Episode 1042: "Lord Kaneda's High Praise for D&D & Fix Gone Feelings"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·23m 48s·analyzed·Jan 9, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

D&D praise, Stern marketing critique, American Pinball leadership exit, 2025 pipeline updates.

Summary

Kaneda praises Stern's Dungeons & Dragons as one of their best games in years, with innovative video-game-like progression mechanics and strong community feedback, but criticizes Stern's media event execution and warns against further price increases. He also reports David Fix's departure from American Pinball and discusses upcoming releases from Barrels of Fun and Spooky Pinball.

Key Claims

Dungeons & Dragons is one of Sam Stern's best offerings in a long time and combines video game and pinball experiences better than ever before
high confidence · Kaneda, opening segment praising the game based on community feedback and gameplay footage
Stern threw multiple content creators in one room with three competing games, which is poor media strategy compared to industry standard practice
high confidence · Kaneda criticizing Stern's D&D media day execution, drawing comparison to video game industry launch events
David Fix resigned from American Pinball or did not have his contract renewed
high confidence · Kaneda reporting on American Pinball leadership change with one-word commentary 'Karma'
Dungeons & Dragons Premium Edition will drop in price from $9,700 to around $8,000 within a few months of release
medium confidence · Kaneda speculating on secondary market pricing based on market trends
Barrels of Fun will produce approximately 900+ units of Labyrinth before moving to their next game
high confidence · Kaneda reporting conversation with David Van Ness at Barrels of Fun
Seth Davis is teasing a price increase for Stern Pinball games
medium confidence · Kaneda referencing Seth Davis CES interview, warning against further price hikes
Barrels of Fun's next game will likely be revealed in April 2025
medium confidence · Kaneda speculating based on production timeline and competitive media landscape
American Pinball will only release Cuphead after Fix's departure, then likely cease new title production
medium confidence · Kaneda speculating on American Pinball's future based on contractual obligations

Notable Quotes

“This game has a lot going on... this game is landing with a lot of enthusiasm, with a lot of praise, and it feels like a really amazing effort from Sam Stern Pinball.”
Kaneda @ early segment — Core thesis: D&D represents Stern's best work in years despite market skepticism
“You should have one game in a room by itself. You should have media schedule times in which they come to see the game. Each media person should get an hour on the game.”
Kaneda @ media criticism segment — Direct critique of Stern's event execution, offering specific professional recommendations
“This is probably the greatest combining ever of a video game experience and pinball experience that we've ever seen.”
Kaneda @ D&D mechanics discussion — Highest praise for D&D's narrative/progression system innovation
“One word: karma. I say it again: Karma.”
Kaneda @ American Pinball discussion — Emotional response to Fix's departure, suggests community dissatisfaction with his leadership
“If they raise prices and then they come out with a $2,000 topper, you're now gonna get a Sam Stern that's closer to $16,000 to have everything in the game.”
Kaneda @ pricing discussion — Warning about cumulative cost of accessories pushing overall game cost beyond market tolerance
“You've got good vibes. Everybody's rooting for you to succeed. Now when I asked him how many labyrinths are you going to make? He said they're probably somewhere a little north of 900.”
Kaneda @ Barrels of Fun discussion — Reports production run target and positive industry sentiment toward Barrels of Fun
“I don't think people will care... I'm just happy that people are finally being held accountable for terrible decisions.”
Kaneda @ American Pinball closing — Reflects community satisfaction with leadership accountability despite American Pinball's market position

Entities

Kanedaperson Dwight Sullivanperson Sam Sternperson Seth Davisperson David Fixperson David Van Nessperson Keith Elwinperson

Signals

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design_innovation: Dungeons & Dragons features choose-your-own-adventure mechanics with branching modes, save/load progression, character unlocks, and boss battles—described as unprecedented integration of video game progression into pinball
high · Kaneda: 'You can save your character and start where you left off. This is probably the greatest combining ever of a video game experience and pinball experience that we've ever seen.'
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product_concern: Stern's D&D media day executed poorly: multiple games in one room, multiple media creators competing simultaneously, inability to hear audio—violating standard industry practice from video game launches
high · Kaneda: 'You should have one game in a room by itself. You should have media schedule times... Each media person should get an hour on the game.'
~
sentiment_shift: D&D receiving overwhelmingly positive community feedback following media day, despite poor event execution, marking Stern's strongest game release narrative in years
high · Kaneda: 'The overwhelming consensus is this Sam Stern has made a really good game and that makes me really happy... one of Sam Stern's best offerings in a long time'
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market_signal: D&D Premium ($9,700 MSRP) expected to depreciate to ~$8,000 within months as Pro versions hit market, with Pro versions holding value more stably
medium · Kaneda: 'I feel like they're gonna be around eight grand in just a few months after this game is shipping... The Pro version are not gonna go down that much in value.'
$
market_signal: Seth Davis reportedly teasing price increase for Stern games; Kaneda warns this risks creating anti-Stern sentiment and pushing total ownership cost to ~$16,000 with accessories

Topics

Dungeons & Dragons (Stern) - game quality and innovationprimaryStern Pinball media event execution and marketing strategyprimaryPinball machine pricing and market affordabilityprimaryAmerican Pinball leadership change and future directionprimaryBarrels of Fun production pipeline and market positioningprimaryCommunity sentiment toward manufacturerssecondaryEvil Dead (Spooky Pinball) receptionsecondary2025 game release timeline and competitive landscapesecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.62)— Highly positive on D&D's game design and innovation; sharply critical of Stern's marketing execution and pricing strategy; relieved/satisfied about American Pinball leadership change; optimistic about Barrels of Fun and Spooky Pinball. Overall tone is constructive criticism paired with genuine enthusiasm for strong game design.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.071

PINBALL PANDEMIC PINBALL PANDEMIC PINBALL PANDEMIC PINBALL PANDEMIC PINBALL PANDEMIC PINBALL PANDEMIC PINBALL PANDEMIC PINBALL PANDEMIC Welcome everybody to the world's maybe third or fourth favorite pinball podcast. I'm your host Kenada. We're going to talk about Dungeons and Dragons. The people have played it. The consumer The Play it even Neil McCray flew over from the UK and played it yesterday And I've been watching gameplay videos. I've been hearing the feedback and the overwhelming Consensus is this Stern has made a really good game and that makes me really Here we go again, more King of Kings here, Dave trail and this dude is the onlyead九 I think a really, really help you know another. He talks a lot baby, you really По́е, today I인데요 모양 checkbox forgiveness不能 tellёу ты, 재 Have you, ouq,ick to old people. In the against vlog he is like an annularłajščićžčsqŰ&ţn 겁니다ţš packages from the今回 and in Sternţňššgeник and Hide. This week's topic is Pinball. I'm going to give you a few thoughts on that and then we're going to talk about where we go now. Where does everything go right now? We've got this new game from Stern. We've got Harry Potter around the corner. We've got King Kong next. I actually talked to David David Van Es over at Barrels of Fun today. Lots of stuff about to happen in pinball in 2025. I just want to start out by saying this. Before I get into D&D, I want to talk about the fact that I'm going to be talking about the fact that I'm going to be talking about the fact that This week in pinball, Johnny Pneumonic, Black Water, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, Twippies Awards, translite!!) Video Game Products products. My clients were Atari majesco thq it was a lot of fun we did a lot of fun stuff I've been to many many e threes and CES is and things of that nature now here's the thing your stern pinball and you're inviting these pinball media into stern pinball to play the game for the first time and that's great but here's what they're doing wrong and I mean this and it's Closed Caption by The Closed Caption Project This Week in Pinball, John Papadiuk, Black Water, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, Twippies Awards, translite{\ I was asking people like how is the music how are the call outs and you know what they were telling me I don't know it's really hard to hear with everything happening at once not only do you have all of the sound coming from three games competing with each other you've also got everybody talking in the room and that is the dumbest way imaginable to introduce these pinball content creators to your product and when we used to launch video games guys just wake up be more Team up to four teams of 12 athletes and two coaches and two coaches of 15,000, including a little more professional. It's not even hard. You should have one game in a room by itself. You should have media schedule times in which they come by to see the game. I would say that each media person should get an hour on the game. That is what you should do. And you do that over a day, like each person gets an hour on the game. And that's the best way to do it because seeing people's footage, it was like just throwing them into the magic. This week in Pinball Podcast, Terminate I just want the pinball marketing to finally use common sense one day and just give these people a chance to experience and hear all of the callouts, right? To hear the music, to sort of get immersed in the game in the right way. Alright, so that being said, the overwhelming feedback on the game is really positive. I've talked to people who were there, I've watched the footage, and people are very very complimentary of the depth of the game, of how they integrated the theme into this game, the major dragon mechanism in this game, the gelatinous cube with its magnet that can trap the ball both above and below. You know, you can decide whether or not you want to do like a All the way through the cube and then you got all these different ways to play the game and listening to Dwight talk about it You know it hard and I don think any of us have ever quite played a game like this A sort of choose your own adventure where there like all these different ways to go And depending on which way you go there like 20 modes and six wizard modes within each of those directions And then within that if you get to the end and you battle the boss and you win you then unlock a new character that you can play as But if you lose You gotta start over and all throughout your journey you can save your character and start where you left off. This is probably the greatest combining ever of a video game experience and a pinball experience that we've ever seen. Now I give Stern credit for doing this, for making an innovative and a new approach and a creative approach to a pinball for Chinotoότε Patienten, Petits, The one thing I was wondering about is if you can save your progress and you get through it all and you battle all the monsters and you defeat the game in all the different ways you can defeat the game, will that one day make you feel the way you feel like you do with a video game where after you've completed it, you don't really want to play it again? Last week on how I think coming out of, and I mean this, coming out of a X-Men game where the code was a big issue for people, coming out of a John Wick game in which the mechanisms were lazy and lacked creativity, this game is landing with a lot of enthusiasm, with a lot of praise, and it feels like a really amazing effort from Stern Pinball. The Week in Pinball, Johnny Pneumonic, Black Water, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, Twippies Awards, transliteelectronic panel in backbox that is backlit during playelectronic Game of Thrones unint This week's topic is the most important topic in the game. If you don't get through the theme door, you don't care about anything else. You're just not going to go in on it. But seeing more of this game, it does feel like a little bit of an Iron Maiden might happen. Where even if you don't love D&D, you don't hate it, right? Like nobody hates D&D. I actually would argue it's easier for me to get into D&D especially D&D Pinball than it is to get into Iron Maiden Pinball because I don't like Iron Maiden music. You know I actually would say I dislike it. I don't dislike D&D. You know what I do like? I like knights, I like wizards, I like shields, I like dragons, I like all the medieval stuff that D&D has in its world so it's easy for me to sort of alright. Even though I'm not the biggest D&D fanatic, I could see why I could get into this game. The same way if I asked each and every one of you, why do you love Medieval Madness, right? That's not based on anything other than Medieval Madness. It's an original IP. But you like knights, you like castles, you like drawbridges, you like dragons, you like catapults, right? So it put all of that into a pinball game and you really enjoy it. So I'm here to tell you right now, I think this game has got a lot going on. I still do think though, we don't know how owning this game and how rewarding and fun it will be to sort of journey through the head of Dwight Sullivan, his storyline and the way this game unfolds. He's got a lot of passion. You know, listening to Dwight talk about this game, you can't help but feel like I want to feel what that guy feels and I hope this game delivers that. All that being said, will this game take off? Will people buy this game? Knowing what we know about the current pinball market, I still think it's going to be tough. I really do think it's going to be tough. I really wish the Ellie was a lot more exciting. I still look at that Ellie package and there's nothing about it that makes me really want the Ellie. And this is my mental sort of mindset. How I think a lot of people This week in Pinball Johnny Pneumonic Black Water Kaneda Pinball Podcast Twippies Awards transliteelectronic panel in backbox that is backlit during playelectronic Game of Thrones unint The Dream Theme You don really need the le okay that cool like right off the bat you saving yourself okay but then you like well wait a minute if I really want to get one Maybe I could wait a few months and get an le because those are gonna sink down in price for the price of a premium But again, like, you know, I don't know maybe you don't want to wait six months Maybe you don't know how the markets gonna shake out on this thing, but I think here's my recommendation I think the way to go on this game is the premium. I get that the pro gives you a lot, but I think losing all of the movement of the dragon is a huge, huge loss in this game. So I would argue that the premium is the way to go, but I also wouldn't want to buy a premium new in box for $9,700. I feel like they're gonna be around eight grand in just a few months after this game is shipping and I think that's probably I think the smart thing to pick up because the pros are not gonna go down that much in value with the pro you lose the dungeon entrance and you lose the fully animated dragon I would want those things in my D&D experience so I think that's where we're at right now Stern do a better job of giving the content creator The game is a much more personal experience with the game. Don't throw everybody in the same room at the same time. It's time to wake up now and market these games to your content creators of your industry with more professionalism. There's some free advice Stern people. And I don't think we've seen a game like this that's really gonna test the modern stern pricing quite like D&D, right? It was a lot easier to write off Venom. It was a lot easier for you guys to write off John Wick. You know, a lot of people were fans of James Bond, they bought it. A lot of people were fans of Foo Fighters, they bought it. A lot of people were fans of Jaws, they bought it. I think everyone's sort of inching towards D&D a little bit more each day. I think the game has definitely piqued the curiosity of a lot of people. And now the next thing is this, because again, if you don't care about getting an LE, I would still just wait, right? There's no reason. They're not going to sell out of these LEs ever. So I would just wait because now it's going to get fun because the LE buyers are going to get their games first, and then you're going to get to see more of them. Closed Caption by ClosedCaptioner.com Able to get it for a great price. And that's what I'm curious to see what happens next. How is the market going to respond to this game? What do you guys think? Email me at kanedapinball at gmail.com and I will read out some of your answers on the next show how you think D&D will do in the current pinball marketplace. But on a pure pinball level, I think this is one of Stern's best offerings in a long time. and I think if you don't see that I don't know where you've been because you must be living in that dragon's cave because this is a really phenomenal effort from the folks over at stern pinball and I know deep down we all hope we see similar efforts in the games moving forward now look Seth Davis was interviewed at CES and he once again is sort of teasing and indicating that a price increase The worst thing stern pinball could do right now because what I don't think Seth understands is I think they're finally getting closer to where they need to be to justify these prices and if you now raise prices again I really do think Seth you're gonna start to create an army of people that are just rooting against stern pinball they can't raise prices again it's not This week's topic is the most popular topic in the game. I don't care if it's Kong, if it's Elwin, it's just too much. Because remember, if they raise prices and then they come out with a $2,000 topper, you're now going to get a stern that's closer to $16,000 to have everything in the game. And speaking of accessories, we've seen the accessory shooter rod for D&D and yes, it is exactly the same 20 sided die. All right, so there's D&D media day at Stern. You know who didn't have a media day yesterday? American Pinball. The day we knew was going to come. David Fix is out. Was he fired? Did he resign? The official statement is he resigned. They did not renew his contract. All I'm going to say on this, And this one stings me on a personal level I can tell you all the details One word karma karma I say it again Karma I not shocked by this at all It sounds like AP will contractually get Cuphead out into the world But other than that it seems like after they get Cuphead released they want to turn their gaming Hunting agreements with Mike Atmicdisciplinary podcast Utter Gnaris Johanna, So this could be it and if it is it from new titles from American Pinball with everything else happening in the pinball world, I don't think people will care. I'm just happy that people are finally being held accountable for terrible decisions and if you only knew the other stuff that happened behind the scene, everyone kind of got what was coming to them because of karma. Alright, that's all I'm going to say. Alright, and now we're into mid January. Evil Dead, we got some gameplay feedback from Kerry Hardy. Couldn't really tell if he loved the game or not. I think he enjoyed the way the game shot. He's not a fan of the theme and he applauds Spooky for making its best game to date. I feel like that's how 99% of us are gonna feel. It's a beautiful game, it's not based on a theme we love, but it's Spooky's best to date. I'm just waiting for the day The game is a game that's never leaving my game room. You know, I talked to David David Van Es today for a little bit. Really great guy, by the way, really great guy. And I was explaining to David, I think all these pinball companies now Some otherASEs I also mentioned in this video. So as mentioned iOfO Señor gera The High Prices, and then I told David, I think companies like American Pinball, everybody's been rooting for them to fail because they did not like the decision making or the leadership over there. Everyone was rooting for Deep Root to fail. I think when it comes to barrels and Spooky and Turner Pinball, you've got good vibes. Everybody's rooting for you to succeed. Now when I asked him how many labyrinths are you going to make? He said they're probably somewhere a little north of 900. and then he thinks they will move on to their next game now that doesn't mean they won't make a few more because he said you know when we released game number two there's going to be people who are going to discover us and maybe want game one and they can always go back and make another let's say if they stop at 950 they can go back and make another 150 units to get to 1100 that's fine right they're not making more than they ever said they're going to make you know and i was Knapp Arcade, BASIC��i épo, kdiya dassed holding fair and第三unching on february twenty eight for Ascens report on new tickets. It happens never more often here from europe and your people more often and i save like spook is doing it really dennis Stranding свет utility bad blood between david dennis Spooky Pinball Finale of the Week in Pinball, Johnny Pneumonic, Black Water, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, Twippies Awards, transliteelectronic The next game from barrels it's definitely gonna be this year it's gonna be after every single labyrinth order has been fulfilled and when the next game is ready to be shown if I had to guess I would say April of this year that's my guess is April because if you are David and you do want to reveal your next game you also have to be aware of what Harry Potter and King Kong Goil, Ty, Ge.♪ He nhà pan l exceptional perchärkeikalach Istak Findseen AXE don て An다고 rencontro parkedro eTXcciones Great game, Stern, you gotta show it to media in a better way, and the leadership at American Pinball is gone. Not surprised everybody. We all saw the sign on that company when they released BBQ Challenge. Kaneda out. Subtitles by the Amara.org community