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Episode 67 - Not About Pinburgh

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 22m·analyzed·Jul 30, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Pinburgh coverage, Jersey Jack's delayed Pirates of the Caribbean enters production, new Team Pinball manufacturer debuts.

Summary

In this post-Pinburgh episode, hosts Tony and Dennis discuss personal life updates (Dennis's dental work, home appliance failures, major reorganization projects) before pivoting to pinball news. Key industry items include: Keith Elwin fourth Pinburgh A Division victory, Multimorphic fulfilling all P3 pre-orders, Jersey Jack Pinball starting Pirates of the Caribbean production after delays, and the announcement of a new manufacturer called Team Pinball with their debut game "The Mafia." The hosts discuss hype cycles, production delays at Jersey Jack, and express cautious optimism about Team Pinball entry into the market.

Key Claims

  • Keith Elwin won Pinburgh A Division for his fourth time in the last eight years.

    high confidence · Dennis, discussing Pinburgh results directly

  • Multimorphic has fulfilled all P3 pre-orders and is now accepting new orders on a case-by-case or batch basis.

    high confidence · Dennis, citing Multimorphic's official announcement

  • Jersey Jack Pinball has started production of Pirates of the Caribbean after photos appeared at the end of last year.

    high confidence · Dennis, reporting on production status

  • Pirates of the Caribbean was originally scheduled for Q1 2018 release but is now in Q3 production.

    high confidence · Dennis, discussing delay timeline

  • Team Pinball is comprised of three former Heighway Pinball employees launching with 'The Mafia' at $7,500, capped at 100 units total production (35 for U.S. market).

    high confidence · Dennis, providing detailed specifications

  • Jersey Jack's Pirates prototype had significant feature removals between prototype and production versions.

    high confidence · Tony and Dennis, discussing design changes and their impact on hype

  • The Mafia pinball machine uses Raspberry Pi, has seven coils, one spinner, a captive ball, and stand-up targets.

    high confidence · Dennis, detailing technical specifications

Notable Quotes

  • “Jersey Jack has an ongoing issue where they get lots of good hype and huge hype and then when the game actually comes out, the hype's all done. It's all over.”

    Tony @ approx. 38:00 — Identifies a pattern of hype management issues at Jersey Jack affecting market reception

  • “I think a lot of pinball companies excluding Stern have a PR and hype control problem, and most of it's because they put their information out so far before the game actually hits that by the time the game hits, people are burned out and don't care.”

    Tony @ approx. 40:00 — Broad industry critique of manufacturer communication strategy and its impact on consumer enthusiasm

  • “It would be like rehydrating a ramen bowl. There'll be some that will now get kind of hyped about it.”

    Tony @ approx. 37:00 — Colorful metaphor for potential reinvigoration of interest now that Pirates is in production

  • “You still can't make your timelines. It doesn't matter. It's half a year behind schedule.”

    Dennis @ approx. 42:00 — Criticism of Jersey Jack's inability to meet production deadlines despite other successes

  • “Dennis, you're doing it wrong. Would you like to be a winner or would you like to be you?”

    [name withheld pending review] @ approx. 27:00 — Humorous characterization of coaching feedback from area players

Entities

Keith ElwinpersonTonypersonDennispersonCarrie WingpersonSteve HillpersonJason SchuffelmeyerpersonAdam McKinneypersonMultimorphiccompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyTeam Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Keith Elwin wins Pinburgh A Division for fourth time in last eight years, demonstrating continued competitive dominance by a major designer

    high · Dennis reports: 'congratulations to Keith Elwin, unsurprising victor of Pinburgh A Division. This is his fourth win in the last eight years'

  • ?

    product_launch: Multimorphic completes fulfillment of all P3 pre-orders and transitions to accepting new orders

    high · Dennis: 'Multimorphic, makers of the P3 platform. They have announced that they've fulfilled all of the P3 pre-orders. So anyone who pre-ordered the P3, it's now been shipped out to them'

  • $

    market_signal: Jersey Jack Pirates of the Caribbean experiencing significant hype burnout due to lengthy development cycle and design changes between prototype and production

    high · Tony: 'I think a lot of the hype has been burned up' and Dennis notes prototype changes were 'pretty significant' with features removed from production version

  • ?

    product_concern: Jersey Jack Pirates of the Caribbean originally scheduled Q1 2018, now in Q3 production—representing six-month delay and step backward from Dialed In's on-time performance

    high · Dennis: 'Pirates of the Caribbean was supposed to be a Q1 2018 release, and we're in Q3' and 'You still can't make your timelines. It doesn't matter. It's half a year behind schedule'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Broader industry pattern identified: manufacturers announce games 2-2.5 years before release, causing hype exhaustion by launch; Stern cited as exception

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.427

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, July 29th. This is episode 67. I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis. And we're by ourselves. No guests. All by ourselves. It's so sad. I don't know if yours... Were you basing that off of any real song?
0:35
Yeah. Okay. Sorry. No, that's fine. It was less than 10 seconds, so we won't get any copyright problems. That was 10 of my goals. I was just trying to identify it, and I didn't recognize it. What I sang was based on nothing, which is what you are about to become. I am nothing.
0:52
Well, this is our post-Pinberg, not-at-all-about-Pinberg episode, because everyone who has podcasts is apparently out at ReplayFX, probably getting ready to come back. And so here, we're going to give them content, Tony, that is not going to be what's going to be the next two freaking weeks of podcasts. I'm not complaining. I am. That you all take that time and walk us through every single game you play. No one cares. It's what makes people hate the tournament segments on Pinball. I'm just letting everyone know. We're not going to do that, however. Instead, we're going to talk about pinball and video games and not Pinberg. Except for a little bit about Pinberg, because I can't help myself. And a little bit. Just a little bit. But first, we have intro time. It's intro time, Tony. What's been going on?
1:38
I got my root canal done, and there was no pain. There was literally no pain at all. The only thing I felt was when he first gave me the shots, and, I mean, I was scared. I was, like, wishing I could find a couple of Valium and get just a couple of Valium because I was so nervous going in because I'm not big into the whole dental scene.
Stern Pinball
company
Heighway Pinballcompany
Pirates of the Caribbeangame
The Mafiagame
P3game
Pinburghevent
Dialed In!game

high · Tony: 'I think a lot of pinball companies excluding Stern have a PR and hype control problem...they put their information out so far before the game actually hits that by the time the game hits, people are burned out'

  • ?

    announcement: Team Pinball officially announced as new pinball manufacturer founded by three former Highway Pinball employees

    high · Dennis: 'announcement of a new pinball manufacturer named Team Pinball' and 'The company, Team Pinball, is made up of three former Highway Pinball employees'

  • ?

    product_launch: Team Pinball's debut game 'The Mafia' specifications: Raspberry Pi-driven, single ball, seven coils, one spinner, captive ball, stand-up targets, $7,500 price, capped at 100 units (35 U.S.)

    high · Dennis provides detailed technical breakdown: 'It's Raspberry Pi driven. It's a single ball game...seven coils...The U.S. price is $7,500. Total production will be capped at 100 units'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Team Pinball using Raspberry Pi platform for software control, representing alternative to traditional pinball control systems

    high · Dennis: 'I want to hear what you have to say first...I think this is really interesting. So, let me open with why I think Mafia Pinball is good for the hobby. And I'm going to start with this Raspberry Pi piece. That part fascinates me'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community enthusiasm for Pirates of the Caribbean waning despite strong Pinball Expo reveal due to design changes and production delays

    medium · Tony discussing fall Pinball Expo hype: 'lightning in a bottle sort of experience' contrasted with current sentiment; Dennis notes prototype changes 'were seen as pretty significant'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Three Highway Pinball employees departed to found Team Pinball, suggesting possible operations changes or strategic shifts at Highway Pinball

    medium · Dennis: 'The company, Team Pinball, is made up of three former Highway Pinball employees'

  • ?

    community_signal: Multiple Kansas City area players including Carrie Wing and Steve Hill achieved Pinburgh A Division finalists, indicating strong regional competitive depth

    high · Dennis: 'special shout out to Carrie Wing...made A Division finals...highest ranked of the Kansas-Missouri area' and mentions Steve Hill and Jason Schuffelmeyer also in A Division

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stern contrasted favorably with other manufacturers for hype management and communication strategy; identified as industry standard-bearer for PR execution

    medium · Tony: 'I think a lot of pinball companies excluding Stern have a PR and hype control problem'

    • 2:00
    But it was great. I felt the pinches from the shots that numbed me. And when he started, there was – it wasn't pain. It was just this weird feeling. He goes – and he said, if you feel anything at all, it doesn't have any pain. If you just feel something that feels a little weird, you let me know. I was like, well, yeah, that felt a little weird. And he's like, okay, let me give you some more stuff.
    2:22
    And then I felt nothing. And it was wonderful. Excellent. So it all went well. Yep. Able to eat solids again. Yep. Not on that side of my face, but. Yeah. Well, you still have one good side. Yeah. That's what's important. I go in, not this upcoming week, but the week after to get my temporary crown put on. So. So, which works out pretty well. All right. All in all. Good. And otherwise, I mean, I've been, a lot of the stuff I've been doing we'll talk about later in the show. So, there's just been. Yeah. All right.
    3:02
    Well, let's see. I have, well, I haven't been at Pinberg. I've been at Failberg. Because everything has been going wrong. and it's start, I'm going to admit, I'm starting to get almost annoyed about it all. So, I... Are you saying that you're getting a little tilted? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Raw tilted. Oh, no, I don't get that reference. Raw tilt! But the, so, you know, last weekend, we both were at the Pizza West tournament. I have been doing pretty well this year at that tournament. Not last week. Not at all. was not any good. And then Carrie Wing, one of our area players, had her birthday tournament on the Sunday. So I went to that. It was a lot of fun. I did very badly at it as well on pretty much all of the EM machines, but it was done in a mini Pinberg format, so that was nice. So anyway, when I was leaving there, though, some of the other players were peer pressuring me about coming to league. Finally come to league, Dennis. We have a 7 p.m. start time. You're always crying about how 9 p.m. is too late. Wah, wah, wah. Why don't you put up and shut up and come out here? So I was like, okay. I was thinking I probably could swing it because I was going to work from home Thursday, and they do this on Wednesdays. So I get home from Wednesday, and as Tony knows, the forecast here had kept moving up when the rain was going to come. So it's like, okay, I cannot mow before I start working from home on Thursday. I need to mow when I get home Wednesday night. No problem. Get out the mower. Let's start it up. I do one path.
    4:46
    That's not a good sound, but that was also not an accurate sound. Basically, the mower was going rumble, rumble, and then it was going no more rumble. So it's like, I'm thinking that it's the air filter. I clean the air filter. It's not working. Call my dad. I'm like, I cleaned the air filter. It's got gas. The gas is fresh. I'm confused. Says, did you check the spark plug? No, I didn't check the spark plug. I checked the end terminal to it. Go and get my spark plug wrench. It's not the right size. Apparently, I have never changed the spark plug in this mower or with this particular size. So, I go to the lawnmower store.
    5:27
    They're closed. It's 545 now. They closed 45 minutes ago. Yeah. So I go to Walmart. I find, because I couldn't pull the fuse, I took my manual. I found my manual. But it's a Briggs & Stratton part number, and no one sells fuses, or excuse me, not fuses, but spark plugs under Briggs & Stratton part numbers, except for Briggs & Stratton. So I had to go online, cross-reference, figure out what brand of Champion matched the brand of the mower. They had it. Found that. Found a whole complete set of the three most common spark plug size types of wrench heads. Bought those and got a gap measurer because I was thinking, no way am I going to get screwed out of a 90-cent part here, so I'll buy the 92-cent gap measurer to measure my less than $2 spark plug. That all went fine. Changed it out. It was a spark plug. But by the time I got back, got it installed, got the yard mode, it was past 7. So I could not go to league. So this is your excuse why you couldn't attend league. No, I haven't told any of them why I didn't show up. They can just think that it was because I don't like them. I didn't go out there and go. I think maybe I made one comment and reply to one person somewhere just in passing that it had ruined my plan to go to league. Yeah, I could have made the 9 p.m. start time, but I've already drawn a line in the sand that that is way too late to be running a league. People need to get their act together and not think that it's all a bunch of night owls. On a school night. That's silly. The school night, Tony. The school night. All right. So that was that problem. So later in the night, I'm here in the kitchen area where we're recording, and there's like a little piece, a little bit of hamburger or something on the counter. So I go, throw it in the garbage disposal, hit the switch. Nothing. I'm like, what is wrong with this garbage disposal? I'm trying to remember when I – I don't use it a lot because I don't cook a lot. And I knew I used it when I cleaned for when I hosted a game night a week ago. Used it because, you know, I usually clean up. Just put some dish soap in it, turn it on, and clean it. It smells all nice and like dawn. So I go, I get a brush, I clean it out. I'm not seeing anything really in there, though there was some grease filled up. So there had been grease in it at some point. And I finally, I see that the circuit breaker on the unit was blown. So I push the little red button underneath, still not going. So then I get out my Allen wrench set, and I go and I manually turn the blades, and they're stuck. They're stuck on something. But I don't see, like, a piece of silverware in there. Right. I get them going. It's spinning. Turn it on. Works.
    8:07
    Water just starts hemorrhaging out of the reset circuit breaker hole and another hole in the bottom. And I think two things. First, I could live with this. and second,
    8:21
    electrocution is a bad way to go. So I decided, no, no, I can't live with this. So I turn it off, I unplug it, I clean up the water under there, under the cabinet, under the sink, and it's like, okay, I'll go to Home Depot tomorrow and pick up a new garbage disposal because it's leaking. There's nothing to be, there's apparently a hole in it now that there's nothing to be done. So I go, and I, in the morning, I'm getting ready to leave. I start my laundry beforehand because I had a doctor's appointment anyway. Go before I get in the car. I like how you're working from home involved. I am. Going to Home Depot and the doctor's appointment. This was all before. And doing a bunch of maintenance. The maintenance stuff, this is all before 8. There, this is all before 8. The doctor's appointment was not. However, I figure, well, that's my lunch break. I'm going to, it's an early, it's a 9.40 a.m. lunch break. So I'm going to go. I go and I start my laundry, though, before I start even working. Because I worked for about an hour before I left. and I go to put the wash in the dryer, and I open the washing machine, and it's full of water. And I'm just like, what is this? So I mess around with it. It's agitating fine. It's filling fine. It's detecting the water fine, but it will no longer spin or drain. And so I look online on some generic guides, and I'm like, well, it could be a blown belt, or this one isn't belt operated. It could be something other good. Bottom line is, I'd have to take the whole thing apart to replace any part that's wrong with it. And I'm thinking, I don't want to do that. The dryer already had one bad heating element, which is not, I guess, a terribly hard change, but I didn't see the point. I just would run it twice. Yeah. I'm so cheap and lazy. So it's like, okay, it's time for a new set of that stuff too. So anyway, go to Home Depot, get the garbage disposal, go to my appointment, come home, go on Waxie. I'm being efficient now, back at work, go online to Home Depot, order the washer and dryer, because I can pay for them to haul away the old ones, because I don't know where I'm going to put all this old stuff that no one would want. So that's all scheduled for Tuesday. So it was almost a week out to get. So in the meantime, I took later for a second lunch break, a snack break, because the thing's full of water. I had to take a – I used the hose. it wasn't a clogged drain or anything. So I used it and filled the bucket most of the way. And then I had to just scoop out all the water for the rest. But while I still had water in there, I used the acetator. I took all my clothes and I hand scrubbed. I just used it as a hand wash. Old school Alaska style, like how I used to have to do it. And then I just put all of that soaking wet in the dryer. It took eight dry passes, but I got them dry. And so I have enough laundry clean to be okay until then, I think. So that's why it was Failberg. That's my story. This intro has been about 10 minutes of failure. So what are you going to sell to make up the cost of the washer and dryer? Oh, my God. Those freaking tariffs have raised the price of the washers. So now I'm extra mad about these tariffs. We don't go into political stuff here, but I'm just saying the tariffs raised the price of my washers. An objective fact. You bought American. I bought GE. I thought that was as murky as I could get outside of going to Kenmore.
    11:48
    Let's not get crazy. Yeah, let's not. We've got to draw a line. We need some quality here. Actually, the old set was GE, too. It was the cheapest of mine that was. It's a little bit bigger. So I wanted to make sure I didn't get anything smaller than currently. Did you go dual front loaders? No, no. I heard too many people complain about the front loaders on the washing side leak, that the seals can go bad and they start to leak. and I just thought, I looked at a couple because I've heard they're more water efficient, but I went ahead and just did top load on the washer, and the washer and the dryer was the same price. We're talking like a grand when it's all said and done, so it's like, okay, well, no, I still have my job, so I saved up enough. I was squirreling away money, but that was my dad's response. I told him I was having to replace the washer and dryer, and he goes, you might have to sell all your pinball machines. It's Macon's meat. is it some off?
    12:44
    No, not yet. Now, if anything else starts to break, I had to run the dishwasher later that day and I was thinking I don't know if I could bear to have the fridge or the dishwasher go out on top of all this stuff. I did the dishwasher like three years ago so it's relatively new but that fridge I've already had to fix once. So that was all that. Is it a bad time to mention you've got four flat tires? Yes, it's terrible. Okay. Tires are relatively cheap. This is a question of getting to them. My tire guy went out of business. I have to go to a new tire guy. Oh, you used Tim? I did. I used Tim. I'm hearing good things about the Big O's locations though, around. That's what I use now. But when I lived up here and lived in this area, I used Tim. I liked Tim's, yeah. But no, there was too much competition, they said. So they went out of business.
    13:32
    And other than that, I've been being really busy with hobby work. So I have a I did a video thing yesterday. We'll talk about that a little bit later. And then I've been working on three pinball articles, and that's probably too, too many, quite frankly. So there's a collaborative piece I've been working on with two other authors, and we've been working on it for months, and it's been moving forward quite rapidly at this point. So I think that one's near done. Yeah. But we're now at the part where I need to look at it again. So I'm the hold up, which, so I'm going to try and get through it within the next week. And then there's another guide I'm working on, but there's so many pieces to it. It's just, it's taking a lot longer than I had hoped it would when I first thought of the idea, but it's going along fine. It's just going to take a while. And then someone asked about a third topic, which I thought, I'm way too busy. And then I thought, it's a really good topic. So I've only really been working on the outline until I haven't started writing it. And that one will wait. But there is such a thing as buying off more than you can chew, especially in hobby stuff where you don't get paid for any of it. So probably after this, I'm going to scale back for a little while and keep things sane. Because, of course, we still had a whole show to put together. Right. But we have done so. Now, that's one thing I didn't, speaking of all this stuff, one thing I haven't mentioned, and it doesn't actually fit elsewhere like most of the rest of my stuff. I have been in the midst of a large reorganization of everything. Like I'm literally picking, it's like, okay, the master closet is an utter disaster. Complete reorganization. Completely redoing my half of all my stuff I've got in the bedroom. Starting on my computer area. Starting on this area. doing major reorganizations and getting, you know, framed pictures that I've had standing around for, like, almost a year now, waiting to be hung up.
    15:31
    They're not hung up yet, but I'm getting closer. I've got some shelving up now that I've had that I got for my birthday. I thought I got half of the shelving up and got some stuff put up on it. I got some other stuff taken care of. So we're getting there. Yeah, as well. After game night, I remember one of your daughters had noted that the side bathroom was really dirty. And so I took two Mr. Clean pads and I have been getting the prior owners put wallpaper in there and the steam has caused these purple flower wallpaper to streak on the white walls. That actually got quite a bit of it up. So I'm feeling Those things are amazing. They are. I probably should do a couple more pads My arms were tired by then and I was out of gloves. And I know the tub's a little dirty but my housemate can get to that. That's just soap stuff, so that's not a big issue. But I patched the holes in the wall from where the towel rack was in there because it's sort of like, okay, I'm going to get that going. I patched those in my bathroom, the master bathroom, patched up. So I'm just sort of like, here's the reason why for me, though. It's not any special motivation.
    16:35
    On the 4th, I was out at the lake, and people were telling me about the hoarding shows. And then I saw the hoarding shows and what happened to their houses, and I'm like, now I feel like I need to do stuff. So it's like I threw away the bag of computer parts The other day in the garage And it's like what is this cord It looks like dial up modem cord Why is there steel wool In this bag with it Oh no that's not steel wool It's a massacred mouse Yeah Like I said I'm doing the same thing I'm working on it The problem is About 75% of the stuff is my wife So it's like I can't really do anything with it. Right, right. And you want to be respectful. I mean, that's the same thing. As I noted, I rent a room out, and so I have a housemate, and he uses some of the area for storage and things like that. And so I don't want to go through and throw away things that belong to other people. Right. No, no, no, no, no. That's not nice to do at all. But I got plenty of my own crap that needs to be dealt with. What I really need to do is recycle all my old computers because the garage is full of computers. Three of them. And satellite receivers. And old monitors, it's just crap. Just crap. Now, I guess it's okay because you don't have to climb all over it in order to get to the next room. Yeah. But, yeah, exactly. But every time I think about getting a pinball machine or something, it's like, where do these things go? And, of course, other people are like, why don't you sell me a pinball machine? I'm like, but I don't want to sell one right now. I kind of, maybe, maybe soon. We're getting close. so speaking of pinball let's go ahead and this was one of the longest ventrals we've done in a long time but I think it was worth it so people could experience our pain or at least my pain you apparently got numbed to your pain it was good they don't do that in Europe one last thing too late my wife and oldest daughter went with me they dropped me off and then they went to Joanne's to go. It's a craft store? It's a craft store. Okay. So they went to the craft store and did some shopping while I got this done and then I got out. And I'm numbed and my face is all puffed up and I can't do anything. And they're like, the dentist and everybody was like, okay, now you're not going to want to eat until the numbness obviously because you're going to bite your tongue and this and that. I couldn't talk. I sounded like a stroke victim because my tongue felt like it was the size of my arm. It was terrible. So, of course, they decided, let's go to Ikea. And I'm like, okay.
    19:15
    And then on the way to Ikea, they're like, we're hungry. Let's go to Steak and Shake. And I'm like, I can't. I can't eat.
    19:23
    And then they're like, well, oh, well, no, we turn those Steak and Shakes that way. That's too far away from Ikea. So, we'll go to Arby's. I can't eat.
    19:35
    And then finally they ended up going to McDonald's. And it's like, can I have a shake? Yeah. And then we wandered Ikea for like three hours and then a pet store. And we finally went home and I took a bloody nap because I was exhausted.
    19:53
    Hearing that makes me tired. I was just like, hey, let's go to Steak and Shake. It's like, I can't eat. You're going to sit there and eat meals in front of me. Well, I should sit there and drool run down my face because my face is so numb I don't notice it. It's what they want. It's what they wanted out of you. You're the Charlie Brown of your house. I am. Oh, trust me. I know you are. I'm the Charlie Brown of this podcast.
    20:16
    For me. Okay. Well, now we'll go ahead and go into pinball. We'll start with pinball news. And I said we weren't going to talk about Pinnberg except for the little bit where we talk about Pinnberg. And this is that part. I just want to say congratulations to Keith Elwin. unsurprising victor of Pinnberg A Division. This is his fourth win in the last eight years, I guess.
    20:41
    I believe that makes the winningest. I do want to say a special shout out to Carrie Wing. She's an area Kansas City player. She made A Division finals. I believe she was the highest ranked of the Kansas-Missouri area in the A Division finals. I think Steve Hill was A Division and And I believe that Jason Schuffelmeyer was A Division. And then Adam McKinney, we see him at some of the larger events. He was A Division. So congratulations to all of them. I'm in no way surprised with any of them as good as they are. Actually, Steve is probably who talked rules, game rules, and taught me about game rules the most. and Kerry would be the close second on that in terms of just raw rules, knowledge, and then trying to help me be a better player by saying, hey, maybe you should consider doing this, which is generally a, Dennis, you're doing it wrong. Would you like to be a winner or would you like to be you? It's the really nice way of saying, hey, stop sucking. Yeah. After they get the win, it'd be like, Dennis, I noticed that you were fond of shooting where there's nothing. Would you like to know what to shoot for? And my answer is generally, why, yes, I would love to know what to shoot for. I would really love to know where it was five minutes ago. I like the idea of rules, but it's easier for me when they're explained to me. Than trying to read them? Yeah. I'm the same way. And when I can actually see it, I love rundowns like that. It is very helpful. So anyway, congratulations to all of them. Next news item, Multimorphic, makers of the P3 platform. They have announced that they've fulfilled all of the P3 pre-orders. So anyone who pre-ordered the P3, it's now been shipped out to them. So they're, I believe, at the point where they are just accepting new orders. They were prioritizing taking care of all pre-orders, and now anyone who wants a P3 puts in an order for a P3, and then those will be issued under whatever auspices that they've devised. I don't know if they wait until they get a few or they do them whenever the orders come in. I believe there's some contract manufacturing that's involved, so it may be just case-by-case. Base batches. Yeah, maybe case-by-case or maybe batches. I'm not entirely sure. But the point is everyone who committed money early has, at this point, been satisfied, or at least they've been shipped out for them to be satisfied. Right. So that's very good news. They at least have a game on the way. They might not be satisfied, but they've got the game on the way. Yes, and I'm not aware of anyone who has been wholly concerned that Multimorphic was in any sort of trouble. No, I haven't heard any issues with them at all. But it's still nonetheless very good news for all those people that had the confidence to put in pre-order money on the product. Right. In pinball, pre-orders being successfully completed by anybody is a wonderful thing that deserves to be applauded because not exactly the greatest track record in the hobby. No, unfortunately not. Well, third news item. Jersey Jack pinball. They have finally started production of Pirates of the Caribbean. The photos appeared on Facebook just at the end of last year. Tony. Okay, Tony. Tell me your thoughts. Tell me your thoughts about Pirates. I just did.
    24:02
    You played a prototype. I played the prototype. It was all right. I don't see anything. I will wait to hold my actual feelings since a lot of this stuff got so much stuff got changed for the production copy until I've actually played a production copy. But the truth of the matter is I'm not interested in it. I don't care about the license at all. And the game was of Jersey Jack's games. I would rank it third, probably third. do you think that setting your personal opinion aside but I'm asking for your personal opinion do you think the hype for this game has passed because of the length of time it has taken to go to production and the bad news and the design changes and everything else I think a lot of the hype has been burned up I think they'll sell well I do think they'll sell well I don't think they have the kind of hype behind it that had been hoped for. And this seems to be something Jersey Jack has an ongoing issue is where they get lots of good hype and huge hype and then when the game actually comes out, the hype's all done. It's all over. And some of that's just because they start hyping stuff up two and a half years before the game's release. So the hype train is done and gone. Nobody cares anymore. and some of that is just they were all over and they put out the prototypes and even after they made the changes they were still putting out the prototypes that had the features that had been removed from the game and it's like it's not even a valid prototype you're showing because you've removed several of the things that are core to the gameplay of the prototype but aren't on anything else so we'll see how they do I think a lot of pinball companies excluding Stern have a PR and height control problem, and most of it's because they put their information out so far before the game actually hits that by the time the game hits, people are burned out and don't care. I think it's a pretty relevant perspective that you're discussing, and I can't say you're wrong. I think that there are going to be some people, now that it's in production, that it will reinvigorate. It'll be like rehydrating a ramen bowl. Right. There'll be some that will now get kind of hyped about it. But I think that lightning in a bottle sort of experience where it was in the fall of last year where they, quote unquote, won Expo. So that was the one where Stern was all beer plus pinball equal dollars, and Jersey Jack had that awesome reveal of the Pirates of the Caribbean. And a lot of that hype was obviously the feature-rich nature of the game, and a lot of it was just the reveal itself was executed very well. Very, very well. But as you noted, the prototype changes were seen as pretty significant, and we have to remember that, and I think a lot of potential buyers remember, that Pirates of the Caribbean was supposed to be a Q1 2018 release, and we're in Q3. So while this is not Wizard of Oz and The Hobbit behind schedule, the progress where I felt people saw, dialed in as a game that came out on time, this is a step back. Yeah. This is a, you still can't make your timelines. Now, was it because they spent so long trying to engineer those three spinning disks to work together? It doesn't matter. It's half a year behind schedule. Again, it would be a step up, except Dialed In was so good in so many ways. Dialed In didn't have any major feature changes. Dialed In did not have any known delays that I can think of with production. So it's just impossible in my mind to not feel that Pirates stepped back from that, that quality that we saw with Dialed In. And I think that's not a make-or-break sort of thing for the company or anything. It's just unfortunate because they were so well-positioned. But this plays really well into my narrative, so I guess I'm happy about that, about the whole, remember my theme for Stern in 2018, it's the Empire Strikes Back. Everything that's been happening is breaking Stern's way. And we're going to be talking about that a little bit more when we move further down in the news. But that's really all I had to say about Pirates. So it is good news that it's finally shifting because I know a lot of people have been looking forward to it.
    28:47
    So let's talk about news item number four. This is the announcement of a new pinball manufacturer named Team Pinball. Not the most creative name in the world, but it is descriptive. Sure. That's okay. It's like law firms. They're all boring names. It kind of triggers my old school retro thing, like Team Banzai from Buckaroo Banzai across the area. Oh, yeah, my cult movie love. Yeah. Well, shut up. Their first pinball machine is not themed off of Buckaroo Banzai. Oh, do you know how awesome a Buckaroo Banzai pinball machine would be? It would probably be about zero awesome. It would be more than that to me. Oh, okay. It'd be three. It'd be a three. Okay. It'd be a three. I know some people who love that movie, but you know what? I think there'd be a higher likelihood of seeing A Big Trouble in Little China. I think it'd be more popular. Yeah, that's why. I think Big Trouble in Little China would be a lot more popular. And Big Trouble in Little China probably would not be a good theme to do in this day and age. I don't think it's cult enough. It ain't Ghostbusters. That's true. That's the thing. That's true. I don't think you'd go with a cult classic for, I mean. It'd be like a Smokey and the Bandit. I mean, was there ever a Smokey and the Bandit machine? No. That would have made good sense. No. Maybe there was some game that stole their likenesses for a back glass, but there's nothing that really was thematically licensed. But that was much less common back then. So, their first game, Team Pinball's first game, is The Mafia. I wanted to talk a little bit about the specs. So, it's Raspberry Pi driven. It's a single ball game.
    30:28
    According to my count, it has seven coils. Two for the flippers, two for the slingshots, and three for the pop bumpers. It has one spinner, and it has a captive ball, and then other than that, it's pretty much several stand-up targets. The U.S. price is $7,500.
    30:46
    Total production will be capped at 100 units, and from what I can tell, the U.S. share of that is capped at 35.
    30:55
    The company, Team Pinball, is made up of three former Highway Pinball employees. So, given all that, what are your thoughts about this project? What are my thoughts? I think I want to hear what you have to say first, because I can see it burning behind your eyes. Well, I think this is really interesting. So, let me open with why I think Mafia Pinball is good for the hobby. And I'm going to start with this Raspberry Pi piece. That part fascinates me. I have heard for quite a while now people claim that Raspberry Pi cannot drive pinball machines. That it is too weak. And I've always found that very odd given how old solid-state electronics have been in pinball. I could see how you could argue that a Raspberry Pi could not drive a Jersey Jack game or drive a modern Stern Spike game. But surely it can drive some sort of game. Actually, I was speaking at Carrie's pinball tournament that she had last weekend with Steve Hill, who we mentioned earlier. And he mentioned to me that it had to do with the, and I think it's even in the pinball news article about this, which I do have a link in the show notes too for people to read and learn more about team pinball and the Mafia pin. But about the stacks, about how you build the stack, stacking in the system. And that the, I guess the existing setups, someone would have to go in and basically do it from scratch. And they have. So the idea of being able to take a $40 computer and stick it in to drive pinball is really interesting. Now, they do need to rely on more than just the Raspberry Pi. They still need another board to handle the actual electric part of it to fire all the mechanisms and everything. But still, I'm really pleased to see that in there. I also think that this is an excellent test case of a game to see just how true this collector market is. the true boutique style. This $7,500 price point is obviously above a number of other options that exist. It's higher than Stern Pros. It's basically in line with a Stern Premium. It's higher than what American Pinball is charging. So basically, it's under Jersey Jack price. It's higher than Spooky. But they've got the limit. They got the 100-unit limit. So this will be an excellent test case to see, will all 100, I'm fascinated, no, will all 100 of these sell out? Is it really all about exclusivity now? Is that what the high dollar end of this hobby is being driven by? Or is it being driven by gameplay, which we don't have a lot of information on yet. They had a video. It was very close up. There weren't any broad shots of play that I can tell anything of. They've indicated that it's a lot of hurry-up modes and such, but it's a single-level game. Will that cause issues for them? Total Nuclear Annihilation is single-level, and it has in no way caused issues for it, as far as spooky production numbers are concerned. So I think those elements are pretty positive. But I'm dying to know your thoughts, Tony. What are your thoughts about either Teen Pinball as a company or the Mafia as a game? The whole former Highway Pinball employees thing is a red flag.
    34:16
    Why? Because they're former Highway Pinball employees. But Tony, that means they've learned from all the mistakes of Highway Pinball, doesn't it? Oh, I would hope so, but we don't really know. I'm not going to smash them just because of what happened to their previous employer. It's not necessarily their fault.
    34:42
    We'll see how this turns out. But it's a red flag that has me watching. There are some hopeful things. The 100 machine limit, the acting like an actual boutique instead of walking in out of nowhere and being completely unknown and just like, we're going to kill Stern. Huh, that's our job. I like that. They're actually doing it what I would consider the smart way. The price? It's boutique, Tony. I know it's boutique. Handcrafted. These people and their families have been assembling. They built 10 machines already. Yeah, that's wonderful. And if they all handcrafted and it all perfect and everything good great on them And again it something to be hopeful for But at the same time it a lot of money for an unknown
    35:39
    The fact that the current king of the boutiques is Spooky, and they're not even up to that price point yet. and looking from Spooky's first game to the Spooky's newest game, you can see the growth throughout. And they're still not up to the price point this is starting at. And if this rolls out at this price point and it looks and plays and feels like America's Most Haunted, that's going to be a pretty big smack to the face.
    36:18
    I do like that it's Raspberry Pi driven. I like the possibilities that that opens up in the future. I like, okay, like is a strong word. I don't mind that it's a single-level play field. Because, again, I think Total Nuclear Annihilation is an amazing game. And it's a single-level play field. I've been playing several of your street-level games. And I've enjoyed all of them. so I don't have as big of a push as some people do about needing all the ramps and the extra levels and the specials and this and that. If a game plays good and it's fun to play which is all stuff we have no idea about, that's all that matters.
    37:04
    I'm sure we're going to hear more about it soon. I'm sure that as things move ahead that we'll be able to get a much better look at things and I'm hopeful for the hobby that for once, just once, one of these things will work out.
    37:24
    And I'll say, as I've said time and time and time again, don't pre-order anything. Just don't. It's not worth it.
    37:36
    I like the part where you said like is a strong word, which is like the most mild way to express some pleasure on something. I like it.
    37:48
    Let me ask you this question, though, because you had good points. Do you think Team Venba will sell all 100 of the target number of the Mafia? I think they will sell all 35 targeted for the United States. I think them selling the other 65 is probably likely, but I would put a time frame of upwards of two years for it. Okay. I could be wrong. Maybe things have changed. Maybe things have gone different. But as I recall, although this is going from my memory, I do not have the pinball knowledge and the pinball deep diving and stuff that you have. But as I recall, they only did like 125 or 150 America's Most Haunted. 150. and they didn't even sell out of all of those until the Rob Zombie announcement? I don't know when they sold out. It sounded like originally there wasn't a cap, and then they made the decision to install a cap, and then they sold pretty quickly after the fact, I think starting with Texas Pinball Festival. That I don't know when Rob, I don't remember when Rob Zombie was announced. So maybe with it coming out that there is a cap, maybe people will snap them up faster. I think that's the plan. I just think that their sales might not be as fast due to the fact of who they are and what they're coming from. Now, the theme seems to me kind of like a pretty workable, old-school kind of pinball theme. And the art from the pictures I saw was really kind of cool. Yeah, I liked it. So it's going to all boil down to Is the gameplay good Or is this I mean With the art package and everything else And a single level Unless the gameplay is insane This is too much I mean You're looking at $7,500 And I can get A TNA for $6 Pre-shipping But the $7,500 is pre-shipping too Right. And I can see at the collector market level the desire to grab. Oh, there's only going to be 100 of them. I've got to get it in my collection. but from the level of most what I would consider most players and most casual hobby owners it's like this is going to have to be amazing for me to spend an extra $1,500 to get over this game that's all there is to it we'll see I think the price point is high for trying to break into the market it's uh yeah well I mean I like a lot about this. I think it's good for the hobby. But I think it's good for the hobby for a lot of experimental reasons. So let me give, I guess, a few of my concerns.
    41:00
    And I'll open it with, I don't think they sell all 100. I think this is the test case that will fail. And it will show that you cannot just put out a pinball machine that's playable and put any price you want on it. And as long as it's limited, it will sell out. I think they will not sell 100. I have no problem seeing them. I don't think they will sell 100 because I think it's too common at 100 units at too high of a price for gameplay that so far does not appear to be compelling enough. Now, as you noted, I have single-level games. Over half of my collection is single-level.
    41:41
    I was going to say in one way or another. They're all single-level. A couple are street level, a couple are just older games that are single level games. This game is making a lot of mistakes in my view. It is a layout which I feel I could do better, and I'm not a designer. I don't think it's a bad layout. They tried to... All right, let me talk a little bit about single level. As a fan, let me go so far as to say as a connoisseur of single level, So let me tell you what the most important thing is with what I think makes single-level work. The best single-level games are games where you feel like there's a lot to shoot for, even though there aren't ramps or multiple play fields. You need to cram that sucker full of shots. Full of shots. Now, it's not particularly important, but if you were to, of my single-level games, of the four I have, which one do you think is the most enjoyable to play?
    42:42
    Silver Slugger. Okay. And for those that don't know, I have a Silver Slugger, a Hoops, a Firepower, and a Superman. Silver Slugger is easily the one with the most shots. Easily. Trudeau crammed that thing. There is not an inch of wasted space. There is something to go for all over the place. They have tried to do this here with the middle area. The middle area, which is led into by a spinner, and then it goes into the three-pop bumper section. That's kind of segmented off, which I respect. It's a good idea. Not the most creative layout, though, and I don't know how fun it's going to be because ball and pops isn't always very fun. Right. So that, I think, was a tremendous mistake. If you wanted to do single level, I think they should have tried to be really creative with it. Do something weird. Like, title fight. Just do something crazy. Maybe it doesn't play very well, but at least it's unique. Yeah. This might shoot okay. The geometry does not look poor to me. But it also looks like there's not a lot to shoot for. How many stand-up targets are on this thing? I think five or six. It's not a lot. Silver Slugger has six stand-ups on the two sides of the game. That's before you consider an entire drop target bank, which this doesn't have. And Silver Slayer has two spinners. Three.
    44:07
    It's got three. It does have three spinners. Yes. And they're awesome. And this might have a fun... I saw some people being really critical of Saw, I should say. I've heard on some other podcasts, people being really critical of the spinners because they're not on the orbits. Guys, not everything needs to be a cookie cutter. This is where I will, once again, I'll defend Team Pinball here. Guys, not everything has to be a cookie cutter spinner placement. If you want a spinner game on Orbitz, you've got plenty of choices. Go buy a Grand Prix, okay? You've got plenty of choices.
    44:40
    There is nothing wrong with putting the spinner in the middle, but I don't know if it's enough. I mean, for example, I think the spinner in the middle on Playmatic's Space Gambler works. I think it's a fun shot. But I don't know if it's clustered as these pops are and just these stand-ups, if this shot's going to work in the same way. It just depends. Here's the thing. I can get you probably a space gambler for under a grand. And that's where this comes into play.
    45:07
    This is like an EM experience at a tremendously high price point, and the only leverage for the price point is the quote-unquote rarity. But it ain't all that rare. This ain't Magic Girl rare with a target number of 25 or less. 100 is not an insignificant number of machines, especially in this day and age. and I think it was a tremendous mistake to go with one ball play. If I were a designer, and I am not, that I could be, if I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express, I am telling you, I would never, ever, ever, even if going for an EM-inspired layout, ever go without multiball. No. You need multiball. And this is, I'm sorry, if you don't want a game with multiball, than there are hundreds of games under $1,000 that you can get in pristine condition because no one played them because there was no multiball. No, there are plenty, from the solid state era even. Bally was turning them out left and right after 81 when they were short on cash and couldn't think of what to do. So they cheaped out left and right. And that's what it looks like, a cheap-out strategy.
    46:16
    That's a captive ball is the other feature besides the spinner. The cheapest device possible. It's a pinball with a switch or a target that gets hit. It's cheap. But don't get me wrong. I think captive balls are fun. But this is not a lot to shoot for. There's one captive ball, and there's one spinner in the middle, and then it's stand-ups. That's it. The three pop bumper, two sling, two flipper coil count thing I did of seven, that is like baby's first pinball instruction set. That is the most common. How many games can you think of that have two flippers, two slings, and three, exactly, three pop bumpers? Most of them. Yep. Most of them. It is so uninspired. So that's where I would criticize it. This is a very high price point. That's going to be the big obstacle. And I'm interested in seeing how this hurry up modes and stuff. It may be really fun to shoot, but given how many people are biased towards wanting multi-level, be it multiple play fields or having ramps, and how many people are biased towards a game that at least gives them a multiball to play around with, this is going to turn off a lot of people regardless of how good the rules are or the art is or even how fun the geometry is. So I don't think they sell all 100. The question is, how many do they need to sell to feel that they're successful and move on to another title? Because I don't know if it's all 100 or not. I would hope not. They're not building all 100 up front. I would hope not. I would hope that they have a plan built in that involves them selling 25 to be considered a successful bid.
    47:55
    Because that would be them going for, I mean, find a better way to put this. If they set it up to be where they would break even to the point where they would not be running at a loss with between 25 and 30 total sales, as long as they're not in some sort of haven't put themselves into the situation where they have to sell like 60 or 70 for sure to not have lost so much money that they can't continue, I think they'd be okay. Yeah, this so far is still more of a hobby operation. Right. It's just a question of, I'm wondering what the threshold is for them to go, oh, okay, it's worth going for a game number two. Versus a, all right, we broke even. Or we made a little bit of money. There's some number there. I don't know if it's the 100. I'm assuming it's less. I would assume. I don't think they're hitting 100. I don't think they can. I don't think there are enough collectors willing to. There has to at least be the perception of value. Right. And that's the test, though. That's why it's good for the hobby. We're going to see if it's the exclusivity alone enough. Because there are some collectors out there like that, but I don't think most of them are. And I agree with you. I don't think there's 100 of them. Now, here's a thought.
    49:20
    If they left the numbers at 100, but the game was five grand, do you think they'd sell all 100? I don't know. I think I don't think the price is the barrier at that point but the question would come down to the gameplay and if it got a really bad reputation because that's the issue with even look at Rob Zombie I know the prices have fallen on the used market I think it trades lower than it did new in box well it's a terrible game but versus America's Most Haunted which goes for more than new in box it's normal for games to sell for less use. That's not weird. It's a question of, but if you're going for a limited product, most people who are into that are thinking, well, since it's a limited run, this should gain value over time. It's part of that investor mentality. And so I think that they could, I think they could relatively easily, my speculation would be, I think they'd relatively easily hit the 100 initial sales if the game was at 5,000 because that puts it down beneath everything except Thunderbirds. So then that just comes down to which game plays better. And I've not played either of them. I've heard Thunderbirds plays pretty bad. But if this game outplays it, maybe that's enough. Maybe that's enough. I don't know. When you look under the hood at this thing, here's the last episode we were on, we were with Mrs. Penn, and I mentioned the whole comparison on Silver Slugger and Hoops. This thing makes Hoops look full-featured when you lift up that playfield. And that's... This is stripped. I mean, this could almost... Other than the price, and maybe the playfield dimensions are standard size, I'm getting into my little rabbit holes of what exactly is street level. But this is way more Spartan than the street level series was in terms of mechs and features. I understand the price. I look at this and I'm just thinking, you have no advantage over street level. Gottlieb's attempt to sell cheap games. The only reason you have her offering the high dollar sticker price is the exclusivity. That's what they're hinting at.
    51:31
    It's an interesting experiment, so let's enjoy watching it for that purpose. It makes no sense to have something like that that costs that kind of money. That's why I think most collectors will look at this and they'll hard pass. I think most collectors actually want to play the game. And I just think this sort of EM experience just at this price point is not going to fly. You could get a fully restored EM for less than this. Right. And then you also got to figure in, if they're using a Raspberry Pi, they've already brought some of the price of materials way down. Oh, you look at this game and you can tell that there's no – you look at it, where's the money? They have a monitor in the back, but that's cheaper than a DMD. Right. And so there's that, and then there's the color-changing RGB throughout the play field. And as I went on this little tear, hopefully I didn't upset people when I was over at Carrie's, but I mocked that, how pinball people, there's probably lots of people, but how pinball people eat that crap up like it's somehow expensive. Color-changing RGBs are, you can get Christmas lights like that now. It's silly to think that it's, they get convinced that it's like $5 a bulb or something. I think a lot of people are still stuck in the old school mindset when we first started seeing LEDs and color change and this and that, when it was like, oh, yeah, it's cool, but it's so pricey. It's like, seriously, if I wanted to, if I was that guy, I could go to Ikea, right? Already, since I'm going to Ikea, I'm going to be paying more for these than if I went to Amazon and hunted down them. And I could just bling out RGB all over my computer desk and be out like 75 bucks. Yeah. I have, for my virtual pinball, I have color-changing RGB ribbon that just runs. That's where all the ground effects are from. Yeah. The only thing that the RGB adds in terms of complication on pinball machines is the need for additional wires to the lighting. Because it's not just turn on, turn off. You have to control the three colors. Right. That get blended together. But now they've got so many controllers that you put everything together and then it wirelessly connects to your phone. It looked really clean when I looked at the photos of the mafia. I'm not critical of how they laid it out or anything. I'm just saying that these are the things that people might identify as being high value. Stand-up targets are always associated with being the cheap substitute to drops. Sometimes I think stand-ups are better to have. I think Firepower is a better game for having stand-ups. I think it's more brutal. But that's debated. Yeah. But I totally agree that, yeah, it always shows that you put more money into your product when you use drops. So it is what it is. But, I mean, when you look at this bill of materials, and you're not even at the cheapest of the – you're so Spartan compared to street level. Street level of all things. The cheapies.
    54:34
    I mean, what else are you going to compare it to? I mean, the only EM example I can think of in the modern era was Capcom's Classic line, which they only made Breakshot of. But Breakshot had a multiball and more features than this. So, I mean, EM had fancy stuff.
    54:52
    CardWiz is more fancy than this. And CardWiz is a good game, but, I mean, it's just, you look at CardWiz and you're like, there's more money in CardWiz than there is in this. But CardWiz, inflation adjusted, is not remotely near $7,500. No. No, I think the price point's insane. It is. But anyway, it's good for the hobby. That's my stance. It's good for the hobby. I'm starting to wonder if there's actually anything that's good for the hobby. Oh, there's plenty. Let's talk about the next thing that you might think is good for the hobby, or you might not. And that is Stern Pinball has acquired the Godzilla license. This is good for the hobby. Okay. It appears that this is specifically Toho's Godzilla license. This is great for the hobby. And so I wanted your thoughts, because I know you are a big Godzilla fan. The way this was presented in This Week in Pinball was, there was the, we knew that Spooky Pinball had gone to a convention, and they had noted that they did not acquire the Godzilla license. According to This Week in Pinball, there was a bidding war, and Stern won the license. Of course they're going to win a bidding war. No one's surprised that if there's a bidding war, if Stern wants to win, they're going to win over anyone. I think that's pretty much a given. However, there's been a lot of discussion because some of it had to do, I think, with This Week in Pinball's phrasing about it being a bidding war and that they got it from spooky pinball. And the reason why there's that phrasing, that context, is that Charlie, who runs Spooky, is a huge Godzilla fan. His very first custom pin was, I believe, re-theming Firepower 2 into a true Godzilla game. And he really, really, really wanted the Godzilla license. And after this information came out that Stern was the one who acquired it, he did have a post on, I believe, Pinside, which was, I felt it came across as somewhat backhanded to Stern, sort of saying that they had passed on licenses and told other license holders that Stern was a better fit for them and that, you know, they kind of expected some quid pro quo, but they didn't get it here. and, oh well, business lesson learned sort of phrasing. I'm paraphrasing, so apologies for the inaccuracies in it. But a lot of the discussion has been, wow, this is such a dick move because everyone knows Spooky loves Godzilla. Spooky should have Godzilla because Charlie is a huge Godzilla fan. He's the biggest Godzilla fan there is. So some feel that Stern did this on purpose to screw with Spooky. and other people think it was just business and then other people think why Godzilla at all so you're a Godzilla fan you've mentioned that you like the idea of Stern having the Godzilla license what are your thoughts Stern vs Spooky having it from maybe a practical standpoint or an emotional standpoint and the idea of it working as a theme I know some of the motivation may be that there is another Godzilla movie coming out and so even monsters comes out next year the trailers so whether it would be based on something new or there could still be timing value Stern put out Ghostbusters classic Ghostbusters but it was launched around when the female Ghostbusters movie was coming out so there was at least still some name association so I could see that being in play but anyway I've rambled on enough about it you're the Godzilla expert not me my primary reason that I would prefer it to Stern over Spooky has nothing to do with the fan with who's the bigger fan or who's doing this or who's trying to, it's just that as much as people love them most of the Spooky games I've played haven't been that good.
    58:59
    Okay, I would agree with you, but I mean you want me to, let me complicate it for you a little bit. What if Godzilla was going to be the Denise number two design because it's known that he is doing another design for Spooky.
    59:13
    In that case, I would have been fine with it. I know you love Total Nuclear Annihilation. I would have been fine with that.
    59:20
    Go on. It's an interesting one. For me, it's about I want the game to hopefully be as good as possible.
    59:29
    Based upon history and I'm not judging based upon Alice Cooper yet because I've only played a little bit. And I know there's been changes going on in this and that. We'll see how it goes. But the QC and everything I've seen in the other spookies we've actually played have been not very happy.
    59:51
    So that's why I'm more interested in Stern having it. I think Stern has the better chance to make it good. and as something that I grew up with and something that I love, having the best chance to have it come out and be as good as possible is important to me.
    60:13
    Because this is one of those games that would fall to me completely under a, oh, okay, I want this game. I don't know. It's Godzilla. I bloody want a Godzilla game.
    60:26
    I'm not the hugest Godzilla fan. When I was at KU, one of my history professors was the biggest Godzilla fan I've ever met, simply because he wrote a very large book about Godzilla and the Godzilla fandom and got it published. and when you entered his office he's a history professor but all three of the walls around his office and his desk were covered in Godzilla merch everything he was awesome but when it comes to something like that I think the theme has a lot to do with the interest in the game so as long as it's got a good designer and the game plays well it'll be amazing and it'll be double amazing because of the theme for me that's why I prefer Stern to have it because I think Stern has the better chance to make it the better game I agree with you actually I agree with you on almost all of your points the design there's not a bad playfield designer at Stern I respect Borg I respect Steve Ritchie I respect Keith Elwin has proven his chops They bring him back Brian Eddy. Imagine Brian, Attack from Mars, but Godzilla. I mean, I'm assuming it wouldn't be a cookie cutter. I'd like him. I need this. I'll be right back. I'll be, I'll be. Yeah. So, and, and so you've got, yeah, you've just got all of these play field designers that have all had very, very successful games with Stern with, I threw out the scenario to make it interesting about Denise, but I don't, I don't think they give him Godzilla. I don't think so either. And so, based off of I hate to bring it back up again, but Rob Zombie, I don't like this doesn't happen much, because most people agree with me, but I really don't like it when I get that almost, sometimes I've found some people with Rob Zombie, and people's tastes are subjective, but some people will take the Rob Zombie thing and they're almost patronizing about it. It's just that if you don't like it, you don't like hard games. Rob Zombie's a hard game?
    62:37
    Exactly. I didn't realize that center ramp all day long was a hard game. Exactly. When it's a shot that I, the player who, if I was at Pemburg this weekend, I'd be in, like, the triple Q division, could hit center ramp all day long on Rob Thomas. Sure. I think it's a mixed thing. It can be hard. The ball is, once you get control, center ramp all day, ball control can be difficult if you break shots on it. So I can acknowledge that. I'm not saying it's an easy game to have full ball control on, But it's not a good game. And the dislike for the game, for most people, I think has nothing to do with the ease or the difficulty. It had to do with the geometry and the rules.
    63:21
    And so I really worry, even if you're a super fan, when I hear about a super fan on something, I don't immediately think that they're going to do a good job. What I would think is the toys would probably be awesome and stuff. The look would be there. The aesthetic would scream Godzilla. I think that would all, I'm pretty confident that that could be executed. I think every single machine Spooky has put out, the art package and the look of the machine, everything, from the side art to the play field to the back. They've done amazing on all of that. They are excellent at putting together the packages that look really, really good. but the play's not there. It's, most of them, yeah. I have to say it's felt lacking. And another risk that I would see is if you're a super fan of it, would they go overboard on the bill of materials? Oh, yeah, probably. And the price be really, really high on the game. What would the limit, they like to do the limited run thing. How limited would it be? Would that make it difficult to get the play? I mean, from a Kansas City selfish standpoint, none of the operators buy spooky games anymore. Nope. So, if I want to play it, it needs to be Jersey Jack or Sturff, because I probably won't get to play it otherwise. I mean, just other than at a show. Right. I mean, being honest, everyone loves Total Nuclear Annihilation, and we can't get anyone to commit to bringing one in, because they think that it will be down all the time. And there's just, you can't unring that bell. Rob Zombie rung that bell. I'm sorry. of the end. Well, there were issues with AFM too. Not AFM, but American Most High. Yeah, but they didn't have them on route. Maybe some of the operators had experience with it, though, in their own collections. But regardless, the reputation is what it is, and that affects our ability to play. And if I were to buy, the money side affects my ability to buy. So, from a player, from a fan standpoint, I don't really care who has it, but there are certain advantages to Stern having it for someone who's not as passionate for someone like me. But anyway, it's generated a lot of drama. I don't think it was a slight at Charlie, though. I think Stern is all business and that they think that there's potential to move this. Now, they bought the license just to sit on it. Well, yeah, that was different. In that case, I'll revise my statement and say, yeah, I think they did it just to deprive Spooky of a license. But I really question the long-term effectiveness of a company doing things like that. I mean, there's so many good licenses. I mean, the first thing that a lot of people are like, why don't Spooky just do Gamera?
    66:16
    Soho has Gamera now also. Go and get the Gamera license. It'd be better. See? That's right. Don't get me wrong. He's made of turtle meat. I love Godzilla, but Gamera's awesome. Yeah. I have to admit, I'd be really interested to see Gamera too. But, hey, you know what? The point being is there are lots and lots of licenses like this. Or go and talk to Del Toro and try and do Pacific Rim. You know, there's all sorts of kaiju things you could do. It doesn't have to be Godzilla. You could do a great job with any of them. Yeah. So, anyway. Moving on. Next news talk. We have a number of news talks here. We only have two left, though.
    66:55
    This one's brief. Chicago Gaming Company. They have finally confirmed that remake number three is Monster Bash. The information was leaking out anyway because people had sleuthed the license acquisition through the governmental tracking sites. So this has surprised no one. No images or details yet other than there will be three iterations, just like there were of an attack from Mars. What are your thoughts? I'm not surprised. I thought this was pretty much expected what the next one to be was probably going to be. People were starting to doubt themselves because it was supposed to be unveiled at Texas. Right. So, given it's been delayed by half a year, everyone was starting to second guess and go, maybe they had trouble getting the Universal Monsters. Maybe it's Cactus Canyon now and they were working on the code and that's what took so long. I mean, so there are a lot of people that were filling themselves with self-doubt.
    67:49
    Monster Master is a great game. Yeah. And I liked the tiers of machines they did on the AFM remake. Mm-hmm. and I'm sure that the tiers are going to be the same general type thing. They're going to kick out. The letter abbreviations suggest it. Yeah, and I'm sure they will do great. As great as Attack for Mars? No, no, let's not get crazy. Well, no, I expect that it'll start to. They did the easy low-hanging fruit. Right, yeah. It's not going to be, but they'll sell plenty. As long as they didn't massively mess something up, it'll do well. Okay. Let's hit the last news item then. Dutch Pinball, your favorite company to talk about. Hey, it's your favorite company to talk about. I'm going to tell you why. Not yet. Here's what the latest newsletter indicates. Dutch's attorney is on vacation until the end of August. But before he went on vacation, he did submit a reply to the ARA claim. And I guess it was large, like over 100 pages. ARA has reached out to Dutch's attorney to see if they can enter into discussions regarding an out-of-court settlement. And Dutch has agreed to that. So at the end of August, there is a meeting on the books where they're supposed to talk about and see if they can reach an out-of-court settlement.
    69:09
    Dutch, also in the newsletter, indicated that they've been receiving more refund requests recently, but they cannot afford to do them. and that all the stuff they were selling on their website was to fund their attorney. That's what that money was for. As an interesting side note, though, I want to also specify that Dutch has indicated that the money thing is so dire, they've even stopped paying themselves a salary as of January of this year. Oh, so they only had everything falling apart and then lying to everybody for six months before they decided to stop paying their own salaries. Look, I'm not here to judge. I'm just here to commentate. which is a form of judgment.
    69:50
    Let me go on. They indicated if people seeking refunds or running to their various partners, like, I guess, Universal with the license and such, that it could make them go bankrupt, and that means no one gets anything. So please just trust them and their attorney to do the right thing and quit trying to go around and cause trouble, Tony. No. And they did say that they do, in fact, still have the license to the Big Lebowski. It has not expired yet. I did think it was very interesting that this newsletter did not initially hit the pin-side thread on the Big Lebowski like it normally does. Apparently, the pre-orderers, or they call themselves the early achievers, have gotten the forum to set them up a private thread where all the early achievers can talk amongst themselves and be shielded from public view and criticism. But, unsurprisingly, the information leaked out in pretty short order, like within a couple hours. So, what are your thoughts, Tony?
    70:56
    They are literally holding their what did you say it was the early achievers The early achievers the pre And I want to specify a number of them have felt that this newsletter is good news So go on Go on with what mean thing you were going to say This is probably good for the hobby, too. Just go on. Tell me why it's not. Tell me. They're literally holding a knife to the pre-order's throat. Well, they're figuratively holding a knife to the pre-order's throat. They're figuratively holding the knife to the pre-order's throat. It's, stop asking for your money back or else you don't get nothing. I mean, this is so... But it was always implied, I felt, in the other newsletter. It was implied in the other newsletter. But it's to the point they've had to go from implying it to flat out saying it. This is like so sad, death gasp, falling, just destruction that I feel bad for the people with pre-orders, the early achievers, the, we're a family podcast, so half the words that come to my mind I don't want to use. are just getting boned terribly badly. And we've all known it. We've said it. It's not like it's a secret that they've been just getting completely screwed. But now the company is literally stepping up and they're saying, you shut up, you sit down, I will do what I want, when I want, and if you're lucky, maybe I'll give you something. Wow. That's what it is. This is literally, this is that episode of Cops where you see the lady running out, blood running down her nose, holding her broken arm and her black eye going, but I love him. Don't put him in jail. I love him. That's what this is.
    73:03
    And people are happy. They think this is good news. I don't. All right. No. The reason why. All right. A couple of clarifications. First, I believe, this is an assumption, but I believe the reason why that mention about the don't go around to the other partners thing has come up is reports did come out publicly that some of the other early achievers have successfully gotten refunds. And there have been complaints that they're not fully spilling the beans on how they did it. The response from some of them has been, there's nothing more to say. We just really ratcheted up the threats, basically. Yeah. So there's not like a guide to here's how you always can get a refund. But there have been repeated multiple accounts of people that have been able to leverage something and convince Dutch that it's better to pay them out than to keep them in. So that might be a way to try and kind of discourage that. The other aspect as to why they seem to have a number of early achievers who were excited is that thing about the out-of-court settlement. Some of them have taken that and have left to the conclusion that this means ARA has, in the face of seeing the 100-plus page response from Dutch Pinball's attorney, acknowledged that they don't have a case. They're going to try and settle so that they don't get destroyed in court. And that's where the excitement comes from. But I love him! I think that, at least in U.S. courts, it is completely standard to do an attempt at an out-of-court settlement. When I went to small claims court with my ongoing – before the garnishment stuff, when I first went there, most of the people had the debtor – or at the time, the defendant and the plaintiffs show up. And what did the judge do? Told all of them to go out and talk before making him, or at that time it was her, make a decision that you should try and work it out. And they had mediators on staff to help people try and reach compromises. Because all court systems would rather you settle than go through the entire long, extensive process. I don't think this means anything other than ARA did their action. They got their response. Let's see if we can sit down and work something out. Doesn't mean Aura's terms have changed from when they wanted 51% of the company. No. It might mean that their terms have changed and they're willing to negotiate and just take 90% now. Who knows? It could be anything. But that's what they seem to have latched on to. And the reason why this newsletter was not initially put out because there were early achievers who were saying, basically asking, don't post this in the public thread. In the public thread, they were saying this was because they knew the naysayers, and they would call you a naysayer, Tony, would latch on to that whole, oh, well, they only stopped paying themselves this year and use that as an argument that they squandered money and that this is a negative.
    76:06
    It is a negative. Yeah, it is. There isn't a positive in here. Out-of-court settlements happen all the time, especially with corporations at that level. It's all the whole, we've got attorneys and we're suing you. It's a threat. And the whole point of the threat is to pull them into arbitration and out-of-court settlement. Neither side wants to go to the courts. They want to figure out something that they can settle in arbitration outside. That's what they really want. The courts are just the baseball bat that forces the other side to come to the plate and actually talk. That's all this is. This is, no, full on, completely convinced at this point that these people who are so defending this and think stuff like this is a good thing are, you know, battered spouses who don't know anybody. You feel there's some delusion.
    77:03
    Yeah. Okay. well that's it for news see you proved me wrong I would love to be proven wrong at some point about this when it comes to the end I don't think that's going to happen but I don't think it's going to happen get your hopes up Tony oh my hopes aren't up there are plenty of people I think everyone can tell that I think everyone is well aware of your stance on this situation if they weren't sure from the last year and a half of our discussions I think you probably articulated it fairly pointedly by this point. So let's talk about something a little happier, or at least as just as crazy. That is creative pinball rules. Okay. So this was some stupid idea that popped into my head after... Gosh, we're missing Steve a lot today, right? So Steve Hill... Steve is our non-existent, not actually here guest. Steve should have been guest host, but he's out at Pinberg right now. But, alright, Steve is one of our... He's a top area player. He's really, really knowledgeable on rules, and we get into discussions on Facebook from time to time, often talking about pinball-related topics. Well, out of the blue, he shared with me a link to a YouTube channel called The Dragon's Tomb, which I have a link to in the show notes. It's really, really good. And what the guy who does The Dragon's Tomb does is he takes a tabletop or a board game, and he reinvents the rules to it. It's totally deadpan. The latest one is Battleship. where... Oh, I was going to say that one. Yeah, it's the latest one. And in Battleship, instead of, as everyone probably listening should hopefully know, in Battleship, you call out the letters and you're trying to sink all the battleships. In his version of Battleship, they all start in a row, and it's a race. And you have vanilla and cherry popsicles, and you're using sugar rushes to try and get the ships to... And he makes them all out into a full set of rules that, in theory, actually you could play the game that way. It would be a terrible game, but you could play it that way. And so I thought, that's a really cool idea. I'm not creative, so let me feel that and see if I could do something sort of like that for pinball. But my thinking was, instead of changing all the rules in the pinball machine, instead to toy around with the themes themselves and just kind of misinterpret the themes. So what I did is, as of yesterday, and there will be a link in the show notes, I kind of put together a pilot episode using Atari's Superman. and I'm not going to spoil it it's really stupid I don't know what I'm going to do anymore I called it a pilot episode but I'm sitting there looking at it I'm like I don't like talking in the camera I don't know what to do with my hands I just have my hands clasped that actually worked for this specific thing the way you had your hands clasped and sitting in front of you and that's kind of what he does no no no the look you were giving the camera and everything It came off really well for this specific thing. Now, if you were doing like a vlog or a daily talk or trying to talk, it probably would have come off a little rough. I didn't have my pipe, so I couldn't just sit there. So I completely misinterpret the point of Superman, and I misdescribed the rules. The rules are actually what you do want to shoot for. I went ahead and stuck with that. But what you were doing I described wrongly. So it's only a few minutes long. But anyway, I threw it together, and I just thought, I really liked the idea, and once I wrote the script, I was pretty pleased with the script, and then the whole process sucked balls. Holy crap. If I were to do any more, I needed to do it with someone else to help me, because it was like I had to take a stack of Xbox 360 games to get my camera up high enough, and I can't see it because I'm not doing it in selfie mode, so I'm not stutter on the video. and then I'd record and then I'd see, well, that's wrong. I need to change this. And I'm trying to read and then it's just like, no, I can't. I'm just going to have to memorize the script. And it's like, what am I, an actor now? I didn't go into that. Act two. That's being sex. So that was Creative Pinball Rules.
    81:14
    Link in the show notes. I enjoyed it. Okay. Well, I'm hoping you'll enjoy this final pinball segment we have. Yeah, I liked this when I was going through our notes and putting stuff together. This is inspired by Mrs. Pin. thank you Mrs. Penn you have inspired me and so my inspiration is we're going to play another we're going to play a game and I because again I'm not creative I'm stealing this from a video game podcast I used to listen to called the Link Cable Podcast Don used to be a host on that show and they used to play 20 questions at the end except I hated how they did it and that's not why I quit listening I had to quit listening because one of them was always recording from a helicopter and I couldn't hear him so the But I thought it was a really cool idea, and so what I'm going to do is I will have a pinball machine. And Tony, for those who aren't familiar with 20 questions, is you get to have 20 guesses. Right. Here are the basic rules in terms of how I thought it was reasonable to work it out. All the questions are yes or no. That's standard 20-question rule. Each guess of the answer does require a question. So remember to at least leave the 20th question to name a machine.
    82:30
    I'm not going to ever ask you to distinguish between like a pro and a premium LE. It's not going to be that nitpicky. So don't worry about that.
    82:40
    But understand that if you ask about like a feature or something and it's on one of those versions, I may say yes or no. It just depends whichever one I'm using as the example. I am going to say I do my – it's not going to be a total gotcha. It will be a game you've played, at least at a show. So if I don't know if you've ever played the game, I'm not going to name it. But if I know you've played it, regardless of how many times, it's in contention. Okay? Okay. And I may ask for clarification if your question is too open-ended.
    83:16
    It won't consume – any clarification stuff doesn't consume points. So I just wanted to make that clear. And finally, I'm going to say the game is going to be closed book for the first 15. But if you want to start doing searches on the last five questions, I'll allow it. Okay. Because the goal is for you to get it. I know I don't want you to get it, but I want you to feel like you had everything. You want me to feel like I had a real chance. But I don't, you know, it's too easy with searching because unlike with video games, there's so few in any given manufacturer or any given year. that it becomes very easy to start using a lot of questions to rapidly narrow, especially if I were to do more modern stuff. So anyway, so that's the stuff. Let me go to my page because naturally I could not put the game in the show notes. Yeah. You just put a little note here that says, ha-ha, no notes. Yeah, ha-ha, no notes. Okay, so, and don't worry, I'll keep hashtags here as well to keep track of the question count. Tony, whenever you're ready, ask your first question. Do you own it? No. Is it a stern? No. Is it a gauntlet? Yes. Was it from the 90s? Yes. Was it in our worst games of the late 90s poll?
    84:34
    No. 15 questions left. There's lots of dead air here because I'm trying to think. Every question I think of, it's a yes or no. That might all get edited out, so don't fret about the dead air. I usually tighten that stuff up when it's too long. I didn't on some of the Mrs. Penn stuff because it needed to, like when she goes Bueller, I needed to let that in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of the other ones I trimmed up because no one wants to listen to that. See, I'm considering it. Did your podcast, did my podcast player stop working?
    85:04
    Is it from the early 90s, 90 to 95? Yes. Has it been on location here in Kansas City for tournament play?
    85:16
    That's a very broad question, Tony. I'd have to say I can't answer because I don't know. Because I haven't been to all tournaments. Has it been on location in Kansas City when we've been somewhere together?
    85:31
    No. Did I enjoy the game? I can't answer your personal reaction. Is it Stargate? No. Is it science fiction themed? No. Is it pool themed? No You have half your questions consumed 10 to go Is it licensed? No Should have asked that one first That would have saved me like 5 questions Is it sports themed? Yes Is it street level?
    86:11
    No Does Todd own it? I don't know everything that he owns Okay That makes sense. I said I don't want to burn a question on you where I don't know what he's got in storage or what's in... Understandable. Did we play it in Texas?
    86:31
    Yes. Gosh, we played so many games. And note that you didn't say which year of Texas, so I've included all of them. Yeah, I figured.
    86:42
    I just didn't want to burn three questions on you. No, no. It at least lets you know something. This is totally not a question for that. Okay, that's fine.
    86:52
    Once this is figured out, am I going to kick myself for not realizing this almost instantly? I don't think kick yourself for almost instantly, no. Well, that's good at least. Does it have more than two flippers? Yes. Five questions left.
    87:08
    Does that mean I can go to outside help now? We've got four questions. Yeah. I'm thinking I may have to pull that rule in the future, but it's definitely allowed this time. Because that cuts it down a lot I've cut it down a lot As you're supposed to With all these things I think you did good going with a Gottlieb Because Gottliebs are the ones I know the least Like off the top of my head Right Because I've got a couple of ideas But one of them I'm pretty sure isn't actually a Gottlieb I just can't remember I may have to put a search time limit on it Well yeah no no Yeah that's understandable The problem is I'm looking at all these games and I'm like I haven't played that game And you said it wasn't one of those Is it Gladiator? No Four questions Interesting God, they put out so many games that I didn't play.
    88:20
    Yeah, this is definitely one you should take out the ability to let me look it up. Though I would have thought this would have cut it down. Is it teed off? It is teed off. You got it on the 17th question. Teed off. Good job. I actually, without the ability to look it up, I wouldn't have gotten that one because I wasn't thinking Teed Off was Gottlieb for some reason. Oh, okay. It had crossed my mind, but I dismissed it because I wasn't thinking it was Gottlieb. Yep. It was a couple of years after the Street Level series was over. It has three flippers, so that meant that part. Obviously, it's a sports theme and it's not pool. So it meant that.
    89:02
    1993 being in the early 90s. Yep. Premier Technology, which ran the Gottlieb brand. So met that criteria. And I think everything else was narrowing down from other various things that relate to all of that. So that's kind of how it fit. So there you go, folks. That was our game.
    89:21
    17. So you got it. Yeah. I definitely wouldn't have gotten that without the ability to look on Pennside. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's one I didn't know of you. I figured it was one you'd remember playing. I remember playing it, but I didn't remember that it was a gauntlet. I was thinking it was somebody else. for some reason. I don't know why because it's so terrible. Of course it was a copy. Yeah. And that's why I had to hedge where he was like, did I like it? It's like, not that I remember you doing it. What do I know? In your mind, who knows? Who knows what you thought? Just like, I don't know if Todd happens to have one in storage. He definitely doesn't have it in his playing room. See, that's what I should have asked if it was in the playing room.
    90:05
    Okay. It still wouldn't have helped because, yeah. I've so blocked that game out. Even if I'd asked, is it a golf game, it would have taken me a while to think of it. Because I just... I thought, at least once it came to the searching, once you knew the manufacturer and that it was a sport, that you probably... In a five-year range. Yeah, even if it was a ten-year range, you could probably, in theory, go down there. As long as the names were obvious enough that they were sports, you'd probably have gotten it. Because most of them, I was like... Because that's what I was looking at. It was like sports, sports, sports, sports. I've never played that one. Right. And that's a complication with the game. Like, if I were to do one that was like, if I used the year 2000, there were only two pinball machines. Right. So, if you let people look, that's the part I had to do. But I thought for the first time we should do it so that there was a, all chances were in your favor. So, you did it. Yay! You still have questions to go. Good job, Tony. So, we're ready for the video game segment. We're going into video games. And I thought the first one we should start with was one that you wanted to discuss, and this way Don will have to mute it for a little bit. Sorry, Don. And then have to come back. Not so sorry, Don. Not going to be convenient. That would be Overwatch League because it just wrapped up yesterday. Yep. All that's left is the All-Star Game at the end of August. And like the All-Star Game and every other sport, nobody actually cares. Yep. It's just for fun. Right. so I was curious to hear from you your thoughts on not just how things have ended because I know we've lightly touched on League shortly after it started and like all things Overwatch we've tried to avoid it since but with how big of an impact this seems to be having on esports in total and how big of an impact I know it had for us on our time and everything. I thought it would be good to get a good overview for the whole season. What you and I both think of it. How we think things are going in the future. And of course just how the way it's run. What works and what we think could stand some changes. Okay. So I thought I'd open it up. and one of the things that I know had a major effect on your chosen team to root for is how they changed the meta or how they changed the game based upon the patches that have been released so unlike some older esports like League of Legends where the rules have not changed in like years and all that's out is new players or Counter-Strike Go, where literally nothing has changed in 15 years. It's a continuously evolving and changing meta, and things that work well for a team and work well for all teams in one stage, when they go to another stage and the meta changes, might not necessarily work. And personally, well actually, before I get into that, I want to ask you what your thoughts are on having the multiple stages in the season, the meta changing throughout the season, as opposed to having just one solid meta for the whole season. What you think and what you feel about that? I'm fine with it. I think four stages is a bit long. It's probably my issue. It just, it feels really, really long. and I guess it's okay because I know part of my issue was I would often just watch that night. If I was only watching my own team, it wouldn't be a big deal. Right.
    93:54
    I'm okay with that because my thinking is it's not the goal to constantly change the meta. And other sports don't have to deal with that. But that being said, you want the most balanced version and a game that's a game So it's evolving, it lives, new characters come in, new maps come in. And I think those sort of things need to come into play. So, I mean, when they started it, did we really want Stage 1 Mercy meta to be the meta for the entire season where everyone was playing the exact same team comp constantly? And it was just about who better get back from their losses because of all the resing that was going on? It wasn't the most enjoyable to watch. the only real objection and yeah, the New York XL had trouble adapting away from Dive, but that's their own fault, they should have practiced it more and started playing Minecraft when they were sitting on top, that was their decision you know, they're used to choking out at the end, that was their rep before they got into the league my one thing where I do strongly object to what they did was stage 4 however that Hanzo meta that was on the live server for 48 hours should never have been the stage 4 patch. Where you had old school Hanzo with his scatter arrow and but you had all the other changes it seemed and it was barely live at all. It should they should have adopted whatever is on the live servers, on the live competitive. That should be whatever is going in my view. Should be the stage meta. And from the press releases I've read that was a big complaint, and there was a lot of stuff they heard about it, and it sounds like that's going to be what they are targeting. Okay. It was ridiculous because they had plenty of time. That's the thing. I know the excuse they gave, but they had plenty of time to fix it because there was something that made the, there was supposed to have been something in it in the latest patch that was causing issues that made it non-viable for tournament play. I did hear about that. But they have time to fix this That stinks but you know what They were okay with pushing that out off of the PTR Onto the live server And I think that's completely on Blizzard So if you're willing to do that I think that should be what's the stage meta Otherwise no I was fine with it The game That's going to slow up as the game matures In theory If they stop adding content That will start to go away But that sort of patching We see that in fighting game tournaments that happen throughout a season, they keep with its full latest patch. So I thought that was fine. Okay. Because I've heard some people, specifically people that I've talked to in person, who are not eSports people and who are not necessarily video games people, but because of how much I've talked about it and because it uses the overall, the per city, each team has a city and they're this and that so it feels to them like a real sport type setup and I had quotation marks going up there when I said that I guess nobody can see it because it's a podcast but for that reason some people looked at it and they gave it a try and when I described and described changes like that a lot of people were like I don't understand how that works why would you change the rules on the game in the middle of a season I think it works I think it's a video game thing that it makes sense I mean, nobody's going to change the rules on baseball between the seasons. And baseball is kind of the sport I equate Overwatch to because of how long it runs and the amount of games played. I think baseball is probably the better tie-in than something like football where there's 16 games over 16 weeks. Because this is six months. They basically played for six months. And they were playing a lot of games a week. And I think that's part of the problem is that I was, like you, a lot of the time, I was watching every game. especially through stage one and stage two.
    98:02
    Stage three and stage four, I was down to the point where I was only watching half the games. I was watching the London Spitfire because they're my chosen team, and I was watching all of the Valiant games because they're my oldest daughter's chosen team.
    98:19
    And even there, we started missing some games. Now, I think some of the problems they had, So on the meta changes and this and that, I'm fine with. I think it's solid, and I don't really see a problem with it, other than the ones you've already said. I do think they could do a little work on some of the other stuff, like some of their gaps between games or between stages. I understand the gaps, but like between stage four and the playoffs was just long enough that I completely forgot about it the first day they came back. Okay. Yeah, that's fair enough. I mean, I didn't completely forget. I knew it was coming up, but I was busy. I had something going on, so I missed it. And that's on me, not on them. I just could see some of their breaks seemed to be a little large at times. But on the other hand, every team is playing twice a week.
    99:19
    So they're playing a lot. And that's like baseball. Well, you can't watch every baseball game because there's a lot of them, and they happen like seven days a week. Yeah. So I think a lot of that's going to be just the fans finding the balance.
    99:35
    From all indications, they did well. They did very well. By the time finals came around and the grand finale came up, they had picked up multiple sponsors. They actually got aired on television. I mean, they went to ESPN, ESPN2 of course, but it's still ESPN. The finals were being aired on Disney XD.
    100:05
    They had some ABC airing. So there was some actual live television sharing, which has happened before in eSports. I know ESPN has aired some of the larger League of Legends tournaments in the past, but for something like this, it's a big step up in the esports world. And I think that it's going to go a long way towards helping esports grow out of the kind of dark shadow. That's not a sport. Why would you watch people play that? It's like, you play darts? You play in dart tournaments You watch dart tournaments Unlike ESPN the Ocho Why are you talking about somebody playing a video game It's the same thing I think it has to do with an interest thing But do you think this is a success That's going to carry on into season 2 Or perhaps even carry on Not just for the Overwatch League But for other esports that have as much of an excitement factor to give them a chance to move from the, hey, we're watching on Twitch little sideshow into the realm of more widely known?
    101:25
    It depends on the game. Because this is a teen game, and so they structured it like a teen sport, that, I think, is what allowed it to drive this organization around the city, I think, was the smart move. and that's not going to work for things like fighting games, for example. And while ESPN has aired the Street Fighter Finals at Evo, I think, in 2017, for example, so you can get those games to have big exposure attention, most video games are 1v1. They're not that team stuff, and I think the 1v1 thing, it's like tennis. There are going to be some people that won't miss a Serena Williams match, but it's just always going to be small potatoes compared to team sport. Right. People are, because more people play on team sports because you don't have to be the greatest at everything. There are different positions, there are different roles. It's just, so, it might, we might see some other, you know, there could be some things. We might see some more play on some of the other shooters, for example. That's the other thing, is it's a popular genre. Yeah. It really helps. Some of the other genres, like real-time strategy, are much more niche in terms of the number of people who play them. But overall, yeah, I think you'll see some other games will ride the coattails of this. But I think if you really want any particular game to grow like we've seen Overwatch grow, the company has to be pushing it. And Blizzard was all in on this. And they really worked it. Really worked it to make it reputable.
    102:58
    I agree with you. And I think they did a good job. They had good PR people. They pushed good PR. I know there was a lot of talk early on about how, especially in stage one, there was a lot of not necessarily as well thought of concerns about it. I heard a lot of this is terrible, yada, yada, yada. Most of it had to do with, like, casting, the casters, and this and that. You can tell how they, it really evolved from, some of the subtle little things like the casters like there was no dress code so they all wore radically different things people were there in shirts or suits and other people were there and it looked like maybe they were walking in off the beach and you were like what's the vibe here is this supposed to be like frat party or is this supposed to be super serious it got so rigid in my view they all started seeming to wear the same sort of styles at the same time. It may have been a bit overboard. Another thing that was really prevalent in stage one, somewhat prevalent in stage two, and then dramatically dropped off was the profanity from the casters. They had a bad habit of slipping into profanity, and it appeared to be that there was no policy against it. Well, again, if you're oriented towards being a family spectator sport, I swear all the time, but you just need to be... It's not professional. So you just need to be professional. If you want to be treated like NFL, they don't swear on the air. So you've got to step it up. Right.
    104:39
    And some of it were just growing pains from, I think, at least a third of those casters were not very familiar with Overwatch, and we just had to watch and wait for them to learn the game better. Yeah, because a lot of them were just like, this is a well-known pro esports caster. We're going to bring them in and go, hey, here's a salary to come be our caster. Sure. But, you know, people like Crumbs, Mr. X, they were not strong on Overwatch. No. But they got better. Yeah. I do like how they have not only worked that out, but how they've worked the, they've kind of figured out which of the casters and which of the commentators work best together. And they've shuffled things around. so there's actually good personality ties. Because I know, especially in stage one, sometimes there would be very, you'd get a very different vibe off of the two. It seems like people almost, I don't want to say they didn't like each other, but they just didn't mesh as well. And sometimes it could be working together. I think that's gone a long way to helping it become how professional-seeming as it is and how much they've pushed it. I know that they started with 12 teams this year there are going to be 6 expansion teams going into season 2 and we have just received in the last couple days the announcement of one of those expansion teams is definitely going to be Atlanta and with Overwatch being a worldwide thing even with it being a worldwide thing there is a large number of North American teams. And let's be real, there's a large number of American teams.
    106:25
    The majority of the 12 original teams are American teams. It makes sense for the start. For the six expansion teams I know the general plans that have been put online is that there will be two North America teams and the other four will not be in North America So we have a firm announcement of an Atlanta team
    106:49
    The very strong rumors in final negotiations are for Paris, and Ginjo, I can't pronounce it, China. No, maybe Gunzo or something. Gunzo. I haven't read it. Yeah, yeah, no, it's one of the big Chinese cities, which will be the second Chinese team, which will be an interesting play, seeing as how well Shanghai did in stage one. What do you think would be, or where do you think would be the best targets for the three remaining unknown teams? one in a two world? Well, let's see. Canada doesn't have a team yet, so they're saying two North American teams. That leads me to believe Toronto would be one. And then for the other two in the world, I'm trying to think where are most of the professional Overwatch players from? So that tells me Europe would warrant one. Could be a Scandinavian country and city like Helsinki, Finland. Scandinavia's huge in Overwatch. Yeah, so I could see. So I'd go ahead and throw out Helsinki as an option there. And then, again, especially given the makeup of professional players on the Gladiators, I would not be surprised if Brazil got a team. So Rio de Janeiro. No. Because you have a number of Portuguese speakers, and I think all of them are from Brazil who play in the Overwatch League. And so just judging from that, I'm extrapolating and saying the game is doing well in Brazil. Don't know if that's true or not, but that would be my guess.
    108:38
    I fall very close. I think the NA team more likely than not will be Toronto. I think if it's not Toronto, it will either be Chicago or Seattle. Okay. Yeah, those all are reasonable. I think Toronto is the number one choice for an expansion team.
    108:57
    Overseas, I would not be surprised to have a third European team. Like you said, I think the same thing. Helsinki or somewhere in Scandinavia, most likely, maybe Berlin. Somewhere over there, just because in the central Europe, I think would be highly likely. I wouldn't be surprised to see a second South Korean team. No, no. It wouldn't shock me, but I just don't know. I expect my general thought, I'm not going to throw, I will throw out straight cities. I think we will get, from the expansion, we will get two European cities, and I think we will get two Asian cities. With Guangzhou, China is already on the short list as one of them. I think the other will either be Tokyo or another South Korean city. with Paris already on the short list my guess would be somewhere in Scandinavia or somewhere in Central Europe for the second thing I think South America has a strong enough showing that I would not be surprised to see them get an expansion team I mean this time I wouldn't be surprised but I think they're a lock if season 2 goes as well as season 3 and we get or season 2 goes as well as season 1 and we get a season 3 and they do another a round of six expansions. I think South America's a walk for a season three expansion. I think they're a high possibility for this season. But I think two Europe, two Asia, two North America's how it's going to break down. Okay. So, we'll see on that. Now,
    110:41
    how do you think, how do you like or dislike about how they handled the finals that we've been, the playoffs and the final match, other than the fact that they should never have had DJ Khalid up there.
    110:58
    I missed most of his performance. The I would have been more annoyed if I had attended in person, because it sure felt like for regular season when they would have three teams back-to-back, best out of five, to this it could be over in three games stuff, it was just short. It did feel short. It felt like they could have compressed it. So instead of this, it kind of worked at first when you were still having quarterfinals and such where you'd have, alright, this group will play best out of five and then this other two set of teams will play best out of five. And then the next day, another best out of five and maybe a third best out of five if they need it. And then the other team would do it as well. But this Like, we'll do a best out of five on Friday, and then one or two on Saturday.
    111:54
    And the way it shook out, what a waste of time. Right. Now, see, I agree because what brought it up was I think that they did, the way they laid it out, especially here in the last couple sets and especially in the final, I think they should have probably just done, if there needed to be three best of fives, just do them all on Saturday. Yeah. Yeah, that would have been my suggestion.
    112:22
    Doing one on Friday and then the others on Saturday, especially for people who are trying to plan for attending in person or even plan for watching the stream, it seemed very much like, well, you have to choose. Do you want to go on Friday where you know the winner won't be chosen?
    112:44
    Or do you want to go on Saturday where the winner might be chosen in the first hour and a half, or you might be there four hours. Right.
    112:52
    To me, it felt like a bad way to try and sell more live tickets. Right. And so I just, I didn't think it worked. I didn't think it made, especially given how long their regular season days were, time was not the excuse. I don't know why. The only thing I could see being an excuse is not wanting to do like they did at the end of the Stage 1 finals, where they were having the actual teams play for like four straight non-stop. This was better than stage one finals were the worst. So that was the worst. And they learned their lesson there. They did. On that. I thought the other stage finals went fine though. I just didn't like the finals. The grand finals. And that was my problem. The way they broke the grand finals up. Now with the semi-finals and leading in, I thought it worked. Because they had another game to go to. Right. There was other than the fact that they were like game, game. Game, game. Okay, that works. I think for the final final, I think everything should have been on one day. I agree.
    113:50
    And they shouldn't bring DJ Khalid back. Yeah. He has a new album now, and it's very popular. I saw that part. That was the entire thing. Okay. And him trying to make the crowd wave their hands in the air. Oh, God. I saw an idea on Reddit, which I agreed with, which was what they should have done and should do in the future is instead just hire a classical orchestra to play Overwatch music before the game. That would be good. Just have live performances of the orchestral interpretations of them. Or even, honestly, hire one of the YouTube groups like Instalock or there's like five others who've done a whole bunch of Overwatch-related fun songs. Grab a couple of them and have them do their songs live. Or even not do their songs live, just get the rights from them and play the videos. because, I mean, they're fun, and, I mean, for a while, early on, Overwatch was actually putting them on the launcher, so you could just, oh, hey, look, that looks cool. That's how I found the InstaWalk videos originally. So I think that was just a grab for a name. They grabbed for a big name. They got a big one, and it didn't work so hot for them. Now, I do also, just as a humorous level, I like how well they handled their social media for the most part. And as people know, I'm terrible at social media, and I need to start studying because I'm so bad at it, and I need to be better at it. But the way they did, like with their Instagram and their background and this and that, and the way they handled it, and the way they got it put out, and how well their hashtags did. And I was seeing retweets and postings from Instagram and this from people who you would never think would watch Overwatch or would care. That, like, actual famous people putting up and rooting for teams. Which was pretty interesting to me. And I think if they can continue that, it'll be a pretty good push next year. all in all are you looking forward to season 2? yeah are you going to remain an XL fan?
    116:12
    I'll reevaluate if Chicago gets a team because they're closer? yeah but I mean the way I chose New York was simply that since I lived in Syracuse for school that was the closest that New York City is closer to Syracuse than we are to Dallas And that's as simple as that. Yeah. That was the math equation. Plus, Dallas, at the time they started, had one of my least favorite players, who I think is toxic. And so I just couldn't support them because of that. And now I actually, towards the end, I was cheering for Dallas quite a bit because they went from a bunch of loser heads, toxic... Scrubs. Not scrubs. They were good players. But Dallas was a team that seemed to be built around a bunch of Twitch personalities instead of actually trying to get real great players. And then it all started to fall apart as they all kept getting sanctioned for homophobic remarks and breaking rules and playing and just all sorts of stuff. And so you had all these bans and affecting fines. And then it kind of fell apart once they lost that tank I disliked. And then they really floundered around. And then because of meta shifts, it actually played to what strengths they, just coincidentally, played to what strengths they had left. And then they were kind of like the underdogs. Yeah. Who doesn't love a good underdog? They were a lot of fun in state football. I didn't pick New York because I knew, I remembered a few of them from the World Cup stuff, though.
    117:44
    Or just some other games before the league started. Like I remembered Sableby and stuff. Yeah. I didn't like before I started watching New York. because I just thought, he had all this blowing on his hand, and I thought it was some sort of, like, douchebag maneuver. I didn't realize that that's just how he tries to sweat on his hand, get his hands wet all the time. I thought, oh, poor guy.
    118:04
    Why don't you use a cloth? It's a Korean thing, I guess. I don't know. So, anyway. So, yeah, I'm not, I don't like need fair weather, though, so I'll probably stick with New York. See, and I'm like you. I didn't really like the makeup of Dallas, and I just, being from Kansas City, I don't like supporting Dallas teams because they're the closest team. I know a lot of people who are Cowboys fans. It's like, why are you a Cowboys fan?
    118:32
    It's America's team. That's the answer you hear so often. It's like, whatever. Now, I was even less scientific than you when it came to picking the team. I picked the London Spitfire as my favorite team and season one champions.
    118:47
    Yeah. Purely because I was a fan. No, I picked them because I liked their logo and I liked their colors. Because I had no hard ties to anybody else. The closest tie was Dallas or Houston because they were close. Because they were the closest. So I went with London because I liked their colors and I liked the thing. And very quickly, it turns out that one of my favorite players in the entire league is their main tank. because he's just fun. Well, London, you know, certain teams were, like London, were built with a lot of top talent designed to win championships. Yeah. You could argue all of the Korean teams, teams that are not in Korea, well, one of them is, the biggest disappointment, but they were oriented around trying to win money. And then you had teams like Dallas, which I felt were organized to trying to put butts in seats, have fans and make money on the industry of, you know, here, us in the Kansas City area. That was the reputation for a very long time with the Kansas City Chiefs during the Schottenheimer years. Sorry, people, we're going into sports ball a little bit. But we brought in a lot of near-retirement players like Joe Montana and stuff. And the strategy that was sort of, at least the fans felt, was we're not trying to win. We're not trying to get to Super Bowls. These are legends past their heyday And we're bringing them in So that we'll put butts in the stadium seats And make money on ticket sales That's what Dallas felt like to me And then some of the other teams were built for A lot of them were teams before Right And they just all kind of Because they all could work together So they were all brought in as groups Yeah, they were picked up Right, New York was that way Right My oldest daughter Her favorite team is the LA Valiant and she chose them because when we'd watched last year's Apex, she picked a team there that she loved, and they became the Valiant. And she picked a player in specific that was her favorite player in Overwatch.
    120:52
    And he was part of Valiant. So that's why her favorite team is Valiant. Now, one thing I think is just humorous is I know you and me and her and our sometimes guest host, Mike, we all picked teams very early in the league. Yes. For very different reasons, yet they all ended up in the finals. Right. Though, I'm not, you know, we'd have to ask Mike. I'm not sure. He may have started as a Dallas fan and then betrayed them and switched to Philly. I'm not sure. Yeah. I don't know. I just remember that he knew a lot of the, because Dallas has some very likable, Like, everyone knew Siegel and everyone liked Siegel. And Mickey was a really popular D.Va. And I think if he did change, and part of it may have been that, because Mike plays as a D.Va main mostly, one of the best D.Va players in the league is on Philly's team. Right. Could be like that. Solidarity. I mean, if I went that way, I would have picked Philly because Neptuno is the best Mercy in the league when it comes to killing.
    121:58
    He's not the best healer in the league, but he's not a bad healer either. But anyway, yeah. Mine was just based off of that proximity factor was how I determined it. Because I only knew from probably Apex. I remembered Stableby. And that was about it. I mean, Jonak was pretty new. Yeah. Libero, I don't know. I don't care about Libero. Pine was new. This is how it was. I think all in all, I think it was very good. And I'm happy it happened. and I'm honestly looking forward to the next season. And for something that's even vaguely sports-related for me, that's pretty impressive because I haven't really followed sports, not even our local Chiefs, Royals. I don't care, and I haven't followed in decades at this point. I watched all the Chiefs games in high school, and most of that was because, you know, Dad watched the Chiefs games. And after high school, it was because it was on with roommates and stuff. But as is, not anymore. I watched the Super Bowl for the commercials. Mm-hmm. And that's about all. Yeah. So.
    123:05
    All right. Now that we're done, Don can come back, though he won't be able to hear this to know he can come back. Maybe he's checking every, and he just now checked. Yeah. So it's okay. We're done with Overwatch. We are. For now.
    123:19
    Well, I have a few video games that I'm finally going to get us caught up with that I've been playing over a vast stretch of time. but we've had so many guest hosts on, I wanted to wait until we had a time where it was just us to go through them. I'm going to open with one that I could have kind of dropped from talking about anymore, and that's Prey, because I did already acknowledge when I finished it that I didn't really give a lot of thoughts. And the reason is I've struggled with how to articulate my feelings about the game, because they're mixed. And I finally was listening to another video game podcast, I think it was Game Informer, and there was someone they had on who had played Prey and his reaction was very similar to mine. So I now know how I can best articulate it and that is Prey, it works on a lot of levels but it has a big flaw that really holds it back and there are a lot of people who are huge fans of Prey. But the creatures that they've got and the mimics and the weird aliens, they're cool. The story is, I think, ho-hum. It's okay. It's serviceable. They try and make it a bit of a mystery. I didn't really get into it. There are a lot of powers you can do, and there are a lot of different ways you can approach any given situation. But the thing that held Prey back from me ever recommending it to anyone is the combat is just not fun. That's what it is. It just doesn't feel good. And I knew when Prey came out there was a lot of criticism on console gaming specifically that it was way too hard to fight, way too hard to hit enemies. it got retuned in a patch pretty quickly like within the first month but it's just not fun so you're told you can play a bunch of ways but even when I kicked it all the way down to easy it felt like the game was telling me don't be run and gun you can play any way you want but if you play run and gun it will suck and you won't have any fun so maybe if I wanted to stealth all the way through it it would have been a lot more enjoyable but that wasn't the mindset I didn't think of it as a stealth game when I got it, but I had to do that, and I didn't want to, and it was really annoying, but I was always low on all resources, and I'm like, what is this, a survival horror game? But it's not like I'm, it was just, the combat sucked. It just didn't feel, even when I had plenty of stuff, it just didn't feel good to shoot anything. So, anyway, that was Prey. So, after Prey, I moved on to The Evil Within 2, and I've spoken, I believe, about The Evil within before. It's a survival horror game that was sort of in the vein of Resident Evil 4 at a time when Capcom wasn't doing Resident Evils like that. Resident Evil 7 isn't like 4, but at least is really good. Actually, Capcom has had a few good Resident Evils. You've always been a big Resident Evil person. As of 5, I never played the old ones. I played Code Veronica a little bit, but I didn't get into the series until 5. and that's because I bought my 360 because I had a friend from my World of Warcraft days who wanted to play co-op Resident Evil 5 with me and he kept badgering me until I bought the console and did it and we had a lot of fun peer pressure and my mower didn't break then so I couldn't get out of it and so anyway Evil Within 2 shockingly different than Evil Within it's Evil Within very much the traditional kind of, like I said, Resident Evil 4 survival horror vibe. Evil Within 2, open world style, a lot of the enemy types were different. It was fun. It was fun, but it's different. So if you really like Evil Within, I can't say that you'll like Evil Within 2 because it just doesn't have the same atmosphere of what's around this next bend, what's going to happened to me? What are these super hard, weird bosses? It's got some hard bosses and some weird creatures that you have to fight, but a lot of it is, oh, well, here are some of the monsters, so do I want to stealth buy them? Do I want to lure them out and kill them one by one, or do I just want to fight them all at once? You know, choose your own adventure. It's open. Hey, look, there's supplies all over the place in this. You're almost in a matrix in this game. Yeah. Oh, well, there are these supplies from other people who have gone in. Do I want to go and pick up the supplies or not and upgrade my character? I mean, it's kind of It's got these more... Upgrading the character was a part of the first game as well. But this, finding the supplies and, like, expanding your ammo pouches, it was just... They kind of went in a different direction with it. It's kind of an uncharted kind of a... Yeah, like light. You know, those RPG light elements, like they decided to double down on that aspect and reduce the horror aspect in exchange. There's a lot of emphasis on choosing to avoid or fight enemies and different approaches and just journeying around in these fairly open areas that was just quite a different take for the game. It works. I thought the story was fun. You're playing the same character as you were in the first game.
    128:21
    It's just different. I didn't like it as much, but I did enjoy it. I got through it in three or four days because I was having a lot of fun with it. So another good game. I hope they continue with that series, I suppose. but... Would you prefer it was more like the first one, more like the second one, or would you like them to do something completely different? Maybe they just make a completely different style game each time. I prefer it probably like the first one. I'm not... If they want to try something radically different again, but still be survival horror, I'm all ears and eyes. Even within 3. Sure. And I'm not saying it's a 4X. Just keep it in the same universe if you want. It doesn't have to be the same character anymore. But you can make it different. I don't have any attachment to the characters. So after that was time for a zombie game. But not really survival horror. And that would be Dead Rising 4. Holy crap. What a cornball game. All the Dead Risings have been. Well, one wasn't as corny. They've all been. They've all had silly elements. One always reminded me of Dawn of the Dead. It was almost like a statement on morals and consumerism and sort of impacting that game. Some people love Dead Rising 1. I played through it multiple times, but I don't love it. The AI for the survivors was pathetic. It was frustrating. The camera mechanics felt gimmicky, and all of the psychos were almost impossible fights. It was really hard. Really hard. And then there was Dead Rising 2, which tried to be updated Dead Rising 1, and the survivors actually knew how to survive better. I mean, you find them in 1, and you're like, how did you guys live at all? I can't even get you back to the safe room. So there's that. Dead Rising 3 is actually my favorite, because that's when they embrace the corn, and they just let you start having a lot of fun massacring zombies, and that was the, well, it was a launch title for the Xbox One.
    130:26
    And they had some spinoff games as well. This one, I liked the story because it was so stupid and you're back with Frank West and they made the camera work better and stuff but I didn't like it as much as 3 I just thought it was a little I was running around doing story mode story mode there was plenty of open world that you could do you start in the mall but in reality it's an entire town the psycho fights were super easy though even Dead Rising 3 the psychos had to be respected In this, no. I didn't lose a psycho fight at all. I think I died three times the entire game. And I was on default settings. So, it was fun. It was weird.
    131:09
    It's, the one thing though, that huge mark against it. Anytime I had to pause, like if I wanted to get a drink or anything, I just pushed the button to go to the menu. Christmas music. Just constant Christmas music. Oh no! I hate, I hate Christmas. Christmas music. And stems, I used to, when I was in high school, I worked at a bank. And we had to have, after Thanksgiving, the Christmas music channel on all the time. I just, I hate, I remember like Mannheim Steamroller. I hate all Christmas music now. I just hate it. It's ruined for me. I despise it. And this was awful. It was all like creative interpretations of crap. It's crap. So if you don't like Christmas music, do not play this game.
    131:53
    So that's Dead Rising 4. and since then, I went back to I'm now caught up with my every game people got me for Christmas and my birthday I've done all of them now. So I'm caught up. So, I've gone back to Dragon Ball Fighters, the fighting game. Right, because I only got through the first act. Right. And I am now on, I think I'm on the second act still. I don't know. It feels longer than the first. So I'm playing through this story, which it's got its silly Dragon Ball story and I like that. I forgot completely how to play, but it's been alright. So I've been doing that some and then Don, who we've mentioned several times and may not now hear this, he got me Everspace. He tried to gift it to me, but he asked for my email address, so I gave him my normal email address to communicate with me, not my email address that my Xbox accounts associated with. Not your super secret email address? No, I don't use it anymore, but it's your accounts, especially with whatever the original email address was, no matter what you tie it to now. Right. And so, he sent me the money and said, buy Everspace. It's on sale. So, I bought it. Everspace, are you familiar with it? Just from you telling me about it earlier. It's a Wing Commander Roguelite. So, yeah. Actually, when I first played it, I got destroyed. It was still giving me a tutorial instruction when my ship was... It was telling me how to repair my ship, and my ship exploded. and I died. And I got my first achievement for dying. And I thought, holy crap, I don't remember how to dogfight anymore. I don't know if I can play this. Any money you find, you can then spend on permanent upgrades, but any money not spent is lost. So, it works on that. I went and got through the first area now. So, I've only played it a few times since then, but I see why Dawn suggested it to me. If you are a fan of Wing Commander combat style. This game seems to meet that. It's been so long, I don't remember it well, but it seems to meet all of that. That's going to have to shortlist this game then. So it was like $12. So I've actually been playing that more recently than I have Dragon Ball FighterZ. And other than that, obviously, I've worked a little bit on Overwatch because they introduced a new tank, the hamster guy, Hammond. So that's what I've been doing on video games. I have been Playing one video game And I'm just going to mention it We're not going to talk about it Because I want We'll have a very in depth discussion about it When I finish it Right And that is I finally picked up Shadow of War Okay Yeah Once you're comfortable with it Let me know Because I got a lot we can Yeah Because as you know I've played it I mean I'm right at What I assume What I am assuming To be the end of Act 2 Okay and I enjoy it a lot more than the first one. Good. I like the first one a lot. I enjoy this one more. I find that the changes to the Nemesis system, it seems to work better. It does. And some of the interesting characters that are created from it are awesome. And some of them, I really kind of felt bad killing them. and I got very happy when it turns out that I failed to kill them because they were awesome.
    135:22
    I especially like the bards and the troubadour orcs who sing to you while they're trying to kill you. Those are probably my favorites. I had one who turned into my nemesis for a while. He came back like three times. Yep. But I've been pretty happy with it. But our last major thing is what's turning into a once-a-year-ish comment for like every year running. The game that started as such a huge hope and turned into such a giant pile, No Man's Sky got yet another major update. Ooh. Now this update, they call it Next. And what's impressive to me about this update is that it has actually changed its rating on Steam. Wow. It went from mostly negative to mixed. Okay, so it's had a significant impact. There's been, yeah, it's been huge. They've added in, I'm not even going to come close to touching everything they've added in. They've done so much stuff. They've completely revamped the crafting system, as in the crafting system is an actual crafting system, whereas I'm completely stealing this line because it's so good. The old crafting system used to be that you would beat up the ground, and you would beat up rocks, and you would beat up sticks, and you would take the broken corpses and jam them into stuff, and it would fix them. Wow. Now there's an actual crafting system. Okay. Which could be good, could be bad. It has actual real multiplayer capability now. Oh, yes. A promise feature. A promise feature that was a lie. It has actual multiplayer capability. You can co-op play with friends if you have friends who've bought this game, which you probably don't. or at least probably are not willing to try it again. And they've made numerous changes to how the things are created procedurally. They've made numerous changes to, like, the animals, because it used to be there were tons of huge animals everywhere, and animals are more realistic. There's less of the giant ones, more of small ones, and they're not nearly as common as they used to be. every single thing I've read about this says this is a really, really good update to a really, really bad game. And it is going a long way towards making the game better. More like what people were hoping it would be at the beginning. And that's what really gets me about this is we're, what, three years in? Yeah, I don't remember. At least two. We're two years in for sure, because the game released a year later when we talked about it last year, when I actually bought it, was when the first big update came, which made a lot of stuff better, and it was okay, and I played it some. And now this big update has come. And I'm going to, my plan is to give it a really good in-depth play now once I get done with Shadow War. Okay. So this is enough that you're willing to go back? I'm willing to... Do you think most people will?
    138:37
    I'd say probably not, but there are enough people out there because the changes, the change from mostly negative to mixed isn't just from new purchases. There have been a large number of people who have been changing their rating from negative to at least neutral or positive. Yeah, that's the element that surprises me is I would have thought my reaction when I heard about this was why bother? It's too late your reputation was set but it looks like people who are not me are willing to go back maybe they felt cheated and they still have hope that hey maybe this game could become good and we have seen fortunes reverse before, the first Destiny had a DLC pack that totally revitalized the game that was seen by many as poorly executed with little to do. Then they made all the mistakes, maybe not all the same mistakes, but more mistakes with Destiny 2. So, okay. Yeah, that's good. I actually heard on another video game podcast them talking about the changes and people's reaction. And the reaction of the person who was describing it, who had put in the most time, was much like the Steam reviews, mixed. liked a lot of the stuff, but a lot of it just seemed like late delivery on certain promises and other aspects still just weren't fun. Right. And that seems to be what I'm seeing. But I'm willing. If it sounds good enough, I will give it another go. We'll see if it works, if it doesn't. I'm just impressed they're still working on it. Yeah, I am too. I'm very surprised. I mean, I've seen major AAA games that were way better and way more popular than this that get dropped long before they're two years into making major, massive, game-changing stuff. Yeah, around this time, EA would have been turning off the servers if it was a Madden. That's true.
    140:41
    So, yeah, no, that's... We'll see how that ends up going for them. I'm just still kind of impressed by the fact that they're going. Yeah.
    140:51
    Well, I think we made it to the end of the show again. I think so. We're survivors. for listeners if you want to reach out and interact with us there's always our email address eclecticgamerspodcasts at gmail.com we also are on facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast we're on twitter don't use twitter and instagram as eclectic underscore gamers and hey if you've got links to good learning how to really manage social media well stuff you might send it to me because I need the help and beyond that help, we'll be back in two weeks. Don't know if we'll have help with that episode or not. I've been in talks with a few people from a while ago about whether or not they want to come on. I've not been pushing. At the end of it, when I start the next year, I think what I'll do is I'm going to go back and I'll analyze because we've had more guest hosts this year than we have in any other year. Oh, yeah. We've had like six or seven in a row. And so, I'll see who won. Which one had the most listeners? That's right guys It's a competition now It's a competition, go back and plug your own episodes The old ones Because I don't know I don't go back and look And compare them all yet But I will for that But we're still a few months away from that So until two weeks, I'm Dennis I'm Tony See you guys later