Welcome Welcome to Canadian Pinball Podcast, the only pinball podcaster to win six twippies in a row, then be ineligible, and then lose to my new best friend in pinball, Cal over at the Electric Bat, baby. The Electric Bat is back. We got to bring one of those to the East Coast. We rap every day and make fun of the rest of what's going on in this crazy hobby. We love. What is going on in pinball? You can head over to Costco. You can go get a $4,700 Star Wars pinball machine, or you could probably go get the other Star Wars machine that's fully featured, right? How much is a Steve Ritchie Pro version of Star Wars? I mean, it's got to be around that price, I would have to imagine. Or you could go buy a game with half as much in it. We're going to go around the pinball horn on this Friday. Here's the topics I want to talk about today. I want to talk about Spooky's next game. How are they going to handle the launch of this thing that is going to sell out instantly? Are they going to do something a little bit different? Are they going to give Kaneda 887 of them to flip for a profit and then split the profits It's with them. Why not just make me the only distributor? And then I'll have no problem whatsoever selling it for over MSRP. Because you know, when it comes to scalping games, nobody scalps better than Kaneda. I used to be great back in the day. I'd swoop in, get a couple of each title that was hot, make a couple grand and call it a day. That was when it wasn't greed, was it? We only asked for like 2000 over back in the day. And I'm talking about games like Ghostbusters, L.E., Batman, L.E. You know, you'd buy it for like 8000 and you sell it for 10 and then COVID hit. And these idiots were buying games for eight and then listing them for 19. The moment a Pirates of the Caribbean CE in a box sold for $40,000 was the dumb moment. And everybody witnessed and was like, oh, yeah, I guess all my games are now worth this. And the reality is, no, they're not. No, they're not. Everything has slid back down, way back down. Can't even sell a King Kong, a brand new King Kong, LE, new in a box, is having a hard time sell for $11,000. I mean, literally $2,000 off the latest Keith Elwin game, and it's not going to move quickly. And for those of you who paid $13,000, I don't know what to tell you. Here's $5. Go sign up for Canada's Pinball Podcast, and he would have saved you $2,000. And these guys are the ones who are hemming and hawing about donating some money to Canada's Pinball Podcast, baby. Are you guys signing up for Naps Arcade? I need to know how the forum is. I'm joining it today. I'm going to sign up. I'm going to give Jason what he deserves, a few bucks, and we all should do the same thing. Do you think we're going to get 600 and what? We're at 661 now. We're sliding down to 600. You know, I know there's not a ton of pinball news, but that doesn't mean pinball podcasting can't be fun. There's always topics to talk about. So how is spooky pinball going to handle Beetlejuice? We know it's either Beetlejuice or Gremlins. I think between those two titles, more people want Beetlejuice. But I think both titles are going to be day one instant sellouts. And after watching Evil Dead, and here's the thing. And I think we don't give enough credit when we talk about the best designers, the best games, the most loaded pins, the best bang for the buck in all of pinball right now is Evil Dead. It has the most in it. It has all the assets you want if you love Evil Dead. Caveat. Whoop-a-scooby-doo voice. No, it's not going to happen. I'm not going to. Canada, what's wrong with you? What's in your coffee today, bro? So look, Evil Dead has so many great toys. It has all the assets. It has the best art out of all the new art packages. It has the best topper. And you can get that beautiful butter cabinet. If you've never stood in front of a butter cabinet, it is nicer than any decal that's ever been on any pin ever. So they're giving you the best bang for the buck. And on a theme that is arguably very niche and subculture, it's sold out. And now they're going for well over sticker. And that's evil dead. And if they hit with Beetlejuice, with Franchi, and Bug and Luke, and they only make $8.88, they're going to sell out in seconds. And I know distributors are taking an interested list. I love these distros, man. And I saw a thread that was like, what do you want to see from your distro? And it's like, I love when people say stuff like, I just want a fair price. Come on. Distros can't give you a fair price. They can only sell you what the game is, MSRP or more. They're not allowed to sell you the game at the actual market value of a game. Distros sitting on King Kong LEs right now can give it to you at a fair price They can shave off I mean they will if you walk in with cash They just can advertise it So I think Spooky Pinball has an interesting moment here because it's going to happen in November, December. And when it hits, it's just going to be a feeding frenzy. I love where they are at. I mean, think about out of all the pinball companies, This company only needs to make one good game a year to keep it all going. And they've secured four to five really great licenses. So that means for the next four to five years, Bug and Luke are sleeping like little babies. And I don't mean like baby babies. I mean, they're sleeping like a baby. They're out cold. Not because they're drinking with Ben Heck. They're out cold because they have peace of mind. I'm sure there's some things that are stressful, but for the most part, this company has hit its stride and I would love to be a fly on the wall when they announced Beetlejuice. So should they do something different, right? Should they create some sort of lottery to get one? How do you make it fair? Because you know that 888 are going to be spoken for right away. You know, Kanaid is going to get one. They're going to hook me up with one. That's how it works, people. when you do 1100 podcasts about pinball and you wear a t-shirt that says spooky shill on it you get to cut the line and if you think that's unfair go make 1100 pinball podcasts and walk into the electric bat arcade get wasted and you'll get one too all right so i think they're gonna probably just do business as usual and why not right why not you don't need to like mess up a system that works. If you're not on a list for this game, trust me, get on the list. Just get on the list. I've been telling people to get on the list before, but this time I really mean it. I thought you had to get on the list for Harry Potter, but now nobody needed to be on a list because they're making Unlimited. But for this game, trust me, get on a list. Now, let me just speculate what I think is going to happen. I think an instant sellout of Beetlejuice. I think the game with all of its butter and accessories and toppers will be somewhere around $13,000 to your door. Now, from there, this is where I think it's going to get crazy. If it is Beetlejuice and it's the original Tim Burton one, right? Maybe it's both movies and you can select. That would also be cool. Nobody would complain about that. Get ready, people, for an absolute absolute bonkers immediate secondhand flip price. I mean it. I think they're going to flip around 18 instantly, instantly. And I mean that there's only going to be 888 Beetlejuices. Now, I don't know that for sure. So what if they knock the number up? Now, I know they don't want to go anywhere near like Scooby-Doo, where it was like, what, like 1969 games or something silly like that. And I know they want to get to the next game, and they don't want to make two games on the same sort of layout ever again. I still think it's going to be $8.88. And I think Spooky is very happy making the amount of money they're going to make, and I think they want to pass the value on to their customers. What a novel idea. That's what Stern used to do with all of its LEs. That's over. And Spooky Pinball, really, when you think about it right now, the only company the only company with FOMO still going is spooky you don't have it over at barrels of fun they didn't sell out of dune they don't have any sellouts of king kong le's going on there's no sellouts of harry potter anywhere there's no sellouts of anything else anywhere it's not hard to get anything i was just looking up pulp fiction le i was curious i'm like is pulp fiction le holding value 8300 bucks for the le that was like 9500 9700 remember when people were paying well over for that game when it was announced 8300 and guess what it's not sold it's just sitting there so this is going to be a crazy november december now stuff's going to happen before then. Stern's Star Wars is going to be so interesting. Are they going to nail it? I think Stern needs to give everybody a new moment of wow. And we all feel this way, right? It's like King Kong was not it. D&D was not it. Jaws was the last one, I think, that really hit and made people happy. But when you think about it, man, Jaws didn't even have a shark that ate the ball. And I get that they said they were trying to make it work. But in the end, that is sort of pathetic, right? It's like you make a game based on a big shark that eats stuff and he doesn't even eat the ball. Okay. So when we get episode four through six, and I hope it is that, what do you want in this game. I'll tell you the one thing we better see. I want to see an at-at walker and I want to see the ball go around its legs in an orbit, right? You're like quick around, like the way the harpoon goes around its legs and that at-at walker better fall down. If they don't have that in a Star Wars game, what are we doing here? Are there no engineers that have any creativity? The other thing they need in Star Wars is simply this You have to make it When you blow up the Death Star the entire game lights should turn off You should only get one shot and you gotta use the force I mean that is how it should go Make it a moment. And when you blow up the Death Star, think about the Steve Ritchie game. Nothing really interesting happens when you blow up the Death Star. It should feel like when you destroy the ring in Lord of the Rings. The entire game should go crazy. and you should have some amazing stuff happening. Anyway, so what if it's not Star Wars? Like what if it's something crazy like Fallout? Remember when that was a rumor? We were going to get Stern Fallout. And then Stern's been picking some really bad themes. So it's not lost on me that maybe Jody thinks Fallout was going to be big and inked a deal. I don't think it's going to be that. I think it's going to be Star Wars and then it's going to be Pokemon. a lot of people are asking me, what's Jack Danger's game? Did Jack start on Pokemon and Keith Elwin is going to finish it? There's no way that's happening, people. If anyone's going to finish a Jack Danger pin, it's going to be Gomez. Gomez is the one who will come in and finish a game. He's done it before. He did it with what? James Bond. He's done it other times. There's no way that Keith Elwin ever starts out fixing someone else's game or finishing someone else's game. I shouldn't say fixing because Jack's a great designer, but no way. Absolutely no way. So look, Keith Elwin, Pokemon. I'm worried though. I am worried that Pokemon is not this demo at all, at all. I mean, all of us, even if we weren't Potter fanatics, we saw the movies, But people in this community are not into Pokemon. It is just not going to move like people think. The love affair for Star Wars is a thousand times bigger in this demo than Pokemon. And so if Stern is banking on Pokemon being this huge pinball game that's going to sell so much, I'm going to say this right now. Donkey Kong would be better than Pokemon for this demographic. Super Mario Brothers would be better. Sonic the Hedgehog would be better for this demographic. These things are not cheap. and there are not people in their 30s plopping down $10,000 to $15,000 on pinball machines, people. It's just not happening, all right? So you know what else is going on in pinball that's funny right now? It's like accessories to accessories are shipping before the accessories, even before the game arrives. Are you confused? Let me explain. So you can order today accessories to your Alice's Adventures in Wonderland topper, and you don't even have the game, and the game is not even shipping with the topper. Did you follow that? So the game isn't even with you. If you do get your game, it has no topper, but you can order an accessory to the topper. What I would like is an update on where Barry is at finding a new vendor to make those toppers because that doesn't seem like the easiest thing to just remake. It's pretty intricate mold going on there. So we shall see what happens there. I also saw people are getting invoiced for their Cliffies on Medieval Madness remake. So the metal protector for the scoop, Cliffy is going to send you your product. The only problem is the game is not even shipping. You don't even know where your Merlin's edition of Medieval Madness is. And I also just think after covering this hobby for 12 years, I'm still perplexed why Cliffy is still in business. And what I mean by that is how come nobody's just bought him and made his products part of the expensive thing we're buying? Shouldn't all of these scoop protectors be installed before any game leaves the factory? I I mean, even Harry Potter recently, the first builds didn't have the scoop protectors and then later builds did. But how did they even forget that? Like, I really don't understand how that's even happening. So for a lot of you out there, you know, you've had your money tied up with certain things and you're waiting and you're waiting and you're waiting. Now, I think what's going to happen in pinball over the next couple of years is we are going to see a consolidation in the amount of companies that survive all of this. Can Turner Pinball survive? I don't know. Will Barrels of Fun make it to future titles? I think so. I do think so. And I'm excited about what they have in the roster. I'm hearing feedback on Dune lately is that people want to see when you're playing the game that there's more audio and video and call outs that are sort of like energetic when you accomplish something in the game that right now it's a little monochromatic now i heard that they're working on that and that should be coming in future code updates of the game again you know how i feel about all this gang by the time this game is code complete it will be two thousand dollars less than it was brand new and it will be about a year away from when the game was revealed. You know, I just don't like that. I feel like the video game industry went in that direction. Games launching early because the companies needed to make payroll. And then you beta testing the thing for an entire year I tired of that I glad to see that Spooky Pinball is hiring another programmer That good news The more these games can be code complete on release date, the better. You're not going to get two, three, four chances to make a first impression. And when you launch too early, you might be dead on arrival. Like you got to get the game out. You got to put the games in boxes. Like even if you don't have Arnold, Pinball Brothers should have had 50 games ready to go on day one. You know, like what's this reveal? Take deposits, wait a few months. It feels like a lot of these companies, the cash flow has to be an issue. And that's a dangerous place to be because for a lot of these companies, they're not backed by the Abbott's family. They don't have the stern dollars. They don't have cheap overhead like spooky and I think that's going to cause a lot of these companies To just fade away Because I think at these prices people what are you buying? You're only going to buy great games Everything else you're just going to let come and go I mean it is crazy to me that king kong is kind of You know just doing mediocre. It's king kong. It's keith. Elwynn and it's kind of like yeah You know, nobody's really dying to get their hands on one. That's insane to me. King Kong is going to go down as a mediocre seller. Now, whether or not it's great or not, you know, we'll just let Retro Ralph tell you the game's amazing. You know, like Avatar is amazing. People just don't understand. He's going to tell you that because he's having fun. And I love that Retro Ralph is positive, by the way. I saw him go on the pin side and defend his honor against these cargo short wearing trolls. It's like, Ralph, you don't need to do it. What you need to do is reach across the aisle and grab a whiskey with kale and Canada. Like, we're still having fun. You think I would go on to Pinside and try and defend myself? You know why I don't even need to? Because nobody calls me a shill ever. You know, I used to be called toxic and all this and that. I'm not that. I just call it like I see it. and in the end, in the end, who cares what they think? You got 73,000 subscribers. Now, they're not pinball subscribers. It was more of the arcade community, but man, just chill out, Ralph. We're gonna get you back. We're never gonna get Don back into the Kaneda Club, but we're gonna get you back, brother. All right, because people are gonna be like, oh man, Kaneda said nice stuff about you. Now you gotta go listen. See, I love these guys. There's a very small circle of content creators that are having a good time, and we're all doing it differently. And that's good, right? It's good that we have a variety out there. Now, that being said, there's so much pinball content now, I don't even pay attention to like 90% of it. I love listening to a few things, a few people, but the rest, man, it's like, I don't know, man. But whatever, you know, no one's forced to listen to any of this stuff. All right, so what else is going on in pinball? Anything, like we're at August 1st, baby. is August going to see any action in pinball? I don't really think so. I think August is going to be a very dead month. It's going to mostly be about code updates. It's going to be at the end of this month. We start to hear more about Star Wars. It's going to come either end of August, early September. And that's good because I recommend to each and every one of you, let's act a little bit like Europeans this August. They take the entire month off. Basically, let's go outside let's be out there connect with the people man the real positive vibes on pinball are happening at the personal level on my patreon chat that's where it's happening getting together at arcades that's where it's happening going over your friends homes and playing games that's where it's happening you know maybe going on the pin side speaking of going on the pin side pin pilot has not resurfaced. We can't find him. He has not come back to apologize for trying to throw CPR under the bus. I hope he returns in four years and eight months, but it's the summertime. Get out there. Pinball is a winter sport. I'm going to come up with entertaining shows every week. You don't have to worry about this. You're going to have fun. I hope you're enjoying the show. I'm enjoying making the show. Everybody get ready. Just save your pennies. I mean it. Save your pennies because you're absolutely going to want the next spooky game. I know you're going to want the next Jersey Jack game. And Stern, man, isn't it fun? Stern's on the ropes, baby. They had everything. They could have acquired all of their competitors. They could have acquired every theme. And now they're on the ropes. I love it. They've got this ginormous company. and they made so many boneheaded marketing mistakes, and now they need a hit. It's getting serious. And I know for a fact, Stern was trying to find a buyer, people. If you think that that was not the case, yes, it was the case. There were very real conversations trying to find a buyer for Stern Pinball. You know who couldn't afford it? Kaneda. Because most of you are only giving me $5 a month. This is like Kaneda's lower class podcast. Everybody, peace out. We'll talk to you soon.