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PNP 625- What Jack Danger's HUGE Code Announcement Proves+ Potter CODE Crybabies SUCK!

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·20m 6s·analyzed·Jun 16, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Jack Danger's X-Men code update announcement proves Stern's commitment; patience with code maturation is justified.

Summary

Orbital Albert celebrates Jack Danger's announcement of a comprehensive X-Men code overhaul involving MXV, Corey, and George Gomez, positioning it as a major positive signal for Stern's commitment to post-release support. He defends both Jack Danger and Eric Menier's design philosophies against 'code crybabies,' arguing that code improves over time and that designers eat/sleep/breathe pinball enough to ensure quality outcomes. Albert establishes a tier ranking (Jack and Eric as A-tier, Keith Elwin as S-tier for tournament-focused design) and encourages patience with Harry Potter's current code state.

Key Claims

  • Jack Danger, MXV, Corey, and George Gomez have been working to establish a code cadence for Uncanny X-Men with 'something official coming soon'

    high confidence · Direct quote from Jack Danger's official announcement posted 14 hours before episode

  • The Uncanny X-Men artwork by Zombie Yeti is universally acknowledged as 'gorgeous'

    medium confidence · Orbital Albert's assertion; reflects community consensus but stated as personal opinion

  • Code updates and maturation occur over time as feedback accumulates from Pinside, podcasts, Twitch, and YouTube

    high confidence · Stated as established pattern in pinball industry; Albert uses this to justify patience

  • Harry Potter's cabinet art (CE) is universally praised as 'by far the best artwork' by anyone knowledgeable about art and Harry Potter

    low confidence · Absolute claim made by Orbital Albert; likely hyperbolic

  • Keith Elwin is S-tier designer because he is 'tournament brained' and consistently thinks about rules while designing

    medium confidence · Orbital Albert's subjective design philosophy ranking; he notes he wouldn't state this in front of Pat Lawlor or Steve Ritchie

  • Jack Danger would prioritize fixing X-Men code quality over a $100,000 payment if given the choice

    low confidence · Orbital Albert's speculation about Jack Danger's values and motivations

  • Eric Menier cares about Harry Potter more than pinball; he is 'A tier' but not S tier

    low confidence · Orbital Albert's subjective ranking and speculation about Eric Menier's design philosophy

  • Orbital Albert spends 50-70 hours per week on pinball-related content, consumption, and engagement

    high confidence · Direct statement by Orbital Albert about his own time allocation

Notable Quotes

  • “MXV, Corey, George, and I have been working hard to make the game everything it can and should be. Something official coming soon.”

    Jack Danger (via official announcement read by Orbital Albert) @ ~0:02:00 — Core announcement triggering episode discussion; signals comprehensive X-Men code rework with senior Stern talent involved

  • “Play before you pay. This is the way.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~0:04:30 — Recurring mantra throughout episode; core advice for avoiding buyer's remorse on early-code machines

  • “Oh ye of little faith... when everybody else was worried that the X-Men code was abandoned and it'll never get better, I was not. I was stoked for this.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~0:08:00 — Albert positions himself as having faith in Jack Danger during community panic phase; establishes his optimism narrative

  • “Any pinball podcasters content creators saying that the potter code isn't incredible they might be correct... the one thing we do know for sure... the CE cab art is by far the best artwork.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~0:12:00 — Concedes Potter code criticism while defending artwork quality; tries to balance fair assessment with optimism

  • “What puts Elwin on S tier... is the fact that he is consistently, without a doubt, always thinking about the rules. While he's designing it.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~0:22:00 — Establishes Albert's design philosophy ranking system; places Keith Elwin above Jack Danger and Eric Menier

  • “Jack Danger's in love with you, the pinball nerd. He's in love with you, okay? Maybe even more than I am.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~0:28:00 — Rhetorical defense of Jack Danger's motivations; suggests designers prioritize pinball community over profit

  • “These mofos eat, sleep, and breathe pinball so much, it makes me look like a joke.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~0:35:00 — Albert's assertion that top designers' passion guarantees code quality outcomes; supports patience narrative

Entities

Jack DangerpersonOrbital AlbertpersonGeorge GomezpersonMXVpersonCoreypersonKeith ElwinpersonEric Menierperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Orbital Albert identifies pattern where code improves over time as feedback accumulates from Pinside, podcasts, Twitch, YouTube; designers listen and implement community feedback

    high · Orbital Albert: 'as the coders and everyone who works at stern or jjp hears feedback it's what they do with this feedback that matters'

  • ?

    event_signal: Orbital Albert references prior podcast episode and audience question about optimal CE production numbers; indicates low engagement (only Glenn the Skateboarder responded)

    medium · Orbital Albert: 'my question in the tub was... what is the perfect number of CEs?... and Glenn the Skateboarder is still the only person who emailed me with that answer.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community was previously worried X-Men code was 'abandoned' but Orbital Albert remained optimistic; announcement is being received with excitement in pinball world

    high · Orbital Albert: 'when everybody else was worried that the X-Men code was abandoned and it'll never get better, I was not. I was stoked for this... This has the pinball world excited.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Harry Potter code 'still has a ways to go' according to Orbital Albert; early-release code never achieves L1-matured quality levels regardless of designer expertise

    high · Orbital Albert: 'Will it ever be as good as an L1 coated machine? Probably not. I'm not going to lie to you.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: X-Men call-outs described as 'mid' quality; Gambit voice particularly criticized as furthest from authentic character voice

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.060

0:00
All together now, he's on the rebound. Hear the sound of our buddy, oh, lo, dear Torby. Pinball now to rejoice.
0:14
He's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee, mixed with syrup and honey, hopes to laugh with his family in a random tangent.
0:21
Stories of his boys. He's on the poor man's pod network. We're gonna get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast.
0:32
Coming to you from beautiful River Hebert's, Nova Scotia. Welcome back Pinball Nerds to episode 625 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orbital Albert and on today's show we're gonna be talking all about Jack Danger announced just 14 hours ago, Ultimate X-Men Owners, this is his official post, we got top men taking the reins on the software. We have been working diligently to get a cadence planned out. MXV, Corey, George, and I have been working hard to make the game everything it can and should be. Something official coming soon. Now this has the pinball world excited. This has the pinball nerds like us talking, stoked, energized, because every person out there knows how gorgeous the zombie yeti artwork is on X-Men. Everybody knows how interesting, unique different and yes I'll say it but in a good way how weird Jack Danger's shots are on X-Men the call okay the call outs are yeah a little mid but not horrible it doesn't ruin the game the gambits uh is probably the furthest from an actual gambit voice uh but take that all with a grain of salt because this one pinball nerd here talking you through this $50 snowball has no freaking clue how good of a game it is because I've never played it. Like I always say, play before you pay. This is the way. And I still stand by that. Now, the only negative, I mean, okay, sorry. The only positive out of all the negatives of living in a pinball desert, Shout out to all my nerds in Australia. You know what it's like. A lot of you, even who live in the sticks in Canada, in the United States, far away from a big city, you know what it's all about. You've got to drive half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour and a half, some of you even further than me, two hours, maybe, to get to a good selection of modern games. Well, my good selection of modern games does not have X-Men yet. So I don't even know how bad the code is or how good it is. So the only advantage of living in a pinball desert is usually by the time I get to go play a game, the codes got better and living in a pinball desert I've seen this happen now all you pinball nerds that live in the big cities okay all all of you out there you know who you are you can go play any game anytime within a few days of it coming out if it's a stern or jjp game anyways okay and usually spooky even now but all of the rest of us have to wait and you can go play it early early early code and go oh well I hate that code and you'll never play it again the only advantage for me is I've never hated X-Men because I've never got to play it, right? So I've never got to hate that code or say the code's not good or Wason failed them or so on and such forth. And I don't think all failures are failures. And let me just explain that. So in case Wason's listening, which I highly doubt he is, but I want to pretend like every pinball podcast, anyone from any pinball company I ever talked about could be listening because they could be, They probably aren't, but they could be.

  • “This is going to feel like we have a new X-Men game. And for those of you not wanting to, you know, a little discouraged about Potter, the worst part about Potter is that the code still has a ways to go.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~0:42:00 — Frames X-Men update as positive transformation; acknowledges Potter code lag but expresses faith in Eric Menier

  • “Uncanny X-Men is a machine that's due for a code update. And boy, it sounds like they're going back to page one and starting all over.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~0:43:00 — Suggests scope of X-Men code overhaul is comprehensive, ground-up redesign approach

  • “Until next time, pinball nerds, don't be discouraged by new code. Be patient and have faith.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~0:45:00 — Episode closing mantra; encapsulates central message of patience with early-release code

    • Wason
    person
    Joe Katzperson
    Pat Lawlorperson
    Steve Ritchieperson
    Zombie Yetiperson
    Uncanny X-Mengame
    Harry Potter and the Cursed Childgame
    Avengers Infinity Questgame
    King Konggame
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Pinsideorganization
    Kanedaperson
    Glenn the Skateboarderperson
    Owenperson
    Elowenperson
    Dracoperson

    medium · Orbital Albert: 'the call outs are yeah a little mid but not horrible it doesn't ruin the game the gambits uh is probably the furthest from an actual gambit voice'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith Elwin elevated to S-tier designer status (above Jack Danger and Eric Menier) specifically for tournament-focused design approach and consistent rules consideration during design phase

    medium · Orbital Albert's explicit ranking: 'what puts Elwin on S tier... is the fact that he is consistently, without a doubt, always thinking about the rules. While he's designing it.'

  • $

    market_signal: Orbital Albert questions optimal CE production numbers; suggests announcing December 1st ending with Christmas cutoff would be 'near perfect' unless sales exceed 2,000-2,500 units

    low · Orbital Albert's hypothetical pricing strategy: 'I think announcing December 1st they're ending the sales by Christmas would be near perfect unless they've sold way more than I've already thought.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Jack Danger takes tough/hard questions seriously, responds enthusiastically to challenges in Twitch chat, and maintains personal engagement with dedicated community members

    medium · Orbital Albert: 'Jack Danger is one of these people who doesn't stray away from tough questions he actually leans into it and gets excited about being asked these questions'

  • ?

    community_signal: Orbital Albert spent significant time on Jack Danger's Twitch streams and developed perceived personal connection; Jack Danger responsive to his specific questions at high rate (approx 50% of questions answered)

    medium · Orbital Albert: 'I've had the pleasure of spending thousands of intimate moments... sometimes there would be two, three, like just on a regular Tuesday night... there'd be three, four hundred people watching. And I felt like sometimes like almost half the questions I asked got answered'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: George Gomez implicitly confirmed as involved in X-Men code direction; Orbital Albert assumes 'George' in Jack's announcement refers to Gomez based on context

    medium · Orbital Albert: 'I'm pretty sure that's George Gomez, right?' - inference rather than confirmation

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jack Danger announced comprehensive X-Men code update with MXV, Corey, and George Gomez working to establish code cadence and 'make the game everything it can and should be'

    high · Official Jack Danger announcement: 'MXV, Corey, George, and I have been working hard to make the game everything it can and should be. Something official coming soon.'

    • 4:08
    And I think Wason tried. I think Wason's done a really good job implementing certain parts of code in the past. And I think even if people remember, now I don't feel this way, but a lot of pinball nerds say that AIQ, Avengers Infinity Quest, is a bit of a fail or it's a little too complex or it's their least favorite shooter by Elowen. I can understand all three of those arguments. I personally love it. Maybe I'm just, because I'm rated in the top 1%, maybe that's what makes me love it. But I personally cannot wait to get the opportunity to try out Uncanny X-Men after the code's been fixed. Now, I don't know who the hell MXVR or Kord are, or Kord, Corey, but George, George sounds good. I'm pretty sure that's George Gomez, right? So now obviously George probably isn doing the code himself But I very very very excited that and I say oh ye of little faith My mom and best friend would always say this you know oh ye of little faith And all that meant is when everybody else was worried that the X-Men code was abandoned and it'll never get better, I was not. I was stoked for this. I was excited for this. I was one of the people saying this. now let me say this loud and slow so all of you in the back okay put down your coffee for 10 seconds stop driving the car no don't do that don't do that but just pay attention to the road but also listen to me listen to me intently for a second here any pinball podcasters content creators saying that the potter code isn't incredible they might be correct maybe the potter code rate meow isn't incredible but it sounds like it is by far the best shooter and everyone agrees the ce is by far the best artwork okay and unless you're going to a gathering of the juggalos you probably would agree with me it is by far the best artwork certainly on the cab again the back glass is yeah it's i like it but it's probably not the best back glass and pinball the playfield's cool but it's definitely not the best playfield artwork at all pinball but the one thing that we do know for sure, okay, the one thing we do know for sure is that the CE cab art is by, like, nobody who knows anything about art in any way, shape, or form, especially if you're a Harry Potter fan and you love the books, is saying, wow, they, you know, they missed the mark on that CE art. Nobody is saying that, okay? Now, the good news is art is easier to get right than code. Code is a lot more challenging. We all can agree with that. Now, will the code get better on Potter? Yes. And you know how I know the code will get better on Potter? Because I've heard Eric Menyer talk about it. His love for Harry Potter is probably even greater than Jack Danger's need or want to make Uncanny X-Men an incredible game. Okay, but the same way I truly believe and have always believed that Jack Danger would never abandon a machine. He's too worried about legacy. Jack Danger's not a dude who's in it just for the money. He's just not. He's a guy who's in it, I don't think so anyways. And Jack, if you are, and I said that, I apologize, okay? I'm trying to be non-drama this week. I'm trying very hard. I love you, Jack, and I think you're in it for the love of the game. Of course he wants to get a paycheck, and of course he wants to make sure he's getting paid fairly for his time. But I think that if we were to sit down with Jack Danger and you were to say, hey, would you rather $100,000 or would you rather us never touch the X-Men code and leave the X-Men code alone forever? I think that Jack Danger, without a doubt, would say, no, I want to fix X-Men. I want the code to be great. I want it to do well. And I've known this entire time, Owen, can you put the child gate there, bud? The dogs keep running into this room. You can just put the, sorry, guys.
    8:10
    I thought Owen might be skipping his first period because he was a little bit late getting up out of bed. So I tried to record a podcast, but of course, right when you try to record a podcast, they wake up. Also, be very careful when you're going outside, Owen. A bear got into all three bags, so we're going to have to start tying the garbages together. You can see the world's... Just be careful when you're walking out there by our steps. It's literally the world's largest bear dung on the ground. So don't step in that hot mess. It still was steaming this morning. So I'm going to guess that bear, he was eating a little bit of the old garbage this morning. And Elowen and Draco, where the hell were you guys this morning? A bear was in our backyard and y'all just slept through it. You lazy sons of beaches. No, I'm just kidding. You're dogs. You're fine. The dogs have to bark 100% of the time. That even just anyone pulls in the driveway or like UPS or perulator. You probably don't have that in the States. But like if any delivery trucks come here, they bark, bark, bark. but there is a bear gorging out on, we don't put any food in our garbage, so it must have just been wrappers. There's a bear out there gorging, eating all three bags. Now we should know better to not tie our garbages together, use a bungee cord on the top. Anyways, I've gone off topic. Here's what I'm saying is that Jack Danger's in love with you, the pinball nerd. He's in love with you, okay? Maybe even more than I am. And if anyone eats, sleeps, and breathes pinball, it's Jack Danger. Okay. Now the one, the one thing that puts the one, let's say Jack Danger and Eric Minier are both A tier. To me personally, they're A tier designers. The reason that makes Elowen S tier is because when Elowen is designing he such he he so tournament brained Okay Which is a good thing Don listen to any other pinball podcasters saying tournament players are horrible or talking about tournaments are bad because Jack Danger likes tournaments but he doesn love them like Elowen does And of course Eric Menier very competitive. I'm sure he's played in some pinball tournaments. I've watched him play. I think he's more getting to a moment guy rather than a score chaser, which is totally fine. I would consider myself certainly not well playing in a pinball tournament the exact same way. But the thing is that Elwynn, what puts Elwynn on S tier, and I would never say this in front of Pat Lawler or Steve Ritchie, but to me personally, what makes Elwynn go on a whole new level there is the fact that he is consistently, without a doubt, always thinking about the rules. While he's designing it, I guarantee you he's thinking about the importance of the rules. So while King Kong was being designed, he was thinking about the rules. so as the code matures as the code marinates as the code gets feedback on pin side from players from shout outs from podcasts from you know twitch from youtube from everywhere as the coders and everyone who works at stern or jjp hears feedback it's what they do with this feedback that matters so i want to put out a challenge not just a jack danger because he challenged himself more than enough. He doesn't need me. But just not even to Eric Menier. I know he cares more about Harry Potter than I ever could. But to every person, the three to five hundred people that will listen to this podcast, depending how long it is until I take it down. By the way, if you ever wanted to listen to a bathtub episode, I still think it's an interesting episode and I still think it's an important question. And Glenn the Skateboarder is still the only person who emailed me with that answer. This is maybe why I don't ask to answer questions because, you know, I'll get like one response, right? And it's not, thank you, Glenn, for that one response, but it's not that interesting when I only have one to read out. But my question in the tub was, don't go listen to it, but my question was, what is the perfect number of CEs? If they make way too many CEs, like two, three, four, five grand, the prices are forever, you know, it's going to take a long, long time after they stop making them for the prices to recover, recoup, or break even, even if it's an excellent game even if they fix the code. But on the flip side of that, if they make too few, they leave money on the table, they leave a little meat on the bone, they don't get enough sales. I think announcing December 1st they're ending the sales by Christmas would be near perfect unless they've sold way more than I've already thought. In which case, if they're getting anywhere close to that number of like 2,000 or 2,500, then I would announce, hey guys, we're closing down sales in 30 days, A, so we can move on to our next project, and B, because we want the CEO owners to feel special. But I've gone off topic here. What I want you to remember is that dead flip, i.e. Jack Danger, I've had the pleasure of spending thousands of intimate moments where it felt like it was just him and me. Of course, there's hundreds of other people watching. Jack was kind enough over the years. I asked very interesting, very poignant, you know I was you know I don't want to say a voice of reason because some people have called me unreasonable but I think on Twitch maybe in comparison to the average person typing on Twitch the average keyboard warrior I am actually somewhat measured and somewhat reasonable and I would kind of ask the hard questions and Jack Danger is one of these people who doesn't stray away from tough questions he actually leans into it and gets excited about being asked these questions and quite often would respond to my questions in chat. And sometimes I felt like, you know, I had kind of a little special bond with my boy Jack because sometimes there would be two, three, like just on a regular Tuesday night watching him just play an old game from the 80s, there'd be three, four hundred people watching. And I felt like sometimes like almost half the questions I asked got answered, which is like an unreasonably high percentage. Again, now Jack knows that I, for the most part, am a hardcore pinball nerd who eats, sleeps and breathes pinball. He knows when I'm asking the questions because I want to further pinball because that's how much I love pinball. In fact, I've told this as a joke, but it's not funny. I did it again last night. When I'm dreaming, nine times out of ten, before I got back into pinball ten years ago, a decade ago, before I started, I'm almost ten years into covering this sport, this hobby, this collectible, whatever you want to call it. I'm almost a decade into it. and nine out of my ten dreams before that were about roller coasters.
    14:33
    I love roller coasters. Every single year I got the membership for going to Canada's Wonderland. So almost every weekend it was like, oh, there's nothing going on this weekend. There's no big concert. You know, there's nothing really cool or fun to go to. So what will I do? I will go to Canada's Wonderland. And I used to just wake up and I would always be in a new amusement park that my brain designed or a new ride that my brain designed or a ride was broken and I was cliffhanging there. And nowadays because I gone from eat sleep and breathe amusement parks now I eat sleep and breathe pinball And so now when I wake up it usually a pinball machine that doesn exist It almost always a theme that doesn exist If it's a theme that does exist, the pinball machine doesn't look anything like it does now. And if the pinball machine does look anything like it does now, it's like one main mech in the middle is the same, and everything else is different.
    15:22
    Now, if I fall asleep specifically thinking about playing a particular machine, sometimes during the first part of my dreaming, it does look similar to that. But usually I'm just walking around arcades. And usually the arcades are all different and all unique and all like a new town, a new place. And that's just so fun and it's so unique. And I guess why I'm going on this tangent about dreaming it is that I would be shocked if Jack Danger, Keith Elwin, and Eric Menyer are any different than me. They most likely eat, sleep, sleep, it's the middle one, and breathe pinball. So while they're awake, while they're asleep, while they're taking a deuce, even an upper decker if they really wanted, while they're eating lunch in the famous Stern, you know, cafetorium with 550 microwaves, okay? While everybody's in there, they're probably still pinball brained. And that's why I know that you never need to worry about the code on a Jack Danger machine or an Eric Menger machine not being completed. Because these mofos eat, sleep, and breathe pinball so much, it makes me look like a joke. And I probably spend 50 to 60, maybe 70 hours thinking, playing, doing content, watching Twitch, watching YouTube, listening to other pinball podcasts. so if you're thinking about buying Harry Potter go find it on location and when you play it before you pay for it if the code speaks to you and you like the code and it's maybe if you think it's too complicated for you you can figure that out at home but if you like the way it plays now you're just going to love how it plays later because Eric will listen to feedback and Eric and team will work on it, and Joe Katz and everyone else over there. Will it ever be as good as an L1 coated machine? Probably not. I'm not going to lie to you. But do I think it could still be the best coated ever JJP? Yes. Are some people still going to get slightly annoyed by the fact that you might hear an incredible Mark Silk call out, then right after that, kind of a little bit quieter, you might hear Hermione say, Wingardium Leviosa. I personally wouldn't care, but some people would. And if you're one of those people, this again drives home my point. Play before you pay. This is the way. Because when I watched Kaneda's live stream of him at Automated playing Harry Potter, all I could see was the joy in his face. Okay. This man could go around and pull out the plug of every above ground pool in his neighborhood and watch the children and the dogs everywhere cry. And he wouldn't get that much joy. No, I'm just kidding, Chris. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. everyone take it easy shots fired no I'm just kidding I jokingly joke around with my frenemies we make sure we don't take the jokes so far and I think that you can all agree joking about pulling the plug out of an above ground pool is not taking it too far all right so anyways I love you I'm in love with you and I'm just gonna say it right now now most of you listening agreed with me and that's why you listen to me but for the ones who didn't shame on you shame on you you should be ashamed of yourself. You should be discouraged for not believing, oh ye of little faith, not believing in Jack Danger and the fact that Jack Danger can fix this and will fix this. And this man probably is losing sleep at night to try to fix it. And he's not a coder. He's a pinball designer. He's maybe a coder second or third or fourth down there, but you can't make the man help with all the animations, help with all the sound, help, you know, he can't do everything. So Uncanny X-Men is a machine that's due for a code update. And boy, it sounds like they're going back to page one and starting all over. So this is going to be exciting for you X-Men owners who were patient and measured and calm and relaxed and didn't panic. Okay, don't panic. For those of you who didn't, guess what? You're going to get a brand new machine. You got to try the old code. Now you get to try the new code. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like my son did an update on his phone and he said it felt like he has a brand new phone. It's a five-year-old phone. It's like a top-of-the-end whatever Samsung, but he did the update and it feels like a new phone. This is going to feel like we have a new X-Men game. And for those of you not wanting to, you know, a little discouraged about Potter, the worst part about Potter is that the code still has a ways to go. I believe in Eric Menyer. I believe in Jersey Jack. I believe in Jack Danger. And you should too. Until next time, pinball nerds, don't be discouraged by new code. Be patient and have faith. Until next time, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe. Uncanny frickin' X-Men!