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Episode 69 - Bill & Ken's Excellent Adventure

Special When Lit·podcast_episode·55m 22s·analyzed·Sep 10, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Industry news roundup: Spooky design philosophy, API quality assurance, Multimorphic correspondent departure, JJP refunds and delays, Ghostbusters code update incoming.

Summary

Special When Lit Pinball Podcast Episode 69 covers industry news from multiple correspondents: David Van Ness discusses Spooky Pinball design philosophy on cohesion between playfields and displays; American Pinball reports no playfield issues and stands behind quality; Ryan Claytor departs as Multimorphic correspondent after four months due to time constraints; Jersey Jack Pinball refunds $550 replacement playfield charges for Willy Wonka and delays second game release to focus on current sales; Stern Pinball prepares a major code update for Ghostbusters; and hosts discuss Dutch Pinball troubled history with The Big Lebowski fulfillment.

Key Claims

  • David Van Ness emphasizes cohesion between playfield artwork, cabinet art, and display design to help create story and draw players in

    high confidence · Dr. Spooky Pinball correspondent segment featuring direct quote from David Van Ness

  • American Pinball does not manufacture playfields in-house but has not received playfield complaints

    high confidence · Brian Cosner, American Pinball correspondent, citing statement from Dan at American Pinball

  • Ryan Claytor is stepping down as Multimorphic correspondent due to time constraints from returning to university teaching duties

    high confidence · Ryan Claytor's final correspondent segment explaining departure after four months

  • Jersey Jack Pinball is refunding $550 charges for replacement Willy Wonka playfields previously charged to customers

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell reporting on Jersey Jack's policy reversal

  • Jersey Jack Pinball is delaying second game release (possibly Guns N' Roses or Toy Story) to 2024 due to strong Willy Wonka sales

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell noting Jack Guarnieri earlier promise on stream versus revised timeline

  • Dwight Sullivan and team are preparing a major code update for Ghostbusters that addresses significant gameplay issues

    high confidence · Bill Webb reporting on Ghostbusters beta testing feedback

  • Dutch Pinball's Barry acknowledged using misleading board excuse ('white lie turned ugly') that delayed Big Lebowski shipments for six months

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell referencing Barry's interview on Pinball News and Magazine Podcast

  • Dutch Pinball may need to sell 400-500 new Big Lebowski games before fulfilling early backer commitments

    medium confidence · Ken and Bill discussing logistics of Dutch Pinball fulfillment strategy

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm a firm believer in being cohesive... if the artist is doing the playfield and the cabinet, we want that display to be identical to it because it helps create that story. It creates the player to be drawn into the game.”

    David Van Ness (Spooky Pinball) @ Early in episode (Dr. John correspondent segment) — Articulates Spooky's design philosophy of unified aesthetic and narrative across playfield, cabinet, and display elements

  • “API customer service is well known for going above and beyond. we stand behind our products 100%”

    Dan (American Pinball)@ 3:56 — American Pinball's quality assurance stance in response to industry playfield concerns

  • “I feel awfully lucky to have been a metaphorical fly on the multimorphic factory wall for this summer, and I can assure you that seeing how the punch was made did not spoil it for me.”

    Ryan Claytor (Former Multimorphic Correspondent)@ 7:05 — Ryan reflects positively on NDA-restricted access to Multimorphic's operations while hinting at unreleased fourth game

  • “It just so amazing to get your hands on and work with it... I wouldn't be doing anything else, honestly. There's nothing else I would rather be doing. I'm living the dream over here.”

    T.J. Weaver (Multimorphic mechanical engineer) and Rory Cernuda (Multimorphic graphics developer)@ 6:07 — Illustrates employee satisfaction and passion at Multimorphic despite time constraints on correspondent work

  • “They charged $5.50, and they refunded. So you know what? Again, thank you. And we said on this podcast we do believe that Jersey Jack's company stands behind their products.”

    Ken Cromwell@ 15:47 — Hosts acknowledge Jersey Jack's reversal on playfield replacement fees as positive customer service

  • “Now, are there one or two or three things that I would absolutely tweak with the game, which I think would make it better? For sure. But then you anticipate a code update that's going to take care of those issues.”

Entities

Ken CromwellpersonBill WebbpersonDavid Van NesspersonDr. JohnpersonRyan ClaytorpersonBrian CosnerpersonChuck EmerypersonJerry StellenbergpersonT.J. Weaverperson

Signals

  • ?

    design_philosophy: David Van Ness articulates Spooky Pinball's design approach emphasizing unified visual language across playfield, cabinet art, and LCD display to create immersive storytelling and player engagement

    high · Direct quotes from Van Ness on cohesive design, rules-first approach, and upcoming graphic evolution beyond Alice Cooper animation standards

  • ?

    product_concern: Ken Cromwell contextualizes playfield issues as endemic to pinball manufacturing across eras (Gottlieb, Williams 80s/90s, modern titles), suggesting current 'no issues' claims require skepticism

    high · Cromwell's contrarian pushback on API's playfield quality claims, citing historical precedent with F-14 Tomcat ghosting inserts, Circus Voltaire defects

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ryan Claytor stepping down from Multimorphic correspondent role after four months due to time commitments from full-time university teaching; transition completed amicably

    high · Ryan's final segment explaining departure, praising Ken/Bill for opportunity, thanking Multimorphic access, noting NDA restrictions on fourth game details

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jersey Jack Pinball reversing $550 playfield replacement fee policy and issuing refunds; perceived as goodwill gesture correcting initial customer dissatisfaction

    high · Ken and Bill both acknowledge JJP's course correction as 'stand-up move' and positive signal about manufacturer accountability

  • ?

    product_launch: Jersey Jack delays second game release (Guns N' Roses or Toy Story speculation) from 2023 to 2024 due to stronger-than-anticipated Willy Wonka sales and fulfillment priorities

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.166

0:00
Okay, wait. If you guys are really us, what number are we thinking of? 69, dudes! Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the special When Lit Pinball Podcast starts now. Hey, what's going on Pinball Land? Welcome to episode number 69 of the special When Lit Pinball Podcast. My name is Ken Cromwell. And I am Bill Webb. And we are going to keep you informed and entertained for the next 45 minutes or so, or we're going to attempt to do so, on this Pinball Podcast. Bill, what's going on with you, man? What's happening? Nothing, man. Just getting closer to expo, closer to baby time. Dude, everything's, you know... Converging, the perfect storm. Well, yeah, it's a storm, all right. You've got Baby Bill and the 35th Annual Expo coming within days of one another.
1:00
God willing for both, right? Seven to eight days of each other. Yeah. Actually, it's eight days of each other. Pretty crazy. Crunch time. It's getting there. I like it. Yeah. Nothing's going on with me, man. I've been fighting off like a little bit of a cold all week. So if I sound a little congested or nasally today, more so than I normally do, I do apologize. We've got a lot to cover in a short show. So let's get started and go into the industry buzz. Getting the news from around the industry in this week's Industry Buzz.
1:29
Hi there, Dr John with this week's spooky pinball update. I decided to get on the line and have a chat with David Van Ness, otherwise known as Bunyip from his past Australian heritage, who is responsible for the graphics display and design of the Spooky games. He's been involved with Spooky since 2013 and there's been a market upgrade in the displays since the first America's Most Haunted and then the colour of Rob Zombie with its live video assets and then the universally praised animation that occurred in Alice Cooper. I wondered about his thought processes going into the design of these games and where the future could evolve into. Here's some of what he had to say. I'm a firm believer in being cohesive And I think you've seen that in a lot of spooky games that we don't, if the artist is doing the play field and the cabinet, we want, I want that display to be identical to it because it helps create that story. It creates the player to be drawn into the game. There are games that will have 3D elements in them. it's whatever the theme we choose it has to tie in that we're telling the story we're telling the rules and we're making it fun for the spectator yeah right so rules first knowing what you're doing and making sure that's cohesive so everyone that's watching can really get into that yeah it's no different to what we're doing in the past but i don't i don't think they expect to see what they're going to see from us. It's just like this is going to be another step up to what we've been doing in the past. So there you have it. David Van Ness talking about his process and what's going into upcoming titles for Spooky Pinball. I'm looking forward to the new Scott Denise release, which should be coming up towards the end of this year, and just see how far Spooky can be pushing that envelope. Thanks for listening. Catch you next week.

Ken Cromwell@ 18:37 — Sets context for upcoming Ghostbusters code update addressing longstanding community complaints

  • “A white lie turned ugly... I know that, but you know what? There's certain ways of doing business, and it's just a comedicle of errors listening to that.”

    Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb@ 24:34 — Hosts react to Barry's admission of misleading statements about board issues delaying Big Lebowski production

  • “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets their wings... Every time every five machines are sold, an early achiever gets his game.”

    Bill Webb@ 27:00 — Suggests tie between new sales and early backer fulfillment to motivate community support and transparency

    • Rory Cernuda
    person
    BJ Wilsonperson
    Jack Guarneriperson
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    Barryperson
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Multimorphiccompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Dutch Pinballcompany
    Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factorygame
    Ghostbustersgame
    The Big Lebowskigame
    Pinball Expo 35th Anniversaryevent

    high · Ken notes Jack Guarneri's earlier promise revised; manufacturing focus on clearing Wonka backlog before transitioning to next title

  • ?

    code_update: Stern Pinball preparing significant Ghostbusters code update addressing longstanding community complaints; beta testers report high satisfaction; potential Vault edition with new LCD on five-year anniversary

    high · Bill Webb reporting beta testing feedback very positive; Ken noting this could drive Vault edition excitement; Dwight Sullivan credited as lead programmer

  • ?

    community_signal: Dutch Pinball's Barry faces community criticism for six-month misleading 'board issues' excuse on Big Lebowski delays; acknowledged as 'white lie turned ugly' but unresolved fulfillment anger persists

    high · Ken and Bill express frustration listening to Barry's Pinball News interview; Bill states aggravation makes him unlikely to purchase; Ken questions survival tactics justification

  • ?

    business_signal: Dutch Pinball requires selling 400-500 new Big Lebowski units to fund early backer fulfillment; hosts skeptical achievement is possible; community sentiment strongly negative

    high · Extended discussion of fulfillment math; Ken/Bill brainstorm per-five-games-sold approach as motivation; both express doubt game will ever reach target volume

  • ?

    company_health_signal: Ryan Claytor's exit segment inadvertently signals Multimorphic stability through NDA-restricted fourth game in development; employee testimonials emphasize company culture and founder competence

    medium · Ryan's praise for Jerry Stellenberg's multi-disciplinary leadership, employee passion quotes, assertion he'd rejoin as correspondent when fourth game launches

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: American Pinball explicitly states non-in-house playfield manufacturing but claims zero complaints; contrasts with historical manufacturer quality control issues

    high · Brian Cosner's statement from Dan at API regarding outsourced playfield manufacturing and quality assurance claims

  • ?

    leak_detection: Multimorphic's fourth game exists and is under NDA review by Ryan Claytor, described as potentially groundbreaking mechanically; Ryan hints it's 'shocking and awing' worthy

    medium · Ryan Claytor's closing statement about fourth game being 'groundbreaking' after NDA review; Ken/Bill note anticipation for announcement and mechanical innovation claims

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Bill Webb indicates Dutch Pinball's handling of Big Lebowski has permanently eroded his purchase intent despite ongoing fulfillment efforts; larger community frustration evident

    high · Bill states 'I'm probably far removed from ever owning one just because I'm so aggravated by it'; Ken sympathizes with widespread community upset

    • 3:31
    Hey, this is Kaz. You're a special when lit American Pinball correspondent. Seems like playfield issues has been a hot topic lately, so I spoke with a few Houdini and Oktoberfest owners, and no one has any playfield issues. I also reached out to Dan at American Pinball, and he informed me that although they do not make their own playfields in-house, they have not had any playfield complaints. But here's a statement from Dan. API customer service is well known for going above and beyond. we stand behind our products 100% and in the rare time there is a problem we will do whatever it takes to make it right anyone that purchases a game can feel safe knowing that we will be transparent and keep the lines of communication open until a solution is found also team members were at cleat pin this past weekend with Oktoberfest being used in the women's tournament and also a few members of American Pinball were in Europe this past weekend for events with RS Pinball so hope everyone has a great week and has fun playing pinball for american pinball this is brian cosner hey special winlet this is ryan clader you're now former multimorphic correspondent i'm recording this last segment with a heavy heart as it may be my last and i'd like to end with a few brief thoughts first the reason i'm leaving is simple time i'm a university professor for my main gig and during the summer without teaching i thought i'd try my hand at this one minute a week podcast gig. Turns out all the coordination, research, and editing took a lot longer than one minute a week, at least for me. All that to say, now that my academic year of teaching is starting again, I'll need to realign my priorities, and unfortunately that means saying goodbye to some opportunities, including this one I was involved with here, in which I was fortunate enough to educate myself, and hopefully even some listeners, about this innovative company in which I believe so wholeheartedly. Next, I'd like to thank Ken and Bill for this great segment idea and letting me be a part of it for the past four months or so. I really had a blast getting to know Jerry and the Multimorphic crew a little better over the course of these episodes. Finally, I wanted to share one last thing I discovered about the Multimorphic company over the course of talking with just a few of the dedicated folks working there. Not only are they all committed to bringing the innovation to pinball that we all keep clamoring for, they all seem to be genuinely enjoying the creative process. Here's T.J. Weaver, a Multimorphic mechanical engineer. This kind of thing is the dream to work on. It's just so amazing to get your hands on and work with it. And Rory Cernuda, Multimorphic Graphics Developer. I wouldn't be doing anything else, honestly. There's nothing else I would rather be doing. I'm living the dream over here.
    6:14
    Not only that, but they're also directed by a steadfast, supportive, whip-smart, and kind company founder in Jerry Stellenberg. But don't take my word for it. Here's BJ Wilson, Multimorphic software developer, with some words about Multimorphic's fearless founder. He's a straight ahead guy, and so he's great to work with. And then on top of all that, he's got skills in every pocket of the process. He can call himself an electrical engineer at first, and yet he knows so much about product development and about supply chain management and software as well. He keeps telling me he's not a software guy, but he certainly keeps up with us, no problems. He can cover all those things. It's amazing. And so it makes it a lot of fun. It's no secret that I believe in their product, but over the course of the past several months, I discovered what a passionate group of developers Jerry has amassed to work on the revolutionary P3 pinball platform, and what a synergistic bond they have. I feel awfully lucky to have been a metaphorical fly on the multimorphic factory wall for this summer, and I can assure you that seeing how the punch was made did not spoil it for me. In fact, after signing an NDA and getting to see what they have in store for all of us, players and collectors with their fourth game, all I can say is I wish I were still a correspondent in the not-too-distant future when it gets released. In closing, thanks Ken and Bill for the chance to be a part of this. Thanks to the listeners for your words of support. Thanks Multimorphic for making such exciting strides forward in pinball, and thanks Jerry Stellenberg for all you do. All right, that's going to do it, Special Inlet. This has been Ryan Claytor, your now-former Multimorphic correspondent, signing off. Stay innovative. Hey, so thanks to the correspondents for supplying us with some information this week, especially in a slow news week. Very sad to see Ryan Claytor go. We will talk about that in a second. I was talking to Chuck Emery today at Spooky Pinball. Chuck, he runs Spooky Pinball, right? Him and his family. And it was funny because he put it in perspective for me. He goes, what I find odd is that you guys are two and a half hours from Spooky Pinball, but your correspondent that covers our company is from Australia. It's like couldn't be further away from Benton, Wisconsin. Logistically, it makes sense to us, though. Yes, right. We want to see what people see from another continent. No, right. But he said, he goes, but I love Dr. John. He's an awesome guy. And I reciprocated what he said. I said, the thing with Dr. John is this. When Dr. John contacted us and he offered to cover spooky pinball, I was like, well, let's see where this goes because we didn't have a spooky pinball correspondent. Dr. John was the first to jump on the show. So he kind of pioneered the effort for the rest of the correspondents to kind of jump on board and say, hey, this is something that might be fun and we'd like to do it. And it's worked out great because we've got a lot of feedback from Dr. John. And Dr. John says that at pinball shows people know him for other things, but they absolutely recognize that he's corresponding for special and latest spooky pinball. So always good times to hear from Dr. John. Absolutely, absolutely. Then we go over to Brian Cosner, who was covering API, American Pinball, this week. So now API is saying that, hey, we don't have any play field issues at all. But you know what? I got to jump in here, man. Okay. So, I mean, maybe it's just I'm on the hot ticket train today of anger, but every single manufacturer at some point has some sort of glitch or problem. You know, no one is infallible. Sure. From the old Gottliebs to the 90s Williams that everyone praises to the 80s Williams, like F-14 Tomcat, where literally every insert was ghosted. Or Circus Voltaire is notorious for ghosting inserts for certain. No one is impervious to crap going wrong. And so, yeah, they don't have a playfield issue going on right now. But, I mean, we all need to be humble and realize that things do go awry. In all fairness, American Pinball didn't contact us and say, we've got a statement that we're going to make that we don't have any clear-code issues. It was our correspondent reaching out to them, probably looking to get some information on the clear-code issues at American Pinball, and they are not suffering from it. So interestingly enough, we've got American Pinball and Spooky Pinball without issues, and maybe there's a little link there. If they sell some more games out of it. I mean, I think Oktoberfest is underrated. So, I mean, if they sold some more, hey, all the power to them. Right. But you know what? I mean, nothing is infallible in this world. So, you know, we always got to be careful what we're what we're stuff. We're right. And we also said, if you if you were to ever have an issue with the game, rest assured we have your back. We're not going to leave you stranded. Yes. Right. Yeah. Live by the sword, fall by the sword, I guess. The reason I'm laughing is just because I I know somebody, several people that had issues with Houdini and with their power supplies. and I don't know that that was as smooth of a transition as it was to get that corrected but I commend them for not having the issues and for voicing that they're going to stand behind their products and they did try in all fairness could they have handled that differently everyone can handle stuff differently well they asked the customers to pay for their power supply replacements right but then they credited them what they paid for the power supplies towards future purchases and American Pinball so it was kind of a trade off Yeah, so you know what? It wasn't lost. I don't really. Sure. Do you want to put money out like that? No, but I mean, at least they were trying to work with people. I agree.
    11:36
    I would say this. Actually, let's not say this. It's not worth beating the dead horse because Houdini's been in and out. It's done. It's off the production line. The company's evolved since manufacturing Houdini for certain. We've got Oktoberfest, and now we're waiting for a third game that's supposed to be coming. I do want to transition. I wanted to close out. Again, we've got some more pinball news that we're going to cover here. But with Ryan Claytor, he's been covering Multimorphic for several weeks. And, again, we kind of discussed it last week that we were anticipating this or maybe the following week being his last week. So it is this week in which he's going to walk away from his role as special one-lick correspondent for Multimorphic. I wanted to sincerely thank Ryan for his time. I thought that the segments that he put together were, you know, very well thought out. They were very well edited up and organized, and they were a fun listen for those that had interest in Multimorphic. So, Ryan, for me personally, thank you very much. Sad to see you go, but I totally understand. And if anything else, I think that your segments on this show really had helped spread the word for Multimorphic. Now, I also understand there was not necessarily groundbreaking news happening there on a week-to-week basis. So I thought the information in which he had at his disposal, he actually loaded up. He developed into something very tangible as far as news goes. And I think if you take all those segments, and maybe we'll do this, I think if we take all those segments and we just kind of put them out into one piece, it might be a nice little information packet, so to speak, for Jerry at Multimorphic. And I hope Jerry's appreciative of Ryan's efforts, because I know Ryan's appreciative of the access that he was granted at Multimorphic. As you heard, he's under NDA. and we're anticipating what's going to happen with their next release because you've heard things about something that's going to be groundbreaking as far as mechanisms in pinball, and we've also kind of anticipated this has to be a pretty big release, or the next one does, in order to keep this on the map. And we can only hope and dream that Multimorphic is ready to shock and awe everybody. Absolutely. Yeah, he did a great job. Definitely will be missed.
    13:41
    Those were definitely one- to two-minute segments, but you could definitely tell that they were two to three hours to produce some of that stuff with the editing with the sound I do love the fact that he like you know it was a one segment that went into a lot of work And we do this podcast every week so we know the amount of work that goes into doing a 45 to an hour 15 show But he kind of had like an interview expose kind of process on a week-to-week basis. So, Ryan, we're going to miss you, bud. Looking forward to meeting you officially at Pinball Expo coming up in October. and I honestly think you did something great for pinball and great for Multimorphic. Congratulations and thank you. I hope the school year goes well. Yeah, I hope the school year goes well. That's right. Let's go over to – Rounding out the news. So Jersey Jack Pinball has done a couple things here, which I think makes a lot of sense. One, they've issued refunds for the replacement play fields in which they charged customers that had play field issues on Willy Wonka. Which was a stand-up move. They charged $550 for a replacement blank play field for those owners that were concerned about their play fields. And since then. Unpopulated. But since then, they've actually issued refunds for those that purchased those play fields. So I think that's hugely important because that was something that didn't really sit well with me and some other people. And for them to kind of realize that maybe that wasn't the best way to go and for them to correct it, I tip my hat to them. And, again, this is what I want to see out of a pinball company. I want to see them make those steps. Yeah. And you know what? I mean, I don't find any fault with them reassessing how they handled it and changing their course of action. I think that was a stand-up thing to do. Sure. I mean, they're standing behind their product. And it goes back into like when somebody makes a decision, whether it be pinball or in life, I mean, there's a couple different ways. When you find out that maybe you didn't make the best decision, you can absolutely change your mind and go another direction to facilitate the direction in which you thought was proper. or you can dig in knowing that you're at fault and just be stubborn and hope that you eventually wear everybody out and you end up winning. And Jersey Jack didn't do that this time. They went ahead and realized that maybe that wasn't the best course of action, charging the $5.50, and they refunded. So you know what? Again, thank you. And we said on this podcast we do believe that Jersey Jack's company stands behind their products. And, you know, we've – at least I've been vocal on saying that the decisions that are being made by these companies are really going to dictate where my future money goes. So it was relieving to see that. number two we also heard that we were anticipating another release this year in fact jack guarneri said on our show on our stream i think he said that you will see a second release this year and that would people are speculating it's going to be guns and roses or toy story or whatever it is but now they're saying that listen jack said it's probably not going to happen this year because willy wonka sales have been greater i guess maybe that they had anticipated yeah and they want to facilitate all those sales before they leave production on Willy Wonka and go to another game. So that makes sense to me, too. Get those orders out. Probably correct any issues that you have going on in-house or out-house with another vendor with the play fields, and then get those orders done, and then get yourself set up for the next release. And if it's next year, it's next year. I would rather see, because it was unfortunate to see what happened with Pirates, where it felt like that game was kind of just left on the table. Yeah, it really, really did. And then they switched and transitioned over to another game, because that's what they thought they had to do. I didn't want to see that happen with Wonka. So it's good to know that Wonka is going to be on the line for a little bit. It looks like they're making steps to go in the next direction as far as taking care of those that might have had some issues. And you can only hope that by the end of the year this is all figured out and you have games that you've got like a regular cadence of games going out for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. But even if it's one a year, I mean, would we love to see more? Of course. But, I mean, if it's one a year but they're bringing their A game on the stuff, you know, I mean, it's – Yeah, interesting point. I mean, so, yeah, I wouldn't be disappointed if Jersey Jack was doing one game a year. I think what they're striving for is two to three games per year, depending on how the schedule works out. Two games a year would be great. I'd rather see one solid game without issues than two games that are solid, but you're rolling the dice as far as what your final product's going to be from a quality control standpoint. So, yeah, whatever. I'm with you. If it's one game a year, it's one game a year. I think, yeah, I mean, they've taken a stand-up approach. and, you know, I mean, everyone can be critical on this stuff. And, I mean, there are certain things. We would all like to see different things, but I think that they are, you know, trying to do right by the consumer. For sure. Now, Stern Pinball, and this is what I think is exciting because Ghostbusters is a game that I've always liked Ghostbusters. I've always said I owned a Ghostbusters. It was my first new box, premium. October 2016 is when I got that game. You've since purchased a Pro. Yep. So you've got a Ghostbusters. Now, there has been a community of people that have wanted to see the game polished with code. Yes. And code has been a topic of contention with a lot of people on Ghostbusters. Not for myself, because I like the game, how it plays. Yeah. Now, are there one or two or three things that I would absolutely tweak with the game, which I think would make it better? For sure. But then you anticipate a code update that's going to take care of those issues. It just hasn't happened. But now we are on what seems to be the eve of a blockbuster code update for Ghostbusters, which everything that I'm hearing is going to be a game changer for that specific title. Couldn't be more excited. Dwight just really rammed it home with Game of Thrones with a huge code update. Yeah, they did. And now Dwight Sullivan, for those of you who don't know, Dwight Sullivan is the lead programmer for Game of Thrones and Ghostbusters and several other titles throughout Pimple history. He's cracked down with his team. They took that glass off. They figured out what needed to be addressed. And it's not minor tweaks. It's a huge update for Ghostbusters.
    19:25
    I've heard that, but I'm not necessarily sure what it is. So we'll kind of leave that there. Well, there are people that are beta testing right now. And I know this to be certain. And from the people that I've spoken with, very, very pleased. Very pleased. Which makes me pleased. Which makes me want to get back in on Ghostbusters. And again, this goes back into we see Vault edition of Ghostbusters at some point. I hope that we really do. And if that happens, I mean, that could be a huge, huge, huge release for Stern. Also, the game wasn't out terribly long ago in 2016. Here we are coming up on the three-year anniversary of the release of the title. But if we see like a code update, or not a code update, but a Vault, maybe on the five-year anniversary of that title with new LCD technology, we talked about it weeks ago. I could see it. I could see that moving. Could be huge. Dude, it's a widely recognized theme.
    20:15
    Huge theme. For me, maybe the most impactful theme overall in pinball is Ghostbusters because that movie was so awesome when I saw it for the first time as a younger kid. And I've always really had a soft spot in my heart for Ghostbusters as a theme.
    20:34
    And the pinball didn't disappoint me. The flipper gap sucked. I'm not going to lie to you. I didn't like the flipper gap. But if you had the post-in, and I have the post-in on mine, it does help quite a bit. And I had mine, my game had the kit with it. It wasn't installed. So I like, I played it without for a couple of weeks, and then I just recently put it in. So what do you, do you like, now for those of you that don't know, the center post kit kind of installs on a piece of plastic that hovers kind of from the origin of the sling screws. So this is not a permanent addition that goes into your play field. The outlaying post. The outlaying post, right. And the plastic kind of comes over, and then the center post hangs from the top down through a clear piece of plastic. So whereas looking down, it looks like any other center post you're used to. It's not affixed to the play field. But it certainly acts like a center post. There's not any play or give where it feels like it's questionable as far as the integrity or the strength. Do you like the center post kit, or do you like it without the center post kit? I like the center post kit.
    21:31
    I just put pin stadiums on it, so loving that. The UV glow. With the UV glow, it looks awesome. It is awesome. Um, what else? See, now some people overdo it with the Ghostbusters, like, slime stuff. Like, it's all over the speaker panel and the lockdown bar. I'm sorry. Like, for me, I hate that. It looks way too gaudy. I mean, I don't want it to look like it's a Garbage Pail Kid card, but I do want it to look tastefully modded up. And there are super mods for Ghostbusters, for sure. The one that I'm really concerned with getting now is the Walking Stay Puff Marshmallow Man. Oh, yeah, the rocking back and forth. I think Measel Mods, they sell that. Very cool. That and the Color DMD. Color DMD is huge on the game. I had the RGB speaker panels with the Slimer inserts. Those looked really nice. And then I had mine. I powder-coated mine. Purple. Purple, a metallic flake purple. And it was killer. I loved it. I don't know if I'm going to go that far with it just yet. I want to get the other mods done first because I think they're going to add more to the gameplay. I've been playing the snot out of that game. It's a fun game, guys. And when the code update hits, I can't wait to rediscover the game because I fell in love with it as is. And again, there are certain things that I thought could have been improved, and I think those have been addressed, and then there's so much more. So I don't know. We can't really speak for it because we don't know the specifics, but we just know that this is going to be something that is going to really polish and complete the game for those that had ever craved more for the completion of Ghostbusters. It's coming, guys. I am definitely curious to see how this all pans out. But even the old code, dude, I still like the game itself is pretty awesome. And I don't have a crummy lineup down there, but I still find myself playing that quite frequently. Yeah. Did you get a chance to listen to the Barry interview? Barry from Dutch Pinball. He was on Pinball News and Magazine Podcast. For those of you that want to listen to the interview, it was a bonus content episode by Jonathan Martin over there. And they interviewed Barry. Barry was the guy and is the guy that runs Dutch Pinball. It was Barry and Yap. His partner had to leave the company because of health concerns and health issues. Barry goes on the show, kind of talks about what happened in the past, why they are at where they are at in the present, and his steps moving forward in the future in an attempt to continue to sell the Big Lebowski and in an ultimate final attempt to see the early achievers that were never given the games that they paid for to see them fulfilled. What were your thoughts on that interview? I was really aggravated by it. aggravated by aggravated okay everything from the board comment and listening to him laugh about some of these situations kind of just pissed me off the board comment um when they didn't have the when they were still trying to figure out with area how they were going to sell the games okay or there was a delay yeah and then they came up with oh the boards aren't right so we're not you know uh shipping games right now and they ran that lie for what six months the boards aren't Right, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just bold-faced lies. I mean, he said it. He goes, you know, a white lie turned ugly. Well, you know what? And he did say he regretted it. I know that, but, you know, there's certain ways of doing business, and it's just a comedicle of errors listening to that. There's certain ways of doing business, and then there's survival tactics. And it was a term almost that I got familiar with when Andrew Highway was kind of discussing ways in which he went about trying to keep his business alive. He went into survival tactics where decisions and statements weren't necessarily truthful or ethical, but it was for the better chance of the company succeeding. And I'm wondering if Barry kind of felt that he was in survival tactics for that company, whereas maybe he did. I'm not going to make excuses for the guy, but maybe he didn't want to have to lie. But the only way in which he could facilitate everything that he wanted to do was to create these lies. What are your thoughts on that? I get it. but just how this whole thing was handled just pisses me off. Yeah, I think it upsets a lot of people for sure. So after listening to that, I'm probably far removed from ever owning one just because I'm just so aggravated by it. I don't like how they're going to have to sell 500 games to start making right by other people. I get it from a logistical standpoint, but just that whole thing sits ugly with me. You know what would be nice and motivating is if you could say every time we sell a certain amount of the new games, we're going to fulfill one of the early achievers. So maybe every five or six games that we sell, an early achiever gets their game. And the reason I think that this could gain some traction is people that are buying these new games will feel as if not only are they getting a game that they want, but then at the same time, they know that they're making an early achiever one step closer to getting their game. And then maybe there's a community effort to buy all 500 games to try to help these early achievers get their games. But you're right, man. You can't wait for this company to sell 400 or 500 games before they're able to fulfill early achievers. Because we asked ourselves this. I think it was, was it drain it or save it a week or two ago? Will there ever be one more Big Lebowski ever made? And I think we both drained it. We did. But you sounded like that 50s or 40s Christmas movie. Every time a bell rings, an angel gets their wings. Well, guess what, dude? I don't think at the end of this rainbow, I don't think there's a pot to piss in for this. It's a wonderful life. Yes. It's not a wonderful life in this pinball situation. No. But every time a bell rings, an angel did get its wings. So if we can get five machines sold, maybe an early achiever gets a game. Every time every five machines are sold, an early achiever gets his game. Yeah, I get it. But I don't see how that's going to happen. I don't see how any of it's going to happen. Unless you had like full documentation, dude, who's going to believe a thing? I don't know. And the other thing is this. So trust is a huge issue with the company and with Barry in particular. And for you to put all your trust in the guy, you just can't. Like at this point, he's going to have to show us all, and he's going to have to figure it out. He doesn have anything set up as far as a definitive plan He just has an idea He got a concept But he doesn have steps in place yet So I will reserve judgment on how this is going to happen until I start seeing steps in the right direction. They're not going to be asking for pre-order money. Really? Yeah, which is fine. I do want to say this, though. If the guy's intentions are to really see this through, where I lost a lot of respect and trust for him initially, I at least can respect the fact that he's trying to make good on a series of mistakes that caused a lot of harm to people financially and probably emotionally, too. And again, there are greater tragedies in the world than not getting your pinball machine. But a transaction is a transaction. You're talking eight grand plus. Yeah, it's a lot of money. It really, really is. You know what? Until you start seeing something like that, I don't believe anything that's coming out of anyone's mouth on this game. Right. And here's the other thing. So these 40 games go on to the world. Stuff's going to start breaking. Dude, where are you going to get parts? Well, according to Barry, he's got like a ton of parts. According to past situations, they just had a little board issue that was going to be a couple weeks. Well, I mean, touche. Touche. Where does the trust come in? There is no trust. Like you have to now earn trust. And it's maybe not something that he anticipated. But, again, I don't want to demotivate the guy. And I don't want to get a community riled up and upset. But I think it's important that we speak candidly about it. And out of respect for ourselves. and for the listeners, right? Yes, but here's my thing with this. So, okay, let's say there's 500 people that are willing to spend $12,500 apiece. I don't think there is. Dude, we're Angel Gets His Wings, Living on a Prayer, Bon Jovi. Right. Don't care. 500 people. All right, Mr. Potter. Hand over $12,500 and buy this game. Yeah. So he's got enough money to make the rest of these people whole, okay, and come up with their games. I could almost foresee the snake move of, well, we're going to take that money and develop our next game so we can keep it going. And we'll give like 20 early achievers. Very well could be. Otherwise, we're not going to be able to succeed. And then the company – listen. It's just kind of dangling the carrot, right? And sometimes it's like chasing the train that's slowly getting faster and slowly pulling away. Like do you ever really do it? I think a lot of it is – and maybe it's intentional or it's not. it's getting people emotionally behind based on hope and hope is it's great to have hope for things but at some point you have to think with your head not with your heart so now at this point and we said this before like six months ago with deep root i said hey show me something and now i'm gonna say hey dutch pinball show me something yeah and until you do i don't think there's any reason to really discuss the company going further because uh happy to cover things that are happening. Relevant and pertinent? That are relevant and pertinent. But right now, I think he needs to step away, get his stuff in order. Just my advice. And, you know, get 20 games built and sell them.
    30:39
    And maybe make a couple of these early achievers whole out of good faith. But don't anticipate or don't expect everybody to help you sell 400 or 500 games. And don't laugh on a podcast while talking about other people's money. Well, I understand that that was a turnoff for a lot of people. I know that that was probably a nervous response. I get that, but it still doesn't sit well. I mean, I would have edited that out just because. Well, I mean, that's interesting, too. They didn't. And I want to say this. I wanted to give a lot of props to Martin on that podcast.
    31:10
    He didn't really hold back. He asked a lot of the questions that were on a lot of people's mind. He did not candy coat it. He came across very professional. but I was relieved that Martin was not lobbing him softballs and letting Barry kind of run it out of the park.
    31:28
    Now, Jonathan, it seems like his approach to the interview was different. I think they have more of a personal relationship there, and I don't think it was in Jonathan's best interest, just the way that I took it, for him to maybe be the hard-hitting guy trying to ask all the questions because it was obvious to me that they have some type of a bond, and that's great. But I did appreciate the fact that Martin was back in there and he was asking the questions. I messaged him on Facebook and I said that I appreciated his method there. So, you know, thank you. Dude, this whole situation reminds me of the Geico commercial. I think it's Geico, where you had the Fonz. What's his name? Henry Winkler. You know, with the fishing hat, dude, and he had a $100 bill on the end of the fishing line. Was that Henry Winkler? Whoever it was, man. It looked like him, though. It didn't look like him at all. Whatever. You know, Jurassic Park is poor quality. I think he needed new TV, bro. If you thought the guy with the dollar on the fishing line was Henry Winkler, unless it was, and I totally missed that, he's like, you've got to be quick. You've got to be quick. Dude, I think that's all this is, man. And literally, Dutch Pinball's wearing the hat saying, you've got to be quicker than this. Early achiever money. Early achiever. You've got to be earlier. Just missed it. Just buy one more game. Just missed it. I'll get you. You know, whatever, man. I don't want to have fun. Sorry to poke fun. No, I was going to say, I don't want to have fun at his expense or their expense or anybody's expense. But how about this? Touch pinball, Barry. We wish you the best. Happy to cover the company. We hope for all good things moving forward. Yeah, I don't know. Hope. Just show me something, and then let's revisit this. Sound fair? Yeah. You ready to play Drain It or Save It? Let's do it.
    32:58
    It's time for this week's edition of Drain It or Save It. Drain It or Save It is brought to you by Lermods.com, offering you custom quality pinball mods and lighting for your play field and machine. L-E-R-M-O-D-S. visit luremods.com today bill first item on the docket for drain it or save it today is this pinball used market pricing is peaked and we can now expect a decline drain it or save it bill i will save it for now save it for now why is that it just seems like a lot of these titles are you know where they were a year ago maybe coming down a couple hundred bucks and maybe it's just things are getting real or literally everyone's kids are going back to school so they're you know They lit up the credit cards, and they've got to deplete some inventory to pay some of these bills. You know, kind of like after Christmas time. You know, January is typically when you see everyone offloading a bunch of stuff to pay down the credit cards, it seems like. Pay down those Christmas bills? Yeah. You know, Santa comes. He don't come free, though.
    33:56
    Not lately, he doesn't. No, not at my house. I'm going to save it, too, man. I think there's, to your point, a combination of a lot of different things. I think there's so many options in the market right now for machines coming out every single year. The used market isn't as rare to get machines. as it normally is, with the exception of a few titles. I think the potential of people speculating that we might be up for another recession, just the way the stock market's performed, I'm not saying I agree or disagree with that. I think that might be playing into the role of some people buying money or spending money, which can bring those prices down. But yeah, I think right now we're in for a little decline on the used market. And hey, you know what? We could be wrong. Fine by me. I don't mind. I don't mind buying these games low, especially since when the garage is done, I'll be rebuilding my collection a little bit. Number two, pinball will be the feature of a nationally televised TV show within the next year. Bill, drain it or save it? Save it. Yeah? Do you know something, Bill? Not at all. Are you sure? Maybe.
    34:49
    Maybe not. I don't know. So you're going to save it? Why are you going to save it? Just a feeling. A feeling? Yeah. Could it be a couple guys that you know get involved in a nationally televised show? Not at all. Oh, all right. Well, that's what I was hoping for. What kind of stuff are you trying to spread here, man? I don't know. I was getting on a hype train. Oh, well, I was going to leave that hype train at the station until it took off. I'm going to save it, too. The resurgence of pinball is undeniable. You're seeing it covered in so many different levels on the press and in media. And I absolutely think it would be a big swing and a miss if there wasn't a show that was dedicated to pinball that was nationally televised, whether it be on a cable channel or on one of the main networks. Super commercial. Yeah. And we had a pinball machine in the White House recently. I'm sure there's been several in the White House. Well, yeah. I mean, pinball machines are all over the place. And, yeah, absolutely. So I'm anticipating that we will see a pinball show sooner than later. That'll be before the end of 2020. Absolutely. The last one is this, Bill. And I'm going to throw a phrase at you that we've heard a lot in pinball lately, and I want you to drain it or save it. Okay? Okay. And here's the phrase. Quote, we're working on our next game now. Unquote. Drain it or save it, Bill. I am. Everyone just insert bleep because that's what I'm thinking in my head. You don't like it. Can you drain that faster than a bad pen? I mean, just so sick of hearing that. You're so sick of hearing that. You don't like that, huh? It might be a true factual statement. I'm sure it is. But it seems like you and I are working on our next game, too. Yeah, exactly. Everyone's working on their next game. Whether it be buying, selling, or working. Now, this is episode 69 of the show, and we're working on episode 70 right now also. So it is what it is. Dude, I feel my teeth grinding when I hear that sentiment. It really bothers you. It does. All right. I'm going to save it. You know why? Because we're talking about it. And there's nothing better than listening to somebody say that they're working on something else when they haven't finished the first. It's awesome because it makes me excited that there's more things that are coming out that I can speculate on or I can talk about. And if it never comes to fruition, I can come back and revisit those and hold those people accountable. As a pinball podcaster, content's important. So I'm going to save the phrase, we're working on our next game right now. I'm going to drain it to save my teeth. There you go. Now, before we end this, we were contacted by a friend of the show, Rob Burton. Good friend of the show. Now, for those of you who remember Rob, he wrote us an email that we read on the air because his child was in the NICU for an early birth. And it was nice to hear from the guy on how the podcast got him through. you know sometimes in the car or just waiting around and that sort of thing so when you're bored think of special one lit because we'll get you out of that board or we'll try to uh but he came up with what i thought was an awesome suggestion and the suggestion was this he emailed the show and he's like listen guys i love hearing the drain it or save it segments i think it's for the most part it's interesting why don't you do this at the end of the show take one of the drain or save it and upload it to your facebook page as a poll drain it or save it and let the listeners in the community of Special When Lit, vote on that and see who sides with Ken and see who sides with Bill. And if it's something you both agreed on, see where everybody sits. And I was like, Rob, that's a great idea. Pretty upset I didn't come up with that because it's perfect. So we will absolutely start uploading a poll that will be one of our Drain It or Save It's every single week. And we encourage everybody to jump on Facebook. Facebook is Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. And yeah, vote on Drain It or Save It. And then we can discuss the results briefly because, I mean, we don't need to cover too intensely the results of a poll. That's something we discussed a week prior, but I think it'll be fun to talk about. So thanks, Rob. To recap, train it or save it this week, pinball used market pricing has peaked, and we can expect a decline. Myself and Bill, we saved it. Pinball will be the future or the feature of a nationally televised show within the next year, and we both saved that. and the phrase quote unquote we're working on our next game now is something that bill drains and i save on this edition of drain it or save it brought to you by lure mods.com now we've got the 35th annual chicagoland pinball expo that's happening this year right 2019 is going to be in wheeling illinois the dates are uh october 16th to the 19th now as we try to get into like maybe the last 10 or 15 minutes of the show i encourage everybody not to fast forward to this or to turn this off because what we're going to talk about right now is stuff that hasn't been discussed. No, that hasn't been discussed and stuff that we're excited because we're kind of a driving factor and we are a big part of this. And whether you're going to Expo or not, there's ways for you to kind of experience this and we're excited. So the first thing that I want to talk about is this on Wednesday, October 16th. Okay. At six o'clock Expo starts Wednesday. That's kind of like the vendor day where they're getting their stuff in there. Yeah, it's load-in day for machines and setup. Thursday is really when the Expo starts cranking. But on Wednesday at 6, we are doing something on the Flippin' Out streaming channel for Twitch. And we're going to do an epic tailgate stream. Again, Wednesday, October 16th at 6 o'clock. Now, without getting very, very detailed, it's a VIP industry invite where people are going to be coming in. I'm anticipating the stream to start at like 6 and go to 11.
    40:12
    It's going to be co-hosted by Todd Tuckey and the guys at TNT Amusements. How do you go wrong there? And they're going to come in. They're going to co-host the show with us, okay? And big props to Tim Roth, who reached out to me and really helped to kind of get this going. So thanks, Tim. Super good guy that works over there at TNT. Now, we've got a pass with Todd Tuckey. We're buddies. He's a friend of the show. He's been on our podcast. And that's great to have these guys kind of come in and co-host with us. This is great. But it doesn't stop there, right? because the guests that we have lined up to come in through that night, and we'll give a little bit of a guest list later down the road,
    40:46
    but it's not the guy that's, you know. It's all-stars. I mean, it literally is all-stars. All right, so we divulged one with Todd Tuckey. Todd Tuckey and Frank and all those guys at TNT. It's huge, and honestly, it's just a cumulative list of just rock stars in the pinball. Absolutely, absolutely. and pinball is not going to be the focus as far as playing pinball on stream that night we will have pinball being played on stream but that's really just for decoration man because so we can be called a pinball stream still well yeah it'll be it's still a pinball stream and if you would like to watch pinball that's great but it's not going to be a tutorial about pinball and it's not going to be us revealing a game it going to be just a fun like almost like a super bowl pregame yes for hours and hours and hours And I encourage everybody to tune in We give some more information about that as we get it. Secondly, if you are going to pinball, uh, expo, I'm running something called meet the media. And it's an event where people that are content providers are going to be able to come in. We're going to set up a Superbowl row, like a tables leading into expo through the main hallway and you're going to have pinball news providers. You're going to have YouTubers. You're going to have pinball streamers. You're going to have pinball podcasters. Okay. And you're going to be able to come in and they're each going to have their own little station set up where they can kind of have base camp for an hour each day, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, all the media and content providers are going to converge where if you want to, you know, just shake a hand of somebody that you appreciate because of their efforts in pinball, or you just wanted to meet somebody that you because you appreciate what they're doing for pinball you're going to know during that hour that they're there you're not going to find them throughout the show you're going to be able to go that and give you an idea like some of the people that we already have confirmed okay and at this point we're kind of we're closing everything down as far as getting more uh providers i think we kind of nailed down the road so far so i i i don't yeah i agree with you i don't think we're going to be adding a whole lot more i mean we have quite the list already of the list right the list is is pretty complete and they kind of cover the list right now confirmed right right now we have this week in pinball jeff patterson so he runs the site he's going to be there he's going to be representing twit steve outen from uh fun with bonus okay now he's not there representing deep root and he's going to be playing in a tournament there but he's going to be representing fun with bonus fun with bonus media site content being uploaded uh every few minutes to hours every single day uh some of the youtubers we have todd tucky and tnt amusements. They're going to be in there for the Meet the Media event. Emoto Harney or Emoto Arcade is somebody that know her. Huge collaborator and contributor to Pinball. She's working with Marco TV right now. Somebody that I have a lot of respect for. She's here. I think that she also said that she was going to be teaming up with a guest. And I'll leave the guest as undisclosed yet because I don't have verbal confirmation from this guest. Zach Menny and Greg Bone from Straight Down the Middle. a YouTube show. They will be there for podcasters. If you like podcasters, I hope you do because we're podcasting. Pinball profile, Jeff Teolis. Now, Jeff is doing the freaking tour of the world with his show. Jeff's been all over the place and he's professional. He's very well respected. Jeff is also going to be playing in the tournament, I believe, and he's got some obligations, but he's going to take part in this media event. From the Slap State Pinball Podcast, Jason Fowler and Matt Kanin, both of those guys hitting it hard out there. They're going to be here from the Slam Tilt Pinball Podcast. Ron Hallett. Slam Tilt hasn't been coming out with shows as regularly as they have, but Ron, he's in. They're still putting stuff on. Good old Ken and Bill from Special and Lit. We are going to be there. We've got pinball streamers. We've got two that are unconfirmed that we're talking to right now, but you know who's confirmed? Ryan Kuiper, TurboGrafx-7. Good dude. He's going to be there, and I believe he's going to be set up streaming, so he's going to have base camp over there. It's going to be just an awesome event. Not only for us to kind of be able to have fun with these ladies and gentlemen in the same kind of area, but to just have like a base camp and to meet a lot of people that are just liking the content that's coming out. Come by, shake all these guys' hands, shake all these women's hands, say hello, get to know these people on a personal level. And I'll tell you what, when you get to know somebody a little bit more personally, you're a little more invested in their show. Absolutely, absolutely. You know somebody on a personal level. So again, that's going to take place at Expo, and I'll have more details for that. And that'll be Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. the meet the media event now go ahead bro i might have a more limited schedule on that given the week prior i'm you know may or may not be having a child so if i'm well your wife in all fairness will be having a child this is true but if i if i do uh i i might be hit or miss on that but we're gonna we're gonna try like heck i might even bring my daughter one one or two of those days to give the wife a break and my daughter can give the uh evil eye people and you know she's a She's a mean little four-year-old. Yeah, exactly. Sweet. A little tornado going through the crowd of people. Oh, she would tear everything up. It's a good time. Now, on more of a personal matter with myself at Expo, for those of you that were waiting for the Brian Holderman translights, I'll have them there. So if you contacted me because of the – for those that just get you caught up to speed, I'm re-theming a meteor, a stern meteor. and Brian Holderman's doing the artwork and it's a space-themed machine. It's not Meteor anymore. It's Killer. It's unbelievable. We have a... And now just a little... Little teaser. We have a woman who is an intergalactic bounty hunter slash assassin whose name is also the name of the pinball machine who's featured prominently on the Backglass, the cabinet artwork, and the pinball play field.
    46:36
    Tastefully done. Very PC. Very intense. Very cool. I can't wait to share the artwork. If you want to get a Translite, we've got two versions. One is a limited edition of 50 of those that will be signed and numbered by Brian, the artist. Contact me at specialwhenlitpinballpodcast at gmail.com and just put Translite or Brian Holderman in the subject line. and I can put you on the interested list. If you don't need an autograph from the artist or a number, there's going to be another group of just regular translights and those are also available too. They're limited though, so let me know. We're not like almost sold out of those because I'm not taking any money until the artwork is being shown. No pre-order, huh? No, but the interest list is bigger than I thought. So there might not be as many free floating ones that I can bring to Expo. So it is what it is. The money that's being generated by this is going into kind of getting the rest of the project done. Just like everything else we do. Yeah. I mean, we try and reinvest in this show and honestly this project. And honestly, people, I've seen this Translight. It is very cool. And this is me telling Ken right now that I do want one of the numbered ones. So put me on the list. Absolutely. Thank you. I don't think I actually verbalized that. So at least now it's on record. All right. Go back and check episode 69. I said I wanted one. I will check it out. I don't listen. Okay. We are in 69, by the way. I know, but I'm saying for future reference. Oh, go back. Okay, for future reference. Okay, perfect. And then finally, for those of you guys that like the Special Unlit Pinball Podcast shirts, Brian did our shirts, right? So he was the artist there. And we're going to do a limited run of Midnight Blue Special Unlit Pinball Podcast shirts. I'll have those at Expo. They're $25. So if you're at Expo and you want to pick one up, great. If you want to email us because you want one, I'll literally have those T-shirts probably the week prior to Expo, and then I'm going to bring them, and good times. Now, myself and Bill, Bill may or may not be there as frequently as I'll be there. I'll be at Expo Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I'll have my little room set up up there with Steve Beatty's coming in. So I'll have a little inventory up there. So if you miss me at the Meet the Media event and you just, hey, just grab me on the floor at the show, and you don't have to buy anything from me, shake hands and say what's going on. Let's grab a beer or a pop or something. It'll be fun. Flipping out Pinball Streaming Update, you talked about how we're taking money We're putting it back into the show. This is where I was going with it. Right. So we just built three portable wireless rigs and at least the framework. And now we're populating with cameras and everything. So we're upping the streaming game on our end. And I want to go on record as saying this. We're about to bring some content to pinball streaming that has not been done. And I couldn't be more excited to share this again as we are getting closer to that launch. and I'm getting hoarse now because I just, I tried to get through the podcast. You're doing good though. So I apologize. Excited to share the information with everybody. And it's not anything, we're not going to be competing with anybody with streaming. This is something that's different and it's, I can't wait to do it. I can't wait for it to be shared and I can't wait for everybody to, you know, see what we've been working hard on. And thanks for everybody that supported the channel. Right. Because honestly, this one, this would have taken a lot longer without the support of a lot of our uh friends and you know essentially pinball family that have helped uh um helped us through and uh you know donated bits and um just for general support exactly exactly now in the interim here we still have guests coming in the stream games right so uh monday and this is pretty cool i think if you want now if you want to follow the channel you don't you don't have to pay for subscription or anything go to twitch.tv and then just type in flip the letter n out so flip n out pinball. It's all one word. There's no spaces. You'll see our channel. And just click the follow. So then what happens is when we go live, you'll get a little notification that, hey, Flippin' Out Pinball with Ken and Bill. They just went live. You can click on it, and it takes you to kind of our live stream. Our live stream's set up so we've got microphones and everything. But our next two in-studio guests are outstanding because next... Now, we're recording this on Monday, but a week from today, coming in to do the show, we have Steve Ritchie coming in, and we're going to stream Black Knight Sword of Rage LE. And the thing with our stream is that, yeah, we're playing the game, but our mics are live, and you can ask Steve Ritchie questions in chat, and he's going to be able to reply live as we're all on these microphones. It's just kind of a different setup, which I think is cool. Now, the week after Steve Ritchie's here, the following Monday after that, guess who comes in?
    51:04
    Hugh Hefner? No. He's dead. I know. All right. Just poke him in the back. The Hugh Hefner pinball is going to be coming in here. Actually, that's kind of a factual statement there, isn't it? It's George Gomez. So now George Gomez comes in and we're streaming something different, right? We're streaming Star Wars, the pin. That's the new home edition pin that just came out. And he's going to stream with us. Same situation. You want to go ahead and type a question and chat with George Gomez. You can. If you wait till after hours, you can call into the show. We've got a call in line. You can talk live to George, George Gomez, and you can have a conversation and ask some questions. So next week, again, Monday, Steve Ritchie. The week after that, George Gomez. The week after that, we have another guest coming in that I don't have confirmed as of yet. So I don't want to announce the guest yet, but that looks like that's a go. So as far as us keeping the stream interesting on Monday Night Pinball nights. We're going hard at it. And it's fun. Please definitely check it out. Check it out. And come visit. Because, again, we're building a family, right? It's like, sure, it's a brand and that sort of thing. But, I mean, we're building a community of people that we like to associate ourselves with. And when you come into the chat and you see a lot of the same people that are there every single week, we love seeing those people. And it's honestly a lot of pinball media people and people that are definitely prolific in pinball. A lot of names that you would recognize in pinball for sure. Yeah, people that might not be easy to get a hold of, but, I mean, they're in chat talking. So, you know, we don't ask for anything to join this channel or be a part of this. I mean, honestly, just the interaction in the chat really helps us develop this even more. So, you know, everyone that joins, you know, keep on keeping on, and we'll keep trying to bring our A game with this. Yep, absolutely. And, you know, if our stream isn't your thing, guess what? Type in pinball into the search engine over at twitch.tv, and there are a lot of quality pinball streams out there. I guarantee you that you'll find something that appeals to you that you'll be happy to tune into, whether it be, you know, every so often, every single day, every week. Once in a blue moon, it doesn't make a difference because the content's there. Support the people that are out there bringing pinball to you when they don't have to be doing it. It's a passion kind of project. And for us, we're passionate about furthering the exposure of pinball, right? Like we've always talked about that. And by highlighting different people in pinball and bringing them and having them talk about their approaches and their concepts, that's why I love doing the panel discussions on the podcast. It's always so impactful to have a group of people that do that. And even last week, I mean, at the end of the night, Todd Tuckey called. I mean, how does it get better than that? Yeah, Tatsaki called into the stream at the end of the night two weeks ago. So it's fun. Now, we've been fortunate enough, unexpectedly, like we've got a lot of financial support that came through on that stream, more so than we ever thought was going to happen. And I want to make it clear that every single dollar that has come in to the Flippin' Out Pinball stream, one, Zach allows us to keep the money because he's like, I'm a distributor. I don't need donations from people. It just doesn't make sense. So you guys keep it. But guess what? We've taken everything, and we're just doubling down on getting better and better as a stream and expanding the content and the quality. And now we've got a direction that we're going into that. Man, I wish I could just spill it a little bit. No, no, no. I want to do it. Everyone look at Facebook. I want to know. Ken did a post over the weekend of some stuff being built, and that's why I think we're going to leave that and leave that as the carrot to check that out. Absolutely. I want to thank LureMods.com for sponsoring our Drain It or Save It segment. I want to thank Brian Kosner. I want to thank Dr. John, our correspondents. And I want to say officially farewell to Ryan Claytor for his effort and his correspondence. Thank you, Ryan. Yeah, with Multimorphic and for contributing to Special When Lit. You will be missed, my friend, and you will not be replaced. You cannot be replaced. You're not replaceable. No. Absolutely not. So thank you, Ryan. Contact us on Facebook if you want to. Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. You can get us by email. SpecialWhenLitPinballPodcast at gmail.com. And Bill, how can they see us and reach us on Instagram?
    55:08
    SpecialWhenLitPinball. That's awesome, man. For Bill Webb, I am Ken Cromwell. Everybody have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening. And don't forget to take some time out of your day and play some pinball. So long, everybody.
    55:19
    69, dudes!