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Pinball Down Under Part 3: Home Pin?!

Silverball Chronicles·podcast_episode·1h 30m·held·Jul 21, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Silver Ball Chronicles explores Homepin founding, manufacturing challenges, and Mike's journey from board repair to factory ownership in China.

Summary

David Dennis and Ron Hallett discuss Home Pin, an Australian pinball manufacturer founded in 2013 by Mike Kalinowski. The episode traces Mike's background as an electrical engineer, his hobby business importing and refurbishing pinball boards from China, and his ambitious pivot to manufacturing new pinball machines starting with a Thunderbirds license. The narrative covers the complex logistics of manufacturing in China, personal tragedies that derailed the Thunderbirds project, and legal challenges that emerged from operating a factory with worker housing.

Key Claims

  • Home Pin was established in 2013 from Mike Kalinowski hobby business importing and refurbishing pinball boards

    high confidence · David Dennis, primary narrative source material on Homepin founding

  • Mike secured a Thunderbirds IP license from ITV in London to manufacture pinball machines

    high confidence · Mike Kalinowski quoted directly in episode about pitching to ITV and receiving Thunderbirds license

  • Manufacturing in China requires building worker accommodation blocks (apartment complexes) adjacent to the factory

    high confidence · David Dennis explaining Chinese manufacturing regulations based on Mike's experience

  • In 2010, there were only Stern and early-stage Jersey Jack operating as pinball manufacturers

    high confidence · David Dennis providing industry context for the period when Mike conceived Home Pin

  • Mike's wife passed away before the Thunderbirds launch, forcing an 18-24 month project delay

    high confidence · Mike quoted directly about losing income and factory support following his wife's death

  • A factory worker died in Mike's personal apartment (not worker housing), creating legal complications with Chinese authorities

    high confidence · Mike quoted about police involvement and officers taking key staff members for questioning

  • Home Pin uses metric measurements exclusively, partly due to operating in China where 99% of the world is metric

    high confidence · Mike quoted about metric system decision and Chinese manufacturing cost premium for imperial measurements

  • The Fitzgerald Inquiry in Queensland (late 1980s) was Australia's equivalent to the Johnson Act and involved police corruption related to gambling machines

    high confidence · David Dennis explaining Australian organized crime regulation, citing Tony Fitzgerald QC leading the inquiry

  • Importing materials into China is near-impossible; exporting from China is easy—requiring use of Hong Kong as a workaround port

Notable Quotes

  • “I thought, well, there might be an opportunity here.”

    Mike Kalinowski @ ~mid-episode — Captures Mike's entrepreneurial insight recognizing the home collector market emerging in ~2010

  • “I figured a licensed pinball machine was going to sell better than an unlicensed pinball machine. I didn't want to have the Avengers or Superman or something that was pretty high-end. In the end, ITV in London accepted my proposal for Thunderbirds.”

    Mike Kalinowski @ ~mid-episode — Demonstrates strategic thinking about IP licensing and market positioning for Home Pin's entry

  • “that brought with it a problem that I had no money and I had a factory with 10 plus staff in China with monthly bills and pretty much no income apart from some board sales, certainly not enough to support the factory.”

    Mike Kalinowski @ ~later in episode — Reveals financial crisis following his wife's death and its impact on the Thunderbirds project

  • “We asked the Chinese about making something in 716ths and they said, yes, we can do that, but it's double the price. Metric's pretty great.”

    Mike Kalinowski @ ~mid-episode — Illustrates the practical business decision to adopt metric measurements in Chinese manufacturing

  • “99 of the world is metric get with the program it's time that people woke up to themselves and realized that nine nine hundred and sixty fourths of something is pretty stupid measurement.”

    Mike Kalinowski @ ~mid-episode — Direct quote exemplifying Mike's engineering pragmatism regarding imperial vs. metric systems

  • “the cops came because the guy's wife complained that I'd worked this guy to death. They took three of my key staff away, my English-speaking secretary and two of my engineers, to the police station”

    Mike Kalinowski @ ~end of episode — Reveals serious legal jeopardy from worker death in Mike's apartment, cutting off mid-narrative

  • “In China, you come from outside in the rural areas, and then you live at your factory. And then if you ever get a vacation, you sometimes go back to the rural parts of China.”

Entities

Home PincompanyMike KalinowskipersonDavid DennispersonRon HallettpersonSilver Ball ChroniclesorganizationStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyThunderbirdsgameITVcompany

Signals

  • ?

    historical_signal: Episode traces the transition from EM-to-solid-state pinball repair in 1978 (Bally Playboy era) and its impact on service technician skill migration, establishing context for modern board replacement aftermarket

    high · Detailed narrative of technicians unable to repair solid-state machines, creating opportunity for electronics-trained engineers like Mike; this transition occurred ~1978

  • ?

    business_signal: Home Pin's strategic decision to establish manufacturing in China (vs. Australia or North America) due to cost, capacity, and supply chain advantages in early 2010s

    high · Mike's quote: 'the largest manufacturer of pinball in the largest manufacturing country in the world, China'; extensive discussion of Hong Kong workarounds and Chinese trade restrictions

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Australian organized crime regulation (Fitzgerald Inquiry, late 1980s) paralleled U.S. Johnson Act enforcement; resulted in major political consequences including premier resignation and ministerial jailings

    high · Tony Fitzgerald QC led two-year inquiry; resulted in closure of Queensland Automatics where Mike worked; compared to U.S. pinball/gambling machine trafficking

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Modern pinball market requires IP licensing for commercial viability; unlicensed games sell poorly unless operator is comfortable with <25 unit production

    high · Mike's strategic pivot to licensing Thunderbirds from ITV London; David Dennis stating 'You need a license to get people to buy the game' and discussing death of original-theme appeal

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Chinese manufacturing has asymmetric trade policies: easy to export, difficult to import; requires workarounds (Hong Kong intermediaries) for sourcing equipment into mainland factories

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.272

0:00
I better start recording myself again. There we go. So you're recording. Okay, give me give me a couple claps Actually, let me clap less because those are peaking like little golf claps Yeah, well I can't even hear them on this side of the it must cancel them out just say clap three times clap clap clap God that's probably gonna be in the bloopers at the end now
0:30
Hello everyone, I'm David Dennis and this is Silver Ball Chronicles. And with me this month, like every month, is Ron missed out on that ball thing at the Boston Museum Hallet. Wow, that's obscure. What's up, fella? Should we explain what the hell that even means? This came up in the latest Slam Tilt podcast. Yeah, Slam Tilt podcast, my other podcast. Wow, we got that in early. With Bruce Nightingale. I mentioned, you know the little, it's like a glass dome, and it'll have the electrodes inside, like the mad scientist thing? Yes. Yeah, everyone's seen it at some point. They had that at the Boston Museum of Science when I was a little kid when we went for a field trip. Plasma ball, a plasma ball. And it was broken. I was so disappointed. And to that point, you randomly just sort of offhandedly brought it up under your breath during your episode. Yeah, it still upsets me. That's quite literally one of the – I laughed for like three minutes, and I wound it back to listen again because I thought, what an odd thing to hold on to. But that's the kind of people we are in pinball. I do heavily recommend, though, at least as of 40 years ago when I went, the Boston Museum of Science was awesome. Yeah, we did that in Ottawa. We went with the family. We went for Canada Day in Ottawa, and we went to the Canadian Science and Technology Museum. They have science in Canada? And technology. Wow. They show you how they make the beer? Yeah. It's all just basically blackberry stuff and maple syrup distilling technology. technology and how alex lifeson's guitars are built and stuff actually there was a there was a guitars there was like lifeson's guitars of course there was yeah like it's quite literally just all of that stuff it's pretty funny cool yeah it's like it's pretty good but the canadian history museum now that's in gatineau quebec which is on the other side of the river from ottawa it's pretty awesome and if you're ever like coming to canada and you in like museums is your thing and you like like museums and history and reading plaques and stuff ottawa is just unbelievable with the amount of like we went to the uh aerospace like the the the space and aviation museum and they have like the only existing old airplanes the old timey people used to fly like before the first world war so cool anyway well worth it tons of fun for the family anyway what have you been doing what's like there's the hobby's been pretty busy here the last little while uh yeah all kinds of new stuff coming out harry potter exciting we got predator we have predator so ai art that's a whole thing derp the magic dragon dirk the magic drag wait a minute isn't dirk in dragon's lair no it's derp oh derp derpy yes yes yeah well worth it well worth it yes he's got a extra eye on the side of his face yeah so and teeth only on one side we'll cover that sometime we'll cover that ah yes everybody else has had a go we'll have a go some other time yeah some other time give it a year or so when it really when it really cools down we're we're here to talk about australia that's right but before that we want to welcome our new patron red velvet steve thank you for joining our patreon and uh enjoying the ride of which we have here and making me giggle with your name, by the way. You think that's his real Christian name? I think his, I, yes, I do. I bet you he's wearing a red velvet suit right now. Okay. Absolutely. And if you want to join red velvet, Steve, you can do that over at patrion.com slash silver ball chronicles. We appreciate all of the support. We know that your hard-earned dollars, be it our $3 tier where you just say thank you, our $6 tier with our Discord chat room access, you get to listen to the podcast early, and indeed, you get the ad-free access to Silver Ball Chronicles. That's what you want, is the $6 tier. You're a big hitter. You want to... You just swept the Yankees because you're the Toronto Blue Jays. That's right. You want to be the top tier. You're going to be the elitist crony, and that's $20 a month. But after three months, you're going to get a Silver Ball Chronicles t-shirt. If you don't want to do any of that, you just want to engage with us on Facebook. You can do that at facebook.com slash silverballchronicles. And we always ask that you leave us the highest rating possible on your podcatcher or podcatching app. That way more people can find us in the algorithm. it'll kind of bubble up to the top for people and because our podcast is not whining about chipped playfields and derpy dragons it's evergreen content so it will continue to be relevant I like that, evergreen content we also have a discord so when you're part of that patreon you join that discord, you come aboard and you can chat with us a lot of that is Ron spilling all the secrets that he knows about all of the upcoming games oh yeah uh he reveals his sources names in there and uh he's always talking about all of those things that bruce nightingale tells him that he doesn't say on on public yep i find all my information from george gomez himself he just calls me and tells me what all the new games are you just send him a text message because you're texting friends yeah you talk about growing up in the old country like like your families did you know because you're cuban uh yes sure i am you know you can email us too silverball chronicles at gmail.com you can send us tons of emails we didn't get any emails this month oh that means we didn't make any mistakes no mistakes nobody nobody none of the gottlieb family emailed us to say that we made a drastic huge error we didn't say anyone's name wrong or if we did they didn't notice it yeah i didn't accidentally forget to bleep out the uh the s word oh you did i did it's all right but people didn't come here to listen to us chit chat and banter and talk about awesome museums in ottawa when you come to visit they came here for the for the for the meat they didn't come here for the vegetables do you like the meat, Ron?

medium confidence · Ron Hallett and David Dennis discussing Chinese trade dynamics based on Mike's experience

  • Licensed pinball machines sell better than unlicensed machines in the modern hobby market

    medium confidence · Mike's reasoning for pursuing IP licensing; David Dennis noting that licensing became essential for modern sales

    • David Dennis @ ~mid-episode — Explains the cultural/structural difference in Chinese manufacturing labor practices

  • “You need a license. And why do you need a license? Just you need a license to get people to buy the game.”

    David Dennis @ ~mid-episode — Articulates the modern pinball market reality that IP licensing is essential for commercial viability

  • “If you're going to China and you want to manufacture something, manufacturing 200 of anything is a joke. Yeah, it's not a lot. You want to manufacture 200,000 or 2 million.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~mid-episode — Reveals the scale mismatch between custom pinball manufacturing and typical Chinese factory minimums

  • “In Hong Kong, which is part of China but is a semi-autonomous state, Mike spent a lot of time shipping stuff into Hong Kong, then from Hong Kong to mainland China to help build this equipment.”

    David Dennis @ ~mid-episode — Explains the Hong Kong workaround for Chinese import restrictions on manufacturing equipment

    • Cairns Electronics
    company
    Queensland Automaticscompany
    Slam Tiltorganization
    Flip N Out Pinballcompany
    Boston Museum of Sciencevenue
    Canadian Science and Technology Museumvenue
    The Fitzgerald Inquiryevent
    Johnson Actregulatory
    Guangzhoulocation
    Hong Konglocation
    Williamscompany
    Ballycompany
    Gottliebcompany
    Red Velvet Steveperson
    Zach Sharpeperson

    high · Ron/David discussion of Hong Kong as port workaround; Mike setting up Hong Kong office and shipping via indirect routes; emphasis on Chinese preference to export vs. import

  • ?

    product_concern: Worker death at Home Pin's China facility created serious legal liability when death occurred in Mike's personal apartment (not designated worker housing), resulting in police detention of key staff

    high · Mike quoted: 'The cops came because the guy's wife complained that I'd worked this guy to death. They took three of my key staff away, my English-speaking secretary and two of my engineers, to the police station'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Mike Kalianowski experienced major personal tragedies (wife's death, factory worker death) that disrupted Home Pin's Thunderbirds project for 18-24 months and created legal crises

    high · Mike's quotes about losing income after wife's death and factory financial collapse; worker death in his apartment causing police intervention and staff detention

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Mike Kalianowski's engineering background drives detailed technical decision-making (metric vs. imperial, manufacturing process optimization, supply chain logistics), but creates communication challenges with non-technical stakeholders

    medium · David Dennis noting Mike's engineering mindset provides detailed specifications; Mike's metric system argument and Chinese cost quotes; discussion of engineering vs. sales mindset clash

  • $

    market_signal: 2010-era emergence of home pinball collectors as a market segment (previously limited to operator/commercial venues) created opportunity for Home Pin to manufacture consumer-grade machines

    high · Mike's insight: 'more and more people, just ordinary lay people, were buying pinball machines to have at home, which was kind of unheard of'; timing coincides with Jersey Jack startup period

  • ?

    technology_signal: 1990s-2000s emergence of aftermarket circuit board replacements and refurbishment as cottage industry due to domestic manufacturing absence in Australia; Mike capitalized on this with imports from China

    high · Mike's early business: importing and refurbishing solid-state boards from China; consolidating small orders from multiple customers; eventually scaling to container operations

  • ?

    industry_signal: In 2010, only Stern and early-stage Jersey Jack existed as active pinball manufacturers, representing limited production capacity and licensing diversity for new entrants like Home Pin

    high · David Dennis: 'At this time, 2010, right, there wasn't like a whole lot of manufacturers in pinball... Basically Stern and there's kind of the startup of Jersey Jack'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Chinese manufacturing regulatory requirement to provide worker accommodation (apartment blocks) adjacent to or at factory facilities; alien to North American/Western manufacturing models

    high · Detailed discussion of Mike building 5-6 apartment blocks for factory workers; contrast with Western commute-based employment model; legal implications when worker died in Mike's apartment

    • 7:31
    Yes, the meat is good. The meat is good. We've visited Down Under twice already. First time we visited, we talked about Haggis and the difficulties that there is when it comes to building pinball Down Under. In our second episode of Pinball Down Under, we spoke about, yes, the old school pinball. Hankin. Hankin Pinball, of course, also, oddly, starts with an H. Wait a minute. Yeah, you're right. I didn't think about that. This is episode three of the Pinball Down Under series. One of the most emailed about and demanded topics we've ever had. Although it has less to do with this actual specific topic and more to do with when are you going to do another Pinball Down Under. So I've both made everybody happy and about to disappoint them. In part three of Pinball Down Under, let's look at Home Pin.
    8:31
    Home Pin was established in 2013 and was born from a hobby business of Mike Kalianowski. For going forward, we're just going to call him Mike.
    8:43
    Most people call him Mike from Home Pin, I think because of the last name, yes. It seems like a smart idea to set up manufacturing outside of Australia, based on the previous episodes we spoke about. Mm-hmm. So Mike's special idea was to become the largest manufacturer of pinball in the largest manufacturing country in the world, China. All right, let's talk about this one, Ron. So you're right. They're all H's.
    9:11
    Haggis, Hankin, and Homepin. Maybe that's an Australian thing. It's got to start with an H. I bet you that's by accident. Wait a minute. My name's Hallett, so does that mean I could start a pinball company in Australia? Hallett Pinball? Yeah. Mike, and we'll affectionately call him Mike from HomePin. Now, he's an electrical engineer who worked in a small electronics factory in Brisbane, Australia. He designed and started making radio control systems for modelers, people making model airplanes and things like that, and then eventually government departments, which government contracts, that's the place to be. These businesses that he started way back in the day covered all aspects of design, manufacturing, and testing of in-house circuit design and layouts and fabrication and assembly and alignment and metalwork and I don't know, all that stuff that comes along with electrical engineering. You're a big fan of all those processes and project management things, Ron? Uh, yes. Does that excite you? I like electronics. Does process excite you? Not process or process. Neither excites me. Mike loves manufacturing. He loves tooling. He loves engineering.
    10:31
    So he is like a proper kind of engineering nerd. And I am not an engineer. I don't have an engineering mind. That's why I often struggle with my pinball repairs and arcade repairs because I'm not from that world. It takes a very special person to be an engineer. Salespeople hate engineering clients. Ah, well, yes. Because we don't speak the same language. Yes, sales and engineering do not speak the same language at all. That I can, yes. I'm from a very sales-oriented kind of background. Ah, no wonder we don't understand each other. That's right. I am very weird that way. But the other thing, like my clients who are engineers, man, they want details. They want a million different scenarios. They want to know the possible ins and outs of everything that could possibly. But the thing is when you're dealing in an industry like I deal with or like most industries, you can't plan for every possible outcome. so you end up just kind of going around in a circle forever and quite frankly that engineering mindset fits very well in our hobby doesn't it uh yeah in a hobby with complicated machinery yes yeah totally so it was of course he would become the founder of a pinball and video game manufacturer wouldn't he now mike finished his electronics apprenticeship and he worked in radio and tv repair for a short period of time until he met a family friend who was a pinball operator who needed help and mike says and i'm not going to do an australian accent i think i think our fans will appreciate that they really they really hate when you go oh let's do another shrimp on the barbie yeah yes no this is a professional uh podcaster mike's really upset when you when you oh let's go out here with the kangaroos okay all right well mike says what happened was Bally Playboy was released and this operator used to have a standing order of two or three new machines with every new model that came out. Three new Bally Playboys got delivered to them and the technicians or ex-telecom servicemen opened up the back box and their jaws all dropped. Here was all this electronic stuff that they had no clue about. They were fine fixing the EM machines. They had no problem at all because this was effectively the next step up from telephone exchanges and so on. I had just come out of my apprenticeship and here I was an electronics technician and that shows you how long ago this this was but 1978 then so this is that transition from em to solid state right so you've got all these people all these people who've literally grown up in an industry of relays and switches and you know balancing things and sanding the relays down and they just they know that stuff like the back of their hand all of a sudden they open up this machine and there's not a single relay in there you know what i mean like immediately you're like, oh, I'm out of a job. There would be a flipper relay. But yes, I get where you're going. But here is the new up-and-coming youngster who's kind of at the right place at the right time, which is they've learned the new technology and all of a sudden, oh, that's, well, of course, it's just a board. No big deal. Here's how it works. They haven't had 20 or 30 or 40 years of experience on the old stuff. Remember the issues with Bally and organized crime?
    13:57
    There are ties to it, yes. Yes, we spoke about that way long ago, way back in the archives in our Bally episode.
    14:05
    We had these chats about like the Johnson Act. You know what I mean? Remember what that was? The whole gambling transportation of pinball machines. Well, Australia had a similar experience in the late 1980s. So they were a little bit behind when it came to kind of cracking down on cash business and organized crime that gravitated towards pinball. After a few years, Mike moved to another operator in Queensland to Queensland Automatics, and he worked with video games and gambling machines. and that's when the uh australian version of the johnson act came around which was the fitzgerald inquiry do you remember that the fitzgerald inquiry is it fits i don't see a t i just fit this gerald fizz gerald yeah fizz gerald it was the fizz gerald inquiry but then it says tony fitzgerald earlier in the article so maybe that's a misprint i don't know i'm i this is We're Silverball Chronicles. We're accurate enough. Well, it's Australia, so maybe it's not Fitzgerald. Maybe they say it's different. Let's just say it's Fitzgerald. The Fitzgerald Inquiry. Yes, Tony Fitzgerald QC was appointed to lead the inquiry following media reports about possible high-level police corruption involving gambling and prostitution. Damn. The inquiry took two years and its terms of reference were twice amended to extend its scope beyond the initial allegations raised. The inquiry resulted in the resignation of Queensland's premier, the calling of two by-elections, and the jailing of three former ministers and the police commissioner. What was going on in Queensland, man? It also contributed to the end of the National Party of Australia's 32-year run as the governing political party in Queensland. Wow.
    16:08
    Legit corruption happening in there. So that goes well beyond like – Yeah, pinball. A bunch of fellas in Chicago moving pinball machines across state lines over to New York City and hiding them in – what was the thing? Where did Roger Sharp play pinball? Is it in an adult bookstore or something? Something like that. Yeah, like that's what's happening in the States. Apparently in Australia they're running like an actual crime ring. They're going hardcore, yep.
    16:40
    Leave it to the Australians, a country founded as a penal colony, to go all in on government corruption. Well, Mike says there's a lot of corruption going on and backhanders and secret monies left in secret toilet cubicles all over the place. I know some stuff I had overheard, but it's not really relevant these days. It's long gone. And thank goodness, I was actually transferred by the company just before all those problems happened at their cons branch or cans branch, one or the other. I don't know how to say that properly. So Mike was the service manager. But after the Fitzgerald inquiry and the company closed, Mike was out of a job. So he started as a TV repair business and became an entrepreneur. and he started for 15 years at a thing called Cairns Electronics after he sold Cairns Electronics. But he was still looking for something to do. He had a friend who needed some help with a pinball machine and he went to help him out. The internet was starting and Mike, through many people that he knows, of course understood boards and how to repair these boards in a lot of these old machines. So it was very much a bit of a hobby business. and then it was 15 or 20 boards and it continued to grow mike along with his friends started working on importing some of these boards and making new refurbished boards making new and refurbished boards mike would source the materials and he would attend trade shows and he would build relationships around boards now ron a big thing on your other podcast the slam tilt podcast you're always talking about boards and replacement boards and battery leakage and all that stuff, right? That's like a core pillar of the Slam Tilt podcast.
    18:31
    Sure. It's a core pillar of modern pinball machines, but yes. Yeah, it's like a problem. Can you expand on that a little? Well, in the solid state era, when the machines aren't electromechanical anymore, they run on circuit boards, and circuit boards eventually go bad. They have things on them that go bad. They have components on them that go bad. They have batteries that leak corrosive acid and ruin the boards. And maybe you need a new board.
    18:57
    For years, I mean, you have to just fix all these yourself. But then as time has gone on, there have been more and more vendors that have these boards, replacement boards, that you can use to replace the originals. Many touted to be much better designs than the original boards were. Yeah, and you could replace parts easier if parts burned out or maybe there were more fuses in better places right like it's it it was really a huge deal when all of a sudden circuit boards became easy to manufacture now there is no domestic manufacturing of printed circuit boards in australia so of course you look to the world's manufacturing base, China, and that led Mike to go to China to find a place to build boards. I went there and I found a few things for various people and started importing stuff and started a small importing business. The main reason for that was that these business people could not justify buying a container loaded product A or product B. I rented a little place in Guangzhou, China. It was the size of a 220-foot container. I would just buy three boxes of this and 10 boxes of that for various customers. Once I had enough gear, I would bring it all into Australia and distribute out of Brisbane from there. Back in sort of the 90s and the 2000s, to go to Asia or go to China, you couldn't just ship a T-shirt from Asia, right? There was no sort of Timu at the time, right? You had to actually have a whole container to make it worth your while. But the thing is, if you only needed 40 circuit boards for a System 1 Gottlieb, You know, you're not going to buy enough to fill an entire container. So there's an opportunity here for Mike. It was pretty smart. All of a sudden he was building like this hobby business. But what about starting HomePin? Well, my goodness. At this time, 2010, right, there wasn't like a whole lot of manufacturers in pinball in 2010. There's basically Stern and there's kind of the startup of Jersey Jack. They haven't released anything yet in 2010, 2011, 2012, but they're kind of grinding away in the background.
    21:13
    They will release by 2012, yes. Well, Mike says more and more people, just ordinary lay people, were buying pinball machines to have at home, which was kind of unheard of. I thought, well, there might be an opportunity here. so it seems like Mike is the kind of individual whose engineering mindset allows them to identify opportunities right there's there's opportunities here or there right there was an opportunity to come out of school and and work in in repairing these machines and boards then there was an opportunity to kind of get higher up in there and then when that kind of went bust maybe I could build pinball machines for ordinary people. So that's when Mike says that he started investigating the possibility of a license, because I figured a licensed pinball machine was going to sell better than an unlicensed pinball machine. I didn't want to have the Avengers or Superman or something that was pretty high-end. In the end, ITV in London accepted my proposal for Thunderbirds. I was able to convince them that I was indeed able to set up manufacturing in a facility and build these machines.
    22:28
    So he's identified you need an IP, right? Isn that a thing that people struggle to understand in this hobby Yeah at least he got that part You need a license You need a license And why do you need a license
    22:44
    Just you need a license to get people to buy the game. You need a property that people know that like, oh, yeah, okay. The original themes just doesn't work. It just doesn't work. The original themes used to work back in the day because the people buying the machines either had to buy those machines because they were contractually obligated to buy a certain number of machines from Williams or Bally, or they didn't have any licensed themes and that's what they bought. And the reason the players today remember those nostalgic themes of theater and magic and medieval madness is because they had to play those machines because there was no alternative at the time. the industry is totally different you need an ip if you don't have an ip don't build the machine unless you're okay selling 25 but he's hit something very smart here so the problem with manufacturing in china from my understanding of the aussie pinball podcast episode number 16 that's where a lot of this information comes from so setting up a factory in China is not as easy as just getting a building and then building the pieces in that building. You still need to build pieces in different factories or buy materials from different factories from all over China. So my understanding by listening to this podcast, and it was quite confusing trying to map out where all the stuff is moving from, because again, Mike is an engineer, so he's very details so he gives a lot of details which end up confusing people like me well the thing is you can export anything from china but importing things into china is near impossible right because they're very much like and that's the problem that that trade that world trade is having with china right is the china wants to give you its stuff but it doesn't necessarily want to buy your stuff so that causes problems if you're trying to build factory equipment or mechanisms to build equipment for a pinball machine, to manufacture a pinball machine, or build equipment or build mechanisms for a pinball machine. My understanding was that Hong Kong, which is part of China but is a semi-autonomous state, Mike spent a lot of time shipping stuff into Hong Kong, then from Hong Kong to mainland China to help build this equipment. Yep. He even set up an office in Hong Kong. And that's super, super common in China is you set up a business, you set up something like almost like a shell in Hong Kong. It goes to Hong Kong on paper or it goes into one port and then out the other. That's something that Americans and Canadians don't understand on a high level basis. Throw it into Google and read all about the political situation in China and Hong Kong and all of that stuff. I don't want to get into it, but that is really common. Does that make sense? Makes sense to me. Okay. Stern or Jersey Jack, right, what they do is they've got a plant in the United States, and they buy from various vendors. Most of the vendors are in the U.S. Like, they'll buy steel or aluminum from Canada, and they'll manufacture a ramp assembly. and then they will sell the ramp assembly to Stern, who will then kind of build it and put it in the pinball machine. Or they'll buy softwood lumber from Canada, and then that will get made into a play field or a cabinet by another company, and then it will end up in Stern's factory, and then they kind of bolt it together. Or their circuit boards from China. Or they buy circuit boards from China because China is cool with exporting from China into the U.S., And then it gets bolted into the machine and it all comes together. Where in China, it's like you got to kind of circumvent the system all the time to try to get stuff in and out. Or out is easier. In is harder. Yeah, in is the problem. But once you get it all set up in China, then it becomes a lot easier. The other weird thing that Mike talks about in China is if you're setting up a small or medium-sized factory in a place in China, you have to create what they call an accommodation block next to the factory or close to the factory. So what does an accommodation block mean? It's where the employees live, I assume. It's like apartments. So you're required to build an accommodation block or five, six, seven apartments that are attached or adjacent to the factory for your factory workers to live in. So that's very alien to Americans, North Americans and those in the West, right? We live in our house, we get in our car, we drive to our work, our factory or cubicle, and then we drive home. That's not the story in China. In China, you come from outside in the rural areas, and then you live at your factory. And then if you ever get a vacation, you sometimes go back to the rural parts of China. Now, here's another cool thing. Did you know HomePen is metric? That would make sense. Right, because metric makes a hell of a lot more sense than the imperial measurement system. What is Australia? Is Australia metric? Australia is metric, but they're like Canada, where we still, for some reason, use a lot of the imperial system when it comes to like measuring and building houses it's really annoying or or wait super annoying we we have a mixture in canada is very annoying so i installed some wine racks in my basement the other day and do you have any idea how freaking hard it was to use imperial system of like seven and three-eighths and seven and nine-eighths and seven and a quarter and oh my god it's great isn't it that's what i'm used to you know what's so easy the metric system it just it's one to a hundred well mike says people ask him why is your stuff metric well that's pretty simple because 99 of the world is metric get with the program it's time that people woke up to themselves and realized that nine nine hundred and sixty fourths of something is pretty stupid measurement. We asked the Chinese about making something in 716ths and they said, yes, we can do that, but it's double the price. Metric's pretty great. I mean, I believe, is it metric used to send people to the moon and stuff, even in the U.S.? I believe all that was metric. If it needs to be 100% accurate and science-y and stuff, yeah, it's going to be metric. It's just 11 centimeters. It's 10 centimeters. What's a centimeter? It's so weird. Meters. A meter. I don't get it. One meter. My socket set does have imperial and metric, so you'd be happy. You'd be okay with it.
    29:39
    But, you know, a typical American, they'll be like, three-eighths, this isn't working. Oh, God, is this metric? And they've got to go reach for the metric size. Like, oh, stupid. That's the typical reaction. Here's the other thing, okay? If you're going to China and you want to manufacture something,
    29:56
    manufacturing 200 of anything is a joke. Yeah, it's not a lot. You want to manufacture 200,000 or 2 million. Like 200 of something is a joke. So that's really kind of a weird thing that happens in China. So he's spending all this time, he's spooling up this kind of makeshift factory. Now, everybody, when they picture a factory in Asia or a factory in Europe or in the North America, They picture this huge facility, materials in a parking lot, all that stuff. In reality. I don't picture materials in a parking lot. I picture them in a section of the building. No, but I mean like a big parking lot and a big building. It looks like one of those Amazon buildings, and you go inside and there's some offices. I got one of those right next to me. Yeah, that's kind of what you expect. But in Asia, a manufacturing facility might just be like a small garage or a medium or large size garage that is then now a manufacturing plant for something. Not everything is Foxconn building iPhones, you know, especially when you're only building 200 of something. So Mike, of course, is picking away. He's got it kind of built up and he's got this small little factory with a few workers and some apartments. and just before he was about to launch Thunderbirds, Mike's wife passes away, which causes a lot of issues with his corporation and his life. Yeah, Mike says, that brought with it a problem that I had no money and I had a factory with 10 plus staff in China with monthly bills and pretty much no income apart from some board sales, certainly not enough to support the factory. I was very fortunate for an overseas customer. When I told them my plight, they came in and said, look, we'll give you an advance order for these parts for the next three months. And here's a big chunk of money.
    32:01
    Ah, yes. Now that we've escaped the pinball network, we're truly independent. And now we can get the sponsors that we choose.
    32:12
    Like Zach and Nicole Minnie at Flippin' Out Pinball. When I buy my pinball, did I buy from Flippin' Out? From toppers or play series, I've got it figured out. Wow, that's a big deal. Having somebody pass away, especially somebody so close, and somebody who's got a job and all that stuff supporting you and building you through this, that's pretty difficult. So Thunderbirds ended up being stalled for like basically a year or two. 18 to 24 months. Yeah. And it had been four years since HomePen had sort of began this project of, you know, setting up these corporations and getting stuff shipped to Hong Kong and then into China and setting all that stuff up. But that delay let way and the building project continued again. But that's when more tragedy struck Mike from Home Pin. One of the factory workers didn't show up for work on Monday. And it turned out the worker was in Mike's apartment, which was next to the factory, and that they had passed away in that apartment. This was a massive problem. because the apartment that he died in was not one of the workers' apartments, but was actually Mike's apartment. And that caused a lot of legal issues and costs. Well, Mike says, the cops came because the guy's wife complained that I'd worked this guy to death. They took three of my key staff away, my English-speaking secretary and two of my engineers, to the police station and grilled them for a couple hours. They came back at lunchtime, and they said they were asked if I was an ogre foreign boss, and did I work them on reasonable hours. And they said, no, no, he's the best boss we've ever had. Then they dismissed that line of inquiry. Could you imagine how terrifying that would be? You know what I mean? It would be more terrifying if I was in China when that happened. As long as I'm not there, they can't arrest me. Being in another country and not knowing sort of their rules and social norms and things like that It's really weird. So then all of a sudden there's like a death and then you're blamed for that death. That's got to be just sheer terror. But it eventually got worked out because he wasn't an ogre foreign boss and he wasn't working his staff an unreasonable amount of time. Worker might have had a heart attack for all you know, right? Like it's, you know, that's how it goes. But we finally got to the launch of Home Pin. This is exciting stuff. there's a new pinball machine manufacturer. Sure, it's 2017, and it's been five or six years, but we're finally there, right? Yeah, Mike says, I got to admit, initially I was a bit worried because we've just released it to the market, and I didn't quite know what to expect, to be honest. And that game would be Thunderbirds.
    35:26
    Now, Thunderbirds is the creepy sci-fi marionette theme. Wait a minute, did you put creepy in there? no no it's the creepy sci-fi it officially launched of january of 2018 we don't know how many units were produced we don't know who designed the machine but it was probably mike now there's mechanics by an individual called eddie wang and this is his only credited game the dots on the dot matrix display were done by glenn lewis alexander chu and uh Roger Bergen, who was only credited to this game. The art for this was Federico Barbato, Grant Higgins, and of course, that were their only credited games, Music and Sound by Eddie Wang, and Software by Eddie Wang, your favorite software designer, is that correct?
    36:25
    Oh, sure. Thunderbirds is a theme. Yep. Before we get into this code, the manufacturing, the build and feel, let's just talk about the theme. We said IP absolutely critical. Yep. Thunderbirds is a British science fiction television series created by Jerry and Sylvia Anderson. Now, you are a huge Thunderbirds fan. Well, okay. I'm a mystery science theater fan. And in the early seasons, they had two mole people, and their names were Jerry and Sylvia. And they were named after Jerry and Sylvia Anderson. And, yes, it's called Supermarionation.
    37:08
    Supermarionation. That was, like, literally a thing. So what did they call the thing with, what did they call the thing on Funhaus with Rudy? What was he? Oh, Creepy? Did you just put Creepy in that name? No, it was like they had a certain name for that. Yes, they had a name. I can't remember what it is. But the Supermarionation thing, I still like because that's what was used. That's what Team America World Police is. Yeah, so it was filmed between 1964 and 1966, and it used electronic marionettes. So it wasn't quite as like that old school marionette. Their faces were different. They kind of are. They're marionettes. Yeah, but they weren't like the old school ones, like before the 1960s, where like you had to physically move the mouth like with a string. Like these had like electronics in the faces and stuff. Well, Thunderburst follows the exploits of the Tracy family, headed by American industrialist and ex-astronaut Jeff Tracy. Jeff is a widower with five adult sons, Scott, John, Virgil, Gordon, and Alan. The Tracy's make up International Rescue, a secret organization founded to save human life. They are aided in this mission by technologically advanced land, sea, air, and space vehicles that are called into service when conventional rescue methods prove ineffective.
    38:37
    Okay, so what do you think of Thunderbirds as a theme? For Australia, that was a hit. I mean, it was very popular in Australia. It was not big in the U.S.? No. Did you guys have these marionette shows? The earliest marionette show I remember, and if someone wants to look this up, they're hilarious. There was, in the 90s, it was on MTV. It was called the Super Adventure Team. It only has like five or six episodes, but it was similar. It had a team fighting crime, and it was a comedy. And it was hilarious. And I absolutely loved it. There were episodes where, like, terrorists have kidnapped the Queen of England.
    39:26
    So it was sort of like a spoof of Thunderbirds? And their demands are they demand to see Kiss. They want to see the band Kiss and stuff like that. And because they were MTV, they could actually use all Kiss's music. So that's in the episode.
    39:41
    Yeah. That's the only place I remember seeing this marionette style in this country. I'm sure someone on cable had old Thunderbirds episodes. But it was not a thing outside of sort of the dominions of which the UK existed. The show was very big in Australia. It was big in Australia. It was very big in England. In fact, a friend of the show, Mark Silk, voiced the new version of Thunderbirds Are Go, which was on the BBC.
    40:16
    It's a big cultural thing there, and it was fairly large in Canada. In fact, when I was a kid in the early 90s, there were a lot of reruns of Thunderbirds, and I watched it, and I think Thunderbirds is a frigging awesome thing. And do you want to hear something very embarrassing? Sure, if it's about you. It's not that embarrassing, but it's embarrassing nonetheless to me. Okay. So I kind of came into the hobby in around the summer of 2018.
    40:45
    And then by the fall of 2018, there was the launch of Deadpool, and Batman 66 was finally getting revamped, and I think Beatles was on the horizon, and there was Guardians of the Galaxy. So there was a lot of stuff going on. And I'm like, wow, I would love to buy a pinball machine. And I'm looking for a theme that resonates for me. Somebody new coming into the hobby is looking for a theme that resonates with them. They're not looking for an original theme. I get looking around and I found Thunderbirds. And I'm like, that's an awesome theme. I love Thunderbirds. And then I'm looking at this thing and I'm seeing the flyer for Thunderbirds. Okay. Let's take a look at that. Yeah, we need to take a look at the flyers. And I look at this flyer, and I'm like, the art is awesome. It's a Jerry Anderson production.
    41:41
    Thunderbirds. It's not a very good front page of the flyer. It has the art of the cabinet. It's got Thunderbirds. It's got, like, lightning in the sky. But it's got a picture of the cabinet. Yeah, it's got a picture of the cabinet with the play field grayed out in a way you would do if you didn't want to unveil it yet. or didn't actually, it wasn't done yet. It was like what you're sending to the licensor to get their approval? Yeah, yeah. So immediately I'm like, oh, well, that's weird, but the art is really cool. I'm super excited to see that. So then I look at the back of the flyer, and what do I see here? You see all the action of the international rescue team and their vehicles. You see eye-catching graphics. Each machine is individually numbered with a certificate of authentication. Real mechanical pinball action Single level play field With ramps and subways So it's just got like a list It's got like a list of stuff It doesn't show the game Floor saver feet Programmable electronic coin mechanism Oh wait a minute I thought the floor saver feet were going to be Something like feet that adjust or something But it's just like a list of stuff It doesn't actually have a picture of the pinball machine Oh that was on the front Yeah, but no play field. So that's kind of my first little experience of it is like, oh, well, that's an awesome theme. So then I got to go searching. And I eventually did find the photos of the play field and stuff like that. And what really excited me here were a couple of things. So I'm looking at like Deadpool, which I kind of liked. And I'm looking at Guardians of the Galaxy stuff. And they got all these flat plastics and all that stuff. but Thunderbirds has these molded toys so each character John and Virgil and all those guys they all had a ship right they had a ship or a boat or a rocket or a submarine or a some kind of something and all of those are on the playfield in a 3d molded kind of way and I'm thinking that's cool this company has gone the extra step and i was like and it's got but then i investigated a little further and i think i might have dodged a bullet what do you think uh i mean i played it so so before we get into that it's got all the things you want it's got molded interactive toys it has a layout which looks fine it's got hand-drawn art which is really good how did the launch go however uh there was a lot oh uh flipper issues not making the ramps ramps cracking let's see flipper buttons are sharp i i don't think i had that issue i did have the issue of not able to make the ramp i did have that issue so that was pretty common was that the original plastic ramp was too steep or something or the flippers weren't strong enough then there was problems with the ramps that were plastic at the mounting points were cracking so then they sent out new metal ramps for everybody on those launch games and i'm a you know a couple months into the hobby and of course i'm i'm the kind of guy that does not part with a dollar very easily i will part with a dollar and i will pay you a dollar and a half if i have to as long as i feel like I getting something of value And I quickly learned oh the theme speaks to me It looks like they done a lot of the things right but kind of the bits like the crux of it just they haven quite hit it correctly My major issues were the ramp and the fact that you have to spell international rescue by hitting the ramp. So you need to, every time you hit the ramp, you get a letter in international rescue. Right, which seems pretty – it seems kind of a thing. Like usually you collect letters or you collect teammates or something. International rescue is how many letters. You have to hit the ramp that many times. It's quite insane. And the other thing, on at least the one I played, you lock a ball and then you do something to get the multi-ball.
    46:02
    But if you lock the ball, the first ball, and you drain out of the second ball, it just releases the first ball back. It's almost like a ball saver. And it just did that over and over like I was playing forever.
    46:16
    So that was like a bug in the code? Most of my issues were more code related and the fact that then that ramp. That's what I remember most of it. So here's me, right? Fresh into the hobby. I don't know. Good from bad.
    46:33
    So I'm thinking, okay, maybe I can afford a pinball machine. I can't afford, you know, like $11,000 Canadian, right? Maybe I can afford like eight, you know, shipping and taxes and all that in. You should have got Deadpool. Deadpool Pro. He's Canadian. I certainly missed out on that one. Yeah, that will forever bum me out that I didn't go with that. But the thing is I didn't buy anything. So I found a tag team in somebody's basement and spent the end of the summer frigging around with soldering and how do you fix things and all that. I like tag team. So I was learning a lot of the important skills that you need to learn as I was kind of watching the market. As a person who works in financial markets, I study markets and I don't enter markets unless I fully understand the pros and cons and value and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm watching and I'm thinking, I would be the perfect demographic for somebody who's looking for a cheap pinball machine that's straightforward and looks like it has more value in the toys and molds and sculpts than the big manufacturer. As I'm reading through a lot of the feedback of this pinball machine and some of the issues here and there, I realize maybe that pinball machine is not for me. in fact the pinside top 100 list thunderbirds is ranked 299 it's pinside though i don't pay much fine well now it's 200 as of today it's 313 it's two behind bugs bunny's birthday ball and 310 Raven? Gottlieb's Raven is 310? Come on, Raven's not that bad.
    48:28
    Thunderbirds is worse than Hercules, it says. Is this machine being review-bombed? Are you aware of this term, review-bomb, that people just pile on for the fun of it? Oh, yes, yes, and yes, that happens with everything. Movies. Do you think this is the worst pinball machine ever made? No. Well, what does Mike think of all of the negativity? I'll tell you what he thinks. Mike says, I think there's a lot of negativity from people who want their 15 minutes of fame. They want to jump on the bandwagon. Oh, yeah, get the pitchforks out. There's suddenly experts that can comment whether favorably or negatively, but obviously majority negatively. I quickly learned to dismiss 95% of what was said. I would only listen to people who said, yes, I have actually played the machine. it came home to me quite clearly when one supposed expert commented they played one ball and walked away with it sitting there some people say the worst call out in pinball history no is player two you're up no on thunderbirds is it quite that bad no so he's kind of right that people are kind of jumping on and being negative and crap i'll give him the last statement when people said like I played one ball and like walked away. Like, really? That's that's it. You play one ball. But there's also a lot of of feedback that he's also getting that is accurate, that there are various problems with it. But I think he's also dismissing that. Is that is it true that maybe both of them are too far apart that they can't see each other? I think if you listen to episode 16 of the Aussie Pinball Podcast and hear the way Mike says these things, that will give you your answer. Basically, he's saying all feedback is BS, even though there is a lot of truth to what some people are saying. Some people are overly harsh and ridiculous because they think it's funny. That is true. So you mentioned the code. You struggled with the code. What's Mike's reply to the code? Well, let's see. Mike says, I approach pinball more from a technicians or technical side rather than a player side. I'm not a pinball player. I love playing pinball. I love bashing the ball around and having fun. But the thing I dislike the most is a competition. I cannot stand the competition with 10 people or fighting one another. They're designed for you and I to bang the ball around, have a bit of fun, have a couple of beers and a laugh. Oh, I beat you. I got 10 points more than you. whoop-dee-doo that's just not my bag okay so who are the people that have the biggest issue with the code uh i mean do you want me to say tournament players because i i don't know if it's just tournament players if i'm playing a game where i lock a ball and then i drain out and it just gives me the ball back like okay after a while i'm like man this is kind of super easy i i could play this forever. I don't think you need to be a tournament player to get that reaction, but I could be wrong there. Hey, Pinheads. I just wanted to let you know that when I'm not making cheesy jokes to make Ron laugh, I'm David, the financial advice guy. At Dennis Financial, our advisors strive to provide a return on life for our clients, not just a return on investment. The value of advice is something that we take seriously. A valuable financial advisor doesn't just provide investment and insurance advice. That's because an advisor takes the time to gather intimate knowledge about their primary client, understand their personal preferences, recognize their fears and hopes, and gain knowledge about their client's errors before providing financial advice. If you're looking for a more human dimension to your financial advice, Dennis Financial Inc. has you covered with advisors licensed in most Canadian provinces. We're also doing secure online meetings to engage with clients who need advice but don't necessarily want to wear pants or leave their house contact me via email at david at dennisfinancial.net for a free rate quote and a copy of our value of advice ebook or check out dennisfinancial.ca insurance solutions provided by dennisfinancial inc canadian residents only so mike is basically saying that the tournament tournament competition folks are all being mean and crapping on this game because they want Keith Elwin or they want this level of competition and back and forth and fighting each other.
    53:08
    But what Mike is really designing it for is just to flip around, shoot the ramps, and have a beer. Yeah, his games are not for pinball players, as he said. Which is a bit ridiculous. That is weird. That is a weird statement to make. he's making a pinball machine for somebody who goes into a a billiards purchasing place and they've got thunderbirds and they go yeah i got eight grand i'll just buy one of those and then they take it home and flip around i believe what he said something like it's people just want to you know have the man cave they just have pinball machine there you go over there play a couple games and you know that's it right which is which is totally understandable i totally get that however that is a very very small market pinball is a small market to begin with but if you're just looking for a random person to walk into like your store and buy one of these things that's even smaller so instead of 2 000 pinball machines maybe we're talking about a hundred i will agree with him though it got ridiculous after point where it was just like you know it's just cool to crap on this game you know even if you've never played it i mean i can say i've actually i played several games of it so and and yes the ramp was really hard and it seemed ridiculous that i had to spell international rescue by hitting it that many times yeah like back in the back in the 80s or the the late 70s right you would just like you'd you'd collect lanes one through four and you shoot the thing and that was fine and you had a beer but pinball has moved on from that even the Even when you play a Bally Williams nowadays and you're like, oh, I got to shoot all these things and things. That code in a 90s Bally seemed like it was further ahead than this, right? I'm just trying to think of the game where a game other than where you have to spell something that's that long.
    55:06
    Even in Iron Man, you have to spell monger, six letters. But this is international rescue. I think he even stated that that was like a last second thing because they had the insert. They had I think it's on the back panel where it said and they had nothing. It wasn't anything for it to do. So they decided last second, like that's what they're going to program it. OK, you hit the ramp and spell out international rescue.
    55:33
    Yeah. So this is the first pinball machine, the first kick at the can, spooling up a whole thing inside of China, in mainland China, which is a whole issue. It's difficult. Mike's wife dies. He's investigated for working his employee to death. Stuff has not been easy, but they got their first pinball machine done. Is it perfect? No. It's a cool theme. It's got the sculpts and stuff. The code lacked – some people said that the plastic on the buttons, the flipper buttons was sharp around the edges because they didn't just use those – what is it? Hapso flipper buttons. Oh, Hap. They literally manufactured their own buttons, right? Where Stern just buys the same buttons that everybody buys for arcade machines since the beginning of time.
    56:30
    I get it. So you get some things, you learn from it, and you move on. Even more issues appear for Mike and HomePin in Shenzhen, China, which is one of the major manufacturing hubs. So what started to happen there? Well, a year to 18 months later, things changed drastically. Suddenly, factories weren't wanted. The Chinese leadership wanted more IT business and less manufacturing. HomePen were getting two to three inspections every week by a different government department. Fire department one week, electrical the next week. It was someone else the week after. They had to open a second facility out of Shenzhen to make the playfields and cabinets, the dirty work, and assemble them in the original factory. So Shenzhen doesn't want these small, annoying, building 200 or something factories. They want these big IT facilities. So now you've got a second factory outside of Shenzhen that's doing all of the cabinets and spraying the chemicals and the clear coat and the whatever, and then it's being shipped to the original factory to being built together. It started to become a big mess. And Mike says, the government changed a lot. Under the new regime, things have changed very drastically. And anyone that goes to China regularly or does business, they will tell you the same thing. That is just not what it used to be. It was obviously becoming more and more authoritarian, and we needed to get out of it. The whole business model of Home Pin was build a factory on mainland China, make a pinball machine dirt cheap, sell it in the States to a guy who wants to flip around and have a beer and a laugh with his friends.
    58:13
    So here's the thing. I wanted to find more information. I wanted to see kind of more beyond this podcast. well I mean the HomePin website has not been updated since 2017 or at least the copyright at the bottom of the page hasn't been updated since 2017 it doesn't have their newer games there no so a lot of that stuff is back and forth but it's all being managed through their Facebook page right so you can go to their Facebook page and it has all their new up to date stuff so it's And it still says on that web page that Mike has established and personally manages a fully functional factory from scratch in Shenzhen, China, designed to produce high-quality pinball and arcade machines. During this time, Mike has gained essential experience identifying and dealing with a multitude of Chinese suppliers to ensure reliable quality components are available. That's interesting that that hasn't been updated.
    59:21
    So it says that on the official website. But he's not in China anymore. So he leaves, and I'm going to put this in air quotes, China, right? So I mentioned before there's China, then there's Hong Kong, which is like a semi-astonimous state, and then there's Taiwan. But there's a whole thing about China, mainland, and Taiwan. well, Mike, he wasn't really able to identify or deal with a multitude of Chinese suppliers and provide reliable components on mainland China. So that's when, in about 2019, he decided to move his entire factory from mainland China to Taiwan. Seems like a pretty good deal, huh? Well, as it works out. And he's made two more games, so it worked out. So China doesn't want him there on the mainland anymore. He's not making enough. He doesn't have IT services. It's not a big thing. It's a big pain in the ass. But they get a sweet deal to help out a company that is near and dear to my heart, Porsche. Ah, well, you said it right, too. Now, they had a special set of one-off machines ordered, and they had them manufactured by HomePin. Now, five of these machines apparently exist, and they were for promotional reasons. I don't know if there's one at the like Asia Porsche head office or there's one in. Yeah, I don't. I've never seen any of these. Yeah. But Mike has mentioned these a couple of times on a few podcasts where he made the Porsche machines. And it's a big sort of badge of honor. You weren't able to order them. There was no inquiries. He's not allowed to build anymore. But apparently he built five of them for Porsche. This is when I heard rumblings that after Joe Balser had left American Pinball, he had a brief chat in a stint employed with Homepin it was for a cup of coffee he was there I think probably for about a week and a half Joe Balser, a little difficult to deal with didn't get along with Mike and then he left well do we know that?
    61:30
    apparently he worked remotely from somewhere in the states and he was there for like two weeks but this is when the awesomeness of the next theme comes. So he knows, Mike knows, you need IP. And the IP that he went with is he went with a cult classic movie, and that spoof movie theme was, this is Spinal Tap. Have you seen Spinal Tap? He wanted to turn it up to 11. Yeah, I was waiting for that. He ran it to the gate.
    62:02
    And no, I have not seen Spinal Tap. I have not seen Spinal Tap either. I've seen lots of scenes from it where I feel like I've seen it, but I haven't actually seen it. Well, let's start with the theme. So this is a film that was made in 1984, and it is an American mockumentary comedy. It is done by the filmmaker Marty D. Berge and is filmed in a documentary style, which is directed by rob reiner in his debut of directing this film so this is before like the office and before the trailer park boys and before community before that sort of mockumentary style thing was cool and popular yeah to the point where people thought it was a real band when they saw the movie yeah yeah the film is about an english rock band and it called spinal tap and their 1982 United States concert tour, which was to promote their new album, Smell the Glove.
    63:06
    This is Spinal Tap is credited to be effectively launching the entire mockumentary genre of film making. This film did not go over huge, but it is a massive cult following. Now the thing with small boutique manufacturers like Spooky or, in this case, Homepin. The best thing to do is to go with a cult-following thing because you can probably sell more to that community. Well, it had a $2 million budget, this film, and it made $4.7 million in the box office.
    63:47
    Now, the film has been caught up for years and years and years in various copyright and legal issues with lawsuits left and right from filmmakers, directors, to the company that actually made it. It was a huge thing. However, in 2020, the rights were returned to the cast, and they're making a new one, which is coming out this year. That is why you're seeing more and more of Spinal Tap stuff since 2020. You've seen a re-release of the thing on 4K. You've seen, you know, more merchandise. You've seen more. That's because now the cast is involved in that. There's a sequel. Rob Reiner apparently is working on that sequel, which is supposed to launch in 2025.
    64:37
    This is Spinal Tap is a dream theme for a lot of people in pinball. That's true. Not me. You know what's interesting? I just thought of this. That means Rob Reiner has two pinball machines now. Yeah. What's this other one? Princess Bride. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Directed Princess Bride. So what does Mike say about landing this license? He says, they settled and the boys got their license, their IP back. I was just Johnny on the spot at the right time because they'd only just got their license back. I was on the doorstep looking to license it. Their agent was a Kiwi lady living in London, and she and I had a Zoom call and got on very well. I explained to her what we did and what we wished to do, and she was very pleased about that. He was the first person at the door knocking on it, willing to offer them a check for their IP. Yep. That is how this is Spinal Tap ended up at Home Pin and not Stern.
    65:39
    Or whoever. Spooky. Because they were the first at the door. Well, good on them. And a Kiwi was involved, so he had an in there. So a Kiwi is somebody not from Australia. They're from that other one. New Zealand. It's the same thing. Oh, oh. They probably hate that. No, it's not. That's like my line. I'm the guy that makes that line. Now you've gone and offended an entire nation. Yep, an entire nation. Silverballchronicles at gmail.com. Send your hate mail. Care of Ron Hallett. did mike learn anything from thunderbirds like they had some issues they had some coding problems they had some manufacturing issues so you you take that and you learn don't you well he didn't want an lcd in there yeah they wanted to go dot matrix right he wanted to dot mate just like the old machines but he relented because they figured they had to show clips from the movie yeah people sort of kind of demanded at this point lcd screens in their pinball machines and that's what the lcd does it shows clips from the movie and that's it it's got a dot matrix display that does all the rest of it so a dot matrix display on the bottom has the actual like scores and what to do and what to shoot for and the lcd screen above it just literally plays clips of the film yeah did the manufacturing change a whole lot well not so much did the pricing remain the same no four $4,000 for U.S., $4,000 U.S. for Thunderbirds. Final tap is $9,600 U.S. Yeah, which might be higher now because of the whole tariff stuff. Mike more or less kind of doubled down, I would say. I think he dismissed a lot of the feedback because a lot of it was crapping on it, which was not cool. He says, I spent an unbelievable amount of money and time on experts in inverted commas trying to get USB to work. None of them at the end of the day could make it work. Not satisfactory anyway. That's to try to have USB updates for the code. Right. So he tried to get code updates. So, like, once it left the factory, it was, like, done. Right? Like there was no like at Stern you plug in a USB on those SAM systems and it updates the system Now it updates over wi or you get a uh well i believe you you could update them but it a chip replacement you have to get a yeah just like older games yep so let's talk about this did you have played this is spinal tap uh yes have you played that yes i have i have not seen one of these i kind of wanted to because again what happened the one i played was like the upper model like it had the skull topper thing so what happened when this game launched immediately people started just crapping all over it crapping all over it every time home pin gets a license they're like oh no we don't want them to get the license etc and it took a while because they made it they made the initial one and then i think they added a flipper after the initial design there was some There were some design changes. This is the COVID era. We've talked about this previously. COVID era was very difficult for pinball manufacturing in general. All right, so let's wind it back.
    68:57
    They've moved factories to a different country. They've gone with a really awesome IP that people love. they've instituted an lcd and they're ready to go and then immediately the community the quote-unquote pinball community just craps all over it but they only have the promotional photos one prototype and people already well they also they brought to a show in australia so so this is when it goes off the rails is when people played it the art from thunderbirds was awesome in my opinion how is the art on this is spinal tab uh not as awesome not as awesome however that is kind of part of the what the lineage or the the the joke perhaps but it is photoshop terrible bad bad bad how would how would you would you say that that is accurate uh i would say it's definitely photoshop yes you want to get me to say stuff so bad don't you okay so i'm the nice guy here i'm trying to be completely objective do i think there are many games better than this one yes oh the skull okay wait a minute the skull topper is actually standard according to the advertisement okay so i wasn't looking at a special a special spinal tap pinball.com this is where we're at spinal tap pinball.com which i assume is the official yeah website from home pin let me see when the copyright of this page is 2025 okay it did have uh the promotional video do you remember this promotional video i do remember this promotional video yes i do do you remember how this promotional video went over uh not particularly well do you what what were the critiques that people had i mean they have what i assume is a taiwanese model like playing the game and trying and trying to be as sexy as possible as she's playing the game and that's That's kind of the focus of the video.
    71:19
    There's not very much of the game itself and more of the model. Wait a minute. So the skull's mouth is supposed to open according to this? It never did that in the one I played. Now, the sculpts are awesome, right? The toy things, right? Like all the things that you would imagine from China, like molded plastics and things like that. All look great.
    71:48
    But this video, I remember when this video came out, people were like, what is going on here? But that's for you to determine yourself. She's getting quite excited playing the game. It did not go over well, this machine. And I'll give them the benefit of the doubt here. Okay, it's a COVID era pin. Are there many of these out there? I only saw the one.
    72:14
    I don't think I've seen one either. I don't think there's been one at Pentastic. No, it was at Pentastic. That's where I played it. Was it? Yep. Geez, I don't know how I haven't seen it then. Well, you weren't at the last Pentastic, or you would have played it. Oh, that's right. I was elbows up here in Canada.
    72:33
    I played that, and I played the next game, too, that they made. Yeah, I mean, like I said, I think they added a third flipper. They made some design changes after the initial sample runs. I've hardly seen any of the Spinal Taps over here. The one at that show is the only one I've seen at Pentastic. I would love to know how many they sold. I really would. Are we talking 50, 100, 250? It would be interesting.
    73:08
    Anybody who had Spinal Tap was like their dream theme, just rough. So now let's get into the machine of which is currently in production. Production, yes. And I would consider this, so you know Capcom, when they did Break Shot? Yes. Kind of like their stripped down model, like single level, whatever you want to call it. So single level, didn't have any ramps, didn't have any, you know. That's what Home Pin's next game feels like to me. Like this is their version of that. Do you think this machine is designed to save money or something? Well, they wanted to make it cheaper machine. I think they said that. Okay. Because it's, look at the price on this. So this machine is Blues Brothers, the Blues Brothers. Yeah, the Blues Brothers, based off of the actual Blues Brothers and not the movie. Yes, it's the movie poster and name of the Blues Brothers theme. It's not the movie. It's based on them. And I'll get into that in a minute. Are you on a mission? Quote, unquote. A mission from God, of course, which is a quote from the movie that they don't have rights to. So they're not allowed to say that. So they're allowed to say, are you on a mission? And then it says, create your own Blues Brothers story as you play this fantastic new release from HomePen. And then it says, the world's first open source software machine, open source software pinball machine. yeah what does open source software mean means anyone commodify it you can make this thing do anything you want so if you don't like the fact it doesn't have any actual blues brother songs in it you could put it in there or if you wanted to you know what if you want it to be tournament rules make your own tournament rules and don't bitch and complain the blues brothers themselves very that was huge uh the films well the film this is not this is nothing to do with blues brothers 2000 thank god this is designed by mike mechanics by mike and the home pin team neil frazier does the graphics whoever that is and dick hamill does the original open source software code yep and he is no one in the community he did i think the meteor redo he's done a lot of re-redos of older games yeah he's taken kind of the older sterns or ballys or whatever and made new kind of different code he was on an episode of the slam till podcast he's done a lot of the early solid state games let's wind it back so it's the license that isn't a license on the the documentation and all the stuff it says Blues Brothers trademark, Jake Blues trademark, and Elwood Blues trademark. Elwood. I'm sorry, Elwood Blues trademark are registered trademarks owned by Applied Action Research Corp. and Judith Belushi and are used by permission under license from Blues Brothers Approved Ventures LLC. That's a mouthful. Now, that is different than the IP holders and the other people who own the Blues Brothers film. Which is probably like 10 of them. It would be a nightmare to try to get anything from that. Blues Brothers images are owned by one company, which what I assume would be Blues Brothers approved ventures, etc., etc., etc. And the film rights owned by the film people and whatever that is. So there's no film assets in the game. The only assets you get are pictures of the Blues Brothers themselves. So what does Home Pin say about this? It is very difficult to obtain full movie license. The problem is there are too many players all wanting a separate contract and a piece of the pie. With our new open source software, it is very, very easy to add your features for home use, of course. Ah, so what are we saying there? Uh, we're saying we're, the default software will highly have nothing in it as far as rights, but you can add all the stuff you want. Right. So you, being the pinball people, can create and download your own stuff and jam it in there anyway. And a lot of people do that anyway, right? Yeah. To Stern's dismay, yes, some people do that to their games. they go and they will add movie music or something from the james bond films or they'll have a jurassic park and they actually put clips from the movie in yeah which is like a huge no-no right like but they do it anyway um did you are you a blues brothers fan you fan of the blues brothers oh yeah so the blues brothers i didn't know this through my research the blues brothers is the first film, the film, not the pinball machine or what the pinball machine is named after, is actually after an original SNL sketch by Dan Aykroyd and Jim Belushi. Somewhat incorrect. And it's John Belushi, not Jim Belushi. I'm sorry, John Belushi. Yeah, the dead one. That's a common misnomer. That one clip of them on Saturday Night Live is the introduction. That's not true. They were around before that. they actually debuted they debuted like on i think it was the steve martin show which i didn't know he had a show but yeah they debuted there they were playing live and stuff for a while before their appearance on saturday night live but it's based it's based off of the characters jake and elwood blues that's why there are so many issues uh with the ip of this right Because they existed kind of before. Then they were on SNL. Then they had a film. Then they had the other film, which should probably remain nameless. They had a platinum album. Right. It's one of the biggest selling blues albums. And that's the other thing. Most of the songs are all blues covers. So the pinball machine itself, the art is awesome, in my opinion. The playfield art is cool. The playfield looks fun. What is that playfield, by the way? I will disagree with the art summation. You don't like the art? No, you've got to see it in person. Okay, because I think it looks cool. The play field is stars. Stars with some modifications, but basically stars. What are the modifications? What did they change? Just look at it. You can see what they changed. Is it the orbit on the right side? They added like a ramp, kind of a ramp. It's supposed to simulate when they jump over the bridge. yeah in the movie that's not part of this i wonder how they got away with that yeah and they added some targets some stuff on the upper right side but i mean that the base play field is stars so stars is amazing yes stars is an amazing shooter it's one of the greatest layouts of a single level they ripped off a good game did it did it pay off uh let's just say this had several of the same issues that Spinal Tap had, where you drain out, and it just kept giving me balls over and over. I literally could not end the game. Right, but you could just fix it yourself, Ron. It's got open source code. Okay, here's the problem. Why did it do the same exact thing on two different models? Two different games, it did the same thing. Right, but you can update the code yourself. You can fix the problem that's created. No, it was doing that on Spinal Tap. You can't update the code on that. Well, that doesn't matter. We're not talking about Spinal Tap. That game sucks. This is Blues Brothers. If it's feeding you balls when it shouldn't be, you just fix the code yourself. I will say... Just like Stern. It looks... It's tough to be diplomatic here. Basically, there were homebrews in the homebrew aisle that looked better than Blues Brothers. Oh, okay. Okay. So now are you crapping on this just like everybody else? I played at least five games of Spinal Tap, at least four or five games. Well, I tried to play four or five games of Star Wars, but when the games wouldn't end because it was endless. It was broke most of the show. They had to keep fixing it to get it back up, which kind of concerns me. But, yeah, I mean, even like the back box, some of the lighting was actually blocked by things in the back box, So you got like this, this, I can't explain. You'd have to see it in person. So like the boards in front of it were putting shadows. The topper that it has, the kind of topper that Blues Brothers has. It's just the guys with the like little pulleys and they just move their hands, their arms. It's yeah, it's just no. And this one doesn't have a DMD. Like I said, what my break shot analogy, this is their lower cost. It has alphanumeric displays. Mike has not necessarily learned from the feedback of which the community has provided. Some of that feedback being mean and not good, which should be ignored. Some of it being valid, which looks like it has been ignored because it's been lumped into the same as the other people. Would you say so? All I say is if you can find one of these, play it, and you can make your own opinion.
    82:46
    Don't listen to me, but I can tell you my opinion. it's disappointing. How much does it cost? You wanted to keep, so we started out at, what was it, like $5,000? $4,000, and then we went up with Spinal Tap. Then he wanted to make a cheaper game, which this is. Because you just want to have a game to bat around with your buddies. Bat around with your buddies, your non-pinball player buddies, just to play a couple balls of pinball. He's going to have to look at the exchange rate. So it's $7,000 Aussie money. Well, $6,800, but yes. Okay, so $6,800 Aussie money. That's what it said in the – Dollary dues. And that's about $4,400 U.S., let's say $4,500 U.S. Still more than Thunderbirds was. So let's add, let's say $4,400. That's cheaper than any Stern. That's cheaper than any – Yeah, so you've got to add a tariff to that. You got to add 10% tariff. So now you're at like $5,000, $4,800. It's still cheaper. Still cheaper. And you can do your own code. You can fix whatever problems are with it. Yes. Well, not physical problems, but yes, you can add all that music from the movie in there. You can put all the quotes in there. You can fix the ball saver. Now, this is assuming you're a programmer and you're just going to go through and do all this. So this is the person who's randomly looking for a pinball machine to bat around with their buddies and have a beer. who enjoys pinball enough to spend $5,000, who is also a computer programmer and able to program their own machine. Like we're getting pretty niche here, right? And there was other details about they were going to have a forum set up and you could, if you made modified versions, if they approve them, they'd be available for download and stuff like that. But I don't know how they could approve anything that had licensed music in it. I'm confused on how all that was supposed to work or how it is working. I don't know what's going on with that currently. It's a mess. There's no other way to say it. If you had someone who knew what they were doing, they'd add all the stuff in that everyone wants, and then you could just get it in a somewhat nefarious way, like, go to my Dropbox and download it. Here you go. But somebody that knows what they're doing is willing to put all that time and effort into it. They're buying Jaws. Yeah, they'd have to have this game, which is unlikely. They're buying Godzilla. Yeah. They're playing Keith Elwin's next game. They are buying Harry Potter because they are a slightly overweight millennial that wants to pretend they're a wizard. That is what's happening. So this niche that he's wanting to find does not exist. And if it does, there's 15 people in an already small hobby. And gosh darn it, I want people to succeed. And Mike has the smarts. He's got the manufacturing knowledge. Good Lord, this makes me mad. I'm all hot. I'm all hot and bothered. Well, Mike's final word is, we're just going to make a fun machine. We're not going to be hung up on whether it has deep rules that are a 10. You've got to hit this target and stand on one leg and do this and do that. It's not what we do. People have to get through their heads. That home pin doesn't do that. We leave that to the other people. If JJP, Spooky, Stern want to do that, knock yourselves out. That's great. That's your market. That's your bag. Fantastic. They'll fill that niche. We're aiming for a totally different market, which isn't the American market because he said he doesn't like Americans either.
    86:20
    He said that before, too. So maybe he likes Canadians, though. Maybe he'll like you guys. But again, if you want to know what Mike thinks of all this and what Mike thinks of everything, the Aussie Pinball Podcast episode with Mike, it is amazing. it is one of the single greatest interviews I've ever heard in any podcast I'm putting a plug out you need to listen to this it's all out there basically 90 of the quotes we just said are from there so remember this game is not for pinball people he's actually said those words if you're listening to this you're not even in the market for that it's just I find it humorous that now people get upset if he gets the license for something they like because they know they're going to hate the game I don't want to dog pile on home pin but if you don't learn from your mistakes how do we know their mistakes he might have sold a bunch of these and we just don't know we have no idea how many of these games he sold if Mike has listened to this send us an email with how many you've sent how many how many you've sent out how many you sold i'd love to let everybody know or or if it's enough like yeah yeah we're very we're very happy with what we've done then then he's all set and it doesn't matter it's fine if your goal is to sell a hundred of these things and you've done that you're living the dream just say that but not everybody needs to be stern i get it but good lord your ball saver should work before it leaves the factory three games in a row it was just it was just weird that i had the exact same kind of software issue with two games, two of their games, like the exact same one where it's just kind of, you're an endless ball saver and you can't drain. You have to tilt to finally drain out. That's the only way you can do it. And it was the same on both of them, which was so weird.
    88:22
    All right, I'm done. Wow, you seem too upset over this. I'm done. Mike is going to do what Mike's going to do. And we love him for it.
    88:33
    Remember, as always, you can send your comments, questions, corrections, and concerns. Or if you're Mike, you can tell us how many games you sold. Send it to silverballchronicles at gmail.com. I think somebody said I needed to retire Stewie. So I'm just doing my own voice here. Okay. We look forward to all the messages and we read every one. I don't know. It doesn't sound as good when I'm just saying it. What if it's Hogan? Oh, God, no. No. No wrestling voice. Turn on automatic downloads, brother, and don't miss a single episode. There you go. Leave us a five-star review where more people can find us, brother. That's right, join Patreon to support the show, dude. Become a pro crony, brother, and be a real American. Unless you're Canadian, of course. Remember, it starts at $3 a month. If you want to get access, really access to the episodes before everyone else, and you love stickers, and you want to join our Discord chat, you can join that for up to $6 a month and become a premium crony. But do you want all those perks and a shirt? Then you can join us for $20 a month as an elitist crony. just swing on over to silverballswag.com and pick up a Silver Bowl Chronicles t-shirt I'm partial to the ones that have my name first and I'm Ron
    90:01
    Bruce keeps texting me this was the day stop tickets went on sale and he's asking me do we increase the amount what do you want to do he sent me 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 texts while we've been going oh you're asking me? I don't know it's written there want to do that again? yeah thanks everybody for listening thank you