off the buttons. Hey, look at that. Let me do the intro again. Hey, see that's why this is the good. We're working the bugs out and everyone's here to help take care of that. It's the first episode. Dirty Pool Pinball Pool Pool Cast. That's what I should have named it. Uh, what's going on everybody? As I'm doing my intro again, yeah, we're doing our first podcast. It's something new. It's something different. There's no pinball playing today. We're going to chat and the whole point is that you guys can chat with us and uh I am extremely stoked to have right here to my left. Let's see if I can point the right direction. Yeah, we'll go with that. It's not correct, but we're going to go with it. It's Colin from Kineticist. What's going on, man? Hello. Yeah, nice nice to be here. Very Very excited to be on the the first edition of this podcast. Um I've been a big fan. You say that now? Yeah, I say that now. Like an hour from now. Who knows? But for now, it's great. Nice. Nice. So, if you don't know, Kineticist is obviously one of the the bigger uh online pinball publications. And I say online pinball pinball publications specifically because what you do is very different than what say like a an influencer does who has a channel or someone who is like tweeting, you know, uh I think there's something about the written word that is a different type of attention grabbing and uh just a different type of way of absorbing news than trying to fast forward for through YouTube videos and see clips of Kong, right? So, I mean, what do you get more composed, I guess, uh, intentional? I mean, there's there's a reason why I mostly do written work as opposed to video or audio work, uh, because it lets me sort of refine my thinking and make more of a of a focused statement, I guess. Not to say that that video work doesn't do that, but that's just kind of how my brain works. Sure. And I think that you've nailed it where like you get to kind of filter. I'm turning the audio down a little bit since somebody was saying there's a tiny echo. Uh there's something about like you said, you get to filter and take the time to think about what you're writing to give the most concentrated piece of information to somebody as opposed to a YouTube video which may have a lot of fluff in between it. I mean, I think that's pretty neat. How do you go about deciding what an article is that you're going to write? Uh it's it's very um kind of spurof the moment. Like I I would I would like to say I have a really focused editorial calendar, but I don't. Uh because it's pretty reactive to kind of what is going on in the community, what sort of grabs me um for inspiration or or sort of what I've got coming in from contributors on our team. Like we we have some sort of regular things we do like tutorials. We just started a new series um called the scorecard that's sort of recapping uh competitive pinball stuff. But other than that, it's sort of what what kind of grabs my attention, what um kind of gaps I I see in the um kind of pinball content marketplace, marketplace of ideas, if you were um and then go kind of make it happen. And I've seen you also you have like uh Kineticus also operates kind of like an archive too because you have you have information on games, you have information on people that are involved in the industry. So it's not just like news articles talking about whatever the the latest footage of some game being released. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's meant to be more of a of a resource. So like when when I first started it um one of the the issues that that I I had at least in the in the community is I thought that there was like this huge volume of content and information that was out there but it was sort of hard to navigate uh and not very accessible. So, I I sort of wanted to try to bring all of that into one place. Uh, and I found some other hobby projects um that I thought I could sort of build on top of and expand upon. So like there's the OPDB open pinball database project. Um uh with IPDB and all the different all the other what was nice about it is that it it provided um structured data in the in the form of an API that I could sort of take the bones of and then sort of build around that for the games database. uh building out the the content around pinball industry people and also tying that in with some of the location data from pinball map since the the team makes their API. That's Ryan, right? I think Ryan's in the the little kineticist circle as well. Ryan also plays in our league. Uh I talked to him about being on the show. He's a little shy, it seems, but I would I would be stoked if he did come on because I think Pinball Map is an excellent resource. If you don't know what that is, that's where you find that's how you find games. There's good people. So yeah. Yeah, you should you should keep working on them cuz Forever Tilted says he could be mistaken, but he thinks that Kineticist is the is the website that helped him learn a bit about Elwin. Uh which, you know, you may not know who Keith Elwin is. It's pretty unknown person in the pinball industry. Uh who that is. So you're writing an article. How do Okay, so say like a game is released, right? And you know that there's a bunch of other places that are going to be covering the same topic, right? How do you approach it to give it like your voice so that you kind of resonate with the people that are interested in the way that Kineticist tells news? Yeah, so uh mostly I try to um work in some of my own perspective or some of our our own unique information. So, like for a a game release, for example, one of the things that I I like to kind of weave in besides just the like nuts and bolts of what the game is, like pricing, where you can find it, the rules, and such is sort of the context around the the release. So, like what's the the sort of broader community story? What are some of the the sort of key story lines that are going on around the release? Like, uh has it been rumored for a while? Was it leaked? Um, uh, was was there any particular form of like drama surrounding the release? Um, the other thing, is there such a thing as pinball drama? No, never. never. It never happens. It's a It's a very dramafree hobby. Yeah, that makes sense. That That totally checks out. Yeah. Like uh we we do this this thing called the the hype index, right? where we where we track um sort of the the most buzzed themes in the community, the the sort of IP that people want to be turned into a pinball machine. So, I'll pull in, for example, like where on the uh hype rankings was this particular theme before it was released. Was it like number five or number 100? Did it come from left field or something that was known about for a while? Interesting. On that note, I kind of pull some stuff in like that. Oh, that makes sense. Roller Coaster asked. He's like, "What's the stress of getting a new game review out fast enough that it's still on the hype train, but taking the time to make sure that that it's good?" It's a great question. Uh, insanely stressful. Yeah. Uh, it's getting easier over time. Uh, as I've been able to sort of like build relationships in the industry and and sort of get uh sometimes we we can get some of that some of that information ahead of time uh through embargoed releases and and things like that if the sort of trust level is there. Um, otherwise it's sort of a rush. Um, it's probably the the kind of reactive part of the the job that I don't like as much because you you you're sort of withholding to to someone else's schedule. Right. Sure. I imagine the flow for that is a lot. I mean, now that you've been doing it for quite a while, the the process of getting the news out from into your ear holes to out your fingers. Now, now I have now I have templates and structures and workflows and and all this this infrastructure around what we do that that wasn't there from from day one. So, I'm not necessarily always doing those from from scratch every time. Nice. So, you talked you talked about uh releases. Um I know that something I think a lot of the people that are watching are probably curious about is that you got to go to Stern and deal with an entire tour of the facility and a lot of people have posted video of like the floor and all this. I'm curious what what is the process like? Like what is it like getting housing, getting out there? Like what is the scheduling to Stern set up like a time for you to be there where they do kind of like press meet and greet? Like what is it like to dive into the journey of going to a pinball manufacturing headquarters? Yeah. Uh I mean it's like for for anyone who's done business travel, I mean it's it's business travel, right? uh you fly in um I I usually fly in like the day before the event and normally it's like a it's a full day of of activities and Stern will provide uh a pretty detailed schedule of um where we're supposed to be and when sort of the timing of everything, but the rest of it's sort of up to you to get to their factory, book a hotel, get flights, uh get to the factory when you need to be there. Um, and then yeah, it's a whole it's a whole it's a whole day. Um, typically we get there uh in the morning. We'll do a tour, kind of learn some things about the game. Uh, get some hands-on time with the game. Um, do have conversations with the with the creators, answer questions, capture our own footage. Um, it's like a somewhat uh loosely structured uh free-for-all sounds sounds bad, but it's not it's not um uh super tight with the with the scheduling. I would say it seems like Stern's getting better at it. And I'm only isolating Stern Out right now because I know that that's that's one that you had recently been at. But compared to their like D and D launch, uh it it seems that there's a lot of embracing kind of like the younger generation ideas of like including the influencers to be able to get the hype of the game out there instead of just being a release engine where they're like, "Here's our video about the game." Um, yeah, I'm curious if that's been improved between the last time and and this game referring to Kong. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, there were there were major improvements between D and D, the D and D release that they did, um, and Kong, uh, in terms of how they structured the the media day for creators. So there was um uh much more of an emphasis on on sort of providing us with more uh tools for better content capture. So uh one one great example for that is they actually split out a copy of the game uh into its own dedicated conference room uh with its own lighting setup uh and gave us all 15 minutes each uh solo uh with the game to kind of do whatever we wanted. play it or uh take video, whatever we wanted to do. I mean, you think that they would want the best opportunity for the best looking footage to be available to you since they're I mean, they're using you guys, and I don't mean that in an insulting way, but it's free advertisement and they want it's usual, right? Right. We're both getting things out of it for sure. You get to see Kong, you get to play before everybody else, but drives viewership to the website and at the same token, it's like free advertisement. I know. I can't stand that name influencer. Speaking of, our community has asked a question. and he said, he said, "What's the few what from your research is the current highest desired IP or what are the top let's say the top two?" Yeah. Uh, so we had that on our on our on our homepage pretty quick. Um, so Back to the Future is the big one that has been for a while. Pokemon, Harry Potter, He-Man, Goonies, Beetlejuice, Tron, which has been rumored to be under production by Dutch, I think. And that may or may not have any video assets. Yeah. Right. Um, yeah, but it's it's the it's the themes everyone sort of cares about that sort of I guess. Thanks so much to your hammer for the sub. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much. Um, Kaval says he wants to be a pin influencer. I'm not sure I really like that term. I think that influencers in general uh it's a it's a weapon. Little it's a little cringe, right? It's like uh it's maybe a little reductive, but for sure. Um, so we'll take a side step. I have some other questions, but uh you're on record saying that your top four favorite pinball machines are Joker Poker, Deadpool, World Cup Soccer, and Labyrinth. Do you care to update that list? No. Uh not right now. I mean, it it changes all the time. It's like um trying to ask a music fan what their like favorite album or artist is or uh Sure. What an imposs what an impossible question, right? It's so frustrating when people are like those are all those are all things games that I guess I mean a couple of them like legitimately mean something to me like um Joker Poker uh the one we have at home. It's the EM version. Uh and it's actually a machine uh the same machine my wife grew up with in her house. Um and we took over ownership of it from her dad uh 2015 2016 something like that. And that that is what sort of like kicked off my my kind of love affair uh with the hobby and sort of set me down a rabbit hole of of discovery for uh for pinball. Um and then so this is a sentimental game. I think a lot of people have a favorite game based on sentimental aspect. I think if you consider the playfield right in its entirety, right? Like there's maybe something about the IP you love. There's maybe something about the design of the play field, like how it flows, how it plays, or there might be a memory attached to it, cuz like I have that with Lord of the Rings. Um, both in similar sentimental ways, but also in in currently in ways that I wanted to to burn in the on my garage and cut it up into a pile of wood. I'm tired of trying to get to Valenor. This is a different conversation. Uh, however, uh, Caval has asked, uh, what's your number five? You got to expand the list. It's the the Illuminati require a fifth number five. Oh my god. That's an impossible question. Not that it's it's not only possible. It's happening. It's possible. Let's say let's say let's let's like let's do a hot take. Uh Dune. Okay. Wow. So, I got to say I'm I'm on team Dune. I've heard a this is a good segue. We had a short little talk about that right before. Uh what's up, Mikey? Uh you mentioned Dune. I'm team Dune currently. uh even though I am picking up both a Dune and a Kong, but uh people have been saying very heavily that the code for Dune is very underbaked. And something that I've been critical on the channel and I think is a worth worthwhile discussion is that the gaming market now is releasing games with unfinished code. And I see that as both a frustrating thing, but also as an opportunity because they're using their customer base to kind of like play test it to find out what could improve it in a way. So, not only are people that are going into this early acting as kind of like a filter to make the game better, but they're also being given a product that's not complete. And I think that that is a problem in the industry right now. What's your what's your hot take on that? Yeah, you know, it doesn't it honestly doesn't bother me uh as much as a lot of other people, but I'm I'm not buying new and box games day one. So, uh I Yeah, you'd have to be a stupid idiot to do that for sure. Yeah, who who would do that? Uh but I I mean I I sort of like the journey um that you go on with the game over over six to to 12 months, sort of seeing it uh evolve and develop. as long as it as long as that definitely happens. I think that's sort of the rub sometimes is that um it doesn't necessarily always happen. It's not a guarantee that you're going to go from uh point8 on release to one and beyond 6 to 12 months later, but sure uh depending on the company for the most part it that happens. Um uh but like I I just I sort of think through the business realities too of like trying to make sure that uh something as complex as a as a pinball machine is fully code complete from from day one um solely relying on on internal testing. Right. I think that and there's only so much internal testing you can do. But, you know, the internet kind of ruined gaming in a lot of ways because if you think about let's look at Nintendo games. Let's look at, you know, the state of gaming before Steam existed. Uh, games, you had to make it as kind of locked as you could because you couldn't go out and replace a ROM and a cartridge over, you know, overseas and suddenly fix problems in your game. Now you've got the opportunity where you can have any portion of your game update at any moment and I think that doesn't motivate the company to provide a polished product in terms of code and then on top of that there's more competition in the marketplace which is great. I mean, shout out to like Padretti, Dutch, you know, CGC. There's so many there's so many companies that are now in the pinball marketplace that now they're trying to make sure that they get the games out to beat the other company. So, it's like you got two layers of frustration there. Yeah. So, but I don't there's nothing that's going to change that. People want the latest and greatest. There's not there's not a lot of incentive to like people are still buying the games. Um there are a few uh I it's it's really a vocal minority it feels like of of people who are truly upset by the state of release code. Um but maybe maybe that's not true. Maybe Maybe there's more behind the scenes that that I just don't see. Yeah. I mean it's the people that have the outlet of the voice that are complaining about it the most. I don't think most people that run into an arcade and put a few quarters into D and D are going to notice that the magnet shuts off after 30 or 40 minutes. It's just it's a small sample and as a business I don't think Stern is interested just using Stern as an example since I mentioned D and D but and even even for my own for my own business like I'm I'm mostly like a soloreneur like I I build everything on my own, write everything on my own. I I would much rather sort of get the work out in in an 80% state and like get feedback on it and adjust than try to get it to 100% on release. Sure. I I just don't know how people are going to react to things sometimes. I forgot I forgot I left my shout outs on. Uh by the way, Borg Dog's here, everybody. Uh as a quick side note, thank you everybody for jumping on. We've got a whole honking amount of people here. Uh, if you aren't familiar with who I'm talking to, let's do another introduction. We're talking to Colin. It's from Kineticist. Look it. There he is. I'm pointing the wrong direction again. Hi, Colin. Uh, we're talking about We got a little sidetracked, dude. We started talking about how code and games is kind of not there. But let's let's reel it back to what it's like running a a publication about pinball news. So, reel me back. You said like maybe three years ago or whatever, you're having your coffee in the morning on a Sunday and you're like, "Fuck it. I'm going to make a pinball news site." What is what is the origin story of kineticist? Um so yeah uh we we start officially launched in like um 2022 uh with kineticist. I was working on it under a different name maybe 6 to 8 months before that uh pretty casually. It was actually what was what was the name? Was it a good name? I feel like kineticist is pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. Uh it was called game room dude. Okay. It was just like it's a very early YouTube name. Yeah. It was so so dumb. I was like I can't I can't get fully behind this name. So I had to I had to change it. No No shade though. There are a few great channels like classic game room or there's uh Todd's channel too, you know, playmoreames.com. Like there's a bunch of like sites that have similar type names that uh where the content makes up for for maybe the name. Sure. For sure. Uh um you know it was it was something that that I've I've done before. So like my my career before um doing this was more in the in the marketing side for agencies and startups. And you went to school for a bit of this, right? Yeah. So I went to school Itha College. Uh I actually started as a as a BFA film and photography major uh before transitioning uh into integrated marketing communications because I wanted to actually make money after school. Uh so there's there's a lot of this this kind of stuff that that I I kind of come by honestly that that I have a passion for uh and and kind of always have. Um but um one of the uh the sort of side projects that that I love doing early in my career is I had a couple uh of similar kind of media sites. The first one I did uh was called 5:00 Dallas.com. Uh, and it was like a happy hour community website uh sort of uh sort of pre pre YELP or sort of as as Yelp was growing. It was kind of alongside that where it was really an excuse for uh my my wife and I uh having just moved to the Dallas area out of college to find all of the like cheap bar happy hour spots that we could go hang out with and sort of catalog that for for everyone else. I mean, I would like to know where those are. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then after that, uh, we, uh, got got super into the local music scene. So, we built, um, kind of a small indie music blog covering the scene in Dallas and and beyond and did that for a few years. So, it was really going back to that kind of playbook of combining um a passion with uh content creation essentially uh in in kind of a a news uh at at the time it was called more of like a citizen journalism format. Uh that's I guess it's still sort of what it is. Um at some point you got bit by the pinball bug. Yeah. Yeah, I got bit by the pinball bug. Uh, and I was kind of burned out on on my day job and uh that that whole thing. So, I was like, well, let me let me at least just like try this this playbook again uh for something that I'm, you know, actually actually passionate about. Uh, and just sort of see where it goes. Um, and it's been no look back ever ever since. Yeah. I mean, obviously, Kinesis has grown quite a lot. Is it uh is it your full-time outlet? It is. Or do you do you have a side? Do you have have do you have a side job and or is are you just it's just kineticist? No, it's it's just kineticist. I I'll I'll do uh some consulting work every now and again, but for me to do this the right way, I have to be full-time on it. That's so awesome to hear. I swear to God, I thought you were going to say, "No, this is my side job. I have this other thing that I'm doing." Well, no, it's just like it shows work. Yeah, it is a lot of work. Oh my lord. I'm finding that out. But, uh, it's, yeah, here it is. If you have a passion and an interest in something and you dedicate enough time to it, like, you can make it, you can make it your primary. That's just how it is. And you're obviously proof of that. Uh, we have a absolute shitload of questions to get through. Let me filter some of these real quick. Some of them are are good. Uh, Forever Tilted says, "So, maybe a dumb question." What? No dumb questions, just dumb answers, right? No. Uh he's asking if Kineticus has ever wrote about or asked if pinball m manufacturers will make a more solid attempt for an inhome. I assume he means like uh Stern's attempt at a home pin with the Jurassic Park or the upcoming Alice in Wonderland from what is it? Wonder Wonderland Amazements I think is the name of the company. Yeah. I guess I guess like what is what is deficient from of the of the current offerings in in I'm assuming it's price accessibility. I mean, like, let's be honest, especially in the current landscape of things, like people don't have five $6,000 to just throw at a at an entertainment wooden box filled with metal bibs and bobs, you know? Yeah, it's it's tough. I mean, uh that's that's kind of the thesis behind Wonderland, right? Is Is they they wanted a a more affordable home machine that still felt like real pinball. Um whether or not they can deliver on that kind of remains to be seen. Uh, I think the bar has been set already for what a pinball machine feels like. So, anything less than that is going to feel cheap and that they're fighting an uphill battle. I don't wish poorly on it, but I think the reality is is like if you're used to driving a car all the time and then you you buy a $4,000 car and it's like a soapbox car that you would race downhill in the like French soap box open or whatever, you're not going to feel like you got a good deal. Yeah. There There if you you if you look outside the like the core pinball enthusiast enthusiast community like there are so many people who have not had that experience, right? And And where that that sort of home model will be their entry point into pinball just like the uh arcade one-ups have been for a lot of arcade gamers. Um there's even a bunch of people who got into full-size pinball coming out of the arcade oneup space. So, I I think I think there's there's a place for a product like that. I think if you're an enthusiast, though, you just sort of have to keep your expectations in check a little bit. Yeah, for sure. Uh, Archimedes says he agrees with congratulations that we got 100 messages today. Thanks, Archimedes. I know that's not where you're actually pointing your your little arrow for. He's really talking about more for classic machines, which is crazy that the pinball market is just so expensive for like when I was first getting into collecting. Like my first game that I bought was a Road Kings and I got it for like $400. It had a little bit of board damage cuz I didn't know to look for acid leaks and all that. Uh but you just can't do that anymore. The The biggest the biggest like barrier to entry back when pinball machines were more affordable as like a collector's item was the weight and size and transportation of it. And now it is I feel more of a financial issue. Yeah. Yeah. It's It's a financial issue. It's a it's a skills issue. Accessibility. Um like if you're not if you're not in like an urban area, for example, it can be harder to find. Yeah. One of uh I think it was Mad Mountaineer was talking about the other day that uh you know he lives in a pinball desert. He has to drive an hour to go play a game. And you could look at arcades as the uh ability to test a game, right? It's like going to a showroom almost. like you have the opportunity to to test out a game before blowing 5 $10,000 or whatever it's going to be. Uh funny Geio Hammer says he's like versioning is a very arbitrary without a road map. Um funny you say that because just about 5 to 10 minutes ago Stern sent out a road map for their uh new software updates coming out. And boy oh boy is it maximum disappointment. Pop up that email. Take a look. It says, let's see, they're adding a uh new thing to John Wick uh for I don't know, like Teams or something. I forget what the name is. They're adding a code. Let me pull up the email here. It's we're we're [ __ ] shooting the [ __ ] about it. We might as well. But it's a nice step in the right direction, but good lord, it is just the absolute worst uh kind of like road map you could possibly, you know, think of. Well, that that is is sort of like one point of feedback that I would have for the industry as a whole is is why is there not more of a roadmap for releases, for code updates, for all kinds of things? Transparency is an is a massive issue with pinball companies. It's It's disgusting. I just I get the transparency or I'm sorry, I get the like the hiding the hype for new games and like what IP it's going to be. Like there's kind of a I don't know like pinball people love to speculate. They love to [ __ ] and moan about which IP it's going to be. They love to play the game like what game's it going to be and then when it comes out it's like I was right or I wasn't right or man why the [ __ ] would you make that game? Like how dare you how dare you ruin my childhood by choosing to make Dune instead of making G.I. Joe. And it's like bro however software updates should be transparent as as day as clear as day. should have in the future see the development road map uh for sort of like what you have planned from point8 to 1.2 or whatever until until you think it's feature complete like that that would be nice but I think having a projected timeline would sure I think having a projected timeline would also make sure that their programmers are hitting deadlines too like without any posted date there's no like Right. Exactly. So, uh, Roller Coaster says it doesn't help that Tim Ston left. That's absolutely true. I mean, that's just part of business. It's not It's not like Stern planned on that. Sure. They did talk about how they're adding here. What's the actual It says that the next update will be focused on implementing a new factions and perk system. So, that seems pretty that's not just like, for example, you're going to love this one. Let's compare that to D&D's upcoming update. I don't know if you've read this. It says the the next update will be implementing the new character progress feature. That sounds okay until you keep reading where it says within Insider Connected allowing you to view your character progress on your IC app. Who [ __ ] cares? That's so unrelated to the game. That's an Insider Connected update. And for the state of that game, that's that's not an okay update at all in my opinion. Oh my lord. Uh, all right. Let's see. Opinions of older machines being remastered, says Yoda Bongri, which is finally not something about him talking about wanking it to my stream. So, I appreciate a legitimate question coming from Yoda Bong Rip. Uh, I don't have a problem with it. I think that what they did with Metallica, the artwork's great. I think it's a huge improvement. I don't like the LCD screen. I don't like watching bands, especially not in their prime, being like live footage on there. That's just not personally for me. Um, but I think what they did on the Playfield artwork is pretty great. Yeah, I I like what they did with Metallica. I think they it was it was an additive release rather than just being a complete remaster or like reskinning of an existing game. Like they added new code, they added new modes, new artwork. I think I think as as long as they're sort of using it as an opportunity to build on the existing platform, I'm all for it. If it was just sort of a we're gonna rehash an old design and not do anything new with it, I think I might be a little more bored by it, I guess. Um, but the way they approached Metallica, I thought was great. So, Yoda Yoda's doing a follow-up. He's talking about classic remakes. He's talking about Theater Magic. That's a Papa game family. Yeah, I have a Attack from Mars remake. And again, I think I think it's it's more interesting when they're when they're going in and adding like the the 2.0 code. U I think the biggest complaint people have with the remakes is that it depreciates the value of the originals. And uh you and I have mentioned this in the past and I think I don't care. Right. So that's what I was about to say is that pinball machines aren't stocks. Like if you're buying your game to like to put it in a closet and hope that it builds value so that you can sell it for Yeah. I'd rather I'd rather more people get an opportunity to to play that game uh and play like a working copy of that game um than have it uh uh maintain a high resale value. And it's not like I mean I don't have like the numbers in front of me, but it's not like the remakes are like tanking uh the existing value of games. Like it's making maybe a little more accessible, but it's not it's not a drastic change, I don't think. Also, it's allowing people that may never be able to play a game like that that doesn't have a lot of units still like in good condition, you know, available to people. Like, [ __ ] man. John Papadiuk games aren't exactly growing on trees and finding them in arcades isn't like especially in good condition isn't like everywhere. I uh I own World Cup soccer. I would love if they made another like a new remastered version of World Cup soccer. That'd be awesome, right? For sure. Um, but enough of the side tangent. Let's Let's bring it back to Kineticis. So I let let me ask what is like what has like been the most gratifying moment that that has occurred since you start like you're thinking like man this never would have happened if I didn't start kineticism. What a cool thing like I don't know sharing shaking Gary Stern hand or or just something that that is a unique moment because you went down this path of making a a pinball news publication. Yeah, I I think a lot of my interactions with the industry um in general have been pretty rewarding. More so, I think on the community side, like there's just like a there are a lot of people that I wouldn't have met um that I wouldn't I I wouldn't have friendships uh that I have today uh if it wasn't for the work that been doing kineticist. Um, but yeah, I mean, go being able to go out to uh tour Stern's factory and go out and tour JJP's factory and Barrels of Fun and all those people are are experiences that I I wouldn't have had uh were it not for Kineticis. So, I'm, you know, pretty thankful for that. It's been extremely rewarding. Amazing. Do you think that something I'm like worried about as the channel is growing like that going into a hobby and creating kind of like a job around it? is were you ever worried that it might damage your appreciation for pinball or that you wouldn't want to play pinball as a hobby anymore? Uh not necessarily cuz I I think I have I've known enough about myself to just know that I'm that that's sort of how how I'm wired, right? Like uh one of my hobbies for a while was uh home brewing beer. Uh right. And And a worthy goal. Yeah. And I I went I went through some pretty pretty extensive steps towards opening up um brewery, right? It's just I in in order for me to be the best that I can be uh at the work that I do, I have to be interested in what I'm doing, interested in the in the subject matter and engaging with the topic and learning about it. Uh and frequently that that means it it probably has to be a hobby of of mine as well for me to go all in. I mean, going all in is kind of the only way to do it, like you said, especially if you're going to do it full-time. Yes. It's like I could I could never do this about like I I don't know. Uh I I couldn't do it in like B2B SAS, right? Because I I just don't I don't care. It's It's boring to me. Uh so I couldn't like create a a news site about uh APIs, right? It just wouldn't it wouldn't work. You got to love it. You got to love You got to love pinball. Anybody who's doing the pinball news, the pinball hobby, the pinball I'm going to tournaments, YouTube channels, whatever it is, it's just cuz we love what we're doing, man. Pinball's dope. Uh Tommy, thank you so much for the for the raid. Uh fun with bonus. Amazing. That's cool. Uh thank you for the follow. I hope you enjoyed that bath. Um yeah, let me see what else I got in my notes here. Do you play in tournaments at all or are you just so fulltime in the news? before I had a kid. Yeah, I so I I kind of started I got you. Okay, it's amateur hour here. Episode one. Anyways, um so I I started in like league and tournament pinball. So the the New Robert Englunds Pinball League is is my big thing. I'm on the I'm on the the board for that. Um uh but before I started creating content around pinball, I was actually helping my friend Joe Lemir um who who's uh big in the in the competitive scene uh run a series of pinolf events called um Pin Masters of New Robert Englunds that kind of fed into the larger national IFPA pin masters series. One of the best one of the best tournament formats, right? Yeah. Know it's a lot of fun. It's It's very approachable. Um, so I helped him run that for like a year or two uh before getting into content creation and I was all all into playing in tournaments and uh you know like traveling for Pinberg and and all that kind of stuff. Uh but then yeah had a had a kid and I don't have time to devote to tournaments as much as I used to. So that's that's kind of fallen by the wayside. But the beauty of the of the content creation stuff is it's sort of given me another avenue to engage with the hobby and and talk to my friends about pinball uh without uh doing the hair. Uh this is it's pretty funny. Excellent time for another shout out from Tommy. Tommy uh we rated a couple of days ago. Tommy is literally IFPA number five. That's how old school uh competitive play he is. Uh what's going on, man? Thanks for joining the stream. Uh, Ekalon wants to know, "What's your thoughts on Vins, Vpin cabinets?" I I don't I think it's great. Any Any way that that people uh find to engage with pinball in all of its forms, I think, is awesome. It's not something that I'm I'm interested in personally. Uh, but I know a lot of people are. Um, I will play um like Pinball FX on my PlayStation every now and again. Um, so I'm like neutral to good on it, I guess. Yeah, I know a handful of pinball effects players. Uh, one of them is not good at all. In fact, I think he's the worst pinball effects player and he's here with us right now. It's Brass League. Hey, Brass League. What's up, man? Um, I feel like gatekeeping for the pinball hobby has gone down over the last like decade or so as people have become more into the hobby. What do you What do you think? Yeah, I I mean, uh, let's see. I've been in the hobby really in earnest since like 2017 or so. I think I think the gatekeeping's gone down since then. Um it's hard to objectively measure it, but yeah, I mean that's that's sort of the approach that that I try to have personally. So, and I think maybe the responsibility of people like you and other influencers to kind of, you know, be what you want to be in the tournament setting, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean we we don't do a ton of uh articles on it, but you know, every every now and again we'll we'll dip our toes into the virtual pinball space uh cuz it's just it's just another avenue to um to explore the hobby with. Do you have metrics on like how your uh articles perform in terms of viewership? Uh yeah. What is what's an article that you were like, "Man, this one's so awesome and I can't wait to release it." And it just like didn't hit. And you were like, "Man, people are really missing out on this like incredibly good article that I wrote like once a month." I mean, frequently. Gez. Yeah. Well, I mean, you just you just never know, right? Like I I don't know if you ever come across other other creators where like sometimes it's it's the it's the work that that they put put the least amount of effort into that gets the most traction sometimes. And we're Well, that's me. I try to do as little as possible. Yeah. Um but like I mean I I think I think by by now I sort of have enough of a sense for how things will perform as I'm working on it. Um so I I guess I'm not caught off guard too much. But yeah, every every now and again I'll I'll throw out like a a segment in in addition of this week in pinball, for example, that I I think will get more pickup or people talking about it that will like generate some conversation and it doesn't. Uh and yeah, that can be kind of disappointing. Uh speaking of this week in pinball, I wasn't even I wasn't I knew the anagram at some point uh but I didn't know what it was. Would you like I think you should talk about it a little bit as there's a larger number of people here that may not know what it is and may want to be involved in it because it is you know weekly in the name. Yeah. Yeah. So this this week in pinball is not did not originate with me. Kineticist is is mine. Uh and I started at first. Uh this week in pinball was started uh by this guy Jeff Patterson. uh I want to say it was like 2015 2016 and he he started as a as a blog um before anyone else was really doing that that kind of thing at least at least in that in that kind of format. Um and he he developed this whole community around it uh crazy readership. Uh at one point I think he did a he did a podcast uh and it eventually rolled into the Twippy Awards too. Um that that started with him. Um and then a few years later he uh steps back from the hobby uh sort of turns over that whole entity uh to this other guy that he was working with, Will Eding. Um and then maybe a year or two later, Will reaches out to me uh as I was building Kineticist, uh cuz he needed to help um writing the the sort of weekly updates for the site. U which I was like, hell yeah. Uh I've I've been a reader of This Week in Pinball. I think it's great. I don't want to see it die, right? And I could use the the kind of practice reps uh writing about pinball. So, I was I was sort of doing that behind the scenes for a few months um uh before he eventually approached me to buy it. Um so, I I did. I was like, "Yeah, makes sense." Uh you know, uh pull in pull in that audience into Kineticist, keep it going alive. um sort of preserve a lot of that great content that was there. Um and then I I sort of tweaked it though um where it was more of like a like a blog like news style site before I turned it into more of like an email newsletter um so it could be a little more complimentary uh with the work that we were doing with Kineticist which was more I was going to say that blends really well with the format that already exists on site. I mean, I would say Kineticus kind of almost reminds me, and I mean this in the most positive way, like kind of a Gawker Media site before [ __ ] went downhill because it's both both in its art style, its formatting. It's It's to me it seems very formatted that way. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Before [ __ ] hit the fan, right? Yeah. I mean, if if we could go go back to that version of the internet to a certain extent, I think it would be great. more uh blogs and websites, less uh social media profiles back when before everything was trying to be shaped to get whatever like impressions and all this crap. Oh my lord, what a nightmare. Uh would you is there anything in particular if somebody was watching this as a VOD or something and they were like, "Man, I kind of want to build a news site." What is like a pitfall that you were like, "Holy crap, if I could do this all over again, don't don't do this or do do this." You can say dood do. I have a potty mouth. Do Yeah. Uh I mean I think it depends what your objectives are. Like the the biggest thing is just get started doing it. Don't Don't plan it. Like don't don't over plan it. Don't overengineer it. Just start like putting putting stuff out in the wild and getting in the in the habit of publishing. Uh and dive in, figure it out. Yeah. And you know engage engage with the existing community. Um, uh, I think that's that's a big part of it, too. Um, but like pitfalls, um, yeah, it's all it's all been sort of trial and error, uh, to a certain extent. Um, uh, I'm yeah, I'm blanking on like major major mistakes. I mean, I think that, uh, your point about community being the like the most important part of it is like very true. And I think that most platforms don't survive without people that are actually, you know, supporting the content, you know, and you kind of drive the people that you want to be involved in it. Um, which I'm pleased. I think our community is pretty good. They do a good job of, uh, you know, interacting in, I think, the most positive sense. And in a pinball sense, I would say I feel like pinball should be like a philosophy, not just like it's a state of mind. It isn't just like a game. Yeah. I think I think if if you approach it in the right way, it very much is kind of the philosophy and and the state of mind and and sort of finding people that uh align uh with that that state of mind more often than they don't is is Have you played at a tournament with a bad apple? Do you have a bad apple story? Yeah. No. Uh I I don't I don't have my own story, but like I've I've been around a few. What's the greatest breakdown you've seen at a pinball tournament? No names. just like what's the what's the most amazing freakout you've seen? You know, I I don't honestly don't think I've seen very many like noteworthy freakouts. The most that I see is people like yelling loudly or like banging a machine um or just acting a little too aggressive for the situation. That That impact on the game might have done better during play instead of after the draining. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah, we have that have that focus at a different time. Um, yeah, it's um I Yeah, I can't I haven't I haven't seen too many. That's good. I should play in your area. No, we we haven't had that many bad apples either. It's just it's hard to say. Everybody has a moment of weakness. I've definitely punched the glass like once or twice, you know, but in our in our community at least, um I I think the the bad apples, they either learn how to not be a bad apple or they get sort of weeded out. Sure. I feel like people that are running tournaments need to be responsible for kind of like not being afraid to nyx those people from the community because if you just allow that kind of toxicity to kind of promote then it just sees it. Uh do you have a grail pin? Grail pin. Not right now. No. Uh no. Okay. No. Well, because I'm I'm intentionally uh trying not to entice myself with buying machines while I have a child in daycare because dayare it's expensive, man. People that don't have kids don't get how much of a time and like we don't we don't have a ton of room for it. So, it's it's sort of like like I I used to Antonio Cruz um the uh like the pinside listings all the time. Uh I I intentionally don't do that as much. Uh, I mean, I have maybe a little bit of a suggestion for that. I don't know how open you are. That might help. Um, if you put your kid up for adoption, then you should have a lot of space. Yep. And then you could have like more than one game. Yep. Uh, Arimedi says there's a couple people in his area that try to sandbag. Ew. Like I know who you are, who who you're pretending to be, and you don't know how to play this game, and you just blow it up to [ __ ] with me mentally. Yeah, Matt, the mind game. I don't know about that. Is the mind game an okay thing to do in tournament play? Yes, absolutely. If you I'd have to agree with you. As long as it's not done in a harmful, derogatory like, you know, no, because that's that's just that's just uh the the spirit of competition, right? It's that's just it's like trash talking in a game or or whatever. It's just fun. Yeah. I mean, that's what the competitive landscape of playing tournament is all about, right? If you you could just play at home if you didn't want that potential aspect of it. Yeah, Shane likes to talk [ __ ] about people while they're playing. He's a real big poo poo face when it comes to tournament play. But, uh, but he has all the greatest games and I'm really looking forward to finals, which is this Thursday for us. Um, anyways, uh, yeah, I mean, I think that kind of covers everything I have in my notes here. Um, cool. I guess I just is there anything else that that has just been an experience for you that just wouldn't have happened without Kineticist? I know I asked you a similar question already, but you talked about the people you met like what's a wholesome moment that happened for you either at, you know, Stern or from a from a person you met. I know I asked you uh last time when we did a kind of premeating on this if there was anybody that you wanted to shout out that was like really important for getting you into the hobby or getting you launching Kineticist or whatever. Uh, and I forget you mentioned Kyle I want to say. I forget the name, but uh, yeah, one one of our one of our contributors, Noah CrarAel, uh, has been really that's close to a Kyle. Yeah, it's it's like sort of sounds Kyle Jason. Uh, he's he's it's been great having him involved and and sort of getting to know him better throughout this process. Um, I we'll say, um, uh, a couple of sort of inspirations for the the sort of ethos or or sort of vibe of the of the site or the project are, uh, a couple of local guys, Chuck Webster, uh, who runs our league and, uh, is a local operator. Um, the sort of spirit of what we're doing is very much pulled from from how he runs the league. uh as well as a a local operator here named Mitchell Curtis um who was very uh influential in terms of sort of getting me involved with the the sort of the the community side of things. Um I have uh another question that I totally forgot that's amazing and I think is a very important one. Uh you do travel a lot for all of this is not a joke this time. I'm not going to tell you to get rid of your kid for more pinball machines. You know you should do that already. Um the uh you spend a lot of time traveling to events. Yeah. What are what are like three events that are not huge and that deserve to be in the spotlight and known about? I mean, it's got to be so hard to organize people to travel from all over the world, even the nation, whatever, to come and visit at like, you know, Texas Pinball Festival, something like that. But these events are established. What's one that's tiny that just needs to be known? So, uh, one of my my favorite events that I've been to, um, which I I guess the like more hardcore pinball enthusiasts probably already know about this one, but the it's called the Pinball Olympics. Have you heard of this? I haven't. No, I don't know anything. It's uh it's put on um uh by Scott Denissi and his partner Jay Brand, I think is his name, uh in Chicago around um Expo every year. Um, and they create this this sort of it it's an Olympics course of like these custom modded machines, but these are like the most insane machines you've ever seen. Like they'll hook one up to a treadmill, for example, uh, and you have to run on the treadmill to power it. Um, I think I think I saw that at California Extreme one year. Yeah. They'll like wire two machines together so that uh when you play headto head and you hit uh someone else's stand up, you also like tilt their game at the same time. Like just like really these sort of like custom contraptions. Um and is the most amazing pinball event I've ever been to. So that's that's one of them. Uh I think I think our local show Pantastic probably doesn't like people know about it, but it doesn't get as much love. It's It's sort of um a tier below like a TPF or an expo. Um but I I've said before they they kind of punch above their weight class uh in terms of everything everything that they offer from the the kind of seminar schedule to uh the availability with new games through access to industry professionals things like that. Um, the third one I I guess it would be uh whatever we do next for the Twippies where Oh, it's a self plug. plug. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't I don't know I don't know where or when we're going to have this year's edition. Last year was at uh this place called The Wormhole in Houston. We made a whole weekend out of it. Um unfortunately, The Wormhole uh is now closed unexpectedly. Uh, so we've got to pivot to to a new venue and and we're still kind of working on that, but when it happens um it's it's very much a a community oriented event, kind of more of a of a of a big pinball party um than anything else. But don't don't listen to our commdes. Do it in Los Angeles. That's a much better idea. Do it in Tempe, Arizona. Electric Bat, which is an amazing suggestion. And if you don't know Electric Bat, that's uh Serge Kale, I believe, and a few others that also stupid Twitch alarms. Hold on, we got an extremely angry alarm going off. That means Twitch has to do it stupid ad thing in in two minutes. So, we have two minutes before we got to do a 30 secondond ad break. Um, those are amazing. I do have a follow-up question on that. Uh, yeah, plug your ears, man. Um, not you, you have to listen. Um, when if you are a firsttime goer to a to a a pinball event, right? I remember the first time that I went to California Extreme. It was like incredibly overwhelming. I mean, there's like hundreds of pinball machines everywhere. It's like, and there's just lists and lists of like people talking in seminars and music shows and stuff like how do you even begin to like as a first time go to an event? What would you suggest is like the the go? What do you do? How do you break it down so that it's like a bite-sized like experience that's not going to overwhelm you? I I would start with the games uh and just start playing every game you haven't seen before. Okay. Any Any like so just pick a game or a genre of games. Like if you like system 11s, go to the system 11 bank. Depends like if you're uh what type of show it is. Uh but but yeah, I mean find uh either if you want modern games, start start with that and play all the all the new stuff, all the new releases. Um and then branch out from there. Um, I like finding more like rare games that that I can't find on location near me or that don't crop up in shows very often. Um, and sort of getting time on on everything. Um, but if you're if you're more of like a um if you're there to to sort of learn about the hobby, then focus on the seminars instead. Like I think the mistake is is probably to to try to do all of it your first time. plan. So, plan what you want out. Go in with a what do I want to get out of the pinball experience instead of just expecting to just go in and be overwhelmed by pinballness. Yeah. Okay. Unless that's your thing, too. You just sort of stand in the middle of the convention floor and soak it all in. True. All right. Uh, final question. If you had space for one more game out of these three games, what would you add to your collection? Raven. Raven. Uh, I would add Raven. That's a good choice. Third one. The third one though. Not the first. Not the first or the second one. Yeah, that's the best one. That one's playfield is in really good condition. Um, amazing. All right. I'm going to throw it off to the chat then for one last uh harrah. If there's any other questions that you'd like to to ask, uh this is your chance. I'll I'll read it or he can read it. He can read. Um and uh in the meantime, Colin, if there's anything that you want to plug, uh articles coming out from Kineticist, any news or anything that you'd like to Oh, wait. You want to wait 30 seconds? We got We got stupid ad going. All the YouTube people don't need to do that here. Do you want to dance? If somebody does the Can someone do the flow dance or we'll we'll flow for the 30 seconds. We're ready. They're going to send it. Here it comes. You can't hear this, but it's pretty rocking. Okay, here we go. You got to do this dance. Yep. And then your hands got to go around your head like that. Oh. Oh, the Laurati lady's coming in to do the dance. Okay, we can stop dancing. We're back from ads. Um, yes. Any news? anything that's going on that uh that's going in that's coming out in kineticis that you'd like to plug away. Just uh check out the site kineticis.com. Sign up for the the email newsletter. Uh we do weekly updates. Uh I put a lot of time uh and effort into into that one. Uh you can subscribe at twip twwip.kineticis.com. Uh it's a free subscription and yeah, hopefully you like it. Everybody likes free and if you like good pinball news then you've come to the right place. Uh let's see. We got a handful of questions. And so, Forever Tilted wants to know, "What's your favorite guilty pleasure pen? What's one that that you like that nobody else does?" You could say Raven again. I just No bad ideas. I never uh The first ones that come to mind are like a like a Hard Body or Future Spa. Mostly Mostly for the artwork. I I [ __ ] I love the artwork. It's so good. Eminem Retro Gamer, shout out. He's not here, but he just picked up He just picked up a uh a Hard Bodies, and I I cannot wait for him to stream it. Yeah. Uh the the guy Chuck uh who I play League at his house, he's got a a copy of um BMX. Uh which is essentially it's essentially the same game themed like BMX games. Uh so I get to play that one a lot, which is nice. Very cool. Very cool. Uh roller coaster says, "I didn't know you had a Gary in your house." Speaking of Gary, do you have a favorite Gary Easter egg? If people don't know, there's Gary Easter eggs like all over pinball. Like they're hidden everywhere. Um, I I enjoyed um the last one that he had with Jaws, him in the in the pool float, I think. Oh, I don't know this one. Where is Well, it's in it's in King Kong, too. It's It's the it's the same one, I believe. Okay. So, in King Kong, it's in the like the the river thing. I forgot what they call it. Um, yeah, the little wiggly one on the left. So, he's he's in there and then it's there in in Jaws somewhere. Cool. Amazing. Yeah, I think that's it for questions. All right. Sweet. Fantastic. Thank you for launching our podcast off in style. Thanks for having me. This has been fun. Agreed. Same. Thank you everybody who uh took the time to uh make me dance and uh hop on here and ask questions. Uh I have to plug our own stuff. On Thursday uh which is two days from now, we have Bow and Karen's coming on uh from Get Out of Here Pyramid. Not the time. Thank you. Uh you're not even aligned right pyramid. I saw that. Uh yeah, Bone Karens from Barrels of Fun is going to be on here. We're going to talk about rules. So if pinball design and rule set knowledge is uh of interest to you and you like this format, it's going to be like this. Uh don't worry fun with bonus, it's going on video on demand as soon as I go check to make sure the audio sounds good and uh and it'll be up there. Uh and then the Tuesday after that, we have Johnny Crap coming on. Johnny Crap is the artist of Dune um but also a stern artist. You may know his work from the home edition of Jurassic Park as well as every other version of Jurassic Park that Stern did. Um, so yeah, he also did a pretty cool clock that's like an EM clock. That's neat. Like a small like like a a paired up with an artist to do this weird physical clock that has reels in it and stuff. Pretty neat. Um, all right. Last I I lied. Yoda Bongri uh is really bringing it today by not being ultra creepy. He says death saves. Yes or no? Yes, there you go. You heard it. Yeah, if you can do it. Uh, thanks again. All praise the great pyramid. We're obviously going to go raid somebody because that's what we do and drop pinball lovers on somebody who doesn't have a lot of viewers cuz it makes their day and making somebody's day is basically the best thing other than playing pinball. Um, so yeah. Stick around. Bye everyone. Bye.