Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Flipside Podcast. I'm your host, Retro Ralph. This is episode 44, freshly back from Pinball Expo. And guys, I am sorry to report, I got a little sick from Expo, so I'm not feeling great, but it doesn't matter. The show must go on. I want to give you all my feelings about Expo and all of the awesome stuff that happened. So we're going to do that. But before I do that, I just want to let you know, the sponsor of this show is Flip It Out Pinball. So if you're looking for any new machine, used machine, or you want to try to find something for you, go see Zach, Nicole, Greg, or Ken over at Flip N Out Pinball. There's information in the video description. But let's get right into it. And actually, I think I'm about to sneeze. Oh, no. Oh, no. Okay. Okay, good. We got that out of the way. All right. God bless me. So anyways, let's get right into it. So I got a little sick from Expo, man. It's not good. So we're just going to power through this thing. But I just thought, you know, this Expo was interesting. And I'm in the process with Mason of editing the main video, which if we can get our act together, will come out this Friday. Because I always do an Expo recap video. But it's usually very heavily produced. I give you some of my thoughts. And in the beginning of that video, I was thinking about how do I start this video off? Like what do I want the main theme to be? And I thought about it for a little while, and I was thinking there was definitely a different tone about this Pinball Expo. There was a different feeling in the air at Pinball Expo, and it was really – it felt like Stern had been coming off some games that maybe didn't do as well as they thought they would do. And so the hype wasn't really around Stern. It was kind of around everything else. So it just – it kind of felt like that in the air. And I'm not saying Stern is struggling. You know, I don't know. I can't I can't actually say what their financials are. It's not a publicly traded company. But, you know, we ask around and you talk to distributor friends and things like that. And, you know, I would have thought if you just told me there's, you know, they're making another Star Wars, I would just assume Star Wars would print money. Right. I would just think that, oh, it's Star Wars, such a big IP. And it doesn't feel like that. So despite how I feel about the game, whether I like it or don't like it, which we're going to talk about in a little bit. Um, it does not, it doesn't seem to be selling well and it doesn't seem to be selling. Well, it doesn't seem to be selling like they probably need it to sell. Right. So anyways, so actually we, we should start with Stern. So when you're, when I was at expo, you know, I got there on Wednesday and I got to see Jamie and we got to hang out and unfortunately Jamie couldn't stay that long. Got to see kale. Obviously kale stayed the whole time. But, um, you know, my first stop was Logan arcade. I got to meet the Phantom Tilt crew. That was really awesome. Super good guys. I got to hang out with Erica, Joe Cervino. I always say his name wrong, which is awesome, even though I'm Italian. I can't say other people's Italian last names. That's okay. There was a bunch of other people there. I think it was David from Stern that was there too, one of their mechanical engineers. So it was really cool. And actually, that's where I learned that, and I think this is true, that the Star Wars machines that were in the Stern booth had a fix for the Death Star rejects that were happening. which involved something inside the Death Star that had to be like reconfigured or I think the Death Star had to be taken apart and some part needed to be put in I don't know I've never looked inside the Death Star I've never been like hey what's in there so I don't know but whatever's in there they did that I did notice on the show floor I wasn't getting as many rejects so maybe whatever it is worked I think if it does work they're probably going to ship that kit out to manufacturers and then out to people so I don't know but the overall sentiment in the Stern booth just felt different. It didn't feel like that was the place to be. And every other show, especially last year, last year felt like that was the place to be. Jack Danger launched X-Men, Uncanny X-Men. They brought out Metallica on Saturday. So it was like a one-two punch. It was just like, damn, two really cool games. One that we had seen before, obviously, but reimagined a little bit. Not reimagined, but modernized a little bit. LCD screen instead of a DMD. so really kind of cool stuff and everyone seemed to really like it so this year it didn't i was kind of thinking that they were going to come out with the walking dead remaster on that saturday again and i kind of thought you know as we think about how the show went it probably would have been a good idea because you know if we move down the the line a little bit i'm going to go a little bit of out of order but when i think about barrels you know barrels kind of came out of nowhere with Winchester Mystery House. And what's kind of funny about that is that, number one, I don't think anybody, if you said, I'm making a pinball machine about a tourist attraction in Northern California, would you expect that to be a sellout game? Now, they're only making 525 of them, but still, not only did it sell out to distributors, but it sold out to the consumer. So that was pretty interesting, right? And the funny thing about the Winchester Mystery House is that my company's headquarters is in Northern California. And there was a coworker of mine that kept bugging me to go there. We got to go. We got to go. And we went. And it is actually really cool, but it is interesting timing because it was only a couple months ago that I went. So when I heard the theme, Winchester Mystery House, from Jamie, I was like, what? I was like, the house I just went to? so i'm very happy that for barrels of fun if you remember two years ago not last year's expo but the one before they kind of stole the show with labyrinth now i don't know if labyrinth had the legs that they thought it would it didn't i think labyrinth was uh initially a big hit and then i think it just didn't really sell as well as they thought it would i think they still sold enough of them where they could consider it a win uh for the size company barrels is but um but this was different this game had you know the winchester mystery house has awesome music awesome sound effects awesome orchestration with lighting and sound and shaker motor and the game plays well and it shoots well and it looks beautiful so this is a turning point i think for barrels of fun and you know it's nice because this game came out and it seems even though the code isn't fully developed it's developed enough that it's way further along and it feels like a complete game where dune got launched kind of botched in a way but i felt that when i played dune this time at the show that i feel differently about dune because i played a bare bones version of dune now i feel like it's complete in the music and i got to give a shout out to uh jeff dirty pool pinball because he's contributed a lot of his time to make the music in this the music great in these games and he really has achieved that and i've always said this before music sucks you in like music and sound effects and the way that all happens sucks you in it's not pinball isn't just the what it you know when you look at a pinball machine it's not just flippers and a ball going around ramps and wire forms and things like that it things trigger events that happen that tie yourself into the theme of whatever that pinball machine is And if you can do it effectively with music and sound effects and call outs, you can really bring someone into a world. And I think they achieve that with Winchester Mystery House. There was this I didn't get to it, unfortunately. But when you get into the basement of the game because you're kind of traversing the house in the game and I'm not going to give out to give too much away. But you hold the you need to put the flashlight on because it's dark in basements. Right. And you hold the action button and the lighting like gradually. lights up and now you can navigate through but you can't use you can't take your hand off the action button so you're kind of playing with kind of what they did with the pain box in dune really creative creative stuff creative shots i love that they use the um it's referred to as the pepper's ghost effect when you kind of make an lcd almost look like the imagery is floating um the best way i can say it is if you've ever played an old school Asteroids Deluxe Cabinet arcade game, there's like this, it looks like the game is floating in space. And there's a backdrop to it. But in fact, it's just the use of this Pepper's Ghost effect, which makes it look so cool. So anyway, so it was weird. The hype wasn't in the Stern booth. It was really in the Barrels of Fun booth. And it was pretty cool to see, because I know David David Van Es. I know him. I'm not too close with him, but we text from time to time. And I said to him, I was like, man, I'm really excited for you. Like, this is really great that you came out of nowhere with a theme that I bet there's a lot of people, if you're not on the West Coast, probably don't even know about the Winchester Mystery House. You probably don't even know what it is. And you got a bunch of people to buy this game, some sight unseen. But here's the thing. It's a freaking good game. so so we'll see where it goes if it's good in the development it is right now what is it going to be when it's you know further closer to being done so that's really cool so anyway so that's stirred in barrels and and i don't want to like i'm kind of going straight to the the the end in the beginning but barrels of fun like absolutely stole this show like it was all about barrels everyone was wanting to be at that booth the line never quit i will say though as we get further along There was another area that stole the show, too, that really had a lot of attention. But we're going to save that for a minute for a little bit. Jersey Jack was there, obviously. I think they had a good showing with with Harry Potter. Everyone that played it really enjoyed it. You know, I did tend to talk to people and ask them what the games they played and what they liked. And Harry Potter was always one that was mentioned. They really they really enjoyed the game. I don't that doesn't surprise me because I have one and I think it's an awesome game. It's very fun. It is coded a little different. You know, I think Jersey Jack has a if you're unfamiliar with Jersey Jack, they definitely have a different way of doing the code development for their games. So I think their rules and code are slightly different. And sometimes they throw a lot at you, although I think they toned it down a little bit for Harry Potter. Like, it's not like you have an instant multiball or you're dealing with multiballs all the time. But the game is really fun to play. And if you're a fan of the Harry Potter movies, I think there's no way you wouldn't enjoy the experience that they've provided. And then the new code update is stellar. It's really, really good. So anyway, so that was Jersey Jack. So they were basically front and center with that. Another thing that Jersey Jack has done over the years is they have all 11. They bring all 11 of their games. Last year it was 10 because they didn't have an 11th game. They bring all 11 of their games. They put them up in a row so you can play anything. So you can play from the first game, Wizard of Oz, all the way to Harry Potter. And I think that's cool because if someone ends up playing a Harry Potter, they're like, hey, I'm unfamiliar with Jersey Jack. They're like, hey, turn around and you can go play any one of our games. I love that they do that. I thought that was really cool. I did get to spend a little bit of time on the Multimorphic I don fully know how I feel about the Multimorphic I played Portal and I thought Portal was cool But the thing is the lines for Multimorphic weren super long but long enough that you could go hop on other stuff. And there was only one... There was one Portal and one Princess Bride. And if you asked them, they would switch the modules. I really wanted to play the... Which I think you can do it on the Princess Bride module. Oh, shoot. It's that game Jamie likes. Someone in the chat, someone in the comments is going to put it. Oh, crap, I can't think of the name of it right now. Anyway, it'll come to me in a little while. So I just, I don't know what I think about P3. I'm really weird about, see, this is the problem. If you start with a certain feel to what you feel like a pinball machine should feel like, and unfortunately I start, not fortunately, I guess fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, I started my pinball journey with Stern machines. So I appreciate the snappiness and the power behind a Stern flipper. And there's nothing wrong with flippers being different. Like I think Jersey Jacks flippers feel different, although the later games, the last like three or four, have the new those two larger capacitors on the IO driver board. And so they feel very snappy to the old the older ones do feel like a little bit muddy. but the p3 it it's like a weird flipper mechanism so i don't know how i feel with it and it could it could be that that the games were on for a long time and a lot of people were playing them so maybe the coils were hot and so that's why it just i felt like i wanted to push the ball like come on like i noticed myself like pushing on the machine and i'm like like hey it's not gonna go any harder but um but portal was cool like i really enjoyed it but i don't know it's not at a point that there isn't something about it that makes you want to own one yet i can appreciate what he's doing though like i really can appreciate uh what jerry over at p3 is trying to do with that platform it is innovative so i can't i have to i have to give it that it's innovative i just don't know if there's a hook for me yet to want to get into the p3 universe so we're going to jump we're going to jump forward spooky was not there although the spooky team did show up uh i think it was on Saturday because I met Bug. Well, I've met Bug, but I spent a couple minutes with him talking, but not for very long. But they weren't there. So obviously, we weren't going to get Beetlejuice yet. But I think it's right around the corner. So they had some Great American Pinball brought some Evil Deads. Here's the crazy thing. If you wanted an Evil Dead at that show, you could have got one, but you're going to pay, I think, $16,500 for one. Now, that wasn't spooky selling those that was a distributor called great american pinball not to be confused with american pinball so they were there and they put some mods on these i can't remember all the mods it was like i don't know they put some new powder coated powder coating and some other stuff but i think the powder coating was fine already so and like some different armor so i mean 16.5 that seems a little ridiculous to be honest like but if you really wanted one. I mean, considering it was 10 grand and now you're paying $6,000 over that cost to get one or actually 6,500 plus tax or no 16,500 plus tax. So I don't know how I feel about that. So I think if you were hard up for an evil dead, you could get one, but just know you're, you're spending a lot more than, uh, than you probably should. So I think the biggest question on everyone's mind is what's next from spooky. Right. And, and, um, I think it's, we can probably say with confidence that they're sending out pictures of Beetlejuice. Their distributors are sending out pictures of Beetlejuice. It's Beetlejuice, like 100% confirmed it's Beetlejuice. Now, when do we see it? I'm going to say I'm going to come out there and my prediction would be sometime in mid-November. I think it's right around the corner. Now, do they move that date up? I don't know, but I definitely think you're going to see it. Well, I'm recording this on October 20th. I think we're going to see it really soon. So the other thing that's weird, if I pivot back to Stern for a minute is because Stern didn't do the Walking Dead remaster and Spooky's really close to releasing Beetlejuice, does Stern actually release the Walking Dead this week or next week and try to do it before Spooky? I think that would be probably smart of them to do. But here's the thing. I don't think it's really going to matter much because people the momentum is in Spooky's favor like evil dead changed spooky's trajectory i really did and i'm not saying that stern isn't going to make a great walking dead remaster i don't know if i don't know i mean it's obviously a good game i like that game already lyman sheets code right it's a great game but will it be enough to sort of take money away from spooky's beetlejuice i mean i think they probably have so many people signed up on lists already that i don't know um you know i don't know that it's really gonna matter i don't know if like it would impact those sales at all the walking dead so we'll see i mean here's the thing with stern they need a friggin hit man like they really do like they've got this gigantic factory they have to keep all these people working and i know they're making other games you know all the time they're always making games that are in demand and distributors can place orders and all that but i don't think they've had a game that was really really, really just killer for them yet, sales-wise, in a little while. So they kind of need that. So I don't know. I don't think the Walking Dead remaster is going to be that, but hopefully their next cornerstone is because I think they really need it. Now, they're going to bring in some more income because of this new Insider Connected thing, the Insider Connected All Access, which, by the way, yes, I purchased it. I purchased it. I'm excited about it, to be honest, because I want a leaderboard in my house. There's a couple of other perks, but we'll get to that in a little bit. So anyway, so that covers Spooky, but I am very, very, very, very excited for Beetlejuice. I have my name on the list. I have my money down on it. Like, I am absolutely on board with Beetlejuice, so we'll see what happens. Now, a little surprise was the Hexa Pinball, guys. I know Space Hunt gets a little bit of a bad rap. Now, I did not play it at last year's Expo. It has been around for a little while, but I think I'm going to put them in my video so you'll see about my feelings about them. But they actually surprised me. I really did enjoy playing Space Hunt. They're really good people over there. That company is based out of France. They were super helpful. They wanted to show me everything about the game. They wanted to explain everything about their quality and their build and all that stuff. So I just like seeing all these other companies pop up and try to focus on quality and deliver something that not only they're proud of, but you'd be proud to own. So very good people over there. So we'll see what happens. Turner was there, obviously, with Merlin's Arcade. I thought Merlin's was pretty cool. I actually like Ninja Eclipse more than Merlin's, but that's just me. Chris Turner is such a positive dude. He builds a solid product. I love, you know, he's definitely an engineer. I mean, you can tell Chris is an engineer. I met him like three years ago, I think. I met him when he came to Expo. It was probably three years ago. he came to Expo and he was showcasing a ninja eclipse and it was in the different cabinets. So it was in the cabinet that was all slim and everything. And, you know, he, I think, got pressured by the community and decided to, you know, he had to strip out a little bit of his innovation because people weren't gravitating toward it. And he put it in a regular cabinet. And then I think he sold out of his ninja eclipses. So it worked. But Merlin's doesn't seem to have the same interest level, but it's pretty cool. I mean, that little foosball spinner thing. I thought that was really neat. I enjoyed the game, but not one I would want to own personally. If I was going to own one of Chris's games, I think I would own Ninja Eclipse probably. So maybe one day I'll pick up a Ninja Eclipse. But I'm just happy to see Chris making traction. There's people definitely interested in his games. He has a lot of innovation with engineering in his game. So he's trying to do things with his board set that are unique. I think it would be cool if another company is struggling with their board set or platform. They could license it from him. So and I think he's kind of thinking that in mind a little bit. But I think Chris needs some help on the marketing end, right, because he's an engineer. I work with engineers. I manage engineers. I've also been in marketing, and engineers are not marketers. They usually struggle really hard with marketing, and they need someone with a different kind of brain to be the marketing end and build some hype and momentum. So I don't know. Maybe one day I can help Chris out, not maybe in marketing, but maybe in creating a video on his next game or something like that. So I'll float that by him and see if that's something he'd be interested in. But I would love to help them in that way, and I know Mason would too. So we'll see what happens. But he sold out of all the ones he had on the floor, so congrats, Chris, to that. But hopefully you can move the rest of the ones that you have or the ones you intend to build. So all right, now on to American Pinball. So American Pinball was there, but this is kind of weird because they were kind of there as Orbit Games and not American Pinball. And all I can seem to gather is that they're trying to convert themselves into an amusement company. So they were showcasing that Whirlaball thing. Obviously, an amusement product. Maybe something that someone would want to put in their game room, but it's big. It's much larger than a pinball machine. So most people are not going to have the room for something like that unless you have a very large game room. It's not something I'm personally interested in. But what it looks like is it looks like Orbit Games is the main company now. and like the sub brands will be American pinball. And, uh, I don't know, they have some, some, some product or some other company called flip it, which is going to be like digital pinball that they're planning on releasing. I think either the end of this year or early next year. So it's interesting to me. I don't, I don't know. It's an interesting time for them and what they're doing, but I didn't get the sense that they're going to continue the American pinball brand, but I don't know like it was really confusing actually so all I can say is it sounds like they're becoming an amusement company so expect to see other arcade-ish products from them I don't know if it'll be pinball and then they're gonna have this digital pinball division so it's kind of weird I don't know your guess is as good as mine um it was kind of I don't know then they had the polycade over there that thing I have in the back wall because they do distribution for polycade I think they might build it i'm not sure i think they might assemble it too i'm not 100 sure of that but it was just weird it was weird over there um then then now we're getting to the exciting part i mean not that not that everything else wasn't exciting but the homebrew section was off the freaking charts this year and i'm gonna leave a bunch of stuff out but i'm just i'm just going based on memory and bear with me because i'm feeling terrible right now and my voice like my voice is kind of back but it was totally gone yesterday i couldn't have done the podcast even if I wanted to. But here's the games that I played. Well, no. I tried to play Big Trouble in Little China. Here's the problem. You couldn't because the line was always so long. So I never got a chance to play it. But everyone I talked to that played it was like, oh my gosh, it was awesome. This could have been a commercially available product. It's that good. So congrats to the team over there that built that. I love this game called Adam over there. I've talked about it on the podcast. I feel like I've literally talked about it multiple times. But it's like this barrel that you play it's going to be in the video i post on friday if we can get it done but uh very very fun and that guy has progressed that game for a while and we were talking about it and i was like man if you sold this as like a kit to like it could be a really cool like you know like a project to do with like your son or something or or your daughter or someone that's interested in uh in in trying to build build something and then have something you can play as the outcome or they interested in pinball And this is this like they get that pride of joy like building it So he was actually kind of thinking something similar So I don know maybe he he he provide some kind of kit at some point for it. I'm not really sure. So Monster League Hockey, that was Jake Danzig's project. He was like sort of the project manager of that thing. That was really awesome. So think like head to head pinball, kind of like joust the joust pinball machine, the head to head one, kind of like that but way cooler so that was really cool the greatest showman has won like best in show multiple times in multiple shows that was a really fun one i did spend some time on that now myth pinball had a battle station thing kind of think like monster league hockey um but a little different and smaller in size that one was really fun too we played that one because Monster League hockey was so busy, I only played it once with Jamie. He beat me five to one. There you go, Jamie. There's your plug. He beat me. Whatever. But anyway, I'll get back to that. So he beat me. Son of a bitch. But anyway, so he did. Whatever. But what was I going to say? Oh, this Battle Stations thing. There weren't that many people over by it. So I played that with a group of friends, and we kept on, like, basically the winner would have to play the next person. And then if you won and beat them, you'd take over it we had so much fun with it i was playing with um joe from uh indie game wave and i think my buddy jason and i think matt stringer it was it was it was a good time like we were having a blast with that so that was a fun and and i monster league hockey was also very fun so those games are cool so i got to finally play sonic the hedgehog it's been out for years but dude take notice jjp if you want to build your sonic game since that's that's that's the rumor is that they have the Sonic license and that's going to be the next game. So I would expect that in the spring, maybe. I don't know. They're still building Potters like crazy, so I don't know. And they definitely don't have the capability. I've been in there. I filmed the Potter thing there. I do not think they have the manufacturing capability to be doing two games at once. Basically, if they're going to build Harry Potter CEs, they change the line to build Harry Potter CEs. And if they're going to build an arcade edition, they change the line over to build an arcade edition. It doesn't appear to me, at least when I was there, that they have the ability to run multiple games at once. So I think they really need to get to the end of these Potter orders before they really turn the line over to a new game. So I don't know. It could be later than spring. But I'm thinking it'll probably be around the same time Potter launched. I'm thinking like – now I'm forgetting when it was. Was it May? Was it April, May? I don't even remember. I worked on the project. I don't even remember. I think it was, it seems like forever ago now. Uh, so that was really cool. Harry, uh, Sonic the Hedgehog. Um, Pokemon was cool too. So I think Pokemon's been out for a little while. I'm not a Pokemon fan, but I think that game was, was pretty well done. Uh, now the cool thing is, so Jack Danger had that, that cool little like device he made with all the spinners on it and the ramp. That was really fun. I was playing that for a while and then Jack Danger brought his first game he made that was on a white wood and it was running on i think a raspberry pie and aaron from fast pinball was going to basically turn it into a fast built pinball platform for his game and it was supposed to be playable by the end of expo i did or flippable i don't know if that ever happened because i didn't go back to check but we'll see i'm not really sure but that was really cool because I guess Amoto, if you don't know Amoto from Marco, she kind of convinced Jack to bring it. And I did I did get a chance to talk to Jack for a little bit. It wasn't that long, but always cool to catch up with him. And he seems he seems happy doing what he's doing. So I guess my initial reaction was this is going to be selfish of me. But my initial reaction when he got that job was he seemed like he was burnt out designing games. I could just look that way. Like any time he'd be on camera, I just look like he was like tired all the time. And I don't know, It just seemed like something was sucking the passion out of him a little bit. And he seems much more happy now, which is good. But the bummer part is I really think he makes great pinball designs and layouts. So I hope he dabbles in that more in the future when maybe he gets re-energized or if the right opportunity comes out, whether that be with Stern or somewhere else. I think the world needs more Jack Danger pinball machines because I think he's got a very creative mind when it comes to that. and he pushes boundaries and I think we need more of that. So we'll see what happens there. Insider Connected, the all-access thing, I did, yes, I bought it for 80 bucks a year. That's a limited time, I think, and then it's 99 after that. What you get is interesting. You get the home leaderboard. You receive free U.S. or discounted shipping on Stern Pinball Shop. I don't know, I guess that's like merch. your name shows in gold on pinball games and on leaderboards so i'm a little bit i like that actually but i you know whatever i don't know what monetary value you want to put on that but it is cool so your name will show up on a different color when you're either signed into your game or your name gets shows up on a leaderboard somewhere else i love having my name on a leaderboard so it would be really cool if my name showed up gold on a leaderboard i like that uh experience a free yearly stern factory tour with a guest that doesn't really add much value to me because I feel like I've had more factory tours than I could ever want. As a matter of fact, I'm going back to Chicago, so it's going to be imperative that I get better because I'm doing and hosting one of my company event at Stern for the company I work for. So that's pretty cool. So hey, here's what could be awesome. So if they do launch Walking Dead remaster this week, I might actually be able to see it because I'll be there. Now, I wouldn't normally be that lucky, But we'll see. We'll see. I don't know if that would happen. That would be really awesome if it did, but I'm not holding my breath. And then you get, it says, get involved to exclusive experiences like members-only webinars. I don't know. I mean, that could be cool, but yeah. So, I mean, to me, I'm paying 80 bucks for a leaderboard. That's what I'm paying for. I mean, other things are, we'll see how much value I get out of those other things. But I wish they'd do a little bit more. I mean, it'd be cool if instead of doing a factory tour, it would be really cool to bring like a group there, like a group of customers there together, like all together. Like that could be cool, like in batches or something or do something cool with. I don't know. I don't know what it would be exactly. But anyway, so so outside of that, what was like my main my main thing about Unexpo is I just met so many freaking cool people. There were so many people that they came up to me and said, like, I love the show. I appreciate the content. And I can't tell you how much that means to me personally because I did the content creator panel with the Loser Kid guys and Joel and Jared, right, flipping out. And that was a really cool experience. And a lot of – there was a lot of people there, and they were there when the Stern tour was going on. So we had kind of a bad time slot, but there was a lot of people in the audience. And I know from talking to those guys, they were really grateful that everyone turned up and showed their support. And I think that's the – for the most part, I think most content creators, that's what drives them is that people enjoy the content. I wouldn't do it if people didn't enjoy it, and I genuinely enjoy what I'm doing. So for me, someone asked a question during the panel about like how do I monetize or how do I make money? And I think it's never this has never been a I'm getting into this for money making. I'm not behind a paywall and I'm not judging anybody that is. I'm just saying I never that wasn't ever my intent. I my main driver was I want to create really, really high quality content for the pinball community and things that show my passion, my goofy side, like who I am as a person is going to come out in those videos. And hopefully that's the person they connect with. And we build this community out of that. And that's happened. So when someone comes up and says, I really appreciate the content, it means that means the most to me. So, you know, certain people, they're they're rewarded with in a certain way. And that's like their currency. Right. Like some people just want to be just want to pat on the back and say, man, you did such a good job on that. And some people want like a monetary award, like here you did so well, here's some money. And they don't even hear that you did so well. Just the money part is what drives them. but everyone's motivated differently and for me it's always been when someone says hey i watched your video it made me laugh it made me smile i learned something whatever it is that's that's what i'm in it for because i have a good job that pays me well i don't need to do this for money it is a hobby and i don't want it to feel like a job because that's the whole point it's an escape from my job not that i don't love my job but my job can be very demanding i'm flying around all over the time place it's time away from family and friends and things like that so um this really is like a thing i really truly love and enjoy so it that means the world to me when someone says that and many of you did so thank you to all of you that did that i met a lot of peer creators i had never met before either like the phantom tilt guy and his wife were super cool like i could hang out with that guy all day like really really cool people um there were so many that i can't even And Jeff from Dirty Pool was really nice. He's a lot skinnier than I thought. He's like a very, like, petite man. I'm jealous of that because he can wear, like, cool hipster jeans that I could never wear. If I put them on, it would look like you were trying to, like, squeeze, like, beefy sausage legs through really tight pants. It would look weird. So I'm jealous of you, Jeff. I really hope one day my legs are a lot thinner and more like yours, but they're not. So yeah, we'll see how that goes. I'm Italian, so I eat a lot of carbs. Oh, and I have a shout out to Vic VP. So Vic VP, he made these. So it says Retro Ralph, the Flipside podcast. And then on the back, look at this. It has my like my initials I put into a game. He put my logo on it. Like this is so cool, man. Vic, you're like the coolest dude. I got a chance to play a bunch of games with Vic. Actually, Vic and I, for the first time, I had never played Wizard of Oz. We played Wizard of Oz together. And then I got to give a shout-out to Christopher Franchi. He gave me one of his T-shirts. These are super cool, and a little goodie bag. Like, Franchi's the man. And Franchi spilled the beans about something, but I can't say. I'm going to – because, Franchi, you get yourself in trouble, man. See how – just know who has your back, okay? Just know. You probably told me a couple things that I shouldn't repeat. My lips are sealed, Franchi. You know? One Italian to another, the lips are sealed. I'm not ratting. I'm not ratting you out. So see, Bug can't get mad at you because I'm not going to rat you out. He probably knows you say a lot of stuff. But anyways, yeah, that was the pinball. That was the expo experience. It was awesome. I can't wait to share with you the full video. Oh, there was another thing. On Saturday night, I had some of the most fun I've ever had, and we were in the Stern booth. And I don't know. I was asking Jamie what you call these things. He called them bounty tokens. But I won this. Let's see if I can get the camera to... Oh, man. I don't have autofocus on this camera. So basically, this is a Stern token. And someone from Stern came over and said, hey, I'm about to make this game a lot more interesting. And it was for my friend plan and he goes whoever wins this game gets this coin and I won and it was deadpool so that was really cool now i have won one of these before we were at the stern factory tour for john wick and i won one what's on that oh that's the that's the pinball i won this one this one's really cool too um so this was during the john wick thing um so i have two of them now so i was thinking about something i was thinking how cool would it be to make flip side versions of these and then maybe i post the score on a game i have and then uh or maybe we don't even do that maybe it's like in person like if i see you at an arcade i'll have them and we can be you know we can play a game together and if you if you win you get the coin i don't know something like that i mean i something i feel like there'd be something cool to do with these or maybe i'll just make them and um and as giveaways or something i gotta learn the giveaway thing so every you guys uh there were several people that said they really enjoyed the Rudy Ralph live streams. I appreciate that. I'd love to do more of them. We're going to try to get, do them on a regular basis when the holiday season comes, because I'm going to be traveling less for work. So I'm going to try to really like dive in, get Rudy over here a lot more and do those because that would be really cool. Um, there wasn't one other thing that happened. So during the panel, I didn't know this, but we were all presented with, the Superstars cards. This is my old one from I have two now. So this is the old one. My new one, it's the same picture, but it's obviously a higher number. But when I got this the first time, I was 4,338. So I don't know if you guys are interested. I realize this is really nerdy to have this, but I'm grateful that they recognized some of the contributions I've done. Oh, I forgot to mention one more thing. I helped out with Project Pinball again this year So Project Pinball, awesome charity They provide pinball machines to Ronald McDonald House Children's Hospitals, things like that They have a silent auction that they do at Expo IMC that, this is my second year in a row I hope they have me back because I had so much fun Everyone over there is so cool And it's just fun to sit around the crowd That's waiting to see if they won something I'm sorry if I butchered your name I definitely butchered a bunch of names and then I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to Dan the man and his family uh they're they're like all over the place they were all over expo I think they won something in this island auction I can't remember but there's there's so many people that I met and talked to that it would be impossible to to to thank or or even remember everyone's names but um okay seriously the last thing I do this all the time there was a what I don't remember what room number it was, but there was a suite that was opened at night and it was upstairs in the penthouse of the hotel. And I get up there not knowing what to expect. And I walk in, it's wicked loud. And there's like six pinball machines, maybe five. I can't remember. It's set up in there and there's everyone's drinking beer and there's people shoving their hand in Dorito bags. And here's the thing. I think I shoved my hand in that Dorito bag because I had a couple of drinks. I bet you that's where I got this conference sickness from. There was probably a hundred pinball people that shove their back their hand in a bag of Doritos like I don't think that's a good why would why would I make that that choice like oh like you can almost see there was like moss growing on the side of the bag and I'm like and that was it and then of course like you take your hand out you put you're putting your hand that was just in this gross mossy Dorito bag all over your mouth and you're done you're done virus that's it done so anyway I shouldn't have done that it wasn't a good idea but uh but outside of that that that was a really cool little get together and i can't believe i i would love to be the person that had the room below that room because you can't tell me that like five games of shaker motors going off would sound normal to someone below the floor like you know hotels like even nice hotels and that is a nicer hotel it's not insulated that well i could hear what was going on in the room next to me so um and it wasn't what it's not what you're thinking get your head get your mind out of the gutter okay there It wasn't anything like that. I'm just saying. I could hear people talking. So you can hear. But anyways, guys, that's my... I'm so tired. I can't do any more right now. I will undoubtedly talk more about this. We're going to have the roundtable this week. We're going to record a roundtable of all of the things that happen at Pinball Expo. So that's my quick and dirty overview. But also be on the lookout. Hopefully, this Friday, I'll have my video out for Expo. And it'll be crazy. It'll be fun. It'll be crazy. You'll get to see and hear a little bit more about all the things I talked about, but also a little bit of behind the scenes of just how goofy and crazy it is when we get together. Because there's a group of guys that I went to my first expo with, and they've – well, I think it was my first or second. And then the group we hung out with just kept getting bigger, and all a really great bunch of guys. So one quick last item is really Pinball Brothers. So Pinball Brothers was a shocker, too. People were really digging Predator. And when you'd go up to anyone at the show and say, what games were you excited about or what games you play? It was like Harry Potter, Winchester and and Predator. Like it was Harry Potter, Winchester, Predator or Winchester, Predator or Predator, Winchester, Harry Potter. Like no one was really saying anything about Star Wars. So it's kind of, you know, I know I played Star Wars with some friends and they were enjoying it and said they liked it. But when you ask them what game really resonated with them, it was all the boutiques. So it's kind of and I consider, you know, Jersey Jack to me is a boutique. They can't run the kind of quantities that Stern can or pump out games even close to as fast as Stern can. And they're kind of specialized, more collectability, stuff like that. So, yeah, like that was kind of crazy. And I really did enjoy Predator 2. And Predator was a lot better than a lot of people had said. It kind of got crap for the hour. But, you know, get through the job. Like it did. And, you know, maybe that was unfair because I think everyone that played it really enjoyed it. So, Pinball Brothers, you did good. you did good man i i um i really hope that uh the electric bat gets one because it would be really cool to have one here locally i don't know maybe i'll get one i don't know i don't know i liked it but i didn't i liked it like it was it was cool i liked that but i didn't love it like it if winchester i would would put much higher than it dune i would put much higher than it but I did like it. So if I had to summarize the whole event, I kind of felt like there was this power shift over to the boutiques. Like it's weird to me that Stern didn't win the show last year. They totally annihilated the show in this year. I just don't feel like that same momentum was on their side. And it, you know, and while there were people in the booth and the traffic was generally busy most of the time it just didn't feel as exciting over there as it did everywhere else and so to me that's gotta be putting some pressure on stern it has to be and if the next thing we're getting is the walking dead remaster i know i'll be excited because i like the original walking dead game so that it i'm sure they're going to improve it dramatically with spike 3 better sound you know probably the video clips and things like that so that they'll probably be some further enhancements. So I think the game will be a better game, but I just don't know if that's the game that's going to also drive that same kind of momentum as something like a Winchester or Predator, you know, a bigger name that people are nostalgic for. I just don't know. And so that leads us to the next cornerstone, which should be at CES in January. And the current rumor, or the strongest rumor, is that's going to be Elliot Elliot Eismin's Transformers. you could go a million different directions with transformers i do think transformers would be a great license and there should be interest in that but it's really going to be about how they approach this next game because i think everyone else is really they're upping the quality they're upping what they put into it they're upping the creativity and i'm not going to sit here and say that the new star wars game is their most creative game it's it's not it's it's a pretty standard layout and it's a safe game but i think they need to get back to being a little unsafe tap into more of that jack danger inspiration and go with those games that are a little bit weird that maybe have a cool you know some cool mechs and things to interact with that like the others are bringing you know and i gotta think spooky is going to bring the thunder with this beetlejuice they're they're very motivated they're very passionate but so are the people at Stern and we all know they can do it. We all know they can do it. And I don't know what's, what's handcuffing them right now. I don't know if it's profits, if it's margin, if it's, I don't know, you become a big company now. And so things change, but I really feel like there's gotta be some pressure on them now to maybe up the ante and go, we're fucking Stern pinball. Sorry for the swearing. So bring it like, bring the heat on transformers, bring us something that you're like, holy crap, stake in the ground, wear Stern pinball, because you got to. I feel like you kind of have to, because the other manufacturers really are starting to up their game quite a bit. So anyways, you know, you guys know I love Stern. I want nothing but the best for Stern. I love everyone over there. They're all really great and passionate people. I just think they need a big game that shows their passion and creativity that I know they have over there and pour it into this next cornerstone and blow our minds melt our faces off because we know you can't yeah yeah anyway that's it that's all I got so we're gonna play you out let me make sure I don't remember who that was it told me my audio was always jacked let's see that's good that's a good sound level right there this is my vibe right now too like right now i'm kind of like so i'm sorry this is a shorter episode but i can't i can't give you any more i don't have any gas in the tank i'm done baby i'm done but i'm going back to chicago in two days and if they drop the walking dead remaster you know you know i'm gonna get you the scoop baby i'm gonna be there with my camera. I'm going to be like, oh, we're here for a work event. Pow, pow. Camera. Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow. I take pictures of everything. Take more pictures than Don's Pinball Podcast. And Don can take selfies at a thousand selfies a second. By the way, shout out to Don. He saved the day. We were doing a round table podcast and I forgot the damn mixer. And I'm like, Donnie, my man, Donnie. Hook a brother up and he's like, Ralphie, I got you. you, my boy. And he came with the mixer, delivered it. Don's the man. Don's the man. I just wish we had Cengiz there, because he would have been like, Donnie! Ralph needs a mixer! Donnie, you gotta get it to him! Get to the show floor! Donnie, come on! Come on! Yeah, so anyways, love you, Donnie. That's it. That's all I got. That's a clip that. That's a good clip. We should work that in. Anyways, guys, thanks so much for watching. Thanks for your support. If you came up to me, I love every one of you. That is awesome. By the way, I still have gloves left, but we'll talk about that later because I want to do some of those giveaways and stuff like that. But I don't know how to do giveaways, so I have to talk to Joel because Joel knows how to do giveaways. And I don't know how to do giveaways, so I need his help, and then we'll do it. So we will see you on the flip side. See you guys. Take care. I'm going to bed now after I upload this.