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Episode 97 - Like a D6

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 9m·analyzed·Sep 21, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Stern reveals Elvira; Dutch offers contested EA buyout option with murky terms.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss Stern's Elvira House of Horrors reveal (premium/LE/signature editions with Dennis Nordman design and Cassandra Peterson video cameos) and Dutch Pinball controversial EA buyout option ($12,500 to jump queue, with unspecified 'special extras' and potential refund of original $8,500 pre-order). Both topics showcase tension between manufacturer promises and customer frustration.

Key Claims

  • Elvira House of Horrors is not a cornerstone title and comes in premium ($8,000 MSRP) and LE (400 units, $9,600 MSRP) with 50 signature editions (no MSRP listed)

    high confidence · Dennis citing official Stern pricing structure

  • Cassandra Peterson recorded custom video clips for the game, which is a first in pinball according to IGN

    high confidence · Dennis referencing IGN article about live-action video integration

  • Dennis Nordman designed Elvira on contract with Stern 'quite a while ago,' with announcement at Texas Pinball Festival 2017

    high confidence · Dennis providing historical timeline

  • Lyman Sheets coded Elvira and has been working on it for a year (unsubstantiated claim Dennis read)

    medium confidence · Dennis explicitly marking as 'not substantiated'

  • Dutch Pinball's Barry offered EAs option to pay $12,500 to jump queue and get refund of original $8,500 pre-order OR keep both machines, with undefined 'special extras' as incentive

    high confidence · Dennis citing Dutch Pinball newsletter

  • Dennis believes EAs who take the buyout offer will be deprioritized and placed at end of line once non-complainers receive games

    medium confidence · Tony's speculation about Barry's likely prioritization strategy

  • There are approximately 135 EAs; at least double that number (270+) of new buyers would be needed to generate enough revenue to make EAs whole

    medium confidence · Tony's mathematical analysis of sales required to honor buyout commitments

Notable Quotes

  • “It is almost a prototypical Stern in the stereotype sense... I just don't know. Like, Batman 66's geometry is really unique. So I just sort of was surprised, I suppose, would be the way to describe it.”

    Dennis @ ~18:00 — Critique of Elvira's safe/fan layout choice for a niche title; questions design philosophy

  • “I think that's why the special extras were added on, as a special incentive to try and sway... I do not think he thinks people are dumb enough to do this, but I do.”

    Tony @ ~35:30 — Cynical assessment of Dutch's EA buyout strategy; suggests undefined incentives are manipulation tactic

  • “Who out of anyone has the most vested interest in seeing new games sold besides Barry? The pre-orderers are the ones that want him to succeed the most because they want the game they paid for.”

    Dennis @ ~38:00 — Analysis of emotional/psychological targeting of EAs; identifies vulnerability Barry is exploiting

  • “With no timeline and no specific chart of how they're going to do things, if they do get to a point where he starts filling those games, I can guarantee you right now the EA who are going to actually receive their games are going to be the ones first are going to be the ones who did not take this.”

    Tony @ ~36:15 — Prediction that EA buyout participants will face indefinite delays in receiving promised refunds/games

  • “I've played so many other hobbies and done so much other stuff where something like this, what happens is the people you screwed come walking out with axes and pitchforks and torches... but for some reason in pinball, they hit their knees so fast that they risk shattering their kneecaps and bowing to you.”

    Tony @ ~39:30 — Harsh critique of pinball community's unusually forgiving attitude toward manufacturer failures; notes this is aberrant vs other hobbies

  • “I don't think so. I think you could have easily sold 100 at $12,500 if ARA had had 100 at $12,500. But 100 games on top of the 40 that already went out... Because remember, the plan is 400 to 500 total games to make the EA's whole.”

    Dennis @ ~41:00 — Skepticism about Dutch's sales projections and sustainability of $12,500 pricing for 300+ hand-built units

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyDennis NordmanpersonCassandra PetersonpersonLyman SheetspersonDutch PinballcompanyBarry (Dutch Pinball)personJack Dangerperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Dutch Pinball's financial viability questioned: 135 EAs need 270+ new buyers to fund refunds/fulfillment, yet no timeline provided. Tony skeptical 100+ hand-built machines will sell at $12,500; Dennis predicts rapid price decline.

    high · Dennis: 'I do not believe that this game holds at $12,500 for very long if they're actually starting to hand-build games. I think that the price goes down pretty quickly.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Dutch Pinball's Barry offered EAs controversial buyout option: $12,500 to jump queue + undefined 'special extras' + choice of refund of original $8,500 or second machine. Tony predicts EAs taking offer will be deprioritized indefinitely; Dennis warns price likely collapses once hand-built machines ship.

    high · Dennis citing Dutch Pinball newsletter; Tony: 'I can guarantee you right now the EA who are going to actually receive their games are going to be the ones who did not take this'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Tony expresses frustration that pinball community's tolerance for manufacturer misconduct (Dutch Pinball delays, fee-stacking) is abnormal compared to other hobby communities, which would demand refunds/legal action. Attributes to pinball culture being uniquely forgiving.

    medium · Tony: 'I've played so many other hobbies... they hit their knees so fast... but for some reason in pinball, they... risk shattering their kneecaps and bowing to you'

  • ?

    community_signal: Deadflip scheduled official gameplay reveal for Elvira (9/25/2019 7pm CT) with expected walkthrough and rules discussion, demonstrating Stern's continued partnership with community streamers for game launches.

    high · Dennis: 'Deadflip does have a gameplay reveal stream scheduled... on Twitch and check Deadflip out'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.208

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Saturday, September 21st. This is episode 97 and I am Tony. I'm Dennis. Why are we recording on Saturday? We're recording on Saturday because I'm leaving to go to Chicago for a work thing tomorrow morning. Way earlier than intended. I misunderstood when I got my flight information from the person who set everything up. And I thought my flight left Kansas City at like 10 in the morning. No, no, no, no. My flight arrives in Chicago at 10 in the morning. So I'm leaving even earlier than I had originally intended But that's okay I'll be awake anyway I wake up at 4am Without an alarm It's not a long flight So I figured it must not be too accelerated Maybe, I don't know, 90 minutes accelerated For your, when you Well, no I don't know when you're Yeah, it's like an hour and 20 minutes Although I thought I was leaving Kansas City at 10 Right So instead of needing to be up at the airport Early enough so I could leave at 10. I have to be up at the airport early enough so I can leave at like 8.50 or 8.45 or something like that. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, that's too bad, but maybe you'll be able to get some pinball in then. I've already got a plan in place. I finalized the plan. Okay, finalized is a strong word because that implies that there's more planning going on than me going, you know what? I think I can probably be there by like 7 or 8, But I'm planning on Monday night hitting Logan, and I should be there sometime between 7 and 8.
1:59
That's the plan. Okay. Is that what's going to actually happen? Yep. It'll be exactly what happens. We'll see. I'm sure it'll be perfectly what happens. Yeah, because absolutely nothing ever goes wrong. No. No, now that you're flying in early, everything's going to be great. Yeah, now that I'm flying in early on Sunday. See, because the way I had things planned initially, I'd be landing just, I'd land and by the time I got to the hotel and everything, I could check in. And now I'm not. Now you're going to have to keep your bag around until like three. Yeah, I'm going to have to keep my bag around for like five hours.
2:34

  • “I do not believe that this game holds at $12,500 for very long if they're actually starting to hand-build games. I think that the price goes down pretty quickly.”

    Dennis @ ~40:15 — Prediction of price collapse once hand-built machines actually reach market; challenges viability of financial model

  • “It's like, technically, we'll just see if they... I have no idea how aggressive the NFL is on trying to hunt that stuff down or not.”

    Dennis @ ~10:00 — Humorous aside on copyright enforcement risk for Flippin' Out's use of NFL 'Super Bowl' music parody on YouTube

    • Ken Cromwell
    person
    Zach Minneyperson
    John Borgperson
    Elvira House of Horrorsgame
    Smilesgame
    Batman 66game
    This Week in Pinballorganization
    Deadfliporganization
    Pinball Supernovaorganization
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    IGNorganization
    Attack from Marsgame
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Munstersgame
    Dennisperson
    Tonyperson
    ?

    design_philosophy: Dennis Nordman designed Elvira with prototypical fan layout rather than signature unique geometry. Dennis questions why niche non-cornerstone title would use safe/generic layout, noting Nordman's design strength lies in toys/mechs rather than playfield geometry.

    medium · Dennis: 'It is almost a prototypical Stern in the stereotype sense... When I look at the layout, I didn't see Nordman in the layout. It reminded me more of John Borg.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Cassandra Peterson (original Elvira performer) involvement in game production and selling 50 signature editions through Fang Club suggests active IP holder partnership, though retirement status unclear.

    medium · Dennis: 'I had heard that Cassandra Peterson... was selling those through her website or through her Fang Club'

  • $

    market_signal: Recent Stern games (Munsters, Jurassic Park) experiencing significant secondary market depreciation ($1k drops) due to oversupply of recent releases and collector fatigue. Players need space and are choosing newer games.

    medium · Dennis: 'people are just like, I need the space, so I got to sell Munsters for $1,000 less... people are more excited about Jurassic Park now'

  • ?

    community_signal: Christopher Franchi (mentioned implicitly via discussion of fan-layout design trends) and John Borg are currently producing many fan-layout titles at Stern, setting design precedent Elvira follows.

    low · Dennis discussing prevalence of recent Stern fan layouts by Borg; context suggests broader design shift

  • ?

    announcement: Stern formally announced Elvira House of Horrors with three-tier pricing (Premium $8k, LE 400 units $9.6k, 50 Signature Editions no MSRP). Features include rotating turret toy house, crypt bash, subway mech, and first-ever live-action video callouts by Cassandra Peterson.

    high · Official announcement with IGN coverage; gameplay reveal scheduled for Deadflip 9/25/2019 7pm CT

  • ?

    product_concern: Dennis questions whether Elvira's playfield geometry and layout will deliver compelling gameplay, expressing skepticism until hands-on testing. Worries fan layout + toys alone may not justify high price point without exceptional rule design.

    medium · Dennis: 'It's hard to have thoughts until we really see a lot of gameplay... I'm not really going to know, do I really like it or not'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Elvira House of Horrors integrates live-action video content (Cassandra Peterson recordings) into pinball screen—noted by IGN as first in pinball industry. Represents new content production capability.

    high · Dennis: 'There's actual live action recording for just a pinball screen... I think so. So, what are your thoughts?'

    • Yeah, that kind of stinks. Yeah, so instead of going straight to the hotel, maybe I'll just go to the convention center and get my badge and everything. Yeah, that'll kill some time. Yeah. That'll kill ten minutes. Right, right, but then I can walk to the hotel Because it's a 45 minute walk Oh, okay It's a 45 minute walk Or a What was the thing It was a 45 minute walk 25 minutes on public transportation 6 minutes in car So Okay There must be like an interstate route Or something that you could have taken with the car Yeah That's what it sounds like. Well, a 45-minute walk's nothing for you, though. No, I'd do it. As long as it's not raining.
    3:20
    That's the thing. You might need to get a convention-provided umbrella. Oh, I was just going to take mine. Can I take an umbrella on an airplane? You can. Okay. I believe. Hopefully. Check the guide. I've got one of those auto-deploying umbrellas where you hit the button and it goes. I might have one of those sword umbrellas. I don't think that's allowed. I don't have one of those. I said, mine's real short, but when I hit the button, it like pops out and opens up and it does everything. Yeah, I need to buy a real umbrella. I have a little one. I was actually gifted one from an environmental association when I did a presentation years ago, and I keep that in my work bag. But it's really small, so if there's any sort of wind, it's terrible. It's really just almost, it feels almost like a novelty umbrella. Mine's not bad. It's a little one, but it's good just for one person. I always keep one in the trunk of my car that's like four foot across It's huge, it's like a golf umbrella Wow, maybe it is a golf umbrella That's not going to be real good to take on an airplane No, I worry about the overhead bin at that point I could do the whole Indiana Jones and the last crusade thing Sean Connery and have it tied to the bag and walking around Are you going to go to the Deadflip studio? Are you going to star on Twitch with the Jack Danger? No. I'm not. Who knows if he's even there? Yeah. I'm literally. What about Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb of Special Winlet? They're in Chicago area. I haven't talked to them either. Well, they stream a lot on Mondays. I know. I thought they had their big special. Their big special. Because I just saw the post on Facebook with their new, hey, Sue us to Oblivion intro for their Monday night. Oh, exactly. Oh, yeah, I didn't. I was really good when I saw that on the air this week. I did not launch into a lecture about how you can't take the song, even if you change the key, which I don't know if they did. It's like, technically, we'll just see if they, you know, I have no idea how aggressive the NFL is on trying to hunt that stuff down or not. Yeah, considering the people who've been sued out of existence for hosting Super Bowl parties, I'm sure they're not litigious at all.
    5:37
    Well, here's my thing. As long as it just lives on Twitch and doesn't get exported to YouTube where they have those auto music crawl things that do the searching, they might slip under the radar. I watched it on YouTube this morning. Oh, well, I don't know. I guess we'll find out. They were on stream last night with Zach. Zach was in town. I guess dropping something off. Yeah, the stream was less good with Zach and Steve Beattie. He wasn't available. Because Zach told me You should watch, we're going to all stream And I asked when And he said an hour Two hours later It still hadn't started And I thought that he gave up I thought he was at his house Trying to set up a rig And probably didn't know how to turn on a camera That sounds about right So I was like, okay, well that's fine And then nope, next thing I knew it was actually on And they were playing Jurassic Park Ellie It looked fun Jurassic Park is fun. Yeah, but we haven't played the LE. No.
    6:37
    Typically, the LEs aren't too much worse than the pros. Yeah, I've just been curious about how the Raptor Pit is with that one, and, of course, the T-Rex flinging the ball around. That looked pretty cool. They seemed to have trouble with the T-Rex grabbing the ball. They kept thinking that maybe it wasn't aligned quite right, that they needed to make an adjustment. But they apparently just started streaming as soon as they finally got the game set up. That's why it was so delayed. They were unboxing the game outside at night.
    7:06
    Like you do. Zach was probably late. He's always late when we record. I always unbox my games in the middle of the street, personally. I know. At 2 a.m. It's your way. I just throw some road players around. Your neighbors are out anyway during then. That's true. They are.
    7:24
    Well, other than dealing with a lot of work suckage, I have been playing Plants vs. Zombies, Battle for Neighborville. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I figured you would be. Yeah, my sister loves the third-person shooter Plants vs. Zombie games, and so she was playing that one, and then she mentioned, well, Dennis, if you get it, there's like a discount if you get it within the next two days. And I said, no, I mean, it can be a birthday present. And she's like, well, because of the discount, if it's a birthday present, you're getting it now. And I said, okay. So she gifted it to me. I played with her once last week, and then I played by myself a bit yesterday through a couple of matches. It's the greatest game ever? No, not the greatest game ever, but I remember how some of the plants work. So I knew how to play it, and I won half my fights. Oh, that's good. So I was like, I did okay. Do you have your Lego Bastion skin yet? I do have Lego Bastion. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Unfortunately, because usually on Mondays is when I start working on the nine wins in arcade mode for the loot crate.
    8:31
    We did that as we usually do, me and Mike. And then the Bastion thing came out on Tuesday. So we did terrible on Monday. We'd only won four games before we stopped playing. And so I had to do another four wins on top of my nine wins, which is more than I normally play Overwatch in a week. Right. It all worked out, but I have not played as Lego Bastion yet. I've just equipped the skin, and then I quit. I did, because I was playing Mr. Heroes yesterday.
    9:01
    And I had the standard lame Bastion play of the game where even you have to down talk yourself, because it's like, wow, that was a terrible play of the game. I know I got a quad kill, but I literally didn't. I was just aiming in a general area, and they all ran through the stream of my fire. No, I think I was doing some ladder play for placements in competitive, and I think I had a play of the game as, I think it was when I was going as Reaper, and I was like, yep. It wasn't a glorious play or anything, but I was like, yeah, as hard as I carried at that part, I knew it should be mine, unless the other team had a really good moment. But it all worked out. Speaking of working out, we have to flex on a lot of topics. We've even got the tabletop topic back. The tabletop topic is back. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. So we're already, we've been blathering on for like 10 minutes, so we're going to go ahead and we're going to jump right in. We'll do tabletop as our final segment. Right. Since it's our addendum. So we'll start with pinball. We have a few pinball topics, and I think the obvious one to start with is Stern Pinball's reveal of Elvira, House of Horrors. Now, originally, as is often the case with Stern Pinball games, The photos leaked of the playfield, the cabinet, and the back box.
    10:24
    Since then, it's been formally announced. I have a link in the show notes to the IGN article, which I'm assuming you've probably seen the IGN article, Tony.
    10:34
    And there have been a couple of trailer videos, I believe at least one of which is linked off of the IGN site, so I'm not relinking it. I've watched a couple of them. So that shows a little bit of the game in sort of a teaser fashion. Deadflip does have a gameplay reveal stream scheduled That's to happen on September 25th 2019 At 7pm central So if anyone wants to see that Go on Twitch and check Deadflip out At that time And I'm sure they'll do their usual Where there's a walkthrough on how the rules Probably and they'll have everybody there And it'll be impressive So here are the bullet points about the game This is not a cornerstone title So it's not the pro premium LE model This is going to come in a premium flavor, which has an MSRP of $8,000. They'll make 400 LEs, and those have an MSRP of $9,600. And then there are 50 what they're now calling signature editions. This is fairly mimicking the Batman 66 Super LE. Right. And no listed MSRP with that. I had heard that Cassandra Peterson, who plays Elvira, was selling those through her website or through her Fang Club news group or fan club, basically. So 50 of those. It's a Dennis Nordman design. He's currently employed with Deep Root, but he did this on contract with Stern quite a while ago. We heard about it at Texas Pinball Festival 2017 when Cassandra was at that show. They mentioned it in the panel. and Lyman Sheets who did the Batman 66 code is on the code for this game feature wise the things that really stood out to me were it has a house that's got three different entrances on it it's got a spinning turret on the top which conveys some stuff that's going on in game so there's a practical purpose to the symbols that are on it there is a crate shot which is very similar to Scared Stiff except this time it feeds off of the left ramp There is a deadhead Bash toy, it's a crypt And there's a hole underneath it That apparently connects to other parts Of the playfield via a subway So it's a game with a subway, we don't see that a whole lot From Stern There are a number of campy films That are featured, kind of like what would have been on a lot of shows There's a bunch of them There's quite a bit And then Elvira did not just custom callouts For the game, but she also Recorded some custom video clips. See, that's really impressive. Yeah, and the IGN article noted that this was a first in pinball, and to my knowledge, yes, it is. There's actual live action recording for just a pinball screen. I think so. So, what are your thoughts? It's hard to have thoughts until we really see a lot of gameplay. From the little bit I've looked, some of the stuff, it looks interesting.
    13:24
    In the IGN article, they give a list of all of the B movies that are in there, which includes some serious classics of the B genre. But it also mentions that there's stuff on the play field pertaining to all of those. So I'm not sure. I don't know if we've heard or at least I've not seen. Is the references on the play fields the only things we get from those movies or is there going to be more.
    13:51
    I don't know. We'll see. To me, that's really cool. Yeah. I very vaguely remember as a child watching the Elvira horror hosting shows where she would go and you'd see the classic really B-tier style movies and such. That sort of integration, I think, in a home setting would be really cool. I don't know if it would be very good on a location setting.
    14:18
    See, the thing is... Because could you hear it? Right. The thing is, I've actually seen a lot of these B-tier movies, but none of them were on L-Virus stuff. Because a lot of these are MST3K movies. Now that would be an interesting theme. That would be a good theme. I don't see how it would work, but it would be awesome. Because they've got some of the classics. They've got Mano's Hand of Fate, The Killer Shrews, The Wasp Woman. Jesse James meets Frankenstein's daughter. I don't think I've ever seen that one. Santa Claus conquers the Martians. That's a personal favorite. Hmm.
    14:58
    I don't know. I talked a little bit about this last week when we saw the leaked photos on the This Week in Pinball podcast. That Lyman is on code makes me think this ultimately will be a very balanced game. Though, obviously, until we see what Deadflip shows, I have no idea how far along it is. I have read, this is not substantiated, I've read a claim that Lyman has been working on this game for a year. So, if that's the case, I imagine the code will be fairly mature. Well, and from everything we've heard in the past, this game was done and ready to launch a while ago. Yes, yes. And it just got pushed. I am not impressed by the layout. I don't hate the layout, but it is the fanniest of fan layouts. It is almost a prototypical Stern in the stereotype sense. And because of that, given that this is not a cornerstone, I thought that was weird. like this seems like a layout that you could have safely used for anything that you wanted and the toys and mechs i think are going to be what make the game because i don't think the geometry does it's i need to be careful because people love to shoot fan layouts but there are so many choices available at the pro level for fan geometry from we've got guardians of the galaxy as a fan. You've got Munsters as a fan. A lot of what the games lately that John Borg has been putting out have been fan layouts. And given that, I just don't know. Like, Batman 66's geometry is really unique. So I just sort of was surprised, I suppose, would be the way to describe it. When I look at the layout, I didn't see Nordman in the layout. It reminded me more of John Borg. And I just thought we would see something a little more... The way the toys work is where I think all that strength is being applied in terms of his design philosophy. I just think the layout is surprisingly safe for a niche title anyway. Why go with such a safe layout? I don know My two favorite games of all time is Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness and both of them are pretty prototypical
    17:31
    Yeah, they're fans. But, okay, so are you excited that Dennis Nordman has channeled Brian Eddy and made his layout? No, I'm not excited about it. I'm just saying it's possible to have a layout like that that is a good game. Oh, there are lots of fans. There are lots of really fun fan games. One of my, I mean, I really like Attack from Mars a lot.
    17:58
    It's a fan. Lord of the Rings is a fan. There are a lot of really good fan layout games. But we also get fan layouts every year, and we already had one this year. So that's kind of where I'm coming from, because Monsters is a fan. See, it doesn't bother me. No, it doesn't bother me, but I was surprised that that was the choice. Of course, here's also the other thought. Like we said just a minute ago, you said, well, we already had a fan this year. Well, this game wasn't originally designed to come out this year. That's true, but we had a fan the prior year. We had a fan the prior year as well. None of the, and apparently this isn't branded as Kapow, or at least I didn't see it listed as a Kapow. I haven't heard that it was branded as Kapow, but that's basically how it feels to me, is that it's being treated like a kapow type. Yeah, well, I guess this is just sort of their, when they do a non, I guess they're considering a non-cornerstone, what I almost would think of as a boutique. Given the limited run counts, well, it gets complicated. I mean, there's no limit on the premiums, just like Batman, whereas Beatles did have a limit on all the model types. Right. I mean, that's the other model we look at. Every fall it seems we have one of these. We had Batman, then we had Beatles, and now we have Elvira. But, yeah, I think it will come down to the – if you're into toys and you're into theme integration and you like fan layouts, I think this is probably a pretty serious contender other than where you have to get in at the price point. And so that – but I do agree with Stern that this should not be a cornerstone because I don't think Elvira's brand is strong enough for it. Yeah, no, that – I think that's perfectly valid. So I think it makes sense to say, well, we're not going to do a pro and strip some stuff out. Let's just do it like – I think that was really smart. So I think it'll do pretty well I'm not excited about it I'd like to really hear the callouts and stuff I'm not really excited per se to play it I think it looks like it will play well But I'm sure Ultimately the rules will be really good Because I've never, I can't think of A, like What's a Lyman game where I don't really like The rules I'm not a huge fan of Metallica's Rules so I guess that But from a competitive standpoint those rules are great Right.
    20:13
    It's a bit of a woodchopper. And that's just not my preferred style. But I do like flow games, and fan layouts usually flow pretty well. So it's got that going for it. So anyway, we'll have to see. I don't know yet if we're getting one. I know 403's considering it. Right. But I don't know for sure yet. I think they were waiting. Because the price point's higher, I think there was a waiting of the local reaction to see if it was going to do well enough or not. If it was going to be worth the cash. Yeah, investment. because who knows how pricing lately, it seems, on a lot of recently new games, used but really, really modern games, are taking more of a hit than they used to because there's so many good games coming out now that people are just like, I need the space, so I got to sell Munsters for $1,000 less. Right. I got to get it out of here. Even though it's a perfectly decent game compared to a lot of... It's a perfectly okay game. It's a perfectly okay game, but compared to other games, people are more excited about Jurassic Park now. So it's like, you've got to make room, because people don't just build additions to their houses. So anyway, so that's a pretty optimistic thing.
    21:40
    I'm freely saying I think it's a good overall looking game for one. I thought the integration looked good. Yes, the integration. It's got a lot of nods to the prior two of Iron Party Monsters and Scared Steph, which I thought was smart. Yeah. That's the thing. Integration-wise, it looks beautiful, like any game. Until I put my hands on it and actually played the game, I'm not really going to know, do I really like it or not. Yeah. I probably priced out on it, even if I loved it. But eventually, people have to get rid of it to make room for something else. Yeah. So that's when I can swoop in. 2025, 2030, somewhere in there. After the next economic collapse and people are selling everything for pennies on the dollar. That's right. That's when you'll regret having built your entire life around toys. That's when I'll come in. Come in and get you. I can buy all your toys.
    22:37
    Next item, Dutch Pinball. Yes, I know. We have another update. I have a link to the latest newsletter from Dutch Pinball that I've seen in the show notes. It's hosted over with Pinball Supernova.
    22:51
    I'm not going to read the whole newsletter. Here are the highlights. This got touched on a bit on the Twit podcast as well. But I would love your opinion because you seem very grounded when it comes to discussing Dutch Pinball. So I think it's helpful for people to hear that perspective. Okay. So, according to the newsletter, Barry stressed that they need to sell games first before they're going to be able to do a parallel of selling games and supplying early achievers, or EAs, with their games, just like he did with the interview with Pinball News, Pinball Magazine podcast. That's what he said before. We've already talked about it. And then the new element in the newsletter was he was going to give the EAs an option. They had to respond fairly quickly. It was like a week or so, I believe. But here's what the option was. If you pre-ordered, if you're an EA, you could pay $12,500 like any other new buyer, but then be at the front of the line to get your Smiles. So you'd be like, if you pay the $12,500, do when the game is ready to ship. I need an ad bill. No. No ad bill. No drugs. then the EA buyer when they get their game they will also get the EA plaque that was supposed to come with their pre-ordered game they'll also still get a rug they'll also still get the chrome trim in addition because they are an EA buyer doing this option they will get special extras that's how it was described they're not specified what they are at this time and then the EA buyer is still owed their pre-ordered game, of course. So when the pre-ordered game is ready, they can either obtain it, it won't have the plaque, because the plaque was sent early with the new game they bought, but they could also instead choose to get a full refund. Full refund of the old pre-order amount, like the $8,500. Not the $12,500. Whatever amount they paid in the pre-order could be refunded instead. They didn't want a second game at that point. Right. And then that game could go to someone else. all right so what do you think of this opportunity this was presented as a response to the criticism barry had that when the 40 games with ara or ara were done that he didn't give the right of first refusal on the purchase to the pre-orderers and as we heard in the interview with pinball news pinball magazine he just didn't consider that he didn't think about it he didn't think that the pre-orderers were dumb enough to give him another $12,500 after he already pulled $8,500 out of their wallets and just basically smacked them in the forehead with it and walked away. Well, he didn't say it quite like that. See, these Oh, my head. You're grounded. This is the kind of thing that drags me nuts because the truth of the matter is people are going to do this. People are actually going to do this. There's no doubt in my mind that there are going to be early achievers who are actually going to do this. There are special extras. Does that influence you? Is the special extra an $8,500 check that just says, do not cash until I say it's okay? I told you I don't know what the special extras are, Tony. They're not known at this time. He doesn't know what the special extras are. I think you're probably right. Because I think he has more faith in humanity than I do. I don't think he thinks people are dumb enough to do this, but I do.
    26:29
    I think he thinks people will. And the reason I think so is I think that's why the special extras were added on, as a special incentive to try and sway. Who the most, all right, here's why I think he thinks that there will be some that will do it. Who out of anyone Has the most vested interest In seeing new games sold Besides Barry There are no There's no dates There's no realistic I asked you who All these people are doing Is throwing good money after bad And Fine I mean it's their money They can do whatever they want At the same time I'm allowed to think whatever I want to think about it. I do not dispute any of that. But with no timeline and no specific chart of how they're going to do things, if they do get to a point where he starts filling those games, A, I can guarantee you right now the EA who are going to actually receive their games are going to be the ones first are going to be the ones who did not take this.
    27:42
    Because once those ones who have the ability to complain have been taken care of, that's when he'll start giving machines to these people or refunding these people. They will instantly go to the end of the line. I mean, that just makes sense.
    27:56
    But will they start doing this refund in 10 years? Next year? Four months from now? When they've built their first 100 machines in three months of work? I mean, it's not.
    28:11
    I don't know. I'm flabbergasted that this is a thing in pinball. I've played so many other games and done so many other hobbies and done so much other stuff where something like this, what happens is the people you screwed come walking out with axes and pitchforks and torches, porches, but for some reason in pinball, they hit their knees so fast that they risk shattering their kneecaps and bowing to you and thanking you and telling you how great it is and how wonderful you are and how much of a success you're going to be is, oh God, we're family friendly. I can't keep talking like this. It's insane. People are going to do it. what can you do? I mean, I don't know. I can't believe people would even consider giving this guy money. I honestly have a hard time believing any machines, those 40 that were prebuilt, I can understand them going as fast as they did for the price point they did. And I can understand the reasoning behind people thinking of it. These hand-built machines by Barry and a couple buddies and family members who loaned him money so he doesn't completely fail out and can still try and hold his dream as they hand build the machines?
    29:44
    I don't know. But I know every other hobby I've ever been involved with, there's no way it would be going like this. It's insane.
    29:55
    It's different. I will. I'll say that much. Yeah. I agree there are probably some that have Taken advantage of this They didn't have to send the money Until the game is ready They're not immediately out anything So it's not like another pre-order So I could see that But do you think it will be there? Well, I still fall back on what we talked about In the prior episode Which is, I do not believe That this game holds at $12,500 For very long if they're actually starting to hand-build games. I think that the price goes down pretty quickly. When I was on the This Week in Pinball podcast, I believe Zach, the host, mentioned that he thought that they easily could sell 100 games at $12,500. And I don't think so. I think you could have easily sold 100 at $12,500 if ARA had had 100 at $12,500. But 100 games on top of the 40 that already went out. 100 hand-built in mama's basement games. Because remember, the plan is 400 to 500 total games to make the EA's whole. So we're talking something like on the order of selling 300-ish games at 12.5 to help all the EA's out. But you see where the psychology for this offer, including with a little added incentive of these special extras, exists by targeting the EA's. they are the ones that most want, aside from Barry, that's the answer to the question you wouldn't answer, is the pre-orders are the ones that want him to succeed the most because they want the game they paid for. And so this plays, in my view, this plays off of that emotion and says, you can help us. You can help us succeed if you buy another game. You can help us succeed. It's not just give us an extra $4,000 and you'll get your machine. It's give us an extra $12,500 and eventually, someday, once we've sold enough machines, I'll give you your money back that you gave me originally. So you're only out an extra $4,000 instead of being out an extra $8,500.
    32:12
    Or instead of just being out your $8,500. Well, you can still take the second game. or you can take the second. So you're going to have two games. Right. And then you can turn around and sell that one yourself for $12,500, right? Because that's how that's going to work. It's not. Here's a, even if every EA buyer bought a machine,
    32:30
    if every EA, if every single one of the early achievers walked up and they bought a machine, because there's like 150 of them, something like that. Yeah, 135 or so. Yeah, something like that. that still wouldn't be enough people having bought machines to build enough machines to make them whole. They'd have to have double that. At least people who buy the machines to make, to turn around and make those people whole again. So these people run the risk of we all bought the machines. Where's the stuff? Nobody else is buying machines. So sorry. We never got up to the point where we could start reimbursing the EA guys, But thanks for the extra $12,500 on top of the original $8,500 you gave me to try and make my dream come true. And that I just screwed it and just kept screwing it all. God, you guys are beautiful.
    33:19
    Jesus. I don't even. I don't know. Okay. I might be jaded and cynical. No, surely not. But we can move on from Dutch. Because there's probably enough commenting on that.
    33:34
    Pinball EDU, the charity, have an update. Oh good, I'm glad we're going through good. This is cool. This feels nice. All right. This is all good. Simma down now. This turned out nice. Simma down now. It's wonderful. It's good. It's proven that all the stuff was wrong and that this is a wonderful thing for the children. Simma down now.
    33:56
    You're not reassuring me that this is a wonderful thing for the children, then. If you've seen my notes, you probably could tell by the size of them that it's not exact. Let's call it neutral. It's neutral. It's not about the children. It's about what's right, what's proper. Let's put it that way. All right. Let me do a recap because it has been quite a while since we've discussed that. We haven't talked about this since June, early June.
    34:22
    For those that do not remember, Pinball EDU is a charity. Originally, my understanding was there was a big focus of using pinball therapeutically, with children particularly autism spectrum was my understanding They have a facility at some point at some place I think in Virginia or in Maryland They based in Maryland Right But I not quite sure I don remember the exact location All right. So they have a place now which has been criticized as seeming more like a bar than a place of therapy.
    34:58
    Alcohol's therapeutic. Well, after the Dutch Pinball update, yeah, probably. But so anyway, there was a big blow up about them and their status as a charity and what they were doing. This all really happened on Deadflip's Facebook page. It was actually a sticky thread for quite a while because Jack Danger brought it up and said, you know, he had concerns and there was a lot of discussion. I think there was somewhere on the order of over 150 comments on that thread. And the operator of the charity, his name is Joe, he did go into the thread relatively early on, I think within a week, and he did respond to a lot of the criticism that was being levied. One portion of that response read, and I quote, quote, Maryland is currently updating our profile to reflect recent filings and that we're in good standing with the state, end quote. And remember, this was posted back in early June 2019. Okay. So it's been over a quarter of a year now. Right. Even government moves faster than that. So in deference to what Joe claimed, I've waited until now, until this last week.
    36:19
    And so here, towards the end of September 2019, I went to Maryland and I checked in their online database. I did a business entity search. I have links in the show notes to the two iterations of Pinball EDU that are in that system. There's one called Pinball EDU Incorporated, and there's one called Pinball EDU Charity Incorporated. I don't understand exactly what the differences are other than I'm assuming one is a for-profit arm and one is the charitable arm. Makes sense. Regardless, both of those in the database are listed as not in good standing. The one that's called the charity organization says that they lack their 2018 and 2019 annual reports, that those are still due to Maryland, and the non-charity iteration says it's lacking the 2019 annual report. So, because Joe indicated in the past that Maryland was wrong, that their database was wrong, that it wasn't updated, remember my quote above referenced that they needed to reflect the recent filings. I wrote to the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation, and I asked them if their database was not updated and what the status was of Pinball EDU Charity Incorporated. I did not ask about the other entity. I only asked about the one that's missing the two reports.
    37:43
    And they wrote back to me fairly quickly, and they said, quote, the referenced business is active and not in good standing. They also further replied, quote, they are in danger of losing their charter to do business and they have not filed required reports, end quote.
    38:02
    They also noted that from their department's perspective, which I think is like called SDAT, assessment and taxation, that issue doesn't prohibit an entity from doing business. so but different departments have different stances because i'd asked about the charity aspects because there's a charity solicitation act and such but that's administered by a different division i believe within the secretary of state's office okay so they were i didn't put in the quote there because they were basically saying we this is the only part of this not in good standing we care about as our department but there are other departments that care about and interpret that differently than us. So given that, that's the update that I have. Maryland says they still don't have the reports and that it's not just that the database wasn't updated. Okay. So, I mean, I don't know. I had some people reach out to me and I was lightly involved in the discussion on the Facebook page. Of course, we've talked about Pinball EDU off and on for a while now because of their involvement with Pinball Done Quick and how that kind of fell apart and was a bit of a mess.
    39:15
    And there were some people that felt and still feel, I'm sure, that Joe does very good work and that Pinball.edu does very good work. And I do remember one person, who I will not name, they wouldn't want me to, who did say that they felt that Joe wasn't given a chance.
    39:31
    I feel I have given a chance and that a quarter of a year to get the reports in was reasonable. and I have now vetted this claim that it was Maryland's fault. They're saying that their system's right. So who am I supposed to believe? The state of Maryland or the charity that doesn't show any of these reports anywhere? I don't know. But that's my update on it because I don't forget. I've given some time, and so I've looked back at this, and I still have concerns. So I'm talking about them. Completely understandable because it's a concerning thing. Let's end on some happy news. Is there happy news in here? There is. There's a Ghostbusters code update. I don't know if it's actually been pushed out publicly yet or not. It wasn't at the time of the reveal. They were still fixing some bugs and stuff. This was a huge code update to have a reveal and not just be, oh, hey, there's a new code. Huge, huge, huge, huge. So the update was unveiled on Deadflip. I have a link in the show notes to the YouTube recording of the video so people can go and watch it. I haven't been able to, I caught a little bit of that. That was, I remember it was Monday, so I was playing Overwatch. So I couldn't really focus because I was busy trying to remember my Bastion skins that I didn't even know were coming out yet. So given that, I have posted, we're going to walk through some of it. And it's not all of the updates that were noted, but here there's someone whose handle is BonusLord on Tilt Forums posted a list of the highlights from that reveal. And I have a link in the show notes to Bundeslord's post, so anyone who wants to go and read the full list, this is just a few of them, but I very much appreciate that he wrote it up. So now I will exploit that and now, after giving him credit, start walking through a lot of these items that he noted. Here are just some of the changes in this code update. The video mode skill shot has been replaced with collect 10 ghosts. Okay.
    41:24
    Hitting the left captive ball twice now lights a single storage facility ball lock instead of lighting all three.
    41:33
    So you have to chip away at that. You're going to have to do a little loop. Yep. Loop and supers no longer stacks with anything. So I guess it's an out-of-the-mode thing.
    41:45
    The PKE frenzy scoring has been nerfed. So I guess that was pretty lucrative. I don't know. I don't think I ever really did a lot with PKE scoring. Um, switching your flippers during mass hysteria now increases the jackpot value each time.
    42:02
    We're ready to believe you. That mode, it's totally been reworked. It's a multi-ball where you have to collect, uh, the 100 ghosts on a time limit. Yeah. Is that mode. Uh, are you a god wizard mode now starts. If you complete, we're ready to believe you. You can collect a top lane skill shot and the lower play field skill shot. That's cool. That's, yeah, because it was always like, who? Which one do you want? Yeah, well. Because I'd always aim for a specific top lane, and then I would pick the bottom lane that I was most likely to get if I missed the top lane by going too hard. Right. I would either pick the far left top lane skill shot and then pick a, like, right ramp shot if I over plunged for the lower. or I'd pick the far right top lane shot and a left ramp if I under plunged going for that. And the reason was generally I was trying to over or under because the lower play field options that I would choose were to start a scene. So I didn't have to chip away at Slimer. Yes. That was my typical. And so it was, oh, okay, I accidentally plunged a little too hard or a little too soft for whichever one I was going for. I'll get the top lane skill shot and then do the chip away. but at least I got something. Right. Otherwise, I really wanted to be down low and try and start a scene. Now you can do both. No. Now why not both? Why not both? You can light now a playfield multiplier at any time by comboing the left ramp into the gear targets or the left captive ball. That's cool. Yep.
    43:41
    Stay puffed. I don't think I ever got into stay puffed. Scoring has been nerfed a little bit, and you can no longer loop the left ramp over and over during phase two and keep getting points. There was another one, I don't think I put it in the list. There was another nerf where you couldn't just keep exploiting the same shot over and over for points. So there was a lot of cleanup on that. Move around a little bit. Yep, you've got to do combos that aren't the same shot.
    44:04
    Mode shots can now be spotted in some cases by hitting the ghost target. So the ghost target, which I think is what normally we'd bring down a slimer to then start a scene. Now apparently it can sometimes spot you a shot in modes, which is an interesting use of it. Adaball It's no longer going to be lit at the beginning of any multiball So I guess you have to earn it Instead of just being like Oh yeah, let's just start the Adaball right away Building the super jackpot value Can be done at any time Via the spinner shot So now you have a reason to rip the spinner Do you need a reason to rip the spinner? I mean, depends Really? It depends if you're trying to win Draining during a mode that isn't the end of a ladder, because the software has three ladders, or it did, where you're moving up the ladder of the modes. Now if you drain during a mode, but it isn't the end of the ladder, it now completes that mode.
    45:01
    And the modes will now be lit once you have the next ball. It kind of reminds me of if you finish the timeout on Star Trek, for example, Stern Star Trek, and you drain, It goes ahead and acts like you hit the mission shot, and then you just pick your next mission once you have your new ball.
    45:23
    But you still feel the shame, of course, the shame of it. Super jackpot value now will max out at 30 million points, and it resets to 5 million points at the beginning of every ball. So if you're building it up, yeah, you need to collect on the same ball. Overall, it feels like we're going to see a very different average point on the game. Yeah, I'm really curious about, like, is the balance different? Like, is it still a big deal to break a billion on Ghostbusters? Or, like, what's the... I mean, when we had Ghostbusters on location in tournament play, it was all over the place. But it was not uncommon, even with good players, to see scores under 50 million. In fact, it wasn't unusual to see scores under 15 million.
    46:13
    Just depending on how that center... Unless somebody blew something up. Right, right. Depending on how... Did you get center-drained or whatever? So, I don't know if we're going to see it again on location or not in the area or anything. I haven't... We haven't had a Ghostbusters since, to my knowledge, since the 403 clubs left. Right. And it stayed over a year. It was there a long time. Yeah, it was. So, we'll see. we do know Todd with Big Daddy Enterprises, he owns a Ghostbusters, so we may get an opportunity to play the software with him at some point. I can't think of anyone off the top of my head that I know has Ghostbusters in the area.
    46:55
    It'd be interesting. I wouldn't mind getting a Ghostbusters Pro if I could find one at a decent value, but it's not a priority for me. Right. I mean, it was fun. I enjoy the game, but it is not, like you said, it's not something that is... I played it so much when we had it at Nub's Pub and 403 Club that I felt like I got a good value out of it. So that's why, in part, I had a compulsion to try and own it. But that's it for pinball. So you see, that was not a nice thing, Dan. That wasn't bad. So, video games. Video games. Are you going to start with something happy? No. Well, actually, it could be. Depending upon how it turns out, because, once again, it involves a court case. Dun-dun-dun. Chung-chung. French courts have slapped down Valve over what's interesting is the right to sell games you own on Steam.
    47:51
    Okay, because to my knowledge, you can't. You can. You could sell your whole profile, I suppose. Right. And then all the games would transfer with it. According to the French courts, there was a French consumer group that sued Valve in 2015 for several consumer issues. And the big one was that the court ruled that Steam must allow users to be able to resell their games.
    48:19
    They ruled that Steam must reimburse money in a user's Steam wallet if they request it, because that's never been possible. Once you put money in your Steam wallet or got the Steam card and put money in there, there was no way to get it back. Even if you canceled your account and shut it down, they wouldn't reimburse you. So this is actually, it wasn't like saying, oh, I don't want this game anymore. This is you put money in the wallet and being able to get that money back out of the wallet as money. Right. Because you never used to be able to do that. Once it was in, it was there. I mean, if you had $5 in there and you're like, well, I'm leaving the Steam ecosystem. I'm never using Steam again. They're like, okay, thanks for the $5. Okay. But now they ruled that they have to do it.
    49:04
    They ruled that Valve must accept responsibility when a user says an item on Steam caused them harm, even if it was an item that is in beta. So they have to take their responsibility. What does caused harm mean? Is this like physical harm? Like if someone's beta code overclocked the GPU and burned out the video card harm? Or are we talking like psychological harm? I've not found a good explanation of that. Okay. I went through several articles, and I never found a real good explanation of exactly what they're talking about there. It's like, man, I got this game, and it just screwed my mind so bad I can't even.
    49:44
    Their rights to user mods and community content, Valve's rights to it, are going to be diminished. because that's one thing with Valve's mods thing is you can make a mod and you can put it on there, but Valve has rights over your mods. Like ownership or what? About, like, allowances and stuff. Okay. And the Valve claims certain amounts of rights over community content put on the Steam. Okay. And this is going to be pared back. Yes. and they also are going to be forced to clarify the conditions under which users can lose access to Steam for bad behavior. That's not clear right now? Apparently not. Interesting. Valve has already stated that they are appealing, so nothing's going to come of this anytime soon. But what's interesting is because this is French courts, if Valve loses this appeal and everything stands up, it's going to apply across the EU, which is a huge market for Valve. So the thinking, my thinking would be, if that's the case, it would probably apply across Valve entirely because they'll just implement it straight up across the board. Yeah, they pretty much have to.
    51:01
    So Americans can benefit. Yeah. Thank you, EU. We'll see what happens. Yeah, no, from a consumer perspective, I don't see a reason to not like any of these court decisions. Right, no, they're all perfectly good. Now, that's one thing is we know that there's an appeal coming, and it is coming very fast.
    51:20
    Because if Valve refuses to change its rules and post the court's decision to Steam within a month of the decision, so they're going to have to change the rules and post all the information onto Steam within a month of the decision, they will have to pay a fine of 3,000 euros per day for every day that that doesn't happen up to six months.
    51:50
    So, yeah, Valve's going to appeal that. And the appeal is going to go in real fast. So we see what happens when it finally works its way through the system 3 euros a day for six months There no way Valve is going to do anything that going to risk that What are we looking at? Six months.
    52:17
    Just roughly half million plus. Yeah, I don't know EU law. I don't really know any law. So I don't know if their appeal process is different than ours, where essentially in an appeal, it has to be about the judges getting some process matter wrong. It's not about usually relitigating. You don't get to relitigate the case to the appeals court. So it's usually about a complaint that there was a flaw in the decision-making. So the reason I mention that is in the U.S., winning your appeal is low percentage because usually the appeals courts agree that the judges beneath them have done the right job because they do it so much that they know what they're doing. And that's what's interesting to me is from the articles I read, Valve didn't argue the case the way I would have thought they argued it. Specifically, they argued they used their defense was that Steam is a subscription service. Okay. Which is an interest. Because that would put it under the same kind of protections that, like, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, the 40 bajillion other companies that are popping up doing subscription streaming services provide now. Okay. Because I know they've got certain levels of protection built in. All right. But we don't pay a subscription fee. Exactly. And I think that was probably one of the big sticking points. So we'll see what happens with that one The next Bit of video game news Is just a little touch up The Switch Lite that we talked about I don't know A couple months ago Has finally come out And overall the reviews for it Are very decent as a machine Okay that's good A lot of people are very happy With it's portability And between Because of the size difference between it is it and the original Switch and everything. I've seen nothing but good reviews about it overall.
    54:27
    Where the issue comes into is Nintendo's terrible ecosystem. That's the problem, because people want to have the ability to run and merge and maintain their account on several devices. Like, I like being able to sit down with my Kindle and read a book, and then pick up my, if I'm out somewhere, I've got my phone with me but not my Kindle, I can pick up the book and it will automatically start me right where I was reading. Right. Yeah. I mean, stuff like that is great.
    55:00
    Nintendo has no ecosystem like that that works at all. If you have, like if you digitally buy a game from Nintendo, so you do a digital download, and it will work on the machine you initially digital downloaded it on, And you can put it on another one, but if it's like a secondary machine, it's going to be basically required to be in continuous contact with the server. So if you primary it on your regular switch, it's not going to work on your switch light if you don't have an internet connection.
    55:35
    So some people have been primarying all the stuff on a switch light because more likely than not, their switches are just sitting at home in the docks. Right. But then that brings up the other issue that the saves don't flow between the games at all. You basically have to hard copy the saves. Oh, they don't cloud store them? Oh, no, they cloud store, but the cloud stores don't talk between switches.
    56:03
    And there's currently no way to make them talk between switches without actually going through your, going into the UI, going through your settings and manually backing up each save that you want from each game that you want. So if you've got a game where you have 15 saves, you'd have to manually back up all 15 of those saves through manual controls to the cloud, then manually bring it, get your Switch Lite and re-download all those saves manually from the cloud to make them available on your Switch Lite. Because Nintendo's online ecosystem is crap.
    56:47
    Wow. Last gen, I wasn't familiar with the PS3. The 360 I don't even think was that grueling. You just had to tell the account to move the saves to the cloud and then you'd be done if you wanted to. For backwards compatibility. Of course, at the start of this generation, I believe both systems have just started, all the saves are just in the cloud and they share so you can sign in on foreign devices and be able to access your stuff at will. Yeah. It's not, I didn't consider it as hard. Yeah, from everything I've seen right now, I don't know, I'm hoping Nintendo is going to fix it, but if I was playing Zelda on my Switch and then I was out and I wanted to play Zelda on my Switch Lite, the safe that it would load up on my Switch Lite would have been my last Switch Lite save, not the last one that I just walked away from playing it sitting on my couch. Unless I went through to make sure that I had that save moved. I would have to do it myself. Move it to make sure it's there.
    57:57
    Nintendo's always had an ecosystem problem when it comes to online stuff. Because they haven't embraced it the way Xbox or Sony has. Well, that doesn't give me confidence that they're going to fix it now either. I know. We'll see what happens. Because it just brings up how many people is this going to affect. How many people are going to be wanting multiple switches? How many people want a switch that is designed that just sets in the dock all the time and then a switch you take with you places?
    58:28
    I don't know. Interesting to see going forward. Okay. Jump to tabletop? because we haven't done it in a long time. It's tabletop time. Da-da-da-da-da-da. All right, we're going to start with something that was sent to us on Facebook from Jake Danzig, and I'd seen it also, and it just cracks me up. There was a truck in Atlanta that had three pallets of Chessix six-sided dice. All of my dice are from Chessix because I like their dice, So they make them cool colors. But they lost the load, which means there were 216,000 D6 spread across the highway in Atlanta. That's a lot of modifiers when you have to throw that many. Well, it's just a decent game of old school Shadowrun. I mean, that's not too bad for Shadowrun.
    59:28
    I've seen some of them. I saw the photos of them. Yeah. I've watched some friends playing 40K and doing dice rolls where they've got literally 20 dice in their hands, and they roll the 20 dice, and they get all the numbers, and then they roll all 20 dice again, and they get the numbers because they had to roll 40D6. I've seen it. It's hilarious. And when you start working in exploding dice, if you're working a game system where if you get a 6, you roll it again. You keep the six, but six is roll again. So you get yet another roll.
    60:07
    According to the company that the dice was heading to, the average roll on two six-sided dice is about seven. And with 216,000 dice rolled, they estimated the total at 756,000. I'll be 100% honest. I've had days playing where I would have been lucky to get $300,000 on $216,000.
    60:36
    It's too bad someone didn't go out there and photograph and record what they all said and actually tell us what it came out to. If you look at the Kotaku, the pictures on the Kotaku thing, it said they were with shovels, just scooping shovelfuls of D6 up off the ground. It's hilarious. Yeah, and there's a link in the show notes for people so they can read that. And my last little bit I want to touch on tabletop today is I am now researching re-entering tabletop war game. Dun, dun, dun.
    61:10
    Some people who are friends with me on Facebook would have seen it, but I put out a thing last night asking about 40K kilting. I played War Machine which is a steampunk magic skirmish game unlike the larger games that you see from Warhammer 40k because I like the smaller format and it was much more affordable than getting a full up 40k army ever would be and I played a lot of it for years and years and years I have a massive collection, but it's really died in our area. And there's a new edition out. I don't have any of the stuff for that edition, but I was debating, do I get the third edition stuff? Do I get everything to convert so I can play in third edition, except for there's not a whole lot of play going on. And when I was doing some other research, especially looking up a bunch of 40K stuff because I've been rereading several 40K novels lately, I came across Warhammer 40K Kill Team.
    62:27
    40K Kill Team is a smaller version of Warhammer 40K. It's got slightly different rules, but it's centered on a group of, it's a skirmish game centered on a group of models up to 20 models total. Okay. As opposed to where with, especially with the army, I would roll in 40K, 20 models would be like one of my seven or eight units. so it's a much smaller footprint which means it's more affordable and easier to paint so I'm actively looking into it and I've started researching it and talking to some people I know and it led me to finding out that there's actually a Warhammer store in Lawrence. Really? So I was running the numbers with Google Maps last night and my old store that I used to play War Machine ad. 31st Century Games here in Olathe closed like a month ago. Permanently. They closed their doors full up a month ago. I've only been there a couple times since ownership had changed several years ago. Yeah, I heard ownership had changed and the type of games being played there had shifted with that ownership change. Yeah, and it did. I hadn't been playing War Machine in years since then because work and life and family and everything had gotten in the way. And the group who played War Machine stopped playing War Machine. Most of them started playing 40K or Warhammer Fantasy. So most of that went away. So I didn't have anyone to play and I just kind of drifted away from it. So I'm moving back in. But now there are three shops of which the one that I go to the most often is Tabletop Games and Hobbies. It's about 30 minutes from my house. There's another one I've never been to. It's called The Geekery, which is also 30 minutes from my house. And there's a couple, I think three others in the Kansas City area that are all slightly farther away. There's one up in Zona Rosa, and there's a couple up. There's one in Lee's Summit. I've been to it several times. It's nice. But it's Lee's Summit. That's 45 minutes away.
    64:40
    But now there's one in Lawrence, and it's an official Games Workshop Warhammer store, which means everything they have is just Games Workshop stuff.
    64:52
    But Lawrence is about 30 minutes away. So I have three good options within a half-hour drive up to if I start actually playing a game and being able to find groups and get into some tournament play. So I can't afford to get into War Machine itself, or I mean Warhammer itself, but I'm giving a good look into Kill Team. Also, they just released, like this month, Warhammer did,
    65:26
    what amounts to their version of the X-Wing Miniatures game, except for with Warhammer stuff. I'm not going to get into that either, but I think it's interesting that since the X-Wing Miniatures game has come out, how many games have basically taken their general rule set and their general move set and picked them up. I mean, there was that. There's a Star Trek one.
    65:53
    There's several ones that use the same set, but for historical, like World War I or World War II aircraft.
    66:02
    So it's spreading out. We'll see how popular things get. But now I'm looking into getting back into doing some tabletop wargaming. Something to get me out that's more than just Going to pinball a couple times a month And will actually Unlike pinball give me Stuff that I can do at home as I Paint and base and do models And stuff so We'll see how it goes Yeah interesting I guess that's it We finished our episode It was a beautiful episode We didn't play any 20 questions because I didn't feel like it My blood pressure is down from the pinball segment Yeah This is all nice and kind The tabletop stuff was all optimistic Spilled dice is optimistic That was just hilarious So that worked out I mean that's like I saw somebody posted a picture On Facebook a couple weeks ago Where a truck had tipped over And the truck was full of nothing but ramen And the thing is like Ramen truck crashes Company out 45 cents That's so mean Well For those who want to reach out to us Reach out to Tony To suggest thoughts on Warhammer What's this new one Phrasing called Kill Team Warhammer 40K Kill Team So if you have thoughts On that because I know all of you listening Are big Kill Team players Feel free to write in EclecticGamersPodcast at gmail.com You can also reach out to us via Facebook At Facebook.com slash EclecticGamersPodcast We're available on Twitch and Instagram And Twitter as Eclectic underscore Gamers And that's pretty much it We'll be back in about two weeks Two weeks and a day probably We'll probably be back on Sunday In a couple weeks You'll be back from Chicago I'll put a post up At least Monday night If not before About the timing I'm going to be at Logan To be fair most people aren't going to hear this until after I've already been to Logan and gone Yeah well that's their own fault I'll probably get this out If you manage to listen A you're still listening to this And B you've managed to listen to this before Monday night And you see the fat guy In an Eclectic Gamer shirt That's me come say hi Yeah, go say hi to Tony I guess it's entirely possible there's another fat guy In an Eclectic Gamer shirt I specifically am packing An EGP shirt Just to wear to Logan that night They might want your autograph So you may want to bring a sharpie You may want to bring a permanent marker Just to be ready You don't carry just three ready For whenever that happens I'll be 100% honest I normally carry one while I'm working. That's right. Only bug him if he's working. That's the secret, folks.
    69:07
    That's when he wants you to come up and go, Are you the Tony? How did you get through security? Who let you in here? And then he'll go, Yes, I am. Send my butt. Yes.
    69:20
    Butt signings are an option. He may charge for that, but it's always an option. We're done. Goodbye.