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PNP Ep. 540- Elton John 5 Rad 1 bad+ Expo Pintern Mission

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Oct 21, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Elton John game praised for design; pricing criticized as strategically misguided.

Summary

Orville Albert hosts a solo episode enthusiastically reviewing Jersey Jack Pinball's newly revealed Elton John game by Steve Ritchie. He counts down five standout features (light show, piano mechanic, flow, world-under-glass immersion, and visual aesthetics) while criticizing the pricing strategy as a missed opportunity for market expansion. He argues that a 10% price reduction would increase sales volume enough to boost overall profit despite lower per-unit margins.

Key Claims

  • Elton John has the best light show in pinball, better than Stern's Expression lighting

    high confidence · Orville Albert, discussing Elton John's lighting system compared to competitors

  • The piano mechanic is the coolest mech ever seen in pinball

    high confidence · Orville Albert, making a bold claim about the piano's mechanical complexity and animation

  • Elton John has the most flow of any Jersey Jack Pinball game, surpassing Pirates of the Caribbean

    medium confidence · Orville Albert, citing Kerry Hardy's commentary and his own assessment from gameplay videos

  • Jersey Jack Pinball should have dropped prices by 10% to increase volume and total profit

    medium confidence · Orville Albert, providing detailed pricing analysis and market theory based on luxury goods economics

  • Elton John is the prettiest pinball machine ever made

    high confidence · Orville Albert, personal aesthetic assessment based on Christopher Franchi's artwork and overall visual design

Notable Quotes

  • “that piano is the coolest mech we've seen in pinball in a hell of a long time”

    Orville Albert @ ~15:00 — High praise for a signature mechanical feature; becomes a talking point for the game's mechanical achievement

  • “it is the flowiest and probably the best shooting Jersey Jack Pinball ever”

    Orville Albert @ ~25:00 — Positions Elton John as a competitive benchmark against prior JJP releases, especially Pirates of the Caribbean

  • “it is the most lovely, beautiful pinball machine I've ever seen in my life”

    Orville Albert @ ~40:00 — Highest praise for visual presentation; establishes strong emotional connection to the game's aesthetic

  • “if they had said, Jon Hey guys, you know, we'd like to sell a little bit more... if they were to have deducted the price by 10%... $13,499... I honestly think they would sell 200”

    Orville Albert @ ~55:00 — Core pricing argument; attempts to educate JJP leadership on elasticity and volume dynamics

  • “would you rather have $5,000 profit on 100, which is half a million or would you rather have 3,500 on 200 which would be $700,000 profit?”

    Orville Albert @ ~62:00 — Crystallizes the economic case for price reduction; makes concrete profit comparison

Entities

Orville AlbertpersonSteve RitchiepersonJersey Jack PinballcompanyElton JohngameKerry HardypersonChristopher FranchipersonEric Minierperson

Signals

  • ?

    design_innovation: Elton John features a complex animated piano mechanic with motorized arms, neck movement, animated light bar synchronized to music, and ball lock integration

    high · Detailed technical breakdown of piano's multiple moving parts and coding complexity; comparison to other mechs like WOZ boat

  • ?

    product_launch: Elton John game officially revealed at Pinball Expo with gameplay videos released to content creators

    high · Host discusses watching video yesterday, references Kerry Hardy's over-the-shoulder footage and other content provider coverage

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Elton John assessed as having superior flow and shooting mechanics compared to prior JJP releases, with responsive flipper feel and balanced shot difficulty

    medium · Host claims it has 'most flow of any Jersey Jack Pinball,' cites lack of 'clunker shots,' describes flippers as identical to Stern for first time at JJP

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Steve Ritchie's design approach emphasizes flow, flipper quality, and cohesive aesthetic world-building over maximum mechanical complexity

    medium · Host notes game has fewer mechs than WOZ but are 'cooler'; emphasizes 'everything's just cohesive' and creates unified theme world

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jersey Jack Pinball maintains premium pricing at $12K-$15K despite declining secondary market values on prior releases

    high · Host documents recent JJP releases selling for thousands less than MSRP within months; argues price reduction would increase volume and total profit

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.117

0:00
Hey, Elliot Pinball Nerds out there. This is Mike Dimas, formerly of the Canadian Pinball Podcast. It is Saturday night, and the wife has passed out early. So what better time to try and come up with a theme song for Mr. Orbiter Alfred's theme song contest. I know he said we've got two months to submit our entries, and like 12 hours later an entry was submitted and pretty much already won. But hey, that's all right. I'll still give it a shot. So here goes nothing. Enjoy.
0:40
Take three. Take four. Take five. I'm A Pinball Nerd I'm A Pinball Nerd Parts of Nerds We're Not Big Turds Busting Out Rhymes To Get Out The Word I'm A Pinball Nerd I'm A Pinball Snow I'm A Pinball S- thể I'M A NERD
1:15
Welcome back pinball nerds to episode 540 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orbital Albert and on today's episode I'm really excited, more excited than I thought I would be anyways, to be counting down for you the top five most rad features of Jersey Jack's newest pin by Steve Ritchie, the King of Flow, Mr. Elton John.
1:46
So, it's here. We all knew it was coming. It was the world's worst kept secret, and yesterday was the big day when we finally got to see a little bit of the gameplay video. I know Kerry did a little bit of the over... Kerry Hardy did a little bit of the over-the-shoulder kind of stuff with someone there playing. and we finally got to see a little bit more gameplay today from some other content providers, so thank you so much for that. Of course, we all saw the video.
2:17
Sam Stern
person
Pinball Expoevent
Mike Dimasperson
Jack Dangerperson
Danielleperson
Stern Pinballcompany
  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market depreciation trend: recent JJP games lose $2K-$3K value within months, suggesting customer dissatisfaction with pricing or slower adoption

    medium · Host references customers buying $15K pins only to resell for $11.5K-$12K within 3 months; contrasts with expectation of investment stability

  • ?

    collector_signal: Strong FOMO and aesthetic-driven demand for Elton John's Platinum Edition art package; Christopher Franchi artwork considered primary value driver

    high · Host emphasizes artwork beauty repeatedly, suggests topper combinations could enhance value, notes glitter/aesthetic appeal as key draw

  • ?

    content_signal: Kerry Hardy's Pinball Expo coverage praised as highest-quality pinball marketing content produced; extensive livestream coverage generating significant organic hype

    medium · Host credits Hardy with driving visibility, notes multiple livestreams with chat engagement, questions whether Expo organizers properly appreciate coverage value

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Elton John positioning as strongest JJP shooter against Pirates of the Caribbean and Led Zeppelin; competitive with Stern's top-tier design on flow metrics

    medium · Host claims 'best shooting Jersey Jack Pinball ever,' compares flipper feel to Stern for first time, notes game lacks difficult 'clunker shots' of competitors

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Host's enthusiasm for Elton John exceeded initial expectations, suggesting positive community sentiment reversal around JJP game quality

    medium · Host states 'more excited than I thought I would be,' references prior Papa Duke hype about Toy Story, frames Elton John as exceeding skepticism

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Elton John theme successfully integrates iconic songs and visual iconography; music licensing appears fully realized with dynamic light/music synchronization

    high · Host discusses specific songs included, praises music integration with light animation, references Tony Danza 'Tiny Dancer' joke visibility

    • Wow, it looks incredible. I don't want to get too hyped. I don't want to get too excited. I'm the same guy who was pretty hyped about Toy Story, so you never know with me, but let's just jump right into it, okay? So number five is The Light Show and those Hot Rails. Double, triple, quadruple chef's kiss. best light shows in all pinball hands down stern's kind of catching up they're trying to do the uh um precision lighting or no that's not it that's precision flippers there um there's a name for it immersive lighting i should remember this expression lighting and those are really good too but i honestly think that of all the light shows i've ever seen i think that elton john takes the cake. Not the cake topper, to be fair, the cake. Okay, so let's move on to number four. All right, number four is the piano. Oh my god, this mech, I'll just say it right now, this mech, think about all the different moving parts that have to be in there. First of all, his like whole arms, I guess, from like the elbows or maybe from the shoulder joints, Basically, it looks like his hands are playing the piano. So he's going back and forth playing the piano. Then Elton's neck mechanically twists and moves and rotates to turn and look at you. And his beautiful eyes turn and just stare you down while you're playing, right? So that's really cool. And then maybe the coolest part of this whole thing is the fact that inside... Well, okay, the second coolest part of the whole thing, if that wasn't enough, is that there's like a cool little window and it's like a little subway in there that traps the balls. It's a mechanical ball lock. You can keep up to three balls in there. And then, of course, it shoots it out and you go down into the pop bumpers. If not, make pop bumpers great again. I'm glad. If we've got to have pop bumpers on a machine, I don't feel like every pinball machine needs pop bumpers. But if you're going to put pop bumpers on a machine, let's keep them relative or important. And I think, you know, at least it's not as important as Scott Denise's pop bumper on Rick and Morty or something. But, you know, it's still very important because, you know, at least there's some use of the pop bumpers other than just, oh, hey, you know, it's wasting time up here.
    4:29
    But the coolest part of the piano, I think, by far, is the very front of the piano, and there's that really cool animated thing that goes all the way along the front. Wow. That's so cool. So it actually does change. I'm sure they're going to do more coding. It does actually change with the song and what's happening and what you're doing. It kind of meets up with everything else that's happening as far as the colors and the light show. But that piano, I think that that piano is the best mech we've seen in pinball, not just at Jersey Jack. I was going to say just at Jersey Jack since we saw the rocking boat on Eric Menyer's Pirates of the Caribbean. But no, I think by far that the piano is the best mech we've seen in pinball, the coolest mech. I'm just trying to think of how many different motorized little things you'd have to have in there and how much coding you'd have to have for when he's turning his head and looking at you and when the piano's being played. And imagine even just the coding for that piano, that screen, that light. Do you call it a light bar or a light field, I guess? Like, it's the same kind of thing you'd see, obviously, in a concert, if, you know, like in the back to kind of do, like, not pyrotechnics, but, you know, kind of do light animated. Well, that's exactly what it is, right?
    5:40
    Light animation kind of affects to go along with the music and what's happening in the game. So, again, I haven't played this in person. I have seen the really well-coordinated video done, and actually I was watching it with my youngest son, Owen, and he says he thinks that that video that Jersey Jack did is now probably the best pinball-like marketing video he's ever seen. Just from a complete standpoint of it, it was funny, it was cool. They showed men playing it, women playing it. They showed, you know, both the Platinum and the CE. anyways I'm very very very very excited to play it and I didn't think I was going to be telling you guys that now do I like more of Elton John's music than I remembered yes am I glad they didn't put in like Candle in the Wind or any of his Fart in the Wind or any of his slower stuff yes but they did put in you know they did put in I think at least the four or five songs you really had to have in there of course one of the funniest things that I heard Kerry Hardy say actually when he was doing his live stream walk around when he saw the little spinning tiny dancer of course those lyrics are often sang as half in joust and half because they actually sound like it but hold me closer Tony Danza so anyways I think it would be it's not even a question of if it's a question of when I think anyone who gets this pin has to find like a little, I think all of a sudden there's going to be a run on eBay of little small micro, like three to five inch statues of Tony Danza. Because if you go to, if I go to a friend's house and they haven't implemented, you know, got rid of the little ballerina girl, which I'm not 100% sure how I feel about it. I get it goes with the song. I just feel like it kind of looks out of place down there. Maybe perhaps even more out of place than the little alligator, but I'm not going to complain. The alligator actually moves up and down a little bit. So that's good. So we've got like, If you think about Elton John's head twisting and turning left and right, then the two arms going, I think you just count that as one, because I'm sure they're together on one circuit board and one mech or controller or that sort of thing. But we've got one, two. The third one is obviously the mechanism of the balls going up into the thing and holding them there. Then you've got the fourth mech I'm trying to think that moves is the alligator. The fifth mech that moves is the spinning ballerina, the tiny dancer. and then the rocket, the way that Rocketman starts and locks the balls, it shoots it actually down towards the player like a rocket and then shoots and spins up and goes up onto a ramp and comes down and around. So I thought that was really neat too. There's a lot of moving mechs in this. I don't think it looks like maybe some people, you know, people, we build things up in our head and we thought, oh, when Steve Ritchie goes over to Jersey Jack and he's just, he's going to let the beast out, we're going to see the second coming of the Wizard of Oz basically. it doesn't have as many moving parts as the Wizard of Oz it doesn't have nearly as many mechs it doesn't have two upper playfields it doesn't have like 14 ramps and 19 different places the ball can hide out and go different places but it definitely has more mechs and cooler mechs including the piano which I think you heard it here first from the Pinball Nerds podcast put Orby down on the books for saying that that piano is the coolest mech we've seen in pinball in a hell of a long time I don't know if it's cooler than either boats, actually, in Stern's Pirates of the Caribbean, that big giant ship that goes back and forth and then goes down under the playfield, okay, that arguably might be slightly cooler. I don't know. But anyways, I think that the piano is just incredible, and I don't know how much of that was Steve Ritchie's idea, but congrats to Steve. Congrats to the whole team over there at Jersey Jack. You guys knocked it so far out of the park that you knocked Franchi out of his chair while he was doing art over there, okay in Detroit But anyways number three on the list is The Flow Steve Ritchie is definitely responsible for this When I looking at it to me it does look I see some similarities The number one similarity I saw first was certainly Star Trek, Stern Star Trek, and that's a good thing because many of you know in my last podcast, I did my top five. Oh, sorry, I've got to pause here. A little ASMR moment while I open up my cold stream sour cherry lemonade.
    10:09
    Sorry, my throat was a little parched. And I'm also getting ready to go see The Beaches, one of my favorite bands here in Canada. Going to be going to see them tonight in Moncton. Totally stoked for that. That's part of the reason why this podcast has to be so short. But podcast or not, the pre-drinks got to flow. You got to get in the mood. You got to get in the vibe. I'm going to be doing some slam dancing. I'm going to be doing some crowd surfing. and then if all goes well, hopefully I'll be partying with the band after until like 5am, who knows, no I'm just kidding I actually do have a collectible show tomorrow morning right here in the old River Hibberts of Nova Scotia at the community center, it's called Oh My Gourd it's not just a collectible show, in fact we're also going to have tea there and coffee and like 40 other vendors so very excited for that, if you do live on the east coast of Canada make sure you come pop by tomorrow, it's from 10am until 2pm in the old River Hibberts of Nova Scotia and my wonderful wife Drop Target Danielle is organizing so she will not actually be selling coffee or be at either of our tables very often because she'll be running around doing all that fun stuff but Hayden will be working, my oldest son Hayden will be working the coffee and tea table and nifty gifties and presents especially with the holidays coming up, that sort of thing. I will not say the C word until after Halloween's over, don't worry. You know that right here. But I'll also have the Pokemon, the sports cards, the comics, all the goody two-shoes, all the fun stuff.
    11:38
    Yeah, so let's get back into it. Number three on the list here is The Flow. Okay, The Flow. Steve Ritchie, I think, again, this was in Cary Hardy's video. Someone mentioned this in chat or one of his videos. He's done so many live streams. Cary Hardy's been working his butt off while he's been there. I hope the Expo people are appreciative of how much time, energy, and work he's put into doing all that free content for them there. But, you know, maybe that whole system's broken. It just needs to be fixed. But we can talk about that more later. I want today to be more of a standalone video where I don't go off topic too much and I keep it short. And, oh my God, I'm already ten minutes in. I've gone too long. So, undoubtedly, someone on Carry Harder Streams said, if not himself, that it is the Jersey Jack with the most flow. and it's like, I'm pretty sure I heard it there, I'm not sure, I've seen and watched a lot of pinball content in the last 24 hours with Expo going and everything else, and wow, it without a doubt has the most flow of, and I'm sorry Eric, again, I love all Eric's designs, I've had the pleasure of playing Pirates of the Caribbean, great game, but I truly honestly believe in my heart, in my soul, even just, it's a first impression, I haven't played it yet, okay, but I do think that game, even just seeing over the shoulder some players who weren't that great playing it, I think it is the flowiest and probably the best shooting Jersey Jack ever. I say that with pretty good confidence as well. Now, is it a better shooter than Led Zeppelin? I would say probably, it looks like it to me. It is pretty wide open in the middle, I'm not going to lie, but not nearly as wide open as Led Zeppelin, and it definitely, definitely has, I don't think it has super interesting shots. They almost look like fairly safe shots, but I don't think there's going to be any shots that are duds, that are just too hard or too tight or unfindable or impossible to shoot. There's no clunker shots like that dead-end shot. There's nothing really crazy hard to hit like the katana shot or the figure-eight shot or the little S-maneuver thing that was in the new Foo Fighters by Jack Danger. There's nothing like that. There's nothing to write home about, but I just think that I'm glad to see finally there's going to be a very good shooter, fast playing. The flippers look almost identical to Stern's to me for the first time ever. So if nothing else, if nothing else Steve Ritchie did is he talked them into getting real flippers over there. Stopped playing with the little spongy, like, oh, let's play some pinball. And he's like, oh, play pinball better. I'm Steve Ritchie.
    14:14
    All right, number two, number two. and I know some people would say this ties into number one it sort of does but it is the whole package together the world under glass I would say that this Elton John does a better job than any other Stern we've seen for at least the last four or five years perhaps longer at creating a world under glass due to all the reasons that I just said because you actually have the Rocket Man himself there Elton John playing piano staring at you with his beautiful eyes looking at you, looking you down while you're playing. Hey, I'm watching you, Tiny Dancer. Hit it up, Tony Danza. Come on, Rocket Man. Let's go, Alligator Rock.
    14:55
    Then you've just got everything happening under there. Oh my god. Okay, wait. I don't want to bring this up too early because it might have to do with my next point, but wow. Franchise Art Blades in the Platinum, which I guess is the lower, the lesser expensive one. They are incredible. They help add to that world under glass. You've also just got, like, everything's just cohesive. It just, it literally looks like a little, you know, there's glitter everywhere. It looks like a little Elton John world in there. They did it perfect. They nailed it. I already mentioned the alligator that goes up and down. You know, the rocket that actually shoots it. That's like, that was a, that had to be in there. That was like a must-have, right? And then you've also got the, you know, well, especially with, let's move into number one, it is purdy. It is perhaps the absolutely prettiest, prettiest, doggone it, it is the most lovely, beautiful pinball machine I've ever seen in my life. And like, if you were to ask me five years ago what it would be, I would either say the Beatles, wait, did that come out like four years ago? I'd either say the Beatles, maybe the Munsters Premium, perhaps Wizard of Oz. But now this is it. I looked at that and I watched the video probably six, seven, eight times in a row. I'm telling you straight up, to me anyways, in my eyes. And it's not just because of all the glitter. It's how incredible Franchi's art is. And the other art that's on the more expensive model, yes, I get that. It's decent. It's cool. It kind of looks like Elton John is skydiving. Which I was like, hmm, is he known for skydiving or something? Or, like, why is it that that is considered to be so important to be in the game?
    16:41
    So I have no clue. But this is what I do know. That just aesthetically looking at it, to me anyways, it is, hands down, the prettiest pinball machine I've ever seen. Just, you know, to look at it and think, well,
    16:58
    even if it weren't Elton John, obviously, it wouldn't make sense if it was like a sepultura or like a really dark theme like a heavy metal band and then it had lots of glitter and it had a guy playing piano and it had all these bright lights everywhere but if you think about it like i know elton john might arguably not be a great theme for pinball even though he sold 300 million records or something like that so he's up there for one of the top five uh most selling uh solo artists on the planet right But that being said, I honestly think that Labyrinth, just from a theme-wise, might be better to create a world under glass, which, looking at it, I would say that that's the one thing it maybe does beat it on. Labyrinth certainly isn't prettier, but it's supposed to be kind of dark and scary and gloomy and weird and effed up, right? So it kind of does a great job creating its own world under glass, but it certainly is not as pretty. and if I even remotely, if I was like I'm guessing even 5 to 10 years older if I was like some dude that was like in my 50s or 60s and I was like kind of Doug Elton John back in the day and I could all afford it, oh my god I would be splurging and getting this pin because not only does it shoot well, not only is there better flippers but also, well I guess we've got to talk about the one bad thing I do want to talk about finish the good stuff on this though even though I like Franchi's art package way way way better I really think that the only thing that would make Franchi's art pack better and I do like the custom artwork he did for his topper especially considering they give that to you for free with the pin I think that's pretty rad I mean it's not free but it's included in the price at no extra however I love the topper for the is it the CE of the LE? Damn it! Can't we all just pick one way? I don't, but the more expensive one has this incredible topper. I'm sure you've all seen it by now. It's got too many screens. And then it also has like this, this like cool light up kind of neon sign in the middle. Right? So it looks incredible. Now I get that while you're playing, you're not going to, I'm sure they're going to create moments out of it where you get to look up and enjoy it. But for the most part, you're not ever really going to see that up there. So anyways, wow. I think that if you were to take and Franchi, don't disown me. Don't call the pinball police and get mad at me, but I'm just going to say this. I do think that if you took the Platinum Edition the lower edition and you kept Franchise Topper You not going to throw it out of course no Keep Franchi topper put it somewhere else light it up give it its own space put it somewhere cool in your arcade. But if you were to get that other topper, the more expensive, the more limited one, oh my God, and you were to put that on there with Franchi's artwork, whoo, boy, that would just be incredible. And so Franchi, I'm not going to say you knocked it out of the park, but I will just say this. What do they say in rugby?
    19:56
    What's it called in rugby when you get a big run or something? Come on, there's an aviator. You played rugby in high school. Whatever, whatever. I did want to update you guys that Danielle and the whole fam got home safely. They had a great trip.
    20:11
    More importantly, they got home safe. They had fun. They saw family. They saw friends. And we're all back together again. I was very bored for eight days. I played so much Fortnite that honestly my thumbs were starting to hurt.
    20:24
    I took Luna for some, Miss Luna Elowen here, for some nice long walks as she looks over at me. Hi, Toons. Yes, I'm talking about you. I took her for so many walks that the one day I did like 15,000 steps and I like injured my ankle so I had to be lazy and not get off the couch for like the next three days. Which at least, I mean, it rained those three days anyway, so I didn't feel too bad. But no, overall I had a nice relaxing time while they were gone. let's get into the bad part the bad part is not just that the most beautiful art package which is franchise the platinum doesn't come with the most well with the coolest I would say the coolest I'm not gonna say the most beautiful but the coolest topper the problem is is the price I think almost everybody especially us pinball content creators we all thought there was a decent chance maybe not 100 but we all thought there was a decent chance that you know Jersey Jack would see the light and realize that after they've had the prices that high for so long and seeing their last what three now four pins all selling for thousands of dollars less even a month later never mind like if you buy a pin for like 10 grand and you play the crap out of it for a year and a half two years and you sell it for eight eight and a half okay whatever you lost 1500 bucks you put you probably put 1500 plays on it or more in that time you had friends over you know it saved you money by not going out and just having entertainment at your house and And it was a fun thing for you and your family to do that whole time. Cool, who cares? But if you buy like a $15,000 pin and three months later, you can barely get 12, 11 and a half for it, you're going to feel pretty butthurt about that because you didn't buy it with the expectation that it would necessarily gain money. Those people are called flippers. Not all of them are jerks, even though some of them are. I particularly am not a huge fan of people who at the time that they knew they could do this they just went out and bought a shit ton of pins and then just kind of kept flipping them for a thousand you know fifteen hundred dollars more than MRSB because they could that being said most of those people have came and gone they're out of the game and they realize now that probably 95 to 97 percent of pins will never go up in value and if they do it's very short-lived however like many good other investments or toys, no matter which way you look at this, it's kind of an expensive toy slash expensive collectible slash, you know, expensive investment, I guess. And the real way to look at it is, hey, it's an investment. It's a piece of artwork. I might make some money on it. You don't want to disrespect your investment and like leave it outside in the middle of a hurricane or a snowstorm or something and completely wreck the thing. But at the same time, you don't want to wear baby gloves around and be like, oh, there's, excuse me, sorry, there's no nudging on my pinball machine and oh I don't want it to get too many plays and no go play your pin have fun enjoy it right but the the point is is that the one bad thing that's not very rad is that Jersey Jack didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel now I did a little tiny bit I do have an honors in marketing from first semester at Fanshawe College in London Ontario and I did a little bit of number crunching much the best of my knowledge looks just just because numbers with 100 are a lot easier to think of. Let's assume that they're only going to sell, and I know it's probably more than this, but let's just take their highest, most expensive model that they have at 15,000, I believe, right? It's 12 for the cheap one. The cheap one I have in brackets, cheap, cheap, cheap. But the $15,000 one, if they were to have deducted the price, let's say they sell 100 at 15 grand, that's 150K. I truly, truly believe if they just dropped the price by 10%. So if they had said, hey guys, you know, we'd like to sell a little bit more. We think that, you know, with the supply chain stuff due to COVID being a lot easier, prices are starting to come back down to, I know not all the prices have came down. You don't have to go to pre-COVID prices, but say they dropped it just by 10% to $13,499. There'd be a hell of a lot more people. To the best of my knowledge, most consumer items that are luxuries, like a $15,000 pinball machine is a luxury. It's not a need, it's a want. Most luxury items have between a 30 to 50% margin. Let's just assume they're on the low end of that and they only make 5K. Let's assume they're on the low end of that and there's only 5K profit in a $15,000 pin. I think it's higher than that, but let's just say that that was true. I honestly think they would sell 200. They would easily sell twice as much if the price were just $13,499. So by losing $1,500 or one-third of their profit, actually less than one-third, somewhere around probably 27, 28%, but let's say one-third of their profit, they'd probably sell $200. Well, would you rather have $5,000 profit on $100, which is half a million or would you rather have 3,500 on 200 which would be $700,000 profit you've increased from $500,000 profit to $700,000 profit and you've kept your line busy and going so you've kept your workers going and you've made your customers happy in the future and you've now made new customers that are going to buy every pin that comes out as long as you don't price gouge again and go back up to 15 or 16,000 and price yourselves way higher than even a stern le right so i really really think and if you think of the differential between half a million to 700,000 oh that's not that much profit talk to your talk to your owners the owners of the company and you tell them um five hundred thousand dollars profit or seven hundred thousand dollars profit let's even say there's fixed expenses in the company that i'm not thinking of or taking new account and those fixed expenses are even half of that $500,000. So their total profit, like overall profit that they can actually reap and take is $250,000. Well, if they were to just decrease the price by 10%, $1,500 on the high end, sell twice as much, and they might sell three times as much. I'm trying to be very conservative with saying they would sell twice as much. I actually truly believe that they would have a profit of $700,000. And like we saw with the fixed expenses coming out at, say, a quarter million. Again, those could be slightly lower, slightly higher. I have no clue. I'm just guessing. That's all we can do here. Instead of their actual profit, achieved profit at the end of the year being $250,000, it would be $450,000.
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    So now you have to ask yourself, is Jersey Jack going to drop the price? And at the very least, drop it 5%. Throw us a tidbit here. You know, I get 5%. what would that be? $750 on the one and on the $12,000 one, that would be $600. So drop it to, you know, $11,399. I understand at 5%, I don't think you double your sales. I think you'd get 20, 30, maybe 40% more. You drop it by 10%, that's substantial. But remember, by dropping the $12,000 one by 10%, you drop that down to $10,800. And all of a sudden, you're priced a lot more competitively with Stern for their mid-end, right? And I would argue that if you had franchise in around that $10,000 point and you included that topper, you'd probably sell three or four times as many of those as you're going to sell with just the flat static topper, which looks beautiful. I love the artwork, but wow. So, I mean, there you go. That's some free marketing advice from a dude. I'm just like a hippie dude who lives on a homestead in little old Nova Scotia. I don't know that much about running a giant organization. I've worked for some larger companies, but basically just in the factory. I've never helped major companies make money like that, but I have screwed around with the pricing on now dozens of items that my wife and I have offered over the years through two different companies. And I've seen how just changing your price a little bit can really, really, really change how people spend. Just for instance, with our coffee, what we do is it's $22 a bag. That way we price match whether you're buying it online or you're buying it from us in person. But in person, because I don't have to get bubble wrap and I don't have to add Pinball Nerds podcast promo cards and I don't have to put it in an envelope and I don't have to write out your address and a thank you card and bring it to the thing and then pay for the shipping and lose money on that, because I'm just handing it over to you, we can offer two for $40. Well, I will tell you what, there's a very large chunk of people, maybe 20, 30, 40 of the people who never ever maybe even half the people who never would have bought two bags if they were just each But when we do the two for they do it So there you go I lose 10 of my overall cost dropping it from 22 to 20 And therefore I increase the amount of people that will go from buying. So say instead of having 10 customers that bought one bag that day, I'll probably have three or four of those 10 customers who will upgrade to the two for 40. so we're increasing the sales by 30 or 40 percent and obviously we can deduct 10 percent from the price and still have a larger margin than that now of course if you're a product that only has a five to ten percent margin there's almost zero chance you could do that which is why you don't see massive sales typically on say like bread or eggs or milk because they have that lower limit now sometimes stores will take a loss to skate through the door but i've gone off topic what else would you guys expect i've got a beer to drink or a cold stream sour cherry lemonade which I'm going to bring in the shower. It's going to become a shower beer for me. As for you, I want to tell you about a real quick promo that I'm going to be doing. Pinball Nerds podcasts are coming for this holiday season. I'm still waiting on getting back a couple of the signed autographs I'm going to have. I'm still waiting on finishing a couple of the designs and for at least one of the designs to come back that I had to get special order that we couldn't make here in-house. So, I know it's taken forever and I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. Please be patient. But, They are coming, and I want to offer anyone who goes over to the Poor Man's Booth, again with Don, Don's Pinball Podcast, he stopped by and he talked to Drew there and said hello to tons of the poor men that were there chilling out at the booth. If you're listening to this and you're at Expo, today is the 21st. Probably most likely you won't hear this until tonight or tomorrow, but if you're going to be at Expo any time Sunday, head over and buy yourself any of the Angry Alpaca coffee that's at the booth that Joe is showing us, or Joe, that Drew has shown us on the live stream, which is really cool. It's right over there, right beside the JJP booth. While you're waiting in line to go play some Elton John, head over, say hi to Drew, tell him Orby sent you. Buy some of that rad coffee there. I'm so excited. Each one of the back of the coffee has a free pack of cards with either Ian and Drew's picture on it from the Rocket Fuel. And we had no clue that the Rocket Fuel was going to be next to the Rocket Man. Like, that's pretty awesome. but there is a custom label that my wife took the time to make that's only on those 20 bags of poor man's rocket fuel so the custom label itself is really rad you could just have that up in your arcade you could fill it up with freaking corn flakes or something when you're done eating it so it still looks filled up and stands up nice or you could just flatten it and you could throw it in like a frame from walmart or something and just have it for your arcade so it is a one-off collectible we're never going to use that packaging again um but go see ian or Ian was there too. That was a nice surprise. Ian, how's it going, man? Good to see you. We didn't, I don't think Ian was there the first day or two maybe, but he showed up for at least the Friday and the Saturday, which is incredible. But head over there, and whether or not Ian or Drew are there or not, buy some of my coffee. Simply take a picture with yourself either on your travel home, so I know that you actually purchased it and left the expo with it, or when you get home, holding a bag of the coffee with you or someone. You don't even have to be in it, I guess, but ideally it would be you in it. and let me know that you bought it at Expo and I will give you one of three things. You either get a pack of Pinball Nerds podcast trading cards when they come out, which will be before this holiday season in the next month, like ideally three weeks, but month on hopefully the very, very, very latest. Or I will send you a small sample size of coffee or I will send you a bag of our tea. All of those things come in between, I don't know, seven to $9 value of shipping. So yeah, if you end up getting the coffee and you freaking love that coffee and you'd like to try one of the other ones, you can go on our website and just tell me which one you have as long as we have it in stock. I will include the shipping for free. I think it's like $6 just shipping to the States and $4 to Canada for each one. So I'm including the shipping for free. Go see Drew. You're not only going to get some rad coffee, you're going to support the Poor Men's Pinball Podcast Network here at PPN. Go see Ian and Drew. Buy some coffee. Make it so that my man Drew doesn't have to drag all that coffee home. And you'll be supporting me here at the show. Send me a picture. you can either send it to me through Facebook under Albert Agar, you can send it through Pinball Nerds Podcast Facebook, or even you can email me at pinballnerds at gmail.com. So go over there, enjoy the coffee, or sorry, yeah, go get yourself some coffee, enjoy the coffee, enjoy Expo if you're at Expo, it looks like a hoot. Again, I just finished Cary Hardy's, this one's probably not safe for work, don't watch it at work, don't watch it with the kids, especially if they're, you know, under like 18 years old or something like that. but uh carrie hardy went to the pinball olympics uh helped thrown by pinball life and scott denisi there and it looked like a freaking riot i was so jealous just watching everybody i think i saw josh roop there um scott denisi was there rebecca salem was there uh quite a few i mean pretty much everybody there pinball personalities in one way shape or form so the food looked incredible pinball looks olympics look incredible i got to do the walk around uh partially with marco specialties. Thank you for doing that. With Emoto, of course. I watched all the content. Every time I went on YouTube, there was someone else live streaming from there. Retro Ralph, I got to watch his live stream and walk around. He, of course, comes from more of the arcade background, but he does really cool professional videos and did a walk around and got to speak with Ken Cromwell. Shout out. So, wow. Congratulations to JJP. Congratulations to Franchi. Congratulations to Steve Richie. Congratulations to whoever did that incredible promo video. So let's just recap this quickly. Best promo video I agree that I've ever seen in pinball. I'm not going to say it was like way better than Guns N' Roses ones, but I think it was even better than that. You know, the guy flying in the air like he's like, well, I guess maybe that's some type of thing from Elton John that I don't know. Is he a big skydiver? Maybe he's big into skydiving. But wow. Coolest art package I've seen in my life. That would be the platinum one. Now, of course, if you were to throw on that rad topper with the screens, I think you've got a winner, winner, winner, chicken dinner. And now, you never thought you'd get this from me, but I'm going to tell you right now, you're thinking, but wait, you can't get it with that topper. You have to buy that. Yes, but does Jersey Jack not re-release the toppers for sale on almost every pin sometime in the future? I think so. And even if they didn't, wouldn't there be a way to get your hands on one of someone who sold the two separately? Probably. Maybe not. Maybe not, though I could be wrong but I think that if you really seriously wanted Elton John and you're not rich you're not if you're loaded if you're a bazillionaire go out and just buy Elton John and buy both of them and switch the toppers for god's sake if you wanted to to make some monstrosity but if you're like me or probably even more more wealthy because I'm probably on the low end of this but if you're like me but just not a bazillionaire I would just wait three or four months till you start seeing Elton John's go on sale for most likely $1,500 to $2,000 less by Christmas, probably even more past that. I hope I'm wrong. I hope that I'm wrong and Jersey Jack just changes their prices so this doesn't happen. And then they sell more and they make more profit instead of profiting and making people take a loss who are their own customers, which burns them in the future and makes them not want to purchase from Jersey Jack again. So I hope they take my advice and lower the price. But if they don't, you can be sure of this. When they go to sell that topper, even if they sold that topper for two grand, if you just wait three to six months to buy your Elton John, buy Franchise Platinum version, get it for most likely what will be at least a thousand, if not fifteen hundred dollars less, and that will cover half to, if not three quarters possibly, all of the differential of how much it costs you to get the topper, and then you have the most rad art package with the most rad topper for the same freaking price as just getting to platinum so there you go there's your little life hack and i do think if you're on location and you have a rock bar a rock and roll bar even a club like a maybe not like a rave club but like you know a nightclub you probably don't want metallica or iron maiden or kiss in there but you might want elton john um so it you know probably 80 of non-rock clubs don't really want like a a kiss machine in there right whereas an elton john machine machine it could really fit into a large number of places. So I think as an operator as well,
    37:34
    especially if the, I mean, typically Jersey Jacks are built fairly well. So as long as it comes out that the build quality is good, again, this is first impressions. I haven't played it yet. The last thing I will mention, if you're not at Pinball Expo or you can't get to Pinball Expo or you're listening to this after Pinball Expo, please, please, please just type into Google Angry Alpaca Coffee. and the top link will bring you to our Square Store Shopify store, it'll bring you to our store it's the top link, don't worry and when you go there, you can simply go ahead and buy yourself some coffee or tea, and the nice thing is, because on my last show I had said that I was giving away some cool gifts, go listen to the last 10 minutes if you haven't or just go listen to the whole thing to refresh yourself, but I made some promises for some cool gifts, I'm not going to go through them here right now because I don't feel like it and I'm short on time, but go listen to that episode, the end of it, and I'm going to extend that by another, at least, I'll say four days to the 25th because no one has ordered coffee or tea since then, so I'm still sitting on my comic books, my piece of crap. You'll have to go read about how to get that shit, though, or listen to it, I guess. Anyways, pinball nerds, I absolutely love you. Sorry I'm losing my voice. I've probably talked too much the last 24 hours. Until next time, pinball nerds, say it with me, eat, sleep, and breathe Elton John pinball. Thank you.