It's just another manic Monday. Wish it was Sunday. That's my fun day. I don't have to run day. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Happy Monday everybody. Welcome to Canada's Pinball Podcast. We're all just waiting for something to happen in this pinball world. Where is John Wick? Where is Funhaus? Where is this Alice in Wonderland? What's going to be the next big move in the pinball marketplace, in the pinball landscape? It is almost May, and I think we're going to get John Wick any day now. I think we might actually see the teaser at the end of this week. Now, what Stern normally does is they'll tease a game on a Friday. They'll reveal the theme to the world. I'm here to tell you it is 100% John Wick. And then they will show the game to distributors with a Gary Stern call on like Monday or Tuesday. Then we're going to get crappy cell phone photos. And then we will see the official game. Now this game is going to be a brand new designer. So there's a lot of excitement just to see what goes into this game. If I were a betting man, I bet you this game is going to be pretty empty. I don't think it's going to be loaded with mechanisms. But who knows? Sometimes when Stern has an inaugural designer, they put more into the game. Was there a lot in Foo Fighters? Not too much. But there was a lot in what? Stranger Things? Wasn't that Brian Eddy's first game at Stern Pinball? Am I missing a game? Was it Stranger Things or was it something else? I keep forgetting what Brian Eddy's first game was over at Stern Pinball. And so, look, I just want this to be a game in which we finally start to see something worth the value in the games. I talked about this on my Saturday Morning Spectacular, the reality of the margins in this hobby. And that Jersey Jack games are selling at over a 50% margin. So it costs them more than 50% less money to make each game. how much do you think the bomb is on a current Stern machine? I bet it is somewhere around $4,000. So they're making some money on that pro machine and they're making a lot of money on these $13,000 LEs. But I just want to see the game. Everybody does. Everybody just wants to have something new to react to. In the time being, Stern has been really good about getting code updates for Jaws pinball for James Bond pinball. So that's good. Let's just go around the horn and talk about every company, what they have going on. It's not going to be a super long show. But before I do that, I want to say something, some breaking news in my world. I have a sale pending on my Batman Super Limited Edition. And I'm going to tell you why I sold the game. It's not because it's a clunk fest. I know some of you hate the machine so much. I'm just at a different stage in my life where that kind of money, you know, a game that's selling for around $30,000. Yes, I'm making money on the $25,000 I put into the machine, but I'm just picturing my life over the next few years, all the things I'm going to want to do with my family, with my children. And also, do I really want to put a museum quality Batman SLE into a house with two rambunctious boys who are going to be throwing stuff at it, who are going to be slapping the cabinet, who are not going to appreciate, you know, the cheap pinstripes on the lockdown bar. And so I just said to myself, Chris, let's just be honest with yourself. You don't need this. And that's the kind of game that belongs in a six-figure collection by a collector who actually values this stuff. And I will say over the last few years, you know, after the COVID frenzy, after all the hype and people spending like 19 grand on Jurassic Park LEs and 18,000 on Stranger Things like LEs. I'm just over all of it. I just don't care anymore about this pinball flex and the rare machine and the hype and all this stuff. It doesn't matter anymore. There's just way too many machines all over the place. And if you believe the rumors, and I believe the rumors, I think this pinball market is going to keep going south because I think there are probably right now on a global level, there are probably thousands of new in box pinball machines sitting somewhere unsold, whether they're at Stern or at different factories or at different distributors. there's so much pinball not even opened up and we're also going to get thousands of more machines put into boxes without confirmed buyers yet and i think it's just going to continue to get oversaturated and i think more and more of you are just going to kind of get burnt out and that doesn't mean we're going to give up on pinball here's what i think is going to happen for a lot of us we're just going to get really satisfied with the machines we own and one of the reasons why I wanted to just have Guns N' Roses CE be the game I have in my house is I love the band so much so I'm never going to get tired of playing Guns N' Roses because I love the music so much. I also think GNR, when people come over the house, it still is one of the coolest pinball experiences you can show somebody when they walk up to the machine and they're also going to have Final Code hopefully in the next few months and the IO board. And so look, if anything happens to my Guns and Roses CE, right? Like Killian throws a metal ball against the side of the cabinet and scratches those rad cows, I could always replace them. Jersey Jack has so much Guns and Roses parts and inventory that it's not an impossible game to replace something where Batman SLE, if that got destroyed, that's it. You're never gonna be able to get replacement decals and stuff like that for the machine. I'm happy that this game is sale pending. I don't have the money yet. I will reveal who bought it. I won't reveal what the price was, but I'm happy, he's gonna be happy, and it's a really, really beautiful machine. But again, as I said, I'm just at a different stage in my life. All right, so let's go down the pinball horn. Stern Pinball, we're all waiting on John Wick, new designer. What is after John Wick is going to be John Borg's fully redesigned Metallica game on Spike 3. We're not going to see that to sometime in the fall. So all this John Wick pressure is real, people. Stern needs a hit game. If this is another Venom and this game is like 13 grand and a thousand LEs I think Stern is in big trouble because I talking to distros and they canceling their orders They pulling back their orders They're not gonna save Stern from B-level themes and oversaturating the collector market. So it's gonna be a really dicey year for Stern. All right, Jersey Jack Pinball. Elton John, the game of the moment. Everyone says it's the best game ever. Is this game ever gonna lose value? Is everyone gonna buy it? Are they going to sell 1,000 CEs of Elton John? I think it's still going to be a slow burn. It is a great shooting machine. I still think it's significantly overpriced, and I don't think it's a theme you totally want. But when you play it, you're going to have a great time. And that's my feeling on Elton John. I will simply always want to play this game when I'm on location. It's a lot of fun, but I just don't see myself buying one for $12,000 to $15,000. No thank you. And then the next game I think is going to be Mark Siden's game. I do think it's going to be Harry Potter. I don't think it's going to be based on the movies. I think it's going to be based on like Wizarding World. And I think that's the reason why I'm hearing that if you warm up to the theme, it's a really great game. I'm a little nervous. Jersey Jack always messes it up. The only game they really didn't mess up was like Guns and Roses other than the play field issues. But every other game hasn't really been like the theme you want. It hasn't had the assets you want. And so here we go. Harry Potter, Jersey Jack. Do you really think they're going to get the movie clips? Do you really think it's going to sync up? Do you really think they're going to do it justice? I don't know. And when will we see that game? I don't think we're going to see the next Jersey Jack until the fall. So I think it's going to be another long period of just watching Elton John owners convince us it's the greatest game ever and it's never leaving their collections. So that's Jersey Jack. over at Spooky Pinball. They still have not sold out all of their Looney Tunes or their Texas Chainsaw Massacres. They're probably close, but if you go onto their website right now, you can order both games still in the finest trim possible. You could go online and buy the games for less money than they are new. And I think Spooky's next game is gonna be a single title. They're not gonna do the dual design again over two themes. And I think we're gonna see that game like Spooky normally does at the end of the year. Spooky's a company now where they're getting somewhat predictable. One new game a year where they can make around like 2,000 games a year. So what I think is going to happen next year at Spooky, we're going to get two games from them. I think we'll get one in December and then maybe the next like a few months later. And I think they have the capacity to launch, reveal, and make two separate pinball machines in one year. I really hope the rumors that it might be Beetlejuice, it might be Sonic the Hedgehog, or it might be Evil Dead. those are the ones I'm hearing some strong heat around those three titles. But as of now, the rest of the year is going to most likely be code updates for Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If you have both of those games, you're probably having some fun. If you don't have them, you're probably just looking in the other direction. Because if a theme doesn't speak to you, you're not going to care that there's code updates and that game's getting better. You're just not. All right, so that's Spooky Pinball, Chicago Gaming Company. A lot of people waiting on Pulp Fiction LEs. I don't know when we're going to get them. By the time they do come out, I think a lot of people are going to be over this theme. I mean it. It's just too long of a wait just for a topper. There's absolutely nothing different when you play your LE machine than the SC machine, right? It's the same exact game. And by the time your topper LE arrives, everyone's going to be bored of this game, I feel like, because so many people have had the opportunity to jump on it, play it, stream it. I'm sorry, but every pinball machine, no matter how great it is, it has a shelf life of about a year where people are really excited and focused on it. And you can't launch a game, reveal a game, make people wait almost a year and a half to get it. and then the people who spent the most money on it get on the plane last. This is not how you do it. The LE buyers, the bad mofo buyers, they should have got their Pulp Fictions first. Chicago Gaming Company's marketing is horrendous and they still don't say anything. Nobody has any clue when they're getting their bad mofo additions and I say shame on them and I'm happy I sold my spot. I'm happy I'm out on this game because I think we need to start sending some messages to these companies. If you do it this way, I don't want to stay on a train ride for two years after you take my money and I still have nothing to show for it. So shame on you, CGC. There's no reason why it should have taken this long. And also for all those Cactus Canyon owners out there, there's no reason why there's still not a single new code update for the game. You promised it when you sold the game. and all you had to do was hire some coders and make it a reality. But once again, here we are in the world of pinball, getting lied to and misled by these companies, and nobody holds them accountable. And now we got these wankers removing the outlaying post to their cactus canyons. Let's make the game really hard. That's the greatest code update. Now the game is super fun because I made it really hard and I messed around with the game settings. No, that's not what was promised to you when you bought this game. And at what point do these companies actually become accountable? Like I bought this game because you said there was going to be a massive code update and three years have gone by and nothing. Why don't you get a refund? Why don't you get a rebate? Why don't you get a discount on your Pulp Fiction? Because they lied to you about what Cactus Canyon was going to have in it. So that's CGC, ladies and gentlemen. let's go over to barrels of fun are you having fun yet barrels of fun okay so they're making labyrinth no new news i mean it's kind of just going to be this for the entire year and that's that that's the thing with these boutique companies that are trickling out like 10 games a week you know it's going to take them a year to make 1100 games and there's really not much to talk about so you kind of have that like short window where like people get excited and i don't really see like tons of people talking about labyrinth or like gushing about it or being like you have to get some time on a labyrinth i'm seeing a lot more enthusiasm for elton john than i am for labyrinth and you know me labyrinth is just not a theme that i thought about at all for like my entire adult life and so when it came out in pinball form it wasn't really gonna make its way into my weekly thoughts and my weekly dreams and my banter. Because again it like a niche within a niche And I think when they do their next title I really hoping Barrels of Fun does something more universally appealing and more relevant in modern times Okay, so that's Barrels of Fun. Who else do we have making pinball machines in the modern pinball world? We've got the Pinball Brothers with their ABBA machine. And from what I can tell, it's not selling very well. I mean, they're only making 800 games based on a musical act that has sold hundreds of millions of albums. I think like over 200 million albums. And they can't even sell 800 machines on a global level. Talk about a theme mistake. When Spooky Pinball announced 750 Rick and Mortys, it sold out in one day. And so you're making 800 ABBAs and nobody really wants it. If they said they were making 800 He-Man Masters of the Universe or 800 G.I. Joe or 800 Voltrons, you could go down a list of so many other properties where if it was limited to only 800, they would have sold out instantly. And then once again, once again, it's like these companies don't do market research. They just make what they think will work. And then they find out the hard way. I think Pinball Brothers is going to find out the hard way. This is not a theme people really want. And the execution of it is really mediocre. And then the price of it is stupid. Like who's going to spend $11,000 on this machine? And the base version of it has some of the worst artwork of all time. And it just doesn't work. So that's the Pinball Brothers. Really disappointed in this offering. I think between Queen and this, this company really needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror and hire a marketing person like Kaneda to help guide them because I think they're making some clueless moves. Now, speaking of clueless moves, Home Pin and the Blues Brothers pinball machine, absolutely clueless move. It's going to bomb. Mike has no idea what he's doing. He's not that talented. He doesn't know what people want. he's making a game for buyers that don't exist. He's like, I'll make him this game for the non pinball enthusiast who wants a pinball machine, aka nobody. There is nobody out there that wakes up that's like not really into pinball, but would be if there was a game for $5,000. This is how delusional a guy like Mike is. Most of the modern world, people wake up, most of the modern world is broke. Most people don't have disposable income. Most people, if you gave them $5,000, they would use it for much more important things. And so if you're into pinball and you're a pinball enthusiast and you buy a lot of new in box pinball machines, you're a pinball enthusiast and you want a game that makes you want it more than the games you currently own. And that's the challenge of all modern new in box it has to be enticing enough to make its way into your collection because you're out of room you're not out of money you're out of room and so when you make a game like freaking the blues brothers there's no way anyone is going to free up room to put that game into their home and there's no way some like just random joe off the street is going to want one because he's not in at those Stern Pros for $6,500. But oh man, Mike, if you can make this work at five, I'm a buyer. That person does not exist. Mike's home pin is done. This is what the end looks like, people. If you want to know what the end of a pinball company looks like, it is Blues Brothers Open Source with one of the worst layouts and art packages of all time. Game over. American Pinball, game over. I'm hearing other content creators are starting to shill this barbecue game. It's over. It's not fun. It's not good. It has no place in modern pinball. This company is another company being let off the track, crash and burn. David Fix has done nothing. What move is David Fix made with Mukesh's money that actually worked out? He's taken somebody else's money. He hasn't been accountable. He hasn't been responsible. And if I was making the decisions over at American Pinball. Do you think what I would have brought you was Legends of Valhalla, Galactic Tank Force, and Barry O's Barbecue Challenge? That's the only three moves David Fix has made, and he's done it over like five years. It's an absolute disaster, and that company is also game over. And if Ryan McQuaid's Cuphead ever sees the light of day, guess what? You're not buying it. It ain't gonna happen. again because now we're getting to the bottom of the barrel right the barrel's not fun the bottom of the barrel and this pinball hobby it's really brutal like look at haggis pinball you know how i feel about haggis pinball damien and marty lied to a lot of people they don't know what they're doing i think they're out of money they're not communicating if they were capitalized and i think those refunds from flipping out are going to have to start flowing someday in the near future but we'll probably never see a single person get a refund because I don't think this company will ever throw in the towel because this is how these companies die. They never really die. I mean, look at Zidware. Like Zidware is still around. In some capacity, we're still seeing Zidware live. Like we're gonna talk about Dutch, like the Raza and Magic Girl IP is still being absorbed by new pinball ventures. Nothing ever dies in pinball. And I wish we could just announce this company is over. Like that pinball circus, done. Zidware, done. Deep Root, done. Like the majority of people who have tried to make it work in pinball have failed. And so I think Haggis Pinball, and I think Marty and Damien should be ashamed of themselves. And I think they bit off more than they can chew. And I think every week they go by and say nothing. That silence is deafening. And I can't imagine anyone who's going to invest in their pinball venture. All right, let's go over to Dutch. My boy's over at Dutch. You know me. I'm really rooting for Barry in this Back to the Future game. It is not going to be shown at Pinball Expo in October. So that means they're probably not going to have the game on the line on Back to the Future Day in October. And, you know, they've got to make the remaining Lebowskis. And then they've got this Alice in Wonderland. I think it's going to be priced at $14,000. They're making 500 of them. And I apologize. There's some construction going on outside. I can't control New York City. But I don't know, man. I don't know now. I think like 500 Alice in Wonderland, is that going to work at $14,000? The more I say it out loud, I don't think it's really going to work. Remember, they couldn't even sell like 250 Razzas. Magic Girl only sold because they were making 16. Where did Melvin do the market research to think that there was 500 collectors out there that want to own a John Papadiuk somewhat designed game with the artwork of Zombie Yeti who wants nothing to do with the game. And I keep telling Barry, and I know Melvin might listen to this, guys, you got to market this game differently. You're not doing it right. You can't just show the underside of the game and then nothing. Every week you need a new pulse point. You need to build the hype of this game and not just pull the curtain off and say, voila, here it is. And everyone's just going to buy it. It's not going to work like that. But they're not going to listen to me because, again, everyone thinks their baby is beautiful in pinball until the pinball buying community tells them it's not. All right. So we got them. Then we got Multimorphic, The Prince's Bride. This is another game where it's like, I feel like this game's been out, but it's not out. It's like, I don't know why Jerry revealed it so early. I just don't like this again because you just stop caring. It's like these games come out months ago. You preorder it and then you're not going to get it for like month after month after month. And I think everybody out there needs to stop this. Like if you're going to reveal a game, the game better be on the line. And I also just don't see people investing like $10,000 to $13,000 on multi-morphic platforms. again like not a bad game but that's a lot of money this platform needs to be like 6500 jerry needs to give away the platform with the game people want as a way to get people into this but at thirteen thousand dollars or twelve thousand dollars i'm not a taker and then also with the princess bride it got all weird where there's like that collector's edition cabinet has the swords on the side but then it doesn't make any sense how do you swap in a heist and then your cabinet's got Mr. Montoya's like swords permanently on the side of the cabinet. It's like Jerry's almost making like a permanent game and it's still supposed to be a swappable platform. So that's multi-morphic. Then we've even got more companies, people. This is just what's so stupid. Can you tell the market is oversaturated and almost every game is like over $10,000? It's stupid. I know it's going to collapse. It's just a matter of time, people. It's going to happen. Thousands of games waiting unsold hundreds if not thousands of more games coming out from all these hopeful companies you know then we've got andrea pedretti right not pinball brothers andrea pedretti with his funhouse remake which he wants eleven thousand dollars for the nice version it's just not gonna work where is this game you know i also heard that like the distributor in america is going to be rick over at planetary it's not like it's going to be coin taker or automated i think rick is going to be selling these games and like I think it's a day late in a dollar short fun house wasn't the game everybody was clamoring for there's already so many fun houses out there and the word on the street is that Pedretti's build quality is not the best and so it's going to be tough it's going to be really tough selling the game for that much money I don't know how many games can there be can't we just get die hard can't we just get fifth element can't we just get Akira? Can't we just get Big Trouble in Little China, Bloodsport, Total Recall? I could go down a list. Conan the Barbarian, Matrix. Can't we just get stuff that excites us? And that's what's really missing right now for me in all of this. It's like there's not a theme that's around the corner that I just can't wait to see other than Back to the Future. And yet I just named like over 10 pinball companies and it shouldn't be like this. And I think we need more magic and somebody's got to have the courage to lower the prices because it's just too high. Nobody's going to consistently keep buying 10 to 13 to $15,000 machines. It's just not going to happen. And that's going to be the story of 2024. Just wait and see everybody wait and see, and you'll get a good deal, but maybe just stop buying, maybe just stop buying and enjoy everything you have. Like life is really short. Your life is not going to be better because you keep buying new pinball machines. You probably haven't been to the wizard mode on almost all of your machines. And maybe, maybe you're going to realize what I've realized, what Jenga's realized, what my boy Derek realizes. My boy Derek, by the way, just sold his Pirates of the Caribbean CE and his Willy Wonka. He got out. He sold both of his games. He's going to California. He's starting a new chapter in his life. I feel a lot of connection with Derek right now because I'm also starting a new chapter in my life. And you just want to cleanse yourself of some of this stuff, like holding on to these super high end, rare pinball machines. It's not making us happier. It's actually more stressful. Like, what do I do with them? How do I maintain them? When you play them, you feel like you're sort of putting miles on a on a rare exotic. And I don't know, like that's not what pinball is supposed to be. And trust me when I say this, then I'm going to go. The guy having the most fun in pinball bought something like a whitewater like 15 years ago for 500 bucks because some arcade was throwing it out. He spent $500 on it and he's beating on it every day of his life and it makes him happy. He loves the game and that's it. He's not on pin side arguing with other alcoholic like rich dudes who have no lives. He's just enjoying his pinball machine and that's where it's at. It's all about the community. It's all about us hanging out together and you don't need to like even buy any new in-box machines just to be up on what's happening in pinball. You can listen to Canadian Pinball Podcast. You can read some pin side, go on Facebook and just engage with the community. It doesn't cost anything. And until these companies put something worth it in a box, why would anyone run at any of this stuff? We're not investors in these companies. We should be investors in our health, in our family, and in our friends. Invest there first. And the thing that Derek said to me, he's like, Chris, I'm selling my pins. I'm going to California and I want to start taking care of myself again, taking care of my body and feeling good again. Because pinball can sometimes be a real stationary sport, people. It's not going to make you feel better inside. It's not going to make you healthier. It's not going to make you happier because you have more. Get yourselves in the right place mentally, physically, financially, and then have a few pinball machines you enjoy. That sounds like great balance to me. Happy Monday, everybody. Kaneda out. Just another manic Monday