It's another Manic Monday, wish it was Sunday, that's my fun day, I don't have to run day, just another Manic Monday. Oh, welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast. It is Monday, the world's most provocative pinball podcast. They're telling you what you want to hear, and that is this. Can Stern Pinball take a $115 billion franchise, the biggest IP in the world? Can they, with all of their resources, make a magical pinball machine? A week from today, all of our questions will be answered. I can't wait to see what this company does. Seth Davis, this is your moment, Seth. You've removed a lot of the magic. You brought in your own people. You didn't hire Kaneda. I didn't even get to write a number on a post-it note. and slide it across the table, maybe I would have taken a little bit of a pay cut for an increase in my love affair of what I do every day. You didn't even offer me a chance, brother. So here we are. You've got the new CMO that no one even knows his name. He hasn't said a single thing. 3,000 of these games ordered by Costco. Do we believe that? Are they going to sell these things? I think the thing that's making me somewhat nervous, if you think about the price point for a Pokemon fan to engage with the IP, think about this. You buy like a $5 pack of cards, and inside one of those packs might be a card worth $5,000. Yeah, but it only costs $5. I think Pokemon Go is free. I don't think you even have to pay money for it. I think people spend money traveling around the world trying to catch them all. If you buy a Pokemon video game, what is it, like 50 to 80 bucks at most? Okay, so you take all of these fans, millions of the fans from around the world, this one and all, this $115 billion franchise, and you put in front of them what will be, I mean this, this will be the most expensive Pokemon product ever sold. point to me another pokemon product from a manufacturer that cost this much money i think the only other one might have been didn't they sell like a volkswagen bug that looked like pikachu years ago this is an expensive item so if you're a pokemon fan you ain't waking up being like hey where am i gonna drop my next six to thirteen thousand dollars on the ip But you know what? This is why, and I've been thinking about this, this is why this game needs to be, first and foremost, a great pinball machine. This is why so many of us are so gutted that Jack Danger is not designing this game. Do not be fooled by the PR spin that this was a collaborated effort between Gomez and Danger. No, it wasn't. This is not going to be Jack Danger's third game. Everybody loved Foo Fighters. I think the layout on X-Men was amazing. It got torpedoed by bad code and they rushed out the game early. So a few mechanical bugs. But look at the damn layout. It was the most creative layout since I've been covering Stern Pinball. Okay, so basically something happened over at Stern where the dude whose heart and soul was into this IP, he didn't want to make it. Think about how toxic a culture has to become where you're willing to just lay down your dreams because it's killing you. How could working for a pinball company get you so down? It's not just danger. it's zombie yeti all of them i mean look so i think that this game is gonna be reflective of the culture in which it was born i think george is obviously gonna talk very highly about it he has to i think this game is gonna be i'm just gonna guess i just think it's gonna be pretty average i think they're gonna really rely on the ip but i think for us pinheads i just don't think we're going to see like anything really interesting and new. I think we will see what is expected and what has proven to work in the past. And I don't think we're going to see anything that really blows us away. And I think we're going to see a lot more flat plastics, a lot of silver screws everywhere. And we're going to get a game that I think people have been saying this a lot like Deadpool. Because if you think about Deadpool, it's all about battling the different characters in the Deadpool universe, I think that's what Pokemon will become. But here's the great news. A week from now, all of our guesses, all of our fears, all of our excitement, it will be answered. It will be answered. And so I can't wait to see this game. I am, of course, not going to Chicago on my own dime. Stern doesn't want me. They don't want Don. They don't want Cary Hardy. Stern wants the YouTubers now. And they want like the Pokemon YouTubers. I think that's who I would go after. The Pokemon audience is like a million times bigger than the pinball audience. So I think they're going to fill that room with a bunch of faces that are not familiar to you and I. And I think they're going to get as many Pokemon fanboys to try to shill this game. But again it very expensive And I think they going to have to win over the pinheads for this game to really move units because it arriving just as people are being told their Winchesters are getting ready. Their Dunes are ready. Their Beetlejuices are ready. These Beetlejuice games. There is a reason why Stern Pinball wants to go nowhere near pinball at the beach with this game. They do not want this game to be set up side by side with Beetlejuice. I bet, you know, George is like, Seth, we can't do it, bro. We can't do it. Did you see what these guys have built in a barn in Wisconsin? And we've got the biggest IP in the world. Seth, I'm counting more flat plastics and silver screws on this game than you've had hot meals this year. We cannot bring this thing and set it up next to that beautiful, sculpted Christopher Franchi masterpiece. They're going to laugh at us. And yes, we know that this is all me being hyperbolic. Stern is going to sell more Pokemons in one day than maybe Spooky Pinball has sold of machines in five years. And that's just the way it goes. But that doesn't mean it's going to be a great game. I'm sure they've sold a bunch of Star Wars. nobody cares they've sold a bunch of Venoms nobody cares Stern sells a lot but what they haven't done is made a lot of great games recently so we shall see speaking about pinball at the beach man I woke up and I'm bummed out that I'm not going and now I don't feel so bad because I looked at the temperature it is freezing here in Connecticut but it is also not beach Carl Weathers at all down there in Florida. I think the high is like maybe 60. The lows are in like the 40s. So for those of you going down to pinball at the beach, expecting to be in your swim trunks at the pool, sipping pina coladas, you're going to be wearing some sweaters and be trying to stay warm. So unfortunately, that sucks for everybody going. It is unseasonably cold everywhere up and down the east coast of America. So that makes me feel a little bit better because what I really wanted to was escape the coldness and be beachside in Florida. Look, you guys are going to have a good time. A lot of people are going to be down there. Let's talk about Beetlejuice. So these 10 show games are in fact going to be played nonstop throughout the show. I heard from Luke. He's like, Kaneda, you were right. I had a great show yesterday. If you did not catch, Kaneda joining We Are Pinball, WAP, which is Cengiz and Don. We had such a good time. We talked for about an hour and a half all about pinball. To get the three of us back together again and have such a fun time means so much to each and every one of us. And I know it means a lot to each and every one of you. And it's just a really good time. We are having so much fun again. All the hatchets have been buried and it's just fun to talk about pinball. I think the key takeaway I have from that conversation is when Don starts to talk about what is next from Spooky. When he starts to talk about the feeding frenzy to get the next Spooky game is going to be even harder to get than Beetlejuice. The frenzy is going to be higher. It's like so exciting to think about it. And it's so awesome to know that I personally will never have to wait online to get that game. But I'm also excited to help them figure out what can Spooky do to open the door so that a few people can sort of gain early access. I think it's time. You also get that underlying feeling that they know they don't really need distros like they used to. And they know they don't need to kick a million dollars out the door for distros and dealers. They don't need anyone to help them sell these games. They don't need anyone to help them service these games. They could figure that all out. Remember, a million dollars, and that's a conservative number. To give a million dollars out to the dealers, you used to need dealers when there was no internet and they had to go to the shows and physically sign contracts and shake hands and ink deals with the operators out there in the world. You don't need that. This game was sold out before they even revealed it. And so I think it's going to get really interesting. Jersey Jack is selling a lot more directly, and it's just going to be a boutique world. Stern's the only company that really, really needs the dealer and distro network. They've just got too many games all over the world, and they need that help. And it works for them because Stern still sees the distro as the customer. All they want is a big check from all those dealers and distros to order like so many Pokemons before they've found homes for those Pokemons. And look, that works well for Stern. It hasn't worked well for dealers on some of these lackluster games. But anyway, I'm really excited. Is it going to be Goonies? Is it going to be Gremlins? I don't know. What I do know is this. These guys are so happy. They know they've got bangers for the next few years. And I think everybody's going to be fighting to get the next game from Spooky. Imagine being like George Gomez and Gary and you let Christopher Franchi go. You let him go. I think Stern is realizing a big mistake in letting Franchi out the door. Franchi will never go back and work with them again, nor should he, nor does he need to. But I think in the end, Stern's going to realize that they made some really big boneheaded mistakes over the last four years. And I think not figuring out a way to patch things up with Franchi was a very, very big mistake. You know because when you think about the Stern games they made so many zombie Eddie games to the point where they absolutely a zombie Eddie fatigue and they have not introduced a new artist that has really captivated the pinball community Randy Martinez did not do it Who else? They had Johnny Crap. Do you know who did the art on Walking Dead? You don't. Again, like it's just been too much of either Yeti or nobody else really establishing a different, awesome look and feel for the Stern machines. And then what happened was every Stern game started to look the same. And with each new launch, it just felt like more of the same. And this is Stern's big problem. Everything they do just feels like more of the same. And yet the prices have doubled. They have literally doubled the prices of their machines. When I started covering this company, their LEs were freaking $6,500. Now they're $13,000. And if you put like an ACDC LE next to a $13,000 modern Stern, it does not look twice as good. it doesn't look like they've evolved twice as much. And so that's their big issue. If you put Beetlejuice next to Spooky's $6,000 machines, put Beetlejuice next to Rick and Morty, it absolutely looks like Spooky Pinball doubled in value, doubled in what they gave you, doubled in innovation, doubled in like materials, doubled in quality. Everything just feels so much better. And I think consumers are responding to all of that. So I can't wait to see what people's reaction to Beetlejuice is. I'm in the thread. It's like Jägermeister has one. I want to know what people's true gameplay reaction to Beetlejuice is. If I'm reading the room a little bit, I think there's a little bit of a, how do we set up this game? Luke said it himself. How do we set up Beetlejuice so that it's not too easy and that it's not too hard? Now, the good news is you can move the outlane posts up and down, and that will significantly change the difficulty of the game. But if you're like me, I want the game to come from the factory with a setting that finds that balance because I still will always feel like I'm cheating a little bit if I adjust the game to make it easier. So on Guns N' Roses, I had to move the outlane post down because the game was too hard. I don't even feel like I'm cheating there because the game still drains all day long. There's no way to save those drains on the outlanes. There's too many shots close to the flippers that just ricochet the ball right into the outlane. The slings send everything into the outlanes. It's just brutal. I actually have my Guns N' Roses now on five ball because I'm just tired. I'm tired of opening up the coin door if I want to get further into the game. And also for people when they visit, it just helps them see more of the game. All right, so But Beetlejuice gameplay, we're going to see a lot of it come this Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Then we're going to get the Pokemon teaser. Now, we know that Stern is not going to show Pokemon gameplay during this weekend. The reason we know it is why would they ask the media that's coming there on the 11th? Why would they have them sign an NDA if they're going to release some video content that shows the game? So I don't expect anything other than a Friday confirmation that it's Pokemon, but no gameplay. We're not going to see much. We might see like a quick flash maybe of the cabinet here or there. I don't think we're going to see anything else. So expect very little. And then next week they want to do the media tour. Now, look, I also think it is ridiculous. You've got all this media, pinball media going to Florida. All you had to do was send a game there, send a few games, have everybody sign an NDA, get a hotel suite with like two Pokemons inside it, have everybody sign an NDA, take their cell phones outside the hotel room and let people experience Pokemon so they don't have to buy another airplane ticket. Go to frigidly cold Chicago. They don't need your free lunch or dinner, Stern. I don't understand. It just goes to show you once again, Stern is not accommodating people properly. I would not want to fly to Florida and then like two days later, fly to freaking Chicago. And the other part that I can't stand is this, is they're so inconsiderate because every single person who makes any pinball content other than Colin, who's making no money whatsoever, every single one of us has a day job. So why, when you could show the pinball media the game on the weekend, when they're all taking a breakdown in Florida, why couldn't you just make it convenient for them? No, you want them to have to take another day off, maybe two days from work so they could fly to Chicago and do it on your terms in your little game room. And from what I've heard from people, these events at Stern are terrible. They have everybody in that one room like cattle. It's super loud. Everybody's talking. You're not experiencing the game in an intimate way. How is that the best way to show someone a new game. If Stern were smart and actually had a marketing department that knew what they were doing, and I've done video game marketing for like 15 years, if they were smart, they would bring in media scheduled for like an hour at a time, one outlet per hour, and you would go into a completely dark room and get to play the game for an hour without any interruptions. Maybe the design team is in with you as you play the game, but you get to have the best first experience with the game. They don't do it like that. Everybody come in. Everybody see the Stern Factory Tour again. It's at the point now where like, does anyone really want to see the factory tour again? There's nothing new. There's nothing new. I get it. You're trying to impress us with how big everything is and it is impressive, but I don't care because again, I could go to Benton, Wisconsin and their factory is so much smaller and their game is better. I could go to Jersey Jack, half the size Jersey Jack is like a quarter of the size of Stern and their game is better with Harry Potter So Stern enough Nobody cares about the factory tours anymore Nobody cares about the spin Nobody cares about the waiting for license or approval. All we care about is a great game. And we really want this to be a masterpiece. We want a game that showcases Spike 3 and all it can do. And I'm just worried that it's not going to do it. All right. Final thing on this Monday morning show. Canada's hot. I'm on some coffee, baby. I'm worried about Back to the Future. I'm worried about this game. I don't think it's really going to come out this year. I really am worried about what is happening over at Dutch. The inability to make the Alice's is a bigger issue than people think. The total number they made by the end of the year was somewhere around 300. And now they're getting cancellations. And now the problem is this. And I think all the cancellation windows have closed now, I think it was all of January, you could request a refund. Problem now is I'm hearing the cancellation number has climbed up to somewhere around 60 maybe, but that is more than 10% of people want out. Now the problem is, is what does Dutch do? Do they build these games even if there's no buyers? It's a very, very slippery slope because now once the supply of this game exceeds the demand, which it is right now, the prices are going to start to slide. And everyone who thought they were going to own something. And let's be honest, like you bought an Alice because you wanted to own something that was a little bit of a flex. It was an art piece. It was something not everybody else had. But now you're realizing and you're waking up to the reality that most people don't want one, that 500 people don't even want it, that more people want Winchester, more people want Beetlejuice, more people want other machines. and so your $12,000 Alice is gonna keep sliding in price. And so people who own one are gonna start to sell them for less. Anyone now who has to pay full price is not gonna want to. This is really not the way they wanted this to go. They wanted to get all those orders fulfilled within the year and they didn't do it. And in the end, Barry's gotta figure this out. Like this is not just like missing the mark by a little bit. This is significantly missing the mark. And this is a company that has missed the mark for so many years. And what frustrates me, and I think Barry needs to sort of really look in the mirror long and hard, is people want to help him. They want to help him. His distributors want to help him. His employees want to help him. But he needs to take the help. If you can't get this done, you can't even in a million years think you're going to get Back to the Future done. It's like he just wants to say the game is made in the Netherlands. Like he needs Dutch pinball to be manufactured in the Netherlands and he won't accept any other help. But Barry, if you can't even make 300 games of Alice in an entire year, what do you expect to happen when you get 10,000 orders for Back to the Future? The only answer is help. He needs help. And I think he had an opportunity with American Pinball and them establishing themselves as a manufacturer again. There was a golden opportunity there to maybe pick up the phone, call Brian and be like, hey, you guys are going to ramp up manufacturing. I've got a game where I can't manufacture the demand solely here. Let's talk. That's it. He won't even have the conversation. And so I think it's going to get to the point now where now I'm not even sure like when Raza is going to happen. I don't even know if there will be any Raza demand. And I don't know how they bridge now to Back to the Future. What I'm starting to feel like now because they keep missing these milestones is that Back to the Future is not going to happen this year. And everyone else is going to release great games. Transformers is going to be amazing. I think Fallout is going to be really cool. We're going to get Sonic the Hedgehog. We're going to get Goonies. We're going to get, you know, the next game from American Pinball. With all of these other games, Barry is really creating his company as an island that is so far off the radar now. And I think he needs to get this company back on the radar and rebuild trust. I don't think he realizes how much trust has been lost with how poorly the Alice manufacturing has gone. and there's nobody to blame anymore. There's just nobody to blame. Barry, it's like Melvin designed the game. You just have to put it together. Just put it together and they couldn't put them all together. So the next few months at Dutch Pinball are gonna be very telltale in terms of where this company goes and I'm just getting nervous. I'm getting nervous because none of it, none of it is being executed according to plan and so they need a new plan and I think they need help. Everybody, happy Monday. Lots to come this week in the week of pinball. Safe travels to everybody going to Florida. I can't wait for your reviews of Beetlejuice and Winchester. And a little over a week from today, we're going to see the new game from Stern Pinball. It's going to be a really exciting two weeks in pinball. Kaneda out. That's my fun day. I don't have to run day. It's just another manic Monday. I wish it was Sunday. That's my fun day. It's just another manic Monday. Thank you.