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Episode 66 - Mrs. Pin in Da House!

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 15m·held·Jul 15, 2018
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Mrs. Pin guests; hosts discuss CPR digital printing, Dutch Pinball controversial GoFundMe, and repeat backer failures.

Summary

Mrs. Pin (Christian Line) guests on Eclectic Gamers Podcast to discuss pinball culture and community. The hosts cover three main news items: Classic Playfield Reproductions' shift to digital printing (enabling custom plastics for homebrew and rare games), Tony's dental saga and acquisition of a Premiere Hoops machine, and Dutch Pinball 500,000 euro GoFundMe campaign for legal fees—which the hosts view extremely negatively, characterizing it as throwing 'good money after bad' and blaming repeated backer failures on speculation, sunk cost fallacy, and desperation to support non-Stern manufacturers.

Key Claims

  • CPR (Classic Playfield Reproductions) has switched to digital printing, eliminating the need for large minimum runs and enabling one-off custom plastics for homebrew and rare games.

    high confidence · Tony discusses CPR's new capability extensively, mentioning it solves problems for games with small production runs like Sharky Shootout and enables homebrew creators like the Minions pinball project.

  • Dutch Pinball's GoFundMe campaign is targeting 500,000 euros, framed as covering legal fees and restarting production, but presented with a tacky Big Lebowski-themed video.

    high confidence · Host explicitly states the figure and describes the video as 'such an abomination,' 'tacky,' and 'truly horrible,' showing clips from the movie and framing Aura (contract manufacturer) as 'nihilists.'

  • Some pinball buyers have been burned by multiple failed projects (Zidware, Dutch Pinball, Highway Pinball, Predator) and continue pre-ordering despite prior losses.

    high confidence · Host asks: 'I want to know how many Zidware people got burned by Dutch and by Highway and how many of the people who got burned once got burned on Predator,' and notes seeing people on Pinside claim multiple burns.

  • Big Bang Bar's exceptional secondary market success (machines worth $20,000-$30,000 when originally backed for ~$4,500) has incentivized speculation and flipping in the boutique pinball market.

    high confidence · Host identifies Big Bang Bar remake as the catalyst: 'I blame Big Bang Bar for all of this... payday time' when startup limited runs emerge, explaining why people flip positions.

  • Tony acquired a Premiere Hoops machine on July 5th after negotiating the seller down several hundred dollars from asking price, and it was missing resistors controlling flasher lights.

    high confidence · Tony describes the full negotiation saga via email, noting the seller had poor knowledge of pinball, and details the repair work needed before introducing it to his collection.

Notable Quotes

  • “Anybody who backs this is an idiot... This company is DOA. They are done. Nothing you're going to do is going to help it. Nothing you're going to do is save it. All you're going to do is throw good money after bad.”

    Tony (Eclectic Gamers host) @ ~47:00-48:00 — Explicitly summarizes the hosts' stance on Dutch Pinball GoFundMe backing; represents strong community skepticism about failed manufacturer rescue attempts.

  • “It was a sandwich and a dream. My husband has always really loved pinball... and it was like a Friday night and I was like, honey, we could be watching like, you know, a beautiful movie or something on TV and we were watching Jack Danger eating a pulled pork sandwich and I just had a moment of like wifely frustration that has turned into this awesome, amazing thing.”

    Mrs. Pin (Christian Line) @ ~5:00-7:00 — Origin story of Mrs. Pin's entry into pinball podcasting; iconic reference to the 'sandwich and a dream' intro commonly referenced in the community.

  • “I blame Big Bang Bar for all of this... where people got in on that project, and then they got games that at the time was like an absurdly high amount. And by that, I don't remember what he asked for, $4,500 back in the day. And then now you've got machines that are easily worth over $15,000, generally between $20,000 and $30,000.”

    Host (Eclectic Gamers) @ ~56:00 — Identifies Big Bang Bar as the inflection point that normalized speculation and secondary-market flipping in boutique pinball, directly linking past success to current backer losses.

  • “I don't feel bad for the company at all. But I do feel bad for the people who got duped, you know?”

    Mrs. Pin @ ~50:00 — Distinguishes sympathy for defrauded backers from condemnation of failed manufacturers; reflects nuanced community sentiment on accountability.

  • “They're calling Aura, which is the first contract manufacturer that Mrs. Penn referenced that they have the dispute with that sued them. A bunch of nihilists, which is the reference from the movie. It's tacky. It's really tacky. It's truly horrible.”

    Host (Eclectic Gamers) @ ~59:00-60:00 — Critiques Dutch Pinball's GoFundMe video framing their manufacturer dispute using Big Lebowski references as unprofessional and tone-deaf.

Entities

Mrs. PinpersonChristian LinepersonDr. PinpersonTonypersonJack DangerpersonClassic Playfield Reproductionscompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball market shows sustained demand for pre-orders despite repeated backer failures, indicating either strong FOMO/speculation incentive or genuine collector demand that outweighs risk aversion.

    medium · Hosts discuss why buyers continue pre-ordering despite pattern of losses; Mrs. Pin notes 'there is a chance' projects succeed, framing it as gambling; host acknowledges secondary market appreciation as motivation for collectors.

  • ?

    business_signal: Dutch Pinball's failed production and ongoing legal disputes with Aura (contract manufacturer) have triggered a 500,000 euro GoFundMe campaign for legal fees and production restart.

    high · Host explicitly describes the campaign amount and frames it as covering 'lawyer costs and build the machines and kickstart production'; notes the video is framed around Big Lebowski, calling Aura 'nihilists' in reference to the film.

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball community is divided on boutique manufacturer backing. Hosts identify two motivations: some backers are desperate to support non-Stern alternatives, and others view boutique purchases as investment vehicles (gambling/flipping) rather than hobby purchases.

    high · Host notes 'some people are almost obsessed with helping boutique manufacturers' while others are motivated by secondary market gains; Mrs. Pin and Tony discuss gambling analogy and collector status motivations.

  • ?

    community_signal: Mrs. Pin's podcast content model explicitly positions her as a guide for neophytes entering pinball, demystifying jargon, terminology, and 'asinine to convoluted' concepts that the community typically assumes rather than explains.

    high · Host Tony praises her for 'taking people on this journey of being a neophyte' and 'showing from the jargon that we use to the terms that we know,' noting this reveals to outsiders why pinball enthusiasts are perceived as 'weird.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.408

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Saturday, July 14th, and the time has come to execute Episode 66. You're really proud of that, getting to do that with the episode. I first thought of that at episode 30-something. Really? It's been in my mind. So you've been saving this. I've been saving it. Wow. Think if I had done the intro, I would have taken that from you. I know you would have. You would have probably done the voice better. No, I wish I had. Let me tell you what I remember about July 14th before we get through all these introductions. Do you remember the movie Con Air? Yeah. Wasn't his daughter, his character's daughter's birthday July 14th? My birthday is on July 14th. I think you're right. You've got to imagine John Malkovich reading it like that. Yeah. And then threatening to shoot her stuffed bunny rabbit. See, that's what I remember. Back in the glory days, when action movies were full of real explosions and adrenaline. And speaking of explosions and adrenaline, we have a special guest. So let's actually get her introduced. She is the creator of Womp. She is a master narrator, sharing her journey across the pinball landscape with all of us on a week-to-week basis, a day-to-day basis, an episode-to-episode basis. She is a vocal sensation. Her pinball-inspired songs have shaken social media to its very core. So, we at the Eclectic Gamers Podcast are pleased to welcome the audio sensation from Mrs. Penn's pinball podcast, Mrs. Penn. So, Mrs. Penn, welcome. Hi, guys. How are you? We're doing good. Sorry for the Con Air slash Star Wars dialogue. We can get slide off into movies so easy. We intentionally avoid talking about movies for the most part because we could lose like three episodes into movies without even knowing it. It's okay. Sometimes you just have to go off on a tangent and embrace it. Just embrace it, you know? I mean, who knew July 14th was going to be such an important day? I had no idea. Yeah, but isn't that a Christopher Franchi tip violation to go off on tangents?
2:27
Possibly. I don't know. I say embrace the tangent. Embrace it. Well, I'll go with your opinion on the matter, not some hexagon master.
2:39
Dutch Pinball
company
Seattle Sevenorganization
Auracompany
Zidwarecompany
Highway Pinballcompany
Predatorgame
Big Bang Bargame
Premierecompany
Sterncompany
Eclectic Gamers Podcastproduct
Hoopsgame
Firepowergame
Xenongame
Sharky Shootoutgame
Minionsgame
  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts strongly oppose backing Dutch Pinball GoFundMe, characterizing any backer as 'an idiot' and describing the company as 'DOA' and 'dead pinball walking'; community skepticism about repeated backer failures is high.

    high · Tony: 'Anybody who backs this is an idiot... All you're going to do is throw good money after bad.' Host acknowledges sunk cost fallacy among backers and notes people desperately searching for 'some path' to recovery.

  • $

    market_signal: Big Bang Bar's exceptional secondary-market appreciation (from ~$4,500 pre-order to $20,000-$30,000+ current value) has normalized speculation and flipping in boutique pinball, directly contributing to backer behavior in subsequent failed projects.

    high · Host identifies Big Bang Bar as the pivotal catalyst: 'I blame Big Bang Bar for all of this... payday time' when boutique limited runs emerge; explains this dynamic as driving continued speculation despite pattern of failures.

  • ?

    community_signal: Mrs. Pin (Christian Line) has become a major female voice in pinball podcasting, appearing across multiple platforms (Mrs. Pin's Pinball Podcast, Pinball Players Podcast with Jeff Parsons, Eclectic Gamers) and driving community engagement through narration and original songs.

    high · Host notes she's 'been on all the good podcasts,' references her being 'everywhere,' and credits her with bringing neophyte perspective and explaining pinball culture to outsiders; hosts praise her narrative approach.

  • $

    market_signal: Boutique pinball secondary market values (Big Bang Bar at $20,000-$30,000+) have created collector status inflation that rivals or exceeds new-game pricing, driving speculation behavior independent of gameplay or personal use.

    high · Host references collector motivation: 'I've got a pinball machine that could buy you... a Mercedes car... by its name and not just, yeah, the name of the make. You actually name it. Name this car Cobra.'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Multiple instances of backers being burned by sequential failed boutique projects (Zidware + Dutch, Highway + Predator, etc.); hosts express concern about pattern of repeat victimization and sunk cost fallacy in pre-orders.

    high · Host asks: 'How many Zidware people got burned by Dutch and by Highway... are there people who've been burned more than one time?' and notes seeing public Pinside discussions of multiple burns; indicates undocumented pattern in community.

  • ?

    technology_signal: Classic Playfield Reproductions' transition to digital printing enables one-off custom plastics and playfields, eliminating minimum run requirements and solving long-standing problems for homebrew creators and owners of rare games.

    high · Tony discusses CPR's shift enabling custom runs for games like Minions homebrew and addressing the Sharky Shootout problem (only 1,000 units produced, previously economically infeasible for CPR to support).

    • Yeah, what does he know? Who knows? Well, I was just thinking, well, thank you for coming on, first of all. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I really enjoy your podcast. I think it's a lot of fun. And I was thinking, you've already been on all the good podcasts. Now you've sunk to our level, and we appreciate that. Yeah. I mean, head-to-head, slam-tail. And I was thinking, people have not, other than the subscribers, haven't heard Mrs. Pin in a while. And then you're on the Pinball Players podcast with Jeff Parsons. It's just like you're everywhere. I don't know how it happens. I don't know. You saw, well, go ahead for your intro. I guess kind of explain how you chose to get into the hobby or get into podcasting. I understand it started with a sandwich and a dream. It was. It was a sandwich and a dream. My husband has always really loved pinball, and it's been something that I like. I've always liked video games. I love games in general, board games, card games. I don't know. I think it's just fun stuff. But Dr. Pin has taken the love to a level of, like, crazy obsession. He is really into pinball. And so he kind of dragged me in, kicking and screaming at first. And then once I got into the pinball world, which was so random and just kind of like I was going off on Dr. Pin because he was making me watch Jack Danger. and it was like a Friday night and I was like, honey, we could be watching like, you know, a beautiful movie or something on TV and we were watching Jack Danger eating a pulled pork sandwich and I just had a moment of like wifely frustration that has turned into this awesome, amazing thing. So who knew? It's crazy. And now you've exerted a sort of manifest destiny spreading across the entire pinball countryside with what I think is, you come into it, it's an interesting motivation that got you started, but what I think is fascinating is you're taking people on this journey of being a neophyte in the hobby and just showing from the jargon that we use to the terms that we know and explain to the concepts that are from asinine to maybe interesting but convoluted, and I think exposing all of that to people going, you know what? No wonder people think we're weird. We don't explain any of this. Well, yeah, we are. We are weird. I mean, that's part of it. But it's nice to see that, for once, Stockholm Syndrome actually worked well and actually turned out to be a good thing. It has. Yeah. Wow. That's pretty awesome. That's inspiring, Tony. Thank you for that.
    5:32
    All right. You should make greeting cards, Tony. Oh, I should. That'd be great. Like, you could have a whole line. Hallmark is based here in Kansas City I mean I could get a whole new job Oh my gosh That's true We're a stone's throw away from the Love and heartbeat capital Of every Oh great I forgot to get you a present Let's rush out and get something in the world Look here's a card with a five in it Love you Precious moments Oh gosh Well yeah it's been It has been like a crazy whirlwind, gosh, like six months maybe. It's been about six months, and it's been freaking awesome. It really has. It's been – Dr. Pin is like geeking out over the fact that he gets to meet all of these amazing pinball people, and he helps me prep for everything, and he just like freaking loves it. My kids love it. I love it. It's great. it's like family bonding awesome yeah okay well we hope we'll keep you entertained for the next little while with our drivel but I like to go shenanigans I know you do but I'm trying to do a little bit of the story scene here and kind of give some breadth to our we don't want to we're not slam tilt we're not going to just rely on oh my and reference every episode we're going to vary it a little bit, but you will definitely at some point say this and that, because you always do. A little this and that. It's his catchphrase. Mine is, you know. You know. No, I don't think anyone knows. At least I finally broke I agree with you completely. That was real bad when we first started, but then I realized that I don't agree with you at all, let alone completely. And the listeners feed off of conflict. I've learned that from studying the better podcasts. So that's what drives it in these multi-host scenarios. But before we get to the topics at hand, Tony, intro, what's been going on? I'm going to bring you on a saga. Oh, wow. A full-on saga. So we're going to jump back to December of 2017. So last December. Oh, I remember it well. I have no idea. I'm sitting in the break room eating from this nice, big, pretty tin of Topsy's popcorn. Topsy's. Because it's a beautiful thing that happens that time of year for whatever reason. I don't know why people give popcorn around Christmas, but that's what it does. And I found a kernel, an unpopped kernel in my popcorn. How did I find that unpopped kernel? Because it shattered one of my teeth. Ow. Ooh. And then, being the dentist-hating person that I am, did I go to the dentist and get it looked at and fixed then? Yes. And it didn't hurt and it didn't bother me and there was nothing but a little bit of sharpness? You did, and the story's now over. Yeah, you wish. No, I ignored it. I ignored it completely. Tony. Fail. Mrs. Penn even agrees that this was a mistake. But continue. All right. I agree it was a mistake. The massive pain that I spent the last week and a half in from the infection that eventually set into it helped me agree that it was a massive mistake. And I ended up going to the dentist this week. And great news, I'm going Thursday to get a root canal. Oh. So. Oh. Yay. Exciting. It's so exciting. That's my life. I get a bloody root canal. Oh, Tony. I hope it's not actually bloody, but I've never had a root canal. I know when my parents had root canals, like when I was a kid, everyone talked about how bad it hurt. And I've heard people who say, oh, yeah, root canals are horrible. And I've had people say, I had one and it was fine. It was whatever. So I don't know. They give you Novocaine. This is what, like, good drugs are for, Tony. I'm hoping for really, really, really good drugs. And if it could be, like, the good stuff, like, where they're like, we're going to give you some drugs. and then I wake up and go, okay, when are we going to start this? And they're like, oh, you're done? That's what I would prefer. I want it to be like my back surgery, when I had my back surgery. And they're like, start counting backwards from 100. And then I wake up laying in another room in different clothes. That's what I want.
    10:02
    That's a little frightening in and of itself, Tony. Yeah, it was. All I know is when I, the surgical gown I put on was like bluish, and the one I woke up in was green. So, I don't know. Maybe you just lost the ability to see certain shades of color. Maybe you did. Yes, my back surgery made me colorblind. Yeah, there you go. That explains a lot. Just the blue, though. It's perfect. But that's all I've got going in my life is pain. I'm actually good pain-wise. The pain's gone because I've been on antibiotics and that horrible mouth rinse stuff that you use, that they tell you to use, and then don't drink water or eat for a while because it'll just make everything worse. I'm actually doing pretty good right now. No pain at all. It's just waiting for the... Yeah. It's annoying. Yeah. Okay. Well. Hang in there, Tony. Don't ignore the dentist, kids. That's what I'm telling you. Don't ignore going to the dentist. Yeah. The dentist is our friend. Watch out for popcorn journals. That's right. Yeah. You know, I haven't had popcorn since. No. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't. That would start me, too. Yeah. Chocolates only now. It's going to shift. That's another common Christmas item is chocolates. That's what people bring where I work. Fruitcake? No, no one does fruitcake. I know. That's a made-up thing. I think it is, too.
    11:23
    Well, let's see. I have a correction I have to make from the last episode. Well, it's a correction on my correction from the E.T. episode. So, apparently, my correction on Tales of Vesperia, the video game that's getting released, I said that it was Japan only content That it was a DLC thing No it was not It was a full retail release And I don't want to ever talk about Vesperia again No one cares about this game But apparently they care enough to keep correcting me So That game was a big deal a lot of years ago I guess so, I don't know Let's see, other than that I have Oh I bought a new pinball machine So that's what I did Oh, and I bought a new pinball machine. Yeah, that's way better than going to get a root canal. Yeah, it was.
    12:15
    Buying experiences aren't always pleasant. This one went fine. It was very odd. I was told about the machine on the 4th of July. So I looked at it and the ad, and the price was way too high. And I was like, I don't think I'm going to get this person down enough to where this machine would actually trade at. The photos were terrible. Like, from what there were, I could tell there was playfield wear, and I thought, okay. But let me throw out an offer because I've been watching for it for a while, and they don't come up very much. So, email the guy. I hear back, and he's like, well, he said there wasn't any wear. I was like, there is wear because I see your photo, and I'm not an idiot. So, I decided, well, he might not know very much about pinball machines. He's probably not aware of what I'm looking for. So anyway, I gave him my offer, which was several hundred dollars less than what he listed. And he said, well, if I were to come and look at the machine, he would be willing to negotiate on the price. And I was like, no, that's not how I do it. So I wrote him back and I said, well, no, this is the maximum I'm willing to go for you. Here's my offer. So what I suggest is you just keep your ad up, see if you get anyone to buy it at the amount you want. and if you can't sell it, then you can come back to me and I'll probably still be interested. And just leave it at that. Because I'm not at the lake. I have terrible phone reception. I'm like, I'm not playing a game here. So, you know, you have my offer. That's what you can work with. And he wrote me back within an hour. He's like, your offer's okay.
    13:49
    When can you come and get it? Okay. So I arranged for it. I had the fifth off. So I went out there. It was only about an hour out. I showed him what I meant by the wear. It had the wear. But the game worked fine. So it's a premiere title called Hoops. And I had it in the garage for the last couple of weeks because while the game worked, it was missing a couple of resistors controlling some of the flasher lights and stuff. So it's just easier for me to work on them in the garage. So I finally got it into the game lineup yesterday. So it's there. And I'm hosting a party here later after we finish recording, actually. So people will get a chance to try it out. But my experiments say it's working So Knock on wood Knock on the The cabinet was in pretty good shape The play field It's alright It clearly had never been waxed in its entire life And had quite a few plays For a premiere Which got leagues A lot of times you can find them in decent shape Because no one liked them But hoops was one I was always hearing good things about So I was like okay it's on the wish list one of the street level series the last of them actually which I had some fondness for learning about a while ago when I picked up a silver slugger that's what I've been doing over the last couple weeks well geez guys you've been busy mine was less painful yes definitely so speaking of pain let's go into the news segment which is not going to be painful because there are really only three news items and only one of which has been at all remotely painful to talk about. But we're going to start with an easy one, and that is, this came out last week, but CPR, Classic Playfield Reproductions, they've gone to digital printing. Yay! Which means you don't have to wait for a sizable run anymore for them to screen print a bunch of whatever. Plastics, playfields, they do a lot of that stuff. Now, Mrs. Penn, I know you guys have several pinball machines. Are any of yours, like, more player's grade or project quality where you've been wanting replacement plastics or a new playfield or anything? No. You know, there's a bit of wear on the playfields. I think it's pretty normal. But it is nothing that a little elbow grease and some playfield wax hasn't, you know, basically fixed up. So we don't need any new plastics. Most of them were in really good shape when we bought them, luckily. so yeah we haven't had that issue but i i saw this on our list of things to chat about today and i honestly had never even heard of cpr other than like you know mouth-to-mouth resuscitation you know i just i think it's awesome now because i feel like home some of the homebrew games that people do especially are so great and it's got to be so hard to get all the plastic pieces that you want because, you know, printing is so ridiculously expensive. So I think this is pretty awesome.
    16:54
    Yeah, I like it for two reasons. That first, the homebrew thing, that's a really good one to bring up because it's, a lot of people just don't have the capabilities to print plastics. You can go in your garage, you can draw on a, you can use CAD software and come up with your playfield layout. You can foam core the thing and build it all out. But when it starts coming to applying art to things, most people don't have access to that equipment. So them being able to do a true one-off like that and just say, here, here's my custom. I'm making, like, someone's doing Minions pinball. You can go and get your Minions plastics made by CPR now. That's awesome. That's really good. The other thing that I've run into a little bit is on project games. I mean, I'm fine with project games. If it plays well, I don't care if the art has, you know, wear on it and stuff. we just wax it and I'm good to go but for example I have a firepower and every plastic is broken they're covered in glue and all that and that's how I got it now I got it real cheap, it plays fine so I like the game but I would be tempted to get a firepower plastic set but I never had the option to do it easily because they had done that run years before I owned the game and they sit and they create these lists. I used to own a Xenon, and I remember when I was selling Xenon, one of the discussion points, people were like, oh, you might be able to get some interest in this because CPR is playing to run Xenon playfields, and mine had a lot of wear on it. And I was like, okay, but how long would I have to wait before the Xenon? I think I would have had to wait at least a year if I had held the game and done that myself. So I did not do it. Not to mention that a playfield swap is incredibly time-consuming. So, anyway, yeah, I just thought it was really, really neat because I think this is going to finally let people start getting access to a lot of things, especially if you're doing the homebrew, like Mrs. Penn brought up, or if you've got some of the rarer stuff where they, I mean, if they're waiting and wanting to do playfield runs in at least 100 quantities, well, that works fine for Xenon and Firepower, which had over 10,000 units, but it doesn't work so well if you needed a new play field for a Sharky shootout, for example, which had less than 1,000. There's not enough demand. How many of them are trashed and how many – that's what it ran into. So the digital printing will solve a lot of that. So I think it's really exciting news. The future is amazing. It is. The future is now, Tony. It's now. So are you going to replace all your plastics on firepower? I'm thinking about it. The problem is, historically, the plastic sets are... I'm such a cheapskate, and you know that. They're like $120-some dollars, and I'm just like, for plastics? Come on. I could cut these out. I couldn't.
    19:46
    I might. I have to decide. Because that's not going to fix my firepower playfield, which is a beater. Right. It's not totally worn away because someone full mylar'd it. But it's something I have to... So is it something you might hold off until you decide that you're going to go ahead and get a whole new play field, and you're just going to do a complete rebuild? I don't know. I like the play field. I might just put it on a birthday gift list and see if someone's a sucker.
    20:11
    I mean, someone loves me. We'll see. It's a good idea for a birthday gift. Yeah. Tony, up your budget. I don't know if I'm going to. Think of it. Think of those plastics. I could have plastics. You could have plastics. That's true. Plastics make it possible. Plastics. Mm-hmm. They're the future, too.
    20:33
    Well, let's talk about something that is not the future, though it so desperately wishes it would be. This is our negative news topic.
    20:42
    This is that the Seattle Seven has launched their GoFundMe campaign to pay for Dutch Pinball's legal fees. Now, Mrs. Penn, I haven't really heard on your show you discuss Dutch Pinball much, so I wanted to sort of start with seeing just what you know about them. Well, I mean, I know that they're legit. I think that I know a little bit more than I say that I know on my podcast. I have learned a lot since starting this whole thing. So I know that basically Dutch Pinball, they just have, man, they are just digging a hole, and it just keeps getting deeper and deeper. You know what I'm saying? It's crazy. I feel like they've just hit a bunch of snags when they were actually trying to produce games, and they just had all kinds of issues and then they stopped even attempting it and now they're being sued because of the place where they initially were going to manufacture it or some kind of craziness like that. Am I sort of on the right track? Yeah, that's all correct to my understanding. Yeah, and now I don't know who these crazy Seattle 7 people are, but it seems like it's very, very interesting that someone might have come up with a GoFundMe campaign for their legal costs. That's very interesting. I like your choice of words. I like the use of the word interesting, especially when you preceded it by calling the Seattle 7 crazy. So I have a good sense as to where you lean on this strategy. Tony, I would like to know where you lean on this strategy. Now, you've been fairly negative on Dutch Pinball for quite a while, Tony. I think that's, I'm being fair. You're being very fair. Here's my thought on it. Anybody who backs this is an idiot. Whoa. I have to agree, Tony. Whoa, double strong take. I'm sorry. This company is DOA. They are done. I mean, this is dead pinball walking here. Nothing you're going to do is going to help it. Nothing you're going to do is save it. All you're going to do is throw good money after bad. people got screwed. That's all it is. It's sad. They're not getting anything back. Yeah. I mean, it's sad. I feel bad. I always feel bad when you hear about this, but for some reason, this is pinball. You hear about this a lot. I got burned.
    23:09
    Go ahead. Sorry, Tony. I feel bad for the people who, maybe they just didn't know enough, but I feel like it's, you know, why would you put money out there for something that, you know, is so elusive? I just don't, I don't know. I don't feel bad for the company at all. But I do feel bad for the people who got duped, you know? I agree with you. Now, I would like, and I know there's no way that I'm ever going to really find this out, but I would like to know. I want to know how many Zidware people got burned by Dutch and by Highway. and how many of the people who got burned once got burned on Predator. I want to know, are there people who've been burned more than one time? That's what I want to know. And if there are, I would like to ask them, who hurt you? What happened? Apparently, all these companies have hurt them. I've seen people online on, say, Pinside in particular, who have publicly stated that they've been burned at least, maybe not on all these projects, but on multiples. Like like Zidware plus Dutch or Highway plus Predator. Yeah. I just don't get it. I don't get it. I don't know. If you get burned once, okay, all right, you know, I understand. Things can happen. Maybe you were in like a gullible moment, but once you get burned once, why the heck would you take a risk and potentially get burned twice? That's crazy. Well, I think in some of these cases, the money probably all went out before any of these formally failed. Right. So it was sort of a, well, I went in on X, Y, and Z, and X failed before Y, and Y failed before Z, but all my money was out before even X failed. Right. But then that also just brings back the whole thing is,
    24:59
    if any of those had failed before, why did you keep? I'm not a big fan of pre-orders of anything on this scale. I will pre-order other stuff. I pre-order books. I pre-order all pre-order games on occasion. Not like I used to, though. I just can't. I've had too many pre-ordered games that turned bad, like video games and board games. And that's a lot smaller money. Yeah. And like we talked before, I mean, I got screwed in that Robotech pre-order Kickstarter deal. And I've been real gun shy with Kickstarter because of it. I mean, I've supported more large Kickstarter since then. But they were very specifically targeted things where I knew what was going in. I was expecting certain things out of it. And I've gotten those things out of it. I've been happy with all of them. But I just can't imagine still putting down that kind of money and getting burned and then doing it and getting burned again. I mean, how gun-shy would that make you to the point where I'm surprised anybody with how often it's happened in pinball still pre-orders any pinball machine from anybody whose name isn't Stern. Yeah.
    26:13
    Well, I think you both have good points. I mean, I don't know on the motor. But I've seen two types, to me there are two types of motivations that I've seen that drive people that have done this sort of activity. One is there are some people that are almost obsessed with helping boutique manufacturers.
    26:37
    And I don't know if they just hate Stern with a passion or they just want to see more competition or they just like the idea of helping out the little guy at the start. And this is driven, I don't think this is the majority of these buyers. But it's been something that I've seen before where it just seems like some people are so desperate to see something other than stern pinball that they will put money into anything that says it's someone else. Yeah. The other and I think more likely instance is I blame Big Bang Bar for all of this.
    27:08
    Obviously not all of it because I just gave you my other example. But that's what I go back to, the remake of Big Bang Bar, where people got in on that project, and then they got games that at the time was like an absurdly high amount. And by that, I don't remember what he asked for, $4,500 back in the day. And then now you've got machines that are easily worth over $15,000, generally between $20,000 and $30,000. And so every time there's a startup that's going to do especially a limited run, it's payday time. Now that's a very valid point It is You see it You see people flipping Especially flipping LEs And doing the like Where they'll just get their positions And you see people flipping their positions Without having done more than pay the minimums Sure And it's I don't know I guess I can't understand The people who purchase it like they're buying a stock or they're buying commodities. To me, it's like the people who stockpile gold. I've got to have my gold. Oh yeah, I've got gold. When the economy collapses, I've got all this gold stockpiled, so suddenly I'm rich. I don't understand the reasoning. I understand the reasoning. I don't get it. I don't get buying something with the express purpose of flipping it. Well, it may not be, in all these cases, explicitly about the desire to flip and make money. It's the idea of having something that's worth that much. So from a collector's standpoint, the idea of, wow, I don't just collect pinball machines, which, as we know, are pretty pricey toys. Yes. I've got a pinball machine that's worth five of your machines. I've got a pinball machine that could buy you, Not just like a car like what Dennis drives, but like a Mercedes car. A car where you say by its name and not just, yeah, the name of the make. You actually name it. Name this car Cobra.
    29:17
    I think, I mean, you ever think, though, that pinball, buying pinball machines is kind of like gambling, right?
    29:24
    Because, you know, you, there is a chance that, oh, my gosh, Dutch Pinball came out, and there is a chance that they are going to make an incredible game and that everything is going to work out. The stars are going to align, and these machines are going to be beautiful, and you are willing to take the risk in this slight chance that you might actually get a machine. I mean, I guess that to big collectors, that could be motivation, too, just knowing that there's a chance that it might all work out. I mean, clearly, I can't afford to do that. But, I mean, maybe some people can. I don't know. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that, and Tony and I on some past episodes have discussed this sunk cost sort of fallacy that a lot of people clearly, I think when you see them discussing it narratively on the forums, have. At least some of them. They just, they can't let it go. But they don't want to fight for their money back. They envision that since Dutch isn't folded on paper, it's not highway. They haven't liquidated.
    30:30
    Maybe there's some path. They're so desperate to find some path. And that's what I think the Seattle 7 is trying to do. Because from all reports that I've seen, Dutch Pinball is not affiliated directly with the Seattle 7. They've promoted the notion of the GoFundMe in a prior newsletter. People want to give us free money? All right, I'm all for this. You know what? If you want to give me free money, you can give me free money too. I'm not going to complain about it. Well, the GoFundMe's ask is 500,000 euros. That's the campaign target. Wow. That's a lot of money. Wow. Now, and when you look back at some prior pinball efforts, be they GoFundMe, which is less common, or Kickstarter, like the Stern book that they did, the photo book that still hasn't been released, and there was a couple other. Nothing has come close to this amount. I mean, this isn't to build the machines. This is just for lawyer costs, right? Well, I think the way they described it is it's to do the lawyer costs and build the machines. and kickstart production I think was how it was described so for the most of it it's definitely been oriented around in my view the legal fees because that's where they had this whole video that have either of you seen the video? no I didn't watch it there is a video I don't want to encourage you to see it but maybe I should because it's such an abomination oh yeah it's so weird. It's long. It's several minutes long, and they're just going, and they're doing it up like the movie. Sort of like watching The Big Lebowski, but they're doing these voiceovers with all these, they show some clips from the pinball machine, and then they go through, and the rest of it is just clips from the movie, and they go about talking on just, they're calling Aura, which is the first contract manufacturer that Mrs. Penn referenced that they have the dispute with that sued them. A bunch of nihilists, which is the reference from the movie.
    32:35
    It's tacky. It's really tacky. It's truly horrible. When you go through and you see it, one of the other things that they do, they talk about it in the video, but it's also in the write-up on the GoFundMe page, which I just had to pull up, which is kind of why I was rambling a little bit.
    32:50
    Was that they are also indicating that they got a bunch of stuff that they're raffling, or excuse me, they're doing a draw on sweepstakes. So people who give at least 20 pounds or more have a chance of winning one of, let's see what it says here, 15 of the dude's cars, the little, his vehicle from the movie that was like a matchbox-sized car that's a toy in the pinball machine, one of 10 translights, or, and this is spelled out more in the video, anyone, I guess, who, if they reach their goal, they will raffle off amongst those who bid, or excuse me, contributed, a Big Lebowski pinball machine. Do they already have the pinball machine? I don't know. Or is this one of these ones that will be magically made out of this? They might have the legs. I don't know. They might have the legs done. You know what I mean? They might have the legs. So let me say what my problem is. Aside from that, I agree with both of you, so we'll make it a 3x bonus that anyone who gives money to this is making a tremendous mistake with their money and probably their life. this is GoFundMe user agreement clearly clearly states that you cannot run a sweepstakes or a raffle with GoFundMe It is not allowed And I know for a fact that this campaign has been reported to GoFundMe for violating their user agreement. Because you did it. I have no comment.
    34:13
    I know for a fact this has been reported. That campaign is still up. But what I will say is I did go and I read their user agreement, and they do not want to be involved with anything that is gambling. And only in the United States, where I believe GoFundMe is based, it doesn't matter, it's in their user agreement. In the United States, only a charity can run a raffle or an official gambling entity like a lottery. But they don't even want to be involved with sweepstakes, which any person, Tony and I have done sweepstakes for a podcast before. and I work really hard to make sure when we do them, we follow all of the rules because there are a lot of rules involving that stuff. Even when you're dealing with cheap things like t-shirts, they, GoFundMe, do not want any of that. It's clearly articulated. So I'm a bit surprised they even got to open the campaign up, but I imagine it probably is on a report by report basis. So I don't even think this is going to run the whole period of time because to me, it looks like it's egregiously in violation of the rules. Now they could have just pulled that part out and put the campaign back up, and then I think you have a legitimate campaign that no one in their right mind would give money to.
    35:21
    These people are already not in their right mind. Well, so far, as of our recording right now, they have raised 550 euros of their 500,000 euro goal. They're getting there. That's right. And other than one person, they've had 10 donations, and 9 of them have been anonymous.
    35:42
    Hmm. Very peculiar. So it's the Seattle 7. They've had 10 donations, nine of them anonymous. Right. Well, for me, the anonymity is just that. Most people would be ashamed to have their name associated with it. They know this is wrong. They know it's wrong.
    36:01
    And in terms of Seattle 7, that's a term from the movie. So that being, at first I would have thought, are these seven people based in Seattle? Seattle loves their pinball machines. And then I realized it was – it's been so long since I've seen the movie. I didn't – it didn't click with me. But that's what's driving – I don't know how many people are involved in the Seattle stuff. I get it. It's a bunch of people, early achievers as they're called, people who preordered the game, who really want to see the game built. They'll never reach this goal. No. Oh, gosh, no. Yeah, no, they won't. It's such a tacky campaign. It's just them. I mean, maybe if your name's not on it, you're not as embarrassed. But I would be embarrassed. Now, as I recall, I've never done anything with GoFundMe. But as I recall, unlike Kickstarter with GoFundMe, you don't have to hit the goal. The money still goes. You might only make $15 out of your $34 million attempt to build your own aircraft carrier, but you'll still get that $15 even though you didn't hit your goal amount. Where with Kickstarter, if you don't hit your goal amount, no money changes hands. I believe you're correct. Yeah, I do too. GoFundMe, I associate it with almost charity drives for non-charity. So if a person loses their house or possessions in a flood, you can use GoFundMe to do a fundraiser for them. They're not a 501c3. Right. But that's also why GoFundMe doesn't want things like raffles associated with their service, because that gets them in a whole heap of legal trouble, because you're doing this for a for-profit company in this case. And that's okay. It's dumb, but it's okay. I mean, legally, it's okay. If you think that this is what you've come to, is that you're hoping, these pre-order people are hoping that they're going to appeal to the better angels of the hobby? No.
    37:46
    And from discussions I've read, the thought isn't even that it's the pinball community that will save this project. It will be fans, cult-following fans of the movie The Big Lebowski will see this and donate to save the project associated with the movie they love. That makes no sense. I still don't see how you raise over half a million dollars doing this. No way. And if that's what they need. I've been raised $500 doing this. Yeah, well, there were two contributors that did over, that did 100 or more pounds each. So most of that is from two people. Yes, it's probably from people trying to, you know, sprinkle in some of that, putting their money where their mouth is, at least. I'm assuming they're part of the Seattle Seven. Yeah. They're doing a little money sprinkling. Making it rain. People coming. Making it drizzle. Let's not, let's not be ridiculous. It's true. Sprinkle. to sprinkle.
    38:35
    So, anyway, I do not have a link to the GoFundMe in the show notes because I think this is a bad idea. Yeah. So, I'm not encouraging it. Don't, you can find it if for whatever reason you actually want to support this, you can find it, but we think you're wrong and if you need somebody to talk to, we're more than willing to listen. We've got lots of places you can reach us online. We can tell you how wrong you are. Sure.
    39:04
    It's like 1-800-KIN-SANITY. Yeah, except I don't want to talk to anyone verbally. I'm not a psychologist. I've got enough problems. I can't be fixing yours.
    39:16
    You've just got to accept or be punitive with Dutch while you still have a chance. Yeah. I've seen someone, again, I've not confirmed it. I've seen others say that they contacted, one person online said they contacted Universal, which released the movie, and that Universal is not okay with the GoFundMe, and that the Dutch, the big Lebowski license has expired. So they don't even have the legal right to make it anymore, if that is true. Oh.
    39:40
    And really, I would find it very suspect that the license would still be in play. I would think so. It's late because production was going on in 2016. How long did they have the license for? Even if it kicked in at the start of production, they did have production with ARA in 2016. So that clock started.
    39:58
    And I don't think Roger Sharp got paid more money to go and renegotiate this. why would you bother? If you want to think that, there are two ways to get a big Lebowski, in my view. One, you either get one of the already existing models, and you pay out the nose to get it, and you can be a super special person, because you obtained practically unobtainium, and be proud of yourself. Or, you can, I think, saving Dutch is so far-fetched, it would be more realistic to put all of your eggs in the basket of hoping some other manufacturer takes the design after this company is liquidated. and built the machine for you. I don't think any manufacturer will do it, but in theory, it's possible. Hey, maybe Deep Root would. Well, and here's just a throwing-it-out-there thought that, as I recall, there were supposed to be like 40 completed machines that ARA was holding on to? Yeah, that's what most people think. So, after all the lawsuits and everything are done, that means there's at least 40 machines that would eventually be up for grabs Because I'm sure R would try to recoup their losses if they didn't get them anywhere else just by selling them off to sell. Assuming they're legally allowed to sell them, then, yeah, I assume they'll get the market. Or they can put a video on YouTube and it's them piling 40 machines together and dousing them with gasoline and flip them in a road. Oh, yeah, Tony. Oh, my God. At least part them out. That would be hilarious. At least take those quails and sell them on eBay. I mean, I'm a monster. I understand I'm a monster, but watching the flames lick up the side of the machines, all those people, I mean, I'm sorry. I feel terrible. I think that would be horrible. You don't sound like you think it's horrible. You don't sound sorry, Tony. The same part of you that enjoys going and watching a horror film, at the same time, it's kind of like...
    41:47
    I don't know. The hobbyists, a lot of them got really mad when Todd Tuckey threw a very unpopular game off of the roof of his building years ago. Oh, I remember that. There are still people who are mad at him for destroying a game, even if it was a hated game. That's a valid point. It is. A lot of people say Big Lebowski plays pretty well. You can find one that's working. Right. That makes this thing a little more for a lot of them because it's not like Predator, which everyone said was a turd. Right. They had a lot of cool stuff in it. I remember when we saw it, and you were the translator. I was a little hopeful for it. I almost bought the translator. Yeah, yeah. Because I love the translator. I'm a big fan of the movie. But you know what? When you mess up, you mess up. And I just wish, I kind of wish more pinball companies would just dress up a little faster when they screw up. Yeah. And be like, okay, we're bad businessmen. Sorry. Sorry, y'all. Here, we'll refund as much as we can and live and learn. I wouldn't hold it against them if they paid people what they could, pennies on the dollar, and gotten out of it, but no one can seem to do it. J-Pop couldn't do it. They wait for the better end. Yep. Kevin Kulik couldn't do it. Of course, he was doing a lot of illegal stuff with Skippy and Predator. Yeah. And now Dutch can't do it. It's sad.
    43:01
    So let's move to a happier final news item. Happy topic. All right. Guys, before you move on, I just have one last thing to say about this whole Dutch pinball debacle. Mic drop it for us, Mrs. Penn. I'm going to mic drop it. Yeah. I don't know if you guys know this, but, you know, I've grown in popularity over the last six months. And I actually, I have an insider at Dutch Pinball. Really? I don't know if you know this. I do. I do not. And, you know, they, this person, my, you know, confidant has basically come to me and just really just unloaded. There's a lot of stuff going on. It's got to be a tough time to work there. And they confided in me who the mysterious Seattle 7 actually are. So I don't know if you guys can handle this. It's an exclusive.
    43:54
    Don't fall over. We take anything we can get. I understand. That's how I am, too. So, you know, the first two people in the Seattle 7 are actually Barry and Yacht themselves. Oh, so they are affiliated. I hate to say it, but it's getting shady. I mean, the owners of Dutch Pinball really want to just keep making pinball machines. You can't really blame them. You know what I mean? I get that they're passionate. They're well-known in the Dutch pinball community. They really are. And with a name like Yop, you've got to put it out there, you know? Yop. So they're the first two. And then the third, guys, you're not even going to believe this, is the CEO of Zytec China because he really, really wants to get paid. Okay. The other company, what are they called again? I'm sorry. ARA. Some people say A-R-A, but it is pronounced ARA, according to the Dutch. It's, so, you know, ARA is going to take all of Dutch Pinball's money. And if Zytec China doesn't get, you know, if they don't get the money to pay the lawyers, Zytec China is out of luck. So they're the third one. That makes sense because they've been building prototypes. So they have capital invested at this point. They seriously do. So the fourth member of the Seattle 7 is actually Andrew Highway.
    45:14
    Oh, you're kidding. Wow. Come on, Mrs. Penn. I'm not even kidding. You can't do this to us. No. Is Kevin Kulik one of them? Is he part of it? I mean, he's bigfoot? Are we looking at bigfoot now? He thought about it, but he didn't do it. He didn't. You know, his company went under and it was official. Right. So, you know, he's got to help out his brothers. And, you know, he just he just wants somebody to contribute. He didn't contribute himself, but he just wanted everybody else to contribute. You know what I'm saying? OK, so that's number. Let's see. What are we at? One, two, three, four. That was number four. So and in there also is Pinside Petey.
    45:59
    You know that he's like the Illuminati of the pinball world. He's got a hand in everything, guys. You know he's one of those seven people. And the last of the seven is the Easter Bunny.
    46:12
    I mean, he's seriously elusive, and he's like a phantom, just like the Seattle Seven. So he's got to be thrown in there as well. I mean, I didn't want to say anything, but I felt like you guys are real special people to me, and I thought you could use the mind-blowing exclusive about the Seattle Seven. Well, you really had me going for a while, so I give you kudos. That was solid. That was really solid.
    46:41
    Seriously, I thought, I got to Andrew Highway and I was like, I don't know if they're buying this for real. For the first three, the first three I was full on in. Because it made so much sense, right? Yes, because I honestly think that in the back of my head. That's right. You know, you're probably the first guest to come on here who actually made us look stupid. No, I'm sure not. That's what I'm for. Because, you know what, honestly, I know so little about gaming that, the fact that I could turn it around on you guys, it makes me feel so warm and fuzzy. Yeah, it's awesome. For like three seconds. And now we're back to our normal roles. I want to be tricked. I want to be smarted. That's the point. We need rivals. We need serious challenges. Oh, God. I don't know if I can. That was awesome. Down. I can't compete. Okay.
    47:36
    Moving on. Yes. Oh, now, after you've had my hopes up. Oh, I'm so sorry. We're going to have dozens of listeners for that. Guys, I don't know anybody. I mean, that's not true. I know a few people. You know, Bare Naked Ladies and Jack Danger and other people. No. No, I don't know, guys. George Gomez. I got no street cred, except in my own house. Oh, that's better than me.
    48:06
    You have a whole half of your own house. A whole half. Yes, we have. That's Daddy's half of the house. I have a corner of that half of the house. The rest of it's full of Mommy's stuff. Oh, crap. Listen, happy wife, happy life. Yeah, yeah. Well, that is part of the reason that we record in person, not just because it is easier to play off each other, in my personal opinion. Also, it brings down the wife aggro level quite a lot because I'm not recording in my half of the house, which happens to be where the kitchen and dining room and all that is. Logistical challenge. It's a logistical challenge. One that you're tackling beautifully. See? Yeah. You're on top of it. Exactly. That's right. There you go. Good. Well, I'm afraid our last news item won't be nearly as exciting as our speculations on the Seattle 7. But This Week in Pinball ran a guide on pinball manufacturers, a beginner's guide. That's right. I love it. I haven't read it. You haven't read it? Oh, my. Tony. Fail, Tony. Fail. Tony, I worked so hard. I meant to read it this morning, but I went for a walk, and then we were dealing with stuff at home. And then I was at home. Broke your tooth. No, that was a while back. And then I full on, I showed up to record the episode two hours early. I completely, I spaced out. And when I sent a message about it to my wife, my wife's like, yeah, you told me that you guys were going to start at that time. I'm like, well, why didn't you tell me that before I left the house two hours early today? Because for some reason I thought it was the same time we'd started the last time we did an early recording.
    49:48
    Tony's oldest daughter's hanging out in my game room right now. Yeah. Oh, there you go. So the, anyway, so yeah, the only reason I'm mentioning this one is I wrote it. So it gets to get plugged at least on one podcast.
    50:01
    And yeah, so Jeff with This Week in Pinball actually approached me about doing another piece. I did one a while ago on growth in the hobby. And he's one of the number of guides and most of them I don't feel qualified to do. But I've done a lot of research on manufacturing. so I was okay with that and I kind of constrained it to the solid state era or as Mrs. Penn refers to them on her show the superstar machines, the more modern machines that's right so I kind of did the year 2000 plus to get who's in the play right now much like Dutch pinball and all that and then I did major manufacturers from the start of that solid state era so mid 70's so your Bally, your Williams, your Gottlieb and then I also did a number of minor manufacturers that I felt you had an okay chance of seeing at a show like Zacharia or Game Plan, things like that. So I don't know how it's gone or not. I've looked online. It got shared quite a bit. Their comments have mostly been criticisms of either, why did you mention this super minor thing? It's way too minor. Or why didn't you mention this other super minor thing? Because I like this one. You know, like I saw someone say, where's Sonic? Where's Kaido? And then someone else was, why is Zachariah and Playmatic on this list? So you never know. You can't please everyone. Haters going to hate. Yeah, but I think I kept it pretty easy to understand. And I just did a little short summary, which is usually one to three sentences. Yeah. And then a detailed section, which is usually one to three paragraphs, small paragraphs, just so people can kind of keep it straight. That was my goal. Are you going to follow this up with an intermediate and an advanced? I wasn't planning on it. Are you going to get real crazy? I wasn't planning on it. Are you going to do a deep dive? Are you going to start picking out individuals and do massive deep dives? No, we don't. No, I don't think anyone wants to read a deep dive, I think. We do deep dives on this podcast because we roll people to sleep, but I don't know if anyone wants to read it. Are you going to put together a thesis?
    52:03
    You could do a whole thesis. If I was going to do a thesis, it would be explaining why wide-body geometry is inferior. You know this already. I know.
    52:12
    I'm kind of surprised you haven't written it yet. No, it's too much work. It's too much math, and it's confusing, and it will upset a lot of people. This is Penn. People feel very strongly sometimes if you make fun of their wide-body pinball machines, of which I know you have one. We do. I take no offense if you hate wide-body machines. I wasn't aware of this, but listen, to each his own. Everybody feels differently. I like games that I'm sure you can't stand, so, you know, whatever. I don't hate all wide bodies. I just, all I, all, my only claim is that geometrically they are inferior to a standard width. There's a mathematically provable.
    52:52
    I can see that. Just have to trust me. With the angles? Yeah. It has to do with the lower half of the play field and the, and that the flipper bats aren't a different size. That's it in a nutshell. I have a wide body as well, so I, there is a degree of hypocrisy involved here. Good. And there are a few I really like. Like, I've enjoyed playing Demolition Man. I think it's a fun widebody. I thought that WWF, Royal Rumble, that's a fun widebody. That's what it is, yeah. So there's some that I've enjoyed. You have an Indiana Jones. That's a decent widebody. We do. I don't love it. I don't love it to the degree that you all probably love it, but that's more because of the rules than the geometry for me. Yeah. I don't know the rules yet. Dr. Penn wrote, like, a thesis on it. No lie. It's, like, eight pages long with pictures, with arrows. I mean, he really dumbs it down for me. You should probably see if This Week in Pinball will publish it as a guide.
    53:44
    Yeah, he's got one for all three of our machines. And I will admit that T2 and Ripley's, I have read every piece of it at least five times each. But the Indiana Jones one, I just, I don't know. I'm like, I'm just going to play it. I'm just going to have fun. It's a great, it's such a cool machine in terms of the, I don't know. I really like it. But in terms of the rules, I don't know them yet, so I can't even speak to them. It's terrible. Ripley's, there's a lot of depth there in Ripley's. There is. Yeah. There is. It's an interesting game. We had it on location for a while. A lot of stuff to do on it. Yeah. It's crazy. Well, speaking of crazy, we're done with the news. So, Mrs. Penn, you've got some quiz in. You've got some trivia. I came up with a little trivia game for you guys because, you know. Please. Sounding like a game.
    54:44
    It's a game. Yep. And it's a, I came up with this because I felt, you know, I heard that you guys know a lot about pinball. And I was like, hmm, I got to go on this podcast and I got to see what they know. See if I can hang with these guys. So I came up with some questions. I had a little bit of help. I outsourced a bit.
    55:06
    And I thought maybe we could do this. It's cool if you guys like head-to-head style so you guys can call out your names or whatever call signs you want. I don't know what you want to, I don't know, whatever. All right. It's your game. You decide. You want us to say our names or you want us to say like a buzzer effect sound or a call out from a pinball machine kind of which I think is what head-to-head does. They do. Well, sure. You guys can do whatever you want. We'll do that. Okay. Tony, do you want to pick some call out from a pinball machine to use as your buzzer? Oh, the buzzer. Yes. Yeah. To buzz in. Fire, power, slow. Are you going to say it's super slow so I can cut it? I'm going to say that's a little slow. I'll go with firepower. I like firepower. That's a good one. It's one of my favorite sounds. That's the whole reason I love that game. Okay. I'm going to, I'll do the most infamous call out from 24. Ooh, jackpot.
    56:03
    That's a good one. Thank you. Oh, I could use a tube shot. You know I get good. He's on tube shot. Oh, tube shot. Oh, no. Oh, we are. We're not good. I haven't had enough to drink to do tube shots. Inside joke.
    56:13
    It's five o'clock somewhere, Dennis. That is an excellent point. Number two, we could pause. You know we could edit it out.
    56:23
    All right. All right, so we have our buzzers. Okay, that sounds good. So here's how it's going to work. I'm going to read a question, and whoever buzzes in first has the chance to answer. And if you get it wrong, then the other person can have a chance to answer. And whoever gets it right gets a point. Whoever's got the most points at the end is the winner. All right. Congratulations, Dennis. I mean, good luck. We don't know. Shake hands, boys. Shake hands. No fighting. Okay. Okay, so here, this is my first question. I got to give some credit to Ron Ron Hallett from the Slam Tilt Podcast. I talked to him and I said, Ron, I need some good questions. And he came up with this one. And you will get, you guys will get one point for each game that you can name. So I want you to name the eight stern, stern wide body machines.
    57:21
    Bueller? Hmm. Oh, dear. Okay, well... No, this is such an obvious wrong question. It is. Because I'll go ahead and indicate to you, Tony, already. This is not Stern Pinball. This is Stern Electronics. I figured that out. Stern Pinball has no white body. Yeah, I figured that out. That's why I was trying to cast my mind back.
    57:48
    All right. Ooh, Jackpot! Well, that was a good call, Dennis. Thank you. I knew I had to do my buzzer to do it right. All right. Let's see. Iron Maiden.
    57:58
    That's one of them. All right. I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure as I had to go. Flight 2000. That's one of them.
    58:13
    Algar. That is not one of them. Tony, do you have any guesses? No, the only one I had in mind was Flight 2000. Oh, terrible. Well, guys, listen. The eight games are... The first one's actually called Big Game. Oh, yes, Big Game. Okay. And then there's Cheetah, Free Fall, Split Second, Viper, and Orbiter One. Oh, Orbiter One! I didn't know Orbiter One was live. You should have known that one. I should have known that one. We played it quite a bit. We played it a lot. But it's such a turd, I never would have even... I like Orbiter One, thank you very much. I'm not saying that I want to own one. It's weird. It is weird. That's why I like it. It killed the company. I mean, it feels like you're drunk playing it when you're sober. And when I played it when I was drunk, oh, man. I mean, that was really messed up. I give it full points for creativity, but it's the Popeye of Stern Electronics. No. And I hadn't even heard of Freefall. I didn't even know that was a machine. I got these answers from Ron. No, I don't. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. I'm not looking it up. I'm sure. I've heard of the rest. I'm sure that. Yeah, it was just Flight 2000 was the only one I could think of that I had played, but I didn't even think about Orbiter One. And Flight 2000 and Orbiter One are the only ones I've played. Okay. So. I don't think I've played any of them, if it makes you feel any better, Tony. Maybe one of them. Orbiter One is worth a whirl, just so you can understand what they were going for. But weird game. Weird. Okay. question number two are you ready for this yes okay this is a multiple choice question guys these questions come in all forms so the first pinball machine and i have pinball in quotes because it's debatable um but the first pinball machine came out in 1931 it was called baffle ball and it was made by gottlieb have you heard of it i have okay so baffle ball they sold out of 50,000 units of this game, which blows my mind. So how much did each game cost? Here are your options. A, $13.50. B, $22.50. C, $17.50. Or D, $25.50. Ooh, Jaffa! All right, Dennis, what is it? I'm going to go with B, as in Bravo. Eh, you're wrong, Dennis. I'm sorry. Eh?
    60:47
    I mean, firepower. Oh, really? I figured it would be. It's not. Each game was $17.50. We're terrible. Seems like such a bargain, doesn't it? It's pretty flipper. It does sound... Yeah, but they didn't have any flippers, so they saved so much money. They totally did. No, they didn't. They saved on the bomb. I think the football machines, they still cost that much.
    61:06
    What's the inflation from the 30s to now? What would that make it cost in modern times? Oh, I bet it's at least $40. What year was that? 1931. I'm going to look it up. He's getting the inflation calculator out on his phone. He is not. Yes, he is. Oh, my gosh, Tony. That's crazy. All right. Well, here's another one. Now, this question is a tricky one. Who invented the tilt mechanism?
    61:40
    It's not multiple choice? It's, would you like me to make a multiple choice? No, no, I was just asking. Nope, it's not multiple choice. Ooh, jackpot. All right, Dennis, who was it? Harry Williams. It was Harry Williams. And it was the stool pigeon originally, not the tilt as we know it today. Yes, you're right. It was in 1935. Dennis, that's impressive. I'm impressed. Thank you. I'm impressed. I read an interview with Harry Williams that was published in the 60s. And he talked about that. That's crazy.
    62:14
    All right, here's the next question. Hold on. First, first. Oh. I finished my inflation calculator call up.
    62:24
    $278. Wow. That's still, I mean. That's still a bargain. Yeah. I only had maybe three pinball machines that were under that amount.
    62:37
    Oh, well. Anyway. Anyways. All right. Well, here's the next one. So Gary Stern in 1986 started the company Pinstar. And I don't know. I can't remember. Was Pinstar in your, the Twip article that you just wrote, Dennis? No, it was not. Okay. So Pinstar was the, they made conversion kits, right? Yes. And they made three of them. Name one. Ooh, jackpot. Okay, Dennis. Gamitron. Gamitron is correct. That was one of them. Tony, do you know the other two? I know I've played one of the other two. You have? Maybe.
    63:27
    Because they had a Gamitron and another one set side by side at Texas this year. Oh, do you remember the name? No, because I remember the Gamitron.
    63:40
    I don't. Nope. Dennis is destroying me. I'm used to this. It's all right. It's all right, Tony. Don't feel bad. You'd be destroying me if I was playing in the game.
    63:50
    So the other two guys were Bulldye301 and Velocity Ball. Does either of those sound familiar? Actually, no. I think what you're ever thinking of is there were two Gammatrons. One was a white wood. That's what it was. One was a white wood. You're right. There were two Gammatron sidebys. There, I don't feel bad. I don't feel nearly as bad then. No, you shouldn't. You should feel super smart because you are.
    64:15
    Build him up. It allows the fall to be all the more brutal. That's okay. Yep, that's right. That's right. You know, take it till you make it, Tony. That's my motto in life in general. It works really, really well. It does. All right, so the next question.
    64:32
    The Williams taxi game. there are five passengers that appear in the back glass. Name them. And I have to tell you guys, Dr. Pinn knew all of them except for one.
    64:51
    Yeah, and that's where I'm struggling as I try and come up with it. It's okay, guys. It's okay. Don't hurt yourself thinking.
    65:05
    So, there are five people that appear in the back glass. I only need one of them. I've got four of them. I've got four. Yeah, I have four as well, but... Oh, give me one then. Firepower.
    65:19
    Oh, Tony thinks he's got it all. What is it, Tony? Gorbachev? That's correct. Santa Claus? That's correct.
    65:30
    Marilyn Monroe? That is correct until copyright issues force them to change it. Penbot. That is number four.
    65:44
    This last one is very... Dracula. That is correct. Oh, and that was the one I couldn't remember is Dracula. Good job. Penbot that I couldn't remember. Oh, okay. That's the one that was pinned in it, no. Impressive. Very good job. All right, you've taken the lead. I got points. You got five points for that one. That was a big question.
    66:05
    It was a big one. You may hear some thunder in the background. Yeah, it's storming pretty good here. So we get disconnected. Is it really? Yeah. Don't be too shocked. But I'm on a laptop, so we won't lose the recording. Okay, sounds good. We're happy for the rain because we haven't really gotten much. It's been very dry. All right, so Tony's in the lead, all thanks to a Mark Ritchie classic. I love that game. It's very good. I love the game more now, but I already loved that game. there you go now you now you have a reason to love it even more all right so here's the next one what was the first original game made by charlie emery at spooky ooh jackpot dennis well now before i answer i would like some clarification you mean the first one that they actually produced for sale or the first one he made period it's the first one he made period that was later produced for sale. America's Most Haunted. It was not America's Most Haunted.
    67:05
    That was my guess, so. Well, that's terrible, guys. It was Pinball Zombies from Beyond the Grave. And then later on, it became Rob Zombie. That's right. Okay. Yep. No points. Good trick question. That was solid. Yeah. That was a Dr. Pin. Dr. Pin credit goes for that. All right. Well, give him kudos for making me be stumped.
    67:30
    My hate flows. I'll give him some kudos for sure. All right. In what year? Well, no, that's a silly one. I'm going to ask you, I'm going to tell you that in 1984, Stern Electronics, not Stern Pinball. Sorry for that snafu last name. No, no. They made their last machine in 1984. What was it called? Ooh, Jackpot. Yes Dennis Orbiter One It was not Orbiter One This one though I will tell you was not fully manufactured It was a prototype Oh prototype Okay. Orbiter One was the last one before this one, I think.
    68:09
    I would have gone with Orbiter One because that's the one that broke them. Yeah, that's... All right. Well, Dennis, we'll give you a point for that one. This one, because it was a prototype, it was called Laser Lord. It never made it to full production. Okay, yeah. Just the prototype. So Orbiter One won't count.
    68:27
    You don't have to count it. That's fair enough. I'm aware of Laser Lord. I forgot about it. I knew it was a prototype. I didn't know when in the history of the company it was being built.
    68:38
    Yeah, that's confusing. It's confusing stuff, this pinball. Yeah. All right. Here we go. The Bally Manufacturing Company was originally founded by Raymond Maloney in 1932.
    68:53
    Where did the name Bally come from? Ooh, jackpot. Yes, Dennis. It was a game. I believe the name of the game was actually Ballyhoo. Yes, it was. Dennis, man, you get smart points for that one, buddy. That was a good one. I had no idea about that one.
    69:11
    All right, here's the next one. This is going to test your video game slash pinball knowledge. So I hope you're feeling multitasking in your heads right now. In the late 1960s, Bally became a publicly traded company. They made several acquisitions, including Midway. During the 70s and 80s, Midway became the primary source of income for Bally because they started making early arcade video games. They obtained the licenses for three of the most popular video games of all time.
    69:50
    Name one or two or three of them. Ooh, jackpot. Yes, Dennis. I should probably not have called out. Let's see. I think they did Galaga.
    70:08
    They did not do Galaga. All right, then I'm out. At least it wasn't the most, three of the most popular games. Yeah. Think, like, layman video games. Like, I could name two of these just by, you know. Yeah, Firepower. Okay, Tony's going to call in. I'm going to go with Centipede. Centipede was not one either. Wow, that was quite tough to guess. Ooh, Jackpot. Do I get to try again? I'm trying. Yes. Pac-Man. Pac-Man is correct. I knew I should have stuck with that one at first. That was one of them. I mean, Pac-Man is a total classic. Yeah. it's totally true so the other two guys believe it or not Pac-Man Miss Pac-Man that she was probably like the first womp ever yeah she was there you go she's still such a I'm just expletives here anyways Space Invaders was the third one oh yeah I didn't know that yep that was a popular one for sure
    71:10
    Okay, guys, last question. Are you ready for it? I hope so. These are tricky. Some of these are really tricky. I was trying hard to stump you because I was... You've been doing very well with it. No, you guys, we have Dennis at seven points and Tony at five. So it's a close game. Close game. All right. What was the first pin made with electromechanical flippers? Ooh, jackpot. Humpty Dumpty. Dennis. Humpty Dumpty. It was Humpty Dumpty. By Gottlieb, yeah. It was in 1947. 1947, yeah.
    71:43
    Jeez, you even knew the year? Holy cow. I barely know the years my kids were born, let alone when Humpty Dumpty was made. If they were born with electromechanical flippers, you'd know. That's true. Yeah, yeah, that's true. I might remember that a little bit better if they had flippers. So, guys, in the end, it was Dennis for the win. He had eight points. Tony, you had five. You made a good showing, though. It was all thanks because of my love of Taxi. That's right. Good game. I'm not surprised by this outcome at all. Well, this was fun. It was fun. We should do trivia more often because I like to win. Yeah, this is like when we played Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit the one time, and then we were like, let's never play this again. I don't remember not wanting to ever play. Well, that's the thing. Everybody except for you didn't want to play Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit It was the fastest trivial pursuit game I've ever been a part of. Because Dennis just knew too much? Well, I don't recall him missing a question.
    72:47
    Well, why are you so smart, Dennis? It doesn't have anything to do with smart. It's just worthless knowledge that's been amassed.
    72:57
    And anyone can fill their brain with anything. It just takes time. That's true. You used to be a teacher, didn't you? I did. I did back in the day before kids. It seems like a lifetime ago.
    73:11
    But, yeah, I taught third grade. It was a pretty awesome thing to do. Who knows? Someday I'll go back. And give them your pinball trivia, and then they'll just look at you. You'll be the cool teacher with a pinball machine in there, in the classroom. Somebody was telling me I did a WOMP that actually had, like, an initiative with schools to have an after-school pinball club, and I thought it was the best idea ever. I mean, would you finish your math work if I told you you could go play pinball afterwards? Like, what kid wouldn't want to do that? They'd be flying through their math facts. They'd know them in, like, three seconds. I know I'd burn through science tests to go play Doom on the computer in the back room of the science lab. There you go.
    73:59
    Incentives are a powerful motivator. They really are. They really, really are. All right. Well, that's it, guys. That was my trivia quiz. It was awesome. It was a lot of fun. Thank you for doing it. Oh, yeah. It was fun. I like being stumped.
    74:16
    Well, for our next segment, this is going to be just a little brief one. I wanted to give a little bit of a street-level update. Are you, Mrs. Penn, familiar with street-level games? Well, I am now, Dennis. Oh, okay. Well, we're not going to go into the full history of them. I actually have another article that I wrote back in November, I guess, with Pinball News that time, on Street Level, if you ever are curious about them. That's one of my favorites that I've done. I actually read it, Dennis. I really did. I did a ton of homework. I studied more for this podcast than I did for Childbirth. Now I feel better. Wow. To be fair, Childbirth is just brief. So there. To be fair, I didn't study for Childbirth. I read the article you're a very good writer by the way my third grade teacher passed was like oh my gosh he's really good but his grammar is very nice well my penmanship is atrocious so you're lucky you didn't see the handwritten version but it was on the computer so you were all good I was safe so anyway for the listeners that aren't familiar just in a quick nutshell Premiere which produced Godly Pins They had a set of half-dozen games that are called the Street Level Series that they did in 1990 and 1991.
    75:33
    And it was sort of an attempt to sell a cheaper, simpler style game that required less maintenance and had less features, but were also to be sold to operators at a lower price point. And there's a whole history about why it didn't work out. But one of the things that I recently found that was interesting, since I mentioned at the start in my intro that I picked up Hoops, Hoops is a street level game. It was the last street-level game. And I already had a street-level game called Silver Slugger, which was the first street-level game. So having both of those meant I now have both manuals. So we're able to just start looking at what, and sort of raw math, what is and isn't on these games. Because IPDB, the Internet Pinball Database, actually is relatively incomplete. I probably need to go in and fill in some of the hoop stuff, because I don't think it has all the features listed right now. but my dad actually was looking at those manuals because he was helping troubleshoot on what we needed to do to fix the flasher issue he's a retired electrical engineer and he likes to work with me on the pinball machines and he mentioned to me he sent me an email and he goes I was looking at those manuals Dennis and I started doing the dreaded this happens all the time with modern collectors when they want to have their battle between Jersey Jack pinball and Stern pinball and I start counting quails and squids and so that's what he did Because he was looking at it and he goes, Silver Slugger has five more switches total than Hoops does in the game. So you think, okay, five switches. That doesn't sound like very many. But it's a reduction of over 10%. So Hoops had fewer things to activate in the game overall. Silver Slugger had more coils. Actual, like, what fire the flippers, what fire drop targets. Well, Hoops doesn't have drop targets. So there were more coils in Silver Slugger than there were in hoops for a variety of reasons. And also, one of the things that I noted when I was looking at this is I told them I had just gotten done doing all my light bulb swaps and I was putting in GI. And I said, what about the lamp count? Because I only had to change like a dozen bulbs to update the GI to LED in the hoops. And I had to do a lot more on Silver Slugger.
    77:47
    That seems a little backwards. It was weird. And Silver Slugger has over twice the lamp quantity as 155 versus 75 bulbs and hoops.
    77:58
    So they, they being Premier, they just massacred the bill of materials by the end of this run. And they charged the same amount. I guess. I haven't pulled any. I mean, part of the scandal, not scandal, but part of the problem that Premier had was their distributors weren't passing on the cost savings to the operators. They were saying, here, I'm trying to sell Silver Slugger at the same price as Dyna. Oh, wow. But if you look at them side by side, you're like, Dyna has a lot going on. Silver Slugger has spinners. Nice spinners that are plunder in. Great, but visually, what would you be more likely, especially if you never were a big-time pinball person, what would you more likely drop money into? Diner or Silver Slugger? I'd want the bells and whistles. Yeah, hoops or whirlwind? I mean, this was the competition. Right. This is why it didn't work out. But so what I, in terms of, I mean, street level was always meant to be stripped down. So we started trying to look at other manuals to see, was there like a steady decline in parts? They just went along. And it doesn't seem so much to be that way. Hoops is just dramatically less than anything else. Now, when it came to things like, even though there weren't any custom plastic toys or gizmos on Silver Slugger, in terms of its component count, it was right up there with other premiere-level full-feature games, like Light Camera Action, or after the series ended, they did Class of 1812, which is sort of a horror-themed game. It was right up there with that. So, in terms of, they just, instead of having it, like, do a mechanism, like a beating heart, they just stuck in more flashers instead. But they're in some flashers. What flashers? Surface Mount Diode just blinds you. It will. It has over 30 flashers in it. Oh, those big, bright white ones, when they start going off, it is blinding. Well, that's my fault. Seven Surface Mount Diode flashers, the blindingness money can buy. Oh, man. Good job. Because I want Steve Bowden to have to wear sunglasses if he ever plays my games.
    80:03
    It's my philosophy. So, but what I thought was just sort of interesting about just how dire it must have been at the end for them to strip it down that much is Hoops, interestingly enough, is the one street level game that I hear high level tournament players praise.
    80:21
    And so what I think is interesting is, at least from that perspective, just how valuable a layout and a balanced rule set is over the bells and whistles. So it really just comes at how you come at the hobby. Do you come at it from a bling perspective, or do you come at it from a gameplay perspective? And you can have a really simple game that has a lot of stuff going on that's a lot of fun. So I just thought I'd throw that out there. There's this real interesting just how much disparity within street level there was in terms of how much money they put into the games. Yeah, that's surprising. Yeah, it's actually the street level update flows really nicely right into the next segment that you sent me. I liked that. I noticed. Yes. It's why I wanted to stick it where it was so that we could then talk about what we all think makes pinball fun. So in terms of just the elements, it's what anyone, and everyone's different, so what anyone goes at when they come and approach pinball and they find that they like it, why we like it is different from person to person. So, I mean, as a person who's newer into the hobby, I'm curious about the Mrs. Pin perspective. What, from all your experience from these shows and these tournaments and the games you own in your own home, what do you like what elements stand out most to you that you find make you want to play more versus the elements that maybe you think suck or just don't interest you yes well i came up with a few i actually made a list guys you're going to be really excited about this all right so i'm excited first of all my favorite is when games have a really high tilt warning because I have a tendency to get a little aggressive with machines, and then I end up tilting. And, you know, that's a real bummer when you tilt. There's a very fine line between the nudge and the tilt, it turns out, and I have not figured out that line quite yet. So I like it when they have a really high tilt warning. So, like, what's your ideal number of warnings? Five? No. I don't know. At least, I think three is probably the good, I don't know, just not zero. Zero is such a bummer. I've had a game tilt on ball launch, and I didn't even hit it or anything. It tilted on ball launch. Well, that's a bad setup. That's just a bummer.
    82:43
    Someone didn't configure their game right, if that's the case. They've got to tighten them up for competitions. I totally get that. But, man, where was it? We were just in Sturbridge, and I was playing some game. It's not like I was going to win, but I tilted on the game, and I was like, you have got to be kidding me. I don't even remember what it was. Dolly Parton, maybe? Something like that. But, yeah. So, yeah, I do like it when there's at least some tilt warning. And I like really any game that my kids like, because when my kids are playing pinball, that means I can play pinball, too. So, you know, that's like a mom win. Are they more theme-oriented? I mean, what touch has their eye been? I mean, I think most kids go for the things that they know. So, you know, my youngest daughter is obsessed with Spider-Man. She has been since she was two. And we think it's awesome. She's got a Spider-Man bedroom. But, like, you know, so she sees the Spider-Man machine when we go to a tournament or we go to a place where they have pinball machines, and she's like, she beelines for it. She loves the superheroes. So, you know, I think kids go for games like that a lot.
    83:57
    But I don't know. I mean, I know I've talked about it in my podcast before, but I think that the themes that are out there are not necessarily specifically geared towards kids or girls in general. Because, you know, my older daughter is like the princess tutu, unicorn sparkles rainbows girl. And there's none of that in pinball. So she's kind of the one that we have to convince.
    84:23
    Yeah, my oldest is always like, have they put out a Splatoon pinball machine yet? No, that's not happening. Oh. Have they put out? No, not yet. Do they have a Minecraft machine? No, not yet. Actually, a Minecraft would be a really good theme for a pinball machine.
    84:42
    Yeah, I agree. That's fun. I think a lot of video games would make a lot of sense for pinball themes at this point especially. If you want to grow the hobby, I think you've got to – it's bigger than Hollywood, so you just have to consider your market. But I guess we're still going to do old guy rock bands.
    85:00
    Yeah. Oh, well. I sent you that idea the other day. We just need to do a Toto's Africa music theme band, and then we don't ever need another music theme band. It doesn't have to be any other Toto songs. That's true. We can put in, like, 40 versions of Africa, and it's cool. That's true. And you never have to loop them because the song's so long. You'll drain well before you get to the end of it. Exactly. It would be the perfect machine. You could use Timmy Sexton for your back glass art because he looks so much like that guy. He's one of my doppelgangers. That's right. He was in that exact music video. There you go.
    85:36
    Tony, what are a couple of elements that you look for that you find are fun? For me, because I'm, my biggest draw to pinball in general is as a social aspect, because the whole couch co-op type of video gaming is pretty much gone. Most video gaming, which is what I primarily play, you do online, so it's just voices in your head over, well, they're voices in your head, yeah. I play lots of video games, so I've got voices in my head. We'll work on that after. or voices in your headset and this and that. So I like the social aspect of actually going somewhere. Like when we go to Texas or to Pizza West or to 403, I really enjoy the social aspect. And I feel unlike a lot of video games, and even arcade games don't feel the same to me as pinball in a social setting. They've got a different feel. So that's my biggest love of pinball is the whole social gathering group thing. There's a lot of love. There is a lot of love, and there's a lot of not love, too. I mean, you're going to find people like that in everything. Yeah, you are. You've got to focus on the love. Exactly.
    86:53
    But what I really enjoy, I like a game that's got a good spinner. Oh, I love a spinner. When you hit a good spinner just right, and especially if it's in a shot where you can hit it, and then you hit it again. You hit it like two, three, four times in a row. It just feels so good. It might not be doing anything special. You might be getting 10 points for a spin because you don't have anything set up. But it feels good. Just like every time, at least for me, if I can repeat a shot, especially like an orbit or a spinner or something that's fast, and I can repeat it like three, four times in a row, it feels good. I don't care if I haven't scored any points. I don't care if it's useless. It feels so good just repeating the shots and getting the shots down. And when it's not a hold, flip, hold, flip, when you can hit that shot on the fly several times in a row, I enjoy it. It's a lot of fun. It feels great.
    87:48
    Spinners were on my list, too, Tony. Oh, yeah. That's just so good. Nothing like a nice lubed-up spinner ready to play. You guys are kindred spirits with Ron and Bruce. That's why I'm too. I know. You can't hate a spinner. No, I don't know anyone who hates spinners. Tony, you've got to get the pinball lube that Ron recommends. I don't know if you have it, but that stuff is like gold.
    88:15
    Yeah, I'm trying to remember. It might have been a silicone, I think. It might have been, yeah. I don't remember if he used like a dry or if it's like a spray. I have spray silicones and stuff. But I know Tony favors metal spinners. Yes. Ron loves cheap plastic spinners, namely what Stern Electronics uses because they spin more. That's true. They spin a lot. They do, but I don't know. It always seems to me like the metal spinners have that special sound when you first catch it. I like it so much. Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle. How about you, Dennis? Well, I like spinners, too. You're right. See, victory. Spinners. All you need in a game with 15 spinners on it. Spinners for the win. It's a lot of spinners. I try to think up what is the most number of spinners that's ever been in a game. I don't know if any game has done four. Don't know if I've played anything with more than three. Yeah. And it seems like one and two are the most common. Two seems pretty, especially on older games. Well, yeah, a lot of old, especially on EM era and stuff, there was a big interest in doing symmetrical layouts, which I've been critical of in the past. But, you know, it was what it was. And that's why you'll see things like on Grand Prix, which is symmetrical layout. It's a good game. So if you have a spinner, to keep balance in the force, you have to have a spinner on the other side. It's only logical. Yeah.
    89:41
    Yeah, I like, well, I guess a couple things that I'll point out that I really enjoy would be flow. For me, anything where you're rewarded for repeatedly, you get rewarded for hitting a shot, and that reward is you get to make another shot. I really, really like shots that do that. That's probably why I'm very partial to Steve Ritchie games. I think that's why I think the warp ramp shot in Star Trek is one of the best shots in all of pinball, because it's so fast and flowy that if you get in that rhythm and can keep making that shot, it's like being able to rip that spinner repeatedly without having to trap up. It's like that. But flow in general, I don't even need the spinner. I just want the flow. So there's that. But on a trap-up perspective, I really like roving targets to shoot. I don't care if they're drops or stand-ups. I'm okay with either. But I like the idea that this shot is lit and the light is moving, and I need to try and do some sniper time. It's time for me to be sniper and hit that shot and get bonus points for being able to land that shot. And that was more common in older games. But things like Superman, for example, does that with his drop target bank, which is, I think, a really, really interesting thing to do, especially for when you make the shot really dangerous as well. You've just got to have that incentive in there so that there's value to try and do your snipe. I do like drops better than stand-up targets. I'd say most people do. For me, it depends because stand-up targets, they add a brutality to a game because generally the ball is moving a lot faster when there's a stand-up. Yeah. So, for example, people have taken Firepower and converted it to drops because it was meant to be a drop-target game. It's got space in there for the drop. Yeah. But the ball is slower. and I like the brutality of those sick stand-ups they're just like you have to hit them if you're going to light that spinner to rip that spinner so you've got to go for them and they're going to drain you so welcome to 1980, enjoy Mrs. Penn you got some other items?
    91:44
    yeah I do I love a game with multi-ball I've talked about that on my podcast I just think multi-ball is so freaking fun it's just so fun to have multi-ball I feel like it tests your hand-eye coordination. I feel like it kicks you on your toes. I mean, it's like having a few kids. Like, you just don't know what you're going to get, and you just better be ready for everything. Now, do you prefer games where it's mostly the main thing you're trying to do is get into and keep going with multivols, or do you prefer games where the multivol is more sparingly done as a side activity that helps you advance other objectives? I don't know. I think I like locking balls. I like having a goal. So I think that that's nice. And a lot of times they'll stack that in games that I've played, at least, with different modes. You're trying to hit ramps or you're trying to hit targets. And then you can lock balls as you go along with that. But I honestly don't discriminate. I love all kinds of multiball. I just think it's such a fun thing to do. And I'm horrible at it. It's like multi-balls come out and then it's like drain, drain, drain. But, man, just for those, like, ten seconds, I'm like, man, this is fun. It's just a fun thing to have, multi-ball. What's your stance on virtual ball lock versus physical?
    93:07
    I don't know. There's something to be said about both, I guess. I like it when I can see the balls being locked. In our Ripley's, you can actually see it. You can look at them and say, here's the ball locked. But like you know in a lot of the newer games It's a virtual lock And I don't know I like that too I feel like it all goes towards the same goal So I don't know I like being able to see it I guess If I had to pick one Now one thing I do like I mean I Would prefer the actual Physical ball lock for the most part But some games like Maverick With it's slow Oh, ball art. Have you ever played Maverick, Ms. Penn? I don't know. Probably. I've heard of it, but they all kind of blend together, especially if they don't have, like, those franchise-themed games. Yeah.
    94:01
    So I don't know if I've played Maverick. It's a Sega game that has one of the giant DMVs. It's got Mel Gibson on the back glass in a cowboy hat, and the ball lock on it is a steamboat. So the paddle wheel moves the ball up and puts it in the lock, but you have to wait somewhere between five and ten seconds for it to actually finish locking the ball. Yeah, it's terrible. It's so slow. It's horrible. In theory, it sounds like it would be cool, but it does seem to disrupt the game. It's like the water wheel on the fish and... Oh, fish tails? Fish tails. It's kind of like the water wheel on fish tails, but way, way, way, way slower. Yeah, that would be... Way slower. It's too bad because Maverick overall I think is a pretty good... Yeah, it's not a terrible game at all. But I've seen some of the physical locks. I'm going to bring this up to a game that everybody already knows that I love.
    94:54
    Total Nuclear Annihilation has an amazing ball lock. Oh, yeah, the Denise lock. Yeah. The end line drops that lock the ball. But that leads me into an interesting question for you guys. What do you both think about ball stealing? Do you like games that let you steal another person's ball and take their multiball? no oh it's not really fair to me i mean wasn't wasn't there a big like controversy or drama over um i don't know somebody was like about somebody who was playing in a tournament and they they thought that the person had stacked the balls during the practice round or something like that and there was so much drama over it and i i i don't know i mean in general i'm big on sharing, like especially with little kids, you've got to be big with sharing, but if I lock the balls, I want to be able to play the balls.
    95:49
    I don't know. What do you guys think? I don't really like ball stealing. I mean, lock stealing. It's annoying. I've had it happen to me multiple times in tournaments,
    96:01
    but when it is basically the Denise Lock is fine, that's going to happen, but I also don't know how good that game is for a tournament play. That's a game that I kind of want to play by myself and just play over and over and over again. That's interesting because Scott designed it with the idea of people playing dollar games on it. He wanted it to be a competitive game, not an individual game.
    96:29
    So that's a very different perspective. Some people think that the stealing is all part of the game and no holds barred and do what you've got to do, and I can get behind that, too. I think Scott did not, on purpose, did not put in the ability to turn off the ability to ball steal. Well, yeah. I think his stance is that I want you to, because he could just as easily, I don't want to say just as easily, but within the software of the P-Rock system, he could accommodate just keeping track virtually and allowing the balls to come in via virtual, just auto ball launch them in and keep track of that and turn off ball stealing. if he wanted to allow it. Right. He's a believer. My opinion is, I don't seek out games that have lock stealing. I'm totally happy playing them for the variety of it, but what I do feel is in a tournament setting, you need to stick a note on the game's back box that says this game has lock stealing. It must be declared. It is not right to assume that people should have to know that. You need to declare it. It should be just like any game where tilt ends game, any old Gottlieb multiplayer, you need to put a sign on it. You can't just expect everyone to know that games made by Gottlieb in 1965 with more than one player tilt ends their game. You can't expect it. You have to tell people. I had no idea. As long as you, well, I may be wrong on the years, so don't quote me on that, but yeah. I believe it was Gottlieb, and yeah, it used to be tilt would end game on even some single players, but for a while, yeah, even the multiplayers, it wouldn't even skip turn. It would just, that's the Bowden's least favorite type of game to play competitively is anything that were tilt-ins game. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of a bummer. Oh, yeah. That's a bummer. Because unless you got to practice on that game beforehand, then basically, I mean, if you're going up on it cold, my approach on those games, because I've seen them in tournament before, is, okay, I can't nudge. You can't. You can't risk it. But the game's going to have two-inch slippers, not three-inch, because it's that old. So now what am I supposed to do? I'll tell you what I do, Mrs. Penn. I lose. Yeah, I lose too. It's okay, Dennis. Yeah. Yeah, it's okay, Tony. It's okay, Tony. It's okay. Tony, it's okay. It'll be all right.
    98:47
    I'm used to losing at school. It's fine. Yeah, I ain't never won. I ain't never won a tournament. Last tournament that I played in, guys, I beat seven people. I was so psyched. That's awesome. I'm happy if I beat that many people. Yeah. I am. Well, yeah, there were like 100 and something people playing. so don't get too excited for me, but, you know, I just don't want to come in last place. The one time, I have come in last place many times. I have too. The one time I played in a really big tournament was the first year we went to Texas, and we played in the Texas tournament, and I was so psyched because I was, you know, below my ranking, I was above 110, so I mean, there was like 120-some-odd players, and I was like 108 or something, and I was super stoked. It's like, I almost broke 100. Right? Listen, you've got to take the little victories when you're not very good at pinball, you know? I mean, we're playing in a tournament tomorrow, and I'm a little terrified. Like, I'm a little scared. I don't know. I just don't want to come in last place, but at the same time, I understand someone has to come in last place. Yeah, someone's going to lose. I'm competitive That's part of the reason I've always Every time I hear about Pembroke Part of me wants to go to Pembroke And it's a cost and distance And time off issue I would love to go to Pembroke Because I mean There's somewhere where you know That even when you get to play all the way through And even though you're going to be in the Triple Q division Which is where I belong You're still going to be playing with people who also belong in the Triple Q division, so you're not going to feel like you're getting just wiped out because, you know, it's like, hey, that's who I'm playing next, and he's ranked number four in the world, and I'm ranked number 4,578. I don't think I'm that high. I think I'm lower than that. I don't know. You might be high. I haven't checked in like a year. Yeah, I don't know. I don't check my world ranking. I only check state ranking, and I only check it like three times a year anymore.
    100:56
    Yeah, I don't know. The good competitive players keep telling me I'm doing better this year, so I guess they must be checking. Yeah. I don't know. Baby steps. Baby steps, exactly. Baby steps. I hold on to the, hey, I beat one of our good competitive players one time. I remember that. I beat him. Yes, he was so drunk, somebody had to guide him to the machine, but it happened. It happened. Listen, circumstances don't matter. You beat him one time. High five. And I always just remember that even though I like to win, I don't have to win to enjoy pinball. Yes. That's true. Step number one. And step number two, I'm sitting here with this big, giant microphone with tens of people possibly listening to me talk to a much more successful podcaster. So that is a win. That is a win.
    101:47
    I'm not a contender. I am somebody. I'm somebody. Read my article I somebody Read it It all about perspective you know Oh yes Yes That a really really good summary on not just pinball but life It's about perspective. Yeah, that's kind of true. Kind of true. Back on our whole pinball fun thing. Now, there's something that I want to see if you guys think it's fun, because I'm torn on it. Okay. Like, on some games, specifically Jurassic Park and the old Star Wars. The Dead East one, you mean? The old Dead East Star Wars. And some of the other games, they have the things where something will pop up on the DMV, and you need to spam the trigger on Jurassic Park. You spam the launch button on the old Star Wars. I know some of the new games have stuff where Stern wants you to spam that center button for stuff. How do you feel on stuff like that? It requires you to actively be paying attention to the DMD while actively paying attention to the thing. So you mean more specific than just video modes in general? More specific than just video modes in general. I'm talking about these specific ones where the ball stays in play. Video modes while the ball's in play. Right. Have you played any of those games, Ms. Spence? I have. I like the video mode in general, and I don't mind it when they throw at you. Sometimes they'll suspend the actual play field part of the pinball game, and then you'll have to, I don't know, shoot targets or something on the DMD. I don't mind that at all, but honestly, I have a hard time multitasking multi-ball. So for me to be able to look at the DMD and play the pinball game at the same time, you're crack-a-lackin'. I can't handle that.
    103:43
    My overall stance is I actually like that. I like the video mode while playing the ball more than regular video. Do you? Really? Because I like how it stresses me out.
    103:57
    It's a trick. It's all a trap. It's like, oh, look, here's a velociraptor running across the screen. Oh, listen to that sound. It wants you to take your hand off the floor. It wants you to drain. That's what it wants. Do you fall for it or do you not? And I like to fall for it. So what it started to make me do is if I'm playing Star Wars and it's time to destroy some TIE Fighters, it's time for me to shoot some Velociraptors. It's like, no, Dennis, don't. Try and multitask. Trap up and then do it. And maybe I can't trap up. But if I can't, hopefully I kept the ball in play. I like that better than most of the regular video modes, which generally just take me out of pinball. That's true. So, yeah, it's weird. It's a challenge. Yeah, I like it because it's sort of a stressor. But it's a stressor that I can choose to opt out of. I don't have to shoot that Velociraptor. I don't have to. I don't have to let that sound go, and make it be all panicky. I can just be like, no, I don't need to. I don't want to. It's only 10 million points. It's harder on Star Wars where it's like, you want to destroy those because that gets you to a multivol. Right. So they, Dwight really upped the ante on that one. Oh, no, you're not going to resist. You're going to drain like a loser. And I'd fall for it, but I'm trying. So I like the idea of it because I like how it freaks people out. And it freaks me out. But I know a lot of pinball people also, they just can't adapt to that sort of stuff. They really criticize the action button lately. But as Tony's pointed out, this has been around for a long time. Daddy East was doing this in the 90s constantly on things. So, yeah, it's... I think the big difference just now is they moved the action button so they can still have an actual physical ball launch. Yeah. Instead of having to hit the button ball launch. Right, right. Right. I like the new action button placement more than how Daddy East did it. Yeah, because if you get into it and you've had four or five beers, you have no problem dropping down and pounding your forehead onto it. And it's all weird. I mean, it's all weird. It's like the smart missile launch is a different shape and a different position on Last Action Hero than it is on Jurassic Park. and then high speed to the getaway had the shifter you had to do. And then half of the operators put the pin gulp on that side of their pinball machine. And I, this is a dentist trick, Mrs. Penn, if you're playing the getaway, and it tells you shift gears, use your knee. That's what I do. Just use your knee. That's kind of brilliant, actually. I've never thought to use my knee. Until they stick a pin gulp on it and then you have dislocated your knee or torn your meniscus. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I remember that. Okay. But, you know, well, pinball is pain. So what can we say? It's a matter of perspective. And in that perspective, it hurts. I mean, I guess that's dedication if you're going to tear your meniscus. I'd probably just not shift gears. Yeah, that's true. Not shift gears. But it wants you to. You just hear Steve Ritchie going, shift gears. Play better. Shift gears.
    106:55
    Come on, loser. Shift gears. It's taunting you. It's taunting. We step into the line. Shift, loser. Yeah. I think he's more smack talk oriented in No Fear, but he does like to smack talk.
    107:10
    Well, were there any other fun elements that either of you wanted to bring up? I don't know. I think most of pinball is pretty fun in general. I think there are some things that I prefer over others, but I think that just pinball in general is fun.
    107:28
    Awesome. I don't know. No, I think that's a good place to end that So we do have a video game segment So we're going to transition to video games Bye everyone who's just pinball only Bye pinball people We love you Bye pinball people Goodbye You're going to hurt Mrs. Pin's feelings But okay, go away So you have an idea And I thought it was a great idea And that was to take your Womp concept Which focuses on highlighting Awesome women in pinball and applying it to video games. What a clever idea. It was Dr. Penn's idea. I'm not going to take credit for it. I know that Dr. Penn. He's always meddling. He's so smart sometimes. I'm like, honey, why'd you marry me? Because honestly, no, he married me because I'm the opposite of that when it comes to video games. So he carries me in this area, you know? Opposites attract. They do. Paula Abdul taught us that in that crazy cartoon cat. Crazy cartoon cat. Yeah. Yes, they did. Man, she just knows her stuff She does, she did at least back then And I don't know how she's doing anymore Yeah, that's for another podcast Yeah, that'll be on her I have a dual podcast The Eclectica Dual Podcast Well, the one where we just talked Paula That'll be a whole half an episode Great Alright, so video games Awesome women in video games Did you want to lead us off? Sure, I can So, you know, Dr. Pin brought this up because initially when I came up with Womp and the PG version, because I know that you guys do not swear on the Eclectic Gamers podcast, is women of mother freaking pinball is what Womp stands for, if you don't know. So then I was thinking Dr. Pin is obsessed with pinball and he is also obsessed with PlayStation. so right now he's got the PlayStation 4 and this is a hobby of his that I can get into somewhat but it's oh I don't know it's a love-hate relationship I have with the PlayStation but I realized that there are going to be women in PlayStation 2 so you know I kind of went into this as a I used PlayStation in general just because it fit into my you know acronym very nicely but just women gamers in general, you know, womps of the video game world. And I came up with a couple of them that I was going to share with you guys. Awesome. I have two as well. As do I. What? Balance for the force. We'll just rotate. This will be fun. This sounds good. So I wonder if we have any of the same ones, because that would say that we're like true kindred spirits here. I can guarantee that me and Dennis don't, because I saw his notes and he stole at least one of mine, so I found another one. Whatever.
    110:23
    We'll have to see. I don't know. Maybe, who knows. My first womp, women of Mother Freaking PlayStation, she's called the Granny Gamer. Her name's Shirley Curry. Have you heard of Shirley? I have. So she is 80 years old, and she has four kids. She's got nine grandkids, and her husband passed away, which is traumatic for everyone. And so she was, like, struggling with something to fill her time. And on a whim, she, you know, went in to visit one of her kids or her grandkids, and they were playing a game. And she got hooked. She started playing Civilization II was the first game that one of her grandkids got her hooked on. Good game. One more turn. Just one more turn.
    111:15
    And so she got hooked on that. Then she started playing Skyrim. and she uploaded one day, one of her grandkids, you know, with the technology smarts, uploaded one of her games to YouTube and she woke up the next day and had 11,000 emails and they were all supporting her and her gaming and now she's got her own YouTube channel. She's got almost 300,000 subscribers and she has 714 videos currently of her playing games, and she's in her 80s. So she was my first womp, surely. That's an awesome selection. That is an awesome selection. I've seen some of her videos in the past, and they popped up somewhere online. That's awesome. I just think it's incredible. I really do. The bar has started very high. Tony, what's your first name? My first name is I went less from a player stand, and I went with a designer for both of them. That's good. I like that. I do, too. My first one is Kim Smith.
    112:25
    Kim Smith created one of the greatest video games ever made. She was the team lead for when she came out of school. Her and a group she was with had created a little, oh, what do you want to call it? Just kind of like a prototype game, a little test game. And the game was so well-liked when they showed it around that Gabe Newell of Valve hired them all so they could make an actual full-up of that game. And that game became Portal.
    113:01
    Portal is one of the greatest puzzle platform games ever created. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. By a womp. Yep. That's crazy. She led the Portal team. She was a big part of the development team of both Valve's Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2. Oh, yeah. Good first-person shooters. Yeah. They're nice cooperative, four-player cooperative zombie games.
    113:28
    When she left Valve, she went to another company called Airtype Games, where she was the lead designer with a game that was released by Airtight and put out by Square Enix. It was called Quantum Conundrum. Quantum Conundrum is one of those games that it reviewed really well, and I enjoyed it quite a lot, but it didn't really take off. It just didn't become as big as it probably should have. It was a puzzle platformer like Portal was, but where portal was the much more simplistic you have two portals and you figure out the puzzles using your two portals in quantum conundrum you actually had a control of four different dimensions and so you shifted between realities to solve puzzles like in one reality everything weighed a lot less so you could pick up a safe and throw it and then you could switch to another reality where everything was much heavier than normal and it would drop on an exact spot. Or you could throw a feather and make it super heavy so it would drop and trigger something. Or there was another one where time slowed down for everything but the player. So if there was like, you know, the time things where there's blades dropping you could slow time down so they're going real slow and you could just work your way through them. Or you could reverse gravity where gravity was reversed for everything except for the player. So if there's a bunch of stuff piled in front of an exit, you could reverse gravity, and it would all fall from the floor to the ceiling, and then you'd walk out the exit. And then as the game goes on, it gets a lot more complicated, and you have to combine the powers together to make your way and solve the puzzles. And it was a lot of fun. I played a lot of it when it came out, which was in 2012. And it was a really good game that I enjoyed. It just never took off as much as it should have. And it helped that the main narrator voicing it, the person helping you, talking to you through in the background, was voiced by John Delancey. His voice is amazing.
    115:36
    She went from Airtight Games when they closed their doors in 2014. She spent a lot of time in Amazon's new studios working on stuff in the background. She was no games, none of the games that came out. I was working on projects. But the big thing was there was it was announced in 2017 that she was hired as a design director for Motive Studios. And Motive Studios is big because they're a brand new EA studio that just put out Star Wars Battlefront 2.
    116:11
    And they're based entirely around doing action-adventure games. and they are supposedly currently working on another Star Wars game.
    116:22
    And this will lead into my second one, so I'll wait until later. Okay. But I'm looking forward to it. All right.
    116:31
    My first romp will be Felicia Day. And sort of, a.k.a., I believe she's been fairly well known as the queen of the nerds for a very long time. I thought that was my title. No, she predates you is the reason. She does. She totally does. She's been busy with a little baby, so you can now steal this. You can steal the throne from her. I don't want to steal Felicia's throne. Well, yeah, Felicia, she's probably best known worldwide as an actress. Yeah. She's been on a number of TV shows. She got her start on Buffy the Vampire Slayer way back in the day. I loved that show. Yeah.
    117:10
    Kindred Spirits. I know. It was a great show. And she's a gamer. She plays, does a lot of streaming on Twitch. Last I saw, still like with her brother, they'll go and play a classic game on Modern Gleam and just start swearing and throwing the controllers and stuff. But the reason why I wanted to put her on this list specifically was, I mean, so she's a gamer, an actress, a musician. She started a web series called The Guild. And it was based, loosely based, on her own experience as someone who played massively multiplayer online games, so like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XI or Ultima Online, things like that. And the series was real good. It was. It was real interesting. And it just kept being renewed for more and more seasons. But what it did for a lot of gamers is it really spoke to them about how it was for a lot of people who went in and played MMOs, these different people from different walks of life, and that's what it followed. I mean, some people who were practically living inside that virtual world where their social anxiety and such wasn't the obstacle anymore, and they could interact with people. And then others who just did it as something while they were drinking, and all of that. And just, it really captured the sort of idea of, they're really, all these different people who are in a guild together, working together in a game, and they have these vastly different personalities, but they start to get to know each other in the real world as well. and it just, it did, I think it did a lot for gaming and a lot for gamers to kind of get this notion out there about how different they all are, that it isn't all just a stereotype but how games can be a unifying force and that's something that drives a lot of people in video games, it's something I really like about video games is the idea that all of us with different walks of life can use games as a way to have a commonality and it's a piece I'd like to see more in pinball as well. It's easier with video games because the dollar threshold is lower. It is.
    119:13
    Felicia, big time. I wish she'd do more, but she's too busy having babies. We've just got to live with it. Dang childbirth.
    119:22
    I bet she didn't even study as hard as you did. Oh my gosh. Seriously. No, I should have probably studied a little bit more for the baby section.
    119:32
    It's like a brick to the face. Just give them some food. Eventually you get, eventually you figure out you can sleep more. Eventually that happens. It just takes like a decade or two.
    119:44
    What's a decade or two between mother and daughter? My oldest is 10, almost 11, and it's wonderful now. I mean, once they get past, you know, like 8, it's wonderful. I hear once they hit like 12, it goes downhill, so I think I'm in the sweet spot of perfection right now. At least with the oldest. You can enjoy it. Yeah, enjoy it while it lasts. She doesn't hate me yet.
    120:09
    No. So, Mrs. Penn, let's go ahead and get your second womp. Okay, my second womp. So, I wanted with this one to go with someone who was involved in video games, but kind of like you guys in a bit of a different way. So, this is actually a video game voice actress. Ah. And her whole career in voice acting for video games started because she fell in love with Metal Gear Solid when she was 12. And she started a series of videos online with her brother. And they were called, Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'? And Ashley Birch is her name, my second womp. And so she started doing these videos, and then because of them, she started getting into video game acting. So now she has done the voices for 32 different games, different video games in her career. And she's played some seriously great people. So she's played Alloy in Horizon. She's been in Zero Dawn. And Chloe in Life is Strange. Oh, okay. I played that. That's like multitasking, womp, amazingness. So Ashley Burch is my second womp. Cool. Voice actress. Very solid choice. Yeah. Life is Strange and Horizon are both really good games. I haven't played Horizon, but I've only... I've watched it played, and I've seen some videos. I want to play it. I've spoken about it in the past. It's one of the big reasons I want a PlayStation.
    122:21
    All right, Tony. You said you've got another developer for your second one. I have a second developer. Related to Star Wars? Related to Star Wars.
    122:30
    My second developer is Jade Raymond. Now, she started her career working for Sony back in the day on Little Things, but where she really started being known was in 2000, or she moved from Sony, I should say, to EA, but where she really got known was after she moved to Ubisoft Montreal. and while at Ubisoft Montreal, she was doing less developing as in I'm actually programming it, and she was more the back end. She was doing directing and producing.
    123:05
    She was a producer for a small game that has just a tiny little bit of popularity. You might have heard of it. It's called Assassin's Creed. Hmm. Yeah, I might have heard of that one. Maybe. What? I don't know. I don't know, guys. That just doesn't get around, ever. Just kidding. And she has stayed in that more producing and executive producing segment. And that's what she's done. She's worked on Assassin's Creed 2, Assassin's Creed Bloodlines, Watch Dogs.
    123:42
    All decently good-sized games. Watch Dogs had some issues. No, it was all right. It was all right. but at the same time they also, EA, or not EA Ubisoft had her start as the managing director for Ubisoft Toronto so she was in on the forming of one of Ubisoft's new studios that they created as they started up several of their other smaller studios that's super cool but then she took that experience she left Ubisoft She returned to EA, and she formed Motive Studios for EA. She is the head of EA's Motive Studios, which is based in Montreal, where, as before I mentioned, Kim Swift is now a part of, and she is leading the entire group as they made the second Battlefront game and as they're working on more Star Wars games and as they're doing other side work for EA. So, we're pulling together this entire core of a solid people with good reputations who've worked a lot. And I'm really looking forward to some of the stuff they're going to be putting out, hopefully. So, you've got two WOMPs that are working together. They're working together now. Womp, womp, baby. And the game they're working on, we'll make it even crazier, The game that's being worked on now, the unannounced one, is basically what they took, what Visceral was working on under the control of Amy Hennig. When they closed Visceral down, they moved that title over, and it's now part of what Motive is working on. Motive and I want to say Yay Vancouver. Hmm.
    125:40
    One of those. Right. Yay Canada Studios. Okay. So that's my number two. He's awesome. Yeah. Well, I guess I'll wrap it up with my number two. Is this the one I stole from me? Okay, well. This was the first, literally as soon as this concept was given to me, This one was the very first one to pop into my head. Okay. Well, that makes sense to me because Tony and I both watch the Overwatch League, which is an eSport where they play Overwatch, unsurprisingly. And that is, there's only one option, in fact, for a Womp in Overwatch, in my view, and that is Geguri. Yeah. Her actual name is Kim Se-young, but she plays under the handle Geguri, and that's what they use in the eSports side, so I'll just keep calling her that. She's a South Korean professional gamer. The reason why she's noteworthy as a Womp is she is the first and only woman who is in the Overwatch League as a player. Wow. She was also the first woman to be signed to an Overwatch Apex team, and Apex kind of preceded the Overwatch League. So she's been trailblazing in that game. Right. And, I mean, we've talked about, I'm sure as Ben doesn't really know as much about Overwatch, Overwatch has become much larger than you would think. They just announced a deal with ESPN and Disney and ABC that they are actually airing the grand finals. And season two is going to be on ESPN2, and it's going to be on Disney XD. And they're actually airing it on primetime television. Oh, yeah. That's crazy. Blizzard Entertainment, which made the game, has cultivated the Overwatch League hardcore. They're doing it like the NFL style. Cities have teams and all of that. Yeah. And so the first season's finals are going on now. I think actually five minutes ago. Yeah, they just started the finals. Anyway, as an Overwatch fan, I've seen a number of games with Geguri playing. And she is an incredible player to watch. Just fundamentally, her ability. She primarily plays what is known as a tank role. So her responsibilities, because this was a team game, is she needs to create space for her team. and she also has to protect her back line against attack from the opposing team that they play these games against. But what she was known for and is known for is on her skill set, it's precision mouse movement. And there's a really good story that demonstrates just how true this is for her. And that is back in June 2016, this game was out. Geguri was caught up in a cheating controversy.
    128:15
    So, yeah, there was an official tournament in South Korea and some people were watching the footage of it after the fact and accused her of using a device known as an aimbot. And that's software that automatically aims for you. It's a huge no-no in even casual play. They're against all terms of service. And the reason was that they were analyzing how she was aiming and they said that her accuracy was too good. A human being could not achieve those levels of accuracy. That was the accusation. And that accusation spread. So then some of the members of the team her team beat formally accused her of cheating against them and using that aimbot. And two of them said that if she were to be exonerated, they would go so far as to quit playing Overwatch. They wouldn't play professionally anymore. Wow. So, Gagary went to a Korean esports studio where they monitored her, and she played livestream in front of everyone and proved that she did not need an aimbot. She is that good. And those two opponents did quit. They permanently quit playing Overwatch. They kept their word. And their entire team disbanded in the wake of losing those players and falsely accusing her of being a cheater. and in addition Blizzard's South Korean branch also confirmed from the analytics on their end that she does not use cheat software. She's just that good. That's crazy.
    129:44
    What happens now is when she joined the Overwatch League, she plays for a team called the Shanghai Dragons. They represent Shanghai in China. They're the only Chinese city currently in the league. It is unfortunately the worst team in the Overwatch League. They lost all 40 of their first season games. She was not on the team at first. They brought her in. It took quite a while because there were a lot of visa issues. Half the team now is South Korean, actually, whereas originally they were all Chinese nationals.
    130:14
    And it's sad in a way because she is so good, and they have one other player who's really good, and the rest of the team, quite frankly, sucks. Yeah. They do. They're truly horrible. She would be a solid starter on pretty much every other team in the league. And she's going to be on the all-star team, so we'll get to see her as that moves forward. With actual good support. Yeah, that's the main thing. They don't have good support. Well, there's no place to go but up for her and her team, though, in Shanghai. I mean, maybe they'll learn some good things from her there, and she'll be the trailblazer. And part of the reason I wanted to wampify her on this isn't just that she's a really, really good gamer, but her attitude is really, really good. It's been so interesting. She's incredibly shy.
    131:04
    She's very active in social media, and you can see, I mean, she's full of self-doubt. And she always is advertising and basically saying, I'm not sure I'm doing this right. She'll say, I'm really nervous. I'm terrified to get out here and do this. And she's won the crowd because of that Yeah Because And in a way I almost feel like She has to be twice as good That she's under a microscope Because she's the only woman Right And she is And she's just so much better Than so many of them Yeah And so For me it's a little sad Because Well because she deserves to be on a good team Because she's so much better than so many of them And she proves it every single time she goes out there With that group of losers that she's stuck with Right But anyway, she continued to stay positive. I think she's going to go on and either Shanghai is going to rebuild and become great or our good team is going to say, we need a better tank. We're bringing her over. Right. And what I like is that she's – I'm hopeful that with esports, there's no reason that it has to be split via sexes. There's no reason there can't be more female players. so I full on look forward to and hope for the day where we get more female players in it shouldn't be that yes she is just that good but she shouldn't be alone no she's a trailblazer to start something like that that's why I feel like I give these whomps in pinball and playstation and gaming in general so much credit because it is so intimidating to go in and be the only one that is female. I mean, it's a very, very scary thing to do. So, I don't know. That's why I think these women are even more amazing.
    132:51
    Yeah. So, those are our wants. I love it. Thanks, guys. Yeah. No, it was fun. It was. We're at the end of the show. I do want to say, though, for any listeners that for some reason have not listened to Mrs. Penn's Pinball Podcast, I do have a link in the show notes to it, so they'll be able to go to Podcast Garden and check your show out. It's a lot of fun. It's It gets to be far more profane than Tony and I are willing to be. Because Tony really insists that we stay clean.
    133:18
    It's been a lot of fun. I love listening to it. I like podcasts that are different. So everyone doing something a little bit different is what makes it so interesting. Even Head to Head and Slam Tilt, which everyone says are identical in format structure, because they kind of are. They have their own personalities, too. Right. They do. So they're vastly different listening experiences, in my view. I think so, too. Anyway, Mrs. Penn, I want to bid you adieu. Thank you so much for having me, guys. This was so fun. Yeah. Chatting with you. Yes. Thank you for being with us. If you're ever out in Pennsylvania, you've got to come over and play. We'll have to have a little party or something. I don't know. Yeah. Throw some shrimp on the bobby. Show me the secrets of Indiana Jones. I don't know any secrets. Maybe you'll read Dr. Penn's rule set by then. I know, right? That depends. Does Pennsylvania still have all the horrible roadworks? Last time I drove through Pennsylvania, I came up against a sign that said roadwork next 55 miles, and it said the minimum speed limit was 45, and we didn't go over 20. This was back in 2001.
    134:28
    That was the last time I was in Pennsylvania. That was quite a while ago. The road work on certain roads is totally acceptable, and on others it's totally not. So I don't know. I think I can find that just about everywhere you go. What a reference. He helped me move back when I finished my grad work at Syracuse, and so we drove through Pennsylvania on the way back. Get out of town. I love Syracuse. I was raised in Syracuse. Yeah, I got my Master's in Public Administration from there, from Maxwell School. That's crazy. It was like him cheat that one year when the Final Four came up to find out who was the best, because it was Syracuse versus KU. Yeah. So you won no matter what. KU was my undergrad, so yeah. There you go. Anyway. We'll be back in two weeks, but if you want to reach out to us, you can always email eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com or social media, facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We're also available on Instagram and Twitter as eclectic underscore gamers. I actually have posted to the Instagram like two hours ago when we started recording. Oh, I haven't checked yet. And I'm trying to work on that more, and I noticed that my camera on my phone is apparently not doing so good. But, hey, it's the old phone. A little windex, and it'll be fine. It'll be fine. I need to clean it. And check out Mrs. Penn when you guys get done with this podcast, if you haven't already. Until two weeks from now. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And goodbye, everyone. See you. Bye.