They did the Monster Mash. It was a graveyard smash. It caught on in a flash. They did the Monster Mash. Happy Halloween everybody! Welcome to Canada's Pinball Podcast, October 31st! And we've got these spooky themes of Beetlejuice and The Walking Dead and nobody, nobody will take my money on Halloween! Are we going to see a surprise tonight? I think we might. I think we might see a little bit more of Beetlejuice at midnight. I think they're going to do something special, or maybe it happened last midnight, or would it be midnight at Halloween? That would be November 1st. But here we are on Hallow's Eve, and we've got two spooky themed games ready to go head to head. We've got in all original for the first time ever. Tim Burden's, Danny Danny Elfman's, Michael Keaton's classic Beetlejuice will be coming to the pinball world very, very soon. A lot of excitement around that. And rehashing a game that came out like 12 years ago, Stern Pinball batting second with The Walking Dead Remastered. Is it going to have show clips? Probably not. Is it going to be based on the comic book artwork? Probably not. What we saw so far were new animations based on the DMD animations. They were really great animations 12 years ago. And so we're probably going to get a new sort of LCD animated version of the Lyman Sheets classic. Neil McRae has ordered one in Ellie trim. He's back on the stern shill wagon, baby. It's just not the same when Neil disappears like he did on the Star Wars thread. So we also got this spooky little Winchester house game, 525. And now if you want one, it's only going to cost you an additional $5,000 for a spot. This is good. This is healthy for pinball. Y'all need to stop complaining when someone is willing to pay more money for our games. Isn't this what you want? To buy something that is so damn hot that someone will spend thousands more for it. Would you rather have it the other way? Do you want to keep buying $15,000 Godfather CEs and Avatar CEs and Toy Story 4 CEs for $15,000 and then you lose $5,000? Do you want to buy these $13,000 Stern LEs and then turn around and you can't get $8,500 for them in a year? Or would you rather spend $11,600 on a Winchester and all of a sudden it's worth $15,000 or $16,000 because they're never making more than $525,000? I want to congratulate David David Van Es on one simple thing. He's got a hot game. A lot more than 525 people want it. You know what he's not doing? 50 show games? Seriously, seriously, show games are going to become the new joke of 2026 because it's like, yeah, how many are you making? Well, we're making, you know, we're making 600. Yeah, but how many show games? That's going to become the new thing. Remember, show games was never in the vernacular or the universe of pinball collecting. And now it is thanks to spooky pinball. I don't really care. I don't really think it's going to matter much. As we know, So Beetlejuice is going to be worth a quadrillion dollars overnight when it goes on sale. Everybody knows that when you see this game, it is absolutely going to blow everybody's socks off. And if you look at the photo, I put it on Facebook. You can zoom in in that dark image. We see the topper. We see Beetlejuice's face there in the middle and the other characters on the side. So I think it's going to lift up a la sort of like Evil Dead style. So super cool to see that Beetlejuice topper start to take light. And here we are. Let's talk about what's going on around the pinball horn with everybody. How's that for a Halloween Canada spectacular? So first and foremost, obviously Beetlejuice. Obviously spots are impossible to get. Obviously a lot of people out there are trying to just secure one of these like 999 games or 80 show games and it's going to drop real soon. Did you see what Don did? Don did something really interesting. So he announced that I think the first people to email him or send him mail with the words undead, I think that's what it was. The first 20 people got invited to come to Spooky Pinball for a midnight launch of this game. OK, now, not only that, but if you made your way to Benton, Wisconsin and got in on and got one of those 20 exclusive invites, it also comes with a game spot. So you could actually show up if you make it there, have two thousand dollars. That's your deposit. You're getting a game. I feel like all us content creators are a little bit like Oprah right now. You get a game. You get a game. Well, you get a show game. Is the show game going to be worth more? Can you let the show games go, Kaneda? That's going to be super cool. And look, that's just in 14 days. So this thing is coming real quick. It's going to be here before we know it. And before that, okay, so we've got Spooky. We've got Beetlejuice. We're going to see The Walking Dead next week on the 4th. So next Tuesday, Stern is going to reveal The Walking Dead Remastered. What's interesting about the Walking Dead remastered is we've seen this before. I mean, obviously there's going to be 500 LEs. They're going to absolutely do the same thing they did with Metallica. What I'm curious about is more of the Spike 3 going to be in this game. Are we going to see the changes to the cabinet, not just the backbox? Will there be additional lighting that goes into this game? I don't know if Stern is ever going to do a price increase. I really don't. I don't think they can. They literally cannot turn the dial up any further. People are not going to spend more money other than Neil McRae on these Stern machines. So I think we're going to see 13 stick around for a while. Now, look, everybody knows. I feel like everyone's got the same sentiment. This game is not going to land the same way Metallica did. Also, pinball's just changed a lot since Metallica in this last year. I think the growing resentment against Stern is much larger now than it was a year ago. You have to remember after Metallica what great game did Stern Pinball give anybody in 2025 I just think everything they been coming out with continues to underwhelm everybody And so here we are a year later at the very moment when people are excited about Winchester They're excited about Beetlejuice. And all of a sudden now you're going back to the well again with The Walking Dead. And I'm just not sure. But there's always one reason why. Stern Pinball will always have a fighting chance with every new release. And they're going to get it right eventually. I don't think this company's done. I've been hearing great things about Transformers, which is next. I think that's going to be the game that really, really shows us that they can do something new and magical and amazing. I don't think they're dead. But here's where Stern can always win. How many people are playing Winchester's Mystery House by the end of the year? How many people are playing Beetlejuice by the end of the year? How many people are playing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by the end of the year? You get my point. Stern Pinball is going to announce on November 4th. By Thanksgiving, they can have over a thousand of these games out the door and being enjoyed by people. So that is where Stern Pinball will always be able to punch back. They are not a company that reveals and makes you wait and makes you wait even more and slowly you're going to get your game. I mean, some dude who's number like 400 on Winchester is not going to get his game until the end of next year. And by the time he needs to pay the 11-6 for his Winchester, there's going to be like two more Stern Cornerstones. There's going to be maybe a new game from Jersey Jack. We're going to be right on the heels of Back to the Future. We're going to be getting Raza. You know what I'm saying? It's like a lot of stuff is going to happen in pinball. And by the time he gets asked to pay for his game in full, you're going to have seen this game streamed for like six to eight months to the point where you might not even want it anymore. And that's the reality. That really is the reality. As excited as we are about these boutique games, when they only slowly trickle out, The reality is different than the FOMO and the hype that happens at the very beginning. Stern can make every single Winchester Mystery House in one week. That is the advantage that The Walking Dead Remastered has. Is they're going to be able to crank these things out and you're going to be able to have it in like a week or two. And the here and the now for these rich gentlemen who collect pinball, it does mean something. And Stern Pinball will eventually get it right. I really do believe that they're not ignorant to everything happening right now. They know exactly what's going on. They know exactly the vibes around their company. They're not tone deaf to all of it. If they were tone deaf, they'd be raising the price on The Walking Dead. They would be making a thousand The Walking Dead remasters. Now, for those of you who are like, well, they said they were never making another LE. they do not consider taking an old game and putting it onto the new platform, remaking of that LE. Like they're not making the same DMD, The Walking Dead. They're making a new Walking Dead based on that game that will have new artwork on a new platform. So in their mind, they found a little bit of a loophole in their own promise to never make more LEs that this is how they're going to do it. They did it with Metallica. Okay, so the big question is, do I think The Walking Dead remastered LE with only 500 units? Do I think it's going to sell out? Yes, of course it's going to sell out. Come on, gang. Where you been? It's still a great game. It's got Lyman Sheets on code. And there are so many people that are new to this hobby that want to buy new Stern games. I mean, I would much rather buy The Walking Dead Remastered, a game we know is great, instead of a Star Wars for $13,000, instead of a King Kong for $13,000. And we know, based on Metallica, these old classics that are getting brought back in LE form with everything enhanced, they've done well. They've done well in the market, and they will sell out. Do I think it's going to have the same frenzy as Metallica? I don't. I don't think it's as good of a game as Metallica. So I don't think it's going to be like these games are going to be going for like 17, 18 instantly the way Metallica did. But I think it's going to do all right. But it's just going to do all right. Remember, there's no pro. So it's $13,000 or $10,000 and that's it. Whenever I walk over a Walking Dead machine, it does feel dated though. It does. It just feels dated. It's like no matter what Stern does with this game, if you walk next to a Harry Potter and you put this game next to a Winchester or next to a Dune or next to like a Beetlejuice when it comes out, it's just gonna look really dated. Stern Machines, it's almost like no matter what they do now, it doesn't matter. Like Zombie Yeti can't illustrate this company out of a simple fact that their games are just looking cheap and they need to do more. And so I'm curious to see with The Walking Dead if they're going to add more sculpts. You know, if I were Stern and I'm looking at my old games, I'm looking at games like Batman, I'm looking at games like Ghostbusters, I would look at them and say, hey, where can we actually take areas of the game where it used to be flat plastic and where can we actually insert much nicer 3D sculpts and make more of a world under glass? A good example of that is Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters has a flat plastic firehouse The mod community made an incredible Like sculpted firehouse that could go there if i'm stern I would go to that mod maker and say hey We want to officially put this into the game or I would make my own But that's what I would be doing because remember they're taking games like the walking dead le was once like six grand And now you're paying double the price. So shouldn't everything in the game be like double as good, double as beautiful? Just everything should be twice as good. And I just don't think they're going to do that. I really think Stern thinks they can rely on artwork and a little plaque that says one of 500 and it doesn't even come with a topper. That's another thing. If the new CMO at Stern wakes up and does his job, and I mean this, Seth, George, everybody over there, this guy and all you guys wake up for $13,000, a game that was once $6,500, the walking dead LE should come with a topper. Stern needs to look at what Jersey Jack is doing, what Spooky's doing. You need to start including a topper on your machines for this much money simply because your package doesn't deliver enough for this much money. So we shall see. But you heard it here on Canada Pinball Podcast Even with all the negativity even with all the shoulder shrugging I do think the Walking Dead Remastered Elite will be a week one sellout simply because Stern will get this game to people. And remember, that's a global launch. All they have to find are 500 people in the world. And there are 500 people in the world that love their current Walking Dead Elite. There are more than 500 people in the world that love The Walking Dead in general who don't even have an LE. So they're easily going to sell these games instantly. And heck, I might even grab one. Maybe I'll grab one and scalp one. And then you guys will be so mad. How dare you do it, Kaneda? All right. So what else is going on in the pinball world? So we've got that happening over at Stern. I'm hearing great stuff about Elliot Elliot Eismin's Transformers. Can't wait to see it. You know I'm a big Transformer fan. and then we go over to Jersey Jack. It's just Harry Potter land, baby. They're at code 1.0. I was reading it. A lot of new like mini wizard modes going into the game and I think everyone's just kind of waiting on their Potter. There's no real other news happening other than we know Sonic is next and then there's that Ghostbusters rumor. I'm gonna find out more about this rumor but it's so far away if you think about it. I mean, it's like two years from now. The potential of Ghostbusters coming out from Jersey Jack Pinball. So we've got time. We've got a lot of time before that happens. So that's Jersey Jack. Let's go over to CGC. I'm seeing these Merlin editions are coming out of Medieval Madness and people are already flipping them and trying to get more money. The problem is this. They're going to make more Medieval Madnesses in 2026. They've already said that. They've sort of become the Medieval Madness company. I don't think anybody cares anymore. It's a good game. It really is a good game. But next to the modern machines, everybody knows this. This game will be a lot more boring than what we're now getting. Like we are getting just games with so much more in it. Medieval Madness is like the greatest location game from the 90s. Like that and the Addams Family. Oh, and by the way, I've been seeing this rumor because the greatest selling pinball machine of all time is the Addams Family. famous for selling 22,000 units. There is a rumor going around that Stern has sold 27,000 Godzillas. Do you believe this to be true? Now, obviously, they've been making Godzilla now for four to five years. Obviously, Stern can make 27,000 games easily with how many games they make a year. But I just don't believe that Godzilla is now the greatest selling pinball machine of all time. I think if they crossed that threshold, they would have announced something. It would have been a celebratory moment. Now, how many Godzillas do I think they sold? I don't, it's hard to guess. They just feel like they're always making premiums. They've got the 70th anniversary edition. Everywhere you go, you see a Godzilla. So yeah, I do think Godzilla might be the greatest selling Stern machine of all time. I think it knocked off maybe ACDC, maybe Metallica, Steve Ritchie's Star Wars. Those games are all up there. Ghostbusters probably sold a lot. So yeah, there's like a Godzilla everywhere you look. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a Godzilla in people's collections. So I'm assuming if I had to make a guess, probably more like 12 to 15,000 Godzillas would not surprise me. They're just everywhere. But like the rest of you, I would just love to know the real number. It would just be fun for a title like that. Why wouldn't they just say, hey, in total, we know we sold this many. I think Stern needs to start flexing a little bit and remind people how successful they really are. Because look, if you made the greatest pinball machine of all time, wouldn't that be a moment? Wouldn't that be a moment you'd want to actually pop the champagne and make it a celebratory moment for the organization and the team that worked on that game? All right. So CGC, do we think we're going to get like Mark Ritchie's halo? I don't know, man. I don't know what this company is going to do next. If I were a betting man, I think the next game from CGC is going to be the Twilight Zone. They have the rights to it. They have all the parts, Rick supplying them with all the Bally Williams stuff. And if CGC makes the Twilight Zone as good as they've been making the other remakes, yeah, it's going to do just fine. It's going to absolutely do just fine. And what I like about the CGC remakes that I don't like about the Pedretti remakes is one simple thing. They're simply going to remake Twilight Zone and just make everything better. They're not going to mess with the artwork. They're not going to ask Brian Allen to redo the Translight. I don't like taking a new artist to remake games that were famous for their iconic art packages like Totem and Theater of Magic and Circus Voltaire. You could do new art, but you shouldn't. But Pedretti Gaming is going to make that mistake. And it's the reason why the CGC remakes, other than they have such better quality than Pedretti. There's a reason why the CGC remakes are just always going to be the ones people want. And Rick has a little bit of a problem. He's given all the J-pop games, which would sell to the modern audiences. The issue with all the games, right? All these games, when you go back and play them now, compared to what's in pinball now, they just do feel dated as they should. The code's not nearly as exciting and the replay value's just not there. And it wasn't ever designed to be that game. It was designed to be in an arcade and to pull people away from arcade machines. That's why they're loaded with mechs. Yeah, you wanted to see what those physical mechs would do, but they were not there for replay value. They weren't there so you could own the game and bang on it forever. It's the same with the old arcade games from the 80s and 90s, right? They were there to give you like five to 10 minutes of entertainment. If you go and buy like 80s and 90s arcade machines and you put it in your house, you'll be bored in like a week. I love it when people go buy like a Ninja Turtles, you know, the four player game, and then they beat it once and they realize I don't ever want to play this again. And there is this like 500 pound thing sitting in their house that they don't even want to use ever again, you know, because you're not 12 years old and you don't have a pocket full of quarters and it's not the same when you're trying to beat the game as a kid with the money you have left it's different when it's on free play and you just keep hitting continue continue continue the games get old fast so that's what's happening over at cgc who else we got in the pinball world that we're forgetting about dutch pinball alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Melvin's marketing move has worked. I'm not seeing a lot of people put up their Alice spots for sale, but the real test will be come January 1st, how many people will ask for a refund, knowing that if they do, they are also losing their spot to be one of the first people to get back to the future So I think the move is gonna work I think they they going to end up making not 500 I think they going to make more like 450 Alice Maybe 50 people might want some money back. But then we're going to get right into Raza. There's 333 Razas. I've seen the game. It's really cool. Wait till you see the Translight. Something's happening on that Translight. I've never seen done before on a Translight. The topper is super cool. All the new sculpts are super cool. The magnets that are added to the game are super cool. You know, the only Achilles heel in Raza, in my honest opinion, is the code by Steven Bowden. I don't think anyone understands what Bowden was doing with that game. He had a website that explained the rule sets and even after reading it all, no one knows what's going on in the game. It's also a game where like, what the heck is even going on with the storyline. There's like zombies in an amusement park and aliens. Again, all weird stuff in J-Pop's head thrown into a blender. But that being said, with only 333 Razzas, and when you see this game, it's stunning. And yes, it is the Deep Root art package, but it's just being enhanced. And Matt Andrews, who does artwork, I think he's working on this one. It's absolutely stunning and just wait till you see the final package. I think you're going to want one. I do think you're going to want one. Again, it's meant for collectors and just someone who wants something different. They've moved the pin bar stuff that's on that screen into the apron. And so that's going to be really cool. It's going to be one of the first like interactive aprons like we've never seen before. So you know what? It's good. And then that's going to get us to back to the future. and then all hell's gonna break loose as everyone tries to cozy up with Kaneda to get one of those 88 super limited edition games. Yeah, good luck. Good luck, people. I bought 87 of them. You're not gonna be able to get one. If you think Beetlejuice is scalping for a lot of money come a week from now, Waits of Back to the Future has 88 SLEs. All right, so that's Dutch pinball. Who else is still making pinball machines these days? I'm not gonna go into the pinball brothers. Like they basically have to get these predators out the door. Nobody really cares. That game's not going to go up in value. I don't even know what's next from them, but I know that I don't really care. I haven't given me any reason to care, right? They gave us ABBA and they gave us what? Like Queen, the Alien game. Fine. Like Alien was like one of the best bangs for the buck ever. The Alien Ripley edition was like $7,900. $7,900 bucks. And then you're going to come out with Predator, which is like $12,000 without Arnold. It just doesn't work. It doesn't work. I don't think it needed to be a wide body. I'm so happy that Beetlejuice is a standard body game. I think standard body is the way to go, especially for gameplay. And so yeah, Pinball Brothers. Pedretti's going to come out with Toten sometime over the next few months. Again, probably March. But Toten with Brian Allen, art package. I'm just not excited. I'm just not excited. But maybe this is going to be better because the games are now running on the fast boards. So I think the feel and the quality is going to be better. I know Rick is going to supply them with the Bally Williams mechs. Look, if they can nail it, if they can really nail Toten and make it feel solid like a CGC game, there will absolutely be buyers for that game. But the issue with Toten just always remains when you own one with modern games in your lineup, you can beat that game in like 20 minutes if you're a decent player, and then there's nothing else to see. And it's kind of easy. And that's the issue with Toten. It's the issue with a lot of those games. They, again, were meant for 20 minutes of play in the arcade to go through everything. The replay value is just not there. And for those who have been like seduced by the mechs, yeah, they're fun. But man, trust me, they do get old after a while when the code just doesn't have more to achieve. So that's happening over there in Europe. Who am I forgetting about? Nothing happening with Home Pin. We got Turner Pinball, Merlin's Arcade, Chris Forever, the perpetual nicest guy in all the pinball. Hopefully one day he's gonna get a game that's built on a theme that people want. And this just isn't it. Because remember, like when you do Merlin's Arcade and you option it out, you're right at a price of a Stern premium. You're almost at the price of Beetlejuice. That's the unfortunate truth. How much is Merlin's Arcade with everything at it? It's like 9,500 bucks or something, right? And Beetlejuice is 9,999. So it's just not going to work. It's just not going to work. And he needs to figure out a way to find a theme. I mean, he should be going after themes like The Last Starfighter, Airwolf, maybe Knight Rider. I don't know, maybe the A-Team. Like really go after a nostalgic thing that wouldn't be impossible to get and make it. And show us that you can design a game. Because that's the other big part for Turner Pinball. I mean, Ninja Eclipse was original, but Jon Norris and this Merlin's Arcade, It's just like, I don't think these games are competitive enough for what is happening in the pinball world. Now, if the price was right, that's different. You're inching closer to 10 grand than you are five grand. And that's not going to work for games like this. And the problem with like $6,000 Turner machines, the problem with everybody now, even if you come in at that price point, man, you can go get all these like Stern premiums for around 6,000 now. Like everything is losing so much value. you can go get a dialed in for around $6,000 now. So you put dialed in next to Merlin's Arcade and that's the reality. Everybody, it's about to get crazy next week. It's about to get crazy. I can't wait to see it all go down. I wanna just ask each and every one of you to just relax when you watch people scalp games. It's gonna happen and you're gonna get triggered. It's fun though, it's fun. I think we need to stop complaining about this. Like you guys don't have a problem that dealers are making $1,000 or $2,000 every game they sell, right? They can make that every game they sell, but then a customer who tries to make money on top of it, he's not allowed to. Oh, come on, everybody. Come on. Like dealers and distros are kind of like scalpers too. It's just part of the free market and nothing you say is going to make that change, everybody. Beetlejuice, The Walking Dead. It's going to be a battle. A battle of two spooky themes right on Halloween. Isn't it good to be alive? Go trick-or-treating today with your friends and family and have a great Halloween. Kaneda out. I'm too mad to fall. I'm too mad to fall. I'm too mad to fall.