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Episode 227 - The Way of Sentinel

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 29m·analyzed·Sep 1, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

JJP teases Avatar, Stern reveals Uncanny X-Men; hosts critique theming and Costco pricing.

Summary

Tony and Dennis discuss two major pinball game reveals: Jersey Jack Pinball's Avatar and Stern Pinball's Uncanny X-Men. They also address Stern's Jurassic Park Home Edition at Costco for $5,000. The hosts express skepticism about Avatar's theme viability, concern about Marvel fatigue with X-Men, and strong criticism of the home edition pricing strategy as insufficient to reach mainstream consumers.

Key Claims

  • Avatar for Jersey Jack Pinball is Mark Seiden's first game design

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'My understanding, I don't know if this has been confirmed yet or not, apologies, but the belief is this is Mark Seiden's first game.'

  • Jersey Jack Pinball built all 1,000 Elton John units and they were not initially all spoken for by distributors

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'My understanding of what happened with Elton John is they built all of them, but last I had heard, they were not all spoken for by distros and stuff.'

  • Uncanny X-Men is being designed by Jack Danger at Stern

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Jack Danger has made it clear from a post of his that he's the designer because he's talking about, you know, revealing this here in this this week, later this week.'

  • Stern Jurassic Park Home Edition is only available through Stern Direct ($6,000) or Costco ($5,000), not through the normal distributor network

    high confidence · Dennis: 'The distribution network right now, other than if they still have some old ones in stock, my understanding is they are not getting any of these Jurassic Park homes. It's only through Stern Direct at a $1,000 pure profit markup or get them through Costco.'

  • Dennis paid less than $5,000 for his Star Trek pinball machine new almost 10 years ago

    high confidence · Dennis: 'I paid less than this for my Star Trek. New. Yes, it was almost 10 years ago... my Star Trek was $4,800.'

  • The Uncanny X-Men teaser trailer revealed a Sentinel toy rising from the playfield, compared to the Circus Voltaire Ringmaster bash toy

    high confidence · Dennis: 'they did provide a couple second clip of a Sentinel toy rising from the playfield, which looks to be something akin to a bash toy. Online discussion has often compared it to the Circus Voltaire Ringmaster'

Notable Quotes

  • “I just don't know that godfather really translated itself and they tried really hard to make it work... you do not hear a lot of people talking about godfather anymore out of jjp whereas elton john does get a lot of praise for its gameplay”

    Dennis @ ~18:30 — Critical assessment of JJP theme execution and community reception patterns

  • “Avatar doesn't do anything for me... even though it's a massive sci-fi nerd and avatar does nothing for me”

    Dennis @ ~5:45 — Host expresses fundamental disinterest in Avatar as a pinball theme

  • “I think that people are ready for something other than just the normal popcorn superhero stuff... if superhero stuff stopped for a couple years, the world would be okay”

    Tony @ ~34:20 — Broader cultural commentary explaining Marvel fatigue context for Uncanny X-Men skepticism

  • “This cannot be remotely near a pro price. You've got to take the pro price at most 50% of a pro. So that's $3,500. That's what I think you have to do.”

    Tony @ ~53:15 — Concrete pricing critique of Stern's home edition strategy

  • “they're just not getting the price down enough for this market that they want to target and i i don't know why they keep trying i well i do know why they're so desperate to grow pinball”

    Tony @ ~47:30 — Identifies underlying motivation for Stern's repeated home edition attempts

  • “Did they schedule their releases three days after we put out a podcast so we can't talk about it for two weeks? Because they've done that with like the last ten releases.”

    Dennis @ ~25:10 — Humorous but pointed observation about Stern's timing relative to the podcast schedule

  • “So people like me have the member berries and we're like, my Star Trek was $4,800. You're asking for $5,000 for a home edition?”

    Dennis @ ~51:40 — Demonstrates price erosion problem—home edition nearly equals full-size games from previous era

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyAvatargameStern PinballcompanyUncanny X-MengameJack DangerpersonMark Seidenperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern's repeated failed attempts at home editions suggest structural inability to execute market expansion strategy at viable price points

    high · Tony: 'they keep trying... they're so desperate to grow pinball but their only idea is to sell these really expensive games' and 'I do not think this is a good idea because I think it is way too expensive, and I think this will fail like all attempts at this have failed'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: X-Men reveal generated divided community response: design enthusiasm (Jack Danger faction) vs cultural fatigue (Marvel oversaturation), with broader cultural discourse about superhero content reaching saturation point

    high · Tony: 'I think that people are ready for something other than just the normal popcorn superhero stuff' and extended discussion of Marvel phase fatigue, with Deadpool/Wolverine identified as exception due to meta-critical approach

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Avatar theme lacks intrinsic pinball appeal despite franchise status; comparison to other JJP themes suggests declining strategic theme selection

    medium · Dennis: 'i just don't know that godfather really translated itself... avatar doesn't do anything for me... i don't i but i it's such an easy well to go back to' suggesting producer resorting to safe choices

  • ?

    event_signal: Stern's teaser timing (Friday end-of-August release) deliberately positioned to avoid Eclectic Gamers podcast discussion window, suggesting either intentional avoidance or coincidental pattern

    medium · Dennis: 'At this point, does it feel like that we've annoyed Stern enough that they're intentionally scheduling their releases three days after we put out a podcast' with acknowledgment of pattern across 'last ten releases'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.268

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, September 1st. Pay your rent, pay your mortgage, whatever else you have to do on the first of the month. I just paid a bunch of bills. Yeah, so did I. It's our 227th episode. My name is Tony. I'm Dennis. It only feels like 223. I know, right? It's strange. Well, we actually do have... All right. First, I have to take my hat. I'm not wearing a hat, but if I was, I would take my hat off to our listeners because they did listen, and we have a number of queries. They were all pinball related, so they will be in the pinball section. however we also actually have some pinball news but we do but it's not of course because we're ready we were ready to record we don't have enough to really go on much so we'll get to that when we get to that but introductions what's been going on tony i know you've been traveling a lot for work i have i spent all of last week uh uh from monday through thursday uh at a conference and then uh And I utilize the fact that tomorrow is a national holiday. So I burned one vacation day on Friday to have a four-day weekend. Oh, that's nice. So Monday I drove my personal. So Monday I drove to Wichita for a conference, spent the whole week at the conference, met up with a lot of people, had a lot of fun, learned a lot, ate some good food. The normal stuff you do at conferences, networking and all of that. And then I came home on Thursday and just have been off ever since. So I've been puttering around, doing some stuff around the house and relaxing. And it's been great. I had a good time. Excellent.
2:12
Not too much for me work-wise. I've got one more conference coming up here this month now that we're in September. But it's a local one, so it won't be a big deal. and I actually did a bit more wristwatch content than I normally have been. The Geneva watch days has been going, this might be its last day. So because that isn't a, it's not their biggest event, but it's like the one like late summer event that happens. So a number of releases were being done. So I actually put together some videos for that and have had my last couple of live streams have been longer because I'm trying to get, go over stuff. So been focusing on that side of things, which has been going pretty well. And other than that, And I'm just trying to get ready for fall. We've got work stuff that it's time for merit and doing all that post stuff. And we're going to have to start thinking about 2026 budgets because they just finally approved the 2025 and just all that stuff. Anyway, just busy stuff that most of the listeners do not care about. But what they do care about is pinball and video games. They do. And we're going to go ahead and start with pinball. and as i noted while tony was out having good food networking meeting the folk the pinball manufacturers were either getting ready to tease information and or dealing with leaks of information which maybe forced their hand maybe was part of the plan who knows in a way who really cares it doesn't matter much so we have got two major things happening but i can't call them announcements because we don't have reveals we have theme reveals but we don't have any game reveals so because we don't know anything about right no it's just the manufacturers being giant teases it's what they do well and yeah it's it's really kind of like we know stern in the teaser trailers but the first to actually have anything come out was jersey jack pinball which yes they are now teasing their next game which is avatar not the last airbender think too bad think stern which happened to have an avatar game but a jersey jack version so there have been a few images the official jjp account has a very blurred shot of the of the cabinet kind of you know the 45 degree angle side where you kind of see the back box and the display and one side of the game and the coin door except it's so blurred you can't you know it's out of focus so you can't make out much other than that it's colorful like there seems to be some little bits of yellow and red and and green and you know uh blue there's blues i'm sure there's blues so there's that and then there was also a uh leaked picture of the center flipper section so you see where it says like pandora there's some inserts uh and then the two flippers with the shoot again in between where the out hole is. It looks kind of blacklight. Yes. When I saw that, I was like, oh, this reminds me of Stranger Things when it's in the upside-down modes, when it turns on the UV. So UV effect. You know that, of course, JJP and their color-changing RGBs, they do all sorts of stuff with lighting. Since we don't really know what the game itself looks like, I think the only thing that can be discussed is, what do you think of JJP doing Avatar, given that we've, I mean, this isn't the first time we've seen a theme redone, basically. My understanding, I don't know if this has been confirmed yet or not, apologies, but the belief is this is Mark Seiden's first game. So this is what he's been working on is this game. So we don't see nearly enough of the, you know, just seeing two flippers is not enough to tell you anything about the game. So we don't know anything about it yet. So the only thing I can ask you about is really the theme. Like, what do you think about the idea of revisiting Avatar? Obviously, a lot more movies have been planned. We've seen a second one come out. Well, we haven't seen it. I've not seen it. I've only seen the first one. But there's always been a big plan to make it a franchise, and it's been very slow to develop. I don't know.
Jurassic Park Home Edition
product
Elton Johngame
Godfathergame
Foo Fightersgame
Circus Voltairegame
Silver Sluggergame
Star Trekgame
Dunegame
Tonyperson
Dennisperson
NAP Arcadecompany
Costcocompany
$

market_signal: Stern's Costco partnership represents attempt to reach mainstream consumers through retail exposure, mirroring previous Arcade1Up success with budget gaming products

medium · Dennis: 'a lot of people go to Costco and I think it's a good way to get it out there, at least in view' and historical reference to 'originally a lot of those one-up arcade stuff was available in Costco and Walmarts'

  • ?

    community_signal: Jack Danger's leadership on Uncanny X-Men generates distinct community enthusiasm segment, indicating designer reputation as major driver of purchase intent

    medium · Dennis: 'people who seem pretty excited to see what jack danger will do because they liked foo fighters a lot that's been one kind of camp that i've heard'

  • $

    market_signal: Persistent gap between new pinball pricing and gateway consumer willingness-to-pay; home edition at $5,000 positioned as prohibitively expensive relative to used full-size alternative markets

    high · Tony: 'This cannot be remotely near a pro price... needs to be 50% of a pro. So that's $3,500... it's so expensive to get into new in-box pinball'; Dennis: purchasers '2k away from the stern pro price point' and can find 'used games for far less than this real ones on craigslist'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Home edition features (wood playfield vs particle board, cosmetic coin door) represent marginal improvements over previous versions but insufficient to justify price premium over used full-size machines

    high · Tony: 'they put in a real wood play field but who at costco cares about that' and Dennis notes used Star Trek at $4,800 provides superior value proposition versus new home edition at $5,000

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Documented community Marvel fatigue affecting perception of Uncanny X-Men despite designer enthusiasm, contrasting with previous Marvel game adoption

    high · Dennis: 'the other camp can really only be described as marvel fatigue and they're just really disappointed that this is another marvel theme' with explanation of lack of recent successful X-Men films

  • ?

    technology_signal: Sentinel rising playfield toy mechanism design references established Circus Voltaire bash-toy precedent; community speculation about ball routing (Sentinel head as catch) suggests designers borrowing from proven mechanical patterns

    medium · Dennis: 'Online discussion has often compared it to the Circus Voltaire Ringmaster, which you're familiar with that game where you put the ball on top of it... the ball could probably go up there'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Avatar for JJP represents manufacturer's continued investment in major film IP despite slow franchise expansion; discussion of licensing relationships with Disney enabling Marvel content at Stern

    medium · Dennis notes 'they probably have a really good relationship with disney' and that 'family friendly' positioning drives operator appeal across venue types

    • 6:08
    Yes, you're right. There's always been a plan to make it a franchise. It has been slow to develop. It's been slow to come out. And the truth of the matter is I don't know that it really needs to be a franchise. If you remove the amazing 3D visuals of the original one and you just watch it as a 2D movie, it's an okay movie at best. I would agree, yes.
    6:36
    I've not seen the second one at all. I understand I don't understand How And this is probably just the sci-fi nerd In me who has read so many sci-fi Novels and seen so much sci-fi stuff I don't understand the whole Like Even thought that Somebody could fight back Against somebody who owns the high orbitals Because it makes no sense at all I mean it's just completely Nonsensical it's oh we're being counter-attacked drop a rock okay oh they're attacking us that drop a rock i mean that's literally all it is right they have the high ground it's like oh we want to gather we want to gather this unobtainium minerals okay well well guess what i can burn the planet not have a problem gathering the minerals though i did hear like the second one it's about something out of the water i guess to recover maybe it's something from a fish or some water baby stuff whatever i i just don't i don't you can redo themes that's fine we've seen it plenty of times i just to me avatar doesn't do anything and i'm a massive sci-fi nerd and avatar does nothing for me no i that's where i sort of am at setting aside the or the role of the franchising of the films and if it deserves it or if it'll be successful or whatever you know just saying all of that aside i my instinct here is this like so many of the theme choices lately from jersey jack this is not a great theme to run with it's not necessarily a bad theme i think this is a better theme than godfather which yes i'm sure even without seeing it and that's completely unfair i'm going to say it anyway that godfather is better than whatever movie number two of avatar was having seen godfather multiple times right uh i just don't know that godfather really translated itself and they tried really hard to make it work with the whole land control like they turned it into like a territory wars video game which i thought was a smart way to go about it but you do not hear a lot of people talking about godfather anymore uh out of jjp whereas elton john does get a lot of praise for its gameplay right but it too had some issues where it's like it's a famous theme but is it a great theme for pinball i think it was all right but yeah but you know with the pricing that's always going to be the thing with jjp we got this because i don't know yet but i'm going to go with the assumption like that they won't go backwards on pricing so can they put enough in this game to make people want to buy it because i do not believe there has been enough inflation since elton john to yet get people to this 12 slash 15,000 threshold. Just by default on buying pinball machines in this market. And this is a soft market.
    9:34
    I still think they'll sell out of the collector's edition. Maybe. My understanding of what happened with Elton John is they built all of them, but last I had heard, they were not all spoken for by distros and stuff. Yeah, they just went ahead and built them so that they would be available. Interesting, because I actually think Elton John's a better theme than avatar and i i personally think they will eventually sell all 1000 elton's i do think that their decision to build them all was smart yeah um because i think they got close enough that's why they went ahead and made that decision like you know what let's just warehouse these and we'll move them over time but in theory over time that price point becomes more and more attractive assuming they don't do what would be what most businesses would do and at some point drop the price and fire sale out what they haven't gotten rid of correct anyway it's neither here nor there also neither here nor there but soon to be amongst us will be the uncanny x-men which yes on friday a teaser trailer dropped from stern pinball uh which of course uh as per usual the teaser trailer shows you almost nothing it gives you the theme so you now have the theme revealed to you and there's mostly just close-ups of art close-ups of some playfield shots that you can't really make out. The only part that could really be made out is they did provide a couple second clip of a Sentinel toy rising from the playfield, which looks to be something akin to a bash toy. Online discussion has often compared it to the Circus Voltaire Ringmaster, which you're familiar with that game where you put the ball on top of it. They see the top of the Sentinel's head and they think the ball could probably go up there. You've got what looked like targets as his headband, So maybe something there and then the mouth does open up. So, you know, Sentinel E-ball, they don't want to have a Shark E-ball scandal. So Sentinel E-ball, we're assuming. So anyway, that's the only thing like we don't know anything else about the Jack Danger has made it clear from a post of his that he's the designer because he's talking about, you know, revealing this here in this this week, later this week. but uh you know we don't know anything else about like number of flippers or really anything about the geometry or what the caps look like um so what do you think of the uncanny x-men because online reaction has been i've mostly heard two things and i haven't heard much i haven't seen much yet uh other than people who are trying to tell me based off of my the pinball show comments that this counted as a reveal even though zach and i agreed that this teaser trailer would not count as a reveal but they can count it however they wish it's been people who seem pretty excited to see what jack danger will do because they liked foo fighters a lot that's been one kind of camp that i've heard and the other camp can really only be described as marvel fatigue and they're just really disappointed that this is another marvel theme even though all the discussion i mean has been that it's going to be a marvel thing that doesn't negate the fact that they can be disappointed but there's been a lot of people that are just kind of like do we care about uncanny x-men And again, X-Men was, and I'd say is, a huge Marvel property, but there haven't been any recent movies that have done well with X-Men. So maybe that's where they're coming from. Maybe. It reminds me of when Deadpool came out, and there were a lot of people who were really upset that it wasn't Reynolds' Deadpool, that it was comic book Deadpool. But anyway, those are the two things I mostly hear is Marvel fatigue and, yay, another Jack Danger. I want to bring in a third topic on this one, other than those two.
    13:09
    At this point, does it feel like that we've annoyed Stern enough that they're intentionally scheduling their releases three days after we put out a podcast so we can't talk about it for two weeks? Because they've done that with like the last ten releases. It could be. I am having some concerns because I pleaded with them not to reveal this game until September. and while technically they've they've done it that they allowed the trailer to teaser to come out right at the end of august also seemed to be like they were trying to say i flew too close to the sun with my requests yeah like i'm a little you're a little icarus i'm a little icarus so and i you know and i kind of like but but i'm right so why would you want my wings to melt why don't you want me to be a peacock and fly i don't understand so yeah it may be i mean and we He didn't get invited to the Stern Factory tour for John Wick. Well, that's no surprise. But I'm just saying there's a pattern here of us not getting – no one emailed us a leaked play field photo. You see, there's a pattern here. There's a pattern. A pattern of neglect.
    14:20
    We're sorry. Are we sorry? Not really. I mean, if we were really sorry, we would sign NDAs and do stuff like that. They don't even offer us NDAs. The other manufacturers desperate for attention do, but they don't. Well, that just means that they're the ones who actually pay attention and actually understand that we don't play that game. Yes, they do understand.
    14:46
    I'm curious about this. I'm more curious about Uncanny X-Men than I am Avatar from a theme perspective. From a theme perspective, yeah, alone. But at the same time, I can fully understand the Marvel fatigue. And it's not just that it's X-Men. And it's just, I think that the world is ready for a break from superhero stuff. Yeah, it was, I mean, you know, the irony is Disney is going to look at how Deadpool and Wolverine went and be like, oh, there's still hope. And it's like, but that's so different than everything. It's so different. And it made fun of everything else. Yeah, that's right. It was just sitting there ridiculing Disney, Fox, all of it. And you can't do that with every property. and you start making it. I mean, that's what ended up happening with Marvel is you started having stuff come out constantly, especially with Disney Plus. And I mean, I'm fatigued of it. It's just like I was already back in phase one, phase two. My biggest complaint was these are well put together movies, but there's sort of this theme, this Marvel vanilla about almost all of them. And you saw certain directors could bring in different spins, like Civil War. Like there were certain directors who would come in and it would make it a little like there were gems that really shined in a lot of that and now it's oh well let's bring robert downey jr back and just we're right we gotta we gotta again what has been the best thing that has come out since um the last big avengers movie i'd say shang chi was i mean i like that one um but i did did it do very well i no i don't think any of them did very well but i think that would have been the one that i enjoyed the most yeah uh the third guardians was okay too yeah that one i enjoyed the story of but a lot of the other ones it's always there's just something with them that's just like see here's we've got all these and all this marvel stuff and all this just not not even just marvel i mean i mean dc kind of died but but there's just been a ton of superhero stuff And then it was so kind of fresh, even though it was a remake of a remake of a remake of a remake, to see the just massive epic that was Dune.
    17:04
    And I think that people are ready for something other than just the normal popcorn superhero stuff. I would like to see some more sci-fi epics. I would love to see stuff that is just something we've not really seen a lot of recently. I know they're in works of – why can't I remember the title of it? Hail Mary is filming, which is another book by the same author who did The Martian, Andy Weir. And we both love The Martian. We both listened to Hail Mary and enjoyed Hail Mary, so I'm hopeful for that one. But, I mean, I think we're ready for something. I think if superhero stuff stopped for a couple years, the world would be okay. So for pinball, though, what would you – I also think of superhero stuff. Are there movies that have come out that – because obviously it's stern. Movies, TV, and music, those are the three things you're going to get out of them.
    18:12
    And, yeah, I get it that they do comics versions of some of this stuff, but it's always been driven, I think, by the excitement in the movie realm. It has. So, I mean, I would like to see a Dune pinball machine. I would love to see a Dune pinball machine. A very good one. Especially if they could get Skarsgård to do the voiceovers. Yeah, and why couldn't you? I think you could. I don't know. If you try. It would be better to do Chalamet. Yeah, if you would bet try. Yeah, worst part of those films. so yeah i don't i but i it's such an easy well to go back to they probably have a really good relationship with disney i'm sure i'm sure they do and that makes it a good working relationship does make a lot of that stuff easier it's family friendly so the operators out there no matter if it's a bar or an arcade or a pizza place they're like you know you know that uncanny x-men is not going to be inappropriate so that's probably all of that kind of combined you know what i'd like to see what yet another version of godzilla can we get a minus one godzilla you know when they redid the art for the 70th was black and white i kind of thought even if the display who cares what the display was still doing the display is going to display why not just do minus one art right like on the calves i really enjoyed minus one yeah that one yeah but on paper godzilla was not a especially like first gen godzilla that was not a theme to go with no it ended up working out i think mostly because the game is so good right but but i mean otherwise movie and tv i mean so much stuff out there is just all so similar yeah i mean i i wouldn't be shocked if we saw like a house of the dragon pen right or i don't know we'd see a rings of power pen that might be the closest we'd get to lord of the rings though ever being remade would be doing rings of power that could work here's what i was thinking uh it it only has light uh tv tie-ins but it has a video game tie-in but they've pushed things hard enough i'll be honest i could see a cyberpunk pen Yeah, maybe. I mean, it did do really well. I don't know. Video games have just been like this no-man's land. Have you seen the show? No, I have not. I will say it is amazing. Okay.
    20:42
    And the same thing with the League of Legends show. I don't give a crud about League of Legends. I've played it. I do not like that style of game at all. Those MOBAs, it's not my cup of tea. the show was amazing.
    20:58
    So even I could even see a league of legends thing if it was based around the show, which I think the second season is coming up soon. Okay. So interesting. Yeah. That's all that. That's all one of those things that just is an outgrowth of something else entirely that has become kind of taken on its own thing. Oh, you know, it'd be real good. Something based on the Castlevania show. You know what? I was just thinking also about the boys and wondering, That would be a good one. Maybe wait until it's finished, I suppose. Now, I don't ever see Stern doing the placement. No, I don't think Stern would. But Spooky and Jersey Jack have done more adult-style themes. Yeah. So there may be potential there. But anyway, in a couple of weeks, we'll be able to give more feedback on, for sure, Uncanny X-Men. I think we'll probably have the reveal by our next episode on Avatar, and we'll be able to talk a bit more about our opinions of the way it looks. But anyway, that's it for now on those. There is one last news piece before we get to the emails that I wanted to go ahead and mention. I do have a link in the show notes to NAP Arcade so people can read about this if they really care to learn more. But Stern is trying to do the Home Edition thing again. So they've brought back Jurassic Park Home Edition. They partnered with Costco So if you go to a Costco they not at every Costco I think some of the details are in that NAP article But if you go to a Costco with them you can go and you can for $5,000 buy Jurassic Park Home Edition. You can also go to the Stern website and order it for $6,000.
    22:31
    I think this is really smart because a lot of people go to Costco and I think it's a good way to get it out there, at least in view. I don't know how many they'll actually sell because of it, but I think it's a great way to get them out there in view. Because as I recall, originally a lot of those one-up arcade stuff was available in Costco and Walmarts and stuff, and those got super popular there for a while. My daughter has one. She's got one of the smaller one-ups that's got all the Pac-Man games in it. Okay. I do not think this is a good idea because I think it is way too expensive, and I think this will fail like all attempts at this have failed. They are not getting the price nearly low enough to make it attractive to non-pinball people.
    23:21
    And I get it. I get the struggle. I get the idea of the exposure, but they were in Costco before, and the project didn't work. This was years and years ago before the home editions. It might have been when they were doing the pins. but i and they've done some change-ups here like it's no longer a particle board play field they put in a real wood play field but who at costco cares about that they put in a cosmetic coin door like i think that i believe it's probably a regular coin door but then there's no mechs but again who really i the look is important so that's smart like i did that on my virtual pin it has a just a cosmetic looking coin door on it i didn't actually install the mechs because who cares right but the five thousand dollars it's like if you decided you were going to get into pinball unless you're a person who's totally buying things on a lark and i don't know how many people do that at that price point at costco you're going to go online you're going to find used games for far less than this real ones on craigslist you're two thousand dollars away from the stern pro price point which is a significant jump but when you start looking you're going to realize that the full-size ones are less than half more and that's going to be a factor and i i just think it's just too they're just not getting the price down enough for this market that they want to target and i i and i don't know why they keep trying i well i do know why they're so desperate to grow pinball but their only idea is to sell these really expensive uh games that are just not really, really expensive. I paid less than this for my Star Trek. New. Yes, it was almost 10 years ago. But people like me have the member berries and we're like, my Star Trek was $4,800. You're asking for $5,000 for a home edition? Right. Which does bring up the thought, would they have been better off just putting pros out instead of the home edition to try this? Yes. For your idea about the idea with the exposure, I do. I think so. And whether or not they could have made an arrangement where, you know what, you buy a – now, there are risks there in the sense that – not in terms of putting the units out there. But imagine what happens if you cut a deal and you tell Costco you can sell the Stern Pros for six and the distribution network is told they can't advertise under seven. Oh, that would be – You see, that's the thing. The distribution network right now, other than if they still have some old ones in stock, my understanding is they are not getting any of these Jurassic Park homes. It's only through Stern Direct at a $1,000 pure profit markup or get them through Costco. The deal is just with Costco. What if instead of having done Jurassic Park Home, they took an older game and stopped selling them through distributors entirely and put them. So not your John Wick's, not your Jaws. something that's either just finishing a run up, like do a special run specifically for the Costco market of something older, like that's just coming off the line, like Guardians or something like that as a special one just for the Costco run. Would that be better? I think, honestly, it would. I don't think you'd upset the Distro Network. Like if you were to, I don't know, do a Costco version of Turtles and they're like, we've already sold all the Turtles. We're really going to sell. As long as it didn't look too different where it's like, oh, well, that's the awesome art package version. You should probably say Costco in the art.
    26:54
    Yeah, but it's really just an exposure thing. Unless they get the pricing down. That's my thing. People go to like a Meany's Galleria to look for pinball machines, not Costco. So you could put pros in to get more exposure, and that would meet that goal if that's the goal. But if the goal is this stuff is too expensive, we need a gateway drug pinball machine to get people in, their gateway drug is still too expensive. It's 5,000. It needs to be half that, and maybe they could move units. That's the goal. But would you buy a home? No, but I'm a collector. I'm already in. Like, why would I get a home edition? that's like someone, you know, talking to you about their nice watches and all the batteries that they don't want to change. You know what you understand? It's like, that's, that doesn't work for me anymore. Like for me, if I were to get a home edition game, it would be purely for novelty sake. Right. So the, I think, but when you're gatewaying people, it's like when I was a kid, I had a little toy billiards table. It wasn't a full size table, right? It's like giving people a not full-size air hockey table.
    28:14
    That this is a full-size play field, they need to let that go. If that's the barrier, if the holdup that they can't get this pricing down under five is that they're insisting that this basically be a full-size game, let that go. Shave it down a third. Maybe take a – I know it's hard to imagine. Take a page out of Gottlieb Premier and do a street level. was a little bit smaller. I don't remember. The play field may have been the same normal size, but maybe do something like that. Definitely do something where, I mean, they get some of it right. Like the home edition rules are a lot easier to understand and all of that. But what is it about the game that is making it still cost so much money? Give it plastic legs. It's got a stupid cell phone screen. Like they cheaped out on the screen. Cheap out on more of the materials. Plastic legs, plastic cab, plastic back box. That's what they need to be thinking about is they need to toyify it more just to get the price down. Then if people buy it, and the rules are still there and it still shoots, it's still physical pinball, that's your transition. And maybe some of them start looking at some used stuff, and then they start looking at some starting price. Hear me out. I'm going to hear you out.
    29:28
    Do all the things you just said, but literally make it a remake of Silver Slugger. well i would probably change the theme because theme also sells for the new blitz too so make it a marvel theme i was thinking field of dreams you make it make it uh i heard that place burned down oh the house yeah oh i didn't know it was like a tourist thing yeah like the whole place was caught in a wildfire oh that's unfortunate uh but totally excited But, I mean, then you keep the baseball theme, but you're playing Field of Dreams.
    30:05
    Well, I mean, there's nothing like – none of the shots are like baseball on that. It's just a layout that got to be baseball. So here's what you need to do. Angels in the outfield.
    30:20
    That's a good layout, though. I do like a Silver Slugger layout. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't have it. My answer is that this is never going to work, and they need to just stop trying. I don't think that's the answer they want to hear. If they want the answer that they want to hear, it's got to be what I just said. And it's a you need to – this cannot be remotely near a pro price. You've got to take the pro price at most 50% of a pro. So that's $3,500. That's what I think you have to do. It has to be so significant that people are like, this is a deal. I'm really – like it is so expensive to get into new in-box pinball. this is a fair deal to do but they can't pull it off is what i'm i don't think they can right and i don't know if it's like physically they can't build them and and sell them at a profit that low or it's the opposite and they're like we could do that but the moment the pinball community realizes we can basically make full-size games and still make money at 3500 they will never forgive us for going to seven. Yeah, they are, and they'd be right. So that's where... The problem is that I can see where they needed to go higher when the bill of material cost was so much higher, but that does not necessarily mean it has to stay high, and we all know it will. Yes, it will.
    31:40
    So anyway, but Costco, if you want a desk.com edition, check out your nearest Costco. It might be there.
    31:45
    All right, we got emails. How about a hot dog? Yeah, a hot dog. $5,000 one? Probably not. No, I'm pretty sure their hot dogs are like a buck. Well, we got a few emails, so thank you, listeners, for emailing. Remember, you can email us at CollecticGamersPodcast at gmail.com. I'm going to go ahead and start. A number of these are going to be things for us to discuss, Tony, so that's why these are all part of the show. And we're going to start with an email from Scott G., who writes, Gentlemen, I've now heard a similar line of thinking on pinball bankruptcies from my two favorite podcasts, EGP and Slam Tilt. While I think it's irresponsible to label Marty a crook, I do lay some blame on Steve Bowden of DR, DR incidentally is deeper, and Marty of Haggis. I'd like to think that those with integrity don't stand by when leadership is lying to their customer base. If Steve didn't know that Robert M. was outright lying, he'd be deaf, dumb, or blind. I'm in no way inferring he knew about the theft from insurance policies. To continue with interviews and towing the company line is an embarrassment. Marty may not have known much either, but they went silent, clearly had issues, and haven't uttered a word since. How about, I'm a pinball guy and I feel bad how things turned out. Pinball is hard, etc. But when you run away, it's not good optics. We are all adults and should recognize when criticism is warranted. They were both part of a black mark on pinball and don't see either as merely innocent bystanders. They worked for pigs, and there's a reason why you want to align yourself with honest and ethical people. Thank you. Well, thank you, Scott, for writing in. So he took some issue with us, obviously, from an episode or two ago. We were discussing the bankruptcy of Haggis. And the question had come up about Marty and Marty's role. And we were kind of the – I'm going to nutshell summary it. And it was a – Marty's not the owner. We can't assume that he knew anything about how things were shaken out in the sense of like how much money was left. Promises were broken. You know, like people were told things were going to ship and they didn't ship. But that we we would understand that he knew that the company was in trouble because, you know, no one else is working there and they're trying to build and they're having trouble getting that sort of thing. I guess in regards to Scott's thing, laying the blame, here's why it's tough. He brought up two points. One, while the company's failing, and we did discuss this, I believe, in regards to Haggis, if they are, and we knew this was true for Deep Root, if they are under NDAs, non-disclosure agreements, as part of their employment setups, while the companies are still operating, they would be subject to pretty significant penalties depending on what the ndas actually said if they were to start disclosing information that was considered confidential and i point that i pointed out then because we knew from people like david theil who also worked with deep root that there were ndas on the staff so while deep root is still in operation how is someone like steve supposed to go out and say anything if it got back like even if he leaked it and it got back And we can talk about the ethics of leaking, but if he got, you know, if he didn't know anything illegal was happening, he wouldn't be, he wouldn't have whistleblower protection. It would just be like, oh, we're having a lot of trouble. I want to say something, but I have an NDA. If he says something, then Robert, who is a lawyer, would have been able to take action on a contract breach. so even if you felt someone like that had an ethical obligation to say that they knew the company was struggling legally he probably couldn't and that's where i can't assume that marty can you i i get where scott's coming from but just because you're part of the pinball community does not give you permission to break your ndas and that's where right and and some of those ndas even when the company is gone some stuff some not even necessarily ndas but some other legalities that come with uh employment contracts uh can apply afterwards too depending on how things are put together now and so so i mean i can see a lot of reasons why they wouldn't make comments well now that my part was only regarding while while the company was still in operation and things weren't going good because there's no reason for me that i can defaultly say that marty would know about the bookkeeping steve would know about the bookkeeping david deal would know about the bookkeep there's like their roles weren't accountants that i know of they were like coders rule makers designers sound engineers etc you know staff correct scott's issue regarding the thing about after the fact after the implosion after let's say after the ndas like i don't listen to all the stuff i have i have zero knowledge if steve has or hasn't ever talked about what happened at deep root i don't know so i'm not going to weigh in on him not saying anything about what happened at deep root because i don't consume enough media to be able to say he never did i don't know i've never heard him talk about it i've never asked him about it i've talked to him a couple of times since he left deep root i've never brought up deep root um because i as far as I'm concerned I know everything that I need to know about Deep Root because of the SEC investigation so I I don't like I don't care how things shook out internally like there's just been and there were other people who talked about that like it's already known like like Robert micromanaged they you know they reinvented the wheel on everything they clearly never got product out and then it turned out we learned through the SEC stuff how the organization was able to have funded it as long as it did without income i don't they're like i don't care anymore there's nothing there for me there's nothing new to learn so i guess i can understand people like scott if they think that everyone who was involved owes the community a mea culpa but i i don't care right and it also i mean just comes up what positive for themselves could possibly come from talking about it all all them talking about any of thing is going to do is going to open up is open themselves up for attack worse than they already are for not talking about it if there was no other information already out there i would see the reason why and that's why there's going to be more pressure on someone like marty than there was on steve right there were plenty of people post deep root who were like i feel like or i know my nda is no longer in place that they started talking about what was going on Lots of information came out about Deep Roots. We don't have that yet with Haggis. And I think because it's believed that Marty was there to the end with Damien, and the assumption is Damien is never going to come out and say what happened, that Marty would be our only source. So I understand that there will be this desire for Marty to talk about what happened more so than – because I want to know what happened on that because I don't feel like I know enough. I feel like I know everything I need to know about Deep Roots implosion. Yeah. But the points about like the towing the company line and continuing with interviews, it's like I there's so many. I get where Scott's coming from, but there's so many like if you can't if you can't not tow the company line because it's your job to promote your product. And if your staff there and you're thinking maybe if I get people to love Raza, they're going to buy Raza and we're going to be OK. We've got to sell Raza's. I'm trying to save my job. I'm trying to save my coworkers job. And the only thing I know is we have to sell this game. Then I understand whether I like it or not. I understand where employees involved in a project. Again, this is standard. We see this with Hollywood all the time where people make total. I have seen at least two interviews with Kate Blanchett going around talking about borderlands before people saw it and talk about like what a great experience and stuff. it was no it was not a great experience for anyone like it's not i have not seen it my sister watched it after it went streaming and she was so upset that it wasn't so bad it's good she's like dennis this is not it's just bad this is not good like all the acting is bad it's not there's no joy to be had here it's just bad so i i i get i get where i so anyway i i'm rambling i get where scott's coming from on it. But the reason why I hope I've articulated the reason why I do not do the same thing in terms of assigning blame. Some of that is I just don't know. And I'm pretty cautious when I don't know about wanting to assign blame to specific individuals. And I do think there are some reasonable excuses, especially depending on what they may not have known and what they legally were restricted by through their employment contracts in terms of what they had to do. Right. So I'm not saying they're in the right. I'm just saying I don't I just don't have the same.
    40:57
    I just don't have the same level of, I guess, vitriol on this that that appears that he appears to. But also. We don't have any skin in the game, so we don't have. And I don't know if Scott did or did with either of them. So, no, I yeah. And if I had skin in the game, my rage goes up. Yes, quite a lot. I know myself well. Understandably so. But there's a reason that. Go back to episode 43 or whatever it was where Tony goes into his one-hour rant on the Kickstarter betrayal that he experienced.
    41:28
    I don't remember the episode number. I'm still angry about that. But that was, I think, one of our better performing episodes because that is the most angry for an extended period of time you have ever been on this podcast was that rant.
    41:41
    I think. It was really long. It was. It was a good episode. It did give us. It was a long time before I kickstarted something again. And honestly, most of the stuff I've kickstarted since has been very safe and for much smaller amounts of money.
    42:04
    Most of it. Anyways, thank you, Scott, for the email. We appreciate it. We got another G email. This one's from Chris G. And Chris writes, very good points from y'all on the lack of innovation and pinball. No reason to buy a new machine at current price points. Even new hard-to-get games like Labyrinth, with all the extra doodads, are dropping $1,500 on the secondary market. If the local operator is willing to buy every new Stern, it will be hard for folks to be willing to take a 1-2K wax for the chance of getting Borg's fifth version of Metallica. And don't get anyone started on 12K premium JJP games that never get finished code-wise. Keep on keeping on, fellas. Thank you, Chris, and I think I landed the accent. I think you landed it perfect. That felt good. I wasn't sure. I thought with the y'all initially, but the doodads made me know I was on the right path. So, I mean, he was basically agreeing with some of our stuff, whilst throwing in zingers about, like, you know, version 5 of Metallica, which is a big rumor that a new Metallica will be the first Spike 3 game, which I find to be the oddest idea to do a remake or a re-envisioning or a vault or whatever as your first go with a whole new system, which is not what pinball typically has done. But anyway, yeah, innovation in pinball, it's tough, and we're in this softer market right now. And I think there's going to be another email that we're going to get to that's going to ask us some more pointed questions in this space. But it's hard right now because I think manufacturers are trying to figure out what to do to get the sales back up, and they're on the struggle bus. And I'd be on the struggle bus too because given where the market's at right now, I don't know what it would be that they could pull off that would. There's probably something. I just – I'm not creative enough to know it. Right, and I kind of agree with you on that. I found it interesting that literally just before we started recording this, you and I had an entire discussion about watches and the used in secondary markets and price drops and everything.
    44:19
    And I can fully agree with the whole why spend the money on a new in box when you can wait just a little bit of time and get a used one because you know people are going to flip them and with the price drop. It makes total sense to me. I 100 agree that the best way to do it if you going to do that kind of thing All right Third email is from Richard So thank you And thank you Chris for writing into us
    44:44
    Oh, gosh. You know, I'm running out of voices. Maybe you could do Richard's email. First, I want thank you both. Okay. No, I won't.
    44:58
    That's going to require me to modify the letter too much. I should know that. Straight out of the curse, Griesian. He's free! I want to thank you both for answering my question about Stern Pro Model Rankings. With such detail. It was exciting to listen to on my commute home from work.
    45:29
    I'm going to take my glasses off. I'm having problems reading it where was I know there was some speculation about an appropriate accent for reading my question I can confirm that German would not be accurate but also Dennis' go-to southern accent would be wildly inaccurate as well I think this is right, it feels right to me unfortunately Unfortunately, I currently reside in a state that is best known for being easy to create memes about. So I'll let you both try and figure that out. Well, I hope you and your sister enjoy yourselves.
    46:11
    On to my next question. You both put Foo Fighters Pro high on your recommended pro model list. And I thought about a discussion I heard recently about the importance of toys in pinball. Foo Fighters Pro objectively has zero toys, unless you count common elements such as a captive ball or ball lock. The most well-regarded classic machines from the past, such as Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, Twilight Zone, Lord of the Rings, all top ten on Pinside, are known for their distinct toys. Even modern stones in the top ten, like Godzilla, build in. Jurassic Park, T-Rex, Raptor Pin, and Elvira House of Horrors House have great toys.
    46:57
    However, recent machines such as John Wick, Venom, Godfather, 007, Liz Zeppelin, Avengers, and Mandalorian have lackluster toys and don't seem to be selling all that well, while rising in the rankings. I think the most disturbing trend is stripping out just about every toy from a pro model and still selling it for 7,000 pounds. Dollars. I don't think you see. We're going to do the British conversion because of all the frozen accounts. Okay. Sorry. World under glass or a world of more cash for the manufacturers. So how important do you think toys are in modern pinball market? Do you think that Stern Pro models are sometimes a bad value proposition for taking out the major toys? Looking at you, Godzilla Pro. Richard. Okay. Well, thank you, Richard, for emailing in.
    47:58
    So you asked a good question. So this was the email, apparently, that I was trying to remember. It kind of brought up the thing about toys. And we talked about innovation and the role of innovation in pinball and how that's kind of been lacking as of late. You know, people just aren't, they're like, I'm just not feeling anything. So, but about toys specifically and on the pro models, what do you think of Richard's highlights here that he's brought up? I think it's a valid point. I think the fact that FooPro ranks so high with no toys talks more about how fun the game is to shoot and just how well they made that game be interesting as a music pen. It has great animations. It has a fun story. It is far more interesting than the typical music pen, which is, oh, look, we're on concert, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Nobody cares. It actually did something very fun and created interesting stuff that was fun to play with. So I think that's why I would rank that one so much higher with zero toys on it. I do think that cutting the toys makes the most sense for them to get the pro model pricing. It's the thing that makes sense. And I think it's also the reason why pros don't necessarily sell as well, especially to the home user as opposed to somebody who's routing it. Because if you're routing it, a lot of toys are just extra stuff to break it anyway.
    49:33
    But it is definitely one of those things that I think that it hurts them in the long run. because not every game is going to have the fun rules, the fun story, and the fun shots all combined together into one. Foo, I feel like, is a lot like Godzilla in that it combines all of its elements in a way that makes the game fun, even in its more reduced, toyless version. Because I consider, I mean, Godzilla Pro is fun, just nowhere near as fun as Premium.
    50:02
    It's just the truth of the matter. Yeah, so I think there are a couple of things in play. your points on on foo fighters i think are are well taken the issue for this kind of gets back to that concept that chris brought up regarding innovation so what makes a pinball machine work it's going to vary a little bit uh depending on what sort of player slash collector you are so there are some people that are incredibly toy driven i am not one of those individuals i've always been deeply like i still remember like there were games where like maverick where that ball lock mechanism is cool the first time you see it and then it's just a flow killer it's slow it's you're you're waiting around it doesn't you will so my struggle with many toys is you eventually lose interest in the toy for the toy's sake that a lot of that concept stems back from the arcade era where the toys were to get you to walk up like there's a reason why uh the iron monger has to pop up out of the out of the game uh when so when people would go up like gary sturm was like we need that toy to come up and show the same with the ball rug on lord of the rings he's like i need that we're paying for that toy that ball rug needs to come out like all the time i want to see it and because the people want to see it because they want to get to that to be able to hit it right so there's that's where a lot of the concepts of toys came from it wasn't so much to make it an immersive world though i see why people turn to that but even for me like with Godzilla, my favorite game, I get tired of waiting for the building to drop. It's like, come on, make that belt move faster. I've got games to play here. I'm trying to play.
    51:46
    I'm playing here. So with Foo Fighters, with what Tony had pointed out, was you had these other elements that were very strong. It's take on a music pin. It's telling you a story. But also, the layout was really different. And if you have an innovative layout, I think you can get away with a lot of differences in terms of your lack of toys.
    52:09
    Or what Jack really seemed to do a lot of was relying on a lot of mechanisms like kickback rubbers. It's like stuff from Gottlieb, stuff that hadn't been seen lately. He was pulling some of that stuff back. The thing is we're seeing a lot of that now. Like Keith Elwin loves his captive balls. we're already seeing conversation with the new Uncanny X-Men and the Sentinel toy like okay some people like that looks cool and then other people are looking and they're like did he just take that straight out of Circus Voltaire are we just taking from Williams now and that's what this is going to be Jack's approach is going to be let's find stuff that worked in the past I'm just going to stick it in new stuff maybe and maybe that'll work that might not be anything wrong that one's not been around in a while So I wouldn't think people would be too bitter, but I'll tell you a good case in point layout thing that I'm already getting really sick of. I brought it up on the pinball show, I think a couple of times now, and that is the 180 ramp.
    53:07
    It's like ever since Munsters came out, there is a 180 ramp. Elwin loves the 180 ramp. They're hard to hit. And it's just like I just want to cram more shots in, so we're going to stick in 180 ramps everywhere. I'm getting sick of it. I want a very target. Yeah, a very target would be nice. But the which I think Venom kind of had, I don't recall the one that the ball that kept going back further and further, I think was quasi was like a very target. Yeah, I think it was on both versions. But the thing with a game like Venom. So you take a game like Godzilla Pro, which has has a unique looking layout. Foo Fighters Pro, which has a very unique looking layout that helps out when you take a game like Venom Pro. It's a fan layout with no toys. That's when people start to notice and they start to get mad. And, I mean, John Wick's layout is not particularly creative in my opinion. It's sort of the same boat. Led Zeppelin, we've seen it all before. This is a standard Steve Ritchie three-flipper layout. And the third flipper isn't satisfying because it's not warp ramping around. It dead ends and then just dribbles back. It's just – that's why – so long story short, Richard, I think – I mean, pros are supposed to be easier to maintain also. So it's not just a pricing thing. It's so operators don't have to go around and deal with hung up balls and stuff that all these toys screwed up all the time. I mean, I had to modify my Godzilla to get it to consistently do the ball lock on top of the of the building. Like Keith Elwin sent me a message. He's like, take a business card and put it underneath on the subway. That'll that should fix your problem. And I did. And it worked. but like an operator doesn't have to go in and remember to change the business card when it falls out. Cause the tape gets too dirty because it got 200 plays a day. My game doesn't get 200 plays a day. So anyway, long story short for me, you can get away without the toys. If the layout is, is good. And especially if the rest of the theme elements are really strong. So you feel like you're in that world without the toys. I think you can do it. If you don't have a layout, you need the toys. because otherwise people aren't going to see it. And they're going to see through the fan layout and they're going to go, I've played this eight times already. It's different for themes that I cared about more. So that's where I kind of think it comes down to. But it is what it is.
    55:28
    All right. A couple more emails. We got an email from Brian J. Let's see. Brian says, when you were talking about what both of you would like to see coming in pinball, I had a similar thought. With the arrival of Barrel of Thun's Labyrinth, which by all accounts has a ton in it, and now Dutch Pinball subsidiary DPXPXPXPX teaser photos of their upcoming Alice in Wonderland. Do you think Stern and possibly other manufacturers start to increase their bill of materials without increasing prices to give an appearance of an increased value with all of these pinball machines? Maybe Stern does something starting with their Spike 3 releases. With all this, with the state of the market being where it is and the prices on new and box continue to be on the high end. My feeling is something has to be done to keep the factory running. This might be a solution without discounting or outright lowering prices. Maybe updated vaults or complete redesigns on the Spike 3 system accomplish this as well. Curious about your thoughts on what might be the best path forward for the manufacturers as they try and navigate the new reality of selling to operators and hope buyers. Thanks, Brian. Thank you, Brian.
    56:40
    Tony, what are your thoughts on that? Do you – again, this is – you're not seeing a theme here. Innovation, toys, upping the bill of materials. People, they're crying out for more for these price points, and this is all in regards to the state of this market. Brian, out of his Brian Cave, is pointing out the same thing as prior to authors. So what do you think on the bill of materials, Artie? Artie, do you think we see it? I don't. I don't think Stern cares.
    57:08
    Why would they? There's keeping up with the Joneses and then there's trying to keep up with somebody that is so low and small that you've never even noticed them before. I think Stern is too far above the fray to be worried about him yet. Maybe if Barrels of Fun or Dippix.
    57:31
    And in my defense, he spelled it out exactly as I said. And it was great. That was wonderful. So, but if those companies became larger and got to a point where they might actually be considered an actual competitor, Stern might react to them and care. But I don't, I just think Stern is too big at this point. I don't think Stern is going to react in any way, shape or form. I think all of those companies are doing what they can and they are kind of fighting each other at their level. But the big boys don't react to them in any way, shape or form. Not until they grow more.
    58:13
    Yeah. No, I think you're right. And I will say and I don't think they grow more. So with that said, Stern will never care. There's the everyone thought that Jersey Jack pinball was going to be this big Stern competitor. They're not. They just they aren't. They're just the most expensive, like regular model out there. And the other big competitor is spooky. And it's not a threat either. I doubt, just like you noted, I highly doubt that Stern really gave much of a second thought to barrels of pinballs labyrinth, which didn't even, at least as I heard, sell completely out of. So it didn't even make its arguably modest number for such a game changer in the sense that people looked at that. Like if you wanted Toys and World Under Glass, Barrels of Fun gave it to you. Why didn't you all buy that game? Because it sold well. Yes. But as I heard, it didn't sell all of the full run that they said that they wanted it to. And it should have if that demand was enough in the market. That game is beautiful, and that game is fun. And I don't think Stern has thought at all about DPX. No. Their little high end. That is setting aside my issues, fully acknowledging my biases of DPX being a borderline hot take, I guess. Borderline insult in terms of their insistence on doing J-pop stuff. Like to me, they're just rubbing it in everyone's face and it's it's it's in bad taste. The whole thing is in bad taste. And I think they're aware of it enough that they're doing it under DPX instead of under Dutch pinball. So this seems like just like a vanity project. And I have absolutely zero concern. And I think Stern, could they have negative concern? Like this may drive people to Stern. But honestly, I just don't think they think at all about DPX. So for the same reasons that Tony stated, these companies are just not a threat. Stern, when Stern says they're like over 80% of the market, I believe them. And here's the big thing. HomePen aside and some of the other small manufacturers like Pinball Adventures might be a little bit underneath. But basically, no one is beating the Stern Pro price. Like Stern's out here like, and again, I have to stress Stern ProPrice. Like Stern's out here putting $5,000 games in Costco. No one else is playing in that end of the pool at all. And while I think that end of the pool isn't going to get Stern what it wants, they're the only ones that swim in it. So that's the fundamental thing that comes down. You want all this other stuff. You want the higher bill of materials. You end up having to pay so much more. People don't see the value there. And that's what we've ended up with. Here's what I think will happen. We will not see these companies start to increase their bill of materials without increasing prices. What I think you will see is they will hold their prices and hold their bill of materials in the hopes that as time goes by, a combination of said time and inflation that comes along with said time will start to make you think that these are good deals or at least fair deals again. That is why you are seeing when Stern teases uncanny X-Men that they note that the pricing isn't going up any different than the pricing was for John Wick or Jaws or what it was for a while. And the same reason why I fully expect Avatar to be $12,000 and $15,000 because Jersey Jack put their prices too high as of Godfather and they won't pull them back. They're just going to try and wait you out until you start thinking that it's going to be okay. And I think their ultimate hope is when Harry Potter, Hogwarts, Legacy, or whatever it's going to be called, comes out, that you will decide that $12,000 is okay then. And they're just trying to buy enough time to get there. I actually thought, and I still, you know what, I'm still going to say, no, I'm probably 50-50 now. Originally, it was a higher percentage, that they were going to go ahead and raise prices when Harry Potter hits. I now am about halfsies on it because I think they're really struggling to make enough money, but they will not lower prices.
    62:24
    And the hope is that a successful theme is going to be what moves it because they're arguably still giving you the most innovation of any pinball company. And people are just not buying in significant quantities because who wants to spend $12,000 on games, especially as has been noted with one of the earliest emails, what Chris's email that, you know, you're going to lose thousands on it as you should. But like if people it's different now, people are much more cautious about churning through games now that they know that there's a depreciation hit every single time because the demand is just not there to quickly move the units. Right. So no, I do not. So no, Brian, the answer is no, we will not see it. Yeah, 100 percent to to to still steal an analogy from Dennis.
    63:18
    Rolex doesn't care what Invicta does. and that's the best DIPX can hope to be is Invicta. I don't. They're not going to move enough units to be Invicta. But, okay.
    63:33
    Last email is from Doug M. So thank you, Doug. All right. This one starts with saying, Dennis, Tony, please do this in a Boston accent. I want to see how you do. How is your Boston accent, Tony? Chowda, chowda, chowda, chowda. Not very good.
    63:51
    In a car in the yard. I don't even know that's Boston. It sounds closer than mine. All right, I'll try it.
    63:59
    I know this topic. Oh, my God. That's not even remotely right. That's not even close. Forget about it. I'm going to just make it New York. I can't even do that.
    64:08
    Chowder. I know this topic. I'm like, I can't. I have like three words that can be Bostonified.
    64:21
    Okay, so now we've got to get on Cameo and see if we can't find a Boston person to read this one for us. We're going to spend all our Patreon money on Cameo to do these voices. Spend all the Patreon money to get Ben Affleck to read one letter. All right, I accept you. I know this topic has been beaten to a pulp, but I have yet to hear of these themes mentioned. Also beaten to a pulp are rock and comic book themes. That genre is saturated. Has anyone discussed the following things? Lego, duh, appeals to all ages, huge nostalgia factor. Could do it for the same campy humor that Lego movies and video games have done. Formula One racing. F1 has taken a huge following in the USA last five years since the launch of Drive to Survive on Netflix. And there are three F1 Grand Prix races in the US now. Would have worldwide appeal. High-end watches. Sorry, I had to. I am joking. Or am I? Doug. All right. Thank you, Doug. Never ask for that accent again. 100% Formula One would work great. It amazes me considering, like he said, the giant growth in the Formula One following here in the youth. I have friends and people I work with that you would never think it, but they are enormous Formula One fans. I have been hearing that Formula One is big now. I didn't know. Apparently I missed it, but I don't have any friends. Oh, wow.
    65:54
    Damn. Snap. Nobody likes me. Why couldn't you have asked for Gollum? I could give you a five out of ten book version Gollum. You give Gollums all the time. No, they don't ask for it. That's because you do it all the time. I swear to you. No, I do.
    66:09
    But I think of all of the ones listed here, Lego does have the all aspect appeal. But I think Formula One is a great idea. It harkens back to the nostalgia of the kind of racing things that you used to see in pinball a lot. While at the same time, it does have an enormous modern following that has gotten to be very large and very popular. And it's a surprisingly large across the breadth. Like people that I wouldn't think would care about sports, let alone racing, that are really into F1.
    66:43
    Yeah, I do think that would work. It been interesting that we really haven seen a lot in the way of sports pinball out of the sizable manufacturers Like there the Super Hoop that came out of one of the european companies but they just and sports used to be really big to do a lot because it it got that same recognition that all these other licenses have so i agree formula one would probably be a good one to try you could do a lot with lego in fact stern should have probably done a lego for the costco game probably and and you could even do that multiple times because you could do lego versions of licenses so you could like inception it where it's like it's not just lego inception right it's like indiana jones lego star wars lego like all your marvel disney stuff that you love lego partners with them all the time so do legified versions yeah and people will will like that uh high-end watches wouldn't work um it's not a big enough a lot of people buy watches but they don't care about pinball so right i mean yeah i know there's overlap but it's like what would the What would the game be to upgrade the collection? It doesn't. No, I don't see it.
    67:50
    It's a build your own watch game. The game is to assemble your watch. It's not Forza where you're like, I want to have my Super Invicta, and then I want to move up and I want to compete in the Omega bracket and customize my Helium Escape Vow. I just don't see it. But, hey. I don't like a chunky Helium Escape Vow. No, no. But I'm telling you, though, if you do some – like, if you bought – when they did the 007 game, those limited editions, the toy should have been an Omega Seamaster 300M just built into it. Just built into it. You can move the glass and just take – put it on – pull it out and put it on your wrist. Yeah, you can pull it out and wear it. And then it snaps back in, and it's tied into one of the things. Yeah. It's just been like, yeah. It's the LE. There's a one, and you're built into the table, so it spins. Yeah. So it stays wound. Perfect. Genius. All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for all of those emails. Apologies for the voice work for some of them. Tony, I know we got some video game stuff.
    68:50
    Just a little bit. The PS5 physical edition of the Outer Wilds Archaeologist Edition. It's released. Cool. Great. People like a special physical edition. They also like when that special physical edition Has the correct game Burned onto the disc Oh Because this one did not Somehow it went gold Got checked and got burned on with an Older version of the game that did not have All of the DLCs that were supposed to Have been on it So the physical releases are incorrect I thought you were going to say it got burned on With the wrong game It's the Lego game It's the Lego game. It's the Lego Outer Wilds. Yay! That would be even better. Yeah, it would have been funnier. It's like, I put in Outer Wilds and I got Gran Turismo? I don't understand. That would be even better.
    69:48
    It's the stolen release of Warhammer Space Marine. Space Marine? How can Space Marine? That would be even better. But no, it is the Outer Wilds. It's just the wrong version of the Outer Wilds and doesn't have all the DLC. Well, that's not fun. That just sucks. Right. So the Echoes of the Eye expansion wasn't included. So Annapurina Interactive has told those who purchased the physical edition to contact their support team with proof of purchase, and they will give them download codes. But for obvious reasons, there's a lot of collectors that are pretty unhappy about the situation, because it's one of those things where there are collectors out there because there's collectors for everything. But there are collectors out there who had no plan on ever opening it, and they were just collecting it to collect it because they like to get the physical editions of games. And they now have the incorrect game. Or those who got it but still have to go do a special download so they don't have the full game that they expected. So we'll see. I just thought it was interesting for something to get that far through quality control. Yeah. It's very surprising. I mean, it's like, what happened to your quality? any control there. What control?
    71:00
    Visions of Mana developer Oka Studios has been shut down like eight days after the game came out. Apparently they've been cutting staff since spring. It's not actually related to the game's release and how the game has been doing. Because the game didn't have time to do anything. Correct. The actual issue is that Tencent and NetEase, they're the two biggest Chinese game developers. have decided that they're not getting what they want out of the Japanese market. So they're actively starting to pull out of the Japanese market and they're pulling their funding out of the Japanese market. They're divesting. Interesting. Yeah, they were looking to get big releases and franchise stuff out of the Japanese market, and they've not been getting the kind of returns they've wanted. So they're divesting themselves of their Japanese games. Wow. Well, that's going to – they have a lot of money in that market, so that can – I mean, I guess we're going to see more like this. I think we will. We're going to see a lot of the smaller groups get hammered pretty hard.
    72:08
    I guess they should have called the game Visions of Money. Sorry to anyone who just lost their job there, but the joke was worth it. The joke made itself. The joke was worth it, so you'll appreciate it after time passes. After time passes.
    72:23
    Time heals all wounds. Yes. Or at least it will make my joke funny. I promise. It will get good.
    72:31
    Shinji Mikami, creator of Resident Evil and Dino Crisis, was giving an interview the other day, and he was asked about a new Dino Crisis game. Oh. And he says he doesn't feel like there's space for a new Dino Crisis. He thinks Monster Hunter does it so well, there's no reason to have a Dino Crisis game. He thinks just Monster Hunter is so good. he couldn't put out a Dino Crisis that is better. I'm not sure that he's right, but that's a lot of props to Monster Hunter. I know Monster Hunter is a huge, phenomenal thing. That was my thought, too.
    73:06
    I've played the old Dino Crisis games. They're pretty different than Monster Hunter is. To me, that's like saying, would you ever think about going and making an updated GoldenEye 64? It's like, no, Call of Duty is a shooter that people love, So why would I make a new shooter? I thought it was really odd. Because, like I said, the Dino Crisis games in Monster Hunter, you fight dinosaurs. Yes. Very true. That is one of the things you can fight are dinosaurs. But, I mean, it's kind of a different type of game completely. That was the thing. I haven't played Dino Crisis in so long. I couldn't really remember. And I haven't played Monster Hunter. So I'm like, were they the same game? I didn't. No, they're like different. I mean, Monster Hunter is literally a crafting game where you fight monsters to collect the pieces to craft. To fight more monsters. So, yeah, I thought it was a really weird and interesting tank. I think he just doesn't want to do it. It could be. He needs to concentrate on Resident Evil anyway. Yeah. There needs to be more Resident Evil. We need more Uriboras to be released in the atmosphere. here uh cd project has announced that they are entering full production of witcher 4 so uh they've they've it sounds like they're fully done with um cyberpunk uh they've got a couple other projects that they're working on that are like under code names right now it's all secret squirrel stuff uh but they have acknowledged that they're done with the pre-production work and are moving into full production of witcher 4 okay that's exciting yeah i liked two in three a lot. Yeah, the Witcher games have done great. The TV show not so much. But Star Wars Outlaws is out. I've not played it. I have not either. But it's on PS5, so I don't know. It's also on Xbox and a computer.
    74:55
    It's on everything. Well, I'm still working on Starfield. Oh yeah, how's Starfield going? Now that I have the Mako from Mass Effect to be able to drive around.
    75:06
    Okay, that car. This is a terrible aside, but it is in video games. All right. So I went in last week. I went to the port because I didn't see the vehicle. You have to buy it. OK, it's like twenty five thousand credits. I have plenty of credits. So I bought it. It just auto deploys wherever you go anywhere. Now, there's a part in the storyline where I needed to get onto an island that is surrounded by a poisonous lake. I found out it was a poisonous lake because I tried to swim across it as you do. And then I tried to use my abilities to buy myself enough time to get across it. And I just, I couldn't make it. And I was like, I don't know what to do. Maybe I need a certain ability or something. So I looked up online and the issue was that it said was my ship was too big. A smaller ship would land on the island. I was being put nearby because my ship was too big to land on the island. So I could swap to another ship, but I, I just, I, I went on and did other quests instead. Cause I was like, I don't want to get out my starter ship or whatever. You need a shuttle. Yeah. I need like a little shuttle bay shuttle size shuttle. And anyway, so I, I got the Mako. And I was like, you know what? I wonder – it's not called the Mako. That's for Mass Effect for those that don't know. But it looks – it reminds me of the Mako. So I was like, I wonder if I take the Mako. It's got a little thruster on it. I wonder if I can like launch myself like off a cliff because it's like a bowl, like a volcano bowl. Like if I launch it and I can get enough air, then I'll jump out of it and I will try and use my little jet booster pack, which I had leveled up so I could start using that, and get a little bit more air. And then by the time I hit the water and use my abilities, maybe I will be able to get to there before I run out of health. That's what I thought I would try.
    76:46
    So I have the Mako. The Mako has – it's like a Harrier. So it has – actually has like jump thrusters so it can just jump straight from a standstill.
    76:57
    It's very weird. And – because this plant's like got normal gravity, but it's just like – it jumps. So I launch it. I think I'd get like halfway across the lake It hits the water And it just drives on top of the water And then it would start to kind of get bogged down I'd just hit the little harrier jump thing And it'd just go up And then I'd go up And then just fly horizontal I didn't take any health damage I just make it my way I just drove across the lake Like it could walk on water And I got there And I was like okay well I guess I didn't need to worry about all the other five steps of the plan i was working out so step one good enough so yeah i was like okay so the mako is basically does what it has a gun too so i don't have to get out to fight stuff it's just like it's just like um and i win button yeah it's like is this easy mode yeah okay so yeah i don't know how strong the gun is because i got out to walk through some ruins and stuff i haven't used it to fight things yet but i was like why didn't you just shoot the ruins uh well i wasn't sure what i was there to do so it was a puzzle so i had to go find a little do a little puzzle thing yeah no i've tried to shoot a lot of stuff in that game now too i went on and continued the main quest and there was this i had to talk to a couple of people and you know it's like a pick a side sort of thing so i you know i left i got off of there i got off i was on their ship i got off got on my ship um and instead of flying to it's like now you need to go back to the lodge and talk to all your people about what you want to do. Instead, I 180'd, and I dumped everything I had into their super advanced vessel.
    78:42
    It didn't blow up. I took everything away, and it just sat there. And I was unimmersed. It was like a Stern Pro. I had no immersion.
    78:52
    It had no shields. It had no armor. And then it just healed itself. I was like, that is crap. So I docked with it, got out, went in with my shotgun, and shot both of them that were on the ship. I was like, I'll kill both of you. They heal.
    79:07
    No, they just sat there wounded, like kneeling, like they were on ready to coup de grace positioning. So I just loaded my last save and I just didn't quit.
    79:18
    I was like, fine. I guess I can't. This is like Fallout when they wouldn't let you hurt the kids. This is crap, man. Oh, I do. Some of those kids were evil. Right. They were. It wasn't just being mean. It was like, why are these kids okay? They're not okay. They're evil. But anyway, it's neither here nor there. So all right, that's my Mako story about Starfield. Mako. I've not finished it, but I'm close. I feel I'm close in my bones. I feel it in your bones. The thing is I keep weighing the level of my piloting skill because I did a quest and I got a ship. I mean, it's like a skyscraper. And it said, your piloting skill isn't high enough to fly this ship. And I was like, because my piloting skill is zero because I didn't know you needed that. So I got it up all the way to four now. And I went to it and it goes, you're still not high enough. I have to max out piloting at such an advanced ship. I'm like, they all work the same. They just go where you point them and just fast travel. This is nonsense. And the way to level up piloting is, ironically, not piloting. It's destroying other ships with your ship. So it's really just aggression.
    80:19
    So I need to go and find more victims and blow them up. yay we're we're the space titanic we're on a tour welcome to the starship my current ship already is too big to land on an island why do i want but i just i want i want you know mega may so uh space balls it's like let me have mega may all right so anyway so you have a size fixation big ships i earned it i want to fly it like i i even had a junker ship i flew around which like had no weapons and was exploding and stuff. I flew it around. And I sold it because I wanted the money to buy Mako. That works. All right. Cool. Okay. So, Star Wars Outlaws. Yes. All right. I'm not playing that because I'm busy. I'm not. Yeah, I've not been playing it either. It's on the list of games that I'm kind of watching the reviews to decide if I want to play it.
    81:10
    Because while it just came out, Space Marine 2 is coming out. Yes. And I already know I want to play Space Marine 2. You do. You love Space Marine 2. Space Marine 1 was fun. I love, yeah. So I'm kind of leaning towards I'm going to wait and make sure there's nothing terrible when Space Marine initially drops, and then I will probably pick it up and play it. But a bunch of people paid extra money to get an early release of Outlaws. Really? So they could start playing it early. There was a special expensive edition that would let you start playing the game, you know, like 24 hours early. And a bunch of people did it. But then it turns out on the PS5 edition, there was a problem that they had to patch out. And when they put the bug fix patch out, it required players to start new saves to keep from having a game-breaking bug trigger and make them unable to continue the game. But if you have to start a new save, it's like you didn't play at all. Exactly. so you got all this early access to play this stuff and now you have to go but it's okay for the people it wasn't everybody it was only some people who had to do it and it's okay because they they they are offering a little um um what do you call it cosmetic uh uh thingamabob you can put in your ship that makes it all better that you had to start over even if you'd had like 12 or 14 hours of gameplay in that you had to start over.
    82:48
    And this is why I don't pre-order new stuff early anymore. Amongst everything else. All the other reasons.
    82:57
    So, yeah. Otherwise, I've been reading most of the reviews have been okay. I've seen a few that have been like, oh, it's fun enough, but it doesn't do anything special. It's just a game. So, which means it'll be one of those things that is going to be hit or miss based upon how Star Wars pro you are. Right. But generally what I've heard is it's not as good as the last round of Jedi Outcast games, which were really good and really enjoyable. So, we'll see. Bandai Namco and Amazon have cancelled Blue Protocol which is a game that released in Japan last June and was slated to release in the West like next month and they're shutting the servers down they're like nope never mind we're sorry we've been talking about this and taking pre-orders and stuff but this game's just not good enough we're not we're just going to cancel it so they're shutting it down everywhere They're shutting it down everywhere. They're shutting the servers down in Japan, too. The game is just going away completely.
    84:09
    Just gone. So they have definitely decided that that one wasn't worth pushing forward to. And in addition, Square Enix, their big game Foam Stars that came out eight months ago. They're super excited about it. It's going to be this great new. Yeah, it's going free to play. because nobody bought it because nobody wanted to play a Splatoon knockoff when they could just play Splatoon. It sounds like they totally stole Splatoon's name. Well, yeah, and if you watch the gameplay, it was Splatoon. I mean... Foam Stars.
    84:46
    So they're just like... Suds Snipers was taken. We got to do Foam Stars. Suds Snipers. Oh, man. Do it like the Sniper Elite games where you just see a soap bubble race across the thing and hit somebody in the eye, and you can watch the eye turn red and they start crying because it burns. And they're just like, oh, my, it burns.
    85:11
    It can be like the foam party from the start of the one, why did it just leave my mind, the one Blade movie, where there's the foam everywhere and then the blood starts shooting from the ceiling, and then it turns out like half the people are vampires.
    85:29
    The vampires. Vampires. This is what called it the scrubbing bubble game. It just did a tie-in with the scrubbing bubbles.
    85:41
    What are you doing? We're cleaning your bathroom. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Teach kids to clean the bathroom.
    85:51
    Oh, man. And then because I figured we basically just have this giant run of disappointment, I would end with a big interview was done with Holly Longdale, the lead person over for World of Warcraft. and while they were talking about everything that's happened with World of Warcraft over the last number of years, it came up talking about the failure of their newest expansion, the Shadowlands expansion, in which point Holly said that, yeah, the team feels like they probably should have listened more to the community when the community was talking about what they wanted instead of just ignoring the community and doing what they thought the community wanted for causing, thus, the failure of the Shadowlands expansion. Well, hindsight is 20-20.
    86:47
    So, I mean, to be fair, World of Warcraft has done very well over the years, considering it's still going, it still has expansions going.
    86:57
    I personally find it interesting that just how well they've done with the release of their classic servers, because pretty much every person I know who is still playing World of Warcraft have abandoned the game, the primary game, and have gone back and are playing just on the classic servers, which I think is a hilarious bit of nostalgia touching me. Almost everybody I know, they're playing on the classic server that is the Burning Crusade one. So it's just Warcraft and Burning Crusade, the first expansion. Which is what it was when I came in. Right, and I can totally understand it. I think that's about it. It was really after that with Wrath of the Lich King where they started to make it smaller raids, more casual fight. Yeah. Though I did like Wrath. I thought a lot of those changes were good. I thought Wrath was pretty good. Yeah. I mean, I don't actually miss the 40-man content. No. I don't miss World of Warcraft at all. I don't miss MMOs.
    87:52
    One of my good friends has been going very heavy into EVE again and has been talking about it. And I'm just like, no. Yeah. I don't, I don't, if I was ever to take another MMO up, it'd probably be Eve. I mean, I played Final Fantasy 14 there for about a year. What was it? Two years ago, like during the pandemic, just after the pandemic. And it was fun and it was enjoyable, but I just, I can't, it doesn't have the same draw to me that it used to do. So I don't really have a plan on going back to any of those. Though if I was, possibly 14, but more likely than not, it'd be Eve. It's definitely not going to be World of Warcraft.
    88:36
    That game, I'm done with that game. But that's all I had. I didn't have a whole lot of the video games this week. Okay. Well, again, if people want to email us any other questions or comments, they can at CollectedGamersPodcast.gmail.com. We're also available at Facebook.com slash CollectedGamersPodcast. and you can support the show for as little as a dollar a month at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we should be back in a couple weeks. I expect we'll have stuff to say about Avatar and stuff to say about the Uncanny X-Men at that time. But until then, my name is Dennis. I am Tony. Goodbye, everybody. Good boy. Yod.