All right, what's up? What's up, ladies and gentlemen? Do not adjust your television. We have a guest on the show today. It's Mike. We got Mike Vinikour from Stern Pinball, MXV. Hello, everybody. It's been like two years since we've done one of these. I know. Have we done like three of them? I know we did one actually in the lobby at Expo one year. And I've done at least one here. We did one here. I think the last one we did here was an audio only. So now the people are. It was audio only, yeah. Now people can see your lovely face. And if any people are watching and are new to pinball, Mike Vinikour got into pinball from the video game industry, popular for working on several Mortal Kombat games. You're a photographer. Concert photographer. Concert photographer. So don't call them for weddings. Correct, yeah. Please, no weddings. It's not my wheelhouse. Also, you're like what, a producer? You have a label? I wear many hats in life, so I've got the whole game thing, which is my full-time career. But then I do concert photography on the side. I used to promote and photograph professional wrestling. Oh, very cool. And then I used to do a fanzine and then a record label. I don't do either one. But I do a website still, which the concert photography is tied to. And what is the website so people can check it out? The Punk Vault, which is at either punkvinyl.com or punkvault.com. Either one will get you there. You've got a little redirection going on there. That's great. So, yeah, I do a lot of different stuff. But I've been in the game industry for 31 years now, 20 in video and 10 in pinball. And that has to be a record. There's no way anybody has been in the gaming industry for longer than 31 years. Well, that's not true. I'm actually the youngest of the old-timers. But, you know, like George Gomez obviously has been in it way longer than me. Lonnie D. Ropp's been at Stern, so he helped start it. So, I mean, that's 39 years. Gary. Yeah, Gary's been in it for well north of that because he's 39 years at the current Stern. He had Stern Electronics before that. Yeah, right. Basically, you're just naming people older than you. Yeah, pretty much. everybody only the everybody could start in their like 20s or whatever about 20 but how much longer they can go i started when i was 24 so i'm coming up on almost 32 years good deal well congratulations and uh we love all the work that you do uh welcome to the bat cast this is the first time we've actually had uh a guest on the bat cast as the the formula it is now where we go over the earnings report and all this stuff so it'll be good to get your commentary on the earnings report. People love the earnings report. And unfortunately, this will not be out before you go to the bat tonight. But tonight, people can play you. We're going to go to the electric bat. People can challenge you on a Stern machine, not a Stern electronics machine. It has to be a Stern pinball. I'm not uncertain. Either spike two or spike three. Sam? No. Spike two or spike three. Just spike games. Just spike games. And they can win fabulous challenge coins. Correct. The elusive MXV coin, which is one of the coolest. Normally you have to go to one of the pinball shows to do this, but since I'm here on vacation, this is a rare thing where I'm doing like a work-related thing on my vacation. Very good. So we're doing a thing at your arcade, which will be a first because I've never done this before. And there are other challenge coins. There's a Godzilla one, which is very cool. I just got one of those this weekend, this week, and other cool Sterns. Yeah, there was an Insider Connected one. That was the first one we ever did. There is one with, like, the 10P, like the UK. Yes, yeah. There was, like, a sewer cap one and one with gears. I think that was a theme towards Avengers. We can't forget our friends across the pond. So I'm going to go over some stuff, some formalities, and then we're going to get deep into it. what's coming up at the electric bat. We have a lot going on, so I had to mention some of this stuff. You had to write it down. In order. In order. I can't remember all this. You know that. Chronological order. You know that, Rachel. Oh, and this is Rachel Bess. Yeah. Hi. I'm sorry about that. How rude of me, world-famous oil painter. I also do many things, but I'm here for pinball. You're here for pinball. You're one of the founders of ZapCon, one of the great arcade conventions. Of the United States of America. Oh, wait. Let's not forget record store model. Oh, yes. Mike went record shopping, found a photo of Rachel behind the counter. Like on display. But there was no explanation. No, not. It was just hanging up there. And I didn't even notice it at first. And Kirstie's like, isn't that Rachel in that photo? What's going on? So what's coming up at the bat? Let me make sure I get this in order. So it looks like Thanksgiving at the Bat, Chewy. This Thursday, Thanksgiving. Chewy, who is famous for Chewy's world-famous all-classics Bounty Knockout. He does his Thanksgiving party. That's from 6.30 to 9 p.m. Actually, we hang out after 9 p.m. Just get there at 6.30. It's a non-sanctioned event, so it's not an IFPA event. It's just for fun, and everybody hangs out. People will probably bring snacks and what have you. Is that the format with the poker chip thing? That's not. What you're thinking of is his bounty knockout. Okay, okay. And that's the last Sunday of every month. Those are super fun. So that's also coming up in a week. There you go. A week from today. We also have Jarkade, the Miracle on Mill Avenue. And that will be December the 19th at 630. That is an IFPA-sanctioned event. So come get your Whopper points before the end of the year. But that's not all. Mark the Shark Pearson Mako Mark is throwing the Christmas classic. That's a descriptive title because it's an all classics tournament. And that is December the 21st at noon. So mark your calendars, pause, rewind, write down your notes. But we're rolling this into next year because there is the the Starfighters Pinball Festival. And we have the SPF pre-party is January the 7th at 630. So all of you folks coming in town for the weekend of fantastic pinball at Starfighters. We throw a little event. The Wednesday before. So you can get your pre-whopper points. Starfighters starts on a Thursday. We do this on a Wednesday night. Come out. It's going to be a target match play. It's a target match play. Target match play. And me and Serge will be commentating. So we'll have that fabulous commentary. And if you're not in town, you can follow along on twitch.tv slash electric bad arcade. I might have to come back to town for some of this. It all sounds super fun. It's fun because all of these top 100 players come in town. We hang out at all the arcades and have an absolute blast. And it's a real, real shindig. Yeah, it's a real fun party. It's great because we don't have to run it. we're just gonna have a blast we love that part everybody we do we love that part um let's not forget uh a marco specialties valued sponsor of the electric bad cast use check at checkout use eba150 what do they get they get free shipping on any order over 150 dollars and we have no problems getting the order up to 150 bucks no you need to add some stuff to your order call me i can throw some things recently we got a bunch a couple of fabulous boards from them recently replacement boards yeah we got for the gottlieb system one we got the um pascal the pascal board all in one board yeah it replaces everything in the in the backbox why would you not want that everything and you can get it through marco right now i don't think you can get it directly through pascal because that's in france and there's some tariffs and some shipping stuff so when marco has it in stock get it quickly because they go quickly they do something sneaky well i don't know i'm not sure what you know i'm not going to speak to how that happens but i'm just saying i can't get it directly from france but they can we don't know how it happens but it happens the sausage is made all right and then we have uh i think that's it we can get straight into the mailbag we're also to it we're also going to have your earnings report and that's what every everybody loves that's what mike's waiting for i am when i used to run the field test program at Williams Bally Midway like i lived and died by those earnings reports you I had to do the report from all the ones that would come in for the operators. That was pre-internet. Oh, yeah. They would fax me. Every arcade that I dealt with as a test location faxed me those every week. Are you kidding me? Yeah. So they'd say, Mortal Kombat, X dollars. Yeah. I would tell them, I want your top 15. Give me all your pins, too. And I need the gross earnings for the week. And then I would enter it all into this database that I had on my computer. How fantastic. And then hit the button, and it would generate a report so you could see what was your percentage of the gross for Mortal Kombat or Medieval Madness or you name it. And this was all before Internet or AI? Correct, yeah. Wow. I mean, we had email back then, but it was still mid to late 90s. It was still pretty new. So everybody was just faxing me things. And you've talked about this before, and I find this fascinating. I'm sure there are some younger folks that don't even realize this was ever a thing. pre-internet you were actually able to put games in test locations yeah months but like a couple months before we went went into production we'd put like the video games and the pinballs out there we had a select handful locally in the whole chicagoland area so in the city proper in various suburbs and we'd put them out there for at least a couple months before we would start building and shipping them to the all the arcades you know what around what time did this stop what What was like the last pinball machine that you've heard of this happening to? After Midway and Williams closed, I got out of coin op. Stern was still doing it in the early 2000s. And they would try to find really out of the way bars where the pinball people like us wouldn't know where they were, but inevitably we'd find out very quickly. And it got to the point where. People would take like Polaroid pictures. Yeah. Yeah, and before smartphones, when they had early digital cameras, they'd do that, and they'd dump the thing to the computer and post them online. Like RGP? Yeah, yeah, it was. I remember I knew people that would go do that all the time, just various pinball fans. For sure. And eventually it got to the point where you just couldn't hide stuff anymore, and the whole times and the business changed. And once smartphones came out, you definitely can't do it now. Yeah, you can't do it. You can find the most remote place on planet Earth. Somebody will find it within an hour, and 10 seconds later, it'll be all over social media. You'll have an over-the-shoulder view from Zimbabwe. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, it completely changed how business was done in that aspect. How cool is that? For decades, we did it the old way where, all right, this game's going to come out later this year, but it's ready now for testing, and we can use that information to tune the games better. Right, right. What an interesting time. uh let's let's get delve into some questions this is kind of for you rachel okay uh the first one uh who this came from mike flanagan our buddy in texas in the earnings report you do a top 10 list where do the top earning classic games fit into the overall earnings does a dolly partner eight ball ever earn close to a modern stern no it's not even close oh is it the best classic earns about which is usually eight ball unless we have a new classic in will usually earn about maybe a little bit below halfway down yeah and so there are some games in the bottom that are older modern sterns that also earn in that same area. So the best classic earns as much as the lowest performing modern. Yeah. You know, and we always talk about, you've always mentioned how much 8-ball earns, and I think I figured out what's going on. There are two older gentlemen who I've noticed they meet up every day after work and just park on 8-ball. Yeah. But it's also such a good deal because it's 50 cents for five balls. And they play all night. And they just drink. For hours. They drink PBR and play 8-Ball. That is a super fun game. I would love to have an 8-Ball and an 8-Ball Deluxe in my basement someday. And I always play the one at the bat when I come visit you guys. Yeah. I'll play that anywhere. I love that game. That's a good one. Just rip the spinner. Yeah. Light the spinner, rip it. Rip it, yeah. But it's a very challenging game. It is. But it does leave you like, oh, I almost did the thing. Almost did it. I'll go play it again. Because it has the super hungry left out lane. Oh, it's massive. You want to get that thing lit early. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Good deal. Thank you. Another question from Mike Flanagan. How many hours do you think you work in a week as a owner of the arcade? Friends of mine seem to have an unrealistic idea that putting a game on location is easy money. It's not. Spoiler. Surprise. We find ourselves constantly working, whether it's cleaning games, unjamming coin mechs, posting to social media accounts and promoting tournaments, or dealing with any number of other issues that crop up. While I'm all for more locations and places of play, I feel it's disingenuous to minimize the amount of time, money, and effort involved in maintaining successful locations. Sometimes, instead of printing money, they just seem to print Marco receipts for parts owners. after you i have an answer for this one too mine will be mine will be short but i definitely have a comment yeah i think i i would estimate that each of us works 60 hours a week plus our employees right so 120 hours between kale and i and are you counting like everything like like all the social media work i do us driving to the uh like liquor supply or food supply stores i'm not even counting the drive that's even more yeah um the yeah i but i would say but i am counting like when i'm at home doing all the back end stuff that people don't think about when they think about the glory sure of having an arcade i would say average 60 hours a week well what do you say maybe more and that's not counting like the the us like when you actually see us playing in the arcade if you She is having a good time. That's work, right? If we're not screwing around. So that's on top of that. So we're probably doing something arcade adjacent 80 hours a week. It's like two shifts at Waffle House. Yeah. What do you say, Mike? My comment would be the people that think it's easy money and you just set it and forget it, those people with that mindset who are operating, those people's games are the ones that you go to and they don't work. They've got weak flippers, they're filthy dirty, and they're not making any money. Because the reason why I filled my basement full of pinball machines in the 90s was because I couldn't go anywhere in Chicagoland to find good, plain, clean games. And I'm just like, well, screw it. I'm just going to put them in my house. And then they'll always be clean and they'll always work 100%. So it's a crazy amount of maintenance. It was then and it still is. Yeah, right. Now, you don't have to change the burned-out bulbs anymore, which is fantastic with the advent of the modern LED lighting. But still, there's still a ton of maintenance. And with the amount of play you guys get, you've got to clean them easily every week, if not more. It depends, I guess. Back when I used to help run an arcade, I would clean the pinballs every week. They don't get a fraction of the play then that you guys are getting now at your place. Isn't it crazy? We're kind of bringing it back. Yeah. Yeah. Go team. third question from our friend mike flanagan what games are high on your list that you don't have but want what games do you not have that you'd like to have man viking was kind of the last one of the games that i would i would like a harlem globetrotters we don't have that that's a fun one what about a frontier i would like a friend but they're so expensive now because because of our friend Keith Elwin he talked them up so much oh now everybody like sky skyrockets yeah yeah We got to get Keith to say that he changed his mind and he hates that game, so the bottom will drop out. Then you could get a couple of them. Classic market manipulation. Yeah. That's what we need. You know what I heard? Keith has really moved on from Frontier. He says it's just a real – Just between you and me. Yeah. He said it sucks. The last time we ever went to lunch, he told me that he couldn't believe he ever liked that thing. Yeah. And that was the most he spoke to me in the whole calendar year. So there's no real games on your radar. Man, we've gotten the games that I want. Are there any games on your list that you want? I kind of, man, nothing comes, because all the stuff that you've talked about wanting, you know what? I will, Stargazer. I would love to have a Stargazer. Yeah, we did have that for a while. It was a homemade one. It almost killed you. that's literally shocking what about you mike i know you i know you have a great home collection i do i'm trying to think of what i wish that was in your arcade do you guys have a beatles we do oh yeah that would be that would be probably top of my list for fairly recent games because that and because you guys run a lot of tournaments that's a fantastic competitive game because it doesn't play long right and um not only that you know we could switch it to the sea witch rules and use it on classics tournaments. You could, yeah. The see-which rules aren't nearly as fun, but I thought it was awesome that Dean put that feature in there, and that was totally his idea. He did that in his free time. He was like, I want to put that in there. So he did it, and then he just told us, oh, by the way, I made this thing. And then George was like, oh, put it in. That's a great idea, but he'd already done the work. Yeah, it was a two-in-one. But it's a fantastic competitive game for great players because a four-player game of, like, four top players won't take more than like 20 minutes probably. Kind of like the only other modern Stern that's along those lines is the Bond 60th. Yes, yes. That's a great compliment to like you can have two modern pins that are short players, great competitive games. For sure. Really, really fun. And I really think we need a Beatles because you're actually in the artwork. I am on the play field. Yeah, thank you to Chris Francis. I helped out with some rules on that game. How about that? That's another reason we should have it. That's a great one. we have a another question from razor quest crest by a discord when learning to troubleshoot solder etc or if you're in canada solder did you know that also in some parts of canada it's not decal it's decal that's what that's what we've heard i learned that selling our neighbors stickers So are there any platforms or years of pins that are more noob technician friendly my current mindset is to get any machine i enjoy and deal with the troubles as they come along but i also want to learn fast i always say classic Bally classic stern it's less expensive the parts are readily available they're big they're easy to solder in they're um you know it's kind of like the fisher price version i think everything is big and visible what do you say mike what's it easy easy platforms to work on for beginners that rachel probably nailed it i would say though when you get beyond beginner and you want to learn how to do like a play field swap on a game oh yeah do it on an attack from ours oh wow really though i've done a bunch of play field swaps in my time mostly on williams 90s games in my own collection Well, most of them have now moved along to new owners. Yeah. I did. Most of them took north of 40 hours. In fact, all of them did, except I did attack from Mars in 24 hours. Wow. Did you have a lot of caffeine? No, I didn't do it straight. 20 total time, 24 hours. I was done in two and a half days. Amazing. On the calendar time. Wow. So I did like 10 hours, 10 hours, four hours. I feel like Nitro Ground Shaker took that long for me, but probably 15 of those hours was chasing down a short. The older the game, the harder the play field swap is. I will tell you the longest, most tedious one for me for the longest time was Pinbot because nothing's connectorized on that era. So there's a lot more like soldering. Yeah, and it's a lot more labor-intensive to take that thing apart and move it over and replace things because I'd replace as much as humanly possible when I did a play field swap to make it be as new in box when I was done. For sure. I'd replace every post. I'd replace all the plastics, the rubber rings. I'd rebuild every mech. Anything I could do while it's apart, it's so much easier to do on a bench. So rebuild everything as you go. And that was your machine, right? Those were my personal machines. Do you still own that machine? No. I had them for decades I've sold off most of my Williams games I have three left and one is up for grabs whoever wants to give me enough money I have a prototype funhouse that's immaculate and the first person that gives me enough money to get rid of it, it's gone that was my first game I need the money where can people get in touch with you you can email me I'm easy to find reach out to me via social media I guess, or you can email me even at Stern, even though that's not Stern business. We'll make it Stern business. But the first person who wants to give me Ted Grant for it can take it home, and they get all the extras I have for it, too. That sounds like a good deal, because aren't the remakes more expensive than that? Probably, and mine's a prototype, so there's actual physical differences in there that are noticeable. What a prize. I've got a couple extra plastic sets that I'll throw in with it and whatever. I got a spare Rudy head assembly, mostly full. There's enough. And you probably signed the cabinet. I didn't work on the game. It doesn't matter. But underneath, on the underside of the play field, there's the engineering notes written on the play field next to the Rudy Mac for the changes they made along the way because this was a prototype. That's rad. Did the games, I know Modern Sterns have, what would you call it, like code names, project names? Yeah, we have code names for every project we work on. Did those older games have that also? We didn't do that at Williams. No. Okay. Funhouse was Funhouse. Funhouse was Funhouse, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because sometimes you throw people off because I know, wasn't Stranger Things Goonies? Yes. Yeah. And Jurassic Park was Jaws. Yes. And when it kind of leaks a little, people are like, oh, they're doing Goonies. They usually will say the code. code name on the pre on the playfields it's usually the sticker which still says the code names you know and i know um king kong was rodeo yeah yeah because i think it was like Greg Freres's last rodeo or something like that and that's where the name came from the name came um yeah but it was funny when we were doing a uh rachel and i and a bunch of other that you know they call us pin influencers now that's a that's a thing is it just pinfluencer influencers yes Yeah, they brought us all into the factory, and we did a tour for John Wick. And they said they brought us into some room they don't usually bring people into, and there were, like, blueprints out. I guess it was, like, printouts of CAD drawings. Yeah. And so I'm paying close attention. I was like, oh, this is a mech I've never seen before. And it said, in parentheses, Rodeo. And I'm telling everybody, this is, like, something new, guys. And nobody paid attention to it, and it turned out to be King Kong. King Kong, yeah. I forget what the Wick. oh wicks i think was waffles it was waffles yeah that's correct yeah fun times uh second question from razor crest are there any youtube channels books or forums that are helpful to learn how to troubleshoot pins before routing and opening up an arcade i'd love to hear more about your journey learning how to maintain and work on pins well number one is the electric back ass yeah i would start here um i would start here as well uh now i don't even know if you can still find this book and it just happens to be on the coffee table weird this is a book that got me started and it's called pinball machine care and maintenance by bb was that camera off that that's what it says this is the second edition i got this when i worked at marco specialties you know they used to hand this to you to customer service like when you started when you started working this And it's really funny because Rachel was flipping through it, and some of the stuff might be a little out of date. Yeah. But it's still a fun journey through the history of pinball repair. It's kind of a fun read, but there's some stuff in there that I wouldn't necessarily. I would still pick it up. It's a good one. Call Marco and see if they have a copy. Make sure you put that back in the bathroom after this so I can read it later. Right. Right. The stuff that I read, because now there's a bunch of YouTube stuff available, but a long time ago there wasn't. But there was Vids Guides on Pinside, and I used to use those for Vids Guide to Flippers, Vids Guide to whatever. Those were very helpful to me. And then I think I was just thrown to the wolves after that. Yeah, there was before Pinside, there was that guy Joshua Clay. yes i did read though i had i had a printout Joshua Clay harold Joshua Clay harrell from michigan from the vfw up there yeah he put together these really fantastic guides and they were like guides for every era every era so here's your wpc guide and here's your gotley is that still online i don't know what happened with that like he got mad at the whole world at one point and then took him down and then put him behind a paywall or something and i don't know if they they've got to exist out there somewhere, but I've lost touch. And at this point, they've become so dated compared, like you can find those same resources easier, like in multiple places now, including this podcast. You know, they say if you stay in pinball long enough, you learn to hate everybody. I mean, I've been around it my whole life and I don't hate almost anyone. Yeah, right. Very small handful. In fact, in pinball, I think the percentage of people I like in pinball is greater than most of the circles in my life. Right, right. There's so many nice, awesome people I've met through all of this. Absolutely. I kid. This is a great community. This is a fantastic community. I mean, you guys are a testament. We've been friends now for a number of years. It feels like a lifetime. It does, yeah. Now, like, it's been long enough. And for an eight-year-old, it would be. That's right. But, I mean, it's been long enough where, like, I don't remember much of not, like, a time that I didn't know you two. Right, right. And we were really good friends. But it was because of this that we met, and we just hit it right off. Yeah, yeah. It feels good. Some other resources. I'll go to Pinside. Also, a lot of people are chatting about repairs and stuff in our Discord. Yeah. If you want to join our Discord, head over to electricbatarcade.com, click on the podcast tab, and then you'll have a link to all kinds of ways to listen and watch the podcast, plus join our Discord. There's almost 500 people in there chatting it up, having a good time. Because the trick is really to know who to listen to and who not to listen to. If you post something on Pinside, somebody that started like three weeks ago, So you've got some Dunning-Kruger stuff going on where people think they know everything, then they know very little, then you follow someone's advice who you mistakenly think knows what they're talking about, and all of a sudden you've just chat GPT'd your way into getting shocked real good and blowing a board. Some good people I'll do some name dropping if you can find and make friends with, and they're very approachable, awesome people. Pirate Chris from Pinball Pirate. He's a genius. That guy is probably the most mad genius when it comes to fixing anything that I've ever met. T.J. Beyer, also from the same area out there in the Bay Area. Yeah. Super awesome. If you take T.J. to In-N-Out Burger or to Waffle House, he'll, just like me, but he can teach you way more than me. And he loves helping people. He loves people's games working. Even Kyle, who now works at Stern. Kyle Spateri, he's really smart with that stuff. And he worked for Pirate Crest many years ago. I've learned so much from Kyle. Yeah. Always be tightening. Back when we were on the road. Yep. Always be tightening is something he got from the pirate. Good deal. This is a question. This is a great question. I wanted to address this because so many people have asked this. This one hits home. This is from Riley M via Discord. With the news I read today about the plaza, he's talking about Donnell Plaza. Oh, where Electric Bat is located. The plaza where we exist. Yucca Taproom. What's the future of the bat? Stays there at Yucca or moves? And what he's talking about, I'm not there have been so many articles. But and then in those folks who aren't familiar with the area that Electric Bat is in, we are in what is basically a time warp. It is a as a strip mall that has been completely untouched since the late 60s. maybe 70s but yeah yeah yeah well mostly untouched they filled in that pool that from where the skate park used to be and that's a cool story that's not the only touching that happened everything else is like looks like it came right out in 1960 you know when we go there i'm gonna have to show you where it was yeah please do there was a there was a skate park like in the late 70s 80s maybe early 90s that the uh a very very cool story because half of it was indoors because if you've been in arizona during the summertime you you literally cannot go outside you'll die so half of the skate park was inside the other half was a pool that was outside and when the place shut down they filled the pool in with dirt the kids jumped the fence dug all of the dirt out of the pool continued to skate it so then the city came in and with backhoes and broke up the concrete there is a photo in the exhibit right now at the tempe museum that we went to the other day that was shot outside, and you could see the facade of where the electric bat and the other tap was. Oh, wow. You could recognize it instantly if you know what the facade of the building looks like. Yeah. And I think the unit we're in, it used to be many things, but it was like TV repair or auto parts. It's been a lot of things, but Walt's TV and Appliance was in that plaza. Capistrano's Deli was where the lounge is now. You can still kind of smell it. I wish there was a deli in that complex. That would be great. Get a nice Italian. Yeah. Go play some games. Anyhow, getting a little off topic here, there are talks of redeveloping and a much needed redevelopment of this plaza. And there's no real time frame. You have to go through approvals with the city. You have to make sure that the folks that live around the neighborhood are comfortable with whatever because there's they're worried about traffic and what have you, because there's going to be some major changes. But as of right now, Yucca Taproom and Electric Bat are going to be the entertainment hub of this new complex. Yes, we have. Yes. So our plans are we're not leaving. Yeah, so whenever construction starts, and this has been talked about for years and years and years, so construction may start tomorrow and it may start in four years. We have no idea, but please keep coming. We'll still be open. I think they should bring a skate park back to that complex. Yeah, we really need to. That would be awesome. Now, I don't know if you've seen the 3D renderings of what's going on. I have not. So our building would be untouched, and they're going to have, like, where the parking lot is now, a courtyard. So you'd be able to walk around in that area, and you can have live entertainment. With your beer. It's going to be an outdoor. So that whole middle is where we all park our cars. The first two rows, like the first section of the parking lot is going to be slated for outdoor green area, but then the rest of that is going to be still parking. And then I don't know if there's parking garages in the back. All of this stuff is yet to be determined. Yeah. But part of the plan is to actually bring in an apartment with a four-story parking garage. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's a big deal. Yeah. And it would be great for the area. I agree. Yeah. I like the area, too. Yeah. And you've got a record store literally next door to you and one across the street. Yeah. So it's a great place to go. For sure. For sure. Well, the storm, we've already actually started some construction, kind of forced the hand of the landlord because the storm tore off the roofs and the facades. So now we're getting some new facades. Electric Bat may, within a few months, actually have a sign. We've never had a sign that says Electric Bat. Just what you painted on the one door is the only thing. But we might have a sign like a regular business. That would be cool. And that's in the plan. I saw the sketches. That's in the plans. but I always thought it was cool that we didn't have a sign. It reminds you of one of those clubs in New York where it just has this sign. Or like even Logan Arcade. That comes from the Logan Hardware sign. So they don't really have a sign. They're using what was pre-existing stuff. Will the sign be like a lighted sign and will it just look exactly like Cale's shirt? Because that would be awesome. We don't know yet. But we will give them your input. Please. Let's go back to another question. This is from our friend Lauren via Discord. Lauren is a local life coach, very successful in that field. How many people does it take to run the bat smoothly? And second question, would you consider doing a spotlight slash special guest appearance to interview some of your staff, partners, et cetera? How many people does it take, Rachel? Well, if you count the bar, I think we have nine employees. I think people will be surprised. Yeah. And it takes everybody. Yeah, it takes. It's not. We don't have any. There's no dead weight on the roster. There's no skeleton crew. But for sure, me and you. Shopple. Yeah. Very, very important. John Shopple. Unstoppable John Shoppable. Unstoppable. Yeah. Patrick Swayze running the bar Taking over some of that And yeah really everybody Is important Mark Pearson Yeah I would say of our nine employees It takes nine employees Sky Yeah because everybody does different things Everybody has different specialties And also the crew from Yucca Tap Room We all pitch in and help each other out Yeah so officially Like on our payroll there's nine people. But then there's also another probably nine people on the Yucca payroll that help us out with all the security stuff. I mean, just everything else. Some more like payroll type, all kinds of stuff. So a lot. The answer is a lot. Starting this business right now, I don't think we could even start this business with fewer than eight employees. Wow. So there you go. I know when I'm over there with you guys, you two are running around constantly. And they're like, where do they go? I just want them to hang out with me. And you can't. We can't hang out. Because you're constantly busy. With 60-something pinball machines and video games, you're constantly on your feet. And a bar. And a bar. We stopped by there earlier before we started recording this. And within 90 seconds of us both walking through, I lost both of you. I'm like, hey, can you let me in the office? That's where the bathroom was. Right, right. Right, right. uh that was great that was great uh oh and he said uh what was the second question would you consider doing a spotlight special guest appearance to interview some of your staff partners etc absolutely yeah let's do it well you spotlight shoppel almost every week when he wins one of the various tournaments yeah the whole uh him and serge do an interview uh it's you know um The most recent finals, Mark Pearson did an incredible job and won it. So he got to do an interview with Serge, and we listened to that whole thing. That's fabulous. If you want to check it out, go check the VOD on our Twitch channel. It's right there. It's our last stream. Yeah. This is a good one from Scoots via Discord. Oh, no. Actually, before that, Auto F-Line via Discord. This is a really cool one because I bet we'll all have some input on this. And actually, I'm going to read both of the questions because they kind of fit together. That's kind of interesting you put them back to back, maybe for that reason. So one question from Auto Offline. And Bat Cast Curiosity, do you guys take any measures to prevent or to preserve the value of the games like play field protectors? And also, this is from Scoots via Discord. Do you do you use cabinet wear protectors near the flipper buttons at the bat? Mylar, metal, et cetera. I noticed that issues have developed on two of the sterns in my personal collection. a small bit of art has worn away on one and there's a small tear in the art on the other my games don't have a ton of play so i was wondering if you take any precautions so that those kind of uh fit together um we we don't do anything almost nothing there are a few games that we have uh like scoop protectors on but we usually don't add anything until it becomes apparent that it really needs to be added we don't do it preventatively um you know some people kept telling me that i needed to put some mylar in the shooter lane mylar in the shooter lane so we try that so finally i like all right fine i will put some mylar on the shooter lane as soon as we get the game in So I do that But our games get so much play that it like pulls up the Mylar and then it like makes this weird like ridge so the ball will get like stuck on the Mylar in the shooter lane So I stopped doing that. I would rather just have the patina of a well-loved game. Yes. And if you need to replace some parts down the line, replace them. And if you get that wear around the flipper button, cool. That means people love this game. For me, the side art, like the cabinet wear on the sides never bother me because I never see it when they're sandwiched between other games. My games in my basement are literally a couple inches apart. I have to move, angle them outward if I have to get between them to service one. Sure, sure. So if the cabinets got like damage Of the stickers or back in the old days When they were screen printed I never cared because I don't see them anyway It was much more important to me as a collector and a player Let my games look really good under the glass And play correctly I'll add Mylar to some of my games But never in the shooter lane like ever Just like if there Happened to not be Mylar Where there's a ball drop out of a ramp or something For some strange reason I would add that We do add that Yeah and that's about the extent that I'll go on my personal games And if I was operating games, it would be the same thing. Sure, sure. And no, and then we don't do any, you know, the play field protectors, like the clear mylar. I hate those things because the games don't play right after. They play totally different. You're playing on a sheet of plastic now, and then the ball behaves totally differently. Right. To me, it ruins the experience. It's a slip and slide for people. It is. Absolutely. That's a perfect analogy. That's what I've noticed. The ball doesn't actually roll. It slides. It slides, yeah. and it doesn't and there's a reason why we make games for meant longer than i've been alive we've made them the same minus the clear coat that you know that started in the 90s right they have to be made out of wood many companies have tried other materials out of a play field and nothing ever worked so which is why we still do it on wood which so you have like orbiter one right that's plastic right or some type of resin so there was some sort of plastic i think it was like it was like molded plastic right because it's like all and i remember reading about and i think it was only prototypes there was like there was like an eight ball or eight ball deluxe or some some game like that that actually the prototypes had plastic playfields yeah the chat will correct me on that but um over the years you know companies have tried acrylic you know plastic you name it probably glass for all i know i don't know that to be true nothing's better than wood right and wood is the is the magic of the ball and how the physics of a steel ball on wood works yes and so importantly I've heard George Gomez talk about this, and I think even like Keith Elwin, the sound is an important signature of pinball. I 100% agree with that statement. Right. So metal on wood, metal on metal, like a metal ramp. The sound is part of pinball. Also, whenever we get classic games, which we have a lot of, they come to us not always in perfect shape. and we'll clean them and wax those to keep them in as good of shape as possible. But you'll see, like on our blackjack, it came to us less than perfect and now it's slightly less than perfect. But all of the important information is visible and I think it just adds character to the machine. It's not blown out and it plays beautifully. So as long as it plays right and you can read the stuff on the play field that you need. If you're buying a new-in-box modern game, whether it be Stern or whoever, if you clean it every week and replace the balls at least a couple times a year, if you're operating it at home, depending on how often you play, it could go a couple of years. That's the best preventative maintenance you can do because a beat-up ball is going to chew up your play field, whether it's clear-coated or not, very quickly. But a ball in excellent shape won't. And if you keep it clean, it's not going to wear as much. You don't need to have to wax a modern game because the clear coat there protects it. I would wax an 80s game that had no clear coat for sure. It gives it a layer of protection. But keep it clean, replace the balls, replace the rubbers. That's the best maintenance you could do to have the thing look as good as it can. I've seen modern sterns that were operated and have 100,000 plays that if you clean them again, they look like they're still pretty close to new because if you take good care of it. Yeah, for sure. I love seeing a game that is worn out. Maybe the scoop is a little worn out. The shooter lane is a little worn out. It's broken in. Yeah, but it shows how many times people have had a good time playing it. It reminds me of Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar. That thing is just beat up. You can see exposed wood. It shows somebody loved this thing and played it over and over again. And it always, I get a chuckle when I see our Godzilla, because it's one of our modern Sterns that has the most amount of plays. The graphics are wearing off around the buttons, and the finish is wearing off around the lock bar. And I think it just looks so cool, because the game plays perfectly. There's nothing wrong with it. And under the glass, it still looks perfectly good. And it functions perfectly well. And it just makes me think, you know, now when you see, you know, games like Creature from the Black Lagoon or something of that era, and they all look worn out, like they've been played unless they've been completely shopped and somebody did a play field swap. Right. But it just, you think of like all the years of maybe it was in the 7-Eleven or Showbiz Pizza and people have had fun with it. And it just, I just think about that Godzilla, what it's going to look like in 20 years. It's going to be very cool. Yeah. And if we were to ever sell a game, which we're not good at doing, we kind of just buy, then it's like this is the game from the bat. Yeah, yeah. Do you want to get into the earnings report? Why, certainly. And what? I happen to have this used envelope. What? That's some good ASMR. Yeah, I'll start. Yeah. They're going to start whispering, the earnings report. And you've got to really accentuate the T. Yeah, right. Earnings. What month is this from? This is from October. And we're in November. We are in November now. So this is the October earnings report. And the way we do this. Now, is this for the month? For the whole month. We start with 10, and we work our way up to the winner. To the numero. They're all winners. Everything's a winner. Can I ask a question? Absolutely. Do you guys collect every week? Do you collect every other week? Do you collect once a month? How do you normally do it? Collect tokens versus audits. Well, both. Audits I do once a month. Audits I do on the first of the month. So all of this information is from the first to the first. Okay. Tokens we collect some games more than once a week. Some games, once a week is about the longest we'll let a coin box go because they will back up and not take any more money. Now, do you do it old school like I used to do it when I ran an arcade in the 90s where I pull the cash box, I bring it to the back, I put it in this coin counting gimmick, and I spin the thing, and it's like, all right, there was 500 tokens in there. Or do you just go off the game audits? We just go off the game audits and we just dump all of the coin boxes into buckets and then sort the quarters out from the tokens. But we don't do any counting of tokens. We just go off audits because that would be insane to count that many tokens. That was my Friday morning every week at the arcade was I'd come in a couple hours early and I'd pull every cash box out of the game. And I'd go around the shopping cart with this coin counter. Wow. So I'd stop at every game, put it in there, spin the thing for however many minutes it took. And then write on the sheet. And then the counter would say whatever the number was, like say 100. And then write on the sheet, okay, 100. It was times whatever the token value was. And then I'd have to write out so I knew how much each game earned every Friday. Did you guys use like the marker tokens, some that were painted? We didn't at Just Games, but I've been to places that did that. You know about that. They'd color them in red, and that would take them out of the count because that was like either the comp owner or it was usually a refund. You know, we get a lot of quarters, and I still find those markers. Well, I've found black ones, blue ones. I'm sure not just the arcade scene, but laundromats would do that. And if you ever get a quarter and it's colored or it has some enamel paint that you see as nail polish or whatever. Yeah, worn off over the years. That's like a marker token or marker quarter where back in the day an operator would issue it as a refund. And that's so when you do your final count, you would know that was a refund. Right. Otherwise, they'd think that the game made that many more quarters. Okay. Here we go. Number 10. Actually, I have two things. This is for October. For the spooky month of October. I have two separate sheets. I have a second because there was a request for the order of like someone asked about music pens and how much they make relative to other pens. This will be interesting. Because you always hear about music pens. And so I have that. So where do we start? Right now we're starting with just the plain old vanilla October earnings. But we're starting off with a music pen. Number 10 is Metallica Remastered. what a great pen i love that machine did you work on that i did the expression light shows in it how about that we do you guys have expression lights i was just about to say i'm embarrassed to say we don't those games with us if they would have fit in the suitcase and i knew you needed some i would have asked um to me and now take it with a slight gain of salt since i'm the guy that does those light shows the games to me look completely naked without them and um i think that they should be mandatory like you got to put them in there so right spent like call ups you know you're whoever you deal with at my company for sure and get some please absolutely it's like a rock concert under glass and that was the whole goal that's why they were invented did you also program the topper lights the topper lights read my light show data and so it it's a continuation so it's the same light shows happen on the top of the speaker lights and the expression light very cool i did the expression lights ray programmed uh you know did his magic he's programming magic to be able to read the data from my light shows and then you know mirror it on the speakers and the top unbelievable and tanya did the same thing on foo fighters okay and um and for rush and rush for sure it was the same thing yeah um and probably on led zeppelin for the speaker lights the top i didn't think had that many lights i don't remember what it looked like But yes, that's the long answer. That's the long answer. The TLDR, yes. Number nine, John Wick. Oh, that's fantastic. Now let me ask you this. Did in the post... Mike worked on John Wick. Yeah. That's why. Not at the beginning. So Lonnie, Rob, and I took over John Wick a few months ago, and we changed a great many things in it. Since the Lonnie and Mike era of Wick, has the earnings gone up, down, stayed the same? I'm like, give me some history there. Well, so I looked at this information because I wanted to be able to tell you, but then I realized that we had had it as the game of the month some months, and then, yes, it went up, but it skewed. I can't give you pure data on that. And for those of you who don't know, the game of the month, we installed the Tops tournament game. It's like a cash game. And so, of course, those months it would bring in more money. Right. But the player feedback, I know, has been much better, right? Like they're loving the game 100% before. Yes. And that was the goal. It still is because we still have to finish it. And then another thing is Serge had done an explanation of the rules. And whenever he explains a game, that game gets people go and play now that they understand all the rules. So it got a bump from that. And then also when you guys did that major code update, of course, it got a huge bump then. So we don't have enough great data. So, yes, it's gone up. I can't tell you if that's – And another thing, the contracts. Yes. That made a huge difference. Yes. And we'll do those again at some point as well. We love seeing it. They're fun to do. Because it would do a push – it was the first game that had push notifications. Yeah. And we would see people, like, pull into the parking lot, like, squeak, and, like, run in because they were limited. Yeah. And what was cool about it is it tied in thematically with the John Wick movies where when he was excommunicado and they all wanted to kill him, they were all getting these notifications on their phones. They were like, oh, there's a contract out on John Wick. Let's go try to kill him. You know, on Pimpow Surge, so much talks about theme immersion. And I can't think of greater theme immersion than that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll do that again at some point. I can't say when. Yeah, you'll tell me later. Also, it'll probably fall in my lap to come up with what those goals are. So I've got to come up with some new ones and then pitch it to the guys. Very cool. Can't wait. Yeah, that will be great. I'll let you know whenever we have some major bills coming. Yeah, yeah. If you can help us out. And then I'll be like, hey, can we do some contracts? I designed them. All you have to do is whatever magic you do under the hood to make it happen. Exactly. Here's what they are. All right. excuse me, number eight, Pulp Fiction. Oh, and that pretty much sits in the top ten. Yes. That's a great game. It is a fun game. Yeah. It's consistently up there. And I can't wait for their next one. I think their CGC, Raw Thrills, and Play Mechanics, they're doing a great job. Yeah, Pulp Fiction is a game that we see a lot of people, both Pulp Fiction and John Wick, people flock to just based on the theme, not knowing anything about the game. So some people just like games with bad words in them. I was about to say, they love the call-outs. Yeah, the profanity. I'm one of those people, so I'm all in. Right. Give me some profanity, because now they talk like I do, especially when I'm playing pinball. It makes you feel comfortable. I'm amongst my people. Expletive, expletive, expletive, left and right. I have an idea for some John Wick updates. If somebody gets a drain within X number of seconds, there should be like a goddamn... Oh, yeah, yeah. That would be funny. I mean, if that happens to me later tonight at the bat, you'll get that, just from the guy standing in front of the game playing, which will be me. All right, number seven, King Kong. I love that game. You know, I say this all the time. this is my favorite layout by Keith, probably by anybody, because if this game had no rules at all, I would just have fun shooting it. Yeah, it's super fun to shoot. With all the different ball paths. Yeah. I think that's probably my favorite Keith, Team Elwynn game, first being Godzilla, which is my favorite game, period. We can't forget the great team behind them. Oh, it's a fantastic team. Yeah, Team Elwynn, I mean, they've hit a home run every time they stepped up to the plate. Yeah. Speaking of Team Elwynn, number six is Jaws. Another banger. I love that game. Isn't it great? If I had money today, like enough money today, I have the space, ironically, and just no extra cash, I would buy a King Kong and a Jaws premium both to put next to my Godzilla premium that I already own. Now, riddle me this. Let's say you had space for two games, Jaws and King Kong, but you only had enough money to get one premium and one pro? That's a tough one. I think I'm buying one premium and I'm saving money to get the... I'm not buying a pro. The pros of both of those are fantastic games. Yeah. But for just my personal taste, and this is not MXV's stern employee trying to show, this is MXV, the guy that's played games since he could touch the buttons. Since 50 years of playing games, right? I was six when I started. I like the experience on the premium on those particular games so much more. For you, it's all or nothing. Yeah, it's all or nothing. But if you're like, hey, your life ends tomorrow if you don't do the Sophie's Choice. Gun to your head. Gun to my head. I think I'm going pro on the Kong. But, man, it's so hard because – You like the gong. I love the gong. I love the train, physical ball. As somebody that invented a rule that requires a physical ball lock, which is swipe a ball. They don't have it in Kong, but I'm a huge fan of physical ball locks. And, gosh, maybe I go Kong Premium and Jaws Pro then. It's tough. I can't do it. Like, maybe I just die with knowing that All I Had was the Best Premium. You don't want anything. All right, number five, Big Buck Hunter, the shooter. The video game. The video game. The raw thrills, the play mechanics. People love that because it's so easy to play, and it's full of all kind of great adventures. You have Walking Dead, zombies. You can shoot monsters. You don't have to just go hunting. That's right. You do have to go hunting, just not for animals. There you go. Number four, Evil Dead. Spooky and the Gang. Spooky and the Gang. And we're looking forward to getting their latest addition to the lineup, which is Beetlejuice. Yes. Probably sometime in February. Yeah, we're thinking January, February, we will have Beetlejuice on the floor. Yeah, Mark Pearson's going to buy that. And I just found out he also ordered the topper. Yes, that's important. So we can talk to the game. We need that spooky speak. Yeah. Number three, Godzilla. My favorite pinball now of all time. Not just yours. Yeah. Is that game ever out of the top five? No. Maybe not out of the top three. It may have been like fourth One month if we had like two brand new games Come out something may have happened But it is Consistently top three for years Now so that's Geez buy a Godzilla Yeah Any Godzilla no you would say premium Premium all day on that game But the pro is a fantastic game We have the pro right here The pros are home the premium is at the arcade I've only in the room that we're sitting in They've got two machines and the only one I played was the Dungeons and Dragons. We had a blast. I have a play field even at home for that game and I have a Godzilla premium in my basement. You notice we have the D&D premium at the house. I know. I love it. It's so good. Number two, with two weeks only on the floor, we have Star Wars Fall of the Empire. So it got second place with half of the time. On behalf of the rest of the team who did far more than I did thank you I love the game It my favorite movie of all time I was really proud that I got to work on it Ray and Andrew just nailed it what they did with the modes and stuff And, yeah, those guys just killed it. And Ray is in our Discord, so it's been very fun. If people have questions about anything, they may ask us in our Discord, and Ray Day will pop in there with the answer. I love both of those guys. They were super fun to work on a game with. I love John Borg. Right, right. So, yeah, it's a great game. And like I said, my favorite movie in the history of my life. Yes. Nothing will ever top it. It's like Star Wars, which now people call Episode IV. The first three. Yeah, the original trilogy to me are my three favorite movies. But the first of the three, you know, Star Wars, A New Hope, that's my favorite movie of all time. And nothing's ever going to beat that. Right. You know, it's probably because of my age. um my favorite was return of the jedi uh well you're a few years younger than me so that would that would that tracks as my girlfriend would say i think if i think me and my friends were around like first or second grade when it came out so we we got all the toys the rancor monster um and it was cool because uh luke was wearing he luke was dark he was wearing a black outfit which was cool yeah and then now the the old school star wars fans didn't like this because my thought the Ewoks were great. I liked the Ewoks. And I'm, what am I, six years on you? Yeah. Yeah, I liked them. But a lot of people my age now, I tell you, that's revisionist history. Because in 1983, whenever that movie came out, everybody was all in on all of it. I'm like 12 years old, I think 12 or 13 when Return of the Jedi came out. Rode my bike with my best friend to the theater to go see it on opening day for a show. For probably like a buck, right? It was like two bucks back then. When I saw the original Star Wars A New Hope in the theater, I think it was like a buck and a half. Amazing. For the nighttime shows, the matinees were like a dollar. You know, when me and my friends went to go see Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in New Orleans, they were running a special. I'll never forget it. It was 50 cents. Wow, that's awesome. Yeah, isn't that great? I saw Star Wars A New Hope ten times the first year it was out in the theater. I had my second, my birthday party in 1977. I don't know how old I was, like seven or eight. I think I turned eight. Yeah, eight. My birthday party, like my parents took me and all the kids at the party to the theater to see Star Wars. Wow. And we probably went to McDonald's like after. Yeah, of course. That was how we did it back then. It was, yeah. Like greatest movie in my life of all time. Yeah. I watch it at least a couple times a year. Star Wars and Happy Meal. And fun fact on the new Star Wars game we just did, I chose all the movie clips and I had to cut them all up. So how do you plan for that? I tried to lean heavily on stuff we didn't do in the last in the Steve Ritchie slash Dwight Sullivan Star Wars. That's impossible to do 100 percent because it's the same three movies. but there was quite a bit of things that I wished were in that game that weren't that I was able to include in this game. And then some things you had to have, like you had to blow up the test start no matter which version. Yes. So you sit down with, I think I have another water for you. I got one right up to here. So you sit down with three DVDs, is that how it works? And a notepad? no i sit down in front of a computer in premiere and i chop it the whole movie up into the clips that you see in the game unbelievable okay and i spent probably more than a month on those three movies like watching them through i mean i can recite almost every script to those three yeah like you know you know without right and twice but i watched them and then i went back and then I'm like, all right, now I'm going to start cutting them. So I watched each one twice immediately again. And I watched those movies easily twice a year no matter what since they've been on home video. And then I just think in my head because I know them so well, I already had an idea. Like I want to make – these things would probably make good modes. And then I gave Ray and Andrew way more than they needed. And so like if we had done everything that I had cut up and we were allowed to use – if we were allowed to use it all and some stuff we were and some stuff we weren't um there would have been even more modes in that game than there currently are like right those guys pared it down to like all right each main character only needs three different modes they had to reel you in they don't need like like luke skywalker doesn't need like seven modes right right now uh refresh my memory um a buff like you would know this um the original version we saw as kids actually i was probably too young to actually see star wars in the movie theater yeah um that version is only available on laser disc is that true that is correct well yes and no it was originally only on laser disc there was a special edition of the dvds not blu-rays we're talking standard dvds of each of those movies that had it as a bonus feature but they didn't do anything to them so they they were just literally a rip of the laser disc wow and they did it i like to think they did a poor job on purpose because they were you know just to shut people up like look we gave you what you wanted right like they weren't even like anamorphic widescreen widescreen so you had to like zoom on them when you played them on a on a you know like an hdtv because the thing would be like in the middle and it'd be you know a quarter of the screen yeah you have to blow it up and it just looked bad wow um so that's but that was the only way to get those uh was either the laser disc in that black box which i still own by the way yeah and and that particular set of dvds now i hate to put you on the spot like this but i'm going to ask you the most difficult question who shot first well in the real world uh you know han shot first but in the version of the movie in the disney version well it wasn't it was even pre-disney right because george lucas's revision of it they changed it to where Greedo shot first. Yeah. And we had to use what they told us we had to use, which was the newer versions of the movie. Interesting. Yeah. So in that scene in our game, Greedo shot first. Wow. But now we know both sides of the story. Right, right. And now you know. Did that kind of pain you to do? Oh, 100%. Yeah. I'm like, this is wrong. This is not canon. This is wrong. Yeah. It's not my canon, right? It's any longtime Star Wars fan, probably not that canon, but I can't – we have to do what the licensor says. Here's how you use our stuff. Here's what you're allowed to use. Here's your source material. So it wasn't a discussion that nobody could even ask. They're just like, here's your stuff that you get, and that's what we had to run with. But in my mind, I'm like, oh, man, if I could swap them out. maybe you could have it like where one shot makes it han and the other one makes it guido whichever one you shoot first everything we do in every game we do has to get approved by the licensor so there's no sneaking it by anybody we would never attempt such a thing sure sure we play by the rules that we're given and that project is and every other project we have ever done like okay here's what here's what we're allowed to do we have to follow the rules to the letter yeah uh You mentioned Raymond Davidson being in our Discord. He gave us a pro tip this week, which was literally a pro Star Wars pro tip. Pro model tip. How meta can you get? Let's do a deep dive. It's turtles all the way down, Rachel. um he said that uh you know when they ship the machines they opened up the the left out lane to kind of get the ball to go in the left out lane more so you can do that that force save on the premium or le on the but it's also in the pro so he said in the pro just go ahead and tighten it so move move it one down um you know to what would you call it make it more conservative in old school pinball talk. Right? Because they'll say like more liberal, more conservative. You've seen that in like manuals. I'd say more liberal would be that it's more forgiving. Conservative would mean you want the ball times to be shorter. Okay. That's how my brain works. Let's go with that then. Tighter. It makes it smaller. Yeah, like conservative ball time would be open it up more so they drain more. Gotcha. More liberal ball times, right, where then you would make it, you'd move that post down to make that gap smaller. I tightened it up. I made it more liberal. And I tried it out to see if it was any different. I destroyed the Death Star. And you want to talk about a moment in pinball. That was the most amazing thing. Because the flippers die, the Death Star explodes, and it really looks beautiful on that new screen. It does. In the Spike 3. Yeah. And that was an amazing adventure. So thanks, Ray Day, for helping Cale destroy the Death Star. Yes, it worked. And so if you have a pro, tighten up those up. Tighten it up. Tighten it up a lot. A pro tip from a pro. There you go. About a pro. On a pro. Yes. Do you want to know what the number one game was? I do. No, let's just end it now. Tune in next week and we'll tell you the number one. It was the Papa Shot Elite basketball game. Holy crap. This was the first full month that we've had on basketball. Uh-huh. And it won. It beat out every pinball machine in the joint. That game is... That surprises me. I mean, those things are super fun. Yeah. Don't get me wrong, but you have such a pinball-heavy arcade, right? Because you do all the events. I'm surprised that a pinball wasn't number one. But you figure there's 65-ish, 66 pinball machines on the floor. There's only one pop-a-shot. There's one basketball game. Yeah, yeah. So the pop-a-shot gets 100% of the basketball fans. Wait, do you have an NBA Jam? No. Well, sometimes the video game is in there. Is it in there right now? I feel like it was there one time that I've been in town. I don't know about now. I didn't spend enough time in there yet. I don't know if you've seen this new machine. It's called the Pop-A-Shot Elite. You can log in, much like Stern Insider Connected, and it keeps your scores, your average scores. There's a leaderboard. There's a worldwide leaderboard. I didn't know any of this. I saw it when we were walking out earlier, and I'll have to play it when we go back tonight. Yeah, we'll play it. I challenge you to a game of Pop-A-Shot. Okay, no coin will be involved. This will just be for bragging rights. It's so much fun. And thank you to our friends at Pop-A-Shot. You know what? I need to ask them. We need one for the house. Oh, God. No. You know they make a tiny one? Oh, okay. That's kind of like. Wait, does Ryan watch the show? Ryan, hook him up, please. You know Ryan loves the show. I'll take this as a personal favor, Ryan, if you would send them the small version for their house so then I can play it when I visit. But this is so great. It's tiny, and it's very inexpensive. It would make a great holiday gift this season. I think it's only like $50 or something like that. And if I'm wrong, I'm sorry. Check into it. But it's like that old Nerf hoop. Oh, yeah, that you hang in the back of your bedroom door. Yes, but it tracks how many baskets you make. It's like a little opto. Yeah. Yeah, that's very cool. It's very cool. Yeah. A little timer. Congratulations, Papa Shot, for making the EBA top ten list. Yeah, so one of the things about that game that it took me a long time to agree to having a basketball game in the arcade. One, I was worried the balls would be going all over the place. Two, I was worried about the footprint. Because if you remember those old basketball games, it was like the size of two pinball machines plus like way longer. This one is the width of a regular pinball machine, just a little bit deeper, like three feet deeper. So it's not as much room in the arcade. But they did take some clues about how people like to see their name in lights. So there's a leaderboard on the game. And I love logging in and seeing my data. And not only that, and I hope we're not giving too much away, they are going to add new formats. so once you see that there are arrows actually on the little control board there in the future i think i think they're going to drop some stuff soon you're going to be able to play other games where you you see you'll be doing things on the screen and then things will happen on the screen depending on whether you make a basket or not now do you ever get like a couple of drunk guys and they're playing the thing and they just start throwing the basketballs at each other and not actually play the game we haven't seen that yet we also have security that will like okay good good Because I've seen this happen in bars. Not yours, I'm just saying. For sure. In the past. I think that it would end quickly. Yeah, I would hope. Cool. Would you like to hear about the music? I would love. Me too. So let's just scoot right in to music pins. So we have, again, there are 66 pinball machines on the floor. The lowest, we'll start at the bottom. What is it? Is this top five? This is all. All the music pins? We currently have five, but I also looked at the Led Zeppelin average data to see where it would have fit in there. Okay. Just because we recently don't have Led Zeppelin anymore. So the number 42 is Aerosmith. Makes sense because it's that low because it's also the oldest music pin that we have. Well, you can go back to the old Metallica and ACDC, I guess, but of the modern Spike era. And that – Aerosmith was the first music pin of the Spike 2 era. Correct. That was the first Spike 2 in development, but Batman got pushed ahead of it. And we actually don't have an ACDC on the floor, so that's not a part of this list. But I would guess that it would have done about the same. Number 33 is Iron Maiden. Love that game. Great game. And then number 27 is Rush, and it's about tied with where Led Zeppelin was in terms of earnings. So those are two bands that people who love the bands and don't play pinball will come and play those pinball machines. Number 22 is Foo Fighters, and number 10 is Metallica. Of course. So the range that we see is Metallica Remastered, to be clear. Metallica Remastered. Sorry. Yes, Remastered. We no longer have the original because we have the Remastered. I bet if you put Expression Lights on Metallica, that number comes up a couple of spots. Mike's selling it hard If I had the ability to do that There'd be some in there now I'm not the guy to ask for it I don't control that part of the business So yeah So when we were talking about earlier Where the classics fall in About tied with Aerosmith So our very best classic Does about the same as Aerosmith Does for modern sterns That's where those numbers are So music pins tend to be somewhere in the middle for us For the most part they average out to about the middle of the pack. Very cool. That's all the data that I have. That about sums it up. What a great show. Yeah, we have a great show. We pulled it off. Mike. I miss doing this with you guys. I'm glad after two years we finally can make it happen again. And you're in the new studio. It kind of looks like Johnny Carson. Yeah, and it's such a short commute from my room. We have a live studio audience. Mike, what are you doing or what can you tell us that you're doing? Are you going to be at some shows? Let us know what's going on. I have one show left for 2025, and that's Cincinnati. It's the first weekend of December. That show is super fun. I'll be doing it with Troy from Tilt, and Michael Grant will be there as well. So you get the full tag team of Michael Grant and myself. But you also probably have the brand-new Walking Dead remastered. I believe Troy said that he would have it there, yeah. Good deal. um they just had walking dead remastered at iapa that was his first public showing and i think it's at free play florida i've never been to either one of those it is i saw some photos online and they also sent it to that dutch is it called the dutch pinball open i believe so yeah that happened it's happening now i guess i saw a picture of a bunch of people holding gary up in the air like he was sleeping yeah um which was really funny that game looks so cool i can't wait to play yeah I have actually not got to play the remastered yet. I've seen the art package, the fully built-up cabinet, last time I ever went to the office, but I didn't get a chance to play it. It wasn't running at the time. But I thought it looked really good in person, and it'll play. I love the game, so the gameplay will be the gameplay that you love. And I'm sure we're going to see some of your work on some upcoming updates on some games. Yeah, John Wick and X-Men updates are in the works. We're always working on those things. So Ray is still working on Star Wars updates. So there'll be a lot more fun stuff coming. We just released a Star Wars update right before I came here, I believe, like the day before I flew out, where they added another wizard mode and some other cool stuff. Oh, very cool. You know, I lose track because luckily with Stern Insider Connected, everything updates automatically. Right. We don't even have to worry about it. We did a big Dungeons and Dragons update before I came out here, too. so yeah we've all been very busy like there's no downtime for anybody in our company we've always got a lot of irons in the fire so for sure all the teams are working real hard to either work on new games or continue with the updates for the games that still need them right on cool well uh thank you all of you guys at home for joining us we're gonna we're gonna head to the arcade right now play some pinball some people are gonna challenge you for some challenge coins i saw I'm in a half a food coma because we went to Waffle House before we recorded this, and we're going to have to hit that bodega. I need a Coca-Cola to wake me up. But they're going to wear me out and take all my coins. But that's fine. It means my suitcase will weigh less going home tomorrow. For sure. And I like giving things away to people. It makes them happy. They love it. If I win, I win. But if I lose, I also win. Fantastic. All righty. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for inviting me. man we've got so many tournaments coming up come out and play them there's going to be some great ones and if you are sick of your family on Thanksgiving or you like your family and you want to take them out to have fun remember we are open all day Thanksgiving we don't take an hour off ever the whole year so all day Christmas we'll have tournaments on Christmas too just for fun 6am to 2am 365 days a year. We will be your Thanksgiving family. There's Thanksgiving food there if you get there early enough. We'll have two turkeys, some stuffing, some rolls, pies, some cranberry dressing. I must want to come down for that, but I'm flying home four days before Thanksgiving. You're always welcome. Back when we ran just games, we were open on Thanksgiving, but only we opened at normal time, 11, but we would close at 6. So I'd go there all day and then come home and then magically the food would just be waiting for me. Yeah, you got to love that. Right on, everybody. Well, we're going to head out. Thank you for joining us, and we will see you guys next time. See you soon. We're out. The bat's out. We can do it. Yeah.