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Episode 226 - Good Morning V.A.T.S.

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·41m 52s·analyzed·Aug 18, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Pinball pricing crisis and complexity concerns dominate as John Wick plays frustrate despite solid layout.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast Episode 226 covers corrections to previous episodes about Jim Henson/Gremlins and a Good Morning America pinball reskin, discusses Stern's upcoming cornerstone reveal (rumored X-Men 97), hands-on experience with John Wick pinball (very difficult, excessive airball issues), and broader industry concerns about pricing, release scheduling, and complexity in modern pinball design. Dennis argues manufacturers should cut prices, drive innovation, and simplify rulesets to grow the hobby post-pandemic.

Key Claims

  • Good Morning America pinball was a reskin of Stern's Family Guy, not a Data East 90s game

    high confidence · Correction provided by Rare Hate Hero on Pinside; Tony explicitly corrected his error from previous episode

  • Chris Wallace designed the Gremlins puppets, not Jim Henson

    high confidence · Correction from Rare Hate Hero; Tony acknowledged his assumption error

  • Stern's next cornerstone reveal is expected in September, though rumors suggest Tuesday/August announcement

    medium confidence · Dennis and Tony discussing timeline; Dennis expresses 'hope and expectation' September timing despite ambient speculation

  • X-Men 97 is the leading rumor for Stern's next cornerstone game

    low confidence · Dennis: 'The number one rumor I've been hearing is X-Men 97 as their next game. But I don't know. I have no confidence if that's true or not.'

  • American Pinball's next game (assumed Cuphead) was expected at Pinball Expo Chicago but won't make it

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'I heard a I think it's more of a rumor than a report that american pinball was supposedly planning to have their next game which is assumed to be cuphead'

  • John Wick has excessive airball issues and unclear multiball lock indicators

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony both experienced multiple airballs in 3-4 games, never achieved multiball; Dennis notes unclear shot indication for ball locks

  • Modern pinball games are priced regularly at $15,000+, which is unsustainable

    high confidence · Dennis: 'I don't want to see regular pinball machines at $15,000. This has gotten stupid.'

  • Deadpool outearned Iron Maiden on location despite Iron Maiden being the tournament favorite

    high confidence · Route operator anecdote: Iron Maiden operator wished they had Deadpool because 'the cash box is a lot more on it'

Notable Quotes

  • “You're puppet profiling.”

    Tony @ Early segment — Humorous acknowledgment of assumption bias in the Gremlins/Jim Henson correction

  • “I don't want to see regular pinball machines at $15,000. This has gotten stupid.”

    Dennis @ Industry outlook section — Core criticism of current pricing strategy and manufacturer complacency

  • “It's pinball. It's a visceral physical experience. It doesn't need to be Skyrim.”

    Dennis @ Game design philosophy discussion — Central argument against over-complexity in modern pinball rulesets

  • “The demand for your product is not the same as it was two years ago. You need to get over it and you need to start adapting to a new market.”

    Dennis @ Industry recovery section — Direct criticism of manufacturer denial about post-pandemic market conditions

  • “John Wick was, the layout seemed okay... But brutal. It's brutal.”

    Dennis @ John Wick hands-on section — Summary of difficulty issues with John Wick Pro model experience

  • “I had way more air balls on John Wick than I did on Galactic Tank Force.”

    Dennis @ John Wick gameplay — Evidence of significant airball problem on John Wick across multiple games

  • “I think John Wick plays better than Turtles... but it's still an incredibly hard game, but without a layout that feels particularly unique.”

    Dennis @ John Wick comparison — Balanced criticism: playability improvement but lack of distinctive design

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonRare Hate HeropersonMartypersonDamienpersonScotty PinballpersonDennis NordmanpersonSteve BowenpersonDavid Thielperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Location/route operator profitability threatened by high machine prices and players unwilling to pay >$1 per game; pricing must decrease to sustain route business

    high · Dennis: 'Asking people to stick $2 into a pinball machine is just not going to work... you need to figure out a way to make it so that people can still afford to route games at $1.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Deadpool (straightforward ruleset, accessible gameplay) outearned Iron Maiden (complex, tournament-favorite) on location operators, suggesting market rewards accessibility over depth

    high · Dennis: 'the person who got the Iron Maiden say... I wish I had been the one who had bought Deadpool because the cash box is a lot more on it than it was on the Iron Maiden game.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Modern pinball games have become over-complex with deep rule sets that exclude casual players and reduce repeatability; industry went overboard on complexity vs. 90s games

    high · Dennis: 'I would like to see more games with simpler rule sets... It doesn't need to be Skyrim.' References favorite games from 90s as simpler but fun, and notes homeowners can't get through modern games.

  • ?

    event_signal: Stern cornerstone reveal expected in September (Dennis's 'hope and expectation') with possible Tuesday/August timing, though exact date unclear

    medium · Dennis: 'I would have been willing to put more time in on it... my I hope and expectation had been that we're still a couple of weeks away from the Stern reveal... However, a lot of people have been claiming it would be August.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.126

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, August 18th. This is episode 226. My name is Tony. My name is Dennis. I worry that we don't have a lot here, but consistency is the key. Rough. Well, I mean, I think most of our listeners who are coming to us from the pinball side understand that we've been in a lull. We've worked with what we've got. Unfortunately, I do not have a bunch of listener emails this time to rely on as a crutch to carry this episode. So I think we'll do our introductions, and then we will do the best we can. And I'll go ahead and open this time, actually, because there are some corrections. Rare Hate Hero on Pennside actually caught two errors. Both were made by me on the last episode. So I do want to go ahead and go. Yeah, you were fine, Tony. I do want to go ahead and correct those. Correction number one, Gremlins. I mentioned Jim Henson and Gremlins. Jim Henson had nothing to do with Gremlins. He was not involved in any capacity. The puppets themselves, actually, for Gremlins were designed by Chris Wallace. So anyway. I just made an assumption. You just assume if it's a puppet. I did. It's from the Jim Henson company. It was the 80s and there were puppets. You just make an assumption. He had done like the Dark Crystal and stuff. And I just thought, I mean. You're puppet profiling. The Gremlins are creepy like the Dark Crystal is creepy. And I don't know. Anyway, it was. You're puppet profiling. It was all wrong. It was very wrong. It was bad wrong. So your payment is. It was bad wrong. You have to go watch a two-hour loop of Labyrinth, but it's just nothing but the crotch scenes.
2:04
This is not even the puppet part, or is it? It's actually the worm from the Labyrinth. If the zipper comes down, the worm goes, hello.
2:15
Oh, this is going off the rails. Second correction that Rare Hero provided was I mentioned the Good Morning America one-off reskin pin that they reskinned a Daddy East game, some game from the 90s, and made a Good Morning America pinball machine. That was not a Daddy East 90s game. That was actually Stern's family guy that got turned into Good Morning America's pin, which is a Don Matrix display game. So because I again, I knew there was a Good Morning America pin and I just guessed what I did not know was that modern of a pin. But so really, that's that's it. I have not done a lot. I've played a little bit of pinball and in the pinball section, we're going to talk about a game we finally got a chance to play. And then we also went and saw Deadpool three. which that ties into pinball and video games because there are Deadpool video games and there's a Deadpool pinball machine in fact we played the Deadpool pinball machine we did at some point in our lives so the I will just say because I don't want to spoil the movie if you like things making fun of Marvel go see it if you like hyper violence go see it and if you like a lot of quips go see it the only thing I would say that maybe not to go see Deadpool 3 is if you hate any of those things or if you know nothing about the history, modern history of comic book movies, because a lot of the jokes are not going to make any sense. If you don't know anything about like 20th Century Fox's movies and the current like generations of Marvel, I think a lot of it will just go over your head if you if you've stayed out of it. You might still enjoy the film, but maybe wait for video in that instance. But it's a lot of fun. Yeah. I mean, there's no Borderlands, but spoiler alert. We'll be touching on that one. Nobody's touching Borderlands.
Zach
person
John Wickgame
Deadpoolgame
Iron Maidengame
Foo Fightersgame
Jawsgame
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesgame
Walking Deadgame
Haggis Pinballcompany
Stern Pinballcompany
Deep Root Pinballcompany
American Pinballcompany
Pinball Expo Chicagoevent
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Square Enixcompany

industry_signal: Too many marginal pinball manufacturers claiming serious player status; consolidation needed; some companies should exit market entirely

high · Dennis: 'Some of these companies need to go away... there are a lot of manufacturers that kind of need to make their choice. Like, are we going to be a serious player? Are we going to be a marginal player? Or should maybe we not exist at all?'

  • $

    market_signal: Release schedule imbalance: pre-pandemic saw ~1 game/quarter from Stern alone; now consolidated to 3 cornerstones/year with no boutique alternatives, creating perceived game drought

    high · Dennis: 'We were guaranteed a game a quarter just from Stern... And then anybody else that released throughout the year was just extra... Stern's dropped a game, we're not getting that same schedule... at the same time, none of the other major players have increased their game releases'

  • $

    market_signal: Post-pandemic pinball market is contracting; manufacturers in denial about reduced demand compared to pandemic peak

    high · Dennis: 'The demand for your product is not the same as it was two years ago. You need to get over it and you need to start adapting to a new market. We are not at a high point for pinball right now.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Haggis Pinball employee accountability questions require nuance; employees may not know full scope of owner's mismanagement or may be constrained by NDAs from disclosure

    high · Dennis: 'there is a big jump between that and ending up seeing that the actual nuances of how the money is being shuffled around... There were people when Deep Root was first falling apart... that were like, what did Dennis Nordman know?... that's not the same as knowing that little ladies' life insurance monies'

  • $

    market_signal: Regular pinball machines routinely priced at $15,000+, perceived as unsustainable and unjustified by incremental feature additions

    high · Dennis: 'I don't want to see regular pinball machines at $15,000. This has gotten stupid.' Also discusses how color-changing LEDs and toppers are not worth premium pricing.

  • ?

    product_concern: John Wick exhibits significant airball problems and unclear multiball lock indicators, making game frustrating despite adequate layout

    high · Dennis and Tony both report excessive airballs (3-4 games with more than 5 years of typical play), and Dennis explicitly states 'I like I locked a ball and I trying to figure out where to lock the next one... I trying to find a green light... I just I was struggling'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: X-Men 97 is primary rumor for Stern's next cornerstone reveal, but confidence is very low

    low · Dennis: 'The number one rumor I've been hearing is X-Men 97 as their next game. But I don't know. I have no confidence if that's true or not.'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: American Pinball's next game (presumed Cuphead) expected to miss Pinball Expo Chicago deadline; shifting production schedule

    medium · Dennis: 'I heard a I think it's more of a rumor than a report that american pinball was supposedly planning to have their next game which is assumed to be cuphead at the upcoming... pinball expo in chicago but now that it's not expected to make it'

    • 4:20
    But, Tony, what have you been up to? I have been. Last episode, I talked about how I listened to Scum of the Earth, and I was listening to some funny stuff. And I started listening to John Dies at the End, which is kind of a weird, how to put it, it's like a weird Cthulhu-esque kind of comedy book thing. Wasn't there a movie? There was. I never saw it, but it sounds familiar. The movie was made out of it. There's actually a whole book series based off of it, too. I just hadn't read any of them. So I did the first one. And it was okay.
    5:04
    And now I'm on to more other stuff. Otherwise, my big stuff lately has just been getting some stuff pulled together and ready. I've got to be spending a week in Wichita. Oh, yes. Conference season is upon us. I've got one more conference this year in September, but it's here local. I thought it was going to be in Wichita, but they ended up moving it up here. and then I'll be free for, I don't know what, until I plan my next year's schedule. Right. So, yeah, I'll be in Wichita, not this upcoming week, but the week after. Okay. Yay. Well, you know, if you're not too tired one of the days, they have a couple of pinball arcades down there that are pretty popular. I've never made it to them myself. I haven't. I looked them up. I looked the addresses up in case I get a chance. We will see if I can make that work or not. But the big thing will be just, like you said, how tired I am after a full day of conferencing. My issue is I often, not that I'm a big star or anything, but at a lot of these conferences, people want to go out with me to network. Yeah. To network. So that's usually what ends up happening for me at conferences. But yeah, and that's typically what's happened is with me at conferences is I've ended up going out to some social thing or another. So, yeah, when I was in Detroit, I had a couple of evenings where I had no commitments and I went out on my own and I actually did walk by an arcade. But I looked in it and I didn't see any pinball in there. So I didn't get any pinball playing in while I was in Detroit. But speaking of pinball, we do have a short segment, but we do have a segment. All right. So the first thing, a couple little news items. Again, we're in the lull. There's been a lot of thought that the next stern reveal of a cornerstone is imminent. It wouldn't shock me if it maybe comes out on Tuesday.
    7:00
    Because that's how that always works. You know what? I think all of the pinball companies need to sit down and collude, and they need to come up with a schedule to more well-balance their releases throughout the year instead of having them happen in groups where, you know, like three companies will drop something within like a month and a half. Have them spread everything out. So there needs to be some collusion. Yeah, there was a – I mean, it was last year when there were all those drops in March. Right, that's exactly what I was thinking about. To be fair, there's – and Zach and I, my co-host with the Pinball Show, we actually talked about what we thought the release schedule basically for the next year would be over. That was paywalled on our Patreon side. But the spoiler I'll give to that was we both agreed that we do think it will be probably not via collusion, but more just coincidence that it will actually be more spread than what we saw last time, even though it does look like there's something like a dozen pins about to drop over the next dozen months. so purportedly obviously things can change i heard a i think it's more of a rumor than a report that american pinball was supposedly planning to have their next game which is assumed to be cuphead at the upcoming um what's the pinball expo in chicago but now that it's not expected to make it to be at expo so again there's some of the stuff that's that's shifting around but anyway uh my I hope and expectation had been that we're still a couple of weeks away from the Stern reveal. It feels to me like that's a September reveal. However, a lot of people have been claiming it would be August. Obviously, there's not much difference between August and September, but we will we will see. I'm not sure what that, you know, I'm not. There are a number of rumors. The number one rumor I've been hearing is X-Men 97 as their next game. But I don't know. I have no confidence if that's true or not. so anyway but DPX they've been turning out some images of their Alice's Adventures in Wonderland pin I mean I still can't I want to say I can't care about that pin but that's not true I just have this visceral dislike that this project is happening because of the history of what's gone on and I probably just need to get over it but But I – anyway, I'm not interested in talking about this game. Yeah. Maybe if it was, like, not directly related.
    9:39
    It's just – it's – It would be – like, if it was themed off of, like, the old Disney – Yeah, yeah. It's not truly the theme. It's that this is trying to take the ideas. It's basically – it's trying to do something with what J-Pop worked on. Right. Instead of just saying, I love the theme of Alice in Wonderland, and I want to do – I'd be okay with it. It's just like I would be fine if Jersey Jack or Stern or American Pinball wanted to go and do Predator. Like, sure, why not? I'm not going to hold Skit B against them because none of those companies is going to take what Kevin did with Skit B and actually make that game. They're going to do their own thing. But I struggle mightily with the idea that there anything worth saving from Zidware So it one of those things Another item that has come up was actually this is a message This is a little weird one. So Scotty Pinball wrote in on the Watches with Dennis YouTube channel. This is not about watches, folks. Do not switch your dial on your radio. This is about Pinball. So what he wrote is as follows. Damien is an absolute crook, but is Marty too? Oh, sorry. That question is for EGP. So thankfully, I remembered that this came in because this came in, I think, a little bit after our last episode. So thank you, Scotty, for submitting the question, even though you submitted it on the completely wrong venue.
    11:09
    Here is my take. I think it is extremely dangerous for people to jump to conclusions about employees and what they know or don't know regarding the failures of companies that they work for. And the reason I say that is I know from the outside it's very easy to look at a situation and go, gosh, isn't it obvious? The company was dying. The company was failing. Everyone involved has to know that. And I agree that everyone involved at the company has to know that the company is in trouble. But there is a big jump between that and ending up seeing that the actual nuances of how the money is being shuffled around, how much money is actually in the bank accounts. That's a whole separate leap of logic. So I am not – so in regards to Scotty's question, is Marty a crook, I can't say one way or the other. I definitely wouldn't assume that he is just because he worked for Haggis Pinball. Yeah, no. I mean we've all heard plenty of stories of people walking into work and the doors were locked and not just being like little mom and pop restaurants. But, I mean, that's basically what happened with Vanguard Airlines is that people started showing up for work and the doors were locked. Vanguard was gone. And, again, people pointing and saying, well, Marty was helping Damien to the end building games, was one of the last employees.
    12:38
    Okay, but so what? There's a difference between knowing the company is in trouble and knowing what the company has done with all of the resources that that company received. And the case in point is Deep Root. And I think there were people who I remember. Y'all may not remember. Me and Pepperidge Farm and Tony, we remember. There were people when Deep Root was first falling apart and the whole thing with the SEC was coming out that were like, what did Dennis Nordman know? What did Steve Bowden know? And with accusations that they knew a lot, like they knew where all this money, like the cash burn was such. that it was people by and large quickly got to the point where it's like, you know what? It's completely feasible that all of these individuals understood that Deep Root was not making money because who didn't know that? Right. And maybe had a sense of what their cash burn would be just because they had a vague understanding of their own salaries and stuff across the board, or maybe they even talked about it. But that's not the same as knowing that little ladies' life insurance monies that were supposed to be going into particular policies were going to prop up this pinball company and all the rest of it.
    13:48
    So I don't think it's fair to jump and say that because we don't know that Marty would know everything that Damien knew when it was Damien's company. I would also like to add, because Deep Root reminds me of this, that I think part of this isn't necessarily thinking, though it relates, that the employees knew something nefarious, but maybe a frustration, especially amongst those who lost money, that they weren't warned by the employees.
    14:19
    But Deep Root, case in point, had NDAs on everyone. Right. I still remember when someone asked a question when things were already starting to fall apart, and David Thiel, I believe it was, had said in an interview, I can't really talk about it. I'm still technically under NDA. so with those sort of situations it's like you gotta bear in mind like they may be constrained beyond the beyond what pinsight is constrained to say or speculate on right and and even if they're not fully legally constrained there could be multiple reasons why they're not going to be we're just walking outside and just going oh hey by the way just let everybody know i work for this company and you should definitely run screaming from us does not help your overall look to future employers or anything else. So anyway, I have not spoken to Marty since I think I think Texas Pinball Festival 2023 was the last time I actually verbally communicated with him. Actually, even in writing, communicate with him. I think he may have emailed me just after the show because I really enjoyed the fathom there. Because I think there was a follow-up about if I wanted one, I think I got information on how to get one. And that might have been from him. I don't recall. But anyway, I haven't had a conversation with Marty about what's gone on with Haggis. I assume if and when he's allowed to say something, he'll make that decision if he wants to put anything out there. But again, there may still be disclosure agreements that he may have been bound by as an employee that he's still subject to. So just I would say just bear it in mind. I know it's fun to jump to conclusions, but there's just a lot we don't know. So I would not be willing to speculate beyond what Damien knew because as the owner of the company, he knew a lot. Yeah. So anyway, so there's that.
    16:11
    John Wick. So we finally, after we recorded our last episode, Tony took me, got me lunch, and we played John Wick. So what did you think of it? It was our first time. It was the pro model. It was the pro. We put a few games on it. I think three or four is what it felt like. We played until our food was ready, and I think we went back and did one more game, and then we were like, let's play Foo Fighters. Yeah, and then we played Foo Fighters.
    16:40
    I will say. And Joss. No, I am 100% positive. in those three or four games of John Wick, we had more air balls in those three or four games of John Wick than I can remember having in the last five years of pinball play. It was an obscenely large number of air balls. I mean, I can't recall having that many. I thought Galactic Tank Force was a lot of air balls, And I had way more air balls on John Wick than I did on Galactic Tank Force. I think you lost one of your balls with an air ball that went over the lane or over your flipper. Yeah. It was just crazy. There were a lot. That's okay. So that was your first impression. My first impression was, out of all the games we both played, we never got a multiball going. No, we didn't. I think we had a couple times where we had a couple of the balls locked. I know you had a spot once where you needed to hit a specific target to begin it, and I know I was at that spot once, but I had to unlock it. Like I had to relight. Right, you hit the shot, but it wasn't lit yet. Right, I had to relight the shot to begin, and I failed.
    18:07
    And so, I mean, so the game's hard. If one of those multiballs is considered a pity multiball, it may need to be more pitiful.
    18:16
    Now, okay, we're not the greatest pinball players in the world. But we did go, as I noted, later, we played Foo Fighters. We played Jaws. We had long games on these other machines. Just John Wick was just like John Nope. Right. It was like We were getting the points with some of the games Where if you're having long enough play times It was like I'm kind of done with this game When we left We left replay We did I think With Foo Fighters I can't remember if it was Foo Fighters or Jaws The average score threshold For the replay on points was so low We got it back to back Got it back to back Because, I mean, anyway, I'm not complaining. Like, I enjoy feeling like I'm doing good. So it's just, we got a number of free games in, which it was great when you get a credit. And then Tony and I are just like, let's just stick two quarters in and do another play. So that was nice. But John Wick was not nice. John Wick was, the layout seemed okay. Yeah, it was fine. But brutal. It's brutal. It was kind of rough. I couldn't get dialed in quite like I wanted to on the shots. And had there – I would have been willing to put more time in on it. Like it's a game I'm willing to play on location. Again, absolutely. It did not – and maybe if I get more time on it – There's too much violence that bothered you, didn't it? What I wanted to compare it to was Turtles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ended up being a pinball machine I did not like shooting. Right. Like I didn't want to play it. John Wick is not at that point. but I also don't have as many games on it. If you were to ask my opinion currently, it would be I think John Wick plays better than Turtles. I found it less frustrating, but it's still an incredibly hard game, but without a layout that feels particularly unique. It's not like Walking Dead hard, where the layout feels weird, too, at the same time. You've got this odd layout, and it's a hard game. Or Iron Man has a really straightforward layout and a really straightforward level of really hard challenges. John Wick's kind of like that, but it's more confusing. I've even heard other podcasts talk about being unclear about where to lock the balls, like there wasn't a good indicator. I ran into that. I like I locked a ball and I trying to figure out where to lock the next one I like I not quite sure what shot it is I trying to read it on the play field I trying to find a green light I just I was struggling I was on the struggle bus Struggle bus Do do do. Anyway, so those were our hands on John Wick experiences. Yeah.
    21:07
    So now we're like all caught up. We are. I think we've played everything now. Until the, all this new, like these new 12 games come out, these cup heads. I believe it. These Hogwarts legacies. I believe it when I see it. These X-Men's.
    21:20
    So, all right, the last thing I had for us in the pinball section, just a little conversation. I mentioned earlier, as we discussed, the imminent release of the next Stern Cornerstone. There's been a lot of talk about the near release over the next few months of a lot of new models from a lot of different companies. I don't really want to dive into those rumors. I don't think it's that interesting to discuss. But what I would like us to briefly discuss is what we'd like to see. I don't mean theme per se. If you want to talk about a theme, you could, but just over the next year, Tony, what would you like to see the end? Like, what did you like to see come out of the industry? What did you like to see them do? Is there something you're hoping for different or something that you hope they continue to do?
    22:03
    I would like to see balanced, affordable releases. Could you elaborate a little bit on like what you mean by balanced? uh like we were talking earlier maybe not front loading or end loading the gear okay so you balance release schedule the balance release i i kind of got to thinking of this whole i'm kind of stuck on this release schedule thing because i got to thinking about it uh in the middle of your watch live stream yesterday when i was realizing it's like you know what it's deeply annoying that there's like brand new watches like every two weeks from like big name people Not talking to little mom and pop or you completely ignoring the micro brands. Like, the big-name people drop new watches constantly. And then we're sitting here in pinball going, yeah, we got a machine this year. That means no machine next year. I mean, there are a lot of really small players that are very slow on their releases in pinball. Granted, I mean, it's like, well, I mean, they're both technical. Well, they both have a lot of parts, but of course, a lot of those small manufacturers in watches rely on third-party movement suppliers. So they're not having to figure out how to build the movement or invent the movement. And pinball, it's a little more. There's some they're relying on. I mean, that's where like P-Rock and Fast have come into play, where they can offer board sets that are kind of plug-and-play. But you still have to wire the engine of the pinball machine up. Right. And there's still all of the design work and the licensing work and all of the customization work. So, no, it's a different thing. But it's just one of those things where it's like sometimes it's just getting to the point where it's like it felt like pre-COVID, it felt like things were fairly balanced and we were getting a fairly decent amount of releases. But I wonder how much of that feel was just because Stern was releasing an extra game every year compared to what they are now. So that would mean that we were getting four games. We were guaranteed a game a quarter just from Stern. And then anybody else that released throughout the year was just extra. So that led to a more balanced feel than what we've got now. and Stern's dropped a game, we're not getting that same schedule because at the same time, none of the other major players have increased their game releases, and several of them, if anything, has reduced how often they're putting games out.
    24:35
    Yeah, and I mean, I guess for those that aren't too familiar, so Stern's done the three cornerstone for quite a while. During the part of the pandemic, they did finally scale down to two cornerstones, but there was often like a boutique or a vault or something that also kind of came in, usually in the fall. And it seems like now, instead of doing that, they do like a new color scheme for Godzilla or Lyra or whatever instead of a different game. So that's an interesting point I hadn't really thought about. For me, what I'd like to see is I want the industry to recognize, I want competition to work the way it's supposed to. It should be driving innovation and driving down costs, not driving up costs and just everyone doing kind of the same thing. And I feel like they were allowed to, for obvious reasons, because of demand, to get very lazy during the pandemic where there were supply chain issues and all the rest. But people were at home. People had money and people wanted to buy games. We are not at a high point for pinball right now. And I'm getting a little tired of people pretending like we still are. And the people that are really pretending seem to be the manufacturers. The demand for your product is not the same as it was two years ago. You need to get over it and you need to start adapting to a new market. You are not a luxury good. You are a manufactured product that at least in some quarters of this country and this world still is supposed to be earning money on location. I don't want to see regular pinball machines at $15,000. This has gotten stupid. And I know the idea of cutting prices is very, very challenging because you worry about devaluation of what you've already put out and all the rest of it. But I think some of these companies need to explore it. Some of these companies need to go away. I actually want there to be fewer manufacturers. I mean, in a way, I don't really care how many manufacturers there are. But there are a lot of manufacturers that kind of need to make their choice. Like, are we going to be a serious player? Are we going to be a marginal player? Or should maybe we not exist at all? I think it's okay to have a company that only makes a few number of machines. Right. I think that's totally fine. But there are some that seem to be out there acting like they're going to be a big player and they don't – like they're not playing right. I say they're not playing right and they need to – they probably just need to not do this anymore. Well, and I can see that. I can see where it is totally okay in my mind that if you have a really good idea and you can put stuff together, for you to come out and create a game and then quit, it's okay. I remember thinking that's what Pinball Brothers was going to do with the assets they had from Highway, and then they decided to go ahead and do ABBA, which is also fine if there's interest and demand for it. But a lot of that, it's neither here nor there. I feel like that all they're doing now is they're sticking in more stuff to, I guess, try and sort of justify their continual increase in pricing. But as you've noticed with things like toppers and stuff, I think finally the consumer in pinball has gotten to the point where they're like, you know what? Color-changing LEDs does not impress me as an expensive feature. You know, I just I feel like there's still just a lot of this really minuscule markup stuff that takes next to no effort. And it's not it's not working for me. And I I want to either seriously innovate or I'm OK with them not seriously innovating. So you guys, they should be driving down the prices on this stuff. They should be figuring out efficiency gains and passing some of that savings on to the consumers because they need to grow the interest in the hobby now that it's on the decline because people aren't stuck at home with no other choice.
    28:30
    Valid point. Plus, I think it would help allow operational pinball, route pinball, to actually be more successful.
    28:39
    Asking people to stick $2 into a pinball machine is just not going to work. So you need to figure out a way to make it so that people can still afford to route games at $1. That's my take. Yeah. Because I will 100% say that I'm at the point where more than a dollar to play a game of pinball is – it will be steering me away.
    29:04
    I mean, I say that, but I remember people saying the same thing about, more than 50 cents to play pinball? I ain't going to do that.
    29:13
    Sure, but the issue is it's all relative to other entertainment options that are available. So, I mean, I get it. Inflation is a thing, but their prices have gone up beyond inflation. And I just, I don't know. They're in a weird boat. I would like them to, here's another thing I would like, just personally. I would like to see more games with simpler rule sets. I shouldn't have to memorize a whole bunch of nuance to really get deep into a particular game. And I actually think they've hurt themselves by making it so that people buy pinball machines and they can't ever get through them. And they're so complicated. And this was by design. So homeowners would want to buy them and not immediately flip them. But now you run into the problem where it's like, even if you like John Wick, are you done with Venom yet? Are you done with James Bond yet? Have you really gotten through all of that? And I think it may be, I think they perhaps went overboard on the complexity. It's pinball. It's a visceral physical experience. It doesn't need to be Skyrim.
    30:17
    So you're awake. Now, I wonder, if you look and talk to people about their favorite games, most people's lists are going to be full of games from the 90s that were not nearly as deep or in-depth as what's coming out now. And I think the fact that those games managed to be fun and fun repeatably is a large portion of that. Yeah, and there's been some of it still. It's like the exception and not the rule. And I think sometimes people look and they say, well that's what they tried with Munsters and Munsters didn't really do well I think Munsters didn't do well for a few reasons but Deadpool is a good example Deadpool's rule set's pretty straight forward and that game is greatly appreciated I still remember one of our route operators at the time had routed Iron Maiden and a different person at the same location had purchased and routed Deadpool and I heard the person who got the Iron Maiden say because they got it because it was Elwynn and of course all the tourney people that was their favorite game there was Iron Maiden But he had said, you know, I wish I had been the one who had bought Deadpool because the cash box is a lot more on it than it was on the Iron Maiden game. And I think a lot of that would, of course, be that Deadpool is a more appealing license. But I also think that for a lot of people, while Elwynn does a great job about letting every shot progress something, I've always been a little lost with Iron Maiden in terms of what I'm moving towards. I know where the multi-balls are and stuff. It's not John Wick confusing. But with Deadpool, it's like, oh, go this scoop, do a fight, do the scoop, do a fight. This weird fancy sword shot is a ball lock. I understand it's really straightforward style stuff. So anyway, that's all I had for pinball. But yeah, video games. What's going on with video games? It's that time of year for earning reports. Yes, it is. Square Enix earnings reports came out and they've dropped 18.4% year on year, even with the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth release.
    32:35
    So and we knew they had problems. That's why they canceled all those projects back in April and May. Their blockchain projects? Amongst others.
    32:47
    And decided to start pursuing a – they're aggressively pursuing a multi-platform strategy because they've decided that PlayStation is not enough for them. I mean, PlayStation is a huge market, but, I mean, yeah, they've done that for a while. They've been very PlayStation exclusive focused, at least for early release period. So stuff usually after a couple of years they've been more lenient on. Right. And that's the thing is it's the games market, the video games market as a whole has been down for the last couple of years. Again, people are not stuck at home like they were two years ago. Right. So people aren't, it's just lower and it's going to be lower and that's okay. And they have their own like pinballs too deep problem. And that is a whole bunch of companies came out with games as a service. And a lot of people have picked the ones they want to play. Like they're playing the Genshin Impact and stuff. And that time spent means there isn't time to play the new Final Fantasy. Right. And because you can't, you've got to get your new things that just got released before they go away. That's right. You've got to get your waifus.
    33:54
    You've got to have your pity pulls. Your pity pulls and your waifus. All about it. jumping around in my notes a little bit. Also, Embracer Group released their financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal year, and their drop has been 24% year on year.
    34:13
    And their PC and console games has been a drop of 34%. Their tabletop group is what's basically holding Embracer together right now. they've been good. Everything else has been painfully, painfully damaged.
    34:34
    That is kind of hinted at it earlier, but the Borderlands movie came out and the reactions were poor.
    34:45
    Yes. Zero percent for a while on Rotten Tomatoes. For a while. I had no interest. The trailers looked garbage.
    34:56
    everything about that movie looked garbage. Now, have you played Borderlands? I have. I played several of them. I played the first two, but that was it. Yeah, I've played one, two, and three, actually.
    35:11
    So definitely they had some problems. But there was some hilarity that mixed in with it. Part of the hilarity is that the CEO of Take-Two Interactive that puts out the Borderlands games,
    35:28
    Strauss Zelnick, asked people to give the movie a chance because a lot of people worked really hard on it. Yeah, that wasn't the most inspirational argument, but it was honest. It was honest. And it was funny that he said it in the course of an interview where he was also talking about how the movie bombing won't hurt the franchise or the next game or take two.
    35:54
    So, I mean, that movie made $4 million day one and $16.5 million opening weekend globally. Yes. Yeah. Oh, it was bad. This movie is so bad, U-Bowl was making fun of how bad this movie did. and he did freaking uh silent was it silent not silent hill the did he i mean i don't there was a silent hill no i don't yeah i don't think he did sign no he didn't design he did blood rain and he did uh a horror yeah yeah one of the one of the i can't remember alone in the dark maybe was it yeah i think there was a movie but i mean all i mean it's you bull He's just known for doing terrible, terrible movies, and he was making fun of this movie. That is rough.
    36:54
    Also, in the interview with Take-Two's CEO, they talked about Grand Theft Auto 6, because Take-Two is publishing it for Rockstar, and it will not be available on subscription services day one because they make rational decisions.
    37:18
    They're very against putting these big titles out on the subscription services because it does a big short-term boost for the subscription services but hurts the actual developers and publishers. So they're intentionally keeping subscription services for their legacy games.
    37:39
    We talked back in May that Microsoft was going to be closing Tango Gameworks immediately after they're riding high with Hi-Fi Rush.
    37:52
    Tango Gameworks has been saved. the publisher for PUBG, Krafton has announced that they purchased Tango Gameworks and the rights to Hi-Fi Rush I haven't thought about PUBG in such a long time it still exists I mean it was the thing and then Fortnite came and actually eclipsed it which is kind of a rarity usually the first it kind of sits at the top it seems Fortnite has managed to I think PUBG is too serious. Yeah, I mean, yeah, Fortnite got really goofy and stuff. I mean, you can play, like, Dragon Ball characters. Mm-hmm. So Fortnite got real weird there for a while.
    38:43
    We've been talking a bunch lately about Switch 2. No official news, but the rumor has always been that it would be first quarter of next year. And that rumor has now been pretty much squashed with everybody being told that Nintendo is telling developers that it will not be out before the end of the fiscal year, which is March 31st of next year. Okay. So it'll be second quarter next year at the earliest, and I'm guessing it'll be later than that. because I figure by the time you're back to second quarter, you're not going to want to release until third quarter or fourth quarter for the holidays.
    39:26
    And the only other thing I had, because like I said, not a lot was going on, and Games Done Quick has their all-woman speedrunning event, Flame Fatales, starting today. It actually started a couple hours ago and running for the next seven days. Oh, okay. I didn't know it was already on us. I didn't either until I was looking through my news list and saw the thing that was like, oh, that starts at 8 a.m. Okay. Didn't realize we were there yet.
    39:56
    Well, we did have one video game email that came into our podcast at gmail.com. This was from Chris G. You might recall this is in reference to it was a few episodes ago when we covered his email where he was asking. He was talking about how VATS in Fallout was dumb. Right. And I had that wonderful, insightful answer. You were. And I had a different take, but it was also insightful. And so Chris has written to us again and says the following. Catching up on podcasts and wanted to express my gratitude for Tony's nuanced, fair, balanced and impactful perspective on the topic of vats in episode 224. You're welcome. I'm a better person after hearing Tony espouse on this topic. You're welcome. I believe Dennis inadvertently strengthened my point with his brutish big baby response, inviting me to no longer listen to EGP in his support of VATS. I'm sure he was reaching for his chocolate milk as he uttered, VATS good. Please kiss my, quote, this is quotes, master cheeks, end quote. Dennis, you can't make me liquidate my interest in listening. Well, thank you for the follow up information, Chris.
    41:06
    And thank you all for listening. I think it's time to go get Dennis chocolate milk and chicken tendies. But if you want to reach out, we're on Instagram and Twitch as Eclectic underscore Gamers. As I mentioned, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. We're available at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. If you want to support us and fight against all of these statements or support the chocolate milk fund, you can go to patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. until two weeks from now when there will probably be a new release, even though I'm hoping Stern still holds until September because I've asked them to. My name is Dennis. I am Tony. Goodbye, everybody. Peace.