend $1 on multiple places, see if they can keep doing it, and then they hit you with the $1,500. Right, by the lazy boy. Lazy boy or whatever. So that's, yeah, I think you have to, it's something you'd have to worry about. Yeah. So for us, that again, not a, that's a no go for us, but it was a really interesting thing to hear about how, how he was using that payment system. Very cool. Yeah. I didn't even know something like that was, was a thing. Cause I, I think I only think of like the coins, your tokens and quarters or, you know, a card system. Here's another thing that they put into the mix to give it a try. Is pay range still a thing? Does anybody still do that? I'm not sure. Have you heard of pay range? No, I haven't. It seems similar to what John is using, right? Yeah. And that was a thing on your phone. I don't know how it worked. But I think what you would do is in lieu of the actual card, you would put like 20 bucks on your pay range account. And then you could use your pay range account. So that way you weren't incurring all these singular dollar charges. You could do like 20 bucks at once. But that was, gosh, probably seven or eight years ago now. It was the last time I saw anybody use PayRange. Yeah, audience, let us know. Is anybody using PayRange anymore?
    7:37
    Another fun piece of information. Last night, we played a knockout tournament. We did. This was your knockout tournament. Usually, it's Chewy's world-famous all-classics bounty knockout tournament. This time, Chewy is on a boat. Big old boat. In the middle of it, the Atlantic Ocean. He told me, you can't call it a boat. It's a ship. I don't know the difference, but here we are. He's gone. That's all we know. The big carnival boat. Yep. And you ran it. So it was Rachel's World Famous. Yes. All Classics. Bounty Knockout Tournament. Jamie got to play. Yeah. I had the best time. Yeah. I really had the best time. I got to play and be on stream. Yes. That was just wonderful. It was fantastic. The three of us came in, and we were a little nervous, and Mike Flanagan had three strikes within three rounds. That's the maximum number of strikes you can incur. That's right. So we had to give him a little pep talk, get him going, because we can't have one of us fall out of the four. So we had to get him rise from the ashes like a phoenix. Let's go. You got this. We gave him a pep talk. Me and John were doing great. We had no strikes after four rounds. Oh, nice. So we were rocking it. Yeah. And then we got cocky, had a few drinks, and had a little too much fun. And then the strike started. Everything went south. It did. The strike started piling up. Down in flames, but not rising after that. We literally went the opposite of Mike Flanagan.
    9:12
    It was four strikes, no strikes after four rounds. He was three strikes. Right. But luckily, you made it on stream as a player and a commentary guy. Yeah, I got to do both. That was great. I don't remember if Mike made it on stream, but I know John was on stream a lot because he got into the fight with the big dogs, the local big dogs.
    9:36
    He was our only hope for the Houston. So me and Mike were putting a lot of our eggs in John's basket because he was rocking two strikes. well we had three okay and so once we got three we got four very quickly i got four very quickly and uh my dissension quick and but john we were really pep talking john we were taking the pina cloud out of his hands yeah yeah and then he got he got from the bat bar yeah he's excellent really awesome bar and uh so we took it away gave him a pep and uh he he lasted two or three more rounds but yeah i think he went to round 12 hey that's pretty good man we all had a great time and what i thought was really cool uh because mike's an operator so is john uh but mike uh he's like a td right he does tournaments or he has yeah he has tournaments at uh at at little dipper and poison girl and john runs a ton of tournaments at eureka heights and they both do tds there you go and i think they're both talking about like taking this idea of a knockout tournament and bringing it to Texas, folks. So if you're a Texan, you can look forward to some electric bat bounty knockout. They're going to rip this off completely. Yeah. They have to get the poker chips. We didn't leave the place before they told me in the car ride home that they're ripping this off. Yeah, I love it. Okay, so that's happening. You told me to my face. Because the bounty chip was such a neat feature, if you've ever played in one of these, where everyone gets a chip and when your fourth strike is up the winner of that round gets your chip And if there are two people eliminated first and second get it Correct. And what a great feature you put together. Once you win a chip, no one can ever take that away from you. You can only lose your original chip. Right. Flanagan won a chip. I won nothing. Okay. I won nothing. But you had a fantastic time. I really did. I loved it. Please come out to Electric Battle. Now, Kate, if you ever want to play in one of these bounty tournaments. Last Sunday of the month at noon. Every month. Every single month. Right. Yeah.
    11:44
    So not only on this trip, you planned the trip so you could play two tournaments. And I'll work this out. Yeah, so a couple months ago when we were planning this, we couldn't do it in March. We wanted the weather. And ideally, I wanted spring training, but couldn't fix it. And then we had the Twippies and then TPF. So the end of April looked to be the best. and we had to do it on a Chewy's and a Tuesday night. So that's why we're here. Isn't that great? Oh, my God, it's fantastic. So you get to see the Chewy's tournament, which is a little bit smaller, and then... On the Tuesday night mayhem. Yeah. That'll be great. Many people warned me about the crowd size on Tuesday. Yeah. It'll be somewhere between 100 and 125 people.
    12:29
    Awesome. It'll be great. It'll be fun. It'll be a lot of fun. So now if some other people want to come and do the same trip, It sounds like we're going to have an Airbnb recommendation. So you can do the whole Jamie Birchall tour where you stay. We're about a half a mile away from the arcade. So it's walking distance, but preferred is like Waymo. So you can ride in a robot car with no driver. It's a quick ride down to the arcade. You can stay in this particular Airbnb and do a couple of tournaments and have the Jamie Birchall tour. The Jamie Birchall bat experience. Right, right, right. No, honestly, just price-wise, it made more sense. We're not being extravagant here. It's a beautiful place for $170 a night. That's a no-brainer. Yeah. And there you have it. All right.
    13:15
    Cool. Well, let's get into, you know, everybody watches the Electric Backcast to hear your earnings report. All right. And Jamie's going to see it live. This is the first time. It's your first time with the earnings report? I am just going to sit back and watch. I'm very excited. We have to get into this. And so what month is this for? This is for March. So we're almost at the end of April. So we're about to have another earnings report. But this particular one is from March. And I also have the February ones in case people don't remember. Okay. I can compare some of those numbers. Do you want to recap quickly February? Sure. I'll just go from 10 to 1. What do you think, Jamie? Yes, sir. Okay. Sounds good to me. So the February numbers, 10th was Medieval Madness, then Batman 66, 8th was John Wick, 7th Pulp Fiction, 6th Big Buck Hunter, not a pinball machine, the actual shooter, 5th was Iron Maiden, 4th was Uncanny X-Men, 3 was Godzilla, 2 Metallica, number 1 D&D Pro. and I specified the pro because we got the premium. Oh. But we didn't get the premium until there was only like one or two days in the March numbers with the premium. So this is what, they're both on the floor. So next month you'll get, we have a pro and a premium on the floor for the entire month of April. So we'll get to do some fun math with that. Oh, I can't wait to hear that. What if they both make the list? Wouldn't that be amazing? Yeah, and I haven't looked at the numbers. I have no idea what's going to happen. Oh, it would. He'll send a link to people. Evil Dead has also been on the floor for the entire month. So this is going to be just like a crazy month of earnings next month. Awesome. So stay tuned one month from now. So the March numbers. Number 10. This was weird. Black Knight Sword of Rage.
    15:13
    Why? Yeah. Why was that on? I don't know. We didn't. It was not a game of the month. There was nothing particularly special happening on that. I think maybe just a couple of people decided that they really, really like Black Knight.
    15:30
    And this is the pro. Do you prefer the pro or the premium, Jamie? I prefer the premium. Really? I do. Wow. We like the fast gameplay of the pro. I like the slow stacking of the premium. Well, it's okay to be wrong. It's not my podcast. Don't worry. Most people like the pro, but that's okay. We can move along. Moving along. Let me just scoot over a little bit more here. That was weird. I like it. Number nine, Batman 66.
    16:00
    Oh. So this is always in Batman. Who doesn't like Batman? It was number nine last month as well. So not a lot of change there. And this is, yeah, there's a lot of people that play Batman.
    16:10
    Number eight, Medieval Madness. So we're still kind of keeping. keeping... There's that one dude, Dave, that just parks on Medieval Madness. Yep, he's responsible. That's never going to leave the top ten, as long as he's around. Right, but he also plays a ton of Addams Family. And we talked about this last time. Where's that on the list? We'll find out. Yeah. Number seven, John Wick. Did they get... I know they released some limited badges, but I can't remember which month. I'm wondering if that gave the February boost or this boost. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not exactly sure. It may have spanned both of them because it's back in the top 10 and it kind of was out for a minute. Number six, Jaws. So Jaws moved back into the top 10. It was not in the top 10 last month, and it moved all the way up to number six. I think so. So some of these are because of badges, because Stern Insider Connected badges. They released a bunch of badges for all the games. Was there some on Black Knight? I can't remember. I think there was something for almost like every game. Well, that might have pushed.
    17:26
    Well, see, there were the seasonal badges and where you could like, you'd like play, you know, three different games and get a hundred million and you'd get a badge. They had Easter badges. They had all kind of seasonal badges that went across titles. So smart. Yeah, very smart.
    17:42
    Breathed some life into the games that were starting to drop off. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, I appreciate it. Number five, Metallica Remastered. Oh, it's fantastic. Great game. Hey, you know what? We learned something really important about that game. We'll talk about it in a second. Okay. Number four. Oh, did you want to talk about Metallica? For one second, didn't you say this was the first time you played the remastered? It was. I had never had a chance to play it. I saw it live. You're playing it, and you were freaking out. And I'm thinking, like, has this dude never seen Metallica remastered? He hasn't. He hasn't played it. I hadn't played it. And I was absolutely blown away of how wonderful that game plays. Because anyone that plays Metallica at a tournament setting type, you put up $20 million. You're feeling pretty decent about it. I put up $130 million. On accident. And everything just flowed so much better. Yeah. Yeah, we want to get, like, what did they change? There's been no... We want to see the overlay of the CNC files. The CAD file, yeah. Ask for it. People will give that to you. Someone's going to download those CAD files. George, could you send me some? I'm so angry that we didn't see Borg on our trip to Stern that we just went to. Because we should have cornered him and be like, what did you do? We know Ray Day did a lot because you can see it in the code, but you can't see what Borg did. But whatever he did, it is magical. Yes, it was. So I will quickly then just say it's really important to not put the fancy pinballs in Metallica. Oh, yeah. I found this out the hard way. Okay, so let's talk about this. Okay.
    19:24
    So, I mean, I think everybody knows, you know, your basic pinballs, you have two choices. a standard ball or a chrome steel ball. And everybody knows not to use the chrome steel balls in games with large magnets because they'll hold magnetic resonance. And to be clear, the chrome steel balls are silver jets or something equivalent across distributors. And then there's like, yeah, they have other names for them. But I know Marco sells silver jets. And these are the most beautiful balls. Super shiny. But you can't use them in games with heavy magnets. Okay.
    20:05
    They will stick together. So it was right before our tournament. And now the only reason we're saying this is because we made a huge mistake, and we don't want anybody to do the same thing. Right before a tournament, Rachel was cleaning Metallica or doing something, and she notices, like, man, these balls are kind of trashed. After a while, you got to change out your balls. so she's like she comes back with silver jets she's like we're going to give these a try you know and i and i said you you want to pick it up from here this is the part where he likes you to tell the story where you should be ashamed of what you did so here's what i did and and he even said and we both know like we've sold these and worked with these balls for a long time so but i thought like well i will put these in there they look really great um i know this game's going to be on stream later um and then if if we start to pick up any kind of magnetic issues that'll happen like down the road tonight these will be totally fine they were not what is that noise someone's mowing oh somebody's mowing a little bit of grass that they have here in arizona i think they found the one patch of grass in the entire damn city of tempe so i apologize We're live on location. Sorry. Continue, Rachel. You wouldn't want to interrupt the story about where you're right. I'll be quiet. And Cale is like, do not, do not, don't put these in. They're going to get, you know, you're going to have magnetic issues. We did. We did on night one. Like, it was basically the third game played with those balls. No kidding. And what had happened is in the coffin lock, you know, they're under the play field, and they're sticking together at the top part of it. I mean, it caused problems. It's bad news. Like immediately. Yeah. And then, yeah. But you were like, certainly they'll be good for a few hours. Right. They're not. They were not good for a few hours. Wow. Like immediately. So don't make the same mistake we made. Use standard balls in Metallica. Yeah. Or test the games because it really depends on the machine. When we were testing Silver Jets at Marco Specialties we were testing them on a Walking Dead which has a big magnet Big old magnet We never had an issue with it So it just depends Which is why I thought I could get away with it. Yeah, it depends on the game. Try them. I heard they're a nightmare in, what's the Jersey Jack game, Dialed In. Yeah. I heard they're a real nightmare on that game. But it just depends. depends some games with magnets um and to be clear all games have magnets in some way we're talking about magnets on the play field that grip the ball yeah yeah so there's there's me telling the story about how i how uh i lesson learned don't make my same mistake we make the mistake so you don't have to there you go we make a lot of them all right so moving on metallica was number five Number four was Pulp Fiction That got a boost this month Number three, Big Buck Hunter Reloaded So now we've got the shooter Top three Not a pinball machine That's always going to be in the top ten People love that game It's beautiful Knock on wood, I haven't had to work on it You know that's Ralph's machine I know He was very proud of it He polished it up when we were there Do you think either John or Mike would get one of those?
    23:46
    No. Well, I would have said that I wouldn't either, but I do like paying bills. And let me tell you, that one pays bills. Well, I think after we go to lunch, you should be telling them that. Yeah, we'll see what the outcome is. We'll update you on the results of this. Zero maintenance?
    24:04
    Zero maintenance. The thing I like about that... I don't need to be talking to you about this. No. You're like, why are you telling me? Because they're outside. Well, but I will say that that shooter specifically, because of how the guns are attached, you know, with the alien shooter that we had. What was that specifically? Alien resurrection.
    24:25
    You know, people were always dropping the guns, and it was causing. Those guns are like $400 or $500. We had to work on those a lot. But because of the way these are mounted, like, we just don't have that same problem with the big buck reloaded. Rothwell's figured it out. And so I would recommend that one specifically also because while the Alien game is impressive, because with the topper part, it was 11 feet tall and has a very large screen, the Big Buck takes up just a little bit more room than a pinball machine, and people play it a lot, and especially that one because it has all the different options, different things you can shoot, not just animals. You can shoot zombies. We've talked about that before on the podcast. So, Big Buck Reloaded, number three. Number two, Godzilla. Godzilla is still raking it in. It's a fabulous game. It's just crazy. There are very few people who don't like Godzilla. Right. And I know one of them. My friend Jason from the – man, they really cranked up the weed eater on that one, huh? They can't handle that one blade of grass.
    25:32
    Just killing them. Let's go. They're getting so many complaints from the neighbors. They could do it with a pair of scissors, but not, you know, like, let's get out the chainsaw.
    25:42
    Okay, and then in Godzilla, I will say, dollar-wise, make the same amount as it often does when it's in the number one spot. Uh-huh.
    25:52
    No surprise, this month, the number one spot was D&D. Yeah. Specifically, Dungeons & Dragons Pro. I was about to ask. If you add the one-day earnings of the D&D premium to that, it made twice as much as Godzilla.
    26:08
    That's how, yeah, people love this game. Jamie, I'm stunned. Wow. And you have the surprise Pikachu face. I can't believe that number. Yeah.
    26:20
    Okay, now it's gotten to Texas Chainsaw Massacre levels. Yes. You know what it is? It's just pollen.
    26:29
    Oh, he's blowing. He's blowing. He's blowing things. He's blowing. Should we hold off for a second? Some Evil Dead. We can talk about Evil Dead right now with the chainsaw in the background. Yeah. So when did Evil Dead come in? Evil Dead came in. It was a few days into last month. So it will be on the next earnings. It did not have a chance to make enough money to make the top ten. It will undoubtedly be top 10 for the April numbers. We'll see if it's number one or where it falls in there. It'll be also interesting to see if both D&Ds make your top 10. And it'll be interesting to see which one is more prominent than the other. I can't wait for that. This earnings report has blown me away from that D&D earned that much in just how many days? Well, this one was the whole month of D&D. But if you added the one day of premium earnings to that, then it doubled the Godzilla cash count. This is a great segue into, we had a discussion about D&D, you and me, Jamie, about how when we're playing this, we're not worried about our score. No. It's the really rare pinball machine where I'm trying to progress my character more than I'm trying to do anything else. Right. So much fun getting through these dungeons. And seeing more of the story. Yes, traveling. We got really excited because I was fighting some kind of character,
    28:01
    and somebody that was watching us is like, oh, I haven't seen what happens after this. So he's watching the whole time. Unfortunately, I failed. I'm going to have to go back to the Electric Bat Arcade, log in with Stern Insider connected into the Stern D&D machine, and keep playing this thing. I plan on playing D&D today. Yeah. This game is so exciting. You bought two of them. I bought two. You know, there's a term, put your money where your mouth is, which is gross. But I think it means buy two D&Ds. Yeah, so the pro is coming home with us. This will be our first machine back at the house for a while. You know, because we basically live at the arcade, there's been no reason to take one home. I want to have this one. If I get up at 4.30 in the morning, I want to be able to play D&D and see more of it. I love this game. Yeah, it's great. Thanks, guys. Great job. Ralph is flat out addicted to that game. He should be. Did he get an LE?
    29:00
    I think so, yeah. I want to go see it. It looks beautiful. Yeah, we saw one at CES. I also want to talk about Evil Dead. We mentioned it for a second. I'm sorry. Let's go. Yeah. So Evil Dead, thank you so much, Spooky. I cannot believe that this game, I don't know that I've, So we've had it for just, we'll say right at four weeks. Have you taken the glass off? No. I have not taken the glass off. No, not once. Not even a stuck ball. They have finally, finally made a machine that is like, this is as solid as it gets. So far. Mind-blowing. We're four weeks in. But that is the report thus far. This game, I don't think I've had a coin jam in it. I mean, it's... like flawless the one thing that we had to do was that it shipped to us with um with code that defaulted to having it auto launch after six seconds um so then it was not good for tournaments right so we're like oh god so we pulled it out of the tournament but then as soon as we figured out oh this was just an auto launch setting fixed it um it's so much fun right uh when we're not playing D&D, we're playing Evil Dead. So I just wanted to give a huge thanks to Spooky for addressing the issues so far that they've had with machines. This game, rock solid, couldn't be happier. Thank you very much. And a shout out to Bug and Luke for being so present in the pinball scene.
    30:39
    The other manufacturers need to learn from this. Of course, I don't expect Seth to be calling me every week but guys at stern who make these machines keep do keep in touch with us every week and and bugs doing the same thing before ed came out he messaged the electric bat instagram say can i have kale's number i want to stay in touch with him to keep up with evil dead i want to know everything about it what you think any issues you're dealing with because he knows this thing is going to get played hard. We're pretty much the Waffle House of pinball. And your guys were there at 6 a.m. Mike Clenigan was there at 6 a.m. this morning. Yeah, we were open 6 a.m. to 2 a.m., 365 days a year. Come on out. But in today's thank you economy, it is so important that as a business, as a leader, a representative of any of these businesses, is you have to be in touch with the public, be in touch with the community. And Stern does it with many. We stay in touch with a lot of those guys. And now Bug. We talk like every week. And Spooky Luke is in our Discord. We have people from Stern in our Discord. We have people from Spooky in our Discord. And then we get phone calls from people at Stern and people at Spooky every week. And it is very helpful. And we've been able to give a lot of feedback, very quick feedback, that people at companies can fix and make the game better very quickly instead of having to wait. Because those issues are going to come up for us in the first week. It may take six months for the home user to see that, and you don't want them to. You want everybody to have a fantastic experience. and you know we realize that that we're the folks getting the the road hard and we're happy to help so i really appreciate yeah when people do use us as resources because like why not right we have the data yeah there you have it i just wanted to say thanks to spooky i'm glad you remembered to bring that up because that is uh you're absolutely right they are so excited about their evil dead at eureka heights do they already have it have it yeah they set it up they took there was a line of 15 people waiting to play it and watching them set it up you're kidding me no it was it was awesome i love that two of the people had already bought evil dead but they're later in the line so they have that same thing they wanted to come and play evil dead and get a feel for it so that they knew what they were doing when they got their evil right that's pretty We even had ours in the last league night, the tournament. Before putting it in the tournament, I messaged Bug. Is there anything software I need to worry about as far as putting this in a tournament He got back to me within like two minutes No issues He did say the score balancing on the Henrietta multiball if you can get it to that it I mean you going to like blow everybody out of the water But he said anybody can get it. You know, it's not – Okay. Pro tip, go for the Henrietta multiball. Well, it's not like one of those modes that carries over from player to player and only one player can get it. So it's an even playing field. and we had a blast. I actually, in one of my rounds, I got Evil Dead. I pulled it. I think I got second because JJ, one of the local players, just blew it up. Yeah. And he had a great time on it. He put up a big, big score. I need to learn from him. I like it. I like the machine. Yeah. I'm learning very much how to find those shots and I'm enjoying playing it. And how can we talk about Evil Dead without talking about how beautiful it is? Our friend, Christopher Franchi. That's right. Take it over from here. It looks great. How about that? It looks great at the bat. Yeah. It fits. It looks great anywhere. It looks great anywhere, but it really looks good at the bat. Yeah. Fantastic.
    34:43
    And so after this, we're going to find a good place to go get something to eat. Yes. And then tomorrow, Jamie is going to experience electric bat Tuesday night for the first time, playing with a big, you know, with just like 50 or 60 people in a tournament, Many people stopped you. Are you Jamie Burchill? Could you believe it? Can you stop that? Can you stop this conversation? It was so great. You're famous now. I have an imposter syndrome. Terrible. And I was on stream with you. And someone was talking to Rachel and asking you if that was me. And I could hear it. and if you find that part of the stream i'm terrible for like the next three minutes i'm in my head i'm like oh no this guy knows me oh boy but everyone at the bat and i'm dead serious about this has opened they've been so nice to us and rolled out the red carpet you two specifically who i love very very much and have become such good friends of mine but really everyone at the bat knew that we weren't here that we were uh new they came up to us and said where are you from right i came here from houston for what yeah to the bat yes that's why i'm here right why they were just absolutely blown away and it couldn't have been nicer uh-huh good deal and you know um speaking of streaming unfortunately we can't stream again we can't stream the tuesday night tournaments because there's just way too many people no way you're going to be able to there's no room we couldn't even move a rig around there if we needed to and you'll you'll experience that tomorrow uh but you did get a chance to sit down in the booth with serge sickular our resident commentator he's a genius tell me about your experience he's a genius you found a diamond in the rough i don't know how you guys found him but he's probably one of the honestly the best you know i've sat with some unbelievable i've done streaming pinball live streaming pinball and tournament pinball for the last three years, and very rarely have I sat with someone that has such extensive knowledge of the book that he had, and Faye as well, by the way.
    37:03
    Yeah, you were blowing it because you sat down with Faye, and you were like, does everybody here know all the rules to every single machine? It's easy for a commentator when I'm sitting next to someone like Faye, and especially Serge as well, that I can just throw to, right? All I'm there is to keep the game flowing and keep the conversation going. That's all my job is to do. Surge, I don't have to do anything. Just sit back, enjoy the ride. Just hang out. Just hang out, enjoy the ride. Ask poking questions once in a while. It's the easiest stream I've ever done in my life, and I really appreciate it. Good deal. It was fantastic. And if you want to go back and see that, you can go to our Twitch, twitch.tv slash electricbatarcade, and check out the VOD. Yeah. Learn some rules from Surge. But I think one of the things that he's doing is a lot of our local players especially watch these streams and with Serge and Faye explaining the rules. And we should say that Serge and Faye play together a lot, usually with John Schaapel as well. After league night, they're there until like 2 a.m. And figuring out these rules. So that's the reason they're kind of bouncing off each other. Oh, what about this? Well, then you can do this. And they're teaching all of us. So I think we're slowly building a group of folks that actually know the rules. I'm not there yet. Right. But I'm hearing other people saying, oh, I did that thanks to Serge or thanks to Faye. I know how to play this game now. And that's really cool to see. And what's really interesting is it's breathing new life into games. I know from an older stream when Faye was on Venom and also John Schaapel and Serge was in a booth explaining what they were doing and the different way they each like to play Venom with this deep rule set. We got so many comments, not just locally, but from around the world. But I had no idea you could play the game like this. I'm going to go find one and get into it. Yeah. I think we sold some more Venoms.
    39:06
    Again, he wants a cut, but no worries there. No. Can I ask one thing real quick? Absolutely. Where did you guys get the idea to change Sorcerer and to change Joker Poker and some of the other machines for your tournament? Roller Games and Sorcerer have updated ROMs. Okay. And those both came from our friend who works at InDisc, Jay, and I messaged him because on stream I saw they were using this software for Sorcerer especially. So it's just not multi-ball after multi-ball and guys won't stop playing. You have put life, different life in the Sorcerer that is fantastic. I enjoy playing Sorcerer on stream because it's just different. Yes. It's not multiball crazy.
    40:03
    Congratulations to those at InDesk and whoever designed this. And the bat is such a great place for competitive pinball players as well because you're not going to have to worry about any of the garbage that goes with a normal Sorcerer. Right, right. I think Jay came out and played. they come out they do a waffle house tour every year or sometimes twice a year i've heard like a whole group of people will fly out from california for a day they'll eat at waffle house in the morning have a tournament that they run at the bat and uh then go eat at waffle house again and then fly home so it's the waffles tournament and i think the first one they played we had sorcerer with the original ROM in it. And then he's like, you know, there's a better way. And we're like, oh, please, let us. So he helped us out. And that's just another example of how wonderful the pinball community is. Oh, no, there's no question. For the Gottliebs, you mentioned Joker Poker. So we have an updated board in there that gives you a skill shot. Same thing with Cleopatra. It gives you a skill shot. You can get a danger instead of immediately get a tilt. And it offers a ball save.
    41:17
    It's fantastic. It really is. Yeah. And we got those because those particular boards are Pascal boards. And I know Marco Specialties does sell those boards. Give them a call if you want to find one. But they're great because, you know, if you get one of these old, what is that, System 1? System 1 Gottlieb. Yeah. You don't have to worry about, oh, are the boards good? Just make sure the game is intact and mechanically working because you can get a Pascal board that is like an all-in-one. And I think also Kneewomp makes something similar. But they add these extra bells and whistles that you're liking. Anyone that's operating these machines should buy these at Marco right now because it really changes the games and makes them more fun. And there you have it. Well, and they don't, you know, I don't think we've ever preemptively swapped out a board. they have all had problems, you know, because they're old. They're from 1977, 1978 or whatever. So when you have the problem, like, let's solve it with something that improves the overall game. Cool. Yeah. Do you have any other questions for us, Jamie? I don't. The only thing I wanted to say is Cale is pressuring me to move here, which is never going to happen because my heart is in Houston and my family. But you are definitely on the Chamber of Commerce or running for mayor. Right. Your hair has never looked this good. Oh, I didn't want to. Yeah, I normally wear a hat all the time, but I actually went up to Rachel and your bartender and I said, I love my hair here in Tempe, Arizona. Pearl's not frizz. It's not. There's no frizz whatsoever. My half Puerto Rican hair is just so fantastic hair. It's fabulous. Rico Suave. It really is fabulous. I don't know if Rico is Puerto Rican, but he might be. Yeah, it could be. Who knows? It could be. I don't know. We don't know where anybody's from.
    43:07
    Anyway, thank you again for hosting us here. You guys have just been fantastic. And it's not over yet. We've got a few more days. So I'm real excited. It's been our pleasure. We're so glad that you could join us here. And we're glad that we could join you at your Airbnb. This is fantastic. I can't wait to hit the hot tub later. Oh, I can't wait to hit it. We're doing it. Let's do it. Awesome. Right on. Well, let's go grab some lunch. Yes. And then hang out some more. we're going to do some more chit chat more pinball chit chat Jamie you know the bats out thing I did he taught me yesterday oh god we're doing a double bats out alright thank you all for joining us thank you to our sponsors Game Room Goodies check out GameRoomGoodies.com for all of your arcade needs not just pinball they have everything give Aaron a call over there also Marco's Specialties and Stern Insider Connected They have a bunch of great badges out there right now. If you're on Facebook or Instagram, go to the Stern account, and you can get an update on what's out right now, what kind of seasonal badges and all kind of other great badges. Grab some badges. Get on some leaderboards. Ty's grabbing all of them, and he actually needs some more. I told – when I was at the office, I told Gary. I was like, Ty is running out. He's running out of things to do. Gary remembers Ty because he signed his leg. And tattooed it. Yeah. I'll show it to you tomorrow night alright so you guys have a great week a great weekend and we will see you guys next time thank you guys so so much alright the bats are out that was a good one with the chainsaw in the background