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Flip N Out Late Night Show: Talking Insider Connected, JP: The Pin, Godzilla First Impressions, and

Flip n Out Pinball·video·2h 40m·analyzed·Oct 22, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Insider Connected $199 kit rollout generates mixed reactions on achievements, scarcity, and future roadmap potential.

Summary

Flippin' Out hosts discuss Insider Connected kit pricing ($199), limited rollout (10 units per distributor), Godzilla achievements (39 total, minimal compared to other games), and community concerns about FOMO and early adoption barriers. Conversation covers achievement visibility issues during gameplay, demographic appeal (younger players vs. 40+), future feature roadmap, and exclusive Expo badges strategy. Hosts express cautious optimism about long-term potential while acknowledging current bare-bones implementation.

Key Claims

  • Insider Connected kits cost $199 per kit regardless of Pro/Premium tier

    high confidence · Multiple distributors posted pricing; confirmed by show hosts analyzing availability across their networks

  • Godzilla has only 39 achievements compared to 77 for Dwight (another game)

    high confidence · Hosts directly compared achievement counts; one host checked live during discussion

  • Each distributor receiving only 10 kits in Q4, prioritized for location/operator use

    high confidence · Confirmed by distributor contact; Stern statement via Dwight Sullivan in chat

  • Consumer Insider Connected kits not available until Q1 2022 at earliest

    high confidence · Stern announcement; hosts calculated timeline based on production priorities

  • All new Stern games manufactured post-announcement include Insider Connected kit

    high confidence · Dwight Sullivan confirmed in chat: 'every single game from here on out has the kit'

  • Games pre-ordered prior to kit announcement saw $300+ price increases from distributors

    high confidence · Host Mike and Travis referenced distributor calls asking customers for additional payment

  • Travis has already experienced Insider Connected at District 82 and Super Series events

    high confidence · Travis directly stated he was at these events and played Godzilla with the system

  • Achievement registration is unreliable; some achievements don't register despite being earned

    medium confidence · Multiple hosts reported achievements not registering when logged in; Travis experienced this Tuesday night

  • Achievement novelty wears off quickly due to minimal audio/visual feedback during gameplay

    medium confidence · Mike reported achievement chimes are passive and easily missed while focused on playfield; suggested shaker motor feedback could help

Notable Quotes

  • “They're at the very tip of the iceberg with this thing... achievements is just the very first thing into it, that there's just a lot more.”

    Travis (referencing George Gomez statement at Marco Specialties)@ 6:44 — Explains Gomez's framing that Insider Connected is in earliest stages; sets expectations for future features

  • “I personally think this is about two years away from being fully fleshed out because there's still lots of things to get on with it, such as friend requests, being able to actually follow people.”

    Travis@ 13:29 — Provides expert prediction on IC roadmap maturity; suggests significant feature gaps remain

  • “I'm curious to see how that plays out... a lot of it might have to do with the age demographic... only the young people that were doing that. Anybody that was 40-plus or 50-plus in our league, they didn't care.”

    Joel@ 11:04 — Identifies potential market segmentation risk: older players may not engage with gamification features

  • “When you've got something that's this expensive and you feel like there's another angle to it that you're not able to access, that starts... there's that FOMO feeling for sure.”

    Joel@ 19:13 — Articulates core consumer psychology concern about scarcity and exclusivity driving adoption regardless of current utility

  • “It's just not enough to really make it pop... even though it overrides the music and what's happening in the game, it's just not enough to really make you notice.”

    Mike@ 9:26 — Technical UX feedback on achievement notification design; suggests core interaction design flaw

Entities

Insider ConnectedproductGodzillagameGeorge GomezpersonTravispersonJoelpersonMikepersonCraigperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Kit kit supply chain and consumer access barriers generating tension between early adopters and excluded players; delayed consumer availability (Q1 2022) creates perception of exclusivity-by-design rather than scarcity-by-circumstance

    medium · Joel: 'It does seem to me like the rollout is, you know, maybe they should have delayed it or something'; hosts discuss operators prioritization vs. consumer frustration; Travis: 'I don't think I'd ever get one for home... I don't feel like the value's quite there for home after playing it'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Demographic appeal concern: IC achievements resonate strongly with players aged 20-35; minimal engagement from 40+ age group in casual leagues; younger players only ones discussing achievements at Super Series

    medium · Joel: 'only the young people that were doing that... Anybody that was 40-plus or 50-plus in our league, they didn't care'; 'a lot of it might have to do with the age demographic'

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern providing Insider Connected verified achievement infrastructure at Pinball Expo; partnership with Logan's Arcade demonstrates commitment to location ecosystem; badge/t-shirt incentives drive foot traffic and brand awareness

    medium · Tanya promotion of Logan's Arcade exclusive badge + t-shirt for Expo attendees; Dwight: 'Stern's going to have games at Expo that aren't just Godzilla... that'll be awesome'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Achievement notification system lacks sufficient audio/visual feedback during active gameplay; chimes easily missed when focused on playfield; novelty wears off quickly on Godzilla due to minimal achievement count

    high · Mike: 'there's just so much going on... it's so passive in earning the achievements that there was a lot of times I didn't even know I had an achievement'; 'Even though it overrides the music... it's just not enough to really make it pop'

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.483

0:00
I think we're live. This is how every video starts. I think we're live. Ottawa sounds far away from British Columbia. It is. I actually live about 40 minutes driving distance from the New York state border. Oh, okay. What's that thing? It's like something percentage of Canadian residents live within an hour of the U.S. border. Oh, yeah. It's crazy. It's something crazy. Yeah. Well, hello, everyone. I'm assuming this will get uploaded to... Is that what you do? You cross the border and get some gas? Some people do. I hope everybody's doing well. This is, yeah, flipping out. We're chatting it up again tonight, so hopefully some more people come in. Normally, at least normally, this is the only third time we've done this, but last time it was basically introduce yourself and what was the last game of pinball you played. So, Travis, go ahead, man. Travis here on my left, right? I don't know. That's your left. That's Travis. Yeah, but I'm looking at the camera.
1:01
Travis. Oh, you want me to talk now? Yeah, go ahead and do your Mark Silk intro. God. I don't have it. You have it. Yeah. My name's Travis, and the last game I played was, I just had league on Tuesday night. What was it? Grand Prix.
1:16
EM. How'd you do? Horrible. I think I got hurt. I did so bad at it. I had maybe 40,000 points after three balls. I didn't get a flip on it until ball four. Finished with like 170,000 or something like that, which is not very good. So, Travis, as a high-end competitive player, what area of your game do you feel you need to improve on the most?
1:43

  • Insider Connected kits are potentially transferable between games via register/unregister function

    medium confidence · Mike asked distributor about portability; distributor indicated registration system allows transfer but specifics unclear

    • “Every game from the day they announced it, every single game from here on out has the kit in it... months ago, we were hoping the kits would be available October 1st.”

    Dwight Sullivan (in chat)@ 20:56 — Confirms universal kit inclusion policy and reveals original timeline miss; indicates production constraints

  • “I don't know if either Craig or have any of you guys really dove into the trophy list? Are there trophies that are gold level that would be real hard to achieve?”

    Joel@ 16:31 — Identifies uncertainty about existing trophy difficulty mapping to new achievement system

  • “If they do something like a community badge when they do community stuff, I'm, like, all in. I'll be at the arcade grinding away.”

    Dwight Sullivan (in chat)@ 25:37 — Shows badges (exclusive event-based achievements) resonate more than generic achievements with competitive players

  • “It's already quarter four, and if they go up after one quarter before it gets to consumers, that would probably anger a lot of people.”

    Joel@ 26:28 — Predicts kit pricing will likely remain stable until 2023; implies aggressive post-consumer pricing expected

  • “I think that's brilliant... they're dangling it right there. It's like, well, crap. Apparently I need to go to Logan's Arcade, play one game, get my t-shirt and get my badge.”

    Joel@ 25:07 — Demonstrates effectiveness of exclusive badge + location partnership strategy in driving foot traffic

    • Dwight Sullivan
    person
    Tanyaperson
    Logan's Arcadeorganization
    Pinball Expoevent
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Marco Specialtiesorganization
    Avengersgame
    Deadpoolgame
    Dwightgame
    Turtlesgame
    Star Trekgame
    Grand Prix EMgame
    Black Knight Progame
  • $

    market_signal: FOMO-driven adoption concern: high price ($199) relative to current minimal utility (39 achievements, unreliable tracking) creating pressure to buy early despite uncertainty about long-term value; future features (leaderboards, multiplayer) may justify costs but timeline unclear

    medium · Joel: 'When you've got something that's this expensive and you feel like there's another angle to it that you're not able to access, that starts... there's that FOMO feeling for sure... one day... they're going to go, okay, everybody, now you can... have a tournament online, you know, and how many people are going to have them at that point?'

  • $

    market_signal: Stern constrained IC kit production to 10 units per distributor Q4, consumer availability delayed to Q1 2022; all new games auto-include kit; pre-ordered games receiving $300 price increases

    high · Dwight: 'Every distributor is getting like 10... Q4... prioritized to location play'; 'every single game from here on out has the kit'; hosts confirmed distributors called for additional $300 on prior orders

  • $

    market_signal: Exclusive badges (event-specific, location-specific, game-specific) identified as more effective motivation than generic achievements; Stern executing multi-venue exclusive badge strategy during Expo

    medium · Dwight: 'I do badges a lot more than I do the achievements'; Logan's Arcade partnership offering exclusive t-shirt + badge; Joel: 'that's the little stuff that would get me out of the house'; hosts predict Godzilla day badge strategy

  • $

    market_signal: $199 kit price point now fixed; concern about price increases post-consumer launch in 2023; comparison to other Stern accessories trending upward (shooter rods cited as example)

    high · Joel: 'I'd be very surprised if they had it go up during 2022... but 2023, all bets are off'; 'Shooter rods, like, Stern shooter rods are more expensive now than they were six months ago'

  • ?

    product_concern: Godzilla achievement system has 39 total achievements (lowest of any IC game to date); registration failures documented; unreliable tracking when logged in; code still in early stages (v0.8)

    high · Travis: 'some of them, I know for a fact I did some of the achievements, and it still didn't register... it just happened to me Tuesday night'; Mike: 'I've played it four times... I have 15 achievements out of 39... four did not register'

  • ?

    product_strategy: IC roadmap includes friend requests, social following, and multiplayer features; current release is minimal viable product focused on achievements and leaderboard infrastructure

    high · Travis: 'I personally think this is about two years away from being fully fleshed out because there's still lots of things to get on with it, such as friend requests, being able to actually follow people'; Gomez statement via Marco: 'achievements is just the very first thing into it, that there's just a lot more'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern prioritizing location/operator rollout before consumer market; intentional scarcity strategy (10 kits per distributor) to manage production while continuing game manufacturing; verified achievements at Expo addresses credibility for future expansion

    medium · Dwight: 'months ago, we were hoping the kits would be available October 1st'; hosts: 'first priority is production, second priority is operators, third priority is potential homeowners'; Stern bringing verified achievement games to Expo

    • Probably solid states. Probably solid states, yeah. Whoa, Kaz is here. Brian, how you doing, buddy? Hope you're doing well. Kaz, I hope you're at Expo, man. It would be great to meet you in person. But Kyle's always coming in. Always coming in with those bits. Thank you, Kyle. Kyle's is there right now at Expo. Oh. He's just – He's number one online. He's ready to go. Is Expo delegating or he started? Yeah. Yep. They're a week out. When is Expo? Is that just next week already? It is. Expo is next Wednesday. Frisco Pinball. Talking pinball. Yeah, we're doing some quick introductions here, waiting for some people to come in. Greg, my man. Quick introduction. And, yeah, what was the last game of pinball you played? Well, Craig, Bobby, I do the Stern News for the Pinball Show with Zach and Dennis. And so the last game I played was the one you see right behind me, which is Avengers. I played it about an hour ago. And, you know, I was remarking, again, now that I've had this game for the better part of a year, that this thing still gets me so gunned up every time I play. I don't know if you guys, you know, Mike and Travis, feel this, But I come off this game, and my adrenaline is like, I am amped whether I play one game or five games. And I still find this game so, it's exciting, it's frustrating, it's like, it's maddening. I don't know if I love it or hate it still, you know? Like, it really does something to you when you play this game.
    3:12
    Yeah, for me, you're describing Black Knight. Like, when I play Black Knight, I'm physically affected after a stream or a session on it, because it just feels like a fight, right? And it's just your adrenaline's pumping the whole time. Yeah, I totally get what you're saying. Black Knight Pro or the original Black Knight? Pro. Oh, yeah, the Pro.
    3:32
    Sort of great. Nice. Very cool. Well, Mike, go ahead, man. Quick interview. This is the first time you're on, so, yeah. I'm Mike from Pinballers, and the last game I played was this guy right here. Star Trek is actually our newest game, too. We picked that up last week. We've wanted it for a while, So, played that four or five times this afternoon. Very cool. Working from home. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. Monica, how are you doing? Thanks for putting up with Travis.
    4:02
    Monica Luca. Monica Luca, everybody. Special thank you. Yeah. Takes quite the woman to deal with that guy.
    4:09
    So, yeah. My name is Joel. Yeah, I do Just Another Pinball Stream, Just Another Pinball Podcast, Triple Drain Podcast with Travis and Tom. and um yeah the last game of play gate last game of pinball i played was deadpool deadpool because it's gone deadpool pro is gone i'm waiting to get my premium i'm waiting to get a yeah i'm picking up a premium i have kind of a cool trade thing going um but uh yeah so had to get a few games in on deadpool but i should be honest i have not touched a pinball machine in well over a week because i've been drywalling the heck out of my basement uh trying to make it better but uh Yeah, I think that's good for introductions. We'll just dive right in to the news. Kaz, who's buying the kit at $199?
    4:54
    To be honest, Travis and Craig, I want your opinion, but I know we've already talked about this. So, Mike, you're the new guy here. First off, just overall thoughts, overall thoughts on this Insider Connected kit.
    5:08
    Okay, so for me, I'm a sucker. You know, I like the carrot that they dangle in front of you. achievements, Xbox Live, PlayStation, all that stuff. So this is something I'm interested in for sure. I believe I have three games that are supposed to be released for it on launch.
    5:28
    Guardians, Mando, and... You have a Guardians there too? Yeah, Guardians. No, but I believe it's Led Zeppelin and Black Knight. Oh, the first six, right? Yeah, the first six, I think, and then it's Mando right after it. But with Godzilla being here, I'll have one and have at least one kit on order, but we'll see how it goes. I'm not going to go crazy and do all my games until, you know, I see how it is. Gotcha. So you're diving. Do you have kits reserved already with distributors? I have one kit reserved. Yeah, yeah. I have one, but you have a Godzilla coming, so you'll get a taste of it. Yeah. And Travis actually mentioned earlier, he has experienced it, Because you were at District 82, you were at Super Series, there was a Godzilla there,
    6:16
    but you said the overall buzz, there wasn't much. There wasn't much buzz in the room in regards to Insider Connected, is that right? No, I mean, I think it's mainly because there's not too much to it right now. I mean, it's obvious they're at the very beginning when you actually get to dive into it. They're at the very tip of the iceberg with this thing. I think Gomez made that even more apparent today when he's talking with, who is it, Marco Specialties earlier. And he even mentioned that there's just so much more that achievements is just the very first thing into it, that there's just a lot more. And also, to be fair, I mean, the first taste of achievements that we get is with Godzilla. And just the same way that we talked about it here just a couple of weeks ago, the fact that there's not too many achievements on there compared to all the other games. And so Godzilla, the code, just now got up to like 0.8, I think, today, as a matter of fact. So there's just, I don't know, since the game's not fully coded yet or anywhere near complete, obviously you're not going to have as many achievements. You're just going to have your very, like, bare minimum basics in it. And I think, what was it, 39 achievements total? I'm looking at it right now. 39 total. I think Dwight had, what, 75 or 77? Yeah, 77, yeah. Yeah, and that gives you an idea right there. So, I mean, it's going to be one of those things I think early on, for me, that I've only played Godzilla maybe five times. But even the achievement novelty has kind of worn off already just because there's not much fanfare to it. You know, and it's kind of if you've ever played Xbox or PlayStation, you get trophies and achievements there. And it's very passive even on there with the way it happens. But at least you notice it. whereas whenever you're playing pinball, there's so much going on because you're focused on the play field. It's so passive in earning the achievements that there was a lot of times I didn't even know I had an achievement until afterwards. And then I figured out on some of them, I know for a fact I did some of the achievements, and it still didn't register. So I'm not sure why that is exactly because I was logged in, and that actually just happened to me Tuesday night. So I'm not quite sure what's going on with it exactly, but, I mean, overall, I still like the idea of having the achievements, and I like the idea of having the more difficult achievements because I think that will lead me to coming back to it and trying to get to it. Like I still want to do it. I was just kind of surprised with how passive the achievements really were once you actually got on the pin and you started playing. Interesting. So you're saying you were like in the moment, so like the moment you hit the shot to get whatever achievement, there is no fanfare. I think you hear like a little chime and it kind of pops up on the screen. but do you want but I know as soon as you drain it like shows you the achievements that you got but do you want there to be more of like do you want the shaker motor to go off do you want there to be more of a or the knocker to go off or something like do you want it to be more obvious or what's your thought yeah I think that's actually really smart I think having if there is a shaker motor with it I think that that would be good I think whatever sound they're giving to it just needs to be louder by default automatically because it is there But yet there's just so much going on. Even though it overrides the music and what's happening in the game, it's just not enough to really make it pop. Because if you're in the zone and you're just jamming away, you're going to start getting achievements. They're going to start piling up. But, you know, it's just, I don't know. For me, I was actually missing them. And I had to go back and look on my phone or my profile and see, okay, what popped up. I had an idea of what probably popped up, but I still wasn't for sure. And I think, I don't know, maybe a lot of that is because your focus is on the play field itself and not necessarily on the LCD while the, you know, the pinball's going all over the place. So, I mean, that could be a big part of it as well.
    10:08
    Yeah, I don't know because I – well, okay, Travis, do you have any on order? I've got two, but they're four location pins. Yeah, that's the key, right? So you're right. And, you know, getting back to I think and just this is just to refer to chat real quick. And I apologize if I'm pronouncing your name wrong, but Deeb's 44. They point out something that's actually the same thing I'm thinking. I think a lot of it might have to do with the age demographic, because obviously most of the Xbox and PlayStation age demographic isn't going to be above 40. It doesn't mean all of us don't play games like I'm 37. I still play games. So I'm well aware of it. I grew up with it. But I kind of fear that judging from the Super Series and judging from league, my league has very casual players and nobody was really talking about it. Nobody was really rushing over trying to get achievements or anything like that. It was only the young people that were doing that. And when I say young, I'm meaning like 20s and early 30s. Anybody that was 40-plus or 50-plus in our league, they didn't care. It didn't matter. So I'm curious to see how that plays out. But this is still super early, though. And I don't think – I think achievements is just going to be one very small part of this whole thing. I really do. So I don't know how big of a deal that will really be in the future. Well, I mean, they just announced today. They just announced today that they have released pricing. And I've seen that from multiple distributors. They posted it. It's out. but $199 per kit and that's the same whether it's a pro or premium doesn't matter $199 plus shipping so I don't I mean in my mind because people did the math backwards right they said okay every game now is now $300 more than it used to be so what did they add all they've added is the kit so I don't know somehow people were thinking this is a $300 kit so I had prepared myself that's like crap I'm going to have to pay $300 put this on Deadpool So when I heard $199, I mean, George Gomez has said, though, these kits are going to be cheap. He always said that. They're going to be cheap. They're going to be cheap, which is, I mean, $199 isn't cheap. But that's not cheap, right? I mean, they're not giving them away.
    12:29
    But $199 is better than $300. That's for sure. I will take that. But what we did hear, though, is they're not releasing many of them. Every distributor is getting like 10, and that's going to be basically Q4, and those 10 are prioritized to location play. So, Travis, I mean, yours are for location. Do you have any idea if yours are going to be prioritized? Do you think you're going to potentially get one of those early runs? Yeah, yeah, since it's on location, I'm definitely getting an early run. But for home, I don't think I'd ever get one for home. to be honest with you. And I have a couple of pins here in which I could do that, but I don't know. I just, I don't feel like the value's quite there for home after playing it. But, again, it's still very much bare bones. It could totally change once I add on stuff. And we've talked about this off stream too, Joel, that I still personally think this is about two years away from being fully fleshed out. Because there's still lots of things to get on with it, such as friend requests, being able to actually follow people and see what's going on. I mean, I don't know. I just, I personally don't see the value there early on. So maybe it's not that big a deal that people can't get it for their homes. But that being said, I think, I think when you first get the pen and just like Mike alluded to earlier, I think off camera that you're getting your Godzilla pro pretty soon. I think in those situations, the initial novelty will be there because it's cool. It's something that's new. You know, I just think it's one of those things that if you are an above average pinball player, you're going to get through these achievements really fast. I mean, I've played it four times, I think, total, and I have 15 achievements out of 39. I know for sure four did not register.
    14:20
    So, I mean. Oh, Godzilla, right? I mean, we looked, though. We looked in detail, and I think I've been a little scrutinized on how detailed we got into the Turtles achievements last week. But, I mean, some of those Turtles achievements, though, are not achievements that you're going to just, like, fall into. I mean, they're – and you know Keith. So Keith is going to go nuts. I think he's going to go big with Godzilla, and there are probably going to be some achievements there that are pretty hard. I know, like, Avengers. So, Craig, you only have one game. So it's you – you know, like, I know Mike's saying he's got – how many Stern LCD games do you have, Mike? Six. So, like, that's a commitment. Seven. Seven tomorrow. Seven. But, okay, but Godzilla already has it. So six of them, though, $200 a piece, you're looking at, if you want to commit, that's $1,200. I mean, you're. Yeah. I mean, does anyone mention whether they're interchangeable or not? Or are they specific to the game? I asked the distributor about that, and he said technically, because I said, are you allowed, is there a way, like, if you added one onto your game, could you technically pull it from your game and then move it to another one? And he said something about, they did say something about being able to, like, register or unregister. so yes it sounds like you could move it game to game so as like a streamer you could probably do that but i don't think it's going to be i mean i know like scorebit i have a scorebit in tna and technically you can take that scorebit board but you have it's not it's not a like it's a it's work but yeah i'll get 200 bucks you know yeah yeah i'll get it and throw in the machines and if if you know if it's not what i want it to be then i'll just go to the old you pencil and paper. I'll look at all the achievements and I'll just write down. And you'll verify them, get a green highlighter out and verify it. There you go.
    16:09
    A little green line through and we're good to go. Sarah, if I think they will add harder achievements more similar to trophies are the ones I've heard with Turtles. So yeah, I mean, that's a good thing, right? So the trophies, I thought Ray Day actually said in one of our chats that most of the Avengers achievements are basically going to be the Avengers trophies. I don't know if either Craig or Well, all three of you guys have adventures. Have any of you guys really dove into the trophy list? I mean, do you feel, are there trophies that are gold level that would be real hard to achieve?
    16:41
    That you know of? You need to have a pretty good run deep into the game to get a few of those trophies for sure. Some of those trophies, you know, you can get a gold with doing very little, but a lot of them you're going to have to get deeper into the game to get some of those golds. Interesting. Huh. I don't know. I guess if you have it. My question was if you had it on a game with Avengers and you've already achieved some of these things, I guess it's not going to be backwards compatible or it's not going to log you again, so you're going to have to do these things again. I guess it doesn't save them game to game anyway beyond some basic high score keeping with the game itself. But it saves it in your account.
    17:25
    If you achieve it. I mean previous to having the thing connected. Yeah, Travis was going to plug his in, and all of a sudden he just automatically got 40 achievements.
    17:37
    Yeah. It is, I would say, it is a little disappointing that they haven't, there's not many to be had, you know, initially for something that they're trying to make kind of a big fuss about. You know, to say they're really limiting this to 10 units per distributor. I mean, I'm sure a lot of distributors have way more than 10, you know, operators, customers who, you know, I bet the average operator is asking for 10 of these things, you know. So it does seem to me like the rollout is, you know, maybe they should have delayed it or something. You know, I'm sure they're trying to save enough that they can continue on with their production and, you know, ensure they have enough to, you know, to put them all in the Godzillas that are going out the door, plus any other pins they're going to produce. So it seems like, you know, first priority is production, second priority is operators, third priority is potential homeowners, I guess. And then even then, it sounds like they're going to limit how many they're going to hand out initially. so I think we're going to be well into 2022 well they said that or the average person the consumer ones are coming out Q1 it ain't going to be me so now I'm into 2022 so that is a little bit disappointing it's probably the world we're living in right now so what can you do and I like I'm clamoring for this thing just because I feel like I would agree with everything said so far that it's not really that big a deal but When you've got something that's this expensive and you feel like there's another angle to it that you're not able to access, that starts, you know, there's that FOMO feeling for sure, right? Like, I got to get this thing. I got to get online. You know, one day in the near future, they're going to go, okay, everybody, there's leaderboards. Okay, everybody, now you can, you know, have a tournament online, you know, and how many people are going to have them at that point? So that's my sort of worry in the back of my head. It's like, shit, I'm going to be missing all this stuff, and they're going to be moving forward. The reality is they probably aren't going to move forward with too much of it until more people have them. And it does, I understand, give them time to continue their coding, continue to add more machines.
    19:56
    You know, we have to be patient with it, I guess. But it is just a little bit frustrating. You know, it's like, okay, would you rather have them release it now, kind of half-baked and not distributing many of them, or would you have them wait for another four to six months with the promise of it coming and no one's got access to it? I don't know. Well, yeah, because they've advertised that all other LCD games are supposed to be supported by the end of the year, but yet they've just announced that there will be no consumer going to have it before next year, so it's only going to be the on-location stuff. By the way, Zachary, that's Dwight Sullivan. Dwight, how you doing, man? A question I have with regards to those orders is, you know, everybody knows there's a backlog of games that Stern is trying to catch up to. A lot of these games were pre-ordered, deposits paid this year.
    20:49
    They're not going to get made until next year. Are they going to include the kits in those games as well? All the games. Every game from the day they announced it, every single game from here on out has the kit in it. even games ordered prior and and deposits paid prior yeah well that's what mike we talked about that a few weeks ago like distributors if games were paid prior as soon as they announced that these kits are in it every game went up minimum 300 and so every distributor every order they had placed they had to call and ask for more money and what's crazy is january 1st of next year all games are going up to the same price as godzilla so once again if you had ordered a game that wasn't even going to be manufactured this year, you're asking for money. And Dwight, thank you for answering these questions, by the way. He said, months ago, we were hoping the kits would be available October 1st. So Craig is correct. It's the world we live in. So all new manufactured games will have the kit. So that's awesome. It's just right now it's just a waiting game. It's kind of unfortunate the only game that has it is Godzilla. But, yeah, Godzilla currently has the lowest amount, like the smallest amount of code and the smallest amount of achievements. So we can't really see that depth, that draw.
    22:05
    It's just the nature of the beast right now, though. I mean, this thing has to roll out somehow, and it's just one of those things, like we talked about, it's going to take a little while to flesh it out, and I'm sure we'll be saying something completely different by next summer once more of these are out. And I think it's, you know, I was kind of back and forth on whether or not they should go to consumer first or whether they should go on location first. But after the way Gomez described it earlier today, it makes a lot of sense that it would go to locations first, just so that way people can see how it is and see how it plays without having to necessarily invest on their own. And then they can make a decision when it's time, because obviously once they are ready to roll out to consumers, there probably will be a lot of people that want to get this. Because, I mean, we know some people that have 10 score bits at home. So you have to believe those types would be willing to get something like this for their house. Yeah. So, Dwight, it's coming. If you can come to Expo and get verified achievements on many games, then MGC and more after that. So he's saying they're going to have, Stern's going to have games at Expo that aren't just Godzilla. And that'll be awesome. Because, to be honest, like, I have a Turtles, but part of me is almost hesitant to play it right now. Because it's like I don't want to get that random, I know practice, but it's like I don't want to get that crazy achievement, you know, because I don't get credit for it yet. Joel, you know what you can do? What, Travis? You can take the glass off and get the achievement. That's not the who to.
    23:33
    Who does that, right? That's what I'm waiting for. I'm waiting for all the operators. All the operators are going to get your boards because they're going to have all those verified achievements. No problem. They got the keys to the game. Go to my business. Yeah. Mike, so I played a Godzilla on location on Tuesday, but yet our operator messed up and put it underneath their name. So none of the achievements are picked.
    23:57
    Oh, no. Yeah, but I'm saying, I mean, Travis is an operator. You just need to have that side gig, you know. Hey, slide me that $20. I'll slide that glass off for one game, you know, so you can hit some scores. Who's to say to you that, you know, I can't walk up to a machine and scan my code and then say, hey, Ray Day, you want to come over and play the game for me, knock off some achievements I'm trying to hit?
    24:20
    Yeah. No, I think, yeah, that's awesome. If they're going to have games like that at Expo, that's great. And to be, like, I've got to give it to Stern because Tanya, on his Facebook page, he said that Logan's Arcade, Logan's Arcade is going to have a Godzilla. And they have a deal right now where if you play that Godzilla and you log in with Insider Connect, during the days of Pinball Expo, you can then redeem that for, like, a free T-shirt. So it's just like that idea to me of I'm going to Expo, but no bit of me actually thought that I would travel out of my way to go to Logan's Arcade. And then you get like an exclusive badge that like you can only get at that time. And those are the carrots. I know. They're dangling it right there. It's like, well, crap. Apparently I need to go to Logan's Arcade, play one game, get my t-shirt and get my badge that, you know, Craig can't get because he's stuck in Canada. Yeah. We can stick it on our moose head, right, Craig? Our little moose head avatar. Put the badge right on there.
    25:24
    I know. 37 years old, I needed a badge this bad. But now you know. I think that's brilliant. I mean, Dwight knows it. He's saying it right there in chat. I do badges a lot more than I do the achievements. If they do something like a community badge when they do community stuff, I'm, like, all in. I'll be at the arcade grinding away. Yeah. Yeah, but that's what, I mean, that's, I understand this is the beginning. This is the beginning, and we have nothing but potential here. But what I am seeing is the price is roughly, it's $200. $200, and we all know there's no way that price is going down, right? So there's a chance that next year at two, I mean, look at every other Stern accessory. Every other one. Zach announced it. Can you get money to go up? Absolutely. Like, why would it not? I mean, look at, like, shooter rods. Shooter rods, like, Stern shooter rods are more expensive now than they were six months ago. I'd be very surprised if they had it go up during 2022. 2023, all bets are off. But, I mean, it's already quarter four, and if they go up after one quarter before it gets to consumers, that would probably anger a lot of people. And I think that would do the exact opposite of what George Gomez was saying. Mini pinballer, is that related to you, Mike?
    26:43
    That's Carter. Hey. That's awesome. He's hanging out. Oh, he's following. He's following now. Yeah, yeah.
    26:50
    Craig, you were about to say something a second ago, and Joel just cut you off. I did. I can't even remember. It wasn't anything important.
    26:57
    Guys, they're going to give me a hard time for this because I mentioned this before the show, that it's like, how do I be polite to the people talking but also get chat involved? Oh, I know what I was going to say. Oh, okay. Sorry to cut you off now, Joel. But I was going to say, so is Logan's Arcade in downtown Chicago? or because I know the Expo is more at the airport. So is Logan's all the way downtown? I haven't Googled it. I don't know. We're going to find out. Yeah. We're going to find out. But that's what I'm saying, that potential, though, that Logan is downtown. Yeah, so it's – but that kind of thing, that different shows are going to have exclusive badges. Think about Zach Minney. He's going to pull out his Facebook account. He's like, check out all these shows that I've got.
    27:39
    Those are pretty cool. And exclusive time things, that's something they talked about, that it's like, hey, it's, I don't know. I guarantee there's a Godzilla day, right? There's got to be one day out of the year that's a Godzilla day. And so they may have something that's like, if you log a game with Godzilla at a bar, boom, you get a Godzilla day badge. And that's the little stuff that would get me out of the house. Mike, how hard would it be to do something in the future with Godzilla? let's say you have 10 of your friends hook up to a machine and you're doing like a raid battle against Godzilla where you have to do, you know, a billion points worth of damage or something to him collectively with your friends or something. Stuff like that. That's stuff that I hope to see. I don't know if it's actually going to be possible, but we'll see. So Yee Hoodie, I'm assuming that's right, is this specifically a current conversation or are you aware that J.J.P. games have achievements now? Now, yes, I know, I think every, is it now officially every JJP game has achievements?
    28:44
    So does Wizard of Oz have it yet? I don't think I've seen that one. I don't know about that, but, I mean, what, I mean, I'll tell you, I'm honest, I have not really talked about the achievements that JJP's thrown out there. I haven't looked through the list. Is there a list of different achievements for a game? I mean, I know they've talked about doing, like, global trophies. So, like, whoever has the highest score has a, like, the person that has the highest registered score bit score on GNR has a trophy.
    29:16
    I don't know. I don't know what. What do you think the trophies are for GNR? What do you think the achievements would be for that? I don't know. The longest time gone without a forearm cramp or something? What do you think?
    29:28
    Supposedly, there are 180 achievements in GNR. How many add-on balls you can get during a song? Yeah. I know so Travis has owned GNR and sold it Mike you've owned GNR and sold it I have not Craig you have not I know Travis is Travis's issue but Mike what was your experience with that game okay so I had issues out of the box with the game but I mean they were minor I fixed them my biggest issue was the gameplay to be honest with you, I just wasn't a fan of it. I don't like the, you know, it's a Guns N' Roses pin. It's the prettiest box of lights I've ever seen. But I don't like the fact that in order to hear a song, you've got to collect all the band members, start a song, and then you're playing the song for however long, you're doing great, you end up draining, whatever, you lose everything.
    30:29
    The ball saves, you know, 60 seconds, they need to be turned off. You've got to turn those ball saves off when you get those songs because, like Travis said, you're going to get cramps. So, I mean, in a nutshell, I think it was more the gameplay than anything else, and I just wasn't a fan of it.
    30:45
    Maybe the rules, the code. I mean, I could have kept it longer, I guess. Mervin Methadone, risk-reward. I mean, I know we had a local TPN or another TPN person just recently pick up Metallica. And so maybe that's a question. Metallica is risk-reward. It's nothing but risk-reward. And maybe this is an unfair statement, but why does Metallica do risk-reward better than GNR? Because you're getting points while you're doing the risk-reward, whereas in GNR, it's all collecting the song. Like, you get zero, really. You start band frenzies, stuff like that. That helps, but with GNR, I find it's really, really focused on collecting those song jackpots, whereas Metallica, like, if you're in, you know, crank it up on Metallica, you're building points to collect when you collect the points, but you're also getting points for hitting the shots while you're building up those points too. So that's a little different. Dwight had a great answer. He was on it too. As soon as I asked that question, his answer, lime and sheets. Lime and sheets is the answer. So here's the issue at GNR, and I know we're kind of getting off track here, but my issue is, is that the rule set, I feel like the rule set does not match the layout. Like, I feel like it's just kind of jammed together. You know, whereas, like, with Metallica, I feel like the rule set matches the layout. It makes fundamental sense. And so with GNR, a lot of your frustration comes that, yeah, you're going to enjoy the light show, but in the middle of all that, you're going to be doing a lot of flipping, and you're going to have to try to build up a lot of points, and then you may cash it in. You may not. And I don't know. So for me personally, it's not very much fun just to be flipping and knowing I have an endless ball save just to build up points just for one very specific shot. I mean, it's fine in spurts, maybe like for the first 10 minutes. But then all of a sudden when you realize you're in a 45-minute to an hour-and-a-half game, I mean, the longest game of GNR I played was two hours and 45 minutes. And I'm just like, why am I doing this right now? Yeah, I had to walk away from the game. And it's just like, because when you get the jamming, if you play that game vertical and you don't use your upper flipper at all, it's just live catch, the wide open ramp. You know, live catch, wide open ramp. And you can play it like that or you can play it wide open and just chimp flip your way. But even then, I don't know. For me, that's not fun. It doesn't feel like there's much skillful things going on. And I don't think that's a result of the layout. That's a result of how the rule set is with that layout. And it just, I don't know, because the layout isn't wide open, it just doesn't really make sense just to be flipping away like that because the balls spend the majority of time in the lower third of the play field. And it's just total chaos and balls knocking into each other. And then whenever the plunge goes, where does it put the ball at? Right back into the middle of the play field, just colliding with other balls again. So, yeah, it just drove me nuts. So that's the reason why I got rid of it. And I think that's fair. Those are all fair reasons. And I think Yehudi said he had a Carl DeAngelo had a two-hour, 45-minute game on YouTube. I mean, I get that. But to bring it back to the achievements, though, that is an interesting thought. Here we are having a conversation about are we willing to spend $200 to add achievements to our games. But right now, every J.J.P. owner for free can just download the new code and they have achievements. So is that a – is there a reason? Like, am I missing something, or is there a reason we're not discussing achievements on JJP? It's already an expensive game to begin with. Yeah. It's not like it's already expensive enough. So, yeah, something better be for free in there. I mean, they say it's for free, but come on. $10,500 for free. I mean, you know, I think it's already built in. That cost is firmly baked into that.
    34:42
    Yes. I know, obviously, there are more expensive games. But, I mean, yeah, okay, every scrim game from here on out is having this stuff.
    34:49
    There's nobody out there, Joel, that's giving away something for free. I mean, it's the same thing that happened with Spooky when they were like, hey, here's Rick and Morty. Here's a free topper. It's like, no, no. You have to probably put a stake in there somewhere. Yeah, everything's accounted for at some point. You don't just all of a sudden just throw, you know, money at, well, shit, maybe Spooky does do that. Maybe they just throw money at the wall and just do it six. I don't know. Mike, do you have any JGP games anymore? uh no actually guns and roses was the first i've purchased i'd actually never had another uh jjp before this was the only one we bought um would you get another one maybe a dialed in maybe a dialed in my wife really wants a waz though she wants a wizard of oz and but i mean i don't mind the wizard of oz but if i had to to if i had to have a jjp it would probably be a dialed-in. A fun game. I like dialed-in. Yeah, I mean, for me, dialed-in feels like more the authentic, you know, Bally Williams-style game. There's something about the JJP games that I personally don't like. They feel differently, even the snap of the flippers. Oh, yeah. You know, they might be a little sluggish or something, just something different that I just, I prefer the Stearns and the Bally Williams much more. Mr. Hopwood, that weak plunger, man. That weak plunger on DNR. That weak plunger. Yeah. It feels like everything's a wet noodle on those games. I don't understand why that is. I have no clue. Do you think there was a conversation when we heard about Steve Ritchie? I mean, Steve Ritchie's all about speed. Do you think there's a chance that he's going to be like, guys, fix your flippers? I don't know. I thought we talked about that before. You did. We're going to have to. You can't do a fan layout over there because it's not going to work. Travis, you had a good question here. Has Stern mentioned anything about match play integration with Insider Connected? Probably coming once they do the tournament stuff, I would imagine. I can't see them not doing that with the stable of people that they have over there. Well, Scorebit is an individual board, but Scorebit, that is the software that's baked into the JGP games that's doing all these achievements. scorebit is or has announced or is saying they are planning on doing some sort of reporting like that like tournament type yeah actually i think just a day ago the head guy in match play put it up on tilt forums already okay it's it's connected to match play now but i don't know how that works but i know it is connected to it because i i mean i watched a good bit shout out to tom graft run an amazing stream with that district 82 stream over the last the whole weekend but uh It is amazing that, you know, with all this technology, the fact that you guys are finishing your game and picking up a piece of paper and, like, writing down your scores. I mean, it's, yeah. It comes down to cost, too. I mean, even. A piece of paper and a pencil is pretty cheap. Yeah, compared to $200 to $300 for something just to take your scores down. But, yeah, I could see something like that being used by the major tournaments that are Herb format if you only have to put on 9 to 15 pins. and somebody could possibly just be going around with those and putting them on the games and taking them off. I could see that. Games in the future are going to have them, right? In the future, they're just going to be there, so you won't even need to worry about that, right? Yeah, you probably just need, what, maybe five to six then for your non-sterns. Because you're going to have older games that you're going to want to pop them into as well. Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, so we talked a little bit on Triple Drain. It was like, what is the, you know, Mike, I like your dangling the carrot, but it's like, what is the thing? What is the thing that's going to get people to commit to this system? And I know one of the things that Travis and I talked about was if you can put this on your home game, and if you paid extra and you became the Insider Connected $35 a year guy, if that now, because they've announced if you're that deeper, that one level deeper, you potentially, there you go. He's a certain insider. There he goes. So if that, I think they said it gives you access to more, I forget their exact wording, but it's basically more software. So the question is, what is that? What's that more software that you'd get access to? And one of the things we threw out, which would be really cool, would be the ability to choose your mode or to choose, like, to start the game, hold flippers, and choose, like, a starting point. And the reason I mention this is because from a competitive standpoint, Travis, it's like if he could just skip straight to mech suit multiball and practice that multiball, like he was like, I'm in. Because anything that any tools that he could use to improve his tournament play, because we all know he needs it, he's going to pay money for. But that's the carrot that Travis wants. I don't know.
    39:41
    I mean, is that a carrot that attracts you? I mean. Avatars. Custom avatar. That's what you want. You win items to put on your avatar to show how cool you are. Oh, okay. Right? You get that Jurassic Park jacket for escaping Nublar to put on your avatar. It's like badges. Anything like that? Yeah. Give you that I mean Craig I think you said you already in right I mean you got one machine You going to do it right No yeah I dying to get on this thing Weekly challenges No I think it going to be great Yeah, challenges. I mean, I just think, you know, it's something that the community's talked about for a long time. There's been a high level of anticipation about this for the last two or three years. And, you know, I think it's fantastic that Stern's finally done it. And like Dwight was saying, it's just unfortunate that the world finds itself in, you know, a supply chain issue. I mean, hell, you know, the U.K. can't even get gas half the time. So it's just like down on the food chain, I would say, of what the insider-connected kits are right now.
    40:56
    Yeah. People are worried about not getting turkeys for Thanksgiving, you know, in the U.S. Dwight, I know, Dwight, if you're still in chat, I think he had said on a previous thing that, He doesn't have a Turtles in his basement, but he has a Star Wars. He has a Star Wars Premium. So the question is, Dwight, is there – what is it that – and this is directed at one person in chat. But, Dwight, what is the thing that's going to prompt you to put one on your Star Wars? Like is there something that you're excited about? Is there something about – and I'm not necessarily – maybe there's something that we don't know about yet. But there's got to be something as a coder of games, and there's got to be something of an owner of these machines.
    41:32
    What's the selling factor for you? Why do you want to put it on your pins? That kind of thing. or anybody in chat, feel free to answer that. I can't see an operator near me paying $200 per game to update all Star Wars pins. I think there are 10 there, so that's 2K retrofit.
    41:46
    I have one operator who I know that he's already committing to putting them on all his games, and it's just for all those perks that they've talked about, being able to update games remotely, being able to see if any of his games are down, being able to see cash totals, like is it worth my drive to go do these things?
    42:05
    Dwight, I have an office in my basement with different play fields. I can do swap. Oh, so he could put it on Turtles. There you go. Okay, yeah. But those are the things. Keith said that. Keith Owen said that on Loser Kid, that as an operator, he used to operate. He had, like, multiple locations. So anytime a code update came out, it was, like, 45 minutes driving up there to update code and then another hour and a half. So it's, like, I don't know. I think operators, if there's a time saving. Travis, you're an operator. Am I just blowing smoke, or what do you think? No, I mean, one of my plans with this is I'm going to document my experience with it and just put it out there because I know there's a lot of people that are on the fence about it, and I don't even know really what to expect. But I figured, what the hey, it's just a couple hundred dollars. I might as well try it and just see how it is. And if it doesn't work, then I know not to do it anymore. But if it's a big convenience and I actually see CoinDrop going up, then I'd probably look into putting it on other games. So it just depends. Mervin Methadone has a great point. When operators can take payments through the scanning device, they will update. That's what I think is going to happen. I hope that happens. I really do because then that means if that's possible, that means I can do dynamic pricing from my house. I don't have to go there and change the price. So I could be like, hey, it's 25-cent Friday or, hey, it's $5 coin drop Saturday. You know, I don't know. So something like that, as an operator, that would be the biggest thing is being able to do dynamic pricing on the fly. And if somebody just used their phone to pay, I think that's pretty cool, too. Me, as a customer, I would like to be able to do that, to buy credits or something like that. That would be pretty cool. I would 100% play more games if I could pay that way, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead of having to go to an ATM, go to a change machine, wait in line for somebody to give you a change, whatever. If you have your phone, throw a few more games on here. Yeah, it's a lot easier that way. And Dwight here in chat, did we announce price? Yes, you did. Dwight, it came out today. It's $199 plus shipping. So I don't know what that means for you as an employee, but that's what they told everybody. But I think you have a really good, interesting point, Travis, this dynamic pricing. If they allowed something where it's like, you know, this game, being that it tracks person, it's like, hey, if you, for every, I don't know, for every five games you play, you get one free. Or for every ten games you play, you get one free. You know, and it doesn't have to be all done in one day. I mean, you could do a lot of things, right, if you had control of that. A happy hour. I mean, being able to know that I could do a happy hour, say that the, well, Dwight just answered it for me. Like saying that, you know, if the place opens at 11 o'clock, then it's going to be 50 cents for a coin drop or 75 cents. And then once it hits evening time, like around 6 or 7, it's on a Friday, Saturday, maybe it goes up to a dollar. If I could be able to set a game to where within certain time frames the pricing changes on its own and I can set it on that, that would be awesome as an operator because then I don't have to keep going back and forth and messing with it. You wouldn't have to manual. You just set it one time, leave it, and it can be dynamic throughout the whole day or throughout the whole week. Yeah. How many trips would that save you? How many trips would that save you going into your locations looking at games with code updates, all that stuff? How many trips would that save you if that was what it did? A lot. Yeah. A whole lot. It saved me a ton of gas. That's what I'm saying.
    45:40
    Just saving the gas. And then just the headache of getting into a coin box, having to find it on the menu. I mean, it seems simple, and it is. If it's in your house, yeah, it's easy. But when you have to get in your car, you're going to have to drive, then you're going to have to get keys, you're going to have to find it, you might have to wait on somebody not to be standing there any longer playing it. I mean, there's a lot of variables at play just to get to that price change. Good point.
    46:05
    Yeah, Stern really can't lose on this at all. I mean, this has so many different positive angles for them that I think over time it's going to be like we're not even going to look back on it and think, you know. I just think this is the way more and more that, you know, to digitize all this stuff and to allow the flexibility in terms of how they interact. And let's not forget how Stern can potentially interact with their customers too. Now they actually have an app. Now they can funnel communications through that app to operators, to, you know, the home buyer. And, you know, you're not going to go to the Stern website for news anymore. You're going to go to the Stern app, which we should all be doing anyway, right? So it just really becomes, you know, a focal point for them for everything and will continue to be going forward. I mean, they can't, short of not being able to get the things into the machine and sort of fumbling on the code side, which I don't think they will. I mean, they've got a huge team of coders there. They're going to probably continue to add to that going forward as this thing starts and keeps rolling out.
    47:16
    Yeah. Honestly, they can't lose. I really honestly believe that, that this is. Yeah. I don't think we're going to be two years into this and be like, nah, I see nobody's using this. So maybe we should stop putting these in the game. Yeah. That's what you're saying.
    47:30
    Lake Shore said something up here. Lake Shore, I think you guys are underestimating how addicted young people are to their phones. They will pay money to connect their phones and share with friends. I agree. I mean, I understand, and Travis kind of hinted at that earlier, there's kind of an age. At least that's what he saw with District 82. Everybody under X age was all about it, flashing every time, and then everybody over a certain age could care less, and we will see. Pay with Bitcoin. I mean, I don't know, like different payment methods beyond just Interact. Sterncoin. Yeah, Sterncoin. Come up with their own NFT. It's coming. Trust me. All this stuff has to be. They can't not get on this bandwagon because it's so monstrous right now that they have to be thinking about all this stuff down the road. Oh, yeah.
    48:17
    Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Mike. Well, and you've got to believe the new guy coming in from Disney is thinking all this stuff. Like, he's got, I'm sure, an agenda, right? And it's like Disney's way down the road on this stuff. So this is his world that he is now going to bring Stern into, and I think everyone is going to benefit from that greatly.
    48:41
    Just from an experience point, I think it's just going to up the experience for everybody. Now, we're going to pay. Yeah. So get ready. Mike, you had a thought, right? I was thinking more along the tournament side. Maybe Travis might have some thoughts on it too. But even, you know, using your phone to, if you're playing like Herb-style tournaments, buy your entries per game, whatnot, it can automatically track that for you, track prize pools, you know, keep that sort of statistics on your game and stuff too, right? Yeah, I imagine that they'll probably have something in there with that. I'd be shocked if they didn't. I just had a random thought, and this would be kind of absurd. But so I think there are people that are worried that at some point in time, if, So hear this out. If you ever could pay using the app, if you could ever pay with your app, there's a chance that Stern would potentially take some of that money, right? That's the thought, right? Of, like, if you're going to go through that. Like, Raw Thrills? Yeah, so, like, Raw Thrills, like Big Buck Hunter, I know some of those other games, there is, like, a portion of that goes back to Raw Thrills. Every single time somebody plays one of those games because of this internet connectivity. So my random thought here is if Stern really wants more people to pay that extra money to be that insider-connected, just like Amazon Prime, what if you're an insider-connected, the games are slightly cheaper every single time because you're a Prime member, right, or you're an insider-connected plus. So that extra cost that would go to Stern, instead of it going to Stern, they don't take it, and it's cheaper for you. You know what I'm saying? Like, if you play that much, do you think something like that, like a cost savings, would be enough to push people to become the Insider Connected members?
    50:28
    It's a random thought. Dwight said, we are always going to make pinball machines that you can just play like the olden days. Complete, fun, deep games that have no – yes, Dwight, yes, correct. I think the way to go about it, if Stern really wanted to really put some goodwill out there, it would be something – And I don't even know how you would work this out with the locations, but it would almost be like maybe if they have a huge community events, that they have something like Stern Coin or Stern Bucks to where they do offer X amount of free games that you'll win for doing something that's particularly hard. Maybe you can do something like that to where it would go each game, but I don't know. I mean, even then, you're kind of dipping into the pockets of operators, too, at that point. So I don't know if that would be very advantageous for that to happen. But, I mean, I don't know. I'm sure this is all things that they've talked about and tried to figure out over the past couple of years already. Oh, Zach's here. Castman in the house. What up, gang? What's going on, Zach? Zach's here. Oh, hey, if Zach's here, I mean, it's perfect timing. It's almost 11 o'clock. So let's just knock this out real quick. If you guys happen to wonder who's running this, this is the Flippin' Out stream. So let's watch this quick video real quick. boom you know gotta have to have to throw that out there real quick for uh zach so what about a monsters yeah i hope that has sound joel oh because it said it was me talking saying yeah they can't hear me yeah no um well i don't does anybody have a nice bow to put on this i mean we got other topics to talk about tonight but um anybody have any final thoughts on uh all four panelists get 10 seconds to roll their eyes oh because we had this show commercial yeah um yeah anybody anybody want out of the three anybody want to just wrap this up wait six months till you can get your own there we go well good point good point the real the reality is none of us, we really don't have any actions, right? The only action we have is if we see a Godzilla on location, pull out your phone and see what happens. Otherwise, all of us that want to put them on our home games,
    52:50
    Q1. We shall wait and see. There we go. Go play it if you like it. Order one if you don't. Don't bother. What percentage of operated games these days are traditional, placed in a location model, versus arcades that own and operate their own games?
    53:07
    That's an interesting point. Who knows? Yeah, I don't have that. Any numbers we give will be just completely made up. I mean, I know people that do the same thing, but it's funny because a lot of it depends on location. So I know somebody that has the GNR on location at a pool hall, and it just rips up everything in sight. I mean, it just destroys all the stern pins, all the old pins, everything. And then at the same time, I know other operators that have a GNR next to Stern pens, and the GNR makes less than Adam's family and less than Monster Bash, and the Stern pens are just ruling the roost. So a lot of it just depends on location and, I guess, just whoever your demographic is.
    53:50
    Does that pool hall have a jukebox? Is that basically what the GNR has become? Well, it does have a jukebox, as a matter of fact, one of those fancy ones. Ooh.
    54:00
    Speaking of fancy, I don't know. I'm just going to use it as a transition. Why not? But let's take a look here. Here we go. Next topic. F11. I just hit the button. I got you, Travis. Okay. Look at that baby. So, Mike, have you owned a Jurassic Park?
    54:19
    I did. Actually, I did own a Jurassic Park, and I sold it like three weeks ago. Okay. So you've had plenty of time on it. That was to make room for Godzilla, and, you know, I mean, I only have so much room, and my whole collection can't be Keith Elwin games, so I had to move on from it. I mean, it could be, definitely. It could.
    54:38
    That's my key. Yeah, Travis, that's where Travis is at. I think he's just Keith Elwin from here on out. I don't have Jurassic Park, though, and I don't have Iron Maiden anymore, so maybe I need to get JP HomePen and just put, like, a Keith Elwin picture on the top of it or something. I don't know. So, initial thoughts. I know we've heard a lot of opinions here. But we can talk about pricing. We can talk about the concept of Home Pin. Or we can just talk about the pin itself. I watched a good bit of the stream. And I don't know. We can dive in. Whoever wants to go first. Just initial thoughts. Now that this has been released, the last time we had this conversation, we were pretty confident it was going to be Jurassic Park. And we were pretty confident it was Jack Danger. But here we've actually seen it. Chat, feel free to throw out your thoughts as well.
    55:32
    I don't know. Mike, go ahead. Or Craig. Craig, you take it off. No, Craig, you got it. Well, I think just in looking at this game versus when Jurassic Park first came out, was it 2019 or 2018? I think it was 2019.
    55:47
    You know, it looks like they've gone back to the drawing board a little bit as far as the art. Like, I do like the art on the apron. I think the integration of the T-Rex head at the back of the play field is very nice. And I think, considering this is supposed to be a bit of a stripped-down thing, there's wire forms on this. There's a couple of ramps that you can see. So, you know, I think it looks pretty damn good for a pinball machine that's supposed to be a little more bare bones. You know, it doesn't have a third flipper, obviously. It doesn't have, you know, any sort of an upper play field or anything too complicated to it, like the Raptor Pit or anything like that. But, you know, I like the fact that the T-Rex head's spitting out balls, the 40-yard multi-ball. I think that's excellent.
    56:39
    So, you know, my only problem with it is, of course, you know, which you can't see on this picture, but the LCD screen is pathetically small. So, like, what are you going to do? You're staring at this thing to get your score. It's horrific. I'd rather have them put a cheaper DMD device, honestly, in this thing. I think that would be actually more entertaining than a ridiculously small LCD screen. Almost go retro a little bit. Like heavy metal. Yeah, exactly. Just do that. Zach. So I think they did a very nice job with this machine. I'm more impressed with this machine, I think, than I was when I saw the Star Wars pin. I was like, eh. But this one, I'm like, you know, not bad. Not bad. Zach, if you're still in chat, do you think you would – if the game cost $200 more, but it had a normal size LCD screen, do you think you'd actually sell more? Do you think the smaller screen actually impacts sales? Just curious. I don't know. Do you guys have a, like? I think it does. Yeah. You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of Zoolander when he's at the Center for Ants. Is this a school for ants? Yeah. It needs to be at least six times bigger than this. Well, I mean, everyone, I know everyone jokes that it's, you know, leftover screens from the Star Wars pin, you know, that they're using up there. But, I mean, LCDs are, well, I mean, maybe supply issues now. But LCDs are usually fairly cheap. They're not that big of an expense, right? I don't see why they couldn't make it even a little bigger.
    58:27
    The resolution of that LCD is, yeah. Well, isn't the overall cabinet itself smaller? I know the play field's not smaller. The play field's the same. Yeah, definitely. They said the overall height is slightly shorter, and the overall depth of the cabinet is shorter, which is hilarious because Jack's 6'7", so you have this huge guy playing on a tiny game. I'm just wondering how they can make the depth shorter but still have a standard-sized play field in it.
    58:57
    Well, for one, there's nothing. You can see the ramp does not, like, there's nothing that goes past the back of the game, right? So, I mean, some of these games have ramps that go in and out of the play field. So, I mean, even if it's just that little bit. And then on the back. Okay. So there's usually, like, six inches behind the backboard to the back of the pin. So is that sort of eliminated? It must be gone. And I don't know, Zach, you may or may not still be in chat, but Zach, he did a whole unboxing video of a Star Wars pin, the pin. So I'm curious if he saw how those were put in there. But, yeah, Seraph brings up a good point here where there are more, are there more moving things in this than the pro version of Jurassic Park? Yes. The only thing that moves is the truck. Yeah. And that's just a ball on a stick that goes from one side to the other on the ball. Are there drop targets in the original pro? There is no drop targets in the pro. You just have the post that comes up in the left end lane. So this has a set of drop targets and it has the moving T-Rex head. I do think it's kind of nuts that the two pop bumpers in the back are one coil, and the slings in the front are one coil. So you see that, that when the ball hits the right sling, both slings pop. It's like... Yeah, that was bugging my OCD big time. Well, yeah, the issue, like if the ball's slinging back and forth really quick between the slings and they're firing at the same time. I don't know that sometimes the ball will come across to the other sling faster than that other sling has time to re-pop again to knock the ball over if it's going back and forth fast, right? Correct. Yeah, I noticed that a few times. It just seemed like it made the gameplay slightly weird down by the flippers whenever they were firing at the same time. When I first saw that, I thought something like a switch was just completely closed or something like that and was just shotgunning itself. But, yeah, it turns out that it's just operating on the same coil. And just, I don't know, I don't really like that. If I'm playing on it and I'm looking down my flippers, I don't like the idea of just seeing everything just firing at one time. That was kind of driving me nuts seeing that happen. So the coils are firing twice as much as they would normally too, right? Yeah. Good point. So Zach is saying it's one node board. Is it actually, Zach, can you answer this? Is it one? he said, Wason said during the stream that it was one coil but is it, like I don't know how you design a mech to have one coil that moves if there's some linkage or something you would have to have is it actually one coil or is it just a node board are they just saving cost by sticking with one node board two coils, Zach, okay perfect okay that makes way more sense so then if they're firing at the same time were they supposed to do that? yeah it's one node board so maybe Dwight, you can answer that. I'm assuming a node board can only drive X amount of coils. So if you know right at the beginning that, well, let's, let's try to think this through. There's a diverter at the top because I know if you hold the left button, so that has to be a coil. There's a coil for the drop targets, um, and the reset coil. So there's two, a coil for the pops would be three, a coil for both flippers, four or five, and a coil that runs, if they're treating it as the same, six. Is a node board limited to six coils? Or not necessarily individual coils, but there's got to be math there. They have to know if there's only going to put one node board in the game, then this is the limit for putting a second one in.
    62:50
    All coils handled by one node board instead of needing two. Exactly. So there has to be a – there's got to be a set limit, right? That node board can only drive, I'm guessing, six. Yeah, I'm going to assume that both sling shots then are sort of triggering the same switch through the node board, which is firing both coils. So the game doesn't know whether you hit the left or the right sling. It just says sling was hit. Yeah. Fire both coils. There's an auto plunger, though. That would be seven.
    63:18
    Dwight, two switches. So, yeah, so there's an individual switch for each sling. That makes sense. But those two switches are triggering one.
    63:33
    It sounds like the node board is what is driving or triggering and telling those two coils to turn off or to turn off. Less switches, less wiring, yeah. Then I guess the node boards, maybe they're switch-related, right? If there's less switches triggered through the node board, the node set up the sling and just fires both of them because it doesn't know if it was the left or the right. Okay.
    63:55
    Okay. Cabinet and play field have different material. Is the play field itself made of something different than a normal commercial play field?
    64:06
    I don't know. One high-powered node board. Yeah, I just, there's got to be an electrical limitation per node board. Well, maybe this is a better question. If there's only one node board in a pin, the pin, how many node boards are typically in a commercial game? Two, three? I don't.
    64:28
    Is that like eight or nine? Yeah, I think it's more than that. There's a lot. My Game of Thrones had like six or seven, I think. Six or seven. Well, I mean, one thing I'm seeing is I don't think, and I could be wrong, but I don't think I'm seeing any LED lights, like all of the lights, like color changers. Color changers. I don't see any color-changing LED lights.
    64:48
    I think it's just – I'd be curious under these. I wonder what's cheaper at this point. Are they LED? Are they little LED boards? Or are they back to bulbs? I don't know. Yes, it's a flavor of MDF, but we're getting away from that in my knowledge. Interesting.
    65:07
    What would be crazy is if these MDF play fields hold up better. Like, wouldn't that? I mean, two under Playfield.
    65:16
    Playfield has a decal rather than direct print. Okay, so what do you guys think about the layout itself?
    65:27
    My initial impression, and that's what both Jack and Wason were saying in stream, I mean, this game's fast. Like, it is a, it is a, like, it is a, the bad joke here is it flows better than Halloween. But that's, I know we've joked a lot about Halloween's flow. But it actually, like, legit, that orbit whips around real quick. That left ramp, if you hit that ramp with speed, the jump ramp is pretty cool. It whips around. This horseshoe ramp, oh, what am I doing? I'm pointing at my screen. I got a pointer here. This right here, I mean, this is straight up Gomez. Gomez had to have helped with this guy. I mean, that is a Gomez ramp if I ever saw one, right? I mean, this thing whips around, and it's so fast.
    66:13
    My overall impression, I mean, there's nothing that stops the ball. There's no scoop. There's nothing that stops the ball except for when the T-Rex grabs it, right? So when you drop these targets down, it goes back. It must be like a 180 ramp, and it stops the ball. Otherwise, even this Raptor pin, it doesn't stop the ball. It just bounces back there and then dribbles back out. So the game is quick. I think the Raptor pin is probably the weakest part of the layout. Is there a switch in there? Is it a target or a roller? So there's a target right here. So there's a target right in the back. So for that to register, there's a gate that allows the ball to go that way. So you have to hit that, and then it just dribbles back out. And what is kind of neat is, and Jack showed it, if you hit this right orbit with enough speed or if you plunge the ball with enough speed and you literally don't touch the game, that ball will come down, it'll bounce off the left flipper, bounce over to the right flipper, and literally roll up into that target. That happens on Metallica a lot too. Metallica. In the scoop. Yeah. So, okay, this is not to – okay, I'm going to derail this for one second. But we have TPN friends that just got a Metallica. They got it used, and they got it for less money than this game.
    67:36
    I mean, it's like if you got $5,600 in your pocket, do you want to buy this or do you want to buy a used Metallica? I mean, is that fair? Well, that was one of the indicators to the people selling it, too. I mean, to find a Metallica for that price. They got a good deal. Yeah, that's just. It's ridiculous.
    67:58
    Birdo drink. I'm buying a JP Pro this weekend for $4,900. Seems like a way better deal. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I've talked to a few dealers, and so far sales have been very sluggish with this so far. Lower than what Star Wars was. Now, of course, that's obviously because of the theme, but I am a little bit surprised that they've been kind of this sluggish, all things considered. But that just goes to show you that the people really buying the pens right now are really wanting to buy the main pens, you know, the pros, the premiums, and the LEs. And I think we're not going to see sales on this home pen really pick up until closer to Christmas time when non-pinball people really start to take notice of it.
    68:44
    Yeah. I mean, Zach right here, he's in chat flipping out pinball. I mean, I hope you get randos, like random people calling, hey, I want a pinball. Closer to Christmas. I mean, Christmas. Give it another month. Yeah. I don't know. I don't.
    68:59
    I mean, I don't think any distributor right now has the ability to prepare for Christmas and put games on shelf. I mean, it just. But this is a game that you could do that.
    69:10
    I don't know. I mean, 4,600 bucks. This level is perfect for the audience it's aiming for. Yeah. Zach has mentioned that before. If you have like a family leisure center that sells ping pong, foosball, you know,
    69:27
    being able to sell this game, I mean, they'll sell. But it was interesting listening to Dennis with Eclectic Gamers broadcast, and you could tell he's almost mad. Like there are people that have bought Mando day one and still haven't got Mando, and yet here's Stern, they released Godzilla, and now they're releasing this? Like, come on, like, don't.
    69:50
    Well, in the case of this, though, like Zach said earlier, though, isn't it made from different materials so that you may not have, you know, different supply issues with this than you would with anything on a real Stern? But who knows? I mean, I think Dave said, though, that Stern is, that line is going like six days a week right now, isn't it? I mean, it is either, I mean, it's still, this is still going to take up a line, right? I mean, assembly line. I don't know. I don't know where the, I don't know where the bottleneck is on CERN. I'm not, I don't work there. I don't know if it's waiting on parts. I don't know if they have like, like just, we have 99% of the parts needed to do this run, but we obviously aren't going to touch it until that last part comes in. Or if it's, you know, they're behind on materials. It has to be pretty substantial though. Yeah. I know people that got a Mando Premium day one, and they still have not gotten it yet. And there's already Godzilla LEs shipping out. Yeah. And then there's already Jurassic Park the Home Pin.
    70:54
    Well, do you think the part shortage is unique game parts, or do you think there's like, hey, we only have so much plywood, so where are we going to delegate this plywood to, you know? Or is it? I think it would have to be unique game parts. I think it's one of those things. it's just like all industries across the board. Once you have all the parts in, that's when you fire it up, you get it out, and then you just try to go to the next one. That's all you can do, really. Sure. It's kind of one of those things, too. Stern is almost a victim of their own success at this point, that they're sticking with their normal schedule, or at least as close to it as possible. And you're doing that in the middle of a shortage of material as well. And that's kind of a blessing and a curse, with the blessing being that you can keep turning out new titles. The curse being that means you're not going to get as many out to people. But the difference is it's not like any other manufacturer in pinball is doing this right now. I mean, the closest you guys, what, Jersey Jack putting out Wonka and GNR at the same time for a little while, and I guess Spooky trying to do Halloween and Ultraman at the same time. So, I mean, it's not, I mean, at least it's more pinball, but I understand people's frustration of not having a pin for months at a time and seeing multiple other pins get released too. Well, one thing, like, Spooky has not sold any more, like, Spooky hasn't sold any more Halloweens or Ultramans than they did the first day because they're all gone, right? Like, they sold out of all their product, and they're still sold out of all their product for however many months straight. JJP has essentially sold out. They haven't sold out, but they've sold, like, that's the one thing Stern's done is they sold out, and then three months later they release another pin that they sell out. And then three months later they release another pin that they sell out. So they're like, I don't, part of me was like, why don't they just every, like, why don't they take December off and not release a game, put it on hold and play a little catch up? But does that actually help Stern? Or does it make more sense to sell out again, to sell out another 600 LEs of something new, you know? If it's game specific shortages, I don't know that they can do that, right? I mean, they're going to be at the mercy of whatever they have the parts for. If they have parts for Elvira's, then Elvira's going to hit the line until they run out of parts for that, until the next game they get parts for. So, I mean, I think it's even hard for them to say, well, we're going to be making this game on this date because it all depends on the parts.
    73:18
    Amiga Kami here in chat says they're getting one. I don't mean this in a rude way, but why? What was the selling factor for you? I'm curious, Amiga, what was the selling factor for you to pull the trigger on this? I mean, anybody, the other three of you, did any of you consider buying this game?
    73:37
    A JP Home Pin? Yeah. No. I don't think this is for us. I think this is more an entry level, somebody wants to get in the pinball, this is what they buy, and then they sort of move on from there. This is not somebody who has a collection going and then buying a home. Travis, point at your game. Just turn around and just point to our Avengers. There's a really good reason why we're not getting the home pin. I get it. I bet it plays well, though. I bet it's still fun. It looks fun. Oh, yeah. It looks great. I think it looks great. Why haven't we gotten more jump ramps? That's what I want to know. Good question. Robocop? Yeah, I have had one of those. That is one of the best features in a game. The jump ramps are awesome. Yeah, and it's one of those things that it's easy to do in terms of it not costing much to do it. It's just figuring out the geometry of everything. And I think it's just the way I view homepens, and you guys can tell me if you agree or disagree, but I kind of look at it like a modern-day solid state. That's the way it feels to me with how fast it is and how there's really not much to it per se with the overall layout and with the rule set being very simplified, but it kind of just feels like a modern-day solid state to me. So I like the idea of that. I don't know how long something like that would last in a collection, though. If I'm playing it, I feel like after two or three days I would be done with it. Yeah, but you're not the normal player. I mean, two-hour, 45-minute game with GNR over here. So, you know, yeah.
    75:17
    Speaking of – It's a very casual player for sure. Do you think it would last in your collection right now? If you have a Hot Wheels, you have a Deadpool, and you have a Ninja Turtle. It would be a game that I would be confident that I could beat eventually. That would be a game. If you had to list one game out of your collection for this, what would you drop? What would you drop? Between TNA, Deadpool, and Turtles?
    75:41
    That's not. The Hot Wheels still too? I don't own a Hot Wheels. I drop it though. Well, you don't own it, but I mean, which one would you be willing to drop? I mean, of those four, of the four games, if I'm including Hot Wheels, Hot Wheels would be on the bottom of my list. That would be the first one I'd let. But it makes sense. I don't own Hot Wheels. But speaking of Hot Wheels, though, you talked about a jump ramp. In Hot Wheels, they have a ramp shot. And what's interesting is if you don't hit that shot hard enough, they cut out a section of the plastic ramp so that if you hit that apex, it would dribble down, right? And I realized as soon as I saw this jump ramp, I'm like, that's the point of a jump ramp. Like, if you don't hit it hard enough, it falls down. But if you hit it hard enough, it looks really cool. Like, Hot Wheels would do great with a jump ramp in that spot, you know. It would fit the theme, and it also fits the same function as cutting out the plastic. So I think, Mike, you brought up a good point. Why don't more games have jump ramps? That's material, too. Yeah. I got an Amiga here. I think they did a great job, again, with the artwork on this game to make it look fuller, I think, than it actually is. So I just think they had time to go back and retool a little bit on the artwork side. I actually think the artwork's better on this play field than the original. The artwork is pretty good. It looks good. It's pretty damn good. And the detail on the plastic is excellent, too. If you go to the website and take a look, I'm most impressed, I think, with the artwork on this game.
    77:17
    It's like they went back to the assets that they had, and they really dug in deep and made the best of it. Whereas I feel like that original pin, it was a bit slapdash to me. I think we can all agree this is the best pin. This is the best home pin, right? I mean, if you guys had to own one, would you be buying, what is it, Spider-Man? Yeah. Jurassic World. Oh, Travis. They did a really good job disguising the home pin of this game, for sure, when you look at it. I mean, anybody who may be newer to the hobby would look at this game and wouldn't be able to tell the difference between this and another certain pro or something beside it. So I want to give Amiga, so we asked Amiga here, Amiga Kami, why they bought it. And they said, I have a big collection of three-quarter scale home pins already. So it's the natural evolution. So it fits their collection. It looks really fun. It reminds me of my favorite pinball games. And I'm a huge JP fan. Makes sense. And I'm not a very good player. And the complex rules are hard for me to understand. So it's perfect. You know what? That sounds like it fits. Yep. It makes sense. Sounds like it was made for adults. So my parents have said they're finishing their basement as well, and they've told me that they would be willing. They already have two arcade cabinets that I've put in their house that I've fixed up and done stuff, but they have a slot that they're like, we would be okay with having a pinball machine here. If you find one that you think would fit well. And what's interesting is when I initially saw this, that was a thought. I was like, does this make sense? Like, would this be a good game to put in my parents' basement? I think the answer is yes but at the same time price point somebody said if we discuss price point for $5,600 there's a lot of other pins that I could put in their basement that I think they might enjoy more See you Dwight by the way, thanks for being here MSRP is $46 right? Yeah I think it's $45.99 because I know it would not shock me one bit if this did go for mid fives I mean you know it is. Once you get into that Christmas season and there's a crunch to get a gift, there's nothing else available. Yeah. I mean, that's when prices go up a little bit. Let's look at here, I had this pulled out, but you are right that the overall,
    79:44
    I mean, the art on this game is good. It's better than the Pro, actually. It's my favorite artwork out of the four. Yeah. The Translight or the back glass, whatever it is, looks pretty awesome. They have different side art on the – so this side looks different than the other side. I wish we had Greg Bone, right? Greg Bone is, like, the Jurassic Park guy, and he bought a premium. He had to buy a premium because of the art. He liked the art on the premium better than the pro. Like, that was his – so I'm curious what his take is on the art here. Did they take the speaker grills and rotate them They did On their side They did So they can accommodate the small screen Yeah I also curious here I see a speaker here but I don
    80:33
    It's smaller than the speakers, but I don't think there's a speaker here. It's just the one. I can see the circle and the one on the right there. I think there's only one speaker.
    80:42
    It's the only thing that stands out is that little-ass screen. I think it is the only one speaker, as I recall, and then you can add another one. if you want to make it stereo. Now, what I think... Is there a woofer?
    80:55
    Zach, is there a woofer? Do you know? I mean, he's messed with these. What I think is crazy is somebody asked in chat, does the topper work on this game? And they said the answer is yes. Yes. So, $600 topper to a $4,600 here. Here's what I'm curious about, and maybe this is just because of the parts that they have in this pen. I was really curious as to why they did not add the Insider Connect to this. I would feel like if you're trying to capture a totally different audience than the pinball audience, that might be a way to get them hooked in a broader scale, to see that there's more than just this particular pin since they're calling it the Stern Pinball Universe. Yeah. I'm kind of curious about that. Thank you, Kyle. It's not going into a location. So hasn't the whole line been that this is primarily for location pinball first? So if this is a game that's not going to be on location, maybe they don't see a reason to put it in. I mean, yeah, because that's the whole story, right, to get people on location to get those. Yeah. I mean, achievement-wise, this game, somebody had said that about code. They said, think about it. I think it may have been Zach with the Pinball Show said, you know they're not going to do code updates on this, right? Like home buyers are not going to think about updating the code. So there's a good chance that whatever code is released with this game is done. All right? So we may have the other night when it was streamed, we may have seen everything that's ever going to be in this game.
    82:33
    Manu, honey, I shrunk the pin. Yeah. Who did the rules? Do we know who did the rules on it? I think it's, technically, I think it's between Jack and Wason. Wason was the main. Yeah. So Jack had some input on the rules, too. Yeah, and as far as I can tell, I mean, who all watched the stream? I watched about, I don't know, half of it, 45 minutes of it.
    82:54
    It seems like there are specific shots. Like, each shot has a dinosaur, so it's like you hit a shot enough times, you collect the dinosaur. Like Attack from Mars. Yeah, there's kind of this rescue. You see these little guys here at the bottom. So certain ones, those will light up, and if you hit those, you rescue a guy. And then once you get so many rescues, you achieve a wizard mode. I think it's once you collect all the dinosaurs, you achieve a wizard mode. There's two multiballs. There's a rafter pin multiball and the T-Rex multiball.
    83:26
    And I think it's kind of a once you do all that, you're at the end of the game. Now, I will say they didn't show, like, both of those guys, like, Jack's a good player. He did not beat the game on stream.
    83:39
    So I don't know if he did that on purpose or if it's actually that hard or challenging. I don't know. Why spend so much money on a new design to not make it a commercial release with CoinMex?
    83:51
    Because that's not what they're trying to do, Kaz, right? I mean, this is meant for the home. Remember, this is in the affordable home game section. How new of a design is it, though? I mean, you can still see similarities to the other pin games as well, right? Like, it looks like some stuff maybe moved around a little bit, but...
    84:16
    Like that whole multiball where there's a passive multiball that was on all the home pin games where you just set a ball on top of a little switch on all the other home games. That's not there anymore. I think they got rid of that with the Star Wars.
    84:32
    I'm trying to get a top-down view here. I'm more curious how that entire family has not moved from that pen to the next pen. This picture is the exact same photo. That dad is still just eagerly waiting for that boy to train so he can go next. He's really coaching that kid up. That's how I imagine the laptops were at home. It's a solid Photoshop mech. Coin mech is $50. Why not make it an option? Mike, is that how you are when Carter plays? Are you just like right there just watching? Yeah, I'm right over his shoulder. I got my video camera over my – yeah, yeah, yeah. Carter's on a stool.
    85:09
    No, he's taller than me now, actually. He's not mini pinballer anymore. I see Joel. I see Mike. I see Travis. I see Bobby. Well done, Manu.
    85:19
    I see Bobby. I think that's, yeah, I think this is the best picture we got here. F11. All right. So on the left side of Jurassic Park is the same big old target.
    85:35
    I don't know what's over here on the right side of. That's just a target. That's the pen on Jurassic Park. I don't think there's anything on it. Is that a stand up there?
    85:43
    Over here is the pen. I think it's just a stand up target, but you have a big orbit. this ramp is further up and loops that way you have three drops but instead of going up here you go into the t-rex mouth and they move so it's still it's two ramps one set of drops two spinners two wire forms big old target on the left and the only thing he did different was over here instead of this target being here, he moved it in the back and made a little pin area. Is that fair to say? Yeah.
    86:24
    Huh. Makes you think, doesn't it? Right, you take the right ramp, slide it down a little bit. Yeah, you're close just right there. Plus too, the reality is though, a lot of these games, if you get outside of Elwynn, a lot of them will start looking very similar because there's only so much you can do geometry wise underneath that glass you know what I mean especially with the home pin that you're not going to be able to do near as much design wise it has to be very simplified regardless I think we're always going to see some similarities to it but I mean I don't know I mean looking at both of these I personally just off the top of my head I prefer the Star Wars home pin layout but I still think the JP layout is pretty good as well Like, I don't think you can go wrong with either one.
    87:16
    I think they're both fun. I mean. Yeah, they both look great. Yeah. Come on. What is it? Amiga Kami said they basically that Stern or Jack originally designed it with a passive multi-ball neck, but the Stern guys told him to not use it, so he got rid of it and did a captive ball instead. Good point. There's a captive ball here that's not in this other one.
    87:46
    Be more birds. Thank you for the follow. And Shmurda. No idea how to say this. Shmurda. Thank you for the follow.
    87:54
    I imagine with these games, you know, if you're given a design to do them, that they're probably telling you you have to have, you know, this sort of mech, these sort of mechs. You don't have as much freedom on these as Elwynn or Borg or whatever would have it. There's for sure. They're going to be kept within quite a structure of the bomb and whatever else, too. I mean, it almost feels like it's a, here, open up the SketchUp file. Anything that's in this one, you can put to the next one. So it's just shifting around a little bit.
    88:33
    Wow. I have not looked at these side-by-side, but they really have pretty much – I mean, it is two spinners, boom, boom. Over here, two spinners, boom, boom. I mean, it's like – Left ramp location, too. Pretty much in the same area. And then the left – Drop targets over here, yeah. Drop targets a little further back. I mean, we're not saying this to discredit Jack or what he's done. I mean, he's still designing the game. I think he's working with the limitations given to him. Yeah, there are clearly limitations. Manu here asked a really good question, and maybe, Zach, you can answer. but he said, do you know if the flippers are micro switches instead of leaf switches? I tried the Star Wars home pin, and the flippers were so hard to press, I quit mid-game. I don't know that answer. I'd have to look at, um, Zach did make an unboxing video, but I don't know if it shows the actual flipper mix. I would be amazed if they, I mean, you can't, like, a micro switch is that much cheaper than a leaf switch to completely change that? I don't, I don't know. Final thoughts? Anybody have any other final thoughts? I mean, we know these games are not for the four of us. We know, even for the majority of people watching this stream,
    89:44
    but I do think personally, I've got to give Jack credit. I think it looks fun. If they have one of these at Xbox, I will gladly play it.
    89:53
    I would recommend a first-time pinball buyer to buy one of these games for sure. The entry level, you're saving a few bucks. It's going to be reliable. compared to maybe buying an old Bolly Williams in the same price range, something like that. For somebody new into the hobby, it's definitely something that I would say is a good idea for sure. I think this is a stronger layout than Halloween and Ultraman. So, I mean, it's on a home pin. I don't think too many people can argue with that. I mean, you look at it, you look how the ball is actually flowing, you look how the shots are actually, you can just jam out on this pin, and that's fun for people to do. It's not fun to hit a ball somewhere and just have to wait forever for the ball to return, and you don't get that out of this pen. So I think people that buy it will be very happy with it. And I think even players like us that are used to, you know, the usual pens, I think it will still be fun. Yes, sure. You might be surprised how fun it is, actually. Yeah. The challenge, though, is when will we ever play one because it won't be on location, right?
    90:56
    You'll play on it. Yeah. It'll be on a show or somebody's house. Yeah. Good point. All right. Well, speeding games we all want to play. I'm so good at transition. I don't know if you guys know that, but I try really hard at it. I'm playing at Toys R Us. Well done, Saul. Speaking of games we want to play, Godzilla. Mike, you're going to be able to play one any day now. But Travis is the only one of the four of us that's touched one so far. So, initial impressions, Travis. I know you've Googled and Googled and loved it and just, oh, you love everything. But how did it feel? Tell me about those shots.
    91:34
    Okay, so the shots are actually really weird. It's really weird when you first play it. They are hard to find. It's not where you expect them to be at all. So it took me a little while to figure it out. It took me a couple of games. And it was just, I don't know, it's one of those things to where this design, it's still fun. I'm not saying it's not fun. It's a lot of fun, a lot of fun. It's just this design is radically different than anything I've ever played on before. And that scoop is actually, it's not easy to hit, and it's in a very dangerous spot. But that pop, it's very dangerous, and it plays a central part in the game, so you're going to be aiming for that part a lot. Although it does have a pretty cool rebound effect that if the ball comes down, it does hit off the pop bumper into the scoop, so I'd have to think that that was intentional. you know there is a ton of flow in this game though there is one trouble shot though and I'm not sure if this is based on the operator setup or what it is but the shot that's just left to the building that does the quick u-turn this thing right here yep on both pins that I played on the one up at Wisconsin and the one down here in Oklahoma City both of them fed right back down the middle the majority of the time. Right down the middle.
    92:55
    Yeah, they just said straight down the middle. Birdo Drink is saying the shot to the right of the magnet then out of the bill, yeah, same thing, is straight down the middle on two different pins. It's straight down the middle.
    93:08
    Something's going to have to be done about that. I don't know if there's any way to get a straight ball save or maybe there has to be an adjustment made on the guy. Do you think they could pulse the magnet? they could pull some magnets and draw it to the left a little bit? I mean, it might. I don't know. I just know that that shot, it just comes screaming right back down the middle the majority of the time. Like at least 90% of the time it was coming right down the middle. So Seraph is saying don't shoot it, but that's not the problem. If you shoot it, it's going to go up. Well, what happens? If you shoot this shot, it goes where? If you actually shoot straight into this. Yeah, it just 180s right back. Oh, so you shoot this in the building. Oh, so just straight down the middle is not the ball coming out. You're saying if it goes in, it's spitting out of the front of the building. It's that.
    94:00
    It's like a rocket shot out of there. I haven't figured out how to go around that. Because you sometimes do have to aim at that shot. You sometimes do. And then other times you'll accidentally hit that shot as well. When I played the pro, it wasn't straight down the middle, but the scoop is so hard to hit. and that's how you start a mode, so it's pretty frustrating and it's super dangerous. Fitting name, Salty22. Thank you. I will say, without a shadow of a doubt, even after only about five plays on this, it's probably the most difficult Elwynn layout there is. Really? It's probably the most difficult layout I've played on on a stern in a long time. I'd love to hear that. But it is a lot of fun. But is it difficult overall, or is it just a handful of shots? Because Keith on Loser Kid said he feels this is easier than Jurassic Park. He still feels Jurassic Park is his most difficult game. So what is it? Jurassic Park, you have the O. Is it the O letter that's the real tough shot? Yeah.
    95:03
    For me, honestly, the left ramp was super tough for me, and you have to hit the left ramp in order to lighten up. Right here. Yep. I got a lot of rejects out of there, too. The ramp is on the back side, so just follow it around. Sometimes I'd do the half ramp, and then it would come back down. So on a pro, this goes up here, and then 180 is behind, and it goes across, right? Must be a steep climb behind the back box and the backboard.
    95:35
    That looks fun. Left ramp equals left orbit shot. What do you mean left ramp equals left orbit? Isn't it – because the other shot is if you hit this flipper and it goes this way, it actually is also the left orbit, right?
    95:52
    Doesn't it do that? Or, no, where does this ball come out when you hit this? It'll come back that way, yep. Comes down that way. Yep. I mean, there's a lot of cool shots on it. It's just it's not – it's just not easy. I'll just put it that way. Travis. If you avoid playing it due to Earthshaker, yes, Colin is correct. Check out the new STM straight down the middle gameplay video. We'll think about it.
    96:19
    I'll tell you what, though. I mean, it's got spinners for days. It's really badass when Blue Oyster Cult comes on, the Godzilla song comes on.
    96:28
    Light Show is surprisingly really good, considering the early code. I was surprised by that. I mean, overall, you see the DNA in the game of where it's going to go. So, like I said, the shots aren't where you expect them to be early on, but once you get them dialed in, it's a lot of fun to hit. That floating flipper is a lot of fun. So I tried to get it up the ramp with that flipper, and I couldn't do it. Right here? Yeah, but you could loop consistently. And I don't know if that's just because of game setup again, because I've heard some people be able to do it themselves. I just haven't been able to do it yet. But the tail whip shot is a lot of fun as well. That's where you go down here, and then it comes roaring out. And that's me being very well back to the left flipper. I'm shocked at how well that shot works.
    97:22
    When Raider eating, fellas, Godzilla was a lot of fun to play. Yeah, if you have any input on what you're seeing. Is that drunk? Is this middle spinner bigger than a normal spinner?
    97:35
    Zach was saying that on the pinball show. Yeah, he was saying that this spinner he feels is a bigger spinner, like physically bigger than a normal spinner. I think it is. It looked like it to me when I was looking at it in person. Interesting. I didn't have anything to really compare it off to, but it did look like it was. Zach, cough, cough. Game of Thrones and Star Trek has a bigger spinner on the left orbit as well. Got that fat spinner on there? Yeah. He was raving about this because right up the middle, I mean, Deadpool, You got the Wolverine spinner right up the middle. Choo-choo-choo-choo-choo. I mean, what a – I mean, yeah. And then Jurassic Park, you have the Raptor spinner. So, yeah, you give me a spinner right up the middle. Yeah. It's going to feel good. I'll tell you what. It's amazing that all three of these spinner rips could be top-tier spinner rips. Oh, boy. Across the board in any game. And there's three of them. It is shocking how fun the left one is. It's shocking how fun whenever you do the heat ray for the one that's up top. how that is, and then it's even more shocking how fun the one on the right is because that's actually really difficult to hit. So when you do hit it, it's highly rewarding, especially once the multi-ball starts. So you're just avoiding this entire right side is what I'm hearing. You're struggling with everything over here. Oh, yeah, I'm a total struggle bus on that. I can hit the hell out of the top bumper, though. Hey, I'm happy for you. Yeah, Mr. Snail Man says that according to Keith, the right ramp was not designed to hit with the upper flipper. so that would explain why i can't do it then okay yeah that makes sense yes the middle spinner is bigger than the other two okay well done zach we didn't know what you're talking about um yeah no lcd spinner with that wide spinner so this is this is the way to go keith yeah another feed on it that i was pleasantly surprised about so if you use that upper flipper right the floating flipper. Yeah, yeah. And you hit it around the loop. If it does not have enough speed to make it around the left orbit, it'll just come back down the heat ray and it'll just perfectly feed back to your left. Which is the middle, right here? The middle spinner, yep. So it goes up, or it'll dribble down. Doesn't Avengers has a shot like that, right? Where if it, uh, Black Panther, if you don't hit it, it works. Yeah. This one works a lot better. Keith is, it's like he's good at, like, designing these things. Um, Mike, you have one just a few days out, right? Yes. So what, I don't know, how are you sleeping at night? What are you looking forward to?
    100:07
    I have actually, so this is a problem I have. I watch the streams very little, and not because I don't want to see the game. I don't want to spoil the game. I want to enjoy it for myself. I want to explore the rules. I want to get into the game. I want to learn it. I want to do it myself. So I've watched a little bit of it. I've studied the play field. I think it looks like one of it's probably his most interesting layout for sure there's a lot of play in the middle of the play field like on the sides it looks like there's you know he likes to add well if you look at Jurassic Park right you have the pen on the left side you have the helicopter ramp on the right side it looks like there's a lot I don't know I think well there's a lot of wire forms. The only thing that worried me was flow, right? I mean, the wire forms are long, speed. Oh. Right? The ball is going to take a long time getting back to your flipper if you're hitting ramps back and forth. Are you going to lose that sense of speed because of how much wire form the ball has to travel around, right? Is it going to feel slower? Well, maybe you would know, Travis, because you've played it. I haven't played it. That's one thing that worried me. Yeah, no, you're exactly right. The feeds off the wire forms are slower than normal LN pens. They are. So here's the caveat to that, though. What's very odd, and on both of the pens I played on, the flippers felt like they were partially sagged downward. And I'm starting to think that that was on purpose. They just feel like they're setting lower than usual. And so a lot of that is making the shots just feel different in general. So it's once you get into a multi-ball, I find myself just being out of control the entire time. I'm having such a hard time getting trapped up on this game and really picking out my shots, but I feel like that's kind of the challenge in this as well. So it's almost like welcome to have a slight breather off of this game with the wire forms because you are, I mean, a lot of the times when you're trying to jam with the pop bumper or with the scoop or with any of the bottom spinners, you know, if you're going to miss your shot, that ball is going to be going all over the place anyways. And it's moving around pretty quick down in the lower third. Are the flippers lower than, like, Deadpool?
    102:30
    It feels like it. To me it feels like it, but I haven't been able to look at it and see how it compares to others. The flippers are definitely flopped, and I think that is a decision that they made because on two separate pens or two separate units it's been the same thing. Well, I mean, Gomez said the reason he flops the flippers, he doesn't say it's flopped. Basically, apparently the way you can set up flippers is you either put a ruler on this metal guide here, the in-lane guide, and you either have the flipper line up perfectly with that. So that's the flipper considered actually a little bit up. Gomez said it's like Steve Ritchie flippers or something. I don't know. There's probably somebody started it that way. But Gomez, how he said Deadpool flippers are is you put a ruler straight down the two screws here in the middle of the guide, and the middle of the flipper should line up with those screws. That's what he considers is a straight, which feels flopped, if that makes sense. No, that makes sense. And it just makes it to where any of your shots up the middle, it's super early on your flipper. It's a lot earlier than what you think. And I was actually having a very hard time hitting the building on the fly from the right-hand side. But it allows you to hit these side-to-side targets way, like you have more. Yeah, oh, yeah. You know, you definitely, it has to be a design choice because doing something like that, it opens up the horizontal parts of the play with the spinners and everything. Because they play, obviously you have your scoop, which is very important to the entire game, getting battles, getting cities. And then you have your left spinner, which leads to that rampage mode, which is supposed to be a pretty legit mode within itself that takes priority over everything else on the play field. And then, of course, you've got the right spinner that leads to Mechagodzilla that you need to do in order to get to a multiball. But another part on this play field that I actually really enjoyed as well, for those that have played Funhaus, you almost get like a super dog's fill. If you look at where the stand-up targets to Mechagodzilla are on the pro, I was able to get a few ricochets off of there. This target?
    104:35
    Yep, those targets right there. So you're saying you'd hit this from the left, ricochet off that, and then it would end up in the building? Yep, I did that a couple of times. It kind of felt like Shades of Funhouse when you're doing Superdogs. I don't know if any of you guys know what I'm talking about with that. Yeah, or Walking Dead when you hit the well walker to the riot shot. So Joe Windraider here is saying he said he struggled with this lower left. This was almost a rebound or ricochet type of shot. Did you have any issues with this guy? Oh, yeah. Yeah, the Mazer Cannon shot? Yeah, yeah. Yep, that's very similar to Andromeda from what I remember. Hmm. Well, Colin's on top of it. He's saying the same thing I'm saying.
    105:17
    Is the pop bumper lit for, like, shots? Do you have to hit the pop bumper in certain instances in the game at all? I don't think in any of mine I had to, but I know it's coming. I know it's the way you can see the inserts and everything. Yeah, that's what I thought, too. I saw there's going to be something involving that for sure. There's a color-changing LED here, too. So depending on, like, that's one thing I really like. I mean, I'm a big fan of TNA, and I love hitting the pop. I love aiming for the pop for a certain shot.
    105:47
    Yeah, this. It does have the coolest combo in all of pinball, though. All right. It's so much fun to hit. And we talked about this before, Joel. When you go from the left flipper. Yeah, upper, bottom left flipper. Yep. through the heat, the heat ray. So that's this middle spinner. Yep, and then it'll come around to the floating and then you hit it through the tail whip. Oh, the tail whip. You're saying so, and then it goes down here.
    106:15
    Yeah, you could. You could loop. Well, no, that would ramp, but you're saying you could loop here and then hit this so it comes down this screaming down here. Feeds the left flipper. Yep. Yeah. Could you catch it with that? Oh, yeah, a little bit, yeah. But there was one really fun combo to where I did that figure eight, and then on the fly I hit it from the left flipper through the right ramp, which was a lot of fun. I mean, there's some kick-ass combos in this game. So they were saying with the flippers where they're at, it's easier to trap up. And I know Keith in an interview said he hates backhands, which is an interesting thing because, like, as a competitive player, backhands are your baby, right, because they're safer. But here – I don't know when pens. There's no backhand. So that's what I was going to ask. Steve Ritchie pins are backhand kings for sure. Oh, I know. Led Zeppelin, it was just backhand everything. But what can you backhand on this play field, Travis? The scoop if you have two balls on the right flipper. Oh, okay. But that's it? That's the only thing? Backhand the building, can't you? I would consider a left hit off of that. Yeah, technically speaking, you can backhand the left. Magnet? You could hit the magnet backhand. The stand-up magnet there? The right spinner. It's tight. So I tried that. You have to really be sure and get that upper flipper down. Can you backhand this? Seraph was saying you can. Backhand the right spinner.
    107:43
    Not on any of mine that I had. Well, play backhand. I was not able to. Seraph said you can do it. Yeah. I know. Like Avengers Pro, you could backhand the Captain Marvel spinner, and it was a very, like, it was a nice state shot. Yeah, yeah. It was very useful.
    108:00
    And, yeah, you can backhand. Joe Hills, thank you for the follow-up. That's the meta then. You just build up your mega Godzilla.
    108:08
    But the feed, though, you backhand this with your left, you backhand this with the right, and then it's kind of come down, and you're saying any time that ball came down this way, it would feed all the way over to your left? If it's coming through fast. If it's slow, I had a few instances where it just kind of bounced around and drained a couple of times. Joe Hill, love the podcast. First time catching it. Hey, Joe, appreciate it, man. Thanks for the content you make. Yeah, this is just four guys chatting. I know Travis here, he's in the Triple Drain podcast. But, yeah, Craig, obviously TPS, Stern correspondent. And then Mike Castle here, pinballers. Check out his stream as well. Yeah, I just think this pin, you know, he's done such a great job at making this layout feel extremely fresh, which I think it is in the world of pinball. And the ball, to what Travis was saying again, you know, it takes so many interesting pathways that are more unexpected right from the plunge, I would say, which is, you know, instead of just the, you know, the typical right orbit shot, you know, it comes right out in the middle of the play field. and based on what Keith's saying, he's going to have upwards of six skill shots right off the hop. So that tells you right there that the pathways that that ball can take right out of the plunge are quite unique.
    109:35
    And so I just think he's done a masterful job. For anybody who's getting bored of pinball layouts, take a look at this thing. Yeah. He's, I think, turned, you know, he's really proven that there are some very fresh layouts still kicking around out there. And I think this is a perfect example of how he's taken a very unique layout and still kept flow, still made it interesting, still made it fun to shoot without it being too wacky. When you see the game play, I was shocked at the different pathways this ball can take, particularly on the left side where it goes behind that upper left slipper and then down around that pop bumper. To Mike's point, the game feels incredibly wide in terms of where the ball can travel. So this is a slam dunk. I've yet to hear somebody really slag this game in any way. You know, and people are starting to play it now. Yeah. And I've yet to hear someone say, oh, I don't know what this game is going to be. You know, if anything, people are saying, you know, it's a little surprising that the code is so light so early, but at least they're not saying that the game is a dog, which they have said about other games where the code's been light. So, you know, again, this I think is as close to being a masterpiece by Keith Elwin as it gets. I truly think that this is going to go down as one of the greatest of all time.
    111:11
    You could make that argument over all his pins. The guy is a genius. I mean, he is, you know, the greatest pinball designer the industry has right now. No doubt. here's what I can say about this pin after playing it just five times here's what I can say about it if this was the last pin I ever bought I would be happy with that if this was the final pin I own never got another one ride off into the sunset I would be happy about that if you're a shooter or you love playing pinball it pretty much has everything and everything will get you going. It's got mechs, it's got shots. And that's the interesting thing. When people are talking about pinball and layouts, there's always this argument of like, oh, I want more mechs. But there seems to be this argument that somehow putting mechs is going to sacrifice flow. That always seems to be the argument behind Led Zeppelin and Steve Ritchie's last game is that, oh, it's got great flow. But Keith manages to do both. And I think that's the really interesting thing about his designs. He's like, all right, Medieval Madness, I'll take your castle shot, and I'll do one better. I'm going to give you a castle that falls into the play field, and I'm going to give you a bridge that falls apart. I mean, Jesus, and a magnet, and wire forms.
    112:40
    This game really has it all, and I thought Avengers had it all, but this game, he's taken Avengers, and I think he's upped the ante again. And so you just kind of – I got so excited seeing the live stream of this game, I actually had to turn it off because I was like, Jesus Christ, I can't take this. Like, it is so exciting just to watch people play on it that I was like, I can't take this. So, Don and Keith, I have about 20 games on the Pro. This game is effing sick. It has the spirit of Battle of the Williams era with the modern bells and whistles of a stern. And it's salty. I kept dumping cordons in it. Yeah. Go ahead, Mike. You have these two play fields up, and I mean, I'm looking at them. Obviously, it looks like there's significantly more in the Godzilla.
    113:27
    I have a Led Zeppelin Premium. Yeah. And it is flow. The game has flow for sure. But if you look at Led Zeppelin, this game is designed to have the ball come back to your flipper as fast as possible. You hit a ramp, the ball is coming right back at your flipper. It's fast flow, right? And Godzilla, again, I haven't played it, but to me it does look like it does have a lot of flow. But it looks more slow, more methodical with the flow, as opposed to just whipping quick shots off in succession. I agree with you, but there's a reason I pulled this up, and it really made me think. There was a person on our Discord that made a comment, because there's a lot of people that make this comparison, and they say they're like, look at what's in Godzilla and compare it to Led Zeppelin. Like Led Zeppelin has nothing. Godzilla has all this stuff. And what the person pointed out was there are way more coils in Led Zeppelin than there are in Godzilla, and it's not even close. And I was like, no way. But think about it. They both have three flippers, so that's a scratch.
    114:38
    Led Zeppelin, you've got a coil for this scoop. There's one. Drop targets. Are these drop targets right here, or are these stand-ups? No, those are stand-ups. Okay, but you have drop targets here. That's two. You have another coil back here. That's three. This diverter is a coil. That's four. And then over here, these are stand-ups, right?
    114:57
    Yep. So you have four additional coils besides slings and flippers, right? Oh, not to mention, you have three pop bumpers. So that's seven. Seven coils, right? Am I right? Godzilla, one pop bumper, one scoop. That's two coils.
    115:18
    Yep. And a magnet. I would carry a magnet, a similar mech, to a coil. But that's what I'm saying. As far as, like, a bomb. But cost, right? I mean, everybody's like, Keith had to have gotten more game. It's like, no, Keith used two, like, instead of paying for five other coils and the mechs that are involved in those coils, he spent all of his money on wire forms and a magnet he just finds a way to to pack a game with additional shots yeah without sacrificing you know the width of a shot if you look at houdini for example houdini's got a lot of shots in it but every shot in that game is so tight i mean if you look at all of keith elwyn's games and count you know the major shots in the game And there's more in those games than practically any other LCDs turn, for sure. Oh, yeah. That you'll see. But what's made me really think about, because I remember when I had a Zeppelin and you tilt the playfield up, like this entire middle section is bare. There's like nothing under the playfield, right, on a Pro. But I'm curious, because there's like no coils on this game, what is actually under this playfield besides LEDs?
    116:33
    But, like, this entire middle section, you have a mech here for this upper flipper. Half a building. This drop target, I mean, this target goes down. This scoop, but it's just like this. That's the thing, though, is if you really look at it, everybody, like, there's a lot less here than people realize, but it still looks amazing, like it looks packed, and it feels packed. We've got to call it a spade. Like, Elwynn is just a better designer than Steve Ritchie. And a big reason for that is Elwynn just has a much larger database to draw from, from playing experience. That's the big thing. When you get somebody that has a ton of playing experience at a high level across multiple eras, this is what you get. You get somebody that fully knows pinball. You don't get shots that are just bricked out shots. You don't get shots like, for instance, Mandalorian, the ambush shot. When that ramp isn't up and it comes around and just kind of clanks off the side, You don't necessarily get shots like that. You get shots that make sense. And that's what Elwin's really good at. And I think a large part of that is because he has such a huge database of experience to draw from. You know, and this is somebody that has not only played against some of the best players in the world, but he obviously will talk to some of the other best players in the world. And he's gotten opinions on what's fun and what's not fun from other top-tier players. And the reality is if you make something that's fun for top-tier players, other people are going to love it as well. Casuals are going to love it as well. If it's a challenge for everybody, it's going to be fun overall because then the rule set can reflect that. And it just harkens back to what we were talking about, that what makes Elwynn Games so great also is that the rule set always makes sense with the layout because he can mesh those things together. And that is huge. I mean, you cannot overstate that enough. That is massive in the overall gameplay experience. Well, he's also more hands-on on the rules too, isn't he? He's more hands-on than any other designer is too. And I think we've all announced, I think we all, I mean, we've all had games that have come and gone, but the reality is, you know, theme is awesome. It's got to shoot great, but the thing that keeps a game in our collection is the rules. I mean, it's the rules have to be there for us to keep a game. And that's something, I mean, the fact that Keith, the guy who designed the layout, is also the designer of the rules. they mesh, I mean they just mesh so well This game's going to have two major things that's going to keep it in people's collections alright, it's actually probably going to have three, for us it could be the rules, it could be the shot layout, for the casuals it's going to have the major mix it's going to have the building doing it's thing, falling down it's going to have the magna grab, it's going to have you know, the mecha Godzilla, yeah This is the type of game, it's the perfect storm for something like this to stay in everybody's collection. I think the LEs that go out, you are not going to see those pop back up anytime soon. And if they do, good luck getting one because you're going to pay a premium. Yeah, and I think it's the thing, too. It's the intangible thing that made Elvira's House of Horrors so popular, which was, at the end of the day, it was a campy, fun... You know, everyone ripped that play field when they saw it. They were like, there's nothing in this game, it's boring, da-da-da-da. As soon as they applied that code and that video and the campiness to the game, it just, like, it made everything fun. And it added a levity to that machine that they can't, you know, keep them in stock. So I think Godzilla's got this in spades. and when you see the animations and the video and then they apply that, that the Blue Oyster Cult rock music to it, this game has something that Avengers doesn't have, which, which I, you know, the only thing I was disappointed about Avengers is it got the fun factor that the Avengers doesn have beyond the shots Oh and the animations The animations in the Avengers are not fun right They not fun They effective but they not fun This has fun written all over it when you get beyond just the play field and the shots and what the ball is doing. So you can have your friend standing there, and he's killing himself laughing because on the screen, he's seeing all of the old-time Godzilla movies that we all grew up with, and baby Godzilla's there, and Jaguars in there. Like, I was killing myself laughing at how they were, and the bad Jets things. Yeah. You know, they really hit a home run bringing, like you said, Travis and Mike, the code on this game and the animations just ties the whole damn thing together and just makes it like, it's like the mic drop. Like, that's it, you know. Mike, that's what you haven't seen with skipping the streams. The thing that blew me away was the music is actually really good because it's like this rock music. And then the animations are fun. Like it is very freaking hilarious. If you guys want fun, just kick in the ball save. My God, the ball save that comes up. It's just hilarious. We were dying laughing the whole time. And they were so funny. we legit put in coin drop just to specifically see the ball save animation for the ball save video come up. So you're saying this game has more personality than his other games. I know people have sort of crapped on Elwin for not having personality in the games. I will disagree with that. I do like Avengers and I do like Iron Maiden. The only thing that the only reason why I kept Jurassic Park as long as I did was the rules. Everything else didn't really do it for me. So, Godzilla, is this the game? Is this the one with the personality? Is this the one people are going to say, okay, he finally found a way to get the whole complete package? Yeah.
    122:37
    I'll put it this way. If I was a betting man, I would put the house on this being considered the greatest pinball machine of all time by next summer when the code gets fully pushed out.
    122:49
    Premium, though, right? or pro like yeah yeah premium that's what i mean when everything gets fleshed out i think it'll be considered the best pinball machine of all time up to this point i mean when you take everything into consideration because i we have to assume that because it's elwyn the rules will catch up and he's already starting to flesh this out and he knows where he wants to go with it but when i take into consideration how the shots are how the the video is the campiness to it how the soundtrack is because for whatever reason he decided i assume it is elwyn's decision to go with kind of like a rock soundtrack which you would think wouldn't necessarily work but it freaking works on this yeah it works and it's just so much damn fun playing it and it's just yeah i i would be entirely shocked if this wasn't considered the greatest game of all time by next summer well i was gonna say hey let's wrap up this segment but i think i feel like uh And I feel like he kind of just did. I mean, both you and Craig and all three of you guys really spoke highly of this. And, yeah, I can't wait to play it. I know Expo is probably going to be the first chance for the majority of people here to play it. And, Mike, I know you've got one coming soon, so I'm looking forward to seeing you stream it. But, yeah, we really only have one last thing to talk about before we wrap up. I know we're already a little past midnight, at least on my end. But this kind of dropped, this was literally dropped today on, so Zach, what do we got? We should have a pro in one of the first premiums in the Flippin' Out booth. Okay, all right. That's one way to draw some people in. Nice job, Zach.
    124:28
    That's awesome. That would be really fun to play. But so today on Marco's Specialties, they did a live stream that George Gomez was on. And I don't, I did not see it, Travis. You actually watched the clip, but what did George say? What were his words? Do you remember the wording or what was the question that prompted his answer? Do you know? Are you talking about him possibly doing another game? Yes. Yeah, he mentioned something just briefly about designing something for next year, but he was really coy about it, if I remember right. So I know, so I had a chance to interview Tanya and George earlier this year, and they mentioned that they have something coming out and they basically said internet connectivity was coming out in september and i made a comment about tanya he had you know this was his only game is currently ranked in the top five like any chance for designing again and george said well as soon as he's done with this come september yes he's gonna have a chance at another game so i heard that i was like that sounds awesome what about you george and he goes nah i don't i don't have that like i don't get that luxury so he was either lying to me or this is a new thing. And maybe it's because Steve Ritchie's gone, right? So they have a hole in their design team. Someone's got to jump in on the rotation. And last time they had a hole, George was the one that jumped in. So the question is, George jumped in for Deadpool. Is there a chance that the next top tier, Lord of the Rings vault, I mean, maybe. I think top tier is over the target right there. So this could go three ways, right? It's either a vault or it's going to be either he jumped in on the next theme because there was a hole, so Steve Ritchie had something and he had to leave, so George is now jumping in to finish it. Or is this going to be the next Batman 66, like huge, super limited theme, and is this going to be the Harry Potter or the Back to the Future crazy theme that we've talked about? Where are we going with this? weren't his last two games both Kapows?
    126:35
    Well, Deadpool wasn't, but Batman 66 was. Batman 66 was before Deadpool, so Batman 66 and Beatles. They're both Kapow, right? Yeah. I believe.
    126:52
    Aside from, I guess, Elvira was the only other one they did. I could see him doing a Back to the Future. I don't know about Harry Potter. That's a little bit of a sensitive theme right now, isn't it?
    127:05
    I think personally, if we see Back to the Future, I think it's going to be a Super L.E. I really do. The way everybody's talking, the way even Tana Cal was talking about it, I think on Loser Kids Podcast, it just seemed like he was nearly too confident about that game. And if you were ever going to come out with a Super L.E., I feel like next year is the perfect time at this point.
    127:29
    I think a ton of money with very little production. Yeah, I mean, that Super L.E. is probably going to be, what, $20,000? Easily? Steve Ritchie was working on Rush, and Borg and Gomez took it over. So that's what you're just thinking, Gomez is helping Borg? Well, Rush, that's something we didn't talk about. Maybe we'll talk about that next time. We know Rush is coming. From the leaked pictures, right? Before Stern realized that they accidentally leaked it. It definitely looked like The way that that ramp was on the right-hand side, it kind of looked Gomez-inspired because he really likes his ramps doing some crazy stuff like that, whereas I don't really remember Borg ever really doing that too much. So I don't know if you guys know the photo I'm referring to, if you've seen it before or not. I can try to find it. It looks like it's like blue plastic or something, almost like those old Gottlieb ramps that they had with all the colors. I think that's just a whitewood plastic. But the way it was designed, it really didn't remind me of Borg. It reminded me more of Gomez. So I don't know. Maybe we're on to something here. Maybe it is a combined effort. I don't know.
    128:41
    I thought that Steve Ritchie pretty much had a game already done before leaving as well. Well, I think he said he had, what, two Whitewoods? Yeah, I think he said he had two Whitewoods that he was working on. so I guess maybe they're in some state of being completed. Again, for anybody watching or listening, that's complete speculation. Yeah, we have no idea. Yeah.
    129:03
    It's just either – anyway, there's nobody – well, first off, Seraph had a good one. He said, no, it's Gary. Gary's the new designer. That's why he stepped down. I thought that was funny. But there's no way this is a bad thing. George Gomez is a good designer, so whatever he's going to work on, is, I mean, it's going to be nice. But I am interested if that is something where it's like somebody said something about Lord of the Rings vault. It's like, yeah, but what would he be, he doesn't need to redesign anything, right? Unless they're talking about stepping it into Spike 2. But I don't know if they'd do that.
    129:43
    I don't know. We put it on the list, but if only we had a stern correspondent to listen. Yeah. I know, right?
    129:54
    I think all things are pointing this way. You know, when I look at even just the subtle hints of, you know, Joe Kamenkow coming on the Super Awesome Pinball Show and just him, the fact that he's been teasing and that he's got this Back to the Future play that's been released that he's a backer of, he's got the license. and, you know, so Stern's going to get these licenses. There's no doubt in my mind that in the next two to three years, you're going to see a Back to the Future, you're going to see a Harry Potter.
    130:30
    All the big themes, they are absolutely talking. Rush, I mean, that's been a theme that people have been talking about. They're going to come out with Rush. There it is. There hasn't been many themes that have been rumored to them to do that they haven't done. What I find interesting, too, is that they haven't really done anything that's been completely out of left field that people have been sort of shocked or surprised by. So as much as Stern's been very good not to have any overt leaks, I don't think they've done anything theme-wise that has been overly surprising either to everybody. So I just look at all that and I go, you know, he's going to do it. They are absolutely going to do Back to the Future. It is absolutely going to be a Cam and Cal thing. It's just a question of when. that's the only F here is it going to be next year and is it going to be like something that Travis said is it going to be a super pin and you'd think it's probably between that and Harry Potter it's probably the theme that people talk about the most as being sort of their grail theme that theme comes up over and over and over again on pin size being the one that people want so if they're ever going to jam people for a super ben fact that's the what that's where you put your money so this picture here if you guys haven't seen it the ignore the majority of the picture it's look at the look at this cabin in the background and so people were looking at this artwork and they were looking they're like this is nothing we've seen but what's going on with this artwork props to whoever did this but they literally took the artwork and you can see it lines up perfectly with the brush lettering from There's no doubt about it. No doubt about it. So props to whoever did that. And then since then, that picture they've actually edited and Photoshopped out. So now that picture online, it's still online, but this entire section is black.
    132:27
    Do you think Stern did that on purpose? Do you think that they – what would be the odds, the very first picture that everybody could see, you could be a basic insider and you could see that. How would that pass? You know what I mean? It has to be on purpose, right? A purpose tweak? If Rush was not a rumored title already from Stern, would this have been seen so quickly? Would somebody have put this together if Rush wasn't already talked about? I mean, look at what's showing there. There's not a lot there. Yeah, but this ramp. It lines up perfectly with that logo. to me it's the lettering it definitely does no no there's no doubt about it it's definitely a rush but what i'm saying is is we've been hearing rush for a while now if that name was not something we had heard would we still like would people have picked that up it's it's there's really not a lot there but what what i think people would pick up is they would see this ramp and they would see that's not normal like nobody this is this is unique so then they would be going this is something new. But I agree that this type of detective work, to look at that tiny little bit of lettering and then... I don't know, but remember the puzzles. Remember the puzzles? Remember how much people were looking at individual puzzles and trying to decipher the artwork on the puzzle pieces and that looks like a Godzilla scale or this looks like that. I mean, remember? Yeah. It turned out being nothing. It was just... Yeah. people were thinking it was the back of the future oh yeah people have talked themselves into everything if this turns out to be another puzzle I will just quit pinball they're doing way they're operating on another level I just need to get on Wind Raider Joe said if this is a troll and they tape that to the side of a cabinet I mean more power to them if you go back to the other picture you can see it looks almost like there's some sort of a decal and it's partially peeled off the white. You can see the white there towards the middle of it. Is that not like part of the decal or something? I don't know, but it's under this hinge. So, I mean, it's like it is on, you can see it's under the hinge at the top. It is on the cabinet.
    134:47
    I don't know. I don't know that answer. This white thing does surprise me, but... Rush puzzle confirmed. Yeah.
    134:55
    I don't know, but it is enough I mean, we've all heard it's Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush. So is that the pin that comes out, what, December, early January? I don't know. But it's got to be pretty close. I'll just tell you a joke. It's coming out in December. Oh. You heard it here first. This is the thing. So if you look at the game beside it, that's the Whitewood to Godzilla, right? Is it? Yes. That's the Whitewood to Godzilla. I'm pretty sure this is the Whitewood to Godzilla. Or the home pin version. I don't know. One of the school kids. All right. Which kind of... Light wood for Godzilla. How? Yeah, so... Oh, because this is... Yeah, the state that this is in, and it looks like, if that is a rush beside it, now we're only looking at a small portion of it, but it looks like it's further along, doesn't it? A lot. Doesn't it look like it's further along? Like, you can see almost what looks like an insert on the playfield with, like, you know, some GI or something shining underneath there, too. Yeah, and ramps and everything. So maybe this game was supposed to come out before Godzilla. They swapped it. They've done it before, right? They've pivoted. So maybe this is a game that's been ready for a while. Keith has said, though, he was originally supposed to do Godzilla before Avengers. He had started designing Godzilla before Avengers. The question is, where is this picture from and what's the point of it? What's it actually trying to show? Because if you do look, the Insider Connected cutout is already out down here in the apron. So I feel like this was either just purposely thrown in to take a picture of showing. I don't know. I don't know what this picture is from or what the point of the picture was trying to show originally. But released in December, so Zach can refer it as 2022 game the whole year, like Led Zeppelin. Yeah.
    136:43
    Well, it's definitely in an Avengers LE cabinet. Yeah. Right. So, I mean, what cabinet is the Russian? Why would there be a decal on it? That's the question I have. I mean, it's a blue. This is like a blue. It looks like this rail is like a blue-purple powder coat. Yeah. And I don't know what game had that. Well, the picture came from, I'm looking at it right now, from the insider, just the behind the scenes for Godzilla play field development progression. Got it. So, if this has the Avengers cabinet in it, Obviously, Avengers came out, what was it, August of 2020? Yeah, October. October, okay. So it came out sometime late in 2020. So I would have to think that this was probably shortly after that because there's just, you know, this is the bare bones. Elwin already had this part done on Godzilla even before he started on Avengers. So it had to be probably about a year ago that this picture was taken, I would imagine. So Rush has been done this long? I wouldn't necessarily say it's been done, but it might be a lot further along than what we all realize. Yeah, but I thought I heard somewhere in a podcast that, like, Keith has, like, a 12-month, like, start-to-finish schedule. But the reality is I think he only spends, like, two or three months actually designing the game. Everything else is all code and lights and manufacturing. Like, layout, at least that's what I mean. Like layout design, he knocks that out pretty quick. And then it's all focusing in on mechs and making sure the mechs do what they need to do. But I don't know.
    138:28
    I don't know. I think it's cool. But either way, back to Gomez. Whatever Gomez is touching next year, I'm excited. I mean, I like Gomez. And I think everything we threw out, whether or not this is a super limited Back to the Future pin, it'll sell out. If it's a Lord of the Rings vault, sell out. if it's a brand new Gomez game yeah there are plenty of people that are excited some people, I mean Zach, Greg Bowen my homie Gomi I don't know hearing that he's involved in potentially designing something new next year all good points Seraph is saying he thinks this is the Stranger Things powder coating but that ramp, unless they really change the ramps on Stranger Things that doesn't I don't know. I mean, it's something that we weren't supposed to see. Otherwise Stern wouldn't have photoshopped that picture. Yep. Whoopsies.
    139:29
    Well, we're at, um, Oh, almost a little over two hours. So I think it's probably about time to wrap it up. Um, yeah. Any final thoughts from, uh, or maybe we should just go around and do some quick final thought. I don't know. What do you want to do, Joel? You sound like you're tired already. No, you know, I feel bad. I bring Mike on here. I was like, yeah, I normally 10 to 12, but I don't know if he's, you know. Hey, Travis, you know. I'm normally sawing logs right now. I'm going to sleep. Yeah. When we record with Tom, like Tom has a bedtime. Okay. So I just want to be respectful to our guests. It's into our podcast. You guys just don't do that part. He's yawning away. This is basically our Friday anyway, right? I mean, you've got to get through one day being a little tired. It's all good. Let's just give the chat like five minutes to ask any question. Yeah, why not? Why not? That would be good for closing thoughts. Well, we already had one. Steve Topdeer, a little bit off topic. You guys think JJP will announce their next game by the end of 2021. Do you think we will hear about – well, let's say this, Expo. I think we are thinking American Pinball should announce something. Yes, hopefully American Pinball announces something at Expo. Do they have a seminar booked? Do they have a... Good question. I can Google that. I believe they do.
    140:50
    I wouldn't be surprised if both these companies make announcements during the show. You know, how much they're... You know, I wouldn't be surprised if American Pimple actually brings a finished machine there and says, here you go, guys, and guess what? You can buy it either now or you can buy it in two weeks. I don't think J.J.P. is going to be quite that bold, but I do think they're going to throw out something to confirm that Toy Story is coming. I do think. This is the largest expo, probably the second largest next to TPF, and it would not surprise me if JJP confirmed that Toy Story is coming. Why wouldn't they? Is it a good time for them right now, though? I think it's a great time. Even with everything going on with the play fields and everything else? I just think they need something positive to talk about, and I think it's a great way for them to deflect from the issues that they're having. They've got to be a little bit like... I am frustrated with J.J.P. in that I do not think they've addressed this playfield quality issue to the best of their ability. But a part of me is like, they've also got to go, we're plowing ahead here. You know, if they're going to do that, why wouldn't they? Otherwise, I think people are going to focus on the fact that I think they can do both, frankly. If I was them, I'd be like, guess what? I would be addressing that thing head on and I'd be announcing Toy Story and trying to get people gunned up again, you know, to let people know that this thing is being addressed, that it has been addressed, that they are, you know, moving forward in the best way they know how and it's all systems go. But I don't think they're going to do it that way, frankly, but I think that's the way they should be doing it. But I do think they are going to make this announcement that Toy Story is coming next. So right here. That would be my bet. American Pinball update and special announcement by David Fix. So I would hope that American Pinball is announcing something besides, hey, we hired whoever. Is Jersey Jacket on there? What? Is Jersey Jack anywhere on there? An evening with Jersey Jack. Right here, an evening with Jersey Jack. Jack Winary and staff at 845.
    143:14
    Is that a special announcement or anything like that? No. I mean, they're talking for two hours and 15 minutes, though.
    143:23
    I don't know. It'll be a huge miss for them. I can't see. Anyway. I think, personally, it would be a mistake to announce it at Expo. Would you? Yeah, well, I mean, just because if they announce it at Expo, right, they're still behind on GNR games. They haven't gotten all those out yet. So I don't see them announcing Toy Story, and then all of a sudden they're going to try to put them all out like they did GNR. Yeah, but you can still buy a brand-new LE GNR, too. They're not sold out either. But nobody announces games at shows, right? I mean, look at – It happens sometimes. I mean, the last one I can really remember that stands out to me was just Alice Cooper by Spooky at TPF. Well, I mean, I bet American Pinball will announce this at the show. But my thought is that JJP, the last game they announced, Guns N' Roses, we all praised the way that they announced that game because Zach was involved. He made an amazing video. They had an awesome trailer. They want to get different pin. Like, they want IGN to pick up the game and, like, these bigger news sites. That's why Stern doesn't announce games at Expo, right? So now that Joe Windrader watched, they'll announce another run of Pirates. That would be something I could see them announcing at Expo. Like, but announcing a brand-new game at Expo, I don't see it. Now, whether or not they would announce it before the end of the year, I don't know. The bigger question there would be talking to distributors and saying, hey, how many Guns N' Roses do you have orders that are still yet to be fulfilled? And if there's a ton of them, then I don't think they want to rush into another game yet. I don't really know. No, because people who may have had money for GNR may move it to Toy Story, and then they're stuck with trying to sell more of the LEs for the GNR.
    145:17
    Rayday's here. Rayday, is it just me, or does Mike look like Joel's evil twin? Mike, you look great, man. I don't know how to. I appreciate it.
    145:29
    I'm going to take that as a compliment. Yeah, I think it's great. I think it's a very good compliment, yeah.
    145:35
    I don't know. Any other questions from chat? Congrats to Travis on finishing third last weekend once everyone else left for home. Wow.
    145:45
    Thank you. I actually took fourth. I lost the tiebreaker, but thank you. Oh, wow. Bad Cats 2, Furballs in Paradise is announced it would probably sell Mike just looks more fierce, there you go that's the look I was going for that's exactly what I was going for well hopefully whatever American Pinball announces it'll actually be good, it'll be something good it'll be something exciting, it'll be a theme we all love it'll be a theme we've all been asking for it'll be a killer layout It's going to be all those things. It will not be any of those things, sadly.
    146:26
    We will see. I mean, I think they already said, right? It will definitely not be any of those things. Didn't they say the next two games or the next three games are all unlicensed? Yeah, I don't know. I don't understand their line of thinking because – It's cringe-worthy. I feel – I just – I feel like they did, like, they put it out to a survey, and they accidentally surveyed a bunch of foosball players instead of pinball players. I don't understand why you would do something that's not themed because even Spooky just proved that you can take even the most obscure theme and as long as you package it correctly, it's going to sell. So I don't know.
    147:10
    Maybe like we talked about last time that maybe American Pinball just happens to have a theme that's, what's that called that's available to everybody that's not necessarily a license theme what's the word for that oh i know what you're talking about like commons or common license whatever it is maybe an open license something yeah yeah the problem with american pinball too is that you know spooky's really built this um following public yeah yeah and spooky's really built a following over the years where they've developed this relationship within the community, and I just don't see that with American Pinball, you know. It's not like they've had a string of successes and this is going to be a fourth in a series, right? Like, Spooky's had their successes, and I'm not calling Houdini a success, sorry. I'm not calling Oktoberfest a success, sorry. It ain't. And so, Hot Wheels was as close as they've had, I'd say, to a successful pinball machine, But it's not like it left people wanting more, I don't think. They released what I would call, to be as generous as I can with Hot Wheels, it was an average-themed pin, an average playing pin. It was good. It wasn't great. So to come back then on the heels of that, and I think people were like, oh, finally, there's a bit of a sigh of relief that at least they chose a theme that people recognize and that is, you know, sort of liked. It was still a bit of a question mark, like Hot Wheels question mark, like, okay. Maybe there'll be jumps, maybe there'll be crazy ramps, and, you know, people were trying to make the best of it. But to release something like Legends of Valhalla, thinking that you're like the next Bally Williams in Cactus Canyon or something like that is crazy to me. it's just it's so far in left field it's like people are surrounding themselves and drinking their own kool-aid here without like to travis's point they're not they're not looking at the community and their customer base and going okay what are people asking for what do people want they don't want a legends of valhalla they don't sorry david fix you know so that's just my that's my hot take on the whole thing. I wish them well. I think there's a lot of potential there.
    149:37
    To everybody's point, they're made like tanks. You can't fault them on the quality of their machines. I just think it strictly comes down to a theme. I think it's that simple.
    149:50
    Just to tie a bow in it. I like what Ray Day just said. Has Craig been in pinball for five years, though? Yeah, exactly. Nope.
    150:00
    Neither have I. I've been a pinball machine for five years, but I've certainly been playing them for over five years. Here's what I would say. With American pinball and themes, I think the chance that they need to take is get a modern music theme. Like, go the opposite of the old school rock. Like, find something that is modern. Like, anything in general. And I think that in itself, you would sell 500 to 1,000 of those. You really would. Maybe it's too expensive. Maybe I'm just being naive, and those types of licenses are just way too much money. Make a Deadmau5-themed pinball. Make a Drake pinball machine. To your point, like a Justin Bieber. I don't know. Go the opposite, like you said, Travis. You've got to make a Snoop Dogg. I don't know. I've just always been shocked that none of these pinball companies have gotten with a record company, a record label company. that doesn't even have to be one of the big ones to where they could get multiple musicians that are under that label. I've always wondered if that's possible. I don't know if the copyright and the license just work differently if you have to approach other people besides the record label, but I've always wondered if you do it in that way to where you just have the record label, then you could have music across all genres in there. I think having that mashed together would be pretty cool.
    151:27
    You're right, American Bimbo. Well, I mean, I will tell you, after having Hot Wheels here, the thing I'm most impressed about the game is the build quality and the overall, like, I am impressed with the game. I think you get a lot of game for the value. So, yes, I do absolutely think if they had a better theme, this next game would sell better than them already announcing it's unlicensed. But, I don't know, we're just going to have to see on that one. We'll have to wait and see. Well, he didn't see. Yeah. Yeah, so everybody, yeah, Sarah's saying, I love how everybody's mentioning hip-hop groups from 20 years ago when you're saying modern music. Yeah, I don't know. Some of them are still relevant. They're much more relevant than, you know, even Rush or somebody else. Despite the fact that these guys are all-star bands and whatnot. They all say dad rock pins, yeah. Well, that's the thing. They're all rock too, right? I don't think there's any hip-hop. There's no, and I guess that's just sort of the culture, right? What country? Yeah, like there's no, it's all rock, rock, rock, rock, and there's no other genre of music involved, really. I'm 1,000% positive a marshmallow pen would do big sales. I think if you get the right lights, the right sound package to it, I think something like that would do big-time sales because it would be very similar to Tron in that way, where you have kind of that type of music with a light show included. Yeah. Something like that. But if you're going to go electronica, I mean, who's the biggest, I mean, yeah, if that's the idea, we want to go with an electronica-based pen. Look at how great TNA has done. Yep. But, I mean, yeah, you could be looking at somebody huge like, yeah, Skrillex, Diplo, Marshmallow, Daft Punk, go for it, you know. You could do some really cool things.
    153:15
    But, I don't know. Well, great ideas. Sky's the limit. Any other closing thoughts before we go ahead and wrap this up and raid somebody?
    153:30
    Well, it's an exciting time for pinball. I think it's just an exciting time for pinball right now. I think the hobby has got nowhere to go but up. It's going to continue to gain in popularity. I think there's a lot of exciting things to look forward to.
    153:46
    People are shocked that don't know pinball, and they're like, oh, you've got a pinball machine, and then you start to talk about it, and talk about the number of manufacturers that are bringing out product,
    153:56
    you know, I just think it's a great time. If you're a fan of, you know, arcade machines, pinball, video games, this is the, you know, this is it. I agree. I'm not. Yep. Enjoy the ride, everybody. I agree. I think we have hit or are approaching peak pinball right now. The golden era. Yeah. Like peak pinball for, I guess, the post-peak pinball era when we had the early 90s. But now I just think you've got to be careful too, though, because you have to know what you're doing as well in the hobby or you're going to end up paying too much. $10,000 for a bad cast. Yeah. The market is so volatile right now that there's such a stretch between the low-end value of a particular game and a high-end value. where are you putting the prices it's really to me it's exciting but also scary at the same time because we have no idea where the market's going to go is it going to continue we thought in the summer when everything opened up that you know the market was going to
    155:04
    correct itself but it's just exploded even further so it's definitely exciting time right now I mean I don't know how it is for you guys but here in Canada pinball is a lot scarcer the only new pinball entering Canada are new in box games. We're not getting any other games crossing the border. So, I mean, I would say that pinball is even hotter up here.
    155:33
    The market, anyway, is really... Travis? I got nothing. I'll just take something out of Tom's book. It was a good world chat. Yeah, when it comes to pinball prices and all that, honestly, I was thinking about this earlier today. I think that we have at least one more year of this, and then I think it's going to get a little dicey come next winter. I got a feeling that we're about to hit that peak. We might have already hit that peak. Well, yeah, right? Godzilla, you peaked. Yeah, yeah. But, I mean, if you're other than Stern, you better be getting your games out now. Get your sales in now because I don't see any way possible, at least here in America, that we can keep going the way that we're going with inflation the way it's going. And it's not that a lot of economists think that it's actually around 14 to 15 percent and not the 5 percent that they're saying. So I'm kind of like, what's going to happen here in the next few months? And I'm kind of curious. But I think pinball will still stay popular just because the last thing people want to get rid of is home entertainment. I know that's right. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not bailing on the hobby anytime soon, but I also know it's interesting talking to some people that it's just like the price of pins has gotten to a point where they just can't have that idea of, yeah, I'll buy the next one. I'll go ahead and buy the next one or flip it. I mean, and now it just sucks with the delay. You buy a game and you're waiting so long that another game is revealed, so do you move your money along? And what I'm seeing is trading. If you have a game, you have a lot better chance of trading it for something else than you do buying another one. And so I feel lucky to be in the hobby or feel like I have things that I could trade if I wanted to. Yeah, the last few games I got rid of, I traded as well. Yeah, exactly. So at the same time, though, I mean, what a great hobby. What a fun hobby. It's awesome that you have people like Dwight who hop into chat and chat with us, Ray Days in chat. you know we have people like you know within tpn or outside of tpn that want to talk everybody else i mean it's just what a fun hobby what a cool hobby to be a part of and i know expo is coming up i can't wait to meet some of you guys mike you see what i gotta deal with just sucking up to everybody all the time i'm literally saying this hobby's fun you know and if you want to interpret it as sucking up that's fine you know but that's fine but i i don't know i will say uh Travis, thanks for being here. Craig, thank you for being here once again. And Mike, way to go. Thank you for hopefully enjoying yourself. I did. It was great. I hope I did okay. It was my first time on a podcast, videocast, whatever. It's easy to sit in front of a pinball machine and stream for two hours and play. It's so easy. It's a sit and talk. It's a different thing. I was a little nervous, but I hope it was okay. I really appreciate you guys having me on, too. No, I love the different perspectives. And, yeah, I kind of threw out the bat signal, the Nordman signal on TPN just saying, hey, who's all interested in this? And Mike was one of multiple people that said they'd love to do this. So, yeah, I'm all for this. I enjoy the chatting. And I don't think people realize, but these banners are showing a very unfinished basement. So I am trying my best to get through it.
    159:00
    Yeah, Castleman, you were great. Thanks a bunch for being here. And, yeah, one day you should get your wife and Connor and everybody on here, too. I mean, I bet they have a valid answer. Anytime, anytime, anytime. Well, I think we're going to wrap it up. So, raid-wise, this is what's tough. TPN's growing. And, yeah, we have Don't Panic Flip, who's doing a really cool battle. He's actually battling Chuck Wirt on S.T.A.R.S. Or Frisco Pinball. I'm kind of leaning towards Frisco Pinball, and that's because Frisco Pinball is brand new to TPN. I'd love to show him some love. But he's playing Avengers, and I think I know the three of you guys are big fans of Avengers, so I think we've got to head that way, unless you guys are very against that idea. It's tough. There's a battle going on, too. I know. That's what I'm saying. Oh, my God. Just flip a coin. That's what we've got to do. We can't pick favorites. Flip a coin. Hey, Zach, flip it out. This is your channel. Who do you want to raid?
    159:58
    Yeah, good idea. Yeah, we've got to wait. Yeah, put on Zach. anybody if Zach doesn't pick you you'd be offended so he's not going to answer we're going to sit here awkwardly and not he he he that's all he says very helpful I don't have a coin who carries coins anymore I already have Frisco Pinball typed in we're going to Frisco Pinball hey you guys appreciate you chat thank you for being here thanks a bunch and I think I'm going to stream next Wednesday on my channel just another pinball stream probably just do like a what's coming up with Pinball Expo, what we're going to see. So, yeah, enjoy this raid. I always, like, start shutting it down, and the raid takes 10 seconds. It's the most awkward. Like, I really struggle. You've got 10 seconds of awkwardness where you're just like, Oh, okay. All right. Push the button. See you, everybody.