TPF day 2 Wrap-up

Don's Pinball Podcast (patreon feed)·podcast_episode·27m 42s·analyzed·Mar 23, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

TPF day 2: Spooky sells out Evil Dead; JJP confirms Harry Potter; upcoming releases and market analysis.

Summary

Don reports from Texas Pinball Festival day 2 (March 2025), covering major news including Spooky Pinball's complete Evil Dead sellout within 24 hours, Jersey Jack's official Harry Potter confirmation, and updates on Portal, Merlin's Arcade, and upcoming releases. He discusses production timelines, pricing strategies, market dynamics, and personal encounters with industry figures, while noting Barrels of Fun has an imminent unannounced game in development (likely Dune) releasing April-May.

Key Claims

Spooky Pinball's Evil Dead sold completely out in less than 24 hours from approximately 85 units remaining Friday morning.
high confidence · Don, eyewitness at TPF; tracked inventory decline from 60 units at weekend start, through ~25 remaining when Joe Newhart purchased the last batch.
Jersey Jack officially confirmed Harry Potter as their next release at TPF.
high confidence · Don reporting; confirmed 'the drop' and official reveal happened at TPF day 1.
Spooky can produce 4-5 games per day with a 4-day work week, aiming for 20 machines per week starting May, approximately 80 per month.
high confidence · Don, reporting from Spooky seminar at TPF with Hilton, Luke, Bug, Christopher Franchi, and Ben Heck.
Barrels of Fun has a game in active development with production starting soon, likely Dune-themed, releasing between April-May.
medium confidence · Don, conversation with Barrels of Fun team; he did not confirm theme but noted Dune 'keeps coming up most often' and estimates 6-week timeline.
Turner Pinball's Merlin's Arcade will produce approximately 100 Limited Editions at $9,000, then transition to Arcade Edition at $7,000, going into production May-August, likely June-July.
high confidence · Don, reporting from conversation at TPF, citing Turner directly.
Stern and JJP are planning major summer releases (Kong and Harry Potter) that will dominate pre-summer and summer market.
high confidence · Don analysis based on conversations at TPF; Kong described as 'all but confirmed' and designed by Keith Elwin.
Harry Potter Collector's Edition will likely be around 1,000 units (not the rumored 500), with premium edition pricing at $15,000.
medium confidence · Don speculation based on market patterns; contrasts with Medieval Madness remake CE availability.
Spooky's next release after Evil Dead is strongly rumored to be Beetlejuice with broader appeal than Evil Dead.
medium confidence · Don, reporting from Spooky seminar and crowd reactions at TPF.

Notable Quotes

“Spooky Pinball's Electric Wonder of Evil Dead has sold completely out.”
Don @ early in content — Major market news; Spooky's fastest sellout and validation of production scaling.
“I bought my Pulp Fiction from him prior to my sponsorship with Mad Pinball. So it was cool to finally, you know, meet him in person.”
Don @ mid-content — Demonstrates Joe Newhart's role as major secondary market dealer; Don's partnership with Mad Pinball.
“I couldn't get, I was like fangirling at this point. I'm like, hey guys, you got my mod there. And I made this thing in my fricking 3D lab and here it is out in the wild in someone's game.”
Don @ mid-content — Shows Don's role as mod designer; validates community-driven customization ecosystem.
“They are very much of the opinion that they don't want to release a game and they don't want to take customers money until they have a game that is done. A game that is at least in boxes, you know, maybe 10, maybe 20, but is ready to go out.”
Don @ mid-content — Barrels of Fun's business philosophy distinguishing them from pre-order model competitors.
“How funny is this, right? Less than 24 hours ago, Jersey Jack himself was up on stage saying do not spend one nickel on another game until you see our reveal and then not 24 hours later spooky pinballs like we just sold out all of our games.”
Don @ near end — Highlights competitive tension and market drama between JJP and Spooky; entertainment value for enthusiasts.
“Evil Dead for sure is a gruesome game, very true to the horror comedy movies of Evil Dead 1 and 2 with Bruce Campbell and it's like a whole thing. But their next release, strongly rumored to be Beetlejuice, is much more of an even broader theme.”
Don @ near end — Introduces Beetlejuice rumor; indicates Spooky's pipeline and market strategy.
“I am already in on a premium for the one up lounge and I've already ordered armor I've already ordered powdercoats, I've already started working on mods and I haven't even seen the game, it's not even being teased yet.”

Entities

Donperson Joe Newhartperson Jerryperson Ben Heckperson Christopher Franchiperson Chris Turnerperson Keith Elwinperson

Signals

?
product_launch: Spooky Evil Dead completely sold out in less than 24 hours from approximately 85 units remaining Friday, with final 25 units purchased by Joe Newhart and resold at venue.
high · Don tracked inventory decline from 60 units weekend start through ~25 remaining when Newhart purchased final batch, then verified sellout within hours.
?
announcement: Jersey Jack officially confirmed Harry Potter as next release at TPF day 1, following CEO stage announcement about reveal timing constraint.
high · Don describes 'the drop' and 'official confirm' of Harry Potter; references JJP CEO saying 'do not spend one nickel on another game until you see our reveal.'
?
manufacturing_signal: Spooky Pinball aiming to produce 20 machines per week by May (4-5 per day, 4-day work weeks), reaching ~80 per month, tracking to complete all games by year-end.
high · Don reports directly from Spooky seminar panel with Hilton, Luke, Bug, Christopher Franchi, and Ben Heck.
?
machine_intel: Barrels of Fun has unannounced game in active development and pre-production, releasing April-May 2025, likely Dune-themed based on community speculation.
medium · Don had lunch with Barrels of Fun team at TPF; they confirmed active production starting 'pretty soon,' sample games stage, and April-May window. Don notes Dune 'keeps coming up most often' but did not press for confirmation.
$
market_signal: Harry Potter Collector's Edition expected to retail at $15,000 with estimated 1,000 units (not 500), positioning as high-value limited collectible with secondary market appreciation potential.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.083

0:00

This is how we do it. This is every bit about how it gets done Over here in the world of Don's Pinball Podcast. Hello everybody and welcome to the patreon exclusive episode for The second day of the Texas Pinball Festival happening down in Frisco, Texas 2025. Hello everybody. How you doing? I'm gonna simulcast this directly to the patreon folks on both Don's Pinball Podcast and And we are pinball because I love both of you groups and I don't want to do double duty and I'm going to report and report and reward everybody here with everything that's been going on these last 12, 24, 48 hours. It's all running together like a blur and it started off yesterday when we had the drop. Of course, the information that Harry Potter was coming out next from Jersey Jack, whether that was an intentional or unintentional reveal, it was pretty amazing and it is absolutely Having Topics for R donkeyP submission Thestupiu, Someone who sick. Y'all Oonen? compassionate for lib자가? Hi little par signs, Fuck everybody, I'm playing by the rules yo, it's just so boring. I went across the street to the Texas Pinball Festival and it is every bit of a Saturday right now. It's off the hinges, there are so many people around. The Spooky booth is clearly in high demand as is the Mirko, Marco booth. And then to some extent Jersey Jack. And then there was still consistent lines even on the four labyrinth machines here. So everybody's, every game had people on it. There were no games that were absolutely vacant. And if they were, they weren't for long. Somebody walked right up there. For the most part though, you were waiting one game to get on just about anything. Sometimes two if it was a bit more in demand. Turner Pinball's Merlin's Arcade comes to mind. So the big news of the day, Spooky Pinball's Electric Wonder of Evil Dead has sold completely out. So way to go guys there. I was watching all weekend. We went into the weekend with about 60 of those games left according to the website. If you go and try to order, you know 999 of those happy haunted games, I would say sorry You can only have you know 59 or so that number quickly started dwindling on Friday You know like 10 to 20 were gone and then this morning boom they all went they got down to about 25 left and then Joe from pinball star he came by and he took up the last 25 and then him and his henchmen Were hanging out the spooky booth basically selling them and you know within short order I know at least five of the 25 that he had purchased were already gone too. So I'm not surprised that he's not sold out here pretty soon. So Joe Newhart, it was cool hanging out with you, buddy. I bought my Pulp Fiction from him prior to my sponsorship with Mad Pinball. So it was cool to finally, you know, meet him in person. His wife was there. We played some games. I began the day after my seminal episode on Dawn's Pinball Podcast, episode number 181 I'm here with my partner, the guy that went up last night where I kind of seem to kind of crap all over a multi morphic a bit only because it seemed like they were directly hortaling feces at me. Despite my my my attempts to outreach and make peace. Well, I got some messages from Jerry this morning. So I guess my anonymity has ran out and he does in fact know who I am. What the heck. So, you know, he reached out saying Don, sorry, I had a bad experience at the booth. Please come by again, which I did. And I met the I forget his name, but the gentleman responsible for Drained, the only two-date third-party multi-morphic module Maker in existence. Why aren't there more of these? I think there should be. Um, you know, he was very gracious and, hey, are you Don? Yes, I am. Uh, here, I made Drained. What do you think? Hey, let me tell you, kind of, some good things I think about Drained. I do like the art. And I was like, I was like, man, 27 stand-up targets, man. Do you even have any left? My goodness. Oh, Drained is not a, not a great game. I'm going to do a podcast at some point, I'll probably do it on the main channel, about bad games. Because there are bad games that know they're bad, there are bad games that think they're good, and there are bad games that are also good to play. And I'll go down kind of what I mean by that. Just to give you some examples, Blues Brothers is a bad game that is a bad game, and ABBA is a bad game that thinks it's good. And, you know, it's treading on being a bad game that is fun to play. All right, so I'll give you that. So within the realm of bad games, there is a Hello everyone I'm Neil B. I'm a fan of the game. I've been going to their booth for four years now and every time it just kind of seems like they have their own thing going on and they don't really care if I'm part of it or not. It's kind of like the sense I get as a customer and now a pinball personality I guess. But you know, nice of them to reach out so thanks for that buddy. Good luck on things in the future. Portal had a line the entire time I was there. There's three portal machines, two extended, one circumcised, I forget what they call it. That's a definitely the people were having fun playing them. The same thing happened last year with Princess Bride and I'm presuming the year before that with was a final resistance and then before that was Weird Al. So I think they'll always have some demand there at the Texas Pinball Festival. What I wish they would do and I'll offer this as constructive criticism to them. That's to have a dummy module sitting there in a trial station with an empty cabinet so you could try personally putting these modules in taking them out. Finally, what else did we do this past season? I'm a fan of the game. I've played it with Multimorphic. So thank you very much to them for that. I played Portal again with Joe. Had a great game on it. I was joking that there's two skateboarding themed games here at the Texas Pinball Festival, one of them being Tony Hawk and the other one being Multimorphic's Portal. And that is because this time when I was playing the game, there was a lot of grinding and there was a lot of stalls that were going on, which are types of skateboard tricks. There's that interface, right, between the screen over the playfield and then the screen I was like I just did a freaking grind on a pinball machine My ball just grinded all along the line between the pop plastic barriers and the video portion of the playfield experience And then that stinking right lower ramp on the extended version of Portal the one that pops up and down the janky ramp I call it Howdy, it's me, Joe, and both myself when we were playing. Balls got stuck behind that ramp and would sit there until the ball search happened, which to its credit was pretty quick and owing to the grid system that can read the ball's location. But it was like all these, we were finding all these stalls. It was comical at one point that, you know, balls were just essentially getting trapped just all over the place on ramps, under ramps. I shot the right lower ramp, the jank ramp. It made it up just far enough to then sit and rest right there to the point where a ball search would not be able to get it loose. That requires some shaking, which I was able to shake it loose fairly easily despite the girth of the machine. All in all, I had some fun with Portal. The modes are interesting. It plays different than most games do and the fact that I was able to backhand most of the shots and kind of get through it. But I kept doing sort of the same things over and over again and to the point where I was like, okay, well, maybe there's some more code to come from this. So I won't fully judge the game. I don't know where the code is at there. I realize that everybody there is, you know, engineering and very intelligent I think what they need is a good marketing person to come out there and like kind of greet the guests that are in line Answer questions Have a demo model that you can kind of go through and practice putting things into things out again If they care what I think this this would be useful information for them I get the sense that they don't and they're gonna keep doing their thing and we're just living in their world and I want to keep playing their games because I do have fun doing it So, let's move on to the protagons Box. So, let's get started. So for those of you who are interested I am a god. 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Multimorphic's Portal extended version has mechanical issues including balls getting stuck on ramps and requiring frequent ball search.

high confidence · Don, personal gameplay experience at TPF; documented specific mechanical problems with 'jank ramp.'

Jersey Jack's CEO made a stage announcement Thursday saying 'do not spend one nickel on another game until you see our reveal,' and Harry Potter was revealed within 24 hours.

high confidence · Don, eyewitness account of JJP CEO statement and comparison to Spooky's immediate sellout response.

Don @ mid-content — Shows Don's personal investment/MOD activity with Kong pre-launch; demonstrates hype cycle ahead of reveal.

“What I wish they would do and I'll offer this as constructive criticism to them. That's to have a dummy module sitting there in a trial station with an empty cabinet so you could try personally putting these modules in taking them out.”

Don @ mid-content — Critical feedback to Multimorphic on user experience and demo strategy.

Spooky Pinballcompany

Stern Pinballcompany

medium · Don recommends CE pre-order strategy citing Medieval Madness remake rapid sellout, Metallica LE secondary pricing ($15-16k), and patterns of desirable games appreciating.

rumor_hype: Spooky's next release after Evil Dead strongly rumored to be Beetlejuice with broader appeal than Evil Dead; inferred from seminar crowd reactions.

medium · Don states 'their next release, strongly rumored to be Beetlejuice, is much more of an even broader theme' and notes crowd enthusiasm suggests strong market potential.

product_concern: Multimorphic Portal extended version exhibits mechanical issues including balls stuck on ramps requiring ball search and manual shaking; 'janky ramp' design flaw noted.

high · Don played Portal at TPF and documented specific issues: 'balls got stuck behind that ramp,' 'balls were just essentially getting trapped just all over the place on ramps, under ramps,' requiring manual intervention.

sentiment_shift: Multimorphic representative Jerry reached out to Don after critical episode 181, offered reconciliation and booth visit, resulting in positive interaction and reduced tension.

high · Don describes receiving messages from Jerry apologizing for booth experience, introducing MOD designer, and Don characterizing outcome as 'nice of them to reach out.'

competitive_signal: Stern (Kong) and JJP (Harry Potter) positioning for summer market dominance with major releases; JJP CEO's stage challenge 'don't spend money until our reveal' immediately followed by Spooky's sellout suggests market timing drama.

high · Don analyzes: 'two juggernauts that are going to own the pre-summer and summer is going to be Stern and JJP' and notes humorous competitive timing of JJP CEO's announcement followed within 24 hours by Spooky sellout.

content_signal: Don reports 5-6k listeners across commutes and venues; multiple personal encounters with fans at TPF recognizing him; growing industry visibility and sponsorship partnerships.

high · Don reflects: 'I didn't ever get to see that there's five to six thousand people on the other end listening' and describes encounters in elevator and venue where people recognized him and mentioned his podcast.

business_signal: Joe Newhart (Pinball Star) purchasing final 25 Evil Dead units from Spooky at TPF and immediately reselling at venue; demonstrates secondary market dealer activity and venue operator model.

high · Don observes Newhart 'purchased were already gone too' from final 25-unit batch; characterizes as major reseller with wife present at booth.

design_philosophy: Turner Pinball's Merlin's Arcade positioned as family-friendly, uncomplicated first-game entry point with appeal similar to Princess Bride at prior TPFs; simple shot design but praised for foosball spinner mechanic.

high · Don describes: 'if it was like your first pinball game to play it's not a bad way to start it's not overly complicated...family friendly' and praises 'really cool foosball spinner' as standout feature.