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Episode 176 - The Name is TSR, New TSR

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 31m·analyzed·Sep 18, 2022
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TL;DR

iTunes RSS issues, TSR legal battle, and Stern's bungled James Bond pinball reveal.

Summary

Tony and Dennis discuss Eclectic Gamers Podcast operations, including iTunes RSS feed issues with SoundCloud. They resurrect the tabletop segment to discuss Wizards of the Coast filing an injunction against new TSR LLC (a startup using the TSR name and logo) for their Star Frontiers revival project, which features problematic character creation content. They then pivot to pinball, focusing extensively on Stern's James Bond reveal debacle: leaked cell phone photos from a UK trade show, delayed reveal due to Queen Elizabeth II's death, unintended 007 store image leak, and discussion of Stern's poor handling of the reveal narrative.

Key Claims

  • Wizards of the Coast filed an injunction against TSR LLC for using owned logos and distributing problematic playtest material for Star Frontiers: New Genesis

    high confidence · Dennis cites official legal filings and multiple news articles on the injunction

  • New TSR's Star Frontiers playtest material contained explicitly racist, bigoted, anti-trans, and alt-right character creation content

    high confidence · Dennis quotes article stating this directly from playtest material descriptions

  • Pinball Brothers requested $125,000 for the Playboy license from Deep Root in early May 2018, not $75,000 as Dennis previously stated

    high confidence · Dennis cites text message from 2018 that he retrieved and reread

  • Pinball Brothers wanted over $500,000 for the Queen license

    medium confidence · Dennis references text message from 2018 but acknowledges uncertainty on exact figure

  • Deep Root was budgeting $85,000 per game in development costs in 2018

    medium confidence · Dennis recalls from 2018 text message chain; notes uncertainty on actual spending

  • James Bond pinball photos were taken over the weekend when games arrived, by someone affiliated with the UK trade show event

    high confidence · Dennis cites UK pinball forum post where the photographer admitted to taking them

  • The Bond licensor (Danjek LLC) was very upset about the photo leaks and is extremely protective of the license

    medium confidence · Dennis cites something 'someone had told me' about licensor reaction

  • Stern's James Bond reveal is the worst Stern launch Dennis has seen in over 10 years in the hobby

    high confidence · Direct statement from Dennis comparing to previous Stern launches like Batman 66

  • 007store.com inadvertently released professional images of the Pro and Premium James Bond models on Friday, September 16th

Notable Quotes

  • “The audacity of it is amazing to me. Wizard is not like some little nobody entity that would let this obviously they're not letting it slide.”

    Dennis @ ~13:30 — Emphasizes the boldness of new TSR's legal strategy against Wizards, a Hasbro-owned mega-corporation

  • “I have never seen Stern have such an embarrassing launch in this entire period. This is the new... I was trying to think what was the last really bad launch was? Probably Batman 66.”

    Dennis @ ~29:00 — Strong statement assessing Stern's James Bond reveal as the worst in Dennis's 10+ year tenure in pinball

  • “The moment those games were shipped out of the factory, they knew or they should have known they no longer had control over the reveal narrative.”

    Dennis @ ~37:00 — Key criticism that Stern mismanaged the situation once leaks became inevitable

  • “The correct answer in something like that is always to drop your good, ready, high-quality images. I think that's the best way to preempt stuff like that.”

    Tony @ ~40:00 — Suggests Stern's strategic error was not releasing official images to counter low-quality leaks

  • “This definitely feels like a very last minute unexpected change and the kind of mistakes you expect to see out of something like that.”

    Tony @ ~33:00 — Characterizes the reveal delays as symptomatic of last-minute crisis management

  • “The thing is, is they're still selling, Wizards still sell stuff TSR branded. Because they own it. Yeah. They just digitized it and they released it.”

    Dennis @ ~11:00 — Establishes that Wizards legitimately owns TSR IP and actively sells it

  • “It sounded like multiple people, and one of those people started to just leak it all over the place.”

    Dennis @ ~30:00 — Describes the chain of custody failure for Bond photos

Entities

Wizards of the CoastcompanyTSR LLCcompanyDanjek LLCcompanyStern PinballcompanyHasbrocompanyDeep Root PinballcompanyPinball Brotherscompany007store.comcompanySoundCloudcompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: New TSR LLC using registered TSR trademarked name, logos, and character creation content that Wizards of the Coast considers harmful to their diversity initiatives

    high · Wizards' injunction filing states public may mistake TSR LLC content for Wizards endorsement and damage their inclusive brand efforts

  • ?

    design_philosophy: New TSR's Star Frontiers playtest material contains explicitly racist, bigoted, anti-trans, and alt-right character creation mechanics

    high · Dennis quotes legal filing describing content as 'explicitly racist, bigoted, anti-trans, and alt-right. Just in the character creation'

  • ?

    event_signal: Queen Elizabeth II's death triggered delayed James Bond pinball reveal and removed game from UK trade show floor

    high · Timeline: Queen died September 8, games were to be shown September 12-13, Stern pulled them from show and delayed reveal to September 20

  • ?

    leak_detection: Unauthorized cell phone photographs of James Bond pinball leaked from UK trade show event before official reveal

    high · UK pinball forum post from photographer admitting to taking photos; images circulated via social media before official release

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: New TSR LLC sued for trademark/copyright infringement by Wizards of the Coast; legal filings show explicit prohibition on distribution and playtesting

    high · Official injunction filed; playtest material explicitly stated 'not to be given, released, or handed to anyone associated with Wizards of the Coast or Hasbro'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.274

0:00
Welcome to the Collective Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, September 19th. This is episode 176. My name is Tony. My name is Dennis. We're back. We said we'd be back in a couple of weeks. We are back. And I want to extend an apology to our iTunes listeners because we struggled mightily, and by we I mean SoundCloud, our podcast host, with getting the RSS feed accepted by iTunes. I have, to my knowledge, never had any sort of significant, like beyond a day, issue with iTunes. But we had a number of people write in complaining that the episode wasn't showing. And I was extra confused because I don't use Apple products. But I do have iTunes installed on my PC to test it because it is the number one source that people pull from when it comes to podcasts. And so directly looking at the RSS feed through the iTunes app, it was fine. You could see all the episodes. But apparently, I'm assuming how the app works for people who are actually using it on their phone, the latest episode wasn't showing. And what I ultimately was able to find was if I loaded our list, our podcast list of tracks in the store, the iTunes store, that's where I could see it was missing. So I wrote into iTunes and they're telling me there's a ultimately they they did get back with me after a few days. And they're like, OK, there's a there's a problem with your feed. And they have me use a little feed checker. And I'm like, OK, so I contact SoundCloud. And after I send the message to SoundCloud, I actually saw at the top in their help section wasn't on all the sections. But in the help section, they had a banner up at the top saying, we are having issues with iTunes and we are working with them to resolve the problem. Working with Apple.
2:02
And SoundCloud did get back with me and they're like, yes, not all of their shows, but a bunch of them. Something went wrong and the RSS feed wasn't reading right when it came to Apple anymore. And so they were having to work with Apple to try and figure out what the problem was. And it took like a week and a half before we were back up. our latest episode is one of our worst performing ones incidentally last i looked uh probably because none of the itunes people could play it however multiple ones have contacted me separately saying oh yeah we see the episode now so but it's too late we're not gonna listen yes we're not that's right i did i wouldn't i'd be like i'll just listen to the next one was that one really that good i mean i named it survivor it makes it sound like it's a reality show that was probably exactly that i was thinking of i figured actually i think it was because we ranked our survivability of the companies. Might have been what I actually did. That was interesting. I didn't have any complaints to it, which I'm a little surprised. Actually, we had an email, we'll touch on it in the pinball section, that tied to one of them. And I won't go through the entire email, but it does raise some interesting points that I thought the listeners might like to know. But in terms of what's been going on, other than my work with iTunes, season two of Fall Guys has started. And I finally gave them some money to get the season pass. Because, of course, I have to play make-who-make-who dress-up, and the new season let me be a xenomorph.

high confidence · Dennis cites images found on forums, removed from 007store.com

  • Stern delayed the James Bond reveal by nine days total due to Queen Elizabeth II's death and mourning period considerations

    high confidence · Dennis documents timeline of original Tuesday reveal pushed to Thursday reveal

    • Gary Gygax
    person
    Ernie Gygax Jr.person
    Justin Lanasaperson
    George Gomezperson
    Queen Elizabeth IIperson
    Tonyperson
    Dennisperson
  • ?

    licensing_signal: Danjek LLC (Bond licensor) extremely protective of IP; upset about photo leaks and mourning period complications

    medium · Dennis notes licensor was 'very, very protective' and 'really upset' about leaks, though source is secondhand

  • $

    market_signal: Stern's decision to withhold official images while poor-quality leaks circulated damaged game's presentation

    high · Dennis and Tony agree that releasing high-quality official images would have preempted negative impact of cell phone photos

  • ?

    community_signal: Photographer at UK trade show admitted to taking James Bond photos; photos were then shared by another person, losing control of narrative

    high · UK pinball forum post from photographer admitting to taking photos; chain of custody failure documented by Dennis from forum posts

  • ?

    announcement: James Bond pinball officially revealed by Stern with delayed schedule due to Queen's death and earlier image leaks

    high · Multiple timeline points: teaser September 6, intended reveal September 13, delayed to September 20

    • 3:26
    Oh, isn't that special? And since I didn't buy alien pinball because all it does is fall apart, this is what I've done. And I did it yesterday. I earned it. So now I look like a – I think I earned it. I might still be short the head. No, I think I have this. Just being the butt part of the alien isn't scary. You've got to have the head part. Yeah. I was an adorable being with a pointy nail tail, which, I mean, you might think that sounds horrifying, but it's really more cute than anything. Even with the head, it's probably more cute than anything. No, it's terrifying. Yeah, sure it is. It's terrifying. So what are you then doing? It is Alien 3 level of terrifying. Oh, I was just thinking about that this morning.
    4:10
    You were thinking about Alien 3 this morning? I was. What even caused that? I was thinking about a wristwatch channel that was doing a lot of – they seem to be trying to do commercials for watch companies. And I'm not sure they're very good. But then I thought, well, but the guy who directed Alien 3 got his start in commercials. That was what I was thinking. And I thought, well, that didn't turn out very good either. But then I believe he's since gone on and had some very successful films. But I don't remember what any of them are called because all I care about are aliens. Of course you do.
    4:45
    Okay, so I have done so many drugs, so many drugs. I have done all of the drugs. There's this new drug that they've got me on. It's not new. I've been on it forever. So, no, but really it's been, I've had very little overall free time. I've been extremely busy between cross-country meets and helping doing parent cross-country stuff and everything else. So instead of talking about the stuff that I've not done during this thing, I want to use this instance to resurrect a segment. Oh. I'm bringing back for just one short little blip the tabletop segment. Okay. Because I read something interesting.
    5:33
    Wizards of the Coast has filed an injunction against TSR. Okay. So now Wizards of the Coast, it's been a while. Now, they own Magic. They own Magic. And don't they also own D&D? Yes, because in 1997, they bought all of TSR from TSR, including all of the TSR rights. So a new company decided to form and call itself TSR using the original TSR logo and some of the stuff. But it's okay because Gary Gygax's son is part of their team. So that means it's okay. They can do whatever they want. Okay. And they decided they were going to put together a new edition of the old Star Frontiers RPG that Wizard owns from their purchase of TSR. And Wizard actually still sells with the old TSR logo through digital means, through places like DM Guild and RPG Drive-Thru and all that stuff. it was originally published in 82 well the smaller company decided they wanted to revive it so the first thing they tried to do at one point was sue Wizards for the rights to it because Wizards wasn't using those rights well enough and that got dismissed unless there is some sort of contractual provision I don't know how you can be like Tony I don't think you're using your gold wing well enough I'm thinking about suing you so I can have it Yeah, no, that got dropped. And then they got countersued for the continued fraudulent use of the TSR logo. All right, I'm not surprised Wizard would do that. And then they're still continuing, and they were using Indiegogo to fund this new Star Frontiers, New Genesis is what they're calling it. So I'm going to call it New TSR to tell the difference from the old TSR. Thank you. Because when you first said it, I was like, I guess I don't remember what happened with TSR. But I know Wizards bought stuff. They bought, yes. A long time ago. TSR in like the 90s. When we were in high school. Yeah, in the 90s. Late 90s. It was like 96 or 97. They bought TSR. Because I still have my D&D second edition books down in the basement that are still TSR branded because those were from the early 90s. Yes. And the thing is, is they're still selling, Wizards still sell stuff TSR branded. Because they own it. Yeah. They just digitized it and they released it. You can still purchase and download the stuff digitally of a lot of the old stuff, and it's still TSR branded. Okay. But they're using Indiegogo to push this whole new frontier, the Starfleet frontier, new Genesis thing.
    8:22
    And then their playtest material leaked. in July, and it started appearing on social media and in forums and stuff. And apparently it is, and I quote,
    8:39
    the character creation is explicitly racist, bigoted, anti-trans, and alt-right. Just in the character creation.
    8:49
    And they're using logos owned by a TSR, or owned by Wizard. They're using the TSR logo and they're using stuff that is all owned by wizards because wizards of the coast bought it. And they're just saying, no, but it's us. It's okay. We can use it because you know, we're bringing it back.
    9:08
    So wizards slapped an injunction. That's like, no, here is all this stuff from websites where people like wizards is putting this out. It's like, no wizards is not putting this out, but you're using our information, our, are stuff that we have the rights to, to basically try and slide in like you're a bigger player than you really are. This is weird. This is really weird. It is insane. It is because what it is is it's a production company that is a combination. Let me see the names of the companies real quick. I have a couple companies. It is Justin Lanasa and the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum in Washington State, and they're working along with Gary Gygax's son, Ernie Gygax Jr. And they're basically – most people just call them new TSR at this point. But, yeah, no, they're basically trying to resurrect an old TSR property. But it's owned. Right. And they're claiming that they're TSR. But I don't – it doesn't – I struggle.
    10:15
    for words. The, the audacity of it is amazing to me. Wizard is not like some little nobody entity that would let the, obviously they're not letting it slide. I just don't, again, I hate to use the word audacity again, but I just don't understand the audacity of them thinking, especially after wizard has responded that they could like get away with. It's like some hobby thing. What was flying under the radar? Oh, you know, some fan project. That's one thing, But I don't understand the logic where they're like, well, we have the original creator's son. Therefore, we win? Yeah. I don't know. And they're still plugging away. Oh, yeah. And they're still pushing it. I don't get it. Wizards filing claims it wants to stop any further work or distribution of Star Frontier's new Genesis, including playtesting, because it bears two logos legally belonging to Wizards of the Coast. It further states the public may mistakenly believe Wizards of the Coast endorses Star Frontier's reprehensible content, which would do irreparable harm to the company's recent efforts to foster a more inclusive environment around its products. Right, and Wizards has been taking a lot of action, especially in Magic, where there have been some issues, to clarify that it's to be an inclusive space for gamers. Correct, and they've also done major changes in D&D itself, such as they've removed the inherent alignments of certain races, like drow are no longer they're no longer evil because back in my books they were if you're a drow you gotta align to evil they're removing that most drow might still be evil but for some reason they decided making the one dark skinned race all evil was a bad look in this day and age so yeah I saw that neither company has put out any public statements other than the legal filings? Are we really calling new TSR a company? They literally are listed, I kid you not, as TSR LLC. That is what they are calling themselves. Oh, wow, so they are a company. Okay. Yes, they are TSR. Or at least they call themselves that. I'm assuming they probably filed in Washington or something to be a legal, actually a limited liability company. Correct. so yeah jeez i just oh my gosh i i mean wow wizards is fully owned by hasbro it's not like you're talking a small company with no money no this ain't pinball and people don't understand like wizard this is a this is huge they these are not even if they weren't owned but prior to being owned by Hasbro, they are huge. Oh, that's the other thing. I almost forgot going through these notes. In some of the playtest stuff that was leaked, that got out there and started all of this, there was a specific thing on the playtest material that specifically explicitly stated that it was not to be given, released, or handed to anyone associated with Wizards of the Coast or Hasbro.
    13:32
    Oh, this reminds me. This reminds me. Have you heard of Vanta Black? Uh-huh. Okay. So for listeners that aren't aware, Vanta Black is like the blackest black that has ever been created as a color. Correct. It's practically fully devoid of all light. Yeah. It's interesting to look at. Yeah, it's weird. It absorbs like 99 point some odd levels of nine. It's starting to show up in watches now, but I was aware of it before that because it's also super toxic. Yeah. To create it. Well, the guy who made it charges some exorbitant licensing fee for people to have access to use. You're not allowed to use Vantablack unless you get permission, and it's overpriced. Let's put it that way. Yeah. So another guy, another artist who has hated a lot of the things this art guy who made Vantablack has done made his own Ultra Black. It's not as dark as Vantablack. It's close, though. and it's anyone's allowed to use it except the creator of Vontavlack. And you, if you take this one are expressly prohibited from giving or selling it to the creator of Vontavlack. He's the one person in the entire world is prohibited from using it, which of course someone gave it to him and he posted a picture of him using the, the false Vonta or whatever it was called. But the point, the point was in that case, this guy was this gal is like getting out of this guy. No, you're a, you're a predatory artist and I hate you. So you don't get to use my alternate black. And then this sort of reminded me of that. Like, don't tell, don't, you're not allowed, we're just, you're not allowed to tell wizards. Wizards is not, this is the no wizards allowed. It's like the no girls allowed side of no wizards.
    15:12
    When I said, I thought of more of it, more of it was like when siblings get in a fight and one of them gets hurt. It's like, don't tell mom. It's okay. I'll make this all okay. Don't tell mom. I'll give you my stuff. Don't tell mom. I'll set the bone Don't tell mom I'll set it You'll heal okay I was in Boy Scouts I know what I'm doing Alright well that was really interesting Thank you for bringing back Tabletop I saw that article earlier this week You'll have to update as we learn more Yeah like I said Nobody that I've seen any articles I've read 4 or 5 articles on it They're all basically the same Because all they have is the injunction from the filings. Right, right. Just the official legal filings. Nobody goes like hyper in-depth. We're like, they printed out, went through and highlighted all the good parts, then took pictures of them and posted them on Twitter. Oh, okay. So. I like it when people do that. Yeah. That's a little bit like that Blueberry Johnson detail on the Deep Root stuff that shows up on Pinside. And I get those filings. Well, moving into Pinball now from our intro. Thank you for that. That was much more interesting than anything else I could have said. My life is boring.
    16:24
    But unfortunately, I have a correction to open with in the pinball section. Not the iTunes thing. That's not a correction on our part. That was just a reality. In the last episode, this actually came up on Pinsight. So I want to announce the clarification here because I was incorrect in something I had stated on the last episode, which was when we were doing our survivor tournament of predicting how well companies would do. The correction is we predicted how well they would do, and then this company failed. Yeah, no. we rank them as number six projections and analytical allegations on the eclectic gamers podcast are not guaranteed to be truthful or accurate likewise uh don't believe everything you hear on rumor corner while i'm throwing things out just letting you know um so uh during the discussion about uh pinball brothers i had mentioned that i had a source uh years ago with Deep Root who had contacted me who had said that they had been in talks with Pinball Brothers where Pinball Brothers was trying to sell the Playboy license to Deep Root for $75,000. It's the amount that I was wrong on. I actually went back and found the text message I got, which was in early May 2018. And actually, Pinball Brothers wanted $125,000 for Playboy. So I misremembered the number. In addition, on the episode, I said that they wanted half a million for Queen. Actually, in the text message, I was told they wanted over half a million for Queen. So that number was still what I actually remembered it. It's just I don't know if they actually said I want 500,000 or if they wanted like 550,000 or what. And then we didn't discuss this on the episode, but I'll just throw it out there because obviously I'm rereading this whole text message chain that I had from 2018.
    18:14
    And at the time, this representative of Deep Root told me they were budgeting $85,000 per game in development costs, which I think maybe they went over. but I don't know if we count that as development costs because the amount of money they burned was right but anyway that might have just been the cost for for uh what do you call it um espresso yeah I mean I'm assuming that's just how much they thought at the time would they were doing so many non-licenses that it was going to be the times of the developers times of the coders times of the engineering. But anyway, that's all in the past.
    18:56
    Let's look to the past yet again while also looking to the future. I think the main thing for us to talk about in pinball this time, Tony, is James Bond and Stern pinball. Now, I thought we would actually be discussing the full reveal and things have happened. So most of our listeners who are pinball people are probably aware of this, but here's your crash course and what's been going on with James Bond pinball because we don't have everything I want to talk about, but I think we got enough that we can have at least a little bit of an interesting conversation. Yes. So James Bond was supposed to be revealed back on Tuesday at this point last week.
    19:36
    And this has been, and I've been in this hobby, Tony, for over 10 years at this point. I'm counting being in the hobby the moment I actually acquired my first game. I have never seen Stern have such an embarrassing launch in this entire period. This is the new, this is, I was trying to think what was the last, like, what was I going to, what would I have said their last really bad launch was? Probably Batman 66 when they put it out publicly and you couldn't even play it. But I understood the logic that I've heard, why that might have been the reasoning. This, oh my gosh. So, all right. Tuesday, last Tuesday, September 13th. that's supposed to be the official reveal. A week before that, they drop their teaser trailer. It doesn't show any of the game, but it plays a James Bond theme. It says, Shaking Soon. It shows the Stern logo. It shows a little white dot floating around before it forms into the gun barrel. Just a very, very simple trailer. But that's what they normally do is they put out a teaser. The game is then sent over to the United Kingdom. and I've heard different things exactly what happened, but anyway, there was a show. I think it's like the UK IAPA, so it's like an amusement operator show sort of thing. Anyway, so the games are there, some of them, some of these James Bond games, and I'm assuming the plan was Stern was going to do the reveal on Tuesday,
    21:06
    the 13th, And then they'd be able to unveil it for people to actually experience, look at, whatever, in the United Kingdom, which James Bond, United Kingdom, obvious tie, da-da-da. Well, someone affiliated with the event took photographs of the James Bond game. Now, originally, my impression was they'd actually rolled out and put the games on the floor at the convention on the Monday, September 12th. So the day before the reveal was supposed to happen. And I thought, that's a pretty big mistake.
    21:46
    But then I heard that the photos were actually taken over the weekend when the games first arrived and the person who took them was affiliated with the event. And in fact, there's a UK pinball forum, and one of the people there admits that he is the one who took the photos. And I believe he was like a show organizer in some capacity. Who he is is – And he admitted. Impressive. Yes, yes. Well, he took the photos for like promotional purposes, not to – he didn't reveal them. He didn't reveal them publicly. my understanding of the chain of events is there was someone else on his team or associated with some of the events that were going to happen in the UK he did give that person those photos who I think that person had also already seen the games because my impression again I may be wrong apologies if I'm incorrect on this was it sounded like he was going to be doing something later after the reveal like my impression impression was interviewing George Gomez the designer but It sounded like he was doing some sort of interview and I assuming it was with Gillis Well that person again on the forum admits he shared the photos I don't know with how many people. The way the post was phrased, it sounded like multiple people, and one of those people started to just leak it all over the place. and I read in another post from someone that this person like tried to claw that back after they were contacted or it was like this stuff can't go out yet doesn't you know it's the internet that's not how this works so the point is someone took photos shared the photos and another and that person then shared the photos more and then at that point you've lost control of the narrative and the photos are now out there. So, okay. So the photos are out there and from what I've been hearing is the licensor was pissed. Not so much Stern, but the licensor, who I believe is Danjek LLC. That's the holding company that controls the trademarks and copyright for Bond.
    23:55
    So, and from what someone had told me, they're very, very protective. of the license just in general. And so they were really upset over the leaks coupled with there's already a high level of uncomfort or I should say discomfort with all this going on while the mourning period for the queen is happening. Correct. So the event, the show, the trade show is still been going on while there are people lined up for 30 hours to stand in front of the casket of the queen. But because of this, Stern's like, okay, we're going to pull the game from the floor. It's not going to be shown at all. So it's not going to appear at the show. Stern's booth was still there. They had, I think, I saw a photo with other games. I think Mando's were there and stuff. So they didn't remove their presence from the trade show. But Stern then puts out a public announcement that says, because of the, you know, out of respect for the passing of the queen, The reveal was going to be delayed by a week.
    25:01
    And so the clock, there was a countdown clock on Stern's Insider website because they're selling a few of the limited editions directly to the paid Stern Insider Connect. People are allowed to have the ability to buy direct a few of them. So they reset the clock or added seven days to the clock on that.
    25:21
    So all that happens. then friday september 16th 007 store.com which is a james bond online store inadvertently apparently releases and then later removes the images of the pro and premium models of the game now up until this point the only images that are floating around all the way from this this monday period through friday are those cell phone photos right that were taken by the by the people associated with the uk event yeah the potato phone photos right i've seen worse they weren't the worst photos in the world but they're not great angles people are of course trying to dissect them and already well we'll get into the reaction so all right so now 007store.com releases like Playfield photos, the side shots where you see the cabinet translight sort of images. And I have those in our internal show notes. So Tony's able to see these now in terms of those are all 007 store photos, purportedly. I pulled them off of a forum.
    26:29
    So those go out and those get removed. Now, in between these two events happening, at some stage, CERN changes the reveal date again. So instead of Tuesday, it's now supposed to be Thursday.
    26:45
    Makes sense. So they ended up delaying it by nine days rather than seven from when it was originally supposed to be revealed. It's because of the funeral. Because of the funeral. So before we go into talking about what the game looks like, I'd like to know what your impressions are of the reveal process. Do you feel that I've been fair in my assessment that this is, at least as far back as I know, the worst reveal I have ever seen Stern do?
    27:15
    Yeah, easily the worst reveal I've seen from Stern specifically. I've seen worse reveals from other people most likely, but I think. Oh, we'll be talking about Spinal Tap later. Don't you worry. But I think that I'm not sold that this is 100% on Stern. I think Stern got caught up in a weird situation. My guess is that with the ties, the classical ties to everything, that somebody told them, hey, we can't do this. This isn't acceptable. I don't know if it was the license holder or what, or somebody just got a bright idea that, hey, since we're going to reveal at this show that's in Britain, maybe we shouldn't do that. But this definitely feels like a very last minute unexpected change and the kind of mistakes you expect to see out of something like that. Okay. I agree with a lot of what you've said. Not everything in that chain of events is, in my view, Stern's fault. It's not Stern's fault that the 007 store put out, inadvertently released the images on their website. In the defense of the store, they thought it would be for sale by now. Yeah. Well, and the thing is also, I think if it wasn't for the cell phone image leak and then that leak, I think we I I don't think it would be seen as of as nearly as much of a debacle. I agree. But that's where when I think about the launch being a mess, because obviously the death of the queen is complicated things. Stern is an American company. I get that. They probably went in not thinking about like, like if we have a former president die, we don't shut down. reveals and stuff. It's just different. Right. It's obvious. It's different for a variety of reasons. But where I do hold them responsible is how they've responded given the cell phone photo leak. No, they are not the leak. But the moment those games were shipped out of the factory, they knew or they should have known they no longer had control over the reveal narrative. Not completely.
    29:31
    So, no, I don't think Stern leaked the photo. But obviously we know the people have admitted who are the source of the photos that they are the source of the photos. But the issue is those photos went out there. The licensor got mad.
    29:45
    Stern could have delayed talking about the pricing and putting the game for sale. The decision to not put out the official photos was a mistake. But was it their choice to make is the question. They already had a scheduled date for the reveal. Correct. So I do think they had the choice. There was already an agreement. They pivoted for some reason. The game wasn't going to not be sold because of the Queen's death. They have a signed agreement. Dan Jack or whoever is not going to be able to come in and say, you know what? You're changing the reveal date now. It's like, no, we already agreed on a reveal date. Not revealing it in the UK, I get it. Putting out the images online and not putting it up for sale was an option. Instead of letting crappy photos circulate, that has made the game look bad. That's what they should have done. So that was the – I could see where they'd be like, no, we wish we wouldn't have done it. There's just a variety of other things. The Queen had died, I believe, over 48 hours before the games were going to be on the floor. Right. Why did it take them this long to make that? If Dan Jack was as on top of this as everyone says and as protective as everyone says and only got upset after the leak. Like, why wasn't the decision already made? We cannot reveal. She's been dead several days. We cannot. This wasn't like a surprise death in the sense that before that day the photos came out, everyone knew she was dead. Right. By a couple days. That's the part I struggle with.
    31:22
    And the answer is I don't know. And I don't know what they're. I could see that maybe they still ended up sending the games out there. But instead of like getting them set up and like everyone else was already closing stuff. Right. I just I don't understand. I just don't. And that's where some of it's probably American ignorance on versus their customs regarding that. But it once again, most of the time when there's been a leak on Stern stuff, the images are like out a day before. But when you've now decided you're not going to do the official release for another week just to let bad images fester, I just think it was stupid. No, no. I think the correct answer in something like that is always to drop your good, ready, high-quality images. I think that's the best way to preempt stuff like that. Because the game was already announced. The teaser trailer had already gone out. Correct. We know they've got Bond. You could still refuse to sell. I thought that was the main thing was like, you know, the crown is not filming during the period of mourning. Okay, you will not sell James Bond's during the period of mourning. That doesn't mean you can't put the photos out. Right. But I don't know exactly what their license, what the license holder is. I don't either. And what the rules are.
    32:42
    There's just no way to know. I'm going to go out on a limb and say there's not a provision that explained what they were going to do if the queen died. I'm going to go ahead and venture a guess that the license didn't account for that. You're right, and I'm guessing there's not a provision, but my guess is that there probably is a provision that gives the original license holder a fair amount of say in stuff, and they probably just went full stop. We demand full stop. Okay. They might not have thought about it, but I think it's dumb. I think the full stop is dumb. The second picture's leaked, they needed to drop high quality. Well, and here's the correct answer. And I can totally understand that the license holder could have started making all sorts of demands. Here's my read. It could be wrong. Okay. Here's my read. My read is Stern didn't push back on any of it. Oh, I don't think he did at all. They just rolled over like they always do. They always seem like they just don't really care much about leaks. And maybe they don't need to because it's like, you know what? If the game flops, we'll just sell more Godzillas. That's right. So it could be that. I just – it looked super amateur to me. I don't think you're wrong. I think you're exactly right on how it worked. So that's all I'm saying. Does it ultimately hurt them? You know, I don't know.
    33:52
    Unlike most of the other people in the pinball business, Stern can have a flop and not care. I mean, they can survive flops, probably multiple flops. But, you know, it's just so funny because we had just done our episode on survivability. And Stern has always been the only – different companies have different strengths. But Stern has always been the only company of all of them that I have felt looks professional. This did not look professional. This looked like we don't know what we're doing. We're not paying enough attention. We're not factoring in, oh, well, wait, wait, when's the day of the funeral? Like the stuff wasn't known. We're going to push it back a week. And then we've got to push it back a couple more days. And we're not going to put out the official photos. We're going to have the leaked photos. Oh, wait, no, now the James Bond store got to put up the photos for hours or whatever happened. Now they're out there. I mean, at least now they're out there. Meanwhile, on pin side, there are people that are like thinking this is – I cannot. I do not understand it. They're like thinking this – there's a subset of pinball people that think Stern deliberately does these leaks. Like this is some sort of big brain play. I'm like, guys, guys, Stern having potato cam photos coming out is not a big brain play. I can understand the concept that Stern deliberately does the leaks where you kind of get a feel for what game is coming or what the next game or how sometimes you get the – it's like rumor is the next game is going to be blank. I 100% understand the thought that Stern does that kind of leak because I can totally see it.
    35:30
    A leak like this with those potato pictures, no. If you want to argue a big brain leak, I would say – I still don't think they did it. But it would have made sense for them to go and say, hey, 007 Store, could you please accidentally let the good photos come out so that we could displace the bad ones? That I could understand. I don't think that's what happened. No. But I can totally see that. Doing that, and the reason why I don't think it happened is, doing that, I think then all you end up having is, while that works to Stern's advantage, Dan Jack then gets mad at the 007 store. My guess is – Who needs the license longer? Because what does Dan Jack control beyond James Bond? I'm not aware of anything. So after this run, does Stern need this relationship with this licensor? 007 store definitely does. Right. We know they do. My guess is that the 007 store update release was something that was probably programmed and had everything there and was slotted into place with a countdown timer to its go live time. And in the midst of everything, everyone forgot about it. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. That's the most logical, clear thing that you would expect a website to do. Yeah. Anyway. Because these websites do not have some dude who's putting all of this, throwing all of this together and then hitting go live. this stuff is thrown together one of the other companies we had that happen where someone was calling making that and someone found the professional companies oh it's so much do everything on the back end way ahead of time and it automatically goes live at the time it is supposed to go live well enough about the reveal let's talk about the game because this can't be any more of a cluster than the reveal So we have, and I've put in our internal show notes, I've given you one. I don't know if I pulled the pro or the premium play field up, but I've given you one shot of the play field. It's the pro because it's got flat plastics. Okay. And then I've also got you the cabinet and Translight imagery for the pros and the premiums.
    37:43
    Tony, what are your initial thoughts? It's so bad. It is so bad. What, all of it? Specifically, I hate the cab art. Okay.
    37:55
    I actually kind of appreciate the premium. Is it the premium? The premium is the blue one. Okay. Never mind. I appreciate the bright yellow. Okay. The pro, the doctor, no pro. I appreciate the yellow because I like yellow. I've seen a lot of people go, there's a lot of yellow. It reminds me of Silver Slugger. It does. But it really looks and feels like everything is 100% just, here's some movie posters. Let's tag movie posters. Which is apparently what they did. And it doesn't look good in my overall opinion. And I'm not sold that in this day and age, the side cab arts on Dr. No was the right choice. And the you only live twice side cab art is really. I like that one because he's there with his arms crossed holding the gun and not driving the little vehicle. The little gyrocopter, which, as I recall, was a poster. Sure. But it's just. but we want more realism in today's world. We do. I, the back glass on that one is just, Oh, it's very busy. Garbage. The, uh, Thunderball thing. I think it kind of reminds me of Thunderball, but maybe it's still more of the, you only live twice. Yeah. It says you only live twice. I don't know. I'm pretty zoomed out in my photos. So, um, yeah, no, uh, yeah, I agree. Art wise. There've been some people that like that. It's throwback art to the poster style. I, I'm going to go ahead and guess that there's this is probably heavy license restriction sort of stuff going on. I don't think the art is at all impressive. And in fact, in our internal show notes, I have shared an image that I believe was posted years ago and taken down from the artist, pinball artist Christopher Franchi of a version of art he did for a mock up of a trans light for Goldfinger. and looking at that and looking at what they've done to me is very hard to say i can't imagine most people wouldn't look and go wow the franchise art package is a lot better i agree i mean i think it's extreme it's extremely improved over what they ended up doing and you know i okay it is what it is i don't i don't make decisions on buying or not buying games based off of art so So what do you think about the art of the play field?
    40:33
    The play field is a complaint that is actually, for me, unusual to put on a Stern game. It is way too busy. And as near as I can understand from people, the way they seem to have laid it out is it's kind of like because they're merging all these Connery movies. Like they've got different shots that are representing different movies. To me, maybe part of the art issue is that there's a blend there, but there's a lot of floating heads. It is nothing but floating heads. It's very Photoshop era.
    41:07
    Here's all the ally floating heads. Here's the henches floating heads. And then you've got the movie floating rectangles in the middle. It's just, I can get it. Pinball, lots of inserts. I understand, but so many faces around so many of them. It feels like the Photoshop era where we just cut and paste faces everywhere. I mean, at least they're associated with actual things. But I. Right. Yeah. I just. It's busy. I don't love it. I don't. Yeah. It feels kind of 90s to me, actually. But not necessarily in a good way. No, like a Daddy East way. Yeah.
    41:42
    It's just. When I saw the play field initially, I was just not huge on it. Now, the layout looks like it might be fun. I really, again, I've not explored the layout a whole lot. Obviously, I've seen at least three flippers.
    42:02
    The rocket ship shot, and I know on the premium, it seems like they've got wire forms and stuff, so that's like a pretty intricate ball dock. Plus, the premium model has the James Bond on a jet pack, and there's like a target on top of a toy or something, where it appears that the jetpack's designed to magnet, let you almost crane-style pick up the ball, and then you're to drop it on a target. I mean, those are some pretty interesting mech ideas. Right. That could be a lot of fun. So I'm very curious about how this... I have a high degree of confidence that this will play pretty well. It looks like it's an interesting shooter. It doesn't look clunky to me.
    42:43
    But it also looks fairly unique, like that ramp shot That upper flipper allows you to accommodate I mean I'd say the least interesting part Is probably the upper right Pop bumper in lane thing But that's a standard area that you'd have on most pinball machines So you know I do wonder Whether or not we've taken too much space For the rocket up top But it looks kind of loopy and flowy So that could be fun It's going to depend on how it actually flows And we thought we'd have seen some gameplay by now But we haven't Right. So I can't, likewise, I have no opinion on what the sounds are or anything or the display, because we haven't seen any of that.
    43:23
    So, you know, so far my impression is the game may very well be fun. It has some, I think, interesting looking shots that I really want to see in action. Art package is a miss. Of course, that's not unique for, you know, sometimes stern games are misses on art, And we often assume it's when there are really stringent requirements from the license holder. Yeah. I just – It's just – They kind of – You only live twice in Dr. No are weird choices for me. It's hard for me – and I know Dr. No is actually rated fairly well on Rotten Tomatoes. But it's hard for me not to get the impression looking at the pro and being like, wow, they really wanted to try and make you pick the premium, didn't they? Just with the art. I mean, like, it's not, when people talk about Sean Connery and his James Bond films, the ones I always hear people talk about are Goldfinger and Thunderball. It sure ain't Dr. No. Exactly. Like the low-budget Bond. Yeah. Because they didn't have a lot of money for that movie. Because when I think Connery, it's Goldfinger and Thunderball. Mm-hmm. I think they're the most famous. And those are the ones I've seen, I mean, I've seen them all. Yeah. But of the Connery era, those are the ones I've seen the most. Now, here's an interesting point of discussion. People have been able to, I guess, zoom in on the rules card on some of these images, and it appears there's a wizard mode on Her Majesty's Secret Service. So there's speculation as, okay, you've got all the Eon Productions Connery bonds represented in this game. However, on Her Majesty's Secret Service, a George Lazenby played Bond happened before Diamonds Are Forever. So Sean Connery was the one time where they did Bond films and then he took a break and he came back for one more. Not counting, obviously, the unofficial non-Eon Never Say Never Again. Right. Thunderball remake. So given that some people are wondering is there actually going to be a mode where we get like if you get into Wizard you get to play and the screen will do Lazenby because Lazenby ain in the playfield art I also seen reports rumors that it going to focus on Blofeld and not have Lazenby in that wizard mode at all Which would really make sense considering Lazenby recent stint in the news in Australia
    45:52
    Yeah, but I just don't know if Stern can pivot quick enough based off of recent stints. Very true. True, but – and for those who don't know, Lazenby was taking part in a stage production of the musical stuff and doing an interview and talking about his time and said stuff that is very – would be considered very in-politic and very, very, very sexist and ended up being booed off stage. Oh, the interview was on the stage? Yes. It was a live interview he was doing on stage in front of, like, a bunch of ticket holders for this whole concert. And it got to the point where, yeah, he was booed off stage. He's been removed completely from the tour. Oh, wow. Everybody who was at that. I heard something had happened, but I haven't. I'm right up on it. Yeah, it was.
    46:45
    I've read excerpts from some of the things he said, and they're pretty bad. Okay. Wow. All right. Maybe edit that code. He's not in the art, so easy enough. All right. Well, that's all I really had to say about James Bond because, again, we don't have the review. We know that they've said the prices. They've told the distributors that all three model prices are going up from where we've been at with Rush. $20,000. With Russian Godzilla. So we'll see how much. Some people are hoping it's back to the old $100 to $200. I don't know, given what inflation's been, that it's going to be that low. I don't think it will be. I think it will be a much larger. We'll see. I mean, because likewise, Sterling, they don't have their head in the sand. They know what happened with Toy Story 4 and that pricing. If I had to guess, I would say everything would move up basically a section. So I would guess that the current premium price would be the new pro price. 9,000. The current LE price would be the new premium price, basically. I can't. I'm going to say I don't think they moved pros to $9,000. You don't think they'll move them that high? Not that high, no. In fact, I don't think they'll go up $1,000. They took a lot of heat for raising them $900 last year, and they blamed $400 of that on Insider Connected. So I could see them going up another $900 maybe. and blame you don't think they'd move it up the full thousand and even then that would still be under premium i mean i'm trying i don't remember what the current msrp is exactly on a on a pro i just don't know i just don't know if there's a market for nine thousand dollar pros even with inflation i don't know um but i could be wrong i mean we're gonna be talking about another game that i think has sticker shocked a lot of people and it's about 9500 so 68 99 it won't be it won't So if it goes up $1,000, it's still under $8,000. I just don't see it going to $9,000. No, you're probably right. Your argument of the premium maybe going from $9,000 to like $11,000. I can see that, but the pro is not going to go that high. For some reason, I was thinking the pro was higher than it is. For some reason, I was thinking the pro prices were closer to $8,000 than they actually are. So they might go up 75 to 75 or somewhere in that range. Yeah, it's just I think Stern really wants to be able to say that they didn't raise the pros by 1,000. I think they're going to really try. And again, even though inflation has been a lot worse this year, last year price increase was because of the new tech in part. Right. So they need to now basically take that tech increase and add it on to and say, okay, it's another 900. That's where I think. I think on the upper end for the pro. Premium LE, especially, it's trickier with those because they could argue that they're putting in more toys or something to justify that cost. But with pros, and clearly with the photos we've seen of the pro, they can't argue that. No, not at all. It's stripped as you expect. So speaking of stripped, let's go ahead and move on to HomePin. HomePin, known for Thunderbirds Argo.
    49:55
    Are they really known for it? I think so. whenever I talk to people about Home Pin, that's the one thing anyone knows about them is they did Thunderbirds Argo. Most famed pinball machine possibly of all time, maybe. I would say it's probably the most famous Australian pinball machine. Some Australians would argue that that is not an Australian company, but that is a debate we are not going to have. Instead, what we're going to talk about is Spinal Tap, or This Is Spinal Tap Pinball, which was revealed in Australia at Newcastle Pin Fest, as expected. I have a link in the show notes to Nap Arcade's coverage of this, which you may want to go and check out because there is a clip of gameplay. And taking a page from Stern, why not have a potato provide gameplay? So that's what we've got. But we do actually have gameplay. It's like 45 second clip. Maybe half of that time is actually gameplay. The price, US price, is $9,495. I don't know if you've taken a look at this yet. I'm looking at it as we speak. Go and look at the link because there are images. I mean, sometimes I wonder if people feel, Tony, that we're too mean to companies. Do you think people feel we're too mean? Do you think we're too mean? No, I don't think we're too mean. I think we're fair but firm with all companies. People thought we were stern fanboys. I don't think we were very kind to the reveal of Bond. And I'm afraid I can't be kind to this because it doesn't deserve it. This is – this makes the James Bond art look like a smart move. I – no, the cab, the cab is okay. Simple Spinal tap logos You know British You know Union Jack I'm okay with that Simple Simple's good Simple's fine The play field With the heads in the middle Just floating there I mean We were joking a little bit About the old Photoshop era Which Stern has a renowned Photoshop era In the Early 2000s Basically like 2000 to 2010 This Looks like Someone Like Baby's first Photoshop experience. Going in and throwing together.
    52:18
    They downloaded the free virtual pen software. And they didn't want to spend a lot of time on the art. But they wanted to make the themes really clear. So you just go. You load the Paragon layout or whatever. And you just plaster down some art. That's what this looks like. It is ugly in my opinion. This is an incredibly ugly looking art package on the play field. the decision to do the DMD with the LCD is super weird and my impression I'm getting from that extremely brief clip that was included is all the information everything about the game is on the DMD the LCD appears to only exist to play clips from the movie and that's it because that's what people want now we need clips remember people get upset You go and you buy That's why we wanted Guardians So we get to watch the clips And then you go and you get Jurassic Park And you're sad because you don't get the clips You just get stupid computer dinosaurs That aren't even cool But here you go It's almost like someone read Pinside And was like What's the least effort I can do to meet all their needs I need a DVD player In my game That just plays Spinal Tap With no sound on the display and then I'm going to use a DMD because I don't want to learn how to program a display to do pinball stuff.
    53:43
    Here's the thing. This is my read. I already thought Spinal Tap was a terrible choice. It's a very cult classic film. Yes. There are plenty of cult classic films out there. That doesn't make them not terrible choices. I love Buckaroo Banzai, but I understand that a Buckaroo Banzai machine would be terrible.
    54:08
    No matter how awesome it would be. 11. I understand. It's 11. It goes to it. Don't you see those inserts in the middle? I know. It tells me it goes to 11. And then in the middle it says 11. Though I think in the movie, 11 was just another notch on the knob. And the topper is just hot garbage. That topper could go with anything. I've heard vast, massive praise for that topper. That topper could go on Halloween That topper could go on Toy Story 4 That topper could maybe go on James Bond Think about it I want you to think about it Oh I've thought about it What about this layout You get a good shot of the layout in the flyer On the Nap Arcade article You can't zoom in very much Because it's like Four pixels I believe I've read some comparisons That parts of the layout are very reminiscent of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Well, there's the scoop on the far left. I get that. It's got flippers. Well, it's got the couple ramps there. I don't know. We'll have to see how it plays. And the pops are kind of in the middle. I don't know, but here's the thing. Oh, the reports of how it... Tony, because it's at that pin fest. The reports are coming in. Floaty and weak. And if you were to watch the video, there is one shot on a ramp that you see, and it seems that the ramp opening is way too big. Regardless, the ball just rattles, trying to get, it can't be, even though the shot's hit with a lot of power, appears to be hit with a lot of power, the ball just rattles and loses all its momentum as it bounces from wall to wall. You know, like how you want in a ramp shot. Exactly. Baby's first ramp shot. You don't want things crisp and smooth and satisfying. And I'm assuming some listeners may not know this. I'll just clarify, even though they don't get to see any of the images, at least not maybe when maybe when I retire from doing all of this. So when I say babies first, I actually, as Tony is aware, for years, I make like meme images of babies first pinball things. And I did it. I started with it years ago with babies first live catch. I think it was with live catch was the first. I think it was. And then I've done a lot about games. Now, I don't post them on our Facebook and stuff because I fear some people would find them too mean. So I haven't put them out. I mean, I've shared them like on Discords and stuff. I haven't put them out broadly. But I have a whole series of Babies First. A whole series of them. And so this one might have to be Babies First Ramp Shot. I haven't decided yet if I want to invest time making a Babies First for Spinal Tap. but I'm tempted but so but I'm just like oh my god the reaction to this is I will say there's one thing most of the people have commented even if they haven't been pleased do seem to feel that the game is superior in terms of build layout don't know about rules to Thunderbirds but that $9,500 price point is like killing any interest in this.
    57:33
    Isn't that basically what they increased the cost of the new run of TNAs to? It's $500 more than TNA. So why would you possibly get this over TNA? The only reason I can think of where you would not choose TNA and $500 in your pocket over this machine is if you already own TNA. And then you might do it anyway. I mean Because it'd be better When you get a chance to play The little short clip And it's so Oh I played the clip It was No I mean with the audio Oh yeah Because the game sounds Like an 80s game Like it's like Pew pew pitch Pew pew I mean Some people like Classic sounds like that I like them In classic games Well this game's Pretending to be classic It's got too many ramps To pretend to be Properly classic I'm just saying But you don't understand I don't No It goes to 11 It's Spinal Tap Everyone loves the Spinal Tap. I guess. I mean, I'm... I can't tell you the last time I watched Spinal Tap, and I have no desire to watch it because it's never been my cult movie. Right, right. No, I don't. I really don't care about the theme. But that's fine. If the game played incredibly, it would be different. If the game was priced under a Stern Pro, I think even with all the concerns, it could move units. This gets back to when I touched on whether or not HomePin is an Australian company or not. But we talked about this when we did our Survivor episode and talked about the survivability of manufacturers. What is the point of a company being based first in People's Republic of China, now being based out of Taiwan, if you can't get the build cost down to a point where you're actually competitive on the pricing? $9,500 for this is not competitive this is going to be compared to a Stern Pro it's a company that does not have a good reputation for building well and given that it's just we don't know the new pricing yet but for the current pricing Rush, Godzilla I hate to keep going back to it but this is more than a premium so that's what we're going to compare it to is the Stern Premium. Would you rather have this or Godzilla Premium?
    59:56
    I mean, come on. Really? Come on. That's part of the problem with TNA 2.0 is it's priced the same. This is priced more. Priced more.
    60:06
    And this is where, you know, and Haggis is the same. This is the boat that everyone out of North America is in.
    60:15
    Unless you're trying to be a regional provider, you are really putting yourself behind the eight ball, in my opinion, when you base your build out of the U S like base outside of the U S because the shipping and everything else to get over to where the largest pinball market is, is an obstacle that you have that JJP, multimorphic, stern American pinball. They don't have that problem. I thought Mike with home pens, whole thing though, was he's going to have access to the cheaper labor pool of China. and that would be able to help offset some of these like transport costs and things it sure ain't showing here definitely so you're one you're one advantage by being by basing yourself where there is no inherent knowledge on how to build pinball machines a labor force has no familiarity a labor force that doesn't know what pinball is because it's never been a big thing there is nothing you you gained absolutely not like what would it have cost if he built it in the U.S. because he's got the cheap labor to still price it and he's pricing it $9,500. I don't get it. Here's my theory. I'm going to double down. I'm going to triple down. I'm going to quadruple down.
    61:33
    This is HomePen's last pinball machine. I don't see the point in continuing after that. They might continue this company. I'm not saying they're not going to survive further. This is the best you can do. This is the game. In fact, here's a rumor. This is not a rumor. Here's a rumor. Because people are like, who designed this? And you might recall, Tony, because we talked about it way back, was the reports that Home Pin brought in Joe Balser after he left American Pinball. Right. I have read an allegation, not saying this is true, allegation that Balser came in to work on the game and that he was told that, oh, you're going to use this layout.
    62:15
    What's the point? I don't know. if that's true, I don't know if that meant he got to tweak some stuff or what, because he's known for doing layouts. So I don't know what that means. But it didn't seem like he was there very long. So it was weird. I just remember it was real weird because it was like a hot minute. He was associated with HomePen, and then all of a sudden he's not associated with HomePen anymore.
    62:36
    I mean, this wouldn't be the first company where I've gotten the vibe that the owner thinks they know better than everyone else. I mean that's almost your requirement to be in pinball It seems that way The sheer arrogance All these people that are terrible at building On all this stuff Just absolutely flabbergasts me But I guess this is the hobby You go to when you can't build anything else So maybe I shouldn't be surprised Baby's first manufacturing gig Yay So excited So okay I mean that's all I had on Home Pin and smile tap, unless you've got any final thoughts.
    63:19
    Final thoughts with Tony. I'm laughing because he's sitting up, he's throwing his hair back, like Cameron Diaz in Charlie's Angels, and he's at the mic. I think that Home Pin has managed to unite people in such a way to thinking puppets are even worse than they were into thinking that one of those cult classics might actually be worse than they remember.
    63:56
    And it definitely costs more than anything bit of enjoyable you can get in life for that kind of price.
    64:05
    So my final thoughts are that I think you could very well be right This may be The last pinball game we get from HomePen Provided They care about the people Otherwise They'll come up with some other stupid thing That'll be terrible I mean, I don't, again They haven't postponed over the queen Why is this cell phone footage The only footage I have of the gameplay In a way I get it Because HomePen has seemed to be really public like it's the distributor's job to sell my games, not me. But, oh, wow, well, you're clearly not trying very hard to sell them because it's like, where's the good footage? Where's a good player with a good camera? I mean, I'm not asking for like Twitch three camera angles with 12,000 lights hooked up. I'm just like, I'm just asking for something that's not 40 seconds long. Half of it's not gameplay with a shaky potato. And it just doesn't make your game look good at all. We have each, you and I, have each put together a completely separate decent pinball streaming rig. It costs nothing. It would cost nothing to put it together, take some good images, some good video. It costs nothing to take a machine and have decent pictures done of it in this day and age. And they still haven't done it. I don't know. It's not, and the entire, oh, my distributors need to sell this for me thing, is like such a 70s and 80s vibe of doing business that it doesn't even make sense why you would think that would be a route to go. I don't know. It's weird. Anyway, that's Spinal Tap. Yay.
    66:01
    Let's briefly move to American Pinball. So, don't have a lot of news Reports are I don't know when it was going to happen The tailgate party Like associated with Cointaker American Pinball Is not going to have Nordman's game At it, sounds like they're going to talk A little bit about some of the aspects of it But not reveal it In fact I don't know if they're going to finally Admit that part or not But I also heard that there was an indication that they're at least three months out on the game. So it sounds like it's not going to drop this year, given my, and I do my math, like it would be close. It'd be maybe December. Yeah. If that's true. Yeah. It'd be like the, the movies that drop like on Christmas day, just to be sure that they get locked in for the Emmys.
    66:54
    But, but what I wanted to mention wasn't actually that I'm just touching on that since we're, we're briefly talking about American pinball, But we got an email to click to gamers podcast at Gmail dot com after our discussion on the survivability of companies about American pinball. Now, I'm not going to read the email. And the main reason I'm not is the email came to me from someone who claimed that the original email source, who I do not know, was someone associated with at least at one point American pinball. But because I don't know that's true, I can only consider this an allegation from a purported source. And there's no way for me to verify that it actually is coming from anyone who has ever tied to that company or close to that company in some capacity. So because of that lack of ability to verify, I don't want to go out even noting that these are allegations into specificity when I can't be sure of the source. Does that make sense? Yes. But so let me just go ahead and say I despise doing interviews. You and I know we don't. There's a reason we haven't done them in a long time. A long, long time. If someone who has been with American Pinball wants to come on and talk about what is actually going on in American Pinball, we'll set something up. We can do it. Yep. So I'll throw that out there. So that said because I also feel that we because we do a podcast on pinball our number one concern has always been I think to respect the consumer and respect and protect their wallet We not in the business of trying to keep manufacturers alive That is not our responsibility They need to run their own businesses. I get worried when I even, honestly, we're just podcasters. It's a little concerning when you see manufacturers and they seem to start doing stuff based off of what they hear on the podcasts. And it's like, I don't know, that's the model you want to go with. Maybe get yourself some good real paid advisors. Yeah, yeah. Might not be a bad idea. Maybe do some market research. This email, purportedly from someone who was close to American Pinball at least at one point, is deeply troubling to me. There are a number of allegations about misrepresentations to the public about what's going on at the company. there are allegations of some touching on some of the things that we brought up in the last episode where it felt really top heavy, like in terms of designers and stuff like, but they don't have enough of the right types of people to actually move forward with all of these very bold claims that are happening. So, and also that it's not the best work environment, like maybe, maybe again, allegedly sort of a toxic work environment. So I'm going to note all that because people may have money in on some of these games or been thinking about buying some of these games. I don't know these allegations are true or not. We got some, and it's a laundry list. You've seen the email. I have. There are some serious allegations that are in it. So I'm going to note that we received something that makes some serious allegations. But I don't want to go into the specifics because I don't know who the source of it is. Right. Even knowing the source, it would depend upon their comfort level with going in. My source that got me this information has been very reliable, but my source is not the source. This is secondhand. So if someone who is or was with American Pinball wants to and is comfortable talking about it, feel free to reach out to us, and I'll make an exception, and we can do an interview. Even if it's just me doing it separate and dropping it in the show because it can be difficult to work around our schedules. But, I mean, I'm more than willing to have the conversation, but I think something to this degree needs to have a name tied to it. Yes. Unless I had multiple sources. I agree. We're not journalists. This is a hobby podcast. We don't put ourselves out to be journalists, but I do try and, you know, I don't want to. I would be uncomfortable going forward without names or multiple sources or preferably both. To me, there's a big difference between us saying we like what this company did or we don't like their decision they seem to make. And here's how we think the decision making worked versus saying, you know what? This is what's happening at a company. We're just going to start making claims and even tacking on allegedly on it. Only so far, I'm willing to be comfortable going because it's not my goal to just torch a company either.
    71:27
    If you make a decision as a company, and I think it's a bad decision, I'm going to say it. Oh, definitely. to say, but this is going in too deep down the rabbit hole for we to be able to judge from the outside.
    71:38
    So anyway, but just FYI, folks, you know, emails like this make me think maybe I put them still too high on the list sort of stuff. So it's time for Rumor Corner, Tony. Rumor.
    72:01
    Dennis Crissel's got the news before Napa Caves. Get that right, Tony. Yeah. This rumor is about Mark Silk. He did Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Stern Pinball. Some of the voices. I think five or so. He does Splinter. I know he does Splinter.
    72:21
    We've talked with him several times, in fact. Cool guy. So this rumor is about him and pinball. and that is that he is doing Scooby-Doo pinball voice work. Now, I know he has a Scooby because I've heard him do it. In fact, I think he does Scooby-Doo stuff for like the UK at least. So here's where the rumor part of this gets interesting because obviously you'd be like, well, yeah, Mark can do Scooby. So it wouldn't be – it would be an easy rumor to make up. Here's the thing. The report that came to me said they heard on another pinball podcast, Like they were running through his credits and a person had said that Mark Silk Scooby-Doo pinball, like they listed it in the resume list. It wasn't Mark doing the listing or someone else. And the podcast has since been edited to take that reference out. So I did not hear the podcast. I did not hear this original audio. Someone else wrote in, though, and claimed they did hear it. So that's why it's in rumor corner. Interesting. What are your thoughts about – I mean, we've long discussed the rumor that Spooky is doing Scooby-Doo. I mean, yeah, that's one of those rumors that everyone just assumes is real at this point. Right. It fits into their broad kind of spooky theme.
    73:38
    They've done other cartoons. I mean, they did that custom job for Jetsons. Yeah. And Mark could do Scooby. Yeah, he could very well, and I think he'd be a good choice for it. So go for it if it's real, and if it's not, interesting. So did it room retain you? I'm always room retaining. That's good. Not everyone is. Once again, someone has posted on Pinside not understanding why I keep saying room retained. As if I'm going to change it.
    74:09
    I'm not. Because it room retains me. That's the point. That's the whole point. It's my podcast. It doesn't have to be funny to you as long as it's funny to me. It's funny to everyone. Except some. So that's all room retaining can give you. All right. Video games, Tony. We're done. Video games exist. So we're going to talk about companies making bad decisions. Our favorite topic ever in all fields. We're so negative sometimes. Actually, most of these decisions are not bad.
    74:47
    Blizzard has confirmed Overwatch 2, which is coming out on October 4th. Yep. free to play has four new characters in it three of whom will be available at launch to people who converted Overwatch one accounts to Overwatch 2 otherwise you will have to unlock those three new characters in their battle system and the fourth character that it will be unlockable for everybody behind their new Battle Pass system. Battle Pass. Everyone loves Battle Pass. Don't you all have Battle Pass? Yeah. You've got Battle Pass, right? So Battle Pass is their new system that has two tiers. There's the free tier and the premium tier that cost money to build up and unlock skins and various other things because they got rid of loot boxes. Thank you. and are going to a system where you can unlock some things for free. Or if you want something, you can just purchase the one item you want instead of buying random loot box crap.
    76:04
    But a lot of people are annoyed because, A, this new character still has not officially been released. It was leaked. Right. But B The battle pass system for the Season 1 battle pass Has 80 levels And this new character will get Unlocked at level 55 So most of the way Through and from what they've said Is the characters that are being When the game first goes active None of the new characters will be playable In competitive battle All of the new characters will be playable in other game modes but not competitive play because they are still performing balance tweaks. And then they will be brought in to competitive play once they finish those tweaks.
    76:57
    But, if you don't want to wait, if you don't want to build your battle pass up to 55, you can spend 1,000 Overwatch coins, which is 10 bucks, roughly, to get immediate access to the new character.
    77:13
    In addition, Overwatch 1 servers are going completely offline. Overwatch 1 is completely dead and removed as of October 2nd, with Overwatch 2 going live and active on October 4th. So, I don't know if you have converted your Overwatch 1 stuff to Overwatch 2 yet. It did the merge thing. I've not done any of the merge stuff because I deleted everything. I know you did. Because you've been rebelling against your favorite multiplayer game. Yes, I have. Just accept it. There's now going to be a Fox Girl at level 55. At level 55, you can get a Fox Girl. It's a reason to come back. But not yet. Not yet. Not like this. Also, interesting free-to-play conversations. This bit of note came to me originally from the best source I've ever had. My daughter, who was very annoyed and then got over it.
    78:25
    Very, very upset. But now it's fine. She likes playing The Sims 4. Okay. A lot of people do. And not that long ago. She purchased it earlier this year. She's been playing it. She enjoys it. Well, they've made the announcement the base game for Sims 4 is going free to play on October 18th. Battle Pass. No, they're actually going to maintain the DLC system.
    78:52
    So what it is is the base game will be free to play, but you still have to purchase the DLCs and install the DLCs. So they get you They bring you in with your little Do your little burn your house down And it's like oh that's cute I want to get that cute little Little building house Bedroom set oh that's in this Specific like Fantasyland Yiff DLC so I have to buy that DLC now that's $15 So that's where Now, they are going to give the newest DLC, the one that is just coming out, to everybody who owns the base game before October 7th, which is the Desert Luxe Kit for those people who like the American Southwest styling.
    79:50
    My daughter was mildly annoyed that she bought the game and then it was going to go free to play. And then she read on and found that They were getting the They were getting free DLC They get the cacti to go with Their other stuff So I remember When the first Sims game came out And it was everywhere And then they just kept going and going And going I think with the kind of gaming models we see Most of the days anymore Going to this kind of model for Sims 4 makes a lot of sense because it lets them keep the base game as their primary thing and just keep making DLCs, which since they're not really adding a whole lot other than art assets, it's got to be cheap for them to keep cranking stuff out. Yeah.
    80:44
    There was also a major Nintendo Direct. A huge one, and I guess it kind of surprised people on a short notice on it. It was kind of short notice, and it was, I think, bigger than most people expected considering everything.
    80:58
    It was the Farming Sims Direct. Where they talked about all of Nintendo's new farming sims that are coming out. They actually talked about a lot of stuff. They talked about there's a brand new Fire Emblem game coming out. They gave us all the important information for the new Breath of the Wild sequel, which is going to be called Tears of the Kingdom. Tears of the Tamed that's what I wanted them to call it it's also the Legend of Zelda Farming Sam and it's coming out on May 12th they announced Pikmin 4 which has my wife very excited she loves the Pikmin is deeply popular they announced Octopath Traveler 2 which Octopath Traveler was one of those early surprise huge hits on the Switch they announced a new golden eye but the queen apparently video games get to do what they want they're Japan they can do what they want I thought we as Americans got to do what we want they were never vassals of the queen I do want to point out the day after her death I went to CNN's website and I was just like and I'm whined about this This is a dentist thing. Guys, fast forward if you hate this. You don't have to put up with it. But I was just like, why? We've been liberated from the United Kingdom as a colony for over 200 years at this point. Well over 200. Why is it that we remain, in my view, completely obsessed with everything about the royal family? Like every birth, every wedding, every divorce, and now apparently every funeral becomes wall-to-wall coverage. The front page screen stuff included hit topics like what happens with the Queen's corgis?
    82:59
    And I was like, surely they're burying them with her, right? Like that's how we honor her. That's how we honor her. Apparently, no. That is not what happened. because I didn't read the article, but there was a follow-up one days later explaining what was actually happening with her dogs. You want to know what's really disturbing? What? What is really disturbing? The coverage of the queen on CNN is bigger and heavier than on BBC. On BBC, it's huge. It's the header. Right. And there's like one big story and a live timeline where you can pull it up, and every time they put out some new little blurb or there's some new little note or some new little video, will pop up continuously, and it eats the top section of the screen. And then everything else is regular news from around the world. And that's the thing where, again, and I get it because it's not America either, but I thought it was stupid that I had to scroll to find out what was going on in Ukraine. That's what annoyed me. I'm like, I want to know about this big Ukraine counteroffensive, and I'm having to scroll past dogs. And I like dogs. I know. But I shouldn't have to scroll past dogs to read about what's going on with Ukraine. I know. You shouldn't have to. All right. So, Goldeneye coming out. Goldeneye. Going to come out on Microsoft stuff, but only local co-op. Nintendo Switch, though, is going to get online co-op. Which is pretty clever. Very interesting. I know Goldeneye was one of those, like, classic Nintendo. See, I didn't play it. I didn't either. Like, it wasn't a touchstone for me because I didn't have that system. Right. But for a lot of people, it is a touchstone.
    84:39
    But they made a bunch of announcements. There's new Pokemon-related, color-coded Nintendo Switches coming out for the two new Pokemon games being released just before the Pokemon games come out. There's a new six, five, I'm sorry, five farming sims to go with the six farming sims that have already come out this year. Wow. Because they're releasing a game that's called Harvestella, which actually looks kind of cool. It's kind of a Farming Sim slash Final Fantasy combat-y type. Okay, I saw some of the footage of this, and I thought it looked really weird. It does. It looks kind of cool. There's Rune Factory 3 Special, another new Rune Factory game coming out, Fae Farm Story of Seasons, A Wonderful Life and there's been like a ton of other ones that have already come this is like the year of the farm sim for some reason it's like everybody saw just how popular Stardew Valley was a few years ago and everything and they've been working on stuff in the background I know Final Fantasy XIV just released like you can have your own little island that you can farm on and stuff as an addition that is part of Final Fantasy XIV now. You have your own little, yeah. It's becoming a whole thing. But no, I think the big thing to me has got to be The Legend of Zelda. Yep. That's what everybody's been waiting for. And they gave a date. Right. So everybody knows what they're aiming for now. The other thing is there was a few more things on Bayonetta 3, which comes out in like two weeks, maybe three weeks. Those are very early on. I haven't played the Bayonetta's. I know they're very popular. I really enjoyed the Bayonetta games. In terms of the mechanics and stuff. Yeah, they've got some fun mechanics for that type of game. I don't know if I'll get this one. I do have my Switch has been returned to me. Oh. I do have my own Switch again, I think. Why are you unsure about this Bayonetta then if you've got the Switch? I barely play anything anymore. Yeah, that's true. I was just thinking about that the other day I actually started four different games the other day And I didn't get past the intro on any of them I was just like, two of them I quit out on the I saw the load cinematic and I'm like Nope, don't think I like it Because I've got piles of free games And I'm just like, nope I play, I am playing At this moment I still play An occasional game of Nova Drift Because they're fairly quick And Enjoyable and it's something I can just get up and walk away from and I don't matter. I did pick up a new game yesterday that I've played a little bit of. It's early access. It looks beautiful, but I don't know if it's going to become anything. It was like $9.
    87:46
    And then I still play Battletech. Surprise! A very, very heavily modded Battletech game on occasion. and I've started playing an extremely heavily modified Xenonauts game, but only on occasion. And those are all games that I can walk away from in the middle of a game with no issue. Right. So I just don't have the kind of game time that I used to have, and hopefully one of these days it will return to me. But for now For now I'm going to just be more picky On what I spend You did another tot You did a watch tot That's not a game It was a game, it was a lot of fun I had a good time You tried to force me into choosing the Rolex You tried to force it It didn't happen We had a lot of people, we had more Canadians I got Canada's coming out in force. Canada is strong on the watch market. You interacted with Zach? I did. I told him well after that, after the recording, that in response when I had shared with you that he was very concerned, privately expressed concerns because he didn't know anything about watches to do a tot, that you had told me that doesn't stop him in pinball, so I shouldn't stop him in anything else. I'm an a**hole Well And it didn't stop him Yeah I do I have to beep But It was a good time It was a lot of fun You cut the video with me being all Gestury and being That was a good time to stop it That was a perfect time to stop it It was great One of these days you'll pick cool watches Maybe if I have more requests for specific ones to be done From people You had some good watches in there. Some people have given me some suggestions on what to cover. I mean, some of the watches you picked were really good. I liked the Tank versus Reverso.
    90:00
    Oh, my God. The viewers are like, why don't you pick some round watches? Why do you have to be weird?
    90:08
    Maybe next time we'll only do round ones, okay? Sorry. Sorry for picking a single one that's – Sorry for picking elegance. Yeah. Sorry for picking quality and high end. Sorry for picking dress stuff.
    90:24
    None of us wear dresses. Why are you picking dress wash? Don't you all have tuxedos? Well, anyway, that's it for the show. So if you want to write in to us, as I noted earlier, you can do eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. You can also go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast and use the messenger thing. We are available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And maybe in two weeks We'll be back and actually have the real James Bond reveal or maybe Stern will keep pushing it I don't know They're going to put out this is Spinal Tap 2 Yes That'll be announced Maybe as popular as Grease 2 was It's a word I heard It's a word Grease 2 cruise control Oh yeah they should do speed Anyway until next time I'm Dennis I'm Tony Goodbye everybody See ya.