Wow, isn't that amazing? Just seven seconds of Super Mario Brothers would make every single one of us send our money to the first pinball company that makes Super Mario Brothers pinball, or Mario Brothers, right? It's the meat of the Mario. I mean, how amazing would this game be? You've got the green pipes. The ball goes down the green pipes. You have a little lower play field where you have dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. You know, it would just be like, take my money now. And we know they can do it. They've already made a Super Mario Brother pinball machine. Why can't they do it again? I think this would be the greatest theme ever for Jersey Jack pinball, right? Imagine if Jersey Jack Pinball, back when they put everything into their games like Wizard of Oz and games like Dialed In, if they made Super Mario Brothers. It's the perfect year to do it. They missed the big movie launch, but it really doesn't matter. It's such an evergreen property. And it got me thinking about this episode of Canada's Pinball Podcast. We're going to talk a little bit about theme. We'll talk a little bit about theme when we talk about the Puny Factory has now streamed for the world. How do you sell a game in which nobody has an emotional connection to the theme? it's really really hard it is almost impossible people so we'll see what happens with that game we're going to talk a little bit about galactic tank force there's an image going around that shows the distance between the flippers and the rest of the playfield really interesting photo that just got circulated where it is comparing attack from mars to galactic tank force we're going to talk about chicago gaming company and how Josh Sharpe is telling everybody that the code update, right? The Lyman Sheets code update that Josh has been working on all this time is nowhere close to being completed. We're going to talk about that and what that means for all of you out there who bought a Cactus Canyon, who have been waiting not just for your game, but also waiting for this much anticipated code update because the game itself does not have the deepest code. We're going to talk a little bit about Alien Day tomorrow. What are the Pinball Brothers going to announce on 4-26. There's some major alien announcement. We can take a few guesses at what we think it will be. And before I start out this episode of Canada Spinball Podcast by talking about Foo Fighters LE and does the pro have much better flow than the premium or the LE of the game? Well, look, I played both of them when I was at Texas Spinball Festival. Before I do that, I want to say thank you to everyone for being a Canada Club member. And we did pick our six winners during the Saturday Morning Spectacular. If you were one of those winners, don't worry. I know who you are. I'm going to reach out to you today and you are going to get your $100 courtesy of Mr. Kim Mitchell and Kaneda. And you're going to get that this week. And you just have to let me know, do you want it PayPal or do you want it Venmo? And I'll get you the money. Don't worry. And Emily's going to get the big payday because she also got the $42,000 in stars. And I'm just figuring out the math. And then we're going to make sure Emily has the most amazing meal or whatever she wants to do with the money, really. But I hope she goes out and has a great time courtesy of Canada's Pinball Podcast. Okay, so let's talk about Foo Fighters right now because everyone is starting to get their LE machines. The LE machine is gorgeous. Now, I am seeing there was one that was put up for sale for $14,995. And here's the good news for everybody. It didn't sell. It did not sell. And this is a good sign. It's showing everybody that there really isn't much room to scalp these games anymore. Now, Foo Fighters was never going to be able to command like humongous dollars the way something like Super Mario or Indiana Jones or Back to the Future, but it is a good sign that people out there are content and they don't want to spend a lot over sticker on these games. And I think it's a good thing because you know that Stern is also watching all of this. And if they start to see people scalp LE Machines for 14 or 15, guess what Stern is going to do? next. They're going to keep raising the prices. So that is a good sign for all of us. Prices are steady. Now, if you listed a Foo Fighters LE for like $13.5, I think it would go pretty immediately. I don't think we're going to see the major gains anymore on most of these titles. So Foo Fighters LE and premium. There is a debate on whether or not the premium or the LE breaks up the flow of the game. Now, I've watched a lot of gameplay footage on this machine. I've played the game at Texas Pinball Festival. And I don't think if you go premium or LE on this game, you are going to be experiencing a lack of flow. I think this game has incredible gameplay. And I think the gameplay is incredible on all three versions of the machine. We always see this where pro buyers, you know, they always try to make up the reason why the pro is the way to go. And they can't just get their pro is for hoes machine. They have to say, here's why I'm getting the pro because the gameplay on the LE and the Premium isn't as good. Now, I tend to believe that pinball designers, for the most part, they start with the Premium and LE design, and then they remove stuff to get to the Pro edition of the game I think different designers do it differently I think Steve Ritchie used to start with the Pro and then add stuff into the game And everyone has their own way of designing the machine But I think the verdict is in on Foo Fighters I think it's a great shooting game. I think they're going to sell a lot of them. And I think people are very, very happy with Jack Danger's first full cornerstone game with Stern. All right, let's talk about Chicago Gaming Company. This company continues to be an enigma for all of us. They don't really have good communication. They don't tell us like anything going on. And now we hear from Josh Sharpe that this code update is nowhere near complete. Nowhere near complete. I mean, when he talks about it, it sounds like they might have mapped out what they want the code to be, but now they have to go program all of it. They have to make the dots. They have to make the graphics. They have to do the call outs. They haven't done any of this yet. And it just begs the question, what have you been doing? And if you took in all this money, go hire somebody to do this if you don't have time to do it. Every single delay when it comes to something like coding, the delay is simply this. There's nobody doing it. They don't have the personnel on staff to make this stuff happen and to make it happen quickly. I think everyone is also realizing now that Lyman Sheets' contribution to this game might not be nearly as much as you thought it was. And look, it's really a tragedy. It really is. This was supposed to be what he was going to do. He was going to join CGC. And whenever they did remakes, he was really going to add the Lyman touch to a lot of these games and make them even better. Because if there was anybody out there who could take any pinball machine, he could take the Puny Factory and even make it. make it better, it was Lyman Sheets Jr. So we still dearly miss him and his games will live on forever as some of the greatest pinball machines of all time. And all you have to do is go to the Pinside Top 100 and look at where Lyman's games are in the history of pinball and he's all over those top 30 games. All right, so but here's the other thing. I think because Chicago Gaming company has not held up their end of the agreement with its customers. And because they've gone radio silent for so long, and they're still making so many people wait on the LEs of their games, I think at what point does a pinball company owe people a refund? Like you gave them the money, you didn't get your product, why do you have to still wait? And now you might be waiting another year, who knows how long to get this code update, don't you deserve a refund? And I don't know. This is where it gets really difficult because we do absolutely want to support these companies. But Chicago Gaming Company is not a startup. They are not a company where financially they'd be on hard times if the pinball line wasn't moving because all of their money is coming from Churchill Cabinets and Churchill Cabinets is loaded. And that's why Chicago Gaming Company can take their merry little time on every single new game they make. They make people wait a very long time to get games. Where at Stern Pinball, they could not go months with nothing on the line. They have too many employees. They have too much at stake. The pinball manufacturing line has to keep moving at Stern. It doesn't really have to keep moving at Jersey Jack because the Abbott family is bankrolling and all. But Jersey Jack, for the most part, has done a good job of keeping the line going. Now, look, I think people deserve a refund. And I think if you have a cactus cannon and now you're not happy about this news, Chicago Gaming Company needs to stop with the radio silence. Oh, Kaneda, what are you doing? Looking out for customers. I saw someone say something that was indicting something I put on my Facebook page. There was a pin side comment where someone said the following. I think it was Panzer Freak. He said the following. He goes, I don't like it when Kaneda puts up a post that says, if you had waited on James Bond's 60th, you could have saved $5,000 to $7,000 off the price Stern charged for the machine. Why would anybody be upset that I am showcasing if you had just waited, you could have called Stern out on its bluff. They were bluffing by asking people $19,995 for the game. They were bluffing. And if you call their bluff and you just waited a few months, you can now get the game for $15,000. I mean, $15,000 or best offer. And look, I don't know why people have a problem with this. Why are people looking out for the companies who are fleecing us? And if you stand on the side of a consumer, you're the bad guy, Canada. We need to get rid of you. It's so negative. It's so toxic. No, I would like to know if I had simply waited. And that's no small chunk of change. That's no small chunk of change. That's a 25% discount if you just waited. All right, so let's talk about these flippers on this freaking Galactic Tank Force. Now, I'm looking at the photo right now, and someone put side by side, and I think this is to scale. Now, I don't know if it's 100% to scale, but they put Attack from Mars on the right and Galactic Tank Force on the left, and it looks like, based on this photo, again, this might not be the accurate one scale of each game it looks like the flippers are a good one inch to maybe an inch and a half lower on the playfield in Attack from Mars And those flippers are really hugging the apron. Now, it looks pretty accurate because if you look at Galactic Tank Force, they moved the flippers up because they wanted to have those lanes underneath the flippers. So it makes sense. I think this is very accurate. But what that also did was it pushed those flippers closer, even closer to that tank in the middle of the playfield. And that is the main issue I think people are still having as they watch people stream the game is just this major tank mech. And those stand up targets are so close to the flippers and they're abnormally close to the flippers because the flippers have been moved up. And it just begs the question, is this how Dennis Nordman always designed the game? Or did he move those flippers upward to get those lanes underneath the flipper? I really don't know. The other thing I really don't know about with Galactic Tank Force is when are they making these games? I hear that David Fix is not really getting back to people. Distros don't know what to tell people. This is why it's hard for distros because they've taken orders on this game. Let's imagine that you bought this game for $17,500. You got the creme de la creme model of Galactic Tank Force. How is it that you have no idea when you're getting your game? You have no idea. Is it going to be in May, June, July, August? No idea whatsoever. Also, if you ask this question, are games even on the line? And I think the answer is no. I think they built like eight prototypes. And I don't think this game is on the line right now. If this game was on the line right now, wouldn't they show us a video of it on the line? Couldn't they take some photos of people making the Galactic Tank Force game? And I also think after all of this time, after all of these years, American Pinball and the team over there, they know better than to do it this way. You don't reveal your game until it's on the line. What is the point of doing it that way? I don't like that Pulp Fiction was revealed so early. it doesn't really make much sense. I don't like that Galactic Tank Force was revealed and people have no clue when they're getting their game. Stern Pinball reveals a game when it's on the line. When they make their LEs, they make their LEs right after the first run of the pro. They do not make their LE buyers wait a long time. And that's the way to do it. I mean, the number one pinball company in the world has shown everybody how to do it, how to be successful at Manufacturing Pinball. It's right there. And it's not just manufacturing. It's also how you should do marketing because there's a very small window of initial new game hype. And you want to get as many people through that door to order the game as you possibly can. The only way you can get away with doing it incorrectly is if you have a theme like Pulp Fiction or a theme like Super Mario Brothers. If you have a theme people would wait forever for, then you can kind of do whatever you want. All bets are off because the greatest marketing in pinball is getting the best theme. And if you get the best theme, it doesn't really matter. You could have the biggest jackass launching the game. It doesn't matter. People will line up to buy Back to the Future. As long as you make the game somewhat decent, it would sell like hotcakes. I think that's what we're going to start looking at with American Pinball now. As these weeks go on, how long will radio silence work? And when are people going to start demanding an answer from the team over there? Again, this isn't negative. These are the questions we should be asking. I'm saying it with a lot of positive energy in my voice. You know, I wish more companies were just like Spooky lately too. Like Spooky and Stern, they just get it done. All right, let's talk about Jersey Jack. So I heard another thing from one of my friends who actually is a distributor. He's not one of the big guys that you know about, and that's why I'm not going to out him. But I'll tell you this. He said, look, the Godfather isn't really selling that well. Now, Brenda and I just watched The Godfather this weekend. We saw all three hours of the movie or three hours and 20 minutes. What an incredible movie. It is absolutely incredible. It holds up so well over time. But after I finished watching the movie, I did say to Brenda, I don't understand how you watch this movie and then try to turn it into a pinball machine. And after watching The Godfather and all of those iconic scenes, I mean it, everybody, when I say it, I still don't see the movie in the pinball experience. It's just not there. And I get what they were going for now, you know, the five families at the table fighting for control over the city. But that's not really what the movie is about. It's about the family. And it's about honor and loyalty and trust within the family. It's not about the five families. It's not about any of that. That's barely in the movie at all. And the reason why Godfather is not selling very well, it's not because of Eric. It's because of Pat. And the reason why a lot of distributors are not ordering Godfathers, and it's not just that they're not ordering it, they're not really promoting it because they don't want to promote it because they can't sell the toy stories they are sitting on. And this is a huge issue If you have two games in a row that are mediocre when it comes to demand if you have two games in a row where the themes are not home runs especially for a company like Jersey Jack I don't know how they get out of this mess because now it's a domino effect. Now they're going to have distributors that are sitting on not just Toy Story inventory, but they're also sitting on Godfather inventory. And these are not cheap games. Like a distributor can make a lot of money if they sell a lot of games, but they also don't want to sit on six figures of Toy Story inventory or six figures of Godfather inventory because it's going to be really hard to sell it. And here's the scariest part. If you're a distro, it almost becomes impossible to sell it at full MSRP if everyone starts to sell the games for below that. And once we start to see Godfather LEs go for like what, like 10,000, 10,500, it's going to happen. And we're seeing Toy Story LEs sell for even less than that, then you're never going to sell a brand new in box game for $12,000. And that's why you have to get it right. And that's why market research is so important. And that's why it's not even worth making a machine. If you don't make a machine, you know people will want. And that's going to be the biggest battle when it comes to Jersey Jack's next game. Can they get it back? I really think Jersey Jack pinball has lost its mojo. It's lost its swagger. These two games were not it. Guns and Roses was the pinnacle of Jersey Jack's swagger before Mirko torpedoed it with bad playfields. So we shall see. I think Steve Ritchie's game is going to have to come out before the winner. I think we're going to see it this year. I think they're going to realize they can't keep the line going if Godfather is the only machine they're going to have on the line between now and like November or October. It also begs the question, why don't you just make more Pirates of the Caribbean machines? Just make another run of Pirates and see if people really want it. See, I'm always on the fence, like whether or not people want Pirates because it's great, or they want Pirates because they can't have it. Like that is going to be answered one day if Jersey Jack decides to do another run. Speaking of getting the theme right, let's end this show with the Puny Factory. We saw the game being streamed. I watched it for a little bit. I've seen Andrew in the thread and it always ends up being like arguments with other pinsiders. Like this game was never gonna work on pinside for pinsiders. That's not the target audience. When you look at a theme like this, I don't even know who the target audience is. Andrew made his own original IP. It's his vision. It's his game. Now it's all about whether or not they can make the game. It's definitely going to be one of the biggest uphill climbs in the history of pinball marketing. You have money. You have means. You made something. Do people want it? And we all know the answer when it comes to Puny Factory. It's just going to be so hard for them to sell this game when you can go get a Godzilla Pro. I mean, it's just that simple. You can go get a Deadpool Pro. You can go get a Star Wars Pro, right? If you're trying to sell it to a family, how do you convince someone to buy this over Star Wars? And that's it. That's the issue. And I can't help people market after they've made these decisions. If it were me, I wouldn't end up here. If it were me, I would not think going into pinball is a great idea. If it were me and I had a lot of money, this is the last industry I would go into. It always feels like pinball is a place where you could take a million dollars and turn it into a thousand dollars. It's not a place where you could put in a few thousand dollars and make a million dollars because of your idea. All right. How's everybody else doing? I'm really happy to be back on the mic. I missed it by a day. Normally, I do a show on a Monday. It's been really crazy at work. Even now, it's hard for me to break away and just get this episode out. But you know I love my club members. I love doing this show every couple of weeks. And we're going to always be here on the airwaves every single week talking about what's going on in pinball. let's see tomorrow what alien day brings us let's end the show 426 is alien day what will the pinball brothers announce i think they're probably going to announce like some new code update that's going to have something in it maybe it has some like connected play maybe it's score bit i don't know if score bit's already on this platform but i think that's what we're going to hear i don't think it's going to be anything major i think if there was one thing you really wanted to get in Alien Pinball, it would actually be Ripley. I mean, people still forget, even though this game is so immersive, Alien Pinball does not have the main character from the movies in the game itself. Now, we know you can get her. Andrew Highway was just too cheap to go get her because right when Alien came out and there was no Sigourney Weaver, we got Ghostbusters from Stern Pinball featuring, guess who? Sigourney Weaver because they paid for her likeness and they paid for her. And that's what Andrew Highway did not do because the man was full of deceit and full of lies. And we exposed him right here on Canada's Pinball Podcast. Maybe the world's only pinball podcast that is looking out for you, the customer. Everybody, thank you so much for your support. We will be back later. And we're almost at 620 club members. We need one more person. We're at 620. Everybody, back more this week with more pinball. Canada out.