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Episode 132 - Star American Citizen

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·42m 22s·held·Jan 11, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Podcast stats, Nordman to American Pinball, Fix's controversial gatekeeping take on pinball knowledge.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast episode 132 covers podcast analytics for 2020 (25% listener growth), pinball industry news including Dennis Nordman joining American Pinball as senior game designer, and criticism of David Fix gatekeeping remarks about pinball knowledge. The hosts also discuss Twippy Awards voting changes and briefly touch on Star Citizen's ongoing crowdfunding campaign.

Key Claims

  • Dennis Nordman joined American Pinball as senior game designer (direct employee, not contract)

    high confidence · Announced Monday/Sunday per pinball news; confirmed via Super Awesome Pinball Show interview with Dennis Nordman and David Fix

  • Joe Balzer designed all three American Pinball games (Oktoberfest, Houdini, Hot Wheels) and will transition to contract basis

    high confidence · David Fix confirmed in interview; Balzer remains able to produce games on contract

  • American Pinball aims to expand production to 2-3 games per year (from ~1 game/year)

    high confidence · David Fix stated goal in Super Awesome Pinball Show interview

  • Dennis Nordman left Deep Root after completing ~3 designs due to slow production timelines

    high confidence · Nordman discussed reasons for departures in Super Awesome Pinball Show interview

  • Oktoberfest did not sell well according to industry grapevine

    medium confidence · Dennis (host) heard through informal channels; unverified sales figures

Notable Quotes

  • “That's what books are for. In terms of the notion that you cannot be educated about pinball unless you've lived it and experienced it is asinine.”

    Dennis (host) @ ~0:19:30 — Direct rebuttal to David Fix's gatekeeping stance that only 1990s-era pinball experience qualifies someone to have opinions on pinball

  • “He's just trying to say something that... He demeaned an entire medium of art, watercolor, because kids go to school with watercolor kits, that he thinks that that's not the serious form of art.”

    Dennis (host) @ ~0:21:00 — Analysis of Fix's failed Picasso analogy (claiming Picasso wouldn't paint watercolors when he actually did); illustrates Fix's poorly researched argument

  • “He wants to produce games... the problem he runs into with most of these companies is they are not producing games fast enough and so he gets done doing designs and he doesn't see any of his stuff come to fruition on a timetable that is of interest to him professionally.”

    Dennis (host) @ ~0:26:30 — Explains Nordman's pattern of departing manufacturers; positions American Pinball as his latest attempt to find a company that can deliver on production promises

  • “I think American Pinball is going to fail him, but I just have a hard time... So American Pinball is one of those groups that when they announce a closure, I'm not going to be surprised.”

    Tony @ ~0:30:15 — Skeptical take on American Pinball's ability to meet promised 2-3 games/year production schedule despite recent high-profile hires

  • “I think this in a way is a coup. Like if there's a designer, an established designer to bring in that will give you added credence. I think Dennis Nordman is the most logical one to get.”

    Tony @ ~0:32:00 — Acknowledges the strategic value of securing Nordman despite skepticism about American Pinball's execution capability

  • “While they talked a bit about it, it seems like American pinball is still mentally in this realm of thinking that some original licenses is a strategy that's going to work for them.”

    Dennis (host) @ ~0:36:45 — Core concern about American Pinball's licensing strategy; suggests original themes insufficient without A-tier IP

Entities

Dennis NordmanpersonDavid FixpersonJoe BalzerpersonAmerican PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyDeep Root Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball assessed as facing closure risk despite high-profile hires; production timelines historically challenge for Nordman

    medium · Tony states 'when they announce a closure, I'm not going to be surprised'; Dennis characterizes American Pinball as likely to fail Nordman due to production delays; pattern of Nordman departures cited as evidence

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball targeting aggressive 2-3 games/year production expansion from historical ~1 game/year pace

    high · David Fix stated production goal in interview; hosts express skepticism about achievability given company size and track record

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Backlash against David Fix's gatekeeping statement that pinball knowledge requires 1990s-era experience

    high · Dennis reports multiple content creators took offense; Fix's Picasso watercolor analogy fact-checked and found incorrect; hosts strongly criticize gatekeeping logic

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Debate over viability of original themes vs licensed IP in pinball; hosts conclude original-only strategy insufficient for manufacturer survival

    medium · Dennis and Tony discuss market realities; Tony notes 'certain segment of the pinball fandom screams for original themes' but production numbers suggest strategy doesn't work; debate potential B-tier licensing approach

  • $

    market_signal: Oktoberfest sales disappointing per industry grapevine; raises questions about market reception of American Pinball's output

    medium · Dennis (host) heard through informal sources; no official sales figures provided

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.127

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, January 10th. This is episode 132. I am Tony. I am Dennis. We're back and it's a new year, Tony. A new sense of adventure. New everything. Yes. A new life. So what have you been doing since your old life? Since my old life, in the time since our last episode, I binge-watched all four seasons of Mr. Robot. Roger, roger.
0:46
And I started up a... I've been also watching a lot of Battletech lore videos, and I've been reading some Battletech stuff.
0:58
which put me into the Battletech mood. So I once again went to the Battletech game from Harebrained Studios, and I started up a new career running as a... This time I decided to specifically ally myself with pirates. So that's been fun. Hmm. Pirates is in Yar? Pirates is in Yar. Well, I have... Let's see. I finished Code Vein, which was the Weeb Souls, as someone called me. And I finished the kind of spiritual successor to Limbo called Inside. And I have been playing Maneater, the killer shark game, where I'm a baby shark and then I get bigger and I eat people. Nom, nom, nom, nom, nom. So that's what I've been working on. Other than that, back at the grind at work, which is always fun. but because we are now in 2021, you know what we normally do with the first 20, well, I was gonna say with the first 2021 episode, but truly the first, first episode we do at any start of a new year is we normally, so one time we give some statistical information to the listeners about the show, about the podcast for those of you that are, that are curious about analytics and just sort of what we see, how things perform. And the reason we do it at the start of the year is you and I actually started, In January. We didn't start at the beginning of January. We started at the end of January 2016. But it's so close to a calendar year sync up that we always just do a calendar year approach when we talk about our stats. And so this is the fifth time that we're doing that because we have almost concluded our fifth year of podcasting. That'll be like next episode roughly-ish. Yeah, roughly. Yeah, I think our very first episode dropped something like on the 30th of January. Right around there. The last two days or so was when we published our very first episode. So for those that are curious, and if not, this should take less than five minutes to get through. So our 2020, in terms of our listens, we actually grew versus our 2019 listens by over 25%. Right. Yeah, it was nice. And thank you, everyone, who have enjoyed listening. I was surprised at this, though, because I remember looking at some of the episode numbers back during the U.S. stay-at-home orders where they were really widespread. So we're talking kind of that late March through May period. And our listen numbers really fell off at that point. I'd say we probably saw, at least from like on a two-week period, maybe a loss of something like 10 to 20 percent per episode. And I assumed driven by people not commuting. but because of that I figured okay well that's really going to eat into our count so I wouldn't be surprised if we look relatively flat for growth and we ended up actually growing a lot more than I thought we would so that's it in terms of growth in terms of where people find the episodes from so it's kind of organized by website through SoundCloud but in terms of our top referrals in order for 2020 Google is our, and this doesn't count, of course, people subscribing directly through RSS. So Google is our number one source of people finding the show, followed by Facebook, followed by Pinside, followed by people accessing episodes on our EGP website, and then rounded out with Tilt Forums as like number five. So everything else really fell off after that. So those are really the main ways people access the show that don't subscribe to the show. in terms of countries, some top countries for plays. First, I think four of these are the same as they were last year, and then I'm not sure after that. I didn't go back and do a comparison. So in order, unsurprisingly, USA is our number one source, followed by Australia, followed by Canada, and followed by the UK for top four. Then it's Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Russia, Germany, and 10th is New Zealand. As I recall from previous years, Sweden's always way up at the top. Yeah, and that might have been in the position that it is currently at number five. It may have been there before. Again, it is, as a Western European nation, they do have a culture that includes pinball. I'm surprised to see Russia in the top ten, though. They did not do a whole lot with pinball. They had a pinball manufacturer, I believe, at one point. But that's really the only outlier to me is Russia. It's the only one on the list that, to me, is like, there's not a huge pinball draw there. So are they coming for the video games instead? Or is there more pinball there? I just want the dulcet tones. Maybe it's bots. Maybe the Russian bots came. The Russian bots are here for our dulcet tones. I guess so. Thank you, Russian bots, for enjoying our dulcet tones. And then episodes. So in terms of our top episodes, this has been, this is always interesting. So what episodes have fared the best for us? Unsurprisingly, and I kind of knew this back when it even aired, our number one episode was episode 107. That is the episode where I explained the pinball network and I had to deal with the fallout from the video trailer not being very diverse. And of course, by the time we had the our episode out of 107, we had already announced more diversity in the network itself. But I think some people pointed to that because it was perhaps the first verbal explanation of what the logic was of forming the pinball network. So that was our number one episode. Our number two episode was the episode prior to that, where we went over Twippy Stuff and AGDQ. So basically, essentially the first episode of January of 2020 was our second best episode. Our third highest rated episode was episode 116. That was the one titled Turtle Power. So it was one where we went through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Stern. Our fourth most popular episode of 2020 was episode 118. That was our Marketing 101 episode with Travis Murry. That was a good episode. Yeah, I thought so too. And our fifth episode to round out this list was episode 111. And I titled that one A Heist of Specs. So it must have been when we went over the new heist game from Multimorphic. So the Multimorphic fans listened. Thank you, Multimorphic fans. Let's see. Looking back at our notes, it looks like that was, yep, talking about COVID shutdowns, Hot Wheels, and Heist. Oh, okay. So Hot Wheels was in there as well. Because that was in March. So we also had a whole bunch of talk about the, in the video game section, we were talking about the changes in, like, the Overwatch League and stuff.

  • “If you're doing nothing but original themes, you're not going to survive. There's just not enough draw.”

    Dennis (host) @ ~0:37:15 — Articulates market reality that original IP alone cannot sustain a pinball manufacturer

  • “I would have recommended that they allowed full ranking across however many choices there are.”

    Tony @ ~0:47:30 — Feedback on Twippy Awards new ranked-choice voting limited to top 3 selections

    • Highway Pinballcompany
    Multimorphiccompany
    Chicago Gamingcompany
    Super Awesome Pinball Showorganization
    Eclectic Gamers Podcastorganization
    Twippy Awardsevent
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Pinball Industry Awardsevent
    Tonyperson
    Dennisperson
    Oktoberfestgame
    Houdinigame
    Hot Wheelsgame
    Elvira House of Horrorsgame
    Star Citizengame
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Dennis Nordman's pattern of manufacturer departures driven by slow production timelines rather than desire for contract-only work

    high · Nordman explained reasoning in Super Awesome Pinball Show interview; hosts cite evidence from Multimorphic (Lexi), Highway (Alien), Deep Root departures

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Dennis Nordman hired as senior game designer (direct employee) at American Pinball; Joe Balzer transitions to contract basis

    high · Announced via Super Awesome Pinball Show interview; David Fix confirmed Nordman's senior role and mentorship responsibilities for junior designers

  • ?

    announcement: Twippy Awards implementing ranked-choice voting (top 3 selections) for 2021; ceremony moved to March (away from Texas Pinball Festival which not happening 2021)

    high · Dennis confirms ballot changes; Tony discusses preference for full ranking across all choices

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball appears committed to C-tier licensing (Hot Wheels) strategy despite hosts' assessment that A-tier or B-tier licensing necessary for survival

    medium · Dennis reports concern about American Pinball's licensing philosophy; Fix not described as pursuing A-tier licenses in interview; hosts debate whether original themes alone can sustain manufacturer

    • 7:47
    Oh, and that's when the hardware specs came out for Xbox and PS5. That's why I said a heist of specs. I oftentimes try and think of myself as clever and use the title to hit on something in both video games and pinball.
    8:00
    It's not really clever because I do it all the time. So, as you'll see on our lowest rating. So it's always clever. Or it's never clever. It's like, if everyone has superpowers, then no one does, or whatever that line was from The Incredibles. So lowest rated episodes.
    8:17
    Normally, I have to throw out the last episode of the year because there weren't enough analytics. But actually, without me throwing it out as an outlier, I have three episodes that were lower than it anyway. Wow. So we have some really low, low episodes. Our lowest episode of 2020 was actually the one prior to the end of the year Episode 130 Entitled Pinball Galore and Cyberbugs 2077 Interesting that that one was so low Yes And actually I need a hedge I'm not sure that our final episode was actually lower than the next two I only know for sure that it was above 130 So yeah, there was that Our second lowest would be episode 126 which was titled VR or GNR. So apparently we went through virtual reality and some Guns N' Roses talk. Oh, that's when the Oculus came out. The Quest 2 came out. Okay.
    9:14
    And our third lowest episode was episode 127, which I titled Slow-Mo Cyberpunk. So we must have talked about the Slow-Mo Guys video of the Willy Wonka machine and also talked some about cyber. Apparently, judging from just the show titles, if we cover cyberpunk people don't want to listen apparently yeah because that was the episode where we talked about the last minute pushback from november to december of cyberpunk okay so i guess lesson learned we will try a lot harder not to talk about cyberpunk in 2021 granted it's already out so we don't succeed in that yes so i don't think i don't think we'll be needing to say a whole lot there but anyway that's it in terms of uh of year-end review that i was going to cover of the, or not year in review, but podcast review for 2020. So for those that were curious, that's kind of how things look numerically. So Tony, let's move into pinball. I don't have much for us, but I have a little bit. First thing, actually, I'm going to go ahead and open with is the pinball industry awards. Just wanted to note that all the votes are now in. The ceremony is at 8 p.m. Central on January 28th.
    10:18
    I've not looked a whole lot into that. They've announced some stuff in terms of the total votes on the Hall of Fame and all of that. But I did want to just note on the category awards which are the ones with the judges that are both inside and outside of TPN that there were 40 approved critics who received ballots and all 40 voted So thank you for everyone who did that I think it's a really, we will ultimately have those published after the awards ceremony, who the judges were, not what they, you know, we assured them we weren't going to tell their specific ballots, but there will be summaries of all of that stuff. So yeah, I was really pleased with how diverse the judging pool was. So thank you everyone who did qualify for vote or asked for ballot and did vote. It is appreciated. So let's go into the real pinball news, which is, this was something that came out on Monday and that is, oh, actually I think Sunday, I think pinball news had a story on this, but Dennis Nordman has now joined American pinball. I have a link in the show notes to a audio interview on the super awesome pinball show podcast. That interview is with both Dennis Nordman and David Fix of American pinball. and I'm putting that in because I think it's got probably the best sort of summary of some of the thought processes going on because it's a discussion. And it's not an overly long interview, so I do recommend it if you're curious.
    11:43
    Before going into the Dennis stuff, I do think, though, as you know, Tony, as we've had some discussions with others in pinball throughout the week, I think we need to talk a little bit about Mr. David Fix and the spiciness he decided to bring to the show for some reason.
    12:00
    Because I was pretty confused. Obviously, there are a number of content creators who did take some offense to Mr. Fix and his critique that I will loosely describe as a, as I interpreted it, a vague notion that if you weren't involved in pinball back in the 90s, you don't get to have an opinion of pinball. That was the vibe I got from his discussion. Yeah, that's kind of crazy to have a take like that. Yeah. If I were to paraphrase a line from, oh, I can't even remember the movie. I think it was with Gerald Butler where he's avenging his family who was killed and he's. The law-abiding citizen. Law-abiding citizen, yes. He has a line about when someone talks about some cots in the jail cells and he says that's what wrenches are for. And in response to Mr. Fix, I would say that's what books are for.
    12:56
    In terms of the notion that you cannot be educated about pinball unless you've lived it and experienced it is asinine. I'm going to add this in. I know I've messaged a couple of people about this because it caught my ear while I was driving while I listened to this episode. And at one point, I guess trying to, I guess, make his point, Mr. Fix inserted a fairly snarky comment about something involving pinball. and then saying it would be like asking Picasso to paint watercolors.
    13:25
    But Picasso did paint watercolor. So what the heck is he talking about? You know exactly what he's talking about. He's just trying to say something that... He demeaned an entire medium of art, watercolor, because kids go to school with watercolor kits, that he thinks that that's not the serious form of art. Is that what I know he means, Tony? I think that's exactly what he means. Did he mean to say finger paint and misspeak? What's wrong with finger painting? Well, again, I don't know how many professional artists do finger painting. At the very least, I'm not aware of Picasso doing finger painting. And I'm not a Picasso expert. But when I was driving, I heard that. I thought Picasso worked in a lot of mediums. Is he sure that Picasso would think watercolor was beneath him? And I looked it up. No, he had like a whole year where he worked in watercolor. There was an example that Sotheby's had in 2019 that they projected was going to fetch between three and five million dollars. I think, Tony, ultimately, the only thing I can determine is that if Mr. Fix had studied Picasso in the 90s, maybe he'd have known that.
    14:27
    Yeah. But you can't study something that's from the past. It's the past. You have to live it in the moment. If you're not in the moment, it's just like I've never heard or liked or have any opinions on classical music because it happened so long ago. And I was born, I can't possibly have an opinion or a thought on that. And I've never seen a movie that was made before the year of my birth. I mean, it's just never happened. I've never read a book from before then. Or if I have read it, I'm not allowed to think about it or have an opinion on it, obviously. Because I didn't read it when it came out. So I don't understand the greater socio-political argument around it and its time period. I don't mean to belabor it. Obviously, I'm joshing a bit here. I'm just saying, you know, maybe some of these thoughts that were being expressed probably would have been better not to have expressed. Or if you're going to do analogies, maybe know what you're talking about before you do them. So people like me don't get to come out and do a nah, nah, nah, nah. You didn't know what you were saying.
    15:43
    So let's go into what he did know what he was saying, because there was a lot of really relevant aspects to the interview. And that was just Dennis Nordman, not as a contract designer, hired as their senior game designer. So a direct employee of American Pinball. My understanding now is that Joe Balzer, who has been doing the designs for American Pinball, he has designed all three of their current layouts. That would be Oktoberfest, Houdini, and Hot Wheels. He is going to be on more contract basis at this point, but still able to produce games. Mr. Fix did point out that American Pinball does want to rapidly expand their production capabilities to doing two to three games a year, rather than the one game a year loosely that they've been adhering to.
    16:31
    And obviously, Dennis Nordman is a fairly known entity. he has hopped around quite a bit lately. I've often kind of compared him as the mercenary of pinball design. I don't mean it in a derogatory way, just that he's a gun for hire, and he's good at what he does. That's the reason why people want to hire him. But, I mean, he helped Multimorphic with Lexi Lightspeed. He obviously had Elvira House of Horrors as a contract job with Stern. We know he was involved with Alien Pinball with Highway, And then he walked away from that company when they were making promises they couldn't keep. And he talks a bit about that on the interview with Super Awesome Pinball Show. And more recently, he's walked away from Deep Root after doing, I think, three designs or so with them.
    17:17
    And in the interview, he said the reason why he leaves so many isn't that he wants to constantly change companies. It's not that he wants to be a gun for hire so much as he wants to produce games. and the problem he runs into with most of these companies is they are not producing games fast enough and so he gets done doing designs and he doesn't see any of his stuff come to fruition on a timetable that is of interest to him professionally. So he moves on to a place that claims that they can and they all just keep failing him. So what are your thoughts on Dennis joining American Pinball? I think American Pinball is going to fail him, but I just have a hard time. So American Pinball is one of those groups that when they announce a closure, I'm not going to be surprised. And I agree. I believe we spoke about early last year when we were making some forecasts that we thought a company like American Pinball was one in my mind would be done after 2020, especially after the year COVID pulled on 2020. but they in my view they have appeared to have doubled down on wanting to do pinball I mean they brought in Mr. Fix they brought in Mr. Nordman these are clearly high change elements that they're doing they're not running with what they were a lot of the interview Nordman doesn't speak a lot on the interview Fix does most of the talking and he clearly has a lot of very ambitious ideas on what he wants to do to turn American pinball around in the realm of pinball production.
    18:54
    So I do think that Dennis, if Dennis is hoping that they're going to have two or three designs out from him a year, I'm very skeptical that they're actually going to hit that production schedule. That's the part where I think they could fail him. But from a perspective of American Pinball, I think this in a way is a coup. Like if there's a designer, an established designer to bring in that will give you added credence. I think Dennis Nordman is the most logical one to get. Elvira's House of Horrors, I think, is an excellent game. It's actually my favorite Nordman game. And, you know, people are really excited about seeing what he was doing with Deep Root. So his name carries a lot of weight in the realm of design. I think more so than Balster's name does. And so just having him in the stable as a designer, I think, goes a long way. And Fix had noted in the interview that part of the logic of being the senior game designer is they have junior game designers and Dennis is supposed to train them. Okay, that makes sense. We've talked about that in the past. We've talked about having companies starting to look to the future and do some future proofing, do some apprenticeships. I think that's a very good thing. I think it's a good plan. The question is, is American Pinball the company that can pull it off? And I think that'll be, remains to be seen because while there's been some popularity with Hot Wheels due to its theming and some people, I met one or two, really liked Oktoberfest and Houdini is a massively hard game, they still, as far as I'm concerned, haven't punched out a game that really sets them. it doesn't really create their place. It hasn't brought them fully to the table, as it were. I think that's a good point. Do you think that, what do you think this hire does? I mean, it doesn't just have to be Nordman. It can also be Fix, though. He's been there a little while now. What do you think this does for American Pinball Does this put them on better survival footing Do you think that they still most likely to fail I think it does put them on pretty good footing I don know if I would say it pulls them off of the most likely to fail It depends upon there's enough companies out there right now that are smaller and have as of yet to prove their abilities even as much as American has that I think would be or in a more dangerous place. the big thing is going to be the next one or two games from America.
    21:41
    And I think their ability to make games that are both fun and have enough interest and draw that they can sell a decent amount of them. Yeah, I think that their fundamental, I think this puts them in a better position. And in some ways, I do need to give credit to American Pinball. They are outputting, at least in terms of new titles, it seems like they pace better than Chicago Gaming has been, which seems to have really struggled ever since the plan to release Monster Battle. I mean, they were the one company, as we noted in the last episode, that my understanding was they fully intended to have released their next remake in 2020. It didn't happen. And everyone else was producing games, including American Pinball, putting out new games because Hot Wheels came out early in the year. so they've been well I am skeptical about how successful they'll be about doing two or especially three games a year that just seems overly aggressive for a company of that size they do seem to be able to do one game a year and don't tend to miss their deadlines by much if at all there's not we don't have a lot of horror stories really with American Pinball that I can think of about them saying here's our date and then they just completely miss they might you know do the Houdini thing where they do one game right at the end of the year to say they made it. And then, but it wasn't egregious in terms of their production schedule after that. That was the first game.
    23:07
    And you bring up a good point about some of the other smaller companies too. The thing that still worries me is while they talked a bit about it, it seems like American pinball is still mentally in this realm of thinking that some original licenses is a strategy that's going to work for them. and I was not given any confidence by David Fix when he was talking about licenses that they're actually going for A-tier licenses. I'm starting to wonder if they're going to just live in the realm of C-tier licenses like Hot Wheels and I just don't think that's the right strategy for them. I think it has been proven at this point that as much as a certain segment of the pinball fandom screams for original themes.
    23:53
    If you're doing nothing but original themes, you're not going to survive. There's just not enough draw. Yeah, I mean, maybe they do something where they keep them really limited, maybe do the false scarcity thing. I wouldn't be, I think American Pinball could be pretty successful if they kind of do a spooky thing and they start doing caps on their runs and announcing those caps and seeing how that, because I don't know how many games they've sold. I heard through the grapevine that Octoberfest did not sell well at all. I have no idea how many Hot Wheels they've sold. But, I mean, if this is a company that's not selling a thousand units of these games, then maybe capping them, that could let them do the two to three to year. If they're able to get the, if they've got the designs ready to go, then, and with David Fix's experience in manufacturing, they're like, yeah, well, we know we're only going to build like 500 of these things. and they have faster capabilities than Spooky does, then okay, I could see that. And maybe, but Hot Wheels style licensing, I just don't think is going to cut it when you go licensed. Now, maybe with limited quantities, they could successfully live in a B tier realm where they're not going around trying to get the rights to doing the super popular movie franchises and such, but maybe they can do Mr. Robot. Is Mr. Robot B tier? Am I being fair? I'm making up stuff. That would not work for a pinball machine. You just don't believe in Nordman's abilities, Tony. I don't believe in anybody's abilities to make that work in that kind of situation.
    25:34
    I mean, there are things out there that I love that would never make a good pinball machine. I just physically cannot imagine a West Wing pinball machine. Come on, the ball is doing the talking and walking. It's perfect. Yeah. Talk and walk.
    25:56
    But I think that's going to be the overall question, though. It's going to be how do they go forward and the licensing. And I don't think C-tier licensing will cut it. Yeah. I don't expect them to let's be fair I'm not expecting them to get A tier licensing out there they're not going to be they don't have to be the people that are grabbing the Star Wars, Marvels the big huge name stuff but they're going to have to get something better than Hot Wheels to actually have a decent bit of momentum, I believe. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Well, that's it. Well, I'll have to wait and see what they end up doing, but it's interesting nonetheless. Oh, one more thing before we move on to the video game segment, Tony, and that is the Twippies. The ballots are now open. Yay! I haven't actually done my voting yet. I have. But regardless if people have or have not, I have a link in the show notes so people can go and vote. And they're They're doing like multiple choices this time, isn't it? Ranked preference for three. So for your top three. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. I just could not remember for sure. It'll be interesting to see if that shakes up anything. Obviously, the games are different for 2020 than they were for 2019. So it might be hard to tell on the best of categories. But there's probably a lot of recurring things in the favorites. And I'm guessing the motivation was probably more driven by that. section than the best ofs for the game awards. I think that makes sense. I think through that we might be able to see if it had much of an impact or not, or we'll be able to make some speculation. I actually think that ranked voting for a People's Choice Award makes sense. I'm a big fan. I think it, because like we were talking about with the themes, you know, just because I think something would be a good theme doesn't mean I think something else wouldn't be work just as well if just slightly less bad. The only thing is I would have recommended that they allowed full ranking across however many choices there are. If it's 10, then that means you get to rank all 10. If it's 8, all 8. I can see that. I think that might be a lot of extra work where I can see limiting it to 3 because basically if you limit it to 3, you get to just assign a point total and a small point total and move it more rapidly, as it were. I assumed that the calculation would have been fairly automated. That's why I didn't. Obviously, it does make the ballot expansive, though, in terms of scrolling. So there are downsides, but there are downsides to every decision, too. It's just that way, if you want to fully be able to inform, because people can quit ranking once they're done. Like, if I'm going and doing favorite podcasts and I only listen to half of them, then I'm going to stop after four or five. Right. Anyway, that's just a dentist preference thing. I do welcome the change. I think it's interesting. I'm always about experimentation, so I'm very curious about it. I think it's an interesting change. I am hoping to see the – it's in March. I think they're still planning to do the finals in March, as I recall. I haven't heard about any planned change, And we've known for a while now that Texas Pinball Festival is not happening. Right.
    29:37
    So I think Twippies has just embraced March as when they want to do the ceremony. Which makes sense. Probably with the idea that once Texas is back, because eventually Texas is coming back, right? There's no plan for it to go away, at least according to the show organizer. Yeah, as far as I know, it's just... Because they want to ultimately have that in-person ceremony as part of that major pinball event. Right. And Texas is a good event to have it at. It's well attended. I think Texas is a really good event to have it. What with the whole amount of attendance and with it being seen as less of an industry show, I think that helps make sense. Well, and Expo being in October, that's a really long time to wait to do an awards ceremony for the prior year. Yeah. I mean, a really long – March already is fairly lengthy, I feel, but holy cow. October, you're going to forget the – I'm being facetious, but I'm like, you'll forget the games by then.
    30:32
    Stranger Things, what's that? I don't remember. It lets you be purely neutral on your voting because you just don't remember. You've slept since then. Sorry. I don't know anymore. All the videos got taken down by DMCA by then. We can't go back. We have to guess.
    30:50
    Speaking of guessing, I guess it's time to move into video games, Tony. and I believe there is a little Kickstarter-related project that you wanted to open with. Oh, yeah. I mean, emphasis on little, and the Kickstarter was a long time ago, but this is going to, I won't say it's been a habit, but I give occasional updates on Star Citizen being a game that was originally kick-started in 2012, and seen as that game still has not been released but they have released a bed of information I thought I would bring it up just as I mentioned before I did support it back in 2012 and one of my kickstarters that has yet to pan out but the interesting thing is this year and by this year I mean in 2020 they raised another million in 2020 by selling internet spaceships and stuff that, for a game that's still not out. Holy cow. I don't get it Tony. I just, I my mind is too simple to understand how this, it's just that Not that it raised $77 million, but that it's raised $77 million after all these years. Oh, yeah. They're up to $339 million raised just in crowdfunding since 2012. And everybody who has listened to this show for any length of a time knows how much I hate pre-orders and my discussions about giving money to stuff like that, Which is humorous because, as I've said, I've supported a bunch of Kickstarters.
    32:45
    And for the most part, other than the one really glaring failure that was the Robotech Kickstarter, I've not gotten heavily screwed. Let's put it that way. I've had stuff that came out that wasn't as good as I'd hoped. I've had stuff that came out that wasn't as well supported after as I hoped but then some of the stuff I've done has been great and some of the stuff I've supported has been just like more it was less about whatever it was and more about just supporting either someone I knew or a project that I had a lot of interest in so it's one of those things that Most of my Kickstarter supports have been for fairly low dollar amounts.
    33:39
    And I understand going into any Kickstarter that there's no guarantee that I will ever get my money for the items out of it. It's kind of like playing the lottery. But it's interesting to me how many people are still pouring money into Star Citizen at this point. In their original timeline, in a timeline that they released not too long ago, They had been planning on having the beta for the standalone single-player game as opposed to the Persistent Universe MMO because they're two very separate items. They're just using the same engine and assets in beta this year. And that has all been removed. And by this year, I mean 2020. And that has all been removed. and the last we heard about it was that they're not releasing anything on it because it's not ready for release. They don't have a timeline. Their timeline is it'll be done when it is done. And so there's been no more screenshots or videos or discussion or dates or anything until that is closer to a release point, which is the way they've also been going with their primary game, the MMO. So there's no real release point plan. It's just a it'll be done when it's done. They do have modules of the game out there. So you can fly your Internet spaceships that you've purchased for $339 million. You can fly them, some of them. People have purchased ships that aren't in the game yet. So you can only fly ships that you've purchased that are in the game. in small or contained areas that lets you do a variety of little things. It's all very much alpha work, and I have not actually partaken in any of that. I considered it earlier this year when all the lockdowns had gotten real big. I was thinking about, well, maybe I'll go ahead and download the launcher and everything and give it a try just to see what it's like. And then I got sidetracked by something else, and I never did it. So I haven't decided. I might try it at some point, or I might just wait until there's something actually there.
    36:04
    We'll see. I know there has been a mix. There's like, just like with all the other big pre-orders, just like with all the big pinball pre-orders, there's the mix of people who are all, you know, you just have to wait, keep putting money in, keep going forward. It'll come in time. and the people are like, yeah, okay, this is taking a little long because it's been eight years and our current information and dates that we know is we have no idea. Maybe someday. We'll let you know. So that's where we're sitting on Star Citizen. Nothing, no betas, nothing outside of what would be considered an alpha range. They have advanced their timelines. They have got more stuff out now than they did at the end of 2019. but yeah they raised 77 million dollars in 2020 do you think this does ultimately come out or does it kind of remain this almost quasi vapor where i understand that there are alphas that people can play but i mean that they're not even ready to beta suggests that they're not remotely close to releasing i could see it setting in this kind of remote early access type situation for pretty much ever. I know part of the problem is with this is a scope creep issue.
    37:22
    The scope of Star Citizen is insane. What I find interesting is where I actually think and what I always have thought is what we're most likely to see is to see the MMO portion of it set in this kind of early release alpha beta testing phase get a hard release on Squadron 42 and then things die after that well and that's where i at least my assumption had been the idea was squadron forage maybe not like the primary idea but the the logic about it at well within this project was that as a standalone single-player game it's easy to prevent it from creeping so being able to put that out would inspire confidence and continued funding they're obviously not having any problem continuing to raise funds even with it not being ready so i understand like internally to the organization there's essentially no pressure in my view there's no pressure for them to get this stuff out because they're still making money that just for free just by selling uh ships selling pretend stuff and but i i'm just confused because i would think that especially with all the asset sharing and stuff i don't understand why squadron 42 is not out. Not as beta, just out. I don't get why it's not done. I don't know. I know there was creep there too because it has shifted from being just a flight sim to having full first person combat and everything. But why?
    38:59
    I couldn't tell you. Because they want it to be the greatest space combat game ever. If it comes out, do you think it lives up to that hype? Oh gosh, no. It could. I won't say it's not going to, because obviously I have no idea. But it is trying to create a really large bar, and it's going to be fighting the nostalgia for, well, the old Wing Commander games from the same creator back in the 90s. It's going to be fighting the original X-Wing and TIE Fighter games, the nostalgia off of those. So, we'll see if it's that good. We will have to wait and see. What we don't have to wait and see for, though, is Awesome Games Done Quick, commonly known as AGDQ, because that actually just finished over the last week.
    39:55
    We usually talk about that, and it's a partner event in the summer called Summer Games Done Quick. The winter version raises money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation, and they successfully raised over $2.7 million over this last week. I do have a link in the show notes to an article about this with Destructoid. I believe it includes some links to archives of at least some of the notable speedruns so people can go and watch. I think, to my knowledge, at least three world records were actually set at the event. Really? Yeah.
    40:29
    Two were set in one day, and I saw one last night get set. nice he said i normally watch it but with you know between work and the fact that i've been hardcore binge watching mr robot and everything i completely missed that it was happening this week because until we until i looked at the notes and we talked this morning i didn't realize that it even happened yeah it was i mean again like the summer version it was entirely virtual so they had uh they had to take care of all that stuff and i i caught i caught some of it uh not as much I normally would watch, but I've been busy too. But what I did see was entertaining, and I think they did a really good job. The production values are normally really good with AGDQ. And for my pinball friends, I would suggest, if you ever want to see what, I don't mean this in a snarky way, but to use my good snarky tone, if you ever want to see what real fundraising looks like, check out what they do, because obviously we're talking super serious. This is like wrath of God money, millions of dollars here. So it's good. And they do it for good. It's Doctors Without Borders is the summer one. So they do good work. And it's very effective. And it's all about speed running video games is what the focus is.
    41:42
    So I think that's it, Tony. I think we've covered the show. Yeah, I didn't have a whole lot. There's not been a whole lot of huge stuff right here at the beginning of the year, video game wise. Twitch hasn't gone and banned all their big players and YouTube hasn't DMCA'd all their stuff yet. So maybe a little later in the year. Maybe in two weeks, which is when we'll next be back. If you want to reach out to us in the meantime, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcasts at gmail.com or you can reach out to us through the messenger at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcasts.
    42:14
    We're available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And that's it. Goodbye, everybody. See ya