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Ep 52: 4 Inches Thick...of Concepts with Eric Meunier

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 17m·analyzed·Jan 21, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Eric Meunier discusses Guns N' Roses pinball's record-breaking success, Slash's collaborative genius, and hidden design complexity.

Summary

Eric Meunier, designer of Jersey Jack Pinball's Guns N' Roses, returns to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast for an in-depth discussion about the game's unprecedented success, including its 90-minute sell-out of the collector's edition ($13K+ units), Slash's hands-on collaboration and IP facilitation, the game's 21 licensed songs with elaborate light shows, and the enormous design and manufacturing complexity hidden behind each finished game. Meunier emphasizes theme integration depth, the three-tier market approach (Pro/LE/CE), and the thousands of man-hours spent on features that never ship.

Key Claims

  • Guns N' Roses collector's edition sold out in 90 minutes, generating approximately $6.5M in revenue

    high confidence · Eric Meunier directly states: 'did we expect the collector's edition to sell out in, it was 90 minutes that it sold out'

  • Slash personally intervened with band management to approve the custom pinball-integrated GNR logo (flippers/pinball replacing revolvers/bullets)

    high confidence · Eric describes calling Slash about licensing issues and receiving management approval 'literally within the next hour' after Slash's intervention

  • The game contains 21 licensed songs with elaborate light show integration, compared to typical music pinball's 10-12 songs

    high confidence · Josh states: 'this game is got depth in spades you know the typical music pinball machine has about 10 to 12 songs this one's got 21'

  • Joe Katz spent approximately 80 man-hours across two weeks to create the 'Live and Let Die' light show sequence

    high confidence · Eric explains: 'It took Joe probably 80 man hours, two solid weeks of work, to make that three-and-a-half-minute song lights look the way they do'

  • Slash obtained rights to use Paul McCartney's 'Live and Let Die' via personal phone call to McCartney

    high confidence · Tim Purcell's question quoted: 'getting the rights to use Live and Let Die was amazing, especially how it happened with Slash phone call to Paul McCartney'

  • The collector's edition playfield differs from the LE—specifically including the 'Coma Lock' ball save mechanic inspired by concert venue infirmaries

    high confidence · Eric clarifies: 'So this is actually a variation on the play field' and explains Coma Lock's thematic origin in conversation with Slash

  • Slash personally owns multiple pinball games and was actively involved in every step of the game's development

    high confidence · Eric states: 'He reaches out to me more often than I reach out to him' and 'he is a pinball guy, and he gets it'

  • Guns N' Roses social media posts and Slash's personal Instagram (5M followers) significantly broadened market reach beyond traditional pinball audience

Notable Quotes

  • “He is not just a super awesome guitar player. He was completely different than I expected in all of the best ways possible. I anticipated, you know, it's Slash. You just expect someone of his caliber to be aloof and standoffish and arrogant and none of those words could ever describe this man.”

    Eric Meunier — Describes Slash's unexpectedly collaborative and humble personality, central to the game's success and theme integration depth

  • “If you don't want, we've got licensors lined up around the block that now want us to make their games because of what we do. If you can't give us the assets that can make it comparable game, take a walk.”

    Eric Meunier — Strategic positioning: JJP using Guns N' Roses as proof-of-concept to attract high-quality licensors and demand better asset access

  • “I really felt like we were on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange when we went live with that thing. because there were just like papers flying in the air, phone calls, people's personal cell phones are ringing.”

    Eric Meunier — Vividly describes the chaos and scale of the 90-minute collector's edition sell-out

  • “It took Joe probably 80 man hours, two solid weeks of work, to make that three-and-a-half-minute song lights look the way they do. You know, that's eight hours a day for 10 days at his computer listening to the song two seconds at a time, three seconds at a time.”

    Eric Meunier — Illustrates hidden design labor and attention to detail that hobbyists/casual players don't perceive

  • “I personally make it with a laser cutter, with a shear, with a break, with a bend, welding. I put the harness on. I put the first game together 100% with my own two hands. And that is hundreds of hours.”

    Eric Meunier — Demonstrates hands-on manufacturing and iterative design philosophy at JJP

  • “You see the final product of thousands and thousands of man hours, but what you don't see is the final product of all of the other thousands of man hours that got cut or reiterated or redone in a different way.”

    Eric Meunier — Addresses the invisible labor sunk into cut features and failed iterations—key context for understanding design complexity

Entities

Eric MeunierpersonJersey Jack Pinball (JJP)companyGuns N' Roses PinballgameSlash (guitarist)personJosh RooppersonScott LarsonpersonTim Purcellperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Three-tier pricing model (Pro/LE/CE) requires difficult bill-of-materials pruning; designers must balance between profitability, market appeal (bar/casual players), and premium collector experience while managing criticism from hobbyists about missing features

    medium · Eric: 'making the three models of a game, it's not easy. You're basically given a bare-bones bill of material and then told to prune it down' and acknowledges 'always always always someone who's going to tell you what you did wrong'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Tim Purcell's 'Live and Let Die' experience (moved to tears by light/music integration) exemplifies emotional impact of theme integration depth; represents shift in pinball reception from mechanical gameplay focus to experiential engagement

    medium · Josh quoting Tim: 'when that song started, he was actually moved to tears...That's the experience of playing. It's not like theme integration or, hey, I feel like I'm at the concert. And it's a surreal experience.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: JJP positioning Guns N' Roses as experiential concert alternative during pandemic when live shows unavailable; strategic timing and thematic resonance gave market advantage beyond typical music pinball appeal

    medium · Eric: 'No one was able to go to real concerts last year...being able to release a game where people...can say, I've been transported to a concert...was something that that really made me feel good'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Eric personally hand-builds first whitewood prototypes (laser cutting, welding, harness assembly) to validate production processes before outsourcing; hidden iteration and discarded designs represent thousands of man-hours not visible in final product

    high · Eric: 'I personally make it with a laser cutter...I put the first game together 100% with my own two hands. And that is hundreds of hours...You don't see is the final product of all of the other thousands of man hours that got cut'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.232

0:00
thanks for tuning in to the loser kid pinball podcast we are on episode 52 i am josh roop with me my co-captain as always scott larson and scott let's uh let's let's talk about those friends of the podcast really quick and then let's uh i i want to get to our guests because i'm pretty excited about this one yeah it'll be great uh okay so first and foremost uh flipping out pinball If you want to pick up that pinball or anything else for your game room and perhaps go ahead and contact him about the new JJP game, Guns N' Roses, contact Zach and Nicola, flipping out pinball. Also, if you want to be able to see all your games a little better, especially on location, please check out Pinshades. They're polarized lenses that you can actually get a competitive advantage by actually reducing the glare on the game. So it helps you see the ball, especially in the upper third of the play field. If you want to check out some information on pinball, check out Pinball Supernova. They always have good information on their website, and you can check them out. If you want to decorate your pinball area, go ahead and check out Lit Frames. It's a good way of illuminating all those translights that are collecting dust in the corner of your game room. Also, if you want an alternative translight for some of those classic Williams Valley games, Check out Flyland Designs. Just released one for Whitewater, and that's the newest one with ArtBlade. And so if you want to jazz up your Whitewater, go ahead and check that out. Also, if you're looking for a blog, all things pinball talked about, the Pinball Loft, go ahead and check that out. It's Tim Purcell's personal blog, and he talked about his experience with Jersey Jack Pinball's latest release, Guns N' Roses. and he got the collector's edition, so you get all the bells and whistles and the light show. Also, if you want to read up on all things pinball, this week in pinball, and if you want to go and check out what's going on on the Twippy level, please go ahead and check that out and see how you want to vote. And that's pretty much the Friends of the Show, my friends. If you want to be a friend of the show, reach out to us, and we'll be able to talk about it. Heck yes. So, Josh, all right, what are we doing today? So this gentleman was our very first official pinball industry interview, and he's an awesome gentleman. He's released his second game that I think has blown hats off of people and socks off their feet.
2:44

high confidence · Eric notes: 'Guns N' Roses has equal to that or more' followers and attributes market expansion to their sharing

“if every pinball company is not paying attention to this is how you're supposed to do a release then they should because the the the earth has shifted and that's how you're supposed to do it”

Scott Larson — Marks the 90-second promotional video as a new industry standard, comparable to Michael Jackson's music video innovation

  • “when that song started, he was actually moved to tears. And he's like, that's not me. That's not what I typically do when I'm playing a game. But that's part of that experience.”

    Josh Roop (quoting Tim Purcell's blog) — Demonstrates emotional/experiential impact of theme integration—core to Guns N' Roses' reception and positioning

    • Joe Katz
    person
    Alex (Element Studios)person
    Loser Kid Pinball Podcastorganization
    Flipping Out Pinballcompany
    Pinball Loftorganization
    Element Studioscompany
    Paul McCartneyperson
    Duff McKaganperson
    Axl Roseperson
  • ?

    licensing_signal: Slash's status as game owner and passionate participant enabled breakthrough licensing deals (Paul McCartney's 'Live and Let Die', custom logo with integrated pinball imagery) that would normally face institutional resistance from band management

    high · Eric: 'having Slash in my corner and saying things like, this is what we want to do, guys...It just paid for itself a thousand times over. You don't have a bigger voice to fight for you than Slash.'

  • $

    market_signal: 90-minute collector's edition sell-out ($6.5M gross revenue, ~5,000 units at $13K+) signals unprecedented demand from both traditional pinball collectors and mainstream audience reached via Slash/Guns N' Roses social media (5M+ followers)

    high · Josh calculates: 'you guys sold six million five hundred thousand dollars worth of product revenue' in 90 minutes; Eric notes GNR/Slash social media share 'opened it up to a huge market'

  • $

    market_signal: 90-second promotional video by Element Studios positioned as paradigm shift comparable to Michael Jackson's music video innovation; established new industry standard for game announcements and marketing approach

    high · Scott: 'if every pinball company is not paying attention to this is how you're supposed to do a release then they should because the the the earth has shifted'

  • ?

    community_signal: Slash's personal involvement in game development shaped iterative refinements; he owns multiple pinball games and initiates regular check-ins with designer about art, mechanics, and licensing strategy

    high · Eric: 'He reaches out to me more often than I reach out to him...How's the project going? What do you have for art? You know, I really like this idea'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Collector's Edition includes exclusive playfield variation (Coma Lock ball save) not present in LE, creating tangible feature distinction beyond cosmetics to justify $13K+ price premium

    high · Eric clarifies that CE playfield differs from LE: 'So this is actually a variation on the play field' and explains Coma Lock's thematic inspiration

  • ?

    product_strategy: Joe Katz's 80-hour 'Live and Let Die' light show set industry quality bar for subsequent 21 songs; established template that other programmers had to match, representing labor-intensive perfection standard

    high · Eric: 'Joe...he put his best foot forward and said this is how all of our songs should be...And that's what we did. We made every single song.'

  • ?

    business_signal: JJP using Guns N' Roses' success as proof-of-concept to attract high-quality licensors and negotiate better asset access; positioning themselves to demand exclusive music/IP assets from future partners

    high · Eric: 'we've got licensors lined up around the block that now want us to make their games because of what we do. If you can't give us the assets that can make it comparable game, take a walk.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: No mention of Spike 3 adoption for Guns N' Roses; unclear if game uses Spike 2 or other platform, suggesting potential continuity with legacy hardware despite animation/video capabilities discussed

    low · Content does not explicitly state hardware platform; inference from discussion of 'screen implementation' and video integration but no confirmation of Spike 3

    • I'm excited to have him back on. We have with us Eric Meunier. How are you doing, sir? Doing great, guys. Thanks for having me again. you know it's been it's been a minute i mean episode eight we're on 52 now that's it's been a couple years it seems like a while i i try to think back to our last conversation and i don't remember anything we talked about you know i don't think we remembered either we were really cutting our teeth on being podcasters in general and so you always have that honor of being the first guest and really the lab rat for us to try to figure out how to do things. Hopefully we have figured out a better sequence of questions and being able to interact with people.
    3:28
    We are very appreciative of you coming on and I would argue you're probably having a pretty good few months.
    3:37
    Yes. The reception of the game has been very, very high. Very well regarded. And definitely, you know, you always hope that the industry will receive, and the world at large will receive what you've poured your heart and soul into for the last, you know, 18 months to two years.
    3:58
    Hope they receive it well. But you never know. You know, this game is definitely a shift in paradigm. It's not your typical music pin. It's not your typical over-the-top complex rule sets. there's definitely the depth there for the players who appreciate that sort of thing but it's a very approachable game probably our most approachable game yet in essence that you can see all this cool stuff, you can always play a song you can always do the cool stuff in pretty much every game you play it's different and we're very happy at how well it's been received this game is got depth in spades you know the typical music pinball machine has about 10 to 12 songs this one's got 21 i mean you guys took studio music and linked it up to uh all the live footage it just this this passion or this this project oozes passion i've got to know were you like a fan of guns and roses before all this is this just you're like i'm going all out i'm throwing in the kitchen sink at this what what possessed you to make such a such a game like this um i as far as the music i listen to um definitely guns and roses latest album uh chinese democracy is more my style of music uh hard rock and alt rock as opposed to classic rock obviously i know all the GNR songs, you know, all the big ones. And I had played a bunch of their songs because delving into the nerdism that is my life, I was in collegiate marching band at the University of Wisconsin. We played a Guns N' Roses show a couple times. Like, so I know these songs on my trumpet. it um it was it was more the fact that being able to work with i don't know if it's even arguable the best most renowned guitar player in the world um and seeing the passion that he brought to it you know was something that inspired me to do better to represent him and his brand in a way that has never been done before. He is not just a super awesome guitar player.
    6:34
    He was completely different than I expected in all of the best ways possible. I anticipated, you know, it's Slash. You just expect someone of his caliber to be aloof and standoffish and arrogant and none of those words could ever describe this man. He was so down to earth and so involved in every step of this, not in like a micromanagement sort of way at all, more calling me. He reaches out to me more often than I reach out to him on how, Eric, how's the project going? What do you have for art? You know, I really like this idea. I talked to Duff. He's down for doing voice recordings, you know, And just like an excited schoolboy when it came to working on this project. He definitely jumps both feet in in everything he does. And that came across in spades here. And it was just so much fun to work with someone that passionate. I actually can confirm that he is way more down to earth than you would anticipate. This is a little out of left field. But when – in their zenith, in their big heyday during Use Your Illusion, they came to Utah and my friend is a – this is weird. His hobby is hot air balloons. So he has a hot air balloon and they got a call that, hey, we – there's someone coming in town and we want to rent two-year balloons and we want you to take them up. And he said, OK, that's fine. We'll go ahead and do it. And it turned out it was Guns N' Roses. And so they took like Axl, Slash, all those guys, they took them up. And at the very end, they landed and went and played basketball in their driveway.
    8:29
    And he said it was the most surreal experience because you have this anticipation of what a famous, how a famous person is supposed to act. And really, they just kind of hung out with us, which was just completely different than what you would anticipate. anticipate and so you telling me that you working with slash was more of a just a work a typical working relationship doesn't surprise me but it's refreshing because usually i think you would anticipate something different so first off i want to say uh i don't know if we should congratulate you or condone you because this game i i swear is going to ruin the the pinball the pinball industry because it's got so much theme integration. Do you feel like this is going to help JJP or hinder you guys for future releases?
    9:18
    I actually think it helps us in all the best ways because we use this as a presentation to our licensors. Like, look, if you don't want, we've got licensors lined up around the block that now want us to make their games because of what we do. If you can't give us the assets that can make it comparable game, take a walk. Yeah, and I remember – so this is something we did talk about back in Episode 8 is we were talking a lot about Pirates of the Caribbean and how much you put into it. And in many ways, I'm paraphrasing, but you said it was challenging because all the license holders didn't really get it because they're used to they're used to doing a lunchbox. They're used to doing a poster where it's one aspect that they take a look at. They say, yeah, it's good for our brand and they send it out. But you were asking all these things about music, art presentation, how you were going to integrate the gameplay. and it was completely different. And in many ways, they didn't understand why do you need to know this level of complexity because it was just so foreign to them. Well, now you can show them. Both of your games, I would say, is over the top. In Pirates of the Caribbean, I think that you even added characters in there that weren't even in the movies. There were so many options that you could possibly do. And with this, with 21 different songs, it's not like you are taking it to the next level you're taking it to the next galaxy like i uh the best thing that i could describe this and um i reached out a little bit with tim was talking about his his um what he thought about the collector's edition and he even said if it's more of an experience that's that's what he kept describing it as It's the experience of playing. It's not like theme integration or, hey, I feel like I'm at the concert. And it's a surreal experience. That is absolutely the intention of this game.
    11:31
    It just happened to be serendipitous. I always try to put a silver lining on 2020. No one was able to go to real concerts last year. And, you know, for the majority so far, I don't see real concerts happening around us anytime soon. Hopefully that changes.
    11:51
    But being able to release a game where people like Tim, you know, can say, I've been transported to a concert. It's like I'm there. That was just such a blessing to, you know, a lot of people who love going to live shows, who love going to concerts. being able to give them that experience in their own home during a pandemic was something that really made me feel good so speaking of theme integration whatnot was it a breath of fresh air having someone like slash on this project first you know helping with those licensing hurdles versus kind of some of the stuff that you ran into with your first project absolutely um i mean i can i can't even count the number of times where you know there was some issue with some sort of clearance right with um one aspect or another of the game um where it was just like i was talking to guns and roses management i'm like hey here's what we want to do and and it would kind of fall on deaf ears or it wouldn't wouldn't go that way and i would and just reach out to Slash and be like, hey, man, here's what you and I talked about. What can we do to make this happen? And then literally within the next hour, I would get a response from their management company saying, approved, good, good to go. One of the big ones I remember was, and it seems like such a simple thing, right? It seems like such a simple thing. The logo for the game. that's the guns and roses logo with the jjp um emblem in the middle of it so it's that bullet logo that's that's your typical guns and roses but we put flippers on it and we put a pinball in it instead of the revolvers with bullets and roses taking something so sacred as a huge band's logo and adapting it, I mean, I can't think of another instance where that's just acceptable.
    14:01
    And, you know, Slash, just like, this is so cool. I love the flippers. I love the pinball. Let's make this happen. And then management and, you know, Guns N' Roses, like most major bands, do not get to make all of the decisions with their IP, right? They are a brand at this point. There are dozens, if not hundreds of people whose livelihoods are invested in their brand. But having Slash in my corner and saying things like, this is what we want to do, guys. This is what's going to make the game cool. This is what's, you know, Eric has this vision for it. Let's follow through with it. It just paid for itself a thousand times over.
    14:43
    You don't have a bigger voice to fight for you than Slash. So when you're going through and in. OK, I have two questions to this one. When you're designing pinball, it seems that we have all accepted that there are different audiences for different products. I guess that's the best way of putting it. So, you know, we have the standard edition. We have the limited edition and the collector's edition. So one question I have is how do you approach making sure that you are nailing each target audience? Because we all know there's building materials. This is a business. We're trying to make sure that we put as much cool stuff in, but we're still profitable for each of the target audiences. That's the first question. Second question, did you expect the collector's edition to sell out as fast as it did?
    15:43
    All right. So to the first question, making the three models of a game, it's not easy. You're basically given a bare-bones bill of material and then told to prune it down from bare-bones bill of material for the collector's edition, then told to prune it down from there for the other two versions.
    16:07
    Like, I understand the logistics. I understand that it is a business. You know, it's just it's always a struggle because I always want to put everything possible into every single game.
    16:19
    But there are people who don't care for all the bells and whistles or who use the game in a different way. Right. Operators who just want the game to look pretty appeal to the mass public. They're not going to know about an upper play field that's not there. They're not going to know about the glitter play field. It's just the guy walking by at the bar, oh, cool, the Guns N' Roses game, let me put my dollar in it and play it. You give that guy the concert experience. You give him cool entertainment for a buck and he's not going to feel bad. Or you give it to the guy who doesn't have $10,000 to drop on the limited edition game or higher. Then for the limited edition, you want to give all the bells and whistles possible to make the game as good as it can be so that they get the full experience. And then finally, the collector's edition are the people who, I don't know. Those people are great. They have a lot more disposable income than I do, and they can buy $13,000 toys. you give them everything possible plus the kitchen sink and then you you know get your friend axel slash and duff to sign it for them so that it's just one more like notch in the feather the trying to appeal to those three markets is very difficult right there's always always always someone who's going to tell you what you did wrong and how they could have done it better but they don't actually make things on their own. So it's a, you know, you got to have thick skin doing it, designing it the way I do, the way we do here. Roll with the punches sort of thing. Cause you know, everyone's a, everyone's a Monday morning quarterback when it comes to game design and, and appeal. And while that thing only costs $20, they could, they could have put that in there. Well, right. But then you, you know, You make 5,000 units of something, and now you're at $100,000.
    18:29
    So to the other question, did we expect the collector's edition to sell out in, it was 90 minutes that it sold out. And the answer is no.
    18:44
    We did not expect it to sell out that fast. And it was very crazy. I mean, I really felt like we were on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange when we went live with that thing. because there were just like papers flying in the air, phone calls, people's personal cell phones are ringing. You know, Jack was in the office, his phone's going crazy. And then all the lines that are hooked up to take sales orders. It was just it was madness, complete and utter madness, which was just, you know, kind of astounding.
    19:14
    That had to have been the moment where you felt that you had a juggernaut on your hands that this was not just a special game but this was an epic thing that people have been waiting for
    19:29
    It was kind of surreal. There's always the thought of, well, this is a very expensive toy. I mean, we're talking almost 13, likely in most cases more than $13,000 with taxes and shipping. and you know it's it's it's kind of the juggling act i am from the pinball industry in a way like i grew up with buying an old crappy game and refurbishing it you know i've never personally bought a new in box game um just because i had all the contacts for used games and being able to buy them and refurbish them like that's how I built my collection um but there's the other end of that where people don't do that they just that's what I want I want it now and I'm going to buy it so to have the customers um respond in such a enthusiastic way was really cool getting Guns N' Roses on board because they shared it with their social media and I mean and Slash shared it with his personal social media, which has like 5 million followers on Instagram, and Guns N' Roses has equal to that or more. Just really opened it up to a huge market that, you know, some of these people have heard of pinball, but they don't know that it's still around, that it's flourishing, that it's going crazy.
    21:00
    But that absolutely helped broaden the market in a way that I don't think any other game recently has done. so eric here is a reality check though in 90 minutes you guys sold six million five hundred thousand dollars worth of product revenue not profit no no product so so that's how much you sold and i would argue that has to be a just a jaw-dropping what do i have in my hands here like that that's just mind-boggling that that much money moves so quickly on basically an expensive toy people are going to put in their house yeah yeah i mean it's it's a bit surreal you know like i i don't even know how i mean obviously it it costs more than anyone besides It's probably Gary understands it costs a lot of money to make pinball happen.
    22:04
    You know, you have a bill of material. You're like, okay, well, your bill of material is X. Okay, now take that times however many games you're going to build, 5,000. Okay, so 5,000 times your bill of material. That's the amount of capital you have to put up first before you ever put a game out the door. so you're talking millions and millions of dollars to invest before you ever get a penny of return on it it's the number is huge um in the scheme of what it takes to get a pinball company running and buy product it it helps uh helps cut into that that cost for sure That was a nice breath of fresh air when looking at the bottom line.
    22:51
    So going back to the theme integration for a minute, do you think that the depth of theme integration is unique to Guns N' Roses, or do you think we'll be seeing this amount of theme integration from future JJP titles?
    23:04
    I can only hope that we can match Guns N' Roses. To say that we'll ever get this kind of cooperation out of a licensor again is, you know, fingers crossed. That's what I hope. You know, I hope for, I don't know, if we do some other game. I'm trying to think of one that's not actually a game that we're going to do.
    23:32
    Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Right. If we do Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and we get the director, you know, who's been dead for 35 years, to be with us in lockstep every step of the way. And he's a pinball guy. who has 25 games in his house and 10 more at his office and six more in his studio,
    23:52
    that's absolutely what Slash was all about. He is a pinball guy, and he gets it, and he cares so much. I just hope that the next licensor, someone on their team, is a pinball person who cares, and they own their own games, and they see, you know, they start to peel back some of the layers of what it actually takes to build this thing. And they say yes, when most other licensors would say, nah, I'll look into it. Well, I think there's a, it's a hard line too, because we see pinball as a passion, as a hobby, but it's, it's also a business, like it's business first, and then you get the product that comes with it. And so it's hard to translate that to a licensor or something like that when they see it only as a business product, you know?
    24:45
    But no, I think you've definitely stepped up the bar. You and Slash and everyone with Guns N' Roses has definitely stepped up the bar of what theme integration could and should be for a pinball machine. It just might ruin us.
    25:00
    I will say your little promo, like that 90 second thing you did, like everybody who saw that said, And this is going way back and probably before either of you two. But when MTV came out, everybody was recording their videos just on like just a handheld thing. And it was really very basic stuff. Michael Jackson was the first one to said, no, I'm going to film these like a movie.
    25:32
    And as soon as Michael Jackson did that, everybody else said, I got to do that. and so when I saw this 90 second promo I immediately said if every pinball company is not paying attention to this is how you're supposed to do a release then they should because the the the earth has shifted and that's how you're supposed to do it yeah yeah that was a very fun project um element studios is a company that put that together for us and I work hand in hand with Alex, one of the leads there in coming up with it, you know, and he is a person who shares passion for what he does, right? And that's what really makes a product stand out. If you have the passion, doesn't matter what you're doing, you have the passion that you just, you care, then that shows. And it really shows in Alex's video. I mean, he would talk like, while we were in development with that, I absolutely talked to Alex more on the phone than I did with any member of my family for those like three months that we were shooting that thing. Yeah. That's pretty impressive. And I want to follow that up with, this is a quote from Tim Purcell. He's the one with the pinball loft. So I asked him, Hey, you own the game. Send me some questions that you want to send to Eric. And here's one of the questions that stood out to me.
    26:59
    This is Tim asking, getting the rights to use Live and Let Die was amazing, especially how it happened with Slash phone call to Paul McCartney. Did you already know it would be one of the standout songs in the game? And was there extra care put into that song and engineering the sound, lights and gameplay? And if you actually read his blog, he specifically says when that song started, he was actually moved to tears. And he's like, that's not me. That's not what I typically do when I'm playing a game. But that's part of that experience. Yeah.
    27:34
    Yeah, I read Tim's blog post. It was quite moving. And I sent him a message about it, too, because it was those kind of reactions really, you know, make me step back and realize what I do and how it impacts how it can impact other people. And I know for most people, it's a hobby. It's something they do for fun. But to be able to, you know, have someone be so fundamentally moved by something that I've created in such a positive way is very rewarding. um okay so to the question that tim asked about live and let die that was actually the first song that we ever did um when it came to lights and mode and music integration that was the first ever that was the bar we set uh it was set by joe katz to the other programmers um he said basically you know he put his best foot forward and said this is how all of our songs should be And the other programmers were like, dang, this is how we're going to do every one of them, huh? Like, yep. And that's what we did. We made every single song. And it was absolutely a labor of love. I mean, I spoke to it a couple times. But I don't necessarily think everyone listening quite gets how much goes into making a light show for a song. I mean, it took Joe probably 80 man hours, two solid weeks of work, to make that three-and-a-half-minute song lights look the way they do. You know, that's eight hours a day for 10 days at his computer listening to the song two seconds at a time, three seconds at a time, going over it with a fine-tooth comb, making sure the beat drops match the lights, making sure the sound effects work, they're in the right key, all that stuff. It's just, it's such a labor of love. And that was the first one that we did. And then there's over two hours of more music for songs that the other guys had to follow up with.
    29:51
    Is there something, because obviously I didn't know that you guys put so much into these games. I mean, 80 hours just for one song is amazing. Is there something you can show us behind the veil that may give us a better appreciation? Because I think the problem is a lot of hobbies say, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? I mean, just 80 hours on one song, that's a lot of time and work. Is there anything you could give us behind the scenes that would, I don't know, make us as hobbyists appreciate what you guys do a little better?
    30:24
    I can't speak to other game designers. I don't know what goes on at American. or at Stern, but I know that I personally, me, with my own two hands, fabricate every single part that goes into my first whitewood. I personally make it with a laser cutter, with a shear, with a break, with a bend, welding. I put the harness on. I put the first game together 100% with my own two hands. And that is hundreds of hours. Because that way I know when it gets to an assembly line, I'm the first one who's ever done this. I can put it together in this way.
    31:13
    I've personally done it so I know it works and I can teach other people how to do it. And it's hundreds of hours. And it's not just, you know, it's when you look at a finished game, you see on Guns N' Roses, for example, you see the right ramp and it leads up to the drumsticks. What you don't see is the six or seven iterations of that ramp before it got turned into a final tooled part. And at one point that ramp had a diverter that kicked it up to the upper playfield and went over the top of it. And I built that. I actually made it. I formed a, we have a shop bot here in our shop. I modeled it. I cut it a 3D mold on the shop bot, and then I used a vacuum former to make a ramp. I did all of that stuff, and it got tossed out. So, I mean, there's dozens of hours there that were spent with an idea, and the idea wound up not working or not being within budget or some other reason, and it got left on the cutting room floor. You see the final product of thousands and thousands of man hours, but what you don't see is the final product of all of the other thousands of man hours that got cut or reiterated or redone in a different way and for hundreds of reasons, whether it be budget or time or cost or, I mean, you name it. It's as a game designer, as a software programmer, as a manufacturer, you've got hundreds of spinning plates in the air. You're trying to keep them all up and running so that things stay within balance and you can make a good product.
    33:00
    Well, sure. But in fairness, if you're making an album, then if you're making a music album, they are going to have lots of songs. If a typical album has maybe 10, 12 songs, they probably started with 25. and they start cutting out and throwing out and saying, okay, let's put the best 12 ideas forward. So it is the best 60 minutes that you're listening to as opposed to other filler. And so I would argue it's probably the same thing when you're going through these designs. Yeah, that worked. But really, if you look at the entire project, it's not going to be in the best interest of the entire project. And so you skinny it down to your best ideas. Yep, absolutely. but and the you know it's just something to keep in the back of your mind you know when you're looking at a game and I don't know if we have pictures or if we'll post pictures of like the different stages of Whitewoods I don't know if that's protected IP or not that's something that's above my pay grade on determining if that goes out but the games all start out a lot different than how the public sees it just something that most people probably don't think about so there's one other thing i want to bring up that's talking about the different editions and one is that i didn't even realize this about the collector's edition until tim talked about it and his question was uh the coma lock is simple fun and pure genius where the name came from seems obvious but what was the inspiration for the mech so i talk about that like i didn't even know that this existed until he brought it up because I was under the impression that the LE and the CE were the same play field. So this is actually a variation on the play field. So why don't you tell me about that? So the inspiration and the theme integration for the Coma Lock area has to do in my conversations with Slash. At every major concert venue, there is an infirmary because people that go to concerts sometimes don't make the best life choices. People will get hurt, people will imbibe legal or illegal substances and need to seek medical attention. So in every concert there is an infirmary and due to having the song Coma we really wanted to theme it after a coma and it And it makes sense that when you're in a coma, you're hoping to wake up, right? So it just clicked with me to be a ball save mechanism or a ball save toy somehow. So put that in the left out lane. We've done that on several games at JJP, some little out lane game to potentially save your ball. And that's where kind of the coma lock concept came from. when the bill of material cutting started happening, which happens in every project. And, you know, you've got to, I've said it a couple of times, you have to have thick skin from outside the company as well as inside the company. You know, you have to be a big boy and make the decisions.
    36:13
    Parts get removed from a game and you have to roll with it. The budget in the collector's edition game allowed for it and the budget in the other versions of the game did not. So we left it in there digitally in software. It's still available, but the physical ball lock stayed in the CE. And I think a lot of people make a lot out of that, a lot more than I absolutely intended. It's a very small thing, but as a game designer, I look for every single possible square inch of play field. and studying games like well there's that apron down there that just feeds the ball into the trough but i've got an extra couple inches underneath that apron what could i do with it and so first iterations i put like a glass or a plastic window in there so you could see into it then i realized with the height of the apron and all that i don't actually need to have a little window over it so just use that playfield area and make it something cool and that's the inspiration for the coma lock that is way cool yeah so you don't have to modify anything for the things you just have a physical versus a virtual so yeah yeah how did how does the how did the balls come out of that physical lock so we do a little bit of stage magic um right and the idea of stage magic is make them look over at the flashy light as you're slipping the card from underneath your sleeve. So when you qualify coma and you successfully made all the shots you need to make, then it launches a ball and it starts a multi-ball as the ball from the coma lock drains into the trough. So you're not supposed to be paying attention to it. And most people are like, well, how does it get back there? And most people, unless they sit there and study it and they're not looking at the multi ball that's ejecting out of the trough, they don't actually know where it goes. But yeah, it releases the ball down into the trough. Nice.
    38:26
    You guys have now moved the manufacturing from New Jersey to Chicago. How has that been and how do you feel like it has it benefited the process? I assume it hasn hindered it but how has that been for you I couldn think of another way that I could be more successful So having engineering and production in separate locations separate states, thousands of miles away was a burden. I mean, it was not an insurmountable burden, but it was a burden just because I care so much. I want to be there.
    39:09
    I was a jerk coming to this meeting because I was half an hour late for this interview because I was on the line and I was checking games, making sure that they live up to my over-demanding expectations of everyone else. if you know if I weren't there to oversee things and things you know will always slip through the cracks make every effort possible to make sure that can't happen but it does still happen even with me standing there being able to be there and immediately be able to pivot when an issue comes up because issues always come up in every manufacturing discipline that anyone's ever experience but being able to have boots on the ground and the the capacity to come up with a solution immediately as opposed to get on a phone call well i can't really see the issue can you guys bring the phone over there with the video i still don't really understand it being able to be here and i'm i'm doing this interview from the manufacturing um building being able to be here look at physical issues immediately and come up with a solution is just immeasurable in its value well and the other the other follow-up i have to that too i know that other manufacturers have different timelines on on how when they start projects and whatnot i know that we've spoke with like with keith l1 and he's usually already on game four when when game three just released kind of situation how does it does how does your guys's schedule line up if i may ask and uh Like, because obviously you're still doing a lot with Guns N' Roses right now. But are you working on your next project while you're you're helping on the manufacturing line and and doing all that stuff?
    41:05
    My next Whitewood is very fun to shoot. Gotcha. All right. So, yes, I have to split my time. I'm very focused on making sure Guns N' Roses games go out the door.
    41:23
    you know, and meet my expectations. Um, but you know, in a year, um, when it's time for another game to come out, there's no room for excuses, right? There's, uh, let's see, about 70 people that work at Jersey Jack pinball. And if I don't have a game ready, nobody has a job. Yeah. So, yeah.
    41:54
    Yeah, exactly. It's not on you. No, wait, it is. Okay, so I reached out to a few other people because I knew that we were interviewing you. And so this is actually from Mrs. Pin. I said, do you have any questions from Eric? And she said, quote, how is he so freaking awesome? Is there a recipe for that? Unquote.
    42:18
    So apparently she has a pin crush. I think. So Sarah is one of the coolest people in pinball. Absolutely. She was my secret Santa last year. Well, yeah, she was my Santa. She gave me presents and it was very cool. Got to know her better and her family and Christian and everyone.
    42:39
    Very fun to hang out with. There's, I don't really know how to respond to her questions. I try to be nice. That's what I do. I have passion for what I do. I want others to have passion to try to match mine and make cool stuff.
    43:02
    Well, I think the passion certainly shows. The best advice that I heard was Mike Rowe was talking about things one time, and he always said, don't follow your passion, but follow opportunities. But the caveat is bring your passion to your opportunities. And I think you've been able to maximize that with everything in your background, with your background in pinball, with your engineering degree, your mechanical and electrical degree, master's, and then bringing those opportunities and passion back together. I think it certainly shows. um one thing that christian did ask so dr penn he asked your approach to blowing up guns and roses because he he specifically said i don't know how to pronounce this guy's name he said i need an edge to take down rodney kamagees i don't know how to say that last name but anyway his high score and so i was like well i will ask eric how he approaches his own game and what's the best way to get a high score? Well, if you want the super nerdy answer or the quick answer, the quick answer is never cash out. Never, ever, ever take the jackpot during a song. If you do, you don't get the best value. It's always risk reward. Every time you clear a stage in a song, you shoot the center scoop, you have the option to take the jackpot and run or no whammy, no whammy, keep going. and you keep going it adds a multiplier to your jackpot i mean it doesn't necessarily double it every time but it pretty much does um so you know your jackpot starts at oh it's a hundred thousand points cool and by the fourth or fifth round you're sitting at a six or seven million point jackpot the value keeps building with every shot you make um and there are other aspects that go into making your songs super valuable. So the booster multiballs that you can play before your song, right? What makes a concert experience super awesome? All your lights, your pyro, the amplifiers to bring the sound, and then the state of the crowd. So if you play those four booster multiballs beforehand and you do well in those, they directly impact the scoring of your songs. Then understanding the patch system. Like all cool 80s rockers, there's a denim jacket with patches. The patches all have unique abilities. Definitely a throwback to the fun aspect of queuing up your pirate lane awards in Pirates. You can queue up your patch with the action button and there's some that make this song more valuable, or some that make Slash available for the rest of the game or some that do touring bonuses. So if you understand the patch system, you can look at that, you can study, you can build your patches in a great way, have them be very lucrative as you're going into a song. You can get huge jackpots. I haven't yet streamed Guns N' Roses, but when I do, I'll be able to go over all of these rules and how I play it. But watching Carl's stream, Carl understands rules. He understands gameplay. Carl D'Angelo, i.e. pinball, he gets it. His streams are just amazing to watch because the dude is so much better at pinball than me.
    46:38
    And he understands the rules as well as me. So it's cool to watch Carl play. If you're looking for a great way on how to blow up a game, Carl lost 111 million point jackpot on a song. Whoa. Yeah, which is more than most people will ever cash in.
    46:56
    Well, it's crazy. I just watched his one where he did almost 100 million jackpot, and it almost made the points after that. I was like, where are the rest of the points going to come from? It was massive. Yeah.
    47:11
    Never cash out until you get those crazy jackpots. Build your boosters, build your patches. then you can really take it to town. All right. So basically it's like betting. Let it ride. Only let it ride.
    47:26
    So COVID's obviously been hard on a lot of people and whatnot, and it's definitely had to make us change up our thought process on how we do stuff.
    47:36
    Do you feel like COVID's affected the design process from what you guys have been doing? And how has it helped or hindered what you guys have been doing? I would say very small helping in such that we moved our manufacturing facility, our manufacturing facility last year in 2020, would have been up and running much sooner had it not been for COVID. But people weren't allowed to come in and work and do what they needed to do to get the facility up and running. What that did is it gave our programmers extra time to perfect their light shows and get the rest of the code in there. We released the game at version 1.0. It had all the modes available and playable. Not all finely tuned and refined, right? There's still always fixes we want to do and improvements and that sort of stuff. But it gave us much more time to get the game code further along. It definitely hindered in a way that, you know, during Pirates and Wonka, it would be me and Katz and Kiefer and JT playing these games pretty much every day. We would go out to the lobby and play the game for half an hour, 45 minutes, and having me plus three programmers there. I'm playing and they're watching, or one of them's playing and I'm watching. We'd always have notebooks with us, take notes on what improvements we could make, or, hey, I thought I saw a little glitch here or a bug there, like one frame was off, something like that. that aspect of the game development cycle has just not been there we're not able to hang out and play the games together um in the way that we have in the past so yeah that aspect of covid has really made it suck and then the other one i've always been really intrigued after i heard the jjp podcast where Ken Cromwell interviewed Slash, and he said, let's see if I wrote this down right. He said he'd be willing to come design another pinball machine in the future. So do you think we'll see another Eric and Slash design pinball machine in the future? Is it in the cards? Yes, it's a Velva Revolver machine. Boom, done.
    49:57
    I would. I mean, Revolver's music is fantastic. Is it in the cards? Absolutely. Slash is, now I would consider him a personal friend,
    50:09
    and he has expressed interest in doing more with us. He is absolutely a good person to know, and whether it be for his personal ability to add greatness to a game, like if he wants to do music, or his voice calls, not something that he really enjoys doing, but he is friends with everyone. I mean, you ask a person if they want to be friends with Slash, and the answer is yes. So he knows everybody.
    50:44
    He has been showing off his game to other people who have licenses. You know, like, hey, look what Eric has done for me and for GNR. You know, he can do the same for you sort of thing. So he's a great guy. He's a great guy to have on our team and in our back pocket because he can do stuff for us that you're not going to find anyone else like him. You know what that is? The dream is to be a rock star and then become a pinball designer. I know. In that order, right? In that order. The pinnacle is being the pinball designer, as we've all established on the show. Yes, I've maybe I've said this on another podcast, but one of the most kind of surreal moments of this whole project is when we were recording with Melissa Reese, who is a keyboardist for Guns N' Roses. We were mid session and I was like showing her the game. Right. I took my phone and and we were on Skype or Zoom or something and I showed her the game. And she, right, a world-renowned touring rock star said, and I quote, Eric, you have the coolest job ever.
    52:00
    Yeah, well, I – That's pretty flattering. Considering I – last night I was putting people to sleep because they had a steak stuck in their throat. Yes, I would say that your job is way cooler than mine. yeah not kidding happened twice uh last night so that might if you're wondering if my job is glorious no it is not but yes i would say talking to slash and melissa that is amazing uh one question i have is with covet has drastically affected how you do things but it's also drastically affected um location pinball. And we've even seen, and I'm just going to throw this out there, that Pinball Hall of Fame in Vegas, they are moving and they are trying to bridge the gap. They actually had the funds, but because COVID shut down their place, it's actually been difficult there about, I think Tim said they are $500,000 short. They're trying to raise the funds. And so if you want to go to his, it's a GoFundMe. Just go ahead and throw a few dollars. If you haven't been to the Pinball Hall of Fame, it's actually a great place. And if you're in Vegas, it's certainly a place that you can take the family. So I'm going to throw that out there. But I also want to talk from an industry insider. When you see the effect of these establishments struggling to stay alive, what what are you as an insider thinking about this and is there anything that the industry can do to help revitalize these locations that are hurting yeah it's it's heartbreaking to see because i grew up as an operator i mean we had my family's business kingpin games up in wisconsin and we had over 100 arcades in the Wisconsin Dells area, and they've since changed their business model. They haven't been doing route operations for many years now, but it's very tough.
    54:18
    Everyone wants to see location pinball thrive. That's one of the main reasons that we released our standard edition at the pricing we did is so that we could get it out on location. trying to show these games and bring them into the modern era having internet connected, having things integrated like scorebit where you can compete with your friend who's got a game at home, you can post your scorebit score and they can post theirs and you guys can try to chase leaderboards bringing something that means you don't necessarily have to play on the same physical machine together, but you can still play together, is something that I pushed for hard, which is why we got the score with integration into GNR and why we plan on releasing it for all of our games. I want to talk also about the contributions of Back Alley Creations. So they did the sculpts on this. So the three that are, well, the four that are obvious, you see Axel and you also see Slash's hat. And on the collector's edition, you see the roses and you see the skull there around the shooter rod. Now, I'm curious as to what the choice was, which I think is the correct choice, by the way, that you decided to put a skull around the shooter rod without actually affecting the standard shooter rod. So that's one thing. And also, how is your approach of making something that is you want this to be cool, you want this to be thematically appropriate with Guns N' Roses, and you also want it to fit in the machine?
    56:05
    Having Matt Reisterer from Back Alley as a personal friend makes all of those questions you just asked a lot easier. Matt knows what to do. I'd say, Matt, here's what I want. I want an Axl Rose doing a back bend, screaming into his microphone.
    56:24
    And he'll say, Eric, that sounds crazy. Let's do it. And Matt, I want to put a skull around the outside of a shooter housing, and I want the shooter rod to go straight through its forehead like a bullet to the brain.
    56:39
    Okay, let's do it. And I bring the engineering. Matt brings the artistic capacity. and I mean he is a very much a hands-on designer when it comes to his stuff so I'll give him the raw parts right here's an upper playfield where axles got a mount here is the lockdown bar with a button here's a shooter housing take into account where the leg goes where the coin door is and now we do iterative process and that comes back with sculpting clay and you know you can just whip something out right there and then okay that's good we'll cast that we'll paint it we'll bring it back we'll do some trimming he is just very very talented individual one of the best sculptors that I've ever met and one of the best artists that i've ever worked with so he he makes these sculpts just just work and he's great at it so the other part of the um pinball machine that i really love because i'm a musician uh i love the guitar and the fender head and the drumsticks all integrated into the game i think that something very unique that i would have never would have even thought to put inside of a pinball machine Where did that idea come from The drumsticks were something that I originally drew I don know 2014 2013 something that I had in the back of my head. I'm like, if I ever do a band game, music game, I'm going to turn a ramp, I'm going to turn two drumsticks into a ramp just because, you know, they're perfect cylinders.
    58:31
    If you take the tapered tip out of the equation, a ball can roll across these. I want to make it happen. So I'm actually going to be – a personal friend reached out to me who's a teacher, and that's one of the things that I'm going to present to his students. I'm going to give a little talk in a couple weeks on what engineering is. It's a little class for second and third graders. What engineering is and that's the problem that I'm going to present. How do you turn two drumsticks into a ramp for a pinball machine? So we're going to go through the iterative process that I took in making that happen, all the different aspects that went into it and different things to consider. the guitar head and the fender base head i really wanted to do the kinetic ball diverters that were first seen in i think bride of pinbot and road kings i think those little triangles that i have in the game um i liked them i grew up with a bride I had a pin bot in my house as a kid, and I always liked the little kinetic diverter. It's basically cheap, low expense action on the bill of material that affects the ball. So how can I use those in a creative way? I wanted to create the bass guitar wire form, right? Four wires, four strings on a bass that go down the left side.
    60:06
    I only wanted to feed it in one pass, so that's why I used three of those kinetic diverters up there, because you shoot the ball into that four times and it's going to go down the three paths and down the strings of the bass guitar. And then being able to, you know, Slash is such a central part of this game and the concert experience, turning that stage into the neck of the Gibson and having Gibson on board with it. I mean, Slash is one of their forefront speakers of their brand.
    60:38
    Getting their cooperation and being able to put Slash's signature Gibson in the game and then use it as a six-ball lock was just something that worked well. Six strings on the guitar, use a kinetic diverter to split the ball to go to the six different locations and just release them and start the frenzy. It was something that just worked. The theme, trying to utilize all the aspects of the instruments in a way that made them work well and fit in the game was something that I draw on a lot. And I have hundreds of hand-drawn sketches of how, you know, concepts and iterations of what I wanted to do with the different aspects of this game. That's how they pan out. I think all of us would love some data to get the behind the scenes and look at all your concepts. That'd be amazing. The folder is no joke here. Pull it out of my desk here.
    61:41
    The folder is four inches thick. Wow. Dang. You know, in some in some things, four inches doesn't seem like a lot, but in a binder it is.
    61:54
    Yeah. maybe maybe the new thing will be the director's cut you know when we come to pinball machines later on in life and uh we'll we'll have the eric's director's cut of of guns and roses yeah it'll be 25 000 because the bill of materials will be 15 000 in itself um okay so let's talk about the light show now you know there are two things that every time i look at the at the machine that still just kind of blow me away that you have those concert lights that rotate and spin okay whose idea was that your idea or was it slash's idea or who came up with we're going to put these mini concert lights in there that are spinning in addition to about 20 000 lights that is far and above anything that normally people would put in there and at the same time it's not going to be the blinding light that typically people associate with uh with too much light it actually it's it's over the top yes it is crazy yes it's also it brings you into the machine as opposed to blind you from the machine the moving spotlights and again i started to lose track um over how the idea came to be.
    63:20
    You know, you look at a concert, you have moving gobos that light up or spotlights that keep track of the stars on stage, and something that I felt was needed. So I approached my mechanical engineer, one of my mechanical engineers, Peter Dorn, and said, here's what I want to do, man. Let's make it happen. and you know he roughed it out worked on the 3d printer 3d printed some parts put them together got axis of rotation in the horizontal and axis of rotation in the vertical and with that we're able to just make the lights move around however we want um it's an intricate little mech um that just does so much. I mean, it's so cool. But the problem with a lot of this stuff is like, okay, you look at that Mac, like, oh, yeah, it's a couple servos. That works, and that's what we need to do to make it happen.
    64:19
    Our hardware platform for running electronics needed to reinvent that too because it didn't support running four servos independently at the same time. Same with the lighting system. Didn't support running serial address RGB LEDs like we put in the hot rails and the bottomers and the backers. So being able to have a team that I can depend on in my electrical engineering department with Tony Tuminaro and Ben Stilbert, those guys really stepped it up, getting the software department to do better firmware integration, to be able to support the servos and the lights, Duncan Brown really stepped up there. Just having this team of people who are really good at stuff that I'm not good at is really helpful. And to top it off on the collector's edition, you also put in an additional topper with additional lights and an additional sound bar to break your eardrums. Yes. yeah we i mean i came up with the idea of the topper on you know what do you want on a music pin what do you want on a rock and roll game well you want more sound you want you know we we already have a very good sound system one of the best in the industry and so i was you know i had to justify well why do we need more speakers if our sound system is already good well it's a rock and roll game. More sound is better. So we added this other set of speakers that adds a little more oomph in the mid-range and just fills out the sound in a beautiful way. And I think it was very well received. Yeah, I think that would push anybody to want the collector's edition when you look at all the extra touches you guys put on there. It certainly justifies the elite status of that selection. It's one of those situations, though, where you're going to have to tell the wife, it's time to take the kids. Me and the boys are going to be playing Guns and Roses, and we're turning it up to 11. And we're using adult mode.
    66:33
    I got to say, though, I do appreciate that, having a family-friendly mode on a pinball machine. And I know that you spoke to this in the past, but was that a conscious decision from day one? I can't remember. Yes. Yeah, it was something that I was pretty strict on, you know, slash not so much, you know, he's like, well, why don't we just have this this girl there with her? yeah yeah with her yes and i'm just like oh no i can't do that um i respect women and you know i have a lot of friends that are in the bells and chimes and i couldn't stand the fact of them you know looking at me with disappointment if i if i you know degraded women in that way like that's not what i want to do i want their i want everyone to be able to approach this game and not feel uncomfortable around it. And I have a loving wife and I have two young children and I want them to be able to enjoy my game as well. I don't want my kids to feel ashamed of something that they see in a game that I've created. So I was very firm on, I want it to be family friendly, but I know that our market has, you know, mostly adult men that want to play this game on their own or with adult friends. So bring on the swear words, bring on the explicit content in the video, bring on, you know, all of that and let them turn it on if they want to. But I'm not going to ship a game with that enabled by default just because it goes against what I stand for. Now, I will say I appreciate that. And that is walking a fine line because I grew up in the 80s and I grew up in the MTV era. And I would say it's safe to say a lot of the MTV stuff was very dude centric and stereotypical, I would say. Now, right or wrong, that was the 80s. And so I appreciate that you've been able to find a way to still be thematically appropriate to what Guns N' Roses was in the 80s, but bringing it to a modern time and still making it acceptable for 2020, 2021. Because that is a very thin needle to thread.
    69:03
    And I'm very serious about that. And I appreciate that you even working with Slash and Guns N' Roses, that shows that at least they're aware of the need to be relevant with the times, but also be true to their core. Completely agree. Well, you can definitely tell times have changed. Knowing the Guns N' Roses I grew up with, I would have never expected a woman to be their keyboardist. nothing against Melissa or whatnot, but I'm just like, if you've ever listened to Apptite for Destruction, I would, I would assume it's not, what's the word I'm looking for? It's not inclusive. Yeah. Yeah. Let's put it that way. It's very, well, it's very much dude music. And so, and that's part of being relevant in today to recognize that your market is not this narrow, this narrow demographic. You actually have to appeal to all demographics and, and being able to be inclusive without being exclusive is a very difficult thing to do in today's day and age. And being able to do that, um, I, I would say that you still were true with Guns N' Roses in the lifestyle that they portray, but without being, um, I guess without being degrading to one segment of the population, it still is welcoming to all.
    70:34
    Do you have any final thoughts for us, Eric? Is there any special moments that you had with this pinball machine that I know I got to say, like the Paul McCartney story is one of my favorites. Like it's just something that makes me smile when I hear that one, when you were talking about that and super awesome. But is there another moment maybe that just stands out to you when you think of guns and roses in this pinball machine?
    70:54
    Um, I don't want to get all sappy on you, but it might come across that way. that's fine it's being grateful for the impact that my music teachers have had in my life my high school music teacher my college band professor without their guidance and the extracurricular activities that I was able to do as a kid this game would not be here it would not exist the way it does if I didn't have the passion for music that Scott Brewer and Michael Ekron instilled in me, there's no way this game would have been created. I pushed the envelope in every way to make sure the music was represented the way it should be, that sound effects were in the right key, that the notes on the play field around the record mech accurately represent the first eight bars of Sweet Child of Mine. If I hadn't done that, if I hadn't pushed for that, this game would not be what it is. And so I'm just very appreciative of those people in my life.
    72:09
    And I think that that shows it's one of those moments that it's hard to define as we all grow up from being kids to adults is when you recognize those touchstones in life And you're appreciative of those impactful moments. And I think of my parents. I think of my teachers. I think of all those people that in completely unpredictable ways have affected my life. And I appreciate that that is really what comes to your mind, especially having such a diverse background in music and engineering and pinball. It all kind of comes together in unpredictable ways. Yeah. You know, I just want to be grateful for Eric. You took a risk when we didn't know anything about recording. You said, yeah, sure. I'll go on this this loser podcast. And I I'm forever appreciative that you took a risk in accepting us and to spending your time and your volunteer and your time to do this. And so I appreciate that. And over the amount of time we've been doing this, I think we've gotten better. But I've appreciated how openness and really inclusive this weird niche hobby that we have. And I just wish you guys all the best in your upcoming releases. And I really can't – I'm so excited for this. I will – in full disclosure, Guns N' Roses was my runaway game of the year. I had no – there was nothing else. I loved a lot of the games that came out, but this one seemed to be with everything over the top, and it was the definition of raising the bar. And so I congratulate you. I congratulate everybody at JJP, and I congratulate your synergistic working with Guns N' Roses because it shows in this game, and it is incredible. It's jaw-dropping. And my buddy who lives a mile away, he's actually my tennis teacher too, is Lindsey Rahlstrom. He is buying his LE, and I can't wait to help him tune it in. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. It brings a smile to my face when I hear people. Like I said, when I hear how I positively impact people's lives, it really makes me take a step back and appreciate what I get to do. as a, as a profession. I couldn't have said any better than Scott. And honestly, Eric, each one of your projects are getting better and better. We hope, hope the best for your next one. We know that you're going to do killer on it and just knock our socks off again. We can't wait to see what you got in store for us. Thanks guys. Appreciate it. You're welcome. If there's, let's see, I was going to ask if there's a way, do you want people bothering you?
    75:03
    If there's people who want to reach out to you, are you okay with that? A lot of people have reached out to me personally on Facebook. I don't mind if they connect with me on Facebook on my personal page.
    75:16
    And that's probably the best way to do it because that way I can respond when I have time. Awesome. If you want to get a hold of us, you can contact us via Facebook. It's probably the best way to do it, whether it be Messenger or commenting on our page at Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. We are also on Twitter and Instagram at Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. and do it the old-fashioned way too. You can just email us at Loserkidpinballpodcast at gmail.com Once again, we appreciate everyone that tunes in for the feedback. Thanks for all the positive vibes that you've sent our way in these last couple of weeks.
    75:53
    And yeah, we just really appreciate all the fans and doing this and just having some fun, you know. So, send us off, Scott. All right. Well, you guys be excellent to each other and let us try to enjoy this year and hopefully everybody get vaccinated and let's go and play some pinball together.
    76:12
    And tune in to the Pinball Industry Awards on January 28th to see we were nominated for the Podcast of Excellence category. We'll see if we become a recipient. We thank those guys for considering us and we'll see you then. And go buy Guns N' Roses. yes, buy two, one for you and one for your friends shut up and sit down
    77:01
    Thank you.