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Tshirts, Tough Times, and Tie-ins

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·49m 44s·analyzed·Jan 11, 2016
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Blockade hosts discuss merch, Arcade Expo, Stern's Vault releases, pinball's sustainable collector-driven future, and Stern app VR/multi-platform plans.

Summary

Chris (Shut Your Trap) and Jared Morgan discuss Blockade Podcast merchandise, the Arcade Expo event in Banning California with 750+ free-play machines, Stern's Vault/Legacy Collection re-releases (Spider-Man, Redd), the broader pinball resurgence as an analog/collector market phenomenon, and emerging details about the Stern Pinball digital app's planned multi-platform support including Oculus VR compatibility.

Key Claims

  • Arcade Expo will feature 750+ pinball machines set to free play for the entire weekend

    high confidence · Chris states this explicitly when discussing the event

  • A single private collector owns most of the tables at Arcade Expo; they've been in storage and were displayed as part of a Kickstarter-funded museum initiative

    high confidence · Both hosts confirm this; they discuss how the collector owned arcades and accumulated the collection over years

  • Stern is moving to LCD screens on their next table after Spider-Man, which will be Ghostbusters

    high confidence · Chris explicitly states: 'they're going to LCD screens. That's right. Which they said will be on their next table, which is going to be Ghostbusters.'

  • Stern had to move to a new facility because they couldn't produce machines fast enough to meet demand

    high confidence · Chris: 'they had to move to this new facility because they couldn't crank out the machines fast enough'

  • Spooky Pinball sustains production at 300 units per game and is opening a new manufacturing plant in Benton

    medium confidence · Jared states: 'Spooky—you know that they can do 3,000 units of the game. Oh, sorry, not 3,000, 300 units of the game' and mentions 'their new manufacturing plant that they're opening up in Benton there'

  • Marvel's licensing deal for Spider-Man re-release includes digital app rights, making Spider-Man available for the Stern Pinball app

    medium confidence · Jared speculates: 'they had to re-secure licenses... now they're no longer dealing with the movie license. They're just dealing with Marvel's license... The Stern app gets written into the contract'

  • The Stern Pinball app will support Oculus VR and be available on multiple platforms (not just mobile)

    medium confidence · Chris cites leaked information: 'it's trickled out that yes, they are going to support Oculus' and Jared references someone (Jody) who 'said that they're looking to get digital pinball out on all platforms'

Notable Quotes

  • “You're looking at limited edition runs and different product types and all that sort of thing.”

    Chris (Shut Your Trap) @ mid-episode — Highlights Stern's shift to tiered product strategy responding to demand

  • “I have a feeling that because of this collector market now and the way that the pinball companies have been positioning themselves, I think there's just going to be a steadiness. So if arcade use for some reason drops off again, the collector market will still keep these companies afloat.”

    Jared Morgan @ late-episode — Key analysis of pinball market evolution from cyclical to sustained collector-driven model

  • “Stern did the same thing with pinball, where it was like, Hey, it's our responsibility to try and keep this torch lit.”

    Chris @ mid-late episode — Analogizes Stern's role in pinball to Kodak's role in film—last player assuming responsibility for market survival

  • “They know that 300 is sustainable. So they're going to go, well, we're always going to be producing 300 games and we know that we can sustain that, and that's okay.”

    Jared @ late-episode — Illustrates sustainable production model: manufacturers understanding viable production volumes

  • “FarSight is these are not the droids you're looking for. Go about your business.”

    Chris @ late-episode — Instructs community to look to Stern Facebook for app information, not FarSight, suggesting FarSight lacks marketing control

Entities

Blockade PodcastorganizationChris Freebus (Shut Your Trap)personJared MorganpersonWizard Amusement.comcompanyArcade ExpoeventStern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanySpider-Man (Vault/Legacy)gameGhostbustersgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball opening new manufacturing plant in Benton; currently sustains 300-unit production runs per game

    medium · Jared: 'Spooky... they can do... 300 units of the game... with their new manufacturing plant that they're opening up in Benton there. But they know that 300 is sustainable.'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern forced to expand facility due to inability to meet demand; shift from struggling 3,000-4,000 unit annual production (early 2000s) to constrained capacity with tiered product lines

    high · Chris: 'they had to move to this new facility because they couldn't crank out the machines fast enough' and 'Back in the early 2000s when they were struggling to just do 3,000 or 4,000'

  • ?

    community_signal: Arcade Expo experiencing severe overcrowding on Saturday; Friday attendance manageable even for wheelchair users; demonstrates high community demand/engagement

    high · Chris: 'Jeff Strong... went on the Friday, and it was relatively... he didn't have any problem getting around... then I saw pictures of it on Saturday. It's a bitch... Couldn't even move.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Arcade Expo (Banning, CA) merged with 'It Never Drained' tournament into three-day event; 750+ free-play machines; single private collector owns majority of machines

    high · Chris: '750 plus pinball machines set to free play... It Never Drained... they're doing their tournament instead at this, making it a three-day tournament' and Jared: 'He owns most of the tables that are in there and has had them in storage.'

  • ?

    leak_detection: Stern Pinball app details leaking via insider (referenced as 'Jody'); community actively mining leaks from Stern social media, not official FarSight channels

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.149

0:00
Thank you. This is a Blockade Podcast with your hosts, Chris and Jared. wizard amusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rods easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration customization
0:44
Happy New Year! You are listening to The Blockade Podcast. I'm your host, Shut Your Trap, a.k.a. Chris Freelus. Joining me as always, my co-host, Jared Morgan. G'day, friendly listeners.
1:00
I thought I'd lost you completely there. You're having a little technical glitch getting started up today because for some reason Jared's camera didn't want to work. No, I don't know what's going on here at the moment. The pigeon's carrying the data. Ooh, now, now I was going to say, now it sounds like you're having a little satellite delay. I talk and then it takes a few seconds. Okay, we'll need to bear that in mind when you start trying to talk over the top of me.
1:25
You mean like I always do? I don't know, that's going to be tough for me. It'll be me doing a solo show with little interjections or something. That's okay. We'll figure this out. So, yeah, we took a little three-week vacation here. Yeah, that's right. um you know we needed to eat lots of turkey and um open some presents and stuff and there was unfortunately no pinball machine underneath my tree this year i know i wasn't really happy about that but you know what were you gonna do um who knows what 2016 has in store because because you really were expecting that to happen oh yeah absolutely my wife would actually be able to go out and source the pinball machine work out whether it was of respectable quality or just go down to AMD in Australia and just buy one in the box for me. Here you go. Here's a pinball. If you'd done that, I could tell you this much. I would still be dragging you on the ground.

Pinball demand has shifted from a cyclical 10-year burst pattern to a sustainable collector-driven market

medium confidence · Jared argues: 'because of this collector market now... I think there's just going to be a steadiness... the collector market will still keep these companies afloat'

Stern Pinball App
product
FarSight Studioscompany
Pinball Arcadeproduct
Kodakcompany
Pacific Pinball Museumorganization
Jeff Strongperson
Nick Baldridgeperson
Coast to Coast Pinballorganization
Pinball FXproduct
Jodyperson
Markperson
Redd (Vault/Legacy)game

high · Chris: 'Things have been leaking, obviously... he'd kind of let loose' and instructs community to 'turn your Sauron's eye of information over to the Stern Facebook page... FarSight is these are not the droids you're looking for'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Spider-Man re-license deal with Marvel (not Sony movie license) includes digital app rights; Spider-Man expected on Stern Pinball app

    medium · Jared: 'they had to re-secure licenses... now they're no longer dealing with the movie license. They're just dealing with Marvel's license... The Stern app gets written into the contract. So they have an agreement.'

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball market transitioning from cyclical 10-year boom/bust pattern to sustained baseline via collector market; enables sustainable production planning

    medium · Jared: 'because of this collector market now and the way that the pinball companies have been positioning themselves, I think there's just going to be a steadiness... the collector market will still keep these companies afloat'

  • ?

    announcement: Stern implementing LCD screens on Ghostbusters, the next title after Spider-Man Vault release

    high · Chris explicitly states: 'they're going to LCD screens... Which they said will be on their next table, which is going to be Ghostbusters.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern Vault re-releases (Spider-Man, Redd) feature improved playfield components (ruggedized ramps, thicker mylar/plastic) based on lessons from 15+ years of operator wear; same playfield layout as originals

    high · Jared: 'after this many years of people using them, they were like, Oh, this is what breaks... they've ruggedized ramps... they haven't changed the playfield layout'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern Pinball app planned for multi-platform deployment (not mobile-only) with Oculus VR support confirmed via leaks

    medium · Jared: 'People were worried the Stern app was only going to be on the mobile platforms... he was mentioning, Jody basically kind of said that they're looking to get digital pinball out on all platforms' and Chris: 'it's trickled out that yes, they are going to support Oculus'

  • ?

    technology_signal: FarSight engine requires significant architectural refactoring to support Oculus/VR at required frame rates (120+ fps); multi-platform mobile/console deployment technically complex

    medium · Jared: 'They would need to rewrite the engine... They would need to do some serious architectural refactoring with their engine... They would need to maintain overall 120 frames per second'

    • 2:28
    You're like, I got no time for podcasts. I'm playing pinball. See ya. So I will point out for those of you on Blab and watching at later points or whatever that I'm wearing. That looks good. You were worried about the size of the logo. That thing looks great. I love the size of it. Yeah, I don't know. It's still maybe a little large for me because it goes all the way down to the belly.
    2:57
    I don't know. What do you mean the camera's mirrored? Well, it is mirrored. You lie. Really? You were seeing the black backwards. How come it's not showing backwards to me? Interesting. we don't worry about that now that's a little too I'm not sure what settings those are in but yeah so anyway yeah I like the logo on the back I posted pics on Twitter of me wearing it so I like how the logo on the back or the words on the back showed up I got the extra large t-shirt I got the XL as well be aware it's um it's a it's a large extra well that way if it shrinks on wash you won't have to worry about it right like it'll be perfect fit that's true i that's true i have not uh put it in the wash so i don't know uh uh if that'll be a that would be an issue but the uh the quality of the print it feels pretty solid and the graphics came out nice so no overall i'm generally pleased so folks we are still selling these t-shirts uh just because you missed the first volley doesn't mean that you're going to miss anymore you can still go in and purchase them that is in case you didn't remember represent.com forward slash blockade logo t there oh blockade slash actually make sure we dash dash oh yeah because slash would be getting down the tree whatever calm that way i don't know if i'd like that very much so yeah anyway um but uh yeah i'm pretty pleased with it and i like the color and everything. I think the color looks good. I'm glad you threw out my design and went with the sort of like gray color shirt because I think that looks good. There's a lot of black shirts out there and I think having the gray just makes it look that little bit different and I like it. More importantly, now I have something to wear this Friday at the Arcade Expo in Banning, California. Banning.
    4:58
    Banning. Just uh you know just might as well call it the uh hell hole or something i don't know there's nothing like a warehouse out there right i think it used to be an industrial complex of some sort it's not a warehouse it's a solid building as far as i know i don't know i'll find out on friday um but anyway so yeah arcade expo uh 750 plus pinball machines set to free play yeah that's hard to take um Yeah, they're doing the entire weekend, but I'm taking the Jeff Strong approach. Jeff, as you know, used to podcast with us, but he doesn't anymore. He's got a bit of things to do this time.
    5:40
    Exactly, exactly. So anyway, he went on the Friday, and it was relatively – I mean, he didn't have any problem getting around, and he's in a wheelchair.
    5:51
    But then I saw pictures of it on Saturday. It's a bat chisel, I'm saying, on Saturday, man. Couldn't even move. It's nuts. Yeah, couldn't even move. From what I've heard. Yeah. The funny is, though... Because I've never been over there.
    6:03
    Yeah, you saw the pictures, too. So what's interesting is that everybody is piling on to this thing, which is kind of cool. I mean, I think that's what it was, you know, it's kind of what it should be. But there used to be, there was a tournament down here called It Never Drained in Southern Cal. and they're doing their tournament instead at this, making a three-day tournament too. I think Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Coast to Coast was talking with one of the Sharps about that and merging it in.
    6:36
    Yeah, so it was interesting to see why they did that. But yeah, if you haven't listened to the latest Coast to Coast yet, you can learn more about why they did that. Well, the last one that they did was at a bowling alley. So I think you can understand why they've... significantly more room to do this and better selection of tables, I'm sure. That's definitely good.
    6:56
    I'm curious to know what I'm going to see there, if I'm going to see anything new, because it's not really a showcase for new tables. From what I hear of all the show reports last time, it was a whole stack of very generously user-contributed pinball tables that people have trucked in. I think there is a standard set that they have access to. And I don't know where they get them from. It could be PPM.
    7:25
    No, it's one guy. It's one guy that owns the collection. That's why it's insane. He owns most of the tables that are in there and has had them in storage. Yeah, that's why the Kickstarter was such a big deal while they were trying to do this because he owned this whole collection. He'd just been collecting throughout the years. I think he owned arcades and stuff too. But most of them were just stacked in a warehouse and he wanted to display them and let people play them and kind of be a museum sort of deal. And so that's how this all came about. And so there's been a like last year, there was a lot of complaints, I guess, that quite a few tables weren't functioning.
    8:08
    And for the past couple of months, people have been going out there volunteering and just, you know, changing fuses, getting things up and running. I've heard that last year they had some EMs there, but they were pretty much museum pieces because none of them were working. What they've done over the summer is they've actually got a qualified EM technician in to really go over a lot of the Belly and Williams EMs there. So it'll be a real treat for people who want to actually see what an analog computer looks like with balls rolling around the play field. So I would love to go there and do it. I've got a bit of a taste for it since listening to Nick Baldridge's podcast, and I'd love to get my hands on some more EM play.
    8:54
    I guess with the upcoming EM tables coming in Pimble OK, we might get a bit of a chance to do that digitally.
    9:04
    Yeah, but we all know that digitally EM is not the same as EM. They need to include a scratch and sniff in the real deal. A card in it to have that sort of like ozone smell that you get when you're playing EMs. But, you know, as a substitute, it'll be, you know, it'll be okay for me until I can somehow wing my way over to the US again and play some more and get over to Pacific Pinball Museum and play some more EM over there. Or, you know, just maybe next year, try and work out a strategy to get over there and go to one of these conferences, save up some money and get over there for a pinball conference. It'd be pretty cool.
    9:45
    Yeah. I'll be really curious to see what I do wind up playing. Whatever the lines are shortest, basically, because your goal, this is the goal I'm setting you. Your goal is to never be not playing a pinball machine during the allotted ticket time. Well, yeah, you shouldn't, you should make a pledge to yourself that I will not be standing around watching someone else play. Whereas the machine that I can stand in front of and flip madly. So that is your challenge. I just know that playing the EMs, again, they hold no – I mean, other than if I see one that I actually know or if I see anything that actually has a cool-looking layout, I'm going to be probably in System 11 hell. But remember – Actually, you know what? Actually, what I'm thinking, what I probably will check out is there are a lot of modern sterns that I've never tried. I'm in the same boat. I wouldn't say that they were the quality like 24 or X-Files, oh no, X-Files was Sega CS5 there was that whole middle batch yeah, I've never touched any of those, so if they have those then I'll probably be checking that stuff out too what would be interesting to see if they've arranged them chronologically it would be great if they had the Stern row if they've actually arranged them chronologically, because you could walk past them you could see that period in time when Stern had a real challenge trying to keep the doors open. And just take a look at the cues and designs they used in their games over that period before they hit, you know, the sort of, you know, what is it, the Tron era or Spider-Man era back in 2007. And you'll see that, like, oh, man, they were scraping around to try and get these pins out the door with, you know, balancing features with budget with all the other challenges they had. And it's a bit of an interesting look, an interesting snapshot back in time. So, yeah. And look at them now.
    11:46
    It's like they moved into a giant new facility. They're, you know, doing a legacy collection now with... Vault. Is that what they're calling it? Wait, legacy? Yeah. Vault. That's it. I'm calling it legacy. Yeah, Vault with Redo and Spider-Man. And hopefully that means a whole bunch of new old tables. I love it. It's great. With maybe better art. It's still grossly unaffordable for us down here in Australia, but that's only because of our shitty exchange rate at the moment. But, you know, $7,500 US for a brand new Spider-Man? Fantastic. You know I know that some of the prices of those tables if you get a good one you looking around five because it is a really popular table like this is Well you have to think about this too that if you read all the improvements they've basically looked at, you know, they've gone through and yeah, after this many after this many years of people using them, they were like, Oh, this is what breaks and this is what breaks. No, this can be improved. And it's like, yeah, so you'd think that this is going to be a better built
    12:47
    imagine what they do going through the catalog and revising basically doing service bulletins and using this as a way to actually service bulletin all their old games that are now like pretty much knackered on location and for those people who actually own these tables already and are running on on street locations it's great because they'll be able to go back through and get brand new assemblies from stern for all of these um games and they're pretty much dropping replacements because they haven't changed the playfield layout all they've done is change the art and yes albeit some of the toys are now different to make it um aligned with the spider-man universe but like it gives all again that doesn't it's great because like they've ruggedized ramps and stuff like that because they always get slammed on those tables and remember back then too they were doing all they could to cut costs so you could pretty much guarantee that the ramp mylar thickness and the plastic thickness was a little bit less than perhaps what they're using now just to save that little bit of extra money.
    13:46
    So this is great for operators. It's great for collectors because they get this beautiful new piece of artwork that they can put in their game room. And, you know, it's really great for Pinball in general. I applaud Stern for doing what they're doing. And I really look forward to seeing it on location down here in Australia because I reckon someone, I reckon at a minimum, we'll get it down in Surface Paradise, the time zone, because they pretty much commit to getting every new stern down there. So I'd be interested just to go down there, take a trip down there one weekend and just go and gorge myself on a bit of pinball down there when it comes in. Yeah, I've noticed there's been all of a sudden a flurry of articles regarding pinball, regarding the health of pinball. Just also noticing that I've noticed some articles about the competition that it's obviously spurring everything on. You may have heard the announcement with Stern talking about when they were talking about Spider-Man, but also they're going to LCD screens. That's right.
    14:51
    Which they said will be on their next table, which is going to be Ghostbusters. So, you know, it's like things are progressing and they were talking about how they had to move to this new facility because they couldn't crank out the machines fast enough. Imagine that. What a predicament to be in. Back in the early 2000s when they were struggling to just do 3,000 or 4,000, now they're looking at limited edition runs and different product types and all that sort of thing.
    15:22
    And here's what's funny is you tweeted out, and I happened to comment on it today, with Kodak coming out and they debuted a new Super 8 camera. A film camera? and a film camera, and they added on an LCD screen so you can actually use it as, you know, that as the viewfinder. You don't have to look through the back of it, which is, again, it's meeting what people are used to, how people are used to looking at these things today. So, you know, that's what you need to do. You need to innovate, even though it's old tech. You need to make it accessible for the generation that is used to looking through a screen. I think it's a really… Right, and then my question was going to be, well, what are you going to do? oh great so you get the film developed you come back well nobody has projectors you know you know to project in their house anymore and and then i read that no they're doing a 4k scan just like they do for you know us and tv and you get the digital file sent to you plus you'll get the film sent to you and it's like oh this is brilliant because now you can just put it straight into your computer do your editing that you want and more importantly what i thought was in the article that you linked to they were hoping to get the attention of users which i was like oh that is genius because these are only three minute cartridges for the most part. And so Vine being six second videos, it's like With Super 8, you're in the industry so you'll probably be able to briefly touch on this. Super 8 is when they're actually uploading 4K video, I would assume that the frame rate of these Super 8 cameras is insane for them to... It's not? No.
    16:58
    See, here's the thing. This is the part that just always cracks me up. the resolution of film is still better than digital. So no matter what it is, it's still better. It doesn't, right. No matter what the resolution is still better. You know, the issue does become when you start blowing it up big, they obviously the grain size is going to become apparent. So if you're, if you take a super eight video and yeah, you blow it up to your regular movie house movie screen, it's going to look very grainy uh and you know it's not going to be a nice picture but then if you feed it through you know whatever kind of digital filters or whatever you want i'm sure that you can you know somewhat make it better but that's not the point of these the point of this is all these users that are uploading videos to youtube whatever what is everybody watching this on they're watching on their phone you know so it's gonna look good but yeah 35 millimeter film is still i mean i don't know if it's 8k i know that there's been some tests now that they're talking about oh it taps out it you know like it's like 6k or something like that but still the point is is that film is going to have a particular look and you're not having to film at a super high frame rate or have a giant megapixel you know kind of uh deal it's it's got the resolution and you can blow it up because it's analog that's the whole point analog can expand to any size digital cannot digital can only expand to the size of the pixel that was recorded so i can see this being great for you know um film students and people who actually still want to practice the art of filming something and the fact that you only get three or four minutes worth of film per cartridge it's like right i'm going to do this it means that it's not just instant gratification like a like you can on a mobile phone for example but you have to plan out everything you want in that shot and it actually encourages the craft of filmmaking again rather than just point and shoot we'll do it in post you know um so that's kind of it's the lament of it's the lament of still photographers where they said you know back in the day they had to compose their shot in camera and you know when you got the photo back that was it perfectly composed as opposed to now people just snap a picture and then they zoom in and crop to get the that's right position all the time and so i'm a terrible photographer right so if you know i was using so it is it's not it's kind of that yeah it's it's kind of that planning ahead um it's more planning it's it's committing is what i would say it's committing to something without the idea of being able to fix it later um i mean you're still going to be able to fix it later to an extent but it's uh yeah it's coming up with it's coming up with a game plan i'm actually sticking to it as opposed to just trying to wing it like we do on the show like we have been for the last 10 minutes about film but that's good because it's sort of tied in back to like the resurgence thing that we're talking about in pinball and i think you know that's why the resurgence is it's it's the it's good like to see like people looking back and going you know we're gonna have a second try at this let's give it a go and i think the the downturn like pinball traditionally has always been cyclical. So, you know, you get the about a 10-year burst and then it dies again. And then you'll come back again like we have now and you'll get another 10-year burst. Now, I'm not sure that's going to be happening in the future. I have a feeling that because of this collector market now and the way that the pinball companies have been positioning themselves, I think there's just going to be a steadiness. So if arcade use for some reason drops off again, the collector market will still keep these companies afloat because the collectors are still going to want more tables. There's not like they're going to go, well, it's been 10 years now. I don't want any more tables. Like they're going to be going, I still want, I still want new product. So it's a pretty genius move really. What you're, what you're getting here. And again, this article that, if you go to Jared's Twitter, it's, it's linked there.
    21:17
    But what the article is basically saying was that, you know, we are as humans analog, you know, we're biological. And so we respond to analog things.
    21:29
    Pinball is very analog. The resurgence of vinyl is, you know, to some people they love the sound of vinyl. And so if you look at pinball much in the same way as you look at the vinyl market and to an extent, you can even again, go to Kodak, which is the only person making film to this day. Kodak is what Stern was. You know, there used to be Agfa, there used to be Fuji and now it's just Kodak and Kodak said, Hey, you know, as the last makers of this, we feel it to be our responsibility to make a go of it, you know, to put every last effort to try and so that it doesn't die, that it's not just, we go, I will give up like everybody else. Stern did the same thing with pinball where it was like, Hey, it's our responsibility to try and keep this torch lit. And if it doesn't, you know, stay lit, at least we can say we get to go well with, So if you look at like with the vinyl records, it's never going to reach the popularity that it did back in the day when there were no CDs and it was just vinyl or cassette. But there is now a healthy enough install base of people that like it and people that are searching it out that they can actually plan for how much of it to have budget accordingly and make it profitable. I think that's what Stern did with pinball. They understood how many they could produce, at what rate, at what cost, to keep themselves afloat. And now they're getting into the enviable position of having more demand. That's right. It's never going to get to the popularity that it was. Right, right. But it was popular at that time with that many units because that was it at its peak. there was no alternative you might say there wasn't the uh the video games competing directly against it you know now it's just found its own niche and it and that niche can grow but it's not going to be what i what i would call is where everybody hopping on the bandwagon you know the bandwagon has long since dumped off and passed now you just got the feel that's right and i think that baseline that minimum expectation that stern sort of started back in 2012 um is sort of going to always be there for them so if they do need to scale back they can always fall back to that model and still sustain a business that's my gut feel on it exactly and that's great yeah yeah i i would think that they've learned to how to live within their means it's very similar to like you can relate stern back to spooky pinball as well like there's a like spooky know that they can do 3 000 units of the game oh sorry not 3 300 units of the game so let's just say wow Yeah, 3,000. That's what they love to do, 3,000. Who knows with their new manufacturing plant that they're opening up in Benton there. But they know that 300 is sustainable. So they're going to go, well, we're always going to be producing 300 games and we know that we can sustain that and that's okay. Same with Stern. We'll do X number of limited editions and X number of premiums and standard pro models and we know we'll be able to do that and we'll be able to sell them. So they're not overcommitting, they're not going to have stuff in the warehouse piling up and costing them money. They just know that this is how much we can do. And it having that knowledge of what quantities are viable in the market that going to really help them stay afloat And all pinball companies in general really if they adopt that model that will be the future of pinball and making it sustainable I think
    25:01
    So let's shift, speaking of Stern, let's shift it into the digital realm. The Stern pinball app, which we still have not heard much about. Yeah. I don't honestly think we will. from past. Yeah, I don't either. It's going to be a little while. But what I am curious about and this was kind of raised with the announcement of the Spider-Man table is, well, obviously they had to re-secure licenses. Because now they're no longer dealing with the movie license. They're just dealing with Marvel's license. Which I'm guessing was right there. The Stern app gets written into the contract. So they have an agreement. In terms of... I think it'll be very short-sighted of them not to look at digital um digital licensing as well i think it could be just well and again so if we have if if if game of thrones is already a given yeah i'm gonna say spider-man's now i think so you know and everything everything going forward which makes me really hope that they do do a whole bunch more of these vault re-licenses because it'll allow them to dig in yeah yeah and and with them doing this whole complete repackaging it makes me wonder okay so tables like CSI or 24, which, you know, obviously they're not on the air anymore. They're not going to sell anymore, but they're not, you know, but you do have the, the table layout, the design. Can you just go ahead and throw a new art package on it and say, Hey, we know everybody likes the, you know, like the gameplay of this. Obviously we're going to have a different art package. You know, can they somehow, you know, fix it that way? I don't know. it opens up some possibilities that I'm very interested to see what, what happens if they would ever mount the app. Well, yeah, I think. You know, officially what. So, I mean, things have been leaking, obviously.
    26:51
    Some of the leaks, the Jody, isn't that the, the margin? First turn. I won't say his name. They've been trickled. He'd kind of let loose. And there was an article. Right. Right. Thank, thank you to pinball wiz for sharing this in the, in the forum on that just very briefly. I think as a community, a Pinball Arcade fans community, I think we're going to have to use our pooled resources to try and derive information about this app because it's pretty clear to me that Farsight don't have a say in releasing information about it. I really do think we need to cut them some slack.
    27:27
    They will not be releasing any information about this. This is just my speculation on it because they're not the ones making it. Well, sorry, I'll rephrase that. they're not the ones so they're making it they're not the ones marketing they're not the ones marketing it they don't have control over releasing information so guys on the forum if you're listening to this you need to turn your the sauron's eye of information over to the stern facebook page and start proving information because far side is these are not the droids you're looking for go about your business um so no as you were chris yeah i was just saying that it you know the it's trickled out that yes they are going to support oculus which farsight also said that oculus is going to be supported for um for pinball arcade which you got to imagine that goes hand in hand with sony coming out with their own uh oculus thing what i forget what the morpheus or mobius i'm not sure what it's called um you would think that that would maybe work i don't know i don't know how but maybe work with google cardboard you know if you're doing your phone yeah i think the the biggest thing you know because you play you can play on your phone if you did the controller the biggest thing with um oculus and this is something that's made me very curious because if they're announcing oculus rift they're going to have to guarantee frame rates because what you're doing with oculus is just splitting the vision into two streams very much like a 3d broadcast and to do that you will need to maintain overall 120 frames per second because you're splitting that down the middle of 60. Well, that's why you need a good computer. Well, yeah, but the thing is that Oculus is compatible not just with PC. You can use it on other platforms.
    29:11
    So from what I understand. Oh, can you? Apparently you can. You think you're going to be able to use it on a PS3 or, I mean, a PS4? Well, I don't know. This is the thing. I don't. This is what they're not really being clear about. I'd like to see, I'd like to hear more, not that they can probably speak to the Stern side of things, but I know we might get the opportunity to ask Mark more about Oculus from the Farsight perspective, just generally.
    29:38
    Yeah, we'll have to inquire there, because as far as I know, the Oculus is only available on a PC. It's not available on a phone, on a tablet, because none of them can run it. I mean, you've got to have a beefy PC in order to run that thing. Yeah, okay. Especially at the frame rates that you're wanting. Let me just do a quick Google search.
    29:59
    There is actually – keep on going. I'll have a little poke around. Yes, because I was going to say the other info that squeaked out, people were worried the Stern app was only going to be on the mobile platforms. And as he was mentioning, Jody basically kind of said that they're looking to get digital pinball out on all platforms. Now, he didn't specifically say the Stern app, but I think we all can say when he's talking digital pinball, he's talking about the Stern app. And that's going to be on all platforms that they can squeeze it onto. I have a skinny about this. I've done a bit of a quick Google search. Now, Samsung actually have a thing called Samsung Gear VR, and it's basically Oculus. It's Oculus-powered Gear VR. So basically this thing is, yeah, it is the Oculus Rift, but it's running on Samsung hardware. So it uses the Galaxy Note 5, Galaxy S6 Edge, and Galaxy XS, and a few other models as well. So this is virtual reality with your mobile phone. So this is what I'm saying, right? Like if they're saying Oculus Rift, let's have a look at how they would have to do that. They would need to rewrite the engine. That's what I'm saying right now, basically in short.
    31:17
    They would need to do some serious architectural refactoring with their engine to do that at the moment. I think that's pretty plain to see based on what we know of the Fast Fight game engine and the fact that they're having trouble, well, they have had trouble in the past locking it to 60 frames per second on mobile.
    31:36
    And this, you might remember way back when, when Bonzo and you and I were on the podcast going, so when is the Stern app going to be released? And I said, yeah, nothing until June next year. And you go, well, whatever.
    31:50
    I had the feeling back then that this would actually be an opportunity for them to like completely refactor the code base. And that's not a trivial thing to do. And I have a feeling based on what we've seen from the press release, but the article that Pinball is linked us to is that that is kind of what they're doing. because, yeah, there's no way they could really do it without a big refactor, I think.
    32:20
    See, I'd be curious to know if, with the Oculus support, are they going to make it so that you can actually, you know, walk around the pinball machine itself, or is it going to be, no, you're locked into this position in front of the table, and, yes, you can move your head up and down and, you know, kind of a, you know, wherever you can move your head and turn your head, that's what you can see in the room, but you're not going to actually be able to walk, you know, around the table person. Yeah. I'm not sure. It depends how deep they want to go. If they're going to make a completely immersive environment and actually have you, you know, sort of be able to walk around and interact, that's going to be very interesting. Also it's going to take a whole lot more resources to do that. My gut feeling would be. Because it certainly would be interesting to be able to, you know, actually do what I do a lot of times when playing, which is, you know, lean over the table when you're doing those, when you're doing those Canon shots to, you know, get that angle that you need to be able to, to hit. I've got a feeling that that's what they're going to do. They're going to be focusing less on, Oh, look at this. Let's walk up to the wall and have a look at the beautiful wallpaper on the wall. Let's, you know, let's be able to like, let's look at the low res floor. Let's look at the vomit carpet on the floor and enjoy that. No, they're going to be doing it. So the focus is well and truly on the table. Like, let's be serious.
    33:37
    Why would you want to do it? That's what I'm saying. You know, it's how into it do you really want to get, you know, oh, what if the person wants to inspect the cabinet art? You know what I mean? Yeah. Again, I don't know. I know what I would do for the sake of the game, but I don't know what they're planning on doing for the sake of the format. You know what I mean? I think they'd actually just use the advantages of Oculus in-game only. That's what I'd be doing. I think there's no real advantage. That's what I would do too. there's no real advantage to making a virtual pinball arcade if you know what i mean like the like well i know yeah i mean it would be an arcade of one table well um well potentially yes i really don't want i i really don't want a repeat of the williams collection where you had to walk around the arcade move through yeah walk through the arcade it's oh come on yeah no i don't think that's gonna scale very well as as more tables added both to you know the the core um pinball arcade app as well as the new stern offering so yeah focus on the table and make it really shiz hot so you know you can right because you know here's the thing after you've made after you've made all the tables function and work perfectly great well then if you have you know extra staff that wants to build a whole arcade and build a game around that at least we know the tables work yeah that's right you know it's like let's make the thing that we're here to play function the way it needs to play and then we can deal with all the other stuff you know later you know that's all that's all pie in the sky dreaming you know maybe maybe that becomes the game hey build your own arcade and you can place machines where you want to in your own rooms and you know it also becomes pinball arcade simulator yeah pinball arcade tycoon i'm happy for it just to be it's funny you mentioned this because just recently make sure you place the bathrooms in the correct spot in the snack bar too just it's funny because the other day they had a special locally running on Google Cardboard.
    35:29
    So, you know, I used to Google have this like basically a really cheap VR solution, which is basically a cardboard box with some lenses inside it that allow you to go fully 3D. And it's insane how good it is. And they had this local special the other day where I could get a Google Cardboard box shipped for $8 Australian. I went, oh yeah. Oh, see, I would try it for that price. Actually, someone had one. Because right now it's what, $25? Yeah, $25 just for the basic official Google Cardboard one. I went, yeah, so I'm going to do that. Because if you go and load the Cardboard app on Android, there's a whole stack of stuff that you can use with it already. There's roller coaster simulators, man. You can actually get roller coaster roll-throughs and full-on Cardboard. It is awesome. So I went, yeah, $8. Thank you very much for coming.
    36:23
    Yeah, I would do it for that price. But I wouldn't do it for the $25. No way. Or for the Viewmaster to have a really slick-looking Google Cardboard set, which is supposed to be used along with the app, but it works just fine for Google Cardboard. So this is my gateway into it for $8. If I find I really like it, I may go down the path of getting a Viewmaster set.
    36:44
    So it's pretty cool. We're lucky to live in the age we are because there's cool stuff happening. Yeah.
    36:52
    Let's talk about a few more. We've got a, you know, this is what happens when you don't talk for three weeks. We've got just like pinball news oozing out of us. And for the record, this isn't this isn't the backroom yet. We're still on topic. No, I know. I know. We might have to like. Yeah. So for those listening, there will be a backroom, maybe
    37:12
    we got enough to talk about to fill an entire one of those two But I wanted to just before we do run out of any kind of time want to talk about to fill an entire one of those too um but i wanted to uh just before we uh do run out of any kind of time want to talk about uh a couple of things uh a is the wii u uh farsight has once again uh come out and said it's happening um which a lot of people were mocking them for and then i kind of said well they shut up about it for a while why in the world would they bring it up again and left there absolutely serious yeah to putting it out and all i can think of is this goes back to what uh barbie babam talked about with the various consoles being difficult and nintendo themselves being uh kind of tough to deal with you know that they had to do a version of zen pinball just for nintendo i gotta believe that that's where the delay has been it's all been on Nintendo's end because Nintendo is notorious for a demanding perfection, but B look at how many independent titles are available on a Wii U. Yeah. It's not that many. It's not the marketplace that's on PS4 certainly, or even Xbox one, which doesn't have as large as really isn't it. It's really, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, so anyway, that'll be interesting. They said, I mean, it sounded to me like as a first quarter kind of deal but uh we'll have to see we'll have to see what uh what transpires i know a lot of people love playing zen on on the wii u um i do have a wii u at the house i doubt i you know unless i get some nice free codes yeah i'm probably not gonna be dropping you know the wii u is my boy's version but exactly right for great justice and for testing and stuff please can we have the codes well not me because i'm only a mobile but send him to chris right i can leave precariously through him um i mean i certainly want to see uh you know see what it's like to have the dmd in your hand rather than you know up on the tv screen that'll be that's gonna be interesting to uh yeah yeah it would be i'm curious to see what it looks like um maybe but like i said i know where where i do all my playing now is on the pfc it's also going to be at the show next week or is it just um i don't know i'm certainly going to look for them yeah so you know Mike Lindsay he's the one that usually would be at these things and probably Norman would be there too I know he likes to go to the shows and it's not a terribly far drive it's probably closer to Farsight Banning is than it is to me well you know what you should do if you can sneak up the mountain I know it's it's probably snowy there at the moment but yeah if it's possible you should see if you can sneak up the mountain as well and say g'day to him yeah i don't like i said if it's snowy forget it yeah no way i'm in a rental car i'm in a rental car right now anyways which we'll talk about in the back room why i'm in a rental car um but uh uh yeah so anyway so i want to bring that up i also want to bring up the fact that they did finally announce that the next kickstarter will be uh for the doctor who table now i make no no questions about the fact didn't i yeah i everyone was thinking oh the simpsons the Simpsons is all the way. Nope. It's time to get your dog on. Yep. I'm happy to see that this is what will be their next Kickstarter because they told me about a long time ago. We were in the little while. Oh, yes, we had to keep it out at the lids on it. But yeah, I'm gonna see it. Finally. I mean, that being said, I I'm happy for the table. Once again, I'm not happy about a Kickstarter, but I understand. You know, we had this conversation on the forum where I basically said I will never disparage anybody that does kick in for one of these Kickstarters because they allow me to play the tables and I thank them greatly for it. But I personally don't like the practice of needing the Kickstarter. Particularly not now with the maturity of Farsight. I think, you know, there'd need to be a pretty strong reason for them to run a Kickstarter for me.
    41:20
    Yeah. You know, it's time to maybe approach it the same attitude that Zen does and try and look further to incorporating the cost of these Kickstarters somehow into the overall platform.
    41:34
    I really, really hope that with the Stern pinball app that they take that approach. That Stern mainly, and again, because I'm viewing this as this is Stern's deal. Yeah, it's Stern. Farsighted is merely the one. So Farsight is the one who's really making it. Farsight is the one who's making the tech. And Stern is the one that's throwing the money at it.
    41:55
    They need to kick the money in. They need to make it so that it's not a Kickstarter-based kind of program and follows on the model. To theoretically be large. But maybe not, though, because you see, like Stern in that article again, going and circling back to that article, they said, you know, digital is great to give people a taste, but for them it's always about the real thing, right? So I think, this is my gut, that the Stern app is going to be a gateway drug for them, and they're going to price it as such. They're going to price it as such. They're going to want to actually lower the barrier of entry for people to get a real taste of pinball, Stern pinball, in such a way that it makes them go, I have to go and play this in the arcade. I have to.
    42:39
    This is walking through Costco and trying the sample that they're giving away. and right next to the freezer where you can purchase it. I mean, that's exactly what this is for. The sample's got to be good for you to actually go and want to actually buy the thing. And the same thing is the pinball sample that you're getting in the app has to be good enough that you go, hey, yeah, I want to go and play this in the arcade.
    43:02
    And again, you think about how they can monetize the crap out of this. There's three versions of the tables available. And you sell all three of them separately. you know like you can right or as a pack right options right you could do anything right um so i think you know it's it's the it's the thing that drives me nuts about why we still can't purchase adam's family gold why is farsight sitting on this yeah you look to please the kickstarters sorry that fund you know that money has dried up right you're not making any more money this is an easy way to collect some coin from your game and you're not i don't understand that well i understand exclusivity but it's been over a year now come on put it out yeah i think the kickstarter backers who've had access to the gold for a year now i probably got their values worth and i don't know after a year i probably wouldn't be thinking of like the um the gold thing is like a real advantage like the the amount of stuff that's different in it there's a few different voice calls there's slightly different trim on the external cabinet the artwork and the play field's the same like there is a point there is point scoring differences oh is there okay i wasn't aware of that okay yes you do score differently in the gold version uh yeah there's additional rules and stuff yeah but that's my point and this is what i've always said with again going back to the doctor who kickstarter is timing people doctor who the season ended you've missed the entire season and so what you're going to put it on during the hiatus it's not going to come on the air again until the fall, people have stopped talking about it. That's the same thing that's happening with Adam's family. People have stopped talking about it and wanting the gold version. All the people that really wanted it, now you're going to have to remind people what it is if you put it on sale. Hey, you might remember this thing. You're right. You've got to find that apex of people wanting it before they stop caring about it. And their new table, their Star Wars releases have just put out. I cannot wait for those to land. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I can't wait for it to get here. It's tough. I just need to take a day off work and go and see it, basically, because the weekend's in months. I can't do it.
    45:25
    But, yeah, apparently, according to Bobby, because we emailed her trying to line up a slot to get her on again, and, yeah, she said, look, there's not any spoilers in traditional zen style they're very careful about spoilers and there aren't any in there so um uh yeah when it comes out you shouldn't feel like you need to hold off going oh i don't want to have any spoilers yeah zen are not the internet so they won't ruin it for you if you buy the tables but man the concept of these tables is amazing like it's transforming tables bring it on this is exactly what Zen should be doing. Like completely going, this is cool. We can do what we like because we're going to do what we like. Let's have a look at this. Well, and we record this on Sunday. The tables are being released on Tuesday, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, Tuesday. So by the time everybody else is listening to this, they'll be out and being able to at least try the demo if you're on the PC. Obviously, Android people can't do that. But yeah, I'm very curious to check them out. I've got 50 bucks in credit for Christmas on Google Play. So I'm getting up to date with all the Zen tables. I'm starting to buy the Fox tables and all that. And yeah, I'm kind of really enjoying it actually. So I'll be instabying all the Star Wars tables.
    46:41
    Incidentally, there's actually a dedicated thread on the Zen forums for all the table designers and they're grouped per table. so if you are interested in that you go on to the zen forum and and check out what tables like you go gee that table's really resonating with me and you can go and check the design that did the table and see all the other ones they've done and go ah okay that's why i like all these tables so through that thread i've actually found um a couple there's a couple of designers there that really resonate with me um and one of those designers has done most of these star wars tables so it makes a lot of sense now yeah I love all those tables why is that because it's the same designer doing it you know if anybody wants to move that over to the Pinball Arcade fans forum and put that under the Zen section I wouldn't mind appreciating that yeah it's easy enough to get on the Zen I know but I never go to the Zen forum you know what I mean you can put a link to it but yeah, that's easy enough to do. I could make a post with that and put the link to it. I'll do that after this show. If someone like Pinball Wiz doesn't beat me to it.
    48:00
    It'd be a race to the forum. Race to the forum. Hey, why don't we, we're going to shift into the backroom mode here, but let's in the meantime, blow this out.
    48:13
    First things first, it's been just pinball, pinball, pinball, go figure. and I think there's still we've even left pinball on the table and we'll have to approach it next week which is hey that's the whole point of this right anyway I have been Shut Your Trap thank you for listening that has been Jared Morgan he thanks you for listening we shall no goodbye we shall talk to you all again next week welcome to the billionaires club
    48:46
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    49:20
    Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service. That blockade is delivered to. We can't improve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some pinball.