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Episode 23 :: The Electric Bat Cast

Electric Bat Cast·podcast_episode·40m 5s·analyzed·Feb 5, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Electric Bat reveals 2024 top-earning pinball games; Pulp Fiction #3, Godzilla #2, with discussion of game performance and arcade operations.

Summary

Electric Bat Arcade hosts Kale and Rachel discuss 2024 year-end earnings data for their 65-machine arcade, revealing top-performing pinball games and community engagement strategies. They address mailbag questions about arcade operations, pinball mechanics, community building, and designer preferences, while previewing Rachel's upcoming Dungeons & Dragons-themed tournament series.

Key Claims

  • John Wick, on the floor for only 5 months of 2024, ranked #6 in earnings; extrapolated for full year it would have ranked #4

    high confidence · Rachel's compiled earnings data for Electric Bat Arcade's 65 pinball machines

  • Elton John is the best-earning Jersey Jack Pinball machine and would be recommended for location operators

    high confidence · Rachel's earnings analysis; Kale's confirmation and recommendation

  • Pulp Fiction was only on the floor for about 2 months (end of February onward) in 2024 but still ranked #3 in earnings

    high confidence · Rachel's earnings data

  • Stern flipper assemblies cannot simply be swapped with Spooky flipper assemblies to improve feel; the snap/response difference is due to programming latency, not mechanical parts

    high confidence · Kale's technical explanation in response to Pixel Pete's question

  • Free pinball nights devalue the product and should never be offered as a business strategy

    medium confidence · Kale's strong opinion in response to Bonnie Bear's community-building question

  • All major pinball coil manufacturers send sleeves with new coils; Marco Specialties confirmed as one example

    high confidence · Response to MNRetroGamer's question about coil sleeves

  • Stranger Things had a poor initial reception but received massive code improvements that boosted it to #4 earner at Electric Bat

    high confidence · Rachel's earnings analysis

  • Chris Franchi would be the ideal artist to create a definitive He-Man pinball machine, with an art package potentially already in existence

    medium confidence · Rachel's response to Team Low Prices question; implies knowledge of existing Franchi He-Man art project

Notable Quotes

  • “It felt good yeah oh yeah it felt good um also i mean the latest new game was the metallica remastered i believe we're waiting for dungeons and dragons probably be there within the next couple of weeks”

    Kale @ ~6:00 — Indicates D&D is imminent for Electric Bat's floor; shows supply chain timeline expectations

  • “never give away anything free because it devalues what you do can you imagine if i went to um banana republic on free shirt day right you would only go for free shirt day”

    Kale @ ~23:45 — Strong business philosophy on pricing/value; applies to arcade operations generally

  • “The flipper feel has very little to do with what you're seeing under the play field. That snap that I think you're referring to has to do with the way that it is programmed. That is much further up the line.”

    Kale @ ~36:30 — Technical clarification on why flipper swaps between manufacturers don't work; addresses common misconception

  • “John Wick did not get onto the floor until May and still was the sixth highest earner And that also goes to show you what those contracts did... it probably would have been in the fourth place slot.”

    Rachel @ ~56:00 — Reveals impact of premium/location contracts on game performance; John Wick was significantly underestimated

  • “Elton John will be the highest earner for you. And I bet you can get a screaming deal on a used one.”

    Rachel @ ~62:30 — JJP recommendation for operators; suggests secondary market opportunities for specific models

  • “Pulp Fiction is three, and it didn't get on the floor until the end of February. So you really have about two months that we have no earnings for.”

    Rachel @ ~67:00 — Pulp Fiction ranking #3 despite late-year availability; strong performer trajectory

  • “The gamers... they have a certain vibe to them... if people get upset because they drained and are pissed off about it... they're the ones that kind of look foolish right”

    Kale — Arcade operator perspective on customer behavior and community self-regulation

Entities

Electric Bat ArcadecompanyKale HernandezpersonRachelpersonChris FranchipersonBrian AllenpersonJohn WickgameElton Johngame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Free promotional game nights devalue product and business model; only viable for alcohol-focused venues using pinball as door attraction

    medium · Kale's strong opinion against free nights; caveat about alcohol-focused arcades using freebies for different business model

  • ?

    business_signal: Premium/location contracts dried up temporarily, likely due to programmer resources allocated to 'race' (Stern Pro Circuit) features

    medium · Rachel notes contracts 'kind of dried up for a little bit, probably because the programmers were working on the whole race thing'

  • ?

    community_signal: Rachel implementing D&D-themed tournament series with character progression across 4 tournaments leading to D&D pinball launch; includes physical prizes and RPG integration

    high · Rachel's detailed description of planned D&D tournaments with pin-golf mechanics, character building, final dungeon crawl with permadeath

  • ?

    event_signal: Rachel planning to implement voice-recorded mailbag questions to add personality and international community voices to podcast

    high · Kale and Rachel discussing new format for under-1-minute voice recordings from listeners worldwide

  • ?

    competitive_signal: John Wick proved significantly more valuable than internet critics claimed; contracts dramatically impact location earnings; extrapolated to #4 rank if full-year availability

    high · Rachel's earnings analysis showing John Wick #6 despite May start date; mathematical extrapolation indicating #4 placement

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.120

0:00
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to welcome back to the electric back cast. My name is kale. I'm rachel and today on the show We're going to have the year-end earnings rachel has compiled all the data and you can hear what happened and what was that? 2024 2024 the top earners of the entire year. That's going to be something else We're also going to talk about who is the best pinball artist to do a hit he man pinball machine and why doesn't spooky use stern flippers all coming up next on the electric bat cast all that and more today's episode of the electric bat cast is brought to you by stern pinballs insider connected head to stern pinball.com to sign up today marco specialties everything pinball pinball parts and more at marcopinball.com And Game Room Goodies. Check out GameRoomGoodies.com for new and used pinball machines, arcade games, jukeboxes, pool tables, and more. And now, the Sherlock and Watson of pinball, Rachel Bess and Cale Hernandez.
1:10
Rachel. All right, folks, what's happening? We're here. Sorry about that. Moving the mic around a little bit. what's coming up at the bat any new games what what's the latest game we've we've added we put adam's family on the floor two nights ago adam's family an absolute classic that was the first game that one was the only game that i've ever had any like weird twinges about putting out on the floor that's like the only game that i'm sentimental about it was the first game that i bought for me and uh it was it was i had some feelings from when it went out onto the floor it felt good yeah oh yeah it felt good it was also like you know it's probably like how people feel when they send their kids off to college or something yeah yeah i can feel that um also i mean the latest new game was the metallica remastered i believe we're waiting for dungeons and dragons probably be there within the next couple of weeks and um judge dread we had it on the floor off the floor we uh it's a super fun game it's clean on the surface there are some we found some very bizarre wiring issues in it uh that someone at some point had done before we got it and one of the um the fliptronics board is hacked beyond repair looks like they blew some things on it yeah they lifted some traces when they tried to fix some things at some point so We've got a new board on the way, and that will be back out on the floor as soon as we undo all of the wiring from before. Good job, and great troubleshooting with you and John Schappel helping us out, finding that weird wiring. Yeah. Yeah, they did some weird stuff.
@ ~42:00

  • “You want that visual representation. You can't rely on people just – it's not the same feeling whenever they have to do steps to check it on their phone. It needs to be mounted.”

    Rachel @ ~30:00 — Practical guidance on Insider Connected leaderboard display strategy for community engagement

    • Pulp Fiction
    game
    Godzillagame
    Stranger Thingsgame
    Batman 66game
    Deadpoolgame
    Bond 60thgame
    Elviragame
    Metallica Remasteredgame
    Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eyegame
    Judge Dreddgame
    Lost World Jurassic Parkgame
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Marco Specialtiescompany
    Game Room Goodiescompany
    Stern Insider Connectedproduct
    Forbidden Realmsproduct
  • ?

    design_philosophy: Chris Franchi positioned as ideal artist for He-Man pinball; Rachel implies existing Franchi He-Man art package may already exist

    medium · Rachel's expert assessment and comment 'we believe that that art package may currently exist'

  • $

    market_signal: Elton John (JJP) identified as best-earning Jersey Jack machine; used market opportunity suggested with 'screaming deals' available

    high · Rachel's earnings analysis and recommendation for operators seeking JJP machines

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Rachel is Masters of the Universe superfan and professional artist with current exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum; dual expertise used for He-Man pinball assessment

    high · Rachel's self-description as 'resident Masters of the Universe super fan and artist' with current Phoenix Museum of Art show

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern's flipper feel advantage is programming/latency-based, not mechanical parts; manufacturers cannot simply swap flipper assemblies to match feel

    high · Kale's technical explanation dismissing notion that Spooky could match Stern feel through flipper part substitution

  • ?

    product_concern: Judge Dredd inherited wiring issues and blown fliptronics board from previous owner; requires board replacement and wiring repair

    high · Kale and Rachel's discussion of bizarre pre-existing wiring hacks and lifted traces on Data East fliptronics board

  • ?

    product_strategy: D&D: The Tyrant's Eye expected on Electric Bat floor within 'couple of weeks' of recording (early February 2025)

    high · Kale: 'we're waiting for dungeons and dragons probably be there within the next couple of weeks'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Stranger Things reputation recovered significantly through code improvements; initially disliked but became #4 earner through patches

    high · Rachel: 'A game that was not favored when it first came out and then had some massive code improvements and is the fourth highest earner for us'

    • 2:58
    It looks like they were trying to send power to things in very creative ways. Yeah, like they were trying to end run like transistors. Oh, well, we blew this, so if we just tie these five things together, that might do it. It seems like one of those cases where someone knew just enough about electronics to be dangerous. Yeah, somebody did not have the correct parts with them, so they're like, well, we'll just cut all of these things, and I can still get it running for you, sort of. And it was experiencing some intermittent flipper issues, and now we know. Like they just wouldn't work. Well, they would work fine, and then they wouldn't work at all. So, yeah, we've traced it. It'll be back out soon. Fantastic. That's the new games. Tournament's coming up. Of course, we have Tuesday. Oh, yeah. Every Tuesday at 6.30. Still 6.30, still every Tuesday. League night. And then the last Sunday of every month, Chewy's World Famous All Classics Bounty Knockout Tournament. Except not this month. Let's not add any more to that. This month, it's not the last Sunday because that conflicts with the SPF. So it's actually going to be, I believe it's the 16th. It's the Sunday before. Interesting. I might have to change that on the website because when I updated it for 2025, I think I put it on the last Sunday. I'll do it right after we're finished recording the latest episode of the Electric Badcast.
    4:21
    Also, thank you so much to our sponsors, Marco Specialties. If you type in EBA150 at checkout, what do you get? You get free shipping on any order over $150. Man, we love that. And thank you so much to Stern, Insider Connected. A lot of cool race stuff still going on. But what's really cool, February badges. Yeah, they're out. They're out. Get those things. Check Stern, social media, Facebook. They're even on TikTok.
    4:54
    I'm not really on TikTok. I'm on Instagram most of the time, so I see all their stuff. I got to get on TikTok. I mean, I have a TikTok. I just don't like use TikTok. TikTok's still here. Yeah. Gone, here, gone. We'll see. Yeah, yeah, we'll see. Cool. Oh, and also Game Room Goodies. Oh, can't forget them. Supplies us with all these great games and has excellent white glove service. Yeah, we love them. And customer service. Yeah, thank you so much. Game Room Goodies, if you want anything for your game room needs, they have it. Not just pinball machines. They have everything you can think of. If not, they'll find it for you. Yeah. Yep, great people.
    5:30
    Let's go on to, do you want to do the year-end thing or do you want to do a few mailbag things? I want to talk about my Dungeons & Dragons tournaments. What? I don't even know about your Dungeons & Dragons tournaments. So this is, you're not talking about the Dungeons & Dragons Stern Pinball Machine Release Party. No. This is your own thing. This is separate from that. Tell me all about it. Okay, we've already talked about how excited I am about D&D as a pinball machine. Because I really like the theme, and I think the theme lends itself very well to pinball, right? But it lends itself so well that I want to do all of these other Dungeons & Dragons themed tournament kind of leading up to the launch party. I'm not sure when exactly these are all going to fall, but keep your eye on social media. We're going to probably do one a week starting in a week or two. And these are going to be regular. They're going to be pinball tournaments, not regular. They'll be pinball tournaments that are based on building characters for a Dungeons & Dragons longer event. Now, you did a beta test of something like this with a few friends. Is this a spinoff of that? Is this the same thing? So that is – the thing I did, the beta test, was Forbidden Realms, which is a whole other Dungeons & Dragons-based thing that I did, that I started on long before we knew that Dungeons & Dragons was going to be a pinball machine. And this is a way that I think that I'm going to expand on that beforehand and give people a nice, easy entry into the world of role-playing games, if that's not something that they already do. So let me give you an example of one of these tournaments, so that the people kind of understand what I'm talking about. So one is going to be based on pin golf. So it's going to have some scoring that's similar to pin golf. And instead of getting a hole in one, hole in two, your par, all that, you're going to be taking hits. Very cool. So you're going to start off with a pre-built character.
    7:44
    So I'm going to provide that. Nobody needs to do that. Do you choose your class or how does that work? You're going to choose, but you're only going to choose between three classes, so it's not going to be complex. Right. And so this first tournament, pin golf-based, pin golf style, is going to determine the armor that you have going into the next one. So each tournament is going to build on the tournament before it, and they're going to be slightly different styles, but it's going to be very easy and you're going to be building a character throughout the duration of these four tournaments um you can also play them individually so you don't if you know if you miss one of them it's no big deal you can you can hop in on the next one but uh i think it's going to be fun we're going to have some cash prizes we're going to have some how cool some physical prize prizes so so it'll be really fun these are not going to be ifpa because we're doing some weird things. Not yet. Oh, yeah. We'll talk to Josh. Josh, we're going to have a separate category of things that Rachel likes to do. Yeah. And we're even going to get some minifigs involved in the tournaments. It's going to be a lot of fun.
    9:01
    This is very exciting. Will there be a chance for me to hang out on the outskirts of the village and just grind my character so I can raise the hit points or whatever? Actually, sort of, yes. So the final one, I'm not giving anything away here, but the final one is going to be an actual dungeon base. So we're going to be moving your character around in a dungeon. And you can either, you can try and grind to get more points, but you also, there's some risk there, right? You can die. You can actually die. Wow. So in this Rachel's Adventure extravaganza, you can die, and then you'd have to start from a new character. So you can try and grind skeletons or something like that, or you can try and go for big bosses, get more points, and win bigger cash and prizes. This is incredibly exciting. And judging from the people the select few who got to demo your first run of this game they were excited about it Yes They were really into it The gamers The gamers The game The role players The role players the pencil and paper, the dice people. That's... Yeah. I am excited about that. You want to get into a little mailbag? Yeah, let's do some mailbag. Now, before I do this, I want to start something new.
    10:19
    I want... And I have plenty of questions. I have almost enough questions for two shows. So you have plenty of time to do this. I want to get some recordings from people so we can sort of get some personality in there, get to know the people more. So if you could send in your questions, let's keep them under one minute. And you can even just use your phone. You can do a voice recording and then email it to electricbatarcade.com. And also, if you know how to do it, I've never done it before. I'm sure there's a way to do it. You could also put the audio file on Discord in the Batcast channel. Yeah, if you can figure out how to do it, that's totally... I think this would be fun. Yeah, I think it would be great. And then we could listen to you guys, because we have people from all over the world, right? We're going to have some Australian accents, Minneapolis accents, you know, what else? Some New Orleans, how y'all are, right? Yes. But we want to hear from you. Yeah, so send us your voice recordings, your questions, and please keep it under a minute. And I think this will be a lot of fun. Yeah, I want to hear you. Yeah. I got that idea from Prof G because that's what he does on his podcast. Yeah. It's fun to listen to that. Okay, so let's get to the mailbag here. First question is actually from Australia. And J.D. Seinfeld. Is that how you would pronounce that? Yeah, it looks like J.D. to me. Looks like J.D. if not, you know. That's a good reason to do an audio. Yeah, it's a good reason to do an audio thing, yeah. So we don't mispronounce your name. Excuse me. So, hey, guys, loving your podcast from down under. Love hearing the stats and thoughts on games. I don't have an arcade and I know you use tokens, but I have a question. Is there a standard token size that does not conflict with a coin of the U.N.'s currency? So people have to use a token and not cheap out with a penny, a nickel, a dime or a quarter. Well, if people could put a penny into our coin slots and start a game, we would be in big trouble. Yeah. So the way that the coin mechs are, they are specific to a particular token size. Or in our case, they take a particular token or a quarter. So there is no cheaping out. There's nothing. Right. Like they would just reject anything else. So and the particular mechs that we install take tokens and quarters. Right. Which is cool. Yeah. Yep. And Canadian money gets hung up on a magnet. Yeah. There's all kind of what would you call them? Safety switches and what have you. Yeah. Canadian quarters are magnetic. Yeah. Who knew? Yeah. You find out real quickly after you have an arcade. Yeah. There you go. Hope we answered your question. If not, send us a voice recording. We'd love to hear from you.
    13:14
    Moving on. This is from Bonnie Bear via Discord. Okay. Question for the Batcast. You wrote to the right people, Bonnie.
    13:27
    How would you look into building a pinball community where there is no existing pinball locations? I love this. Starting from scratch. I recently rounded five machines in a college town, and there is no other pinball locations within 50 miles. Sounds like you have a monopoly. I like the sound of this.
    13:48
    I've noticed I've gotten regulars already, but for many, it's a concept. Should I try something like a high score prize through Insider Connected, free pinball nights, or something else? um i want to touch on i know you have the same feeling because uh one thing that stands out to me free pinball that's why i was getting ready to interrupt you and say let me answer the free pinball nights part i don't care what business you're in never give away anything free because it devalues what you do can you imagine if i went to um banana republic on free shirt day right you would only go for free shirt day i would only go if they had a scheduled free shirt day you would only go for shirt day yeah yep and hope i hope they have your size yeah if i went to trader joe's on free egg day free oh man so and i know there are some arcades that do this though i've heard it you know they're trying to drum up business by giving away something for free it completely devalues your product and you should never ever do that and the only arcades i've ever seen doing that are really trying to get you in the door to drink their alcohol because that's where those arcades are making the majority of their money and they're just using the pinball machines as a as a quick way to get you in the door right um it doesn't in my opinion tend to build community even because it's just building people looking for freebies and then they'll go correct you know this in this case they're not going anywhere else 50 miles away but 100 but i agree 100 to never ever ever give away your product i'm glad like minds think alike isn't that what they say that's exactly what they say yeah um and then should i try something like a high score prize through insider connected absolutely yes yeah do that get people used to logging into the machines hearing the achievements go off, get that dopamine running, and then they get to see their – oh, that's the last score I got was this. I want to try to beat that score. Absolutely get them using Insider Connected. And put up a monitor so everybody can see it. You want that visual representation. You can't rely on people just – it's not the same feeling whenever they have to do steps to check it on their phone. It needs to be mounted. Right, and TVs are cheap. It doesn't have to be a gigantic TV. You can get one for like $100. And then add a Yodeck. Learn how to use that. It's really simple to use and works very well with Insider Connected. Not only that, you can schedule slides within a Yodeck so they can advertise when your next tournament is. And that's the last part of this, a consistent tournament.
    16:40
    Now, if you're just getting started, I don't know if a weekly is going to work, maybe at every other week. Or monthly even. Yeah, monthly. If you can wait that long. But you would start – I would just start with my friends, right? Just call five or ten of my friends and say, hey, this is what we're doing tonight. Right, right.
    16:59
    And that's how you build a community. And it's not going to be an overnight success. If it is, fantastic. Good for you. This is going to take taking all of these things we're talking about and being consistent about it and just stick with it. And, of course, using social media to pump up these tournaments. Do some videos. Explain how cool it is. Like, this is a great way to meet people because you're going to be playing a game with three other people. You're probably going to do that for, I don't know, three rounds, four rounds. We do five rounds. Yeah. But, I mean, you could just do three rounds. And don't be afraid to look weird on the Internet on videos. Right.
    17:37
    You've really taught me that it's totally fine for me to be as awkward as I am on TV. Absolutely. Just be yourself. Like I don't care when anybody else does. I don't think they care if I look weird. So really put yourself out there and be a friendly person and be somebody that people want to hang out with. And you will build that community. Right, right, right. And if all the different social media channels, they can be overwhelming, just hit Instagram, really. I mean, that's the one. That's the popular one. That's the sweet spot for the age group of people playing pinball. But I will say with Facebook, you can invite people. So, I mean, a lot of people get way too many Facebook invites to pay attention to any of them. But like while you're starting out, it certainly doesn't hurt to send people that Facebook invite. Right. Here you go. Thank you so much. Bonnie Bear, hopefully we answered your questions. If not, send us a voice recording and we will play you on the Electric Bat Arcade podcast.
    18:38
    Hooper Triplet via Discord. Hooper Triplets has sent us a good bit of questions. Yeah. Thank you for sending. Another question is, here's a short one, more of a small business question than an operator question. Does the management slash ownership of social media entities weigh in on your decisions to use them? It doesn't. Zero. I don't pay attention. Not at all. And I know what you're getting at, especially now, people are like, oh, you know. I see a whole stream of, I'm going to blue sky. Yeah, Elon's crazy, so don't use X, and now Muck Zuckerberg's crazy. Muck Zuckerberg. Muckerberg. So don't use Facebook and Instagram. I really don't care. These are tools for you to meet people. Right. And the ownership, guess what? You want people of all different beliefs to get together. That's the fun of pinball. That's right. You've got far right people. You've got far left people. You've got raging moderates. Yep. You got all of those people together having a great time. And if you effectively edit out groups of those people by only going on Truth Social or only going on Blue Skies, is Truth Social still a thing? I don't know. Well you get the gist right Then you only appealing to such a narrow group of people And you don want to do that Pinball is for everybody Make make friends like that how we all you know make the world better not by chopping down our friends list and certainly yeah yeah yeah so for us no nope we want to we like it as a tool it like finding out the guy that created the wrench is racist and now we have to throw out all of our wrenches yeah so uh no we use we use these tools i don't know we need to jamie pull it up uh okay let's move on to pixel pete via discord has oh i like this one has anyone replaced spooky flipper assemblies with a current stern flipper assembly any issues with that electrically i love looney tunes and the flipper works great but i really prefer the solid sound of stern flippers Thanks for answering my question. Well, if it was that easy. Spooky would do it. Spooky would do it, right? I'm sure Jersey Jack would do it. Like the flipper feel has very little to do with what you're seeing under the play field.
    21:10
    It has, that snap that I think you're referring to has to do with the way that it is programmed. That is much further up the line. Right. And changing the flippers around isn't going to do anything beneficial. Right. Because those flipper mechs are basically all the same. Yeah, those flipper bats, you're already using the same flipper bats. The different feel and what you're really feeling there is latency or lack thereof.
    21:43
    Stern's just been using this system and perfecting it. They have such a head start over everybody else.
    21:50
    It's not that easy just like swapping out some parts to get that fantastic stern flipper feel. Absolutely. Yeah. So I don't think anyone's done that. Nobody's. To answer your question. Maybe someone's done it, but then they've been very disappointed at how their labor did not pay off. Yeah, yeah. Right on. Thank you so much, Pistol Pete, for the question. Pistol Pete? Pixel. It's Pixel Pete. I'm sorry. Pistol Pete's was where we went to. That was the pizza shop. here when when i was growing up oh really yeah like i think it was the um it's they had the animatronic guys oh left over so i had i had showbiz yeah so showbiz was bought out by pistol peets out here how about that so we had both well that gets my spurs jingling and jangling some arizona history tell you what let's move on to blake via discord okay do you have to deal with people who have tantrums or are people chill for the most part it seems like running an arcade would be fun but i'm nervous about rowdies we we don't really have problems we don't really have problems and if you're thinking about running an arcade that is not going to even be on your top 10 of issues like i think for the most i mean arcade people are like really cool i mean all of our friends around here that run arcades there's not no if somebody's getting stabbed or anything not even once like gamers gamers have a certain vibe to them yeah and if people get upset because they drained and are pissed off about it like you know if they make a scene about it they're the ones that kind of look foolish right 100 100 we we haven't had we haven't had any issues and uh I don't think we will. Thank you very much, Blake.
    23:43
    Now, we're going on to MNRetroGamer. Minnesota. Via Discord. I recently had to get a new coil for my Lost World Jurassic Park pinball machine.
    23:58
    I was told by a friend of mine who knows a lot about pinball that you need to get coil sleeves when you buy a new coil since they don't come with them. I didn't know this and replaced the coil and it seems to be working fine when I test it. Hopefully you put a coil sleeve in there. Do some companies slash manufacturers sell new coils with sleeves in them or should I take a second look to see if it needs a sleeve?
    24:25
    All manufacturers that I'm aware of send. Send it with a sleeve because you can't use it without the sleeve. Correct. So you would be really up a creek. Yeah. Yeah, and if you did get a coil without a sleeve, just call whoever you got it from. I know Marco Specialties sends you a sleeve with each coil, and I'm pretty sure everybody else does. So, yeah, if you didn't get one with your coil, just call customer service for whoever you sent it to, or just get them from Marco because I know they send them out.
    24:54
    You have anything to add to that? You need a coil sleeve. You have to use a coil sleeve. It's very important. Yeah, so now I'm thinking like, man, you really should open that up and make sure that you have one in there. Certainly. Yeah, yeah. Make sure you do have a coil sleeve in there. And I don't know which games you have. I know he has like a Black Pyramid and obviously a Lost World. But, you know, we just bought a whole bag of like your standard sleeves. We buy them 100 at a time. Yeah, because it's quick and easy just to change those things out. But we have another question here. Before we get to your fantastic year-end data, we'll tackle this one first. I don't know if I have some more, but we'll tackle this one right now. This is from Team Low Prices via Discord. Team Low Prices. Question for the Batcast.
    25:48
    After seeing Brian Allen's He-Man art, he just posted that recently on social media. Yeah, I saw that. Who is going to be able to top that?
    25:59
    Okay, so I obviously, as the resident Masters of the Universe super fan. And artist. And artist, that's true. And you have a show right now at the Phoenix Museum of Art. Phoenix Art Museum. Which is great. Yes. So you are the, like if I was an attorney. I am both. I would call you in as an expert and pay you very well to answer this question. Because I am both an artist and a Masters of the Universe super fan. And a pinball person. So I am... Triple threat. Wow. Okay. So here's how I would answer that. The Brian Allen stuff was very, very cool.
    26:33
    It looks like the cartoon. Well, it looks like there's so many different versions. Like a recent... A more recent version. The original version is what I think most of us, people of a certain age, remember. But even more importantly was the art that was on the packaging in the comics that was like the Frazetta-looking He-Man art. And who could do that? So I would say that Mr. Chris Franchi would be the one that could make the ultimate Masters of the Universe art package.
    27:11
    And we believe that that art package may currently exist. um that's yes so chris franchi he'd be my my personal pick if i was if i was gonna hire somebody to do that it would be him and that is the correct answer thank you i didn't realize i was being tested by somebody with less qualifications than me yes so there you have it But that Brian Allen stuff, that was very cool. I liked what he did.
    27:47
    So now are we getting into the 2024? Yes. And I'm excited about this because you compiled all this at the end of the year. Now we're into February. So I've been waiting a whole month. You haven't spoiled anything for me. You said I'm going to see some surprises. I said you would be surprised. And we have the January numbers, too. We'll save that for the next episode, which will be coming up much sooner. More content. I'm loving it. Yeah. I was surprised by this. So there are.
    28:24
    Let's see. How much should I give away? Let's just get right into it. Yeah. Dive into it. So 10th place, Elvira. And this is for the year. This is for the year. This is all of 2024. So I added together what everything made. Elvira House of Horse. Yep. And then less than $50 difference. So this was just barely edged out. Deadpool was number nine. Fantastic. What a great game. And then number eight, also just a small amount better than Deadpool, was Bond 60th. Wow. So these are all top 10 games.
    29:02
    Then number seven, we've got Batman 66. So still, how old is that game? Well, it was the first Spike 1. It's like seven years old, eight years old. I mean, it's first Spike 2. Yeah.
    29:19
    It's old. It's been out for a long time. Deadpool is also. I was working on Marco when that came out.
    29:26
    Yeah. So some of these games. Okay. Now we start getting into some interesting things. Those are all great games, and it's no real surprise that they made the top 10. So now in number six, we have a game that was only out on the floor for half of the year and still was the sixth highest earning game. Do you have any guesses what that might be?
    29:51
    Man. I narrowed it down for you. I'll give it to you. John Wick. So John Wick did not get onto the floor until May and still was the sixth highest earner And that also goes to show you what those contracts did Whenever we were talking about earnings reports and how much of a difference those made I think you're seeing it here. And I extrapolated some math and had it been on the floor for the entire year based on just what it earned this last January, it probably would have been in the fourth place slot. Wow. That's very impressive. So we need more of these contracts. We need more of these contracts. They kind of dried up for a little bit, probably because the programmers were working on the whole race thing. But even still, John Wick is a much better earner than what the small group of internet naysayers would lead you to believe. So I just think that that's really interesting. People enjoy the challenge of that game. Number five, this one is really going to blow your mind. It also was only on the floor for about 75% of the year. Is this Pulp Fiction? This is not Pulp Fiction. This is Elton John. Elton John. People, okay. It's the best Jersey Jack machine. By far. Hands down. Yes. No arguments there from people who have played all of them. And it was beautiful. And like everybody, even people that aren't into that type of music, they've heard this stuff on the radio. People were rocking out to it. It's a great game. It is a great game. Kudos to Steve. Yeah. Richard for creating that. Yeah. So if you are in the market for a jersey jack pin to put on location, Elton John will be the highest earner for you. And I bet you can get a screaming deal on a used one. Yeah, I think so. And that also, yeah. So even with that one only being on the floor for the amount of time that it was, and I did the math on that as well. And it actually would not have changed places because the differences between the 10th, 9th, 8th, those were getting only very small differences. Now we're getting into some bigger numbers. So number four, Stranger Things.
    32:31
    Also a game that's been out for a long time. A game that was not favored when it first came out and then had some massive code improvements and is the fourth highest earner for us. And this is out of, I think we have 65 pinball machines on the floor right now. Okay. So these are nothing to shake a stick at. Top three. This is the exciting part. Yeah. And a huge jump between fourth and third, like almost 50% higher. Wow. Pulp Fiction. Pulp Fiction is three. Pulp Fiction is three, and it didn't get on the floor until the end of February. So you really have about two months that we have no earnings for. So that one also, that one would have been even higher had we got it January 1st. Cool. Number two. Now this is the part where I want you to guess.
    33:33
    Let's see. This is also time for the audience to be shouting in their cars. well um do you have let's do it a different way is it godzilla it is godzilla that's the way we'll do it i got it you got it right yes godzilla was the second highest earning game really weird i thought you're about to tell me no you're wrong because godzilla is obviously number one i would have guessed it to be number one based on how it's always at the top okay so tell me about godzilla Godzilla earned a lot of money for us, and I love that game very much. And it's going on like 70,000 plays. Something like that.
    34:16
    Yeah. So that means that there's one higher than Godzilla. I know what it is. What is it? Galactic Tank Force.
    34:24
    It's not? It's not. Oh, okay. It's not Galactic Tank Force. It is another game that was not on the floor for even the entire year and still earned the most for the year. in that game is Jaws. It also came out in February. Wow. So we don't have any January earnings for it, and it still earned the top spot and out-earned Godzilla by enough that it matters. Boom, you just got Elwind. You got Elwind. Yep. Yeah, wow. So he has number one and number two. Mm-hmm. Nice job, Keith. And... We should send you a... Send him some flowers. Yeah, send you some flowers, Keith. And a card. Yeah. Thank you so much. Can't wait for his next one. There's a rumor about it. I don't know if it's true or not, but either way, we're here for it. Yeah.
    35:14
    Man, how exciting. Thank you for putting all that together. There were some great surprises. Yeah, it really, I had to go back and double check the numbers on some of those because I just couldn't believe some of those. I was very surprised that Elton John had earned as much as it did. And it really did. I think Elton John still may have the record for the highest first month. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I remember that. Good job. Thank you. Cool. Well, that sort of wraps it up. Yeah, let's wrap it up. Let's wrap it up because today we have to go set up for a tournament. We get to. Yeah, we get to. We get to do all this. We love doing this stuff. We're going to do something very cool. So after the tournament, I'm going to set up a rig, and we got approval from Carl to use the footage. I'm going to set up a rig where Surge, and if you haven't seen Surge yet, go check out some of our streams on Twitch. We started streaming some final series finals at Electric Bat. We did the Arizona State Pinball Championship, both open and women's. And Serge is like the GOAT commentator, the absolute gold standard. Pinnacle. Yes. So he's a lot of fun. Go check out his commentary on our Twitch stream. Check out the VODs.
    36:39
    But he is going to interview World Championship John Schaapel. And we haven't congratulated him on this podcast yet because I think that happened after. That's right. Man, a sincere, heartfelt congratulations for one of our very favorite people who we are lucky enough to consider both a friend and an employee. Yeah. John Schaupel, world champion. That's right. He won Classics at InDesk and won State the week before that and then won the series the week after that. So he's on a roll. You can't shape him. You shake him. You can shape him, but you can't shake him. He is the unstoppable John Shoppable. Yeah.
    37:23
    So anyway, after the tournament tonight, they were going to rewatch the last three matches in the Indis Classics Championship and do a director's commentary over it. So they're just going to interview, hey, what were you thinking here? Yes. Why did you do this and not this? And they're going to have a telestrator so they can draw things. That's going to be a really cool video. That's going to be sweet, right? So that will drop later this week. That will drop later this week. We'll record it tonight, and then I'll edit it and put it all together.
    37:56
    Yeah, so that's going to be a lot of fun. Stay tuned for that. If you want to send it, and don't forget, send us. We want to get some audio from you guys. Keep it under one minute. Keep your questions under one minute. And like I say, it's really easy. You can just record on your phone and then e-mail it to us or send it via Discord. If you're not on our Discord yet, go to electricbatarcade.com. click the podcast link at the top right i think or you hit the hamburger button if you're on mobile and then that will take you to a way to listen to uh podcasts wherever you know youtube or spotify what what have you and then there's also a link to join the discord well you got that all figured out yeah awesome thank you and you've been you deserve some congratulations as well for putting together an amazing streaming rig oh so we've got a lot more streaming coming up too so definitely give us a follow on twitch um if you want to do that free amazon subscribe thing link your amazon account then you know we get like three bucks that helps to start pay for some of the stuff to put together the rig to pay for a small percentage of the rig yeah right on well uh thank you for joining us we're gonna we're gonna take off we have so we have some work to do and uh we'll be back soon because we have some more questions but we want to want people to send in your audio.
    39:12
    Also, we'll do the January earnings report. That's what I was thinking of. January earnings report for the next time. Right on. Thank you for joining us. We are the Electric Bat Squad out of Arizona. Come see us in person. Valley of the Sun, the low desert of the great American Southwest. It's 82 degrees here today. Come visit us. That's right. Thank you so much to our sponsors, Marco specialties don't forget eba 150 at checkout put that code in save some money on shipping also game room goodies and then last but not least stern insider connected get these things connected it's gonna be a lot of fun go go try to get those february badges uh check out stern social media to uh learn all the details yeah cool we'll see you guys next time the bats are out that's out