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Saturday Morning Spectacular, June 22

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·1h 18m·analyzed·Jun 24, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Kaneda reviews GNR CE setup challenges and surveys rumored upcoming pinball games across manufacturers.

Summary

Kaneda discusses receiving his Guns N' Roses Collector's Edition pinball machine and shares his setup experience, including factory defects and fixes. He then provides a comprehensive breakdown of rumored upcoming pinball machines across manufacturers (Stern, Spooky, Jersey Jack, Pedretti), discusses current market sentiment, and emphasizes the importance of manufacturer visibility and community engagement.

Key Claims

  • Guns N' Roses CE arrived with clear coat issues and factory assembly defects including bent guitar neck mech and stuck flipper posts

    high confidence · Kaneda describing his personal setup experience with the machine

  • Jersey Jack's older machines require extensive out-of-box adjustments, comparing them to faulty 1980s Jaguars

    high confidence · Kaneda's direct experience with GNR CE setup

  • Stern Pinball let the Beetlejuice license go because no one at the company wanted to work on it

    medium confidence · Kaneda citing George Gomez admission; secondhand account

  • Beetlejuice will outsell John Wick 5-to-1

    low confidence · Kaneda speculation based on perceived theme demand

  • Elton John CE units are not selling out and will remain in dealer/distributor inventory long-term

    medium confidence · Kaneda's market observation; contradicts early CE buyer narratives

  • Guns N' Roses CE is more impressive than Elton John despite weaker shooting, with more to shoot at and higher-energy theme appeal

    medium confidence · Kaneda's opinion on comparative game design and theme strength

  • Matrix license may have been let go by Jersey Jack due to lack of assets

    low confidence · Kaneda reporting unconfirmed rumor: 'I'm hearing...'

  • Harry Potter at Jersey Jack is being designed by Eric Minear

    medium confidence · Kaneda citing recent rumor; not officially confirmed

  • Spooky Pinball is learning that mass-appeal themes (Looney Tunes) outsell niche-themed games (Texas Chainsaw Massacre)

    medium confidence · Kaneda's market analysis based on sales performance

  • Spooky Pinball needs to hire more mechanical engineers and prominent software coders rather than relying on artists

Notable Quotes

  • “These things are like Jaguars from the 80s. They don't work right out of the box.”

    Kaneda @ ~0:10:00 — Characterization of Jersey Jack QC issues; memorable analogy for older JJP machines

  • “It is a gargantuan, gargantuan engineering feat to get a pinball machine like this working consistently in a box and giving people a great entertaining experience.”

    Kaneda @ ~0:20:00 — Expression of newfound respect for pinball engineering complexity after hands-on setup

  • “Looney Tunes is outselling Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I mean, that's just like, it's just, that's it right there.”

    Kaneda @ ~0:35:00 — Key market signal about Spooky's theme strategy and mass-appeal value

  • “I do feel Jersey Jack is about to hit its stride. I don't think they hit it with Godfather or Toy Story 4. I think Elton John and Guns N' Roses are arguably their two best pins to date.”

    Kaneda @ ~0:48:00 — JJP market positioning and designer confidence assessment

  • “Once you put the IO board in GNR, and I did that, once you've got those flippers flipping strong, it's a whole new game. It's a whole new game.”

    Kaneda @ ~0:50:00 — IO board mod impact on GNR gameplay and design intent

  • “There is only 500 Guns N' Roses collector's editions, and they're easy to get now.”

    Kaneda @ ~0:55:00 — Secondary market availability and FOMO deflation for GNR CE

  • “It's way cooler to blast GNR than Elton John. And the high energy of most of these songs versus like there's only like six or seven songs in Elton that have that high energy.”

    Kaneda @ ~0:57:00 — Theme/music design comparison between two flagship JJP titles

  • “I think there's just a lack of some sort of personal connection between Pedretti Gaming and the pinball community... You can't just kind of make games and not continue to build bridges.”

    Kaneda — Community engagement expectation for manufacturers; Pedretti visibility critique

Entities

KanedapersonZach ManningpersonDerek MusketpersonCoin TakerorganizationJersey Jack PinballcompanyGuns N' Roses (pinball machine)gameElton John (pinball machine)gameStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Guns N' Roses CE shipped with clear coat failures, sunken washers, factory assembly errors (bent guitar neck mech), and incorrect IO board pin placement, requiring extensive post-purchase adjustments

    high · Kaneda's detailed firsthand account of setup issues: clear coat problems, bent mech, IO board pin misalignment, flipper leaf switch triggering

  • $

    market_signal: Elton John CE inventory is not clearing; units remain available at dealers/distributors despite early buyer FOMO narratives predicting quick sellout

    medium · Kaneda: 'There will never be a world in which...some of those won't still be available for sale at dealers and distros in a box forever'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Comprehensive rumor tracking across Stern (Pokemon, X-Men 97, Metallica 40th, Tron, Godzilla), Spooky (Beetlejuice, Goonies, Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street), and Jersey Jack (Harry Potter, Avatar, Matrix status uncertain, Muppets cancelled)

    medium · Kaneda systematically reviews manufacturer pipelines; mix of confirmed rumors and speculation; confidence varies by title

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Kaneda and Zach Manning have reconciled after prior conflict; Kaneda describes this as 'the biggest news of the month' and most exciting development currently

    high · Kaneda opening: 'Kaneda and Zach Manning building bridges again might be the biggest news of the month' and welcoming Colin/Manning to podcast chat

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Kaneda advocates for shallow, accessible gameplay (praises Elton John as fun 'roller coaster') vs. deep complexity, valuing immediate enjoyment for casual players

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.237

0:00
What can I say except you're welcome for the tides, the sun, the sky. Hey, it's okay, it's okay, you're welcome.
0:11
I'm just an ordinary daily guy. I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, I said. All right, everybody, welcome to Canada's Saturday Morning Spectacular. I'm your host. I'm coming at you from my new sort of makeshift man cave here. It is the second floor of my house here in Connecticut. I finally, after all of these years, I have this Guns N' Roses beautiful collector's edition over my shoulder. I am so happy to finally have a pinball machine in the house. Albeit, I won't be able to play this game like most of you can because I still have a four-week-old baby. Master Killian runs the house, and it is loud. Like when this shaker motor goes off, it is like the entire block is experiencing an earthquake. I set the shaker to low. It doesn't matter. It's like a 370-pound thing shaking back and forth. Here's what we're going to do on this Saturday morning. I'm going to talk all about setting this machine up. Not too much because it is a three-and-a-half-year-old machine. If I started dedicating a lot of my airwaves to Guns N' Roses, I would lose all my subscribers and you guys would stop hanging out. And then let's go around and talk about what's happening in pinball. I think it's a really sort of calm before the storm that's about to come. I think there's a lot of big titles being worked on by all of these companies. And I think right now there is nothing, and I mean it, there is nothing exciting happening in pinball. I think Canada might be the most exciting thing. I think Kaneda and Zach Manning, you know, sort of building bridges again might be the biggest news of the month. It really might be. I think that's a really good thing. The top two content creators are getting along again. And that's good. That's good. But nothing happened at the manufacturer level even comes close to that sort of news. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to go and we're going to talk quickly about this game, my observations of it, what it was like. just sort of setting this thing up after three years. And I had a lot of, as you guys witnessed, a lot of ring rust, if you will, on just working on pinball machines. But I will say this, I've sort of realized now what owning an older Jersey Jack is like. You will have the glass off more than you will be playing the game in the first week. But once you get it set up, once you correct the mistakes that were made, maybe on the assembly line or something happens when these 400-pound things move around in a box, it's good, right? You almost feel this sense of satisfaction. I got it working again. I got it working. These things are like Jaguars from the 80s. They don't work right out of the box. I mean, there's no way around it. So let me first give a shout-out, everybody, to Derek Musket, who moved this game from Coin Taker to here. Let me give a shout-out to Coin Taker, who held on to this game for freaking three and a half years for me and then didn't charge me a single penny. So thank you, Chris and Melissa. So let me start with the clear coat. After three and a half years, the clear coat is still crap. And there were washers that were so sunken into the clear coat that they were stuck like they legit were stuck. And the only way to get the washer free was to take a post and wiggle it back and forth. And there was one post where it was so bad that when that washer got free, it really wrinkled the artwork underneath it. And I had to slap down one of those big black washers to sort of not see that. So we all know these issues. It's not new. So I put down most of the washers on the game. Getting this game up the stairs was the biggest headache ever because we only had about, I want to say maybe four inches. When you put the game at the bottom of the stairwell, there was four inches between the game and the window. And we couldn't get the dolly underneath it because of that. And Derek was like, look, it's not going to be hard to get up the stairs. We're just going to use the dolly and go one step at a time and just give it a nudge and we'll be great. I got you. Then we get to the house and we realized that's not going to work. And so what we had to do was together on the count of three, lift the machine up. Derek was at the top of the stairs. I was at the bottom and we had to go one at a time. No, it was the other way around. Derek was at the bottom. I was at the top. And so like basically lifting in both of our hands in almost 400 pound machine. Now, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Dan, an escalera would not have worked because an escalera would not have been able to make the turn and get it, I don't know, like perpendicular to the staircase like that. I mean, look, gang, no dolly, no escalera was ever going to make it because there was no room to slide that dolly or escalera underneath the machine between the windowsill and the bottom of the bottom stair. So we had to do it this way. Michael, yeah, that's a funny joke. Michael said, you're a top guy. All right, so that's it. That's it. You can't get it done. There was no way to turn this game on a dolly. So we went one at a time and it took us about a half hour. It was arduous. It was laborious. It was painful. I probably permanently damaged my back, but we got it into place. And then we set the game up. And here's the thing. I'm not going to go over too much about this. The game out of the box had some adjustments it needed. You had to add the washers to the clear coat. It's still not a good play field. I bought the backup play field months ago, maybe a year ago, and that's in a box in the attic. Playing the game, right? Day one, playing the game. You all know what I went through with the code. It was a little bit difficult to figure out. But once we did and we downloaded the new code, we went to Etcher, it updated, went on the right USB stick, it all updated in like 10 minutes and that was great. And then there was really, there was really like one other thing I had to do to the game that I noticed yesterday. And that was, well, after I changed the IO board, I messed up, I missed a pin. I couldn't see it because where I was putting it in, I was off by a pin and luckily I didn't like fry something or destroy the game. But we figured that out pretty quickly. I want to say Mike over at Jersey Jack, one of their technicians, is an amazing guy because he, in five minutes, helped me diagnose everything and get everything working. And one of the weirdest problems when I was trying to sort of diagnose what was going on with the game is like all of a sudden the left flipper started sticking up. And I'm like, oh, no, like this is not good. Why is the left flipper stuck up? And the reason it was stuck up was the inner art blade protecting plastics, you know, the plastics you put inside the cabinet to protect the artwork. Those can slide down and trigger the flipper leaf switch. And that's what was happening. So, you know, weird, right? Weird stuff. And then finally the game's working. The game's working. And I'm playing a game. And I'm noticing that the two posts that are on the guitar neck, the slash guitar neck, the Les Paul, you know, those two posts that spring up and down that lock the balls on the guitar neck. They weren't really springing down. They were stuck down when a game was starting. And this was something that was a factory mistake because what I realized is the mech itself was installed. It was fully screwed in, but the mech itself was a little bit bent and it was a little bit bent forward. And that should have been caught at the factory. And because it was bent forward, it was creating friction between those posts and the play field. And an easy fix, though, I just had to take two of those black washers and put them underneath the mech to push. sorry to push the mech to push the mech outside a little bit and that created a nice smooth sort of entryway for those posts and now everything works perfect and 48 hours later I've now got a perfectly working Guns and Roses collector's edition the game is everything you know it is I love it I'm super happy I this game is not leaving I'm absolutely in awe of what is in this game, but I will say Jersey Jack out of the box experiences. And these are the older Jersey Jack games, uh, not the most welcoming first day with the machine. And I do think there's a lot of people out there that if they bought this kind of game, uh, taking the glass off and using those side rail art protectors and, and, and working on a game, just working on a new inbox game is something that You don't have to do as much with the Stern machine, but it's part of the Jersey Jack ownership. I don't think Elton John will require nearly as much tweaking as Guns N' Roses because there's not nearly as much in it. And I will say I had a moment, people. I had a moment where I really did really appreciate everything Eric Minier and the team over there put into this game because sometimes you can look at a game and you could like pop the hood and say, hey, look, there's nothing underneath it. There's nothing in this game. Why are we spending this much money? And then when you actually go and do a test of all the coils and all the switches and all the diverters and all the this and all the bucks and you realize how much is actually in a game, how much can break, how much needs to work together to make the gameplay experience phenomenal. It's a lot. It's a lot. And I would never want to make a pinball machine because it is a gargantuan, gargantuan engineering feat to get a pinball machine like this working consistently in a box and giving people a great entertaining experience. So thank you to the team over at Jersey Jack. I want to give a shout out to Ken Cromwell, to Mike over there, to Jack and the people who were helping me out on setup day. I really do appreciate it. Thank you for putting up with my stupidity of trying to remove the sticker, the Mylar, on the record, which I stupidly did. But I've got some replacements coming in. That won't be a hard thing to do. And other than that, I just want to play this game and enjoy it. I am going to put the pin woofer in sometime next week. It's supposed to arrive on Monday. Other mods I did, the lure mods, light up the back box kit is great. Super simple. You can install that in five minutes. I highly recommend that. And that's it, ladies and gentlemen. I now have a Guns and Roses collector's edition number 500 out of 500. It doesn't mean much, but I'm just happy. I'm really happy that I have the game. And that's it. I'm not going to overly talk about it because you want to hear about the new stuff. Let's talk about what's going on in pinball right now. As I said, it is mid-June and we are now at a point in pinball where we're all waiting, right? We're waiting for the juggernauts. The juggernauts are not here. Seemingly, they're coming, right? They're coming from Spooky. They're coming from Stern. I don't know, right? Stern's the one where I'm like, I don't know if they have the juggernauts. We know Jersey Jack's got some big stuff coming. Jersey Jack's next is going to be like make or break. I don't know. We always say that. Nothing can break a billionaire's budget. But we know that Jersey Jack's next one has really got the potential to knock it out of the park. You want to talk about pins in front of windows. Look, there's a gap there, people. There's a gap. It's not in front of the window. It's perpendicular to the window. And that is the big difference. I've said it from day one. You can go catty corner with the window. You can go perpendicular with the window. But if you are straight on with the window, uh-uh, uh-uh. And this looks good. This looks good. There's a big difference, people. There's a big difference, karma. You know, get ready, people. Get ready because Canada's planning an end of the year pins in front of Windows calendar. And I'm going to pick the 12 worst offenders of pins in front of windows and release an annual calendar celebrating all of those individuals and the proceeds. The proceeds, some of the proceeds, not all of them, because, you know, I'm a profiteer. Some of the proceeds from that calendar are going to go to professionally moving those pins away from the windows. It's something we all need to do. All right. So this has got a gap. There is a gap. I'm telling you. You know what I'm saying? There's a gap.

medium confidence · Kaneda's opinion on company staffing and design priorities

@ ~1:20:00

  • “There is nothing exciting happening in pinball. I think Canada might be the most exciting thing. I think Kaneda and Zach Manning, you know, sort of building bridges again might be the biggest news of the month.”

    Kaneda @ ~0:02:00 — Assessment of current market calm; reconciliation with peer content creator as major news

  • “I think Spooky is learning a lesson... We got to stop making games for us like only us. If we make themes that mass appeal and have more like general interest other than just spooky themed we going to be much more successful.”

    Kaneda @ ~0:35:00 — Strategic pivot advice for Spooky based on sales data

    • Spooky Pinball
    company
    Eric Minearperson
    Jack Dangerperson
    Keith Elwinperson
    George Gomezperson
    Pokemon (pinball rumor)game
    X-Men 97 (pinball rumor)game
    Beetlejuice (pinball rumor)game
    The Goonies (pinball rumor)game
    John Wick (pinball machine)game
    Harry Potter (pinball rumor)game
    Melvin Williamsperson
    Pedretti Gamingcompany
    Funhouse 2.0 (Rudy's Nightmare)game

    medium · Kaneda on Elton John: 'It's a great game for people that want to just unbox a game and have fun instantly. It's not super deep' but 'it's just a fun roller coaster'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Spooky Pinball is shifting away from niche horror themes (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) toward mass-appeal properties (Looney Tunes) due to superior sales performance

    medium · Kaneda: 'Looney Tunes is outselling Texas Chainsaw Massacre...Spooky is learning a lesson...We got to stop making games for us like only us'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Spooky Pinball is moving to a new facility with improved layout (less up-and-down stairwell movement) and capacity for faster production

    medium · Kaneda: 'They're going to be able to make games faster. They're going to have a bigger facility, not so much up and down anymore'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Jersey Jack may have relinquished Matrix license due to insufficient digital assets for game adaptation

    low · Kaneda rumor: 'Matrix was the big one. But I'm hearing that they might have let Matrix go because of lack of assets'

  • ?

    community_signal: Kaneda criticizes Pedretti Gaming and DPX for insufficient public visibility and engagement compared to other manufacturers; advocates for founder/leadership visibility as community expectation

    medium · Kaneda: 'I don't like pinball companies that are just around, but you don't even know them...You can't just kind of make games and not continue to build bridges'

  • ?

    technology_signal: IO board upgrade ($400) transforms Guns N' Roses gameplay by enabling consistent flipper response, particularly for upper playfield access and orbit shots

    high · Kaneda: 'Once you put the IO board in GNR...it's a whole new game...you can shoot [the orbit] like it's Godzilla. I mean, it has such a great upper orbit shot, all because of the IO board'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Current market is in holding pattern with no major announcements; several juggernauts (Stern, Spooky, Jersey Jack) are in late development but not yet revealed

    high · Kaneda opening: 'I think it's a really sort of calm before the storm that's about to come...there is nothing exciting happening in pinball' at manufacturer level

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Stern's rejection of Beetlejuice license while pursuing John Wick is perceived as major strategic error; community sentiment favors Spooky's Beetlejuice acquisition

    medium · Kaneda: 'John Wick is a game in which there's clearly no demand...that is like such a big miss from Stern Pinball' and 'Beetlejuice, which will outsell John Wick 5-1'

    • 13:43
    That's it. I'm going to live and die on that gap. Pins in corners is a bigger offense than pins in front of windows. No, no, no, no, no. Thing is, gang, it's like it's all I'll show you like what my room shaping up to be. I got the Neo Geo is over here. So the Neo Geo and the GNR pinball are actually kind of facing each other straight on. And when you're in the room, it looks great. I've got my nice little desk here. And this is going to be my office at work. And I want to just figure out over time what to put in here. Because I don't want it to be overly crowded. I don't want it to be cluttered. I would like it to be very simple and minimalist and a little bit more modern. Sort of like the house we're in. It's very open. It's very nice. It's very refreshing when you walk into this house. For those of you who ever come by the Connecticut area, I'm about an hour north of New York City. I would love to sort of have people grab a beer and hang out and talk pinball. I believe I am about 30 minutes from automated, so that's going to be fun. So we're in this calm before the storm. Let me ask you guys a question. What game are you most excited for? Let's run down right now. all the rumored titles that are supposedly coming out in pinball because there's a lot of them and let's go company by company let's start with stern the big rumors from stern pinball are pokemon right we know that after pokemon there's really not another juggernaut i would say the next biggest theme that Stern Pinball has sort of rumored in the mix is X-Men 97 by Keith Elwin. Now, I don't know about you, but I know about me. I'm far more excited about X-Men 97 by Elwin than I am about Pokemon by Jack Danger. I will never buy a Pokemon pinball machine, not because it's not a big property, but I just didn't grow up with Pokemon. X-Men, completely different story. I grew up with X-Men. Also, X-Men 97, if you've seen the new show, it's awesome. It's much more adult themed. Brenda watched it. She's like, wow, this is incredible. The writing on this show is absolutely incredible. The storyline in X-Men 97 is something that everybody can relate to. So I'm excited for that. Pokemon and X-Men. And after that, the things that have people excited about Stern are these remakes, right? Metallica 40th remake next month. That's the rumor. Then we've got another Tron possibly. Then we're going to get a Godzilla black and white 70th anniversary edition. So, you know, that's what's happening over at Stern. There's some other rumors out there like Dungeons and Dragons. I don't think anyone cares about that. But Stern, you know, I think Stern let go of some themes they should have grabbed. Let's talk about Beetlejuice, which we know Spooky Pinball has. How silly was it That Stern Pinball, George Gomez admitted this, that Stern Pinball did not want to make Beetlejuice because nobody over at Stern wanted to work on it. So Joseph, Black Knight is on the line right now at Stern. So if you wanted another run of Black Knight, they're making them right now. Stern showed pictures of the game on the line. So you've got Beetlejuice, which will outsell John Wick 5-1. and it's just crazy to me that Stern passed on it. And then John Wick is a game in which there's clearly no demand. And so that is like such a big miss from Stern Pinball. And so let's talk about Spooky's rumored games. You've got Beetlejuice. Great, I love that. You've got The Goonies. Awesome, right? Awesome 80s campy movie. um steven spielberg produced it a great movie a lot of fun it's still niche-ish it's right it's like one of those movies like josh brolin like you know sean austin is in it like that movie came out you know right at the beginning of when these guys were like developing their careers um it goonies hasn't held up as well as movies like die hard or back to the future or karate kid but it's still a really good movie. And if you just need to sell a couple thousand Goonies, you'll do it.
    18:38
    What's his last name, Greg? I don't even know. Sean Astin. I don't even know. Whatever. Greg Astin. Whatever. Who cares? I should just call him Samwise, you know, Gamgee. Okay, so here's the thing. So we've got Beetlejuice, Goonies, Evil Dead, and then we've got, what else is there? we've got, I'm trying to think, what are the other spooky rumors? Evil Dead, Beetlejuice, Goonies. There's one I'm missing. Sonic the Hedgehog maybe is the other one. I'm not sure if there's another one in the mix. Okay. So that's from Spooky. I know like Spooky's really, they're really excited about the games they have coming down the pipe. Nightmare on Elm Street. That's another one. I think Spooky is learning a lesson though. I think they learned a lesson We got to stop making games for us like only us If we make themes that mass appeal and have more like general interest other than just spooky themed we going to be much more successful Looney Tunes is outselling Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I mean, that's just like, it's just, that's it right there. Looney Tunes outselling Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So we've got a lot of exciting stuff happening over at Spooky. They've got three games in development right now. only question with them as they move into their new factory, which is exciting. They're going to be able to make games faster. They're going to have a bigger facility, not so much up and down anymore. I think for me, the main thing I want to see from spooky pinball is just much better mechanical stuff in the game. I think the two things they need to do, because they definitely have the artwork down, they are going to get franchy to make the games look sexy. their games just need to have i think they need to hire more mechanical engineers and you have to pay those people to get good mechanical items in a game and i think they need to hire even more software people every time a spooky game comes out it feels like everyone's beta testing it for two three years and i don't really like that anymore like they've been around for over a decade enough of this i think they need to start hiring because think about it when you think about a spooky game now. It's like the coders don't have the prominence that they should. And I think they need to hire some talented coders that we know by name and that we look forward to seeing what they're going to do in a game. Because the people who code a game are just as, if not as important as the people that design the mechanical sides of that game. And they're way more important than the artist. I mean, we've almost given like way too much. Oh, we've almost given like way too much emphasis on the artists of games when it comes to some of these companies. But you know what? It is what it is. But exciting times for Spooky Pinball. All right. So who's after that? Let's go to Jersey Jack. So Jersey Jack's rumors are all over the place, but we start to have like a lot of the same themes. And we've got Muppets, which I don't think is happening. And the latest I've heard, and this is as of like last week, is that while Jack has had the Muppets license, he has it. Nobody's wanted to make it. Now, Muppets would have sold better than The Godfather. But as of now, Jersey Jack is not going to release the Muppets. Mark Seiden's game is not the Muppets. Harry Potter is coming and I'm hearing it is Eric Minear on Harry Potter. So that is happening. The other rumors, Matrix was the big one. But I'm hearing that they might have let Matrix go because of lack of assets. I'm hearing Steve Ritchie's game might be Avatar. We know there is a relationship there between Firestorm, which is the production company, and the Abbas family.
    22:56
    So, you know, and then we heard Beastie Boys. And I'm not sure if there's anything I'm missing from Jersey Jack. But all I know is this. I do feel, I do feel there's been Top Gun's been a rumor. I do feel that Jersey Jack is about to hit its stride. I don't think they hit it with Godfather or Toy Story 4. I think Elton John and Guns N' Roses are arguably their two best pins to date. I do. I know you could argue whether or not this or that, but I'll say this. Once you put the IO board in GNR, and I did that, once you've got those flippers flipping strong, it's a whole new game. It's a whole new game. You know why it's a whole new game? because this entire game behind me, the entire gameplay really requires that you have the ability to consistently backhand using the left flipper up the left ramp to get to the upper playfield shots. All right. In the old Guns N' Roses gameplay with the mushy flippers, you were never ever able to do that and do it consistently. And so that is why this game wakes up. And also the upper right flipper, you can shoot this thing around the orbit like it's Godzilla.
    24:19
    I mean, it has such a great upper orbit shot, all because of the IO board. Now, should we have to spend $400 on it? Arguably no, but it's a much better game. So here's the thing. Here's the thing. Jersey Jack, Elton John, look, it's a great game. It's a great game. It's a great game for people that want to just unbox a game and have fun instantly. It's not super deep. It doesn't have as much to do in it as games like Pirates or GNR. But it's just a fun roller coaster ride that once you hit plunge, you're having a good time.
    25:00
    So Nick just said, what about the Stern Journey rumor? Well, we've heard about Journey for a while. and if they are making Journey, I would assume it's going to be John Borg. But man, Journey is a great band. It's a great band, but I don't know. Ed said, what do you think about a modern Superman pin? I think Superman is amazing. I think a Superman pin would absolutely crush it. I think a Christopher Reeve Superman pin would absolutely crush it. I think that would be great. I would actually make, what was it, Superman 78 or whatever it is. I think you go Christopher Reeve. I think very much like Batman 66, you go with the iconic Superman game. You don't go with, you know, the new stuff. I mean, Henry Cavill's Superman is awesome. But again, it's just, it's not as iconic. And they're going to replace him like in the next series. And so, you know, I think that would be great. so the thing is is like when we think about jersey jack i think they're about to hit their stride i think they're about to come out with games that shoot well that have all the bells and whistles and i think they're they're finally going to get all the feedback right i hope so i hope so colin welcome to the party pal everybody say hi to colin again burying the hatchet in the spirit of a new chapter in my life colin welcome welcome maybe we can work together on re-establishing the twippies All right, brother, let's do this. No bad blood. No bad blood. I'm burning the hatchet. Now, for some people, I have it. For some people, uh-uh, uh-uh. They've got to apologize to Canada because I've spent too many times always being the bigger man. But what's up, brother? All right, so here's the thing. We've got JJP. Now, the real question is this. When is Jersey Jack's next game going to drop? I've been thinking about this for a while because there's no way they're going to sell or even need to make Elton John's for a lot longer. They're just not. They are sitting at dealers and distros. They're sitting there. The Platinums are sitting there and the collector's editions. There was some delusional thing happening amongst Elton John collector edition owners where they were trying to tell people, you better get one now because they're going to sell out. That was the narrative being driven by early CE buyers. Let me tell you something right now. There will never be a world in which a thousand Elton John CEs at 15K a pop, There will never be a world in which some of those won't still be available for sale at dealers and distros in a box forever. Forever. They're not moving all of that inventory. There is only 500 Guns N' Roses collector's editions, and they're easy to get now.
    28:12
    I'm just going to say this. This is a more impressive game. It doesn't shoot as well as Elton, but there's more to shoot at. And it's just cooler. It's just cooler. blasting Guns N' Roses at full volume versus freaking Elton. I'm just saying it. That's just me. It's just me. It's just Alphamale Kaneda saying it's way cooler to blast GNR than Elton John. And the high energy of most of these songs versus like there's only like six or seven songs in Elton that have that high energy. But it's still a great game. They're both great games. If you have both of them, you've got the best two Jersey Jack machines. I mean, it's that simple. all right look gang everyone's saying get a subwoofer or get a subwoofer i'm not in college gang what when am i going to be able to even play this game where i'm going to utilize a subwoofer do you know what a subwoofer will do in my house if there's anyone else here it'll rattle a whole damn thing look for some of you guys that have monstrous basements and game rooms and like privacy, subwoofer yourselves to death brothers, but I can't do it. I can't do it. All right. So here's the thing. Here's the thing. Todd Tucky, welcome to the chat brother. Here's the thing. I think that, you know, when we talk about, when we talk about, what were we talking about? I lost my train of thought. We were talking about Elton John. Okay. So the collective decisions are not sold out. So you're going to be able to get those. Let's go back to the manufacturers because the next game I thought was coming out is not coming out. And that is, that is Alice in Wonderland. Now, look, I will say this. I've been hit up by Melvin Williams and we're going to talk. I'm going to try to record it. I'm going to try to find the time to record it and do an interview with Melvin. He's a nice guy, like nice guy. I, you know, I know that I've been poking him and I've been jabbing him because I still think that when it comes to marketing and what they're doing at DPX, it's not exactly how I would do it. It's his company. And, you know, he's like, Chris, you're getting some stuff wrong. I would love to talk to you about what we have going on over here. And I think it's great. So we're going to have a conversation. Now, look, all I can do and all I've ever been able to do on this Canada's thing, you know, when it's content about pinball is all I can do is react to what companies do, right? I can react to what you do. And the moment you do something, then I can react. All right, we'll talk about Pedretti. Let's do Pedretti, then DPX. Okay, so Pedretti Funhouse gameplay reveal. All right, did they, Michael, did they reveal the gameplay yet? Because since they've released Funhouse, it feels like they've been distancing themselves from the actual gameplay. It's like, and you know, I think it's a mixed bag. So they haven't revealed the gameplay. And I think there's a reason why. I think Funhaus 2.0 kit, Rudy's Nightmare is a bit of a mixed bag. In fact, I would say that more people don't like it than like it. And so then it really pulls into question, do we need a $10,000 fun house if the changes to it aren't really enhancing the game? Yeah, it looks better, but what are they going to make? 750 fun house LEs at 10 grand. And people are saying like, you can go get one of these for 10 grand. You can go get a Guns N' Roses collector's edition for 10 Gs or a Funhaus. And there's going to be more Funhaus LEs than GNRCs. I just think like Pedretti Gaming is like, I don't know, like they, I don't know. Guys, how do you feel about Pedretti Gaming? I just, something about the whole European pinball thing going on where I don't, it's just not even on my radar. I don't dislike them. I don't love anything they've done. The thing I like the most about Pedretti is the price. I think as everybody went bonkers with pricing, the fact that you could get a Ripley alien wide body game with all those assets for that price is absolutely phenomenal. right phenomenal it's like half the price of like a stern le almost and so i really like the value now from there it's like is the quality there like are you just getting what you pay for i'm not sure but there's something about here's the thing gang and i mean this there's something about a pinball company where they're around and i still don't know them i mean that's the point i want to make right now. I don't like pinball companies that are just around, but you don't even know them. Like you don't really know them. You don't know the people. You don't know who's like behind the door. You don't know the company. You don't know the brand. It's sort of just like in the shadows and just mysterious. And I think there's just a lack of some sort of personal connection between Pedretti Gaming and the pinball community. And I think if I'm Andrea Pedretti, you got to be out there more. You got it. Like Jack's out there. Gary's out there. George is out there. Bug is out there. Luke is out there. Like you got to be out there. Like Barry is out there. Like you got to be out there in the pinball world. You can't just kind of make games and not continue to build bridges. You know, I mean, look at Chicago Gaming Company, like Doug, he runs that whole operation. How many of you know who Doug is? If Doug walked down the street and you saw him, would you even know him? Doug Duba is out there? Where is he? Where's Doug Duba out there in the pinball world? Ian, he's not out there. He's not out there. Go show me some YouTube clips or Facebook lives or Doug Duba at shows. Like where? He's not out there. Now, David Fix is out there, unfortunately he's out there and that's the thing about david fix he's maybe the most recognizable because of his handlebar mustache he's maybe the most recognizable because like he just looks like he's selling like window shades from like 1989 like the dude i feel like he needs to be getting out of like a two-tone like family truckster like station wagon and like like david Fix is stuck in like 1993 pinball marketing. It's like every decision he's made, he acts like it's like, you know, the late 80s, early 90s. But David Fix, you know, unfortunately, you know, he's out there driving that whole thing off the edge. It's already off the edge, gang. Like American Pinball has gone off the tracks, off the edge. It's on fire and alligators are just heading towards the survivors, which there are none. Okay. That's where American pinball is at. So we've got, let's go back to, so we've got fun house right now. Okay. Let me ask you guys right now. We have 73 people, not a ton Saturdays in the summer. I don't, don't expect people to be, you know, people are vacation and it's okay. I'm not taking it personally. We're about 20 off our normal. Did any of you buy fun house remake? Just, just curious. Did anybody here buy a fun house remake? Did you order one? Did you need to get one right away? Did you have any FOMO? Who got one? Timothy got a Funhouse LE. Okay. Anybody else?
    36:19
    It's okay. I mean, look. The guy, the brown knee-high socks. David Peck bought an LE. Okay. So most of you know. Most of you know. So here's the thing. I think this game is not going to sell out. I think it's fine. Again, it's not on the radar for most. I think it comes and goes, and I think what's going to happen is I think it's really going to rock Pedretti Gaming's strategy. Because I think these guys think it was going to be easy to do these remakes. I'm just going to tell you right now, the next remake from Chicago Gaming Company, they're doing 500 more Medieval Madnesses. Okay, that is happening next. After Pulp Fiction, you will get 500 more Medieval Madness games. Kaneda breaking rumors. Colin, we got to get Kaneda onto the kineticist. I think a good sign of a new beginning is that and maybe yanking down that Kaneda meltdown story, which is actually pretty good for search when it comes up pretty high in my arcade story stories.
    37:28
    And after the 500 medieval madnesses, you're going to see Twilight Zone. Okay. So it is going Medieval Madness, then Twilight Zone.
    37:40
    And which model? So I think you're going to see, Dave, like a final run MM. I think they're going to do something special with the final edition. And it's going to sell out because it's just Twilight Zone and Medieval Madness, these two great games. Twilight Zone is going to sell like hotcakes.
    38:04
    There's no way around it. It is in a world of like barren pinball machines that we've been dealing with. Twilight Zone is just something really special.
    38:14
    And even though they made the most, I think they made something like what, like 12 or 15,000 of them back in the day to find a brand new one from CGC. See, that's the thing. It's like CGC quality is insane. And so I think this game is going to have no problem finding homes. And I think, you know, for a lot of people out there, it's still kind of the craziest pinball machine ever made. All right. Hold on one second.
    38:44
    I've got a little bit of a cold, so I don't want to sniffle into the microphone. Gang, I'm not getting sleep. We've only been in this house for a week. A week. And I've been just working my butt off to make it feel like a home. And we're really almost there. I think Twilight Zone is going to do great.
    39:06
    And the thing with CDC is I don't even know what's happening with these Pulp Fiction LEs. There's not even like an ETA. There's not even a date. I have one that I sold a spot on I might even have another spot for my listeners because you know me I like to sort of give people a chance to get something So if I don know maybe I do another raffle or something or figure something out If I was Project Pinball, I could be making twice as much on this thing. Man, Project Pinball is making some ducats, people. Sometimes I look at the Project Pinball raffles and I'm like, well, wait a minute, they just raffled off a $13,000 game for $26,000 in raffle tickets. That's crazy. Like I shouldn't even have gone into podcasting. I should have done a charity. There's so much there. You know, they set the games up. It's great. What they do is a great cause, but they still own the machines. You guys know that, right? The hospitals don't own the machines. They're still owned by Project Pinball. So all that money is going to the upkeep and the maintenance of those machines that they make. And it's like, is it that much? Are these kids like slam tilting these games? I don't know. A lot of money there. A lot of money. I mean, we're talking well into the six figures a year to do that. So I don't know. I don't kick those cans down the block because then everyone just calls me a bad guy. um yeah but david i guess the question dave is is like where does all the leftover money go because the maintenance isn't required is it i don't know i don't know who knows who knows i all i know is this all i know is this they make a lot more money than canada's pinball podcast you know there's just that but it is a good cause it is a good cause and um you know i i you know what's interesting about raffles in general not even about project pinball it's just there's a lot of rules around raffles, right? Because everybody would just do raffles and make money, but they need to be highly regulated and make sure that there's no fraud in a raffle because of who wins. I mean, that's the thing is there's normally, I think they started doing the drawings live and so you could see it and all that stuff. I mean, I used to do my raffles live. The reason I stopped, You know what's funny is I had to stop doing the raffle promotion through Patreon because Patreon does not allow you to do raffles. They don't. It's against their policy. So that's that.
    41:48
    All right. So let's go back to games coming out. So the other game that's on the line right now, and this is why I say we're in a little bit of a lull. There's nothing tremendously exciting happening right now, is ABBA. so ABBA is out and it's ugly and it's basic and it's expensive so unless you love ABBA because ABBA is more expensive than a Guns N' Roses CE I mean that just kills me it kills me unless you really love ABBA and your wife is going to put out if you get her one. I don't understand why you would get this game. It's just the pinball brothers wanted to make an ABBA game. Who knows how it sells in Europe, but it's just mama mia. Who's buying this game? Now, I don't know. I really don't know. I just think it's another one of these like, what were you thinking? What were you thinking? I mean, on paper, it's good, right? On paper, it's good.
    42:59
    ABBA sold a ton of albums. They're super popular. It's just, does the ABBA fan base line up enough with the pinball buying demographic? And I think the answer is no. I also think that if the game was better, people would be more open to it. They would. I mean, I actually think ABBA has more high energy rocking songs than Elton John for pinball. I do. But Elton John's much more relevant. He's part of Pinball Wizard, the song. Everything about Elton screams that 70s vibe when pinball was really at an amazing period in its history. And it just works well. So yeah, Abba seems dead on arrival. What else is going on? So let's talk about Dutch Pinball X and Alice in Wonderland. So obviously I thought this game was coming out in June, July. I told you first, Canadian Spinball Podcast, that they had the title. I've seen a picture of it in black and white. I've seen it colorized and I was expecting it June, July. And I thought that was going to really work out well for DPX because of the lull and something in the summer to get people going. Of course, anyone who wants one, I think, look, is this game going to sell out? I don't know. If you were to ask me as of today, will it sell out if it comes out when it's coming out? I think here's something I would be really worried about.
    44:32
    Q3 2024. All right, it's Q3. We're talking September, October. I think, you know, a lot's happening in the world. A lot's happening with your pinball collections.
    44:45
    I think the next Jersey Jack is going to be out. That's not going to help this game. I think the next Stern Cornerstone is going to be out. That's not going to help this game. I think Spike-3 is going to be out. That's not going to help this game. I think Spooky's Next is going to be right around the corner. I think they are going to push this thing too late in the year. and we all know Q3, Q4 is a highly competitive time of year for pinball. And then it's going to come down to, do you have the theme people want? Do you have the marketing to get people excited about your theme? Do you have the magic in the game? And so there's a lot that this game is going to have to do. Now we know it's going to have some magic. We know it's going to have mechs. We know it's going to have a magnetic upper play field. That's going to be cool. We know it's going to have neat stuff. We know it's going to be like beautiful to look at. It's just 14 grand. Do you need it right now? Because the problem with these like FOMO games, and remember, this is a FOMO game. They need people to feel that FOMO. The thing with FOMO, it only works if your game sells out pretty instantly. right if if it's a slow burn they're in trouble and and that's the thing it's like 500s a lot now if i were them i would not have done 500 i think people forget that john papaduke said he was only making 16 out uh magic girls right it was like 16 magic girls and 50 razas like that was it um you know richard we've already talked about the gap between the window and guns and roses You can go back and listen to the whole thing. There's a gap. It's not in front of. It's catty-cornered, all right? It's catty-cornered. Kaneda. You know, we need to make t-shirts that say Kaneda. He's catty-cornered. Catty-cornered Kaneda. That's going to be my new nickname. You know, for those of you who were lucky enough to buy this when they were available, before someone complained to Printful about my IP infringement, one of you did. These were available. Well, I agree. So Raymond said FOMO is dead. And look, FOMO is not dead, dead. FOMO is not going to be dead when Back to the Future SLE comes out. And by the way, gang, all of these windows are getting UV protection, which will prevent all cabinet fading. So I'm not worried about windows.
    47:25
    Can I tell you a crazy story? I had the window guy come in yesterday or Friday or Thursday. I got a quote yesterday to do like automated blackout blinds, you know, automated shades in the living area, in the bedroom.
    47:42
    And this is the quote on just the shades in the kids' rooms, around the house. Some of them automated, some not. And this is not a big house. To do these windows, $10,000. and that's without UV. That's before the UV portion of the quote.
    48:06
    All right, that is insane. It's double what I thought it would be. Now, I think I might need to go to the shade store and get a secondary quote because that sounds high for the amount of windows we have.
    48:23
    But when you're doing automated blackout, you're around like 800 bucks a window yeah you know it's just it's a lot so we'll see i know i know well and the thing is is like i keep telling this to brenda we're gonna have a lot of just like like what like like starting up this home is going to be so expensive um and once we get there we're gonna we know we're gonna be there you know and that's the thing is like, I don't want, this is why I worked and saved and put money away and invested money is I just want it, you know, I just want it to have a beautiful home for my family. We're going to be here for a long time. And I can't wait for some of you to visit because it's such a, I love this house. I feel like Steve Ballmer, you know, in that Microsoft video with a glorious Stefan, like get on your feet. And he's like, I've got four words for you. I love this company. You know, it's like, I love this house. I love this house. This is my dream house. It is the exact dream house. It is minimalist. It is open. It is everything we need. Every room is going to be filled with love and purpose. There's no extra rooms. There's no extra anything. Like I couldn't afford it in these neighborhoods. I couldn't. You know, when I was driving yesterday, I was going by some like mega houses, mega houses, like in Stanford and some other areas around here. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, what did these people do? What did they do? Like, what did they invent? Like, what did they create? Like, how did so much money? And then I kept thinking to myself, you know, look at those homes. There's got to be in that house alone. There's got to be 12 bedrooms, eight bathrooms, eight car garage. I bet there's just two people inside that house. Just two, you know, they're sitting there. Yeah, great. They've got to, you know, when the cleaning people come, they've got to clean 12 bedrooms. They've got to mow four acres, all that. In my house, every inch, every inch is going to have something going on. And I love it that way. And I'm super happy. And if you know what Brendan and I went through over the last year, we lost a baby. We lost a really good friend. We lost Bubba two years ago, or three years ago. A lot of loss, a lot of on top of each other in the city,
    51:15
    a lot. It was heavy. It was a heavy time for all of us. And my wife was nine and a half months pregnant. And we walked through the door of this house and we just knew. And we were the first couple to see this house. And I do believe in not maybe miracles, but just we were blessed and we feel blessed. And, and the reason why is this, we had a realtor that was like, that sucked, that was showing us homes in these towns and she was lazy and she would always like show us stuff after they were under contract. And we were just bummed out. We were looking for like a year and a half, two years. And Brenda's like, screw this woman. I'm going to find us a new realtor. And she did. Her name is Michelle. She's amazing. And Michelle was on top of it. She's like, this house, it checks all your boxes. It's not on the market yet. I'm going to get us in there first and we're going to see it. And we saw it. And we saw three other properties that day that needed work that just didn't make us feel the way we felt when we walked through the door here.
    52:35
    And within an hour or two, I asked her, I said, hey, we want it. And she's like, look, Chris, it's not going to go for what the listing price is. It's going to go for well over. I will ask the seller if she has a shut it down price, which means if you offer that and it's yours. And I'm looking at Brenda, nine and a half months pregnant. It's within my budget.
    53:05
    And I said, look, just shut it down. Now, what sucked is I offered it and the seller still showed the house to 30 couples just in case she needed a backup. That sucked. But because we were in first and we offered first and we had the lawyers going, we had the bank going, we had the paperwork going. And believe me, people, it's not just that. We showed up the next day with Killian and myself and we took pictures of me and Killian in the house, how happy he was. And we sent those photos to the seller and said, hey, you know, we're so blessed that, this could possibly be our home and we're thankful that you're accepting our price, our offer. And it's ours now.
    54:00
    We're going to be in a really, really good place because I'm selling the apartment in New York City and throwing that against this mortgage and then our mortgage is like nothing. Like nothing. Like we're going to get back to significant savings every month. And because there's not a lot of room here, like there's no more room for more pins. There's no more room for more cars. We're going to park the minivan on the street, demon in the driveway. Yeah, and the Toyota is going in the garage because the demon is too big for the garage.
    54:33
    So, yeah, super happy, super blessed, and really thankful that we're going through all of this. And, you know, through it all, gang, everybody I've met, I've been so happy to talk to people about this hobby. um well yeah dad bill said thanks for the deposit daddy so yes bill i think i told bill this story is you know when you buy a house you got to give 10 cash uh to secure the down payment like for the contract. Now, we saw the house on a Friday, and so they wanted 10% of the house's value on Monday by noon. So I called my financial advisor, like, hey, we got the money. She's like, but Chris, we got to make a trade to liquidate it, and that won't clear for three days. so the only time I've ever since you know graduating college I called up Papa Caloris I said dad do you have a this much money cash that you could just help us with and I'll pay you back on Wednesday he's like yeah sure like like it was nothing like like the dude could just collect pinball machines like they're nothing and I was very thankful and and I'll tell you this like I love my parents to death. I love everything about the opportunities they've given me. They've always supported me. They didn't push me to do the typical things people who come from towns like I came from do. I probably should have done those things. They didn't push me to go into finance or do this or do that. They just allowed me to always have a life in which I could follow the things that creatively interested me. And then whenever I've really needed help, they've always been there. And they're still my parents. They don't really treat me like someone they universally accept. They're always parenting me. And I think that's an important lesson I've learned as I embark on a journey of parenthood, is I think too many parents try to be their kids' friends. Like I once had a coworker where she would talk to her mom about her sex life. And I just thought that was so awkward and weird and strange. And then I realized because the mom's talking to the daughter about her sex life because she's divorced. And I'm like, it's like, what? Like, that's not the way it's supposed to work, right? And not in like a joking way. It's just weird to me. And I think, you know, what my parents have always done is they've just been my parents. Like, my mom hates my haircut. When I walk into my mom's art gallery, she's like, you look stupid. She says to me, so if you think I look stupid, you have a friend in my mother. She's like, you look so dumb. they are not going to accept you in this town the way your haircut is. And so I'm like, mom, it's all right. I'm comfortable in it. She's like, what are you doing? What are you doing? You're not going to wear that to that town. But that's a bulldog Sicilian mother. She's like, I'm telling you this because I'm your mother and I love you. All right. So here's the thing. Here's the thing.
    58:05
    Let's see if we covered off on everybody. Did we cover off on Alice? I don't know. Whatever. It's so far away. American Pinball is done, right? I mean, I don't think they have anything left. Is American Pinball done? I mean, I don't know. I just don't even understand what they do next.
    58:26
    I think American Pinball is over. And let's talk about Back to the Future. so back to the future it's like it's like gonna have to live up to expectations that i think since i've been covering this hobby for 10 years and i don't think i've seen a game that's had the excitement and the expectation to wow us more than dutch pinball with joe kamikau and Bob Gale the executive producer of Back to the Future with most likely Christopher Franchi on artwork okay you add all that together I don think I seen a game that has more going for it on paper than Dutch Pinball's Back to the Future. And as I think about this game and what this title could mean to pinball. I think it has way more excitement than Harry Potter. Because I think Potter fans, again, remember, Potter's even older. I mean, older, I mean, Potter's fan base is even younger than the Pokemon fan base. And so like, yeah, while some bookworms are into Harry Potter, I don't think most grown men who buy pinball 40 to 60 are Harry Potter fanatics. And so I think back to the future though, is like perfect for the demo, right? And so you've got all the stars are seemingly aligned. And then you've got the company that has only made one game and it's taken them 10 plus years and they're still not done making one game. Let me put this in context. In the amount of time it took Dutch Pinball to make one game,
    60:37
    Stern Pinball has probably made 65. So think about that for a minute. One game experience on one IP versus 65 games in 10 years. and so and yet even so right it's like dutch pinball they're like a one hit wonder with one only one hit one song right and that's what's crazy about dutch pinball and the expectations because imagine if someone imagine if like journey came out as a band and released don't stop believing right a hit song and never released another song and then our follow-up song is going to be out 10 years from now you can expect it to be just as good as don't stop believing so dutch is like this weird company that's like now now they have to really prove themselves that they can do it again and they can make a game the right way, right? Because when they made Lebowski, they didn't have permission. They just kind of made it and Roger Sharp sort of saved them. Also, I forgot, Roger Sharp is working on Back to the Future with Dutch Pinball.
    61:59
    You know, so you've got all of the elements are there and yet this company can't make games fast. they can't crank them out with real volume and now they've got two lines one dutch one dpx why are you going to make 500 alice in wonderlands when that line could just be making back to the future games so there's a lot of weird how are they going to do this how are they going to do it You know, if I was David Fix, you know what I would do? I would pick up the phone and call Barry and be like, look, you've got a problem. We've got a problem. Our problem at American Pinball is our games suck and nobody wants to buy them. And we know how to manufacture games really well. We can do it really well. The only problem is nobody wants to buy our crap. your problem is you have a game everybody wants but you can't manufacture them fast enough so how about we stop and we unite and how about we also make back to the futures in america and we dedicate all of our resources at american pinball over the next few years to helping you become an extension of your manufacturing wing for back to the future that seems like a mutually beneficial thing it's just parts being assembled i mean once a game is done it is just parts assembled the same way anyone who knows how to assemble a pinball machine ostensibly should be able to do that so that seems like something that mukesh should do and pick up the phone and let's do it that way. All right? No. Let's make Cuphead stupid. Let's make Galactic Tank Forces and Houdini still stupid. I'm worried that like the demand is going to be so high that it's going to make Dutch do something weird. And what I mean by that is like, Like they're going to have to figure out a way, I think, to curb the demand a little bit. I don't know how you do it other than price.
    64:27
    And then from there, from there, like people are just going to wait for years. I mean they're going to wait for years to get their back to the future. And that's going to be something that really tests the patience. But it's one of those themes where people will wait. They will wait. they've been waiting for Pulp Fiction. I think people want Back to the Future more than Pulp Fiction. I think it's going to be a much better game.
    64:54
    You know, it just is. I mean, Pulp Fiction is cool. It's a cool game. No screen, no clips from the movie though. Like, you know, five songs. Like, come on, it's not going to last forever. It's not going to have the depth of a Back to the Future that's fully featured with a screen and modern coding. It's not going to have it. But gang, look, I think it's an exciting time. I'll tell you this. We've got a few more minutes.
    65:24
    I think all the exciting stuff is happening around Stern Pinball now. And I mean it when I say it. I think Stern Pinball, I think through this John Wick launch and seeing Gomez and Tim Sexton, and I think Stern Pinball has lost its mojo. I think seeing Keith Elwin monochromatically release the Jaws accessories with just – I just feel like Stern has no bearing anymore on how to be the cool company that it used to be. And I think – again, I don't mean they're stuck. I just mean right now Stern to me is not where the excitement is. and Stern to me doesn't have the, I don't know, the enthusiasm. I don't think, I think they've priced themselves so far away from people. I think, I think they've come across, I think this is Seth Davis's Stern. I mean, let me just go off a little bit. I think this is what happens when you bring in a Seth Davis. You didn't need to, you were making the most money you've ever made. You bring in a guy who's not a pinball guy. And once you do that, you bring in a guy from outside the category, who left a category that he destroyed. I mean, look at Disney plus his profits. They're terrible. He absolutely did nothing positive at Disney. And so he comes over to Stern. You think that's a step up? Do you think someone in his position at Disney,
    66:51
    it's a step up to go from Disney, one of the greatest brands in the world, to Stern Pinball? that's a demotion of of of epic proportions in terms of like where you're working but it's i'm sure for gary it seems great but anyway anyway but what seth didn't do is he didn't learn and and travel and talk to you and me did he did you think as the ceo Do you think he was out there meeting with people? Do you think he was out there getting to know the category and the customer before he made decisions? No. He came in and he was told that we're all a bunch of idiots, that we will buy anything, that we will spend $2,000 on toppers. And it's not like he was wrong. Christopher Franchi, welcome to the party. It's been a while, brother. We're glad to have you back. I think Seth Davis has absolutely driven Stern into a territory now, which makes them not likable. And when I look at the entire pinball ecosystem of companies, I just think it's hard to like them. And I don't like the moves they've made recently. I don't like the prices. I don't like the value exchange between them and the community. And I think the moment they got caught with John Wick, right, the moment they got caught in their own greed and their own ignorance and their own like lack of like lack of knowing us. The moment they got caught with John Wick, abysmal sales. Look how they responded. They absolutely went on this like panic tour. now all of a sudden they want to let us in now all of a sudden they want to do all these shows now all of a sudden it's like now now only because they can't sell John Wicks and the moment Stern we're not like salvating at a game of theirs now they want to be friends now they want to invite us over for dinner now they want us you know to tell us how much we matter to them that's not cool And I think everybody sees through it. And I think if they just go back to the well on old games and charge us a fortune, again, I think Stern Pinball is in a place because they've lost some of the humanity of what they needed.
    69:37
    Because, gang, if you knew, there's a threshold. there's a threshold by which they could have look the threshold was this when ellies went from 8500 to 10 5 that was it baby that was the threshold in which they didn't increase their bomb at all but they found just enough to charge this much for their product and i mean that the fact that you can go get this today, this Guns N' Roses CE for around like $10,000 or $11,000 and a freaking Stern John Wick LE is $13,000. Put this Jersey Jack game next to a Stern and it's a joke. It's a joke. It's an utter joke. And yet like what world are we supposed to say, well, that John Wick Ali is worth 13. It's stupid. The game is worth like $8,500 out of the box. But they found a way to, you know, to charge people 10, five for Godzilla Ali. And it was beautiful. And it was right before COVID. And that was where it should be. And now they want us to spend 13,000 on Venom, 13 on Foo, 13 on James Bond, 13, 13, 13. And then if you go to buy a topper for your $13,000 John Wick LE or Foo Fighters LE, you're now at a $15,000 game. I don't know about you, but also there's something called shipping and tax. Let's talk about this a minute because all I've been doing is lighting money on fire with this new house. If you buy a Foo Fighters LE with a topper and you have to pay sales tax and shipping, you know what you're at? Let me do it right now. Let's get the calculator. Let's say in New York it's 8.875 sales tax. All right, that's another 1,300.
    71:47
    So you're at, with shipping, $16,800. Let's just round up. $17,000 for one Stern LE optioned out to your door. A game that's not rare. There's a thousand of them. $17,000.
    72:13
    And that's where we're at. The total cost of ownership. Stupid. It's stupid. And not only that is I've watched all of my friends who went in on these LEs during COVID absolutely get destroyed. No one in pinball should be paying shipping and tax. Well, look, I know like a lot of places offer free shipping, but how do you get around the tax?
    72:43
    How do you get around the tax? Don't some businesses have to charge you tax based on the state in which the game is going? I don't know.
    72:53
    I mean, I just would want to do it by the book, but it is what it is. Everybody look. It's going to be a crazy year in pinball because the giant is vulnerable.
    73:12
    Stern Pinball, I think, is more vulnerable now than ever before. Like we didn't even talk about Barrels of Fun. We didn't talk about some other companies, Multimorphic. But there's so many companies now.
    73:24
    And there's only so much money and there's only so much room. And if you were to ask me, and I'll say it and I've said it before, the future of pinball is boutique. What will win in pinball is boutique. And I still consider Jersey Jack to be a big boutique operation. Because I think what's going to happen in pinball is this, is the jig is up. Stern Pinball makes Honda Civics. They make Honda Civics. They're great. Honda Civics are great. They're reliable. They're fun. You know, the Type R is like great car. But they don't put that much into the games. And everybody knows that. And so the company that's mass producing Honda Civics has priced their games like their Rolls Royces and Bentleys. simply because they've seen others who put more price high or they've seen the secondhand market on some of their products. But, you know, it doesn't work like that, Stern. That only gets you so far. That's a short-term business strategy because you're still making Honda Civics. You know what I'm saying? Like I could still put a, I could put your brand new Jaws LE next to Wizard of Oz from 10 years ago. I mean, think about it, people. I could put your brand new Jaws LE versus a Jersey Jack from 10 years ago, and your game still looks outdated. The 10-year-old Jersey Jack looks better than your brand new game. You haven't come that far.
    74:58
    And I think what's going to happen is boutiques are going to take over, and if boutiques only need to sell 1,000 to 2,000 games a year, that's fine. They're going to satiate the pinball collecting buying community.
    75:16
    What Stern will end up becoming more and more, I believe, is the product for operators. They are set up perfectly for operators. Keep cranking out a new pro every three to four months. Give the operators something new to put on location. Perfect, like perfect. But for the home collector and the home buyer, these Stern machines are cheap. and you're way overpaying for them. You're way overpaying for them. It's just, and look, I would love it if spike three changes my mind. If spike three comes out and Stern really like, you know, brings their games into a more modern era with more stuff and just the build quality, everything.
    75:59
    Everything. It's just, I just don't believe they will. I think they're actually gonna go in the opposite direction. I think spike three is gonna be more about cost-cutting inefficiencies and downloadable content.
    76:12
    All right? So look, Stern, I think Stern's not used to this. You could see it in their eyes when they were doing these John Wick media tours and all these interviews. I feel like they're nervous. I also feel like they are not used to getting it so wrong. And John Wick and Venom, like somewhere in their marketing department, they need to wake up because they passed on Rick and Morty or they didn't even look at Rick and Morty. They didn't even want Beetlejuice. They didn't want Wonder Woman. They didn't want Superman 78. They didn't want like all these things. I mean, Mr. Christopher Franchi was putting, lining up in front of them. This is what your audience wants. I'm going to show you how awesome it looks. Now, look, some of those might have just been the license holder, but for the most part, you know, it's the same old formula. I hear Brenda coming through the door. I'm going to go. Everybody, I love you. Thank you for the support. Thank you for sticking around. More podcasts coming this week. It's been hard for me, but I haven't even taken a break through all of this. Hey, Killian, through all of this. I just still want to make the best pinball content for each and every one of you hey buddy you want to come up here you have a lollipop that's awesome can I sell you a $15,000 lollipop yeah he's like huh that's alright it's gone he ate it everybody be good thank you guys He said everybody be good. You want to come up here and tell everybody to be good? Okay, but come up here and tell everybody to be good.
    78:06
    Everybody be good. Tell Bill Brandis to donate more to the show. And so, Brenda. Killian, what do you think of the new pinball machine? Good. Do you like it? Yeah. Would you spend $15,000 on it?
    78:24
    Yes. Oh, no, we're screwed. Dude, Seth Davis is watching this right now. All right, everybody, love you guys. Bill, look at Billy B hitting with a thousand stars at the very end. Amazing, amazing. All right, everybody, enjoy your Saturdays. We love you. Bye-bye.