All right, welcome everyone to the very first Pimble Oswald podcast. My name is Jared. I'm here with Matt and we are just going to give this a bit of a run and see how we go. Just be warned, there may be some swearing during the podcast, so if you've got young ears, just turn away. I suppose we'll just do a quick brief intro about who we are, so that way it just sort of lands the foundation. This will be about a half-hour podcast, hopefully, moving forward. This one might be a bit longer. It might be 45 minutes by the time we probably ramble a bit, but we're going to try and keep them to about a half an hour and just see how we go and hopefully just keep you guys entertained with what we're doing and what the industry is doing. It's not going to be – it'll just be informal chat, really. I guess, why not? Like, it's not going to be anything major. You want to start with an intro of who you are, Matthew? You can start. I can start. So my name is Jared. I've just been in the hobby since 2007. Originally, I was an arcade guy. You know, I used to ride my bike down and play arcades like Double Dragon, Wonder Boy. What were some of the other ones? track and field, heavy barrel, like that's what sort of hooked me into the industry initially and enjoyed that side of things. And then, you know, 2007, just sort of swung into pinnies, got myself a Simpsons pinball party and things just sort of went from there really, you know, joined a forum and sort of got information there and met like-minded people and just kept sort of buying and selling machines and getting the collection. So just sort of grew the collection now up to about nine, I think it is currently. Hopefully going to add a tenth soon if I can find the space for it because like everyone, space can be an issue. Or I shouldn't say like everyone, like some, space can be an issue. So, yeah, that's kind of me. One of the admins of the Pinball Auswide Facebook group along with Matt. So we just thought this would be a nice little offshoot as part of it to get everything going. So, yeah, so that's basically me really in a nutshell. There's not much to tell in that regards. What about you, young Matthew? My name's Matt. I've been in the hobby since 2011. My first machine was a Playboy 35th anniversary machine, which I loved and which I sold but then I bought it again because I really enjoyed the machine what got me into pinball was just when I was a young kid I used to go down, my mum would drop me a time zone on a Sunday for the locking sessions which I think was from 10am till 12pm I think it was or 9 till 12 or something like that and I just gravitated straight to the pinball machines and back then there was the Adams family there there was Jurassic Park there Terminator T2 what else um high speed so that's yeah as a kid I loved them and just growing up I always wanted own pinballs I you know I guess also always just asked my father you know I want a pinball and he was always like no and so once I got a bit older I started buying pinball machines and loving the hobby more and more uh my collection is now at 68. So, yes, all machines are working. There's no project machines as such. Yes, some needs some tinkering with, but they still play. That happens in storage, doesn't it? That's exactly right. Unfortunately, I have 28 in storage at the moment until I build my map cave, but there is currently 40 at my house, which is pretty incredible. I'm also an admin on Pinballers Wide help moderate and take care of the page and the members which has grown that's what you should say so since I joined Pinballers Wide back in 2017 I think it is back then I think there was only 3,000 members back in 2017 by 2019 there was 5,000 members and then COVID hit in that first year, we went from 5,000 members to 9,000 members, I remember, because we did a, it was a big happy 9,000 members, and then it was 10,000, 11,000, 12,000. Then by 2021, we went up to 15,000. And as of now, 2025, there's 18, 19, 19,000 members. All thanks to Matt. All thanks to me. No one else. So, yeah, the hobby has changed in the last five years. It has just boomed. More people want pinball machines, more people want to be in the hobby, and just the exposure of pinball machines and just all the new manufacturers, the amount of machines that are being produced and different titles has just changed this hobby, yeah, flipped it upside down. Yeah, it has, and we'll get into pricing later, obviously, but I think with that sort of settling a bit, Hopefully we continue to get more and more people into it as well, which would be nice. Which would be nice. I'm still missing none of the new Happy Friday new unboxed pinball machines, unfortunately, at the moment. Yeah, we don't get many of those posts yet. Chris put one up the other day, though, which was nice to see. I mean, he's X-Men. Yeah, so that was good. But, yeah, okay. Now, when we sort of talked about this podcast, we're sort of going to just keep it brief and have a bit of a chat. Obviously, Christmas has come and gone, as well did the Melbourne Expo that was held. We obviously gave some tickets away to that, which was very good. And I didn't get to go, but Matty, you did. So did you want to touch on sort of the Expo as a whole and the feeling behind it, how it was set up, location, and just the general feel of the event? The expo as a whole was fantastic. Great venue. What more can you want? Beers, food, pinball. And like-minded people. Everyone was there having a good time. Plenty of machines to play. Line queues were very short. Even to play some of the new machines like Avatar, you could walk up to it and play it. Even Looney Tunes from Spooky. Yeah, that's pretty good actually, isn't it? You just walk up to it. There was one Avatar which was in like a, what would you say? It was like a rounded roof, like a coliseum, and it sounded absolutely amazing in there. And it was as if it was hidden away. Not many people knew about it. So you'd just walk out of the machine without any cue. So it was, yeah, fantastic. George has said he's going to put on an expo again next year, which I can't wait to see what he brings to the table this time. I wonder if it'll be at the same event, if that was large enough. I think it was large enough. Yeah. I think you wouldn't want any more people in there than what was there. So obviously they had 300 people per session, plus people who were the operators and the other tech support. So there's probably close to 400 people in general. And if you had more people, it's hotter, longer queues. It's just messy. I mean, certainly everything I've heard is that it was very well run. You know, like you tend to hear this through this hobby if things aren't as good as they should be. All accounts, it was run really well and everyone had a ball. Well, the group of friends I went with and all the friends that I met up at the expo, everyone had a great time and haven't heard any bad murmurs about it. Yeah, good. Yeah, nice. It was fantastic. So there were a couple of new titles there. So there was, you said Avatar, Lucas brought Alice in Wonderland. It was absolutely amazing. Were there any new Stern releases? John Wick was the newest. John Wick was the newest. So you got to play Avatar. I played Avatar, Alice in Wonderland, John Wick, Elton John. Labyrinth? Oh, Labyrinth, yeah, I played that as well. That was there? That was great, yeah, very good game. So what were your thoughts on, you rolled your eyes there? If Labyrinth didn't have, what was it, it was a flipper. The right flipper was weak and you couldn't hit the shots on the right flipper. Yeah, okay. if that flipper was either powered up or it was in the settings, whatever it was, it would have played a lot nicer, but I would have loved to have actually been able to play that in a quieter location so I could have heard what you had to do. Sounds like what Avatar was in a smaller room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I could actually enjoy the integration. I think the playful art looks great. I think the layout's great. Yeah, like I said, that right flipper, it was just weak, and that was seriously the downfall. When I played it, so I went up to Sydney and hung out with Nathan when I was up there. I can't remember when it was, but Lindsay, who's up there, one of the ops operators up in Sydney, he has that sighted at the Penrith Tats, I think it's called. And we played that, and it didn't feel like it was dialed in, but it certainly looked like it was a complete package from guys of their first machine. It looked pretty impressive to look at. I wish I could make a machine like that for the first go round. wish I could have made a machine at all. I'm sure a lot of manufacturers probably wish they could have done that the first time around and succeeded. But then what else did we play? We played John Wick. That was, honestly, it was fun. I enjoyed it. The bash with the car, I had no idea what I was doing, but shots felt nice. Everything flowed quite well. Yeah. The bookcase was weird. There's a bookcase you've got to sort of hit on the side, and then I felt like it flailed in there. It sort of... That's how the modes start, I think. Yeah, I think so. But I just felt like you... It wasn't a direct hit ever. You sort of had to sort of, like, slip it off the flipper and it just sort of snuck in there. Looney Tunes. Oh, there you go, Looney Tunes. What a great-looking machine. As a kid growing up in the late 80s, early 90s, it was just perfect. The artwork was perfect. Animations were perfect. just the integration on the screen the modes it played really well even though you know i remember you got the plastic rant or so you got the orange ramps and they look like they plastic but that not the case It just orange powder coating I understand it It to keep with the theme of the Looney Tunes It's just that orange factory. So it was fun. It was definitely fun. But unfortunately, I couldn't keep playing it because people did keep coming up for that machine. And it was a lot of younger kids as well with the parents. So there were a few young people there at the expo then? Plenty. So there was plenty of parents with their younger kids, so introducing them to the hobby. And then what else was there? So Avatar, what a machine. Fantastic. Play, flippers feel great. It was... Yeah, I think since Richie's got over there, something feels right about those machines lately, which has been good. They feel less, I don't know, floaty, and they're a bit more snappier, I guess. Bally Williams, fishtail-y feeling, maybe, I think. That's what I'd say. But Avatar, beautiful-looking machine. That was an Avatar CE prototype. So it had the CE top of which was huge. Looks good, fantastic, very well integrated. But it had the LE playfield in it, so it didn't have the final UV, the extra UV coating on it or the extra UV details. So it was an Avatar CE with a CE topper, which was amazing. It was very well integrated. So it's pretty much the Pepper's Ghost reflected image. So it reflects up and it looks like it's just floating. The artwork's amazing. Even the decals, it's like they've got a Perspex on top of the decals. So it gives us a different, well, we can't damage it. So it's undamageable decals. The playfield was a playfield from the LE, so it wasn't the CE playfield, so it was missing all the extra added UV ink. Okay. So you didn't get the final product, unfortunately, but that doesn't matter. So the machine played great. I got some good high scores in it. Blew the machine up. I think myself and Rob were playing, I think our game went for about 45 minutes. Yeah. And it's a fast game, and, you know, keep it in. We were just smashing the machine. The two loyal playfields are fun. You've got a loyal play field with one of the mini balls, same as out of, like, Family Guy. It was Bash the Crab, I think it was. And then the other one is the normal-sized ball, and that was a hit the targets, which it was fun. Yeah, I really liked it, enjoyed it. And also the integration of that machine was, I'd put it up there with the Hobbit. So it's really well done. Nice. Well, hopefully, which, as you said, it sounds like it's coming back next year, the Expo, so hopefully we can get there again and suss it out. That'd be nice. That's if you show up. That's if I show up. Okay, so we want to touch on some new titles, and I'll be honest, I haven't followed them as closely as I should have. Maybe this podcast will change that in me. new titles that have been released. Obviously, there's been plenty, so we're not going to go back months and months. But since December, Jen, whatever we had, we've had Metallica, Avatar, which we've touched on, Dungeons and Dragons, X-Men. Spooky's released a couple as well. Evil Dead. Evil Dead. I was just saying, I think this podcast will probably make me look into them a bit more than what I have. Jaws, obviously, and all these other ones that have come out, John Wick, as you said. But I'm finding that because there's such a flood of machines into the market, I'm waiting for one that piques my interest before I worry about what it's like. I don't know if you're finding that. They released Metallica, and I was like, well, I own the LE, and I know a lot of other guys that have the original, the OG, the Master of Puppets or the Road Case or whatever it is. So there was no interest for me in the new model, even with whatever the new Ride the Lightning mode and other modes. Like, just in my opinion only. The Outland Ball Save. Yeah, like I just feel like the original was the original. It didn't need to be remastered. look, they've put it out to the masses and it has been, and that's great. But until there's a model that comes out that really grabs me by the balls, I just don't have much interest in deep diving into these titles. I don't know how you feel about it. I've seen them. I look at them. I hear the chatter about them. All Accounts X-Men is pretty unique and very good. I think we discussed that Jack Danger seems to be quite a unique designer, being his second one. I mean, well, you've got Foo Fighters, Matty, and we played that, and I think the flow on that is brilliant. Love it. The premium that I get to play, which is yours, is great machine. The code seems to be very good initially and quite well done, but it's the shots that keep me coming back. I feel like he's got those sort of same shots out of X-Men but because there seems to be a lot of chatter that I haven't followed I'll be honest about the machine that it's getting a bad rap and I just hope that doesn't have a flow-on effect to Jack and his ability to keep releasing good quality machines because he seems to know what he's doing at this stage of his early career that's for sure I mean only two machines in so yeah so Dungeons and Dragons X-Men, Avatar, Metallica, Evil Dead. Like I said, I haven't paid a lot of attention because they're not must-buys for me. The themes, which I buy generally off, haven't interested me that greatly. Dungeons & Dragons looks interesting. I'll be honest, I don't like that the code changes weekly. I think that's pretty annoying, I guess, is a way to put it. And I guess maybe that's my old tournament self coming out by saying I'd like to learn the code and then be able to master the machine in that respect rather than having to relearn it, you know. And I think we discussed it. We discussed it. Yeah, I don't even think there's games in history that do that, is there? I know the board game is like that. You know, it's almost like the old school choose your own adventure. That's right. It can change your adventure, but, you know, I guess just because of the type of person I am, I can't handle that style of gaming, I don't think. You know, like I want to know that when I play a game, you know, I get from A to B sort of. Three shots on that ramp, then one shot there. That's it. Not next week. Three shots over there, six to the right. I mean, I'm sure there's people that will love that and enjoy that type of, what's the word? Variation. Variation, yeah, yeah. The mix-up. Yeah, you know, and good on Stern for trying something new because I know there's a lot of us that, you know, oh, fuck, we want innovation, we want innovation. That's all we're saying. And this is a type of innovation behind it, and I'm giving pushback on it, and I recognize that. But I'm not, I'm only one voice. It's not like I'm screaming it from the rooftops and saying that it's one of the worst decisions they've ever made. It's just not for me. I saw you on the Roto yelling. Yelling up at the top of Rialto. So, yeah, so D&D looks like a good flow machine. It's probably going to be maybe similar to Stranger Things. I mean, when Brian Eddy released that, everyone jumped all over him, like, oh, fucking another fan layout. and, oh, look, your ball doesn't even go down the demigorgon's mouth and, oh, it's an anus and, you know, all this other stuff. And now people are like, actually, this is a pretty decent machine. It's good code, flows well. We like it. So maybe D&D might be the same. Obviously, we've got X-Men now in the country, so we can actually go play it. I'm going to make a trip to Sydney and go visit Chris, I think. I might. Chris, look out. I'm on my way, mate. Come play X-Men Alley. As for X-Men, it looks amazing. Yeah, I love the artwork. From what I've seen, it looks great. The videos, it looks great. But have I played one? No, so I've got no idea. I can't really comment. That's tough, isn't it? Yeah, that's exactly right. Whereas over in the States, they've had how many months now to play it? Yeah, and they get on site pretty quickly. We've only just got the first ones in Australia right now, and we've got to go travel halfway across the country to go play one. So, what other machines are we talking about? So, we had D&D. Dungeons and Dragons. Okay, Dungeons and Dragons. Evil Dead. Dungeons and Dragons for me. The thing doesn't do much for me. I never grew up playing it. I've never played it. The machine looks okay. I don't know. I just felt like they just needed to release the machine. do you feel like there's not enough hype around the releases these days in australia particularly like probably yeah there's nothing really is it hence i've watched the trailers and i haven't actually watched any gameplay video but it's just a theme that never really got to me it never attracted me to go look into it and to want to give a really a review about because it's just not my thing yeah so otherwise evil dead looks amazing and i think spooky have absolutely knocked out of the park with this, especially being able to get what's his name, Bruce, to do all the voices and everything and give all assets. This machine is asset heavy. They've got everything from that topper, which I'm sure you couldn't have in a house with little kids because you'd scare the hell out of them. Spooky with innovation, they're just amazing. They're just trying everything new they can do. So people say, oh, they've got these problems, they've got these problems. Well, hang on. Stern's got these problems too. There's problems left, right and center with Sterns. There's problems left, right and center with JJPs. This is why you've got to dial them in. You've got teething issues. You've got to tinker them out. Hey, Teslas are blowing up and sitting on fire. So you know let talk teething issues really Isn that because someone put a bomb in it Just a lithium battery just setting on fire you know But anyway so I'm just actually having a look at it on images as we're talking about it, just to remind myself of what it looks like. Yeah, but Evil Dead, that's a dream thing for me. One of my favourite movies growing up, and even a TV show. Fantastic. I will own one. So I currently own a Spooky Pinball. I've got a Rob Zombie Spook Show LE, which I've had for many, many years now. And once again, I've never had one issue with the machine. It plays faultless and it's solid. So I don't know why people have a piss and moan about the quality issues. I think the people who are complaining are all these new people who came in during COVID, who bought all these machines and have no idea how to even look at a coil stop. Okay. So let's... How do I even adjust? Oh, my slingshot keeps firing. Yeah, you've just got to adjust the switch here, mate. Okay, well, let's touch on that scene as you brought it up. I mean, do you think it... And you and I understand the hobby, and we get what these machines are, being commercially made machines that need to be dialed in slightly, but, okay, and I'll play a little bit of devil's advocate, at do you think it's fair that people are spending, let's pull JJP out of the hat, $20,000 to $25,000, which is not any type of small fucking change these days. That's a lot of coin to then have to spend time under the hood of this rather than it just playing as it should out of the box. I mean, you don't drive out a brand-new car and the dealership go, oh, by the way, you may just need to adjust the gas pedal slightly and the clutch may slip a bit, but that's normal until you get 10,000 k's into it and, you know, you adjust this. You know, like, it just feels like, on the flip side, is that surely these things should be pretty dialed in out of the factory. And your brakes might not work either. Your brakes might not work. Just make sure. And carry the fire extinguisher too. Look, every JJP machine I bought new in box, I've had issues. I've had, you know, I've had rubbers deteriorate. It's not the question I asked you. No, not at all. What I asked you was, is it fair? I'm just saying, though, that I've had issues. You know, new inbox from JJP, so I'm just getting back at it. But as nudes. As nudes. Let's just say. Yeah, I'm saying, as first-time owners coming into the hobby, do you think it's fair that they have to then either spend a tech to come out for another $5,000 to $1,000 to then dial in that machine and fix it when all they want to do is enjoy Evil Dead for the theme because they love it and they grew up as a kid watching it and idolise that style of movie. My answer to this is it is a commercial machine meant to be put on site, which is meant to be maintained. No, no, no, listen. Which is run by a site operator who knows how to do this and they're not made for people who own them in homes really. Can I challenge you quickly and interrupt? But we do own them in homes. Can I challenge you, though? Yeah, but interrupt me. Yeah, that's why I said, can I challenge and interrupt you? I feel that now the population is 80% homeowners, 20% operators. So surely the manufacturers need to cater to that, and that excuse now shouldn't hold. That's right. So they probably – it has changed. Yes, that's right. But the manufacturers aren't following with this because they don't give a shit because guess what? Oh, it's going to cost more money for us to keep tweaking. Unfortunately, manufacturers don't want to invest the extra time because that extra time is more money and we can't eat into our profits, can we? So we can't keep... Once again, how much can you test them as well? Because if you keep testing it, you're going to start getting dimples in your labial, you're going to start getting wear on the rubbers. Like, I've had a JJP machine, new in box, I had rubbers blown out within 30 games. So imagine if they played 30 games to try and dial a machine in and you've got blown out rubbers already. And then you've got black rubbers and then you've got ball trails and then, you know, then people are going to go, this machine isn't new, it doesn't look new anymore. All this coil dust down in the box, you know, there's... It's certainly, yeah, 100%, it's certainly a trade-off as in, yeah, you're right, how much time and effort do they put into it to wear the machine, to dimple it and whatever else, as opposed to sending out something that needs someone to do it. I just thought, as we were discussing it, it was just an interesting thing to bring up that, you know, when you're spending that amount of money and losing, you know, when you go to resell it and you're like, you know, I mean, how do you know that's maybe where the sales are like, oh, I've had enough of this machine, you know, cost me 25, just sell it for 15 or 20, be done with it, I'm done. and you're losing people out of the hobby because of that maybe. Maybe. You say. But generally when you're spending $25,000 on a machine, you don't usually have too many money issues. And you don't. And money isn't really too much of a, yeah, it's not much of an issue there. Anyway, so we also have our first little segment that we're going to put in with this podcast, this month's top favourite. So your segment, Matt, which I thought was a great idea, so you can go first and let us know what your January pinball of the month is. This month, my favourite machine is Venom. Even though I don't own one, every time I've seen one, every time I've got a chance to play one, I want to play one. I love the artwork. Do I like the animations on the screen? I don't know. It's not great. I just enjoy the machine in general. I love how the ball flows from the, what's it called? The sling? Ah, the preload balls. The preload balls, which is fair. Oh, I enjoy just the speed of it, the preload balls, how they come out. Actually, with the code, look, I enjoy that each character has different options, has different perks, different bonuses. I enjoy that with Insider Connect, you can also build up your character, also your character in general, so keep leveling up. last time I played it, I had a brick fest and I enjoyed it but I was pissed off but I want to play more so I enjoy that you can change all the different routes in the machine by choosing different characters because it will give you, you can either go around the orbit or you can go change it and then the vertical up, what was it called, the reverse ramp will come in or it becomes a ball lock, it's got all these different features in it there's plenty in it people complain, oh fan lab, Brian Eddy open playfield nothing to it but there's tons in it, how many more shots do you want it's cool you can say I hate shit that's too close think about Turtles how close everything is in that and you just hit that Game of Thrones that's not as bad as Turtles it's a bit of a brick fest if you get on a roll there but Venom though I'll give you one thing. The flow of Venom, there's like a centre ramp that hooks around to the right, and there's a few shots that if you combo, really quite satisfying. Even the skill shots were fun. I enjoyed that. So the different skill shots in there, you had the sneak ins, and you got your inlanes, or top lanes, I should say. Then you had the ones where you'd hold the left flipper down and then had to go up the big middle ramp. That's a tough big ramp, though, but it's satisfying when you hit it. Because as soon as you hear that, then the preloadable comes shooting at you. It's like it hasn't even made its way around. Yeah. If I regret not buying one, which was a loaded machine, and that was 14.5, and that was an LE, totally loaded with all the mods, everything you want on it, 14.5. I didn't buy it. I regret not buying it, so, you know, so it's crazy. yeah it just hasn't got the love and once again um they well people keep saying cost of living stops me from buying these new machines but that's not i guess for manufacturer for the um distributors it is but not at the secondhand market especially when you get bargains like they come up but i won one one day definitely it's on my it's on the hit list and even x-man uncanny hub still i buy one of them too looks great and once again uh not a new box i'll get a secondhand one would just dial it in and go from there. Yeah, nice. Well, for me at the moment, for the monthly favourite, it's probably Elton, believe it or not, Elton John. Theme does nothing for me. I have no interest in the theme at all. But I played it when we went to nil, and I was very, very surprised at the flow of the shots. and it just felt like a machine that was easy to get somewhere on. As you were shooting your shots, you were very much like I made. You were building towards something, either a mode or a multiball or that sort of stuff. I'd like to delve a bit deeper into the code because, obviously, I've only played it probably a half a dozen or a dozen times, which isn't a lot and hence probably why it's a bit of a favourite because when you only play a machine a few times, you get hooked into it. It's like, yep, like this. But even the, I think it's the Rocketman multiball, which is far right shot, that's quite challenging, but still, like the scoop on Metallica, but a good shot once you get it rewarding. I mean, even the lock, the standard crocodile lock balls, that still, it feels like a tight shot, still challenging, but quite fun. But I just feel like, you know, and maybe I'm a big fan of Richie, Steve Ritchie. I almost said Guy Richie then. Maybe I'm a big fan of Steve Ritchie's machines, you know. I've enjoyed Getaway. I own a Game of Thrones, and I think that's a really, really nice playing machine. But, yeah, I just found that the flow of that was good. The music, I know a lot of his songs, obviously, in that era, music was okay. But certainly the flow and the feel of the flippers was not your standard JJP. So that's, yeah, that's been my sort of pin of the month. Look forward to getting a few more games onto it The only thing I think that lets down Elton John is the integration It is a real let down They could have had all the music videos and video clips of him singing and dancing and all that instead of being this clip art animation from 1998, which was like a slideshow that a great seven made. I felt it was a real, real let down. Yeah, interesting. But if they actually had the proper videos, concerts, music vehicles, it'd be great. Yeah, I mean, I probably didn't see a lot when I was looking up, to be fair, but you're probably right. You're probably right. So I guess that probably just leads us on to our final topic before we sort of wrap all of this up, which I think we just wanted to sort of touch a little bit on pricing and where the hobby's been. and not that I would consider myself an expert at all, so I'll just put that in the comments section. No, you are known as the price police. That's all you are. Yeah, I feel like it's just an interesting topic at the moment. I did put that topic up on the page recently and asked some opinions on where people thought the price was. so I thought maybe we could just chinwag a little bit about it and see what you think. Obviously, since COVID, I mean, when we got to COVID, pricing went through the roof, like literally went through the roof. I mean, I remember, you know, to give extreme examples, Iron Maiden LEs were going for $28 to $32. Metallica LEs were at that price as well. Well, Tron's were around a 15 to 18 mark. Even 19 for a normal Tron, but for the LE, you'd probably go 30 plus. Oh, the LE was 30 plus because of the, in inverted commas, the rarity of it all. Why else? I mean, you know, Simpson pinball parties were going for 15, 16. You know, even family guys. And I mean, you sort of... About 10 grand? what I would consider B-grade titles that have been, and I'll say that have been classified as B-grade from my experience in the hobby on the forums of the discussions were like your World Cup soccers, your high speeds, your Judge Dredds, you know, Demo Men's and all of that that have been. JD's a C-machine. Yeah, maybe C-machine, yeah. You know, they have always been a four-and-a-half to a five-and-a-half machine more like three and a half to three and a half to four and a half maybe three and a half to four and a half back in 2019 yeah yeah we're talking pre-cozum 2019 i picked up a judge dread for four grand so and then when covid hit all of a sudden these became seven and a half to eight and a half to nine topping out sort of games um which i found very interesting and i'll be honest It priced me out of the marketplace because I wasn't interested in paying that kind of amount for those type of titles. And even I wouldn't have paid 20 plus for a Metallica LE, for example, or an Iron Maiden, or a CV, or a Theatre of Magic, or a Toten. Talking about the Judge Dredd though, Judge Dredd's now, what's that, back down to maybe a six grand? isn't it? Yeah I think Judge Dredd well I still notice that some of those titles, Judge Dredd and Demoman especially because there's been a couple that popped up still look like they're hovering at 8.5 and I suppose we need to be careful because we don't want to you know have any issues with the sales on our page and you know compromising those but I certainly feel like in general the hobby price wise has dropped now I will just add in quickly and a little bit cornily that we've got a Hotmail address, which is pinballozwide at hotmail.com. So by all means, please email us, give us your comments on this topic in particular, but anything we've raised or anything you want to chat about, love to hear from you because clearly we're doing this for the first time. And even if you hate us, let us know. We'd love to hear them as well. Maybe not so fondly. We won't read them out on air, but... Maybe we should have the hate segment. Maybe a hate segment. This month's favourite hate segment. Just use an alias so you don't get booted and banned from the page. No, we wouldn't do that. But, yeah, honest feedback is fine, guys, so please give it good or bad. But, yeah, I just wonder... Pricing feels like it's certainly settling somewhat now. and there's a glut of machines at the moment. A glut. But all the well-priced machines, which as soon as I say one, I go, that's well-priced and guess what? Sold instantly. A perfect example there was that Speakeasy machine. So advertised for $3.99. I thought that's quite well-priced for an SS machine, especially of that rarity. I've only ever seen two listings, which one was a machine I bought, I paid $2,000 for, and this listing here, which was at $3.99. But I bought that at the start of COVID, so before any pricing did go up. So being a 3.9, there is a price increase there, but it's still within the market range, I think, because I still think some of these SS machines, as long as they're in good quality, good condition, they're fetching still three to five grand, I think. Yeah, which I feel like is a settled, though. Which is settled, yeah. I feel like... Because otherwise they'll try to fetch seven grand, eight grand for it. What was it? Nugent. What did we call him? Nugent. Nugent. Ted Nugent. Ted Nugent, yeah. You know what I mean? So we've got to. Yeah. Yeah, and what was the other one? $6 million man. $6 million. It was pretty popular at those sort of times. And even Strikes and Spares was fetching. Yeah. Or trying to fetch around, well, even six, seven grand or so. And that's the thing. It's funny you bring up that speakeasy. Yeah, yeah. Is that what it's called? I feel like machines that are priced now at around that $35,000 to $400,000 feel like bargains because of where the pricing has been. Yes, that's right. You know, so we haven't seen that for a few years now. And when we do, people are like, fuck, grab it, jump, gone, you know. Even Getaway. There was a Getaway listed the other day for six and a half. Getaway for six and a half two years ago, 11. Nine, eight. Well, I was going to say anywhere from nine, five and up. Yeah. Yeah. But I think it's interesting. I'm just going back over the post where I put it up. a couple have said, you know, because I feel like the market has been flooded sometimes now. You know, as we've discussed before, you know, when AMD were bringing in containers, they were sold out before they landed on the shores. You know, people wanted machines that badly that they were gone within an instant, whereas now, I mean, aren't they still advertising, not AMD, but aren't they still advertising for Venom LEs, John Wick LEs? I believe a D&D LE is still being advertised and maybe I should triple check but that wouldn't have happened 18, 24 months ago once again all those machines would have been sold out there'd be no LEs at all yeah I believe that too or even premiums, you wouldn't even be able to get a pro still so it's interesting so guys please like I said feel free to comment and send us an email where you think the hobby is because it's not a conversation we try to have a lot on the page, but I just thought after a little while, I feel like prices are really softening somewhat. The market's down. That's it. The market's down. And unfortunately as well, people were spending, instead of staying at home. D&D Limited Edition still advertised at $21,250. There you go. So instead of people still staying home, being bored, in lockdowns, having nothing better to do, not being able to go on their $50,000, $60,000, $80,000 holidays to America or to Europe and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, they're just going to get an instant pinball collection. So that's where all these people came in with all this money and started buying up at high prices thinking they're getting bargains who had no idea what they were buying. Yeah, I wonder how many people are losing a lot of money or some money. Yeah. out of the hobby now. Yep, and they've sold up and they've taken the loss. Yeah. Which, look, as you discussed, I mean, those that are spending $20,000 to $25,000, it's probably not an issue to them. So it's probably more the people that are in the hobby, that stay in the hobby long term, that notice these things, that watch these things, that pay attention to them, probably are just a bit more standoffish in regards to, you know, splashing cash and just buying We have knowledge. Yeah. Interesting. Well that wraps it up folks I think. I think that does about wrap it up. As I said guys, please first podcast, hopefully it's come out okay. It could be fucked and when I put this on the PC we've wasted 45 minutes when we could have been playing but we'll see how that goes. If you have enjoyed it. What is it? Rate us on Apple. Give us five stars on the podcast and whatever else. Our email is pinballozwide at hotmail.com Or just like, share and subscribe. Like, share and subscribe. It's not YouTube. Like, share and subscribe, listeners. Join our Facebook page if you haven't already. Email us with any info and hopefully be back next month because this will be a monthly thing thanks for listening guys ciao you