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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 51: John Wick Reveal & Travis' TED Talk!

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 59m·analyzed·May 12, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

GTF streaming disaster reveals systemic software issues at American Pinball despite strong game design.

Summary

Triple Drain Podcast Episode 51 features hosts Joel, Travis, and Tom discussing a difficult GTF streaming experience with multiple game-breaking software bugs, including ball tracking failures, multiball lock issues, and audio dropouts. The episode also covers supplemental lighting in tournament play and broader concerns about American Pinball code quality and support responsiveness compared to other manufacturers.

Key Claims

  • GTF code update was 18 gigabytes and took over an hour to install

    high confidence · Joel describes downloading and installing code update on GTF machine before stream

  • Leaving GTF coin door open too long causes capacitor failure that disables all coils

    medium confidence · Joel discovered this issue when troubleshooting coil failure after code update; described as 'a thing' that people complain about

  • GTF multiball lock failure is a known issue documented on Pinside with multiple owner complaints

    high confidence · Joel found multiple posts from owners showing exact ball tracking issues; American Pinball allegedly responded 'we don't see that on our game'

  • GTF has magnet switch reliability issues where 50% of time lock magnet doesn't engage despite green light indicator

    high confidence · Joel directly experienced during stream; found documented on Pinside as known issue

  • GTF co-op/team mode requires four-player setup and only activates on ball two of player two

    high confidence · Joel and brother spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to play co-op during stream before discovering this counterintuitive mechanic

  • GTF audio drops out intermittently when too many sounds play simultaneously

    high confidence · Joel experienced and documented during stream; found similar complaints on Pinside from other owners

  • American Pinball's code developer may be outsourced rather than in-house

    medium confidence · Joel speculates 'I don't think it's somebody that works at American Pinball' based on quality issues and response patterns

  • IFPA president's response to supplemental lighting concern was 'don't be a wuss'

    medium confidence · Triple Drain hosts mention sharing feedback with IFPA president; response attributed but context unclear

Notable Quotes

  • “Every issue that we ran into are known issues... there are GTF owners that are defending it, but my plea is like there is so much potential in that game. American Pinball really needs to step it up.”

    Joel @ ~1:15:00 — Core thesis of GTF segment: design potential undermined by chronic software problems

  • “If the software is flaky, what are you going to do? Hardware issues kill fun, but software issues are different – you can fix software.”

    Joel @ ~1:18:00 — Distinguishes between hardware and software problems; implies American Pinball is not prioritizing fixes

  • “The game thinks there should be two balls locked, and the second ball has pushed the first ball out... the game doesn't keep track of balls correctly.”

    Joel @ ~45:00 — Explains core multiball failure mechanism discovered during stream

  • “Ball two of player two is when apparently you choose your team... did they not think about this at all?”

    Joel @ ~50:00 — Highlights absurdity of co-op mode design flaw

  • “This code update was supposed to help with some of these issues. But what I'm reading is people have submitted videos showing exactly this ball tracking issue.”

    Joel @ ~1:10:00 — Indicates update failed to address known problems; raises questions about development process

  • “I was embarrassed to say I'm enjoying this game because of how many negative experiences people have had.”

    Joel @ ~25:00 — Shows stigma around defending GTF despite its design appeal; suggests reputation damage to American Pinball

  • “I lowered the buck power. Previously it was pushing the ball out 100% of the time. Now it's like one out of every five times.”

    Joel @ ~1:20:00 — Shows owner resorting to hardware workarounds for software problems

  • “Give me a consistent and reliable game. That's something that is not easy to do... and it's not a good look when a stream doesn't go well.”

Entities

GTF (Game Title Not Specified - Tank-based Game)gameAmerican PinballcompanyJoelpersonTravispersonTompersonZach MinneypersonCharlespersonFox City Streams / Fox City Winter Bashevent

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball's code quality and customer support responsiveness raising concerns about manufacturer viability and competitive position versus Stern, Labyrinth, and other producers

    high · Joel's comparative analysis of code reliability across manufacturers; frustration with unresolved known issues; implicit criticism of development process

  • ?

    community_signal: Triple Drain leveraging audience feedback and reader emails; demonstrated willingness to discuss controversial topics and manufacturer criticism

    high · Charles's lighting question; hosts' expectation of feedback/criticism; transparent discussion of GTF issues

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: GTF owner community divided: some defending game despite issues, others experiencing widespread problems; negative reputation developing that may impact sales despite design potential

    high · Joel's embarrassment about defending game; multiple owners reporting identical issues on Pinside; community defensive posture

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Stern, Labyrinth, and other manufacturers gaining implicit credibility through comparison to GTF's problems; reliable code performance becoming competitive advantage

    medium · Joel's repeated praise for consistent/reliable code on Stern games, Labyrinth, Bond; framed as industry baseline expectation

  • ?

    design_philosophy: GTF demonstrates ambitious gameplay design (tank mechanics, sound-activated lights, multiball) hampered by execution; design vision exceeds implementation capability

    high · Joel's praise for art package and concept versus frustration with mechanics; 'so dumb or so crazy, it just might work' characterization

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.357

0:00
the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast oh man we're here we're here it is thursday night it is uh 9 45 at night what a great time to be in pinball and this is uh this has been an interesting week but we knew we needed to record it was time to record. And here we are. Episode 51. 51. Once again, congrats, guys. We made it 50. We're now, we bridged that. So now 51. Here we go. Yeah, this should be a good episode. We actually, we've got a lot to talk about. And we're just going to let it all out. We're just going to let it all out. Good and bad. Good and bad. So I'm guessing we're going to get some emails on that episode and that's totally fine. But Travis, are you ready to go? You all riled up? Joel, you are no longer the worst thing. So there you go. Oh, good. Wonderful. Tom, how are you doing? I saw you lift that Prime bottle up. You are, you are, you got the electric lighter. Yeah, he's, ooh. Isn't that the Logan Paul thing? Yeah. Is that what that is? Those influencers, those YouTube influencers, man. Who knows? Maybe I'll get a sponsor. There you go. Yeah, perfect. All right, here we go. We're, we're, we're three guys. Triple Drain.
1:41
Here we are. Okay. So, stuff to cover tonight. Stuff to cover tonight. First off, thank you so much for everybody that supports this podcast. You know, anybody that supports us on Patreon, really appreciate that. I was thinking of you guys because our Zencaster yearly subscription just got auto-paid to me. So once again, I really thank you so much for the people that support us on that. You know, it's just one thing that we can help do as well as continue to, you know, do merch and all that fun stuff. So really appreciate that. Also, thank you to all the people that write us emails. I do think we're probably going to get some emails this episode just because, you know, I feel like the industry is a little riled up right now. So feel free to share that feedback if you want. You can always email us at tripledrain at gmail.com or just comment on the YouTube video. You know, we read those, we react to those. Should be good. We did get one email, though, that I wanted to read because I thought it was a valid question. I'm curious what your guys' thoughts are. So Charles, Charles emailed us. First-time listener, long-time listener, first-time caller. Got into pinball last year. I recently started playing in a few local tournaments. The venues that are hosting at are dimly lit, and there are times when the play field light show causes me to completely lose sight of the ball. What are your thoughts on supplemental lighting in tournament settings, whether that be a headlamp like Andy Rosa uses, or I've even seen some folks on Fox City Streams that use little magnet pocket lights. So I thought that was a valid question. Michael Weinberg. Yes. So, Tom, being that you run Fox City Streams. Sure. What are your thoughts of supplemental lighting during tournament streams or tournament, just tournaments? Honestly, I think it's a good idea because typically I'll use them when I need them. So if the play field is legitimately really dark and you're in a dark room, it is hard to see the ball going around. and especially when you've got flashy lights or strobing GI, which is just really nasty.

Joel @ ~1:18:00 — Emphasizes reliability as baseline expectation; acknowledges streaming amplifies perception of problems

Pinside
organization
Jaredperson
IFPAorganization
Lumberjack Johnny'sorganization
Flippin' Outorganization
Jeff Teolisperson
Josh Sharpperson
Pin Monkperson
Labyrinthgame
Bond / James Bondgame
Valhallagame
TPF (Texas Pinball Festival or similar event)event
  • $

    market_signal: Joel's GTF streaming generated negative publicity despite positive initial impressions; game's reputation damage likely to suppress sales despite design merit

    high · Stream clips circulated on social media; Pinside thread clipped and shared; negative framing of issues in community discussion

  • ?

    personnel_signal: American Pinball's code development may be outsourced; Joel speculates developer is not in-house based on quality and support patterns

    medium · Joel's statement: 'I don't think it's somebody that works at American Pinball. I think they need to staff higher out'

  • ?

    product_concern: GTF exhibits systemic software issues including ball tracking failure, multiball lock malfunction, magnet switch unreliability, audio dropout, and co-op mode design flaw; issues are documented as known problems on Pinside

    high · Joel's streaming experience; multiple documented complaints on Pinside; American Pinball's dismissive response ('we don't see that on our game')

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: IFPA rules regarding supplemental lighting unclear; tournament organizers operating with inconsistent standards across events (some banning headlamps, others allowing)

    medium · Tom's Fox City Streams experiences; mention of German tournament banning headlamps; no clear IFPA rulebook guidance cited

  • ?

    technology_signal: GTF code update (18GB, 1+ hour install time) failed to resolve known issues; raises questions about update process quality and development methodology

    high · Joel's experience with failed code update; Pinside reports of issues persisting post-update

    • 3:48
    But I'm not afraid to throw either a headlight on or a magnet light. The thing you've got to watch out with the magnet lights is some of the older games have like stainless steel so it won't uh won't stick to that uh on the rails but um uh other than that i would say i am a huge fan of pin shades because travis is like swatting a fly there's like a random gnat i apologize just ignore me go ahead tom you're doing great um i i have found pin shades to be really helpful when there is a lot of flashy lights and dark and darkness.
    4:39
    For instance, Tilton Tuesday, we have our District 82 big, big tournaments and like every other Tuesday almost. And Last Action Hero is notorious for like just flashy lights. I wore pin shades and it was like night and day difference I could actually see the ball my eyes weren't going in and out people made fun of me all night but I didn't care because you know what you beat them it's yeah it's my eyes when you yeah I said to somebody they're like why do you want the lights on can't you see in the dark And I said, well, you know, when you, for nine hours a day, when you're in a well-lit room and you have a light in a tunnel and you're working in a small environment like that all day and you're wearing magnifiers, you get used to the light in your eyes. And when you go from light to dark, it's a big, big difference.
    5:48
    So once again, your career is getting in the way of your professional involvement. But I'm not a big fan of playing in the dark. Some people are. I know our locals here in Wisconsin prefer to play in the dark.
    6:07
    You know, I think that's fine for like a bar scene or whatever. That doesn't bother me. But, you know, you're playing in major tournaments. It's kind of nice to see. Yeah. And do you guys, like, officially, if you look at the, what is it, the IFPA rulebook, is there any particular rules on what's allowed and what's not allowed? I don't think so. Is there, Travis? I don't think there's, like, a, you're not sure. I mean, sometimes it just feels like a free-for-all, but I don't, I mean. I think there probably is in terms of not using. I know, I think it was, like, Neal Schatz or somebody a long time ago brought out actual rules and just put them over the glass. There's even video of it, like, going over the rule set and setting it back down. So you can't do stuff like that. But I know you can use light. But then somebody else one time was asking me if they could use something that actually measures a plunge or something like that, and I think that would be illegal. I don't know. When we were in Bowls and Balls in Germany, in Fulda, some people were trying to use headlamps. I think it was Bob Matthews, actually. They had built a new room, and it was really dark in there. There was some lighting, obviously, but it was pretty dark. and they were like, no, you can't. These are like visual aids. You can't use a headlamp or anything. Can you wear glasses? Are you allowed to wear contacts? Well, right. There you go. Can you direct your vision with glasses? I mean, oh, well, that's. Yeah, okay. But anyways, you know, people were like begging. I remember Jeff Teolas. He was like, stream me so I can see what I'm doing. Well, Jeff's also like 80 years old, too, so he probably has a part-time scene. Yeah, I mean, he did get a senior discount if you saw it on Facebook. I heard about that. I read that. That was cracking me up.
    8:18
    Honestly, yeah, when I built my basement here, I ran all the electrical, And so I have the lights directly over my pinball machines on a different circuit. So I'll have those off, but I have all the other lights in my room on. That's how I'm normally playing, which works really well. It avoids glare. But then I play so much streaming, and streaming, you're just flooding the game with light. So you really kind of get spoiled with it. You get spoiled with having constant bright light. So there are times that I watch tournament streams, and you realize even with that little bit of light that you may be at it, It still looks so dark. I feel for you guys. So, I don't know, Travis, you ever whipped out a light or a headlamp or anything like that in a tournament? Or you just tough it out? Nah. He's young. Yeah. It's fine. I mean, like I said. It's been 10 years. Yeah. I used to have LASIK, and then it just, my eyes finally changed. I got it when I was 18 and around 38 it finally changed. That's why I wear, you see me out at events or whatever, I wear glasses because usually other times I wear contacts, but wearing contacts while trying to play pinball is just too irritating. So I just go with glasses. So your body's just delayed is what I'm hearing. So a beard might finally happen at about 40. So you know what happened, Joel? After I turned 40, my daughter legitimately earlier this week came up to me, and she said, Dad, I'm afraid you're going to die. And I'm like, well, why? She said, because we turned 40. Oh, yeah. Yeah, she was like, you're so old now. And I'm like, well, technically you're right. I am going to die at some point. But, you know, I don't plan on it anytime soon. I want to make it to at least 45.
    10:08
    Yeah, yeah, random comment. But I literally just put my kids to bed, and we go to the library all the time. And my daughter's like, hey, I got a new book from the library. The book's called My Grandma Left Me a Rocket.
    10:20
    That's what it's called. and it's like a children's book. Sounds like a dope book. Yeah. My grandma left me a rocket. I was like, okay, let's open this up. First three words. When my grandma died. Oh, no. I was like, what?
    10:34
    And it's literally the whole book is about, like, how she played with this child and they imagined all these things. So she left him, you know. Heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. The fact that this is a straight-up children's book And the first three words are, when my grandma died, I was like, oh, my gosh. Sorry, pal. This podcast is getting deep here. Okay. So with that, yeah. Speaking of grandma dying, that's a good segue to the next segment. No, not at all, Joel.
    11:07
    Okay. GTF. Speaking of streaming with lights. There we go. That's a better segue there. All right. So here's the deal. I obviously stream for Zach on Flippin' Out, and I thoroughly enjoy doing it. And honestly, the rule is I'll stream whatever Zach wants. And he typically is the fly. You'll stream whatever Zach makes you stream. Yeah, but I'm not upset about it. Oh, no, I wouldn't be either. I don't care. I just legitimately all pinball is fun, or you can have fun with pinball. Why not? And then now that I'm streaming more consistently with my brother, we're here to have a good time. I don't care what the game is. Sure, some games are more fun than others. You haven't played Thunderbirds, have you? No. So, you know, the majority of the games that we stream are games that you can buy from Flippin' Out. It's like, you know, a marketing thing. It makes sense.
    12:03
    So, GTF. GTF obviously has been out well over a year, or I think it's at least a year. And he, that's just always kind of been there. It's always been like, well, you know, if we have a little, we could stream GTF. You know, it's just always been a thing. And I was looking at my schedule because I've traveled a little bit for work, and we realized we had kind of like a two-week span where we're like, okay, what's a game that we probably will only stream one time? Because some of the games, we'll stream it, try to discover it, and then the next time we stream it, we try to get somebody from the company on to help explain it a little deeper. You know, you don't want to over-stream it or people get bored. So, like, GTF. GTF is probably a one-and-done stream.
    12:41
    Yeah, Zach warned me. A lot of people warned me, actually. A lot of people warned me when they heard I had a GTF to stream. Other streamers warned me. They just said, okay, if you're streaming GTF, be prepared to take the glass off. Be prepared for technical difficulties.
    12:54
    Just be prepared. That's basically the warning I got. I was not prepared. I was not prepared for it. I was frustrated by the game before I even started. Capturing video was for whatever reason. I have a nice capture card in my computer. I'm pretty sure it's the same thing that Carl D'Angelo uses. for whatever reason, can't capture that screen. It comes in at some strange resolution. I don't get it. I spent almost an hour of my life trying to get that working right before the stream, panicking. Gave up, put a video camera on it. Here we are. So I'm starting to get frustrated. I'm starting to stream frustrated. And yeah, it just went downhill from there. It went downhill from there. And it's, I will say, GTF, honestly, probably one of the top five art packages of any pinball machine I've ever seen. The game looks beautiful. When I unboxed it, or not unboxed it, it was Zach's personal one, and when I set it up down here, I'm like, this game's incredible. This game looks incredible. The tank, as dumb as it is, it makes it stand out. It has the treads. The lights on the tread are sound activated. I mean, it's just absurd. It's absurd all around. Have you folded it down yet to see that it's full tank? I have. And honestly, my kids think it's hilarious because they're like, what's the game? I'm like, well, there's She, the Sable Ladies trying to steal your cows to take your planet's ice cream. I mean, they're just. Did you let them ride on the tank? No, no, I did not. This opportunity. There was so much there that I was just like, this game's, I get it now. I get the potential vision. It's so crazy. It's one of those, this is so dumb or this is so crazy, it just might work. Just goofy fun is what it is. Yep. Yeah. And the night I set it up, I was playing it, and I'm like, this actually shoots decent. Like, every time I played it, Tom was the sponsorship by Prime. Well, you were, like, with what you're saying, you were pretty happy about the game. You were saying some very good things about it in our chat. You were very fired up. And we were happy for you, Joel.
    14:56
    No, I think you just knew. You knew it was coming. You knew I was, yeah. So every time I played it anywhere, the flippers felt so mushy or so weak, I could never hit the ramp. And there's only one ramp in the game, and it diverts two ways, but it's kind of an important shot. So it's like I just could never get anywhere, or I was pissed off with the tank because I know, remember, at TPF, you had the tank, and the ball would literally jump over the flippers, which they'd made a fix for. So it's every previous experience with GTF, probably 10-plus, different individual physical machines, always terrible. I set this one up. I know Zach has said many times on the Pitbull Show, he actually likes the game. So I was prepared, like, this game might be okay.
    15:41
    Played it that whole day, played it the whole next morning. And honestly, in some of our Facebook chats, you knew it, you read it. I was like, guys, this game's actually pretty good. And I was a little nervous going into stream thinking, I'm going to be accused of being a shill because I'm going to have fun with this game tonight. My brother was excited to play the game. I was like, if we walk away from this saying it's good, I'm almost going to lose credibility because of how many negative experiences people have had. I was, like, embarrassed to say I'm enjoying this game.
    16:10
    Well, all I had to do was stream it because it just, over the course of two hours, everything fell apart. Everything fell apart.
    16:20
    And, yeah, long story short, there are some simple things. There are some simple things. When you say everything, because I haven't got a chance to watch, I've seen the highlights. Yeah. So I'll just ask, what was the first thing? Like, how long did you get to play before you were like, oh, crap, something's up? Because obviously you got to play before the stream. Yes. And everything was fine. So that means you had game time on it prior. So what happened was I upgraded the code. I updated the code. There was code that had come out a few weeks ago. So the process of updating that code was download it, put it on a USB stick, put it in the game. That download file was 18 gigabytes. Nice. Like a stern update. A whole new package. A stern update is like five, and that's a whole new image? Except for Rush. Rush was a lot. Rush was big. I remember that. But this is 18 gigabytes, and it took well over an hour to do. So I literally set it, started going, and I went to the other end of the basement, watched the show, came back, and said it was done, and I went to play a game, and none of the coils in the game worked. Not a single one. Turn the game off. Turn it back on. Nothing's working. I'm like, what just happened? But the game thinks it's fine. It's not showing any errors. It's not saying there's any problem. I hit the start button. It's acting like everything should start. It never kicks the ball in the trough. You hit the buttons. None of the flippers are moving. Nothing. I realized, like, I have nothing. I got nothing. It was late at night, and I was like, I'm going to bed. I'm going to try again in the morning. What I come to realize is apparently there's something in the game where there's some circuit where if the coin door is open too long, it, like, some capacitor dies or something, and you lose all your coils. Like, that's a thing. And people complain about it because if you're a tech during a stream and you leave that door too long because you're trying to fix something or repair something dies. And the fix is you shut it all and you leave it alone. You leave it alone for like five or ten minutes and it will magically fix itself. Did you try blowing on the cartridge? Sure didn't. So the next morning when I turned everything on, it worked.
    18:38
    So it just needed a nice. Here we go. So the fix you thought would work, worked. The problem was I tried to fix it before then. And my fix was like, okay, none of the coils are working, so let me just reset everything. So all the settings that Zach had, like, fine-tuned on his machine, I had reset it. I had reset everything. What that caused was the main locking mechanism for the ball, the main multi-ball locking mechanism in the back. There's a VUK that shoots a ball up, and it's supposed to hold the balls. Well, whatever the mechanical thing is that's supposed to hold the ball back, if that buck is too powerful and there's a ball sitting there, when the next ball comes in, it knocks the first ball out.
    19:20
    So the game thinks there should be two balls locked, and what's happened is the second ball has pushed the first ball out, and it's out in free playing area. Can your flippers still work when that's happening? Yep. And that's the thing, is the game doesn't keep track of balls correctly. Because what will happen is that ball is rolling down, ready to play, and there's already been another ball ejected into the shooter lane. So you've basically got a freebie multiball.
    19:50
    So here I am not knowing the rules when I first played, and I just thought, oh, this is odd. It's a two-ball multiball. I thought it was supposed to be a three. But as soon as you start playing that path, the game is screwed. The game has no – because you drain, but it still detects the ball, so it doesn't know where you are. It just – it can't handle it. It just ends up in an infinite loop of confusion. It can't handle it. What you're saying. So I'm like, cool, that's great. So as I'm streaming, I'm realizing, like, I cannot, I can't count on multiball. It's almost like I have to avoid multiball. Not only that, to. But you're okay at doing that. Avoid multiball, yes. Yeah, it's not a big deal, right? Yeah, no big deal. So the other thing is to get the ball into the buck, there's a magnet that's got to grab the ball and drop it in. So there's this arrow on the left orbit. It flashes green when that lock is ready. Well, guess what? 50% of the time when you shoot that green flashing arrow, that magnet never grabs the ball. It doesn't even act like it wants to grab the ball. So I'm trying to explain these rules, which I thought I understood, and I'm telling my brother, like, yeah, let's lock a ball. Shoot the shot, it rolls right by it. I'm like, well, maybe we have to do something else to qualify it, even though it's flashing green. Turns out there's two switches there, and there's some issues with that, where if both switches don't detect it, the magnet never comes on. These are known issues that have been reported within the GTF thread.
    21:06
    So I realized quickly into the stream, you know, So one of the key parts of most games is multiball. How do you get multiball? How do you bring multiball into a mode? Here I am 20, 30 minutes into the stream. I'm like, I got to just ignore that. I can't count on it, so let's ignore it. So then I'm just only counting on modes.
    21:25
    And, you know, when you're only playing a game with a handful of modes and that's all you can do is either bash the tank or play a few modes and the number of shots in the game is rather limited. There's not a ton of shots in GTF. I don't know. We got to about 45 minutes in, and I'm like, I don't know what else to do. I don't know what else to do in the game. You should have folded it up and rode the tank around on the stream. You should have. Yeah. So the other issue with the tank is there's like six or seven, I don't know, maybe six tanks you're supposed to defeat.
    21:55
    Defeating tank one, piece of cake. Two, not very hard. But as soon as you get to three, the number of hits you have to put on that tank is insane. Like, it is, oh, it's like 20-plus hits. I mean, it's so many hits. That's a lot, yeah. Yeah, and that's only the third level. So I think I got, throughout the night, I got through the third one like once or twice. And it's just like, there's two more to go, and you know they're only just adding more hits to it. So it's just like, okay, we're trying to destroy all the tanks. That's not particularly fun. So where it really fell apart, though, was somebody on stream reminded us there's a co-op mode.
    22:30
    So we spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to actually do co-op mode. You know, TNA for co-op mode, you push and hold the start button when you add a player. That doesn't work. You know, Stern, you push and hold both flippers. Nope. Somebody says you got to push and hold like the right flipper. There's two buttons on the right and hit start. We tried everything. We were restarting the game. I think resetting the game over and over again freaked it out even more. Then we come to find out team play is a feature you got to turn on. So then we turned it on. Then we thought we were into it. We're like, sweet, boom, start. A menu pops up. It says choose your team. We're like, we're in it. Player one, I choose my team.
    23:06
    Then I go to hit player two thinking I would choose their team. No, the game just starts. Reset, reset. I mean, 20 minutes. We're finally like, we're done with this. We're done with this. Just went to play a normal two-player game. We get to ball two of player two, and a window pops up that says, choose your team. No way. Yeah, yeah. Ball two of player two is when apparently that's the point where you choose your team. And that's where we realized, oh, I think team play only expects you to have four players because that's the fourth ball. Oh. All two of player two. That makes sense. So it's like, did they not think about, like, what? Like, what is this? So it's just, it was literally stuff like that, one after another after another. And this is all on stream? It's all on stream. It's all to be watched. I don't understand it. Jared and I were losing our mind. We were having a great time. Like, we just, we were just, like, embracing it at this point, you know. I saw the clip of you. Oh, man, at the end, yeah. Yeah, how did you do that? You had, like, the voice echo thing going on. I picked up – my kids have this little karaoke mic, and I picked it up and just started – you know, we just kind of started announcing our feelings. And, yeah, like, do you want to play a game that has a consistent, reliable ball lock? No! You know, like, it was just – we just rolled with it. Because what else are we going to do? What else are we going to do at that point? I mean, you've got to send that to Tom for his tournament streams, of course. I popped in there when some of that was happening. I was like, what is going on? Joel has finally lost it. Yeah, it very much was. I'm like, he has gone off the deep end. All these years of weekly content have finally just burnt him out to where he just lost it. Oh, and then also there's audio issues. Like, just the game audio, like the music, just drops. I think it's when too many things go over time. It just drops. It's gone. So all you have is some random sound effects until you either drain or do a major event, which kind of resets everything. So do you think all this is just because of the code update? Because it just seems like some wild issues for a game that's been getting manufactured for over a year. But that's when I dove into Pinside and found that people, somebody had clipped, I think it was Pin Monk, had clipped my little rant at the end of the video, shared it. Multiple people were like, this describes being a GTF owner perfectly. Because honestly, every issue that we ran into are known issues. Really? Yeah. So that's what I ran into where it's just like the fact that the co-op mode doesn't or the team mode doesn't work in any sort of intuitive way makes no sense. Right. So that to me, I'm not trying to be like a Debbie Downer or anything, but it's just like these are software. You got to be honest about the issues. Yeah. These are software-based issues. And unfortunately, American Pinball, they're already two games packed. No, Valhalla, was that before GTF or after? It was before. Before. Okay. But it's like they have GTF. This was a software update that was supposed to help with some of these issues. But what I'm reading on Pinside is people have, like, submitted videos showing exactly this ball tracking issue. Like, if this lock fails, it doesn't know this. and basically American Pinball's response apparently has been, well, we don't see that on our game, so it must be unique to yours.
    26:28
    So it's like, or the audio dropping out, and they're like, yep, I updated my code. You know, I'm reading this. Was it a week or two old? I'm updating my code. Nope, audio, still audio dropping issues. Still the ball tracking. I don't know. So there were people. So are you still having the issues? Yeah. Like, have you tried to play the game afterwards? So one thing I did do was, and that's, I lowered the buck power. And that helped because now it's not pushing the ball out as much. Previously, it was pushing the ball out 100% of the time. Now it's like – See, listeners out there, Joel is trying to come up with solutions. He's even gone to Pennside. Yes. I read things. Yeah. So now it's like one out of every five times it'll push that ball out. But once it's out, it's done. Like, you're screwed. You can't – like, the game doesn't know how to handle it. Right. Yeah. So it's just – I can see it. It's one of those things where I think that's my plea, that stream and some of the comments. There are GTF owners that are defending it, like I don't have these issues. Great. But my plea is like there is so much potential in that game. And I just think they really, American Pitball needs to pay. If it's, I think whoever's coding that game, I don't think it's somebody that works at American Pitball. I think it's, they need stuff higher out. I don't know. but they would sell so many more if the code was consistent and reliable. And that's the main thing that has been probably the biggest eye-opener is a lot of the other games that I stream, the code is consistent and reliable. And that's something that is not easy to do. And I remember when I did my first Labyrinth stream, talking to some of the Labyrinth employees in the background, how nervous they were because they wanted to make sure the stream ran well. And I get it now because when you have a stream that doesn't go well, it's not a good look. And, you know, honestly, every time I stream Labyrinth, no problems at all. You know, the majority of all Stern games that I've ever streamed, even new or early code like Bond Code that we got, we were one of the first, like, they can keep track of balls. You know, it's not like. Like, so I just, it was kind of a pat on the back to a lot of the other companies that I've streamed. Like, you know, give me a consistent and reliable game. Give me that. That's, I can find fun in that. But once you have a game that's flaky, I mean, you guys know, hardware issues, if a Switch is flaky in your machine, it kills the fun of that game.
    29:02
    But some of this wasn't hardware. This was software. And if the software is flaky, like, what are you going to do? So, I don't know. You guys have played GTF. Apparently, you guys have had similar issues or complaints, but it's – I mean, last time I played it was at a show called TPF a year and a half ago. I did try it one more time at Interium last year, I think when I was there in August.
    29:30
    And on ball two, it malfunctioned on me. and so I just stood there for a moment nothing happened, went and got somebody and told them something is happening here because the game was way off in the corner because they had it away from everything else I remember I might be getting my dates wrong but I do remember playing that And then I remember walking by and actually seeing that out of all people playing it. Josh Sharp. Oh, yeah. Of course, I said hello to him and he said F off. So, yeah, there you go. You get that back to our original email. We may or may not have shared that with potentially the president of IFBA, and his response may or may not have been something along the lines of, don't be a wuss. You know, that was just an answer. Maybe, maybe.
    30:24
    The rated G version. Yeah. Hey, Mr. IFB president, what are your thoughts on this? Don't be a wuss. That's not the views of Triple Drain. Triple Drain, we say you do you. You do you. Bring a light. Dominate like Tom. That's what we say. Okay. So, GTF. Tom, have you played GTF? Is there a – do you have one on location? Yeah, there's one at Lumberjack Johnny's in Appleton. I really haven't seen many issues with it.
    30:54
    I don't know if – I don't think they have the ball lock, though. Like, it kicks it out. But – Maybe it's not. That's what they – Maybe they know, and it's kicking it out every time like mine was.
    31:10
    But if you can get to a three-ball multi, I mean, maybe that's the trick. You just go to virtual and then it connects. Virtual locks. Yeah. That's what I think it set up. Okay. Then you get to a three-ball multi. And those are the things that I should have done better. I should have tried to troubleshoot something in the stream. It's definitely your fault, Joel. Yeah. I don't know what he does. I thought of turning the buck down. I literally figured that out 10 minutes after I shut the stream down. Or I should have just set it to virtual lock. I mean, we all know Zach is sabotaging American. Well, that's what seeing some of the comments are like. Well, if your goal of the stream was to kill this game, then you guys did a great job. It's like we weren't trying to. Why would anybody selling a product for a company want to kill it? That's a great idea, Tom. It was a unique opportunity for some memes, though, like the Grim Reaper meme that's going door to door. I wish somebody would have put that out with Joel's face on the Grim Reaper instead. That would have been awesome. I mean, it was fun. Send in your artwork to Triple Drain at GTF. The reality is that, you know, Joel, you've talked to us candidly, like, you know, in chats and all that about GTF, and everybody knows that you've been, like, super excited about GTF for a year and a half now, talking about lunchboxes and GTF and all that. And we were all excited about the idea of it because it's just so goofy and it's so out there. It's like it just might work like a horror movie or something like that. And, yeah, the art looks fantastic. It looks great. So, yeah, I mean, hopefully it gets figured out. Hopefully, like whoever owns it, hopefully they're enjoying it, you know, because, I mean, you want to see pinball do well. But, yeah, you got to be honest about what's happening. and it's kind of hard to, if a game is malfunctioning during the stream over and over and over again, there's over 100-plus people watching it. And I can't hide things at that point. It makes it a little bit tough. Yeah, and that's what, yeah, I just, I got multiple messages for it. Some, you know, defending it. Some, like, thanks for putting this out in the world because as an owner, I wish American Pinball would acknowledge these things. Then I had other people like, that's the best stream you've ever had. you know like there's just armadillo sometimes when things go wrong best dream you've ever had I'm like okay alright well but yeah okay well that's enough of that we'll just go yes we'll just go ahead and get to our last topic our last topic is John Wick we're almost done yeah we're almost done 30 minutes in it's going to be the shortest podcast we've ever listened to or ever recorded John Wick John Wick is here John Wick has been revealed and we're going to kind of tackle this in two parts. So first we're going to tackle it just genuinely as pinball enthusiasts, as the three of us looking at a new game, just looking at what was released. You know, this is the first game from Elliot something. I think it's pronounced Eisman. Okay, Elliot Eisman. I thought Tim Sexton did the game. Tim Sexton leads software.
    34:19
    We'll get to that. We'll get to it. but new game, new game. So just, just straight up initial reactions as a pinball machine. Like what were you, you know, it's new to like, you guys did probably the same thing. We watching the trailers, looking at the shots, zooming in, trying to figure out the mix. We'll start with Tom. Tom, did this tickle your pickle? Were you ready? Were you ready to go on this pinball machine to your collection?
    34:48
    Yeah. I mean, I did talk to Zach about getting a pro. Okay. So I like the shots. I mean, I like the fact that there's three ramps. They look kind of tight.
    35:07
    But I didn't really care for the mechanisms on the premium. Okay. I didn't – the car moving, I thought that was pretty cool, honestly.
    35:24
    But the – what is it, like the weapons crate? Yeah, the box, yeah. I wasn't a big fan of that box just sitting on the lower play field like that.
    35:36
    That was just my opinion. Maybe if I played one and got to experience it. But I just think it's going to make the game a little clunky. So I was just like, man, I saw what I saw, and I'm like, I'm going pro on this one.
    35:54
    So maybe I might start going pro on all the games if I buy them. So we'll see. You know, I'm not – I mean, typically the game that I stream is the pro, and I actually kind of like it because if you can fall in love with a game and it's a pro, it says a lot about just the layout and it says a lot about the code. And so to me, it's like, if you fall in love with the pro, there's a decent chance that then playing the premium or upgrading is only, is potentially going to upgrade that fun. And that's at least how I felt about Jaws. That's how I felt about Godzilla. You know, it's, if you can fall in love with the pro, like even Venom, I actually had fun on Venom Pro, and then I go to play the premium, and the shots are now physically changing, and it's like, well, this is way better. So I don't know. For some people, it's weird, though, now how CERN's making them, though. It used to be advantageous to get a pro to almost try it out and then resell it if you would potentially get a premium, but now they're kind of doing it flip-flop. But anyways, Travis, your initial thoughts, just looking at the game for it being a pinball machine. No marketing, no theme. Enthusiast-wise or as a dealer? Because the first time I saw it was as a dealer in the webinar. No, I don't care about your job. I want to know about you as a pinball person. Maybe he cares about his room.
    37:21
    Let's see. I'm having to go through all my feels because I didn't really get to think about it. Well, no, I'm saying I didn't get to really think about this game from the enthusiast perspective until like an hour later. Right? True. Because I had to break down. Well, that's a whole other thing. I'll just talk about it from an enthusiast point of view. Yeah. You know, me personally, I like the theme because I like the John Wick movies. You like those? I have them. I have all four movies, 4K, love the cinematography. Like, I'm huge into that. Like, I'm a movie, like, you know, I won't say buff, but I love watching movies. I'm a free tab. Okay. So John Wick, I've probably seen these movies multiple times. And the idea of pulling something into pinball is exciting to me just from a player's perspective. Okay. Right? And when I saw this layout, it did not look like a layout that's the type that a casual would do too well on. So when I see it, I'm thinking, well, wait. Watch that word. Well, sorry. a brand new player with you well on. So I see it as a challenging layout. So for me, personally, as a player, that kind of excites me a little bit. I was excited that there was going to be a new designer in it that has new ideas, possibly, or you know, because I don't know who they've been mentored by. I don't know what they're all about. So I was curious to see that. That was exciting in and of itself. And yeah, I mean, to me, I'm interested in playing this game because of what the layout looks like. And I'm interested in playing the game based off the potential of the rule set and the code. It's fascinating to me how the AI combat system that they've dubbed, I'm interested to see how that works in relation to how the ramps work, since the ramps are the allies. And just to see how the enemies would react to that. So there's certain aspects of that that caught my eye. I was interested in. And I do like the idea of where that shot is to the red circle area, the red circle club, just because it reminds me of the kiss shot. It's like the whatever it's called, the star child shot or whatever. Yeah. So I've always been fond of that shot from John Borg. So something like that fascinates me. It's just when I first saw this, I start really thinking about where I've seen some of these ideas at before. It's like the left ramp kind of reminded me of Foo a little bit, although it's way further up on the play field. The right ramp kind of gave me Led Zeppelin vibes a little bit just because it's a quick 180, you know, and I kind of saw some Kiss vibes. And then at the same time, I saw, you know, like a partial Venom type vibe just with the center ramp, just kind of where it's at and just how it goes around. So, you know, there's just certain things on it that seems familiar. But I am very interested to see how that right ramp really works. just because where that entrance is on the right side with the scoop, right? There's no orbit right there. It's just scoop and then those gold targets right there and then right ramp. Yep. So that's interesting to me. But, yeah, just like Tom was saying, saw the premium, saw what was on there. I don't know. I still don't know what to think about the trunk because that spot, that's an interesting spot if it's a pop bumper. but that trunk, I don't know if that's going to react to anything at all besides just kind of thudding off it, I don't know yet and I haven't really got a good feel of that beyond watching whatever gameplay has been available and the only gameplay that's been available to watch has been on the whole influencer thing, so that's all I have to go off of right now the trunk, I know it registers hits Like it is a bash toy. Correct. On the pro. It opens up on the pro or it opens up on the premium and the LE. And on the pro, it's just automatically open. Yeah. I'm guessing on a premium and LE when the trunk is closed and it's down, it's not just a dead, like you're hitting a wall. Like I would assume there's some give or a little bounce, but I also don't think it's like pushing your ball away or anything. So it's probably like a hard, like just a bash toy. So it's just like you look at this, your ball is going to be rebounding off a lot of different things, right? I mean, you have your three ramps, you do have your two orbits, but most of the other time it's like you got the car bash, you have the captive ball at the building bash, you have the gold targets right there, you have the blood oath targets to your left, you have the trunk right there or whatever you want to call it. So, I mean, there's just, yeah, it just seems like that there's a chance for some clunk that is there. But obviously it's meant to be that way, though. Otherwise, those things wouldn't be bash optional. So I am curious to see how that works when we see the gameplay and how that works when we get to play it. Yeah.
    42:29
    Yeah, no, my initial impressions, you know, first one would be obviously theme. And it's a theme that's potential. Like, would I own this game potentially? You know, there are other teams out there like Elvira. Like, I know that I'm not going to be able to have that in my house. And so it's like, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I'm not going to be able to have that in my house. So this is potential, potentially. And then the second thing I notice always right off the bat is just art, the overall vibe that the game gives off. And honestly, I love the art. I love the art on this game. My favorite color is purple. purple and greens. I mean, that's why I love the GTF art. Purples, greens, pink, neon, that type of look that it gave out. Somebody, one of the podcasters said it kind of gives them a shadowy vibe. I love the art on shadow, that noir type style. So this neon look, the way that they stacked up the plastics so that the cityscape glows that way. When I had Guardians of the Galaxy, I had these plastic protectors that basically did that. I loved the way that looked. So my initial impressions looking all over the art. I'm like, I like Randy Martinez. I'm like, I am loving this art. I love the way this, this pin artistically looks. So I was like big old thumbs up for me, loving, loving this art package, loving the way it looks. Um, and, uh, and then I started looking at the shots and it's like, okay, this is a new designer. Now I have no room to talk. I've never tried to design a pinball machine. It's clearly gotta be hard, but you know, I, I got to give credit where credit's due. Jack Danger, he came out with Foo Fighters, and it was just like, wow, that is an incredible layout for a first go, you know, like that. It was innovative. It was unique. Some very interesting shots. Took some risk, you know, with some of the Cthulhu target and the inline target. Like, took some risk, and it paid off. That game shoots really, really well. So I say this not to be negative, but when I saw this game, I'm like, okay, Elliot's layout, it's a little safer. It's a little safer. Three ramps. He's a mechanical engineer. It doesn't surprise me that there's some X on there.
    44:43
    But they're not. They're just. They're bash resistance. I'm not trying to downplay it. Obviously what the car does is unique. But it's not like.
    44:52
    The medieval madness castle. Or the Drake building in Godzilla. These crazy unique mechs. It's just like. okay, that's an interesting spin on a bash toy. I do like that the car is essentially a bash toy on the side. It can hold back a ball. Then it moves. And I love game state changes. So I do like that the trunk, you know, eliminates a shot. Then it opens up, and now you have an extra shot. I would be curious to see, you know. So I would say the overall layout, I was like, okay, right now, you know, just my initial impression of the layout, give it a B maybe. You know, just not bad, not blowing my skirt up, as my dad always says. But, yeah, it just, it was like, okay, that's that. Now, code this early on, I don't care. And the reason I don't care is because Stern will fix it. If it sucks, Stern will make good code. Typically, the code is going to end up, I would say, at least a B. Like, Stern is very consistent at doing that. But they sprinkled in some good stuff with, like, the enemy's AI, you know, reacting to that. I thought that was, okay. So depending on how you play, that'll be really interesting on how tournament players decide to, because you guys are all about your path. So it's like, do you purposely miss shots to make it easier later on? I don't know. Like, you know, extra is going to try to outsmart the AI and find a way to help him. I thought it said somewhere that if you kill enemy or I guess if you defeat enemy, I don't know how they're doing on here. But anyways, once you defeat an enemy, I thought it said something to the extent that that actually increases your mode value or your multiball value. I don't know. I could have read that on the rule card. I could be totally wrong, but there has to be some way. There has to be a benefit to doing it besides just it being in the way.
    46:44
    Okay. I was getting the vibe that, and I don't know which way they're going, but if you, for whatever reason, have that middle ramp dialed in, And, well, are they going to start putting enemies on that to slow that down? Or they realize, you know what, that's the shot he does well, so let's actually put the enemies, like, are they going to help you and put the enemies elsewhere? Are they going to put the enemies on the shots that you're best at to try to slow you down? That's the vibe I'm getting, which is good. Oh, Travis has his hand up. Oh, he's reading? Oh, we're pointing? Yeah, I'm reading it right now. It says defeat enemies to increase the shot values during jobs and battles and multiballs. Okay. Yeah, it's, I don't know, I mean, that's unfortunate. With all the media that's out there right now, we really don't have any idea how the code is. We're recording this on a Thursday night. I think they're streaming it tomorrow. Are they announced when they're streaming? Is it tomorrow? Tomorrow. Tomorrow at 4 p.m. This may or may not be released before the stream, so enjoy the stream. Tell us how good the code is. I don't know. Audio. Let me know how it goes. I'll be on a flight. I do like the call-outs. The fact that they got the movie actor, I just, he has a good voice.
    47:52
    But, yeah, I would just say my overall, you know, coming away from Revealed, I was like, I'm looking forward to playing it. Am I pulling my wallet out? Is it a must-have? No.
    48:01
    Just right off the bat. But I would, it's not a dream team of mine, so it's no surprise. But I'm looking forward to playing it, looking forward to streaming it. One thing that did really excite me is the fact that the expression light kits are available for all three models, as well as the speaker light kits. and if you think about it, if the speaker light kit is available for these games, I'm guessing you could buy the speaker light kit and put it in Jaws so all you premium owners may be able to get the speaker lights to match the LE lights. I think you could probably do that.
    48:33
    Just a thought. If I had a premium, that's what I would do. So I like that. I like that CERN is releasing those as additional accessories. So I came away. I've been on a business trip all week so it was literally like I kind of had to set aside 10 minutes to step away and watch this but I walked away feeling good and then I had a chance to catch up on it all later and that's when I started reading all the other comments so anyway before we dive into those comments anything else Tom you said you're interested in a pro is that right or you're thinking about it yeah I'm interested in a pro okay I think it's going to shoot well honestly but you know I'll tell you actually play it.
    49:16
    That's the thing. I don't want to discredit. There's a lot of good here, and there's a lot of potential to be great here. Let's not diminish that. I got until August to play it. Get one. It is weird how they're doing the release structure. By that time, I might decide I don't want it.
    49:37
    If you guys listen to this podcast for pure joy, positivity, and entertainment, Thanks for listening. You can probably turn it off at this point. But if you want to hear some other opinions, go to our Patreon. Yeah, go to our Patreon.
    49:54
    Go to hear some other opinions. Here we go. I was so surprised about the gun comments because I didn't notice it. I scrutinized the art. I did not notice. Did either of you guys notice it until you read a comment? I really wasn't paying attention. I just figured there were guns everywhere, so I wasn't even looking for it. All right. So I'm going to be flat out honest. In the middle of the webinar, I realized it. I was looking at it, and I was just thinking to myself, no effing way. And I looked closer, and sure enough, I was like, oh, my God. And I immediately texted my work chat, and I said, oh, shit. I knew immediately as soon as I saw that I knew that this was going to be a thing and rightfully so because so let me preface this with I know for me I don't care like whatever your politics are so this is not going to be a political discussion I don't know how you two feel I'm not getting into politics we don't care but I understand by saying we don't care, some people are going to get really fired up. That's fine. Our goal is not to fire anybody up right now. Hey, no, that's fine. If you want to care that we don't care about politics during a pinball podcast, go right on ahead. I'm just speaking from as somebody who wants to put a roof over their head by selling this game, as soon as I realized there was no guns on it, I said, oh shit. I knew immediately. So real quick clarification, Travis works for a pinball distributor. So his viewing – The pinball company. So I'm watching it on the webinar. This has changed. The way that you look at pinball has drastically changed since you started working in the industry for a living. Yes and no.
    51:52
    It's one of those things to where I still look at pinball through a fan's eyes, right? But I also got to look at pinball based off what is reality, because reality is what makes money.
    52:07
    Making money is what keeps me employed. And keeping employed is what keeps my kids fed and keeps me from having to sleep on the couch at night. So, you know, let's just get that straight. But, yeah, when it came to the guns thing, as soon as I realized that, I was just like, oh, crap, this is going to be bad. And the reason why I knew it was going to be bad is because the whole thing about John Wick is gun foo. That's a big deal. Like how he does all of his fighting stances, how he does all the choreography, everything. That's a huge deal with this type of theme. And so when I saw that this wasn't on the art, especially when it wasn't in the crate, I was thinking to myself, people that are big fans of this, they're going to be pissed. And the reason why is because the art plays a huge part in their decision making. And for them, art is firmly attached to theme integration. Firmly. I mean, I've talked to you guys about this before. We sell limited edition pens to people that just get them for the art because they see it as an art piece. So when you do something that kind of betrays or subverts expectations of somebody that is a huge fan of that theme, that's the reaction you'll get. And we're not even talking about the whole political reaction to it. Like, whatever. I don't care. I care about what do fans of this game that are high intent consumers that want to potentially buy this game, what are they going to think? I knew immediately since I saw that, I was just like, what is happening? Like, I just, yeah, immediately. Well, imagine Star Wars without a lightsaber. Right. You know? Yeah. I mean, it literally is that. Yeah. It is that. It's bad. Well, I'm just trying to think of, you know, obviously Jaws. I would assume, you know, the art is revealed on Jaws, and everybody's like, where's Brody? Where's Brody? Or Jaws comes out and immediately, wait, the shark doesn't eat the ball? I mean, it's just they see one thing, and it's like, ah, crap. You know? It's like, this is the hole that the dog – you know, you're already backpedaling from a sales perspective, and the game isn't officially out yet. Well, it's tough because – Yeah. Well, there's all kinds of things that goes on with license, right? There's all kinds of things that I've learned about over the past couple of years that's opened my eyes to different things. And then there's other things that I thought would be true, ends up being true, so on and so forth. But one of the things about this, this is just different than not having Brody or a character on, right? It's almost the gun is an extension of John Wick himself. Sure. So just like Tom said, it is like his lightsaber. That's how important it is. If you see all the movie posters, it's on there. It's the classic quotes of everything. It's the main action scenes to it. And so, yeah, as soon as I realized it wasn't on there, I just, I could not believe it. That was just, that was the first thing that just really caught my eye because I was in the middle of looking at it and seeing what all characters made it on there. because they were talking about, you know, what characters are part of the game. And then I realized, well, wait, if there's different characters in the game, that means they have to get approvals for different people. And there's a lot of people in John Wick, so they may not be able to get everybody. And, of course, if you look at it, you can tell, well, they didn't get everybody, but they got the people they wanted to. So in doing that, that's when I realized, wait, I don't see one gun anywhere in there. And I'm just like, people are going to be pissed instantly. I knew, and I made the decision early on. I told Dominic, my coworker, I was like, I'm not going to post any pictures up on our socials, anything, because this is going to cause a storm. I know what's coming. I want to avoid it. We're just going to wait. We're going to wait it out. And sure enough, an hour later, wow. Boom. Oh, yeah. Shit just hit the fan. Boom. Yeah. Yep, exactly. I know distributors, and this can lead us down a whole other direction, but distributors, they're given a seminar. They're shown the game like 30 minutes before everything goes live, and that's the official first time that they see any part of the game. And so I know distributors are spending that 30 minutes, and in the back of their head, they're trying to figure out, how do I think this game's going to sell? because I have to tell Stern I have to basically commit to buying a certain number of these very soon. Which absolutely blows my mind. Yes. Like that you have to make a decision, like a split-second decision. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of, so without going too deep in the woods, it's not like an instantaneous decision. Sure. But a weak decision? Yeah, it is a decision to figure out, okay. How is this going to sell? What is this going to do? And, you know, to be quite honest with you, it is impossible to do a webinar, find out about this game, and then get the assets literally as soon as the game goes live for everybody else. That's when we get the assets. Like I said, I can't speak for any other dealer or distributor out there. I don't know the strategies. I don't, like, everyone has a different strategy to go about it. They have a different customer base that they go to. For us, we rely heavily with online. We rely heavily on online marketing with search engine optimization spend. I mean, I'm telling you right now, we spend a lot of money on marketing just to get the Stern brand out and just to sell these games. So we have to make these decisions based on inventory levels, based on revenue, based on potential revenue, based on outflow, based on inflow. and so without getting in the weeds, it's just us trying to figure out how not to lose our shit or how to gain a lot of shit back. That's, that's really what business is at the end of the day. But yeah, it's just, it's very difficult and it's very stressful to see everything just like come into us. Like right after we see it, we're trying to figure out, okay, how do we do this? How do we navigate, navigate it this way? How do we go this direction? And then on top of that, we're, we're trying to figure out, okay, we got to put this on the website. How do we want to do this? We got to put this, we got to figure out like what key wording we want to do. We want to figure out who do we want to get this out to? What is the consumer base for this? What are they going to think? And yeah, that's like, this is all things that are happening that we have to discuss and we have to figure out in real time. It's not one of these things to where these games come out and then our phones are just ringing off the hook nonstop. And we just like, yeah, fish in a barrel. That's not how this works at all. especially today. So, yeah, it's just on top of like, okay, how's the customer going to react to no guns? How are they going to react to this? How are they going to react to a new designer? How are they going to react to the theme? All these things play into decisions for sure, no doubt. And some of these decisions I mean you playing a hypothetical game of you trying to make some of these calls you know for you know we all hear rumors It just speculation We speculate on rumors Yes it incredibly frustrating Distributors are not given there no heads up So it not like a distributor is you know a month out three months out whatever, like, hey, just heads up, this is our next game. No. They hear – they get the first official word that this is the game you're going to sell when the teaser trailer comes out. That's the first official word that comes out. So otherwise, they're just going off of rumors. I mean, I've heard other distributors that they're like, the best news I get is from podcasts. From podcasts when they interview designers or they interview, you know, staff that drop little nuggets. Or the ones that drop rumors that are correct. Yeah. Or the ones that drop incorrect rumors, too. Yeah, and that's the thing. And it's one of those things to where I personally, I don't listen to a lot of content anymore. The reason why I don't listen to a lot of content anymore is because I try to have a pulse with what is actually happening. And a lot of stuff I hear is not correct. And then some stuff is correct, right? It just depends. And it depends who somebody is getting the information from because keep in mind, it's sometimes not direct from a source. It's sometimes three or four levels down. Something gets distorted. It gets watered down. Or it could just be the opinion of whatever dealer or distributor that they're getting that information from. and they're just through a narrow view based on their ecosystem, right? So if their ecosystem is just selling operators, that's going to be a lot different than somebody's ecosystem that goes to retail, right? It's just two entirely different things. So what we have to do on our end, honestly, is setting up for every potential game that could come, and we have to brainstorm what could this game look like, what could be the assets on it, and how would a potential customer react to that? And we have to brainstorm on these things way ahead of time. So it's just, it's pure speculation. And then we try to fill in the gaps. And that's how I like to do it. I try to fill in the gaps with what I know, with what I understand, with what I hear, and with what I can confirm. And so sometimes it's like, well, I know a little bit about this. Sometimes it's, I don't know anything about this. It just, it varies. And it makes for a lot of sleepless nights. I'm not going to lie. It is incredibly difficult to try to advise on certain decisions that they're not like $2,000 decisions. These are six-figure decisions. These are like, you know, it's tough. It is very tough. Let me go ahead and set this on the tee for you. So you, as a distributor, you are not allowed to actually – you don't officially get to see anything or hear anything until the teaser trailer, and then you definitely don't get to see anything visual, anything about the game until that 30 minutes prior to everybody else seeing it. So you get a 30-minute head start. Are you asking if I have official looks at assets prior to that? Because, no, we don't. Yeah. Like, in terms of assets, yeah. No, we don't have any access. So we don't have any of that. So it's the webinar. Once we get to the webinar, then we can see it. And then we could kind of figure it out from there. As soon as it goes live, all the assets drop. And then that's when we have to populate it on our socials, on our website. Yeah. So how does it make you feel knowing that Stern tried a new marketing technique, this this reveal where they had media blitzes with different influencers? in the arcade realm where those influencers were given exclusive access to play the game as well as exclusive assets to media creation and media, as in here are high-res images, here's high-res anything you need so that they could produce creative material that would drop at the same moment as Stern's creative material. So they don't sell the games, but they were given all that exclusive access one week plus prior than every actual person that sells the game for Stern. So just with that in mind, how does that make you feel, Travis?
    63:50
    Man, you're putting me on the spot, aren't you, Joel? Tom, how does it make you feel? I think it sucks. Yeah. Let me preface this before I say whatever it is I'm going to say next. Let me preface this. I don't have anything against the people themselves involved in any of this. If you're a YouTuber, if you're a content creator, 1,000%, you do you. That's awesome. If I would have got the call, I would have been there with a smile on my face. I don't fault anybody. If somebody gets a call, they're just taking advantage of what's in front of them and opportunity. I do not fault anybody for that. I want to be crystal clear on that.
    64:32
    In terms of – so I guess your question is how do I feel about it in terms of being a dealer that wants to sell these games? Yes. I know that that is something that you and many other dealers have asked for for a long time, and you've never had it. And now you see that there are people that got that privilege, and it wasn't you. So I'll put it this way. I was aware that there was influencers being used before for other things. Like if you just pay attention to it, I was aware of, you know, PR firms or 47, all that. Like I like to keep a pulse on all this. So I was aware of that. So I just assumed that eventually that would happen for something like this. And I guess, you know, without giving away too much information with what was exactly going on in the webinar, there was wording there that instantly clued me in. I'm like, wait, they're doing different market initiatives right now, right? So Stern is really good about going to, like, breweries, locations, launch party, all that. You could tell they're trying to get out around to different places. But in terms of just knowing that how this works, how the assets work, who has access to it, who doesn't have access to it, it is, like, I don't want to, like, be super hyperbole or anything and say, like, it's soul-crushing, but it is, professionally, it's very frustrating. Okay. It is so, because on my end, I try to do my best to create content to push the Stern brand. And I don't want to, like, I want to be up front with everybody. The content is also there to help push the brand I work for as well. If you watch anything on our YouTube channel, I never say on there ever buy a machine from us. I never do that. And the reason for that is, is that I want to try to create as much value for the viewer as possible, whether they become a customer or whether they just become a pinball fan and become a customer of somebody else. I'm cool with it either way. That is my goal is to bring value because I am so passionate about this in the team behind me or with me with the pinball company. they are passionate about too. And I think there's lots of people that are passionate in the pinball community that work for the various manufacturers that do the content, they get paid, you know, by the manufacturers or that work as dealers or distributors. What, you know, we all love this, right. Or at least most of us, I'm sure there's lots of people out there that it's just a job, you know, which is whatever. But yeah, it's just, it's really frustrating because I, I personally, and I wish all dealers could do this. I would love to be able to have all assets ahead of time, create the content I want to create, right? Something that actually puts this pinball machine and puts all the effort that the men and women that have created this machine and put it in the best light possible for them. Not to, like, blow up my own ego, right? It's like, I don't care. There's lots of egos in this industry, and I know we joke about it all the time in this podcast, but honestly, I don't care. If I was faceless, I don't care. I just want people to get value out of pinball. I want people to enjoy pinball, and I want to make it to where people can learn about these games easier. I want people to be able to learn who the designers are, to learn who the coders are, to learn who the artists are, to learn about these people that are behind these games and love what they do and work their asses off to bring this to us. Like, that's what I want. So that's just kind of the viewpoint I'm coming from, because I realize if I had assets ahead of time, I could put this game in the best light possible. And it fits the designer, the coder, the artist, Stern, and us. Like, everybody wins. and the viewer. The viewer would get a different spin on it, a different perspective on it. So that's kind of the way I look at it. So that's where my frustrations probably lie within that. I don't know how else to say it. No, I think it's all completely valid. And the other side of that is, you know, I'll admit, I was jealous. I was jealous to see the people that were given access to fly out, record, interview. You know, I, I, I, I thoroughly, you know, I do feel like I actually have relationships with some of these people in the, in the pinball industry. And I cherish that. I value that highly. And I, and I love the fact that I get to stream things and create fun content. I know obviously like Tom, Tom does it, you know, for all the women that, that flock towards him, but they also do it. He does it for the passion of creating high-quality pinball content. The majority of what he creates is competitive. But I know I can right now, if George Fisher was Don't Panic Flip, Manu, Carl D'Angelo, me, Tom, any of these people that are constantly creating pinball content got that phone call from that marketing firm, we would have been there in a second and would have been able to have very educated, you know we're passionate about this hobby good questions know what to film know what to show and once again I'm not trying to downplay the creators that did do that you know if you happen to be one of those people and you're listening to this that's all that's so great that you got asked and good on you for taking taking advantage of it and doing the best that you did um but those are the things that like that's what we do on a weekly basis so was it surprising that none of us were contacted? A little bit. It is a little bit surprising. So was Stern trying to do something different with marketing? They knew we were going to create content anyways. That's what we do. We were going to stream it. We're going to do those things. So they're trying to extend to a new crowd, try to reach new people. That's right. And that's what was said a lot. And honestly, when I look at it, I don't see who is reached in this. And when I think about it from, a content marketing point of view, right? I think about it from, okay, like I have to do this every day and I've done this every day for two years and it's figuring out who is our high intent demographic. When I say high intent, I mean somebody that wants to buy a pinball machine. That's what I have to figure out. And then on top of that, the reason why we have our content the way we have it, is to help people who discover pinball and to get hooked on pinball. Okay. Because that's what we need in order to survive. In order for this industry to truly survive, it has to have new people come in. You cannot stop that from happening. And so when I see what Stern is trying to do with this, that's my assumption. With how they went about this rollout, my assumption was is that they are trying to go after a new audience. And I could have swore I might have even saw, like, maybe it was George Gomez. I don't want to talk out of turn or misquote somebody, but maybe somebody said that they were going after a younger demographic, right?
    71:54
    So the pinball industry has this backwards. I see it all the time to where somebody says this is an old man's industry, and we always hear, like, race get thrown into old white man. Confuses me because I'm biracial. Like, I don't know if people realize that. But you're old now. Yeah, exactly. It's still you. It's so weird to me when we go about this direction that a lot of times it's not just age. The segmentation is way different than what people realize. It's truly based on income in a lot of instances. It's based on where people are at in their lives. So I know for a fact some of our customer base goes from the 24 to 35-year-old range, right? Somewhere right in there. But they are high-income earners, and they have certain behaviors that we have to identify how they are the way they are and why they are the way they are.
    72:56
    Sorry. Remember we talked about the shitters right above me? It's the robot voice. Yeah, I can hear it.
    73:02
    That's great. Wife's taking a shit upstairs. Go figure. Come on, Monica. We're recording. Exactly. Hold it in. So it's a segmentation, right? We're talking about high-income earners. Yeah. Okay?
    73:14
    And if you're younger and you're a high-income earner, I'm sorry, but you're not sitting there just watching videos on YouTube all day long, right? And if you are watching videos on YouTube, you're focused on tech. That's what they focus on is tech. And then if they do consume any other content, it's either based off Facebook or it's based off TikTok. Those are the two things. And so when I see the audience that they went for right now, it's just that's not a buying audience. So I have to think logically about this, that they're going after people, that they're hoping that they can introduce them to the Stern brand, right, and get them hooked onto pinball. and that's a long-term play. That's to get them to convert to a customer five to 10 years from now. That's not for them to convert to a customer because I watched all the content. None of it was about converting right now. None of it was aimed at that, right? Because otherwise the content would have been presented a lot different. The directive would have been a lot different in how to present this, right? It just kind of seemed like there's like gameplay. It was overview. It was, you know, hey, look at that. Like that's what it was. And that's fine. It's just you always have to ask yourself, and we talk about this all the time in business, you always have to have a why for why you are doing something. If you have an idea, if you have a project you're doing, if you have like some path that you're going, why are you doing that? And then you look at it from a 360-degree point of view, you know, or compass view, north, south, east, west, that you got to answer the question, why are you doing that? How are you doing that? Is this good? Like, what's the good stuff that comes out of this? What's the bad stuff that comes out of this? What's the opposite way of doing this? So that way you can see it from every single point of view. And that's the way that we approach it. And that's the way I approach it. So that's the way I've looked at this situation is seeing it from every point of view. And the only thing I can think of is that this was just aimed at just throwing a net out there and trying to find somebody that was young that might be into pinball. And when you do something like that, what actually ends up happening, it's not that people out there were influencing from Stern. I think it was Stern influenced for them because, I mean, who's going there to watch it? It's going to be a lot of pinball enthusiasts. And then you see all them, they're all pissed off about it. It's like, you know, I don't know if people should be pissed off that there is people that have access to the content. I think it's right to be annoyed, upset, whatever you want to call it, that you don't have access to that content. And I get why they didn't use like pinball creators with that. Sure. Because, again, that tells me they're trying to go outside that. Right. But what's the why? Are they wanting to introduce a Stern brand? Are they wanting to push John Wick? Are they wanting to increase their awareness of pinball? or are they wanting to increase the awareness of the people behind Stern Pinball? Because you saw, you know, Seth Davis was on a lot of stuff. You saw Zach Sharp on a lot of stuff. Is that the goal, to do something like that? So it's like those are the things that I wonder, that I'm curious of, that I have notes on that I'm trying to answer myself. And I think that's the way I view these things. When I see people doing content, that's the viewpoint I look at. Yeah, and I think I'm not upset about this, honestly. I look at this as, at the end of the day, I know Zach, he was flipping out. He's buying these games, and I'm going to have a chance to stream one, and I'm looking forward to it. And I understand I'm super grateful to team up with Zach and be able to do that. But I also know that my situation is very unique, being that I have teamed up with the distributor, and so I'm able to play games and I'm not buying these games. I'm borrowing them and I give them back. But when I look at a lot of the other pinball creators in this hobby, Tom's one of them. If he streams a game, it's because he bought it. He bought that game and he had to put money forth on that and I know there's plenty of others. I mentioned George from Painted Flip earlier. He is constantly buying and reselling, buying and reselling. Carl, buying and reselling, buying and reselling. And there's a cost to that. There's a cost to that. You're taking a risk every single time they buy a game to try to stream it. And so what surprised me was to learn that there is actually, with this marketing firm that Stern uses, there's a content creator-like lease program where they have certain content creators where this marketing firm gives them pinball machines for two months just to make content.
    78:11
    And what was new to me was, and I'm not trying to offend anybody here, But these are creators that I don't know of. I'd never heard of. You know, all of us, the three of us are very passionate about this hobby. These are content creators in the arcade realm that I'm not familiar with. So these are people that this marketing firm deems worthy enough to have games for free to create pinball content. But I haven't seen their pinball content. So that's what I don't understand is there are already people in this hobby that make extremely good pinball content that I think this marketing firm could team up with to really make good pinball content. But what's the goal? Is it the high-quality pinball content, or is it just to have a user group outside of pinball, maybe 8,000, 10,000, 15,000 subs on a channel? Are they just shooting for views that current pinball creators don't get? that's the only thing I can think of. They're trying something new. They're trying to branch out from the pinball enthusiast crowd. The problem is, if somebody really wanted to truly get into a new demographic, and if they truly wanted to appeal to a demographic that falls under the income that would actually be interested in buying this, you've got to go to a tech YouTuber. Cut out. You've got to go to Unboxing Therapy. You've got to go to Was it Marcus Brown? Yeah, you have to. You can look at his demographics. I guarantee they skew younger because most demographics on YouTube do skew younger. But he also has, what, 18, 19 million? It's a ton. Yeah. I mean, his normal kids, what they did was huge for pinball. He has a lot of authority. But here's the difference, guys. The thing with influencers, just because they have a lot of views, it doesn't equate the sales at all. It doesn't. And so that's why you got to, again, it goes back to the why. What's the why? And I don't believe using influencers is aimed at creating a condition for more pinball sales. I don't think that that's why. If it is, it's missing the mark completely. That's why I don't think it's happening like that. I think it's specifically designed just to get pinball out there, to get people to realize it's a thing. But, you know, if you're going to do that, you have to reach out to tech people. Like we've seen the slow-mo guys do it, right? Sure. We've seen, what was it, Adam Savage? Oh, yeah, the tested crew, what they did for Labyrinth. Yeah. You've seen, what's his name? I don't even know if he's been reached out to, but the Twitch streamer. That's, I got Shroud, right? Yeah. He was a big-time Twitch streamer, you know, for first-person shooters. So, again, it's like, okay, what are their core demographics that are watching this? Are they going to be somebody that would be interested in pinball in that way? and are they going to follow their journey, like start their journey right there, and eventually, five, ten years from now, convert to be a customer because it's a long journey, right? So you're trying to get that hook point. You get that hook point, then you keep going with it. And to me, the only way you truly get that hook point and you truly get known is you send out pins to the tech guys, to Mr. Who's the Boss, to, you know, like you said, Marquis. And you do it with everybody. To me, that would make more sense more than anything. Yeah. If you're wanting to get seen. It has nothing to do with, again, subscribers or, you know, views at the end of the day. Because I'm telling you, it doesn't push the units regardless. It has everything to do if you can go to where the income is. Sure. Right? If you go there, that's when you get potential for conversion. Otherwise, if you're not, well, you're doing it for a whole other reason. yeah I am I am I have no marketing background so any of my thoughts are just my own I have no no foundation here to build on to but but the reality is as much crap as I give Travis this is Travis's job so I actually trust his views on this I actually trust his views on this and um yeah when it comes to just pinball or people playing pinball tested I I have watched tested Adam Savage tested for years and I used to listen to their podcast and there was actually a guy on the podcast his name's Jeremy and that was before I was into pinball I remember Jeremy was into pinball is into pinball he operates games so like the tested podcast gets a ton of listens and whenever a new game came out Jeremy would have a segment of explaining the new game so he was one of the first people I'm like why in the world is Jeremy not one of these people like that's who you give the game to like he already has the fan base he already actually has the passion for pinball He's been in it for years. Like, that's the guy you want to give a pinball machine.
    83:04
    And then some of the other things I've seen on YouTube, people know I love turtles. And so for some odd reason, I started going down the path of, like, these toy collectors. And I saw this toy collector, this guy traveled around and filmed some of the biggest turtles toy collectors around the U.S. And multiple ones, you know, have rooms full of the turtles action figures. multiple ones all have the turtles arcade cabinets and they both said like i have the two arcade games but the game i don't have yet is the pinball machine like they know there's a turtles pinball machine and they're gonna buy it just because there is a turtles pinball machine so that to me i'm i realize in that moment like when turtles came out why did stern not reach out to any of these toy uh youtube channels like hit the demographic of turtles um so i'm not i i don't know if they're sure of lessons and I'm not trying to tell them how to do a job because I don't know at all. Plus, too, we don't know who said no, right? We don't know who's been approached. True. You know, a lot of us, and I can tell you straight, I don't have that type of communication with anybody at Stern. Do you even know what the strategy is? We're doing our own strategy. And anything that I talk about here, this comes from my background of 20 plus years of doing my own businesses. I mean, a little bit about me. I did business, right? College, did all that, dropped out because I was like, you know what? I don't want to finish this degree because I don't want to go work a nine to five. I want to work for myself. And I always wanted to do just entrepreneur stuff. So that's all I did, right? Own my own business, have sold my own businesses, been an angel investor, had angel investing. And I've been fortunate enough to get myself in a certain position in life with Monica. But along with that has come a lot of idiot tax too, to where I've done some dumb ass stuff, right? I've made the mistakes with marketing. I've made the mistakes with inventory management. I've made the mistakes with investments. So I have the scars from that, from that experience. So that's the background I come from, from understanding what has worked, what hasn't worked. And I spend every day studying this and trying to figure out, okay, what is going on with pinball? Because I wanted to come to pinball because I saw a gap that not like, I don't know who else sees it or whatever, but I saw a gap there. And when I've come into it, I still see it. It's still there. And it's happening right now with this game. It's just, you know, it, it just looked like a great challenge to come and do something that to where I could apply what I know, what I understand along with what I'm passionate about. And so when I see these things just happen, it just, yeah, it drives me a little crazy sometimes, right? So it's just, yeah, it's just, I wish it was different. It's not, but all I can do is control what I can control. And that's what I will continue to do. And as of right now, the way that this game's going, we need to figure out a lot of control. Let's just put it that way. Okay. Yeah. I mean, yeah.
    86:14
    Travis doesn't have all the answers. He doesn't know how to solve this, but I think, I do think you do have a valid, like a valid enough opinion. I don't have a valid opinion. Sorry, Tom, you don't have a valid opinion either.
    86:25
    But it is interesting on the outside looking in and seeing how upset some of the distributors are getting.
    86:34
    That, to me, you know, stirs up that. What about the collectors? There's a whole other issue right now besides that. To finish my thought, what I was saying was just like, Like Stern's main point of sale is to the distributors, right? And so we've been talking about this for multiple releases, that there was a time where the distributors couldn't get enough machines. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. I don't care what it is. Gimme, gimme, gimme. I'm going to sell it. And then things started to slow down and they got a little more, but they were still taking it. They were still taking the games. And then, unfortunately, with some of the recent releases, distributors have too many games, and now they're picking and choosing how much they take. And so that is, as a collector, if the people that are actually selling you the game are struggling, that is going to hurt us. And that's something that I just hope that CERN can figure out that relationship.
    87:30
    Well, now you're getting into something else now, though, right? We're talking about now how well is John Wick selling, right? And how everything's doing. Okay. Yeah, because this is totally different than influencers and marketing and all that. Like it's totally different. I just know. We can go into it though. Okay. Look, if you want to talk about it. Before we go into that, because maybe people have fallen asleep, you know, because they don't care about the business. They're the collector. They're caring about themselves. So who better to talk to than Tom Kraft? As an LE buyer, I know we give you a hard time that you're the LE buyer, but you keep saying maybe I'm not the LE. Give me shit. Yeah. You know why I do? Because look at your freaking camera, Tom. Look at all that powder coating behind you, Tom. Those are LEs. Just ignore it. Yeah. So, I don't know. Like, how do you feel? Like, how are you feeling as a, like, I don't know. Is this?
    88:28
    I don't know. Yeah. I mean, games are expensive and, you know, especially at the LE price. And if you're going to put out an LE game at the prices they're going for, you better deliver.
    88:50
    That's all I have to say about it. I mean, you know. Oh, sorry. No, that's okay. I was – sorry, Tom. Were you getting a message or something? No, what I was – Hopefully he's buying a John Wick from us. We know when you were saying Ellie better deliver my brother, when we were talking about GTF he like how much does this cost And I was like cause it limited edition And I was like well how much do you think it costs And I was like Jared that game costs more than a Godzilla Premium. And he almost lost it. He's like, how? He just couldn't understand that.
    89:30
    But anyways, yes, you're right. We always have to deliver. Yeah. I mean, we're all trying to buy an experience here and, you know, as a as a manufacturer of pinball machines, you better well damn deliver on it for the costs we're paying for them. You know, I'm starting to get tired of, you know, code not being done on games. I mean, I know they eventually get done, but, you know, it shouldn't take a year and a half to finish a game. I'm sorry. You're meaning like code at launch. You wish it was a little bit further along or just at a certain spot? Yeah. So, okay, so like Foo, Foo just got 1.0, right? A few, like a month ago? Yeah. A month and a half? Foo's a great game. I love Foo. It was a year. But luckily when it came out, the code was good and it only got better. But there's other games like James Bond where you bought James Bond and sold James Bond because you didn't like it. and then fast forward however many months, and the code finally got to a point where you liked it, and then you ended up buying it back. Yep. Yeah. All right. Well, Travis, they're just flying off the shelf, right?
    90:53
    You're hilarious, Joel. I'll just be flat out honest, because I think being authentic at this point, like, there's no need to lie. It was legitimately, like, our worst sales date, like, ever in the history of the company for any launch. Like, we didn't sell one John Wick. They won. Nothing.
    91:13
    Like, I mean, there's nothing else to say. Like, it did not go. And that's for a variety of reasons. And this is stuff that we have been talking about. Like, even on this podcast, we've talked about this day coming for well over a year for now. Like, we knew it was coming. But just to clarify, some other distributors do LE lists. So if they know they're getting X number of LEs, they might already have a list filled. So day one, it's like they already have games sold before the game is even released. I know you guys don't do lists. I mean, you guys really are. I cannot speak for anybody else. That is their business. What I can say is we typically sell between 12 to 15 on day one of all the pins combined. That's typically right around where we're at. And I feel pretty good about that because that's on top of everything else that we sell. Like, that's a good deal to, you know, just get on the website, you know, get people coming in, call some people. Like, we still, we have, you know, our group of buyers that we contact, that we talk to. But no, this right here, and we're legitimately at free ship. Like we knew that we needed to get this product priced correctly to get it because it's not a theme that has any nostalgia for people. It just doesn't. And I don't want to sit here and bullshit people and tell them, yeah, it's going great. It's not a knock on the game quality itself. It's just a fact. You own all four Blu-rays, Travis. You have all four of them in 4K. Right. But again, it's based on, like I said, I like the game, right? If I was out there and not working in the industry, I'd probably want to buy one, right? But just because the theme is well-liked doesn't mean it's going to work for pinball right now, right? If you're in the 80s and 90s, that's the sweet spot. People got to feel nostalgia for stuff to spend this type of money. It's a lot easier to spend $100 on something that's kind of newer, right, on a theme or whatever, like a little statue to put up on a shelf or in your corner. Yeah. But asking a lot of people to get a premium product, that's a big ask. And that's incredibly difficult to do. And I don't know. My thought process is knowing what buyer tendencies are, knowing what themes that they've asked about, knowing what themes that they search. That's huge. Like, knowing what they look for. Like, John Wick doesn't come close to that. It was the same way with Venom. You know, just like I told you guys before, Venom didn't touch that either. So it's just the reality. So why did John still well on day one? Was it nostalgia? Nostalgia? The fact that it's Keith Elwin? Let's just call it what it is. Like, Elwin has turned this industry upside down because it's an event. Every single time he comes out with a cornerstone, It's an event, right? That cornerstone is priced exactly the same as everybody else, right? So, like, even John Wick has a brand-new designer, first-ever game that they've designed. That's priced exactly the same as Keith Elwin's fifth cornerstone. That's not a fair battle. Like, who do you think is going to win that battle every single time? It's going to be Keith Elwin. So, like, it's not even a question. And it's not to say like, oh, it's a guarantee that Elwynn games will sell out. It's not like nothing's ever going to be a guarantee. Right. But he also has the credibility behind him in the clout behind what he has done. That makes it a lot easier. Somebody can come in like we have people that come into our showroom that will look at the look at a Jurassic Park, the look at a Godzilla. And I've been asked this question several times. Why does this game look different compared to the other ones?
    95:14
    And those are people that don't know the designers, don't know anything about pinball, but they ask. They can just tell he has the it factor. So, yeah, that's the difference there. And so when somebody has the it factor and they're priced exactly the same as everything else, like, yeah, it's like the better design is going to win out. The person with the reputation is going to win out. That's just how it is. And I ask this with no offense to Elliot, but if Keith Elwin would have designed John Wick, that's it. Do you think sales would have been better? I think it would have been better. I don't think it would be a sellout. Okay. I think it would be better. But, you know, because, well, like all the videos that came out, like a lot of people thought Tim Sexton designed the game. They didn't even realize there was a new designer. Yeah. No, I certainly didn't. Maybe Elliot doesn't want to be in front of the camera. Well, even like the content, influencer marketing, it didn't really talk about how this is a new designer at all. And so it's like stuff like this.
    96:17
    When you're selling these things and you're selling a product, you've got to create some type of connection, right? People feel a connection to Keith Elwin. People feel a connection to Jack Danger. People feel a connection to John Thorne.
    96:33
    So that's the difference, though. They have a connection to it, right? They have a full catalog to draw back on nostalgia. With Jack, it was people that were fans of his stream. And since he's been associated with the Stern brand for years now, and he was the face, right? I mean, Elliot's been with the Stern brand for years now, and he's been a mechanical engineer and all that. But he's never been at the forefront. So it's an unknown commodity right now. And that's what's happening. I wish that they would have put him out there a little bit more, regardless of whether or not he wanted to do that, because that connection is sorely needed. I mean, look at, not saying that Elton John just blew off the doors on sales. I have no idea, since we don't do Jersey Jackpins, but people knew a Steve Ritchie was coming, right? Steve Ritchie, Jersey Jackpin. And that was like a mini event for them, you know, or when Scott Denisey is going to release the game. right? Or stuff like that. Like people just make those associations. I think that it's important to have people make those associations. Well, I'm asking this and I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to, it's just, I know your particular business is a lot outside the pinball enthusiast. So a lot of your specialize, we specialize in finding people brand new to pinball. That's where I brand new to pinball. They don't know Steve Ritchie. They don't know Keith Elwin, but yet we, educate them. Oh, I mean, that's what you do. Okay. You educate. Go ahead, Tom. No, I'm good.
    98:10
    He's like, I'm good. But that's what, that's what you do because we all start from somewhere, right? So when a new customer comes in, they, they, they, they're curious, right? You lead that curiosity. You let them answer their own questions because then they start figuring out what it is they like, what theme do they like. And I say this all the time. A brand-new customer, somebody brand-new to pinball, every theme is brand-new to them. Yeah. Even if it's come out seven years ago. Why do you think Star Wars still sells as well as it does? Yeah. It came out in what, 2017? It's been nearly seven years at this point. So that's a difference, and that's what I see a lot of the time. We see brand-new people come in, and it's just you educate them on what they are telling you that they like. So if they want a super fast playing game, then it's easy to say, okay, you know, this flow monster here, we'll do just that. Oh, you, you grew up being a star Wars fan. Oh, look here. Star Wars, a Mandalorian, two, two pins right here. Like stuff like that. That that's what you do. You help them with their journey and you help them learn about pinball. And that's exciting to do.
    99:21
    Yeah. No, I, I don't know. I know, um, I enjoy this podcast. I enjoy talking with the two of you guys. And I know all three of us have very different backgrounds. We have very different professional careers. We all love pinball. We all approach it in different ways. And I also know the three of us viewed this release this week in very different ways. Where Tom's like, okay, I might buy a pro. I'll give it a shot. I know I'm like, all right, I'm looking forward to playing it in two, three weeks.
    99:51
    And Travis, unfortunately, this was a rough week. This was a rough week for him because he has his business hat on and his new boy pants. The game looks great to me. I think the game looks cool and all that. I want it to do well. So I'm trying to figure out how do we get this game to do well. Now, obviously, conditions are tough, just like Tom's talked about.
    100:15
    There's so many variables at play here. When you look at pricing, you look at the amount available. you look at what is consumer behavior right now. And I think a lot of the reason why things are happening, a lot of people bear responsibility in this. I don't think the responsibility is just on Stern. I know I've heard a lot of blowback. I've read a lot of blowback, like Stern's doing this pricing. They're, you know, this, this, this. But us as dealers and distributors, you know, we are the ones that are selling these to the consumer. We're the ones that are buying from Stern to sell to customers. Like it's a B2B exchange, obviously. So we bear some responsibility for it as well, for why things are the way they are. Like what is our pricing models? And the problem is, and Tom, you can chime in here if you think that this is right or wrong. I feel like that there's two distinct opposing forces happening right now in pinball, right? You've got rising prices. yet you have a pinball enthusiast consumer base that wants to feel like they're getting the best bang for their buck, the best value, yet they have been trained to try to get that value at the least pain point possible, meaning the lowest possible price, yet they want to retain that value or even more value as a used product. It's two opposing forces. So what do you do about that? And that's what a lot of people aren't thinking of, that the behavior that you reward is the one that you're going to encourage. So if we've trained a full consumer base to look for these pins at either map pricing, no tax, free shipping, they're going to start judging these pins just based off price alone. And when you turn your product into a commodity-priced, base-driven product, that's dangerous. That is very dangerous. And that is precisely, 1,000%, what has happened here. And we talked about this exact subject nearly a year ago, that this was a possibility. We saw it brewing. I know three of us have talked about this privately. And so when you mix that in, it's just like pouring gasoline on a fire.
    102:42
    And so it's like, yeah, of course, somebody that was used to buying an LE at 9,000, no tax, free shipping, no friction whatsoever because they got on a list, they would get it. Zero friction. They're going to start feeling that pain once that price goes up, like immediately. So like what do you do there? That's the tough part. That's what's happening. Just to be flat out honest, that is 100% what's happening right now.
    103:10
    I agree. So the question is, how do we fix that? And Tom's got the answer. Right. I don't. I don't know. I don't know the answer. I mean, I think we kind of essentially gushed about Elton John the other day, and the one thing we kept coming back to with Elton John is its price, and people aren't rolling the dice on it because they're afraid, just based on the history of JJP, if you're ever going to sell that game, people will assume that game is now $2,000 less. And it's just with these high prices, there's a lot less people that are going to roll the dice on a theme that they're not super passionate about or potentially a layout they don't know or a designer. You know, it's just this is kind of an unknown right now. And with this game, and I know Venom was a similar way, you know, there's only one hottie, Frisco Pinball. Yeah. loves Venom to the level that he does, and he was all in regardless. Right. So it's tough, and that's where I hope. I just hope I knew through this week in correspondence and conversation and looking at what's going on, I just hope this isn't hurting distributors or buyers or Stern. You know, I feel bad. I genuinely feel bad for somebody like Elliot that he's obviously put a year plus into this. This is his game. This is his first one. and obviously I wish every game would you know would be a knock out of the park or whatever blow it out of the water it's weird it's just a weird well it's just what has to happen is pinball has to get back to where we talk about the merits of the pinball machine itself and not what is the price and that's the problem this end is like everything is fundamentally broken if the main driver of how people view a pin is just through a price value it's Will this pin lose money? Will it gain money? Can I flip it? Can I not flip it? If I buy this, I'm going to instantly lose $2,000. And I get it. It's not saying somebody is a consumer. It's the wrong way to think about it because the consumer is free to do whatever they want. And just like we talked about, the behavior that we reward is what we encourage. And so that's where we're at right here right now. So the industry has to somehow figure out how to get back to the focus is on the pinball machine itself, on the value of that pinball machine. I agree, but I also feel somewhat hypocritical because we talked about the pinball machine and the things that we liked about it for whatever, 15 minutes, and then we've talked about all this for an hour. And that's the thing that I hate is looking at the media right now. It's just nobody's talking about the flow of this game. But we don't know. We don't know. What else can we talk about? Or the media blitz and the release. How many of the influencers are buying the game?
    106:05
    Well, yeah, they're borrowing it. They're on the program. They're just going to borrow it. They could be renting it. I don't know. I have no idea. So here's the thing. Okay, well, let's do a little exercise here because this is important. I asked you guys this question earlier. Yes. All right. So what things here are the most important to you for a pinball machine? Mix up the order this time. I'm going to mix up the order. He put it in the perfect order when he asked us. Yeah, I did. Yeah. Okay. So is it going to be code, theme integration, gameplay, art, LCD integration, or theme? Of those things, what's the most important to you? If you're going to buy a new Unboxed game day one. Day one. Theme. Day one. So you're making an emotional buy. Theme. That's what a day one buy is. You're all in. Theme. It was all in on Rush. It was all in on Foo. Theme. It would be all in on Red Hot Chili Peppers. Theme. Theme is absolutely. Theme. Okay. The only new Unboxed I ever, day one that I put my order in was Turtles. Right. Okay. So what would be the second one for you guys? Art. What do you think? Probably gameplay.
    107:11
    For me, Art. Okay. If I can't look at the game or it's inappropriate or it's whatever, art is typically – that could kill the game for me. Right. So what would be the third thing? Code. Layout would be the game. I'm picking the three things you can't change. Right. Exactly. Okay. So we'll just make it easier. Game, play, layout, aren't they kind of the same?
    107:36
    Sure. I'm just – Well, I mean, that's the same thing. Day one release, it's – you're not going to – the game – you're not going to buy Foo Fighters and it magically changes into another band. You're not going to magically – you can't change the art. Right. The play field's printed, and you can't change the layout. If there's a clunky shot, it's a clunky shot. Right. Gameplay layout is basically the same thing. Yeah. So what would be last out of all of that? LCD. Bring the DMD back. Okay. Tom, what would be last for you?
    108:02
    Yeah, I'd probably say LCD. I mean, I'd take the artwork over the LCD. So the reason why – I still think the LCD's important. I know, T-Mail City. I do.
    108:14
    Yes. Here's why I point this out, though, because even George Gomez said this on Facebook, and this image has been shared everywhere, and this gives us an idea of how Stern was thinking about this, that he even said, and this is like a direct quote. I'm reading it right here. We didn't worry too much about it, talking about the guns on the play field, because there are plenty of guns in the film clips, and we have clips from all four films. It's almost shot in 4K, which makes it look amazing on the display.
    108:44
    The issue is here is that a lot of people value the art, right? You remove something from the art, and you're putting it on something that most people will put dead last when it's up against these other parts of the pen. Good point. The majority of people will. So in the way that they're pushing John Wick right now, it's about having 40 minutes worth of video clips on there. And so to me, it's like when I think about this logically, I know Tim Sexton understands pinball. I know he understands rules. I know he understands coding. I really want him to be able to take all of his energy and focus on that, not focus on trying to figure out 40 minutes worth of game clips that the vast majority of buyers aren't going to watch while they're playing. The vast majority of people put dead last in something that they even desire. It's just it's one of those weird things that pinball has just gotten so deep into that. I think that they're forgetting a lot of just the physical aspects of it. Right. That's what made pulp very popular immediately is the physical aspects of it. So I don't know. It's just an exercise right there just to ask you guys, because I've been asking a lot of people that. And it's so I'm curious what the listeners that that are here, what do they think? out of that list, how would they rank that? Because so far, the vast majority of people put LCD integration last. It's not to say it's not important, but there are aspects of it useful. I'm just saying weight it up against other things, other buying decisions. What makes somebody want to buy this? Nobody's buying a pinball machine for the display. Well, that's what I've talked to. I've talked to a few of the Stern employees that actually that's what they do is the LCD animations. that I'm not trying to downplay what they do. Because, yes, a game can be bad. They're great for what they are. A game can absolutely, like, turn in the wrong direction if it has bad animations. Or, like, Avengers. Avengers is kind of lifeless when it comes to the display. Like, that's absolutely an area that they could improve.
    110:52
    But it shoots so good. Yes, that's the thing. That's not the make or break it for me. And that's why a game like Pulp Fiction can be so freaking good. and it didn't rely on the LCD at all.
    111:04
    So just to clarify one little point, which is what George tried to clarify, and the whole thing about the guns, this is not unique to John Wick. Apparently there was similar stipulation. That's what I'm a little curious, because he said it was Lionsgate. It was the brand owner that said no guns on the play field. But then he went on to say he had the same issue with James Bond. The only reason there are guns on the playfield is because they took poster art. That's why it was literally copy-paste. They did some cleanup. They did some redrawing. But they basically took pre-approved poster-printed art. And so all the graphics that include a gun on the playfield or on the cabinet are from posters. There's nothing new that was created that has a gun, while everything in John Wick was created new. And he said they actually have the same limitation with Deadpool. And so what did they do in Deadpool? I actually went back and looked at the pictures. Every gun that Deadpool holds in the game, in the art, is like a fantasy blaster. It doesn't look anything like a real gun. So they were able to get around it by making it look alien or space age or something. Obviously, if John Wick was holding an alien blaster, people would be pissed. So I understand why they avoided it completely. They obviously took the artistic direction of, do we want to do copy-paste poster art again, or do we want to actually let Randy Martinez do what he does, create all the art from scratch? I think he produced a beautiful, absolutely amazing, beautiful art package.
    112:37
    Just happens there aren't any guns, and I don't know what that means. I don't know if that's like, it's just that is what it is, or if they could have paid a certain amount and licensed a Glock. I don't know. I don't know how that works. it's hard to say. All I know to say is from the people we've talked to that are John Wick fans that are interested in buying the pin, that did play part of their decision to not go ahead and buy the pin right now currently. So that means what that means is that they may still buy the future but that means now everything else that we just talked about that we listed as things that would want us to convince to buy day one, that didn't convince them. So now we move to the next day. We move to tomorrow. What's going to convince them to come on board? So something else has to pick up. That's why it could be gameplay. It could be sound. It could be code. It could be a lot of those things. It could be LCD integration. I mean, that's just what's going to have to come now. But yeah, it's definitely, it's unfortunate. I'll put it that way, that Stern's hands were, from what we understand, tied from that. Because as soon as we saw that, we didn't think it was a Stern decision at all at the beginning, because it would make no sense to do something like that, knowingly, because their other games all have that. Like, Mandalorian has that. Deadpool has that. Yeah, but those are fantasy-like. That's what I'm thinking. I realize now, like, a lot of these are maybe... Does C3 have guns on it? Yeah, but that's old. Like, that's what I'm thinking of. That's old. But I'm saying, like, when it comes to, like, a modern Stern game.
    114:16
    Honestly, this is side note, I'm interviewing George Gomez tomorrow. So this is something that I'm specifically going to ask him. So I assume that's going to come out after this and I'm very curious to hear his answer on this. I also realized we're almost two hours in and if you look very closely on Travis's camera, there is a blinking battery light, which means any moment now. So, I don't know, just kind of closing thoughts. Tom or Travis, you guys, I mean, it's been an interesting podcast. I hope people, if you're still here, thanks for listening. I hope, I don't know, like tell us on YouTube, send us an email. Like was this good, bad, boring, awful, informative? I don't know. I just want to get to work after we get off here, Joel, because I've got to figure out how to move some units. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to control what I can control, and I'm going to try to sell a bunch of John Wicks. I think I'm going to buy 400 of them. I'm going to hold on to them until 2044, and I'm going to hit the nostalgia timeline perfect. There we go. I'm going to pounce. I just know we've had a very active Facebook messenger group. I've learned a lot this week. Tom, I know you've sat back and learned a lot as well. And obviously, for Travis's sanity, I felt like we needed to let it all out.
    115:36
    I think the game will play great. Yeah, yeah. I think it'll play great. I have no qualms about how the game will be. I'm excited. I agree. We all need other people to think that and open up their pocketbooks, open up their wallets, open up their bank account, open up your heart. Hi, John Wick. There we go. There's my show. Yeah. Well, okay. I'm going to try to go to work, guys. Any other closing thoughts here, Tom? No. Well, let's plug it up then. Let's plug it up.
    116:06
    Travis, go for it. I think by the end of this, everybody knows what I do. So, yeah, I'm here on Triple Drain. Had a lot of fun. I am passionate about pinball. I love pinball. I want to see these people that are behind the pins, the people that put their blood, sweat, and tears into it, I want to see them push the right direction in terms of celebrating their success, their hard work. And I want the end consumer to get as much value as they possibly can get that they deserve to have as well. That's what I want.
    116:36
    That sounds great. Emerald piece, right? Yeah. Tom, go for it, man. I'm just on triple drain. That's all I do now. No, is that true? Is that true at all? I see the stringer rig right behind you. Yeah, it's going to be put away. Nah, everybody go check out Fox's. I'm retiring. Nah, he's not. He's retiring. He's retiring for the next five minutes. Screw pinball. He's cooked. Yeah. Fox needs pinball. Check it out. I'm going to go stream my arcade one-ups.
    117:09
    Jeez. I'm Joel. I stream for the Flippin' Out YouTube channel. I doubt we're going to have a John Wick in time for this Wednesday, but hopefully the Wednesday after that. And honestly, I am excited to stream it.
    117:21
    Also, I'm not telling anybody how to do their job. That wasn't our goal today. So if anybody at Stern or else that's offended. Stop apologizing already. I just don't want to. I have no one to talk. You can. You can talk. I don't have anyone to talk. No, I own it. I regret nothing. Yeah. And the content creators that made the content, good on you. Good on you for making it. I don't blame you for making it.
    117:44
    I wish I could have made it. That could have been. But now I sound jealous. Now I sound like petty. I don't know. You are petty. How about that? Just own it. Own that you're petty. It's fine. I'm not, but I sound petty, but I'm going to be able to make, I'm going to stream it in two weeks. So I'm good. I'm happy. You know what I am going to say? What, Tom? What? Watch Yipsy Pinball this weekend For the Amazing Race There we go Of course, this will probably come out After that, so you probably The goal is tomorrow Aren't you a returning champion of that? Two years ago, yeah Did you go last year? No, I did not Michelle was having surgery, so I couldn't go That was a good decision To not go You made the right call on that one, Tom Good luck, Tom Thanks. All right. Well, yeah, if you made it this far, thank you. Thank you for listening. That was Travis's TED Talk.
    118:39
    Yeah, we hear a lot of Travis TED Talks. So this is the first one we've shared with the users, the listeners. I'm passionate about pinball. What can I say? I see it from a different point of view. Imagine. All right, Tom, you get those last words.
    118:55
    Good night.