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Ep 141: B/W Godzilla and Haggis Thoughts

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 19m·analyzed·Jul 13, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

BW Godzilla release strategy and X-Men '97 speculation amid market saturation concerns.

Summary

Josh Roop and Scott Larson discuss Stern's new Black and White Godzilla release as a Premium alternative art package, analyzing it as a smart move to extend game longevity and manage LE buyer expectations after 2023 backlash. They speculate about upcoming Stern releases including Rush re-runs and rumored X-Men '97 from John Borg, debate whether Keith Elwin is intentionally recreating classic game designs, and discuss secondary market saturation and FOMO fatigue in the collector community.

Key Claims

  • Stern released Godzilla B/W as Premium package (not LE) to avoid angering LE buyers after 2023 backlash from Jurassic Park 30th and Elvira 40th Anniversary releases

    high confidence · Josh theorizes this was originally planned as LE but strategy changed; uses LE artwork and mirrors cabinet design

  • Godzilla was released in September 2021 (not March 2021 as initially stated)

    high confidence · Scott corrects himself after looking it up; three year gap between original release and B/W variant

  • Rush license was renewed and Stern plans to produce more units due to ongoing demand

    medium confidence · Josh mentions Stern 'just renewed the license for Rush and they might be running. They said they're going to run more of those'

  • Rush likely had only 1-2 production runs of Pro models before discontinuation

    medium confidence · Josh: 'I want to say they only did like one run, I really think, maybe two on the Pros'

  • Secondary market for recent Stern games shows price softening and inventory buildup (Venoms at $4,000+, Foo Fighters flooding market)

    high confidence · Scott observes Venom Pro at $5,000, Walking Dead 10-year-old modded at ~$4,700; notes Foo Fighters and Venom inventory glut

  • Keith Elwin is intentionally recreating and improving upon classic game designs (Godzilla as better Medieval Madness, Jaws as better Attack from Mars)

    medium confidence · Josh theory: 'I really feel like Keith Elwin is taking a stab at some of the best games ever made' with better flow than originals

  • X-Men '97 rumored as next John Borg release, but hosts skeptical this makes strategic sense vs Wolverine/Deadpool themed game

    low confidence · Josh: 'Borg is rumored to be next in the pipeline' for X-Men '97; calls it 'weird strategy to release essentially the same game twice'

  • Stern maintains relationship with Disney and releases Disney properties approximately every 18 months

    medium confidence · Scott: 'Stern and Disney have a relationship. They do. And they tend to do Disney properties, it seems like, once every 18 months'

Notable Quotes

  • “My thought is this was originally supposed to be an LE release, but after the pitchforks came out last year, they're like, 'You know what? We'll call it a Premium.'”

    Josh Roop @ ~15:00 — Josh's theory explaining Stern's strategic shift away from multiple LE releases on same title

  • “Stern makes games quicker than anybody... But when you look at like an Attack from Mars Special Edition, you are very aware that it is not the same as the LE.”

    Scott Larson @ ~25:00 — Comparison highlighting Stern's superior tier differentiation strategy vs Chicago Gaming Company

  • “I'd probably sell off my Godzilla to get the black and white. I just think it's that good looking.”

    Scott Larson @ ~30:00 — Strong endorsement of B/W variant aesthetic despite owner having modded original

  • “I really feel like Keith Elwin is taking a stab at some of the best games ever made... it's a better flow. It's a better game in my opinion.”

    Josh Roop @ ~50:00 — Josh's theory about Elwin's design philosophy and relationship to pinball canon

  • “I just find it would be really weird to be the exact same layout... I will be the first to stand up and say I was dead wrong if it ends up being X-Men '97, but that doesn't make sense to me.”

    Josh Roop @ ~42:00 — Explicit skepticism about X-Men '97 rumor and preference for Wolverine/Deadpool theme

  • “Stern is, number one, a pinball manufacturer... They're quite tuned in on what is selling at the time.”

    Scott Larson @ ~10:00 — Explanation of Stern's strategic inventory management and release scheduling

  • “Are people getting—is the FOMO gone?”

    Josh Roop @ ~48:00 — Key question about changing market dynamics and collector behavior

  • “If you're gonna do a cartoon version of a big favorite... I would have chosen [Batman Beyond]. I truly do not understand doing the X-Men '97 theme.”

Entities

Josh RooppersonScott LarsonpersonStern PinballcompanyGodzilla (Black and White)gameKeith ElwinpersonJohn BorgpersonRushgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Rush limited production likely due to niche band appeal; renewal and rerun indicates manufacturer maintaining evergreen catalog items for steady revenue

    medium · Scott: 'Rush is a niche band'; Josh: 'only did like one run, maybe two on the Pros' before discontinuation; now restarting production

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Collector skepticism about X-Men '97 strategic choice; preference for Wolverine/Deadpool licensing with Ryan Reynolds cameo potential

    medium · Josh and Scott both express doubt about X-Men '97 vs alternatives; suggest Wolverine/Deadpool as superior Disney/MCU choice

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Keith Elwin theorized to be intentionally recreating and improving classic game designs from pinball canon

    medium · Josh: 'I really feel like Keith Elwin is taking a stab at some of the best games ever made' - Godzilla as Medieval Madness upgrade, Jaws as Attack from Mars upgrade

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Stern maintains 18-month release cadence with Disney properties, indicating structured IP licensing relationship and portfolio planning

    medium · Scott: 'they tend to do Disney properties, it seems like, once every 18 months' noting Venom, Star Wars, Avengers pattern

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market showing price compression and inventory buildup on recent Stern releases (Venom $4-5k, Foo Fighters flooding market); suggests demand softening

    high · Scott observes Venom Pro at $5k, Walking Dead 10yr-old at $4.7k, hosts noting Foo Fighters inventory glut and competitive secondary pricing

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.238

0:00
thanks for tuning in to loser kid pinball podcast we are on episode 141 i am josh roop with me my co-captain as always scott larson hey and that's the first time i haven't screwed it up in like three episodes i know it's been amazing yeah and there was a new game revealed well new ish right if you want that game scott which it kind of sounds like you do where are you getting it from Ooh, yeah, Zach and Nicole and Minnie at Flippin' Out Pinball. They've always been really good, and I'm really excited to talk about this game.
0:38
They're really responsive. They've always been able to find that, and so if you don't want the new black-and-white Godzilla and you're maybe looking for a rush that's going to come out on the line, go ahead and contact them at Flippin' Out Pinball, and they'll get you hooked up.
0:52
Awesome. And their customer service is great. Right. It's insane. But, okay, before we get into pinball, I had this creepy moment happen like last week, and I think this all happens to us, right? So I want to bring this up because I feel like we can all relate. So I apologize. If it's not pinball, you can skip like five minutes if that. So I was DJing the 4th of July parade in my town. We're downtown. One of the floats goes by, and this guy's wearing one of those big straw hats that say like SA on the front of it. So like the shield. What does SA mean? I think it's like Shield of America or something like that. It's like if you go online, they sell the armbands you can slide up here that kind of protects from sunburn and stuff like that. And they have face shields like a buff from Survivor. I don't know how else to describe it. But there are these big straw hats on the brim, underneath the brim. It's like the American flag or whatever. I was like, huh. I've been getting some sun spots on my face. I work outside a lot. So I'm like, maybe I should get a straw hat. So that way. And check out this company. The next day, I just thought this. I didn't Google it. I didn't like talk about it. I didn't, you know what I'm saying? Like all the things you'd think my phone heard or, or new, uh, and Facebook starts trying to sell me these hats from this company. I'm like, that's creepy.

Scott Larson @ ~40:00 — Alternative theme suggestion and critique of X-Men '97 strategic choice

Godzilla (Original)
game
X-Men '97game
Flippin' Out Pinballcompany
Jawsgame
Jurassic Park 30th Anniversarygame
Elvira 40th Anniversarygame
Venomgame
Disneycompany
Chicago Gaming Companycompany
Attack from Marsgame
Medieval Madnessgame
Foo Fightersgame
George Gomezperson
Zombie Eddieperson
  • ?

    community_signal: Potential design philosophy shift at Stern under Keith Elwin toward intentional canon references and classic game homages

    low · Josh theory about Elwin recreating Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars as improved versions; not confirmed by Stern

  • $

    market_signal: Market showing resistance to high Premium/LE prices as secondary markets soften; collector portfolio saturation limiting new purchases

    medium · Josh: 'I have eight games in my garage stacked up in storage. Like, which one is going to supplant that?' questioning purchase rationale for similar-themed games

  • ?

    announcement: Stern renewed Rush license and announced continued production to fulfill ongoing demand

    medium · Josh: 'they just renewed the license for Rush and they might be running. They said they're going to run more of those'

  • ?

    product_concern: Godzilla B/W aesthetic receives strong positive reception; black/white/red colorway praised as superior to original despite same layout

    high · Scott: 'I'd probably sell off my Godzilla to get the black and white. I just think it's that good looking' despite having heavily modded original

  • ?

    rumor_hype: X-Men '97 rumored as next John Borg release; hosts express skepticism about theme choice vs Wolverine/Deadpool alternative

    low · Josh: 'Borg is rumored to be next in the pipeline... the rumor is that Borg is on X-Men '97' but calls it 'weird strategy'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: FOMO declining as collectors hold games longer rather than trading; games with longer shelf lives staying in collections longer

    medium · Josh: 'Are people getting—is the FOMO gone?' noting some games have 5-6 month sales windows while others stay in collections

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern strategically shifted Godzilla B/W from LE to Premium tier to avoid repeating 2023 LE buyer backlash; indicates manufacturer recognition of collector sentiment erosion

    high · Josh explicitly theorizes original LE plan abandoned post-pitchforks; uses LE artwork; Stern statement that future alt packages will be Premium only

    • 2:08
    So have you ever had that moment, Scott, where you're like, I thought that, and I didn't think much about it. And all of a sudden my phone's like, Hey, you know what? You should, you should buy this product or you should check this out. Well, okay. It's part of it is because targeting advertising is, getting uh creepily accurate yes in that there's like oh well based on your browsing history and i'm i would like to be annoyed about it however there are a few things where i'm like actually that'd be a really good idea yeah so so i you know it's it is a little bit of a privacy issue but i i've totally done that and and we've all had that when we're home and we have either the phone out or, you know, Alexa or something and we're having a random conversation and then you start getting targeted ads. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's just the way of the future. It is. It is. And it's it's it's really weird. It's really weird how accurate it is. Yeah. And just just in case anybody's like mildly creeped out, they should be a little more creeped out with if you read 1984. um yes just uh just involvement of other forces into your life can be interesting however if those forces have to be pinball then i would say we're all for it yes exactly so just give us you know it's been a it's been a minute scott since we've talked about our lives let's let's just do a quick update uh because we got some notes here yeah like the news has been slow ish but we got some we got some people want to know people yeah okay so one thing i had is yesterday maybe uh last night the night before not last night but the night before um i i came home from work and i'm asking my wife i was like okay why is it so hot in here it's like so hot in our house and i took out one of those steak thermometer things that use for barbecuing and i put it over in our vent and it was blowing out air that was 80 degrees. Nice. So it was circulating. It was blowing something, but it was not cooling. And I thought, huh. So I, I, now, unfortunately, Joshua is three hours away from me and I, I, so I can't use you as my go-to guy, even though I'd love to, if you wanted to. Um, but I, I texted the guy who I I've been going through and didn't really like in the morning, I didn't want to send it to 11 o'clock at night. I sent it, and then I called at like 8 o'clock in the morning, and I just got a message machine. I said, hmm, that kind of stinks. So I contacted Josh, and I said, hey, dude, my air conditioning doesn't work. He's like, okay, walk outside, check this out. Okay, look at this. Is the fan working? No. Okay, it's your capacitor. Pull this thing off. Figure out what this thing is. So Mr. Handyman here, I pulled everything off. I took a picture of it. Josh said, okay, I've called the place in your area. just go and they'll use my you know my business account so you can get it and so i went and picked it up and swapped out my capacitor and now my air conditioning is working again ta-da ta-da piece of cake right yeah well the thing is it's i mean it's okay it's like pinball repairs right it's like if something's wrong and you know what to do it's it's a pretty easy fix if you if you're looking underneath the hood of your game and you have no idea what's going on it could be a maddening like 12 hours yeah so my favorite part is just like okay take the panel off and so i take the panel off and i take a picture and like that's not the panel that's the electrical box that's not that handle to the yes exactly well i was like well okay i had a screw and i unscrewed it so just don't stick your finger in there you're not gonna be happy yeah i didn't oh yeah other than that though i i am currently on vacation we are up in the mountains and I'm glad that the Wi-Fi signal is good enough. So our spacious apartment from 1982 with a swarm of locusts that decided to fly in. What's up with the grasshoppers this year? At least in Utah, it's terrible. Yeah, well, okay, bugs everywhere. So it's hot because they're up in the mountains, so they don't have air conditioning either. So we had the windows open, and I swear all the insects that Noah put on his ark found their way into here as a safe harbor. I totally agree.
    6:30
    Oh, my goodness. Yeah, what about you? Anything else? So mostly just work and family stuff. You went to a concert? I did go to a concert. So you know this. Like, Loser Kid is actually based off of an old, obscure brand that Blink-182 used to own. So it shows you I enjoy Blink-182, right? So Thursday, Blink-182 was at the Delta Center. They were in town. It was like a match made in heaven. And you showed up with your hat. Yeah, guess what I did? I went to Hootie and the Blowfish.
    7:03
    I lost the coin toss. Hold my hand. Exactly. Well, you had Collective Soul who stole the carpet from Papa and made a suit out of it. Yeah, that suit, honestly, I would like that suit. That suit was pretty gnarly. It was a pretty awesome suit, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But it was interesting because they played a lot of covers for a band that is well-recognized and whatnot. they played like wait collect the soul played a lot of covers oh no who did hoody did but collect the soul did do an acdc dirty deeds cover and the main singer surprisingly sounds a lot like brian from acdc like when he tries to be acdc like they could just replace dirty okay dirty deeds though that song was bon scott that was not oh was it brian didn't oh brian didn't come on brian didn't come on until back in black because bon scott died ah okay i did did you ever hear the story about brian when he auditioned uh okay i think i remember like when uh bon scott was alive and he saw brian he'd like he'd be a good guy in the band yeah so they were taking auditions for singers and he came in in the middle of singing his appendix ruptured and he fell on the ground was still singing and like you know convulsing and whatnot but man this guy's intense he's like into it and so he got the job but he went directly to the hospital after the auditions because his appendix ruptured well he's been he's been singing like his appendix has ruptured ever since exactly so but yeah it was a good concert it was it was not my first choice but it was still a good concert okay but i would say it's like they covered show they do good they do a good show good yeah but Like I said, they covered Led Zeppelin, R.E.M. They did a mishmash of notorious B.I.G. songs. I know the pinball community is clamoring for a rap CD. Maybe go the hootie way. They've been around since like 86, so you know that the 80s is big with the pinball community. So maybe do a hootie pin with them covering notorious B.I.G. A hootie singing Wu-Tang. Yeah. That would be good.
    9:09
    That was a good concert. I am a heretic when people talk about themes they would like in pinball. And every time they bring those themes up, I always bring up, you're going to sell like 100 of those. Because that is not a huge thing in the pinball marketplace of the people who buy. And I know that you're walking that fine line of do you only sell to the people who you always sell to or do you find other people? I do not see a Wu-Tang being a big deal. A big seller. Do you think Beastie Boys would go over well? Because it's a good mishmash of rock with rap. You've got the old stuff like Brooklyn or No Sleep Till Brooklyn and Fight for Your Right to Party. But then if you did newer stuff like Intergalactic and stuff like that, you'd get a good mishmash of rock and rap. So I don't know. I think, I think that's a good starting point in my opinion. It was certainly a more of a crossover because you'd get, um, more of the middle-aged white guy demographic and that's, you have to at least sell enough. You don't only have to cater to the middle-aged white guys, but you have to sell enough to the middle-aged white guys because that's who are the majority of the buyers. Yeah. Yep. Sadly that that's BC. Give it another, Give it another 10, 20 years. Maybe, yeah. Beastie Boys I've never totally figured out because they always – I know that they have a huge following and people love them. I saw them 2009 when they were – it was like a big festival and that was when the police had a reunion.
    10:58
    So I went and I saw Beastie Boys and the police. and I always felt that they were a bunch of rich Jewish kids from New York who got together and made like a hip hop album and it sold, which is just kind of funny. It just seems like it's totally non-intuitive considering all the rap that was being made at the time. Yeah. But hey, it worked. It was definitely a mismatch of styles that connected with a lot of people. Yeah, I agree. so all right let's let's move on i think people have had enough of they've they've had the five minute fill of our lives meanwhile meanwhile okay meanwhile okay the the biggest i feel like the biggest news that's happened in the last two three weeks godzilla black and white let's talk about this what what do you think what what what were your initial reactions when it first came out um this is a good move for stern because it takes the opportunity to release various versions of a premium branded pinball machine. Now, you could argue that this could have been an LE. However, we've also seen what has happened when Stern has decided to release things under the LE badge. That after they've already released an LE.
    12:20
    So this is getting a little bit back to like ACDC Lucy edition. this is getting to like Batman 66 Catwoman edition these are alternative art packages for an existing game and they did something very smart where they kept it at the premium package price did they need to do this maybe not Godzilla sells enough as it is however as we look at the sales of Stern you see how much of their volume is dependent on Elwynn releases. Yeah. So if they can find a way of squeezing a few more buyers and I'm, I'm interested. My wife still prefers the color, so I don't know if I'll pull the trigger on it. However, my friend who just comes over and plays my Godzilla, who actually lived in Japan for a couple of years, he saw that and he said, i want the black and white oh yeah so this is going to sell games oh yeah and this looks really cool looks really cool so so one thing i want to point out too because you were talking about like ellie and stuff like that so if we can rewind back to 2023 you know they did release a jp 30th they replaced a new elvira 40th anniversary that was an le those were both le's but that was like the super le like the l viral was that was like a bond 60 cash type grab yeah so so my assumption is they have some of these in their back pocket ready to go when when a game is not selling as well as they had hoped because you watched like when those both dropped was shortly after venom like venom had only been out a month and that's the first thing i thought was like you only have venom out for a month like you're dropping jurassic park 30th like you're kind of taking the wind out the sales of Venom sells, but maybe it wasn't selling well enough. Are they taking the wind out?
    14:21
    I don't know. They're keeping the line moving. Okay. That's, that's my point. My point is Stern is a, Stern is number one, a pinball manufacturer.
    14:31
    So they are quite tuned in and any manufacturer will do this. They're quite tuned in on what is selling at the time. And this was Williams, right? Yeah. Williams, they would manufacture and say, well, we just need to keep the line going. And so if the demand is dropping off for this game, we need to pivot to the next game. And they know that there are going to be ebbs and flows in the sales department. So moving on to a different theme that will keep the line moving is a very smart idea. And I believe you're right that they have a few of these in their pocket that they can say, hey, we didn't sell as much as we could have on this. So let's move to that. And I think the problem, though, last year that I don't know if many people saw in the forefront, but we'd heard in the background, LE buyers were kind of getting their pitchforks out because you're selling LE product. that was already kind of guaranteed for a limited number. Now you're essentially doubling that number even though it's a different edition. And so the thing is, is like you want to keep your LE buyers happy. They're your upfront, they're essentially your pre-order money, which it's not technically pre-order because you're getting your game within like a month, right? Right, but they're more of a, they're a high end, highly interested group. Correct. Who are willing to pay,
    15:58
    really my take is they're willing to overpay for a product to get the exclusivity yep and so my assumption here is is because as we fast forward we go to this japanese black and white version we do notice it's all the le artwork it is like the cabinet has been mirrored so it's like but it's pretty much the same except for godzilla's uh name has been removed with a japanese name put on it's all black and white my thought is they were already planning we're releasing this as an le but after what happened in 2023 i bet they already had like zombie eddie already had this all done and they're like you know what we're just going to release this as a premium and market as a premium and just because they didn't want more pitchforks and in my opinion it works out better for stern anyway because then the premium like this they get more longevity out of this release as well you can re-release it and like gomez said in the video is like um we will keep producing these as we have a demand for them so um because some people brought up like it's kind of weird that use the le artwork and me personally i can't like confirm or deny and stern's never gonna say yes or no but no my thought is this was originally supposed to be an le release but after the pitchforks came out last year they're like you know what we'll call it a premium so i think this is still going to happen going forward but my suggestion is if you're going to do more of these don't use the le artwork for a premium package you know i'm saying i i i don't see it as being a big deal uh the le artwork versus the premium artwork um you you could be right this was a possibility for that i'm not sure how far back so when did the jp30 come out august of 2023 okay so it was last year yeah and then it came out in july so it was it was literally like a month later i just i did my research i did it you did good job i'm on vacation so i'm just shooting from the hip when was god when was godzilla released oh of course you're going to ask me a question that i don't know the answer to just right i want to say it was 20 march of 21 okay so it's been three years um yeah is it i'm just wondering was it possible that they because they have done these alternative packages with under the premium banner before yeah like catwoman yeah catwoman and acdc you're but that is it you do bring up good point that maybe they originally thought hey we could do this as another le but they also because you're right because of the pitchforks they basically released a statement saying we are no longer releasing additional le's if we do alternative art packages it will be under the premium banner yeah so i just looked it up it wasn't march 2021 it was september 2021 so i was only five months on that's pretty good yeah you you're a good releases the the one thing to consider about these releases though is sorry you're good bug bug flew in my mouth the one thing to consider about these things though is that these are great options um the one thing that Stern is doing that I would argue other companies are not doing as well. And the main things that I could, that I could compare it to is something like Chicago gaming company. Okay. Yeah. Now you can look at.
    19:36
    So the aliens have landed in Scott's back backyard at his vacation. I have no idea. This is, there seriously like a fire road that next to it So they must have something drive by The one thing that Stern does really well is there is a difference between a pro a premium and an LE But it is not an insurmountable chasm.
    20:04
    So Stern makes games quicker than anybody. We know that. the downside of chicago gaming company is they have created a gulf between their le version and their special edition or whatever that is way bigger than what a premium to an le for stern is and in many ways it's kind of dropped off the market for anything other than le their le yeah so if you and it's it's a they need to figure out a way of being able to make a lot of good versions of the game that are that don't feel like a a second class version of the game because i don't feel a premium stern is a second class version of the game do you i don't think so But when you look at like an attack from Mars special edition, you are very aware that it is not the same as the Ellie. Yeah, it's true. So finding that balance of, okay, this is an alternative presentation of the same product. Stern's actually really good at finding ways of doing that. Yeah. And I, this is a great looking art package. I, I am, I still like the color. Yeah. But I can see how the black and white would really make an impact. What are your thoughts on the black and white options? So honestly, I really like it. If it wasn't for the fact that I had all the Stumbler mods installed in my Godzilla along with a Pinwoofer set and my Godzilla wasn't all decked out, I'd probably sell off my Godzilla to get the black and white. I just think it's that good looking. I think they did a really good job with this. I like the black and white with the accents of red. it just it looks really good i i'm a fan of it uh i like the foil on the the foil looks great do you remember my iron man yeah yeah the my iron man had the foil sides and it looked really good oh yeah and that's the thing and and like umed says like you've got to see it to believe it kind of thing yeah like if you if you looked at this project like eh seriously see one in person you go oh yeah like and that's what i like i mean this is a premium product so you're you're yeah Yeah. So overall, I think this was a very smart move. And it kind of leads me to, you know, we're talking about how, you know, Stern always has something in their back pocket. It sounds like they just renewed the license for Rush and they might be running. They said they're going to run more of those. Do you see this coming?
    22:43
    You know, I. Yes, actually. And I know that sounds weird because Rush is by all admission, Rush is a niche band. okay and it's it was probably more of a passion project for john borg and maybe lyman sheets because they were huge fans of rush and i'm a huge fan of rush so i i appreciate that they made it however they didn't really make that many of them no they before they moved on and so they had rush and okay what was the next game that came out after rush that's a great question you keep talking about i'll pull it up yeah i'm sorry because we had godzilla and then rush was after godzilla which is weird like rush won like game of the year or two and then they're like okay by the way we stopped well but it was also a weird year where it was a pandemic time bond so they got after rush okay bond came in like october and okay it was like almost january yes but it was still during these limit you know they were still under a lot of these restrictions and they were no this is 2022 yeah still they were still trying to to bounce back because there was a while where they were only releasing two games yeah well you gotta understand before rush that was godzilla so it could be like they were just trying to keep up with that demand as well so they were selling a ton of godzillas so a combination of that a combination of bond really was released before it was ready um and whether or not that was because of licensor or a timeline that they had to there's there's got to be a lot more to the story on to why they released it when they did yeah but i i think everyone was buying godzilla that that's what was going on they didn't sell i people who wanted the full compliment they bought the le and i don't know how many people bought the premium i just haven't seen that many of them of godzilla or rush of rush okay so i want to say they only did like one run i really think of it maybe two on the pros so they could they could definitely just crank those out and fulfill some small demand yeah i i don't think it's a huge demand but it seemed like it was not adequately fleshed out so my question is because rush is very reminiscent of Borg's X-Men that was released like a decade ago or whatever it was. Yeah, it's like a better version of X-Men. I had X-Men. I thought it was okay, but I didn't love it. But Rush is a better version. It still kicks my butt and I'm frustrated by it, but yes. So Borg is rumored to be next in the pipeline. I know it's Borg or Danger. That's the two. That's the coin we got. They're coming up. so and the rumor is that borg is on x-men 97 which is weird to me because like if you ended up redoing the x-men like layout and just like re-releasing it as like a touched up version of the original x-men aren't you kind of doing like rush was his last last release and we do that again with x-men do you think do you think that's kind of weird do you think he's going to get blowback and granted we haven't seen anything we don't know anything it's a rumor i'm going off of rumors and assumptions and so i'm just like it's it's a really weird strategy to release essentially same game twice i i'm scratching my head about the x-men 97 um if you're gonna do a cartoon version of a big favorite Batman Beyond is actually is it Batman Beyond? Is that the one where the original Batman animated series Yeah, the Batman animated series. That's the one where Mark Hamill did the Joker voice. So if you're going to choose a cartoon that is still relatable to other stuff, like a live action equivalency I would have chosen that theme. I truly do not understand doing the X-Men 97 theme. Yeah. We've talked about this before. We know that Stern and Disney have a relationship. They do. And they tend to do Disney properties, it seems like, once every 18 months. Yeah. Whether it's a re-release of an existing one they've already done or a new title. I mean, it's no secret. You go back through the pin side list on Stern. I mean, they just released Venom last year. And, you know, while we're talking X-Men, they've obviously done that. And Star Wars is a Disney property. And Avengers, Infinity Quest. Okay, is this possible a head fake, though?
    27:45
    Is this possible a head fake in that they have leaked out that it's X-Men 96 or whatever? 97. So the original series went for like five years in the 90s, and this is picking right up from the 90s series. Okay. However, there's a much better option with Wolverine character that's in the theaters right now. Well, in two weeks. But yeah, I get what you're saying. Yeah.
    28:12
    And there's a much better option. And having a Deadpool Wolverine, I get that. Yes, 100%. And if this is being pushed by Disney, imagine having a Wolverine, Deadpool, and you get Ryan Reynolds doing some cameo teaser for it.
    28:35
    That is a home run. Home run. So I'm still skeptical that 97 is really the game. I will be the first to stand up and say I was dead wrong if it ends up being X-Men 97 but that doesn't make sense to me it really doesn't and with Wolverine and Deadpool you're only paying for two likenesses you're not paying for a huge cast and really like I said it could be X-Men 97 and they're doing a whole new layout I thought it would be really weird where they've agreed they just announced that they're releasing Rush and say they do release a Borg in the next two, three months, and it happens to be X-Men 97. I just find it would be really weird to be the exact same layout. Not exact same. I mean, there's some touches, some differences. But, I mean, you're pretty close. But, yeah. Another question, though, and we're getting into this.
    29:32
    Are people getting – is the FOMO gone? and i i would argue that these games they they have a longer shelf life at least some of these games anyway we see others that come and they're like okay we're selling them after you know five months or six months and there are certain games that fall into that category but there's a lot of people who are they're buying their l ones and they're staying on them yeah and the secondary market we were talking about this with triple drain the other day i mean yeah i watched the Walking Dead modded and looked great. $4,700 is what it was finally. That's where it was selling at. It did sell. I don't know if that's what they sold it at, but I doubt the buyer went higher. You know what I'm saying? So we're at least thinking $4,700. Now, Walking Dead is a 10-year-old game. I'm even talking about the recent games. I mean, you're talking like Foo Fighters sold really well, and then you saw a flood of them on the secondary market. Venom sold okay, but you're seeing Venoms come onto the secondary market at $4,000. quite competitive prices. Yeah. I saw one for 5,000 the other day, a pro. Yeah. So yeah, I, there's one that was like 7,000 and I thought that that would be kind of fun. But then I have to look at my games that I have and I, okay, I have Jurassic park. I have Godzilla. I have a rush. I have iron mate, you know, so I have all these games that I'm not planning on parting with. I also have all the CGC games. And so there's a question of where am I? I already have eight games in my garage stacked up in storage. Like which one is going to supplant that? And I don't see with some of these games, I just don't see them doing that. So part of me wonders if they're new games. And I would argue with Godzilla, I also feel like I have a lot of really great Elwynn games. And I know Godzilla is a great game. but do i need a uh sorry jaws uh do i need a jaws and a godzilla and a jurassic park yes okay all right i don't know i seriously jaws so i i have this theory and maybe this is a terrible theory i don't know if someone someone at stern would get mad at me for saying this but i have the theory we can talk whatever you want yeah let's talk theories i really feel like elwyn's taking a stab at some of the best games ever made so godzilla is reminiscent of a medieval madness because of the skyscraper and bashing it and yada yada yada but it's a better flow it's a better game in my opinion it is i feel like jaws is his stab at attack from mars you have a it's almost up the middle but it's one of those shots that come back at you but with the captive ball it's a little more forgiving than the stand-ups on attack for mars then you have you know the shield drops or the boat goes up and you have the ship in the back or you have the shark that comes out and then the shots are very not i don't want to say fan-ish but they're they're more in front of you like on attack for mars you do have the side shot uh and the quick shot feels so satisfying when you hit it that's where you shoot to the left from the mini flipper into the gap like on uh adam's family or uh no good gophers so uh my thought process is is like he's he's one-upping the best games that have ever been made and jaws is up there it's it's fantastic it really really is so that's that's my opinion so okay i'm sticking to it and so wizard of oz i guess exactly um yeah the uh okay but that that's actually an interesting point i didn't really think of it that way but it would make sense and keith certainly has the background in that i also okay i wonder though because i still have medieval madness and attack from mars and the difference for me is because i've kept the the flippers drop flippers on attack from mars okay and have you did you keep them that way or did you level them out so i i want to say i leveled them out because i thought they were supposed to be leveled out but then you sent me an interview i think it was with Brian Eddy and Slam Tilt where he's like, no, they're supposed to be dropped. They're not supposed to be leveled out. Because it makes the game that much easier when you have them leveled out. See, it is. And actually, it's hard for me to go back because I have Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars next to each other. And I have to recalibrate because the shots aren't where you think they are after you've done Medieval Madness because they're in your traditional fan areas. And with Attack from Mars, you really have to trap up a little bit because those shots up the middle are kind of hard and you end up getting a lot more side to side action and we didn't point we didn't bring this up but um in john wick they're drop flippers too yep and we did ask elliot about that and we we forgot to bring it up in our john wick review but those are that is an interesting element that does mix things up and makes games feel different i wonder if John Wick would be easier if you leveled him out. So why don't you try that and let us know. If you have a John Wick, level him out. Tell us what you think.
    34:47
    Because that game is pretty hard as is. It is. And my friend is just moving, and he has his LE boxed up. So I will get more time on it now.
    34:56
    So speaking of stern news, Greg Ferraris, the art director, he's been the art director for years now. I mean, the dude's a legend. Like, if you're not familiar with Greg's art packages, you are familiar with Greg's art packages. Yeah, you are. Yeah. Think of any sort of game that came out in the 80s, and it's Greg. Well, okay. He did all the L-Virus. He worked on Medieval Madness. He worked on Monster Bash. I mean, Walking Dead. Just all these amazing art packages. Fathom. You know, Fathom, that's revered for its art package. He worked on that. I mean, seriously, go to go to Pinside or go to your IPDB and just type in Greg Ferris. OK, I just did. So Revenge from Mars. You got Jack Bot. You got Harlem Globetrotters. I mean, this is from 79. He's earned retirement.
    35:51
    And oh, my gosh, there's an awesome picture on pinball news with him having like a perm mullet that he stole from like 1972. too it's awesome so man it's uh stern it's gonna be hard to fill those shoes they did hire uh sebastian napoli i apologize if i've slaughtered your last name but um the dude kind of they didn't do such a flattering picture for the uh the stern letter they sent out okay okay it's not it's not bad he just looks like a bouncer that's gonna throw you out of the club for going too far. He looks pissed off. Like, why are you taking my picture? Let me break. I'm going to break that camera. Yeah. You don't need another drink. Yeah. No, it's, uh, yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting though. They're, they definitely have to transition to the younger generation and he's, he's definitely significantly younger than Greg. Yeah. Yep. So, but you know, it's, it's good. Congratulations to him. Congratulations to Greg on a well-earned retirement. Yep. Definitely. I, I wouldn't be shocked though if there's still some, calls made to say, Greg, what's your thoughts on this? I don't think he's 100% retired. None of them really are 100% retired. Yeah, that's true.
    37:09
    Speaking of 90s games and artwork, Labyrinth, Barrels of Fun just announced that they've sold 822 of these games. So they're making a total of 1,100. They're saying there's only about 278 spots left. If you haven't ordered your game, you can still order it. And if you order now, you can get it by January or February, which is impressive. So we're coming up. I think they're kind of warning everyone because I don't know if they'll go back. I doubt they'll make the extra. Say they only sell like 800 or 900. Sure. I doubt they're going to make the extra 200. So it's going to be one of those things like once they pass up. Once they're done, they're done. Yeah. And maybe later on, if they keep up the transparency in the way that they're building stuff, they could be a force to be reckoned with moving ahead. And they might do a stern and be able to go back to the well, but there's no guarantees or promises. It just depends what the future holds, right?
    38:04
    Yeah. And this has been a bright spot into some of these companies that have come up. And at least so far, it seems like they're able to manufacture to meet demand. And it seems like they are fulfilling their obligations and they don't feel overextended. Now, this is just a casual observer just looking at their business, how they're selling. Okay. Yeah.
    38:34
    And I'm hoping that they can keep that going. I'm not sure what sort of investment capital they were able to get, what sort of investors they have, what sort of cash flow they have. But it makes a big difference when you have someone who's willing to invest the money to seed a startup company. Yeah. Because that's what it takes when you're actually making something. You need millions of dollars.
    39:01
    This is not a garage. Okay, you could argue Spooky was a little more of a garage company. But for the most part, it takes millions of dollars to get a product off the line. And you can start selling them to recouping that price. Yeah. So I'm hoping that they are able to continue that trajectory. And it'll be interesting to see what their next game is, right? I agree and really Jersey Jack Pinball went through this where they actually had a really good showing with Wizard of Oz it was taking a while to get out and then they ran into trouble with the sequel with Hobbit And that when the investors came in and basically had to take over the company
    39:42
    So here's to hoping that things are continuing to go well. And from all reports, Labyrinth seems to be a fun game to play and people really are connecting with the theme. I really enjoyed it. It was a very, I got to play it last October at pinball expo. I thought it was a really good game. If you haven't played it yet, try to find one locally. Get your hands on it. It is a really good game. It is very reminiscent of a 90s Bally Williams with an updated code for a modern era. It's got that nostalgia. It's got that magic.
    40:19
    Seriously, Barrels of Fun is doing it right, and I'm excited to see what's going to happen with them going into the future. I know there's one here in Utah. I'm going to text him and see if he's got it yet.
    40:33
    Let's see. Do you? So while you're looking that up, I will come back to barrels of fun with that information here a second. But one startup company that has been in the news the last couple of weeks because the proverbial poop has hit the fan for the wrong reasons, for the wrong reasons. So an unaffiliated company to Haggis Pinball, sorry, an unaffiliated Australian who lives near the company's factory, started posting some stuff about how Haggis is only really producing one, maybe two fathoms a week right now.
    41:13
    They're still promising distributors. They've built several games. They've owned them for months now.
    41:21
    The communication has all but dropped off. People are trying to communicate with them to see, hey, what's going on. People paid in full a year plus ago.
    41:32
    Things are starting to look bad. And I feel bad for a couple different people. So, like, I know Zach Manning went and talked about his affiliation with Haggis because he's the only distributor in America, if I remember correctly.
    41:47
    And so he's had some issues because, you know, they didn't build all the fathoms when they said they're going to start making Centaur. and Zach had promised if you put a deposit down if Haggis goes under I will pay you back your deposit which is $1,000 which by the way, Zach doesn't have because Haggis has the deposit that's what a deposit is you are sending the deposit to the company as a request to buy that and it's a commitment so Zach is really the pass through on this one Yeah. So it just it makes me wonder what's going on. I know that we've reached out personally to Haggis to do an interview. And we were redirected and it's our fault we never followed back up. I mean Damien really it's hard because I think what their thorn in their side has been was they were super transparent when they first came out and now it's just crickets right no one knows what's going on I'm hearing very mixed reviews on the product that's being received we know we have personal friends that have bought Haggis product and they loved it and the quality has been great but I'm also hearing people that we know that have received a Fathom game and the plightless warp. Yeah, there's some bad quality issues there. It just it doesn't make any sense. Like, in my opinion, like I get like there's not going to be 100 percent. Everything's perfect every time it comes out the factory. Right. Actually, it does make sense. OK, it makes sense. I mean, that this is a company that is struggling and is barely keeping their nose above water. Yeah. And so it's all the hallmarks of what happens when a company goes through crisis. they they over they promise timelines and they just blow right through them they when they when they produce something it is not to a standard that people uh expect and we have seen this before and this feels very much like uh this definitely feels like the big lebowski thing yeah where it It was like a game. And then it just, I'm shocked that Big Lebowski has been able to keep going and keep it in different versions of things. Because it was the, hey, we're going to do the pin, you know, the pin bot two point or, you know, all these different versions to raise money because they ran out. Any company has standard operating costs. So just think of this in your home. You every month you are paying your mortgage, you're paying your health insurance, you're paying electricity, you're paying all those things. And so those you have to at least make that money to keep your home operational. Right. And the only way for a business to do that is one have angel investors who are OK with funding that cost or you can do it by selling games. Yeah. So they are. And we have seen this with other companies to American pinball. From my point of view is in the same category where they're not selling enough to qualify under self-sufficiency. and so there there has to be someone who's paying those bills well and i listened to a quick to gamers because dennis gave some more insight as well but these these fathoms were all supposed to be done by the end of 2023 yeah um that's not a great sign it just here's the thing we've talked about this before we've talked about it with with deep root we've talked about with these startup companies if you feel comfortable investing your money into these companies with it like it's it's like gambling it literally is like gambling it's a total risk it's a total risk yes if you're fine putting your thousand dollars on the table with the blackjack table knowing that you're going to lose it more you know if you go with the mindset like i'm probably going to lose this but if it's fulfilled or if i make my you know make my my bet and i win then awesome and so uh i get the people that have got these products and whatnot and they're not happy with the product itself i totally get that um as far as this becomes a big old mess i'm not a lawyer i don't i don't construe anything i say as legal advice but i do know like a thousand bucks in the world of well our world nowadays sadly is not a ton of money uh for an individual household yeah that's probably that can be a paycheck for a low-income person yeah but the the fact of the matter is if you went to the court system and said hey i gave this company a thousand dollars and i have not received my promise you're going to have to go to small claims you're not going to go to bigger court unless if you convince everyone that gave deposits to do a class action class action lawsuit which it's probably not going to be enough money for them to even take a class action lawsuit across international lines yeah good luck and that's the other problem too yeah this was all across international lines like and your biggest markets in america so how does that all apply like gather a country that we are friendly with so i bet there's some some working with there as well but it just in the case of deep root at least they were in texas like an sec got involved so you know the government was getting involved and the money was right but that it might take a decade but in fairness haggis is not deep root correct deep root was a hundred percent a ponce scheme like that and i do apologize i shouldn't be comparing deeper to haggis because haggis has produced product but You could argue this is closer to Zidware. Yeah. I think Papaduke's eyes just got bigger than his stomach. His abilities did not match his ambition. Yes, that's a good one. And you could argue the same thing about any company who tried it. And you could argue with JJP when they transitioned from Wizard of Oz and they went to Hobbit that their abilities did not match their ambition. Yeah. The however, on technology, there is a term that is always used. It's called the early adopter. Yeah. So basically, if you want to be one of the first to get, you know, the I'm going way back. The first to get a DVD player, the first to get an iPhone, the first to get an Apple watch, the first Apple watch. I actually really wanted it, and I was an early adopter, and it cost $1,000 because I got a nice band with it. And you could probably have bought the same watch for like $300. I was willing to pay that because I just wanted the – I actually wanted the band. But if you are willing to take that risk on an unproven company – and Apple was a proven company. But if you're willing to take this risk on an unproven company who doesn't have a track record, who you're willing to say, hey, I trust you enough to give you some money, then there is some accountability on your part. I'm sorry. There's some accountability to say that this was something that you either should have done more research on or you should have said, I'm going to wait. and like I'm willing to take the risk or I'm willing to wait and so don't when you get burned on that and then you claim that you have been wronged there's something about me that says you you didn't know it was a risk right yeah and I think and sadly well I was just saying sadly there were people who were going after and I I know this is I'm just gonna refer you to Zach's talk on the pinball show where he's the distributor and he had, you know, the, the pin side mob came after him and was talking about, well, they should do this, this. And the bottom line is he actually had on there, Hey, this is a non-refundable deposit that we anticipate the building is until X amount, you know, until 20, the end of 2024. Well, last time I checked, we're still in 2024. Yeah. Halfway through. Yeah. And so if people are complaining that they're not getting their product and there's a breach of contract, well, you're still in the window. Yeah. Now, is it possible that, you know, maybe Zach is feeling some sort of Zach announced that he's going to make good on these because he doesn't want the negative publicity. And that's the bottom line is acts of business. and he doesn't want the negative publicity. I would argue, though, this isn't necessarily Zach's issue. This is a combination of an unrealistic expectation by someone who bought or put down the down payment. And so I'll just refer you to that if you're really curious about that situation. But I just go back to, you know, Nick Lane has said it on Buffalo Pinball so many times. Yeah. Okay. No pinball machine is unobtainable. legitimately, unless you want pinball circus, okay, then build it yourself. But no machine is unavailable. If you, if there's a game that you're like, I really want that game, you can save up and buy it, but it's best to save up and buy an existing pinball machine. So if you are, if you're concerned about any sort of manufacturing promises and at this point in pinball, the empty promises of a cool looking game that is anticipated to be built is It does not hold much to me anymore. Yeah. So save up your money. Wait till it's made. Okay. You may spend a thousand dollars more than what you thought you were going to make if they ended up making it good. Yeah. But for the most part, you're still giving like an interest free loan to these people to for a possibility. And how long did Dutch pinball take to fulfill those orders? Ten years. Yeah. Okay. even in i'm talking even the ones that fulfilled their orders going back to big bang bar the gene gunningham guys that they finally got their their game but you you question at what cost yeah so if you're willing to to wander in these unfamiliar territories then you have to accept that there are risks associated with it i hope that haggis is able to recoup what's what was going on and to reboot their brand yeah but it smells like the end of a company that's what it feels like it does and i feel bad too for like so uh you know zach was also being accused of promoting haggis because he has martin robbins with final round on the pinball network and i'm like it's the same situation with steve bowden when he worked at deep root steve had no control over what robert mullin and then was there honestly he's more of a victim than he is a you know a perpetrator and i feel the same for like i feel bad for martin because i know he receives emails like where's my game what's you know what's going on he's like i just work here like you need to talk to damien and so i just it just it's a crappy situation all around no one wants to be in it you know from from damien to the people that bought the games uh the other thought process i had too is does some of the blame of all this kind of lay at the feet of planetary pinball um if you're not familiar with planetary pinball they hold all the licensing for bally williams games so if cgc makes medieval madness again they renew the license through planetary pinball the agreement is this planetary provides the parts to cgc to make the game and then cgc makes the game or like in the case of pedretti they've contracted through planetary to make the games it's actually not pedretti that's contractible we'll talk about that here a minute but um okay my point being it's very manufacture the parts so yes they make like so so planetary manufactures the parts they ship them to the assembly area let's just say haggis now so they ship them to haggis to make the to assemble the game is that so they make william bally williams specific parts so okay like the cabinet is not going to be a bally williams specific part they'll have a cabinet maker make that that's why cgc was involved originally with stern and when they made the first medieval madnesses through stern churchill cabinet was the one that made those cabinets right and so but like rudy's head that is a very specific part and planetary makes those parts i don't know if they make like all the way down to the coil stop you know what i'm saying but i do know that they are obviously going to make there are critical elements there are critical elements okay yes so that's how planetary works on that side they hold the license and they make specific parts i i wonder if some of the like i said some of the blame is i'm not going to fault planetary for wanting to have as many manufacturers as they can produce their product because the more they're making parts the more that their games are being made that's more money in their pocket and so if you diversify you only bring more cash in right but did they jump the gun with haggis and they did see that kelts was produced and it was it was a well-made game so when you throw a valley williams title behind this company it brings some legitimacy to that company as well sure so i guess my point being is it does planetary hold any responsibility for what is going on because they threw their weight behind haggis maybe before they were ready to actually start running they were barely crawling and Planetary Southam is walking ready to run. What are your thoughts?
    56:07
    It certainly is on the owner of Planetary to maintain brand quality. So this is where I have argued for years that Stern is by far the biggest volume manufacturer of pinball out there. Like they, they're the ones who make a solid, durable product that can go on location and they still have a relatively friendly entry price point. Okay. So it would be, if I were looking at it from Planetary, I would actually just approach Stern and say, hey, what about doing a joint venture here where you, we can manufacture these games. You have the capacity to make a ton of these games. On a second line, there really shouldn't be anything other than quality control.
    57:10
    It's not like we're developing anything. These are existing products. And Stern could make them 10 times faster than anybody else. And that's what I would have done. however with businesses a lot of times you try to leverage an advantage for you and i would this is me totally speculating but theorizing that planetary approached stern and said would you be interested in this stern would say yes however this is what we are going to pay you for your percentage, your license, whatever.
    57:53
    And I'm assuming, again, total speculation, I'm assuming Planetary said, we want a bigger cut. And they said, okay, well, go look somewhere else. So they teamed up with CGC. CGC is giving them a bigger cut. We know that because the reason why the Cactus Canyon SE Plus comes with a topper is because it's widely speculated that planetary takes a bigger cut off the extras than it does off the actual product yeah so that's a little bit of a still that's a little bit of an end around to get a little better um better revenue stream for chicago gaming company yeah but i'm sure that we know chicago gaming company is not the fastest manufacturer they they have quality for the most part i know some people have had issues with archaic canyon but they have not been able to do the volume yeah so planetary gets itchy and wants to do something else and so they're looking for alternative options and would that be haggis would that be spooky? Would that be American? You know, all these other people. But this is a little bit on planetary because you have the market leader as a potential And again I don even know if Stern would be interested This is me just looking at it from just a business analyst Yeah But it would be in their best interest to approach Stern and say Hey we love pinball You love pinball. You can make a lot of pinball machines. We obviously did this because you made the medieval madness ones on your line. Yeah. How about we do a joint venture again and we can get white water coming out. We can do, we can do, uh, And we'll get into Funhaus, but we can do these other games that are coming out, and we can do it faster. But think about it. Medieval Madness, the remake is like eight years old now.
    60:03
    Is it now? It was originally released in 20 – not 2019. 2015 was the original release date of the very first run. Okay. So that's nine years. Yeah. Almost a decade for – if you look at Planetary and if you're looking at the four remakes, that's four remakes of an existing game in almost ten years. Yeah.
    60:31
    And with Medieval Madness, you can sell – you could sell 3,000 Medieval Madness games today. It is still my kid's favorite game. It's still my kid's favorite game. Yep. So you can sell those. So the fact that they are partnering with companies that do not have the manufacturing capabilities is puzzling to me. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why I think moving forward, we're going to see some changes up with planetary. I think they're going to be a little more hesitant with who they use. And we'll get into that here in a second with Pendretti. but I just I agree with you I think Planetary needs to take a little bit of the blame with this Haggis situation because I don't know if Haggis was ready and well they've shown they weren't and the product explains itself they have shown that they are not up for the manufacturing well not only that but I think Planetary should have pumped the brakes with Centaur if they could have I don't know exactly the situation well but then again And again with Dutch where they were like, hey, let's do – we're going to do Bride of Pinbot 2.0. As a full game. We're out of money and we're trying to raise some more money with some – it's a little bit of a shell game where they need some money because they don't have the startup capital. And they're trying to supercharge the first one so they can make it up on the back end. And it almost always is a bad idea.
    62:10
    So this leads me into, cause we've, we've been beating around the bush then, right? So has planetary made a mistake moving forward with, with pin Dreddy making fun houses with a company that's never made games before outside of 2.0 kits. Sure. They've never made, they are using a well-established manufacturer that's made pinball brother brothers game. So they're using the same manufacturer as Pinball Brothers. But do we have concerns as we have in the past with companies that are – they're essentially startups at this point. What do you think? Yes. Okay. They are making a mistake? Well, no. Do we have concerns? Yeah. Yeah, of course we have concerns. Okay. So you're doing similar things. Now, I will say that at least Pendretti has more manufacturing credentials than Haggis did. Okay. And you could argue that even like Chicago Gaming Company, I still cannot figure out Chicago Gaming Company why they, you know, on a 10-speed gearbox, they never go above two. I've never figured that out. Yeah. Okay.
    63:29
    And so is it pot now you're going with. Pendretti, which is Pendretti, is it's located right in the heart of pinball manufacturing, right? Yeah. Italy. Yeah. Yeah. OK. So you're so you're also dealing with outside of your typical options for the talent in pinball. It's all in Chicago. At least all the people who are have a lot of history. You know, this this intrinsic history of making pinball. It's all in Chicago. So you're going outside of Chicago. You're going outside of the country again.
    64:04
    Is it possible? Sure. And everything we say is true until someone proves us wrong. Yeah, this is all speculation as usual. Yeah, until someone proves us wrong. And so I'm hoping that Pendretti is a better option and they can step up and manufacture to the level that we can expect. well and not only that you're shipping product from reno nevada to italy to me have it be made and manufactured i'm wondering if it's passed through a lot of this stuff has to be made in china so you're making it in china under their license and you're sending i doubt it goes to reno and then goes gotcha so just ship it directly to i doubt it's it's like a drop ship thing i don't mean they're making these in reno i just i don't know that's why i'm so i got the Yeah, and is it possible that this can be the startup that breaks the trends? Yeah, it is absolutely possible. And we know that the pinball company is involved in this, and they have a history of that. There's a picture shown of the CEO at Pindredity. Yes. So we know that they're involved. However, depending on how involved is a different question. So my understanding is, because if you're familiar with Pinball Company, the owners originally bought licenses for Domino's and Jetson and they had Spooky make these games. They did, yes. And my understanding is it's a very similar situation. May not be a one-for-one, but a very similar situation that Pinball Company is doing with Planetary Pinball. Okay. So, and this is, Pinball Company has been around for years and years and years now. And it's a big company. Like, Pinball Company is not, this is not a mom and pop shop. This is a big pinball distributor. And obviously, they've done this route before with Spooky, so they know what they're looking for quality-wise in building. My assumption is if the CEO was seen over in Italy with Fun Houses and the people making them, I'm assuming he's going to be, he has been to the manufacturing warehouse before. At least looking at it, right. Yeah. And so that's what I'm trying to get to is I think there's a little less stress once you realize that like there's actually some people, there's some overwatchers on this one. It's not just Pendretti making these games and shipping them out. There's a quality check that's going on with people that have done this before. Yeah, and when I say that should we be concerned and my statement was just yes, the only reason why I say yes is because we still don't know, right? We still have yet to have one of these companies that rises up and can rival Stern in production. And you could argue – okay, I intentionally left JJP out. JJP is probably solidly in that – the second – like there's Stern who's volume, volume, volume. And then you have a lot of solid manufacturers making a good amount. And really, JJP is probably the top of that list of making a solid game and still able to produce it in volume. Not the same volume, but you can produce it in volume. So that could be another option. But JJP seems to be more interested in kind of a slightly more expensive boutique game. Yeah. That seems to be their route. So I'm hoping that this is finally that next level of, okay, we've learned from other people who just didn't have the manufacturing capabilities. And Pendretti does. And so they do have a good price point, right? Yeah, they do. Yeah, I agree. They have a good price point. And so that certainly has – of all of the startups that are making pinball machines, this has the most potential.
    68:12
    I wouldn't say by far, but probably equivalent to like barrels of fun. Yeah. Like they – right now, they seem to have been – they have the potential of being solid. Yeah, I agree. I'm excited for the future for Pendretti and what it holds with these because Funhaus is the first in a pipeline right if this goes well and it's going super well I assume that there's going to be more Bally Williams remakes coming out of them so it's going to be interesting the future is going to be it's bright but we've talked about this whole episode it's kind of like a roller coaster of like you've got stern that's very reliable like the biggest complaint is and we hear it i've heard it for the decade i've been in this hobby played phil dimpling well you've got a metal ball in one what are you gonna do every and actually uh george gomez who is a total superstar someone had posted that and he actually replied with a detailed analysis of it's a hardness rating this is the hardness even like with mathematical stuff yeah you know this is a ball this is wood this is what happens to every single pinball machine that's ever been made yeah and you know and in yeah it it just seems kind of funny like okay build them out of plastic then and then they'll shatter as opposed to dimple because yeah if you You know, if you don't, there's something about being pliable and malleable versus shattering because that's what happens to glass, right? You can make it out of glass. There will be no dimpling. But if the ball hits it wrong, it will pulverize it. Exactly. Well, and honestly, lately, Granted Stern did have a play field issue there for a little bit. They did. And they have. They have. And I know that. They had ghosting. Yeah. yeah and i know nick lane had quite the uh the rant on buffalo and more power to him dude that honestly it's spot on so a lot of us were thinking as a consumer is like you shouldn't be just saying out playfield blanks you should be saying us out populate playfields yeah but stern doesn't seem to be having playfield issues anymore the biggest complaint right now is a coil stop and honestly if anything's going to be breaking in a pinball machine you can fix a coil stop yeah it's two screws you you pull the old one out you put the new one in and it's got to be like because when we went to stern in may oh yeah they said everything that they produce they have two suppliers for so that way if one can't provide the other one you know and all that jazz i half wonder with the coil stops if they bought like a billion of them considering like every freaking stern game at least has five between the auto launcher the the at least two to three flippers and then there's going to be some coil mechs in there as well. So it's like every game at least has four to five and then you're producing thousands of these games. I wonder if Stern's just like, if we buy a billion of them, will you give us a discount? And they're like, well, we can't throw all these away. We know that they're not the best coil stops in the world. Yeah, but they're not terrible, right? They still function for the most part. And really in a home environment, okay, I don't get the same sort of wear and tear on my machines as a location does. yeah i i don't i i play maybe 50 to 100 games a month you know it's it's not the same as location and that's all of them that's all all 10 of my games inside but my point being is like we've talked about like if you want quality and you want reassurance you're going to get your game you're probably going to go with stern but we've also went down the valleys of like you are gambling with these startup companies um i think there's less a lot less gamble with pendretti from hearing behind the scenes and i'm gonna leave that up to pinball company if they want to talk about that stuff um it's all positive um but like i said i'm not the information person to be leaking that i'm just going off of what we've seen publicly and and commenting on it um and then we've talked about haggis where it's like you know it is what it is and uh i don't know pinball is a very fascinating world overall and i think i think if you go into the mindset like you were saying scott earlier uh if there's any game that's already been produced may start going used first if you're really worried about or concerned about receiving your game um i really think i know that when we were going through the deep through the deep root deep root thing uh we did have a gentleman that messaged out to us and explained his situation he said i came into a a decent amount of money um i thought rosa looked really good i put down my deposit knowing i could probably lose this but i wanted to take that risk because this was something i wanted to support and invest in and if i get the grant game great if not i think that's the mindset you need to go in if you're going to go with these startup companies um unless if they're proving themselves like barrels of fun and pendretti who's already shipping out fun houses yeah so so to be fair we we listed a lot at least I listed a lot of people who have started and had significant issues. Okay. I, I will emphasize that pin ready and barrels of fun seem to have the most positive potential of any company that we've seen in the last 15 years. Yeah. And you know, in, in that 15 years does not count JJP because obviously JJP is a, is a real company. It seems like their trajectory is on the rise. Yeah. So I would be more likely to buy those than I would of the other ones. I agree. So I guess that's our roundabout message. If you take something away from this episode today, no, it'd be OK. Okay, if you take something away from the message, it's like if you want a pinball machine, go buy one that is existing. If you have disposable income and you are willing to take a risk on a potential theme or company that you are emotionally connected to, then go ahead. However, realize that there is a risk involved, and some companies are riskier than others. Yeah. And then there are some companies that help kind of alleviate that risk. like our friends Zach and Nicole many at flipping out when they don't even need to be taking that risk. Right. So and really, I feel I feel bad for Zach and Nicole for what they have gone through. Zach is because he's a business. He's going to try to take a risk on some of these companies that you don't know how it's going to pan out. but with that risk I think some people mistake every company as the same guarantee that Stern or JJP would make and that's just not the case and it's hard to thread that needle okay I want to wrap this up with our content creator of the episode Erica's Pinball Journey if you've not checked out Erica she's on Instagram, she's on TikTok I want to say she's on YouTube as well amazing videos her background is actually in film uh the way that we got to meet her was uh i think it was expo last year when she talked to me may have been before that but she said i met her at the stern tour but you saw her at expo the year before uh the content creator that colin from kinetesis was nice enough to set up at expo i got to meet her there and she said that she very much appreciated our episode with the directors of the roger sharp movie because that gave some insight behind the scenes into an industry she works in. She just loved it.
    75:55
    Her episodes, her little videos and stuff are fantastic. Seriously, go check her out. Go subscribe. Definitely worth your time. And I like it because it's a different view on pinball. I'm not going to lie. A lot of these podcasts, we kind of are talking heads and we talk the news or we talk yada, yada. Erica's going from this angle of pizzazz and showing off pinball, but like almost like a meme creator, essentially, you know what I'm saying? Like short clips of, uh, wonderful stuff. So if you haven't checked her out, Erica's pinball journey, uh, Scott, if you're going to buy our product, where are you going? Uh, you can go to silver bar swag. Uh, we have some awesome shoes and I wore my shoes, uh, just the other day. Uh, they're fun. Uh, if you, if you want one of our original hats, you can contact us too. We can figure that out, but we, we have some hats there too, including the, uh, the loser could pinball in an awesome font that looks very similar to another one. Yes. So, and then I just wanted to show off my shirt. I'm wearing. Oh, wow.
    76:58
    If you, if you see that, if you're on YouTube, it is the original, it says at the very bottom, but it says insert Dennis's face here. This was from the original, this weekend pinball podcast with Zach and Dennis. And yeah, it's still one of my favorites because it's got like a bunch of people bunch of their quotes on it you know trending up bye-bye-bye four-inch creasel clone you know just stuff like that and uh nice uh i think they even touted it as limited edition or whatnot they didn't sell a ton of them but it's it's hey everything's limited eventually but it was also from was it from silver ball swag yeah because the silver ball swag was combined with this week in pinball so this is a silver ball swag shirt you can't get it anymore but like i said if you want to like scott said if you want to get our stuff silverballswag.com slash loser kid also if you want to hit us up on any of the socials facebook instagram x uh threads yeah i um it's going to be at loser kid pinball uh same with our youtube so uh if you haven't subscribed go ahead do so comment yada yada yada we appreciate a lot of the interaction we've been receiving lately um and it's amazing it's amazing we've been doing this for over five years now and it just seems like every year we go up with stuff of just the interaction whatnot yeah um thank you again uh if you haven't gotten your room yet for uh pinball expo i was just told two days ago they opened up a new block uh so there are some limited amount of hotel rooms available in the conference center right now that's nice so you better jump on that as you hear this seriously run to pinball expo's website and you can click on it and you get the group rate and everything so So do that before they're all gone.
    78:40
    Anything else, Scott, before we leave? You know, I'm interested. Let me know if you are buying the black and white Godzilla and if you're interested in the Godzilla accessories because they said there's going to be special black and white accessories as well. So anyway, play pinball. Be good to each other. And thanks for listening.
    79:07
    you