Oh, take Canada's hand and I promise we'll make it, I swear, people. We're still going to wait and see. We're still going to see what all these pinball companies want to put in front of us for our hard-earned money. It's going to get more competitive than ever before. Happy Friday, everybody. Welcome to Canada's Pinball Podcast. A lot of news this week. I've been thinking about this Dutch Pinball Alice in Wonderland DPX. You know, 500 units for $15,000 a pop or somewhere around that territory. I want to just talk about what I feel like waking up today thinking about that. Are they going to move those units? Is it too many units? Is it too expensive? We're hearing some rumors about Jack Danger's next game. Is it going to be worth the money? We've got Elton John unboxing in people's homes. Is that going to spark some new sales for that game? We've got ABBA coming out like next week. We've got Funhaus right around the corner. And we've got some rumors about John Wick we're going to talk about. And then we're just going to go around the pinball horn. And maybe I'll pull up some of those 80s years again. And we'll look at 1983. I think we're at 1983, 84 and say to ourselves, is anything missing in the pinball landscape that would make a great pinball machine? You know, I don't really talk a lot about Motorhead and homebrew games. I don't really want to go down the homebrew road. I don't want to talk about tournament play or how to get the final wizard modes. I want to talk about the here and the now from these companies that will sell me something. That is why you're here. That is why you're a member of the Canada Club. And speaking of a member of the Canada Club, it's been a while since I've given a shout out to some of you who have raised the roof. Everybody out there now is trying to get their Patreon clubs going. We've got more members than all of them combined. But I want to say congratulations to Rodney C for editing his pledge to $30 a month. Rodney, you are now a member of the Omokase Club. And what that means, if you pledge $30 a month and we're in the same city, Canada's taking you out for an omakase meal. But I love everybody that raises the roof. It's not just the big dogs. I want to say thank you to Kevin L apostrophe H. I don't want to butcher your last name. It looks very fancy and beautiful from going from $5 a month to $10 a month. I want to thank Spencer over there in Canada. He went from like $7 Canadian dollars to $14.50. Thank you so much, Spencer. Arcade Time is the monster who just edited his pledge from $30 to $100. And we've got some people like Robert F. He went from $5 to $10. Thank you so much, everybody who edits their pledge. Derek S., way back in January, did I catch you? From $5 to $10. Everybody, thank you so much. This is where it's at. All right, let's just get to it. So do you think Dutch Pinball is going to be able to sell 500 Alice in Wonderland games at less than $15,000, even if it has a topper, even if it has like anti-reflective glass and inner art blades and all the stuff you want in the game. I just want to talk about this because you know me, I'm excited about this game because I'm one of those pinball fools that always fell in love with these like mad creations by J-pop. You know, it's like, there's just something about it. There was something about those games that made you just sort of stop and say, oh my gosh, Look at that thing. I had never seen anything like it. It looks like it comes from another world. It's the most beautiful game I've ever seen. And it looks just so unique. And I can't wait to see what magic is inside that game. Remember what happened with Magic Girl? And then you went up to it and it was terrible. And it was all just smoke and mirrors. Now, here's the thing. That was 10 years ago. And remember how John Papadiuk got people to sign up for Magic Girl, this ultra rare exclusive game in which I'm only going to make, are you sitting down? He said he was only going to make 16 of them, not 1600, not 16,000, 16 total games. And that's how he got people to give him like deposits. And I think it was like a $16,000 game. And I think he upped that number eventually to 20 or 23 total magic girls. And that's it. It was never supposed to be this large run game. Fast forward to 2024, pinball prices have gone through the roof, right? Just basic games are now costing people $7,000 to $15,000. The games are not loaded. The prices are just loaded. When I look at this thing, like a guy's trying to sell his Toy Story 4, CE people, $15,000 game with not many plays on it, and the guy is asking $9,600, that's a $5,400 loss on a single game. Now, imagine if you're a distributor and you're sitting on a Toy Story 4, new in box, which Jersey Jack wants you to sell it for $12,000. I mean, it is bonkers. My point being is like there's a lot more risk than ever before. Like if you jump in on these games on a whim, there's a lot more risk. And these games are losing value and their themes like Toy Story and James Bond and themes like Foo Fighters. These are some really big themes with some real fandom around them. I mean, look, Venom's not the best theme ever, but it's still a Marvel theme. All of these themes, when you add them up, they definitely have more of a fandom and a community around them than Alice in Wonderland. Okay, so then you start to like deconstruct this thing. And this is why this launch is gonna be really interesting. And I'm curious to see how the community accepts this game when it comes to market And it gonna come to market like in the next few months or so I not sure exactly what the date is going to be If you trying to go ultra exclusive ultra rare all that stuff I get it I get it I get it I get it. I get it. I get it. But there's still so many question marks. You know, it's not like Lyman Sheets is coding this game or someone iconic. So we don't know who the coder is. We're not even sure what the final game is going to look like. We know there's going to be some magnets. There's going to be some subways. There's going to be some fun stuff in this game. But all that being said, do you think there are 500 high-end pinball collectors out there that are going to go in on this game if it's an unlicensed theme and you're not sure about the code or the storyline? I don't think I've ever seen a game come to market quite like Alice in Wonderland. I don't. Name me a game that's got a story or a pedigree like this and is going to come out in this fashion. And the thing about these high-end collectors, they're definitely going to sell some of these games. Are they going to sell 500 on day one or week one? And the other big question mark I had is just how many of these can they make a week? I don't know. Like, is all of Dutch Pinball going to walk across the street and start making these things? Aren't they still making Lebowskis? You know, some people are saying there's still like a 12-month waiting list to get your Lebowski if you order one today. So there's a lot happening over at Dutch. and I'm a little worried and here's why. And here's what would make me worry a little bit if I was Melvin and Barry over there is you just don't know. Like it's really hard to know, are we making too many? Are we pricing this right? Because there's nothing else you could point at and say, hey, we're gonna do what they did and that worked. Like show me another example where someone took an XJ Pop design, a beautiful art package where the artist no longer wants to work on the project and not just that. He doesn't want anything to do with it. And then you make it real, right? You take what was in the mind of J-Pop and Zombie Yeti, and then you bring it to market and you announce you're only going to make 500 and it's going to be pretty pricey. And it's not a theme that has like a big fandom. I don't think there's any past precedence for this. So this is uncharted space for the pinball world. And here's the other thing that you know the inception of this idea must have happened when pinball was at its peak. They must have come up with this idea like during COVID when everything was flying off the shelves. And if we just do this, we're going to find customers. And now we're in 2024. And I don't think it's so easy. So that's my overall take on this game is I think it's going to be an uphill battle. I think they're going to have to have somewhat of a runway to get people excited about this game. I also think you're not going to be able to make people wait too long to get their Alice in Wonderland, you know, but I don't know how fast they can crank him out. So there are definitely just a lot more question marks than answers right now on this game. I'm still excited to see it. But again, as I said, I think they're going to need to roll this game out, right? I think the marketing is going to matter. And again, I just don't think you're going to be able to pull the curtain off and sell 500 of these. I'm just a little worried that number might be even a little high. I might have started lower, right? The first game's only 250. I might have followed a little bit of a spooky model when you're doing something like this, but we shall see. All right, so that's what's happening over there at Dutch Pinball, and then we know they're going to get to Back to the Future, so it's going to be a very crowded year for Dutch Pinball. The assembly line is not going to stop. All right, so let's go over to Stern Pinball next. So we're supposedly going to get John Wick sometime in April. I think it might come out maybe around MGC, so somewhere like mid-April, we're going to see John Wick. I don't think there's that much enthusiasm for John Wick. And I'm also hearing that the designer of this game is going to be someone you've never heard of. All right. You've never heard of. No, I don't think it's Tim Sexton. I don't think it's Raymond Davidson. I don't think it's going to be a name that you're aware of. I think it's going to be a brand new name that we are not familiar with in the pinball world lurking over there in the shadows of Stern Pinball. I don't know who it could be. Maybe Keith Elwin's got some friends. Maybe he's been teaching his Padawan how to design pinball machines. It's going to be somebody. But man, oh man, oh man. I mean, do you really think John Wick's going to take off? Lots of question marks here. You know, I keep hearing more and more and more of these stories about how games are piling up over at Stern Pinball. Distributors are not placing the same order numbers they used to. They're staring down a wall of games they haven't sold. A lot of these distros are sitting on Godfathers. They're sitting on Venoms. They're sitting on Jurassic Park Premiums. They're sitting on a lot of games with a lot of money. These aren't cheap things anymore. And then I'm hearing another rumor, and this just happens because people talk at shows. I'm hearing another rumor that Jack Danger's next game is going to be compared to Iron Man. And the reason why people are saying that is there's not that much in it. It's going to have great gameplay. It's going to have great flow. But they are concerned that when people see it, there's not much in it. And this is the problem with all of Stern moving forward. This was not a company that was capable of consistently selling $10,000 to $13,000 games at a topper on top of a Stern. And now you're at $15,000. and when you used to buy Stern machines, you didn't lose so much money. They just can't do it. Stern Pinball does not make high-end stuff. They are the Honda Civic of pinball. They're the mass-produced product. They are not capable of commanding these prices on every single game, and I think as a community, we screwed them because we're like, uh-uh, Stern, you're not gonna be able to make anniversary editions on everything when you have a weak selling game. See, that was their strategy. Like if this game doesn't sell, like John Wick's not doing well, let's just release Godzilla Anniversary Edition and make another $10 million. We just Anniversary Edition Ghostbusters and then this game and then that game And now they can do it They know they can do it because if they do that every single person who invested in them over the years is going to walk away and never come back We've got a Baron Jack Danger game. We've got a John Wick game that nobody really wants. And here's another thing that you haven't heard from anybody else yet. You're hearing it here from Canada's Pinball Podcast. And this is not music to anybody's ears. I'm hearing that Stern Pinball has a fully designed game, right? The game is done and they are going to turn this game into a commercial product for us to buy. Here's the problem, that this game doesn't even have a theme yet. So they are simply going to go acquire a theme and slap it on top of this game and sell it to us. What that means is this game was not designed from the ground up creatively to bring that theme to life. This is as lazy as it gets. They did it with like guardians. They've done it before. I don't like this at all. I think a pinball machine from the ground up should be designed with the theme in mind. And Stern, if you try to cut these corners and you come out with mediocrity, nothing you do in the code department is going to save you. Nobody's going to be running at these games anymore. All right, speaking about running at these games, Elton John, like the CEs are being unboxed. They look beautiful. There is definitely a lot of enthusiasm by like 10 guys on Pinside in the owner's thread. And I'm just wondering if Elton will have a second life. I don't think it's going to. And the reason why I don't think it's going to is I think that everyone is just going to wait for the next themes to come out over at JJP. If the rumors are true and it's the Matrix, maybe Top Gun, you know, Harry Potter, like just those three alone are going to make people wait. And Steve Ritchie's next game is just going to get even better. And as much as I love Elton John, if I was at Jack Bar and I was drunk, that's when I would order one. Like I would have to be at Jack bar, have like five whiskeys in me, and Joe Newhart calls me up in the middle of my inebriation, and is like, do you want one, Kaneda? And I would be like, screw it, yeah, give me one. But the more I go home, I sleep on it, out of sight, out of mind, I just don't want to own Elton John. You know, it's like, that's the thing, it's like, I like the music a lot, I love playing the game, but I just want it to be anything else that I have a little bit more of an emotional affinity for. So that's Elton John. What else we got? So I'm hearing another rumor, people, that the Pulp Fiction Bad Mo' Foe Editions, the Ellie of the Game, I'm hearing that distributors are being told to not expect those games until the fall. What has happened to this game? Are you kidding me? You think you're gonna make these Ellie people wait another six to eight months before they get their games? I'm just over Pulp Fiction. On every level. Like, why does it take so long to make a topper? Like, what is the deal with this game? Like, I get it. It's going out in standard trim. But it's not the way you do it. CDC always does things backwards. I think people are going to start to get impatient. And with so many new games coming out, if you were to tell me a year ago when Pulp Fiction was revealed, I'm going to be able to get Alice in Wonderland from Dutch Pinball before I take delivery of my CGC Pulp Fiction LE absolutely crazy I think you're going to start to see more people flip their spots and just want to get out all right so that's happening over there what else is happening Turner Pinball nothing really new from Ninja Eclipse we're about to see ABBA next week that's going to be interesting the whole Pinball Brothers like breaking up you know this thing They weren't even brothers in the first place. And now two of them have departed the company. Really weird timing that they really went out the week before ABBA comes out to let everybody know that we haven't been with the company in months. Well, here's my question to those two brothers, who, by the way, are not even brothers. Why did you wait so long? Why didn't you just tell people when that was going on? It almost feels like they're trying to sabotage a little bit the launch of this ABBA game and distance themselves from the launch of ABBA, which isn't really good. And we saw like Christopher Franchi posted about the other two brothers. I don't know who these, you know, it's like three brothers making pinball machines, none of which are brothers, none of which know what they're doing in the pinball world, all of which have lost probably millions of dollars trying to make up for the mistakes of Andrew Highway. Pinball Brothers live at 11 tonight. I mean, I don't know. They got to change the name now, right? How can you still be called the pinball brothers and it's now just one remaining dude? So now they should just change the name of the company to the pinball dude. You know, it's not the pinball brothers. It's just the pinball dude. The whole thing is stupid. It was a dumb name to begin with. And I really want to know, you know, I really want to know why these guys are no longer brothers. Like, what was it? What happened? Did somebody buy a Barry O's barbecue challenge and that's it? It split up the whole company. I don't know what it was. It's like for these guys to go from being brothers, it takes a lot to break up a brotherhood. I want to know the story there. Let's look at 1983 real quickly on this episode of Canada's Pinball Podcast and go down the list and say, hey, what would make for a good pinball machine? Number one, Star Wars, Return of the Jedi. Absolutely. Number two, Tootsie. Nope. Number three, Flashdance. Nope. Number four, Trading Places. Nope. Number five, War Games. Now, War Games might work for like a boutique company, but I don't think that movie is exciting enough, so I wouldn't go War Games. Number six, Octopussy, James Bond. Well, we've got the James Bond game. Number seven Staying Alive Number eight Risky Business Number nine Mr Mom Number 10 Vacation Yes I think Chevy Chase Vacation Out of the 10 movies that I just said I think Chevy Chase Vacation would be the one I would start with. Number 11, Superman III. Number 12, 48 Hours. Never Say Never Again. Gandhi. Jaws 3D. There's nothing really else. Number 25 on the list is Twilight Zone the movie. And that is just like a really dead year. I'm not going to read every single one. But number 40 on the list is Scarface. Now look, I think Scarface would make a much better pinball machine than The Godfather. And I think that movie is iconic. And if you love Pulp Fiction, you would love to have a Scarface in your game room. I mean, number 53 on the list is A Christmas Story, which is such an iconic movie. And I do think A Christmas Story, done right by a boutique company, would sell around like 700 units. I think you could sell 700 of that iconic movie in pinball form. You know, you could just see it now, right? The flagpole and the pinball becomes the tongue and it magnetizes to the flagpole. You got the BB gun, Ralphie in his pink bunny costume. It'd be perfect. All right, that's 1983. Let's go to 1984. The movies start to get really good now. 1984. Now, this was an amazing year for movies. If you want to talk prime, pinball, give us what came out this year. Number one, Ghostbusters. Number two, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Number three, Gremlins. Yes. Number four, Karate Kid. Yes. Number five, Police Academy. Yes. Number six, Footloose. Nope. Number seven, Beverly Hills Cop. Maybe. Number eight, Star Trek, The Search for Spock. Number nine, Terms of Endearment. Number 10, Romancing the Stone. It's a fun movie, but no. Number 11, Splash. Number 12, Purple Rain. Absolutely. We know that they wanted to make a Prince game. His estate just wouldn't approve it. Number 13, Tightrope. Number 14, The Natural. I don't know, a baseball pinball machine. I would definitely consider it. I mean, how cool would that be? The Natural would be a fun pitch and bat game to think about. And you make the topper like the lights and they all start to go crazy. Revenge of the Nerds, Bachelor Party, Red Dawn, All of Me, The Terminator, Conan the Destroyer, The Last Starfighter, Cannonball Run 2. I mean, I'm going to stop there. But you can see, people, there's just a lot. There's a lot. 1984. 184, real sweet spot for themes that we would love to have in pinball format. Look, everybody, it's an interesting time in this hobby. I think about it every day the same way all of you do. I could think about pinball for hours, but I can't dedicate that much time every single day. I will say this. I think it's going to be a really brutal year for distributors. I think these manufacturers are missing the mark significantly. And I think one Jaws game does not save a lot of terrible marketing decisions. And I think it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough to bring any game to market, especially when there's so many used games now that you're going to be able to get for good money. Because here's the number one problem in pinball. It's not that these companies are charging too much. It's not that they're picking the wrong themes. It's not that they don't have mechanical magic in the games. The number one problem I see facing this industry is almost everybody's out of space. Almost everybody is out of room. Because if you've been in this hobby for a long time, your game room is packed. And there's not enough newbies coming in at these prices. It just doesn't work. You can't build a pinball collection with modern new in box pricing unless you're making like half a million or more dollars a year. And most people are not. And if you are making that, you don't have like $45,000 to buy three LEs. It's just not the way it works. The math doesn't add up. but you're out of room. And so then here's what's going to happen is all of you that got your machines over the last 10 to 15 years, you paid the right price for those machines. But if you want something new and the manufacturers all need you to buy new stuff, remember that. So if you want something new, you've got to move something out. And then we're just going to see an oversaturation of games on the used market. And here's what I'm noticing. Games are not moving because people are still trying to price their used games like it's still COVID and it's not. And people need to realize that what you think your game is worth is probably 20 to 30% less than it really is worth on the current market. See, this is why I love waiting and seeing. This is why I love speculating because I can go get any game I want and there's a really good chance I'm going to pay less money than everybody else. Now you could argue, Kaneda, but the problem is you're not having fun in the present day. It's a fair argument. I look forward to setting up a machine or two in my new home. When I finally move in, there's not much room for more than that. And I don't want to overcrowd the space. It's not a huge house. You know, if you guys had to spend this much money in this area of the country, it would make you cry as well. But it's just the way it works. It's just the way it works. You want to live in a good town that's close to a train station that gets you into New York City in one hour. You're not going to be able to find a house for $400,000, $500,000. It doesn't work like that. All right, everybody, have a great Friday. Hang out tomorrow at the Saturday Morning Spectacular. And thank you once again for being a member of the Canada Club. We've got a lot of stuff happening in April. It's going to be crazy. We're going to get ABBA, Funhaus, John Wick, and maybe more teasers for Alice in Wonderland. And I can't wait to talk about all of it. Bon Jovi, take us away. I'll see you next time.