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Episode 70 - Jason Joins the Fray

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 10m·held·Sep 9, 2018
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Jason from NAP Arcade discusses the group's growth and industry news on Spooky's TNA production pause.

Summary

Jason from NAP Arcade (Nap's Arcade) appears as a guest on the Eclectic Gamers Podcast (Episode 70, Sept 8). The hosts discuss NAP Arcade's origins as a Facebook group for pinball/arcade news and community, Jason's recent game acquisitions, Dennis's published articles on pinball designers and middlepop machines, and industry news including Spooky Pinball decision to cap Total Nuclear Annihilation (TNA) production at 550 units to prioritize Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle within their 18-month delivery window.

Key Claims

  • Spooky Pinball has received orders for TNA nearly at 500 units and will produce 550 total, then pause production

    high confidence · Dennis citing Spooky's monthly podcast announcement about TNA production numbers and strategy

  • Spooky's decision to pause TNA production is motivated by need to deliver Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle within promised 18-month window

    high confidence · Dennis explaining Spooky's stated reasoning for the production pause

  • Used TNA machines are finally softening below $7,000 in the secondary market

    medium confidence · Dennis countering Zach's segment on used pricing, claiming TNAs are moving beneath $7k range despite poor research in competing segment

  • Wayne Nyans is the last of the American EM pinball designers of significant note still living

    high confidence · Dennis stating this as established fact, noting historical loss of designer knowledge

  • Sega Enterprises' Millionaire middlepop machine (1977) is extremely rare/difficult to document with photos

    high confidence · Dennis describing extensive unsuccessful research efforts including contacting Tokyo Pinball Museum

  • NAP Arcade Facebook group attracts pinball/arcade enthusiasts and operators in area with specific venue presence

    high confidence · Jason describing NAP Arcade's evolution and Jason naming multiple area venues hosting TNA machines

  • Spooky Pinball has reputation issues with area operators regarding tech support and customer treatment

    medium confidence · Dennis referencing private conversations with area operators/owners about Spooky's regional reputation problems

Notable Quotes

  • “I guess you were out of all the good guests, but I am honored to be able to visit with you, fellas.”

    Jason (from NAP Arcade) @ early in episode — Opening guest greeting with self-deprecating humor; establishes Jason's personality and willingness to engage

  • “I'm always looking for news about pinball and arcades and stuff that interests me. So I just end up throwing it up there and trying to talk to people about it...It's a little bit more civilized than, say, a pin side or something like that, because you actually have your real face and real name associated with it in most instances.”

    Jason @ NAP Arcade origin discussion — Explains NAP Arcade's value proposition as community space with better civility than Pinside due to real-name accountability

  • “The circle of guests is very small...a lot of groups are using the same ones...I hadn't actually heard you on any other shows So I thought it was time to poach”

    Dennis (host) @ guest introduction — Articulates structural problem in pinball podcast ecosystem: limited fresh voices due to small community repeating across shows

  • “They're a pretty small manufacturing company, so for them to actually get any Alice Coopers out there in decent numbers, they probably had to do it...I think that really keeps the buzz going and the demand up”

    Jason @ TNA production discussion — Jason's business analysis of Spooky's production pause strategy and scarcity value

  • “I mean, I would love to get one one of these days...I'm more of a stern pro kind of guy. Like, if I'm going to buy something new, I want to get it, like, slightly used and, like, the high fours, the low fives. I don't want to drop, like, seven grand on something.”

    Jason @ TNA pricing discussion — Reveals market segment preference: collectors buying used Stern Pros at $4.5-5.5k vs new boutique games at $7k+

  • “I mean, they've blown right past that to 550, and there's still demand for it...one of the things about TNA that I think will be positive for the pricing long term is just that thing does great, seems to do great on location.”

    Jason — Jason noting TNA's exceptional operator/location performance as demand sustainer, despite production cap

Entities

JasonpersonDennispersonTonypersonZachpersonNAP ArcadeorganizationSpooky PinballcompanyTotal Nuclear Annihilation (TNA)gameAlice Cooper's Nightmare Castlegame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball has reputational issues with area operators regarding customer service and tech support quality

    medium · Dennis cites private operator feedback: 'the reputation that company has amongst our area is just too poor. It's a mix of not being treated well when calling for tech support'

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball prioritizing Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle delivery promise (18-month window) over continued TNA production capacity

    high · Dennis states Spooky decided to pause TNA 'to ensure that they get Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle out within the 18-month window that they promised'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Magazine No. 5 featuring extensive Wayne Nyans retrospective and interviews; community collecting/pre-ordering this title

    high · Dennis mentions Wayne Nyans is featured in ~300+ pages with interviews in Pinball Magazine No. 5; notes he 'placed [his] order for that'; magazine costs ~$50 with shipping

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: TNA machines performing exceptionally well at location/operator venues, driving sustained operator demand and secondary market interest

    high · Jason states 'any time I go to a place that's like a good location pinball place, they have a TNA...ratio of TNAs that exist...is way out of whack'; names multiple specific venues with TNA machines

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Dutch Pinball's Alice game legal dispute ongoing; lawyers scheduled additional meetings with ARL lawyers

    medium · Dennis reports 'lawyers met with the ARL lawyers, and they're going to meet again' but acknowledges minimal detail available on dispute

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.391

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Saturday. It's not a Sunday, it's a Saturday. September 8th, this is episode 70. I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis. And we have a guest. He runs the hit Facebook group, Nap Arcade, and we have a link to that in the show notes if anyone by chance does not follow it, but there you can get much of your pinball and game room news and watch his sagas of acquiring new games, playing new games, and experiencing new games. Jason Nap, welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Welcome. Hey, fellas. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. I guess you were out of all the good guests, but I am honored to be able to visit with you, fellas. Well, we had gone without a guest for a few episodes, which is not, in the scheme of this podcast, very unusual. It's just I loaded us up on an awful lot this year. We did a lot. We've done a lot of guests so far this year. And I was sitting there, and I was thinking, I need new voices. See, here's the problem in the world of podcasting, especially on the pinball side. The circle of guests is very small And a lot of groups are using the same ones But you want to get new voices in Or at least if you're me you do And while you've been active in the hobby For a long time I hadn't actually heard you on any other shows So I thought it was time to poach It was either George Gomez or me probably Oh god Georgie Georgie's been on everything Coast to coast What was it? Head to head had him Yeah, he's been on a couple in a row. If I had to get some music, I just got to move on, because then everyone's already heard it already. Right. Because they're so popular.
1:59
Well, I've been listening to you guys for a long time. I don't know how many episodes it was, but it was back when you were still doing Tabletop pretty heavily. I wouldn't say it was ever heavy. It was there. It's so interesting. It hadn't been removed from the listing as of yet. Yeah, that was my fault. I, unfortunately, I am virtually no help to Tony in keeping that segment going. So that's why it had to fall away because I was never contributing to it. And when I was doing, and most of the gaming that I did board gaming-wise happens the exact same time as almost all of the pinball. So I kind of made a choice between, I had to choose between going to a board gaming group or a pinball group. So I started going to the pinball more often.
@ TNA demand analysis

  • “10 years ago, I could have spoken to Steve Kordak and gotten a better answer. But now no one's left...it's getting hard.”

    Dennis @ historical research challenge discussion — Articulates challenge of pinball history research: key designers dying, lost institutional knowledge, mounting irretrievability

  • “whenever I've consulted privately with the area operators or owners who hobby operate...the reputation that company has amongst our area is just too poor. It's a mix of not being treated well when calling for tech support”

    Dennis @ Spooky reputation discussion — Cites operators' private complaints about Spooky's tech support and customer treatment affecting regional operator confidence

    • Wayne Nyans
    person
    Pinball Newsorganization
    This Week in Pinballorganization
    Pinball Magazineorganization
    Dutch Pinballcompany
    Steve Kordakperson
    Scott Benisiperson
    Eclectic Gamers Podcastorganization
    403 Cluborganization
    Special When Lit Pinball Podcastorganization
    X-Files (pinball machine)game
    Valley Atlantisgame
  • $

    market_signal: Collector market segmented by price sensitivity: operators/enthusiasts willing to buy used Stern Pros at $4.5-5.5k but hesitant on new boutique games at $7k+

    medium · Jason explains his purchasing preference: 'I'm more of a stern pro kind of guy. Like, if I'm going to buy something new, I want to get it, like, slightly used and, like, the high fours, the low fives. I don't want to drop, like, seven grand'

  • $

    market_signal: TNA used market pricing softening below $7,000, suggesting demand may be normalizing after initial FOMO surge

    medium · Dennis claims TNAs 'are finally moving beneath the 7,000 range in the used market, which is suggesting a softening' but acknowledges he is 'only a highly trained analyst' implying some speculation; Jason reports seeing one listed locally for $10k

  • ?

    community_signal: Eclectic Gamers hosts rotating guest appearances across pinball podcast ecosystem; attempting to bring new voices to address small guest pool problem

    medium · Dennis explains decision to invite Jason as guest: 'The circle of guests is very small...a lot of groups are using the same ones...I hadn't actually heard you on any other shows So I thought it was time to poach'

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball deliberately capping TNA production at 550 units to restore/maintain scarcity-driven FOMO and demand despite ongoing market appetite

    high · Jason explicitly notes 'scarcity associated with TNA is probably not a bad thing either...keeps the buzz going and the demand up'; production pause announced by Spooky after reaching ~500 orders

    • 2:46
    Choose your house. Wise choice. Very wise choice. So I still play occasionally, but it's pretty rare at this point. It's like a special occasion thing. And we didn't even do the special occasion this summer that I've normally done the last several summers because I couldn't get the time off and I was doing something else that weekend anyway. Too busy. Well, I know you guys had the family game nights or just the game nights in general, and then you had some sort of conference up by you. Yeah. Some sort of gaming conference. Yeah, that was the conference we skipped this year. And then our game nights, we call them game nights, but we only occasionally actually play games. I mean, this last one was at my house. It was technically a game night because we watched a game being played because we watched the Overwatch All-Star game. But we didn't play any. I probably could have qualified because I'm pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, I could have qualified as a caster. I'm watching games on Twitch as Game Night, and I'm having game night every day. I've been addicted to people on Twitch lately. Everyone's game night runs a little bit differently depending who hosts anyways. Yeah. So we're in our intro segment. So, Jason, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about your NAP Arcade group or anything and just give the listeners some background.
    4:09
    Oh, yeah. You know, it's funny. I didn't really intend for it to be a web page from my arcade or anything, But what ended up happening was, I would say at least four years ago, maybe, I got one of the, you know, the arachnid dart boards that have the screens in them? Nope, no idea. The ones you see at bars. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've got one of those. The soft tip darts. And it's got the video screen. And then you play darts against other people and it keeps your score and everything. Yeah, they've got that. Yeah, I had gotten an Arachnid Galaxy 2 because my son and I had played one on a cruise at an Irish pub in the cruise, and we really liked it. So I picked one up, and I decided to have a charity tournament. So I did a charity dart tournament to benefit St. Jude's Children's Hospital, and I created a page for it just so everyone would know, you know, so they could say whether they were coming. And it had a link to donate to St. Jude's and a couple things. And then, you know, after that, the page kind of just stayed up there and sat. And then I was posting a lot of arcade stuff on my regular Facebook page where people from town and all these other people who really don't care all that much were seeing it. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to start throwing this stuff up on the charity dart tournament site. So I just changed it from the charity dart tournament to NAP Arcade. And then, you know, I always love talking about all this stuff. And I'm in competitive intelligence and general life for my career for many, many years. So I'm always looking for news about pinball and arcades and stuff that interests me. So I just end up throwing it up there and trying to talk to people about it from time to time. So I post tons of news articles about pinball and arcades and everything else. And there's a lot of people that kind of hang out, and it's fun to talk to. It's a little bit more civilized than, say, a pin side or something like that, because you actually have your real face and real name associated with it in most instances. So you can't be as jerky, at least if people know who you are. Yeah, it's kind of become a staple of my Facebook thing now. I've gone through, and this is going to be horrible, but most of the people who this would be horrible to don't actually listen to the podcast. But pretty much everybody except for very close friends, including large amounts of family, have been totally muted by me. So my Facebook feed is, you know, Dennis and my wife and my parents and, like, 40-some-odd pinball-related items and video game-related items at this point. And a few other friends and, like, one guy from work. that's a lucky guy if he's the only one that made the cut everybody else is mute, well he's the one I actually have conversations with fairly often so everything else has just been I started by doing the, they added a 30 day mute so I just started 30 day muting and then I got so pissed off when the 30 day mute came off and all these people reappeared I just hit everybody yeah I've definitely remained friends but unfollowed a lot of people from just town and random stuff and I end up trying to friend as many people in pinball as possible anyone who's into pinball or arcades I generally shoot them a friend request or whatever because I love talking about this stuff and I love seeing people's random pickups and those pictures of people with the arcade machine in the back of their car the selfies and stuff like that. All that stuff I find is pretty cool. It was funny. I saw a meme on Facebook the other day, and someone said,
    7:56
    the way I know that someone's not real is if they're a beautiful woman and they've friended me. I only friend sloppy people who have arcade machines in their pictures.
    8:07
    Because you always get a million fake, you know, russering or whatever requests from Facebook. Yeah. Thank you for the introduction, Jason. Tony, I haven't thanked you for your introduction yet Because you haven't given it Oh no So why don't you go What have I been doing? I've been working And I don't have any good introductions Actually, that's a lie I picked up I've been doing a lot of Movie watching Lately, and TV show watching Which we've been talking about I say we like there's any conversation I'm posting a ton of stuff in the movies and TV section of the Discord about it And it's just like stream of consciousness stuff as I'm watching the show So we do have a Discord And I'm sure it'll be included in the show notes or on the webpage It's somewhere I don't even think I know what that is What is a Discord? Discord is kind of It's like Twitter? Well, kind of It's like having a Discord server is basically like having our own little chat room that you can set up chats and separate little things. It's separate from Facebook. It's separate from anything else. And we don't kind of follow the rules that we do, like being super clean and this and that. We're less concerned about that on the Discord. And it's got, we've got where we talk about a lot of the non-video game and non-pinball related stuff. Because we've got a whole section where I just had a massive discussion about music, and you know, we have this and that. We have general sections and more. I occasionally post memes and videos that I find interesting that I found online. It's stuff that I like a lot of people put on Facebook, but I don't like to put on Facebook.
    9:54
    Oh, cool. I'll have to check it out. Yeah, there's a link off of our main website, EclecticGamers.com. Some of the other shows are doing this. Buffalo Pinball, for example, they have a Discord. Gaming on 10 Minutes a Week with Don and Nick, they have a Discord. So, To me, it's sort of like the evolution of what used to be called IRC, Internet Relay Chat. It's sort of like that.
    10:19
    I feel so untrendy not knowing what it is. Your lack of hipness is pretty obvious at this point, so I do pity that.
    10:28
    I have not been watching a ton of movies. I've watched a couple, but let's see. What's been going on since the last show? Well, Tony and I had a monthly tournament at the 403 Club last Saturday. It was very enjoyable. Look at that. Tony Instagrams from it a lot. See, he's been doing Instagram. I'm trying to pick. The problem is I don't do enough pinball stuff during the week. I can't Instagram every day because there would just be pictures of me going, I was at work today, and now I'm playing a video game.
    10:56
    Here's my computer again. Yeah. Here's a picture of my computer screen. The gif of the monkey pounding on the keyboard. That's my favorite.
    11:05
    I would send that to my wife when she texts me at work. And, oh, another pinball-oriented podcast that I started listening to a little while ago, and I realized I'd never actually plugged them here, so I will now. It's called Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. There will be a link in the show notes. They've had a couple of, actually, I know they've had three different interviews. They interviewed Steve Ritchie most recently, but they also interviewed Dwight Sullivan. That was their first. And then Terry with Pinball Life, who we had an interview with, I believe, last year. this one was, they're in the Chicago area, so they're able to do all these interviews in person. Right. They have the home field advantage. They do. They're going to display, well, I mean, we don't really, Tony and I very rarely do interviews. It's not really the... No, you get people like me. Yes. Yes, we get, but look, I'm going to write, the way this is going to be written up, it's going to be NAP Arcade, the successor to Fun With Bonuses? Question mark, question mark. That might be the title. Oh, no. It starts some strange feud between me and Steve Beckham. Oh yeah, you thought he was the nicest guy in pinball until you turned on him.
    12:13
    He's the best. I'm still, what am I now? I think I'm 10 of the 14, 10 hours into his Pinberg reveals film. I've been watching a little bit each day. I don't know how he did that in one day. He's a machine because I can't even watch the whole thing on video. Yeah, forged in fire, I guess. I did get through it, but the way I had to do it is I would hit the 30-second jump button constantly and then just watch. So I'd skip a lot of the setup. And I'd just see, oh, look, he drained on that EM because it's an EM that had no skill. Skip, skip, skip, skip. Not all EMS are like that, but some of them are, especially at Pembroke. He's the best. I'm looking forward to seeing all the stuff that he ends up doing down there. Yeah, that's going to be the exciting thing at the first part of 2019.
    12:59
    And last part... That'll be from the news because I'm thrilled to see what's going to happen with us. Yeah, they've got a talent pool that is deep enough to dive in. Yeah. You can't not take them serious. They have, like, every big name that was a free agent. Sort of like the Yankees, you know. Yeah, yeah, exactly like the Yankees. Some people are going to hate them because they bought everything needed to win, but if you like winners,
    13:26
    what can you say? I think John Norris is totally underrated too. I like him a lot. Well, we'll get to touch on that here as As we move along, talking a bit about buying pins, I think that would probably be a good topic because you have more experience with his games than Tony or I do.
    13:43
    You know, actually, I had a three-game week last week, unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you do it.
    13:52
    Unfortunately for my wife, but fortunately for me. It was funny. I blocked off. I said, what are we doing this weekend to her the other day? I was trying to set aside some time to speak with you guys. I'm like, am I available Sunday afternoon? She's like, you're not getting another game already.
    14:11
    Not yet, not yet. No, I was like, it's okay. Last week I picked up Valley Atlantis. That's a good one. Dolphins. I've been looking.
    14:23
    Women wide riding dolphins and sharks. I've always been strangely attracted to undersea themed pins for some reason. And I think it's just a beautiful game. And then I grabbed, I don't know if you called it a pin, but a Gottlieb strikes and spares. Well, we did when we did that worst of the fall. Yeah. We had that in. Did the game I acquired qualify for the worst of the fall? No, actually, we discussed it. We had a guest on, and everyone was sort of like it wasn't a quote-unquote real pinball machine. So we asked the listeners to vote it out, essentially say it's too good to stick around. And they did. So it got eliminated from the competition. I was wondering if that would be legal to put in a tournament, like an IFPA.
    15:08
    I don't know. Like that would be Pac-Man. I need to find out the rules because that would be so funny. Everyone who's so awesome at pinball all of a sudden would be like, what?
    15:18
    I think in both cases the answer is yes. As long as it has flippers, I think IFPA says it's okay, I think. I'm going to host a tournament with all the weirdo games, and then I'll have a shot at least.
    15:34
    Oh, and the last part of the intro would just be earlier in the week, they had me guest host again on the This Week in Pinball podcast episode 13. So there's a link in the show notes if anyone cares about that. That's with Zach. He's the regular host from straight down the middle and puts me on tilt, as he says, his crazy stuff, and I try and help cover the news. He's got the best segment of all in all of Pinball. I like that. No. Oh, my God, you guys. That segment sucks. I love that segment. It's terrible.
    16:03
    As long as it's accurate, it's good. It's not. That's why it's awful. It's awful. But you guys don't care. You don't care.
    16:11
    What about Dennis' feelings? No one cares about my feelings. I think Tony voted just to hurt me. Yeah. It felt like it. So, speaking of pain, let's go ahead and transition formally now. into pinball news. There's actually not really anything painfully negative to talk about this episode, which is good for once. I don't have anything important to say about... Well, I'm going to throw it in. It's not on the list, but I'm going to throw it in real quick. There was an update out of Dutch Pinball. They said the lawyers met with the ARL lawyers, and they're going to meet again.
    16:46
    There you go. Lawyers are going to schedule meetings again? I know. Wow. Would you be shocked if I told you they get paid by the hour?
    16:55
    I just can't believe it. And they probably charged them for the lunch because it was a lunch meeting too, I'm sure. I don't know. But anyway, there was news, what limited amount one might say about it.
    17:08
    So first thing I have down, and it's more of a point of personal privilege, but hey, it's our show, so we get to have our points of personal privilege. Last week I had two more pinball-related articles come out. I did not mean for them to come out on the same day, but that was... Fight yourself. It was just the way... You've been a busy man. It was... They were all written significantly further apart than you might think based off of when all these articles have been coming out. It just sort of depends on the editorial schedule. And by editorial, I mean the... They all go through whoever's the editor. So Martin with Pinball News or Jeff with This Week in Pinball. So you don't just sit down and knock them out in a day or two and then kick them all out in the same week? Not these. No. It depends. I'm working on one right now that I actually was able to write the entire content in a day. But, you know, that's under 2,000 words. It's when some of these were a little bit longer than that or needed permissions and things like that. So this week in Pinball ran a beginner's guide on pinball designers. That one, yeah, that took a long time. And so that covers 30 designers for, I think, 32 total from the electromechanical and solid state era. So there's a link in the show notes to it if anyone cares. and then Pinball News ran an article I wrote on Middlepop pinball machines. You remember those, Tony, like the prototype. I love Middlepop things and I loved this article. That's making the print copy too, right? No, that's Pinball Magazine.
    18:31
    Oh, okay. I've never written for Pinball Magazine. I doubt they would want me to. But it gets confusing because I think that Pinball News and Pinball Magazine, they have a monthly podcast and they mentioned the article on there and it was the Pinball Magazine editor who mentioned the Pinball News article, so it could be confusing. I listened to both, yeah. But no, it's on the digital one.
    18:57
    Pinball Magazine was already to print by the time I even wrote this thing. Anyway, so links in the show notes for those. So I don't think there's really anything necessary to discuss on it unless you want to talk about designers or middle pop pinball machines. Middle pops are fun. I like middle pops. Okay. I had someone come up to me and said, I read your article. Then I did the whole brush off the fingernails and I said, which?
    19:24
    And he looked at me. I'm sorry, which of my published pieces are you referring to? He looked at me like I was a big dork and he said, the Middlepop one. I said, oh, what did you think? He said, I really like the article. I'm pretty sure I hate all those games.
    19:39
    I'm glad I helped you arrive at that decision. Here's a question for you. What's the newest middle pop game, the last one that was produced? That was the one called Millionaire, not to be confused by the System 11 Millionaire, made by Sega Enterprises in 1977. I thought you were talking about the one everyone rethemes as the Trump pin. I've never seen that one.
    20:02
    Everyone rethemes the Millionaire like that. Yeah, the Sega Enterprises Millionaire, I've not even been able to find an actual photo. There were pictures of a flyer, but I was not able to secure permission to use it, so I didn't include it in the article. But it's an interesting lower layout because the flipper design on it is much more like what we kind of think of today as a standard three-inch flipper layout. They're not dropped really low like they were with Norm Clark. Yeah. And I wondered, would that play close enough to traditional that most people who don't like middle pops would like it?
    20:37
    I don't know. I've seen one and I've seen you find a picture one or a gameplay one I even emailed the Tokyo Pinball Museum and asked them I don't know if they know English or not but I tried I asked them if they possibly had a line on any photos of one or someone could take some footage and put it on YouTube or take some footage and I'd put it on YouTube not at the Pinball Hall of Fame I'm surprised they wouldn't have one I don't know how Sega Enterprises was only games designed For the local Japanese market And not very many made it over And I think even Pinball Hall of Fame's reach has been limited On accessing, it's not like Zocaria or Sonic or some of the others That was relatively easy to get to They're Just not Not findable, apparently So anyway, I couldn't find anything But now you have to fly to Japan, find one, buy it, ship it back.
    21:41
    I'm starting to wonder with only the flyer pictures if it was produced. I mean, the data that comes out, see, that's some of the stuff I've always wanted to explore. Like, you go and you look at the list of games from, say, Playmatic. None of the designers are known. And to me, it's like, wouldn't it be cool to know who designed all those layouts?
    21:59
    But you have to, I mean, even with my limited ability in Spanish, whereas most of these other languages I don't have any background in in terms of challenge. Thank you, Google Translate, though. You're making life easier.
    22:11
    I went to the Japanese pinball forums and was using Google Translate and reading and trying to find the game Millionaire. I did try. I gave up eventually, but I did try for a while.
    22:22
    You said a lot of strange things that you thought were weird. Yeah, I thought so. And, yeah, so there's a lot of this stuff where I've really wanted to explore a lot of the foreign manufacturers because we just don't have good records on them. But it's difficult because there don't seem to be many records that were released publicly. And unfortunately, as every year that advances, more and more of the people who know are dead. And it's just getting, it's getting hard. I mean, some of these articles that I worked on, like the Middle Pop, or when I did the article about Bally doing Harry Williams items late last year, 10 years ago, I could have spoken to Steve Kordak and gotten a better answer. But now no one's left. I mean, Wayne Nyans is the last of the American EM designers of any note. Yeah. And it's like... There's been some great articles about him lately. Yep. And I'm looking forward to seeing Pinball Magazine number five, because I understand they walked through his entire sort of litany of produced stuff. And it's, I mean, 300 and some pages. And a lot of that's just going to be interviews with Wayne. Nice. I placed my order for that. It's out there now. Yeah, I should be. If you got your order in early enough, there's putting some bonus postcards with pictures of some of these games on them, I think. I took out an EGP ad to help promote us in Pinball Magazine. So I think I get a copy of the magazine as part of that payment. That's not bad because I think with shipping, it's like 50 bucks now. So mathematically, it made a lot of sense. Yeah, okay, we'll go ahead and do that. We'll go ahead and do that. You actually came out ahead. Yeah. Well, it depends on how you think of it. I think, you know, my math of any time we've taken an ad has resulted in a net gain of zero. But sometimes it's fun to do. And so it's not like we don't really track it very well because we don't make any money at it, so it doesn't really matter. Yeah, that's kind of like I always get the promotions for Facebook advertising on my page, and I'm like, why am I going to pay for advertising? I don't even know what I'm doing. Facebook's giving me a couple free goes So I've done some free ones through there For the podcast I advertised my page when I was trying to sell a game I did that What was I trying to sell? I don't know, I was having a hard time selling something So I did a Facebook ad Big hurt?
    24:44
    No, it was not a big hurt I mean, I can see here, let's see I have a list of everything I sold It might have been for Baby Pac-Man or X-Files Or something like that Hmm. Yeah. I don't know. Baby Pac-Man scares people, so it might have been that one. That's my guess. But X-Files was just such a wonderful game. That was my first pin, if you call that a pin. I would. I would call that a Baby Pac-Man pin. I dipped my toe into the world of pinball, and then it sucked me in full with a giant riptide. Yeah, it's a vicious hobby.
    25:14
    And speaking of vicious hobby, let's go to the next news item, which is Spooky, Spooky Pinball. They have a podcast, monthly podcast, and apparently on that podcast, they talked a little bit about total nuclear annihilation, or TNA to the masses, except when broadcasting to a major audience at Pinnberg, in which case you must say it fully out to not confuse people.
    25:36
    You might get a bigger crowd if you said it like that. You might, but apparently Twitch is sensitive to it. Competitive TNA? Yeah! Yeah. So what Spooky indicated was the sales that they currently have, or the orders, I should say, for TNA are almost to 500 units. So what they have decided to do is they are going to make 550 units, and then they are pushing pause on that assembly. They need to ensure that they get Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle out within the 18-month window that they promised. Yeah. And so they don't want to run the sub line on TNA anymore. So they've set that number. that will probably let them have some of these in stock, and they'll be able to sell these TNAs off. They may revisit it once demand comes back at some point, but it could be years because they don't think that they'll immediately need to worry about it and they need to prioritize getting the rest of their lineup going. And looking at their next game beyond Alice Cooper. Yeah, that would be my guess. Jason, what are your thoughts on that decision? Makes sense to you?
    26:41
    Oh, well, it does. I mean, they're a pretty small manufacturing company, so for them to actually get any Alice Coopers out there in decent numbers, they probably had to do it, I would think. I mean, to have a sort of scarcity associated with T&A is probably not a bad thing either. I think that really keeps the buzz going and the demand up and what have you. I mean, I would love to get one one of these days. Me too. It's just a little, it's like one of those things where I'm more of a stern pro kind of guy. Like, if I'm going to buy something new, I want to get it, like, slightly used and, like, the high fours, the low fives. I don't want to drop, like, seven grand on something. So, for me, I'm really tempted by the TNA, but I'm kind of like, eh. But maybe, you know, maybe someday if the used prices come down. But I saw on a great segment that Zach did that used prices for T&As are holding up very well. Well, my understanding is, despite what misleading, poorly researched segments might tell you, T&As are finally moving beneath the 7,000 range in the used market, which is suggesting a softening. But I don't know. I'm only a highly trained analyst. There's one for sale in my area. with the butter cabinet. Someone's trying to get 10 grand for it. Oh, geez. I was like, what? Come on. They better at least give you, like, two pounds of butter with it.
    28:10
    Butter. That's right. So you can bake yourself a cake so you don't feel so bad about all the money you blew on a game that ain't remotely worth that much money.
    28:21
    So, anyway, yeah, it makes sense to me that they would go ahead and do the pause thing. I think that that was sort of an – I mean, I suppose if they had it all to do over again. They could have taken back announcing Alice Cooper and just kept doing TNAs as fast as they could for as long as the demand held up and let them continue to develop their code for the shift to P-Rock. Maybe that would have made better strategic sense, but once you revealed Alice Cooper, I think it's smart that they stick with trying to keep their promise on the 18-month goal. I think if they're going to put a gap in production somewhere, it needs to be post-Alice Cooper and before their next game announcement. I agree with you. Yeah, I don't think they really knew that TNA was just going to knock the ball out of the park like it did either. I mean, I saw, or not saw, but I heard the interview with Scott Benisi recently, and it might have been head-to-head. Or it was either head-to-head, probably, and he was saying they were taking bets in the beginning of how many they would produce. And he was saying like 200, 300, and some of the wild people were like 400, and everyone was like laughing at the time. And now, I mean, they've blown right past that to 550, and there's still demand for it. You know, one of the things about TNA that I think will be positive for the pricing long term is just that thing does great, seems to do great on location. I'm not an operator, but any time I go to a place that's like a good location pinball place, they have a TNA.
    29:46
    The ratio of TNAs that exist, the number of times I've seen it on location at good pinball places is way out of whack. I mean, it's very popular. Yeah, we don't have one in the area But a lot of the area players have been demanding that we get one Because its structure is ideal to tournament play Yeah, I'm surprised you don't have one Because I've seen it at the Pinball Gallery I've seen it at 8 on the Break I've seen it at Rock Fantasy They have it at Sunshine Laundromat I mean, these are like, I could just name like five or six places Off the top of my head around here that have it Yeah, and we touch on it from time to time on the show, and I don't like to, because I'm not trying to run Spooky down specifically, but whenever I've consulted privately with the area operators or owners who hobby operate or operate on a higher scale, the reputation that company has amongst our area is just too poor. It's a mix of not being treated well when calling for tech support, and it's been an issue about that the games, for some, that the games don't, they break too much. And so when they're broken, they don't really... I think there's a learning curve, though, too, I think. You know, with them, I mean, you could expect that their first game or two is probably not going to be as reliable as it will down the road. I haven't heard anything specific about TNAs being problematic. One thing that I've noticed about it that's kind of interesting, though, I'm pretty sure every time I've seen it on location, it's only been with coin. I don't think I've ever seen a TNA with a dollar bill acceptor in it, which is kind of odd. That is weird. Yeah, we have a, I mean, yeah, really, for us it really depends. We do have a number of machines where they have gone ahead and just kept the quarter units in, but most of the games around here do not price at a dollar. They're almost all under. Yeah.
    31:39
    75 cents and 50 cents tend to be the typical rates for us. Yeah, they're getting up there. usually what it is is the newest game or two is a buck. You know, whatever is the latest and greatest. And then everything else kind of graduates down to 75 cents. There's not a ton of 50-cent play, I don't think, around. Not that I'm aware of. But usually the newest ones are a buck. Yeah, for us, it depends on the location. Our biggest location that has the highly maintained pins, which Tony mentioned earlier, 403 Club, I think the average rate there is 75 cents. New games that come in often will come in at $1, but only be at that rate for about a month or so. JJP games might stay at that rate longer. And then nothing really under except if they have a very classic pin which might be at Then we have a couple other highly maintained locations further south Most of their games are on The newer stuff tends to be and the classic stuff So that's sort of the price. There's a place by me that has JJP games. I'm trying to think. I don't know if they were $1.50 or $2. I was like, what? I've never played a JJP game that was worth $2 for a single play.
    32:54
    I did get a lot of replays out of it, though. I think they have the replays set really easy because I was just loading up on free games. And if I'm loading up on free games, then you know that they're must-re-set recently.
    33:05
    It's because you're a master pinball player. Yeah. My 8,000-something IFPA ranking. That's just because you limit the number of tournaments you play in. It's all sandbagging. Yeah. Sandbagger. I really only started.
    33:22
    I've only been to two in-person tournaments. I really only started this year. I wanted to go last year, but then a couple of heart surgeries got in the way, so I kind of was doing it. Yeah, that'll do it. Yeah, it could. Maybe. It sounds like an excuse.
    33:37
    I should have manned up. They should have wheeled you in on the chair. Pop some baby aspirin and get over it.
    33:46
    Last pinball news item that we have is Deadflip, Jack Danger. He streamed the Deadpool Premium gameplay over with Stern We have a link to the archived footage in the show notes For anyone who wants to check it out And special thanks to Jason Who this morning tagged me Because he finally found the disco mode I went through the footage yesterday And I didn't see it Yeah I wasn't going to sit there and watch three hours of gameplay Or two and a half or whatever it was I think it was about at the one hour mark Give or take a little bit You know So I was jumping around the screen Looking at different modes and stuff to try and see how it played out. Jason, do you want to lead us off? What were your thoughts in terms of any differences between the premium model and the pro version?
    34:30
    Yeah, I mean, what I thought was when I first saw the art and I saw the gameplay and the theme, I really wanted to get a Deadpool. And I was like, all right, I'm getting a pro, I'm getting a pro. And I was like, well, let's see what it looks like and let's play it first. And then, of course, I'm not able to control myself and I've bought three things since then, so I don't have the money to do that. But I always like pros when there's not a huge difference between the pro and the premium or LE. I have a Star Trek, and I think that the Deadpool kind of reminds me of Star Trek in a way. I mean, there's one shot that's different between the pro and the premium, I guess, is the lifting ramp. But other than that, I mean, the art's different. But to me, there didn't seem to be that big a difference. I watched the disco multiball that's what I was really scrolling through the stream for and you know I was kind of underwhelmed by it I'm going to be honest I think they need to turn the lights either the GI or the other lights down more or use different more focused LEDs or something but it really at least in the stream it didn't really look that impressive to me and maybe that's just a function of you know streaming things sometimes looks a little different than it does in real life. Maybe the visual effect from the disco ball is a little bit more impressive when you're actually seeing it in person. But, you know, not only that, but if you really wanted the disco ball just for the look itself, I know there's a couple of companies already, at least two, already working on prototype mods for it. So that'll be out there for sure. It won't interact with the game like the premium will, but it'll be like 95% of the way there. So for me, I would think the Pro is the way to go for it. Okay. Tony, did you happen to see any of the premium footage? No, I didn't. I never got a chance. I've been on call. Yeah, I looked at it. As I noted, same thing, looking at the disco footage, it was a little underwhelming. I mean, it looked like a disco ball going off in there, which as far as sort of club effects go, the disco ball isn't really the most flashy thing. It's iconic, but it's really just one. And, yeah, I was sort of thinking, though, colored lights or looking at wanting to see something to the level of the lasers on Star Trek. Well, that was my question. Was it at that level? Because that's super impressive. It definitely does not show up nearly as much. And I think that on the Star Trek, they're actually using a laser, right? It's not a bright LED. So I think maybe, I don't know what happens if you shoot a laser at a disco ball. I would assume it would just be the same thing. a brighter. Either that or it would just evaporate and blow up. Yeah, I'm wondering Star Wars lasers. Since the laser is so focused, I'm wondering if it doesn't, that you need a more diffused light to properly interact with all the mirrors. Probably. Well, you could always put a diffuser on the end of it. It doesn't show up as well as the effect during the Star Trek multiple. Yeah, and I wondered if maybe, I agree with you Jason, part of it is probably just that it would be more noticeable in person versus on screen. And then on the stream, they had a disco ball in the room and the lights were down, so there was already, like, stars flying around. It was double disco. Yeah, I kind of thought maybe if they're – I did make sure it wasn't their real disco ball actually throwing stars onto the play field, but it made me think. I get that they're going for the atmosphere there, but maybe how they lit the whole room overall was making it look less impressive than it would have been in a totally dark room or maybe even in a totally lit room. But anyway, yeah, I agree. The lift ramp, I didn't think it was a compelling enough feature. I saw people doing the right orbit or left orbit around, and it was still going into the pops. So that was something when I was speaking with Zach that I think really irked him, is he wants a full orbit. And there's an answer to that It's called buy a Steve Ritchie game In this case In both instances just like on the right If you didn't have enough force it falls into the pots Falls into them quickly Everything else like the 3D toys Looked okay but the flats I thought Yeah I mean my take away Was the same as Jason's if I was going to get a Deadpool like GoPro there was nothing About this that made me think it was Remotely worth the increase in cost I thought they did a really good job with the stream this time though I thought when they did the pro stream initially I think part of the problem is they're all too good at pinball I mean everyone says oh wow the deadpool was way too long of ball times but you're looking at like anyone from the top 10 to top 100 pinball players in the world playing I mean they made Keith Elwin and Zach play with one hand I think just to try to make it a little bit a little bit less a little bit less long so I think bringing in people who know pinball like the bells and chimes but aren't like top 10 players in the world was probably a pretty good move. You could see a more realistic portrayal of what the ball times are like. It was a good decision. Now that we have a Deadpool Pro on location right next to an Iron Maiden Pro, the Deadpool times are shorter than the Iron Maiden times are, that I've seen. It doesn't surprise me. I can see that.
    39:52
    I want to play it. I know that we finally got one up at Rock Fantasy. They didn't have the official party yet, but it's So that's probably 40 minutes to an hour for me. So I need to get up there one of these weekends and try it out for sure. Yeah. Yeah, you've got to experience the pool. And then you can decide if you're going to buy that or buy Guardians.
    40:10
    That's the two. Those are the two. I was either going to do Deadpool Pro or Guardians Pro. Guardians is in a great place with its code right now. It's in a great place. I've heard really good things about it. I mean, I've played Guardians at least two or three different places, but I haven't done, like, the latest, latest code. So, you know, it's tough because it's funny. It's such a nitpicky thing. But the lack of spinners in Guardians annoys me. I just love ripping spinners. It's just annoying. Like, come on, that's what you're going to eliminate? Yeah, well, look, the importance of spinners is greatly diminished now. Iron Maiden, in a way, was a bit of a throwback to it. I think that's part of the appeal, though, that a lot of people have with Deadpool is those 80s sound effects that they've got going on in that game. That's one thing I do. Even if that spinner isn't really where you go for all the points, it still sounds like it is. It's so satisfying just blowing up a spinner. I mean, if you're in a tournament and you have a game that's older and you don't know what it is, just blast the spinner over and over again. Or if it was made by Stern Electronics, blast the spinner. Sorry, Steve Kirk knew how to do one thing. They have all those games in the background in the Deadpool lobby or whatever that is, the Sea Witch and the Meteor. That's fantastic. Oh, yeah. I like Sea Witch a lot. Meteor's a good game, too. Yeah, those are both good games. To have those in the background on the DMD during the Deadpool gamers is a really cool idea.
    41:34
    Well, we're done with pinball news, so we're going to go to our first pinball generalized discussion topic, and that's actually going to be to talk a little bit about location pinball. We've been talking about Rock Fantasy. We've been talking about 403 Club. Jason, let's go ahead and go into this initially with, What do you think, in your opinion, makes for a good location to play pinball at?
    41:59
    I think probably the number one thing is maintenance. You can go to a place that has a billion awesome games, but if they're all broken or dirty, I mean, that's just so discouraging. You know, if they're not shooting the way they should and everything else. I mean, if a game's not working right, it doesn't matter how good it is or how many of them you have. I think that, you know, that's a real important thing. There's a place by me called the Morristown Game Vault, and it's actually in an old bank building in Morristown, New Jersey. And they literally have a safecracker pin inside of a bank vault there. It's pretty amazing. But the owner of that place, David, is just meticulous with his games. And you go in there, you know that something's going to be working 100%. And if it's not, you'd be like, hey, man, and he'll fix it instantly. So that's where I've been going for the tournaments the last two times. They have a tournament every other month there, and everything is always working immaculately. I think that's a huge thing. The same thing was that way when I went up to Sunshine Laundromat. I mean, everything was working perfectly. The maintenance is just the key. I don't mind a mix of newer and older games. They don't have to be the latest and greatest, but they need to work right.
    43:14
    I'm not going to disagree. I mean, I think that's very important. there's a bar and grill literally two blocks from my house that keeps one pinball machine is what they keep. They've got a big they've got your normal golden tee and a deer hunting game and then they always have a claw machine and a single pinball machine. And I used to go there fairly often because they've got really good food but the pinball machines are just They get like zero maintenance The guy doesn't clean them He just comes in and dumps the quarters out This and that There was a hook there I went over the course of an entire month When I went in And I said something every time The left flipper didn't work at all It wasn't weak It didn't move For the entire month And the next time I went there It was like a month and a half later It had been replaced by East Charles Park which just is horrible that's a good money maker that's what I hear people love that thing they do, they love that toilet it's such a terrible game and the call outs are so horrible I stopped going because the call outs or I stood on the other side of the place because the call outs, they had the volume turned up so loud the call outs, I was sitting there trying to eat my breakfast burrito it was terrible but no, I agree, I think machines I will say that I really like places that have Accessibility to food Because typically if I'm going to go somewhere I'm going to be gone for several hours And I like to make a day of it Or make a time of it And beer I don't really drink very much Because I'm normally driving And I have a CDL And that's my livelihood So there's no way I'm risking that Uber is the way to go Oh, Ubers out here are so expensive. It's insane because you have to drive such far distances.
    45:18
    I did. I took an Uber home from the last tournament at the Morristown Game Vault. It was like $35 or something like that. Yeah, that's like the starting cost to get an Uber to my house is $35 to go about anywhere. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty bad. I've looked it up because I've thought about it. It's like, ah, never mind.
    45:38
    Yeah. Yeah, I don't have, I can't really disagree or change up what you guys have recommended in terms of good locations.
    45:47
    Maintenance is the number one. My number two would probably be a decent assortment of games. I don't care if they're new or old either, but I want there to be more than one. Right. Basically. Oh, for sure. Yeah. If you've got five or more, then I'm usually like, okay, you've arrived. You've made it. Just so I have some variety, because I'm usually going to, if I'm going to go to play pinball, I like to go for at least an hour. Right. And like Tony, I like to go a place that serves food. The biggest negative for me with the 403 Club is that it's just a bar. That it doesn't have a bar. Just a bar. It's a bar. But it's a bar. Yeah. They have hot dogs, but I never eat the hot dogs. And you can get food brought in. There are ways around it, but it's easier for me to go to a place like Pizza West or Nub's Pub because they have substantial quantities of food as well as having a decent quantity of pens that are also really well maintained. So, yeah, in terms of the top locations, I'd probably name the same ones Tony would in our area. Nub's Pub, 403 Club, and Pizza West are easily the best maintained games in the Kansas City area. And, Jason, what are some of the top locations around you?
    47:00
    You know, I wish there was more within driving distance, like short driving distance from me. There's a lot of stuff that's like an hour away, which is a little frustrating. I can go to 8 on the break, which is about, I mean, 40 minutes to an hour maybe. I can go to the Rock Fantasy. Rock Fantasy is in Middletown, New York. That's probably 40 minutes to an hour. The closest one is the Morristown Game Vault that I mentioned before. That's a really good place. There's a new place that opened up recently in Hawthorne, New Jersey, called Billy's Midway. And he kind of specializes in older games. So he has all pre-LED games. There are some DMDs, but they're all older games. And it's kind of a nice mix because he's got a lot of them, too. I think he's got like 20 pins like that or something along those lines there. So we're trying to get that into the Tri-State Selfie League just to – I thought it would be like a really cool change of pace. Number one, it's in New Jersey, and there's only one other New Jersey location. But number two, to have older games in there is kind of a nice variety.
    48:06
    For me, other than that, you know, those ones that I mentioned right there, the closest thing is really New York City. And, you know, New York City as the crow flies is close, but convenience-wise, This is certainly not very convenient to get to. It's a good hour, you know, for me to get in and out. I did like a staycation at home.
    48:27
    It was about a month ago or so because my son had high school sports and we really couldn't go away, but we wanted to take off. So I did in one week, I did both Sunshine Laundromat and Modern Pinball in New York City. And those were just phenomenal locations. but they're just not that easy for me to get into, unfortunately. You just have to move to the city. Problem solved. Then you can own any pens, but hey. That's true.
    48:57
    You've got your whole family in a one-bedroom apartment that costs the same as a full house. Look, sacrifices have to be made. His family will happily pay. I'll bring nine pens. I'll put my nine pens into the studio apartment with my family. Yeah. They can sleep under the pens. There's plenty of room under there. Have you ever considered van life?
    49:19
    Lived in a van down by the river. I saw someone on Facebook that had a mobile home, and they put a couple cabaret video games in it, like a centipede and a missile command or something like that. I just need smaller pins. Right. Yeah, a safe cracker. Yeah, that's what it worked. Buy that safe cracker. I finally actually cracked the safe the last time I went down and played it. It was my accomplishment for the trip. And there was no token? No, there was no tokens. Oh.
    49:49
    Eh. Ruin. Wrapped. If I had the tokens, I can't blame someone for not putting them out on location. I don't think I would either.
    49:58
    Well, I mean, I could see it. It would depend. I mean, I could see maybe doing if you had custom tokens made specifically for the location that people would turn back in for like a free beer or something. That's pretty cool. Well, that was the original idea. Yeah. Apparently. Ice cold beer, right? Right. That's where you would win. You would clear ice cold beer and you would get a game. Yeah. We played that at Texas. I was down in Texas. Yeah. The ice cold beer machine. I saw it yesterday.
    50:28
    There was a stream of Robert Gagno, you know, the pinball player? Yeah. He's a top ten player. He was playing Zeke's Peak, which is the more PG version or G version of ice cold beer. the same game with a different theme, and he cleared it six straight times. He hit the world record yesterday on Zeke's beat.
    50:51
    He's just a machine. Yep. That's why I don't play him. And I'm not Canadian, but we don't meet much.
    51:00
    Yeah. All right. Well, let's pivot then off of location pinball to the opposite, pinball mods. You got a game. You might want to purdy your art up a little bit. Got to go for that wild underglass. So, Jason, what are your thoughts on pinball mods just in general?
    51:20
    You know, I like them. I think that I'm a big fan of buying plug-and-play sort of things. I don't want to tear an entire game apart to kind of put something in that would be a mod. Anything that involves removing too many things from the play field or doing anything too crazy. I'm not into. If I can buy something and slap it on somewhere or do something, I'm all for it. Like, if I could do powder-coated legs and powder-coated side rails and what have you, I love powder-coating. I think games look phenomenal with it. I think I would powder-coat my left arm if I could powder-coat it. Amazing. I think all games look amazing with powder-coating. So I would do that in a second. Of course, it costs a couple hundred dollars, and I don't feel like spending that on any of my games, but you know, I would do that in a second, but I mean, I guess it depends on what your definition of mods is, too. Putting LEDs in a game that didn't have them originally, I guess, could be considered a mod. You know, I do that with most of my games, for sure.
    52:21
    What other, whatever other ones I've done? I've been messing around with mods on Star Trek a little bit. I put the meteors in. Oh, yeah. Those I think look pretty good. I put the meteors in where they normally go over, you know, to the left of the ship. Right. Because it's got the triple layer of plastics there, and I kind of like the 3D effect that it does with the different meteors. So I have them over by the ramps, sort of. There's a couple of different ones. I think maybe Measel Mods made them, or one of the companies. So I did that, and I got a striker for my World Cup soccer. That's the name of the dog off of eBay that was like an original World Cup figure. So I put that in my World Cup soccer, that little guy. I'm a big fan of the Titan bands, too. I change out the rubbers on all my games, the colored ones. Last night I had much to some people's chagrin, a Gottlieb, that I was changing out the rubbers on. I had a Rescue 911. I put red bands in, red Titan bands in. And I put blue ones in my Star Trek, and I put purple ones actually in the World Cup soccer. Because Titan has them all set up. They don't do it themselves, but you can have customer-created lists of bands for games. and most of the ones that were pre-created for Titan bands were purple for World Cup soccer. And I was like, really? But then I went down and looked at it, and you know what? There's a lot of purple in that cabinet. So I put the purple Titan bands in, and I think it looks pretty sharp, actually. I saw the pictures you put on of the blue bands on Star Trek, and I really like that. That looks slick. No, you were telling Dennis to get them. Dennis is next up. I have a big bag of regular, you know, normal proper rubber. And until I run out of that, I'm not inclined to go and buy tight. But if I were to buy more silicone-based bands, it would probably be Titan at this point. Because I won't buy super bands. So what you're saying is that I need to write down tight blue Titan bands for your birthday? Because your birthday is coming up? You know how long it takes to re-rubber a game? Blue Titan. You had Jason telling you about how he doesn't want to take a bunch of stuff off, and then he tells you about how he's being out of the race. That's just all about taking off. Jurassic Park was the worst re-rubber job I ever did. I tell you, I go for the low-hanging fruit when I do the rubbers. So I have three rubber kits for those games downstairs that I told you, and I've done probably 80% of them because there's some of them. I'm not taking three ramps and, like, you know, four posts and everything else out. I'm like, I'm just not doing it. I'm like, that looks fine with the original part. But the flippers, the main bumpers down at the bottom, stuff like that, I'll do anything that's very visible. The stuff that's hidden underneath all this, I'm like, forget it.
    55:10
    They're not broken. Well, I have computer titans even on the Star Trek because, for example, the rubbers that protect the sides of the warp ramp, I've had to change those little rings on those posts out several times because it just takes up to beading. They break apart. but... It's because I can't hit that shot. Tony, what are your mob thoughts? Other than apparently you like the idea of blue titan bands. I like mods that there are some, I've seen some that I'm like, okay, whatever. But I've seen some mods, some of them are really simple mods like the transporter effect mods you put on your Star Trek. They're like super easy, super simple. And I think look nice. I think that's what it's all about is how nice do you make your game look.
    55:58
    And as long as they're not, like, way expensive or way complicated and get in the way and block too much view and they make it look nice, I'm all for it. And some of the simplest mods I've seen, some of the things I like the most is what I've seen where people just run LEDs on the bottom of the cabinet just so it lights the underneath of the cabinet. Some ground effects. Those are pretty cool. I like it. It looks good. I don't know if I want it like in a bar setting But I know if I had machines At home I'd definitely run something Like that That's like the cars that people had in the 90's With the It always makes me think of Yeah in terms of I mean I don't do a lot of What I consider modding I've done a couple mods on Star Trek That both were measle mod options The teleport mod And then I did the vengeance Explosion plastic replaced with a 3D printed one that lights when the flasher lights. That's pretty cool. But they're both cheap. That's why it's like, they're subtle. I don't want things to look gaudy. So I do LED pretty much all the games that don't strobe like crazy. But I usually just use white. I keep them, I keep the, I'll do like warm white and cool white and do balance. You don't purple? No. No clown vomit for me. I can't. Purple GI? Purple GI. I know some people love to put, I do not like, if you want to do color lighting, I mean, it's your game, so do whatever you want with your game. I don't care. But I don't pay people more money because they put LEDs in. Let's get that right. That ship's sailed. And in my judgment, color LEDs can go in on the inserts if you want a color match. But GI should probably be kept some shade of near white Just because the goal is for how far the light throws And being able to see The goal is to see things Right And the plastics have a color to them And you'll start throwing off the shading And I know it looks worse in photos than it does in real life But the photos look so bad on some of them That I'm not a huge fan If you want to do that stuff behind the back glass or the trans light I don't really care as much But personal preference Yeah I do not agree with the people that are like, don't ever LED anything that didn't come with LEDs or don't LED EMs. No. You know what? Quit acting like these artists out there and we're thinking, yes, but I must choose the perfect color to go with what a number 47 incandescent will throw. No. It wasn't like the science. They didn't put that much thought into it and nor should you. I go to LEDs first and foremost to reduce the power draw on my circuit breaker. That's why, because I have Seven games, they're all on one circuit I need to get that power Dry, I want those amps down as low as I can Get, and that's why I put in as many LEDs As I can I actually have three other mods for the Star Trek I didn't even mention I have alternate backlash, because I'm Tired of staring at Chris Pine's face Chris Pine is the Ryan Rills Of Star Trek What's wrong with you? I don't have the Orc, I wish I could have gotten the Orc But I haven't gotten it off of eBay Yeah, it's very similar to it. It has a big Enterprise and just a very, very faded, their faces in the background. I also did the shooter rod that has the, you know, the swirly colored balls. Oh, the one that looks like a planet. Exactly, yeah. I did that one like a week or two ago, and I couldn't decide whether to go with the small one or the big one. And I was like, well, if I'm going to do it, I might as well go big. But the big one's pretty big. I probably should have gone small. It's like a pool ball down there It's like pulling on a softball And then The third one that I did was Oh, I have lighted speaker grills That I have not installed yet Oh, that could look cool I would consider that I did it separately So it's the blue lighted speaker I might probably change, but I'll do them in blue Lighted speaker grills And then it has the Star Trek insignia That you put over it So it just lights up like the Star Trek insignia? That's the part that I like. Yeah, I've seen several of those that have been done like that. I really like it, though. It seems like so simple, but actually lighting and putting the design on the speaker grills really makes the whole machine pop a lot more. I like that. So I have that sitting there waiting for me when I feel ambitious enough to do it. Yeah, I don't really have any other quote-unquote mods. I consider doing a shooter rod on Star Trek. I like the ones where it's like the Starfleet insignia, but it's still round. Right. A lot of those on Vince's side. Yeah, I don't like the price on them, though. I thought about making it myself. Instead, I sat down and wrote another article. But, you know, that's what happens.
    60:44
    What are you guys' thoughts on Color DMD? I like it a lot. I just don't want to pay for it. Yep. Okay. I agree. All right. So we're all in agreement on that. What about the mod that has taken the world by storm, or you would at least think from all their advertising and sponsorships, Penn Stadium Lights.
    61:06
    That's not really my thing. What I'll say I do like them for is streams. I like watching a game that someone is streaming that has them, especially when they put them on all the pop-up machines. I thought they looked amazing. But for me, like, I'll just turn up the light a little bit. I really care that much. I certainly don't care enough to go through the trouble of installing them. Like, if they were there and I could pay for them and someone would do it for me, Maybe I'd be like, yeah, I'll take them, but I'm certainly not going to do it. Yeah, for me it's that I wouldn't want to. I know they're just like magnetically adhered, but it's a big enough. I don't know. I'm probably, I'm just lazy. I don't want to have, you have to pull them off to lift the play field.
    61:47
    I'm in the play field all the time, all the time. I think it's more involved than just slapping a magnet on the side though, isn't it? I don't know. I think the initial setup is. I think once it's adhered, you can then de-strip the light to the play field. I think it's supposed to be easy after it's installed. But that's still just another step in my long list of, is this one of the games where I can leave the balls in, or is it one of the games I have to empty them out of the trough, or they're going to fall on my head. On my head, I'm the one doing everything. And all that stuff, anytime I need to adjust the switch or a screw comes loose, I mean, it happens all the time. So I just, I like that part to be easy, and that looks like a mob that's going to get in my way. I typically don't have a lot of trouble seeing the ball either. I mean, I've got a lot of problems, but seeing is not one of them right now. So it's not really a problem. Yeah, no, I mean, other than when the game wants you to have trouble, when it chooses to turn off the lights and hit you with the flashers. You know, Dwight Sullivan maneuver on you. Yeah. That happened to me during tournament the other day on Ghostbusters. You know what? That's a Dwight game. so that's why. That's an evil game. It's Dwight's way. He wants to blind you with flashbacks. Same thing with Game of Thrones. Yeah, Game of Thrones. That was the first one I played the really massive one. The very first time I played Game of Thrones and I was like, whoa! It's deliberate.
    63:10
    Okay, well let's move from mods into something that I know Jason knows a great deal about and that is the purchasing of pinball machines.
    63:19
    So you had suggested this topic and for good reason because you have a lot of experience with it. And you had a lot of questions that would be good for us to tackle. So I guess in terms of the – you started with one regarding shipping. So what are your thoughts on shipping when it comes to private pin purchasing?
    63:38
    I personally prefer not to. I mean, it depends because I'm not going around buying like a $10,000 Cactus Canyon. If I was buying like a $10,000 Cactus Canyon and shipping was a couple hundred dollars, I'd be like, okay, I'm going around buying like a $1,900 Earthshaker, and then shipping is like a third of the price. And you're like, what? On a percentage basis, it adds too much. And on the flip side, shipping games out to people. I mean, I sold a Police Force last week, and people kept asking me, will you put it on a pallet and bring it to Fastenal? And I'm like, no, I don't want to do that. I don't want to put it on some giant wooden pallet and then bring it halfway across the world to ship it out. It's just too much work. I did ship one game.
    64:27
    I had a Star Wars Episode I that I picked up from a bar in the city, the Pinball 2000. And I was trying to sell it locally, and it really wasn't going. I thought I had it priced pretty cheap, as it was. It really wasn't going that quickly, and someone in the Midwest wanted it. And I said, you know, yeah, I can ship it. And they had a North American van lines or STI, whatever the, whatever the official name for it is. They came to my house and wrapped it up and took it like, I'll do that. That's fine. But I don't want to like jump through a thousand hoops. I'd rather sell for a little bit less locally than, you know go through all sorts of gyrations to sell the game to someone across halfway across the world So in terms of buying I have a guy and he kind of a friend of mine at this point His name is Fast Eddie. He is a pinball stripping and arcade stripping machine. He drives all the way up the East Coast. I know this week he was in Pittsburgh, New Hampshire, like Virginia, and he's just a retired gentleman. I mean, I don't want to get into age, but he's a retired gentleman, and he's just, he lists games with one hand. He's just an absolute machine, and he's probably the nicest guy in the entire universe. So anytime I do a game, I'll ship if it's something that Fast Eddie can pick up within driving distance. That's the extent of my shipping now. But to use, like, an actual Fast and All or North American Van Lines or something like that, I prefer not to. I have for purchasing games never well other than the new in box of course because I was part of the arrangement I've never had a game I've purchased shipped I've always picked them up the furthest I've ever gone out was probably four hours one way in terms of selling I did ship one game it was through STI and I did not list the game as being eligible for shipping and when I was contacted and someone in Washington State wanted it I really didn't want, I was like, I can let this guy sit. It's an EM. It's going to sell eventually. I mean, there was no dispute on the price, but they really, really wanted it. And, yeah, it was through STI. And so they assured me I wouldn't have to do anything they would do. The shippers would do everything. It wasn't 100% true. Those particular shippers were, you know, they wanted the head off of the game, and they didn't bring wrenches, so I took the head off. but it wasn't a big deal or anything but that's the only time I've done shipping myself was to accommodate that sale for that game that must have been a big percentage of the price again though it was almost the entire price they paid I think they bought that game for me for like $400 or $450 and the shipping was almost $400 I think I could never I was shocked but the whole thing was really weird I wasn't contracted by the guy who was buying it, they saw it on Pennside, and this guy in California contacted me saying he had a friend in Washington who wanted the game, but that guy wasn't on Pennside. That he would be the one who would be talking to me in pain and all of that, and that he would prepay... It wasn't in Washington, was he, by any chance? Yeah.
    67:43
    He wasn't like a Nigerian prince or something. No, I was like, the whole thing really made me uncomfortable. But he sent me the check ahead of time and said, well, arrange for the shipping after the check clears. So I had the... I can't do it. Well, I was like, it was low enough dollar I wasn't overly worried. I mean, if I got screwed, it was like a big fortune. I mean, the game only cost me $150 when I got it, so I wasn't going to get too worked up about it.
    68:12
    Yeah, so I got a call from the shipper and they're like, hey, can we come this day? I was like, no, the check hasn't cleared. It hasn't even arrived yet, so I'm not scheduling shipping until it clears. The check came. It cleared really quick. I let the shipping come and do it. And the guy was, I don't know, some guy was collecting 60s Williams wedge heads out in Washington, and I had one of the few ones he still needed. The wedge heads are pretty popular now for some reason. Yeah, but Williams. The price has gone up a lot. Williams, trash. Come on. The prices for the wedge heads have gone up. Yeah, we're going to have a fun topic on buying pins here because that's going to be something we're going to touch on. But, so, and unfortunately for, Tony doesn't have any games, so I know he hasn't shipped any. No, I wouldn't. I would never ship a game. But my reasoning is a little different. My reasoning is I love to drive and I love to travel.
    69:09
    So. Well, the fact that you can't see the person either is a big problem. Right. So if I got, so if I had the ability to drive to somewhere that I kind of wanted to visit anyway and spend a day looking at a pinball machine and maybe running around a place for the day and then drive home the next day, I'd do that in a heartbeat. Well, Tony, if you were looking for pinball games, where would you be watching to buy a game? I look primarily on Craigslist, Facebook, and I've got some warnings set for certain games on Pinside. Okay. Jason, what are your... I don't know. You can set warnings for games on Pinside. If you put anything in your wish list, they can do it twice a week. If there's a new game, new listing, they'll get an email or a PM, however you configure it. I've had it set up to email me whenever anybody has anything with the word pinball or arcade from Craigslist in like a five-state range for like years. And I used to be able to find pretty decent deals on Craigslist. I mentioned that Star Wars Episode I, and I've gotten a bunch of different things over the years, and now there's so many flippers, people that just gobble up the games, not doing anything to them, and then resell them for five times the price. I mean, I can't get a whiff of anything on Craigslist, very, very rarely. I say that, and then I did buy a game off of Craigslist last week, but it was a cruising world. I don't think people are really beating down other people's games. Yeah.
    70:44
    But I think for me now, just because the Craigslist has gotten so gobbled up by everyone flipping jeans, I think Pennside is honestly the number one place I go to look to buy stuff. I go on there pretty frequently and see. That's where I found the Atlantis that I bought last week. That was on Pennside. And that's where I listed my police force that I sold two weeks ago or so on there. And I did the official, I sold this through Pinside contribution. I didn't cheat on it. They sold elsewhere. I didn't steal my $5 from them or whatever it is. I did the legit Pinside sale. But you know what else has a decent number of things is Facebook now. If I'm going to sell something, I'll list it on Facebook first just because it's quote-unquote free. You don't really have to pay a lot of money for Pinside. But just because Facebook, you get to see who you're selling it to, and I know a lot of people on there. And I can throw it on the NAP Arcade page and, like, pin it to the top or whatever. So sometimes people will see it. So I would do Facebook first. And if it didn't sell on Facebook, I would list it on Pinside Next. And then if I was just dying, I might list it on Craigslist because you tend to get a lot of interesting characters a lot of times from Craigslist stuff. So that would be my last choice of the three if I really had to sell something.
    72:11
    Yeah, I, well, let's see. In terms of my buys, I think about all the games I've purchased overall. I think most of my games have come from Craigslist.
    72:24
    None have come from Pinside. I've never bought through Pinside. I do watch there, but it's just, it's never, never worked out. and a few have come through Facebook.
    72:38
    And then when it's come to selling, I usually, some of the, like there's area player groups, like a private group on Facebook. I'm a member of that. So when I want to sell, I usually will list there first at a lower price than I would normally list publicly to see if there's some area player who would like the game. and then if they're not interested, I will broaden that up to list on Facebook, Kansas City area, and then if that doesn't go, I usually turn to Penn State then and then Craig's List is the last resort. But depending on the game.
    73:17
    Yeah, a lot of that has to do with who you know too because I know a guy who runs the arcade in Hawthorne that I mentioned, Billy's Midway, and I've sold him three games just for less than I would have sold them to the general public, but I know that he's good. I know he's going to come over and get it and pay me in cash. He's a nice guy. I go there and things like that. So I sold him.
    73:38
    Baby Pac-Man went to him. Teed Off, you know, Gottlieb Teed Off? Oh, yeah. I like that one. That one went there. I finally sold Teed Off. And a video game, it's called Slick Shot. It has actual pool cues, and you hit a real pool ball, but it, like, interacts with pool balls on the screen. So those three games are still there on the floor. So I can go visit them. I get visitation rights. I seldom But just to people you know It seems a lot easier That's where I got the strikes and spares To was a friend of mine He was trying to sell it I was like I'd do that So if you can deal with people you know It definitely makes the process a lot easier Yeah oh yeah Two of my current games came from the same seller Because it was a good experience the first time And they were They liked how it went as well And they were very reasonable for the second go around and I may sell to another person here. Superman's the next game to go out of the collection. I've got a couple of area people who have expressed interest, so they'll get first dibs on it. And one of them's bought from me before, so it's like, okay, well. I've made some pretty decent friends from buying and selling, too. When I bought the baby Pac-Man, I made friends with someone, and then I got, that's when I was first starting, and I got introduced to a whole bunch of people in the area that are in the hobby and that hang out and go do various things. So there are some weirdos, but there's also a lot of cool people you can meet, you know, buying and selling games as well.
    75:06
    Okay. Let's talk a little bit about what games you want to buy or sell now. And obviously the standard question that ties in with that is if there's a current grail. So, Tony, I'll let you go ahead and lead off on that. I, for a whole variety of reasons, I'm not looking real hard right now, but I do have a grail. What's your grail? Campus Queens. Campus Queen. And I almost went to the auction where Nick Schnell bought that one at, but I didn't want to drive all the way to Tulsa.
    75:43
    Should have checked on shipping. The game went from the auction for like $400. You can find all about shipping. Yeah.
    75:54
    Okay. Well, Jason, are there any Grails you've yet to own or other games that you're just sort of looking to buy right now? Well, the one game that I was looking for for probably three or four years is Atlantis, and I finally just got that. You won. You've won the lottery. I have chosen wisely as the Indiana Jones goes. But, yeah, I just don't know what it is with that game. I love the art. I played it, and I was like, wow, I actually like the way this game plays in addition to the art. And, you know, I looked on and off for a couple years, and I came close a couple times. It was either like I'd spent my money on something else and I needed to build the arcade fund back up, or there was one that was too far away and I would have had to ship it, which I don't feel like doing. So this one came up, and it was fairly reasonably priced. I wouldn't say it's not collector's quality, but I'm not a collector's quality kind of guy usually. So I'm more like above players, if players means trash.
    76:56
    Somewhere in the middle would be good, and that's where this one is. You know, the play field's in great shape. The cabinet has a few bumps and bruises, but nothing that, you know, can't be fixed. It's like the side rails. Someone had put the head down and not put anything in there so that the side rails on top are dented. So I ordered two new side rails, and apparently two-sided tape is what you use, according to Marco's specialties anyways. So I'm going to try to replace those this week. but the Atlantis was the one that I was really looking for for a while, and that was the only thing probably that would have kept me from buying one of the Stern Pros coming up here at the end of the year. You mentioned previously I was trying to decide between Guardians and Deadpool, and that kind of got pushed back a little bit because the Atlantis did pop up on my radar. It was funny. It was like 11.30 or midnight or something, and I was like, why am I still awake? and I hit refresh on Pinside Marketplace, and it had listed like five minutes earlier. I was like, oh, and I started typing the email right away. It was just funny timing. It was a good coincidence because they tend to go pretty quickly. I don't know, for an older pin like they are, they're fairly popular. Yeah, I think it's a combination of the art package and possibly the rules. I know I've played one, but I don't have enough time on it to really comment. But the art package is solid. Maybe it's a good art package.
    78:26
    That's perfect. It's 90s cheese. I mean, it's so cheesy, it's good. Well, in terms of things to buy, I keep a small list.
    78:39
    Of Gottliebs. There are a couple. There is one Gottlieb I've still been watching for World Challenge Soccer, because I want to try it, or Car Hop, which is basically the same layout. So I want to try that. And I think I might have to buy it. It's about the only way, unless I get to the Papa facility.
    78:56
    And outside of that, like, no, title fight? No, the layout of title fight is very interesting, but I know that the rules would bother me too much to want to own it. But I do want to try it. I really do want to try it, just to see how well it shoots. It's pretty cool. And I like Deadly Weapon as well. I've heard that that shoots as a really interesting layout. It's probably the most interesting street-level layout, But you can't turn off the 20 million mystery awards Just competitively It just wouldn't be fun I don't think so It'll be a single player only thing I don't buy single player only things anymore So Grail wise Would still be Lord of the Rings It's probably the one I wanted the longest But I will not pay What they currently are going for So I basically 6 or 7 thousand And I would never pay 6 thousand for a game that old. So for me, I've sort of voluntarily putting the chalice beyond my reach. That is tough. To get a game that's used 20 years ago for $6,000 when you could buy a brand new in-box game for the same, for less, is a little difficult. I mean, I guess you could say there's a collector's quality to it, but for me, I'd be like, I think I'll go brand new. Yeah, they just have to vault it. Vault it, my problem is solved because those used ones will drop like a stone, especially if it's not all that pixelated printed art on the new ones. The old ones will lose a lot of value comparatively.
    80:25
    But they have not vaulted any White Star games yet, so I don't know if they ever plan to. So I guess the final part of the buying pins discussion would be... I had one other game that popped in my head. You did? Grail Wise. And it's a game that I saw pop up one day here. And no, it's not the Meteor that I bought a car. It's too common to be Braille. But Knight Rider. I like that game. And it's symmetrical, and I like that game. Knight Rider. That's like a... 1977. Yeah, that's like a Dash 17 Bally first board set. Mm-hmm. I don't know if they had any EM models on that. They did. Okay. I looked it up just to be sure, because I couldn't remember the name. I just remembered it was Knight something. I played it a whole bunch two or three years ago at TPF. And I really enjoyed it. And I'd seen it pop up for sale in Ottawa down south of us one day. Cheap, real cheap, but I didn't have the money at the time. And I've never seen it listed anywhere else since again. So that's another one of those games. It's an older game. It's not super expensive, but I could like it. Those all had chime sounds still, first-generation ballet board sets. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Most of those games were heavily produced, so they shouldn't be too hard to... No, it's not terrible. I think a lot of people rethemed those.
    81:52
    I've seen a lot of them chopped up and turned into other things. Yeah, because it was a very symmetrical game, and like a lot of people, I'm not huge on symmetrical games, but I liked it every time I played it. It was one of the games that I played a bunch at TPL. I kept going back to like we did with TNA and like we did with the Freedom Prototype. Okay. I saw a weird game streaming last night I had never seen it before First let me say it's not a grail pin for me I don't want it But I saw someone from the Garkade in Wisconsin They were streaming Gold Wings It had such a weird layout I've never seen that before You know Gottlieb Gold Wings? Right, right, I can't recall Maybe I've played it once I've never played it But the layout is so unusual I was like, you know what, I would play that I think we played it one time last CPF I think you're right I've seen one for sale before in the area It reminded me of Genesis a lot because it had the blue little mini DMD thing Oh yeah the system ADD screens Itty bitty tiny screens hard to read It was one of their mistakes I think Yeah it wasn't I don't know why they got so small So Jason What do you think You buy a lot So what do you think, where are the best values in pinball at the moment anyway?
    83:16
    You know, it's funny. I kind of go on like waves. And for a while I was buying all Gottlieb System 3s. And then everyone was like, ooh, Gottlieb suck and everything. But I had fun with them for a while. But, you know, they're all kind of similar. I think my favorite one of them was Teed Off. Teed Off was actually a pretty good game. You know, anytime you can get a fun DMD game for less than $2,000 today, I think you're doing all right, the way the market has gone, which is pretty crazy. So, you know, I had a teed off. I still have a Rescue 911.
    83:54
    That's one of the last ones. But I kind of got away from those, and I actually got into the System 11s. The System 11 games are They're not D&D But they're all pretty fun games I picked up an Earthshaker I picked up Well I had the Police Force that I sold What else did I have Oh the Atlantis The Bally Atlantis is probably not But it's like the same era Right yeah that would be That's earlier than System 11 Yeah but that's like Just that whole era I have a Big Guns a Williams Big Guns. I like that game. It is. It's System 11.
    84:34
    I traded the Super Tracks for that, actually. That's why I got that one. That's not a System 11. No, Bubble Hockey is not a System 11. No, and I hate to break it to you, Jason, but it's not. Yeah. So that's been where I've been at lately is the System 11s. I kind of switched from the Gottlieb System 3s to the Williams System 11s. And I think for me now, I think the sweet spot is going to be a Stern Pro, but not new in box. Because, I mean, I bought my Star Trek new in box, and there's no way that I'm going to get what I paid for it out of it. I mean, I paid like $5,000 or something, but it's not, I don't think that anyone would pay that for it at this point. So I want to find like a Guardians or a Deadpool or, I mean, I would even do like a Game of Thrones Pro or something like that in like the fours. I've seen Aerosmiths. I think Aerosmith pricing is really starting to fall. A lot of people aren't wild about it. And I've seen Aerosmiths at like $45, $44. Like to me, that's a no-brainer. I don't see how you don't get your money back out of that if you're buying, you know, an almost new Stern for like $1,000 less than it was, you know, right out of the box. I think any of the newer pros that you can get, if you can get them in the low fives to, you know, fours, I think that's probably a pretty sweet spot right now. That's what I'm going to be looking for next.
    86:02
    Okay. Tony, do you have any thoughts on values in this crazy, crazy, price-changing, ever-shaping landscape of pinball? The way things are going, I'm not getting a machine any time soon. That's for sure.
    86:17
    Well, you see, we should have had Zach on as well, so then he could have told us the pinball market trend for where the values are. Let me call him real quick. Don't bother, because he doesn't know. All right? I'll tell you where the values are. Here's where your values are. All right. first of all, if you want to dismiss the handful of highly popular for whatever reason, sometimes gameplay, often just art, there are a slew of EMs that are good values. But, in most of those cases, you need to accept that that's probably going to be more single player experience. There's just no carryover features of note in the EM era on multiplayer because it was too difficult to put a lot of memory in because of the need for all the relays. So, that might not be a good solution for a lot of people if they're wanting something that's multi-clip. So, setting aside that, but there's still a lot out there. There are so many EMs, and there are a lot of good ones that are overlooked because they didn't look that great. I picked up a Gottlieb out of sight the 1974 for like 300 bucks, like nothing recently. And it's all broken now, but I have to learn how to fix. I have to figure out how to fix EMs. It just stopped working the other day. And if you want a DMD, as Jason noted, Gottlieb System 3 is where you can, if you want a value, you'll be able to probably not lose money on those acquisitions and their price has not skyrocketed in the same way that the Bally Williams DMDs have gone up. So that remains a good option if you really want a DMD-era game. But I think the sweet spot on Solid State is pre-System 11. System 11 used to be the go-to. I mean, it still really is. But the go-to, oh, you want to start to have more complex rules and ramps and stuff, but you don't want to get into the DMD era. Problem is, all the good System 11s and even the not-so-good System 11s are getting expensive now because everyone's turning to them because everyone told everyone to go buy System 11. So if you want to consider System 9 and before from Williams, a lot of good gains without a whole lot of dollar amount, especially if you are more comfortable or are comfortable with accepting a more EM style you go older you can stay under $1,000 on a lot of things I would also say that if you want to consider Gottlieb System 3 Alpha Numerics those hold their value they cost less that's mostly street level of course so good luck finding them but even some of the other things like Cactus Jacks and stuff fairly well respected games the DMD System 3 era is the one that's really hated for the rules. Yeah. It's more of a mix of that. I would get a silver slugger for sure. You convinced me to play it. I found one at a pinball gallery recently, and I had a great time playing it. It was a pretty fun game. It's a very good layout, and the rule set's decent. It's not a great rule set. It's not lopsided in a horrible way. I enjoy it. The reason why tournament players always say hoops is that the hoops rule set is inoffensive. It's entirely well-balanced. But I don't think the layouts is fun As Silver Slugger's layout It's a weird layout Between your Hoops and your Silver Slugger I definitely think Silver Slugger's the better game There are some of those mid-era Valleys, those can be a good value Because a lot of people hate them because they have the MDF cabinets And all of that, but there are some fun games Like 8-Ball Champ and such that are in there And if you're willing To consider older titles You can think about Those things like If you want some Gottlieb system 80s. There's some interesting ones. I haven't played a lot of them, so I can't weigh in on a lot, but there are a lot of Williams titles before they were kind of king of the heat, but Valley was starting to crash and burn. There's a lot in there that's fairly affordable, from your Fire Powers to your Fire Power 2s. Even Space Shuttle's not that bad, even. I like Space Shuttle a lot. In terms of pricing. That's where I would say, if you want to look for a value, at this point, if you want solid state, I feel your biggest selection is pre-System 11 and post-System 3. There's some good memes in there. You still want some Williams things, but that'd be my thoughts.
    90:34
    Okay, we're at the last pinball portion. We call it 20 questions, Jason. Oh, no. That's right. You are the victim this time. Yeah, I'm free. That's right. Tony gets to take a little break. Tony's won it every time, right? If you consider, like, actually getting it before the 20 winning, right? That is winning. That's exactly the definition of winning. There's no other definition.
    90:59
    This could be your first loser in the 20 questions here. The rules are exactly the same. You will get to ask me a series, for the listeners who don't know, of yes or no questions. You get 20 of them. Obviously, the 20th better be a game guess. The very latest, or else you won't get it. The last five questions, you may use any lookup resource you would like. So if you want to start looking at Pinside or IPDV or whatever you want to use as an open book tool, after the 15th question, that is fine. And because you are so prolific on social media, I can confirm to you, you have played this game. Just like with Tony. I know you've played it. So it's not going to be some weird game that I've never heard of before? Nope. A center bumper? Nope. I ain't going to screw you. It's definitely something you've played. I don't know how many times you've played it, but it's something you've played. Fair enough. With that set, you may ask your first question whenever you are ready, and I will keep count so you don't have to worry about doing that. Okay. I think I'm just going to start off with a game and then nail it, and then I'll set the unbreakable record. That would be very awesome. It would also make me very sad that you were so perfect if you did that. That's what you did to me when I tried to make you guess my Atlantis. You'd already seen it. I'm like, let's play 20 questions. You're like, is it Bally Atlantis? I was like, no. I hadn't already seen it. I deduce that with my high-powered mind. Yeah.
    92:24
    Okay. Is the game from the 1980s? Yes. Is the game from 1980 to 1985? Yes. Is the game a Williams game? Yes. Is the game a...
    92:44
    Hmm. Let's see. How am I going to do this? You're going to have to edit out every humming and hawing here.
    92:52
    I don't have to. Don't you tell me what to do. You're like, this guy's such a moron. He's just humming and hawing the whole time. Yeah, that does not happen when anyone else plays this game. Yeah, you've heard the podcast. We just snapped through it super fast, and there's definitely no me studying here. We invited you on because we thought you were smart.
    93:13
    All right. Is the game System 11? No. Is the game A Science Fiction theme Yes You have now asked five questions Okay So I have 1980 to 1985 Williams with A science fiction theme See I'm just bad with the years Like the years are almost meaningless To me I shouldn't have even started out With that You have plenty of questions still to work with So I would not be nervous yet Yeah you know what's going to happen Is it's going to come down to me looking stuff up During the last five No that never happens That never happens Not on this show Alright You know I'm going to narrow down that year Is it 1980 Yes Oh boy Alright that was a money guess 1980 Williams Science Fiction You know it was probably a game That I played when I went to the pinball gallery In Malvern because there's a lot of games there I don't typically play And they're older And none of them are coming to The top of my head Did I play the game at the pinball gallery In Malvern? I don't know the answer to that so you'll have to ask a different question Okay Let's see I honestly don't know what other question I can do Can I just fast forward to where I can look up 1980 Williams games? No, but feel free to start just guessing Williams games if you have nothing else you think you can use to narrow it down.
    94:54
    You could think about features. You could think about designers or artists. Think broad. That's a good question.
    95:03
    It has to be a yes or no question, though. Is the artist Python Angelo? No. No Python. All right. Designers. See, I don't even know the designers.
    95:20
    Was Steve Ritchie at Williams in 1980? You're going to use that as one of my questions. I will. Do you want me to answer it for you? Yes. He was there or he designed this game? He was there. Oh. Now I have to use two questions on that? I should have just said, was it Steve Ritchie? You should have, but you didn't. Okay. Is it a Steve Ritchie game? No. Oh, that's even worse. Not as we should do. All right.
    95:49
    What am I up to now? You just asked question nine. Nine. And I have to get to 15 in order to start looking stuff up. That's not a question, by the way. I know. I'm not counting that one, but yes. You're not 11. I'm sorry. You're going to have to struggle along here for a little while longer before you can look. I'm trying to think of the games that I've played, too. That's the thing. You have played it. My wheelhouse lately has been the games that I really look for when I go out and play are the Stern Electronics games. Those have been like Sea Witch and all the Stargazer and Stars and things like that. Those are really what I've been into. 1980, like of that era, that's the thing I've really been seeking out playing. I don't know the 1980 Williams games that much.
    96:38
    I wonder what your firepower was. And that's not really a science fiction theme. Is it firepower? No. It's not. That's question 10.
    96:50
    And I, by the way, I would consider firepower a science fiction theme since it's a spaceship in it. Okay.
    96:57
    Is it, oh, is it a space shuttle? No. Oh, that's a Williams, right, about that time? Not that time, no. That's much later. Is it? I don't know. So I told you, the years are going to be my downfall, because I have no idea when anything came out.
    97:17
    So Space Shuttle, so older than Space Shuttle. Meteor is a Stern, I think. I don't think that's a Williams.
    97:27
    Or is it? I'm terrible at this. Let me go down the list of games I think all the games that I played at the Morristown Game Vault are too new I don think there anything because I think you know what Star Trek. Is Star Trek a ballet?
    97:53
    You can just tell me is it Star Trek? No. Are you allowed to tell me if that's a ballet? I think that's a ballet, right? What is that? It is a ballet. I knew it Since you already guessed it I'll let you know Since I doubt you'll guess Star Trek again After being told it's not Star Trek Yeah Okay so I'm at 12 Is that what I'm at? That is yes That was question 12 So you're on your 13th Okay It can't be anything there It's not at the game vault So I have to think of someplace else that I've played it I think Future Spa is a stern I'm trying to think of what else I've played And Whirlwind and Earthshaker Those are all too new.
    98:37
    Tri-instruction theme. All right. Is it aliens? Like an alien theme? Yes. Okay. Oh, is it alien? Is alien poker a Williams game? I'm going to guess alien poker. That is correct. It is alien poker. You got it on the 14th question Oh, is that a record?
    99:06
    No, Dennis did one on 12 What does he count? He's too good How about Tony? Yes, it's better than all of Tony's Better than all of mine I've never been able to do it without pulling up the machine See, my problem is The years I just have no idea So, Alien Poker Released October of 1980 It's a Williams game It's a System 6A, so Space Shuttle is a System 9 for comparison's sake. Obviously, it's sort of a fantasy sci-fi theme that's also a cards and gambling theme, so either would have been right there. The designer is the relatively unknown Edward Tomanzowski, who I did not put in the designer guide.
    99:48
    Is it Edward Tomanzowski's game? That's right. Edward Tomanzowski's game. Art was done by another unknown, Tony Ramuni. I kind of like the art on that game, even though the layers on the play field are a little weird, but I liked it. Yeah, it was a, I'm more familiar, I've never actually played this to my knowledge. I'm more familiar with its clone, LaserQ. Oh. Which is the same layout, but did not have speech. Laser Wars. Right. Laser Wars, which is a Data East game. It has its own theme song now, which is nice. Yeah. Yes. And so, yeah, so anyway, but yeah, you got through the years and stuff really quickly, so. Yeah, I nailed the year right on, and then it didn't do me any good. I was like, wait, I got the year, but I don't know anything about years. I was like, hmm, this is not helping me. And Future Spa was not a stern, that's a valley, and Meteor is a stern, so. Okay, yeah, I knew, I had a feeling Meteor was like one of those older stern electronics, but I wasn't sure about Future Spa. I was trying to run down games that I had played, thank God, because that narrowed it down a little bit. Yeah. And I don't know where you played it. I pulled it out of Pendigo. It was. It was at Malvern, the pinball gallery they had there. My son had, like, four lacrosse tournaments there this summer, so I could have bought a month-long pass. It's, like, four hours from my house and still made out.
    101:13
    All right. So 14th guess, and you got it with Alien Poker. So that will go in the spreadsheet. Good job, Jason. Thank you. All right. We are done with the pinball segment. We are ready for the video game segment.
    101:25
    And the first thing, some of these are somewhat pinball related, at least if you are a fan of virtual pinball. So we're going to start with the big item, and that is Zen Studios, the makers of Pinball FX3, have secured the right to do digital Bally Williams titles that was formerly held, yes, by Farsight Studios, which makes the Pinball Arcade and the Stern Pinball Arcade. So, Jason, fresh off of your Alien Poker victory What are your thoughts that Zen now has this? I'm assuming you have at least some passing familiarity with digital pinball Oh, sure I'm a big fan of Zen and Farsight And I kind of had a feeling this was coming Because it was in They mentioned it this week in pinball a while ago But the guy from VCabs, Brad was on NAP Arcade, and we were discussing the fact that Farsight had lost the license and who was going to get it. And I was like, I hope that Scientific Games doesn't just sit on it. And he chimed in and said, oh, there is a plan. So as soon as he said, oh, there is a plan, I was like, dude, I was like, VP Cabs is really heavily involved with Xen. I was thinking to myself, it has to be Xen. So I kind of saw this coming. You basically broke the story then with that query. I remember seeing that online. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, but it was something that I kind of had expected. I'm actually really happy that it is. I mean, Zen is really the only company, I think, that has the resources to dedicate. Because there's a couple of other companies that do digital pinball. I guess the Zachariah, what's the name of that company that does the Zachariah one?
    103:06
    I'm not sure what they're, I mean, I always think of Zachariah Pinball. I don't think of the corporate name. Yeah, I forget. But there's them and there's a couple others. But really, I mean, Zen is the big kahuna of digital pinball, I think, at this point. And I've never been wild about their original themed tables. Like, I like them, and they're fun, but I just like the digital recreations of real tables so much more. The physics on their tables were a little floaty or weird or something for all the original tables that they had done. And one of the good things about this is that Zen developed a whole new physics engine for all of the Williams tables. And they're also soliciting a ton of user feedback. There's a beta for the Zen Williams tables on Steam right now. And I don't have a Steam PC set up, although I'm looking into doing it just to play with it. So I haven't played them yet, but I was watching someone stream them last night. and the graphics look amazing. Someone was playing, Fishtails is the one that they have out right now, where you can actually play full games and beta test it, and they seem very receptive to feedback. I mean, much more so, Farsight was kind of a,
    104:22
    I don't know if I'd call them like a black box or a closed, but they seem, Zen seems much more open to feedback, which I think is a fantastic thing, because I think, you know, Getting feedback from people about, like people were saying the nudging was too strong, so they're easing back on that. People were commenting on the lighting certain ways. I think they're really going to nail it. I think they're going to do a good job with it for sure. Okay. Tony, what are your thoughts? Because I know you're familiar with both products. I am. I have got a lot of hope. I have most of the tables already in the pinball arcade, but if they can get the physics engine right and everything else set just right, I'll be real happy for this because I have been playing a fair amount of Zen Pinball on my Nintendo Switch ever since I got my Switch I've played it on other things How is it on the Switch? Is it good? It's good. I may have to steal my son's Switch and load it on my Switch Yeah, it's good It's nice because the Switch is very easy to flip so you can play it the correct way and And like I've talked about on the show before, and Dennis has seen it before, I've got a little holder arm, a little RAM mount to hold like a cell phone that will hold my switch. I used it when we drove to Texas so I could hook the switch up so it was stuck to the windshield of the truck we were driving in. And I was able to play my switch with it sitting up there in my pro controller. And I've used that at home. Were you driving? No, I was in the passenger seat. Yes, it was dangerous. Instead of navigation? Yeah. It's I-35. It's a straight shot down I-35. If we get lost driving on I-35, that's an issue. Because there's no turns until we get to Dallas. So that's not a big deal.
    106:14
    But I've actually taken it in and it'll stick to my desk. And I've stuck it to my desk so I can spin the screen to be vertical and sit there with my pro controller and play. Yeah, it's pretty enjoyable.
    106:32
    Overall, yeah, I think this is a good sign. When it came to the physics, I'm like Jason. There's something about the Zen physics. I was okay with it with playing their fantasy tables, but I liked the physics for how the ball felt in Pinball Arcade better. My problem was I don't like how Farsight runs their company. in the sense that they were terrible about getting their table packs out on the various consoles. I mostly played them on PC, which allowed me to avoid that problem, but I have friends who were trying to experience them through things like the PS4 or the Xbox One and talking about how the packs were causing issues. There was a lot of bugs. A lot of bugs. And every time they released a new table, like when they released Banzai Run, they go back and they break other tables because they didn't program it well. It was just like amateur hour in terms of they needed to do a whole new engine. Meanwhile, Zen Studios moves from Pinball FX to Pinball FX 2 to the very robust menu system, choice option, customization of Pinball FX 3. They've just shown constant improvement in their product. The tournament system is way better, for example. Oh, yes. I believe there's a tournament system in Farsight. Terrible tournament system. Zen's is a lot of fun. It's easy to set up. It's easy to participate. It's easy to know. It puts little alerts on the top of the screen. You can beat your friend at this. You just got the high score of the week. Like, just all kinds of stuff that's just fun. Like, I'll be like, hey, I want to do this to try to beat everyone this week or something, just if I'm sitting around screwing around. One thing I'm a little disappointed about, though, was I play Farsight, the pinball arcade, on my iPad, and that's not coming out initially for XAM. So that was a little bit, because, you know, like if I'm just hanging out with my family and my wife is watching something on TV or the kids are doing something, I'm just sitting there. I'll just pull out my iPad and play a couple of games on the pinball arcade on my iPad. But if I have to go and sit in front of a Holstein computer or go downstairs and sit in front of the PlayStation or Xbox, it's just not as social, I guess. So I don't really want to enclose myself and hide while I'm playing. I want to just be able to kind of sit down and hit it whenever. That's why I think maybe the Switch might be the answer for that and borrowing the Switch. It could be short-term. They have indicated they are planning to address the mobile situation, though, eventually. Yeah, I hope so. And I don't think it'll be a year out or anything. This isn't Farsight, after all. Oh, my gosh. Do you know how long they've, not to spoil the next one, but the two tables that came out for Stern, they've been talking about that for, like, years now. Yeah, I don't know what's going on with Stern Pinball Arcade. So let's pivot to that. We're still actually talking about pinball arcade in general, but Farsight did add two new tables very recently. Big Buck Hunter Pro is now in, and Woe Nelly Big Juicy Melons is now in. Both are games I've not actually played physically or digitally, and I still haven't. I haven't played these two. I haven't tried them out yet. Have you tried them, Jason? I bought them last night, actually. You have to update the app on the Apple Store in order to get them. I kept looking, and it wasn't available. And then probably like 10, 11 o'clock last night, it did let me update it, and I was able to download them. And they're not cheap, first of all. I mean, to buy one, I think it was $9.99 or something. Holy cow. And to buy both was $14.99, I'm pretty sure. Wow. That's a lot for two tables, I mean, to me, I think. And it's not like they're magical tables. Well, maybe that's what you've got to charge now that you don't have Bally Williams tables to sell anymore. Yeah, maybe. I mean, who knows what their agreement with CERN is like either. I don't know, you know, how much that they get and what have you. But, you know, so I did the $14.99 and bought both, and I only had a little bit of time to play them. But, I mean, they seem cool. I mean, they seem like other pinball arcade tables, and I own every single one. I literally own 100, I think. So, I mean, I obviously spent a lot of time just screwing around with it. So, you know, I liked it. I'm going to enjoy playing them for sure. I think for me more pinball is good pinball It's tough for me to say I hate anything that's related to it Unless it's really screwed up So I'm going to enjoy playing Big Buck Hunter and Woe Nelly And then also as an added bonus I'll learn the rules to Big Buck Hunter While I'm just hanging out on my sofa with everybody or whatever So if I ever do come across it in the arcade Or in a tournament or something like that At least I have a vague idea of how to play it I think that's one of the best parts of playing digital pinball for real tables is that, you know, I've played it for a number of games that I've come across in tournaments, and even though the physics aren't exactly the same, at least I know what to shoot at. You know, I think that's a big plus. Yeah, I think that's one of the strongest selling points for digital pinball, not to mention that it introduces people who might not have experienced pinball in the physical format. You approach it from a video game genre, and then when you learn that it's a real-life thing, I think there's a crossover there. There's a way to expand that market. At least that's what I always hope to see out of it. Because I think the gamer demographics are the natural demographic to grow pinball with. They just have to be aware of it and then have to actually have locations to go and experience it. Trying to turn them into collectors is a different story and would not be a goal, in my view. It's too expensive. Too heavy. Oh, yeah, too heavy.
    111:59
    So we have one final video game topic, and it doesn't have to do with digital pinball. Jason, you shared with me yesterday a link to a review on the Neo Geo Mini. And I thought it might be a good time to maybe talk about that. And some of this, there's a way, it feels like a wave now of these retro consoles, be they little versions of actual arcade consoles or little versions of little consoles we used to play as kids, like the NES Mini and the Super NES Mini. So why don't you lead us off again and just give your thoughts on, well, either the Neo Geo Mini or just what we're seeing now with this nostalgia in a small box. You know, it's funny. Every time I see one of these things, I'm like, oh, I need that. And I get it, and then I don't ever use it. It's been like that for the – I looked everywhere for the Classic Mini. Remember how scared the Nintendo, how scared that was? Oh, yeah, they were hard to find. Oh, my gosh. I looked everywhere for it. I refuse to pay the scalper prices, though, because I can't stand it when people just gobble stuff up. Like, it goes back to my flipper comments on Craigslist. So I'm like, I'm not paying the scalper. I'll find it. And I actually found it on the now-defunct Toys R Us store.
    113:13
    This is going to be a rough year with Toys R Us going on. I was actually talking to my dad. Yeah, I was talking to my dad this afternoon. He said Walmart increased their orders of toys, and maybe that includes video games, by 30% this year to kind of make up for the missing Toys R Us sales or capitalize on it, I suppose. I've heard that as well.
    113:34
    Yeah. So, you know, every time I see one of these things, I'm like, I need it, I need it. And then I end up, I've gotten to the point where I've gone cold turkey. I can't do it anymore. So I'm looking at this Neo Geo thing, I'm like, it looks awesome, but I know I'll buy it and then I won't play it. I'll just end up playing pinball or working on the machines. You know, I'm actually fairly busy, too, with all the kids' stuff and everything else. So it's not like I have thousands of hours where I'm sitting around like, gee, what am I going to do? I think the mini consoles are awesome I think it's smart of all the companies that own the rights to try to capitalize and monetize all these rights for old games that they had rather than just letting everyone snag them and maim and play them for free I think if you own the rights why wouldn't you want to try to sell it I think the little mini Neo Geo thing looks pretty cool I mean the guy who wrote the negative review about it was a little nitpicky. I mean, he was talking about it looks washed out if you put it up on your big TV screen, and he said that it's tough to find the cords that you need and stuff like that, but just for an item, a small handheld player to be able to play the Neo Geo games, which were originally hundreds of dollars, that was like the super exclusive console. Yeah, I never know. I didn't even know anybody who had one. Art of Fighting is a good one. I don't know if you know King of Fighters, that's what, King of Fighters? That's the franchise that came from it that I have some familiarity with because the franchise continues to live on from SNK. I have King of Fighters 20. I think it's 20 now, which is hard to believe. It's on PlayStation, and it has like 50 different people you can be. It's a pretty deep roster of characters. It's pretty cool. I don't really play it anymore because my son just plays Fortnite on the same TV. 24 hours a day. But the PlayStation hasn't been turned on in probably a year because Fortnite on the Xbox with his friends is what dominates. But I can't play that either, by the way. I'm no good. My daughter tried Fortnite, and she's like, this is stupid. And then she went back to Splatoon 2.
    115:44
    That's all she plays. Splatoon used to play that. I had the Wii U. I had the Wii U set up, but we would play a lot of that. But my son went from Splatoon to Overwatch to Fortnite, and it hasn't gone back.
    115:58
    Fortnite's the new hotness. We'll see how long that lasts. I tried to make him not use something that was like shooting people with guns. That's why I thought Overwatch would be kind of a nice intermediate because it's kind of not realistic. So I was like, oh, they're just like monsters and they're playing around. I was like, that's not too bad. And then all his friends play Fortnite. I'm like, my wife, of all people, was like, go ahead, get it. And I was like, all right. So if she's going to say yes, I'm not going to say no. It's going to make me look bad.
    116:31
    But that was a digression. I guess getting back to the consoles, I think they're awesome, but I had to cut myself off cold turkey because I know if I buy the Super Nintendo Mini, it's in supply now. It's available on Amazon and stuff. And if I buy it, I'll be like, yes, I'll play it the first day, and then it'll just sit there because I know I'll just get involved in other stuff. Yeah, I received a NES Classic as a gift. It's sitting on my shelf. I don't even play it monthly, and I have a RetroPie. And so I'm not surprised that we're seeing this because the power needed to drive all this stuff is really easy and cheap to have now, and I think it's smart for the companies to do it. I don't do a lot of nostalgia purchases personally, and so I'm not, you know, while I like the Super NES Classic as an idea, it's got games that are better than what the NES Classic has, in my view. Still, it's just sort of like, I know I won't play it enough. I got a whole backlog of video games that I was trying to work a little bit on today, in fact. I got so much stuff with all these game deals, gold pass-free games and stuff. It's like, I just don't go back to the old stuff enough to really warrant spending the money. You can also buy a lot of these games that are in these on modern consoles. I mean, you could, for instance, like Street Fighter II is on the Super NES Classic. You can buy the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Edition or whatever it is on, I think it's PlayStation or Xbox or both. And it's got every Street Fighter ever, not just the one. You know, for like, what would it cost? 20 bucks or something like that? Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, you could also buy, the Neo Geo stuff is out there, too, is resold retro things. And Bandai Namco is doing a whole bunch of stuff with that. So most of the current generation consoles, PS4 or Xbox, you can buy a lot of the retro games on anyways. You wouldn't even really need the extra, you know, mini hardware or whatever it is. Yeah, I got the Mega Man Legacy Pack, which is like the first seven Mega Man games for like $10 on a Steam sale. Yeah. And so... Yeah. Well, and it's smart for them to... I mean, some people want to get the little consoles because they like the Remember the Look and hook them up in a game room, and other people just want to play the games on a modern set of equipment so they don't have to keep plugging in new HDMI cables. It makes sense for them to just sort of shotgun that approach. Now, I think the nostalgia play is a solid play. It is. I think that's part of the reason it sells so well, and we've seen a lot of this lately. That nostalgia for stuff from the 80s and 90s has sold really well, and it's done really well. And from a company business perspective, I think it's a great idea. And if it's something that you'll actually use a lot, but I'm in the same boat. You are, Dennis. I don't really use it. I mean, I was going to buy one I was all over a NES And then I wanted the Super NES But the more I thought about it I mean, I had both of them in my hand at one point At the store And I'm just like I don't play everything I have now I'm not going to play this I mean, I've got a Nintendo Switch now And I still, I think between me and my wife Put together, we play it An okay amount Enough that I don't feel bad because my wife started playing like Stardew Valley and stuff on it. But, I mean, I don't play it a whole lot, but I don't play a lot of games a whole lot. I don't play games, period, at all like I used to. I mean, even video games I don't play as much as I used to. You just game in on 10 minutes a week. Yeah. Are you done, Nick? You can thank me later.
    120:18
    Cha-ching. Yeah. Pinball has just consumed so much more of my time, too. So I think I just don't play the video games quite as much as I used to. Yeah. Now, I did – this is totally not in the list. So we're flying completely on the cuff. Going off the rails. Off the cuff. Going off the rails. We're off the rails completely. But earlier, when you were talking about your three new purchases, did I hear you mention a Cruisin' World? I did. Like a full-up sit-down Cruisin' World? Not the sit-down, though. Okay. because I have a pretty finite amount of space. So the sit-down ones, first of all, moving them around, they're pretty darn big. That was one of the things I was wondering about, because I've never seen a Cruisin' World setup that was less than, like, three machines put together. Yeah. So I have a stand-up Cruisin' World, but it's a legit. It's not a conversion or anything. It's with the full side art with, like, the rhino and whatever else it is, the desert and stuff like that. And then it's got a shifter up top on the, you know, right next to the right of the steering wheel. And then to the left of the steering wheel, it's all the three buttons for the different views. And it's got a gas pedal right at the bottom. So, yeah, I picked that up. I had a cruise in USA I picked up from a bowling alley in Bear Mountain a couple of years ago. This was pre-heart surgery, so I was actually able to lift things then. And I rented a giant U-Haul, way too big, and drove it around twisty mountain roads. It seemed like a very bad, it ended up being a very bad idea, but it makes a good story now. And I picked up the Cruisin' USA, and it was like, it's black. Like, it was a conversion of something else. But I got it for like 200 bucks, and I'm like, you know, I really like this. So when the world popped up, it had beautiful side art. It was like the original one, and it was like $350. I was like, you know what, I'll just pick up this Cruisin' World, and I can get rid of the USA if I wanted, because this one looks so much nicer. I can put it in the main arcade or whatever. And I have it right next to a Hydro Thunder right now, so that's another stand-up is the classic 90s driver is the Hydro Thunder. That was a good – I played a lot of that game. I was telling my wife I need an Arctic Thunder now, and the only ones I've seen have the full snowmobile that you have to sit on to play. Because that's the one where it rocks side to side Like some of the motorcycle games, isn't it? No, I think it has a fan that blows in your face Like a whirlwind But I don't think it moves I'm not positive Because I know I played one of those motorcycle games at one time Where you actually leaned the motorcycle When you did your turns and stuff They have a hang-on version like that Like the old 80s Remember Super Hang-On? Super Hang-Ons like that Super Hang-Ons are always really cheap, too. Super Hang-Ons and After Burners are always super cheap. And I'm like, why are these so cheap? These are good games. Well, After Burners just gets old after a while. It does. I mean, I've played so much After Burner. Now, I do recall reading at one time that with the loss of manufacturing and CRT monitors, the old arcade machines are having problems because they don't convert to LCD very well. People do everything they can in their powers To make them survive There are some people who are way better Than I at capping monitors And putting new flybacks in and all this stuff I'm kind of like, huh?
    123:50
    That's the one good thing about It goes back to knowing people I know people who can help me out with the monitors Because monitor is not my specialty By any stretch of the imagination And kind of We hit in our pinball section Just out of curiosity Do you have a specific arcade that would be like a grail cabinet for you?
    124:10
    That's an interesting one. You know what I picked up I was looking for for years, and it's not a classic arcade, but it's called World Series of Poker Heads Up Challenge. And that actually ties into our shipping game because I had that shipped from somewhere near where you guys are, I think. It was somewhere in the middle of the United States. And basically what it is is it's a table. It's like a cocktail table you would sit at, like the old school cocktail games, but it's high. It's like bar top height. So, like, you would be sitting at a bar top table. And in the middle is a huge, you know, LCD screen. And you play poker. Texas Hold'em heads up versus one other person. And it deals the cards out in the middle. And then each person on their side has a tiny little LCD monitor that only turns on if you put your hand in front of it. Like, there's a button you put your hand down so you can see your cards in the hole, but the other person can't see. And you play, essentially, it has a rollerball on each side, and you roll up your bets. And you play heads-up poker versus people. And you can do tournaments with up to, like, 12 or some people, and it creates the bracket for you. So you play heads-up against various people. And it has, like, a bocce game on the side because you can use the balls. Like, as I said, this game is a bocce game. So I was looking for this thing forever, and I found one in an auction down by Philadelphia, and I got it, like, super cheap. I drove all the way down to Philadelphia. It didn't work. That's, like, a reality.
    125:40
    So I was like, what? So I was like, fine. I came home. I'm like, look, I'm not taking it because I don't know how to get the software for this thing if the software is corrupt because the company, PokerTech, that makes them is not in business anymore. So I was like, it would be just a nightmare. So I end up finding this one from someone on Facebook selling it for what I thought was way too cheap in the Midwest. I had it shipped here. I think I got it for like $7.50, and I see them on eBay for like $2,000 all the time. So I was like, all right, this is a good price. I get it home. I have it for an hour. Boom. Oh.
    126:14
    It was done. I was like, what? I did everything. I'm a big fan of throwing new parts at things. so I just like I'm like I'm not trying to fix this I'm just going to throw parts at this so I researched I found out what happened to PokerTech someone bought them out then another company bought them out then some company in Canada like owns the rights to resell parts so I found this company I think their website's Palladium in Canada I had them ship me a new power supply power supply didn't do it so I had them ship me a new video card plugged it in boom And it's worked perfect ever since. I was like, thank God. Oh, nice. Yeah. That sounds like a really cool table, though. It's really fun. And you know who's good is my fourth grader kicks my butt at it. I used to play poker in tournaments and stuff like that. And he's just a little prodigy or something. He's good at math. And he's awesome. Not that I'm teaching fourth graders to gamble.
    127:09
    I teach them to count cards, head to Atlantic City. Yeah. I see a retirement plan on the horizon So that was kind of a grail game For me back in terms of video games I was looking for one of those for a while It's just one of those things where you get it stuck in your head That you want something And you're just always for it That's like the arcade game I remember And I've looked at them in the past And I'd never actually get one But the old Star Wars Vector cabinets Because that was the one I always played At the local arcade that I used to go to when I was a kid was I'd play like that and then like 1943 and some of those other ones. But I always went back to that Star Wars Vector cabinet. I played one last weekend with my son, actually, in between games at a pinball tournament.
    127:58
    Yeah, they were great friends. I played one at, we went to the Video Game Museum two years ago there in Dallas, Texas. We went down there for TPF and they had one. The one where they were giving like the discounted tickets? Yeah.
    128:14
    No, it was pretty cool. It was enjoyable. They have a nice little arcade. But they have an arcade machine that I can honestly say I never played that arcade game, the arcade, the actual stand-up cab version of Burger Time. Oh, I love Burger Time. Millions of hours of Burger Time back on my old Intellivision back when I was a kid. And it's literally the only video game both of my parents are like, yeah, that's a great video game. Both my parents like that game. If your parents like it, you know that it's... Yeah. I remember playing Burger Time at Showbiz Pizza Place back in the day. It was like the copy of Chuck E. Cheese. It had like a different animatronic fuzzy band and stuff like that. It was at a birthday party. I remember playing it. I must have been younger than my kids are now.
    129:02
    Burger Time is a really good one. I love that. That's probably the only arcade machine that if I ever came across one, I'd be happy for. But at the same time, I just need to get burger time on something playable. That game's true. That cabinet is cool, too, though. You know, it's like shaped like the chef. That's a really neat one. Yeah. And the art on it's cool, and everything about it, it's like, that's awesome.
    129:26
    Well, Jason, we've reached the end of our show. We want to extend our thanks for you taking the time out of your day to come on with us. Yes. Well, thanks for having me, guys. I had a really good time. And listeners, if you want to check out NAP Arcade on Facebook, we have a link in the show notes so you can easily access it and follow along on Jason's adventures.
    129:47
    And if you want to follow along with our adventures, we're available at Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast.
    129:54
    And on Discord. It's too long to say the Discord. There's a link. Go to EclecticGamers.com if you want to find the Discord link. And we're also on Twitter and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. And we will be back in two weeks. See ya. Bye.