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Episode 5: Pinball Tournaments with Dan Newman

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 3m·analyzed·Mar 8, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Dan Newman on building Utah's competitive pinball scene from zero tournaments to 200+ community members.

Summary

Loser Kid Pinball Podcast episode featuring Dan Newman, a pioneer of competitive pinball tournaments in Salt Lake City. Newman discusses how he built the SLAP (Salt Lake Area Pinballers) community from scratch starting with a single 10-person tournament in 2013, evolved it into a multi-event annual scene with 200+ members, and now organizes the Salt Lake Gaming Con pinball tournament (150+ participants). The episode also includes gameplay impressions of Stern's Munsters machine, praised for intuitive shot design and fun factor compared to Deadpool.

Key Claims

  • Salt Lake had no competitive pinball tournament scene when Dan Newman decided to start organizing

    high confidence · Dan states he 'realized that Salt Lake had no competitive pinball scene to speak of' and references 'probably the first pinball tournament ever in Utah' organized by Jeff Rivera for Project Pinball charity fundraiser

  • SLAP league started about 3 years ago (from recording date) and is now in season 4

    high confidence · Dan: 'we started the very first slap league which we're just getting ready we're just going on season 4 now so it was about 3 years ago'

  • Salt Lake Gaming Con grew from 27 machines first year to 50 machines last year, with expectations to grow further

    high confidence · Dan: 'We had, I think, 25 machines or so, 27 machines the first year. Last year we had around 50.'

  • SLAP league sponsors IFPA membership fees for Gaming Con participants (~$200 annually) to keep entry free

    high confidence · Dan: 'we had this extra money last year and we put it towards paying the dollar ahead for the gaming con so everybody could come compete in competitive pinball and we still made it free for everybody'

  • John Borg designed Munsters and is described as 'a genius' at playfield design with expertly-designed loops and ramps

    high confidence · Josh: 'John Borg, man, he's a genius when it comes to his design' and 'those eddie loops are just fantastic'

  • Munsters playfield shot design feels more intuitive and forgiving than Deadpool for average-skill players

    medium confidence · Scott describes Munsters shots as feeling 'where I expect them to be' compared to Deadpool where he 'kept bricking so many shots'

Notable Quotes

  • “I didn't necessarily want to throw tournaments or organize a pinball scene, but I just wanted to play in one.”

    Dan Newman @ ~5:20 — Core motivation for starting Utah's tournament scene was personal desire to compete, not community organizing ambition

  • “competitive pinball is healthier now than it ever was at any point in history”

    Josh Roop @ ~22:30 — Community assessment of competitive pinball's growth trajectory

  • “the IFPA, those guys are saints. the amount of work they do to keep this team going in the country and in the world for no money, for free, all this time, the Sharps are a godsend to pinball”

    Dan Newman @ ~24:00 — Explicit recognition of IFPA/Sharp brothers' critical infrastructure role supporting competitive pinball

  • “John Borg, man, he's a genius when it comes to his design... those eddie loops are just fantastic... I just love this game it's a fun game”

    Josh Roop @ ~48:30 — High praise for Munsters design philosophy and execution

  • “if you're able to find a way to make that experience either unique or fun or visually tantalizing then i think that's going to bring you back”

    Scott Larson @ ~52:00 — Core design philosophy commentary on what drives player engagement in modern pinball

  • “everyone needs a Dan in their tournament group... if you have people like that, you're going to keep having good turnout”

    Josh Roop @ ~35:00 — Recognition of individual leadership/hospitality as critical success factor for scene growth

  • “don't reinvent the wheel... there's some form of pinball league or competition... get emails... find a home base you want to play out of”

    Dan Newman @ ~28:00 — Explicit advice to aspiring tournament organizers about practical startup mechanics

  • “Gaming Con is the best deal in all of conventions, all of pinball... A whole weekend pass for all three days costs like $30 or something, $35... All the games are on free play... everything there is basically free”

Entities

Dan NewmanpersonJosh RooppersonScott LarsonpersonSalt Lake Area Pinballers (SLAP)organizationSalt Lake Gaming ConeventJosh CraigpersonJeff RiverapersonIFPA (International Flipper Pinball Association)organization

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: SLAP organizing themed tournament events (e.g., 'Gnarly in the Pinball Factory' with candy-themed tournaments, pinball poker hybrid) and custom homemade trophies from thrift store materials, creating distinctive community identity

    medium · Dan: 'we're planning on doing a Charlie in the Chocolate Factory type theme... Gnarly in the Pinball Factory' and Scott creates custom trophies from 'thrift store creations with hot glue guns'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong grassroots community culture in Salt Lake emphasizing diversity (political, religious, economic) and welcoming atmosphere without barriers, contributing to sustained tournament turnout

    high · Josh Roop: 'no one cares... everyone's welcome' and notes diverse crowd with 'no barriers' contributing to community growth

  • ?

    community_signal: SLAP league actively sponsors IFPA membership fees for Gaming Con participants (~$200) to eliminate financial barriers to competitive play, demonstrating commitment to inclusivity

    high · Dan: 'we put it towards paying the dollar ahead for the gaming con so everybody could come compete in competitive pinball and we still made it free for everybody'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: John Borg's Munsters design emphasizes intuitive, forgiving shot placement and visual feedback (steep ramp with clear 'golden' moment) that enhances player enjoyment and engagement

    high · Scott: 'it felt like the shots are where I expect them to be' and 'left ramp on monsters you kind of hold your breath but once you see it get to the very top you know you're golden'

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.192

0:00
Welcome to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. I am Josh Roop here with my co-captain Scott Larson. Howdy ho. And we are bringing you episode number five. We're going to talk about some tournaments today and we brought the man with the plan, Mr. Dan Newman. How are you doing today, Dan? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. Well, we appreciate you coming on. We wanted to talk some tournaments, and we know you're the guy around here that has pretty much started the tournament scene and got it up and going. But before we get into that, I kind of want to know what got you into pinball. Well, I've been playing pinball for a long time, so I don't know. My family would always take us bowling, and they were league bowlers, and we'd always play pinball while the menfolk were bowling. So, and then played a lot of pinball in my teenage years as well. Then my family opened a laser tag place. We had pinball there, played a lot of pinball.
1:08
And then kind of reconnected to pinball when I got into kind of arcade collecting and pinball machines. and then realized that Salt Lake had no competitive pinball scene to speak of. So I really wanted to play tournaments. I didn't necessarily want to throw tournaments or organize a pinball scene, but I just wanted to play in one.
1:38
Okay, so when did you actually decide, I want to be social and play and organize this? It sounds like you've been in pinball for such a long time, But when did you say, okay, I'm going to take it to the next level and actually start contacting different people and figuring out what to do?
1:55
So back when we started the SLAP group, which is the Salt Lake Area Pinballers, and I say we because it takes a bunch of people. So there's nothing I did alone because it was about organizing a community. Sure, the royal we.

Dan Newman @ ~42:00 — Marketing/value proposition of Salt Lake Gaming Con pinball presence

Sharp Brothers (Josh and Zach Sharp)
person
Roger Sharpperson
John Borgperson
Munstersgame
Deadpoolgame
Monster Bashgame
Bowenperson
JJ / Game Exchange of Coloradoperson
Project Pinballorganization
Keto'slocation
Pirates of the Caribbeangame
Stern Pinballcompany
Martyperson
Keith Ellwinperson
Eric Schaeferperson
Pinsideplatform

market_signal: Tournament organizer leadership and hospitality (exemplified by Dan Newman) emerging as critical success factor for regional scene growth, creating replicable model for other communities

high · Josh: 'everyone needs a Dan in their tournament group... if you have people like that, you're going to keep having good turnout' and notes Dan making new arrivals feel immediately welcome

  • ?

    event_signal: Salt Lake Gaming Con expanding to 3-day format at larger venue (Salt Palace Convention Center) with anticipated further growth from prior years' 27→50 machines trajectory

    high · Dan: 'Salt Lake Gaming Con is June 27th, 28th, 29th... They've expanded to three days this year' and 'they're doing it actually at a bigger venue'

  • $

    market_signal: Gaming Con pinball tournament free-to-enter model supported by league dues contributions and convention subsidies, creating accessibility contrast with typical pay-to-play tournament structure

    high · Dan: 'Gaming Con is the best deal in all of conventions, all of pinball... $30 or $35 weekend pass with all games on free play... everything there is basically free'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: John Borg (original Walking Dead designer referenced in knowledge base) credited as 'genius' behind Munsters playfield design with expertly executed mechanics

    high · Josh: 'John Borg, man, he's a genius when it comes to his design... those eddie loops are just fantastic'

  • ?

    product_concern: Deadpool machine criticized for less-forgiving shot placement causing average players to brick shots frequently, contrasting negatively with Munsters' more intuitive layout

    medium · Scott: 'when I play something like deadpool... seemed like i kept bricking so many shots' but with Munsters 'it felt like the shots are where I expect them to be'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Competitive pinball has experienced historic growth and is now described as healthier than any point in history, driven by internet connectivity enabling information sharing and event coordination

    high · Josh Roop: 'competitive pinball is healthier now than it ever was at any point in history' and references pre-internet era having only one tournament per year

    • 2:15
    The royal we, exactly. And I was on Pennside, and Jeff Rivera, who does the Pinball Podcast, and I eventually learned Eric – no, no, another Eric, Schaefer, would – did a – what's that charity that puts pinball machines in hospitals? Project Pinball? Yes. They did a fundraiser for Project Pinball, and it was a weird thing. I happened to see the day before that this tournament was going on in Utah. And so I got my buddy, Josh Craig, who is my partner in crime with the pinball organization now, and our other buddy, Jason, and we all three went up there, and there were about, I don't know, 10 of us. and it was probably the first pinball tournament ever in Utah. I mean, it was – I don't think Jeff had done another one. That was the first one.
    3:27
    And it was so much fun. Or certainly in the modern era. Sure, sure. As far as I know, it was – I don't know of any other pinball tournaments ever in Utah. So I have a flyer downstairs that I got that has a pinball advertising for a pinball tournament 1982. But that's just random.
    3:47
    I'm sorry I missed that one. Well, we were seven. Yeah. I wasn't even born yet. So I think I have a good excuse. I was nine. There's no excuse.
    4:02
    So we had a blast. and I always wanted to do a pinball league and so I just started collecting names I wanted to get up to 16 people and I mean it took about a year of asking people one at a time are you in, are you in, are you in and we started the very first slap league which we're just getting ready we're just going on season 4 now so it was about 3 years ago and some of the people that joined thought they were joining a drinking league uh where people just sometimes play pinball but uh we eventually uh found the real true pinball players and and uh you know we've had turnover to find the right exact people but now we have people that are super into pinball uh which i think is great so so is that what made you decide to do all this tournament stuff is you just wanted to see a scene here in in salt yeah i just wanted a scene and we played that first season of the league and that was great and then uh we wanted to you know kind of keep the momentum not let it die so we started doing kind of monthly tournaments uh that was the slap ass series the salt lake area pinballers awesome summer series uh slap ass for short um very nice i think that's when i got involved yep yeah i think uh that's when scott and and we've just kind of collected people that are like-minded people that are interested in pinball and kind of grown. And we have close to 200 people that have joined us or are in our private Facebook group or have come out to our events. So it's been fun. What were the amount of people that were showing up to the first tournaments when you started getting it going?
    5:55
    We were in that 20-ish range, 16 to 20. I mean, it was the league members and their wives. And, you know, we've had to collect people.
    6:09
    And we try to, you know, we really, each event, you know, has between 20 and 30 people. The numbers haven't changed all that much.
    6:20
    You know, not everybody can make every event. So we have a lot of different people making them. And we do a lot of different events now. I mean, we're doing – we probably did 20, 25 different things last year, which is kind of a lot.
    6:41
    Now, Dan, when you were starting, was this more of a home league? Because really until recently, there really hasn't been a lot of great location pinball in Utah. There's been a few holdouts here and there, but not really a lot of places to say, yes, They have great, great, well-maintained machines that can actually handle a higher level of player as opposed to the the broken flipper and the, you know, the slingshot that's not working.
    7:13
    We have certainly played on a lot of broken machines. So that's kind of just the that the first year we played at Twist. We played at Campfire Lounge. We played at Nickel Mania. We played at a few home collections And there's a lot of great home collections out there And I think that first league We only did like 10 weeks I think was total And we may have even played at the same location Like Nickelmania a couple times or something but we kind of alternated between private and public locations i think we played five private five public so i assume it was pretty intimidating starting this all up um what would some of your advice be to those that who want to start up their own tournaments um well i mean there's two i don't think necessary rep i sure did stuff the hardest way possible um without a doubt uh i didn't I had never played a pinball tournament. Other than that one with Jeff, I'd never gone out of state and played in one or really seen one or knew how they were supposed to run. That was done a simple double strike tournament or triple strike tournament, I believe.
    8:42
    So I didn't know what the heck I was doing. When we made our league format, it was a format that no one had ever done before, apparently, because we didn't know what we were doing. We just came up, you know, I come from a bowling background, so I did it like a bowling league where you have mandatory attendance. we did some weird things where we played best two games you know a match would be two games but you would not only get a point for each game but then you'd add up the total points from the two games you get an extra point for the series and so that's kind of our league format and uh uh joe um uh, shabble, uh, is the, uh, free state pinball association guy. And he's been, he's been awesome to work with, with the IFPA and, uh, papa.org. Um, they, they made software for us and, uh, we're kind enough to make a custom rule set just for our league, which I'm sure took a lot of time. Uh, and it's great software and we, and we just love it. So anyway, I would definitely contact them. They've been nothing but kind and accepting and helped pull me from knowing nothing to knowing a little more than nothing, barely.
    10:22
    I have one thing. Go ahead. I was just going to say, you know, I don't really – hopefully where everybody else is starting, There's some form of pinball league or competition, but there just there wasn't really in Utah when we got going. And so I just collected emails and names. So that that's my best suggestion is get emails. You can do a big group email, invite people, you know, find a home base you want to play out of and play, you know, just, you know, make friends. I think it seems like nowadays as opposed to even five years ago there seems to be a lot more of an online community that's developed in giving advice about how to either do like a mega league or a home league or there's a lot of these basement league that's go around where if you have six people or five people you can do that and actually you can customize it depending on your situation even if you have just a few guys who have a few games, you could still get something going on a reasonable level that I think is different than it was even five, 10 years ago without the online community. Yeah, I would totally agree with that. I mean, the internet is a very valuable resource and the information was available. I wish, I wish I could say I use that. But now I came up with crazy, crazy rules for tournaments and, and in leagues. And now that I travel around and see, you know, kind of the formats that everybody pretty much uses, you know, I've kind of stolen some of those because, hey, they're good. Who would have thought they had experience and had already gone through these trial and error processes, you know, decades ago. So. Well, so going through that, you talk about all the challenge, like some of the things that you, you know, you kind of blaze your own path, looking back and say you were able to contact Dan five years ago, what are three pieces of advice that you would say, Hey, you should do it this way, or you should use this resource. I would say buy more machines five years ago.
    12:40
    That would have been my number one thing. Uh, cause, uh, as we all know, they've, they, they got expensive fast. Um, but, uh, I would have probably told my stuff, don't reinvent the wheel. Um, you know, as far as collecting the scene together, I don't know if there's any other way than just how we did it. I mean, some of our core members, uh, the guys that put in the most time, we just randomly found out as a group playing and said, Hey, are you into pinball we're into pinball come play with us you know and uh and i don't i don't know the group kind of behaves more like a family i think uh i mean we all travel together now and dysfunctional and drinking tabloid yeah exactly exactly well and the other question i had too was the ifpa even around back then when you guys started up did they have because i know that They've got some rules and stuff that they can help you with there, some game formats. But was that a resource you guys used back then? You know, I certainly read all the rules and took the stuff that I thought applied to the first league. And that's kind of the rule set we've used for tournaments and whatnot since then.
    14:00
    And, yeah, they were definitely around. I mean, the IFPA, those guys are saints. the amount of work they do to keep this team going in the country and in the world for no money, for free, all this time, the Sharps are a godsend to pinball. And, you know, I know there's a lot of hubbub about the dollar ahead per tournament, you know, that they started a year or two ago, a year ago, I guess. but I think they have every right to do that if they ask for a dollar a head just to go into their own pockets I'd be for it but no they put it all back in and still work like slaves for free so anyway I always give it up to the Sharp brothers and of course their dad Roger Sharp yeah I would completely agree with that I think that certainly we all know about the shot that saved pinball with Roger, but everything that his sons have done, you know, Josh and Zach, it's been amazing finding out how much work they actually do just because they feel invested in it. I can't imagine that. And sadly, they probably get a lot more flack than they get gratitude. but think of everything that josh has done just in addition to his full-time job which isn't even related to pinball for him to keep the scene going it's really has started developing the second renaissance in pinball that you know we had the um the glory years of 90s but then i think that their efforts have directly impacted over the last 10 years uh this um revival of pinball that really it reached levels that weren previously felt past the seventies really Yeah, I a hundred percent agree. I think competitive pinball, I don't know if it'd be around if it wasn't for, for the sharp brothers.
    16:12
    And I, I, I know how much work, you know, Josh Craig and myself have done putting tournaments together just in one place. And they do that all over the country and all over the world. The amount of data entry, just logistics, dealing with just drama and BS is mind boggling.
    16:35
    And I mean, everybody that's, that's into pinball owes them a debt of gratitude for sure. I, I, I think they've, they have competitive pinball is healthier now than it ever was at any point in history. I think. It certainly is different now because even talking with – when Keith Ellwin talked about just getting into the scene, there was like one tournament a year. And so you would play in that one tournament and then you'd just perseverate over the next year about what you messed up on. I think with the world shrinking with the interconnectivity of the web, it's allowed all these kind of niche interests to be able to share information and actually mobilize efforts in a way that wasn't available 10 years ago, really. and so I think that absolutely the competitive scene in the last three years is probably vastly superior and vastly over the top compared to what it was in the previous hundred years of pinball for sure I totally agree with that well one thing I want to talk about Dan is you and Josh have been doing this granddaddy of a tournament it's what I'm going to call it because it's it's massive and It blows my mind that you guys do this every year.
    17:55
    But let's talk about the Salt Lake Gaming Con. That's coming up here in the end of June. And last year you had, what, over 150 people participate in the tournament?
    18:06
    Yeah. Dan, say the dates too. So if anybody's listening to it, they could think, hey, if I'm in the Utah area and I'm available, I can come and actually participate in this tournament because it's pretty mind-boggling what you do. So the Salt Lake Gaming Con is June 27th, 28th, 29th. That's a Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
    18:26
    They've expanded to three days this year versus the two days that the Gaming Con has traditionally been on. And they've moved weekends to instead of 4th of July weekend to the week before. So that's a better weekend. And they're doing it actually at a bigger venue, although it's hard to believe it's bigger than, you know, the venues they were using because it's been massive. But they're doing it at the Salt Palace Convention Center this year in downtown Salt Lake City.
    18:59
    And for those that don't know about it, it's a fantastic gaming convention. They fill up, you know, 100,000 square feet, maybe 200,000 square feet. It's enormous.
    19:13
    They have all sorts of things for kids to do, for, you know, Fortnite-type gaming, Smash Brothers-type gaming, you know, professional gamers come in, celebrities, you know, the live-action role-playing, the axe-throwing, all sorts of crazy stuff. But we got involved a couple years ago, So and kind of we've kind of adopted it as Salt Lake's pinball show.
    19:42
    It's it's a it's a way for us to basically there was no way to do a pinball convention in Utah. So the numbers just aren't here.
    19:55
    Somebody would lose a lot of money running out trying to do a pinball show in Utah. But this convention was happening and I happened to know the organizer and he's a good friend of mine. And I said, hey, I think we could add value for each other. So we came in and crowdsourced and just had people bring machines and we have them on free play and we do big tournaments.
    20:20
    It's a chance to he adds money and gives a surprise fund so we can keep them free entry. the spring league has been generous and has as part of our league dues we pay an extra dollar a week to for they it was supposed to go into the ifpa but the ifpa changed their rules to where they only accept a dollar per head for the whole league and so we had this extra money last year and we put it towards paying the dollar ahead for the gaming con so everybody could come compete in competitive pinball and we still made it free for everybody. And we just took a vote last week to do the same thing and everybody agreed. And so we're doing it again. You know, we've got close to $200 to pay everybody's IFPA fees for the gaming con. So we're planning on doing a Charlie in the Chocolate Factory type theme. I think we're going to go with Gnarly in the Pinball Factory and then have five different candy-themed pinball tournaments throughout the course of the convention. What possessed you to do something of this caliber, though? I mean, this show is pretty huge. I mean, I know the first year that we did it, it was good. But, I mean, last year, it was blown out of the park. We had JJ with Game Exchange of Colorado come over. He brought 10, 12 pins with him, and it just doubled in size last year. And from the sounds of it, it's going to double again the size this year. You know, we hope so. We had, I think, 25 machines or so, 27 machines the first year. Last year we had around 50.
    22:11
    And, you know, yourself, Josh, is being very modest. I mean, you were instrumental in contacting JJ and kind of getting the ball rolling to get him involved in the show. And that gives us, you know, he's brought a whole bunch of games. We got to play the prototype Pirates of the Caribbean, which was amazing, as well as a lot of other machines.
    22:38
    And we're hoping to just get bigger and better. And I have no idea what possessed me. Every year afterwards, my back is mad at me for wanting to move dozens and dozens of pinball machines. it makes me respect you know the people that do put on these large pinball shows you know like pinberg the the amount of work it takes to move 500 pinball machines for a weekend and then move them back is is insane i i i know everybody that's moved just one pinball machine can can shake their head and go that's just nuts so well then you can see how often my collection changes over and that's because I don't want to take it down the stairs of death in my backyard. So I can only imagine how that works. Um, I, I didn't, I didn't know that you guys did that. You sponsored the, uh, uh, the IFPA dollar for these, uh, sign up thing. I think that's such a great thing for you guys to do. And, um, I haven't been able to participate in the league. I've hosted a few times, but I haven't been able to time-wise, I haven't been able to participate on that level. But I think that says about the inclusivity of at least the Salt Lake area and being able to reach out and say, hey, we just want people to come. And I've really appreciated the culture that we have here in that it seems like we have a very diverse crowd. We're talking like diverse politically, diverse religiously, diversity in like your typical economic status. And it's so great because every time we come, no one cares. And the only thing you want to do is just play pinball and just talk. And it feels like everybody's welcome. And I think that says a lot about how we've tried to develop the culture here and that there are no barriers. I think that does such a good thing for the growth of the community. And certainly when I came into the community four years ago, I felt completely welcomed by everybody. Yeah, I agree with that. We've certainly had very, very few problems, you know, with people, you know, disagreements or whatnot like that, drama. And I think everybody has a lot of fun. I hope everybody does. and it's been nice because really it takes a lot of trust to invite a bunch of semi-strangers into your home I make my personal address known to the group and the next tournament is actually coming up we're going to do it on April 13th it's going to be at my place we're going to do a pinball poker hybrid mostly just pinball but a little side thing where you get cards for certain milestones of playing. So everyone that just heard that, even you guys in Australia and in New Zealand, you're welcome to come to Dan's house April 13th. We're going to play some pinball and some poker. We're expecting head-to-head to show up. You know what, dude? Just get Marty some gin. He'll be fine. He'll show right up. Marty comes to Utah occasionally, which just seems so random. But anyway. well I know we're running out of time with you Dan I know that you've got other stuff to do but is there anything you wanted to talk about before you head off you know we still got the Keto's monthly tournaments we're still doing down at Keto's on the first Tuesday every month you know we always want more people to come to that because it's a fun time the machines are all discounted it's a cheap tournament it's a good way to get your feet wet into tournament pinball. That's more of a head-to-head type format where we kind of play like the SCS is what they call it. I don't know the official name now, but basically the state championships and the national championships are coming up. But those are more heads-up formats where you get to choose game or position, and then you play heads up and then the loser chooses the next gamer position. You're playing best three, best five, best seven series.
    27:02
    And so that's fun. And, yeah, I hope people come out to Gaming Con. Gaming Con is the best deal in all of conventions, all of pinball. I think a whole weekend pass for all three days costs like $30 or something, $35. It's something super cheap. All the games are on free play. uh everything there is basically free um they they i don't know how he how they even survive because it's too good of a deal you know uh well even if you want to be even more cheap don't we offer a deal to bring in pinball machines if you bring one or two pinball machines you get free admission or something like that yeah we actually give uh two tickets per pinball machine um so uh So if you donate a pinball machine Or let a pinball machine get used at the show You get I think it's one or two tickets For weekend passes To Gaming Con So that's That's great as well So anybody that's listening to this It's not It hasn't contacted me Directly Feel free to contact you Josh Or get involved with us on, uh, we're on Facebook at Salt Lake area pinballers. Um, you have to just do a search and it's a private group so you can ask to join. Awesome, Dan. Well, we appreciate you coming on. You're welcome to hang out if you want to, but we're going to, uh, kind of shift away from this topic. Like I said, I know that you've got other stuff to do, but if you want to join in, we're still got stuff we're going to BS about. So guys, I have to run, uh, tonight, but, uh, I hope you have me back. I'd love to just sit around and BS and talk pinball with you sometime. I think it on gray i'd be more than happy to have you back so what about you scott yeah no absolutely i'll be back he was so quiet there for a second i was like i better check up on him i'm always happy to uh you you tell me what next what theme you want to have next scott and i'll uh for our next tournament uh for for those of you who don't know we've just scott makes a mean conan the barbarian we're gonna have to i've got to find that that's got to be the picture for this episode man. Oh yeah, no, it's awesome. I have it somewhere. Yeah. I told him I'd host a league night if he made it, if he made me look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. So, uh, about an hour later I get a picture of me Photoshop. I mean, not Photoshop me in a photo shoot, uh, with Conan, the ball burying.
    29:37
    It was fantastic. Oh, it was great. That's kind of what my calling card is, is I like, I like puns. So I like pinball puns and acronyms. So if you couldn't tell that already. Cheesy ladies mashups. My favorite story is when Bowen came out here and he played in that tournament and he won, was it two years ago? And you hand bank the trophies. We don't buy these trophies. Dan goes out and makes all the trophies for every tournament. And I can't remember what Bowen went home with, but it was a homemade trophy. He gets home and his wife's like, what is that? And he's like, it's my trophy. And she's like, that's not a trophy. What is that?
    30:18
    It's great. They're thrift store creations with hot glue guns, and they usually are so fantastic. Yeah, that's another one of my hobbies besides puns is crafting thrift store and pinball parts and pieces into trophies, which I think should really catch on. I think Byron's wife was just jealous because that dragon trophy was gorgeous.
    30:51
    We can ship it back if he doesn't want it. I really wanted to win it. Yeah, it's okay, Dan. I'll make you one. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right, Dan. Well, thanks again for coming on. Get us the information. we'll put, we'll link it in the, uh, in our post or show notes. So. Okay. Sounds good. Thanks guys. Thanks Dan. Yep. See ya. Well, Scott, that was an awesome little interview that we got to do there. Is there any highlights you wanted to point out? No, I think Dan's great. Uh, any place that has a, um, that wants to start a scene, you need to have someone like a Dan or someone who basically is willing to do a lot of legwork and start up a league. And mainly he hosts a ton of tournaments at his house that doesn't necessarily have to be what people do is open their house. But it is kind of nice to have a home base to develop a critical mass of people who are interested in doing those events So certainly he has done a lot for just growing the scene in Utah Oh, I totally agree. And honestly, that's one of the reasons I kept coming back around. Dan's just a really nice guy, and he made me feel welcome when I came to the tournament. I was really, really nervous my first time coming out because I'm driving three hours to come out to one of these tournaments, and you don't know what you're going to get. And so it always, I was so, so nervous and man, Dan just acted like I had been there the whole time. And that was part of the group. And it, I don't know. Dan's a good guy. You definitely need, everyone needs a Dan in their tournament group. Cause if you have people like that, you're going to keep having good turnover or not turnover. You're going to have good turnout. Turnout. Yes. So yes. No, no, I completely agree.
    32:42
    Well, I don't know about you, but the last couple of weeks have been pretty, pretty interesting for both of us for a pinball. yeah no it's been kind of busy uh what do you want to start with first you want to talk about our kiddos night yeah let's talk about our kiddos night so uh actually the um the location we're talking about is uh dan knows a bar owner and talked to him about putting some uh pinballs on site and i think they have about 10 to 12 there yeah something around there and so josh and i uh went out there last week and, uh, we were able to shoot monsters. This was my first time actually getting my hands on the game. Uh, first time playing monsters and getting some more time on Deadpool. And I will say that I was really impressed with monsters. Um, what did, what did you think? You know, this is the second time I've gotten my hands on monsters. We put about five to 10 games on it. I, I love it. I love the flow of it. John Borg, man, he's a genius when it comes to to his design you know i i'd said on the last episode some of its cookie cutter but it's because he knows what he's doing i mean that those eddie loops are just fantastic i just it was enjoyable to play i wasn't necessarily concerned about the code because i was enjoying the shots and the ramps are beautiful i don't know i just i love this game it's a fun game i don't know if i'll own it in my collection right now because i've got a monster bash and i do feel like they're very similar but the shots man they're just they're perfect yeah i i think the shots feel so they feel fun and i guess that's my my biggest thing uh when i play when i play something like deadpool and it's probably speaks to more of my skill level than necessarily the game but it seemed like i kept bricking so many shots and again i admittedly i'm an average pinball player. Um, so it could just be that, you know, if you're a better pinball player, it's going to flow better. Um, but when I got to, when I got to, um, monsters, I thought, you know, it just feels like the shots are where I expect them to be. Um, I also like, when you really think about it, ramps are just filling the, the time for the ball to get back to you. Um, correct. Yeah. You hit, you hit the ramp and it's just going to make its way back either to the flipper or something like that. And with Munsters, it felt fun seeing the ball go. And I think that tells a lot about your experience with the game, is that does it feel fun? Does it feel like I'm just enjoying my time playing this game? Because the basic feel of pinball really hasn't changed since the 90s, since they invented ramps, since they invented games with themes, code level and a storyline really you kind of dialed in and this is basically what you're going to expect with pinball machine and if you're able to find a way to make that experience either unique or fun or visually tantalizing then i think that's going to bring you back and for me monsters brought me back i would play other games and i say you know i want to go back and play monsters same here and i think the thing with monsters i'm really enjoying that actually um is is better than monster bash is that left ramp on monsters you kind of hold your it's a steep ramp but if you hit it you kind of hold your breath but once you see it get to the very top you know you're golden you know it's gonna go it's gonna disappear you don't have to worry about coming screaming back at you that's my one complaint about monster bash is you shoot that left ramp and there's sometimes you can shoot as clean as possible and it gets all the way it gets halfway around that ramp and you you think it's coming back to you and that for some odd reason screams back the other way and so that is the one thing i do like about monsters and like like to your point i think there's two different styles of ramps out there there's the fun ones like monsters and then there's the steve richie business kind i mean that's those star trek ramps they're quick they give you those balls back because you want to keep playing and star trek's a fantastic game so i i don't know like i said i agree with you with deadpool i do enjoy it i that's a game that i still don't feel like i've figured out yet um we had a buddy down there named mike and he's actually our state champ right now and he was blowing that game up he was at what 450 million or something yeah no no he was crushing it he's such a great player and and you know he could nail that that katana shot every time which is it's a hard shot it really is i didn't realize how hard that shot was.
    37:28
    So I think, again, and that's what I'm saying. Like, I don't want to come off and say that Deadpool's clunky because I think that's unfair. That actually speaks more of my skill level. But, you know, it's, monsters felt good. And visually, it looks great. I don't know what else you'd really want from that era of, like, that type of pinball machine.
    37:50
    And yes, I think the Steve Ritchie games, they tend to keep the ball moving at the same velocity. And so I think that is what dials in the feel of flow, is that the ball really doesn't slow down. It just kind of keeps going. And so it feels very predictable, and it just feels like you're on cruise control. With the other games, I think people try to mix it up and make it visually interesting or kind of slow it down or make it a little off speed. so you know on the right shot of monsters when it actually uh it goes vertical and it goes up you know kind of like that stern jack the monkey shot yeah uh and it just it's different but i like that i i like that it just gives my eye something to look at well i like that it you weren't worried as much of it rejecting men it just it hit that ramp and it flipped and it came right back to you that right ramps just it's awesome yeah there always seems to be that one ramp in uh in at least a George Gomez game where it's not super steep, but it's so long that if you don't get enough velocity, it'll go halfway up and then come screaming back to you. Yeah. The Katana shot Deadpool left ramp on a monster bash. Just to name a couple.
    39:09
    Yeah. Yeah. That, that left ramp on monster bash is challenging, but you know, again, for a better player, it's probably more automatic. so i guess i just need to get better and the other the other game that i was really enjoying that night was guardians of the galaxy another john borg game man that is a fantastic game my only complaint is is i cannot find the nebula shot that's the left ramp but it's so tight on the it's so far up on the beginning of the flipper i almost mentally have to prepare myself to shoot that shot because it's it's not typically where ramp is but it's it's a nice shot but it i'm enjoying that game as well once i'm starting to understand it and everything i would like to have a guardians at my home there's plenty of depth there and my only complaint about the game is the call outs but then again um there's a couple people that have made the movie call outs as part of something that you can download to the software so beautiful game i think that's the challenging thing when you get into modern licenses is that it's there are so many I don't want to say hands out because that sounds a little dismissive but I think there's a level of expectation of okay well this is the movie thing and before they could do a dot matrix or do some you know some generic call outs but when you see a movie and you have the video screen back there people expect to see Oh, well, I'm going to get clips from the movie and I'm going to get speaking parts and I'm going to get all these other things. Well, all that takes money. And each actor is really entitled to their share, which is why you don't typically get call outs from 10 different actors. You get one person doing a lot of call outs. And it kind of limits what you can do with the code and the clips. And so I understand how people will do it after market. to set it up. But finding different locations on the shot, I think that's where the elite players are different than you or me. It's because they take a shot and it bricks and they say, okay, mentally, I need to flip that button just a split second earlier or a split second later and then I can dial in that shot. That's what makes them elite. For me, I just keep bricking the same shot and thinking, oh, the game feels clunky. I know what you mean. Yeah, I totally know what you mean.
    41:39
    Well, another excited thing while I was playing pinball there with you that night, I don't know if it's exciting. It scared the crap out of me. My wife calls and says, everything's all right, which when you first get that statement, something bad's coming after that statement.
    41:54
    And she said she's in contractions. My wife's 26 weeks pregnant at this point, and I'm freaking out because I'm three hours away. She's like, they got me shut down. Don't worry about it. but threw me for a loop in the middle of our pinball night. I'm gone one night. We weren't doing a tournament, so you could have left. But yes, it's, yeah, the whole, but you were staying the night in Salt Lake at the time. So yeah, the whole, when you get a call from your family, it says, don't freak out. You're just like, okay, what's going on?
    42:23
    But yeah, it kind of freaked me out. But she was good. I got home. She was fine. But the other thing that happened to me this past week was, and I posted it on our Facebook page, I joined the club of glass shattering in my hands. Oh, it was not fantastic at all. I never want that to happen again. Well, it was pretty sure. I guess. Yeah, I guess it was pretty, but the weirdest part to me is I've never noticed this and no one's ever mentioned it, but after you shatter that tempered glass, uh, it pops like, uh, like pop rocks. You hear it popping. If you just sat there and you listen, as I was cleaning it up, I'm like, what is popping? I realized it was all the glass. I don't know if it's still expanding or what's going on, But yeah, I would recommend not doing that to everyone. It's tempered glass. And so actually the fracture lines, what it does is when it fractures, it ends up just crumbling the whole thing because it breaks in such a way that there's no sharp edges. And so it has predictable fracture patterns.
    43:22
    So yeah, once you start it, it just keeps going. Yeah, it just kept going and going and going, man. It just, it sucked. and one of my friends said he's going to be clean you're going to be cleaning that up for the next two years yeah i'm still finding pieces yeah yeah it's everywhere but let's move on to some news from this week um everyone's been talking about the new stern title that could be released uh not at tpf i know stern's marketing is usually like two weeks after tpf and the prediction is oh I want to say it's a gaming convention sorry don't shoot me it's sometime in April Kaneda's the one that brought it up because he said if they line up the schedule like they did it last year it'll be done at that event and they're talking about Steve Ritchie's game it's either going to be Black Knight 3000 or High Speed 3 which one do you think it's going to be? We talked about this last episode where there's got to be a theme that kind of draws people in and so So if it's another high-speed slash getaway game or like a Black Knight 3000 or something along those lines, I think that's all and that's great except will that work for the mass market? Because again, you're not just trying to sell for the pinball enthusiast because if you were just selling for the pinball enthusiast, something like Dialed In would actually have sold more. even though Dialed In has actually sold a good amount, but it doesn't have the thing that's going to draw people in who aren't pinball people. If they're going to the movie theater and they see a game over there, they're like, oh, well, should I do that?
    45:06
    Will people be more likely to go in and put a quarter in ACDC or Aerosmith or a Black Knight 3000 or a Getaway? I'm not really sure, and I guess that's where we're trying to find out what the market demands. But either way, if it's a Steve Ritchie game, you know it's going to shoot really well. Oh, yeah. Well, and the only other thought process I have on this is we are at a point where people are buying Attack for Mars, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash for location. But then again, those game plays on those games do lend very well to the general public. So I know that Tommy from this Flippin' podcast has been operating his monster bash and he says it's been doing well out on location there in indiana so i just i don't know if theme theme is it's like trying to find a new girlfriend i guess right well it's what catches your eye but the gameplay is what wants you to stay in the relationship for longer well it's it's the same thing as having um like you get used to uh what worked before and so you get risk averse where um you know they were trying to do different things and then really from like 2010 on they said you know let's just lock into movie licenses and bands and if you look at stern that's really what they they've sold and the only outlier is mustang a car one yeah but everything else has been in those two genres and so it's worked really well for them they it brought pinball back from the grave and they were able to uh get a lot of uh a lot of play then um you know uh then jjp came out with an original theme now it's an original theme but it's done by a very well-known designer in pat lawler and so in some ways it's although it's an original theme it's still a themed game it's a pat lawler game so is this going to be like yeah it could be an original theme fine but it's still a steve richie game um i think that as long as people are having fun having that fun factor that works for entry-level players and experienced players i think you're going to have a success oh i got it there also has to be a reason people want to buy the game and do you remember when dialed in was released i watched the i wasn't at the expo, but I watched the release party and you could just feel a thud that people just looked at and said, I don't get this. But then there was that thread on Pinside where the guy posted and says I played Dialed In and it great And it really shocked people about that So I don know I guess that if I were better at predicting the future, then I would be a millionaire. But I think that you need to try to predict themes that people are going to want before they want them. well and the thing with dialed in i kind of wonder if it has to do with the name too i mean that game revolved around quantum city i was wondering why they didn't just name it quantum city i know that yeah um i know that they wanted to push the whole cell phone concept but i don't know i still think it would have been a better idea to go quantum city but hey i think they should have i think they should have changed it to quantum city and or Electric City or Electric Company. I don't know what – I think the name, yes. The name – I think admittedly the art direction felt a little too retro and not retro in like a total nuclear annihilation cool. It felt kind of like a – the art was done by a grandpa who's trying to be cool.
    49:05
    I could kind of see that. But it's such a great game. I love playing the game. And I think it's been kind of a slow burn in the pinball community where people will say, yeah, it's a great game. But I don't know of anybody who would walk by it and say, that's a great looking game. Yeah. I want to put a quarter in that. Well, I wanted to talk about one more thing that I don't see anyone else talking about. And maybe it's because it might be just trolling at this point. But the next title after Steve Ritchie's is going to be a vault. um that's how if we follow the stern timeline the vault was released in may i want to say of last year and that was star trek um but john borg just changed his background picture on facebook to the two ladies of tron do you think this is a sign or is he just trolling us that tron's going to be the next vault i think they'll always play coy um but if you look at it from a manufacturing standpoint. Stern has always said, we're manufacturers, right? They're there to sell games and to keep the line moving. True. Yeah. So if you look at historically, let's just go back to 2000, okay? The death of Williams and Stern's the only player, right? Yeah. Okay. Yes, yes. What are the games that people say, I wish that were available? And I'll guarantee only two come up.
    50:38
    Which two? Lord of the Rings and Tron. Exactly. And so if you are stern, you are going to go where the money is.
    50:51
    Okay, you also have to look at if not that, which one? Well, the problem with Lord of the Rings is the system is old enough that it's not on the line anymore. They don't produce the white star system at all. Right. And so logically, Tron makes sense because it's still a Sam system, and they're making Star Treks with a Sam system still in them.
    51:15
    Also, Tron is cheaper. Yes, it is. So if you're going to say, okay, well, it's not going to be Tron, great. Which one are they going to make? Because Lord of the Rings, yes, and yeah, the vault editions tend to be in the premium category. So you're looking around, you know, $7,000, $8,000.
    51:35
    But it would take a lot more effort to get a vault Lord of the Rings up off the ground just from finding if you're going to put figures on there, whether or not you're going to do that. Manufacturing the Balrog, manufacturing all the little components in that. It's kind of a complicated game. What is there on Tron? The spinning disc. I mean, that's the thing about Tron is they would have to add stuff. You can't just leave Tron the way it is and sell it for $5,500. That's my opinion. You just can't. Iron Man Vault Edition was – I own the Iron Man Vault Edition, and there's very little difference between that and the standard. And it's a great game. And so I think that what are they going to do? Are they going to make eye candy? If you really look at – so pretend like you're Stern, okay? Okay. And you're like, okay, so I want to make a vault edition on Tron. What would you do? Honestly, at this point, I would, if it were me, maybe change the art package just because it's a little dark and a little basic and call it good. Yeah. So here's what I would do. I would update the art package. So do something really great. Get one of your three artists that you love and your go-to and figure out how you're going to dial that in. Yes. And then you're going to make it look like one of these customized Trons out there. So the Tron that I have is ultra customized. If you've actually seen the Buffalo Pinball guys stream their Tron, I made the same Tron. And so it has lighted wire forms. It has great looking bikes. It has a Flynn's Arcade sign. It has the little – it has the arcade over the scoop, the nice one, not the one that looks like it came out of a 50-cent gumball machine. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. And you're going to do that, but really that's not expensive. No, it's not. Making something pretty is not expensive. What's expensive is a functional toy. Yeah. And you don't have to put any functionality in Tron to make it sell because if you have a better sound package, if you have a better – I don't want to say a better light show, but a more integrated light environment, and you have a crisper art package, it will sell. and they'll sell a lot because they tron was the first game after jjp announced wizard of oz where stern said okay we need to step it up yeah and that's really where they started really kind of crank it up is that kind of that acvc tron era where they said okay this is our wake-up call we need to do better well my only complaint with tron is really the basicness of not even the artwork but even the inserts are very basic. Yes. It looks early. I would say it looks like a 1990s type game where you can tell something's going to happen in the future, but you can see the genesis of it in Tron. Correct, yeah. But if they updated the art package and made it a little flashier, made the light show, I mean, they would sell a thousand of those. No, I agree, man. I don't understand why they haven't made it yet. And maybe they're just – maybe they're waiting for the hobby. I mean, the hobby is prime right now. Maybe it wasn't a year ago. Well, and I don't know. I think that you could also argue what were they making last year and did they have as much of a lag in the schedule? because they probably pumped out, I don't know, a few hundred Star Treks. Yeah. And you could still buy Star Trek. And so they pumped out a few hundred of them, but it kept the line going because they're a manufacturing company. So maybe even last year they said, look, we don't have the time to do a Tron Vault Edition right now. So we are just going to do something that, yeah, we can sell a few hundred of these and people will pay extra for them. but I think it's ready to have that big vault release. And so the argument I'm always going to go back to is, if not Tron, then what? Do you think they're going to release Monopoly, Big Buck Hunter, Wheel of Fortune? They'll actually finish the code?
    56:13
    Yeah, we're not getting any of those. Yeah, you're going to sell five of those. But go where the money is. That's what they're going to do. stern knows man they know how to make money um there's a reason they've been in business longer than anyone else right now at this point so moving on though let's let's go over to chicago gaming company the news is while monster bash was delayed and whatnot they were actually working on cactus canyon and cactus canyon is being ready to be shown at texas pinball festival and not only that supposedly they got the original software designer to complete the rest of the software for cactus Canyon. Would you like a Cactus Canyon? Let's just pretend. Of all the games they could make, would you want that as the fourth one? As the fourth out of everything else? What would you want? I don't know, to be entirely honest. At this point, they've kind of made all the ones I want. Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, Monster Bash. I mean, those are the Holy Trinity. I don't know what you want to call it. But Cactus Canyon, to me, is Attack from Mars. It is medieval madness. It's the same rules, just cowboy style. You've got five main objectives you're trying to complete. You complete those by hitting certain ramp shots and certain orbits so many times. The banderos or whatever they're called, that's your castle. I don't know. I didn't grow up in the 40s and the 50s and the 60s watching Westerns. I know Westerns were huge. I know the superhero movies are the big thing right now. Westerns were the big things during the 60s and the 70s. Right, yeah. Basically, Westerns to them are superheroes to us. Correct. And so it doesn't appeal to me theme-wise. I do enjoy the humor that is there, and I like the whole shooting the bad guy and whatnot. But it's not a game that I'm going to say, I need that in my collection right now. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I think it's from a business standpoint. I think they could say, well, it sells for this amount.
    58:25
    However, there are two factors that go into the price of a game, and one is demand and the other is supply.
    58:35
    And with Cactus Canyon, it was just blown off the line. They just said, you know what? We're just putting out what we have, and then we're putting everything into Pinball 2000. and so there just hasn't been that many out there so and i raise your hand if you've played a cactus canyon other than on the pinball arcade that's the only place i've played it that's the problem have you ever said wow i want to go back to that ever since they announced that they were making it i've i've went back to play it to see what what i would be getting essentially now i will say admittedly and i've said this before it's not my game but is there a market for it because i'm sure they've done a lot of market analysis and they've tried to say well okay this is what we do and so yes is there possibly one see for me from uh i would actually i would remake whitewater because the price is going up in whitewater and the demand i think works really well like there are enough whitewaters out there but you know it's kind of like lord of the rings lord of the rings still hovers around six grand but you don't think someone would pay 7500 for a vault oh i lord of the rings i think they would with better art with better speakers and that hasn't been routed for 15 years or at least you know at least five years um and i think the same thing with uh if you had like a whitewater i would do a whitewater i think you could sell a lot more but i guess we'll see i mean they'll see how many they can sell of those uh they sold uh what uh 1250 le's on uh monster bash i don't think those are all sold out yet but yeah i mean they're obviously feeling confident to go high enough on those numbers they're not going to make 1,250 LEs of Cactus Canyon. They could, but that's the only release then, because I just don't see selling 1,200 of them. Correct. Well, and the interesting part to me, too, is the second rumor with Chicago is they're coming out with an original license after this game. So are they going to put the rest of the games on backburner that they were going to make? Are they getting in the business now of making original games?
    60:59
    Maybe. I don't buy too much that they're doing original games. Why would you? You have a bad catalog of greatest hits.
    61:08
    Make the greatest hits. You can make money with that. And I think that it's possible they could do, but no one's heard anything about their designer. No one's heard anything about the coder or their artist or anybody who's really working behind the scenes. So I think that's a smokescreen. I would be surprised if they came out with an original theme. I wouldn't, and here's the reason.
    61:33
    Your remakes are your business money. Your original themes could become your funny money. It could be the testing the waters kind of thing. You know you're making good money on your remakes. Why not take a chance and go out there and see if you can... Because this is the other thing, too, is Chicago Gaming has an expiration date on their remakes. There's only so many remakes you can make before it becomes time that you do need to start making original titles. You might as well put one out between your two remake titles and see what happens. Yeah, and that's fair. I think that's fair. I just – I would suspect we would hear more about their development.
    62:13
    But maybe they're keeping it closed. Who knows? Very tight-lipped. So I just don't see it happening. But if it does, hey, more pinball is good. Yep. Well, we're a little bit over the hour mark. I think it's time for us to wrap it up. Before we go, you got any closing thoughts for us, Scott? I'm looking forward to what's going on in Texas. I wish I were going this year. It just didn't really work in my schedule. But I am looking forward to that, and I'm looking forward to the Solid Gaming Con, and I'm probably looking forward to Rocky Mountain Pinball, too. Those are the two shows that are closest to us. Same here. I'm excited for Texas. I want to see what happens not only at Texas, but two weeks after. man time flies when we start doing these podcasts but um i don't know i'm having fun with them i appreciate all the people have been reaching out they've been talking to us uh all the support we've been getting it's just it's been fun you know well we started middle or middle january i never thought we would have gotten to this point i just did as a goof off thing but we appreciate it So yeah, thank you to all of our listeners. And if you have any questions or comments, comments, you can contact us, uh, at loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com, or you can hit us up on Facebook at loser kid pinball podcast. Uh, Scott and I are both individually on Facebook. If you want to reach out that way as well, we'd love to hear from you, uh, questions, comments, concerns, whatever. We'll take them there. So, um, I guess it's time to say adios, my buddy. Adeo, see you in two weeks Sounds good man