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Episode 3 - CaptNRetro!!!

THE PINBALL RESTORER’S PODCAST·podcast_episode·1h 11m·analyzed·Apr 27, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

CaptNRetro on arcade/pinball restoration, bulk lot hunting, custom re-themes, and the undervalued market for vintage game restoration.

Summary

CaptNRetro (Kevin Coughlin) discusses his journey from retro gaming collector to arcade and pinball restoration entrepreneur. He explains his philosophy of finding vintage machines in bulk lots, restoring them to playable or showroom condition, and flipping them for profit. The conversation covers his Alabama warehouse haul (30 arcade machines + 1 pinball for $2,600), his custom re-theming projects, pricing models for restoration work, and his frustration with YouTube channel growth despite consistently finding exceptional deals.

Key Claims

  • Other pinball podcasts predominantly cover only Stern modern games (Avengers, Deadpool, GNR, Jurassic Park) and miss 60 years of practical games history

    medium confidence · CaptNRetro explaining his motivation for starting the Pinball Restorers Podcast

  • Spooky Pinball came out of nowhere from small-town Wisconsin and 'killed it' with Rick and Morty

    high confidence · CaptNRetro praising Spooky's efficiency and game quality

  • He purchased 30 arcade machines and 1 pinball from an Alabama warehouse for $2,600 total, spending closer to $5,000 when including gas, trailer, and storage

    high confidence · CaptNRetro detailing his recent Alabama acquisition and ongoing recovery effort

  • Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong 3 from the lot sold for $500 each without testing

    high confidence · CaptNRetro itemizing sales from the Alabama lot

  • Popeye and Burger Time arcade cabinets from the lot are worth approximately $2,500 each

    high confidence · CaptNRetro estimating market value for cabinets in his lot

  • Valley Lost World had a production run of 10,000 units; Gottlieb Pinball Pool had 7,200 made in 1978-79

    high confidence · CaptNRetro discussing availability of vintage pinball machines and why restoration is viable

  • He custom-painted a Road Kings arcade cabinet as Mad Max Fury Road King and sold it for close to $5,000

    high confidence · CaptNRetro describing his custom re-theming work and profitability

  • He charges $125 for initial diagnostic visits (up to 1 hour), then $50/hour for repairs plus parts

    high confidence · CaptNRetro explaining his hourly rates for local repair work

  • His YouTube channel has 2,000+ subscribers but only 200-300 views per video

    high confidence · CaptNRetro expressing frustration about channel growth and audience engagement

Notable Quotes

  • “after listening to like 16 shows and all you ever hear is Avengers, Deadpool, uh let's see here GNR and Jurassic Park, it's like come on guys, there's six decades worth of practical games in the United States, what the heck?”

    CaptNRetro @ early in episode — Explains his motivation for starting the podcast and critique of other pinball media coverage

  • “I'll program a game for you, but you know, and you know, I'll do that for free, but what you'll end up paying for is me to debug the game afterwards.”

    CaptNRetro (paraphrasing unnamed programmer) @ mid-episode — Illustrates the hidden costs of modern game development beyond initial programming

  • “it's almost like it was—they went with like a simplistic setup”

    CaptNRetro @ discussing Spooky's Rick and Morty — Praising Spooky's efficient design philosophy

  • “There's a Stern Meteor that is in that lot, and I'll get to keep that. And I'm probably going to keep—I had two Popeyes, so I'm probably going to keep one of the Popeyes”

    CaptNRetro @ mid-episode — Shows his personal collecting priorities within his business model

  • “Your time is always worth money. And depending on what's going on in your life, your time is priceless, you know?”

    CaptNRetro @ discussing restoration pricing — Core philosophy on valuing restoration work and countering hobbyist criticism of high prices

  • “I just laugh because when people say, like, I want to stay underground, I always laugh because I played in hard rock metal bands when I was younger, and you were always like, no, you don't want to write anything mainstream.”

    CaptNRetro @ late episode — Reflects on the paradox of wanting success while staying underground

  • “I have over 2,000 subscribers, but I normally only get about 200 to 300 views per video of anything I make. And I don't know why that is.”

    CaptNRetro @ late episode — Expresses frustration with YouTube algorithm and channel engagement despite subscriber count

Entities

Kevin CoughlinpersonTimpersonSpooky PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyChicago GamingcompanyPixel Arcadecompany

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: CaptNRetro discusses active market for custom re-themed vintage machines, with examples like Mad Max Fury Road King selling for ~$5,000 and Brunswick Circus converted to Voltron. Notes tension between hobbyists and professionals on pricing and 'recreation' boundaries.

    high · Detailed discussion of multiple retheme projects, pricing ($2,500-$5,000+), and labor cost justification

  • $

    market_signal: Strong evidence of viable Alabama warehouse sourcing with significant ROI; 30 arcade machines + 1 pinball for $2,600 base, with already-sold units (DK/$500 ea.) and projected $2,500+ value on Popeye and Burger Time.

    high · CaptNRetro itemizes specific sales and projected values from recent acquisition

  • ?

    content_signal: CaptNRetro reports 2,000+ subscribers but only 200-300 views per video despite finding high-value deals (e.g., $4,000 games for $10). Expresses frustration with discoverability and audience retention despite quality content.

    high · Direct statement about subscriber-to-viewer ratio and comparison to other game hunting channels

  • ?

    industry_signal: CaptNRetro credits Gary Stern for keeping pinball alive while noting modern resurgence with Jersey Jack, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming, Spooky, and others breaking Stern's monopoly. Acknowledges media bias toward Stern games.

    high · Statement: 'I do give him credit because yeah, I mean, he was just the last guy making games, and they started making better games, and now we actually have a pinball industry again'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: CaptNRetro articulates detailed pricing philosophy: $125 initial diagnostic, $50/hour thereafter; equivalent to mechanic rates. Uses trade-based examples ($60/hour phone repair) to justify restoration markups and challenges community misconception that hobbyists shouldn't factor time into pricing.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.213

0:00
Welcome to the Pinball Restorers Podcast. I was supposed to have an interview with Tim with the Pinball Hall of Fame. I did reach out to him. We got to talk for a little bit. Our conversation was just cut too short because he's incredibly busy. He had just dealt with the family death. His brother had passed away. So our condolences out to him. They were trying to focus on their soft opening and getting ready for their grand opening in July. So looking forward to that. We'll just talk to him another time. And I'm looking forward to going down to Las Vegas and getting to play some of those games. but I reached out and I actually got a different interview. In fact, it's an awesome interview because I'm also a sucker for just arcade games in general. This guy does both pinball machines and arcade games but he absolutely loves pinball more. Kevin Coughlin. You may know him as Captain Retro. And so, without further ado... Your powers combined, I am Captain Retro.
1:26
I got you for a second. I totally actually have to do a commercial for one of the many businesses that support our hobby first. Get on here! Pixel Arcade. Your source for premium pinball and arcade repair and restoration. Featuring recreation parts, plastic casting, electroplating, and much more. At pixelarcade-repairs.com I've been waiting for this!
1:51
Multiball. The pinball place. Your premier retailer and authorized dealer for Stern. Jersey Jack and American Pinball. Large selection of new and used games, parts and accessories. Find out more at pinballplace.com. Ladies and gentlemen, now back to the show.
2:09
So just to give you a quick introduction on me, I started this podcast just because of the fact that, dude, I listen to a lot of the other guys, don't get me wrong, but after listening to like 16 shows and all you ever hear is Avengers, Deadpool, uh let's see here gnr and jurassic park it's like come on guys there's six decades worth of practical games in the united states what the heck so i started those good guys you know i think most of those big guys are not necessarily shills for stern but they uh they sure do kiss stern's boots i i give gary credit you know not in a bad way i do give him credit because yeah, I mean, he was just the last guy making games, and they started making better games, and now we actually have a pinball industry again with Jersey Jack, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming, and Deep Root. I forgot any of that. Forgive me. Oh, yeah, Spooky. Spooky. Don't forget Spooky. Those guys are pretty good. They are efficient. A company that came completely out of nowhere, small-town Wisconsin, and just killed it with Rick and Morty. I mean, I love that game.

  • “I would find super rare games and super cool items and Nintendo tchotchkes and signage and whatever it may be on the reg. And still nobody watched my channel.”

    CaptNRetro @ late episode — Illustrates disconnect between deal quality and audience reach

    • Multiball
    company
    TNT Amusementscompany
    Pinball Hall of Fameorganization
    Up Down arcadevenue
    Tiltvenue
    Todd Tuckeyperson
    Joe's Classic Arcadescompany
    Pinsideorganization
    Rick and Mortygame
    Mad Max Fury Road Kinggame
    Laser Ballgame
    Demolition Derbygame
    Voltrongame

    high · Extended discussion on hourly rates, automotive paint sprayer comparison, and time-value arguments

  • ?

    historical_signal: CaptNRetro cites specific production runs: Valley Lost World (10,000 units), Gottlieb Pinball Pool (7,200 units, 1978-79). Emphasizes that vintage machine availability justifies restoration as viable market segment.

    high · Direct quotes on production volumes and rationale for focusing on restoration market

  • ?

    design_innovation: CaptNRetro praises Spooky's 'simplistic setup' for Rick and Morty as innovative approach; contrasts with modern complexity. Notes programmer observation that modern games cost more in debugging than initial programming.

    medium · Discussion of Spooky's efficiency and programmer commentary on modern game development economics

  • ?

    operational_signal: CaptNRetro notes growth of barcade trend (8-10 years) and hourly arcade pay-to-play model. Mentions Up Down arcade (Minneapolis) and Tilt bar as examples of pinball/arcade resurgence in venue settings.

    high · Discussion of barcade growth, venue examples, and return to arcade gaming by adult generation

  • ?

    community_signal: CaptNRetro notes arguments in restoration forums about when a restored game becomes a 'recreation' vs. restoration, and tension over pricing comparisons to modern games. Indicates active discussion about restoration ethics and value.

    medium · Statement: 'The argument sometimes comes up in these restorer groups, restorer forums. They're like, well, at what point is the game a recreation?'

  • ?

    product_concern: CaptNRetro dismisses home edition pinball machines as 'crap' quality but notes they can be upgraded/rethemed into full-size cabinets (e.g., Demolition Derby project). Implies market opportunity in converting inferior products.

    high · Statement: 'Yeah, they're crap. I know they're crap. I'm actually taking a Demolition Derby. I have one. I'm actually going to stuff it into a full-size cabinet'

  • ?

    competitor_analysis: CaptNRetro compares his channel performance to other game hunting channels; notes they get 10,000+ views for finding common items at Goodwill while he finds $4,000 games for $10 with minimal engagement. Suggests algorithmic or marketing gap.

    high · Direct comparison: 'I go up against other channels that are like game hunting channels, and their game hunting is they go to Goodwill and they find a Commodore 64 sealed for a dollar and they're like, this is a good game. And there's 10,000 people that watch that.'

    • 3:20
    I'm a fan of all their games so far, man. You know, TNA is amazing. That's an amazing shooting game. It's just fun all around. I like America's Most Haunted. You know, that's a limited run of games they made, too. I like that one. I haven't played a Rick and Morty yet. I haven't got my hands on one of those yet, but it looks great. Anything with a pop-up or near the flippers is good to me.
    3:42
    Oh, trust me. that's again that's like the it's almost like it was they went with uh like a simplistic setup i mean so they one of the other shows had uh the programmer on for him it's like oh yeah i'll program a game for you but you know and you know i'll do that for free but what you'll end up paying for is me to debug the game afterwards oh but that's just because game that's just because modern games so much goes into it but uh how the heck did you fall into all of this i mean you uh my understanding is that okay i've seen i followed the whole like just retro gaming anything i make a joke it's anything from my childhood that you've kind of just been running with as this channel but it's the arcade hall and the uh pinball that actually uh catches me because all these arcades went out of business in the you know late beginning the late 80s into the 90s as home consoles took over and just to find warehouses or semi-trailers full of these things is just shocking but uh i just caught the episode you did where uh you went back to alabama and how many games did you end up pulling out of that place uh i think the total was 30 arcade machines and one pinball holy crap and i mean you know that 2600 bucks is what i spent for the whole lot but that's not including the gas and the trailer and the going back and you know i mean it's eating up two of my weekends i actually have to go back this next weekend to get the last like seven machines and uh it's just you know it's i'm probably going to be into that closer to the five thousand dollar number plus i got a storage lot had to get a bigger storage locker to store some of the stuff in but like i just i just came across that ad if you watch that video it tells the story of you I'm always picking. I'm always looking. I've been into gaming my whole life. I'm 42. I was born in 78. And my first machine was the Magnavox Odyssey 2. We had that. We did not have the Atari. My cousins had the Atari. And we had the Odyssey. So we played that until I got the Nintendo. And then that took over my world. But, like, there were arcades when I was a kid. You know, we went to the movie theater, and there was an arcade attached to both of the movie theaters in my little town.
    5:59
    One was called Mardi Gras, and I spent a lot of time and a lot of quarters playing. I would mainly play pinball as a kid. I was, you know, I liked video games, but I wasn't very coordinated with the fighting games. So, you know, I liked watching Mortal Kombat and watching people play that and Street Fighter, but, like, I'd get my butt kicked, so I didn't play that too much. Oh, yeah. The younger generation doesn't understand that, doesn't remember, like, When Mortal Kombat came out in the arcade, there was a line of like 30 people to play it. And if you just died like right away, you know, the bigger kids just shoved you out of the way. Yeah, and you're out of the way for 30 more kids to come through. And yeah, it's ridiculous. Like you can't, you never get a turn if you're not any good at it. And how do you get good at it unless you keep playing it? So I would, I was, that was kind of with pinball. That was my thing. Like there weren't a lot of kids playing pinball. so there was always the machine would be open, it felt like, you know. And I would play pinball, and I would win three games on that and turn around and, you know, I got to have two or three, you know, extra games on a machine and sell one of them to a kid for 50 cents or whatever. And if the game cost, you know, 75 to play or a dollar or whatever, I'd charge them, you know, half of that and let them play that next ball. And then, you know, just let me have the game back on that second to last ball, you know, and I'd build up another free game if I could and try and sell it off. And eventually, you know, I was trying to make money in the casino. In the casino. In the arcade. I was trying to make money in the arcade as a kid. So I was treating it like a casino. Oh, that's okay. All arcades are nowadays are a child redemption casino. We can make that joke. But anyway, go on. Sorry. That too. And there's a lot of, you know, the barcade thing is popping up everywhere and has been for like the last eight to ten years. And the other thing is like the hourly arcades where you just pay like a flat fee and everything's on free play. You can go in there for, you know, get a wristband for an hour and play everything you want to play for an hour for 15 bucks or whatever it might cost you to get in the door. Those are pretty cool. My wife and I actually, uh, we, well, you know, pre-COVID we used to do a date night and we would go to this place. It was in Minneapolis. It's uptown, but the name of the arcade was up down with the two arrows on it for the controls.
    8:19
    And we would go in there and it, you know, they still use the token system, but we're adults now that actually have a wallet.
    8:28
    And so I, we, we went in there and that was, I hate that. I'm ashamed to say this and admit it, but I was 40 years old when I finally beat the Simpsons arcade game.
    8:40
    And then it was, and then they actually had a battle toads, which I played the living crap out of just because nobody has it. And yeah, yeah. It's your point though. Like the bar, the barcade thing has been a thing and or pinball themed businesses. We have a, we have a bar here in Minneapolis. It's called tilt and they, they shuffle around a variety of games. And so there are places picking it up, but yeah, I mean, but that's our generation. I'm 40 right now. You're 42. My wife is 41. We were like that last generation that, you know, that remembers going to like a showbiz pizza or a circus pizza place, or like you said, the movie theaters, like even Aladdin's castles that used to be in every freaking mall. Yeah. And or we're also the last generation that our parents did bowling leagues where that dragged their kids with. So while our parents got hammered bowling, they usually kept us quiet with either money for a pool table or the pinball machine. So I spent a lot of time on Alvira while my dad was bowling 300.
    9:46
    Nice. So how did you get into the, like, how did you form the restoration, like, business out of this? Because obviously you're reselling these games that you keep getting. Yeah, you know, I've got a couple of things that I'm not getting rid of, but most of the stuff is, you know, bought to be flipped and put back out into the world as a working game. I like the fixing of it and, you know, doing the little things here and there. I'm learning as I go, you know. I mean, I'm not, I would not call myself a professional in any sense of the word, but I'm pretty good at it. And I've got an eye for things. So I like, I just like doing it. I, about four years ago is when I started the YouTube channel, maybe five years back now, but I didn't really start doing anything on there with the arcades until about three years back. I was, my first thing on YouTube was like, I had gotten back into my home console gaming collecting. So Nintendo and Super Nintendo and Sega CD and all that stuff that I had as a kid. Or once I got everything that I had as a kid back, I kind of wanted everything else. You know what I mean? I was like, let me keep looking for stuff. And that was really the draw of it was going out to garage sales and flea markets and looking on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace and OfferUp and LetGo and hunting down deals and finding lots of games. I would go, pile of video games for sale, 100 bucks, and go buy the whole thing and keep the games that I wanted out of it and put the other ones on eBay and Amazon and get my money back, and my collection's free. That's how it started. So my channel was like, here's how you do this. Here's how you get a collection of stuff that you like for free. And yeah, you've got to give up some of the games sometimes because you can't keep everything. But if you keep the ones you want and you sell off everything else and you keep doing it, you'll eventually have every game you've ever wanted and every game you could ever play, and they'll all be pretty much free, you know what I mean, like if you do it right. Yeah, and there's ways that a lot of people don't know that there are ways to trade. I mean, I know guys who they start to build a collection of like older EM pinball machines, and they're just like, I would really like to get my hands on a taxi, or they see a cyclone or a comet come up or, you know, like pinbot or any, you know, any of the early generation of the 80s games that were like where they started to really put in-depth work into them. And I'm always just like, well, you can trade three of those EMs for one. I mean, you know, you can do that. And but that means that those EMs have to be in good shape. So that's where you, you know, you repaint them. You go through, clean all the contacts, restore the play field, make it just make it look as nice as you can. and people will be more interested in the possibility of doing a trade. And that's how I've acquired a lot. I like to re-theme stuff too. I'll take all the EMs and re-theme, you know, do the whole re-theme thing to them and turn them into something custom and sell them. I've done that a couple times now. And I've done that with some solid states. I turned a Road Kings into a Mad Max Fury Road King. And it's pretty dope. I got that. It's on my channel too. All this stuff that I've mentioned is on my channel. You mentioned Battletoads. I found a Battletoads for, I think, $250, not too long ago, about eight months back, and I've since sold it.
    12:53
    This lot that I picked up in Alabama, there's three or four bangers in the lot that are well enough to pay for the entire lot, if I sell all three of them. I actually already sold the Donkey Kong and the Donkey Kong 3 to a guy for $500 each. I didn't test them. I didn't plug them in. I didn't do anything to them. I just sold them to him. There was $1,000 of it back, and I've got the The Popeye and the BurgerTime are in my garage right now. The Popeye is working. I've got to recap the monitor, but the game is working. The monitor is actually working. It just looks like crap, but the game is working. So there's $2,500 or so on that one and somewhere around there on an eBay sale, you know, top dollar. The BurgerTime, I know I sold a BurgerTime last year for about $25, so somewhere around there shipped. So I think that's what it's worth. You know what I mean? So it was well worth it to get that lot and to buy them all and, you know, sit on them for a little bit. I'm going to be sitting on them for a couple months of going through each one and making sure, you know, get the top dollar I can out of them. But that is really just to pay for more pinball machines, because that's really all I like. I'm not a huge arcade guy as much as I am a pinball guy. So I'll get to keep this. There's a Stern Meteor that is in that lot, and I'll get to keep that. And I'm probably going to keep – I had two Popeyes, so I'm probably going to keep one of the Popeyes and the Stern Meteor, and I might end up keeping the Elevator Action. I used to like that game a lot when I was a kid, so I might keep that one for a while. But everything else pretty much in that lot is ready to, you know, get flipped as a project or have me go through it and fix it up and make it full-on restoration or a player's cab. You know what I mean? It's a working cab that's beat or, you know, I'll do a full thing to it. I've done a couple Pac-Mans. I've done a couple Miss Pac-Mans, some Galagas.
    14:32
    I've made some people some 60-in-1s and some 301 multi-cade type things, and I really don't like doing that. I don't mind, but I don't like taking an old cab and turning it into something it's not supposed to be. No, and I hear you on that. I like keeping the stuff original, you know, as much as I can, especially with the CRTs and stuff. I like to keep the monitors as original as I can and everything I can. So I'm not great at fixing them. I can recap one, and that's about it. I can put a new flyback on one. I can test certain things. I don't have a lot of equipment that I really need to test stuff. I don't have a whole, you know, a CRT testing station or any kind of like oscilloscopes or any kind of real, you know, voltage equipment. I don't have any electronic skills other than what I've figured out through eBay or through Google, rather, and YouTube videos and talking with other people and just doing this, you know what I mean, just jumping into it. So that's kind of what I did. That's how we all – this is how this starts for anybody who restores. It's the fact they get the first game. it typically it might not work or it barely works or like you know and that's when you're looking at like what do i even do and that's when you know you start looking on repair forums and you know pinsides where 90 of what you google search that's all that comes up and that's where guys learn how okay yep you need fuses yep this board might be bad you know you like and then you go through youtube channels where people have been taking apart games uh joe's classic arcades will show you a ton of stuff um and then even like even even tnt amusements todd tucky like when you install all the new all tech boards he was the one that actually had a video of like well this is how you actually bulletproof one of these old solid state games and it's like oh i didn't i didn't know that you know like when i started in that and right and now my my collection is kind of uh bursting actually out of the seams on my storage unit because i i travel for work so i've actually I had the benefit of checking areas where I'm working. And I've hauled back some games at a very reasonable price. I have two laser balls. I'm actually going to be restoring one and sending that to California because the guy wants it and then keeping the other. But I have a new old stock play field. Those are extinct. And so this guy I bought from, he sold me both of them. He threw in the play field. I'm going to flip the play field. I had a guy on a restorers group reach out to me saying, he goes, dude, my play field for this game is shot. And I'm like, well, I'll tell you what, I'll restore the one I'm going to pull from the game and then I'll send it to you. Because he sent me pictures of his and it had been left in a yard with the glass off for years. He said, coincidentally, he got it.
    17:17
    Amazingly, there was like no corrosion underneath and the boards and all the electronics survived. So he's like it's just a hideous playfield and he's playing it as is but I'm like, yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna send you a better one easy to fall into this and the reason I like to bring up a lot of these older games is this is what's available and from a cost perspective New games cost a fortune and I not I not picking on that I aware of the cost of doing business development and the license title But for a lot of us it is okay I ended up with a Williams Honey or I have a Toledo, or I ended up with a game plan sharpshooter that's missing half of the game. It's when you start looking into the community is when you start actually bringing these back to life. And there were a lot of these made. I mean, that's the way I look at it. Like, production runs for, like, I always use Valley Lost World as an example. They made 10,000 of that. I mean, Gottlieb Pinball Pool, there were 7,200 of those made.
    18:25
    This was in 78, 79. I mean, you have from, like, the early, I mean, you can go as far back as the 50s, because depending on where you live in the country, whether the games were legal or not, But you can go that far back with old Gottlieb moving all the way to, you know, Allied Leisure.
    18:47
    Hell, there was a company, Astro, that apparently only sold to private people to make a private person an operator.
    18:56
    I mean, you can find old Chicago coin games, Wonder Wizard, the home editions. Bally made a ton of home edition games.
    19:05
    Yeah, they're crap. I know they're crap. I'm actually taking a demolition derby. I have one. I'm actually going to stuff it into a full-size cabinet, and I'm adding on to the play field to put a spinner and a drop target unit on it because I'm just like – and it'll be all done. I have a Translight made for it and everything. But when I'm done with it, if anybody walks by that, they'll be like, wait a second, I thought that was a home edition crap game. And I'm like, yes, but I made it better. yeah we're i just uh one of my things we just rethemed uh one of those i think it's called a it was circus brunswick circus it's a little kids game you know like the little small one just like that demolition derby and uh we turned it into a voltron i'm not quite done with it yet i gotta finish the back glass and uh design that but i haven't designed that yet but the playfield's done and the body's done it looks great we made it into a voltron but it's you know it's it's just something that's going to play the same as the old shitty little kid's game. It's not going to do anything new, but it'll look a lot better. So I like doing that. I like doing creative stuff with stuff that no one's going to use anymore, whatever it is. With the old ones especially, there's certain old EMs that you're just not going to be able to sell unless you freshen the theme up in my mind. You know what I mean? Like, that's just me. Then you're into the realm of trying to sell something that's custom jobs. And so what is your time worth that you're putting into the job? How many hours did I pay my buddy to paint the thing or whatever we design, where we go at? And then when an EM game can run anywhere from $500 to, well, shit, from $300 in good working shape to $1,200 generally, maybe $1,500 for something crazy good.
    20:55
    I've sold a couple of them for over the $3,000 mark because of the custom paint job on them. You know what I mean? Like it's not, people aren't buying the game at that point. They're buying the artwork. And that's cool. I like doing that, but it's not, it's not a, there's not a big market for it. So it's one of those things where I've had, I've had nobody, I've only got one customer so far that's come to me with a design in their head they wanted me to make for them. Otherwise it's been stuff that I designed and I hope I can sell. And so far I've been able to, but you know what I mean? It's not, there's not a lot of work for it. So the real work is to completely refresh one that is a good sell. So the future spa that I rebuilt recently or the Hocus Pocus. And, you know, you do a full-on stencil job with the paint. You break it down 100% and rebuild the cab from the bottom up. And you go through the game completely and make sure it's 100% playing correctly and looks great. And, you know what I mean? And powder coat all the metal and you go crazy with all that stuff. And, you know, you get some pretty good money for those too. I like to be on all ends of the spectrum I generally have two or three big projects going on at one time and then five to ten players cabs that I'm ready just want to get them working and sold while the other ones are getting pimped out, but that's kind of what's going on in my world the argument sometimes comes up in these restorer groups restorer forums they're like, well at what point is the game a recreation, and that's fair. There is a point that you've literally recreated the game.
    22:29
    They get upset about the pricing because they look at it in comparison to a modern game. You're not getting as much depth from the cash, but what you're getting out of it is that it's all about the time. Even if you're the hobbyist enthusiast, your time is still worth money. When you're painting the sides of these games, Or like, okay, if you're rebuilding the cabinet, even if it's damaged and you're using the same cabinet, but you're redoing it, okay, that's the hourly rate of a cabinet worker. When you're painting it, that's the hourly rate of an automotive paint sprayer. When you're doing the electronics, and this is something that people don't understand about like how fast this can add up. When you bring your cell phone in to have a screen swapped, they charge you $120 and it's done in two hours, right? So that's $60 an hour. Start adding up your time. So when they get upset, sometimes a complete better than new off the line game has been restored and the price point can go up to, sometimes it gets crazy, it's 15 grand. well count the amount of hours for all of the different trade attributes that go into that game and that's you know that's that's from a business perspective but when you're a hobbyist they always all they ever look at the cost involved is the parts and materials they don't look necessarily like no your time is always worth money and depending on what's going on in your life your time is priceless you know the you know reality of the world but yeah i mean the other jobs i do are hourly type positions so i do sound on stuff on tv shows and films and i get 500 bucks a day for that that's 10 hour day so 500 that's 50 bucks an hour is what i charge for that you know what i mean and i when i do repairs for people around town i charge 125 bucks for the initial visit and you know depending on how far i got to go within within an hour i'll drive for 125 bucks for the first hour and diagnosis. And sometimes I can fix it in that first hour too. Otherwise, it's $50 an hour after that plus parts. You know, I charge like a mechanic would or like, you know, you got to. And that's what I charge when I do these restorations. I mean, I filter in how much hourly it costs, and I pay my buddy that does the custom paint jobs. You know, I pay him good for his time, and then we split the profit too. You know what I mean? It's not, if he's made that Mad Max machine, he, you know, he painted it. I think I paid him 500 bucks in all to paint it for the 50 hours it took him or whatever it took him to paint the thing. And then he's, you know, I think I ended up selling it for like close to five grand and we, he made about 2,500 bucks off that. You know what I mean? Like, so I, it's not like I'm making a killing, but there's money that's got to go back to other people because it's not just me doing it with that, with that thing. But other stuff, If it is just me flipping it. The other things I've found, my channel is not very watched. I don't know why. I have over 2,000 subscribers, but I normally only get about 200 to 300 views per video of anything I make. And I don't know why that is. I don't know how it is, what I've got to do to keep people coming back to my channel. I seem to get them to subscribe, but then they only watch one or two videos that I make. They don't watch everything I make. But if they did, I think they would see somebody who gets some of the best deals on the Internet and, you know what I mean, finds some of the coolest stuff for the cheapest prices on the planet. I've been doing it. Not only am I doing it with arcades and pinball machines and getting stuff for obscenely ridiculous scores, but I was doing it with the Nintendo stuff too, the home console stuff. I would find super rare games and super cool items and Nintendo tchotchkes and signage and whatever it may be on the reg. and still nobody watched my channel. I go up against other channels that are like game hunting channels and their game hunting is they go to Goodwill and they find a Connected Ventures sealed for a dollar and they're like, this is a good game. And there's 10,000 people that watch that. But I go find something that's a $4,000 game or something like that and I paid $10 for it and no one watches it. I just don't understand it. So I don't know how to market myself, I guess, is what it is. My channel would be bigger, I think, if I did. but also it would be more annoying to do stuff if I was bigger. I kind of like being under the shadows, you know what I mean, in the background. I'm doing things, and you can watch my channel, and if you pay attention, you're like, man, this guy is killing it, you know what I mean? He kills it with what he's finding. And I get that. I just laugh because when people say, like, I want to stay underground, I always laugh because I played in hard rock metal bands when I was younger, and you were always like, no, you don't want to write anything mainstream.
    27:21
    I just remember that. Well, you do, but you don't. You know what I mean? You want to sell out every seat in the arena, but you don't want to sell out and be on the radio because your song is poppy or something. You know what I mean? I get it. I played in rock bands too. And my rock band, thank God for my rock band. We had a little bit of a following in Atlanta, but really that's what got me into doing music and stuff for TV and film, and that pushed my career further. just by playing in a cool rock band that a director heard some stuff he liked, and the next thing I know, I was writing an entire movie for him. That just kind of happened, but it wouldn't have happened if I wasn't out there playing my own music and doing our own thing, and we were very underground.
    28:02
    We might have had 50 to 60 people come to a show type of thing on the reg. We played a couple big things, but for 10 years, we were kind of killing it in the Atlanta scene underground. You know what I mean? People, if you saw us, you liked us, but not a lot of people ever came to really see us.
    28:17
    You know what I mean? It wasn't like we could get a fart. There was no scene. There's just no scene for rock in Atlanta. If you weren't doing hip-hop or country, no one gave a fart, you know? Oh, trust me. I live in Minnesota. The only thing that we're ever known for is Prince. And then aside from that, Lizzo briefly lived here. But, like, in the rock end of things, well, you have to go back in time for this, but like Husker Dew, Soul Asylum, and then we had a metal act that got huge here that was American Head Charge, but then they relocated to Los Angeles the second they could.
    28:54
    So I kind of get that, being in the no man's land for a scene. I get it. But I will say this, the music end of things, for me, it was kind of a good precursor to doing, like, to restoring pinball machines, to enjoying, like, hey, this is my thing. Because when you're in a band, you do a lot of stuff in-house. I mean, especially when you're first starting out. I mean, nowadays it's a lot easier. Like, you can click on Amazon, you can get a shirt made. You know, you're going to pay, you know, 19 bucks or something like that. But all of these services, these didn't used to be available. And so, like, you always had one member of the band that was, like, good at websites was doing that you'd always have one that was good at recording or could negotiate with some buddies to get you guys recorded and you know usually it was you were making your own screens and printing your own t-shirts you know after practice just to try and do stuff like that and so jack of all trades under one roof mentality really does apply to these games if you take one on because just like the classic car guys who you know they're going to play mechanics when they rebuild the engines and so forth but they also got to do body work they got to do paint spraying stuff like that and with pinball when you're dealing with a machine that's 40 years old and has been beat to hell dragged through hell came out of a rotted barn i mean addict you name it you end up having to sit down do all the research you're ordering from like nine to ten different companies because it's all about who has the parts if you need them and then it's about okay how much of an artist are you to recreate artwork for the game whether you use vinyl overlays you can screen print you know touch up paint airbrush or you know thanks to jeff miller you can get the uh the pinball pimp you can get cabinet artwork stencils it's just about how many hats can you wear how many hats can you wear and like it yeah i mean i kind of did that with my band i was kind of in charge of everything with every band i was ever in i was always the guy that was like, let's make this happen. Let's do this and let's get that done. Let's make sure we're on top of this. I designed the posters and I'm designing the t-shirts and I was like, well, I do definitely feel like I wear all those hats when I'm fixing a pinball machine by myself too because you are. You're juggling 15 different things at once to try and make something cool happen in a timely manner. It's very much like gathering the troops for the show type of thing to get stuff ready and have the merch ready and have a booth set up and all that kind of stuff.
    31:30
    It's very similar, I guess. It's also very cathartic. Woodworking especially is, you know, you get out there and you're taking some frustrations out on a piece of wood and you're shaping it to your will and you're making it. You know what I mean? I like that. The Ron Swanson aspect of life about woodworking. I agree with that, you know. I don't know about all the meat that he eats. I do eat a lot of good meat and stuff every now and then, but I'm not so crazy about everything has to be meat, meat, meat all the time. But the woodworking side of his life, I do get behind. A long time ago, before he was into acting,
    32:05
    it was his, it's Steve, what the hell is his name? It just escaped my brain. He did, he did instructional videos for how to build a wood canoe. That was one of his, I can imagine. Yeah, he's got a real wood shop. Like he's a, he's a legit woodworker, you know. Steve Opperman Nick Opperman oh my god I don't know why I blanked on this Megan Mullally they're both funny on that show Parks and Rec if you don't listen to watch Parks and Rec go watch Parks and Rec you're going to love it oh yeah you don't know who we're talking about you don't know who we're talking about a fictional character from a television show yes yet all we can remember is the fictional character for some reason. Yeah, but you're right. I got into it basically because the band had kind of stopped playing live. You know, the band had some babies, guitar player had some kids, and then the drummer had some kids, and we stopped playing a lot of live shows. Me and the guitar player do music for film stuff, so me and him would get together and go in the studio a lot and record. But, like, you know, I needed something else for my creativity. So that's why I started a YouTube channel. And then something about I wanted a pinball machine. About three and a half years ago, I wanted a pinball machine, and I had never owned one. I'd had a couple arcade machines come and go in my lifetime at that point, but I had never bought a pinball machine or worked on one or did anything. So I watched a lot of videos about it and then got the bug, and I finally found one that I thought I could make work. So I bought a Judge Dredd that needed a lot of work. I paid $1,000 for it, and I think I ended up spending like $2,300 in all. So another $1,300 or so to bring it back to life. And got it up and running and was able to sell it. I went to a convention, Southern Pride Game Expo in Atlanta here. It was a big arcade and pinball convention. And I went out there. I had been selling video games and stuff at conventions and booths and stuff. I had a little booth and go to conventions and do that for a while anyway. And I took that machine with me and was able to sell it and make a little profit and had a good time. And, you know, that started the fire of, like, I think I can do this. So I started buying crazy games left and right. The next one I rebuilt, I think, was an F-14 Tomcat. And it's been, I think I've owned somewhere in the range of, like, 116 pinball machines in the last three years, something like that. I need to look at my pin side listings.
    34:35
    Oh, everybody consults that. Now I just have to check because apparently my stepson was downstairs playing my Stern Wildfire. and I guess he's number one in the country based on his score. So now I actually have to make him an account and actually pay for that so that he can have that registered on there. They make you take the picture, obviously. But I do laugh at that. I've got 11 machines right now, and in the last three years, like I said, I think I've had about 101 that I've sold. So I've got maybe like 112 and all that I've had in my hands for the last three years. Which is insane. It's my favorite game, to be quite honest with you. It is. My favorite game on the machine.
    35:17
    What do you think it is? Oh, as long as you're not going to say Addams Family. I don't hate that game. I'm just tired of the fact that that's what everybody focuses on for four years.
    35:28
    I a fan of the movie I not a fan of the machine to be honest with you I like Twilight Zone a lot better and Twilight Zone is still a pain in the ass stop and go kind of game too So my favorite machine is Medieval Madness. There you go. I got hooked on that one. I graduated high school in 96, and that game was at the CC's Pizza across from our high school, and I would skip lunch and go over there and play pinball during high school and played Medieval Madness in that game enthralled me. And even then I was like, man, I'll never own one of these. I can't imagine what they cost. You don't know when you're a kid. You don't look into things. And, man, I probably could have bought one back then for $500. You know what I mean?
    36:11
    Oh, yeah, the current price is $98. Yeah, you're not going to get one for under $8 right now, I don't think, if not closer to $10 for an original. Last I checked, it was $14,000.
    36:26
    if that's what they've been going for. Maybe that's just scarcity. Yeah, well, I don't really go by Pennside's rate of listings.
    36:34
    Pennside's valuations are a little bit old. They don't take into account all sales. They don't take into account private sales. They're not doing a lot of eBay sales involved. They're mainly doing the stuff that gets sold on their own market. So if they're showing that game worth that much, it might be, but I've seen a couple in the 10 range definitely of the original ones. I really like all the Elvira games too, man, but the new one is fantastic. The House of Horrors is a fantastic game. But I like older stuff, man. My favorite old-school EM game is called Capersville. I've got it. I think it's considered, you know, in the top ten or so of the EM games of all time. It's a multi-ball EM from, like, 67 by Ted Zale. It's crazy. It's got a two- and a three-ball multi-ball on it. I've actually got it here. I'm getting ready to scan the artwork and send that off to Jeff Miller so he can make me some custom stencils for it. He doesn't do that machine, but he will be able to when I send him the scanned files.
    37:34
    Yeah, I'll be scanning that. And I'll rebuild that with Stingray for him. Coincidentally, actually, next week.
    37:40
    I did a Stingray not too long ago. I've done a Sea Ray, a Bally Sea Ray. I like EM games. Sometimes I get stuck. Right now I've got a space mission that I can't seem to get off of playing. It'll only play, like, it shows you're playing a four-player game, but it'll only play the one-player game and one ball. Like, it just keeps playing the same ball over and over. It'll keep kicking it back out. It doesn't count as a bonus. I've really got to go back through that one again. It's been giving me hell for about two months now, messing with it here and there. It wasn't working at all when I got it. So I'm almost there, though. You know me. I can see the finish line. It's just you've got to get time to get in there and clean everything again to make sure everything's adjusted. EMs can be fun and rewarding to work on because it's kind of like you can see it happen once you fix it. You can watch it work, you know what I mean, immediately. And it's not like you're waiting on parts in the mail generally because it's always just something dirty and misaligned. You know what I mean? You just got to figure out where it's at. What is the thing that is causing this machine to go nuts?
    38:42
    That's fun. A ton of wire to check. It's always the contact, the wires. Score reels are notorious. Check your solder points. Oh, yes, yes. Any of those stepper motors, clean all your steppers. And my problem is I'll half-ass do it, man. I'll get in there and, you know, I'm testing the game, but I'm not really cleaning it. I'm just kind of messing with it and moving this one and checking it and moving this thing. I probably need to start a much more systemic approach of, like, strip the game down, pull the play field, pull the bottom out, you know, go through everything, every stack, every switch, and clean it and straighten it and make sure it's good before you even try and turn the game on. I'm just impatient, you know. I'm like, oh, it looks all right. Let's plug it in and see what happens. And then, you know, that's where you start having problems. If you start fixing them one piece at a time, you start causing other problems, I think. So I need to go through and fix everything at once and then try and see what it does. That's probably the best approach. Yeah, and depending on where you pulled that game from, if you decide to plug that in and turn it on, it might turn into, you know, might as well gather around the kid because this is going to turn into a game of pinball meets whack-a-mole with all the mice coming out of it.
    39:48
    That could be true. If you watched that last video I had, there is a mountain of rat poop inside of a Puckman arcade that I haven't actually cleaned out yet. I moved a pile of those machines up to the story locker, and I'm going through them one by one here at home. I'm bringing one back to the house at a time and cleaning it up and going through it. And that Puckman is probably going to be the last one because I know there's a mountain of rat poop inside it.
    40:13
    Just put that one off for later. yeah that would get wait or maybe get sold yeah there are em games that the one the first game that i actually got like good at my parents uh lived up by this uh was sorry my parents would go to this fishing resort every weekend up in northern minnesota and i swear to god every fishing resort like back in those days had a sternugent in there and then when you looked and immediately to the right and i swear there's like six of these floating around there was a I got me Surf Champ. And I will play Surf Champ for days. Like, I don't know what it is about that game. And I just get just stuck and locked in. I'll just keep playing that one. And, yes, there's that cathartic feeling of the game actually, you know, the score reel's moving. You feel that sensation of it adding up the score. Yeah. And I just, I do love it. Yeah.
    41:09
    You know, the bells and chimes, There's something to be said for the early Solid State bells and chimes, too, the strikes and spares and the, you know, I think there's two or three other, the Mata Hari that has the bells and chimes in it, you know what I mean? It's a Solid State game with computers, but it's still got that old school flavor of ding dong bing, bing bong bing.
    41:29
    I like that. I definitely, you know, I really like the new stuff, too. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with a game with 19,000 modes and 40,000 characters to pick from, like Jersey Jack Pirates of the Caribbean. But you're never going to beat that. You know what I mean? You're never going to get through every mode in that game on one game. You know what I mean? It's cool. There's a lot of stuff to do, but it's also like that's a little bit overwhelming. And to any kind of novice player, I think it's off-putting.
    41:57
    If you've never seen a pinball machine before and you walked up to Willy Wonka and you wanted to know what to do, is it going to help you and show you what to do? You know what I mean? If you don't know what you're doing to begin with or what you're trying to even attempt to do, with like, well, here's where the skill shot is. What's the skill shot? You know what I mean? If you're a complete novice to pinball, I think some of those new games are attractive because they look so pretty, but the minute you start trying to figure out what you're trying to do, you can get swamped, lost in what exactly is happening. You know, there's a lot of rules going on and a lot of different modes. And you can start this mode and collect on that one while you're banking this other mode, but make sure you hit that middle button to collect that thing before it releases or you don't want to do that. You want to slap that button three times before you get to that next, you know what I mean? There's all kinds of stuff going on. And it's like, this is a little bit too much to follow, especially when you're trying to keep a ball doing 90 miles an hour inside of a plastic and wooden box with flippers. You know, you're trying to keep the ball alive. Nine times out of ten, most people I meet when they play pinball, they're just trying to keep the ball alive. They don't even know that there's a score to go for, you know, or a mission that they're on to try and complete a mode, you know. And I tell people stuff like that. When I go fix games, I fixed a game the other night. a flash Gordon, a ballet flash Gordon for a girl, a friend of my girlfriend who's had it since they were kids. Now she knows a lot about the game. She was, she was doing the quotes, you know, the Ming Ming is waiting for you or whatever it may be. She was saying some of the stuff to me and telling me what some of the lights and stuff looked like, but she didn't really have any idea what the, uh, you know, what, what a, what a strategy was to try and play it. She just always tried to keep the ball alive. And it's like, well, yeah, I mean, I guess that is the strategy. That's the main strategy. You're right. Keep the ball alive. But, like, what about here? You know, if you go for this shot and you can flip it to here with that, you know, you can collect this bonus. And once you get three of those, then you can light that extra ball. So if you can keep lighting that extra ball, you know what I mean? Like, I would help her with strategy. I'd help anybody, anybody that I've tried to – that I've had to do work for. I definitely – I'm a freak about it. So I'll start talking to them about the game. I'm like, well, this so-and-so designed this, and it's based on this. And, you know, I'm that kind of guy. I just start talking and talking and talking. And I generally – I will undercharge too because I'll get over there and I'll be there for two hours. But I was really only working for one because I was talking for the second hour. So I won't charge them for that second hour. But they've gotten a whole history lesson on their game. You know what I mean? And hopefully they know not to leave the batteries in it or to whatever it may be by the time I leave there.
    44:30
    Oh, yeah. And I've – Sometimes it's been where everything is cool to fix stuff for people. and then a couple months later they're like, I'm going to move and I don't want to take this game with me and you fixed it for me. Do you want to buy it? I've had that happen two or three times, you know, where people had me come fix something and then sell it to me later. I had a guy because they trust me, you know what I mean? They trusted me. They liked what I did for them and they thought of me first. That's cool. Oh, yeah, and I actually, because I've been repairing as well, I just was wrapping up a taxi that I'm waiting for the auxiliary board on for a client, and he has a little game room. He has an NBA Jam arcade one. I'm sitting there and he's like, yeah, I'm going to try and get a real one. I'm like, no, that's cool. And then I'm looking at the game, looking at tags. Yeah, I was laughing because, you know, Python did the artwork for that.
    45:15
    And just he had no idea that how bad this game was not functioning correctly because he was just excited to get a pinball machine. He's like, yeah, I was not knocking out scores. But, you know, I'm like, well, you know, Lola's knocked out. Pinbot isn't working. Do you I'm like, have these drop targets ever worked? And he's like, I didn't even know they were there. What's the drop target? Oh, what's the drop target? Yeah, what's the drop target? Yeah, I mean, that's sad.
    45:43
    You know, there's a good bit of us in the collector community, and I consider myself a collector. I definitely keep these machines, and if I don't want to sell it, I don't sell it. I've sat on stuff for a couple years now. You know, there's a couple games that I'm not getting rid of, like my Capersville. And I've got a hard body right now that is for sale, but I'm asking way more than it's ever going to sell for, so it's really not for sale. You know what I'm saying? No one in their right mind is ever going to pay what I'm asking for this hard body. So really, it's mine. And there's a couple others that if I find them, I'm keeping. If I ever get a Johnny DeMott, I'm keeping it. If I ever get a Shadow, I'm keeping. If I ever come across a Medieval Madness in the price range I will pay for, you're damn right, it's never leaving my hand. I'll be burying it.
    46:30
    You know what I mean? I've found I've really gotten a love for the machines and I love the history of it. I love the gaming aspect of it and the competitive nature of, I've always liked a good competitive video game or, you know what I mean? An experience like that against my brother or against my friends where who can put up the best score on this thing. You know what I mean? Like, let's go. My brother had a, uh, years before this, my, you know, 10 years ago, 12 years ago, my brother bought a, I think he was the first one of us to do it. He bought a multi-cade. He had a 60 and one, you know, Centipede and Mr. Do and Dig Dug and Gallagher and all that stuff on a 60-in-1 multi-cade. And at his house, we had a big chalk scoreboard that, you know, we kept scoring. My name was on the Mr. Do and a couple other ones, high score. But that's – you know, every time I'd go there, that's what we did. You know, we'd go out – hang out in the basement and try and beat each other's high scores. So pinball is the same thing. I really enjoyed doing that, and I've gotten into a little bit of the competitive league with it. There's the IFPA, the International Flipper Pin Association, is a competitive, you know, tournament pinball league. And I played in a couple tournaments. I haven't done really great in any of them, but I played in one. There was 103 people or something like that in the tournament, and I came in and, like, tied for 32nd. So I felt good about myself there. You know, top 50, that's pretty good. I was better than half the people here. And I like that aspect of it, you know. I really like that aspect of the competition, and that's what these games were. They're not only built to eat your quarters, because they're definitely built to eat your quarters. You know, like I always call arcade machines and pinballs made by Carney. This thing was made by a Carney worker to eat your money. They want you, you know, it's designed to take as many quarters from you as it could possibly get. And I love that aspect of it. that it was somebody's job to sit in a room and to design a game that forces you to come back for one more. You know what I mean? It's one of those, you can't get it out of your head. You're like, I'm going to go back next weekend and play that damn thing. You know what I mean?
    48:31
    That was in my head as a kid. I would get frustrated and I'd be like, oh, and I'd have to go home. And for a week I would stew on not being able to knock the castle down at the Cici's Pizza fucking medieval madness. and I'm trying to get back over there on a Friday night and I'm wearing that thing out. You know what I mean? I loved it. There was also a theater of magic game at our local Mexican place. That is one of my favorites. Probably my favorite.
    48:57
    Speaking of that game, there's one at the, at least it used to be there, I don't know if it still is, a couple years back, there was one at the Winchester Mystery House out in San Jose, California, and I was out there for a movie premiere thing, and I just happened to go do a tour of the Winchester Mystery House out there. And if you're not aware of what that is, it's this big crazy house out in California that this woman that was heir to the Winchester Gunn family money kept building until the day she died. There's like 100 – I don't know how many rooms, a couple hundred rooms in it, a couple hundred staircases, all kind of nonsense and things like doors to nowhere and staircases to nowhere. And it's a crazy tourist trap. And in their gift shop is a theater of Magic Pinball Machine that I put the high score on when I was out there. I grand champ their Theater of Magic. I don't know if it still says Cap on it, but I'll be proud if it does when I was out there. I love Papa Duke's design. I mean, for me, that game, it's the rotation. That's what got me sucked into that game. I have played Circus Voltaire. They're not common to find, but they're a lot of fun. and I like those games that do have that level of depth that are kind of quirky and all of them are kind of original titles. I like Funhaus, obviously. Who doesn't? That creepy-ass animatronic head.
    50:18
    I just liked... The light show on those is insane. Dot Matrix is... Everything draws you in. And, yeah, to your point earlier about when the average person walks up to a game, the last show I did a feature game because one of the people on forums requested it was Spectrum.
    50:39
    And I had played one before, and I would actually, I want one now, but back to your point about where the rule sets become too frustrating for the average person walking by in a bar. Well, that game's literally, it's basically playing a three-way mastermind, the board game. It's a code-breaking game. and right like and somebody was asking me like i would love to hear the story about this i'm like that game was actually unpopular at the time because it didn't sell well because it was too damn hard it was it was it's a confusing rule set and one of the things it is so frustrating for all of us who actually play pinball that actually you know we are you know we're trying to set scores we're trying to you know you may when you get put the newer games you're unlocking modes you're trying to do all of these things. The average person that walks up to a pinball machine and feeds a buck, they just don't want to lose that dollar in 30 seconds. You know, like that's it.
    51:39
    Yeah, they want the game to be easy and to be not a ball-draining festival where everything is, whoop, right down the middle, whoop, right down the middle, whoop, there it goes, out the side, ball game over. You're like, man, that's happening. Yeah, well, that new Ghostbusters will do that to you, man. I bought that game. I got drunk one night at a bar, and I played it for the first time. This bar was my buddy Pinball Undesirables, who's also another Twitch streamer and a guy over on YouTube, Steven. I was hanging out with him in Alabama, and we were playing that at a bar. I was drunk, and I kicked that game's ass, and I grand championed it there at the bar. I was like, that's it. I'm buying one. I went home the next week, and I bought a brand new Ghostbusters in the box, and it proceeded to beat me up for about eight months before I sold it. It was the One of the most challenging games I've ever played The flipper gap on it Is enormous And you just, you can't The code will never fix it They can change the code all they want To make it a more fun game or a better scoring game Or easier to do something But unless you rebuild those flippers And put them half an inch closer to each other You're never going to have a game that I want to play again Because it's beautiful and it sounds great And it looks cool But it is a beast it's a b-cell machine i think you just gave some of the listeners an idea i'm like yes i could i could you know i could have some larger flippers you know 3d printed you know go to titan pinball seriously make a if you made a three and a half inch flipper for it make a three and a half inch flipper you'll be fine that then i'll buy one i'll buy another one but yeah it's where you could drive a truck sideways through that thing it ridiculous well i heard rumors and i don know if it true but i heard rumors that during the art phase or whenever they transferred it over to the cutting of the actual board phase like something happened in the file and it spread the flippers apart further than they were intended to be and instead of fixing it they just went with it oh yeah to me so i mean i you know no offense to them i i i'm a fan of all pinball so i'm a fan of gary stern i'm a fan of that company and what they do for pinball, being the big dog and leading the charge. And they make beautiful games, and they make fun machines. All of the guys, and this isn't a dig. It's about the fact of, like, you hire guys with experience. But when you look at the current pinball industry, look at all of your companies. You have Dennis Nordman over at American Pinball. You have George Gomez over at Stern. You have, what is it, Pat Lawler is with Jersey Jack. you have Barry Osler and Papa Duke down at Deep Root. I don't exactly know who works for Chicago Gaming. People don't demonize me on this.
    54:21
    But those guys all worked together. Basically, the entire pinball industry as we see right now is literally just a broken up Williams. And there are different games.
    54:36
    Yeah, and Sega. Yeah, because they became... yep Stern Electronics became Pinstar, Pinstar got acquired by Dead Eats got acquired by Sega Gary Stern was CEO of Sega took it private and that is true and the problems are you're right the games are still being designed with a arcade mentality but when you look at the cost and this is again part of the reason I do a podcast about restoration is because these are the games we can afford.
    55:13
    And I've seen some guys with insane collections. In fact, I wonder sometimes how many of these guys, their significant other is aware they have a mortgage worth of machines in the basement. I know a couple guys who definitely use it as a stock market type situation. One of the things that I have said is that, you know, and I did a video about this at a restoration forum, is I said that, you know, it's great that we have a pinball industry again because, you know, there was a brief period, there was a brief period when you only have one company basically doing a lot of boutique market because arcades were gone. I mean, and to be honest, the vast majority of us, when you go to, I can go to a bar within five minutes of my house, guaranteed there's going to be a Williams game sitting in there. That Williams game has been sitting in there or in that operator's stockpile for the better part of 30 years. And so these games, those ones are still getting played. And so there wasn't as much, I mean, and they said, like in the documentary Tilt, Williams was competing with itself because they dominated 80% of the market. Well, they had to get people to buy new games. They did the pinball 2000 thing, and that worked. Williams used that to cut the division at a high note. because, again, this is all just – pinball was a casualty of the decline of the arcade industry to home console market as well as gaming computers.
    56:43
    And there are people, and right now it's a hobby, which I kind of feel like there's a bigger that's coming. And a lot of guys I've talked to who are big pinball enthusiasts will always say, oh, it'll never take over, even though they all own one, virtual pins. that is becoming a thing. And here's the reality. The virtual thing's here.
    57:07
    It's price point. And Arcade 1-Up is getting in on it. And don't even get me started on Arcade 1-Up and what it is. And I don't want to talk about that. I've done enough talking about that on my channel.
    57:20
    Okay, I get it. I do get it. I'm a fan. Did that come off sarcastically enough? Yeah. Virtual pinball is fun for what it is. It'll teach you the game. It'll teach you the rules of the game. And if you fall in love with how a game plays in the virtual world, you're not going to like how it plays on a real pinball machine because it's not the same. It is the same, but it's different. No, and I agree. You know what I mean? Yes. I totally agree. If you don't have room for 50 pinball machines in your basement, I recommend having one or two real ones and throw a virtual one in there all you want. I don't think it hurts the hobby at all. If anything, I think it causes people to seek out the real version of the game they like the most in virtual land, and then they find out that there's only 1,000 of them left and there's $10,000 each if you want one, or $20,000 if you want one. So that's the thing. I really like this Indiana Jones game. Yeah, I bet you do, buddy. It's going to be $10,000. You get better wait for Chicago Gaming to remake that one. That's cool too. I really like that Chicago Gaming is doing remakes of games, but here's what they should do. Cut the price in half. What are you doing? You didn't have to spend any time researching that game, developing that game, doing any of the work to make that game. All you've got to do is print money. so print up more of them make more of them and sell them at a cheaper price you'll sell them faster you'll sell them further i think i you know go with the the sony playstation 299 you know what i mean come out balls out and be like brand new indiana jones pinball machine 3500 bucks the same game you remember from back in the day yeah and that's something that um i i did talk to i had i did have a conversation with barry alzer once before and he was talking about you know i I was saying that I do like original titles. That's kind of a lost art.
    59:15
    Absolutely. But what I do understand, and I'm not demonizing anybody for it, because some of them are awesome games, but licensed titles have been their thing just because... And licenses pay their bills. Yes, they do. It's recognition. License pays their bills. They're expensive, yes. And I'm worried that Jersey Jack is, you know, I'm hearing Toy Story is going to be their next one, And going into bed with Disney on a license thing is probably super crazy expensive, not to mention hardcore about what they will allow you to do. You know what I mean? They're going to be all up in your business when you're trying to make something cool.
    59:52
    Again, I'm just a musician and a guy who likes to play pinball, but I don't really know the ins and outs of business like that. But I know that it must cost a fortune to be in bed with Fox or whoever it takes to get a license from whatever company. Disney seems to own everything on the planet anymore anyway. So like with Marvel, like the Deadpool game, that game is incredible. Have you played Deadpool? I really do like Deadpool. Yes, I have. Yes, I do. It's super deep and super cool and super neat. I'm not a huge Deadpool fan. I like comic books, and I like the movie, and it was fun. But he's vulgar, and it's not for kids. You know what I mean? I feel like they took a real leap on that license at least.
    60:33
    Deadpool is probably the last character I would imagine for them to try and sell a pinball machine of to families.
    60:41
    They've done X-Men. They've done Guardians of the Galaxy. They've done the Avengers. They've done two different Avengers machines now. I haven't played the new one yet. I like everything Stern does. I do wish they would be much more along the lines of the Pinball 2000 format of how interchangeable that stuff was. What a great idea of being able to swap a play field and a hard drive, and boom, you've got a new game in your cabinet. That's awesome. They only made two of them. Multimorphic's doing it. I played the Heist. I got to play a little bit of the Heist game, and I think I played some Lexi Lightspeed as well on one of their machines. And it's neat, but it still doesn't quite feel good enough. You know what I mean? Like the top third of the play field is where the action is really, even though all that stuff's going on on the screen. But, like, it's not quite there, you know what I mean, for me. I do like the idea of what they're doing, but I think they need to integrate much more diversity in that upper play field area and cut that screen back some and give me some more ramps and things going on that are, I don't know, that would be interchangeable. Make that screen half the size of the game field and the other half instead of a third. You know what I mean? It's a pretty small area when you think about the changeability of it. All it's going to do is have a ramp go a different way or a wire form go a different way. You know what I mean? It's not too much they can really do up there in that small of an area.
    62:14
    It's a neat idea for what it is, and I wish those guys luck. I like anybody that takes a chance, and it puts their stuff on the line like that. And same thing with Spooky. You know, Spooky's making small boutique numbers of games, 500 games of it or whatever they might make up, and, like, more power to them. I hope they get balls out and go with more original content. Again, I like TNA. TNA is an amazing game, and why not print up some more of those? You know what I mean? I call it printing them up. I know it takes a lot more than that and a lot of factory tooling and all that stuff to get them made again. And that's why I like these older games.
    62:51
    There's that whole thrill of the pick. Once you've gotten into the hobby, there is that thrill of the pick. You find out that there's somebody, and somebody locked away. A friend of mine, who I'm giving him some help on, he has a doctor dude. He bought the game for 50 bucks.
    63:08
    I'm like, wait a second, what? yeah i mean like if you go go watch my show from two months ago i was given three pinballs for free a matahari a kiss and a flip-flop for free and uh you know that kind of shit happens there's shit out there like that that happens every day you just got to be on top of it so you know i'm constantly doing i'm constantly hunting i'm constantly looking in the last two weeks i haven't done that much hunting because i found that gigantic pile of stuff that i got to figure out what to do with but i'm always hunting for pins definitely and trying to trade for stuff you know i like trades i like you know i like to play as many pinball machines as i can so that's kind of my goal is to i want to play every one ever made if it's got blippers on it i want to play it there there are two there are probably two guys in the world that i will say who have probably played every pinball machine made todd chucky because of love god he's gotten probably a hold of every one made.
    64:08
    And Roger Sharpe, he said pretty much every game manufactured, I want to say it was 1963 on, with the exception of during this COVID period, that he had been able to actually play pretty much every game made. And I'm just like, that's a lot of games. So I'm thinking, do you really get to sink in with something like that? And that's why one of these trips I'm planning to take is I want to go to the Pacific Pinball Museum. And I am going back to Las Vegas for the Pinball Hall of Fame because I want to play Python's Pinball Circus.
    64:48
    Yeah, that looks cool. That and the fact that it's the rarest game, my understanding, only two ever made. One's in private collector and one's with him. And I did get to talk to Tim briefly. But due to he had a family death he was dealing with at the time that the interview didn't end up being used. And that's okay. But he did tell me that they are opening in July. And the facility is nice. Everything is going to plan now. And so I'm looking forward to going out there. Because, you know, when I go to Las Vegas, I go for the Neon Light Museum and I go for the Pembal Hall of Fame. I can gamble at any one of those casinos. And I think I already said this in my previous podcast. but like, you know, I go to the restoration, I go to like, you know, American restoration shop. I stopped by, I see this stuff. I want to see old stuff brought back and Oh, go on. If you ever come across any parts for Mario and Dreddy, let me know. I just picked up one. All right.
    65:43
    It's a nightmare. Got leaves can be fun and they can be not fun. Oh, that's a guy on a barbed wire bed. Yeah, it is. one of the last ones they did I've got two ADBs right now I've got a Raven and a Spring Break that are both fucking bad faces man just they look great the play fields are great, the bodies look good all of the boards like every board, light board D&D board, not D&D but alphanumeric board like the power supplies, the NPUs the driver board, every one of them had something jacked up on it. And it's just been like a waiting game of parts and finding old stuff. And they're just a nightmare, dude.
    66:31
    And yet we still do them. Yes, we still do them. The one of them, the Raven, I only bought that one. I bought both of them for $450 a piece, so $900 for the two dead machines. And one of them was the Raven is basically like a Rambo theme, you know. It's like a chick with a machine gun on the back glass and a red bandana or a black bandana on her head. It's basically a girl Rambo.
    66:58
    Oh, yeah. I bought that. One of my best friends is a Rambo freak, and I've basically been filling up his garage with machines that I know he likes. So I got him a hard-driving machine, a sit-down hard-driving machine. I found one of those for $100, and I did a video where I give it to him. So I started the arcade in his basement. He bought a couple things from me, and I give him buddy prices on shit. I basically just charge him what I paid for it. But this one I'm going to give to him for free. His first pinball machine is going to be this Raven if I ever get it done.
    67:30
    And I'll give him that. I envy that. It's fun to watch the look on his wife's face when I'm like, here you go. Here's another one. In his garage here just filling up with stuff. It's awesome.
    67:43
    Oh, my wife just thought I'd give her that same look. but yeah i'll let you get through it hey buddy i appreciate it you have a good night and nice talk i appreciate the conversation nice talking to you as well all right see you guys all right buddy later all right bye ladies and gentlemen that concludes our interview with kevin cogland aka captain retro the king of anything vintage whether it be original home gaming consoles arcade but of course pinball machines he has to check out his channel on youtube please he does a lot of cool videos about how to acquire games rehabbing them and best of all he does a lot of cool pick videos where he picks them up so please check that out and we're going to pause for a second here while we go to some news and on to the news big news today in fact uh haggis you had us all thinking you were going to put out Jaws. We saw that cheeky video where it said just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water. We were all wrong and misled. They just announced they're re-releasing a recreation of the 1981 Valley Classic Fathom. Originally designed by Ward Pemberton with the art by Greg Freres. 3,500 units were originally produced. It was a small release. It's a very sought-after game. They are re-releasing it just saw it it looks gorgeous they have the standard edition plus what they call a mermaid edition prices range basically just a hair under ten thousand dollars to about twelve thousand dollars but my god the game is beautiful and it's very very true to original looking game i'm just shocked so that's hot off the presses cpr is back at it with their latest uh releases for um diner Cheetah and Flight 2000. So if you happen to have those games, guess what? And your play field looks like shit, hey, there is now hope. You can actually buy a new one. In other news, in regards to the podcast,
    69:48
    sadly, I'm not going to be having a co-host right now. In fact, I'm actually open to having a co-host. So, you like Sock Pinball? You want to have a drink while we hash out a couple of topics? Please feel free to reach out to me at pinballrestoshow at gmail or contact the Pinball Restores Podcast Facebook page. I'll take any of those messages. And with that, that's all the time we had. It was a long interview with Kevin. That was actually just awesome to talk to that guy. I love talking to that guy. We're going to close out with one more commercial. And you know what? Thanks to the community, I love doing this. I'm going to keep doing this. We've got more shows coming. In fact, I'm going to be interviewing Stu Wright, a co-partner with Classic Playfield Reproductions. Huge on this. So stay tuned, folks, and this is Matt signing off.
    70:40
    CPR! Classic Playfield Reproductions, your premier pinball hobby reproduction parts specialist, featuring Playfield, plastic sets, and back-class reproductions from Bally Williams and more. High-quality recreation achieved through both modern and vintage manufacturing methods. Find out more at ClassicPlayfields.com. This has been a Ruby Butt Production. Ruby, get out of the litter box!