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Episode 81 - Killer Clowns from Metro Exodus

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 23m·analyzed·Feb 11, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Pinball industry news: Stern shipping Munsters, Spooky rejects Killer Clowns theme, JJP planning 2019 releases.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss pinball industry news across five manufacturers. Key topics include The Munsters (Pro) shipping, Spooky Pinball internal discussion about a rejected Killer Clowns from Outer Space theme, and Jersey Jack Pinball announced spring and fall 2019 release schedule based on well-known licenses (speculated to be Willy Wonka and Toy Story). The hosts also debate whether releasing a pinball machine tied to a movie release actually drives sales.

Key Claims

  • The Munsters (Pro) units are already being shipped out, with 403 Club location receiving theirs

    high confidence · Dennis reporting on Stern's product pipeline status

  • Spooky Pinball discussed but rejected a Killer Clowns from Outer Space pinball theme, determining it wouldn't sell well enough

    high confidence · Dennis citing This Week in Pinball coverage of Spooky's monthly podcast discussion

  • Jersey Jack Pinball plans spring and fall 2019 releases, both based on well-known licenses

    high confidence · Dennis citing Replay Magazine interview with Jersey Jack founder Jack Guarnieri

  • The two Jersey Jack 2019 releases will be designed by Pat Lawlor and Eric Meunier, both existing JJP staff designers

    medium confidence · Dennis inferring from Pinball News/Pinball Magazine podcast interview and JJP designer roster

  • Speculation suggests Pat Lawlor is designing the spring JJP release (theorized to be Willy Wonka) and Eric Meunier is designing the fall release (theorized to be Toy Story)

    low confidence · Dennis and Tony speculating based on designer preferences and release timing

  • An industry source questioned whether releasing a pinball game in sync with a movie actually increases sales or location plays

    medium confidence · Dennis citing someone from industry discussion (possibly Pinball News/Magazine podcast) who questioned the movie tie-in strategy

  • Dennis negotiated Texas Pinball Festival time off as a condition of accepting his new executive director position

    high confidence · Dennis discussing his job transition in the intro segment

Notable Quotes

  • “they liked the idea but they didn't think that it would sell well enough to actually do as a theme”

    Dennis @ ~8:45 — Describes Spooky's reasoning for rejecting Killer Clowns theme despite conceptual appeal

  • “I totally get it, but I just want to fanboy out a little bit on it, because it's such a funny movie... It's not meant to be funny. It's just totally campy, is the thing.”

    Dennis @ ~12:30 — Dennis expressing personal appreciation for Killer Clowns despite acknowledging poor commercial viability

  • “Well, the thing that would come to my mind would be that they want there to be more sales on Pirates first. And there could be a concern that as soon as you announce the next title, people will start holding their money for that.”

    Tony @ ~22:15 — Speculation on Jersey Jack's strategy for not revealing spring game at TPF

  • “I'm gun shy on Jersey Jack when they talk about stuff coming out.”

    Tony @ ~26:45 — Tony expressing skepticism about JJP's ability to deliver on announced timelines

  • “Someone in the industry said they've never actually seen any evidence that releasing a pin with a movie actually increases its sales or gets it more plays on location.”

    Dennis @ ~35:00 — Challenges the industry assumption that movie tie-ins drive pinball sales

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonStern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyJack GuarnieripersonPat LawlorpersonEric Meunierperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Stern Munsters Pro units already shipping to locations; 403 Club received units and held launch party

    high · Dennis: 'Munster Pros, big shock. They're already being shipped out. and our area location, the 403 Club, just got theirs in a few days ago.'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Spooky Pinball internally discussed Killer Clowns from Outer Space as pinball theme but rejected it due to lack of commercial appeal

    high · Dennis: 'they were having on one of their episodes about doing a theme called Killer Clowns from Outer Space but that they liked the idea but they didn't think that it would sell well enough to actually do as a theme'

  • ?

    announcement: Jersey Jack Pinball announced plans for spring and fall 2019 releases, both based on well-known licenses

    high · Dennis: 'Jack noted that in 2009, they plan a spring and fall release, and both of those releases are based on well-known licenses' [Note: 2009 appears to be transcription error for 2019]

  • $

    market_signal: Jersey Jack 2019 releases assigned to existing staff designers Pat Lawler and Eric Meunier, confirming internal design capacity

    medium · Dennis: 'he did note that two different designers are involved and they both already work for jersey jack pinball... this is essentially a confirmation that one is pat luller and one is Eric Meunier'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jersey Jack may be withholding spring game announcement from TPF to avoid cannibalizing Pirates sales, suggesting demand management concerns

    medium · Tony: 'they want there to be more sales on Pirates first. And there could be a concern that as soon as you announce the next title, people will start holding their money for that'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.249

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Game Burners podcast. Today is Sunday, February 10th. This is episode 81 and I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis, but Tony, I can't see you. Yes, I know. It's terrible. We're separate. I'm so lonely. It's so quiet. Separate but equal. Oh, wait. No, never mind. We don't go there.
0:38
So we're remote from each other this time, and we have a number of topics. So we're not going to do 20 questions because that works better in person anyway. Yeah. But we do have a lot of news in the video game and pinball side to go through. However, before we start with that, we're going to do what we usually do, which would be our introductory period. So, Tony, I guess, what's been going on since the last podcast?
1:03
I'm a broken record. I work constantly, and I'm actually supposed to go and plow snow here tonight after I'm done. And, yeah, I know. I don't know why. But the snow people called and said, hey, we need the guys there at 9 o'clock tonight for the overnight. So I'm on call. I'm on base, I guess, is what you would consider it. It's extreme standby. I don't know. It's weird. I haven't actually been playing a whole lot of anything lately. I've been playing some Battletech, and I haven't streamed anything, and I haven't played any of the games I was going to stream because I haven't had that much time. because normally when I stream, I want to have one to two hours where I can sit down and do stuff. Right. Pretty much the only games I've played are games where I can stand up and walk away from it for 30 or 40 minutes at a time because everything has been crazy and I've been doing so many different things lately. And then yesterday was supposed to be my first day off in three weeks, so I took off yesterday and had the total intention of doing nothing except for maybe streaming yesterday and then the wife's car broke down so I ended up spending the whole day looking at that and getting annoyed so that's going to be a non-trivial, non-cheap issue so it's not like a belt snapped No, that's what I had hoped for. No, instead what happened, she was leaking coolant, and we finally found the leak.
Ben Heck
person
403 Clubvenue
This Week in Pinballorganization
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
The Munsters (Pro)game
Killer Clowns from Outer Spacegame
Pirates of the Caribbeangame
Willy Wonkagame
Toy Storygame
Replay Magazineorganization
Pinball Newsorganization
Evil Deadgame
Jurassic Parkgame
Dialed In!game
  • $

    market_signal: Uncertainty about Pirates of the Caribbean sales strength; discussion of whether JJP is providing it additional runway before announcement of next title

    low · Dennis: 'there's been a lot of talk that Pirate sales haven't been robust... I don't know if they're below what Jersey Jack's hopes were or not'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pat Lawler prefers standard-width pinball designs; Eric Meunier works with wide-body format preferred by Jersey Jack

    medium · Dennis: 'Pat Lawler, I believe, my understanding is he has indicated that he likes to design standard width pins... the assumption is that Eric will continue to do wide bodies'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Industry debate over whether movie tie-in release timing actually drives pinball sales or location plays; questioned industry assumption

    medium · Dennis: 'Someone in the industry said they've never actually seen any evidence that releasing a pin with a movie actually increases its sales or gets it more plays on location'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Dennis accepted permanent executive director position at affiliate organization; last day at current employer February 22, 2019; starts new role March 2019

    high · Dennis: 'I gave my letter of resignation... the last day of February is the last day I will function as their interim executive director... they offered me a permanent executive director job'

  • ?

    event_signal: Dennis negotiated Texas Pinball Festival attendance as explicit condition of new employment contract, indicating TPF is significant industry event requiring executive availability

    high · Dennis: 'they gave me Texas Pinball Festival off. That was a condition that I placed... they actually wrote into the agreement the day I'm gonna get that Thursday to go down through that Monday'

  • ?

    product_concern: Potential explanation for JJP spring release timing: ongoing mechanical refinement work on upcoming game (reference to Pirates mechanical development challenges)

    low · Dennis: 'I'm not sure though if they're trying to give it a little more breathing room because obviously Texas is in the end of March... or if it's driven by that they're still trying to work out some of the mechs'

    • 2:43
    It looks like the gasket around the timing belt cover gave way. So we're going to have to, at the bare minimum, replace the gasket on the timing belt cover, which means grand total, you're looking at right there, $15. Right, right. It's a piece of rubber. Right, but at the same time, we have to basically disassemble the entire front side of the engine to get to it. Okay. So that's lots of time, and then you have to look and, well, once you get it off, is the water pump good, or will you be better off replacing the water pump? Well, there's $50. And depending upon how bad a shape the timing belt cover is in, if there's a lot of pitting from it rusting up from the water from the antifreeze and everything escaping, you'll have to replace that and that's $300 so no matter what this is going to be in a massive amount of time and we need a bunch of parts the question is just is it going to be lots of time and not horribly expensive or is this going to be like huge right ouch that's not very good at all this is why I have this is why we maintain an extra vehicle so that we have a spare which unfortunately it's so cold. It's the only time of year my spare doesn't like to run, and it doesn't have a heater, so of course everything happens when it's cold. Of course. That's just how it is. That's life. It is. That's how life finds a way, in the cold. Yes.
    4:11
    What have you been up to? Hopefully it's better than me. Well, I guess it's all relative. Overall, I'm pretty sure my car is doing okay still, so I've got that going for me. Game-wise, I've been playing Red Dead Redemption 2. I just started that up earlier this week. There's a lot of horses in it, so I've been riding a lot of ponies. And I've continued to stream Hollow Knight. I didn't do it today, but I did it yesterday, and I did it over the weekend last week. And last week, well, I guess now, two weeks ago, since we're on Sunday, I did not stream pinball at all. I was too tired. I meant to do it Wednesday, and I just, I sat back down and said, I don't want to stand. And then Thursday, I was getting the stuff ready, and I thought, I don't want to do it now either.
    4:56
    And thinking, well, maybe Tony will stream, so it won't be a big deal. And then Friday came around. I was like, I still don't want to stream, so I'm just not going to.
    5:05
    Isn't it awesome to be able to make choices like that? Choice? You know, life is a series of choices. I mean, I like trying to be consistent with things. But obviously, unlike where we stick very well with the podcast schedule, I don't want to get into the situation where I feel obligated to have to stream. Right. But this last week, I did. I felt fine. I felt okay doing it. So they weren't two-hour streams, but they were over an hour each. So I did that.
    5:34
    And then maybe part of that issue was that kind of midweek, I accepted a new job. so I gave my letter of resignation to my governing board letting them know that the last day of February is the last day I will function as their interim executive director I'm actually my last real day is the 22nd of February it's the Friday before I'm taking those last four days off in case I needed time to help transition to this new group and the new organization I'm shifting over to they offered me a permanent executive director job and they are an affiliate organization to the organization I currently work for. So instead of working for this- Awkward. Yeah, well, a little bit. So in fact, after my executive director was not renewed to continue service, they brought me up to interim executive director. And I'm sure the theory was I would do it all the way until they put in a permanent executive director, be that me or be that someone else. And that was my intention as well. But this opening came up after I had agreed. I did not know what was going to go on with all that. But I mean, the bottom line is my governing board still hasn't officially started the search for the permanent executive director, and this board wanted me. You know, to me, it really comes down to the fact that I think it's a good opportunity, and I kind of prefer having a governing board that actually knows they want me versus a governing board that doesn't seem to know what they want. Well, that makes complete sense to me. I mean, why should you spend so much time and energy on a maybe when you have a definite thing that's been offered? Right. I mean, because in theory, the only thing I was guaranteed if I didn't get to keep interim or excuse me, I didn't get to keep executive director permanently would be I'd go back to the prior role that at the 2018 pay level and everything like that. Well, that's I mean, it's enough. That's fine. But I don't want to do that job anymore because I've been doing it for four years and I don't have anything new to learn. So I'm bored with it. So I want something else. Bored now. Yeah, bored now. Good Buffy reference for those that don't remember the TV show, not the movie. And so, yeah, it was just it was what it was. I mean, obviously, they're going to be I've been with my current employer for almost 17 years. So I do not jump ship at the drop of a hat. So I don't think they'll be calling my loyalty into question. But obviously, this is very inconvenient for them because they're already one staff person down. I was doing my old role and my new role. I do want to note, I did, as part of my negotiations with the new organization, they gave me Texas Pinball Festival off. That was a condition that I placed because normally I wouldn't have had any vacation time because I'm starting in March. I wouldn't have earned any. Right. And they actually have a rule that – this is pretty standard organizational rule. No vacation for the first six months of employment. so well that's I'm like that we're gonna work on you're gonna so they actually wrote into the agreement the day I'm gonna get that Thursday to go down through that Monday yeah I had a situation like that back in the 90s once where I started a job and when they hired me I had a pre-planned trip and I let them know it's like hey this is great but I'm just letting you know I will be gone from this date to this date. It's pre-planned, pre-paid for, and I wasn't going to cancel it. If that doesn't work, I'm going to have to decline the offer. But no, they were quite accommodating. I'll probably have more news on that around the next podcast when we're a little bit closer to my actual end, because that'll be right after my last board meeting. But for the time being, I'll just, we'll be watching and waiting. I'm moving a whole like 20 feet down the hall. it's still based in Topeka on the same floor in the same building I'll be able to work from home a lot more though like I said awkward a bit but I mean it's a partner organization yeah that's going to be interesting because that organization has a representative on the governing board so they of course knew about my application and that I was the one they wanted from that series of interviews so yeah it could be deliciously awkward we'll find out But, oh, well, they had their opportunity. Well, congratulations with you. They had their opportunity. They could have made me an offer at any time. There was no rule saying they had to do an open job search. They think it's appropriate. I don't disagree with them. But, you know, someone else wanted me, so that's just how it works. They knew about this podcast, and they're probably like, we want Dennis. I was like, yeah, I don't blame you.
    10:21
    We don't really care about his skills, but that podcast is fire. The podcast is skill. All right. So in terms of pinball news, I basically got it categorized by five manufacturers worth of talky-talk talking points. Ooh, talky-talk. Yeah. This is part of the new lingo I'm working on to put zest into our podcast.
    10:46
    So let's start with Stern Pinball. Okay. Not a whole lot, really. We already talked about Munsters on the last episode. I just wanted to note the Munster Pros, big shock. They're already being shipped out. and our area location, the 403 Club, just got theirs in a few days ago. I haven't tried it yet. They had the launch party yesterday. I didn't feel like driving up there and playing in it, so I didn't go. See, and like I said in my intro, I decided in the middle of last week that I wasn't going to leave the house or do anything yesterday. So I had already decided I wasn't going to that. Right. Didn't work out for me, but, you know. Yeah, well, I mean, you still kind of stayed around, I guess. But we'll get a chance to play it probably in March. But it's just okay. So as usual, Stern has done an announcement, and then shortly thereafter has started to move units, pro units first, like they typically do. So it's all pretty much going as expected. I actually read that 403 Club currently does, the operator has the Munsters Premium on order. So his plan apparently is to route Munsters Pro and then replace it with the Premium. Interesting. I think he had that plan on another game once. I don't know if he ended up doing it or not. But, yeah, I was a little surprised. But we'll see what happens because he doesn't have any qualms about turning around and selling a game off if he's done with it.
    12:10
    So, yeah. But, anyway, Stearns got their nose to the grindstone, and they're continuing to grind away. So let's go ahead and shift now over to Spooky Pinball. We haven't talked about them in a little while. I just thought this was interesting I don't actually listen to their monthly podcast so I read about this after the fact from This Week in Pinball I believe they mentioned that there was a discussion that they were having on one of their episodes about doing a theme called Killer Clowns from Outer Space but that they liked the idea but they didn't think that it would sell well enough to actually do as a theme but they had a little bit of a discussion on it so your comment has already given me a clue as to where this is going for you, but I wanted to know what are your thoughts on Killer Clowns from Outer Space as a pinball theme? We've had a discussion before on the use of cult licenses for pinball machines and whether which ones are big enough cult following to work and which ones aren't. Killer Clowns from Outer Space is not in any way, shape, or form. It is one of those movies that I saw like in one of those back when TBS or TNT always did their really bad B-movie Saturday roll things. And it's not good. It doesn't even have the humor value of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes or the sheer silliness of Night of the Lepus. I don't think it's that good. so yeah no there's no way I can't I mean I can understand their thought that that's the same way along my thoughts that you know about other games that are other movies and things that would be fun and could you could do fun things with but would have zero selling factor I think they definitely made the right choice on in the realization that there is no way that game would sell at all Yeah, I agree with you and I agree with them that the – I don't think the theme has broad enough appeal. It's got cult classic status, but again, even amongst the cult classic – if you start asking people to name their top 20 known cult classic movies, I don't think Killer Clowns ends up in the list. No, I don't think so. I mean maybe on some people's personal list, but not in a broad general public sense. I'd almost wonder if, you know, they don't have to do a 500-unit run like there seems to kind of be the model at this point. I mean, TNA, obviously, they ended up kind of stopping at 550, but Alice Cooper is at 500. You know, I wondered maybe if they kept it to more like the America's Most Haunted level of 150. But then, again, I don't think – I don't know how much the license would cost, probably not much. but you have to question what economy of scale you can achieve with that, and it may not be feasible with a low count. Especially not with a full design. I mean, I could see it being something they could do if they went from a – if they did just like a re-theme of something they already have. But, yeah, now that was one of the things that kind of crossed my mind. It's like, okay, well, they paid Ben Heck for that play field for whatever he was working on. I'm assuming it was the Evil Dead. So, you know, they have a play field that they've already got something designed. It still needs to be coded, but they have a layout that's just sitting there. And given the drama we touched on last time, I'm not sure that Spooky and Ben will ever patch things up.
    15:59
    I would be impressed if they did. so given that they own it they own that design i think after a while it would make sense to just go ahead and use it if you wanted to and take advantage of the money you already invested on it the reason why i brought this up because again they noted that it was just like a it was just like a discussion it wasn't they're not doing this they know it would have a lot of trouble the reason i wanted to note it is i actually really like this movie do you i do the when I was a kid, my sister and I both would watch this all the time. We had it on tape, and we'd watch it all the time. I don't remember how many times I've seen it, but I think it'd be a great pinball theme. It'd be a terrible seller. No one else wants it. I totally get it, but I just want to fanboy out a little bit on it, because it's such a funny movie. It's not meant to be funny. It's just totally campy, is the thing.
    16:53
    For those that don't know, and spoilers, so I don't know. Skip. However, I'm not going to tell you how much it's killer clowns around space. You've already seen it. The movie plot is there are these aliens that come, and they're bad. They look like clowns, hence the name killer clowns around space because they kill people. But it's got so many weird little horror tropes that are clownified. And, of course, clowns are really creepy, so it just works. But, I mean, people cocooned in cotton candy. You've got cream pies that are actually made out of acid. you've got police officers who are turned into hand puppets for some ventriloquism you've got the the popcorn which are like little monster bug larva things it's it's just it's there's so much camp in it so i always really liked it but it's a terrible idea yeah but i mean just because i Well, yeah, that's what being a fan of something means. I mean, yeah, I understand that Buckaroo Banzai would be a terrible seller, but that doesn't mean I don't want to see a game themed around it just for the call-outs. Yeah, I couldn't say that. If you made it, I'd buy it, but I would be very interested in a Killer Clowns. But it's a terrible idea. The podcaster in me has to say it's a terrible idea. Don't do it. But I just wanted to say that, unlike Tony, I actually like this movie. I like it quite a bit. I haven't seen it in a long time, but it's one of my most watched horror movies.
    18:27
    Really? Yep. I mean, my number one most watched horror movie, what is Halloween, the first Halloween? I was going to ask, what's yours? Do you know? Not like comedic horror, true horror movie. I'm trying to think well how do you want to classify horror I guess would be the question just name a movie that's coming to your mind and I'll tell you if you're wrong how about that well probably the one I've seen the most would be the mini series of The Stand but I consider that more post apocalyptic type end of the world stuff than horror I would agree with you and since it's a miniseries I don't know if I'd call it a movie in that case I would probably have to say either Army of Darkness or I've seen that one a whole lot sure but it's comedic another one I've seen a whole lot is Jason X which was also very comedic Yeah, it's more – that one is more deliberately campy. Probably in that case, The Thing. Oh, John Carpenter's? Yes. Okay. Oh, that's a good one. I really like that movie. I was thinking about it. I know I've seen that one a dozen times. I have that one on DVD.
    19:56
    Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, Killer Clowns, I watched a lot. I haven't seen it in years, but growing up, I watched it a lot. Yeah, I mean, my main ones would probably be, as I noted, the original Halloween is one I've seen a lot. I often watch that on Halloween. It's one of my favorites to put on. I've only seen the original one once.
    20:15
    I've only seen the second one once. Yeah, I have the first three on disc. I don't care much for number three because it's so weird. But the first two I often rewatch, usually just the first one if I'm just going to do one. so yeah I mean that obviously Event Horizon I've seen a number of times the movie I originally didn't like and I actually really like it a lot now I think it very scary that is a good movie the original Alien I seen a number of times I a big fan of it It just that compared to Aliens I just don like it as much so I usually watch the action movie instead
    20:52
    And those would probably be the main ones that are really serious that I'd say I spend a lot of time with. But yeah, John Carpenter's a thing. That one would work really well with some weird pop-ups like a guy and all of a sudden a thing comes out of his head. that would be you could do interesting stuff with that and it could have some fun with a good lcd now if you want to talk about like something can't a little bit that's horror but campy kind of like killer clowns uh for me it was always them i don't know if i've seen that i can't even think what it is uh them was i think it was it was made in the 50s it was one of those uh radiation nuclear scare ones. And it was about these ants that became huge and they like attacked LA and stuff. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. Huh? I think it was from the fifties. Hmm. I remember the, I remember the movie with William Shatner where the spiders take over. Right. That is, I can't remember the name of that one, but I've seen it.
    21:56
    But you know, I would, I would like to see some. 1954 is them. Okay. I would like to see some actual what I'll call straight horror done in pinball.
    22:08
    I mean, we did see Highway tried to with Alien. I mean, it was Alien and Aliens combined. But atmospherically, I thought from what I saw with the software, the Alien side was embracing the horror fully. No joke about it. But I don't think it sells as well. But if anyone were to try it, I would think Spooky, it would make sense. It's in their name. They've always wanted to keep something tied to horror. It seems like most of the stuff they've done that's tying to horror is kind of jokey horror, not straight horror. Right.
    22:37
    So let's move on to something less scary and a little more family-friendly, Jersey Jack Pinball, which is all about being family-friendly.
    22:47
    So Jack – and I always mispronounce – I never say his last name on the podcast because I think it's Gary, but I always just say it privately. I just call him Jersey Jack. So, Gurian Jersey Jack, he actually was speaking with Replay Magazine, and he noted that in 2009, they plan a spring and fall release, and both of those releases are based on well-known licenses. Now, we talked an episode or two ago about Jersey Jack's plan that they've been indicating for a little while now. First, we heard that they had an intent to get on a nine-month sort of cycle. The spring-fall thing kind of jives with that. We talked at length about a launch at TPF and then another launch close to the Toy Story release, which would be around June, which obviously this doesn't sync with. This is newer than that, though. And I think some of that Toy Story release stuff was being very presumptuous in the sense that there was an indication of wanting to have a Toy Story game around when the movie would hit. I never heard a confirmation that it would actually come out when the movie was out. but a little bit else to add on to this in addition to replay magazine there was an interview with pinball news and pinball magazines podcast for january 2019 i have a link to it in the show notes if anyone wants to listen to it and during that interview jack discussed these releases a bit more he did note that two different designers are involved and they both already work for jersey jack pinball so i in my mind this is essentially a confirmation that one is pat luller and one is Eric Meunier, because I don't know of any other designers that are actually at the company.
    24:28
    And also that they weren't going to be committing to a specific show reveal. So the speculation is that whatever game is planning to come out in the spring, and the thought is that it's Willy Wonka, it won't be at Texas. Really? I mean, that's a possible speculation. Obviously, he was not saying they have an intent. He indicated they're not committing to an intention to reveal anything at Texas. That's my read. based off of what he said. Now, they've always revealed that a show. But there are plenty of other shows later in the spring besides Texas. None as big, but there are other shows. Right, and that's what strikes me as weird, is if you're going for a spring, early summer type release, why wouldn't you float something at the biggest show in that time frame? Well, the thing that would come to my mind would be that they want there to be more sales on Pirates first. And there could be a concern that as soon as you announce the next title, people will start holding their money for that rather than maybe making more of the impulse buying and saying, well, I really want a Jersey Jack game. I love their toys. I love their quality. I don't want to wait, though, so I'm going to get Pirates. Well, then is that a concern that Pirates sales haven't been as strong as people would imply or some people would like. Well, and I wondered about that. When I listened to the interview, the Pinball News interview, I thought that Jack was talking about how they were, they, the company, were sold out, but that the distributors made all their purchases, but that there weren't any more on the line. I was chatting with someone else, and he indicated he thought that that was actually a discussion part about The Hobbit, not about Pirates. So I don't know. I didn't go back and re-listen to it. The interview was in a show, so there's a lot of background noise, and I didn't want to sit through it again, quite frankly. So I don't know. I mean, we had heard – there's been a lot of talk that Pirate sales haven't been robust. I don't know if they're below what Jersey Jack's hopes were or not. I don't know where it stands versus dialed in. But there's a thought, obviously, that at some stage, if you're doing a spring release, that they're moving on from just focusing on Pirates. And Pirates did come out a lot later than they had intended. And I think the spring release has always been a spring release. so I don't know though if they're trying to give it a little more breathing room because obviously Texas is in the end of March and that's very early spring or if it's driven by that they're still trying to work out some of the mechs and stuff because that was the big issue with pirates of course they did that huge reveal and then upon testing found out that they could not get the consistency that they needed out of the triple spinning disc and the treasure chest lid that was opening and closing and ultimately they had to make major changes to the mechanisms. Right. So, I think this is one of those things where I would like them to get onto a twice a year release schedule. I'll be honest, I'd like them to get on a once a year release schedule.
    27:45
    And, if this move works out for them and they get exactly the kind of schedule going, I think they'll be in a pretty good place. I'm just so I'm gun shy on Jersey Jack when they talk about stuff coming out. Well, and Jack is being very vague. I mean, spring and fall obviously gives us a little specificity, but not much.
    28:16
    Did he say spring and fall of what year? 2019. This was to Replay Magazine. That in 2019 they plan a spring and a fall release. and that both of those releases are based on well-known licenses. I believe in the Pinball News, Pinball Magazine podcast discussion, he indicated, I think one of the interviewers asked if it was going to be like that rumored Yellow Brick Road edition of Wizard of Oz, but was one of them just going to be a rebranded version of an already existing game? Because, again, if they did Hobbit or Wizard of Oz, that would meet those conditions. a well-known license, and a new release, kind of like when they did the Ruby Red edition of Wizard of Oz. And I believe that was asked, and he indicated that, no, these would be new games.
    29:02
    That's the plan. Well, I hope it works, because I'd like to see more new games from them. And the impression that people have at this point, just for those that are confused, I'm always confused, But moving from that, the speculation is still that Pat Lawler's game is first and that Pat Lawler has Willy Wonka. And that obviously means that's the spring release. And then the implication is Eric Meunier will have Toy Story and that will be the fall release. Pat Lawler, I believe, my understanding is he has indicated that he likes to design standard width pins. So that would suggest Wonka will be a standard width just like Dialed In was. and the assumption is that Eric will continue to do wide bodies, which seems to be the general Jersey Jack preferred width.
    29:51
    Yeah, that would make sense to me. Not necessarily the titles being in that order. I mean, I can understand either way. It's hard to tell. But definitely, seeing as Meunier just came off of a game, having his game be the second one would make the most sense. Yeah. And I'm trying to remember who. I think it may have been that Pinball News, Pinball Magazine interview with Jersey Jack. The topic about releasing when the movie comes out. Someone I heard, I can't remember, so that's why I'm hesitating on who I attribute it to. Someone in the industry said they've never actually seen any evidence that releasing a pin with a movie actually increases its sales or gets it more plays on location. I don't think it would. Someone's calling into question whether or not that really makes a difference. And that's a fair point to bring up. It seems logical to think that it would, but I would want to see evidence, too. If no one's actually done a study to prove, oh, yeah, if you put this Star Trek comes out when the Star Trek movie comes out, then more people will play it on location. That may not be the case. I don't know about sales just because of the price of pens. I could see where having it bring a license that is in the mindset of people at the time would make sense. I agree. And the example that I heard was actually about it being a pin in a – it wasn't about sales. It was about operating. But it was actually specific to having the pinball machine in the movie theater with the movie out.
    31:29
    Oh, yeah. People don't drop more coins into that or they haven't seen any evidence of that, which may be a fair enough point. But I know, for example, that we have an operator in the area. And anytime there's a new Jurassic World movie, he puts Jurassic Park back out on location.
    31:46
    And the first time he did it, when I spoke with him, it sounded like, yeah, it was doing pretty well. And then eventually it didn't and he swapped it out. And then the new movie came out and we have it back on location still. so yeah i mean these things will probably vary from location to location theme to theme and it just it just depends but i could definitely see where you're coming from though on the sales side given that jersey jack is so oriented to the home market that i agree i just don't think that when it comes out isn't particularly relevant versus what the license it's tying to is so let's move to the fourth company this is one we don't talk about much great lakes pinball there's not really a lot to say other than they have announced that they hired an artist. His name is Tom Deja. I hope I'm saying it right. And this is regarding the pin they've already indicated is coming out, which is called Expose. So we don't have a lot of information. They have shared an artistic rendering of one of the characters who looked like a sort of alien kind of what I think of as a gray but maybe a little squatter, like a chibi gray. maybe that'd be a chibi gray chibi gray it's not that adorable but it kind of is i mean it's art i can't describe it to you on the podcast it's pointless to try so well see this is kind of a blue let me let me let me pull out the let me pull out the the the color wheel and i'll get you the exact numbers you can look it was just a sketch there were no colors there were no colors so anyway just fyi uh i wanted to note it because uh last time we talked about how zombie not zombie Yeti, excuse me, Dirty Donnie was picked up to do an art for another one, the Suncoast Pinball Startup. So it's sort of falling into line with what everyone's been saying. All you need is a great art package and you can sell a pin. That's sort of the philosophy that everyone seems to have adopted now, which is why so many companies are trying really hard to make sure that their art doesn't look like crap. Well, while you were talking, I found the picture, and that is kind of a cute, creepy thing. I think my summation was decent. It wasn't great, but I thought it was decent. Yeah, no, no. It's pretty solid. It definitely falls into the kind of cute creepy. Mm-hmm. Well, speaking of creepy, let's go to our last company to talk about. Wow. I don't have a good segue. Our last company to talk about, which is Dutch Pinball.
    34:13
    Oh, okay. So for those that don't know. It's to the point of sad. It's been sad for a long, long time. and you usually say fairly negative things when we bring up Dutch but I felt we needed to because we haven't really talked about them recently so for those that don't know Dutch Pinball is the company behind the Big Lebowski pinball machine, they also made the kit Bride of Pinbot 2.0 which allows you to convert the WPC game Bride of Pinbot into a D&D version of the game and the Big Lebowskis did not all get built, there are a lot of people who pre-ordered haven't received machines. And for the last few months, everything has been on hold due to litigation because originally Dutch Pinball used a contract manufacturer named ARA, and they had a falling out about price. And so they left ARA and intended to shift to another contract manufacturer. ARA initiated a lawsuit against Dutch Pinball before that production could really get underway. and so things have been tied up in court since. The news that has come out has been that the judge in the case has asked Dutch Pinball and Ara to get together and try and negotiate some sort of settlement. Apparently, he told them to do this before and they got together and could not reach an agreement. Dutch Pinball indicated to their pre-orderers they indicated that they made a number of proposals to ARA during that process, and ARA rejected all of the offers. So they went back to the judge and said, we couldn't reach agreement. And then the judge said, I want you to try again, or else I'm going to make a decision, and you might not like what I decide.
    36:00
    Don't make me pull this car over. Right, right. Exactly. Don't make me pull this car over. So I thought we should just probably talk about what, if anything, we think this means. I want to go ahead and note up front, obviously, this is going through, by the way, as the name of Dutch Penal May imply, this is happening in the Dutch legal system, not the American legal system. I am not an attorney, so take all of this with as much salt as you need. From my experience, and I've touched on it a few times on past episodes, when I went to small claims court, which is civil court for low dollar amounts, over a project a contractor did not finish doing a deck build for me.
    36:38
    And the first time I went, when I actually had my time to present the case to the judge, I remember the room was full of all of these claimants and defendants. And the first thing the judge did was tell every single one of them, you are going to try and mediate this. They had free mediators. I mean, you already paid the court, but they had mediators on standby right there, right then. and if the plaintiff was there and the defendant was there, you went into another room with one of the mediators and they tried to talk it out because who knows what you are going to like or not like with what the judge would decide. Plus, it takes up a lot of court time. So wouldn't it be nice just to get this settled and not have it go any further? I didn't have that happen because my defendant didn't show up. So I won by, I got everything I wanted because I won by default. So in this case, this syncs very closely, in my view, with what I'd expect to see in the American legal system. The judge really trying hard not to have to sit and decide this case. Try and get the two parties to come to an agreement, just using the legal system as the apparatus to make them get together at the table, knowing that the ball has started rolling. And then hopefully you save all this court time and everyone agrees to something. It's a compromise. Not everyone loses. I mean there's not one loser in specific circumstances or anything and then it just goes away and everyone moves on with their lives what do you think about the reason I bring this up is some people have gone as far as to think that this means because Ari initiated the suit and the judge is telling them that they to go back and try and negotiate that Ari doesn't have a good case I think that is wishful thinking I could be wrong, but I think that falls from those people who are just wanting to keep holding on to the hope that they will be made whole somehow magically. And that all their love and energy and money that they've poured into this company that they believe in hasn't been thrown down the toilet like it actually has. Yes. I'm of a similar mindset. Maybe – I wouldn't be surprised if the judge ultimately didn't give ARA everything their suit asked for. That wouldn't surprise me. So in that regard, sure, ARA may not have legal claim to every single demand that they have. That being said, my supposition on this is that obviously the judge isn't inclined to just dismiss it and say ARA doesn't deserve anything. So I think that it's mostly driven by just trying not to consume the court's time and seeing if they can actually – because the parties are so bitter towards each other that it's helpful to have the judge try and make them have a talk. But that being said, long term, the problem with Dutch Pinball isn't that they have the lawsuit with Aura hanging over their heads. It's they don't have a way to fund the completion of this project, the Big Lebowski project. So given that, I just don't, I just long-term, I just don't see Big Lebowski going anywhere. My understanding, and I don't know that this is certain, but from what I had read from others reporting on this, in that first round of negotiations where Dutch said all of our offers were rejected, Dutch's offers, I believe, I don't know if they all did, but my sense was all of them involved having ARA continue the build. and Ara doesn't want to build the big Lebowskis anymore. They're done. They don't want to come back and finish it. I would think at this point it would be pretty clear, and I don't know why they would even want to continue to work with Ara in any situation anyway, just due to the bad blood, as it were. I would assume that the most they would want to do is get something settled so they could get those 40 locked up machines out and at least make some people whole while they continue to... Though, let's be fair. If they get those 40 machines, they will sell them, even though they've already got other people's money, instead of delivering it to try and jumpstart whatever else they want to try and do to finish it out. I think that may have been why they, being Dutch, would want to have Aura continue to do the build. because they were not ready to go yet with the Chinese contract manufacturer they were in discussions with. They had some prototypes, and they were having a few things reformed still. But my sense was, again, we haven't seen inside of all of this, so we're having to be a little speculative, but that company hadn't been paid anything yet. I don know if Aura has been paid stuff yet or not but there already the existing contracts with Aura If Aura were willing to continue to do the build I could see it going how you suggested Take the 40 don give them to the pre Sell them to New Blood. There are a lot of people that think this is a very fun game and they want to buy it. Then you take that sale money and then you keep paying Aura to continue to do the build. And eventually, with the influx of money that you've got from the new sales, You start to build out the pre-orders, and you do kind of like what Highway was trying to do at the end where you give a pre-order or a machine after you sell X number of machines to new buyers. Yeah. But if Aura doesn't want to do anything else, they just have the 40. Okay, let's say Dutch takes it and sells those to all new people. All right, you're at the pre-order is mad still. You've got potential litigation from them at this point. I mean, they could have brought litigation at any stage, but now there might be more of them that are actually willing to sue. Plus, you've got this money and you have to find a new manufacturer. I assume you go back to the Chinese manufacturer you're talking with. Is that enough of an investment on those 40 for them to actually get production up and running and build a certain number of machines? I would say probably, but I don't know if there's any other debts that Dutch has to pay. because the issue is up until, I believe, 2018 at some point, they were still drawing salary from the company. So they don't have as much money now versus when they started. They've been spending money down, even if this is going to keep them alive for living expenses. So the best solution for Dutch would have been, hey, Aura, we're ready to pay you. I mean, I know what Dutch wants. They would have wanted Aura, and I'm sure they would have been willing. even if they don't like each other. If Ara was able to do the build and Dutch actually got to pay the original contract amount they wanted to pay, then Dutch would go back to Ara and they would just move forward. And you'd have some lost money from all this process, but it is what it is. Ara obviously doesn't even want the amount that they tried to get from Dutch to move forward at this point. So who knows what the judge would decide if they don't come to an understanding. I could see them maybe saying that, I mean, Dutch's best case scenario would probably be they only have to pay the original agreed upon price for the 40 games that are in stock or whatever. And Aro is not obligated to honor any other aspect of the contract regarding Bride of Pinbot 3.0 or whatever those nuances were. But if Dutch hasn't paid them anything for the games that were even shipped, and I've heard that reported, but again, I don't know that it's true, that's a bit of a problem for Dutch. I say, yeah, can Dutch even afford to pay for those games at the price Dutch was expecting to pay for them as opposed to the price that R.F. was wanting? Right. I don't think so. I don't think they – my guess is they can't pay for all 40 at once right now, even at the original price. So then maybe they get – they pay for 10, sell the 10, buy 15, sell the – do it like that. But long term, I don't know how you get to the point where you make everyone whole because I don't see them being able to generate enough cash to actually really, truly start up a line with someone else. I just – because I think you have – I think so much of those 40 games is going to go to pay for the 40 games. I just don't – I don't understand it. But so much of this is not transparent. It's very, very challenging. so none of this makes me think that the big lebowski's go go and get built that's that's the bottom line i i could see a scenario where these negotiations may liberate the games into duchess possession that's possible the 40 but but like you said i don't think they just ship those off to those pre-orderers and call it a day because that's not going to satisfy all the pre-orderers and that's what's going to cost them money in shipping costs i think that they sell them and do something i don't know i don't know what you do sell them and then give everyone who pre-ordered pennies on the dollar back kind of bankrupt yourself and do it like that at least i mean they'd get more money under that scenario than if they did it right now right and i think I have a hard time seeing them doing anything that actually I cannot see a way to an actual future where they will make those pre-orders whole. I just don't see where it's realistically possible. I'm sure there's some pipe dream where it could happen, but in all reality, I don't see how it will. Oh, there are still people who have this hope that Dutch will contract with Deep Root or Spooky to do the builds. And then Spooky or Deep Root is the contract manufacturer. It's a contract manufacturer that knows – well, at least in the case of Spooky, knows how to build pinball machines. We don't know yet on Deep Root. And then that goes forward, and Dutch sort of owns the IP, and Spooky handles the build. and then people trust and new buyers buy.
    46:45
    I've never played The Big Lebowski, but the one thing that I've seen is compared to any of these other projects, Predator, even Alien, which has a few fans, a lot of people like how Big Lebowski plays. A lot of people think it is a very good game. So there's been this demand from people that want to acquire one, but they're too scared to go in with Dutch because it doesn't seem like Dutch is necessarily being all that honest They're definitely not being transparent with what their financial situation is and what's really going on. Their updates are almost non-updates. So it's like Kickstarter, the pinball.
    47:22
    That might be our next pinball theme to come up with is Kickstarter, the pinball. So, yeah, like you, I just – I don't see a path. I think those are all pipe dreams that – I'm just shocked that this has gone on for years. and people still, I suppose when there's nothing else to consume, hope is all you can feed on, but I just don't understand it. There's still people who talk it up. At some point, you've got to cut your losses. Dutch pinball's done. They'll never do a new game beyond Big Lebowski. Their reputation is too tarnished. I mean, depending on how they exit, I think, will determine whether or not they'll be able to, quote-unquote, show their face at a pinball show. But, I mean, given even how well J-Pop has ended up navigating his whole sort of boondoggle, I suppose it's quite achievable to continue to be a presence in the hobby. Yeah, somehow there are still people who will love you, but he had a lot more to work with than they do. Yeah, yeah, and it's just a mess. I think, to me, this is following more the path of Highway than the path of Zidware, but we'll have to see. So that's all I really have on pinball news, though. So we'll end on that downer note, and then we can move on into happiness. Let's talk about happy video game news. Oh, we're going to talk about happy video game news? Well, I'm just assuming it has to be happy, Tony. You only put the happiest notes in on one note. That's what I did was nothing but happy notes this time. Start us off. What's going on? What's so happy? We're going to start off with happy. EA announced that they're going to miss their sales estimates for the holiday season and they dropped their forecast for the third quarter that's happy their stock dropped 13% well a lot of people hate EA so for them it is happy apparently one of the big hits was Battlefield 5 sold a million less copies than they expected it's already half off in the Xbox store this last week I still didn't buy it and I've been someone who's played all the battlefields since Bad Company 1, with the exception of the standalone stuff and Hardline in 1943. Yeah, I was going to ask, because I know you've been a big Battlefield player. I have been, but the problem is, while I really like the idea of 1, it didn't immerse me. The new modes, like Operations mode, it took over 30 minutes to play, and it just was too time-consuming. And I've had more fun with Overwatch. so whenever I want to play in a sort of cooperative shooter I end up going into the hero shooter instead of going into this massive battlefield plus the vehicles didn't feel as because it's World War I really respected that they were willing to do it I really liked the setting I thought the vignettes campaign was the best battlefields campaigns usually suck so it was like the best campaign I'd played since Battlefield Bad Company 2 but that just wasn't enough to keep me playing it and the unlocks weren't very interesting. I didn't like how it worked with their loot crate system for skins on the weapons. I was coming from a model where you used a gun enough, and you'd get a new scope, and you'd get a laser sight, and actually help you. Not, oh, look, you got a new shade of camo for this prototype machine gun. Make you a machine gun dress-up. Yeah, well, you can barely see because it's so drab in the game because they go with that ultra-realistic look. So it was like, okay, well, I just – it was fine. I enjoyed the game. I liked writing my War Ponies, but it's just not – I didn't like it as much as Battlefield Bad Company 2's multiplayer or Battlefield 3, which is one of my favorite multiplayer games ever. So, yeah, now that's – like I said, I was interested to see that it hurt them that bad. Well, I think – I mean, my read was they still don't have the Battle Royale yet out for it. Call of Duty had a Battle Royale. they knew that that was what is hot right now so and it is super hot right now and that's also kind of what then saved ea two days later because respawn entertainment released apex legends which is a free-to-play battle royale game set in the titanfall universe titanfall i like titanfall it's fun i've heard a lot of people really do like titanfall it's been well reviewed but it's never really sold great no the first was xbox exclusive so that held it back and then the second one was that was an ea mistake they put it out against battlefield one right so of course it's not going to sell when you're throwing out against a title like that well it's the same audience it's a first person shooter so but apex legends has actually broken big uh they hit a million unique players in the first eight hours after release they had 10 million unique players in the first 72 hours and they had managed to hit more than a million concurrent players in the first 72 hours and based upon what i've seen from looking on twitch this game is everywhere okay well it's it's a fun world i i haven't been inclined to try it because my understanding is that this does not actually have the titans in it no so it doesn't it it relies on there's some really cool parkour elements to titanfall when you're not in the mechs but for me the mechs were the fun thing so i uh i i've watched several streams seagull was streaming it yesterday so i watched his stream um and man i don't think i can play those games those games are too fast i'm too old i don't know i mean get it on your playstation and they go slower on the controller setups maybe i could i could see that it's just weird when you're watching somebody play and they're doing all the stuff you they're like menuing like fast you don't even know what's going on it's just like what well he's a professional level gamer too they don't all play at that level right so but no the the uh the release had if it can maintain its popularity it's It's going to be huge, but it was a big enough release that EA stock actually bounced up higher than it was when they dropped when they made their loss announcement. So they may have found their epic cash cow to save them. Hopefully, if it survives, if it holds on, and here's the big thing, is it has to beat the big daddy of them all. So does it have to beat it or can it just do like a nice second place? If it can have a nice second place, if it can find a niche where it sits and holds, I think it'll be okay. Because that's kind of what Fortnite did. It found a niche compared to the other ones because it has that whole building mechanic into it. And then Apex Legends, it has a hero mechanic into it. so when you go in you choose a hero and you play as that hero and you have a ultimate that you get you have a unique ability that only people playing that hero get that's awesome I don't know the ones I've seen are a variety of stuff like I said I've only watched a few streamers play there's like one guy can do he can throw out like decoys, like holographic decoys that'll run around or stand there or whatever. Oh, okay. Yeah, some of those abilities are equippable items that you can take advantage of in the regular Titanfall games. Yeah. So we'll see how that works, if that little niche works for them. Also, what it does better from what I've read and what I've seen, or maybe better is the wrong word, What it does different is, unlike the other Battle Royale games that are out there, it does not have a solo or a duo queue. Everybody is put into teams of three. So you can join with your team of three, or I guess you can be randomly assigned a team of three, but everybody works in teams of three. Okay.
    55:53
    And since the standard Battle Royale thing is you're in whatever flying thing and you jump out to land somewhere on the map to go, they've instituted a jump master thing so that one of the three players in your team controls the jump and all three players stay with him. You can hit a button to break off and go on your own, but you all jump at the same time, and until you choose to break off or get right to the end, you maneuver together so you still land close to each other.
    56:27
    So it's interesting. I'm going to be interested to see how it plays out in the big fight between, you know, like PUBG and Call of Duties is called Blackout, I think. Yeah, I think you're right. And, of course, Fortnite.
    56:45
    But from the initial reports, this game might be rolling up to second place real quick. The free-to-play will help it versus PUBG. Right. so and versus the whole call of duty thing now for more sad more sad yes we had sad because i depending because of ea went socks went down then happy because they came up um it has been confirmed that there is no titanfall 3 in production at this time uh yeah i mean i'm not too shocked given how Titanfall 2 ended up selling, though. I still completely stand by that it is the publisher's fault entirely. Yeah. They shirked blame back when they did that financial report after Titanfall 2. I still remember it was ridiculous how they blamed the development of the game instead. And it's like, you guys chose to put it out against your Battlefield game. Yeah, you chose to put it out against yourself. You didn't even choose to put it out against an opponent. You didn't choose to put it out against a Call of Duty or something. You're like, oh, we'll fight ourselves. Yeah, it was just so silly. And actually, they gave it a campaign. It's a good campaign. The first game doesn't really have a real campaign. It's all multiplayer, really.
    58:03
    Yeah. There's a little bit of a story when you launch in. But I've spent more time multiplayer in the first game, but I really did enjoy the single-player experience. Okay, well, that is sad. I'm sad now. So, yeah, there's supposed to be some more projects under development inside that universe.
    58:23
    But, yeah, no direct Titanfall 3 coming from Respawn. Respawn is spending all their time working on Apex.
    58:32
    Okay. Well, that makes sense. So, we'll transition from SAD to, I don't, Curious? I'm going to go with Curious. Let's transition from sad to curious, and then it'll end on sad.
    58:48
    Spoilers. So we'll start with the curious. The Epic Game vs. Steam battle that's been going on since December. We've talked about them three or four times before. It's going to keep coming because it's kind of a thing going on right now. But Epic put Axiom the Verge in their store for free until the 21st of February. Okay. I've heard of that game.
    59:15
    It's a Metroidvania with a cyberpunk theme. It's pretty popular. I actually picked it up on the Epic Store. I've not played it yet, but I picked it up. I'm not a huge Metroidvania person.
    59:29
    But it turns out they had a little bug when the transition went. The game's creator, because it was one of those single creator independent games, The game's creator went into the game and removed all of Steam's DLLs and code and stuff from it before he gave it over to Epic so Epic could put it on the store, which makes sense. I can understand that.
    59:55
    Unfortunately, he apparently did just a find and replace or find and delete. and one of the things that was removed from the code that was sent to Epic was for a Steam. something or other extension that was for a sound effect and it would cause the game to crash 100% of the time when it tried to find it. Uh oh. That's not very good. So it was fixed. It was passed rather quickly and the game is still available out there. It was just one of those things that was kind of like, well that's just kind of humorous and curious. But then the sad, more sad,
    60:39
    Epic got themselves yet another exclusive. Hmm, that doesn't sound very sad. Well, this exclusive could be considered very poorly timed. Ugh.
    60:53
    They received a one-year Epic Store exclusive to Metro Exodus. Oh, that game's almost out. Right. They got the exclusive two weeks before the game's launch date. It had been selling on Steam for six-plus months.
    61:11
    Hmm. Okay. So what happened to those who pre-ordered it? Those who pre-ordered it are supposedly going to get to play it on Steam, but they're the only ones who will be allowed to have it on Steam. Oh, but then they dropped the price on Epic. It's just $50 instead of $59.99. that is on Steam. Well, that's not a sale. That's a permanent price. Yeah, that's its permanent price because of Epic's lower revenue split. Yeah, well, that sounds not... I mean, these are all like happy things. The people who pre-ordered still get to have the game where they pre-ordered it, so they're not inconvenienced. And people who waited and didn't do stupid pre-orders get to save money.
    61:50
    You would think so. But based upon the burning furor that is the Internet, there is much unhappiness to the way everything's going. Well, can't the pre-order people just cancel and then buy it on Apple? I don't understand why this is a big deal. I think it sounds like there a lot of people who don want to leave the Steam ecosystem They don have to leave the Steam ecosystem You can stay on Steam if you want I understand but they want to play it on the Steam ecosystem I don understand They can if they pre it What the heck Exactly Rah what going on But there's people who have not pre-ordered it who still want to play it, and they want to maintain it because they have the other metros in their Steam library. Okay. I've seen some of these in the comment sections of some of the video game sites that have covered articles about Epic and such that I've started to read from time to time. These crybabies, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to give you my thoughts tonight. These are crybabies.
    62:48
    Boo-hoo. I don't care if you only want to have Steam on your computer. If you want to only use Steam, you can. If you want to play every single game, you're going to have to accept the fact that you're going to be like everybody else who has to have multiple things normally to be able to access it. Not everything lives in one cloud all the time.
    63:10
    Yeah. Well, and the problem is that it has up until this point. Well, and like in the case of this game, sure. But we have had for years games, especially large games, that have not shown up on Steam. Very true. You might have got Battle.net or the Origin Store or whatever. There's always been some. Nothing has ever had 100% access to everything. So I get it. I do get it. It's very convenient. to just have everything in one library. Steam is that library. But it's so short-sighted, in my view, for the end user to not, because it's showing a very, to me, a lack of concern, a lack of care for developers who are getting tired of paying what, in my outsider's view, is an exorbitant, outrageous asking price in terms of the cut that Steam is taking for very little work. So this is competition. Welcome to capitalism. deal with it. And by deal with it, I don't mean go onto the Steam store, load up the other two Metro games, and review bomb them. That you don't like the decision that was made with Metro Exodus has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of two older games. I don't understand that whole review bombing thing that people do anyway. It's a petulant protest. It's an avocado toast eating style petulant protest with no substance. It's that plastic style protest. It's like putting on a bumper sticker on your car instead of actually donating money to a cause. I hate that crap. It's the bottom-of-the-barrel effort of protest. Exactly.
    64:44
    You didn't actually make any sacrifice. You went and you put in a trashy review. It's not even the proper target of your rage. It's like you want to cut someone.
    64:55
    But for whatever reason, I guess because you don't want to go to their house, in this case the Epic Store, you go ahead and you cut their family member, their dad. What did their dad do to you? so here you are knifing someone who you liked who you said was great and keeping my knife analogy going and they're there bleeding and they're like what did I do I'm on steam you loved me three years ago and it's like well sorry this is how I protest because I don't know how protests work losers I'm not going to disagree because use it I mean just use a different the only place I can see there being an issue in my personal opinion is if you end up with something like where you have a uh if a game that is not exclusive drops exclusive like dlc would be an issue but other than that just use both services you have to do it anyway it's not a big deal I think it's perfectly fair to say that it was poor form for the studio to go ahead two weeks out and then make an exclusive agreement. I'm okay with you criticizing that too, but not through review bombing the wrong game. That's not what reviews are for. You should be sending complaints to the company. If you want to do your online protest stuff, that's where you do the Twitter thing and petitions and all that. There is a right way to go about doing it. I know your focus on the summary wasn't on review bombing, but that's what I'm aware of is what's happening. No. That is completely an inaccurate, inappropriate stratagem that isn't going to work. It just makes you look like a crybaby gamer because you are.
    66:42
    So if you want to cry about it, cry about it in the right way. Try and be a little productive with it. criticize that it was almost a bait and switch or how it's poor form or how people who didn't want to preorder because they think preordering is stupid were just waiting because they knew it was already on Steam and that it was going to come out because people were getting to preorder it there. That's fair stuff to say, but don't go to the first Metro, which is a great game, and then say it sucks.
    67:09
    Just my opinion. What do I know? I just have a microphone. I think it's a very valid opinion. the whole review bombing thing is the thing that's been cropping up more and more often it's a big reason people don't want to be on steam i mean just a case in point less of a review bomb and more just of uh crybaby-ish type things is ace combat 7 is showing on steam mixed reviews and the only reason it's showing mixed reviews is because people are giving it bad reviews because it doesn't support their joystick setup I mean, in the review, I think that it would be fair to note this does not support a particular type of joystick setup, and then maybe on gameplay, rate it down. I don't know how the Steam review works. I don't review on – I have before, but I don't remember how. But, I mean, I wouldn't make the game a one star out of five for it. But I could see giving it a hit for not being properly supportive. I mean, I don't know. Are you using a joystick from 2000 or what? I don't know. Well, they only supported a very few, and none of that actually went into place until after they had to patch it in. Well, I mean, as a sort of case in point, there was a game. I can't remember if I reviewed it. I think maybe I did for a site, but they didn't let you invert the Y axis, and I dinged them for it because I think that's a standard protocol to do. But they actually were interviewed about it, and they indicated no one on their development team played with an inverted Y-axis, and they totally didn't think about it.
    68:45
    And I was like, oh, I guess you're not a real gamer. Whatever. And on Steam's review thing, it's an up-down. It's an up-down review.
    68:56
    So, yeah, just out of curiosity, just to see how bad it is. I went to, I pulled up Metro Last Light. Funding.
    69:09
    And of its recent reviews, which is the reviews within the last 30 days, there are 76% negative reviews. Oh, my God. There's been 4,422 negative reviews to Metro Last Light Redo. It's such a good game And let's And just to throw it out there Let's pick one of these Random ones I'm not going to drop the name Or anything just random not recommended Reasons not to use The Epic Store Okay That's the start of a Review on Steam game. That's still available on Steam. On a Steam game. That's not the game they're talking about.
    70:06
    Well, you're right. In sad there. You got my dander up on that one. It's so sad. I know. I heard it was impressive. I like it.
    70:15
    Let's make things better. Let's go happy. Let's get very, very, very happy. Okay. Okay? So, Microsoft Studios. formerly Microsoft Game Studios, is once again being renamed.
    70:33
    They're going to become Xbox Game Studios. Okay, this just confuses me when things keep renaming, but whatever.
    70:43
    According to the news announcement, at this point they are considering Xbox is Microsoft's gaming brand across all devices on all everything. It makes sense, but let's stick with it this time. So everything's going to be Xbox. Okay. We'll see.
    71:01
    See, I said that wasn't like happy, happy, but it was very neutral. Nothing bad. We'll continue the happy. Okay. The successor to one of our original MMOs, Final Fantasy XIV,
    71:16
    its base game is free to Twitch Prime users until May 3rd. third. Which means you can play up to level 50 and you can do all content before the first expansion, which was Heaven's Sword or Heaven's Word or something like that. And in addition the Twitch Prime offer gives you 30 days of gameplay because it's still a subscription based game.
    71:44
    After you complete your 30 days of gameplay if you want to continue to play, it'll be $12.99 a month for a subscription for a single character. It's $14.99 a month for a subscription with multiple characters. But the way the game is set up, all of the possible jobs you can do can be done with a single character. Right. Final Fantasy XI was like that.
    72:06
    Exactly. So, there's I mean, if somebody wants to, I'll be 100% honest, I'm considering it. Except, I don't want to fall in love with it. I don't know if I dare allow myself to ever go into an MMO trap again.
    72:23
    Right, because I miss EVE Online constantly. I've talked about it multiple times on this show. There are times that I miss certain things about World of Warcraft. And there are even times when I miss Final Fantasy VII. Or XI.
    72:41
    Yeah, I just cut the XIV in half. It's cool. When I miss Final Fantasy XI. It is. And they have kept some of the things that I really liked about XI that nothing else had, like the link shell setup and all that. And they've got a guild system and a link shell system now from what I was reading. So you can have link shells that let you talk to just certain groups of friends and everything. It's kind of nice. It's a nice little thing. I liked how they did that.
    73:12
    So there for people who are interested. way to go forward. I know they're doing it because the newest expansion drops soon. Makes sense.
    73:27
    They're trying to bump some stuff up. That's cool. That's nice. I was thinking about it, though. How many subscription-based MMOs are left now? I know WoW is still subscription-based, though. You can do free-to-play up to a certain level.
    73:43
    I know EVE Online is still subscription-based, though once again, it's got a free-to-play section that you can play for so long. But can you think of any other decent-sized games that are still subscription-based? No, but I don't pay any attention to it, so I haven't tried. After World of Warcraft, I deliberately didn't look at any MMOs anymore.
    74:03
    I mean, I've heard a little bit about the one that's the Elder Scrolls online, but I don't know if it's subscription or not. I don't know if it's subscription I was wanting to think it's one of those ones where you could get a subscription that would give you stuff but it's not necessary to play because I know like Star Trek Online got rid of that, their subscription you can get a subscription that gives you bonuses but you can play it without it okay well let me see, I'm doing a quick check so the Elder Scrolls Online yeah they have a ESO Plus membership program is the thing. So that just gives you certain perks, apparently. So taking a quick look at it, it seems that it does things like they have monthly rates, $14.99, $13.99, and $12.99 for one, three, and six-month subscriptions, depending on the platform. So it gives you, as you thought, it gives you access to certain things.
    75:09
    Yeah. well I found a listing of subscription MMOs and they're pretty few yeah so much has moved to the free to play model as we've seen from right from things like well I mean that's the advantage of like Fortnite's Battle Royale is free to play and even PUBG it's a one time buy of the game it's the traditional model and then so we'll see how this goes. I said, man, when I first saw the news, I was thinking about it, but I'm just sitting here going, can I play a game a whole bunch, get into it, fall in love with the game and want to play more, but then turn around and have to pay $13 a month to play the game? When I have so many other games to play, I've got so many games. I mean, I've only played of the games I got for Christmas just for the PS4. I've only played one of them so far. Yeah, that's the thing. I mean, I could play the game enough to actually make it worth the subscription rate, but I wouldn't be playing anything else. And I'm already taking things that I don't have to pay for, and they're taking me so long to clear that it doesn't make any sense financially. I'd have to, I mean, if I love the game, I'd be fine with it, but I don't want to love the game. I've got other games I'm enjoying playing, and I don't need the distraction. Yeah.
    76:33
    We'll see, but for those people who want to give a subscription-based game or a Final Fantasy version of a subscription-based game a try, there you go. There's a good choice for you. And now we'll finish it up.
    76:47
    Well, no, we're not finishing it up. We're not done yet. It's not going to be happy either. Yep. Yeah, I know. I found it this morning and I went to stick it in, but you'd already done it.
    76:56
    But on our last bit of happy, Overwatch League returns on Valentine's Day. That's what our listeners love is when we talk about Overwatch.
    77:04
    I know. Goats. Goats matter. I would love. I cannot wait. Unfortunately, when it does start, I will be at parent-teacher conferences. So that starts at the exact time. They show it on loop on the channel. The first game starts.
    77:24
    I know. I just don't want to stay up that late. But now there are. It's going to be interesting. I'm looking forward to it. My daughter made me pick, since I'm staying with London Spitfire as my team of choice, we did have a conversation where we picked the expansion, which expansion team you like out of just the expansion teams. I went with the Ching Du Hunters because that panda is awesome.
    77:50
    Did she go with it as well? Yes, she did. Okay. I figured. Yeah, and her friend who is an Excelsior fan went with the Spark because he likes it. Oh my gosh, that's like the worst logo ever. I know, it's so terrible. You know what I keep calling it? The Shocker.
    78:10
    Shocker. I think I just need to change that hand a little bit. Oh, that's awesome. Speaking of bad, the last thing that you apparently saw this morning and I saw last night was that Activision Blizzard. We've talked about it fairly recently because you mentioned the Heroes of the Storm's eSports aspect was no longer going to be supported. Correct. And that was part of the article I read, but the rumor mill very strongly indicates Activision Blizzard is preparing to announce major layoffs before their quarterly earnings report. They're expected to land Monday, as in tomorrow, or Tuesday at the latest. And as I noted, significant layoffs. The rumor list I saw was saying hundreds. Yes. Yep. Now, the one article I did read on it had mentioned that at least some of those layoffs will most likely happen because with their split from Bungie and Bungie taking Destiny, Activision still has all of their PR and advertising and all of that people that were part of Destiny but were part of Activision, not part of Bungie, on staff. Yes. Yeah, that changed, obviously, and we talked about that before as well, that Bungie has split off early from Activision. They went ahead and ended their agreement. And coupled with the fact that the Blizzard side hasn't had a new game since Overwatch in 2016, there's just not a major product on that end right now, a new major product. Overwatch is doing very well for them, but it's not enough. Right. That's part of the reason why Heroes of the Storm had its development support staff cut way back to the sort of skeleton crew just to keep it kind of going. That was their worst performing Blizzard product is what I had read. So that's just – I mean these are the steps because apparently Activision had told the Blizzard side you need to reduce your budgets. You need to cut your costs. So start taking steps. naturally the big concern here is that it's what I'll refer to it as the activization of Blizzard, which is what people often feared would happen when Blizzard was acquired or merged, essentially. But it is what it is. So it's unfortunate because Blizzard is one of those sort of premier status companies that has a lot of goodwill with a lot of gamers. Tarnished it a little bit when they spent their big BlizzCon talking about a mobile game, but nonetheless it's still a highly respected company, kind of like Rockstar is, for example. How BioWare used to be, and now it's starting to look like they might become BioWare.
    80:52
    Scary. Yeah, no, this is going to be rough. I'm going to be interested to see what teams, especially on the Blizzard side of things, takes the hits, because I've also seen the rumor list of the article I said had a rumor list of them taking a more administrative hit than a game development hit. Lots of the PR and admin staff type people and shifting that over to Activision, thus blending them harder into Activision than they already are. Yes.
    81:25
    So we'll keep our eyes on it. For the time being, that's all we have to say. It's a downer. It's all ups and downs. Lots of ups, lots of downs. Well, this time of year with the financial reports, it's sort of what you expect. They're usually winners and losers in gaming every year, depending on which games end up getting most people's dollars. Right, and with Epic having dominated so much of the last couple of quarters with Fortnite.
    81:52
    Sure, that's been huge. And then as is typical, when Rockstar has a release and they had Red Dead Redemption in the quarter, it's very difficult for other gaming companies to compete against a Rockstar product because they usually do very well. And a lot of those dollars, they just don't go to what they might have otherwise gone to. So that's very disruptive as well. That's why a lot of companies try and avoid a Rockstar release date. And we're going to have to see later this month, we're going to see a huge surge of games that put themselves off to February, in part trying to dodge these other events. And some of those reshifted because Anthem is the next big release that people are anticipating. We'll see how that goes because I know their demo was very rocky. yeah I heard that as well that's sometimes what happens but that's the end of the show so as a reminder to folks if you want to reach out to us you can email us eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com you can also reach us at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast we're available on twitch and instagram and twitter as eclectic underscore gamers and we'll talk to you guys again in two weeks until then I'm Dennis I'm Tony goodbye