I just saved you, but it's not in the whole thing I just saved you, but it's not in the whole thing I just saved you, but you said that I don't really care for you Welcome everybody to Canada's Pinball Podcast The world's most favorite pinball podcast With the best customer service in all of pinball Something you can't even measure, right? Here's what we're going to talk about on this episode of Canada's Pinball Podcast. We're going to talk about what I'm hearing is Stern's next game. John Wick is not selling. I'm hearing this thing is coming out in June or July. I think it's going to shock some people. We've been going back and forth on what's next from Stern. We're going to talk about why I think Indiana Jones was lost by Stern Pinball. Interesting rumors starting to creep up here. and then we're going to talk about John Wick and pinball winter. Like you can just feel it. Like it's in the air. Like everyone's starting to just like panic a little bit. Everyone's realizing that they can't buy all these things. And here's what we're going to do because I'm talking to these people right now on Facebook Live. I'm going to let these people go. And if you want to hear where this show goes, you know where to go. Canadian Spinball Podcast. You guys are the best. We're almost at 700 paid subscribers. more subscribers to this show than every other single pinball content creator combined and i'm talking to them right now because they're looking at me right now and hey what happened all those years you were making fun of me for doing patreon and here we are people no giveaways no shills no polo shirts just the world's favorite pinball podcaster all right let's shut these guys off on Facebook and take it to the airwaves. Here we go. All right, guys, you know this. I'm never going to give the Facebook people who don't really give much other than their time as much as I give each and every one of you. All right, so here's the thing. Let's talk first about this rumor I keep hearing, and this just gets kind of annoying because I hear that Stern's next game is going to be a Vault Edition game. I'm also now hearing that it is going to be a game in which Ray Day is working on moving the DMD dots over to the LCD screen. I don't think it's going to be like all new animations. Maybe there's some animations, but I don't know if there's going to be like 4K video footage, which it's not going to be because that's like the Spike 3 thing. But here's the thing I'm hearing now, and this is really annoying. I am hearing that because John Wick sales are not great. And think about it. When Stern has a flop, what can they do? They can't really get a new game or a cornerstone on the line very quickly. But what Stern has shown us they'll do is they will go back to the well, and we know it as the vault. And so here's what I'm hearing. I'm hearing the next vault game from Stern Pinball that's supposedly coming out in June or July. It's got to be like July, is no other than Metallica. Now, look, this is the thing is like I keep hearing two reports. One is that there's going to be an all-new Metallica game that's on Spike 3. That's the first Spike 3 game. Now I'm hearing that the next game is going to be a vault of Metallica. What if most of that is true? So here's what I think might be happening. Maybe, just maybe, Spike 3 is the platform they are going to use to vault some of those older games. And maybe, just maybe, right, this is going to be the launch of Spike 3. It's a little weird though, right? Because if you're going to launch Spike 3 and it has 4K video, you would think you would use something that has like 4K imagery. And it's really strange too, where like George Gomez is talking about how John Wick has all this 4K footage that they have, but their system and their platform doesn't broadcast in 4K. So I don't know what to tell you. I'm just going to tell you this. I also know that John Borg is working on Tron and a Tron remake. so like do what you will with these Metallicas and these Trons here's my advice to all of you if you love your Metallica if you love your Tron just hold on to it I mean just hold on to it and play it yeah if they do remakes of these games are your games gonna lose value absolutely well welcome to pinball since 2019 everything's losing value maybe just enjoy it don't worry about the remake. But what's going to happen if Stern does this and they burn all those original Metallica owners? They're really digging the grave even deeper. And that's what's weird about all of this. It's like when you remake Jurassic Park, you've now created 500 people that are pissed off at you. When you do what you did with Elvira, you've now pissed off 500 people. If 500 people bought in James Bond 60th, you've now pissed off those 500 people. And I know it doesn't always seem like a lot with each new launch but when you start to add up all those different groups of 500 people all of a sudden you got a few thousand people that don like the way Stern is doing business And I think that's what they're feeling right now with John Wick. Let's just get right to it right now. So John Wick sales are abysmal. Everyone knows it. Like you can see it everywhere. And the reason why I'm saying like winter is here, like pinball winter is here. This strategy just is not going to work, right? These expensive games, shove them down the throats of distributors and dealers. Then they have to shove them down the throats of customers like you and me. It's just not working. And there's no greater proof that this thing is not working than the damage control tour that George Gomez had to go on. Did you see him go all over the place trying to get Jaws sales? No, he didn't. It's just funny too, because all these shill content creators, they're really looking like one trick ponies. Like, yeah, it used to work where you could just celebrate every new game, put up a stream, and then people would order the game. But then why is it after this game has been out now for two weeks, you go on the John Wick owners page, right? These are people that have ordered the game. It's not even two pages. There has never been a Stern launch where after two weeks of it being out, the owners club does not even have two pages of people saying how excited they are to get the game. Right there, game over. We're in the wintertime now, right? Pinball winter is here. Stern has never had this, right? And this is a culmination of all these different things snowballing, like burning the people that bought your older LEs by making more, jacking the prices up through the roof, and then coming out with like themes that are not nostalgic. They're not take my money now themes. And then also not having much in the game. This is the big issue with John Wick for me. It's like all the distractions around the artwork and the guns and this. No, no, no, no, no. The real issue with John Wick, it's freaking empty. The game is freaking empty. And you can't sell a freaking empty game for this much money. When they lift the play field on this game and you see how much is underneath John Wick and then you look at the price tag, it's like, again, F off. And we're all going to be saying F off in a much more fun and jovial way. I feel like I want to just tell George Gomez to F off like I'm Christopher Walken or something. I'm not mad. I'm not angry. Just, George, I see your game. Look at this. John Wick, not selling. $13,000. John Wick, what's going on here? I remember when this game was $5,500, George. There's nothing in this game, George. Where's all this stuff? George has sold me an ACDC. It's got four times as much in it. Not paying these prices. That's a terrible Christopher Walken. But you know what I mean, people? You know what I mean? It's just like the winter is here. It's like all of this, all of this. It's one big machine that only knows how to do one thing. And it worked well for so many years. And now it's not working. I don't know about you. I keep saying this, man. Like the greatest thing about pinball, someone put up a thread and they were like, this is the greatest time ever to be in pinball. And it really is. But it's not about new and box chasing. The reason why this is the greatest time to be in pinball is the most amount of people who have ever been into this hobby are into it right now. And you know what that means? You have the greatest chances to make some of the best friends in your life. You are going to make so many good friends in this hobby. And you can have those friends and keep those friends without buying every new in-box game. And I think there's just a majority of people right now that just don't want anything to do with these ridiculous new in box prices. So speaking of with John Wick, this thread that's on fire, that's amazing. So there is this dude that puts a wanted ad up on Pinside and he says, I want a John Wick LE and I want to pay $11,000. And that's it. And I buy a ton of games. I route a ton of games. Distributors know who I am. and I want to buy one of your John Wick LEs and I'll take it off your hands at cost because that's what the cost to the dealer is. And that's it. He just walks in like a baller. He's like, look, I get it. It's 13,000. I'm not paying that. And then what happens? He finds someone who will sell it to him for $11,000. And for some weird reason that was making people angry. Like why would anyone in our community get angry that this guy has exposed how overpriced this stuff is. Like he found the one car dealership that will sell you the car at the right price. And what does everybody want to do? They want to go tattletale on him. Who is it? That dealer is going to lose their stern license. F all this stuff. F off if that's how you feel. What this guy did was he just showed you what the real market value is for a John Wick. and now everyone who bought one for $13,000 feels like an idiot. I told you if you buy one for $13,000 you're an idiot because this game is worth $9,000 by the end of the year and the reason I know that because that what James Bond is worth More popular theme more in that game has better code has a better design So if that game went to what do you think John Wick going to do And there was tons of demand for James Bond There was no demand for John Wick and they made a game with hardly any demand, not even that good. And here's the scariest part. This is where the real stern arrogance lies. George Gomez keeps saying that they set the prices based on the demand. Okay. If you think about in pinball, What really creates the demand other than the theme, right? What makes people open up their wallets, especially in the collector space? How many of these are you going to make and how much money is it? And so it's just crazy to me when you think about it that Star Wars, the most popular theme maybe Stern has ever made, they only made 800 Star Wars pinball machines that were LEs and they're making even more John Wicks, 1,000 John Wicks, 1,000 Venoms. it's caught up to them. Winter is here for Stern. Now, look, now, trust me when I say this, people, it doesn't mean winter is always going to be here for Stern. If they have a crazy, awesome theme, if they actually do have Pokemon, they're going to need something though, right? They need something that's a banger. And if they just vault Metallica when there's already like 6,000 Metallica machines in the world. I think this stern winter is going to last for a really long time. And it's just going to get so old, like seeing all these people trying to jam these things out into the market and jam them down our throats. I'm sorry. It's just not going to work. Oh, look, it's great. There's nothing negative here. It's like the more we wait on the sidelines, people trust me, they're going to have to lower prices. There's no way out of this. There is no way out of this other than lowering prices. And what that gentleman just showed us is that you actually can go get a new in box John Wick LE for $11,000. And what's the problem with that, right? Because the way it works is, let's just say you're a dealer and you get 20 Stern LEs. You have to keep ordering those 20 LEs or Stern will start to give your allocation to another dealer or distro. And so like when Jaws comes out, you happily will take those 20 LEs because you know you will sell them. And then John Wick comes out. And what do you do, right? What do you do if you think Pokemon is somewhere down the line? Or what do you do if you think there's a huge game coming out? You're going to have to order your 20 John Wicks. And if you don't, then you're not going to get your 20 Pokemons. And so this is why it's smart for a dealer to give someone the game at cost. I have to buy these 20. Now remember, that's 20 games times $11,000 freaking dollars, right? That's well over $200,000 I have to buy a game. And I'm not going to be able to make any money selling these at $13,000. And if I hold the line at $13,000, I could be holding on to these games to the point where maybe the market value becomes worth like $9,000. Then I've lost $2,000 on every game I have. that's what's happening with Venom LE right now if you have one new in box it's a nine thousand dollar game and so if a dealer bought it at eleven they're out two thousand dollars and they're not used to this and that's why you're seeing the Gomez panic tour that's why we're seeing all the content creator shills like working overdrive right now trying to convince people John Wick is a great game they know John Wick is not a great game it's an okay game but they also know it's one of the most overpriced things Stern has ever brought to market and they can never tell you this And that's why you're here listening to Kaneda. All right. What else is going on in pinball, though? Because John Wick is over. It's over. It's dead on arrival. It is dead on arrival. You know, it's not dead on arrival. Kaneda's pinball podcast. Here's another game that's interesting to me. This Funhaus remake, right? They brought it out. We still haven't seen a video. I asked somebody. Kelly Daniels shared me a clip of his Funhaus 2.0 kit, and I watched it for 10 minutes. and now I know why Pedretti Gaming did not share too much gameplay video of this game. It's kind of boring compared to modern games and that's the thing. It doesn't matter how nice the lights are or the artwork is. There's just something about a fun house that doesn't really show well compared to modern pinball and maybe, just maybe, we should stop trying to remake all these games and just make modern games with modern innovation, with a nostalgic theme everybody wants, and put toys and mechanisms into it that justify the price. How freaking hard is it to do that? But it's getting hard, man. It's getting hard. I don't think they're going to sell these fun houses. I really don't. You know, it's really hard. I was looking at the tour of Barrels of Fun, and they let us into their factory, and Kaneda owes them a pizza party. So if you're listening and you're a member of Barrels of Fun, I am going to buy you a pizza lunch because that's the offer. If you open up your door on a random day and show us your manufacturing you get a pizza party from Canada They also were very transparent about how many games they made to date how many orders they got and how many they have to go I love this level of transparency You know, I think they've made something around 220 games. They have orders for around like 750. And when I saw that, it was interesting because I said to myself, okay, all right, that's not bad, this is their first game. It also showed me that they might have just overestimated demand. right i mean this game's been out for a while now right and they're slowly trickling them out but this game is slowly becoming yesterday's news and this is what's hard in marketing right for the longest time these games on reveal day they would sell all the ones they needed to sell right rick and morty 750 sold out instantly you know games like tna they sold pretty quickly 500 sold pretty quickly during covid everything was just selling out instantly but now it's different right and Think about it if you're barrels of fun. Your game's been out for a while, slowly trickling them out. So every month, your game gets a little bit older. Demand for it gets a little bit lighter. How are you going to sell 400 more of these games, right? It's really hard to do that. But I think from the very get-go, they said they might just cap how many they make based on how many orders they get. And I think that's something they might want to think about soon. And they said, we will be able to make all of these games by the end of the year. But man, I don't think they're going to get to 1,100 made. And that's not bad if you're an owner. But it also just goes to show you where we're at, right? Where we're at. You got to pick the right theme. Is Labyrinth the right theme to sell 1,100 units? No. It's again, it's a theme that they really wanted to make. David David Van Es loves this theme. If I was the marketing director over at Barrels of Fun, this isn't where I would have started. I guarantee you Kaneda would have picked a theme that would have had a week one sellout of 1,100 games, right? I'm just assuming that we would have made a good game, right? I'm assuming that the toys would be good. The artwork would be good. But just on theme alone, I would have picked the theme that even without seeing it, you would have sold 700 units. I'm just saying that's the job of marketing to get enough people out the door. Then it's the job of the engineering department to make good on the demand that I create it for you. And that's why John Wick doesn't work like John Wick. I don't have a problem with John Wick. I love the movies. But when the marketing department picks that game, you don't have like 5,000 people lined up to buy an LE. Now, if you have Ghostbusters, you do. If you have Back to the Future, you do. If you have Die Hard, you do. But not John Wick. And so you don't even have that many people lined up at the door. And then you make 1,000 of them. And then you charge 13,000. And all of a sudden, you open up the door. There's only like 117 people excited to buy that game at that price. And what does Stern do now? Now, how do you find 850 more buyers? You send George Gomez on a damage control tour. You call up all your distro content creators who show your products every single launch and you get them to make as much as they can. And it doesn't work. It just doesn't work because we're all just talking to each other. It's a really small community and everybody knows this. When we start to smell now that something is a financial disaster, if we buy it, now we're staying as far away from it as possible. See, I think Venom was the last game that people would dip their toe in the water, but no longer. It's over. Winter is here. The lake is frozen over and people are about to crash through thin ice if they buy John Wick LE. And they're trying to get Canada to stop talking like this. They're trying, people, trust me, they're trying really hard. They're trying to fall back on like, shouldn't we just be talking about the gameplay, the gameplay and how much fun pinball is. And let's just ignore that if you bought every Stern LE over the last like three years, you lost $15,000. Let's just ignore that and make me more money because I'm a salesman and you should trust me. No, you should trust Canadian Pinball Podcast. On Pat leave, this is going to get dangerous. I could start to do shows every day. I'm feeling triggered and now that I don't have my other job hanging over me every day I'm really thinking about what's happening in pinball and you don't want me to use my private school boarding school education on this hobby because I will run circles around all these people that are not seeing the forest for the trees people welcome to Canadian Pinball Podcast for all you newbies out there we're almost at 700 club members I love it this show is just going to keep getting better and better and better and just wait it out winter is here people you're gonna get the best deals ever in 11 000 new in box john wick le is just the beginning we're gonna force stern and jersey jack to lower these prices it's gonna happen and it's starting right here right now later I just spent seven hours looking at old pics of me Trying to pinpoint where the bitch began Somewhere up to the passion of Christ And before I had an Instagram But still I kind of know