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The Great British Pinball Podcast Episode 32: The Xmas Special Bah Humbug!

The Great British Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 32m·held·Dec 20, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

UK pinball hosts discuss quality concerns, market saturation, and Stern's European expansion plans.

Summary

Neil Macrae and Scott Rundell discuss their recent pinball acquisitions, manufacturing quality issues with new Stern releases, secondary market pricing pressures in Europe, and Stern's planned expansion into European markets with a new regional representative. The hosts also vent about forum toxicity on Pinside while celebrating recent code updates and tournament results.

Key Claims

  • Scott has experienced mechanical issues with nearly every new-in-box game he's purchased, including House of Horrors, Cactus Canyon remake, Alien, Metallica remake, and a worm issue with a recent unnamed game

    high confidence · Scott Rundell, discussing his personal collection history

  • King Kong game required trimming of the motorized arm and has a broken radio control servo board, making the arm non-functional

    high confidence · Scott Rundell, describing personal mechanical problems with King Kong

  • Stern is expanding operations in Europe and has hired John Buscaglia, who is relocating to Amsterdam to lead regional efforts

    high confidence · Neil Macrae, citing direct conversation with Stern representatives Gary and Jack at Dutch Pinball Open

  • European and UK secondary markets are experiencing severe price depression, with games selling at 'rock bottom prices' and some dealers dumping inventory quickly

    high confidence · Neil Macrae and Scott Rundell discussing current market conditions

  • Walking Dead remake is selling 'like hotcakes' with many US and UK distributors sold out of Limited Edition units

    medium confidence · Scott Rundell, citing second-hand reports about sales velocity

  • Star Wars is running on an illegally imported machine and Stern won't send code fixes

    medium confidence · Scott Rundell, joking about his Star Wars situation and needing to hire a 'ninja' to break into Stern's facility

  • Spike3 hardware has significantly better audio quality than Spike2, partly due to processor differences (possibly featuring Raspberry Pi)

    high confidence · Neil Macrae discussing technical differences between hardware platforms

  • Aerosmith cabinets (Spike2 era) had widespread cabinet joinery failures where corners would split due to insufficient glue application

    high confidence · Neil Macrae referencing George Gomez's mention of quality control issues and visible Pinside posts

Notable Quotes

  • “Every new in box I ever get, and I mean every new in box, whether it's like a Stern... I've had issues with House of Horrors, I had issues with Cactus Canyon remake, I had issues with Alien... now I've got the worm.”

    Scott Rundell @ early in podcast — Demonstrates chronic manufacturing quality issues across Stern's recent releases

  • “I had to trim the Kong... because they use radio control servos, which I hate. I wish pinball companies would stop using them.”

    Scott Rundell @ mid-podcast — Criticizes specific technology choice in King Kong affecting functionality

  • “There's a bunch of people just selling games because they want to move them quick... rock bottom prices... Unfortunately, that can take a while to recover from.”

    Scott Rundell @ market discussion section — Observes secondary market dynamics and cascading price effects

  • “The European market's worse because... I see prices on the European markets and they're like really low. It's like god damn, they take it to a new level over there.”

    Neil Macrae @ market analysis — Highlights geographic variation in market collapse severity

  • “They've realized that they haven't done as much as they could do in Europe... both Gary and Jack announced this at the Dutch Pinball Open.”

    Neil Macrae @ Stern expansion announcement — Confirms Stern's strategic decision to increase European investment

  • “Apparently, Scott, I do nothing for the community... You could donate half of your pins to charity and they still say you do nothing.”

    Neil Macrae @ forum criticism section — Illustrates persistent negativity and bad faith criticism on Pinside forum

  • “I'm actually thinking of a New Year's resolution just to cut off the forum entirely to be honest with you because I've had enough of it.”

    Neil Macrae @ forum rant — Shows community sentiment about forum toxicity among content creators

Entities

Neil MacraepersonScott RundellpersonGeorge GomezpersonJohn BuscagliapersonKeith ElwinpersonStern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyKing Konggame

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Pattern of manufacturing defects across recent Stern releases affecting multiple owners: worm issues, servo board failures, arm trimming requirements, cabinet splitting (Aerosmith era)

    high · Scott's experience with House of Horrors, Cactus Canyon, Alien, King Kong; Neil's reference to Aerosmith cabinet joinery failures documented on Pinside

  • $

    market_signal: Severe depression in UK and European secondary markets with games selling at 'rock bottom prices', dealers dumping inventory quickly, cascading negative price effects

    high · Neil: 'rock bottom prices... 15 games put up for sale... can take a while to recover from'; Scott: 'definitely not a good place to sell right now'; observation that European market worse than UK

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball announcing strategic expansion into European markets with dedicated regional representation

    high · Neil: direct conversation with Stern representatives; 'They've realized that they haven't done as much as they could do in Europe... Gary and Jack announced this at Dutch Pinball Open'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: John Buscaglia hired by Stern as European market lead, relocating to Amsterdam

    high · Neil: 'I got a call from the guys at Stern... they want you to have a chat with John... He's moving to Amsterdam'

  • ?

    product_launch: Evil Dead and Walking Dead remakes now arriving in UK market; Evil Dead in Gonzo's possession for content; Walking Dead shipped with incomplete code

    high · Neil: 'My UK Evil Dead arrived today... at Gonzo's house'; 'Walking Dead... shipping with licensing and pending approval, unfinished'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.277

0:00
The Great British Pinball Podcast Welcome to the Great British Pinball Podcast and here are your hosts Scott Rundell and Neil Macrae. The Great British Pinball Podcast Ah, the gloriousness of the King's own anthem. It's another great episode of the Great British Pinball Podcast. I am Neil McRae and I'm joined as always by Scott Rundle. Well done Scott, you timed that perfectly. As always. Let's talk about pinball. It's been a... Easiest subject. Yes, it's been a... It's been a... I should say by the way, I have an excuse for not wearing a Christmas jumper. I think you said you were going to wear one. I was going to win one, and I tell you what, I ordered one. I ordered an Evil Dead Hail to the King. And it hasn't fucking arrived. Annoyingly so. I had the contentious one, which is the Die Hard Nakatomi Plaza thing. Where it says, I can't remember what it says, some slogan or thing, but it's obviously, it's tongue in cheek, because obviously people always argue whether or not that's a Christmas movie. I still think it is. No, stupid people say it's not a Christmas movie. That's the end of the discussion. It's absolutely a Christmas movie. Otherwise, they wouldn't have released it at Christmas. So, yeah, it's been a wild ride pinball wise. Scott, I saw a video of you last night on Facebook. I'm talking about adjusting a worm. But yeah, no, as with every game I ever get, I have an issue. I'm a hex. I was saying to Neil offline before, every new in box I ever get, and I mean every new in box, whether it's like a Stern, like I had issues with House of Horrors, I had issues with Cactus Canyon remake, I had issues with Alien, I had issues now with, I can't even remember, we even had issues with Metallica remake with the snake jaw wouldn't bloody lock. Now this one, I've got the worm. What Radik&M VERY Macht I know, I know, it's just unbelievable. They've given me some good advice. I think I'll try it after this podcast and hopefully I'll have a fully operational game then. I am going to try and pin down David Van Es who volunteered to do the test. He did. Oh, my camera's died again, which is somewhat annoying. I'm going to continue onward. It's a perfect good frozen face. So I have this weird setup at home where I've got this wireless camera so because I can use it I have multiple jobs and the downside of multiple jobs is multiple laptops because they don't trust each other and because of that the so if you're on if you're listening on the normal podcast you just be pointless to you. Unaffected yeah. But if you're watching on on the on the I've just come back. So basically it runs this app to virtualize the camera to different, so it looks so I can use it on more than one computer. It actually works, 99% of the time it works really well. Occasionally just the app just crashes. Anyway, it's, and if you're asking what it is, it's an OBSBOT TOL. Very good camera, AI based. It used to follow me. It doesn't do it anymore. I was going to say it's so AI based it's not moving. I think I turned it off. Yeah. AI based. That is for actual intelligence as opposed to artificial intelligence. Anyway, yeah, so June, yeah, I mean, I have to say, Scott, I'm never flying on a plane with you because you have the ultimate bad luck syndrome. I do, honestly. Everyone always says to me, oh, buy a new box, you know, it's less issues. And I'm like, no, I just spend most of my time dialing in and then getting bored of it and then selling it and someone else can have it when it's all working. I'm trying to think of the last, so my last new inbox. So Star Wars, no dialing in required. Someone might argue that the Death Star thing is a bit of dialing in, but I kind of like that. It depends on whether or not you need that fix, right? Have you got a fix coming for that? I haven't because I've illegally imported the game. They won't send me one. So I've got a ninja that I've hired in Chicago who is going to break into Stern's Not the end of your walk.

  • Walking Dead remake ships with incomplete code and artwork pending licensing approval, similar to Dune's launch

    high confidence · Neil Macrae comparing Walking Dead to other games shipping unfinished

  • Jaws has recently risen to #1 on Pinside 100 and is experiencing a competitive resurgence with tournament play

    high confidence · Neil Macrae discussing recent Pinside rankings and tournament activity

    • “Walking Dead... apparently they're selling like hotcakes... many distributors in the US sold out of LEs, the UK apparently sold out of LEs.”

    Scott Rundell @ Walking Dead discussion — Indicates strong sales velocity despite previous skepticism about the remake

  • “Spike3, it's like boom... That's what happens when you stick a Raspberry Pi in there... the quality coming out of the board is highly compromised [on Spike2].”

    Neil Macrae @ hardware discussion — Emphasizes hardware generation leap in audio processing capability

  • “I did it with my Guns N' Roses and nearly dropped it... You're brave doing that on your own.”

    Scott Rundell / Neil Macrae @ setup demonstration — Illustrates safe handling procedures and equipment setup challenges for operators

    • Star Wars
    game
    Walking Deadgame
    Evil Deadgame
    Jawsgame
    Metallica Remasteredgame
    Dunegame
    Ghostbustersgame
    Cactus Canyon Remakegame
    Pinsideorganization
    Pinball Republicvenue
    Dutch Pinball Openevent
    UK Pinball Festevent
  • ?

    community_signal: Pinside forum experiencing persistent interpersonal negativity and bad-faith criticism of content creators; hosts considering withdrawal from platform

    high · Neil: 'people on that forum that have an agenda... no matter what you do, they will make sure that you are called up on something'; 'I'm thinking of a New Year's resolution just to cut off the forum entirely'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Spike3 platform shows dramatic audio quality improvement over Spike2, attributed to processor/IO capabilities; Stern using Raspberry Pi-class hardware

    high · Neil: 'Spike3, it's like boom... it's like, holy shit... Spike2, the quality coming out of the board is highly compromised'; discussion of Raspberry Pi vs older processors

  • ?

    code_update: Jaws receiving finalized code updates enabling competitive resurgence and tournament success; Walking Dead code work ongoing with pending approval

    high · Neil: 'they finalized all the code and people are... big games... credit to Keith and the team, they slowly made the whole theme integration'; Jaws now #1 on Pinside

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Jaws experiencing tournament renaissance with high-profile competitive play; multiple tournaments featuring Jaws with strong viewer engagement

    high · Neil: 'credit to Keith... there's been a few big games of it... UK open... glorious game, really showed the game... tough game'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Historical pattern of cabinet quality issues: Aerosmith cabinets split due to insufficient glue; Ghostbusters had lifting insert problems; Stern made design changes to address issues

    high · Neil: 'Aerosmith... cabinet would split... they'd basically done what I would call a fish and chip shop on the vinegar... they changed the design so that the decals weren't wraparound'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern shipping games with incomplete code and art pending licensing approval (Walking Dead, Dune model); contrasts with polished Metallica Remastered launch

    high · Neil: 'reminds me of Dune... Shipping with licensing and pending approval, unfinished, not at the full vision... compare it to Metallica remastered which basically came out as a finished product'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Neil operating Star Wars in club venue with excellent reliability and positive player reception; machine shipping back after successful month with no mechanical issues

    high · Neil: 'I was there for about a month... not a single issue... I put some extra Mylar down... been bulletproof... everyone really enjoyed it'

    • 5:11
    God loves a trier. Simply Bruno. Spike, I don't know, yeah, it would have been a stern I suppose. King Kong, I had to trim the King Kong. So that basically they don't trim it, which I have to say is a bit awful, but same on the topper. Actually I got the King Kong. Is that why the arm would always like sometimes block the path of the ball inadvertently? I just figured that was a dialing in bit that they had to do. No, it's supposed to block the ball on ball lock three. Right. But if it's not, if it's doing it any other time, it's because you haven't trimmed it properly. And it's like, it's because they use radio control servers, which I hate. I wish pinball companies would stop using them. You mean like RC like stuff? Yeah, the radio control servers basically. They're awful. Actually, so two things. One, I had to trim the mod, sorry, trim the Kong. C Bar),in the game and also it's the same Kong and the top or I got the top or yes from him as well but unfortunately they've started goofed on the radio control controller board and that book that board went bang on my Kong le so yeah I mean it's not that it's irritating that Kong isn't I think you only rotates now he doesn't these arms don't move Right. Which is a pain, but they're sending me out a new one, apparently. They should, but yeah. Yes, I think a few folks have had this issue with it, which is kind of annoying. So that's Kong not the best experience, but not but...
    7:22
    Yeah. The Dungeons and Dragons, no, but there is actually if you've got D&D there is a fix-it part for especially premium le Yeah, I think it wasn't the harness of the dragon was too short one point. It was cause yeah
    7:42
    There's a bunch of fix-it parts for a One is the scoop It reminds me of the Star Trek loom, you remember the gun harnesses that people made the mod to make the harness longer because often when the cannons would like rotate a lot it was too tight and it would pull them. So even though everyone gives Sterling a kick in, even Bally Williams... Oh every man, I swear I say to you like there's so many like bulletins that you read up on and it's what I find even more fascinating is when you get one of these old games and then you find it hasn't got a fix applied to it so you're like how the hell has this been running J tradicional I'm in the club as a premium. It's been bulletproof. It gets a lot of plays. D&D, what else? Then it was Kong, then it was Star Wars. I'm waiting on Walking Dead and I'm waiting on... yeah, so that's... Evil Dead. My UK Evil Dead arrived today. Yeah, they've arrived, haven't they? They've started arriving now. Yeah, so it's actually at Gonzo's house, so keep an eye out on Gonzo's channel. You gave him your new inbox. I did, yeah, because I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. I've got nowhere to put the damn thing. Mate, you and me both, I've got problems now. I mean, I've put a number of games up for sale. One of them did then sell, and then that fell through because that person then couldn't sell their game. I felt like I was in a house, Jane. I was just like, do you know what I mean? I was just I'm just like for God's sake, so I'm not looking to Xbox, it would be just easier because the market in the least the US is healthier. So here I've got three games where I should only have none. Yeah. In the background and then um if I swing over this way
    9:47
    I've got D&D and I've got keep going keep going I've got Star Wars um and I've got Cactus Canyon Fin
    10:29
    I'm not offering to buy a new inbox. I may as well just wait and get it for a fraction of the price in this country. They dropped their arses in this place to get these games sold. There's some madness definitely going on. There's a bunch of people just selling games because they want to move them quick. Yeah, I mean it happens every time I suppose a new release finally arrives on a short or super speed. Well, I don't mind that, but there's a few folks that are like, like, there was a, I don't know, about 15 games put up for sale at rock bottom prices. Elton John, D&D, Kong, lots of new modern games where the prices were, you know, someone who had money, wasn't worried about taking a hit on it. And unfortunately, that's, look, it's their game, they can sell it for whatever they want, but as a knock-on effect post that, it can take a while to recover from. So, yeah, I don't know. It's definitely not a good place to sell right now. And here in the UK, it's awful to sell. Yeah. And I mean, actually, it's the US as well, the market, and Europe. But I'd say the European market's worse because... I've noticed that actually, there's a lot of games that are going like, I'm just thinking, I'm not sure if I'm making this a scam because sometimes I see the prices on the European markets and they're like really low. I thought the UK was low. It's like god damn, they take it to a new level over there. Yeah, it's kind of, I don't know, it feels weird. And actually I'll talk about this now because I was going to talk about it later on. But I got a call from the guys at Stern a while ago. And they're like, Hey, Neil, we want you to have a chat with John. I think his name is Buscellia. Hold on, I'm not pronouncing that right. He is the, let me just find, I want to pronounce his name right. He said, yeah, cause we're basically going to do a lot more I'm going to do a lot more in Europe. They've kind of realized that they haven't done as much as they could do in Europe. And both Gary and Jack announced this at the Dutch Pinball Open. I already had a chat with Stern about it. I think they've talked to a few other kind of bigger customers in Europe and probably also the distributors, I would guess as well.
    13:27
    And. They're. They're kind of opening an office and it's probably they probably aren't actually opening an office, what they're probably doing is just having a few folks here working in the in the region. Sure. John Papadiuk, Black Water, person's name or role at Stern Pinball), or playfield I'm not sure if I'm in the right position with John. I won't go into the details because I don't think it's appropriate, but I kind of gave him my take on the, on the, on what, if I was Stern, here's what I would do. Okay, yeah, it's, I don't know how you pronounce his surname, but it's B-U-S-C-A-G-L-I-A. Yeah, Buscalia. Buscalia? Yeah, anyway, we're probably murdering him. He's moving to Amsterdam, right? So what was it? Spell it again. B-U-S. B-U-S-C-A-G-L-I-A. Yeah, okay, I've found them. I was hoping that there was... sometimes on LinkedIn there's a button you can press to get the pronunciation. Put it in through Google and then get it into the phonetics. Buscaglia. John, we've murdered your surname enough, we're going to stop. I've talked to John before, I've met him at a few gigs, really nice guy, very customer focused. He's coming to Europe, he's going to be based I think in Amsterdam, not 100% sure about that. I told him he should base himself in the UK because we're cool. That's where the cool kids are at. And we've of course got Pinball Republic with the most on-site Stern premium games in Europe. I don't know if that's true. It might not be true actually. I'm pretty sure it is true, but I'm not 100% true. Someone can challenge me with their list of games. Anyway, you know, it was a good conversation. I'll be honest with you, most of it he kind of had a handle on.
    15:51
    Fraser independent, This is a downside. Practically everybody who's played my Star Wars that buys pinball machines wants to buy one. Good luck is all I can say to that. So, and that's the kind of downside that Stern have, you know, everyone's, the game's taking a lot of shit for its playfield and what's on it or what isn't on it. That's all there is to it. But at the end of the day, it's a really great game of play. We're out in the club. I've not had one bit of negative feedback. I was there for about a month, I was back home for Christmas. Might take it back. How's it been holding up? It's not a single issue, mate. Yeah? Not a single issue. And I put some extra Mylar down because it was in the club. Yeah, where spots will pick up. It's been bulletproof.
    17:04
    And yeah, I think everyone really enjoyed it. It was in a couple of tournaments and Raday's done an amazing job. The code is one mode, I love it. It's hand versus Guido. I can't remember. It's the guy who fired first. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
    17:24
    That mode's hilarious. I was laughing my ass off at it. And again, actually at home, you just Having the game at home, just hear how great the Spike3 sound is. It's just so much better. It's incredible how much better it is. Especially considering, you know, there's a view that the Kenwood speakers are better on the old game. But this has been always my challenge. It doesn't matter what speakers you put on Spike2, the quality coming out of the board is highly compromised. And this is the thing, you do it so, I did a code update on Spike3 and, and, you know, Stern code updates. Well, it's the processor, isn't it? It's bloody ancient. Spike3, it's like boom. And it's like, holy shit. That's what happens when you stick a Raspberry Pi in there, isn't it a 4 or a 5? I can't remember what the hell's in there. I mean, the board before wasn't, when it came out, it wasn't a slouch CPU. I think it's more about IO than it is about CPU. Maybe. I dunno, it's pretty old though, wasn't it even running on a defunct version of Linux it was that old? Yeah, I suspect they're all still running on a defunct version of Linux. Certainly, I mean, some bozo, I despair of this on the forum, I dunno which clan this was this time, says, I'm like, why are they running it on a raspberry pie you can pick up for? I'm like, honestly, do you have a freaking brain in your body, man? And not only that, CGC have been running off Beagle Boards, which is effectively a raspberry pie spin-off to some extent. There's nothing wrong with raspberry pie, in all fairness. But it's almost, it's like, hey people on the forum, if you don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about, best to say nothing. This is why he's banned. Let me have my small rant about the forum. Arv, like, oh, I'm going to download the Star Wars code and put it on my VM and I'll have it up and running, no problem. Yes, Arv, with secure boot. Good luck, mate. Good luck. And good old Thomas chuckled at him and posted exactly what I would have done. And then finally, my week, my most favourite insult of the month, this month, Scott. Are you sitting down? You ready for this? Always. Yeah, go on. Apparently, Scott, I do nothing for the community. Oh, you definitely don't. No? No. Who does the, who's the, who's the buss-a-gut on glass? You could donate half of your pins to charity and they still say you do nothing for the community. I read that and thought, really? Trust me when I say there are people on that forum that have an agenda and no matter what you do, they will make sure that you are called up on something and that you are made to pay for it because they need to feel better about themselves. Yeah, I'm drinking to those fuckers. Cheer. I'm actually thinking of a New Year's resolution just to cut off the forum entirely to be honest with you because I've had enough of it. Well, I mean, it's kind of funny though. I think it's a pretty shit place to be in this. There was a thread where someone was calling for me to be reinstated. I did see that, but I was like thinking they've done you a favour if I'm honest with you. My wife just rolls her eyes when she goes, what are you doing on that forum now? And I'm just like, yeah, you're right. It's kind of just bozo central. I mean, we had A Russell, Solar Powered Russell is how I like to call him. So powerful. When he's not boring us with his speeches on fruit machines. He's upset. I put a picture up, right, because he was giving his little handbag analogy against me. So I put a handbag in my picture. He didn't pick up on it. I know, I know. I saw that. That was... So I am going to do this. I'm going to put a picture up of every other handbag. My wife's got a lot of them. Just saying, she's got a lot of them. So I'm going to put a different handbag up of every pin every time I've got one, just to put it in there. I'm just like, does this one suit you, Russ? Does that one suit you? I know I'm really being petty, but fuck that guy, honestly. Scholar Power Russ, who's probably short of a spark right now given it's winter, basically his comments on toppers was just... It just wound me up when people do stuff like that. I'm just like, okay, look, one thing I agree with him on, I think the toppers are overpriced, but they always have been. Fucking who doesn't think that? Exactly, but having a dig at someone who's putting a topper up for sale when it's cheaper, cheaper, and they're not, they're losing money on it and he's not happy, he's like, no, no, for Communist Russia, we need to do this for 10p and that's the only way I will be happy. He's like, oh piss off. Actually, that's it, I've got my new t-shirt for Pinfest. Pinball Communism. Yes, socialism and communism unite, you know. Pinball Communism. They won't be happy unless games are going back to like £500 which is within their cost of budget so they can go back to the way their life was. And then they can all live happy and hunky-dory in the market that's completely collapsed. No one's buying any new games because they don't want to sell it on their arse basically. No, Scott, under communism, pinball places will be regulated. Oh yeah, of course, yeah. You won't own the pinball, everyone does. They'll come to your house and play it for free. Yes for every pinball that you sell you have to sell it at such a price your testicles literally explode So look I have some pinside sorry Pinside Pinfest pin side this right pin side pin fest uh not to confuse you UK pin fest UK pin fest Okay go on Yeah. I have some news. Okay. About UK pin fest and actually Phil's probably gonna punch me for this, but that's okay. I'll take it. Um, I have been reinstated as the master of the stall ball event. Hey! So you can expect something huge. Huge. Hey, there's a question for you. Does EvilDev have like a store ball option? It does not. Man, you need to be speaking to Spooky. Send them like, you know, tech emails. Say, oh guys, it'd be great if you start doing like a store ball mode of your own making. I mean, Bug, he loves that kind of stuff, right? He loves adding code. I remember listening to him on like a podcast. I remember which one it was, but they update games like every year. I'm thinking, put that energy into something that would really be quite beneficial. Do like a stallball mode in Evil Dead, that would be amazing. I like that. I don't know about Evil Dead as a stallball game though. Is there not enough locks? There is, but they're hard. That's the point, right? You want it to be hard. Yeah, great game. But actually, I told you the other game that could be a decent stallball game is actually Star Wars. Um... Well, you're Fall of the Empire, aren't you? Yeah, it's got a bunch of decent... I knew you'd send Gomez a quick message, hey, my legal game needs to be pulled. Can you knock up? I mean, the barrel ball's cool, but you don't have to have it, but I mean, it's cool that they do. I think they've added it to Dune as well. Oh, if they've done it to Winchester, you could bring it to Winchester, right? If you feel brave. Yeah, I will bring my Winchester. There you go. Get it at first, exclusive. Anyone who's been dumb on the forum, I have a list of stupid people who can't play it.
    25:01
    I don't know if I can buy a whiteboard that long though. That's my only concern. So we're not being very Christmassy. We're not. We're being far humbugged. I think we should just like... right we're now in Christmas mode. Hmm, what a good word. Goodwill to all men, even the people on the forum. So I've also bought a game, another game called Taxi. Keep meep meep. That will get into the club at some point. Nick then? I don't know, I bought it off Gonzalo. It seems OK, he won't move it on. It's a quite hard game to find, so I… I've played it a couple of times, it's a pretty good game. Yeah, I don't know. Urgh. Quirky. Yeah, I find it quite a difficult game. I find all those kind of eras of that, that... Is it like System 11? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I find them all very difficult games. I struggle with them. No, like isn't Elvira and the Partymonsters was pretty easy? That's probably the exception to the rule. Yeah, okay. Funhouse was... What about Funhouse? That was all right. Hmm, can be all right. It's just whether the upper flipper has got the power. Is it, you mean not broken? I mean that's the thing though, you can't really gauge a game based on the fact if it's dilapidated, whether it's hard or... Well, actually am I talking bollocks? Am I thinking of a different game? Well it has got an upper flipper. Yeah, okay, sorry, for some reason I suddenly thought... You actually use that to hit the mouth, don't you? Yeah, exactly, if that upper flipper is rubbish, which they often are, Anyway, if you're having a fun house, of course you'd buy a Pedretti remake because they're actually pretty decent. Much that I'm surprised that they are, but they... Well, I haven't heard anybody complaining about those actually. No, but I'm not super certain they've sold a lot of them unfortunately. It's a difficult one. We go back to that price thing, isn't it? It's like if you can buy a used one... Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's a System Eleven game. It's not really like a rare game. However... Go on. Despite the glorious fanfare of no one's gonna buy a walking dead for that amount of money, they are selling like hotcakes is what I'm led to believe. With many distributors in the US sold out of LEs, the UK apparently sold out of LEs.
    27:30
    I'd say I'm surprised. I don't know. Oh, it's because you like you like the game scares you doesn't it? I had the original and I wanted to throw out the window, but that aside, like, and I got to hold my, I just think it's a flawed game. I know he said, apparently he's done some tweaking to the geometry. I don't know what that meant. I still saw everybody cursing the world when it comes out of that pops and it's, here we go, Drain Central. Nah, you've just got to give it a bit of a tap, a bit of a, and then you're good to go, man. I mean that aside, I know you disagree, I'm on the fence of I don't like that cabinet design. I really don't. And I don't want to... As in like what they've done with the changes to the way it's now effectively bolted and braced at the corners rather than like... I don't know whether I like it or not, but what I definitely know is that so far there have been zero failures. Yeah, it's weeks. And I know they've been testing it for years, I just, I want to see them do what some people do in this country and I'll get it now they won't be like oh god he's banging on about the quality of the back box again oh the way people drag shit around the ground I just want to see how that holds up because you're putting all that weight distribution suddenly on the rear of those that rear of those bracket that's only a lot of pressure how's it going to handle that that kind of shifting movement when people are shuffling it along the floor and I have seen people really drag games I'm just like I got a hold up to the brutal nature of some people. Also scissor lifts. I use a scissorlift. I'm telling you now, I wouldn't put a scissorlift on that new cab. I think I would. Alright, when my walking dead arrives, I will live stream the scissorlift. Do it. I wouldn't feel brave enough. I'm going to call it Scott Cam. I want you to put an inside camera on those brackets as they're straining. I'll get some sort of torque measure or USB torque measure. Look, I looked at my dune and I know, here we go, Battle of the Funds shield, here we go. That underneath, mate, fucking hell. Like, like literally solid wood. They are not fucking about no corner cutting at all. Like, I put, like, I, my, when I got my game, right, and I know what my driveway's like because, you know, good old new build, a rise with a slope the size of Mount Rushmore on it. So when you put anything on it, it is a big slope. So, Curry arrives, he dumps it on my driveway, doesn't put it on the level part, so I'm there going, I'm going to be able to convince my wife to move this, and it's the middle of the day, I've got no neighbours around, I'm going to have to do this on my own.
    30:09
    That was a bit scary, to say the least. And then like, as I'm putting the scissor lift in it, I had to put it on a bit of an angle. I'm putting pressure on a corner at one point, I was like, that's going to do some damage, not a mark. You've seen how I do my game setup. Do, yeah. Basically, if I can demo it right here. Let's do it. Live demonstration for a podcast. Let's do a demo. So if you're watching this in colour... In full screen. I'll probably regret this but let me just...
    30:52
    The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional.
    31:22
    Yeah. And then literally, hold on, let me do it from this side. Everyone is like, there are people on forums. I'll wait for you to drop this now. I did this with, actually, I did it with my Guns N' Roses and nearly dropped it. I literally caught it. That's a heavy game as well. Yeah, very heavy game. Down a little bit. So, this is a one-man set up. Man, you're brave doing that on your own. We've looked at a part of the section for PINBALLoshing that is no longer open very well. Turn off all projectiles that are in分鐘 form by selecting feature from the list. Dr Krabbach,нут I am, I'm just looking for the button to press. Here we go. Oop, wrong button. So you made that look easy, I took hours with mine. There was probably some people that drove by going, what the hell is he doing? Where is that? I was just like, ah, it's better not rain. For those that are listening, we just put a pinball machine on a sizzler. Yeah, sorry, I should have done a better job of describing that. He did it with fair ease, I'm not going to lie. I was not commentating was far below par. Yeah, you're right. I was not there for the audio descriptive bunch. You're fired from World of Sport. So, yeah, so look, the cabinet, I mean, I get, so I think this is before you were in pinball, but when Aerosmith came out. Oh yeah, it was before me. Yeah. I was like Black Knight era, I think. Yeah, I think. Yeah. So Aerosmith came out, it was the second Spike 2 game. Sturne had a ton of issues with the cabinets. And actually the big thing they had... Let me just bring this over because I can show it. So here, let me move that around. Here, on this corner, on this corner here, the cabinet would split. The joinery, so he's on about what Gomez mentioned, the glue. Yeah, so I haven't seen that Gomez thing. Oh right, he basically said that they had quality control issues with some cabinets arriving to them and the wood would separate. Yeah, so it would separate. Obviously because the way it's teaved together and it's obviously glued in. Yeah, they'd basically done what I would call a fish and chip shop on the vinegar, i.e. they don't put enough on. Um, and a lot of them split. If I should, if you go to the Aerosmith, um, club on Pinside and go early enough, you'll see them. And it was always like, holy shit. And this was just after a whole load of noise with Ghostbusters and with the lifting inserts. And I read about that more than it was. It was a bit of a tough time for STEM. I mean, they literally, so they did two things. They changed the design so that the decals weren't wraparound. d2joey froomey restorнюc wz Ce mówiw collaborating gakwu´ェ augšž Bayanorreachèoyć razkiñg okayrŽ borsýč daíŽought cmenļĕ catalánģnelyđ łto voluntary Capeculos'Ž met fragrantische pen consortia G�ugene Ěry CJŽŽ möchte brăkčie kompliment studio oplđźe vrijneEró vessiessäţú 키nčitora Rabb oyunbaš u cognozgħyä ţunیcă I personally prefer that there's like a better cutout around it personally. Yeah, so I mean we'll wait and find out. I mean on that, I mean the other thing is there was a great Radiate Jack and Borg did a great stream of the latest Walking Dead Code. Okay. And I have to say I'm so looking forward to that game. I imagine Stern are going to make this big. Because walking, so at the moment the game's pretty much the game from the original. There's not a lot of difference in it, right? No. And some of the artwork isn't 100%. Again, they've probably gone a bit early on selling it versus code. But I am very certain. Do you know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of Dune. Shipping with licensing and pending approval, unfinished, not at the full vision of the game, basically. When you compare it to like Metallica remastered, which basically came out as a finished product and it was bloody polished. I was looking at it and we'll discuss it in a bit, I suppose, but the top one under is amazing, actually. Metallica is now 13th. It has dropped down the listing, even though I think personally it's my favorite Stern. Jaws has just gone to the number one spot.
    36:50
    Yes, and that doesn't surprise me because at the moment Jaws is my go-to game. Everyone, there's a bit of a renaissance going on with Jaws, I swear. Well, they finalized all the code and people are, there's been a few big games of it. So we had a big game in the UK open.
    37:09
    You can see on YouTube if you want to watch it go backhand pinball, massive game with Timber and Alex. I think it was a glorious game, really showed the game and it was a tough game. Really brilliant, amazing game of Kong, couple other big games and tournaments. And I think, credit to Keith and the team, they slowly made the whole theme integration. With Keith, you almost expect it just to be good. Right. And I think as you play the game more and you get into certain different modes, the integration just gets better and better and better. So I have to say, you know, I think Jaws is up there as one of the best games of all time. I mean, it's definitely it's funny, actually, because even my wife, you know, all these issues, I really do think we should get Jaws. And I was like. Now it's interesting because it when I first saw it I was like, oh god there's no assets. It's like this. It's like another bond, you know what I mean? Well the annoying bit is obviously Brodie's not on the on the playfield but... It feels like he he's more present now because he's in the assets and everything. Yeah yeah and also our good buddy Paul Boucher did the Brodie mod. I don't know if you've seen it but... Yeah I've seen it when you I've watched you with the orca thing where he's dishing out them. That's really cool but I was looking at I know we're telling you the Jaws show now but Like, I love Stumbler's boyie mod. That was incredible watching that. I was like, God damn, that looks better than most, like, factory-made, like, products that go inside the game. Like, it looks like a product that should be in the game rather than a mod, if you make, I don't know, insult to modders, but like, seriously. So I've got it. I think there's one thing I would change on it, which is it's got this kind of artificial, it's got this better plastic replacement. Because it has made a hole and the blue on it's not just the right shade, but also not as integrated as I Iike it to be. But I think if you made it a bit lighter and was able to link the lights up properly to the GIs... I mean they are not linked up, they are just different because it's a mod right? I love it, at the moment you can myself, code it to send messages. I had my game I was on the stream and someone was playing and I changed what the message was on the boy whilst the person was playing and you can see on the stream it's wifi powered. Right, okay. I mean it's basically the second mod that I've nearly killed Stumblr for though because he has another great mod, one of the best mods for foo fighters, the Area 51. Yeah. But it's pretty challenging to fit. I mean this is the trade off. You want great mods, you gotta put the effort into fit them. On the boy of doom as I call it. It's not hard, right? It's a bit time consuming and there's one bit where it's particularly fiddly and I hate fiddly. So I told David he needs to have a British white glove service where he literally You've got a pinball machine that jumps on his motorbike, comes to my house and fits it for me. Is that right? You have to buy a lot of mods to do that. I will pay him three Scooby Snacks. Have you bought the um, what do they call it? I should know Dungeons and Dragons better. The uh, the, the sort of chest. No, I haven't, the um, I know what you mean.
    40:55
    The Mimic? Is it? The Mimic, that's it. I haven't, I haven't, I'll be honest here, my Dungeons and Dragons literally been in storage almost since I got it. It's a travesty. I mean, this is the issue we go back to space, right? Exactly. So I've managed to dig it out. The reason I've got it out is because I'm learning. I mean, when my Winchester arrives, I'm gonna have to probably give one of my games to one of my mates or something. I'm out of space. It was funny when you were mocking me for overflow. Mate, you have no idea how much of an overflow that is right now. There's way too many games in this house. I can get away with it as long as it's just me in the shed. But when more than that, I had a few fucked around last week. I was in the pinball show last Saturday and it was a bit tight. Put it this way, if a ball got stuck on any of those games there... You wouldn't be able to get the glass off. It would be stuck forever, basically. That's the downside. I've got one more game I can really fit in here. Anyway, I'm loaning my Elvira to Brad and I thought I shall get D&D out over Christmas and have a bit of a chance to play because I've got some time off. I've got Cactus Canyon. The wife has said I can have a pinball in the house over Christmas. Hey! So it's Cactus Canyon, but she doesn't yet know that. Is that, because you, have you got to put the mod in though, haven't you? Speaking of like difficulty, that's going to be hard, right? I've heard this is a bit complicated to put in.
    42:20
    He's going to go get his, I don't want to call it the Lyman Sheets upgrade. Yeah, let's call it that. Here we go. So this is the mod. Yeah. In fact, it's upside down, isn't it? Yeah. So it's pretty... Is it pretty in depth? Is the manual like 20 pages long? Yeah, I mean, if you have a look at that... It's got a booklet. Yeah, it's a thick booklet. Okay. So yeah, that's my... That's kind of worrying. I mean, you might be there for a couple of hours putting that in. Yeah, I mean it might, I get the feeling that Dave Stumbler might be forgiven for all his sins. I mean this is the thing though, right? God, it's taken a long time to make that when I think about it. I've had that game and it's been and gone. And even now it's like the game is struggling to sell. I wonder if it will sell better now that you've got that. That's the Pulp Fiction stuff, right? Yeah, from John at Hot Mods. That looks nice. Yeah, they're very nice. I've just not had time for that. I'm a little bit of a bobcap by the way, again we're being terrible, sorry. Yes. Yeah, so a lot of stuff to fiddle with over Christmas that will hopefully get me away from having to deal with relatives. I don't know, all I got from my mum was, because my wife was like, oh can we get you the rocking horse from my mum? And then my mum started adding in the WhatsApp family group messages and that stuff. Oh, you can make room if you get one of your pinballs question mark question mark question mark. Oh, yeah. Thanks. Great. What is that about? I get the same thing. Honestly, it's just a constant bombardment. I can't have fun. It used to be VR and it would be like, Oh, you know, why have you got this in your house? Why are you buying a tall ceiling? Why are you doing this? Because any of the VR and lighthouses need to be high up so you have like full dimension. No, but I don't know it was PC. Oh, why are you always playing your PC? Whatever it is, whatever hobby I take. You're a good spinster. I gotta say you've got a new hobby, with this guy Neil, where we're going to fly to Vegas every week. She threatens to listen to the podcast, she says she's listened to a few of them, she's probably listening to this now going, why is he having a moment of whinge me, because you haven't whinge me of your four question marks. We're flying to Vegas, we're going to gamble, smoke cigars and hang out with the dancing girls, right? I don't think my wife would breathe. That's our new hobby. Anyway, so yeah, so Walking Dead, I think, I mean, have a look at on Stern's YouTube site. They did a live stream of the gameplay and it's starting to really shape up. They've done a couple of... I was a little bit concerned because there was like no gameplay reveal, then it was a delayed gameplay reveal and it was kind of like, this is a bit weird. I think they had a lice again. So from what it looks like, it looks like the licensor's... Yeah, I saw it when I saw Ralph's video stream because it slapped all over the screen. Yeah, I think that's gone now because since they dropped an update of code last week. Okay. So I think that's gone. So I mean, and actually Dutch Pinball covered us whilst we were there. I should just do this a little bit first. So a load of new games arrived here in the UK, finally. Yay! It was literally a huge amount of games arriving. Yeah, just in time for Christmas. So Evil Dead arrived here. So Gonzo's, I think I said this earlier, Gonzo's got mine. Loads of other people unboxed them. Harry Potter's arrived here, or some of them, because I don't think all of them have arrived. No, it's the first kind of like confirmed orders, I suppose, is the way of putting it. Yeah I mean I find that shocking If I wasn if I had put money down on that game which I never going to do but in theory if I did From what I understand though the people that haven had their game yet haven been asked to make their full payment yet So that something but they have put their deposit down Well, yeah. Equally disappointing for them though, I imagine if you've put a deposit down. As far as the day the game came out and I haven't got my game in the first batch. It depends when they made the order, right? We're speculating, but yeah. It'd be dead to me. I'd be like, nah, can you fucking cancel the order? Give me my money back. This is bullshit. Yeah, I get what you're saying though. I mean, it's definitely frustrating because I mean like it happened almost with Dune, right? When, um, I forget how you say his name on the forum, Seko Kid? Seko Kid, yeah. Seko Kid. So he put the showroom game that was told to him from David up a sale before we'd even got our game and I'm thinking to myself, god damn. Wow, like, I get it right, everyone gets bored of a game sooner or later, but it's been so long since he's had that showroom game that we finally get ours and he sells it. Well, he's decided to keep it and he sold Jaws instead. He sold Jaws? Yeah, this is the thing with Rob, shout out to him. Rob, he's kind of, how do I put it? He's a bit schizophrenic when it comes to games. I was gonna say, it's a good way of losing cash. Exactly. Yeah. I can talk because I've got fucking John Wick that's got like 200 plays on it. So, you know, it's, but I don't need to get rid of, I don't get rid of any games. I think you're lucky in a position that you can either put them in the club, put them in storage or keep them in your rather large, like private collection. So, I mean, it's, you know, kind of, if Rob almost feels like the last game he played that he liked, he must have. I think everyone gets that though. I mean like I'd love to have a Harry Potter, but I wouldn't be like as you say put myself down for one and waiting for the day for it to finally show up. I'd probably just wait for someone to get bored and sell theirs. Yeah, I mean, the thing some people won't like it. Actually, you know, we were talking about this the other day. I was expecting a lot more pulp fictions to come up for sale. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, they've been very quiet haven't they? It's a tough game. I only think people haven't put them up for sale because they know they're going to take a bath on them. Yep. So that's that. But then again, you don't see many Foo Fighters either and you don't see many Deadpools in all fairness, although technically it's because it's probably a good game, but. Well Deadpool, I think I've mentioned this before in the pod, Deadpool, there isn't many of them in the country mate because Is there not? Nah, because it got lambasted by the geniuses on the forum. Actually, here and on Pinside. Ah, Nick Schaffel, he's definitely on it. And he's like, why is this stupid Spikey, why has this guy got a springy head? And then people played it and thought, fucking hell man, this is a great game. Oh, I'm going to order one. Oh, they've sold out. I still miss my I tell you games I still miss from from any of the games I've sold would be Stranger Things because I still miss that Jurassic Park yeah kind of regret letting that one go not gonna lie that was a good game it's a great game I can't think I don't really miss I don't miss House of Horrors I really don't miss that I think I preferred Scared I think that's all I've got in terms of new boxed stones that I got. I'm trying to remember anything else. But for me, they're the ones I miss the most. I think I still have yet to really play properly in Foo Fighters. I would like to try Foo Fighters. Well, I, um... Foo Fight is a great game. It's quite a tough game. But I, I kind of get, the music kind of drives me nuts after a while. It's like,
    50:41
    there's like, I don't know, 30% of the tracks I like, the other 60% I like fucking, I need to like, hack it and do a, like a Foo McCrae or something. Foo Disco. You can still do the custom code on those, right? It's a great game. Sorry? You can still do the custom code on like some of those spike 2s, right? No. Or is it harder with the insiderconnect? Since Led Zeppelin though, because the game has expression lights and has triggers in the music for scorebits, for score points rather, it's much harder to do it. It's not impossible, but it's, you know, you don't see it. Stranger Things, a great game. Yeah. I really love Stranger Things. I still think they should have done something for the new season. I don't know. Maybe it's never sold well, is it? I think it's, I think the issue there is they'd have to go back and relicense it and just... I remember the guys when they first interviewed them, it was ages back when they first did like a making of Stranger Things and the directors for Stranger Things said, oh, you're going to release new updates for this, aren't you, to keep up with the seasons? Oh, we don't do that. I genuinely think that's a missed opportunity. I get the fact that, you know, some of it would look weird because of the art assets on the playfield and maybe the cabinet art. A few months into its release, Martinez I've got to say, I watched three episodes of Stranger Things and wanted to shoot my head. Oh really? I quite liked it. I thought it was alright. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're all old now. It's weird when you say that. Some shows like that I need to kind of watch them two or three times before I can get into them. Yeah, so Alice in Wonderland also got delivered. Yes, Alice has started shipping. I want to give a special shout out to Dave the Gun Bishop
    52:49
    Who ruined it in Jack Dave. Literally, for the last six months has probably called Phil and Barry and anyone remotely involved with Alice in Wonderland waiting for it to be delivered. You have no idea but but hold on go wait for that way for the punchline my friend wait for the punchline he has nagged and nagged and nagged and nagged so much so that his nagging is now a global trademark right what happens the day Dave nags Hadfields to get his game It sits in his shed for five fucking days before he gets out of the fucking box. Sorry, my gym was only out as soon as it arrived. Yeah, that's a big red card. Is it because he's got other games though, is it? Like no space or? No, he's got no space and he couldn't, I think he's got a trolley like mine so I don't know how he, he wasn't able, anyway he's got it up and running now. I don't want to go too much into it, but I remember one time when I was badgering Phil for like Cactus Canyon, because it was like, where's the game? You know what I mean? And it was like, I got a kind of short reply. And after that, I was like, I'm not pushing that button again. Because it's just like, I felt like he's maybe braver than I to nag people, but I find some people in this industry, you nag them and it really doesn't work. Question I often have when imagining b town listening to what I say or being myself… That ppup troupe exists only two percent of Andra in Y превity per throughs. Transferra konstant necessitas- In flexio et peתos, un Brit pleaxiad bor, Bobby cari Cec, Rom ko, ゆ ell, Hello Scott, there should be more billionaires in the world because of all these people that have made money out of selling pinball machines. I don't fucking... We are going to get crucified for what we've said so far on this podcast, I swear to God. It's okay, I don't care. Yeah, I've stopped caring, I'm not going to lie. So, yeah, so quite a few new games. Unfortunately, the game that everybody wants to arrive that hasn't is Walking Dead. And my spies on the... I think the game I want to watch is Winchester over Walking Dead but you know each of the- Yeah Winchester, yeah I'm okay to wait for that because I want the code to be as good as possible. Walking Dead I just want to get into it and it's- I've heard from my spies on Stenaline that- I'll tell you one thing that impresses me with Dune- Walking Dead will be here end of January. End of January. I think Stern needs to start doing that. I noticed barrels seems to do quite a lot of that. It's really neat. They put like small circular LEDs around the playfield that are not like let's say visible from the artwork. So the artwork is laid over the insert and it only appears as a dot like a red dot or whatever it needs to be in Winchester. It's like paths that lead to a room in June. It's spice and water and stuff like that. And it I think it really is clever. Like, I feel like they've kind of cottoned onto something that other people haven't like when people do inserts in in other like manufacturers I've seen it's always been traditional triangles squares circles hexagons and they're always visible. Sometimes they'll do a little occlusion around the artwork you know like like the bit of artwork will bleed over the insert but they've never truly flushed the artwork over the insert and then have it appear underneath. I don't know if that's because they've noticed something that no one else has maybe around, you I thought on there I didn't notice on June but I definitely noticed on Winchester yeah and also the Winchester aprons really cool as well yeah the interaction on that sorry my cat DPO had one game on about the cue for it was crazy Actually Dutch Pinball Open, it's probably the best show in Europe in terms of new stuff.
    58:06
    They had Alien there, sorry not Alien, Predator, still awful. That game will not sell 300 units. No. I'm calling it now. It won't. I mean, they're really trying their hardest. I think- The damage is done. Yeah. People will move on. There's too many, I mean, there's way too much competition now. I'm a little confused now when you think about it. God, how many manufacturers have we got now? So many. Yeah. They had, yeah, they had Junior, they had, what was it, they had Winchester, they had Walking Dead. That was the- Which got called Customs, didn't it, I think. It was quite funny. That was the world, I think that ended up being the main kind of launch was actually, and Jack and Gary Stern were there. They had Harry Potter, which I think was the first time it had been at a big European show. Okay. Well, actually, was that... No, I think, yeah, I think that's the first big European show it's been at. It was a good gig. I mean, I didn't... I entered the tournament, but they used a stupid format. I just don't enjoy it. I wish I hadn't entered it, but... And then I drove there. So BMW loaned me a Z4, the new Z4 to... You see if there's customer reward points. He'll pick me up. So andi is grave to drive two to two and which was Graves great car driver accept it's snowed on the second knee. And I nearly killed myself coming to the car because I forgot it is their whole still only rear wheel drive And this yeah so it was it was and excited drive home. What's what's put it that way but I did make a.
    59:50
    And get it was a lot of good folks out there. Jack O' I have a lot of folks from America. They're like coin taker were there which was like, wow, um, Karl Dearthy, What were they doing there? Jack O' I don't know. I think they were just visiting. I don't know. Karl Deynasty, Okay, yeah, yeah, okay. Jack O' And a few other folks. But it was a good show. I'd, I'd definitely go there once. I don't know if I'll go back unless there was something big there. But good, good social show. And yeah, it was, and they have a lot of support from the manufacturers, which is good. And it's the venue's huge. That's the big thing. The hotel is actually attached to a hotel. It's kind of weird, I was actually in a single bedroom, which is the first time I've been in a single... It was like a room for one person. And you know what was cool about it? I could actually brush my teeth whilst having a shit.
    60:38
    Okay. That's not something I expected to hear in the same sentence. The toilet was literally... You had to kind of like slide in, where the sink was, I was like, well, fucking hell. Uh, and it was, my wife thought it was hilarious. Um, but yeah, I definitely, uh, visited there. Yeah. So, and then we mentioned this Stern coming to Europe and they're going to have more, we're going to try and fix things in Europe. Um, and, and then this, this interesting discussion that kind of, I think started in, in, in Holland. Um, and then you, you mentioned it, which is apparently we're running out of themes and licenses. Yes. So this was a comment that Kaneda was live streaming with Todd Tuckey at whatever the event was, I can't remember you saying, but they were... Automated. Automated, yeah. So they were all there and Kaneda asked Jack about upcoming licenses or licenses he's had issues trying to get. And then Jack said, well, it's got to a point where I'm actually running out of licenses. Jack from Jersey Jack, right? Yes, Jack from Jersey Jack. So he then says something along the lines of, I've got all the licenses I can get and all the ones that I couldn't get or want to get are not either available to me, too expensive to get, or I wouldn't get all the assets so I wouldn't bother.
    62:04
    And I was like, oh, are we really at a position now where we've run out of licenses to get? I mean, that's kind of worrying in some ways. It's like, what does that mean for the future? Is that because everyone in the, you know, because the competition is so fierce, everyone else has had deals in the background, they've locked in their favourite licence? Your camera's gone again, by the way. Camera's gone again, I'm fixing it. Or is it because, you know, he just genuinely doesn't think there's a licence worth going for because it hasn't spoken to him at a personal level? And I just thought it was an interesting subject to talk about, really, because for me, there's countless titles I would like to see personally. My take on this, this is a Jack thing. So Jack is basically, as I understand it, he's practically handpicked every license that Jersey Jack have done. Hence why most of them have been shit. Well Harry Potter was definitely worthwhile getting right, even though it's obviously a damn expensive license to have got. I'd love to see the economics on that but and to fair play Eric did a decent job on the playfield of the code it's not as good as I think it needs to be but I mean look avatar who why why why Godfather was a real I mean Godfather is definitely a jack decision I don't know we were all before Godfather do I mean like this just doesn't lend itself I think I've lost the word of pinball in my book, but there we go. Yeah, I mean, I kind of, the Godfather thing kind of made me chuckle because people say, no, John Wick, I'm like, John Wick or Godfather. I mean, it's a no brainer for me, right? Yeah. But John Wick's an action packed movie. It lends itself quite well to kinetic, you know, because the whole thing is about kinetic fighting and everything's fast and furious. I think, oh, that'd be a good game to like do, the fast and the furious. So why don't we, you That's a license that they haven't tackled yet. There's been a lot. I think Stern have tried to get that a few times. Oh really? I heard that the latest rumor is they're getting Corvette or something like that as a license. Corvette again? I know. My god. The first one was bad enough. Yeah, can we just not do one based on a car manufacturer and do it on a film based around cars? That's way better. Yeah, I have to say, um, Corvette, I mean, yeah, I don't know. I just, I don't like driving buses. But yeah, I mean, it's kind of, um, in my mind, I think, I think what Jack saying is, is these kind of what I would say, big titles like Harry Potter, like you might argue, uh, Oh, I should say he did mention he had Matrix apparently. He said he had the license, but he didn't get access to the assets as in like the actors. So it was kind of like, I think he had, he said he had the music and he had like the poster art and stuff like that, but he didn't have the, he couldn't have them appear. I don't even remember what the music was. Music was great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, don't get me wrong, like that, that, I don't know, not having Keanu Reeves me this like nothing Arnie and predator I mean myself no goal and I wish us not build this but no no fuckin we are fire fighting crack on and so I kind of fulance of the crazy basically The Lord of the Rings Hobbit is one of them. Star Wars is one of them. Looking Round the Room, Pulp Fiction, you might all use one of them. Jurassic Park's definitely one of them. Yeah absolutely, perfect theme as well. Godzilla and Jaws, Iron Maiden maybe, from a music point of view. I'm still waiting for them to do a Batman and I know you say Batman 66 but for me it's like I want to see I don't know like Batman from the animated series with Kevin Comroy or... You're never gonna see that. That's a shame man. You're never gonna see this. My camera... He's definitely my favorite voice actor Batman. My camera keeps crashing so I'm gonna keep restarting it. You keep doing that. Yes. But I mean... I know we've had a fair few Batmans because we had the Batman from Sega didn't we? The Batman Dark Knight but... Yeah. I mean that's That's an opportunity though for me to get it done right. Do it again, but get it done right. Yeah, I mean, I am Batman 89 is what they've got to do. All the Sega releases are a waste of time actually, like even Independence Day. I love the film Independence Day, but again, terrible pinball. Baywatch, off on me. Baywatch, yeah, okay, I'll defend Baywatch till the cows come home. That's a great game. But there was, I can't think of any other decent Segas. Starship Troopers was a waste. I would definitely redo Starship Troopers. Yeah. Especially when you've got Helldivers being so successful in the gaming world and Starship Troopers as a game is having a really lot of success. It's a good opportunity to kind of just go, do you know what, let's get this one done right this time. Well, I think, I mean, the other, the other big title, well yeah, they could do Batman, I was just thinking of another big title that went out of my head there, but... Terminator again, do you know what I mean? T Superman, yeah. Terminator, I think after T3 it's dead, basically. Yeah, of course, I just do a new T2 is what I'm saying. Yeah, I dunno.
    67:54
    Maybe people are just sick of remakes though. I'm trying to, maybe if you go for a more original licensed title, obvious one for me is Fifth Element, but I do feel someone has that license. Yeah. Just wait for it to show up. But I mean, Blues Brothers, I think if it was done properly, and not by some slightly bizarre Australian. Yeah. You know, I kinda think that there is, C睡 Sports Riot TY QMC Q toc Out forecourt Out awareness The UFC I mean, let's talk, actually, we've got to wrap up, right? So let's talk about Stern's next upcoming title, which apparently is either Transformers or Pokemon. I'm pretty sure it's Pokemon. You think it's Pokemon? Which probably means that they'll just swap it to annoy me and do Transformers. Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty sure it's Pokemon, which was Jack's game that George is finishing off. I just putting this out there right now right And I know sometimes we get stern listening to this podcast kicks on this at the end If you don do a transformer that fucking transforms just bin your game now and do Pokemon I sorry but if that bloody transformer does not transform on the playfield what is a fucking joke That is worse than Jaws not eating the ball Do not bother Do not waste my time Nah, nah, that's bullshit, Scott. No, bollocks! It's Transformers. It needs to transform. Yeah, but only if it's... so like, right, so on Star Wars they got that ah ah walker that falls over when you hit that shot, right? But it's meh, because it's not interacting with a ball. Yeah, but they can... this is... but that's what I'm saying. Have something in the playfield transform so that it adjusts the way the playfield works. They're capable of doing it. Yeah, something that wasn't maybe a robot. No, no, you missed the point. Transformers can be anything and let's face it, we've seen Transformers be bases in Transformers. So they can have a part of the playfield transform. I agree with that. I mean, yeah, if you had like a, you know, you heard that, that noise they make when you're transforming and suddenly the playfield moves. I mean, that could be cool. It'd be amazing, actually. Yeah, I hope they do it justice because the previous Transformers game... actually, the previous Transformers is a great game but not a great use of the theme. It's a bit of a shame. Yeah, because they have some weird thing where like the... oh god, I'm going to get finalised for this now. I can't even remember what they were called. What were the two races of the robots called? Autobots and... Knapp, the box. The box and the Decepticons? Decepticons, that's it, yeah. Right, thanks, go on. I've got to salvage some of it there. So they had it, wasn't it like half the colour in one, half the colour in the other and it was kind of like left side was Optimus side and right side was Megatron side sort of thing. I just feel like… I thought, so from a movie point of view I actually thought that was okay. Okay. But they were only able to use the movie assets as they were. They weren't able to do anything with them. What's your thoughts then? Do you think it's going to be Gen 1 as in the original cartoon? I'm not a pinball fan. There's no way it's the movie. It'd be Gen 1. The great thing about Gen 1 is they can actually create their own, they should be able to create some of their own content with it. Sure. Which I think would be cool. Hopefully they've got the voices. That's really important. Yeah, you need to have the voice of Optimus, which he still does the voice, doesn't he, even for the movies. I mean, actually, I should have, I should, I may be getting them out for the next podcast, but I've got... You have the Transformer, the Transformers, don't you? Yeah. I've got two of them. Okay. this guy joke this guy
    72:05
    yeah I thought that was the reason they got rid of the gun because it was like, you know, it's for kids and all that and they made it into something else. It was a long time ago. Yeah, I think I mean, I do think Jack makes a point about these mega, mega kind of titles. I mean, the one the one that kind of smacks me in the face right now would be Mission Impossible. Is it a is it a brand that like transcends generations though? Yeah, man, it's been going for 20 years. For me, Transformers does. For me, Pokemon does. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not a Pokemon fan. Pokemon doesn't... Oh, man, honestly, the amount of millennials you've got that are into Pokemon is unreal. Wait, millennials don't buy fucking pinball machines. I'm a millennial. You're not a millennial. What year were you born? I am sadly a millennial. I could not go into that category. I would be a free issue of Gen X. You're not actually a millennial. You actually work and do shit. I know. I definitely fit in the millennial camp. Me, Kerry Harley and Retro Ralph, very similar age brackets, all fall into that bracket. I feel honoured to be in the best gen that ever was, Gen X. You're Gen X, are you? Although someone wants to call me a boomer, which I had to get t-shirts made up about. It's because you're an uneducated boomer. An uneducated boomer. Hey V, if you're watching, we love you. Anyway, the, yeah, I don't think I've seen V on the forum for ages thinking about that. She hasn't been in the club for a while either. And her and her husband are members, which we appreciate greatly. So I hope they're well. It's okay, Puma. Love it. I tell you, as a quote, that's an epic quote, I have to say. I mean, it's completely, you know, I don't think there's any boomers in pinball really. I think they're all Gen Xs, but at least there's none that are buying games. So yeah, okay. Well, yeah, I get why you're not into Pokemon. That would be before your era. So I mean, I tried to get into, I tried to play the games on Game Boy. I just thought they were boring as shit. As I say, I know plenty of people that do a lot of trading cards and there's a lot of money in it. Yeah, that's a stupid amount of money, isn't it? Look, as a mega, as a mega kind of theme, it's there, no question about it, right? Yeah, and it would be a way of getting kids into the, if they found a way of getting the trading card aspect into the pinball machine, yeah, that could bring a lot of people to the game. I don't know about that. I'm... But you've got to be like Stern, right? You've got to think about if this generation, which it will, like it or not, everyone's going to die sooner or later, they need to get fresh blood in. Nah, I'm living forever, mate. I wouldn't say that, I mean, lots of people like have slagged off D&D, but let me tell you, D&D has sold incredibly well. I think I would have liked it more if the playfield just didn't look so muddy. It's a bit dark. I'm a bit dark. I'm up. See, these are the people say that I'm like, but I'm fucking shooting the ball and I'm enjoying shooting the ball. So I mean, the thing is, is it's definitely starting to give you another shot when one comes up for like four grand or whatever the UK market wants to sell in the future. Stern have definitely brought a lot of more players into pinball with D&D way more than Harry Potter's brought in the Harry Potter, for sure. Yeah, well, Harry Potter's got its own issues, hasn't it, now, around the politics, let's just say. Oh, the politics? Yeah, because the younger generation are vehemently against the author, aren't they, because of her views. But let's not get into that. That is a whole minefield we do not want to go down. Yeah, but, well, I think, I mean, this is, for me, if it's a good game, I don't give a shit, really. I love the films, I thought they were alright. I watched them back with funny and well-backed. I mean, I obviously I can't stand the movies. No? Okay. I watched the first two and thought, nah, that's enough. That's because whoever plays Hermione, she over pronounces her H's. Harry, Harry! Nah, it doesn't do that. The simple fact is I can't stand the game where there's no ninjas, robots or spaceships in it. I was like, when do the robots or the ninjas appear? So come on, go back to, because we've got to wrap up soon. Give me a theme that goes on what you just said, the ninjas, robots, stuff like that. What is the theme that you think is currently missing from any manufacturer that they should be making? I definitely want to see a kung fu theme. I think, I mean, look, Dragon Fist, there's another game called Kung Fu. You've got Ninja Scroll, haven't you, on the turn of pinball? Ninja, yeah, there's Teenage Mutant Ninja- It's not Ninja Scroll, I can't remember what it's called now. There's a Turtles. I kind of feel like a Bruce Lee game.
    77:14
    The thing is... What's your thoughts on that little trouble in Little China? Where it's called? Big Trouble in Little China, sorry. Yeah, it was, it was okay. I think it was, it felt a bit rushed to me, but I mean, the guy put the effort in, no question about it. A lot of money was spent on that. Yeah, I mean, he must have spent, I don't know, 20 or 30 grand on that easily. Well, Bryan Allen, I don't know what he charges for his artwork, but yeah. Yeah. I have to say it looked like almost like a finished game. Actually there was a there was a there was a homebrew kingpin in DPO that I thought was actually a real remake. It was so well done except the trough kept getting confused because I was like who's this kingpin I want to buy it. I mean this is the thing though right I think a lot of people don't forget about this it's like I've had people offer me buy my cyberpunk you can't you can't sell them because of the copyright. Well, Kingpin is like a title that Capcom did. They knocked a few of them out and then they went away and then some, I don't know who they are, popped up and said, oh, we're remaking it. And this was 2017 Texas Pinball Festival and it was, I basically spent the whole event there. My wife's going nuts, why do you keep coming back to play this game? Because it was so good. They had one at Indisc. And then I saw this, I was like, holy shit. And I was like, where did this come from? And it was a homebrew, but it was a home, someone had built the game, like done a scratch build. IEции witnesses I see yee in 제일 aw If we did all these Gen X TV shows like Knight Rider or The A-Team, I think they would sell off the back of... It's the same as Goonies. People say Goonies... So if you said to me A-Team or Goonies, which is a bigger theme, A-Team by a fucking mile. I mean, I would say so. And I think it would sell. Well, the problem is, is you're gonna, you're gonna have challenges with getting the rights for certain characters. Mr. T, I imagine is pretty difficult. Nah, I think that would be alright. It'd be George Pappard, I think would be and above all, have fun playinginunstaroday battle mode and put some comments down below. Thank you Thanks a bunch. That's all that I could do without doubt. Passport呢 Honestly, like, the only, so I, if people, like, people, there's a thing on Facebook, like this game for six grand, and it was like a two grand game. And I just, I just put, mate, you're never going to sell it. Not because I want to be a dick and I've got no intention of buying it. No, just because it's priced too high. I get that. I'm like, mate, you're never going to sell this game. Are you silly? Right? And you want to sell it to that? Sell it to an idiot on eBay, which I really don't recommend because everyone, I mean, we've all bought an overpriced pin and thought, fuck. Right? It doesn't help the community by doing that. But, you know, there's this kind of, you know, obviously people don't want to lose money, right? And, you know, I hear all these stories, I never lost, you know, I had this pin and I had it for like a year and I never lost a penny on it. I don't believe you. Show me the receipts, show me the bank transfers. I just do not believe you. So it's kind of, that's just kind of a bit silly really. But, look, there's some bargains out there. The other thing is, think about, how can you borrow a pin or hire it? People like Matt and Phil do pinball hires. Hire the game for a month before you buy it. Make sure you really want it. Yeah, there's nothing worse than buyer's regret. I mean, again, we've all bought a pin and thought, why did I buy it? Guns and Roses, man, the initial first two weeks, apart from the, forget the technical issues from it, the first two weeks of it were like, I'll like this because The music was really, they did a really good job on that. And the light show, right? They were ahead of everybody. Yeah, it was. It's a bit average now, but it looked good when it first came out. Yeah, but then the game's awful, man. The playfield, literally, Eric just, I don't want to have a go at him, but it is not a great design.
    81:49
    I liked the clever ideas he did with the piano, with the eddy board underneath. So you could, when the ball went over the playfield, it was like it was playing the keys. Yeah, I mean, there was individually some good things. It's just how it came together. It was awful. No, I mean, the code was terrible, but I find that with every Jersey Jack game. Me and Holly have a thing like, we've watched like, Jack, sorry if you're listening mate, but honestly, whenever you get like an announcement with a call out where it goes, Throw the lights, Moldy Ball! Blah blah blah, Moldy Ball! So when Harry Potter came out, it was like, oh, you're a wizard, Harry! Harry Potter, Moldy Ball! Oh my god! It's just like, it's gonna be like a million multiballs, death by multiballs. It's just, I hate, I hate, I hate the multiballs on Jersey Jacks. It's just like, give me a mode and I'll be happy. Even Elton John does that and it's kind of the best game that they've got. I just, I can't do it. I get why they do multiballs, they think multiballs are fun, but my god, they do like 20 different multiballs in a game. I just lose my head. You can't get into a mode. Like, Jolanda Rose is terrible sometimes. I just sat there and like stared at the ceiling sometimes when it kicked off a mottieball and I was like, I just want to start the bloody song. I don't want to play a fucking mottieball. I was just like, I had to get rid of the game. It just drove me up the wall. I mean, this is the thing, right? It's like, so I saw Phil posted he had more Elton Johns in stock. 13 grand for it though, man. You'd have to be nuts. And you see Beetle Juice at 10. Yeah, I should have added something. Is it? Hold on. Let's see what happens though with I'm hearing like some murmurs by Evil Dead, by the way, apparently they're starting to have issues. So yeah, I noticed that as well. And actually, let me tell you, I've had on my one in the club, the one thing and apparently Spooky have fixed this, but the two areas I'm having real regular issues with is the trough has got switches on. You're not even in the field of the ball. You're just in the field of the ball. You're not even in the field of the ball. You're just in the field of the ball. If you've got a magnetic ball, it's just game over. So if a ball gets magnetically charged, it's just, forget it. You're done. The second thing- I've seen camps to argue opto versus Switch. I've had issues with both. Opto everyday basically. Nah, I mean, I've had issues with optos. I mean, the thing is I'm talking about failure of games here, but bloody hell, optos can be such a pain in the ass. On a modern game, I've got so many new games, never had an opto boarder. On a modern game, I got so many new games, never had an opto board issue. I had an opto board that went bang because I bloody... Is less opto board issues, it's more like occlusion because they got dirty, stuff like that? Yeah, that's easy to fix though, but this is like, this is like a ball gets magnetized, the game's dead. And then actually in the under playfield bit, there's optos there. And that under playfield gets filthy, mate. I wasn't even thought about that. I must be a real git to clean that. Oh, it's a nightmare, mate. You gotta pop the glass off, or the plastic, clean that. Sure. And then clean the optos that are around it. And they're kind of wired in a weird way, which makes it a bit more tricky. But that has been painful. The shotgun thing, we had one of them break, which actually, fair play to Spooky, they sent me a new one almost in two days for the UK Open. But I think... It's way better than any other game that they've got reliability-wise, but I still think they've got more work to do, is how I would position it. I mean, that's the problem, though, when you pack a game full of, like, let's call it gadgets. It's always a risk, right, that one of those breaks because it's just not designed to... I will show that. Well, it's still at the advantage, right? When you do a pro for the operator locations, it's cut down for a reason. Want to make it bulletproof. One thing that I will show this, let me just get a pair of scissors.
    85:41
    He's gone off to get something for those who are not aware again. He likes doing this. He's doing a George Gomez as we speak.
    85:50
    This is, um, this is, I have to say this is probably one of the best mods I've ever seen in pinball. It's the shotgun mod, right? It is epic. I remember when Ant had to put that through customs. I imagine he was pretty brick in it, thinking they're gonna like pull him out. He's like, oh you're holding a firearm? This is probably one of the most... That looks very nice to be fair. I mean it is... I mean if I hit you with that... I can see my thigh whacking that hard though. It sticks out a fair bit. It's like Dirty Harry and... This is a beautiful... It's longer than Indiana Jones though isn't it? When you think about it in terms of a gun. Spooky have smashed this though mate, I tell ya. How much was that out of interest again? 450 What are you calling this, this… Red Dodo, There's actually a pinball. Relolsransöß hablando y antes, HOL° directivey several small Ora The It's so I mean it's solid. So fair play to spooky they know To their mind to the know how to build it and I think they sold them all basically. They only made I think 200 I think they slugged a lot. It's funny because when I was asked about like, you know, Beetlejuice was like, yeah, you can you know, do you want the topper with it was like Yeah Right. It's the obvious thing like who the hell would not have the topper with that game Texas stream TVulse "'B monitors to sow byrne Nippon Provide I conjunto The acid desert is hidin King Bombelett 써 HardyIN by attestation that it will be around by hand I'll be doing a lot more streaming over the Christmas break so you can watch me on... I'd say I've bought camera but I need to put together a rig and I was going to do one for Dune. twitch.tv.tv slash Neil McCraig, keep an eye out for me. I might stream a little bit on YouTube as well but I'm not, YouTube's quite, it's just not as nice to stream on YouTube from an organiser point of view. I'm going to do a few more streams. If there's someone who wants me to stream, give me a shout. I think it's been a decent, you know, coming into this year, I thought it was going to be a tough year for pinball. I think it's been a really great year for pinball. Some really great games, some... Shall we actually, quick one? Yeah. So what was your number one game this year? This year...
    88:47
    I'm going to say Evil Dead. Evil Dead? Wasn't Jaws this year? Jaws was not this year, it was last year. Oh, okay. Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe it's because I'm thinking of 50th edition, maybe that's why. Yeah. I think Evil Dead pips it. Kong I think is very close second now, especially the way the code is. I actually think Kong will overtake Evil Dead eventually because they're just knocking out the park on the code. What else was this year? I mean Walking Dead and Star Wars are pretty good. I liked the Merlin's Arcade. I think it's a great game. I think it's very underrated.
    89:30
    Not seen many of them here. That's really it. It's not, I mean, the worst game of the year for me is Alien. Sorry, Predator. That's most disappointing for me. I can't say, I haven't played it. It's just... I think Dune eventually will be a good game. I think I'll eventually pick one up, maybe not new but... June for me, at the moment, obviously I've got honeymoon period, it's got flow. Holy crap has it got flow in it. Yeah, see I kinda, it's kinda weird, I played it in Pinball and I thought it was awful and I played it in Papa and I thought actually this is pretty good but then it had an issue with the Mac. That's the thing, at the moment I'm, I wouldn't say it's like in my top five. I don't realise it. I think it's definitely got a potential to be in the top five once I've got past the issues I've got. All the parts were 3D printed. For the worm mech. Yeah, for everything. Some of it is, yeah. I definitely agree with that. So, that... But the scopes aren't obviously 3D printed and any of the metalwork obviously is metalwork. I just, I've just got this thing about 3D printing. It's just... It worries me because, yeah, durability, yeah. I get ya. But Labryck had the same issue and I didn't have any issues with the 3D printed stuff in that. So you know how the little heads popped out? Knapp I've started to notice mine starting to like look a little crooked. I don't know if it's just how it arrived in the game, but I know for a fact that if there's a problem, they just replace it. Yeah, yeah. I think that one's more the fact that it's a sculpt and it's a tiny sculpt. They probably should have thickened it out a bit to make it more resilient, so to speak. Yeah, on that, we're way late. We are. My wife's going to kill me. My wife's going to shoot me as well. Look, everyone have a great Christmas. Scott, have a great Christmas. Enjoy pinball. You too. Um, and, uh, we will be back in January. Um, and in fact, we might, we might, um, we might have to find two Christmas jumpers for the January episodes. Um, I have one as long as my baby doesn't throw up on it. Um, anyway, thanks everyone for watching us. This is episode 32, believe it or not. Um, so appreciate everyone's watching us this year. Yes. Thanks. We'll, uh, We will see you in the new year. So Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Goodbye from me and goodbye. Goodbye from me. Goodbye.