He's reaching for the 14. I mean, listening to these grown men spend the last week and a half arguing back and forth on this game after Stern lied to us, after we could see how ugly the game is, after we could see that this thing has nothing really special. I was listening to another podcast in which they mentioned for $20,000, maybe Stern should make the screws, you know, by the LCD screen that's on the playfield because the border is all black. They were mentioning that the screws should be black. And heck, yes, they should be black. For $20,000, the screws there should be black. But you know what they said? They said that they probably are not black because of the cost. The cost of making screws black. We are now making excuses for these companies. It's at the point now where I think everyone is just waking up out of the COVID coma, out of the price frenzy and realizing the reason why the screws aren't black is because Stern doesn't care about the details. Stern doesn't care to actually make the cabinet artwork more interesting. Stern does not care. And the screws are a great example of that because the screws themselves would not need licensor approval. And Stern doesn't care that they false advertise. I didn't even talk about this on my last show, but they said it was exclusive, the topper. And then they said it was exclusive because it's included in the purchase of the 60th. They lied to us. And then they tried to spin it. So look, I think all of this is starting to sort of drag people down into this space. Instead of buy now, it's why now. I'll tell you another example where I just think people are starting to lose excitement because nobody's excited to spend 15K on a Jersey Jack machine. And nobody's really excited to spend 13,000, let alone 20,000 on a Stern pinball machine. I put up what date Jersey Jack pinball number eight is coming out to the world. It's coming out February 20th. Okay. Now, normally that would be a huge reveal. It would be something totally everyone would talk about. Kaneda's reporting that Jersey Jack number eight is coming out February 20th. I'm going to ask one of you who's listening to this right now, who has the guts to go on to Pinside and actually start a thread that says, Kaneda reporting JJP number 8, 220. Do me a favor, post that. I'll send you a Kaneda mug. I promise you, okay? But here's the thing. Even after having it on my page, nobody's talking about it. It's like nobody cares. Everyone's worried it's going to be Godfather. Everyone already knows what the price is going to be, And that's creating an overwhelming lack of enthusiasm for this hobby. And here's the thing, and I get it. Like you guys are like, Kaneda, you're beating a dead horse. Kaneda, you're being negative again. No, what I'm trying to do is just tell you the vibe I'm feeling. And there's only one way out. There is literally one way out of this. All these manufacturers, all these companies, they've painted themselves into a corner. And the only way out is if they make amazing games. And that's the silver lining in all of this. That's what keeps me excited to see what happens in the future. Because if your game is not amazing, if it is mediocre, it will be dead on arrival. I'm hearing from distributors, nobody's ordering Queen Pinball. It is dead on arrival. You're not going to get people to cut you a $10,000 check if the game itself doesn't elevate, doesn't innovate, doesn't take it to another level. Think about any other industry. In what other industry can you release a product that's not even as good as products that came out five years ago and then charge 40% more? I mean, just think about that. Are you buying a TV that's not as good as your old TV for 40% more? and that's what's been happening in pinball. You can't fool us anymore. Our love affair with chasing every new inbox is gone. I mean, it's gone, man. You can see it, man. Distros are going to start to get really desperate as times get leaner. You're going to see more and more of them starting to unload used games, right? Buying from other people and unloading other products because I know you really want an Iron Maiden. I know you really want a Ghostbusters. I can't convince you to buy a James Bond because you don't see the value there. But I know you're going to want these classical games. I think we're going to see more and more distros become used pin salespeople if they want consistent revenue. Because when they announce Galactic Space Force or Godfather or Foo Fighters or Venom, are people going to run through the door? If 2023's big titles are Godfather, Venom and Foo Fighters, the answer is no. You know the answer is no. I mean, come on, At least go make the A-Team. I mean, the A-Team is a better theme than the Godfather for pinball. And I can't imagine it's that hard to license the original A-Team TV show. All right. So let's quickly go around the horn and see what's happening in the pinball world. So Stern Pinball, everybody hates them right now. They lied to us. They misled us. And I still haven't forgiven them. And they need to ask for forgiveness. And James Bond sales are nowhere near where they thought they would be Spooky Pinball probably the most exciting post of the week They showed us they have Scooby manufacturing beginning We saw a lineup of cabinets. We see them working on the playfields. This game is about to go on the line any day now. They hired the voice actor that's been doing the Scooby-Doo voices over all of these years. And supposedly he will be giving us those 4,000 custom call-outs. The only question I had when they announced that, that he's joining Team Spooky, I thought they already recorded the 4,000 callouts and that's why they used it in their marketing materials. So I hope they have a lot of this game already coded because the moment Spooky shows this game, they must know deep down inside that this code needs to be pretty good. like this can't be barren code like halloween and if they show this game and it looks like there's a ton of work that needs to be done you're gonna hear 1969 people go rut row what did i do i should have listened to kaneda i should have waited to see if this game is gonna deliver for this much money and i'll tell you this right now guys i'm just gonna be candid if you waited on the sidelines you're gonna be able to buy a scooby-doo for less than msrp you're gonna be able to get one cheaper than anyone who bought it directly from Spooky or directly from a distributor. Times have changed, people. Wake up. 1,969 games. It's not going to be rare. It's not going to be hard to find. And the code's not going to be done at launch. And that's going to make people buy it, realize they don't want to wait, and then they're going to sell the game for less than sticker. And you heard it here first. It's not being negative. It's just that there's too many pinball companies now. The prices are too high and most of us are just fed up and the scalping is dead. All of these companies killed the scalping. There's no more secondhand value to be had in any of these games. And now we have to wake up to that reality. That was not the reality over the last 10 years. And it's going to hurt the sales tactic of FOMO. And when that goes away, the whole buy, buy, buy mantra is going to be dead. People are going to wait and see and they're going to listen to Kaneda and they're going to sleep better at night. Okay, so spooky pinball ready to go. Haggis pinball. They're getting more fathoms out the door. Did you see this mistake by This Week in Pinball with the Twippies? They left fathom pinball off of the ballot for the Twippies. I don't understand how you have a committee of people who is in this hobby, right? And this is like Steve Bowden. I mean, the people on this committee, they should know better. I don't understand how you don't realize that Fathom Pinball is shipping this year for the first year ever, and it should be included in certain categories. Now, that being said, do I expect Fathom Pinball to win a Twippy? No, and it's real simple because not enough people have it, not enough people have seen it, and the Twippies is a popularity contest. And the more people that have the game, the more people that have played the game, you're more likely to get those votes. And so, yes, why I think it was a boneheaded move to leave it off of the ballot. I don't think it's going to change anything. But come on. I mean, at what point are these guys going to realize maybe Kaneda should be on the committee and then we'll announce that he's ineligible for a Twippy moving forward. Just give me the Lifetime Achievement Award and let someone else have it next year. But this year, I'm putting on the cargo shorts. If you haven't voted yet in the Twippies, this is the last weekend to vote. So make sure you vote Canada for Favorite Pinball Podcast and Favorite Pinball Streamer. I much appreciate all of your support. That's Haggis Pinball, Chicago gaming company. We're still trickling out Cactus Canyon LEs. The thing I don't understand about this company is this. Where is the Lyman Sheets code? Poor Lyman has been gone for a long time now. What's happening with this code? What is going on? Why would it take an entire year, even without Lyman, to finish what he worked on? How much did he even work on? There's been no communication around this. There's been no timeline around when this code is going to drop. And it's really disappointing. I And the way they've been communicating this game, it's just an utter disappointment. Let's go over to Dutch Pinball. Because if you've been in the Dutch thread and you're seeing what's going on with Dutch Pinball, it is Miracle Playfield nightmare all over again. It is the same exact thing that happened with Guns N' Roses owners. There's a batch of Miracle Playfields that are now pooling. They're chipping the artwork. And it's really bad. And it's really, really bad. And I don't know how many strikes does Mirko get before us as a community says, I refuse to buy any pinball machine that has a Mirko Playfield logo on it. This company, and I mean Mirko, this guy is a joke. And he's making millions of dollars, people. Do the math. Imagine if he ships 5,000 Guns N' Roses playfields to JJP. How much money out of that 5,000 units do you think he makes per playfield? And he's been making playfields for JJP, for Dutch Pinball. He's made thousands and thousands of playfields. And look, they don't all have issues. But hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them have had issues. And when this clown makes a mistake, does he send you a replacement playfield if his playfield falls apart? Nope. I've got to buy it again. And I'll tell you this. When Jersey Jack sells me a replacement Guns N' Roses playfield for $500, they're paying Mirko that $500. They're just selling it to me at cost. So that's the most painful part about it is Mirko's making money again. he's making double the money on his own mistakes we need to wake up the guy's a squirrel he doesn't deserve our money or our support anybody out there who's a pinball company should be looking for a new vendor to make these play fields all right so thank you mirko for giving us this nightmare once again as everyone now searches for washers to put under their big lebowski posts all right what else is going on we covered off on spooky jersey jack game number eight what we know is it's probably godfather it's christopher franchi it's eric minier and it's coming out in just about a month and it seems like nobody cares and look i mean it when i say it jersey jack marketing wake up people if it's godfather let us know now rip the band-aid off let everybody complain for a few weeks they'll get tired of complaining. There's only so much you can complain about pinball unless you're Kaneda, and then you can complain for seven years straight. All right, everybody, so what else is going on? We've covered off on those companies. Well, look, we also know we're getting a new game from Stern. I said we're all upset with Stern right now, and the other question will become, in March, will it be Venom? Will it be Foo Fighters? It's not going to be Back to the Future. I wonder what it's going to be. I think it's going to be Venom. I'll tell you why. I think Venom's been done for For a really long time. It's been done for over a year. It's Brian Eddy game. It has a big mech in the middle of it. And it also a zombie Yeti game And I think after this Ugly James Bond game Stern is going to hit with an absolutely knock it out of the park gorgeous zombie yeti game now the big question is this how do you sell a $13,000 venom and how do you make 1,000 of them at that price I think what we're going to see if Stern wants to sell venom for 13,000 I think they're going to have to get back to making the limited editions actually get ready for it are you sitting down they need to actually make them limited so i think we're going to see i would bet venom should be like 400 le's like if you're going to do venom do not do a thousand do not even do 500 make it 400 make it somewhat rare and exclusive we need to get back there i think all le's and ce's need to be 500 I think there still needs to be like some FOMO with the collectible version of the game. The 1,000 units was too much of a jump. It was way too much. I mean, think about it for a minute. Jersey Jack went from 500 Guns N' Roses CEs to 1,000 Toy Stories. I mean, stupid. You don't double the amount of something. That's not an incremental increase. Like absolutely boneheaded move. The funny part is this. The only way Toy Story SEs ever would have held value is if they made 500 or less. The moment we saw 1,000 was the moment they killed the collectability of the game. I mean, think about the irony of that. These own companies are killing the collectability of their collector versions of the game. James Bond 60th. Let's just talk about this for a minute. Here's what I think James Bond 60th is going to be worth in a year. Are you ready for it? Stern's going to make all 500. Distros are going to sit on them forever. I think this game, a year from now, will sell for $12,000. And I think it's going to be $12,000 or less. If you buy one of these games now for $20,000 or $22,000, you're absolutely going to lose your shirt. And I don't care if you're the world's biggest James Bond collector. I don't care if you take a bath in $100 bills. Nobody who's rich wants to buy something that's supposed to be collectible and rare and sort of exclusive. Nobody wants to buy something only to realize they could have got the very exact same item and saved themselves thousands and thousands of dollars. This thing, I'm telling you right now, this game will never be special. It will never be sought after. It will never be something we talk about in a positive light. It's never going to be that. We are never going to look at this game with adoring eyes. We're just never going to do it. All right. Am I missing anybody in the pinball world? We covered off on Stern, JJP, Spooky, Pinball Brothers. We talked about how nobody's ordering Queen Pinball. That is truth. American Pinball and Multimorphic. Let's cover off on the final two companies that are actually making pinball machines. So, Multimorphic, Weird Al, where are the Weird Als? They are still slowly trickling out, so not a lot of news there. It will be interesting to see if Weird Al wins any Twippies. I was thinking about it, like, what Twippies could it win? It could win for Best Music, it could win for, I don't think they even have Best Callouts, maybe Best Animations, maybe Best Topper, I don't know, right? It's another game where I don't even think they've made 50, let alone 100. Stern Pinball is making 600 games a week. So there's almost no way Multimorphic can win anything. And I know they feel like they deserve it, but they need to get these games to customers. They need to figure out manufacturing. All right, let's talk about American Pinball last but not least. American Pinball. Seemingly, the Nordman game is coming out sometime soon. but once again I think AP is missing a golden window because think about it if Stern has a new game in March Jersey Jack has a new game in February just think about those two companies alone between those two games let's say you want to buy both of them and you buy the next JJPCE and you buy the next Stern LE add that together now during a global recession that is really coming people it is really going to happen people so those two games will set you back with tax are you ready for it? $15,000 plus $13,000. $28,000 for two machines. Add some tax to that. Over $30,000 if you want to buy the nicest version of both JJP and Stern. This is crazy. This hobby is absolutely crazy. And then American Pinball is going to come out and sell you a game around $9,000 to $10,000. are you really going to go $38,000, $39,000 if you want three pinball machines? This is crazy. If you want to buy just three pinball machines now at the top trim level, it is now $40,000. Think about that for a minute. 40 grand for three machines. It wasn't that long ago, Stern LEs were $7,500. You could get three machines for around like $22,000. We've doubled the price. This hobby has doubled the price. And that is why no one is saying buy now. The thing we're saying is why now? Why now is pinball twice the price of what it used to be just a few years ago? Why now are pinball machines this expensive and we're not even close to getting the magic in these games the way we used to? It's just getting ridiculous. And I'll be here to cover the vibe of this hobby. I think we need a miracle game. I think we need a magical miracle game that restores all of our faith in pinball. Bring out Die Hard. Bring out Matrix. Bring out Top Gun. Bring out Big Trouble in Little China. Bring out the A-Team. I don't know. Maybe the A-Team is not a great example, but bring out something that when we look down on it, our eyes, they just pop open and we're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you did that. Look at that innovation. Look at these shots. I can't wait to find a distributor to give my money to because this company just knocked it out of the park. Nobody is saying that with James Bond. Nobody said it with Toy Story. Nobody said it about any game in 2022. And we need a game in 2023 that makes us feel that way. Everybody, thank you for being a member of the Kaneda Club. Back with more shows because you know you love to hear Kaneda tell everybody that nobody's ordering Queen. Later.