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Episode 169 - Street Level 2042

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 1m·held·Jun 12, 2022
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Pinball industry updates: Elwin concedes, Stern ends Led Zeppelin/Guardians, JJP game teased, Spinal Tap details emerge.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers discusses pinball industry news including Keith Elwin concession at the IFPA world championship, Stern's discontinuation of Guardians of the Galaxy and Led Zeppelin production, Jersey Jack Pinball upcoming game reveal, Home Pin's Spinal Tap machine photo, and John Norris's new street-level layout design.

Key Claims

  • Keith Elwin conceded the final game of the IFPA world championship finals on Dialed In when behind by approximately 800,000 points against Escher Lefkoff

    high confidence · Email from Sean L. discussing IFPA tournament controversy; described as drawing significant discussion on Pinside and other podcasts

  • Stern Pinball has informed their distribution network that Guardians of the Galaxy and Led Zeppelin are getting final production runs before discontinuation

    high confidence · Dennis reports direct distribution network communication from Stern; characterized as official end-of-line announcement

  • Led Zeppelin has seen significant price cuts and desperate attempts to move inventory in their local area

    medium confidence · Tony's local market observation; suggests weak sales performance

  • Guardians of the Galaxy likely has substantially higher final order counts than Led Zeppelin across all distributors

    medium confidence · Dennis and Tony speculation based on game popularity and market performance

  • There are rumors that Toy Story will have no Standard Collector (SC) version, only two models

    medium confidence · Dennis states 'there are rumors' without attribution; uncertainty acknowledged in discussion

  • Guns N' Roses LE has passed the 4,000 unit threshold

    medium confidence · Dennis cites 'heard reports' of speculation; not confirmed

  • Home Pin's Spinal Tap pinball uses both an LCD backbox screen and a standard single-color DMD

    high confidence · Observation from photo analysis; questioning the dual-display design choice

  • John Norris released a street-level layout called Champs Elise inspired by Tour de France racing

    high confidence · Linked design release; full BOM, rule set, and CAD drawings provided by designer

Notable Quotes

  • “You look at your odds of making a comeback. And if you feel you likely won't win the game, you concede, shake hands and move on. It happens all the time and even in championship games. No disrespect, nothing more than an internal calculation.”

    Sean L. (email contributor) — Contextualizes pinball concession through comparison to established curling tournament norms; defends Keith Elwin's action as normal sportsmanship

  • “I am not in any way surprised [about Led Zeppelin discontinuation]. I was just surprised Guardians came out such a long time ago.”

    Tony — Indicates Led Zeppelin had poor market reception; Guardians' longevity despite age suggests stronger demand

  • “Given how far behind Stern is on production, I think it makes sense to focus on fewer machines.”

    Dennis — Acknowledges Stern's production capacity constraints as rationale for discontinuing slower-selling titles

  • “The CE is the LE of JJP. Now, they do have an LE, and it is limited also. But they, like, limit it at $5,000 and thus never actually sell out.”

    Dennis — Critiques Jersey Jack Pinball's three-tier pricing model (CE/LE/Standard) as confusing and ineffective

  • “Because it lets them charge more for the four machines they're going to sell.”

    Tony — Sarcastic criticism of Home Pin's dual-display (LCD + DMD) design; suggests low production volume expectations

  • “This is truly a street level by design. Low bill of materials, off the shelf assembly parts to make it.”

    Dennis (describing John Norris's layout) — Explains street-level design philosophy: accessible BOM, easy maintenance, standard parts compatibility

  • “It's a bad argument. This layout, a two-flipper layout, is not a fan layout, and you can see that it's not a fan layout.”

    Dennis — Disputes Zach's assertion that all two-flipper layouts are fan layouts; clarifies terminology distinction

Entities

Keith ElwinpersonEscher LefkoffpersonSean L.personStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyHome PincompanyJohn NorrispersonGuardians of the Galaxygame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern's production capacity constraints driving decision to discontinue slower-selling titles to focus manufacturing on fewer machines

    high · Dennis: 'Given how far behind Stern is on production, I think it makes sense to focus on fewer machines. And when you're technically got a library of like 20 plus...it's just that's a lot of custom parts that you need.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Broad acceptance across pinball community of match concessions as normal tournament practice; Keith Elwin's concession caused unexpected controversy despite being standard in other sports

    high · Sean L.: 'conceding is a normal part of the game...happens all the time and even in championship games'; Dennis: 'I'm amazed this is even a consideration as anything other than just a normal thing.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Home Pin's Spinal Tap design criticized for redundant dual display (LCD backbox + standard DMD) and overall manufacturing quality concerns

    high · Dennis: 'why does it have an LCD and a DMD? Like, why does it have both?'; Tony: 'Because it lets them charge more for the four machines they're going to sell.'

  • $

    market_signal: Guns N' Roses LE production may have exceeded 4,000 units; SE version discontinued after 4-6 weeks due to low popularity compared to stage-show-themed premium editions

    medium · Dennis: 'Guns N' Roses dropped the SE run like after four or six weeks...It was not popular because it didn't look like a stage show like the other two did.'

  • $

    market_signal: Led Zeppelin experiencing weak sales with significant regional price cuts and desperate inventory clearance attempts

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.184

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, June 12th. This is episode 169. Nice. It kind of works. well it's just 69 with a cameraman don't don't don't remind me about cameras and podcasts oh my gosh oh my gosh the listeners do not know we have been discussing the the drain the spiral down the drain that is the pinball show and its attempts to go video next thing you know it's going to be candid camera you're not going to know about it zach's going to sneak a camera into your room and then you're just what you're The next one, you're going to be like, no video, but you'll just see this weird three-quartering image from behind from a corner that's all grainy and looks like 1980s CIA spy camera footage of you sitting there. Those paranormal activity movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I never could get through those.
1:14
Well, but what we can get through are our intros. Tony, what have you been doing? What's been going on? Well, it has been an interesting couple of weeks. when it comes to like free time, which occasionally exists, I've been working on the hard space shipbreaker story mode since that game is now in full release and no longer early access. I've also been once again taking care of myself in a healthy way, you know, eating less, exercising more, which has become a lot easier because my daughter, my eldest daughter is doing a summertime cross-country conditioning thing that the high school is holding because she's going into high school because I'm old.
2:03
And so I'll go and take her to wherever they're conditioning because they're in parks and whatever. Then they just go and they spend an hour or so running. And because I like to get wherever we need to be at least 20 minutes early, we'll get there early and I'll take off and I will start walking, with the goal of being done shortly before they're supposed to be done. So Saturday morning, we went to this park that I've never been to here, real close to my house, only like five or ten minutes away from my house. And it's this beautiful park out in the middle of nowhere, great wide paved concrete path. Everything's cool. And so I start walking. I'm like, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And I'm walking down the thing, and I walk not very far, and then there's a little mile marker. And it says a mile 11 and a half because we're coming from the backside of the park instead of the front. And I'm like, well, I know the walks I've been taking during the week, I'm normally doing between about two and a half, two and three quarters of a mile. I'm just going to push a mile and a half out, mile and a half back. Three miles, no big deal. And I've got plenty of time. They should be getting done about the time I get back from my three miles. See, the problem is my walking paths at home and at work that I use are all in, like, flat terrain. Oh, yes. So I'm hiking. I'm walking. I'm like, da-da-da-da-da-da. It's all great. And I hit the mile-and-a-half marker. So I'm a mile-and-a-half in. I'm at the 10-mile marker. And I'm like, okay, I'll turn around here. And as I'm coming up to this marker, I hear all this slamming on the ground behind me. And like the first band of the cross country runners, all like the senior and junior boys run past me. It's like, okay, cool. I turn around. I start walking back. And here come a few more boys. And then here comes the first big group of girls. Here comes a few more girls. Here comes my daughter and her little group of friends. And a few more people straggler sharing. And I'm walking back. I'm like, this isn't going to be bad. I should get back just before them. No big deal. And I'm walking and I'm walking and I'm walking. and I hit a point and I kind of come around a corner and I'm walking and I'm tired and it's hot and it's humid and I'm like and I kind of look up because I'm just kind of looking down I'm listening and I've got my earpiece in and I'm listening to Jack Ryan and the Clear and Present Dangerous because you know audio books are the best thing to listen to when you walk they really help you get a rhythm
Led Zeppelin
game
Toy Storygame
Spinal Tapgame
Guns N' Rosesgame
Champs Elisegame
Dennisperson
Tonyperson
Dialed Ingame
The Pinball Showorganization

medium · Tony: 'given in our own area the price cuts I've seen on Led Zeppelin games and the desperate attempt to move them, I am not in any way surprised'

  • $

    market_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball's three-tier pricing model (CE/LE/Standard) criticized as confusing and ineffective; LE tier rarely sells out at $5,000 limit

    medium · Dennis: 'The CE is the LE of JJP...they, like, limit it at $5,000 and thus never actually sell out.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Home Pin's Spinal Tap pinball shows release delays from original estimates; hosts note photo is only recent update despite earlier shipping predictions

    medium · Dennis: 'Home Pin had originally been speculating that these games were going to already be shipping...now it's got a new estimated release date.'

  • ?

    product_launch: Stern officially ending production of Led Zeppelin and Guardians of the Galaxy after final runs due to market performance and production capacity constraints

    high · Dennis: 'Stern Pinball has apparently informed their distribution network that Guardians of the Galaxy and Led Zeppelin are both getting a final run, and then they are done producing them.'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Unconfirmed rumors that Jersey Jack Pinball's Toy Story will feature only two tiers (no Standard Collector version)

    low · Dennis: 'There are rumors. It's not for Rumor Corner. I'll share it here. There are rumors that there will not be an SC version of Toy Story.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Street-level pinball design gaining recognition as legitimate design philosophy with professional documentation (BOM, CAD, rule sets) from established designers

    medium · Dennis describing John Norris's Champs Elise: 'Low bill of materials, off the shelf assembly parts...full bill of materials...2D CAD drawings'

    • 4:37
    I have experience very similar with podcasts. They're like, no, we're putting on disco classics now. And that's what I ended up doing. But I'm walking. I'm like, oh, my God. I just suddenly feel like I'm dying. And I'm just still moving forward, always stretching forward. And I look up and I look up and I look up and I realize I'm looking up. I didn't notice it when I walked out. But there's like a half-mile segment of just enough of a grade that it was amazing when I walked out. But coming back at the end of the walk, my fat butt is dying as I'm going up it. And, yeah, it's like I killed the audio book. I kicked on my pinball tournament music mix because I needed the energy. I need the high BPMs and everything. And I'm sitting here and I'm like, and all these people start passing me. I'm like, oh, my God, I got like a mile left to go. And my daughter comes up beside me and she's talking to me. And I'm just like, I'll see you when I get back.
    5:41
    And she takes off. All these people are blowing past me. And I'm like full-on wheezing, sweat pouring off my body, just barely able to breathe. And I come around a corner, another corner, and there's a bridge, and there's a couple guys sitting there. They're big guys like me. And I'm just streaming. and I'm just gasping for breath as I'm just walking. I'm just keeping a steady pace. I come around the corner. They just both look at me and they go, you went too far, didn't you? I'm like, yeah, yeah, you went too far.
    6:12
    I just kept going because I knew if I stopped moving, they'd have to send an ambulance because I'd be dead. So I just keep going. And I go around and I'm like, and then up there, there's the 11-and-a-half-mile marker.
    6:27
    It's another quarter mile to the trailhead. I just kept going and I just kept going and I just kept going. And here's all these kids. They're sitting in the shade and they're eating donuts and drinking water. And I'm just like dying and walking. And my daughter walks over to me. She's got like this water bottle. She's got her water bottle and then like a regular like plastic water bottle that she'd gotten. And she's like, are you okay, Dad? I just like stole her big water bottle, opened it up, drained half of it. It's spilling all over me. And I'm like, go talk with your friends. and I popped open the back of our minivan because I've got a folding rocking chair that I take to all the track meets and everything. That's what I set in. So I'm going to pull that out, set it down in the shade and chill for a minute. We'd taken another vehicle the last time we'd gone to a thing and it was in the trunk of my wife's car. So I open it up and there's nothing there and I'm just looking and I'm just like, so Dennis had to beat that. so I just laid down in the back of the minivan with the thing open and the windows open and the breeze coming through gasping for breath and eventually my daughter comes over and she's like we can go home now and I took her water and I drained the rest of her water out and I'm like okay and I drove us home and I sit down and I was in massive amounts of pain and then my wife's like let's go look at cars okay so then i walked around carlott's wow so you've had quite an adventure it was super special yes i don't have i'm nearly as interesting i i have been trying to exercise more too though because i've been putting on too much weight over the winter which is not unusual but i hadn't dropped it i'm gonna blame some earlier in the year steroid use which i'm just so hungry when i was on those and now i'm off i'm not So, you know, doing caloric counting and stuff. I went out walking yesterday, too, and I thought, I'm going to go pick up Strip's chicken. Oh, yeah. But I'll go take Mill Creek to Northgate, cut down to Santa Fe. Oh, the lower ground. Yes. Because otherwise, walking down for, who would know, me walking down and back to Strip's is a couple miles, I guess. It takes me 20 minutes to get to strips walking, and I walk at about 10 to 15 minutes is a mile for me. Yeah. So that's about, it's like two, two and a half miles round trip. I don't know what this route was. It might have been five, five to six, but it was so hot, and I never carry water when I walk. Right. I don't. Because it's just another chunky thing. Yeah. So right around when I was getting close to Santa Fe, I'm like, I am dehydrated. and then I know I am when I'm on Santa Fe because I'm looking in the front of every building to see if there's a pop machine or a water machine or a puddle no maybe if I cut across the street I could have drank from the fountain when the fountain's over by the post office but I was like no that's going to add distance and I don't want distance so when I finally got to strips they're like do you want a drink yes and i just stay by the fountain it was like oh my gosh and then i got back i was like i need to eat my chicken but i'm almost nauseous from all the walking because i'm so hot and tired yeah in uh more pleasant news um gaming doesn't blow my legs out much easier to do uh so i mean it depends. It does. Yeah, I'm not playing my Kinect stuff though. So, so as I mentioned on the last show, I had started a platformer called Celeste. I stalled out on it. So I put that down. Because you're too old for platformers. Perhaps never to be picking up, perhaps never to be picked up again. Picking up. So I moved on. You're too old for platformers. Too old to be getting the platformers. Too old. So I moved on to a game called Another Sight, which has,
    10:37
    I don't, it's not a great game. It's sort of a puzzle platformer. The platforming isn't very difficult. The puzzles by and large aren't very difficult. There were a few that seemed a little nebulous to me, but most of it's just traversal. You, you have, uh, your sights damaged early on in the, in the game. And there's a cat with you and you have to alternate between controlling the cat and controlling the girl to be able to figure stuff out. So I won that So got through that And then I Played a little bit of some walking simulator Called Gone Home yesterday And I've messed around just in a few other things So I haven't really decided what I'm going to move on to From another site And I've been putting in some more pinball time Mostly on Godzilla, unsurprisingly Because it's my newest game But also Walking Dead Because Walking Dead has a lot shorter ball time than Godzilla does So when I need a lesson in humility it's a good one to turn to. And that reminded me all of this, writing all this up for today. I never talked about the Hydra shirt that we have in our, in our Teespring store, Tony, I never brought it up on this show. I think I brought it up on the pinball show, but I never brought it up here. So there's a link in this. I mean, we always have a link in our episode notes, show notes at the end to the Teespring store, but in the episode links, I have a link to this shirt so people can look at it. But this was inspired, loosely inspired,
    12:06
    You know, it's like based on a true story. This is loosely inspired by the whiteboard at Deep Root regarding the gladiator game. And so the front of the shirt has a rising graph line that says rising action. And at the top of it is a hydra because you need a game to build up to a hydra. And then the back of the shirt has one of my favorite sets of quotes from the whiteboard, which is, first round is easy, second round is hard. You know, really complicated sort of stuff. Super.
    12:40
    Next level. If people are interested. Paradigm breaking. People are interested in, I think, because this is a tri-blend, I think this ranges from small to 2XL, I think is all. They don't have very many size options, but it is available. So let's go to the pinball segment. But so far, this has been Eclectic Running Walking Podcast. Well, walking, let's be fair. We weren't. Yeah. I don't. I always tell myself, running is a great way to destroy your knees, no matter what size you are. Walking is a great way to destroy your knees when you're my size. Actually, my problem isn't my knees. It's my ankle. It's your ankle. That's why you've got them special shoe things. Correct. They're called arches. And I have an ankle brace coming, too.
    13:18
    Because I had to do a big, long walk-related thing. I was giving a tour the other day at work in my eight-inch steel-toed boots, and my ankle didn't hurt at all afterwards after walking several miles. Oh, because it's holding it nice? Right. I was like, I need ankle support. And that's when I found out they don't make high-top shoes anymore. They fell out of – as a high schooler, I didn't – well, mostly middle school, because that's when I tried them on for, like, basketball, and I never liked – like, they felt weird to me. Yeah. So I guess they felt weird to a lot of people. Yeah. But you know what doesn't feel weird to people, Tony? Pinball. I mean, it could feel a little weird. Nah.
    14:03
    So we had an email. Actually, I had several emails. But we had one email regarding pinball that I wanted to bring up. Okay. So Sean L. wrote in to us. You may not have heard about this, Tony, but there was a big world championship IFPA tournament thing. And there has been a ton of discussion because Keith Elwin, the GOAT, greatest of all time, seen not only now as a champion pinball designer, but for a long time, a champion pinball player. He conceded in the final game of his final round on his final ball on Dialed In when he was behind by about, I believe, 800,000 points against Escher Lefkoff. He walked up and just plunged and conceded the game instead of attempting to win.
    14:49
    And so there's been a bunch of like pin side discussion. Other podcasts have been talking about this because for a lot of people, it was the first time they ever can think of that they saw in a high level tournament. Someone who had a chance to win actually just give up.
    15:04
    And so this is what that email is about. I just want to give you some context. So Sean writes I see this as such a non that I debated even sending this email But after hearing so much debate on TPN the Pinball Network and other podcasts I want to chime in I have played in many national championships in Canada in my sport curling which I thought you would appreciate. I like curling. It's the best part of the winter Olympics. Many may laugh at the sport, but it is in the Olympics. It's the best part of the Olympics. And conceding is a normal part of the game. You look at your odds of making a comeback. And if you feel you likely won't win the game, you concede, shake hands and move on. happens all the time and even in championship games. No disrespect, nothing more than an internal calculation. What Keith did in my eyes is a non-issue, and I expect he just thought his comeback chances were low and conceded. You will likely see more and more of this happen as the sport grows. So I just wanted to get your thoughts. Thank you, Sean, by the way, for writing in the email. What are your thoughts on the idea of someone conceding in pinball? I'm amazed this is a thing people are talking about. it seems like absolutely nothing to me. I've conceded in pinball.
    16:15
    I've conceded in tournaments around here. Have you? Yeah. See, I never have, but I've had my spirit broken so bad that I know I haven't tried hard anymore. I have full-on had games where, like,
    16:31
    I'm going into ball three that there was no way they got, they're so much above the best score I've ever had, especially in busy tournaments and stuff it's like no there's no reason to waste everybody's time and I've conceded and I've had other people concede to me in wargaming tournaments in the past the only times that it's not really a thing is if you're in one of the tournaments where the final score of each match can have an effect even if you're the loser if the points are taken I've played tournaments where your points totals that you earn from playing count, even if you're on the loser side, it can still help. This is the only times I've seen people not concede when it was obvious that it's like, there's no reason. We're just stretching it out. It's like, if you're at a point where it's like, it's going to take 15 minutes, 15, 20 minutes to finish out this game, but there's zero way I can actually win it. All I can do is stretch it out. It's a waste of everybody's time. It's a waste of the tournament creator's time. It's a waste of the time of everybody there. so I'm totally fine with it. I've had people concede to me. I've conceded to other people.
    17:44
    I'm amazed this is even a consideration as anything other than just a normal thing. Yeah, it's been, I mean, my stance was similar. It was, you know, well, I've never actually conceded in pinball, but I've wanted to before, and I've never thought that there was a reason why I couldn't do it. Main reason usually like in local tournaments why I don't is my logic is often I paid money. I'm going to play all three of my balls just to get my money's worth out of the machine sort of thing. But yeah, there have been plenty of times where I still remember the time I played against Phil C in one of our local tournaments, and it was on Party Zone, and he had ramped out for over 10 minutes, and I was going to have to do it for like 15 minutes just to catch him. And I was like, I don't even have the accuracy to pull that off, even with that easy ramp. And there's just no way. I mean, and I've honestly considered conceding after ball one.
    18:43
    I've never conceded after ball one. But I've seriously considered it. Because I've played games against people where they have double or sometimes triple the best score I've ever had on a machine on ball one. And it's like, whatever. Yeah. this isn't realistic. Right. It's, you know, it's interesting. I mean, and obviously scenarios are scenarios and everyone needs to cross their own. I never would have thought it wouldn't be, you know, respectful. There's something disrespectful about conceding. And no one had claimed that he, I mean, he did in a very, like he went and shook his opponent's hand or whatnot. You know, it's my understanding. I didn't go back and watch the clip. But, you know, it just depends. I mean, I had a game of Brom Stoker's Dracula against Steve H., one of our top area players, and, I mean, he, like, doubled my score. I still played that one out really, really hard because I had also already hit my best score ever. And even though I knew I couldn't beat him, I wanted to see how good I could do on the machine. But all that said, I've had instances like when we still had Rob Zombie on location where I wanted to concede before even playing.
    19:53
    Right, that's just his credit. Now, some of that was, well, yeah, and some of that was I felt that the only way to get a game out of a lineup in a pay-to-play location is to not put money in it. Right. So, interesting. It's interesting. So, because obviously I've not been following this because this is the first I've ever heard of it, but the fact that somebody might think this is disrespectful, but I've seen plenty of tournaments where they're playing and they're right at the end and the guy's trying to catch up and he drains and he gets mad and he slams the machine to the side where he throws the machine to one wire or another, or he hits the machine and walks away, and that's not disrespectful? Well, that didn't come up in the discussion. I think most people would agree that there's some sportsmanship stuff. But to me, something like this is just going, yeah, no, you win, good job, I can't possibly catch up, let's get going. It just seems the exact opposite of disrespectful to me. most people seem to agree. Well, that means most people are smart.
    21:00
    But it got conversation going, which maybe was good. I don't know. Speaking of good, this may not be good if you're fans of these games, or it may be good if you're fans of other games that you're hoping will actually get built. Stern Pinball has apparently informed their distribution network that Guardians of the Galaxy and Led Zeppelin are both getting a final run, and then they are done producing them. I was surprised to find out they were still making Guardians. I'm not. I'm surprised they're ending Led Zeppelin already. That's how bad that game is. I am not surprised they're ending Led Zeppelin. Given what I've seen, given how it's been formed, given in our own area the price cuts I've seen on Led Zeppelin games and the desperate attempt to move them, I am not in any way surprised. I was just surprised. Guardians came out such a long time ago. It is a good game. Yeah, that's the thing. It is an excellent game. Once the rules got there, it became a very, very good game. I was shocked to find out they were still building them. Anyway, technically. I mean, obviously, they haven't put out a run in a while, is my understanding. So they're going to do one more on each of those. They'll put a little stock back and then shut down the line. Given how far behind Stern is on production, I think it makes sense to focus on fewer machines. And when you're technically got a library of like 20 plus, when you consider the flavors like premium and pro of games in your queue, it's just that's a lot of custom parts that you need. So, you know, flushing some of this stuff out makes a lot of sense to me. Wouldn't surprise me, honestly, if they're still selling more Guardians than Led Zeppelins. No, that would not either. I think and in fact, I think if you were to call distributors and they were going to be honest with what their final order counts are between the two. I bet you all of them have more for Guardians than they do Led Zeppelin. Yeah.
    22:50
    Moving to the other, another, not the other, but another pinball company, Jersey Jack Pinball. We've talked about them quite a bit this year as we all anxiously await Toy Story's release. And they have a Facebook post up announcing that their next game will be revealed very soon. The rest of that post just provides information on how to best position yourself to get a collector's edition. Bend over, spread your cheeks.
    23:15
    Oh, wait, no. Bend over, pucker up to somebody else's spread cheeks. You know, I didn't watch the video on how to do it because if I were to get the upcoming Jersey Jack game, it wouldn't be a collector's edition. I don't buy the LEs. Well, in their version, the LE of the LE. Because they do the LE. Which is the CE? That's the CE. The steps to get the CE. The CE is the LE of JJP. Now, they do have an LE, and it is limited also. But they, like, limit it at $5,000 and thus never actually sell out. So I don't know. It's weird. And then like the SC, yeah. Well, there are rumors. It's not for Rumor Corner. I'll share it here. There are rumors that there will not be an SC version of Toy Story. It will only be two models.
    23:59
    Now, I don't know if they're dropping the LE limit outright, and it's now basically the standard, or if they're still going to say you can get up to 5,000 LE Toy Stories and 500 CE Toy Stories. I don't know yet. I'm going to guess that. I'm going to say that. That would make sense. I mean, I've heard speculation that Guardians has passed 4,000. Guardians, I'm sorry. I apologize. Guns N' Roses. I've heard reports that they believe that Guns N' Roses has probably passed the 4,000 unit threshold on the LEs. But remember, Guns N' Roses dropped the SE run like after four or six weeks or something. They didn't run very many because it was not popular. Yeah, it was not popular because it didn't look like a stage show like the other two did. That's my theory.
    24:45
    Speaking of theories, well, actually, it's not a theory. We've known about this for a while, but Home Pin. I've got a theory. We haven't talked about Home Pin in, I think, a few months, Tony. Home Pin is... Because nobody cares. And they probably don't care about this part, but we still have to talk about it because I put it in the show notes. So, Home Pin has shared a photo, a single photo of This Is Spinal Tap Pinball. Now, as I recall, Home Pin had originally been speculating that these games were going to already be shipping. I want to think that they had originally guessed. I'm calling it a guess because it was wrong now. I thought May, but now it's got a new estimated release date. But I do have a link to Nap Arcade's coverage of this because he does have the photo on his page, so you can go and take a look at it. But, Tony, I've embedded it into our internal notes, and, yes, this is the quality of the photo. I'm sorry. It's not a great photo. I've had some I understand Do you understand? I understand that this is Spinal Tap It's some sort of cult classic Hit whatever Have you ever seen it? I saw it once When it falls into the kind of Cult classic movies For me It is Nowhere near the top to me like not even flirting with the top. I can think of a lot of other movies that are considered cult classics that I would like a lot better.
    26:19
    But sure, why not? The big thing, the first thing that I caught is that Home Pin's little logo design is such garbage. The logo design is so garbage.
    26:35
    Home Pin, Home Pin Taiwan Company Limited, And it is a cut out of a pinball machine inside of a house. Every home needs a pinball. Every pinball needs a pinball. Oh, wait, that was deeper. Yeah, look how well that worked for them. They had a number of issues. Does Taiwan have an SEC? Are we waiting for a fireman?
    26:55
    I mean, remember back, maybe you don't remember, back with Thunderbirds, they weren't in Taiwan. They were mainland. They've moved. They moved to Taiwan. I don't know what you're talking about. Taiwan is a part of China.
    27:11
    I saw it on the news just the other day. It is 100% a part of China, and anything that can happen can happen. It's fine. Okay. That's a good point.
    27:24
    We don't want a war. What was the thing? I had a description. I heard somebody say, it's like, never mind. I'm not going to get into it. But I just couldn't even say it with a straight face. Sorry.
    27:41
    Well, anyway, there has been some attempts online from the few people who care about this title to analyze the play field. The biggest analogy, though it's definitely debated, is some people think that this, towards the back in particular, looks like the getaway but without the hyper loop, the turbo charger, super charger, whatever it's called. I kind of get it from where the pop bumpers are I get where they're coming from Why does the ramp look like it's made out of pop can? Well maybe it was I mean they did have that plastic water bottle ramp Originally on Thunderbirds Until they went and replaced that With a much higher quality metal ramp And on the light on the side Is that exposed wiring Just like looks like it's Zip tied to the side of the machine I think that's actually a double necked guitar No no no No, behind and to the left of that. Oh. Yeah, maybe.
    28:39
    Yeah, maybe. Maybe they've got it in some tubing, black tubing, to better match the... I don't know. You know the thing that confuses me, and this was in the initial announcement, so I understood it was going to be there, but why does this have a screen in the back like Jersey Jack, but then below that, it's got a standard single-color DMD? Like, why does it have both? Why does it have an LCD and a DMD? Why would you do that? Because it lets them charge more for the four machines they're going to sell. I guess. I don't know. Speculation. It's so they don't have to. They're not going to do a bunch of fancy animation on the LCD. So they're going to use the DMD a lot. But I don't know. I don't care, quite frankly. But the people may. So we've covered it. Congratulations, people who like Spinal Tap. I apologize that I'm not as big of a fan of Spinal Tap as you are. Now, next is something I think is far more interesting, though I don't think it's going to be built. And that is John Norris, who is the designer best known for his time with Premiere, has released a street level layout called Champs Elise.
    29:48
    Again, I've linked to Latin App Arcade so people can go and look at the layout. But it's very, very detailed. So and when I say street level, I mean it like this is truly a street level by design. John Norris has done it in the street level philosophy. Low bill of materials, off the shelf assembly parts to make it. He describes what sort of cabinet would fit in. And he's got the full bill of materials already put together on it. He's got a rule set laid out. I believe it's kind of inspired by like a tour de France sort of race is the theme. And so he got a few descriptions about how this is going to be You just follow some color coding You can stack features And then the layout again true street level philosophy about easy maintenance easy cleaning and it just a flowy fast layout as he describes it And when I look at it, I think this looks really cool. Now, that being said, we have to declare my biases. I have owned two street-level games in the past. I've never actually owned one designed by John Norris, though. But, oh, and incidentally, there was a discussion on the Pinball Show where my co-host, Zach, decided to argue that fan layouts were any game with two flippers, which doesn't make any – like, why would we not just call that two-flipper layout if that was true? It's not true. It's a bad argument. This layout, a two-flipper layout, is not a fan layout, and you can see that it's not a fan layout. Just an interesting – Was he drunk? No, you know how he is. It happens. You know, got to be contrarian. I'm reading the feature grant here.
    31:31
    Low bill of material street level play field. Uses off-shelf assembly. Spits into the 28.25 inch by 45 inch cabinet. GDD with full rule set. BOM Excel file included. 2D CAD drawings.
    31:46
    Has he just released this for people to get the information and build it themselves? and I need to go back and check it but he basically put it all together so that yes he described it as this would be in his view a good design for a startup pinball company to do if you wanted to start a pinball company because honestly this is kind of awesome that thought I don't care about the startup pinball company but for somebody who has an interest in doing a homebrew but doesn't really have a lot of the skills or stuff,
    32:27
    a kit like this that is just the plans and everything, so you have to put together what you need and build a machine without, before I have to do all the testing and the cardboard and stuff, put it together yourself would be a good training wheels type thing. It'd be a lot like when they give those simple woodworking kits for people who are wanting to learn carpentry, it's like, oh, here's a little project. We tell you everything you need. We give you the exact plans to learn the skills necessary to do the – I think this is genius. Unless it is something that's locked behind only, oh, somebody has to – it's only for a major company. But if it's something that's being set up and released, even if it's just being charged a little bit, even for the plans and the code and everything, I think it's great as just like a kit starter thing. I really kind of like this idea quite a lot. Yeah, and I'm not entirely sure like in terms of the software and for the rules. That would be the big part. I mean, obviously – Well, it says he has rules. Yeah, no, he does. I just – but like I don't know what GDD means. So I don't know if that's a software. Like what does it run on? Is it designed for a particular board or has he come up with the rules, but they still need to be programmed to work on the circuit board? Right. See what I'm – Right, which would also be decent for someone as a starter. Interesting. I'm going to look farther into this because this is the first I've heard of this, and I think it looks nice. I think it looks cool. I think the idea, if I'm, I'm probably overthinking it, but I think it sounds like an amazing idea, and I really like the concept. And I got to say, you know, it does have a mini jump ramp, though. I'm still going to stick with street levels always being single level because it is just a little jump. It's just a little jump right now. It's cool, though, because then it accesses the orbit. Anyway, I do recommend people go follow the link to Nap Arcade and look at the layout.
    34:26
    This is what I've always liked about not just street levels but single levels in general. There's a lot of, I think, really creative layout choices that you make because you're not busy trying to feed a bunch of ramps to move the ball around back to the flipper. So you just get a lot of – and with street levels in particular, the six games that Gottlieb Premier did, you got some really, really unique lands. I mean the most pedestrian of them was Silver Slugger. It's got an up post. Are those little roundels in the loop in the upper left in each of the in lanes? Are those – I think they're star rollovers. Those are star rollovers? Or an equivalent. I think so. This thing is beautiful. I like this concept. It looks fun. Just the layout itself looks – I mean, I do still have my hoops street level. I sold Silver Slugger because I didn't – the rules weren't very good. I miss that layout, though. That, as I – Is that a ball lock on the right with a drop post to hold the balls as you build it up? Is that what I'm seeing? I think so. On both sides? There's a ball lock on both sides? Yes, there is. There's a ball lock on the – yes, on the left and the right, which is a clever way to – I mean, that's really clever to not use a kick-out saucer. And drops, and I'm kind of impressed. I'm going to look deeper into this thing. The kit thing is an idea I hadn't thought about. I had argued before the pandemic that I had speculated. I actually think so even more now. If a company would be willing to do a true street level and actually offer it for less money than the quote-unquote full-featured games, I think there's a market for it as popular as pinball has gotten and as expensive as used games have gotten. Um, but regardless, uh, it's a really cool, I, it makes me, gosh, it makes me wish I was able to find like a car hop or something. Other street levels. I never have had an opportunity to play or much time on like title fight just because they're so weird. Um, and this reminds me of that. I mean, there's just not, you look at it, you can look and individually you immediately go, there's nothing like this. But then you realize all of the parts are really pedestrian, just spinners and pops and drops and stuff you could order from Marco. Anyway, I just thought it was a cool thing to bring up. No, I'm glad you brought it up. Honestly, this is the thing in this whole thing, everything we've talked about so far, this is the thing I'm most excited at. This is conceptually interesting as heck to me, and it looks amazing. And I remain, yeah, okay, so I know he was with Deep Root, But I don't understand why other pinball companies, established pinball companies, don't look to bringing on John Norris for some designs. And maybe this helps that. Maybe. Maybe showing, you know what, he does have some really interesting, unique ideas. I think this is far more interesting than the Merlin Arcade stuff I initially saw, which I think still kind of looked very 8-ball deluxe-ish. I believe he did Bad Girls, which was sort of that that mirrored this, though. It's this sort of weird stuff that I think is really neat. So anyway, our final thing is the hit segment, more popular than Pinball Market Trends, more popular than Pinball itself, Rumor Corner.
    37:58
    Corners. Now we got that. Rumors in the corners. No, we got that song. We have to drop in the song. rumor corner rumor corner rumor corner rumor corner dennis greasel's got the news before napa k they're right tony yeah so this rumor corner rumor is about dennis nordman so i am receiving rumors, Tony, that his upcoming game at American Pinball is a, and I'm going to air quote this, weird theme. What do we mean by weird theme? Well, what the rumors are telling me is that it's an unguessable theme, that no one would ever predict that this is the theme. So to me, that tells me, though, it's not an original theme. It might not be a license per se. It might be an unlicensed, like how Houdini was, or it's a licensed theme that people think nobody can figure out. So what do you think? Because, all right, obviously, I've not heard any rumors of what the theme is because the theme is unguessable, according to the rumor. But you know what? This is Eclectic Gamers Podcast, and we don't let the unguessable stop us. That's why would we? With the track record of Rumor Corner, why would we ever allow that to happen? So I want to know what you think, given this, if this rumor is true, and this is a weird, unguessable theme. What do you think the theme is? I think it's No Country for Old Men.
    39:37
    Strip tees. They can probably even get the call-outs because, you know, it's not like anybody from that movie has a career anymore. Well, I was going to say Josh Brolin will do anything for money. That's why I went with No Country for Old Men. He's busy doing Thanos and Cable. He'll do this. He's willing. and it was a great movie several years old now and way outdated and a weird choice for pinball but let's just do one of those little cattle stun things yeah let's do a little cattle thing oh no with striptease that would make more sense to me if it was stern and they still had leftover stripper mechs from their Sopranos game yeah I could really see that I'm thinking they could have the sex in the pool scene where she's like up on his neck. It's like that's not how anatomy works. But hey, it's striptease. Accuracy wasn't a highlight.
    40:45
    So are you not room retained, Tony? I'm room retained. All right. It could be like, no, because that would be more guessable than that. I was thinking like. That's the hard part. It has to be unguessable. Right. Like Ishtar. Like Girls Frontline, because Genshin Impact is too popular right now. Or some other weird mobile game. Battleborn. The Lawbreakers.
    41:16
    Azur Lane. Florida. Can't be Volcano. Too guessable. Dante's Peak. Oh, this is fun. Oh, wow. That'd be... See, the thing is, Dante's Peak wasn't terrible. I liked it. I really liked Dante's Peak. But it doesn't have Tommy Lee Jones using his fugitive skills against lava.
    41:44
    And volcanologist Anne Hesch. Don't forget about Anne Hesch. The world has forgotten about Anne Hesch. I still, whenever I hear her name, I always think of that Harrison Ford movie with her six days and seven nights where she goes pirates as an arg.
    42:04
    That one with six days and seven nights. Witness. The Amish one? The Amish one. Oh, no, that would be a cool, the kid's marble toy could be the contraption for a pinball. That would be pretty cool. That almost sells it alone, just that one. That would be pretty awesome. So, well, as awesome as all this is, we probably do need to get into video games. So we did have a couple of emails involving video games, Tony. One is from Blueberry Johnson, the key source for most of the information coming out of Deep Root at this point. He wrote in mostly to mention he's willing to clarify some things regarding Deep Root after our last episode, which I'm assuming means I got several things wrong. But we've moved on from that and didn't cover Deep Root in this episode. what he wanted to know on the video game front Tony is if you had tried WozHack not yet well that solves that well we had another email it's in my thing but I've not between driver's ed cross country camps bunches of issues at work I've just he didn't ask for your excuses I've had extremely limited I've not spent a lot of time playing anything So what I've played has been shit-breaker. Well, Chris Chandler also wrote in, and this is one you and I have corresponded. And by corresponded, I mean we sent, like, there were some memes. Or at least I shared some memes. Yeah, we named this one. He wrote in wondering, sure, though, that we would have our thoughts on Diablo Immortal and its monetization approach. And in the show notes, I've included a link that Chris did email us, which was regarding a player, I believe, in New Zealand who spent thousands of dollars. I believe it calculated to being a bit over $4,000 as an experiment. And in that, he did not get any five-star legendary gems, which would be the primary goal people would be spending money on. The latest thing I've seen is the current estimate is to get enough is over $100,000. I saw similar. In terms of my thoughts, I think Diablo Immortal just continues the unmitigated disaster that is Activision Blizzard. My favorite meme of the couple I sent Tony was the one from the guy when they announced Diablo Immortal and the crowd at BlizzCon reacted so negatively when he said, what, don't you guys have phones? As the meme says, what, don't you guys have wallets? Yeah. I am positive that I am on record as being extremely anti-pay-to-win type stuff. I dislike it horribly. And the fact that this isn't even pay-to-win because even if you pay, you can't do that.
    45:01
    Yeah, it seems poorly balanced from even a whale perspective. It is so poorly balanced. the game can't be released in certain countries because of their gambling laws yeah no I'll just flat out say don't play Diablo Immortal it doesn't matter how much you like I'll be honest at this point I don't have much Blizzard stuff left I've gotten rid of it I haven't played any in a while I've uninstalled all of it to make room for other stuff but it's because I've even uninstalled Overwatch. I've not played it in two years. So I don't know. Well, in two more years, Overwatch 2 might be two years out. Maybe. We see You want to talk about a game that is toxic as crap man alive overwatch had gotten bad i saw some actually i watched a video yesterday the day before about it's called uh it's a death of a game series and he did overwatch overwatch one specifically because he feels that by and large it's well it does still have a significant player base it's not really supported anymore and the toxicity was a big part of that it was a big part of the discussion he had some theories as to why Overwatch sort of in a way helped foster a toxic environment because of the approach they took to gameplay it was interesting because the analysis focused a lot on the game coming out and being very much positioned as a casual shooter but then a decision fairly early on to make it into a competitive shooter but it's also not just a shooter because it's a variability driven game but it's a game that was clearly designed with you with in mind you going in with five friends and what happens when you start doing pickup games in a game that requires extensive teamwork to properly play yeah which is why i don't play with uh audio on yeah it's my daughter quit playing because she just could not handle the toxic environment. Yep. And that, anyway, so that was the, his analysis was that was the, that's the problem. If the game didn't require so much teamwork, there would be less toxicity because people get really upset when their team sucks. And it's really easy. And I still, I usually will hop in just for events and play for event skins for overwatch too. Cause I'm assuming they'll transfer them over. Maybe not. And, uh, you know, I still get totally garbage teams and I'm just like, I play so little now that I don't get as frustrated as I used to, and I can more often now shrug and go, well, our team just sucks. They don't understand that you play an objective, and they're going off trying to deathmatch. That's not what Overwatch is. I mean, there's a mode for that. It's a bad mode, but you can do it if you want to play Widowmaker. Yeah. But you know what? Those aren't the only games that are really struggling, are they, Tony? They're not. It's not just Activision Blizzard. EA has troubles. It does. I don't have a whole lot in video games today because I saw we had a lot of pinball stuff but I thought it was interesting because we've been talking a lot lately about Battlefield 2042 yes I had a huge update to download and I hear there's another one coming yes as they try to fix what they destroyed with the first update because they released their season 1 and then it turns out that a lot of players are getting a load persistence data error and can't log into the game. That reminds me of back at launch, they had load issues. Yeah. That I ran. I mean, I experienced that. I bought this game when it came out. I don't play it anymore. I still have it installed because I tell myself, you like Battlefield, don't you, Dennis? You have phones and wallets, don't you? You have wallets, don't you?
    49:01
    There's a death of a game on this also already. It doesn't surprise me because it's pretty much a dead game. They figured out a way to get a lot of the people loaded in by setting it up so you can no longer get unlocks from progression. It will track your progression so that when they fix it, you'll get all the unlocks you missed. But nobody can get unlocks. Okay. And then they thought they had a fix, so they installed the fix. And then the load errors were worse than they were before. So they had to roll it back. because even less people could get on after the fix than could before it.
    49:43
    Poor Dyson EA. Yeah, I mean, I can't really say poor EA. They brought it on themselves. But it has definitely taken a dead game and just finished it. I mean, I was hearing the persistent player count was already awful. It's terrible, and it's going to be terrible. In the death of a game on Battlefield 2042, and I don't remember when he finished recording it. I think it was several months ago. But at that time, on Steam at least, the concurrent players for Battlefield 4 were higher. That's terrible.
    50:24
    Yeah, because that game is like almost 10 years old. Yeah. That's really bad That's so scary I didn't have it in the notes here But I did see On the Call of Duty Warzone They're rolling out Call of Duty Warzone 2.0 The new version of Call of Duty Warzone Or Warzone Not Warstone, that'd be weird It's Call of Duty But it's medieval combat We took the assets from Hearthstone and we just dropped in soldiers with cool mustaches and automatic weapons. You've got slings and rocks and bows and arrows.
    51:11
    But it's been such a change that they're not allowing any unlocks, items, purchased items, progression, or anything from Warzone to go to Warzone 2.0. So it's going to be treated as a completely new, completely separate free-to-play game. So any money you've dumped into Warzone is in Warzone, and when Warzone 2 comes out, you'll have to spend money again. Yay. I don't know. I haven't played Warzone. Yeah.
    51:43
    I tried one Battle Royale game, and I was like, eh, I get it, but not really my thing. I watch some people play Battle Royales, but it really seems like the only time the Battle Royale games are fun is when you're playing in, like, trios with people that you know and you're with. That seems more interesting. Like the teamwork that Overwatch wanted. Yeah, exactly.
    52:06
    Also, because of the Summer Game Fest. Yep, saw some of that. I watched the Devolver one live. They came out. They dropped a lot of stuff. I didn't really put anything in here because everything they talked, I don't think they talked about anything new. I think everything was just updates to stuff that we've already heard about. It was like they just tried to do some sort of almost loosely organized trailer event is what it felt like. It's basically what it seemed like.
    52:31
    Because no E3. Correct. But ESA came out to be sure to tell us, no, E3 will be back next year in person and online. Whoa. They wanted to be sure that we know that it's coming.
    52:44
    So, sure, whatever. I don't think anybody cares anymore. I think E3 is, when it comes back, I think they're, in the ESA's mind, when it comes back, it's going to be this huge return. It's going to be like Mike Tyson returning to the ring or Foreman returning to the ring. It's going to be this big, huge event. And I think it's going to be, nobody cares because it's been supplanted by everything else. Yeah, I don't. I mean, I remember back when it was struggling back before the pandemic and our conversation. So I won't I won't repeat them, although a number of our current listeners may not have heard those. But I I've always struggled with, to me, the problem with the ESA and E3 was there are so many other ways to get the message out. This is a digital product. So it's not like – I mean an example – again, I won't belabor it because I know the listeners don't want to hear it. But in watches, another hobby that I'm involved with, it was a big deal to have their real events, in-person events return. That's because the journalists that cover that stuff want to actually handle the products. They can't virtually. Right. Through a screen, all they see are a bunch of renders. It lets you know what a watch looks like but doesn't let you feel its weight. or how it wears, or anything like that. Video games, the journalists can get copies, embargoed copies, and play them. They've done it for years. So why would you need to push out all your information in one big journalist week, where the booths are super expensive? That's always been my other issue, is I think ESA charges way too much for what they provide. And I always thought they could survive and probably still be a big journalistic sort of hub for a lot of video game news. But they just – they can't NRA it and just be on yachts and blow through millions of dollars because they're charging a fortune for people to build booths. Yeah, it is. Because everyone just rented space nearby.
    54:54
    And held their own events. Yeah, other than Microsoft was the only one who was still giving them any money. Like everyone – EA, separate event. Nintendo, separate event. Sony, separate event. It's like – and they're all – by and large, they were all like, well, we're in the same city.
    55:10
    The way ESA has handled E3 feels to me a lot like Sears. Sears was in the position they should have been the leader on online shopping. They literally already had the warehouses. They had everything because they were a catalog model for 100 plus years. They were closest to the model. All they needed to do was pivot to online, and instead they fail utterly. With what they should have been the kings of. They should have, I mean, Amazon should never have existed. Sears should have been so big that when Amazon started building up, they just got bought out. But Sears couldn't pivot. It's the same way. I don't think ESA can pivot to the realities of our modern interconnectivity and the modern online process in a way that makes it matter. They're still stuck in the old days. Yeah. And I don't have a good idea. I think one of the things they thought about doing as an attempt to pivot was, all right, it's not going to be so journalistically focused, and we're going to open this up to the public. And so instead of it being a trade show, it's almost like demo fest every year. Right. That might work if you're not charging a fortune for the companies to be there also. Right. Like, I could see them being like, we're going to organize, like, a PAX. Right. But it's going to be a bunch of new video game demos, and we'll make deals with these companies, but you can't charge them a fortune. You're going to make your money on the tickets then. You don't get to have it both ways where you're bleeding your vendors dry and you're asking for a whole lot of money. And then, of course, you're still saying you're a journalist group and then the journalists were all mad because of all the queues and stuff. So then you have like these fast pass systems for the journalists, which upset the regular attendees who paid some pretty big money to be there. I mean, they like picked all the worst options. And in fact, I'll even say that they will be back next year. almost sounds like a worse option also because it sounds like clearly hybrid person in person and online obviously there's always been recordings and stuff obviously so i'm not quite sure what that exactly means but i can tell you from my own conference planning i do not do hybrid versions because it's the most work and you don't gain enough no there's always demand because There's always people like, I can't make it. I want it to be online. I'm like, I can give you online only super easy. I cannot run an in-person event and coordinate it to be completely online either. Right. I mean, both. It's a nightmare logistically. It makes you no money. It costs a fortune. And you either really hamper the online experience or you spend a ton trying to cover everything in both ways. And then who comes to the in-person if you can consume everything online? So if they're trying to make money on ticket sales but they're doing everything online, most people aren't going to go there unless you really want to play the demos. Who's going to go there and stand in line when I can just watch all the presentations from the comfort of my couch, which is what I was doing. Yeah, which is what most people want. So again, if that's the model, then it sounds like you need to rely more on charging the vendors. But the vendors aren't really getting anything out of it anymore, as you noted, because they have completely different ways that they can engage the audience. They don't need the middleman that is ESA. And they don't need to share the limelight with all the other companies. No. Who wants to – do you really want to be there, beat Ubisoft, and lose E3 again? Yeah. Because that's the narratives people like us always do is who won E3? We always have to ask that question because there's always a winner. Who won the event? Who shocked us? Who's the winner? Who gave us the best game? Or who put out the new piece of hardware, which always beats all the games? It's like, why do it? Who did the super secret announcement that nobody thought was going to come out and then came out? They won. Yeah, no.
    59:00
    No. It's – Yeah, I think they're – maybe they won't be done. Maybe some shadow. Maybe E2.5 lives on. I don't know. They'll be what they are, but they are definitely not what it was. Yeah. I don't envy their leadership that must be trying to figure out a way to survive because they're not in a good position to be relevant is the problem. If they were something else, this isn't like when we had our discussions when ReplayFX ended Pinberg. In their instance, because it was so unique and there was so much demand for what they were doing, I, in my view, saw a path, a clear path of survival that could have worked for them. They just didn't walk that path. In this case, I don't see the path at all. Yeah. When you've lost almost everybody, what's the matter? I don't see how you bring it back. I don't. Yeah. What's the matter at that point? Yeah. I don't. What's it worth? I just, I don't know. I don't know enough about them as an organization and what they bring to the table for what members or however their structure. I don't know their structure. I don't care. I think they're dead. I think they're done. I think you're right. the only other thing I have also I hadn't included in my notes just a reminder Games Done Quick starts the 25th I believe or the 26th so it's either the day before or the day we record our next episode ok because it runs that week right into the beginning of July ok well I have a work conference so I'm going to miss half of it I have I'm in so much. Yeah, I've got training, like full-day training classes constantly.
    60:49
    But our podcast will be planning to be back in a couple of weeks, so if you want to reach out to us in between now and then, you can email us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast and shoot us a message through that messenger tool. We're available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And that's it we'll talk to you guys next time bye-bye bye