you're listening to episode 223 of the pinball podcast hi jeff i could have made the intro music louder so do i just sound like incredibly loud now oh there it goes again oh no See, that would be appropriate there. Pew, pew, pew, pew. That's my favorite part. What a horrible intro I created for us. For you, actually. I stepped all over you. Sorry. Hi, Jeff. Oh, hi, Jeff. Hi. Hello. How you doing? I'm doing great. How are you doing? Also great. Yay. Yeah. I, you know, have much to complain about, but none of it that I should. Of course you do. Yeah. I will be complaining later, but with all the stuff that I've been doing, I don't have a whole lot to complain about because I've had a good time period between shows. Yeah? What have you been up to? Okay. Let's get into it. all right it's almost like there's a show in a format almost we can we could trick people into thinking this is fine um well my league wrapped up uh that i've been playing for i think it was an eight week eight week league plus finals second place no um i did make the a division finals i forgot what my final um uh position was but I think it was I don't know like top seven or something I think I made semifinals I don't know but uh I it was fun it was fun to be playing competitive pinball again consistently and in an ongoing like points matter week to week fashion So it was good. Like I stayed right there at the top all season long and finished well. I got to the finals and I won every game that used standard flippers and I lost every game that used precision flippers. So I want to talk about those more later. but yeah league wrapped up and it was fun it was good they did a great job running it and at finals I won $69 nice and it was good it was a good time at least so also week to week if you had the high score on a game you got one of those dollar coins you know little brass coins or whatever the sack of joey is and each week I did manage to win a coin so that felt great I had at least one game I blew up every week of the league I love a Goldie game anytime you can do dollar games for coins it just, it feels nice it feels more substantial somehow yeah it makes it terrible for Tommy Dollar so definitely so yeah, the day after league we flew out to California because we were going to go to Universal Studios to go to Super Nintendo World with the kids that was a blast but a couple of days before that or earlier in the week we went to Golf and Stuff yes the Golf and Stuff that Daniel LaRusso goes on the date to in the Karate Kid movie it's still there and it looks the exact same just the names have changed So, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, I went to the golf and stuff. And they had three pinball machines. They had a Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Guardians of the Galaxy. I tagged them all with my initials and rolled some free credits. Look at you. But the Star Wars is Star Wars, so I played that once. And Jamie, she suffered through a few credits on it. Guardians of the Galaxy was a premium, so I was like, oh, cool. I don't see that very often. It's not too often you don't have the pleasure of the giant hands blocking your view of the orbit. But the mouth was broken, so there was no Groot multiball. That's always fun. But I still was able to drive through about six modes, so I tagged that one. But Lord of the Rings worked well, except for the magnet on the ring. So I got all the way to destroy the ring and couldn't get it to go through. is either like the shot would have to be perfectly paced to fly in through the ring without the magnet you can trigger a mode start but you could not destroy it which is a bummer but got through all the multiples everything so high score on it that was that was fun it it was cool seeing the lord of the rings on location i haven't seen that for a long time okay so i was just talking to my friend drew from back in portland who i miss very much and we were talking about like when we started playing competitively and we would hang out he worked for um one of the operators in town and he ended up working for another one but um he would always have to hear me complaining about their games but we were playing at this place called the lost and found um they had a lord of the rings there so we were playing the heck out of it and it was the company that he used to work fours game and so he didn't like you know have their keys or anything but he also wasn't working so that wouldn't have been a thing for him to do at the time but it kept saying destroy the ring and i kept hitting it like over and over and over and over again but like that second switch the one that's the initial switch in the ring and then there's one in the back would never register so he's on the phone calling them to tell him it's broken and i know right now she'll trap up you I hit it 12 times, Jeff, 12 times while he was on the phone with them. And every time the game's like, destroy the ring, I'm like, I'm doing it. We're just like laughing our asses off just trying to play this game. But it was, I mean, it was super fun, regardless of if it was working or not, just because it was good hangs. But just talking about how Lord of the Rings has some ring issues. yeah and unfortunately when the ring's in rough shape it brings that game down quite a bit but man it has the best jackpot callouts in pinball so good it's so severe oh yeah he put his full chest into those callouts there's a period after every syllable jackpot one so good but that's all the pinball I played on the trip Super Nintendo World was a whole heck of a lot of fun and so was Springfield and all of the international studios it was a blast, every inch of that place is just charming the kids lost their minds it was so much fun we got the power bands, we did it we went and saw Space Shuttle Endeavor which was super cool went to Little Tokyo, went to Chinatown town. We stomped all over the place, man. We stayed up in the Hollywood Hills, like way, way up the top. It was crazy. Our view was, you could look down and see like the Harry Potter castle down in Universal Studios from way up there. It was fun. Ate a lot of great food. Eventually had to come back. I'm glad that you had a wonderful trip. But I'm also glad that you're back so that we get to talk about your wonderful trip. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Made it back. And then kind of between that point and now, uh, between recording and talking about this stuff, I've been behind the scenes working on the, uh, what's going to happen with the pinball podcast website. It's not ready to unveil yet, but there's some improvements coming there and I'm happy about what it's going to be. It's going to be nice. Um, it won't be a virus ridden, uh, dirt bag of a site any longer. and I'm excited for that. That's so unlike us. I know. Every once in a while, though, you do have to go a little off-brand to keep them guessing. That's fair. I think that's it. I think. If not, whatever. Or you'll remember it later. Or not. Whatever. Maybe. Whatever. um i have not really played any pinball i know that that's not great for for us to talk about um but i will say that um my favorite spot in florida that i found the pinball asylum in fort myers i know we've talked about them before um the owner david and his whole you know, board that he has there. They're run totally on donations. Their collection is absolutely incredible. They held the worlds there last year for IFPA. Um, they are unfortunately getting kicked out of the building that they're in after them having that space for like 12 years. So, um, if anyone has been there or is looking to go there in the future, they're run totally on donations. So buy some shirts, you know, see if there's, if you know someone who has real estate in Fort Myers or whatever, um, anything that you can do to support the pinball asylum, because we do not want them to go away. Um, it's just a very cool collection of machines that you don't see anywhere else run by really amazing people who are super passionate about pinball and just so friendly and such lovely humans and I really want them to land in a good new home. So, you know, unfortunate news, but I'm trying to look at the positive of they get to find a space that's, you know, more tailor made for them and hopefully the space will be perfect and amazing and it'll be a good move even though they weren't looking to make one. Yeah, that is frustrating. Yeah. the little guy little guy gets pushed around a lot these days yeah okay little guy getting pushed around also just the cost of things being so bizarre like housing prices up car prices up pinball prices down I don't it's so everything's all over the place I don't understand can we go back to a bartering system yeah it's rough like I don't even know like how it's going to reverse anytime soon just like building space is weird the industry itself is kind of weird the economy is who knows what's going to happen state I don't know like it's just a bummer because it's always a little guy that has the price extracted from them So, yeah, yeah. Well, it's it's an unfortunate, but I really hope that they find themselves an amazing space and that it's even bigger and better than it was before. Well, still currently it still exists right now until the end of their lease agreement. But definitely support the pinball asylum, support any of your local pinball locations, because everyone's going through a time right now and they definitely need it. Yeah, let's take care of the good people in the hobby, huh? Exactly. Yeah. OK, well, aside from delivering dire news, what else have you been doing, Jess? um so i don't know if you knew this jeff but uh i sell pinball apparel you do i do um and oh did you i'm wearing i'm wearing a soft plush t-shirt right now yeah you are i love it um anytime i see a picture of someone just like at an event or at a like non-pinball related thing and they're wearing one of my shirts, I get really excited. There's a hug incoming. Yeah, all the hugs. Or the booty shorts out in the wild is always a good one. I see a lot of them for people doing yoga classes or pole or silks or that kind of thing with the leggings too. So those are always fun. But we've been having a really big sale and it's a really very big sale sale. But by the time this podcast drops, the sale will probably be over. So what I did was made a coupon code for anyone listening to the podcast that will be good until the night of December 9th for 15% off your entire order at ddpinball.com. So there you'll find all of the soft plunge merch and all of the double danger merch. Um, so if you would like to support a small business made by people who genuinely just do it because they love it and they want to support independent artists, then please, please come and buy some swag. And if I see you wearing it, yes, there is a hug incoming. All right. And, um, the thing is with the, uh, soft plunge stuff too, to give a little, um, bonus reason to buy it. It's like good quality t-shirts. It's not, it's not scratch your neck. Gildan garbage. Yep. And it's not direct printed. Everything's screen printed by hand. We also have stickers and patches and hats and all kinds of weird stuff. Also. Um, but yeah, I, I don't ever want to make things that I don't want to wear. So the T-shirts are like super comfortable and they're longer than standard. So, you know, like when Jack Danger is wearing one, he can lift his arms up and he's not, you know, showing the goods because the shirt's longer. So that kind of thing. So if you're a little bit taller, if you like a kind of longer fit shirt, something soft that's not going to be super boxy is what I try to go for. the hoodies are the softest hoodies I've ever worn in my life. And I can't, I have other hoodies that I got before I started doing this and I go to put them on and I was like, Nope, Nope. I can't do it. It's not the same. Um, but yes, I appreciate all of the support and the, um, code, the coupon code of course is yay pinball. Oh, per Jeff's suggestion. Um, all one word. And you can review that. Life's a dresser. That's who that was. Yeah, ddpinball.com through the night of December 9th. Very cool. Okay, December 9th. So that's what I've been doing. All right, that sounds good. I know it's the time of year when you're focusing on, you know, peppermint lattes and the togetherness and hugs and all that stuff so pinball sometimes takes a little backseat this time of year but that okay too Okay Then that fine It's a weird, it's a weird time of the year. Um, you know, because there's so much going on. It's like, there's a lot of good stuff, but a lot, a lot of people also have really negative holiday associations and, uh, there's weird money stuff that happens around holidays. Everybody gets a little more stressed, but, um, Pinball is the nice, fun, relaxing thing that we can do together and focus on just to have a good time, everybody. Okay. Well, Jess. Yes. Talking about a good time. Yes. A lot of people have been checking out this video that went up. And when I say good time, you know I'm referring to Labyrinth Pinball. But did you see the tested video? Oh, my God. With Adam Savage. Yes, the video is incredible. Oh, my gosh. It's the best like deep dive into a machine, especially from someone coming in like from an outside perspective. So talking from like a more art oriented focus and an engineering oriented focus. It was so great to see how excited Adam was about everything. because you know like i i always love mythbusters i don't know if you were a mythbusters fan of course you can tell when he's like going through and doing stuff and then when he gets really excited about something yeah he was so excited about labyrinth yeah i was gonna say if you look at the just beginning when the video starts like the first four or five minutes he's sitting there grinning like a little kid and it's great so great it's so great the quality was awesome and it's just it's so so good and getting to see some of the sculpts and some of the sketches it's it's a great video if you haven't seen it highly highly recommend going and checking that out definitely and um when we say deep dive like it's deep that is quite i mean that it's perfect actually they go seriously all in and uh they did a wonderful job on it yeah so check that out and uh speaking of labyrinth i just saw that dr john got his labyrinth in australia so it's the first labyrinth to land in australia and it is going to be at the australian pinball open this weekend so if any aussie mates are listening and headed to the australian pinball open be sure to play labyrinth let us know what you think about it it's great to see them you know getting out into the world more i am dying to play one i don't know why but um i've just been bad at getting out to the shows this last year so i've had a lot of like true FOMO, but not actually fear of missing out. It's just actual missing out. I don't know what that's called. Missing out. But yeah, I've missed out a lot. And yeah, Labyrinth is probably the one game that I've, I hadn't been able to play that I've just been dying to the most. I finally got a chance to play Scooby-Doo in the final week of League. That's how far behind I am. I just played Scooby-Doo for the first time. What did you think about that? I thought it was fun, but I only played, one complete game on it and then a couple of balls. I found it hard to drain, actually. I felt like draining either... It seemed to have to have been an intentional exercise, but I did enjoy it. I thought it was cool. I didn't quite understand everything that I was doing. Just towards the end, I realized you just really wanted to get the ball up top and just bang around up there with it. It was pretty... That little bookcase flipper that opens with a little secret passage door, that's my favorite part of the game. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah, it had a lot of fun little things in it. I would have liked to have played it in a quieter room because I could barely hear it. But yeah, I can see why people enjoy it. And so... Anyway, you've played Labyrinth, I haven't. Blah, blah, blah. Jeff doesn't want to talk about it anymore I'll talk about it but I'm going to be grumpy about it what else is new Jeff's feeling grumpy we'll get to that we'll get to that after the hurry up you want to hurry up now do you not want to do hurry up now are we going to wait to hurry up let's hurry up hurry up I think we should do hurry up now yeah okay good just checking can you tell my brain is firing in like 50 different ways I feel like I sound like a crazy person I'm here everyone I am paying attention it just doesn't seem like it Well, I feel like you may have told me we were talking about something else, and I may have just completely skipped it because my brain's in 83 places. But I think it's a good thing to do. It is. It is. And I do have three games, and you should have three games. I do. Let's have you start with your first one. All right. Meow, meow, meow, meow. Bad cats. Bad cats. So this is actually a great one to discuss. This is a game I used to not like much at all, but now I adore. I love it. For me, just nailed it. Yeah. Agreed, because you're a smart man. Yeah. Sorry. Well, I agree. Anyway, yeah, it's a great game. I don't see them hardly ever anymore. I think they've just made their ways into collections and kind of disappeared. Yeah. I convinced after much pestering at Allentown a couple of years ago, my friend Joe to sell me his bad cats, which came with he had everything ready to redo it. So like rad cows, new play field, new plastics, like everything ready to go. But he just didn't have the time. so I bought it and I was like I'm totally going to do all this stuff so now I have a bad cats sitting next to a playfield and new plastics and some red kills oh I'm jealous yeah one day I will get to work on our games instead of working on other people's games and it will be glorious Jeff I have no doubt it will be glorious and then you can come play my bad cats and you can come play my labyrinth okay great this feels this feels like a good deal yeah i mean especially for you yeah there's no way you're winning on that um yeah i'm i'm down to get bad with the cats so okay so we agree um my first game now I'm being specific here not in an attempt to be mean I'm just curious the Cactus Canyon remake alright I haven't played the Cactus Canyon remake as much as I've played the original Cactus Canyon so I used to play it at C-Bar on the Rose City route and it was great and I loved it so playing the remake Like for me, the few times I haven't played it a ton, the few times that I've played it, I'm like, oh, that's right. This game is really fun. And then I don't understand, like my brain is still in original rules mode, I guess. And it just feels a little disconnected to me because of that. The game itself, I still think is really fun. Like the shots are fun and, you know, lock is lit. And so am I is like always one of those classic call outs. but I don't feel or I haven't felt, I guess the like draw to replay it as much as I did back then. And I don't know if that was because it was such like a rare thing back then or I don't know. I'm somewhere in the middle. If you could be in the middle, that's not a, um, I mean, I'm sitting, I'm sitting kind of slop shoddy, but it's for weird reasons, you know? they're no they're totally reasons to make sense um so i guess here's my thing i never truly loved cactus canyon um i think what they did in the remake is great and they they did it they did a nice job with it i just can't for me get into the game all that much um i don't think it's bricked it so i'm just gonna say it's a slop shot for me yeah i mean the original would be a nailed it for me. I just, I haven't connected with the new rules and that's where I kind of fall in the middle, in our gray area. Yeah, and that's obviously a very important part of the game. Yes. Yeah. So are we both slopped? I think we're both slopped. Okay. Okay. But yours, Bad Cats, we both loved. So we're agreeing a lot. I know. It's weird. it's been happening a bunch the past few I feel like we need to drop some more divisive I might be dropping a more divisive one right now actually yeah hit me with it I'm looking at a it's kind of I'm feeling nostalgic a little Pinberg replay effects nostalgia happening and I want to know what you think about one of the classic appearing in pinberg bank games that would end up in dollar games afterwards that people either hated or hated and i feel like maybe i was the only one who loved it uh and that's rogo oh oh so situational bull lovable and hate hateable it's a it's a true it depends on what it do situation. But I do have to pick one of the three things. I think simply due to what I'm saying. I think I'm going to say slopped because dollar games, heck yes. For sure. Yeah, I'll say slopped. We're disagreeing because it is a nailed it. Okay, but I understand that too. I know that it's weird and sometimes unpredictable and sometimes just really, really mean or really boring depending on how it's set up. But it's, I just love it so much. I think I've won it every time I've played it in a round at Pimberg and always so like that ridiculous giant. You it's so simple yet over exaggerated at the same time. No, that's actually important, though, because it's different. Yeah. It's different. It's really different. But it's simple different, which is such an odd thing. It's harder to do. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Okay. I'll stick with the slopped just because it does have its obvious drawbacks, too. But situationally, I do love it. Situationally, I do hate it. I think, though, we're going to easily agree on this one. I hope so. I don't want to get mad at you. Are you sure? I'm not really actually sure of anything. But my next one's Taxi. Oh, that's a nailed it. Okay. Me too. Taxi's a nailed it. Taxi is a classic, gorgeous game. When it's set up well, it plays like the flow in that game. I mean, talk about classic call-outs and stylistically, it's just such a great game. It's another one of those just like beautifully simple games. it's simple in a totally great way so I love a pinball crossover so when you have to pick pinbot up in your taxi and let's just talk about the theme because the theme is just you're driving a taxi that's the greatest and it worked so well And like the cast of characters that you're picking up, it's like, okay, you've got Marilyn Monroe or not Marilyn, depending on what version you had. And then you've got Pinbot and Dracula and then you've got Gorbachev and Santa. Like, what? It's just so bizarre and fun. And like, I love a great non-licensed theme. but it's just such a silly premise where now if a machine came out and the theme was, you're just driving a taxi and picking up passengers, people would be like, what are you talking about? And why are you talking about it? Okay. Okay. Well, we agree on that one then. What's your third? Oh, all right. Uh, my third is Charlie's angels. Oh, okay this is another one of those like situational ones for me but I am actually going to disappoint you right now I'm going to say it's a brick Jeff how could you I have trauma with the game it's treated me very poorly okay but maybe you had something to do with that maybe probably shouldn't take all of the blame is this are you projecting? I'm not blaming Charlie. I'm doing what any good red-blooded American male will do. I'm blaming the angels. I'm blaming the women. Ah, of course. Of course. Not stupid. Oh my gosh. I don't know what it is. But it's something that maybe I feel like it could come around on because I used to hate the classic Playboy and now I love it. I have no idea if it's going to be that sort of thing for me or not, but I don't know. I don't know what my problem is. Okay. If I know what my problem is, life is a lot simpler, but I'm assuming it's a nailed it for you. It's a nailed it for me. I love like the asymmetry above the flippers where you've got like a standard slingshot on one side and then you've got that really exaggerated sling where you need to be able to nudge well to save that ball or not nudge at all, which is the thing where it's always like, oh my God, do I do this? Do I not do this? Am I just going to ruin this for myself? I like putting myself in perilous pinball situations, I guess and then try and get myself out of them And there something really satisfying too of that era when you go over those little rollovers and they make that little click click click clicks you know like it it just really good and it one of the last games of pinball that I got to play with my mom um at the silver ball museum in Asbury Park before um she got sick so it's it's one of those like I wanted to get her a Charlie's. It was my goal to find one for her, to get for her, and I could never find one. And now where she is, she doesn't have space for it. I still think that it would be really great to have a pinball machine in an Alzheimer's or memory care unit because it's a tactile thing and it's a sound thing, which are great for people who have dementia. But I don't think that they would let me put one there. But I found one for cheap, like, down in Miami a couple years ago, but the cabinet's literally falling apart. So I have it held together with ratchet straps, and one day I will rebuild a cabinet and put this Charlie's together, and that will all be thinking of my mom during it. But it's also just a really fun game to play. Oh, it definitely is. Then why you got to be so negative? It's just how I do. You're like, yeah, it's really fun. It's a brick. Get rid of it. No, don't get rid of it. I'm just a miserable human being. That's all. Okay. I'm joyless. I'm glad that got a little bit heated there. I know. We've needed to shake it up, Jeff. We're being too nice. We're very dimensional beings. We're not flat personalities. And sometimes we disagree. That's true. Because, I mean, sometimes you're wrong. I mean, that's also true. Like a lot of times in life. But it's okay. Tis. Okay. What's your last game? My last game, and I think this is going to be divisive amongst everybody out there. It's Black Knight, Swords of Rage. Hmm. Hmm. Gosh, that's such a hard one. Are we talking pro or premium? I'll let you decide. Okay. So if we're talking pro, I'm leaning on the side of nailed it. And if we're talking premium, I'm leaning on the side of Brickdit. Is it the upper playfield you don't like on the premium? Okay. So when you think about defining features of Black Knight, Black Knight 2000, you are thinking upper playfield. A loopy upper playfield. Yeah. Then you get to Swords of Rage. And it's like my initial thoughts about Swords of Rage were it's not Black Knight if it doesn't have an upper play field. And then I played it with the upper play field. I was like, why is this here? I don't like it. Yeah, I don't like the upper play field. I don't like the ball lock, Mac. For me, just I think it's either side. It's a brick that leaning towards slop. I don't think it's a disaster of a game. I think it's just a missed opportunity of a game. Right. That's fair. But when it's playing well and it's playing fast and mean and it's set up nice, especially when it's punishingly fast. I know you hate when games are playing super fast, and we just talked about this. No, no, no. I like fast games. I don't like fast games that the design doesn't handle its own speed. This one handles the speed well, I believe. It does. There's a couple of sucker shots that you are forced to hit that can be a bit frustrating. But the most ridiculous thing about that entire game, aside from the upper play field that you mentioned, is that they use the action button on the lock bar for the Magna save, and you just can't. It needed to have the extra button on the side. Yes, it has to be a button on the side. the center button, I will never, every time I would go to use it, I would still hit the side of the cabinet where there should be a button. I would never hit the center button for that. So yes, but that also goes into my, um, feeling my, my grump session that we're going to have to have in another episode that, uh, center buttons are far too overused in games. Oh yes. Like they have no rhyme or reason most of the time, but, um, yeah. it goes back to the thing that I old man ranted about they flash them all the time when there's nothing to collect with it or nothing to do with it they're just flashing those stupid things it's like stop flashing things that aren't lit oh it drives me crazy I hate when the lock bar is flashing and it's not gonna do anything sorry yeah sorry yeah I'm not sorry or it's like they're slightly different color what does this color mean what is this I have no idea what's happening do I want to hear when it's red or when it's green or white or does it not do anything at all right now or if when I hit it instead of it doing something it cancels something I don't I can't unless the game is like explicitly telling me this I cannot interpret all of the signs on the lockdown button we're going off on a yeah ACDC uses it perfectly and everything else has got slightly worse since then peak dumb was the TIE Fighters, and then it's kind of stayed dumb since then. Not even just the TIE Fighters, but the fact that you have to hit it and then move your shots for your multiplier and then hit it again. In a game that moves at breakneck pace. That's a game that the design doesn't handle at speed. The rules don't match the design. Okay, sorry. Okay, we're done now. We are so done with that. Hey, that was a good session of the hurry up. It kind of felt therapeutic. It was a roller coaster. It was at times warm, at times inexplicably frosty, and at times just outright fiery angry. So that's what we want out of that. It was a nice productive therapy session of a hurry up. It was. We got a few things out. Okay. Speaking of a few things being out, there are new ads out in the pinball universe. Have you happened to be exposed to any ads that you were surprised to see lately, Jess? Oh, you mean like a flyer with features listed? Or what kind of ad are you talking about there? No, it doesn't help you in any way. No. But you may not have noticed, but you probably did. Stern has started putting ads into the attract modes on their games. And you can turn them off in setting number 55. That is the most important piece of info this show has to offer this week. They call it message of the day. And then you can have it on or off. So they're also like hiding it in the language, you know, because you're looking for something that says turn off unsolicited ads. And there's nothing that says that. It just says message of the day. Yeah. I still feel like the best attract modes, you know, you have the insert coins and it shows the number of coins you didn't put or that's fine. The best ones are the ones that give you like little rundowns on the game. Or fun facts. Yes. Like Ghostbusters has fun facts about the movie. They're great. Yes. Yeah. Ads just feels like not the place for an attract mode. That's like a... What's the opposite of – I guess – Discuss mode? Repel? Yeah. That's really good. Yeah, it's just a weird thing. We're light on news this week, folks. But that's news. That happened. I hope that they would start using that space, though. if they could make it dynamic, say your machine's connected, that they could use it to like publish IFPA events or other things. If it was going to be message of the day, that maybe they could actually roll through helpful info and hopefully ads or just like the placeholder test. But I kind of feel like they're going to be here to stay. Yeah, I, I concur. It's, it's difficult. Like, I don't I'm not exactly sure who it's aimed at, because if you're if you're trying to get people to purchase games for them to have at home and it's on a location machine, the location wants you to come and play the games at their location. Yes, they don't want you to go home. Right. And if you have the game that you're seeing in your house because you've already purchased it, then you don't need the ad telling you to buy a pinball machine to put in your house because you've already done it. So I'm not, I don't really understand. You know what the ad could say? For the price of another game, you could add a topper to this machine. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure that'll come. I'm sure, oh, gosh, this would be terrible, but I could potentially see it happening. Like if you have a game that's out on location that doesn't have the topper and it's one of those toppers that enables an additional mode or whatever, I could see them like putting an ad saying, tell your operator, tell your operator to get this topper to play this additional secret mode that you can only play with the topper. did you know you're missing out on pinball at this location did you know the location sheaped out and didn't spend the extra two grand to put the topper on here so you could play an extra mode and then they tell you the location nearby that has one that's so terrible why are we giving them ideas I'm not editing it out but just bleep the whole thing okay yeah okay yeah that'll happen great i mean it did happen because people listening now they heard the beep um okay okay so we've been asked to talk opine if you will on the state of the pinball industry um there's no there's more pinball manufacturers now than i think ever when you include um even like the small run companies um the big constant line running companies and the in-betweenies. There's a lot of pinball companies. Pinball prices are also higher than they've ever been. The pinball market seems to be as big as it's been for the home market ever. Location market, obviously, is nothing like it was in the 60s, 70s, 80s, even early 90s. A lot of people are asking if we think that there's a crash or correction of sorts incoming and um i don't know what do you think like do you have any opinions on that uh you've obviously been more connected to the location world than i have but what do you think i mean i'm terrible uh at financial things so uh i can't really predict trends very well or i don't know Can't or won't? Can't? Can't? I don't know if I was just like, oh, I'm going to do this now that I would be able to do well at it because it doesn't seem to make any sense, Jeff. It's like prices are super, super high. And then all of a sudden everyone's like, nope. And then nobody's buying anything. And then prices for games just plummet or prices are getting raised on one hand. And then for certain titles, prices are getting dropped randomly. I don't know what's happening anymore. So what I think I've been seeing, because I finally started to buy games again, I've noticed that you do not have to be on the phone or banging on someone's door who's listed a game within the first five minutes anymore. For a bit there, any game that went up in any condition was selling for just bonkers money. And that's definitely cooled off. There's still, if there's a good deal on a game, it's gone, like right away, for sure. But reasonably priced games sit for a while. Overpriced games are now sitting for a very long time. So that definitely is happening. And I've looked around in different markets, just out of curiosity, just kind of see what's happening elsewhere. And it seems like that's just starting to happen everywhere. That could be that people have filled their game rooms with all of the buying craze that went on. Like the last three or four years were crazy for people buying pinball machines. So a lot of people probably filled their game rooms. But at the cost that they did it makes it prohibitive to rotate their games very much, I think. So that kind of cooled, I think, on the secondary market. But for the new market, it seems LEs and collector's editions are still, like, people are kind of showing up to those for their pre-orders. But they're not the lightning-click sellouts, so I see a little slowing there. But I think what is happening is people are getting a little more choosy. People are still willing to buy new in-box games, but they're getting a little more picky. by most and you know there's some distributors who will say and then a lot is just kind of inferred from what's happening but it appears that Venom has not sold very well and I think that's because it's coming off the back of Foo Fighters which everyone loved and they were in on it and I think that the money to jump in on something like Venom that I don't know you may or may not like it but it doesn't feel as surefire of a long-term prospect that people are saying, okay, well, we know L1's coming up next, so I'm going to wait and see, rather than just saying, whatever comes out, I'll just buy it. And I always know I can resell for what I'm into it or even at a small profit. Yeah. Because that's not such a sure thing due to the cooling second-hand market, which is kind of trickling upwards to the new-in-box market. so while I don't personally see like a crash coming in I see a slowing and I think that slowing is just bringing things back to a sane level um I don't know that it was normal that people were waiting nine months for a Jurassic Park or something like that that seemed that seemed wild that the lines were getting so long on those things um so I don't know I don't think it's doom and gloom at all but i think some of the manufacturers the big ones are going to be fine they can survive a miss here because there's enough interest in the other games on their line that they're constantly going to be able to sell games and have games in production but i think some of the smaller ones when they have a miss it's going to hurt them really bad um because they can't afford to have one of their games skipped in their release um schedule i don't know how spinal tap soles but garbage right spinal tap still makes me really really sad just because waste wasted license. It's a wasted license. I love it so much. And I, I mean, then to see who was making the game, it was very challenging for me, but, uh, I don't, I just feel like there's so they're pushing games out at like crazy numbers. I think, which is, I know Stern doesn't release their production numbers, but it just feels like there's a lot of certain games that are there, like just like around. So that's kind of messing with, you know, supply, demand, people's perception of value and price. And someone had posted something maybe on Pinball Enthusiasts or something. And I took Facebook off my phone because I'm not supposed to look at people anymore doing like posting crazy stuff and going down some Internet rabbit hole. It's better for my mental health if I avoid those things. But I did happen to see that someone posted something about it was like the price of a used game versus the price of a like Venom, whatever. And they were like, you know, proof that the pinball market's insane. And I was like, I just think that people have different interests at different times. I don't necessarily know. And if there's a lot more of a game that's just really available. So while they're running a game and they're still ones that you can get brand new, of course, you're not going to make as much on that game when you're selling it used as someone is when they're selling it just in the box. Right. They've got Jurassic Parks on the line. you're going to have to take a loss if you're selling one used. Yeah. And that seems to, I don't know, that seems to make sense to me, but other people it's not making sense to or it's alarming to. I don't, pinball is not going away. I don't think that there's any indication that that's going to be a thing that's happening. The market gets weird on all the different kinds of things that you buy at all different times. so this one just happens to be a time where if you have the space and you have the money you could probably pick up some older games at a decent price and that was not the case you know six months ago things ebb and flow and i don't think that it's um worth jumping off the hypothetical bridge going crazy over. Everything will be okay. It's not like you need to cash out now and sell off your collection or else you're going to get stuck with dead money. That's not happening. I just always thought it was weird and it's only been like the last five years or so where people expected to buy a game brand new and it would never depreciate. It was always cheaper to buy on the second hand market until recently and there's no way it can stay like that for the reasons that you mentioned and others. But I think it's a bigger – I don't want to get into the discussion now. There's a difference between a pinball player, a pinball collector, and a pinball player collector. And that middle one is the odd duck that's expecting the market to always shift towards their interests. And I don't want to get into much of that right now. But the player and the player collector, they're the ones that have been punished most by the scurry market. Yeah. I think we kind of agree. Like, yeah, there's going to be some upward-downward shifting on pricing and number of games and all that, but nothing's on fire. The roof is sound. Yeah, everything's fine. And it just makes people have to prioritize a little more, I think, like focus on the things that they really, really want. So if a new game comes out and you just usually get a new game and then eventually you cycle it out, but prices are weird and you can't sell something out of your collection, then maybe they'll focus on the stuff that they genuinely want to keep around or the ones that it's, you know, worth putting that little bit of extra money into versus what they're getting out of something else. But I feel like it's going to hone people's collections in a little bit more. Yeah. Or the days of try it before you buy it might come back. Right. That would be really fun. I like those days. the good old days alright yeah that's definitely enough thanks for those who asked us to speak on it if you have reactions to that you can email us at pinballpodcasts at gmail.com I did want to mention one thing that's got me grumpy just one I've mentioned a few but there's only one left Okay. I'll keep it quick, but I will get grumpy on this. And you might like these and you listener might love and adore these. I hate these things, but it's these precision flippers. Have you played with them, Jess? I actually picked up a set of them at Texas to try. Yes. On our Godzilla. Did you get air balls? no i i haven't personally noticed a ton um but i also have barely played any fall um so it's not like i was playing games of godzilla then put these on then directly compared it to what i was just doing um so i'm probably not the best person to be i don't hate them like they're on there now and I'll play games of Godzilla and I don't hate the experience. Am I buying them for all my games? Not right now. So I'll explain to you how I stepped into the world of precision playing. So I went to League one night and I didn't get there in time to warm up. On my way to the place there was a car accident. I got in like minutes before we were sent to our matchups. So I walked up and the first game I played on, I think it was Rush and my, or no, it was The Walking Dead. I walked up and I had a Walking Dead and I have those shots really, really dialed in. I can, it's a hard game. Magnets can screw you. The ball gets wild on you, but I can hit the barn loop. 95% accuracy. I can hit that CDC ramp 85% accuracy. I can hit those shots and hit them reliably. I went and I just was missing badly. Like it wasn't like it was just kind of sloppy rattling out. I was way off. And I, after the second ball, I'm like, what is, I finally asked someone when I was playing with him, are you missing all the shots? I'm like, what is going on with this game? And so they mentioned, they said, oh, did you not warm up? All the games here have these precision flippers. And so I didn't even know what they were talking about. I'd never heard of them. I hadn't seen them. And then so when I got up on my ball three, I looked down, and yeah, they're these metal aluminum bats with super bands on them. Oh, okay. Well, the super bands, that's not good. Yeah. So first of all, you can't trap a ball with super bands on a precision flipper. You try and catch that ball. it's just going to bounce. It's way too springy. And so that was frustrating. But what was happening is these suckers flipped so fast, plus the different grip of those super bands that your shots, geometry is way different, just way different. The flipper bat's moving too fast. So I was frustrated. I played that. I had to play Rush, which I already don't like. And Foo Fighters had them, and they were horrible. The ball was just... just zipping around and I was irritated. I didn't like it. And everyone else had like been there for the hour, hour and a half or whatever and played them. Plus they had been to that place before and played them. And I, that was my first time ever there. So I hated it. I, it was my worst week of league. There was one older game that didn't have them and I high scored it for the week. I think it was twilight zone. Um, anyway, is this you being bitter because you didn't play well on the games with the flippers or is it genuinely okay also the super bands i don't think that you can accurately speak to your experience with the precision flippers with super bands on there like maybe you should try them without super bands with something else well it was a nightmare then all i know is that um shots either just just the angles were wrong because the flipper speed was different anyway so i i tried to figure out like what is the deal with these things right So I looked him up and deep dived down into Reddit posts and Pinside or whatever. And the champions for them tend to be these high mod people. So I was like, okay, maybe it's one of those pretty over-function type of things. But then as I kept getting deeper and deeper, it sounded like, okay, if you're going to use these, you have to dial down your coil powers. And you have to change the pitch of your game. Well, none of that was done on the machines I played. They were just thrown on the machine, right? So apparently you're supposed to, yes, chill out the flipper power, and you're supposed to play at a different pitch. Well, the next time I came up to them again was at the league finals, and again they had super bands on them. But I was sending the ball just airborne because it was going too fast. It was an Avengers premium. I hit the backboard like three times, just rocket shots. it was falling off ramps it was hitting targets and just the ball speed was out of control and it's because it was kicking so blasted hard and um there were only three games there that had it i lost all three games on it um with the regular flippers won easily on the regular flipper games but what it did is it made avengers such a mess that if you hit the lock for the Iron Man one, you know, the little Zac Stark Tower, the ball would fly up so fast, smack the top of it and fall down, the magnet would miss it. Or it was just you would hit the spinner and your ball would fly off of it. Or you were hit, just the shots were nuts. And it was so crazy. But I and I, again, was bothered as well. People say they're really more for Jersey Jack games or the new CGC games. Not so much Stern's in less. And then again, it was all of the other work you need to put into it. So if you have to, like, slow your game down to use them, what's really the point? I don't think we've had a lack of precision. I mean, I don't see Elwin struggling, struggling to repeat a shot. Well, that's Elwin. I think that's going to be... That speaks, though, to the flippers fairly consistent, because if the flippers were not consistent, he would miss those shots at a reasonable rate. I think that flippers, maybe they're 95%, and that's why I can hit barn 95% of the time on Walking Dead. But with percentage flippers, I was 10%. It was wild. I was guessing where I had to shoot, or just, you know, I'm just going to have to play flippy flip. Um, I was mad. I hated it. I don't think they should be IFP illegal. I think they're cause, cause anyone who comes to one that doesn't have experience with them, is it a severe disadvantage to those who do have, um, experience with them? Yeah. Well, I, I'm mad about them. I understand you're mad about them. I am not as mad about them. I don't have any reason to be mad at them right now. So take the super bands off. Cause you know, those are no fun, but that might be the biggest impact on them. And also when you play a game that you have and you have the shots all dialed, like anytime I played a tournament and there is a theater of magic, everyone's like, Oh my gosh, you're going to kick my ass on this because I had one. And I was like, no, no, no, this makes this so much worse because mine is not going to play like this one. There's no, like everything's different. So, you know, It's just about adaptation and knowing not to expect the same thing on a game from one location to another. Yeah, that's always the case. Like I own a TNA. If I play TNA to a rare, my score is about half what it typically is. But I just found that with those, because it changed the flipper speed, I couldn't find the shots. Whereas I could find the difference in a shot because I know how it should, which would or supposed to shoot. but yeah anyway i hate them i hate them and i'm grumpy the opinions expressed by jeff are not the opinions uh endorsed by the pinball podcast but hopefully they will be by the ispa when you get them out of tournaments i don't think it's gonna happen don't think it's happening all right we are running so much longer than we have been lately lately. Like a flipped pinball off of a precision flipper. I see. I see what you've done there. What have you been playing aside from precision pinball, flipper, pinball? Well, I've been traveling around and stuff. So not a whole lot. Jamie and I are behind on our Super Mario Wonder progress, but that's what's on tap. So nothing new to say about it. I did get the watermelon game and it is entirely original. fault. It's so fun, though. You'll hear your name cursed several times a week around here. It's the cherries. Oh, the cherries. It's, you know, it's the bizarre physics I can't wrap my head around, but it's adorable, so I keep doing it. I don't know. Yeah, it's a good game. It's oddly addictive. Yep. Problematically so. All right, Jeff. Do we have anything else? What else do we have? Just a reminder that at ddpinball.com, use the Yay Pinball code. Get your discount on very good pinball merch. Thank you. Email us at pinballpodcast at gmail.com. I won't be entertaining pro-precision flipper talk. so everyone send all of your pro precision talk to Jeff please actually no I'll take it if you can give me something that's helpful like how I can deal with those things I will definitely listen because if they become commonplace I will have to adapt I understand that play better is play better no it's not it's not the game needs to play better okay Jeff but I don't know we may have a little thing rolling out with the website soon we'll post about it on the socials and all that we'll make you all aware when there's new stuff to see or do excellent thank you Jeff I need a nap right? yeah thank you okay until next time Whenever that is. We love you all. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.