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Episode 57 - Pinball AirBnB / DOTH Road Kings

Wedgehead Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·51m 40s·analyzed·Nov 18, 2024
Buzzsprout-15971466
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Pinball Airbnb operator discusses unconventional business model; defends Road Kings as underrated System 11 classic.

Summary

Wedgehead Pinball Podcast Episode 57 features an interview with Mike, who operates an Airbnb in Troy, New York called 'The Kickback' that houses 15 playable pinball machines across themed rooms. The episode explores this unconventional business model as an alternative to traditional pinball routes/arcades, discusses how the Airbnb converts casual guests into pinball enthusiasts, and then pivots to defending Road Kings (Williams System 11, 1986) as an underrated game with notable design firsts including the first hurry-up music cue in pinball history and innovative ramp design.

Key Claims

  • Mike has operated The Kickback Airbnb with 15 playable pinball machines for approximately two years

    high confidence · Direct statement from Mike; Alan and Alex confirm in conversation

  • Road Kings was Chris Graner's first game soundtrack work

    medium confidence · Mike states 'it was actually his first game' regarding Chris Graner and Road Kings; needs verification against Chris Graner's discography

  • Road Kings features the first hurry-up music cue in all of pinball history

    medium confidence · Mike claims 'the first hurry-up music cue in all of Pinball is Road Kings' — specific claim that could be verified against pinball history records

  • Road Kings features the first ramp that feeds to an in-lane in pinball

    medium confidence · Mike states 'the first time that there a ramp that feeds to the in lane yep in all of them' — specific design historical claim

  • There is a Pinside forum thread compiling a list of Airbnbs with pinball machines

    medium confidence · Mike mentions 'There's a list there's a list on inside that Someone's compiled' of Airbnbs with pinball; The Kickback has the most games of any on the list

  • In two years of operating The Kickback, Mike has only needed to intervene for stuck balls 2-3 times

    high confidence · Mike directly states 'I've only had like two or three times where I've had to come down to like free something, and that's in two years'

  • Mike attended Adaball in Seattle during his honeymoon, which inspired his pinball collecting

    high confidence · Direct personal narrative from Mike

Notable Quotes

  • “We have over a dozen playable pinball machines of all era, which is why you're on the show.”

    Mike (reading Airbnb listing) @ early in interview — Establishes core differentiator of The Kickback business model

  • “We've never had an incident with anyone destroying a game or like, you know, tilting, rage tilting or anything like that.”

    Mike @ mid-interview — Addresses collector concern about allowing strangers to play valuable machines unsupervised

  • “the pinball machines are meant to be played by other people”

    Alan @ mid-interview — Philosophical statement about pinball machine purpose, countering protective collector mindset

  • “the first hurry-up music cue in all of Pinball is Road Kids”

    Mike @ Road Kings defense segment — Key claim defending Road Kings' historical importance in pinball design

  • “it's way better than any of the Bally games or the Gottlieb games that were coming out right around that time”

    Mike @ Road Kings defense — Comparative historical assessment of Road Kings' quality versus contemporary games

  • “I like fixing games just as much as playing them. So, like, cool mechs, weird mechs, like, to me, that normally is great.”

    Mike @ preferences segment — Reveals Mike's design priorities: unusual mechanics and repair engagement

  • “if you're not always playing it i'm like i want the things to be used they're meant to be used”

    Alex (Alex the Waterboy) @ mid-interview discussion of collector philosophy — Co-host perspective on game usage vs. preservation tension

Entities

MikepersonThe KickbackproductAlanpersonAlex the WaterboypersonWedgeheadorganizationTroy, New YorkeventRoad KingsgamePat LawlorpersonChris Granerperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Road Kings reputation highly negative despite design merits; dismissed as 'Mad Max re-theme that's brutal' with complaints about art; Mike positioned as defender against consensus dismissal

    high · Alan: 'everyone trashes that game'; Mike: 'I've heard so many people say that it's just a terrible game'; Alan describes it as 'super lowly rated' with 'third lowest rated of all the 30 system 11 games'

  • ?

    community_signal: Airbnb guests converting to pinball enthusiasts through low-pressure, free-play environment; reviews mention 'didn't know I liked pinball until this experience'

    high · Mike states 'we've had people that come in for like weddings and stuff that's like i didn't know that i liked pinball until i you know rented your place out and oh my god i'm hooked'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Design innovation documentation: Road Kings contains multiple 'firsts' in pinball history including first hurry-up music cue and first ramp-to-in-lane feed, yet game remains underrated/dismissed by community

    medium · Mike claims 'the first hurry-up music cue in all of Pinball is Road Kings' and 'the first time that there a ramp that feeds to the in lane' — specific historical claims requiring verification

  • $

    market_signal: Airbnb/short-term rental properties with pinball machines as alternative business model for pinball hobbyists and micro-operators; community identifying this as viable alternative to traditional route/arcade models

    medium · Mike describes The Kickback as 2-year successful operation; mentions small community of similar operators; Alan expresses excitement about replicating model; Pinside forum maintains list of pinball Airbnbs

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.155

0:00
🎵 everybody and welcome to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. I am Alan, host of this podcast and one half owner of Wedgehead, a pinball bar in Portland, Oregon, for which the podcast is named. I'm joined by my co-host Alex the Waterboy in his basement studio. How you doing? I'm doing pretty good today, Alan. And we're also joined for the first entry in what we're calling the Unconventional Operator Spotlight Series, right? We're joined by our buddy Mike, who's in Troy, New York, and he does not run a route or an arcade like most of the operators we talked to. He runs an Airbnb, which has a lot of games in it. We'll get into the specifics in a little bit. But for those that don't know, Troy, New York is, I think it's a suburb of Albany. I don't know if Mike considers himself an Albanian. Is that what they're called? Albanian? Are you an Albanian, Mike? Something like that. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I might need a while. I'll check the Wikipedia on that one. But Mike, how are you doing today? I'm doing good. Yeah. Troy's like right across the river, right across the Hudson from Albany. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, I was looking at the map. It seems like Schenectady and Albany and Troy are all kind of like part of like a metro area. And they're all like, what, like a half hour within each other or something like close together. Yeah, like 20 minutes. Yeah, 15 minutes. They're really close. This sounds very similar to the Vancouver, Portland, Hillsborough kind of setup. Yeah. Like it's all like 30 minutes. It all kind of like blob on the map, but they have their distinct feels. You run an Airbnb, and on your listing it says, The kickback is a private apartment slash arcade mere minutes away from the hip Troy downtown area. Russell Sage and RPI. What's RPI? It's a couch. Okay. The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Perfect for a small gathering, college parent, alumni retreat, or date night experience like no other. Cute and cozy, the rooms have painted murals to match the unique apartment. We have over a dozen playable pinball machines of all era, which is why you're on the show. So, yeah. Tell us about the pinball machines and how did this concept come to be? Like, were you just a collector that needed space? How did this all happen? You know, I've been collecting for a long time, for about like seven years or so. I grew up with buddies that happened to have pinball machines in their basement. Really bizarre. Two really good friends. One had a getaway, which I was like, oh, hell yeah. Nice. Then the other one, I was like, this is even better. This is the best game I've ever played. It was a Street Fighter 2. Oh, nice.
Mark Ritchie
person
Whirlwindgame
Earthshakergame
Street Fighter IIgame
Adaballorganization
Pinsideorganization
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)organization

market_signal: Pinball accessibility through non-traditional venues (Airbnbs, non-arcade locations) identified as growth opportunity for hobby; hosts discuss broader theme of mainstreaming pinball through environmental placement strategy

medium · Alan: 'I want to see pinball mainstream again... it used to be... gas stations liquor stores convenience stores ymcas gyms hotel game rooms... we need pinball machines ever at every like tesla supercharger'

  • ?

    community_signal: Mike's primary interest in pinball mechanics (fixing/restoration) rather than pure gameplay; collects and restores broken games, then sells them; views game restoration as equally engaging as playing

    high · Mike: 'I like fixing games just as much as playing them... I'll bring games in and fix them and clean them up and then sell them'

    • 2:54
    And I'm like, as a kid, I just was fascinated by this. And then didn't really, you know, obviously pinballs kind of fell out of favor and you just didn't see them anywhere until I went on my honeymoon with my wife to Seattle. Yeah, different world. Yeah, we went to Adaball and like, oh, my God, this still is a thing. Like we went there and we kept going to bars and every bar had some obscure pinball machine in it. Yep. And we're just like, we didn't even know this existed. So from that point on, I was hooked. I was like, I need to go find one. I found a beat up, like non-working pin bot on Craigslist. Nice. It's a good first game. We were living on the top floor of like a, basically like a giant apartment building, but we knew our landlord pretty well. And he was like, yeah, dude, go get it. Put it in the basement. Everyone can play. and so we we took his truck drove all the way out to erie pennsylvania picked up this beat up not working non-functional pin bot brought it back and then uh got to work started seeing if i could fix it eventually through the magic of the internet figured it out from that point on i was hooked totally hooked yeah you went hard mode you bought an unworking game for your first game that's what i always recommend people don't do like yeah you really want one yeah generally you want one that works first at least it works when you first pick it out because you'll run into enough problems you don't need to like start by looking for problems yeah i was just like we were all you know evan was we were all poor so we're just like let's just whatever we can find if we can find a 500 pin bottle like let's do this yeah so that's kind of how it started eventually uh we got a place had a garage i was working on a couple games i had like two or three games And then COVID hit. I had someone from, actually, well, luckily, I knew someone who was like, hey, there happens to be this kind of a quasi-abandoned warehouse thing that we're trying to do this co-op thing with. Ton of tools. It's actually an old, abandoned electronics building. They were building electronics machines and stuff like that. So there was a ton of parts apart everywhere. And yeah, we just like me and a couple of people that I didn't even really know. We all got together, did this little co-op thing. And from that point on, I mean, it was it was bad. That's pretty rad. I was up to like I was up to a couple dozen, you know, like probably, you know, 30, 40 machines in about a year. At the co-op location, were you locating or was it kind of just like members like a private club or were people like putting quarters in the games? No, we all actually, we all did our own thing. We were all working, and it was kind of like a workplace, like a workshop co-op. And your thing was like you had pins. It was just the space for you finally lets you just start buying up all of the projects. This is the slippery slope with space. Yeah, that's true. If you have space, it fills. It's like a goldfish, right? Like you will just fill, you'll grow to fill the space you're given. Yep, exactly. That kind of took off, and then that led to, hey, we have a two-family house, bottom floor. We were getting rid of our tenant at that time, and we looked at how the landscape was down there, and it was like, oh, my God, we could actually fill this with games. These long, kind of narrow rooms and hallways, and there's a bajillion outlets everywhere. We're like, why are we not doing this? This is just, it fulfills all our problems. I ended up getting out of that co-op thing, took all the games, bought them in-house, and the rest is history. We've been just doing Airbnb stuff for the past two years. Nice. And so how has that gone? Like, is that having the arcade and having all the pins, like, is that, like, a way to differentiate yourself from the other Airbnbs and hotels in the region? Like, have you seen? Yes. There are people that specifically seek out our place from either word of mouth or they just see it on Airbnb and they're like, that is so different. Right. We would never expect that. Yeah. So. I mean, it's obviously something Alan or I would definitely gravitate towards. Yeah. Oh, of course. If we were staying somewhere and I knew there was an Airbnb with a bunch of games and I was like, hey, they got a countdown. Yeah. That would be enough for me to go there. Totally. That's awesome. My wife took it upon herself to paint murals everywhere, so we have one room that's the main room. It's all water-themed. Nice. It's all like, yeah, I don't know if you saw the pictures or anything like that, but she took it upon herself to paint everything, and we have a creature, an Atlantis, a whirlwind, a whitewater, and an old-school high-diver, Gottlieb. What? That's sick. Yeah. No, that's what our friend Nate was asking to play. Remember when he was on the show to talk about Gottlieb and Paramount, he was asking about High Diver. Why did it come up again? I can't remember. He wants to play a High Diver. He's just got to fly across the country. He's just got to go to Troy.
    7:55
    Yeah. I just listened to that episode. Yeah, that's hilarious. Yeah, it's a great game. My wife freaking loves it. I went out and seeked it out because I'm like, my wife loves this game. It fits the theme. And it's a cool little old school, like, you know, a wood rail. who who that's so cool you know that's very cool so what percentage of the business do you think is coming there do you i guess the bigger question is do you have anybody staying at your place that isn't there for the pinball or anybody that kind of like gets converted to the pinball once they show up or have have you had any funny reactions that way we have we've had people that come in for like weddings and stuff like that and they're like i didn't know that i liked pinball until i you know rented your place out and oh my god i'm hooked like i need to go buy one like yeah we've had a couple reviews like that where they like say that to us like we're like okay yeah this is awesome we're promoting the hobby like it's it's a cool little thing it's a niche community that not a lot of people know about and it exists so that's kind of the beauty of the place is just letting people play like as much as they want that i mean that's the nice part about free play locations in general but like having it at the place where you stay would be even more so because it's like oh you may as well just kind of keep playing and that's how you get new players hooked. Yeah. And they're not self-conscious of like, oh, I'm not good at pinball or, you know, putting a dollar in and it's gone. And there's a lot of that pushback from the new players or players that are just nervous. They're aware that it's something that requires some level of skill and they know that they don't possess it. So there are a lot of people that just, I think of like a private room like this, where you had a bunch of pins would be awesome, like as far as converting new players. So that's why I want to have you on the show, because I think this is a cool, we were talking about with Roger Sharp. We talk about it with a lot of our other friends where it's like, I want to see pinball mainstream again. And I think pinball is a great hobby. We all love, if you're listening to the pinball podcast, you already know that. However, if you look around you, you look at all the people in the world that don't play pinball right now. Don't even think about it. Don't even know it exists. And I think the challenge of pinball is it's not necessarily the type of thing that you play at one time and you're like, oh my God, this is the best thing ever. It's not like having a piece of chocolate for the first time or something like it's not immediately like, oh, this is good. I like this. Everyone likes this immediately. It's sort of like an acquired taste sometimes. And sometimes it takes the right game or the right situation. And so sometimes it needs like multiple immersions to get there. Yeah. Like it needs some time. Like the gestation period. Yeah. And so like having pinball in non-traditional pinball places is awesome. And I want to see more of it because I think we're thinking right now, it's like we're getting more location pinball, which is always good. But they are arcades because barcades are the ones that can make enough money to support the business because the machines themselves aren't going to right so and that's one experience you know there used to be in the 70s it used to be like gas stations had them liquor stores convenience stores ymcas gyms hotel game rooms we need pinball machines ever at every like tesla supercharger man yeah dude it's like what i think about is like when i take my car in to get an oil change and i go they should have a fucking pinball machine here why is there not a pinball machine here i've heard of that hat like people hand that that should be everywhere you know what i'm saying like we've been to the we've been to a place on the oregon coast here that had a checkpoint a data east checkpoint that had been rethemed to be a less schwab like the tire store yeah it was a less schwab pinball machine presumably because unless someone was just a huge less schwab fan uh i assume it was at you know yeah it was at a less schwab at one point I don't know. Someone might just like the free steaks. Yeah, that was part of their marketing. They used to give out free steaks. But the Airbnb plan is something that maybe more of our listeners could draw inspiration from. I'm sure we got some listeners with Airbnbs and we got some listeners with pinball machines, and they could just combine those two things. And since you started as a collector, I mean, it seems like a natural thing, and I have heard of a couple other Airbnbs that do this. I think there's one in South Carolina and there's one in Australia. I've stumbled into a thread on Pinside in the past, which I think- you a part of that thread mike are you is there like a small subgroup of you yeah i've talked to a couple other people that do that kind of thing um some people actually have asked me uh i've either bought games from or sold sold games too and they've they've been really excited about it um i i definitely uh i there is a small little community of us that that do this it's like a secret society you're not allowed to talk about it there's a list there's a list on inside that Someone's compiled. Oh, really? Nice. Like every Airbnb they could find with pinball machines. That's cool. Kickback is by far got the most games I think I think there was one other one with maybe six or seven Most of them have like a game or two but that Dude one game is cool but you have 12 That more than you need We have 15 but yes Okay You have 15 at any time Yeah. Oh, damn. Yeah, that's a lot. Okay. So I want to ask you, like, you start as a collector, right? There's a lot of home collectors that are probably some people that listen to this show. Like I'm an operator. Alex is a location player. I mean, he has a collection as well in his house, but location player. A lot of collectors are super precious about games and games being played. And I know this isn't in like a bar and things like that. So it's like less rowdy, you would think, but you're still allowing strangers to come over and kind of bang on your games unsupervised. So did you have any of that? Or is that something you had to get over? Is there any advice for collectors going forward and just like getting over that preciousness? Well, I will say that we've never had an incident with anyone destroying a game or like, you know, tilting, rage tilting or anything like that. We've never heard it. But to be fair, we kind of have the perfect setup here. We live upstairs. Right. So if we hear anything like that, we can easily, you know, it's obvious. Can you hear it enough that you can hear a stuck ball or do they still need to call you? Like, can you hear a ball search in your house? No, no. Okay. Walls aren't that thin. Okay, that's good. Yeah. We have had to turn the bass down on a couple of games. We had Godzilla all the way cranked up at one point. We're just like, oh, my God, let's turn the shaker motor on. We're like, what were we thinking? Yeah, if you have one of, like, the Denise-y spooky games. Oh, yeah, those are loud. And it's like you can hear. Yep, I've got a Rick and Morty even. TNA is way more so, I feel like, but Rick and Morty still has a ton of bass. So if you have the sub up, it's like you just hear it everywhere in the arcade or bar. Yeah. Very funny. Yep. Yeah, we had a TNA for about a month, and we're like, yeah, we can't do that. It's not happening. But, yeah, it seems like a good kind of middle ground between, like, keeping everything, you know, keeping everything to yourself and being protective of it, Which I very much understand for anyone that listens. Like, I get that. But, like, also the pinball machines are meant to be played by other people. Yeah. It's a good shakedown of your shit. And this is, like you said, kind of a perfect setup because it's like, if you have to work on the games, you don't have to drive across town at least. And how often do you need to step in and, like, free a stuck ball or, like, do some sort of simple repair while a guest is staying there? And how do you handle that kind of thing? That is a great question. Airbnb is great. You can just use the app. So they'll text on the app and then we'll get it immediately if there's a stuck ball or something like that. But usually, you know, because there's so many games that they just say, hey, there's a stuck ball, but don't worry about it. I think we've only had like two or three times where I've had to come down to like free something, and that's in two years. Most of the time they're just kind of, okay, it's stuck. I'll just let them know, and then I'm just going to move on to the next game. There's plenty of games to choose from, so no one really gets upset about that. We've never had a bad review about that either.
    16:09
    Right, as long as they're not all off or they're all malfunctioning. But even then, it sort of seems like it's an addition. You're paying to stay there, and then these games are provided for free, or essentially for free, right? It's part of staying there, so it'd be shitty to get super mad about it. Yeah.
    16:28
    We're not charging like $400, $500 a night. Like it's like this is we're trying to keep it as chill as possible, something that's like affordable for anyone that just is interested in the hobby, because we know it's such a small community anyway. Most people aren't really seeking this for the pinball. They just happen to see it and they're like, oh, my God, that's so unique and cool. And I just want a new experience. Hopefully after this episode, you got more people seeking you out specifically for the pinball because it is it's just funny. It's like the kind of thing you're like, oh, now I'm just kind of need an excuse to go to Albany area. Well, that's what's interesting is like a lot of the reviews mention the pinball and you get some of those that are like, we sought this place out because it had pinball. And then you have other people like just like Mike said that they were like, we didn't even know we like this, but this was so awesome. That's what makes me excited because I'm like, oh, here's like a new way to reach people with pinball that people already do. But not many Airbnbs have pins, but lots of pins are ending up in people's houses and people can rent out their houses or apartments and they can put pins. And I'm like, it seems like a natural thing that more people could do around the country, around the world. Yep. I totally recommend it. I think you're not going to get as much play as you would putting them all on location for sure. Yeah. You know, you're asking for a little bit more than normal night stays. So you're getting something out of it. You're getting your games being, you know, people are actually playing your games. Like, I don't know. Which is nice. as a collector like i don't want to just like have my games in my pristine room like and never touch them and have like claw like people that do that like yeah man that's that's what like that bugs me it just bugs me when i have games and it's like i go through phases with i don't have a huge lineup but i go through phases where it's like i might not touch a game for a month and it makes me feel really dumb as to why i even own this thing right if you're not always playing it i'm like i want the things to be used they're meant to be used so that's kind of the nice part is it's a good It's a good use case for pens. Mike, would you ever plan on opening a second Airbnb, or would you even transition into traditional operating in the future? You said you had 40, and you got down to 15. Is there a way where you go back up to 40, or what's your plans for the future? I like fixing games, so I'll bring in games. Even if they really need to be shopped, I'll bring games in and fix them and clean them up and then sell them. That's my other thing. But, you know, I would love to have a second location for like as far as Airbnb. But to be honest, like it it really does need to be kind of the perfect system. Like it's it would be I don't know if I would feel comfortable if it wasn't something that's really close by. And this is, you know, the floor below us so we can do it. But I would I feel like it's a lot of work. It definitely is more work than just kind of you have to obviously go through the games. at the end of every stay, but definitely worth it, and I definitely recommend it, but it kind of has to be, like, the perfect system because driving out there and cleaning takes a lot of time, as it is, and then you're also trying to go through the games and seeing what's going on with them. Well, that's if you want them to play well. I mean, you don't have to do all that stuff. Yeah, not every operator is thinking that way. i try to be not that kind of guy i know you know yeah that's good that's good that's what you should be doing if i did have another like airbnb i would just put like a couple like really you know new stars or something like that just yeah that to me put some bangers you know everyone loves you get a stern nascar in there everybody loves it yeah yeah that whole white star era just bangers dude junior yeah all right but we do want to talk to you we want to bring you on the show not only to talk about your airbnb the kickback and troy but we're also you emailed me because you heard on a previous episode and you heard me talk about how i hate the game road kings williams road pigs disparaging poor road kings and you were like you know this game's really cool for a bunch of reasons and i want to come on the show and i was like absolutely this game is super lowly rated uh we just did a whole system 11 series of episodes so like we we discussed this also but this is like the third lowest rated of all the 30 system 11 games but as you as you and i both found out like when we were searching for like all the bad reviews that we do to do the die and the Hill series, there's really only like a handful of bad reviews, like written reviews. There's a lot of bad ratings that get it down there, but there's not a lot of like written reviews. So it was disrespectful in its own. They're not road kings the time to write a bad review. If you're going to diss a game, you should be on the record. More people need to write comments explaining their ratings. That's that. That is a little bit of a pet beaver mind, too. It's like write a comment for every game you rate or don't rate it at all. You know what I mean? Like explain yourself. I want to start this with something I wanted to do on the Die on the Hill. I had a suggestion from somebody. So I'm going to start with you. You're going to be the first one to do this. But I want you to give us like two or three games that you love so people get an insight into your mind of like what are some of your favorite games and then tell us about why Road Kings is also a great game. That's a good idea. Oh, that is good. I was not prepared for that, but I will say that I am definitely a Pat Lawler fan. I don't mind stop and go, as I already said. I grew up, for some reason, loving Street Fighter II. Yeah. Well, that game's fucking awesome, so you know. Oh, yeah. That could be a die on this whole game. Oh, that could definitely be a die on this game. So I don't mind the stop and go. I really like weird mechs. For me, I just, to me, I like fixing games just as much as playing them. So, like, cool mechs, weird mechs, like, to me, that normally is great. And also, killer soundtracks. Like, I need all my games to have, like, just complete bangers. Like, any of those, the Chris Graner soundtrack stuff. Yeah. Chris is the man. And he did the sound on Road Kings. And yes, yeah. Segway. And so, it's like, it was actually his first game. But any Pat Lawler games in particular? What's your favorite Pat Lawler games? For me, the first game I picked up from him was Earthshaker. But to me, like, Whirlwind is, like, the best. Whirlwind takes it, like, one step. Whirlwind is probably my, that's probably my favorite Pat Lawler. It's so good. It's so hard. It's so fun. Brutal. Yes. Brutal. Oh, man, that game is good. It's good for NASCAR, anyway. It's right there. Yeah. We just brought our Whirlwind into Wedgehead, so it's on the floor right now. but we're not here to talk about World. Yeah, we're here to talk about Road Kings, and we want to throw it to you. Tell us why Road Kings is a great game. I do want to preface this by saying that I was not planning on being here for the Airbnb. My whole reason for being on this show was just defending, giving Road Kings its fair shake, because there's so much, like, everyone trashes that game. I've heard so many people say that it's just a terrible game. It's just a Mad Max re-theme that's brutal. The art's terrible, but it's actually really fun to play. And if you think about what also came out in that time era, like, it's way better than any of the Bally games or the Gottlieb games that were coming out right around that time. And there's a lot of notable firsts in this game that no one even knows exists. Like, the first hurry-up music cue in all of Pinball is Road Kids.
    24:23
    That is a good first. That's a very important thing to put into pinball machines, honestly. Hurry up music is huge. And Chris Granite, obviously you just said his first soundtrack, and it's a killer soundtrack. soundtrack i wish i could like maybe we could just pause and you can just listen to a couple tracks or maybe i can put it up um and just play it from my computer right now but i'll cut it in we can we'll cut in the music as the outro here so people can hear it but you should edit in the main theme and you should definitely edit in there's a jackpot theme that's like the same thing but it's been changed a little bit like so they did like he did like a remix of the main theme as the jackpot theme. That's pretty good. Absolutely fantastic.
    25:46
    Thank you the music is killer on this game there also it the first time that there a ramp that feeds to the in lane yep in all of them yeah that's the world's biggest mistake everything's been a mistake ever since ramps fed into into in lanes i'm just representing our but our good friend ty's opinion here who's been on the show multiple times and like he does not play modern like italian bottom like return return to the flipper games like he is like this is what i'm always saying ramps are best when the ramps lead to nowhere alex really likes like you said the got leaves from this era that are bad and you're like alex really likes those like you like premier games where like the ramp jumps it up to the play field and just drops it in trudeau or whatever doing that oh yeah dead end ramps or it's like oh sweet you like shoot a ramp on genesis and it just kicks it into the pops oh yeah or the the ramp on hollywood heat which is just a ramp into the side of the cabinet yeah yeah you know trudeau they were making that guy they were making that guy build like four games a year okay they couldn't all be winners he couldn't finish the rounds it really it goes into the side of the cabinet what's weird and i don't know if this is steve richie just ribbing but he kind of famously said one time that of all the premiere games he thought that hollywood heat was really good and hollywood heat is not good like like some of those premiere games are pretty good i'll fight mic a little bit on like some of those games are pretty good but like hollywood heat's not so i'm like and you're hearing that from steve richie and you're like what it's like the opposite of a steve richie game yeah exactly that's what like really there's no way that's what makes it even weirder who knows if that's what he meant steve's a funny guy he could have been taking the piss for sure you guys should do a gottlieb golden era you you guys have that year of like stern you should do the 1988 like godly year all five of those games killer games yeah you're right like what like robo war and tx sector diamond lady bad girls and excalibur oh yeah the five that's right that is a pretty good lineup yeah it's a good lineup that's the year hey we're getting off chart you keep you're trying really hard i can tell right now you're trying not to get us to talk about road kings oh yeah we got to read you some bad reviews and have you react to these okay But is there anything else, before we get to the reviews, is there anything else you want to say in defense of Mark Ritchie's great, great System 11 debut, Road Kings? Well, it has a 180 ramp, and it's actually, to play in a competition, it is pretty tricky, because you have to either go for the side targets, which is like Paracora, like Alien Star, like that same kind of thing. You have to go for the side targets, which are deadly, or you can hit the center shot, which is also extremely deadly. Yeah, because it's got that drop that pops up in front of the U-turn, right? Right. And it's got two giant posts right next to it. So if you miss, it's game over. So like, it's actually a good tournament game. That's what I've always kind of like, it feels like when I've seen I've seen them streamed at big tournaments set up mean and that's what always kind of piqued my interest with this game. And then when I played it, it's not delivered on what I felt like I wanted from it. Sometimes people set them up easier, especially the right out lane. Like our buddy Jay has one on the floor at his spot, Star Tropics, and he has like a figure eight rubber that goes over the two posts. And so it just kind of closes that. It doesn't close it, but it makes it a lot smaller. And when I was playing it, I was like, I can't lose the ball at all. As a skilled player, you just... That's why I'm always wondering, because there's so many of these games that we see on Die on this hill that if it's a game if it's a game that alan and i don't like i'm always like well maybe we just needed it set up harder sure for sure because there's a lot of them in road kings am i correct in that a lot of the points are in getting into the multi-ball and then you lock the balls up to score a jackpot like you have to lock all three there's two yes okay just two you lock one and you lock the other yeah and that's like i'm like i like that concept i like locking balls and multi-balls that's like yeah no that is fun and that's why it's like it in the layout i don't think this is my little defense of it i don't think this game's nearly as bad as alan makes it out to be it is yeah we'll get to me so anyway that's my i really want to play one of these that set up real fucking fast and mean and yeah i think it could change it quite a bit because i do like the sound i like the knockoff cheesy mad max artwork with like the sports bike chariot thing going on yeah yeah that's cool and it's over the time i like mark ritchie so i'm like i it's got a lot going for it just hasn't really landed for me yet oh we forgot one thing steve ritchie has his own call outs oh that's how you know it's a good game when those richie boys when those richie boys were doing call outs on each other's shit it's very funny so cool yeah it's like f14 and stuff yeah that's that yeah it's really good but yeah let's start reading some of these i'll read the first one. ToneDeaf131 says, I shopped one of these for a local guy and got to know it pretty well. You can tell this was a low-budget game due to the very poor production quality, specifically the artwork and sound. Wow. There are some difficult shots, but after playing a couple dozen games, I had them dialed in and most of the challenge was gone. The features that I found unique and fun were the time-lock jackpot, which is basically a hurry-up to lock two balls within a certain time window of one another, and how the gates open up allowing orbit shots during certain times that aren't normally available the detour ramp seems like an afterthought and the saucer next to it bounces out more than half the time not a bad game but it certainly isn't a keeper as you will get bored very quickly with how repetitive the gameplay goals and sounds become okay the sounds are fantastic so i don't know what you're talking about i mean it does it does kind of sound like pinbot but pinbot came after if you think about the bonus countdown it's it's like high speed a little bit but that was the era like that's that was that year that i think it sounds high speed like i think though the music is good it does use recycled call outs and for whatever reason maybe it's just that like people care a lot more about high speed and pinbot and some of those other system 11 games that like maybe it's just like bad cones on these speakers or something but like every time i play a road kings the sound is like blown out like it's like probably because it ripped if people just had cranks way too high so it's like turn this shit up like sometimes you like you can go and play like a high speed somewhere and like it sounds good or you can go you like yeah high speed sounds good you know but it's like these i i don't know if it's like i would never say it's chris granner's work chris granner is the goat like that dude is unassailably the goat it's a shame that we don't get him in pinball nowadays there's lots of great other sound artists in in programmers nowadays david thiel notably is also excellent dave zabriskie you know for a time that was doing a lot of the gottlieb games dope but chris granner to me i'm like god come back please come back somebody hire this man like the guy you know was the last game it was uh it was uh wizard of oz it was the last game it's a shame we gotta find him he's actually he did a seminar a couple years ago and he's he's the nicest guy in the world absolutely nicest guy in the world yeah it's just so much as call him up i'm sure he'd be like yeah i'll call him up i'll call him up and i'll yeah i'll just be like hey you're gonna go work over here you're like i'll let the factory know that to expect you and uh exactly there we go okay should we read the next one here yeah argento says uh overrated erratic game flow doesn't exist in a strict way it seems to have serious design flaws that you discover game after game almost a fiasco from the great williams wow i'm like overrated by who yeah that's weird overrated is weird yeah you're like a lot of people hyped up road kings to me but i don't know and you're like it's like one of the lowest rated games we've had on here yeah a fiasco yeah well almost a fiasco erratic game flow doesn't exist in a strict way like again this guy's like a loose concept i think of what's going on here it is very for like having multiple kind of ramps and ramp feeds it is very stop and go like mike was alluding to he's like that doesn't bother me i think he was saying that because he knows like that is like kind of a criticism of the game like it looks like it might be a flow game and especially because it's the first ramp refeed to an in lane but the other ramp feed goes into the kicker and the outlaying yeah like kickback yeah that is kind of an odd a ramp a ramp to a kickback is kind of hilarious so weird richie bro those richie brothers they just love fucking kickbacks man yeah they do love kick oh you guys fucking love kickbacks it's shocking that pulled fiction doesn't have one on it i don't know what that is shocking it just seems like something that they would be like oh yeah like especially given mark the opportunity to do like you know what would have been cool on that left side the the richie side with the kickback and you have those drops in front of pawn shop if you would have angled that so like if you drain out there and you go by it'll sweep that whole row of drops in front of the pot and then you could be like tactical drain out the left out lane use my kickback sweep those drops right but now i don't have a kickback like that's totally a richie thing yeah oh yeah definitely all right it's like the getaway that just like just gives you the video mode yeah exactly i totally planned that yeah all right Doug Kale Cowett says, being from Chicago, I love the back glass and theme of this pin. I could pin boy the spot on Lakeshore Drive that serves as the back glass location. The whole Mad Max apocalyptic biker theme is cool. But, and this may only be my experience, the gameplay on this is an atrocity. I'm sorry. He's got more. Thinking I've stumbled upon merely a badly tuned table of this, I've now played it in four locations and always with the same result. Launch the ball, then watch it come around and shoot straight down the middle between the flippers. Time after time. Take a shallow ball plunge and watch it ricochet off the pop-upers and settle right down below the middle between the flippers. In over 20 attempted plays of this game, I believe I've needed to hit the flippers only four or five times. The result is always the same. I hate this game.
    36:44
    That's user error. That is definitely user error for sure. fucking like get a curse put on him by a witch what is going on he's like every time i plunge it goes straight down the middle four different games he's like 20 games on this thing i don't know how that's possible i don't know how that's possible either i played probably in the last year i've probably played you know 10 games of road kings or whatever and i'm like i don't think i've had a ball plunge down the middle ever i think like the way he describes this game setup i'm like dude i want to play this version because like yeah but this is four of them he's playing the thing is to me is like whenever i play it i'll give my reasons but like it just plays forever like to me so it's like this is uh you know i wish i could have that okay next one here is from guy montag 451 oh we might know this guy and he says uh just a bad game and a plain one for its generation should have more shots or at least a couple of good ones major ball drainer and a waste of a good theme idea art and sound are way below par and i was embarrassed to learn that it's from 1986 they're deeper games from 1976 design team just phoned this one in i don't know god whoever wrote this one it sounds like a jackass that might be from that might be from my co-host here yeah i wrote that review to the listener i wrote that review i think like 13 years ago 13 14 years ago it says on pin side or whatever and i was gonna like readjust it because i still hate this game but i hate it in different ways now uh but i was like no like let's preserve like my original thoughts like after I played this game about a dozen times and then rated it so I still stand by it's a bad game you stand by major ball drainer that's the thing man I'm curious it's weird like at the time I felt that way now I don feel that way at all now I feel like as a skilled player it just plays forever i do think it is a waste of a good theme idea and i love i love the concept of the theme and i love some of the work that this is tim elliott right that did the art package i love some of the work that he's done i don't love the execution of this as much as it seems like you guys do i just hate this game i hate i hate the lifting ramps they feel like crap i hate the ramp that goes up to the top and if the flippers aren't like tuned that shot just won't go up and again that's like a setup issue and whatever it's like if we had one of these which we never fucking would but like if we did like i'd tune it up and so you could make those shots but yeah i just feel like it's clunky i'm gonna echo alex's statement that he said to me a center ramp shot is always a mistake except for adam's family i think that's the only game that has a true center ramp that i'm like that's not a center ramp that bear the bear ramp which one bear the stairs yeah it's a center ramp look it up now it's a center ramp anyway this is not a good one and here's the way i judge it is every time i'm playing it i want to be doing anything else Like I'm like, I could be doing laundry. I could be taking out the trash. I could be doing my taxes. You know what I mean? Like anything else than playing this game. Like there's such a strong visceral reaction when I play this. I hate it. Like, I feel like the other guy that's like, I hate this game. It's an atrocity. And it's sort of like a little bit indescribable because it's just, it's, it's very visceral. Like, I do not like it. I've never liked it. I've changed the ways I don't like it, but I never will like it. And the worst part is I love Mark Ritchie. I think that he's only made one bad game, and it's this. I truly think that that guy, when I look at every other Mark Ritchie game, I like. Some people go, Firepower 2's not that good. And I'm like, Firepower 2 is awesome. Firepower 2 rules, dude. This is the only one I don't like, and that disappoints me because I love Mark Ritchie. I do have one more prepared review. He's kind of a star of the show, and I want to read his review. It's Mr. Caucasian Two-Step, which we could get him on the show one day, right? We could get him on the show and be like, he always has... He's a celebrity at this point because of our show. Yeah. Road Kings has a few things going for it. I said a few things, dot, dot, dot. The pros, interesting shots and cool diverges on both ramps. If I remember correctly, the left orbiter on the playfield exiting above the right sling was a different type of shot feed. Good action in the top of the playfield in the pops. the cons the meh factor is high on this game for a game that's supposed to be about motorcycles on the road it's very stop and go i don't like the ramp up to the kicker to the top of the playfield let that ball flow the takeaway not mark ritchie's signing moment fortunately his work gets much better i 100 agree with this like the meh factor like that's how i feel about it i'm just like it's so dull i just don't want to play it and there's really like i don't like to be super mean on the show like it really is one of the only games where i like i truly am like if i never played this game again i'd be happy like my life would be better it's just shocking to me that you dislike it that much yeah everyone has that game everyone has that game and if you if you don't have that game or if you're listening to the show and you don't have that game you're lying to yourself so like there are games where it's like i love most pinball and if you listen to the show i've been accused of liking so many bad games like i can't believe you like that game that game is bad i go no there's usually fun in most games there's something about this play field that i feel exactly like caucasian two-step here where it's like it is supposed to be about motorcycles but it's like it doesn't feel fast i agree i don't like the ramp to the kicker the top of the play field like the meth factor is high i don't mind that motorcycles stop occasionally i don't like the center ramp either that just feels bad to me like that little like flip up thing like i'm gonna be like like police force which is no no no no mark ritchie you said mark ritchie's only made one bad game yeah but that's python python infected that i like to blame python for all the bad decisions which is not fair i respect python but yeah i don't know if we can trust opinions from someone with such big fallacies in his statement mike there was three designers on police force how do we know that was mark's fault hi his name's on there but i will say on a group project i will say i'd way rather play police force one thousand percent because you just in there fucking looking at the alligator yeah dude he's red there's a couple alligators on the play field there's zero alligators on road kings just for the record he stands on his own it's got motorcycles. Yeah, it's pretty great. It's got a drug rat. Yeah, exactly. But you're not giving Mike any opportunity. You're just jumping in. You're agreeing with all these reviews. Not giving Mike any opportunity to defend this poor thing. Yeah, go for it, Mike. What do you got to say about the stop and the ball and the meh factor? I mean, there's a bunch of shots there. There are four or five different shots right away. Some are just going to a scoop and sometimes that scoop will reject, but you guys have had Popeye on this show, so it's the same thing okay so i'm not gonna defend popeye either like that's another game i don't like popeye's terrible yeah i do not like that game at all sorry ty yeah it's it's not a game that's another game that like i i just will never like i'm glad that they love it you know i'm glad that daniel and ty you know really like that game and they put it on location and they go they're like i'm gonna make this thing awesome like or i'm gonna make it as as awesome as I can, and I'm going to try to tell people that it's awesome. I mean, it's like, you know, to each their own, right? Finball is to each their own. We talked to Roger a couple times, and he's reiterated on our show, Mr. Roger Sharp, he said, there's a market for every game. There's somebody out there that will like every single game. And that's part of the reason why we do this segment on the show, is that we want to give a shine to these games that other people don't like you know i i do kind of find the fun in most games this one's not my favorite do you have one of these i i've owned two so i i have had them but it doesn't stick around does it interesting huh this is like a big colombo gotcha moment dude i got you just one more one more thing buddy well i will say it is probably one of the best bang for the buck games you could buy Sure. You could get them for like still like $1,200. They do pop up cheap as hell. Yeah. And it's got a killer soundtrack. It's actually, you know, for the bang for the buck factor, what can you buy that's just as fun or more fun for the same price? I mean, I can't think of something because it's – Unfortunately, I think you guys are – Well, we're only – There are some great EMs out there. You got a high diver. System 11. That is going to show. System 11s, there's not much in the price range. Yeah, no, I... Like, it is the bang for the buck of this generation, I think. Some people like the game. I went, I was spicy today, but, you know, like, some people do like the game. Obviously, like, obviously Mike likes it a lot. Yeah, Ty likes it, even though it feeds the ball back to the flippers. Ty Palmer? Ty is very much quick to say that it's not nearly as bad as you think it is. Yeah, well, you guys are just playing devil's advocate, because you know you just riled me up. For the listener also, it needs to be known that, like, Alex is floppier on his opinions. You're floppier than, like, a senior nudist colony. Like, you're just flopping all over the place, dude. Your opinions will change day to day the way the wind's blowing.
    46:43
    That's because pinball's all subjective. And some days you might love a game and some days you might hate it. Well, you're getting metaphysical, dude. You're like, I'm not even the same person I was yesterday, man. like we're fine but there's days where i've had fun playing road kings and i still want to play one that's set up like i think that's the thing you need to set this game up hard you need to like make it steep and and you need to take some of the rubbers off like yeah none of the weird yeah what do you say like the figure eight rubber it's like take them take this off yeah make it tough and it'll kick your ass and it's it it's a good challenge and then when you do get that multi-ball and you do get that multiple theme which is epic then it's like oh i actually did something so Yes. I will say we have a Gottlieb tag team on the floor, which came out a year before this, way better. That game rules. Yeah, that game is sweet. Alex has a rock in his basement right now, and rock is super fun. Rock is not better. No. Yes. You can't say that. Ooh, Alex, let's go, buddy. Let's go. Rock versus Road Kings. I need to play Road Kings. I need to play Road Kings more. Rock is way better than Road Kings. Rock is pretty good. Talk about great music. That's actually, that's David Thiel's first game. That's David Thiel's first game in the industry. Fun fact. I don't know about great music. I'll now know when you hear the same little bit over and over.
    48:21
    We're going off the track now. We've got to put a bow on this. Alan, one question, though. The same era, same exact time this came out. Hollywood Heat or Road Kings? That's a good one. Hollywood Heat, but I don't like that. I would say Genesis because Genesis came out the same year. Genesis is a banger, dude. Genesis is like Creature from the Black Lagoon if you trim the fat.
    49:01
    Yes. Genesis is a very fun game. I was thinking of Electra, Ballyultra. Also, killer game. It's like a Stargazer but trim the fat.
    49:17
    Think about it. it's got the coolest little like in lane stuff that's not really an in lane now i want to go play that things i love stargazer and i fucking hated that thing the last couple times i played it so now i'm like i gotta go play bally electra yeah check it out okay anyway we gotta wrap this up right we're long yeah we'll let you go like you're on the east coast i was gonna say if you're in troy uh new york go stay at the kickback airbnb and play road kings but apparently i can't say that because you're selling all your road kings over there so good you had to sell it i mean you know how games get seen as a recurring theme here how about this i will buy one no please don't buy one regardless regardless of road king status if you're staying in troy if you're staying in the albany area you gotta go look up the kickback airbnb if you have an excuse to go there you a family in the area, fuck that family. Don't stay with them. You stay at the Airbnb with the 15 pinball machines and you have your family come visit you there. And if you're not going there, but you're, you know, blessed to live somewhere where you can play a road Kings, go out and play it. Go out and play it and make up your own mind. It's definitely worth playing every game on location. That's the biggest thing about pinball. Play any game you've never played before. Always. That's, that's always the message. Play any game you've never played before. And guys, I appreciate You guys have been this. I love your podcast. Keep doing what you're doing. You guys have been incredible to the hobby. So we appreciate you. We'll cut this from the episode. We don't like that. We don't like it. Yeah.
    50:55
    What is all this gratitude? No, we appreciate you joining us on the show and maybe we'll have you back for another episode sometime in the future. This was a lot of fun. We just want to thank everyone for listening to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. Until next time. Good luck. Don't suck.