Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 272 - Why Ball No Transform?

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 1m·analyzed·May 24, 2026
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Stern reveals Gen 1 Transformers pinball with fixed Optimus sculpt, unchanged pricing, strong voice talent, generating mixed reception.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers Podcast discusses Stern's newly revealed Transformers pinball machine based on Gen 1 cartoon series, exploring its design decisions including the controversial Optimus Prime sculpt that was originally planned to transform but couldn't be engineered properly. The episode covers pricing (unchanged at $7k/$9.7k/$13k), toy features across trim levels, voice talent (Peter Cullen, Frank Welker), and features custom artwork and theme integration. Hosts also discuss listener emails about theme suggestions for future pins and a rumored LEGO buildable pinball machine concept.

Key Claims

  • Optimus Prime sculpt looks awkward because it was originally designed to transform but the engineering didn't work, so Stern kept the sculpt designed for transformation rather than commissioning a new one

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony discuss information from George Gomez (CCO at Stern) about the design decision; confirmed by Richard A. email inquiry

  • Transformers Limited Edition pricing remains at $13,000 with 750 unit production cap

    high confidence · Dennis states directly: 'Limited edition count also remains fairly constrained at 750 units'

  • Pro version has static Megatron toy; Premium/LE have moving Megatron cannon, physical Soundwave ball lock, and right ramp diverter

    high confidence · Dennis provides detailed breakdown of trim-level differences

  • Peter Cullen and Frank Welker are providing custom voice work for Transformers pin (Optimus Prime, Megatron, Soundwave)

    high confidence · Dennis states: 'Peter Cullen and Frank Welker are doing custom voice work for this' and identifies voice roles

  • Transformers game includes Touch performed by Stan Bush (vocals) with Knights of Unicron as backing band, from the reformatted Transformers animated movie soundtrack re-release

    high confidence · Richard A. email and Dennis's follow-up research on Stan Bush's involvement

  • Elizabeth Gieske is lead programmer on Transformers, her first lead programming role at Stern, known for work on rules for Keith Elwin

    high confidence · Dennis introduces her role: 'lead programmer here is Elizabeth Gieske. And while this is her first lead programming gig at Stern, she got a lot of acclaim because she put in a number of the very popular rules that are on Keith Elwin'

  • Elliot Eismin is the designer, this is his second game; his first was John Wick

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Designer on this is Elliot Eismin. This is his second game. The first one was the much maligned John Wick.'

  • The game features a three-flipper layout with the third flipper in the traditional Steve Ritchie position on the far right

Notable Quotes

  • “Why is Optimus look like he's supposed to transform, but he doesn't? No ball, no transform.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ mid-episode — Captures the core criticism from fans unfamiliar with the engineering constraint; became a running joke about Stern design choices

  • “They clearly favored the Decepticons because they made them all cooler. The Optimus Prime feels disproportionate, like the head size is way too small for the body.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ mid-episode — Articulates the most common aesthetic complaint about the game design

  • “Optimus toy is actually very tall, like near the glass. So it looks more squat than it really actually is in person.”

    Flip N Out Pinball @ mid-episode — Provides counterpoint explaining the perspective distortion in flat promotional images

  • “I want the game to play well. So if it wasn't fun or it didn't work right with Optimus transforming, I think the answer is you have him as a bash toy.”

    Dennis @ mid-episode — Frames the pragmatic design trade-off: gameplay > cosmetics

  • “The thing about the why no ball, no transform, why no sharky ball, why no guns on ball, all the little Stern scandals that people create. Emphasis on little.”

    Tony @ mid-episode — Humorous acknowledgment of the pinball community's tendency to create mock controversies

  • “I think it will sell pretty good... I don't think Transformers (LE) sells out day one, but it wouldn't surprise me if it sold out in the first week.”

    Dennis @ near end of Transformers segment — Prediction about sales velocity despite aesthetic criticism

  • “Transformers (LE) is so ugly is the problem. But there's been so many times where I've looked at an LE and got, man, this is just the premium looks so much better. And then, you know, the next week you're like, oh, yeah, Transformers (LE) sold out in 48 hours.”

    Tony @ near end of Transformers segment — Highlights the disconnect between personal aesthetic preference and actual market behavior driven by collectibility FOMO

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyElliot EisminpersonElizabeth GieskepersonRobert BlakemanpersonMike KyzivatpersonJerry ThompsonpersonGeorge GomezpersonPeter CullenpersonFrank Welkerperson

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Stern officially revealed Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye pinball based on Gen 1 cartoon series with full development team and technical specifications

    high · Dennis provides comprehensive reveal details: pricing ($7k/$9.7k/$13k), designer (Elliot Eismin), programmer (Elizabeth Gieski), trim-level toy differences, three-flipper layout, voice talent (Peter Cullen, Frank Welker)

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern maintained consistent pricing across Pro/Premium/LE tiers, with no increase in LE production cap (750 units, avoided jump to 1000)

    high · Dennis: 'pricing yet again remains unchanged... seven grand for a pro, ninety seven hundred for a premium and thirteen thousand dollars for a limited edition... They have thankfully avoided jumping back up to one thousand'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Stern designed Optimus Prime sculpt with transformation capability but couldn't engineer the mechanism to work; retained the designed-for-transformation sculpt rather than commissioning new artwork

    high · George Gomez confirmed Stern originally planned Optimus transformation. Dennis: 'they already invested in that design... their choices were to dump all that BOM of those custom sculpts and go with a new sculpt... or just to put it in'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Design prioritized functional gameplay (working bash toy) over cosmetic appearance of transform-designed sculpt; hosts accept this trade-off as pragmatic

    high · Dennis: 'I want the game to play well. So if it wasn't fun or it didn't work right with Optimus transforming, I think the answer is you have him as a bash toy'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.183

0:00
Welcome to the Collective Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, May 24th. It's the 24th? Yeah. Yeah, it is. You looked at your watch and I was like, am I wrong? Do I have the date wrong again? I get the date wrong. I was like, I couldn't remember. And I had looked earlier today because I wanted to make sure my milk hadn't expired. But I already forgot what the date was after that. It's the weekend. It wasn't what the milk said. How are you supposed to remember? It's the weekend. It doesn't matter. It's hard. Yeah. It's Memorial Day Eve. It is. So you have to set out the whiskey and donuts. Donuts. Yes. For? For Santa government. I don't know. This isn't going anywhere. This isn't good. This is not going to be one of our stronger. This is definitely a weak story. Yeah.
1:11
I mean, you got to set out cigarettes and MREs. Filterless strikes and MREs for Memorial Day. I'm Dennis. I'm Tony. What's going on, Tony? Have you played anything?
1:31
Have? No. No? I mean, I've played some Rotato and some of the normal stuff that I've always played. Roll the Waves? No, not really. I've been, with the end of the school year, my oldest graduated. Yeah, that was last weekend's activities. That was last weekend's activities. My youngest is actively on a choir trip. So we're doing... Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We're doing the standard parental freak out of this is the farthest they've ever been away from us and longest she's ever been away from us. So we're all like, ah. That's just like how the Fellowship of the Ring started. It is. It's just. It's the farthest I've ever been away from home, Mr. Foto. Except for they didn't walk to Mordor. No. They took the eagles. They took the eagles to Mordor. Like you should have.
2:20
They made a proper entrance. They took the eagles to Mordor. So they walk, walk, walk, walk. Ah, that song is so funny. But yeah, no, that's that I've been just so busy doing family stuff that while I've played, I've played some games. It's just been my normal quick and easy time waster type stuff. I've not played anything different or new or special. Yeah, I haven't done much either in that front. I guess the biggest thing has been a new season for the Battlefield game came out. So last weekend, I think they were doing like double XP. So I actually did put in a lot of multiplayer time. I'm just, I'm old.

high confidence · Dennis describes layout: 'Think of it kind of in the traditional Steve Ritchie position on the far right'

  • “I'm not a quote unquote LE buyer. I'm not in pinball. I'm not highly driven by the collectability built off of rarity... I don't need to be one of 750.”

    Dennis @ late Transformers segment — Distinguishes between collector motivations and casual player preferences

  • “Formula I, I don't care... I don't care. You don't care. I don't care. I know you don't care. I don't care either.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ video game theme discussion — Humorous mutual dismissal of an email suggestion despite acknowledgment of F1's mainstream growth

  • “I am honestly surprised that Pink Floyd never got a pin.”

    Dennis @ theme suggestions discussion — Notes a gap in music licensing for pinball despite perfect theme match potential

    • Keith Elwin
    person
    Steve Ritchieperson
    Stan Bushperson
    Knights of Unicronorganization
    Zach Minnieperson
    Dennisperson
    Tonyperson
    Transformers: More Than Meets the Eyegame
    Jawsgame
    John Wickgame
    Flip N Out Pinballcompany
    Transformersproduct
    LEGO Iconsproduct_line
    Richard A.person
    Doug M.person
    David D.person

    licensing_signal: Stern secured original Gen 1 voice actors Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime) and Frank Welker (Megatron/Soundwave) for custom voice work; considered essential to game success

    high · Dennis: 'if that did not happen, that would be such a huge, huge negative. It would be problematic... Peter Cullen was known for voicing Optimus Prime... Frank Welker did both Megatron and Soundwave'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Stern licensed 'The Touch' for Transformers pin from reformatted Transformers movie soundtrack re-release; Stan Bush re-recorded vocals with Knights of Unicron backing band

    high · Richard A. email details licensing of reformatted 'The Touch'; Dennis confirms Stan Bush did new vocal recording with Knights of Unicron backing band

  • $

    market_signal: Despite aesthetic criticism of LE design, hosts predict strong sales velocity driven by nostalgia, Gen 1 IP, and collectibility FOMO; LE likely to sell within first week despite mixed reception

    medium · Dennis: 'I don't think the LE sells out day one, but it wouldn't surprise me if it sold out in the first week.' Tony: 'there's been so many times where I've looked at an LE and got... the LE sold out in 48 hours'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Hosts identify disconnect between personal aesthetic preference and actual LE buyer behavior driven by rarity/collectibility rather than design quality

    medium · Tony notes LE aesthetics problematic but sells fast. Dennis notes he's 'not a quote unquote LE buyer' not 'highly driven by the collectability built off of rarity' while understanding others' motivations

  • ?

    community_signal: Community actively generating mock 'Stern scandals' and criticism around Optimus design (e.g., 'why no ball transform' meme); small controversies travel fast in tight-knit community

    high · Tony: 'the why no ball, no transform, why no sharky ball, why no guns on ball, all the little Stern scandals that people create. Emphasis on little'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Rumor circulating about LEGO Icons planning buildable pinball machine kit featuring Spaceship Guy character; hosts skeptical this indicates pinball mainstream acceptance but note it's 'cool'

    low · David D. email references stonewars.com reporting about rumored LEGO pinball; Dennis notes LEGO isn't mainstream itself but the concept could be fun if realized

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Elizabeth Gieski's elevation to lead programmer role on Transformers is notable milestone; community enthusiasm driven by her work on Jaws rules, improving industry visibility of programmer roles

    high · Dennis: 'she got a lot of acclaim because she put in a number of the very popular rules that are on Keith Elwin's Jaws pinball machine. So a lot of people are pretty pleased to see that Elizabeth is doing code on this'

  • ?

    product_concern: Optimus Prime sculpt widely criticized as awkward and disproportionate; community speculation about why transformation was abandoned; aesthetic concern does not appear to significantly impact sales projection

    high · Multiple reports of criticism: reddit commenter notes 'head size is way too small for body', Richard A. notes 'so bulky looking... arms are half folded back', Dennis hypothesizes transformation mechanism was original plan

    • 3:03
    Though, if I do it enough, yeah, I can't every time. Tony's going to appreciate this and no listeners are going to get it. But all right. The Record of Lotus War. Oh, yeah. All right. So now as I realize how old I am and whenever I feel old and I just I will say just like Parn did in the Kabuki theater things tied to the Lotus War, not the original OVA, but the right, the good one. They were both good, but I just like I'm old and I just think Parn.
    3:39
    I'm just like Parn. I'm old now. I can't be I can't be a hero anymore. I'm just old. And it's sad. I was reading, I think I was on Reddit, and somebody had made a post about, it's like, I, at 25, I just, I don't have the time or the energy. I don't even enjoy PvP games anymore. I can't, I can't spend the time to get good and get the meta, and I don't care anymore. It's like, I'm just, I'm just too old to waste the energy out of PvP games. I'm just sitting here looking at 25 and I'm just like, you blankety blank.
    4:21
    It's the same reason I quit playing all of the PvP games. I just don't have the energy. I like them. I like the competitiveness of it. But the difference now versus when I was 25 is where I just didn't have the time. Because now it's like, how did he teleport behind me and get me? And it's just like, no, my eyes just don't see speed anymore. I'm just that slow. It's like, have you ever seen the things where it's like at a pizza place or barber where they have a little button and you hit it right at 10 seconds? Yes. There's one where there's a guy and he's even older than me, but he goes and he starts it and he stops it like at 12 seconds. It just goes past 10 and he's just still looking at it. And then you see him just go click. That's me. That's me now in shooters. It's like, click, and click. In Battlefield, it's worse, though, because now they've got all the Call of Duty stuff, so they're sliding around. I call them floor babies. Yeah. And they slide everywhere and stuff, because I don't have that same issue. I get diffed all the time. I don't have the same issue in, like, Marvel Rivals or Overwatch. Like, I can play those. They don't have all the parkour going on? Yeah, or at least, you know, certain characters' parkour, like Genji gonna parkour. But Moira, just slurp, slurp, and that'll be it. That's the glurp glurp of Overwatch. Glurp glurp. And so, anyway, I'm old. But anyway, I've been playing that. But I actually did better that weekend. If I get warmed up enough, you can get some of the reflex back. Still, my kill to death ratio is horrid, but I actually got kills. Right. Which is good.
    5:57
    Speaking of good, we actually have a pretty good sized thing of stuff in the pinball segment. What? That's my transition. This doesn't happen. That's right, because things are transforming for us.
    6:10
    You know, here's the thing. What's the thing? I love pinball. I love the hobby. But when it comes to the news-wise, if we only put out an episode when there was pinball news, we'd put out like five episodes a year. Yes. Max. Probably. Yeah. Especially when you consider some of the new releases are on top of each other, so you'd get them in the same episode. Right. So, yeah. No, that's fair. It's a double-ink. As Joel with the Flippin' Out Pinball Show on YouTube would say, that's fair. He likes to say that expression a lot.
    6:45
    All right. So Stern has finally revealed Transformers more than meets the eye pinball. As expected, this is based on the Gen 1 series of Transformers, not the Michael Bay universe. Good. Yes, that reaction has been true. Not every reaction about this game has been good. However, the choice of theme and the specifics of that theme have resonated very well. Designer on this is Elliot Eisman. This is his second game. The first one was the much maligned John Wick.
    7:18
    Bummer of a birthmark now. But lead programmer here is Elizabeth Gieski. And while this is her first lead programming gig at Stern, she got a lot of acclaim because she put in a number of the very popular rules that are on Keith Elwin's Jaws pinball machine. So a lot of people are pretty pleased to see that Elizabeth is doing code on this. Robert Blakeman's lead mechanical. Code's also being worked on by Mike Kisvat. Jerry Thompson, of course, on audio. That's typically the case with Stern. And so on and so forth. I think those are the main development people that folks will be interested in. What people will also be interested in is that the pricing yet again remains unchanged. So we're talking seven grand for a pro, ninety seven hundred for a premium and thirteen thousand dollars for a limited edition. Limited edition count also remains fairly constrained at 750 units. They have thankfully avoided jumping back up to one thousand. Another key thing that fans of Gen 1 are going to like is Peter Cullen and Frank Welker are doing custom voice work for this. Good. I mean, that is, to be fair, if that did not happen, that would be such a huge, huge negative. It would be problematic. Yes. So for those not familiar with the 80s cartoon, Peter Cullen was known for voicing Optimus Prime. I believe Frank Welker did both Megatron and Soundwave, so I think you're going to get all three of those voices if I remember correctly from the summaries. I do have a link in the show notes for people to read and look at photos about this with the Kinetisist, so you can go and check that out. Now, because there are the three trim levels of a Cornerstone, as is obvious the case nowadays with Stern, we need to kind of go over what those differences are between the Pro and the Premium LE. There are, of course, several. The Premium LE, there's a Megatron toy kind of on the right-hand side if you look at the playfield images. He moves and fires pinballs out of the cannon on the Premium LE. On the Pro, that toy does not move. It's static. On the Premium LE Soundwave, which is even further to the right and lower down towards the flippers on the playfield, he is a physical ball lock. He is not physical on the Pro. He's not a physical ball lock on the Pro. He doesn't like to touch it. No. No, he does not. Thank you for your constant inappropriateness. The Pro lacks the Grimlock sculpt on the far left, but of course the sculpt is there on the Premium LE edition. And the Premium LE also on the right ramp. It has a diverter that's designed to load the Fusion Cannon. There is no such diverter on the Pro. Art package wise, they're again, as I mentioned, they're all Gen 1 oriented. The play field art is pretty much the same for all of them. Obviously, there's some stuff involving where the toys and stuff are placed, but I didn't really notice any play field art differences worth discussing. The pro version is kind of Optimus themed on the sides of the cabinet. Just mirror image approach, not like a different left and a right. They just did the mirror approach. The premium version is sort of a collection montage, if you will, of Transformers on both sides. And then the LE version is the – it's different on both sides. One side is sort of Optimus and Bumblebee is there as well. There's a third one I can't remember the name of. And then the other side of it is Decepticons with Megatron prominently featured. And the Translights, of course, are different between all of them, but I'm not going to try and verbally describe them. Right, yeah. Because what's the point? They're all kind of medleys of looks. Overall, I liked the sides of the cabinet best on the LE, but I like the premium Translite, probably because it's like this really cool Megatron face right in the center of it. Yeah, I think you're right on that. And also, I know it, I understand it, but for some reason, the red-purple split on the LE, on the powder coating, it just doesn't do it for me. No, I hate it. It feels gesture cap more than Transformers to me. Yeah, but they did this on the old Transformers. They had LEs. I think they were Decepticon. There were LEs that were Autobot, and then there were LEs that were both, and they did a split thing. I'm okay splitting Decepticons and Autobots, but the powder split, yeah. It's just, I don't like it. Come on, this isn't Cyclone. This isn't some, this isn't Python. We don't need, yeah, we don't need the circus here. I do agree with you. I like the split side art. I like the way they do all of that, but the powder coat split, I don't like that. I like having an Autobot side and a Decepticon side on the side art. But, yeah. The game has a three-flipper layout. It's kind of hard to see the third flipper on the Premium LE because of the Soundwave toy. It's easier to see on the Pro. Think of it kind of in the traditional Steve Ritchie position on the far right.
    12:30
    But when I first saw this, I wasn't particularly enamored with the layout. But as I looked at it more, I actually do think there's a lot of interesting shots here.
    12:40
    And I am curious to play this. I think it could play interestingly. I'm not sure if I like how it plays or not, but there are a lot of shots over towards the left that that right flipper seems to want to access. So I do think there's a good chunk of variety there, which I think is pretty cool. Having watched some of the video of the Premium LE, the Megatron toy shooting out of the cannon, that's cool, but cannon shots I think are often cool. The Megatron shot out on the old Transformers pin, but it didn't move around. This one, so the gun fires the balls in different spots, including, I believe, up on that, there's some wire form stuff over on the far left, kind of left middle, middle back, and he shoots it up on there. That's cool. So they got some cool, like, I saw a comment, I can't remember where it was, it was PennCyter or Reddit, or probably it was Reddit, but someone had made a comment that the Stern team clearly favored the Decepticons because they made them all cooler. The Optimus Prime feels disproportionate, like the head size is way too small for the body. And some of that, a little bit of it is angle, is my understanding, a little bit, but there's something, and I want to dive into that because you've raised a really good point that I wanted to have a discussion on. So one thing I wanted to note is Zach Minnie with Flippin' Out Pinball and who I do the pinball show with had told me that one of the things that is not really obvious from this top-down shot of the playfield like I have in our internal notes is that Optimus toy is actually very tall, like near the glass. So it looks more squat than it really actually is in person. However, the thing about the discussion I want to have is you look at that and other people have looked at this. I had someone who I know is into Transformers had actually seen because, you know, IGN gets the coverage of this. All that said somewhere had seen about this game coming out and had even mentioned to me and they don't own any pinball machines. And they said, why is Optimus look like he's supposed to transform, but he doesn't see why? No ball, no transform. My first thought was why does Optimus look like he was drawn by Rob Liefeld? Because it looks like that one specific Captain America where his upper body is enormous, but then his head is like normal human size, but his body is like five times too big for his head. Yeah, it looks like that the head is deliberately designed to tuck in and fold into the truck. Yeah And so there were there already been information from Stern I think was from George Gomez you know creative director at Stern if I remember his title correctly who noted that they originally had planned for the Optimus He's a bash toy. You bash his little legs and or his big legs, I guess, because he's bigger than he looks. And that's it. But it was supposed to be where it would transform down into the truck. They could not, according to Stern, they could not get it to work properly. So what it appears they've done is they kept the toy that was designed to fold in and transform as the sculpt instead of going with a more traditional non-transforming but better looking sculpt like how Grimlock looks or Megatron kind of looks or Soundwave. They look more solid because they were never meant to transform in the game, but Optimus was, and that's why Optimus looks janky.
    16:11
    That makes sense. The thing about the why no ball, no transform, why no sharky ball, why no guns on ball, all the little Stern scandals that people create. Emphasis on little. Yes, they are. I mean, in the grand scheme of it, I mean, my response has been, ultimately, I want the game to play well. So if it wasn't fun or it didn't work right with Optimus transforming, I think the answer is you have him as a bash toy. Now, should they have made it look like a full-on custom sculpt instead of a toy that was meant to transform and now it can't? And now you're like, why does it have to look this way? That's a fair point, I think. However, I'm okay with it not transforming. A lot of people are not okay. They're like, this is Transformers. This stuff's expensive. Why doesn't at least one of these things transform?
    17:02
    Like, what if it didn't interact? What if Grimlock – I haven't heard him say this, but what if – I mean, he's just sitting over there. What if he would activate and then transform? I mean, there's that company that makes the transforming Transformers. Like, can we not have something just sort of get activated to transform even if the ball wasn't interacting with it? Like, can't you do something? It's Transformers, right? Let one of them transform, at least on the Premium LE.
    17:28
    Okay, on the Pro, I get it. Premium LE, eh. That's kind of the – so what do you think? Do you think that they should have kept this in the lab until they got the engineering to work so that something could transform? I don't think that's realistic. I don't either, but – I don't think – I think the problem here is that they already have these custom sculpts made. When they cut the transforming. So their choices were to dump all that BOM of those custom sculpts and go with a new sculpt or a new thing to replace it that didn't have that built-in stuff so that it could have looked better or just to put it in. I had to buy about that. That's a good point. And more likely than not, they just went this route because it's the route that worked monetarily. Okay.
    18:18
    Do you think it ends up hurting their sales? God, no. How do you think this will sell? I think it will sell pretty good. So in terms of – let's start with the LEs. I would say – here's the thing. In my mind, how well it plays is very important.
    18:34
    We've learned that the reality of how well a game plays doesn't matter as long as the theme and the look is good enough. I agree with that in terms of like the collection, especially the early purchases. Yeah. So I mentioned 750 LEs, same price as has been for a while. How quickly do you think those sell out? Pretty fast, I would assume. This is such a big popular nostalgic touch since they're doing Gen 1 with the age group that is now the primary buying target. Good thing that you mentioned touch. They got that, the song The Touch. Which is important. Which is very important. I guess, except a lot of what they're doing here is, I think, plot lines and stuff from the show, but the touch I associate with the movie. Right. But I mean, I guess if they want to work that in too, great. I mean, people are going to like that. Yeah, it was good that they got that in. That's really going to be, again, that hits all the right nostalgia buttons. Yeah, I think it sells well. I don't think the LE sells out day one, but it wouldn't surprise me if it sold out in the first week. Yeah. I don't know. The LE is so ugly is the problem. That is the problem in my mind. But there's been so many times where I've looked at an LE and got, man, this is just the premium looks so much better. And then, you know, the next week you're like, oh, yeah, the LE sold out in 48 hours. Well, the thing I have to remember is like for me, I'm not I'm just I'm not a quote unquote LE buyer. I'm not in pinball. I'm not highly driven by the collectability built off of rarity. Excuse me. So for me, it's a struggle to like I don't need to be one of 750. I don't. Right. You don't you don't need to be on that special. I see the I see the desire for it. I like I understand it. Like, I do not, like, I mean, part of the reason I have hoops is how hard it would be if I ever got rid of it to get it back because they only made 900 and some of the game. But here's the thing. That's 900 and some of the entire game. Right. 750 of a particular look at all the gameplays available at, you know, ad infinitum. Right. To the premium. If there's 750 of these, the grand total sale is going to be thousands sold. So that's my disconnect on it. Anyway, I think it looks pretty cool. I'm sure we will get these in the area. Maybe I will actually get out and play one before the next Texas.
    21:05
    We did so bad last year. Look, I blame the community. Pizza West doesn't have the pinball machines anymore. Right. And they were one of my key locations. They were. And Nubs does, but normally half the time when I'm off work to go to Nubs, like during the day or whatever, it's like Monday and they're closed on Monday. Yeah. I'm like, I can't go on Memorial Day. They're going to be closed. Yeah, yeah. Well, and even then, even they typically close. It's not unusual for them to be closed on holidays, period. Yes. Even if it's not on a Monday, which we've run into before. Which we've run into before. And I say, good on them for taking care of their workers.
    21:41
    Good on them. Yeah. At the same time, because of my life and schedule, that's some of the few times I can get up there.
    21:49
    Or like popping up, sometimes I'll pop in there on like a weekend, but normally weekends are so busy.
    21:56
    Yeah. But anyway, yeah, it does look, I like the look of it overall. I do too. Moving on, we have some emails, including an email about this game from Richard A. Richard writes in saying, Hello! Except for one thing, I think the new game looks great. But I wanted to provide some background for the audio parts of the game. One, I was pleased to hear a lot of the original music from the cartoon in the game. That music is such a key part of the show. I hear that music and it stimulates memories of the show. Two, I also thought it was great that they were able to keep audio from the clips they used. This means we get to hear the original voices of the characters and not knockoffs. Three, they made a big deal about inclusion of the song The Touch. They mentioned it was being done by Knights of Unicron. This last week, it was announced that the original animated movie soundtrack is being re-released as the reformatted edition. That is the version of the touch in the game. Four, I think the reformatted version of Autobot Decepticon Battle is also in the game. The only complaint I have is the Optimus Prime sculpt. All the other sculpts look great, but that one is so bulky looking. The arms are half folded back. What the hell happened? I wonder if the rumors about them wanting to make it transform fell apart, and that is the remnants of the sculpt they would have used. Such a shame, Richard. Well, Richard, as Tony and I already discussed here, I think that that is the case, that they – Tony's idea that they already invested in that design, had them built, couldn't get the engineering to work, and it's like, well, we're not going to pay for another sculpt, so we're just going to use what we got. It makes a lot of sense that it's the remnants of what was once a glorious dream. And I've looked some stuff up on this also. While the Knights of Unicron are who redid things as the backing track, they did get Stan Bush to do the vocal tracks again. Oh, okay. So there was a post about it online. So Stan Bush did do the vocal track on the new recording. But the Knights of Unicron are the backing band instead of whoever his original backing band was probably some random studio band. Okay, cool. Doug M. also wrote in and he wrote, this is not about Transformers. He wrote as follows. Guys, here are some themes I feel are rarely or never mentioned that would make great pinball machines. One, Formula One. There hasn't been an F1 themed pin since the EM Grand Prix. Three, we have IndyCar, NASCAR, but no Martin F1 pin would have global appeal. Two, Red Bull. Think a new modern version of No Fear could include winter sports, auto racing, mountain biking, Flugtag, I think I meant flag tag, flag tag, etc. No, it's Flugtag. That's German. That's where they make the little airplane-y type thing where it goes down the ramp and then jumps into the water and then try to float the farthest. Oh, okay. If I remember right. All the weird and extreme action sports stuff they sponsor. Three, tacos. I mean, someone did a barbecue pin. Tacos are much cooler and much more fun. Agreed. Four, Spaceballs. Why hasn't anyone done Spaceballs? They'd be good to come with a new movie. Five, Princess Bride. Someone needs to do this as a full pin. The license is far too good to just be a P3 module. Fight me. No. Six, Mystery Science Theater 3000. Mic drop. Acceptable. Seven, Pink Floyd. This has been discussed many times. We're throwing it in here anyway. A pin with a Dark Side of the Moon album cover as the back glass? That alone is reason why this game should exist. Discuss. May the swats be with you, Doug. All right. You've put in your one-liners. All right. Formula One, I don't care. Here's the thing. I don't care. It's gotten – I don't care. I know you don't care. I don't care. F1 has gotten huge, huge. You don't care either.
    26:03
    That's true. But F1 has gotten huge. So he's right. I know a lot of people, like a surprisingly large number of people who pay for the special F1 streams. For the races that are in Europe in the middle of the night, they will stay up or wake up at like 2 a.m. to watch a race. And they do all the special streams. And these are not the kind of people you would normally think would be into something like F1. So it has a very large growing popularity. And I think it would be a good choice.
    26:40
    Okay. Red Bull. I want to counter with Monster. My problem with Red Bull is all I think of is their ridiculous commercials. That's all I think of. Right. They're huge. They do a lot of stuff. Sure. I don't know if there's high demand for an extreme sports pin, though. Right. I agree that Formula One does have the built-in demand. I don't know if people want that. The concept, though, of a modern version of No Fear is great to me. Yeah, I never liked it. I never enjoyed the game very much. See, I liked it well enough. It is not a great game, but I still consider it fun.
    27:20
    I mean, I don't despise it, but I never had any interest in owning one. Maybe it's a good way to phrase it. All right, tacos.
    27:30
    Are tacos cooler than barbecue? Yes. It's dangerous to say here in Kansas City. I do like tacos better personally. Hear me out. Barbecue tacos. I mean, I had some like, yeah, last week. I would. I just I had chorizo tacos yesterday. I love tacos. Tacos are great. And I had tacos on Friday also. Different. I had chicken tacos. I made I made like an Asian stir fry chicken sweet.
    28:01
    Sesame ginger things to take to work for lunch this week. And I had just been grabbing like the little microwavable rices and I'd miscounted what I made so I didn't have enough rices. So I took some taco shells or some soft taco shells I had. And then I so I had sesame ginger Asian tacos. Oh, very fusion. Very fusion. I fusioned. You fusioned.
    28:30
    Spaceballs. Oh, yeah, sure. It should have happened when it came out. It would have been better than the newest Star Wars game.
    28:39
    So mean, but so fun. Princess Bride. Does not the P3 version scratch the itch enough? I think the P3 version scratches the itch enough. It's got like the whole movie in the back box. That nobody's going to do it. It's not going to happen. I mean, I like the movie. It's timeless. But yeah, I don't feel like fighting them. Mystery Science Theater 3000. There's a cult following to it. I just don't know if it's big enough, quite frankly, to move a pin. Not to move a pin. Because again, you have to have been really into the dynamic there. It's not about the movie they're making fun of, of course. Yeah. But you do it at Monroe's House of Horror style and you do a variety of different ones with them. I could see how it would work. I can totally see how it would work. I just don't think it would move enough pins. I am honestly surprised that Pink Floyd never got a pin. I don't know. That's weird. There should be. That is the perfect back glass.
    29:36
    Yeah, but I mean there are other bands where I've been like just – again, we've seen Elton John have a successful pin. Obviously, the music doesn't have to be ripping hard rock either. There's plenty of other quote-unquote dad rock bands that probably should have gotten a pin that didn't. Fleetwood Mac should have had a pin and don't have a pin. Where's my CCR pin? CCR should have had a pin. The Eagles should have had a pin. Right. I mean, there's a lot, a lot of big bands that should have had a pin. That's what you need. You just need to pick a bunch of individual songs and then just put out and make a pinball machine that's just dad rock the pin. I have thought it could be fun to have a pin that's just one hit wonders, whereas this band, they just had one hit song. Because everyone knows the one hit songs. It would be a rockin' pin. I have no idea how you theme it all together. I don't know. Obviously not around the bands because nobody knows anything about them This is one hit wonders Yes one hit wonders That would be the name of the pin one hit wonder pinball
    30:40
    One hit, one wonder. Last pinball email came from David D., who wrote in, Hi Dennis, has pinball finally become mainstream? I think you might have fun with this one. And he provides a link to a site called stonewars.com. Take care, I don't have the link in the show notes. I have the image that's relevant from the link in our internal notes. Take care, David. Thank you, David. So it's the idea that there's the rumor going around that Legos is going to put out, I guess, part of their icon line, a classic spaceship guy. You've all seen the Lego movie, right? And we've got Spaceship! That Spaceship Guy! That Spaceship Guy, right? So Spaceship Guy, but with a pinball kit that you build. Like, maybe it's supposed to kind of look like the old Spaceship Windows pinball machine or something? But the idea is basically that there will be a buildable Lego pinball machine.
    31:38
    Lego's not that mainstream. Yeah, okay. So therefore, this does not mean Pinball has become mainstream. No. But it does mean that it's cool. So let's see if it ends up becoming a reality because it could be fun. And I do like Spaceship Guy because he says Spaceship.
    31:59
    Video games, Tony. We actually had emails related to video games also, so I'll go ahead and keep reading here, though I've already run out of voices. Robert G. wrote in and said as follows.
    32:37
    It is essentially a form of playing card solitaire but with a ton of wild cards jokers that affect gameplay, presented in a throwback 90s CD-ROM style with a modern horror story overlaid atop it all. My question is, is this style of a game a trend or a subgenre that I could delve into and learn more about? My taste runs toward horror and the weird, so even though the gameplay was fairly basic, I was pretty taken with this game for a few days until I finished it. The combination of a simple but challenging card game, plus retro graphics, plus a fun creepy story that slowly unfolds and which places you as a player in the actual story was a delightful experience for about $15. I've long been told by my gaming friends that modern video games can be an amazing form of storytelling, but I tend to get overwhelmed and or bored with open world, super long playing, do what you want kind of games. I stop my play at Baldur's Gate 3 after like 25 hours or something. Are there any other short story kind of games that are simple but entertaining and present a unique experience for the player that you know of? Bonus points if they're horror adjacent. Thanks for all the great shows, guys. You're the first thing I listen to the moment a new episode pops up every two weeks. Robert. P.S. Tony, loved the Silverhawk shout out last episode. I'd almost forgotten about that show and wondered if I'd actually dreamt it up. Yeah, no, it was real. It was a thing. I had like all of the toys. I even had the ship. It was great. All right. Tony, you're so much more versed in the genres of video games than I am. I've not heard of Forbidden Solitaire. I'll take a look at it and see what it is. Now, that whole game with kind of a horror overlay has been becoming very common in the last five years. Especially games that are of a – it's just for whatever reason horror games have gotten huge. I would recommend for getting ideas for horror games. There's an entire horror game block of Awesome Games Done Quick and Summer Games Done Quick. They have horror game blocks that typically run in the middle of the night. But you can see the replays obviously on YouTube or wherever.
    35:00
    One that I remember catching my eye when I watched the Horror Blog class back in January was Kiosk, which is kind of a Cooking Mama Overcooked style cooking game where you're like in a kitchen making food orders for people with a horror overlay put on top of it. And there's a bunch of other games that have a similar thing where it's a more normal type game and then there's like a horror component to it that have become really popular lately. There's also like the playing card. There's been a whole host of playing card games and they've gotten super popular since Baltro got huge that just are normal games that use playing card aesthetic.
    35:49
    So, yeah, I do. I think it's a trend. And there's a lot of delightful games in that $10 to $15 range. Lots of fun little indie games that are fun, not too over busy or hyper-involved, but it's a good time. A lot of games that are those nice ones where you can knock everything out in a couple hours of gameplay. Yeah, I don't know what – so obviously Robert has a favoritism towards horror, seems comfortable with a variety of mechanics related to that horror, but basically doesn't want anything that's sort of overwhelming or just too long to get through style of stuff. So I'm going to give an old suggestion. You played it, I think, Tony, years before I did. I'm going to suggest you try Firewatch.
    36:44
    Oh, Firewatch is a great game. I love Firewatch, and it's beautiful. Yes. So Firewatch, I would describe as horror adjacent. There's a lot of tension in the game. The game will present itself as open world. That world is very small, though, and the game itself is not long to play. However, it is incredibly story-driven, and so a lot of it is about listening and experiencing this scenario where you are essentially watching for forest fires, and then you start to basically get into an investigation of what's going on in the park while you're doing it. So I think it's contained enough that it won't trigger your frustration with the open world aspects of it because it is open-ish, but it's a very small world. You're just in one little section of a park and it's not super long playing. So that would be one recommendation. I tend to, with horror, go with the more pure games where the horror is overt. So I would suggest Evil Within. I'm not going to say Evil Within 2, which is a more open world approach, but the first Evil Within kind of comes across like a traditional Resident Evil Silent Hill, but I'd say it's more linear than those games. So you might like that game, and it really emphasizes a lot of the horror aspects. So I personally thought it was a very strong game. So that would be one that I would suggest, and those are the ones that kind of come to my mind at this time. I'll add a couple to that real quick.
    38:20
    For a simple gameplay with kind of a horror overlay, Pony Island is there. I remember playing that, and it's a very interesting, different take on that kind of game. And it should be available on, like, Steam or wherever, pretty cheap. And also for that weird horror overlay with the caveat that it is a visual novel that is designed to open up and start kind of like one of those dating sim type games. But it's got a huge horror overlay to it and gets real meta.
    39:02
    It's Doki Doki Literature Club. Okay. I have that and I never played it. Yeah. I have it on Steam. It starts as a straight-up dating-type sim game, and then it gets real weird.
    39:14
    Yeah, good suggestions. All right, hopefully that helps them out. Richard Day wrote in also. We had an email from him about Transformers on the pinball side, but he did write in on the video game side as well. A couple updates. Actually, it was a couple emails. First, I'm not reading the email here, but I want to note he provided us a copy. You might remember last episode we talked about the Zen ended the relationship with At Games, but we didn't really know too much beyond that. Well, Richard has provided a copy of the litigation. It's in our EGP email if you want to read the PDF, Tony, because I know you like legal stuff. But yes, AtGames is now suing Zinn.
    39:56
    So nutshell summary for the listeners and for Tony at this point is from the first few pages of the lawsuit, which I have read, indicates that AtGames is alleging Zinn has used a bad faith scheme to try and escape contractual obligations. So their claim is that Zen doesn't actually have a valid legal basis to end the agreement that they have, and their restitution that they are seeking is to force Zen to honor the contractual agreement and cover all of AtGames' legal costs. So we'll have to see how that proceeds. Richard has also provided another email, which I'm going to read here. Hello, I've already sent you the documents about this case. Here's some background on the AtGames products. At Games sells a line of cabinets of various sizes and screen quality. What differentiated them from the ones Arcade 1UP did is expandability. They have an online store and more games can be added. The cabinets come with a mix of things. Zacharia offerings, Zen offerings, and some originals produced by Magic Pixel, the company that makes Zacharia Pinball. The original games have included licenses from Dr. Seuss and recently Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The thing I found interesting is that they run IFPA tournaments on their machines. Here is where the impact of losing Xen comes into play. Right now they are offering seven different cabinets in their Legends 4K line. Five of them are based on the Xen tables. The IP is not Xen, but they have the Xen logos on them because the games are created by Xen. From what I have read and heard, the cabinets were underpowered and the Xen games did not play very well. There was is flipper lag. I think At Games has had a good business plan, offer cabinets with lots of games from different sources, allow the addition of games over time. Unfortunately, the cabinets were based on mostly Zen product and because Zen has some of the best licenses and produces nice looking originals and reproductions. For reference, the seven cabinets are Adam's Family, which is Zen, Peanuts, which is Zen, Dinosaur Dynasty, Star Trek, which is Zen, Jurassic Park, which is Zen, Attack from Mars, which is Zen, and Sea of Thieves. So only two of those were not listed as Zins. So thank you, Richard, for those details.
    42:10
    Interesting. Yeah, it's one of those things that it will be interesting to me to see how the lawsuits go.
    42:22
    But it's definitely, it might as well be a Zin machine with that. I see why AtGames is upset because without Zin and the contract with them. Yeah, they basically have nothing. There goes the business model. Right. So, yeah, ouch. Yeah, that's rough. Speaking of ouch, what's coming up in the word of the speed running? Summer Games Done Quick is coming. It starts July 5th, so on Sunday, 1130 in the morning, their normal start times. Yep.
    42:52
    The first game is Donkey Kong Country 2 Diddy's Kong Quest. So, there, I talked about Donkey Kong. I was going to say, I can't believe you mentioned this one. It's because it's the first game, and I figured it'd make people happy. Now I don't have to talk about Donkey Kong for a year. Yeah. Yay.
    43:10
    But some of the highlights to look forward to, and I know this has been reported elsewhere before, and we just haven't talked about it, but there will be pinball on the main stage at Summer Games Done Quick.
    43:23
    There is going to be a Total Nuclear Annihilation 9 reactor run by Ryan McSquid. It's going to be on Thursday night. It's prime time. The start time is listed around 7. Central? Yeah, central. Around 7 central. Which, depending on how they go, it's either going to be within an hour of 7, typically. Unless they've lost a lot or gained a lot of time. That is a really good time slot. And see, Thursday night is a good time slot. And prime time like that is an amazing time slot. For pinball to be on the main stage. When I first heard that pinball was going to be on the main stage, I was guessing afternoon later in the week. Not a primetime slot. I'm guessing, and this is a blind guess, but I'm guessing that they have seen such a positive reaction to primetiming other non-traditional speedrunning like Dance Dance Revolution, the washing machine games, Like the other weird stuff that I'm wondering if this is an evolution and an experiment. And historically, for those that don't know, because it's been years now, there had been a relationship with Pinball and Games Done Quick in the past. There would be Pinball Done Quick that was done at the same time on its own channel. Pinball Done Quick never got remotely the audience that Games Done Quick got. But there had been talk even back then about Games Done Quick actually featuring some stuff with Pinball. The problem is, and we talked about this back in the day because we've been doing this over a decade, but there was some pretty serious fallout and Pinball Dunquick was basically uninvited from being involved with GameStone Quick because there were a lot of issues with how the Pinball Dunquick side was running their charity giveaway. It was long story short, and apologies, I'm going to note caveat, this is alleged because I don't remember anymore the exact details, but essentially they were running raffles instead of actual drawings and they got called out on it.
    45:30
    And there's a lot of legal issues if you're actually doing a raffle. Nonprofits can do raffles, but you have to present them a very specific way. And so with Games Done Quick, their stuff, the prizes they do, they do a drawing. There a free way to get in The more money you pay doesn increase your odds of winning On the pinball side as I remember there wasn a free way to get in initially and then they tried to work one in But the more you paid the more chances in the drawing you got That a raffle guys And so the problem was you can't advertise it a certain way and then do it another. Anyway, it's a whole thing. It's a whole legal thing. So anyway, it was such a huge mess, a black eye. I think pinball didn't quit that year. And they had done it wrong for years. But I had to do a bunch of refunds. People were furious. And Games Done Quick was like, we can't be associated with this. We're professional. And they divorced from allowing Pinball Done Quick to be there, is my understanding. So this is maybe a bit of redemption because I think the hobby, well, I think the enthusiasts in Pinball, obviously we didn't do anything wrong. Nonetheless, to the Games Done Quick people, Pinball had a black eye for showing just how unprofessional. This was tied to an official charity and it was so sloppy.
    46:51
    And video games is bigger than Hollywood. Games Done Quick is a serious operation. They don't need amateurs coming in and possibly getting lawsuits involved with a name similar to their own physically at the same event. So, yeah, that's it's been a long time coming. But but it's nice to finally see see this. So, yeah, no, I think it'll I think it'll be really interesting. It's a good game. Yeah. Yeah. No, this one, it makes a lot of sense. I I'm very curious about I mean, the approach to destroying the nine reactors is pretty straightforward. And it's I've seen people do very well, especially if they're playing four players to. Right. I'm curious what Ryan's conditions will be. Yeah. And I'm not sure. I do know the timeline stamp on it's like 22 minutes or something like that. OK. So a couple other highlights looking forward to is shortly there's like a game or something in between the TNA game. But they're going to follow that with an Elden Ring four-player all-bosses run that night. So that'll be a solid – that's starting at like 9 p.m. That's going to be a solid three hours of play probably. I'll probably miss that. Yeah.
    48:05
    They're doing an SSX Tricky versus SSX3 all-races run on Monday. I loved SSX Tricky. We used to play a lot of SSX Tricky. Yeah, that's right. I remember. There is going to be a Super Mario Odyssey run, Prime Time on Monday. That'll be a big one. I'm sure that'll get a lot of views. Bioshock Infinite run Monday night as well. That'll also get a lot. I threw this one in here because you just recently completed it. They're doing a Jedi Fallen Order Any% run. I think the time stamp on it was like 33 minutes. Did you beat the game in 33 minutes, Dennis? No, it took me over 40 minutes. I'm obviously not hosting this. You're not on Speedrunner. No. Speedrunner. No, I'm not.
    48:58
    I'm old. I'm so old. They're doing another Silksong run like they did last time. They're doing Pragmata, Any% Run, Tuesday night. That game just came out. That's the, what are they calling it? The dad game. Oh, okay. Where you're young. Yeah, with the robot. Yeah, the make you love AI game. The AI propaganda game. I've seen an entire argument made that that's the whole purpose. The whole point of that game is to make AI seem okay and make people like AI.
    49:42
    What's interesting is there is some Wednesday night at 9 p.m., so pretty solid time schedule or in the timeline, not quite prime time, but still a very solid big time. There is still an hour plus thing that is just listed as content to be announced.
    50:01
    A mystery. Yeah, it's not a buy-in game. It's just says content to be announced. It's a complete mystery. So I thought that was weird. I've never seen that on one of their things before. And the final game this time is Claire Obscura Expedition 33 speedrun. So we'll see. We'll see where that goes. Yeah. I think it'll be a good time. Probably will be. It's usually fun. It's typically fun.
    50:36
    Destiny 2 is dead. Yeah. They announced that the last content drop is the one coming in June. They are moving large portions of the programming team to Marathon and then laying everybody else off according to rumors. Well, that is the video game way. That is very much the video game way. They said that they're not, much like Destiny, they're going to leave it in a playable state. So it's not a game that's going to go away away. So it'll still be playable, but they're no longer going to be actively maintained. Right. So there'll still be some access there. And they also said there is currently no plans for a sequel game. Okay. So Bungie is moving itself fully into the Marathon support. And with Marathon, they've also talked that they realize that the learning curve on Marathon is more akin to a learning cliff, and they are making adjustments to the game to make it more accessible to those who aren't just naturally good. Okay. So Switch 2, they announced, we talked about it previously, their price increase in September.
    52:03
    One of the things they've also announced is that they are increasing production. Sales have been so good, they're looking to produce another 20 million units by the end of March next year.
    52:15
    And the assumption is that they'll sell it, even with the pricing increase, and I'm sure they will. So it's been kind of surprising how well with everything and the price increases. Well, that one's announced because the price increase was announced like five months out. Yes. So that's going to help their sales as people buy up the ones before the price increase.
    52:41
    But at the same time, a lot of those type of like the handhelds, like the Steam decks, can't get them. Right. They're completely out of stock.
    52:55
    There's a big announcement on Grand Theft Auto 6 saying, hey, 100% for realsies. We're not going to push it back anymore. We're into the release date. The release date on the 19th of November is the release date. We promise we're not pushing it back anymore. No, seriously, we're for real here. It's not getting moved back again. But we'll start doing big gaming or start doing a big marketing pushes here in the summer. During the same interview when they were talking about that, they were asked about the pricing and the answer was there's a lot that goes into it and we don't know yet. Or more like we're not saying yet. Okay. Because there's still a lot of people who are assuming this is going to be a $70 plus game. Right. I am. I'm assuming. I'm assuming it will be as well. And we haven't talked about it in a long time because it's just been filings. But that union busting thing with Rockstar that's been going on in the UK is continuing. It's continuing to go on. It's it's still in motion. There's like been a motion that Rockstar is not providing discovery.
    54:05
    So there's stuff going back and forth. So it's just legal. Who knows where it's going, but it's not going to be over anytime soon.
    54:13
    Subnautica 2. Had 2 million units sold in the opening week, two weeks since it released. It's been a week, I guess. At one point, they had 467,582 concurrent users, just barely beating out Subnautica 1's best ever record of 52,000 concurrent users.
    54:38
    Wow. So I think this is bad for crafting as overall things seem to be going very, very well on the early release. The biggest things that have hit on the early release are the game designer specifically built it to be low violence and designed around players having things to help like detour creatures. And avoiding combat situations, not just like murdering everything as standard in video games where you just kill everything. And there has been some community pushback because they're like, wow, I want to be able to kill this thing that's annoying me. Right. And on their Discord, one of the developers said, they aren't a killing game and they should go play Sons of the Forest if they want to kill everything. I'm not familiar with Sons of the Forest. It's another survival game. It's probably a sick burn, though. But they have come back out and apologized for that. They have discussed the reasoning behind their no-kill way they've made things and their thought process behind it being more of an exploratory, pacifist-type thing. The other thing is, in a real interesting way, is a big kerfuffle started because of the terms in their extended user license or what someone attempted to turn into a big kerfuffle, like a bunch of just random people were like, oh, this thing's got all these horrible, like they control your soul stuff written into it. And then it started to come out, this is like standard boilerplate EULAs that are on every game. There's nothing different here than any other game.
    56:42
    And in the standard way, most of that stuff, most of this will fall apart in court because it's not actually enforceable. So it's a real weird flex that feels like a direct attack on them just trying to... Craft in my head, people pushing these narratives. Is this like what the theory is? I mean, I have seen people who have espoused that theory. Okay.
    57:09
    But it's, yeah, it's one of those things that is, it's an interesting, I think they're too late. Their sales have been too high for them to not end up having to pay out that $250 million payout, bonus payout, Uh, because they have three more, four more months minimum to hit the, uh, the numbers required with talk from the judge about actually giving them until like March of next year to hit the numbers required. So I think Krafton's, uh, out of luck with that one. Mm-hmm. Sony has confirmed the reports that we've talked about in the past, not last episode, but a few episodes ago, that they are going to stop putting out PC ports of all of their narrative single-player games. Those are going to be PS5 exclusives. They're not going to put them out on PC anymore, which we've talked about. That's them going, this is how we want to make people buy from PlayStation, so we're going to keep this stuff that is what people want to play on PlayStation.
    58:23
    At the same time, Amazon has announced that they've canceled their Lord of the Rings MMO. But shortly afterwards, Warhorse, who developed Kingdom Come Deliverance, announced that they are working on an open world Middle Earth RPG. And I'll be honest, I think I'd rather have an open world narrative RPG than an MMO. I would, sure. Especially using the Lord of the Rings grouping. And if they could possibly get their hands on the Nemesis system. I think it's tied up with legal stuff or something I read about. Yeah. It's too bad. What a great idea. It was so good. It was good. Yeah, and both those games were great. And the Nemesis system was a long part. For those who don't know, I know we've talked about it many times. In the Shadow of Mordor games, there was what they called a Nemesis system. So occasionally you would beat a boss or mini boss or like person and you'd kill them and you'd go on and it would turn out that they weren't actually dead and they would come back and they would be physically dismembered and they would remember you and they would be much more powerful and they would hate you. And sometimes when you killed them, they were gone. And sometimes they came back and you could build up a very big, interesting, like full on side story with this character that was developed that just hates you because you just keep beating them down. It was great. I loved it. Yeah, I don't know anyone who didn't like Nemesis, but. It's one of the biggest calls I've ever seen is everybody's like, they would have made more money if they licensed this system out to everybody else than if they tried to make more games. Yeah. Because the nemesis system in any like the nemesis system in any action RPG type game would be huge. Can you imagine in an Arkham style game? Yeah. Oh, God, I've been perfect in an Arkham style game. Been great. So but that's what I've got today for the vidya games. All right. Well, guys, thanks for listening to us. We appreciate it. If you want to support us and show your appreciation, you can at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers for as low as a dollar a month. You can reach out to us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. We are also available on facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we will plan to be back in a couple of weeks to talk more about video games and pinball stuff and answer emails if we get any. Until then, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye. See you.