All right, welcome back, punk rock pinballers. Hey there. You know what, Mike, I meant to tell you, I feel like we're the only podcast that doesn't have music on the intro. Do we know a musician that could help us with that? I don't know. Do we need a five-second, ten-second music intro? You be the judge. I feel like... The listener should tell us. I don't feel like we need it, but I could make one. I mean, all right, people tell us. I just feel like when that animation rolls, it feels like, is the sound not working? Okay. But I don't know. People tell us. What do you think? All right. I just have to set stuff up and record a song. I can do it. I know how to do it. You've got to have something in the archives there. Yeah, but it's got to be like punky. Cool. Most of my stuff is like wussy stuff. Well, you said it. We've got a big one today. All right, so those people who have been asking for a longer episode, you are getting it today. Yeah. So a few things we're going to go through today. We are, well, first of all, before we do that, thank you guys for subscribing. Yes, thank you for subscribing. Last couple videos got a bunch of new subscribers and lots of likes. Please like the video. It helps a lot with it getting more views. If you like it, please just click the little thumb up button on it. And if you really like it, share it somewhere. That'd be awesome. That'd be so cool. Yeah. Like it, comment. Those are huge. Yes. And then there's a bunch of links in the description on where you can get merch. A lot of people have asked about that. We've got these cool t-shirts. We've got hats. Cool hoodies. Links in the description. And I usually do a pinned comment. Or just go to anxiousandangry.com. You can pick up other band merch there. You can get some Off With Their Heads merch. He's got a... Sincere Engineer. Sincere Engineer stuff. He's got a big Naked Ray Gun thing going right now. Super cool. Some crazy, cool Naked Ray Gun merch and records. They reissued the Naked Ray Gun records. I think he sold out of the new Dillinger 4 thing, but maybe not. I don't know. Check for that. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I don't know how to sit right now, but I'll figure it out. Yeah. Well, we had a big day. Different chairs, and honestly, we need it, because yesterday we had a huge day, and we're going to tell you all about it. We went to Stern for a media release of the new Star Wars machine. Yes, Fall of the Empire. Fall of the Empire. It was a big day. It was a huge day. So we're going to tell you about that. We are going to tell you about what we learned about the new Spike 3 system on Stern, which is pretty cool. we're going to talk about game overview the cool artwork on the three different versions of this game um some of the gameplay we have some video that i'm going to try to edit into this so be kind i'm going to try my best yeah we're not pro video editors so we'll make it look as good as we can yeah we're trying our best but we're not videographers or video editors no or the podcast This usually sounds good because I'm kind of a professional audio engineer, but we're just working our way through getting the video editing stuff. We're getting better. Yeah. We're getting better. We also, for the very first time, are going to share some interviews. We got to interview four different people at Stern. Yep. So we're going to share some very short interviews with Raymond Davidson, who did the code for the new Star Wars. We're going to talk to Kyle from the Stern Tech School. He's going to give us some tips. That was awesome. We talked to Zach Sharp. And as a marketing nerd, I got to ask him some questions I've been dying to know about. and Mike had a moment when we also got to meet and talk to John Borg about the game. Yep. Yeah, we talked to John Borg. We should have a John Borg behind us, but the Borgs are in the basement. I'm not going to carry one up for the podcast. And I just want to sit in comfy chairs after our long day yesterday. Yeah, I can't get comfortable because I don't feel weird like leaning way back. I can't get the microphone over here. Do you need a pillow behind you? No. We'll be okay. We can pause it for a second. you can go get no keep rolling all right i can't get comfy i'm just gonna lean forward what if you put your butt back further i'm just gonna lean forward like this will be good okay cool um thanks for everybody sitting through that little thing so we got up super early yesterday um we left the house at 6 30 in the morning drove up to elk grove village and got into stuff um so we got to do a cool factory tour at Stern, which I've been very interested in doing that. And it was Kyle and Jack Danger took us on a tour. And there were about, I don't know, 15 other people, 20 other people, maybe more right around that. A good group of different content creators. And we got to see behind the scenes of how pinball machines are made. And it was kind of mind blowing. Yeah, it was because I see a lot of times folks like barking about why they're so expensive, why they're so expensive, even like that. Thanks to Star Wars, the Costco Home Plus one. But if you do this factory tour and they offer it, if you're coming to a pinball expo next month, you can sign up and do this during factory tour. It kind of clues you in as to why these machines cost what they do. there's just all kinds of stations. There's probably 80 people working back there, so it's pretty much a handmade product. They're making everything in this game, like some of the mechs I'm sure are imported, but all the wire assemblies and stamping out the playfields, there's a big line of 80 people hand-assembling these machines, And that's why a pro costs $7,000. Because it's like hours of real human labor. Nothing back there is automated. There's not machines making these machines. It's people. It's people making the machines. And I think they had said there's 380 people, I think they said, work at Stern. and they have this main place that we were in where the HQ is, the offices, and main production in the back, and then an off-site warehouse of games, which we didn't see. But it was really cool. I was super excited because the games that we saw being made in different stages was actually the Jaws 50th, so I feel like they did that just for me. Yeah, Jaws was on the line. It was pretty cool. Yeah. And I was also really impressed by everybody that we came in contact with in the production end of things or just people walking around the office. Everyone seemed genuinely happy and just like, I mean, they're at work, so take that into consideration. But like it seems like a very nice place to work. It seems like they must treat their people really well. Yeah, and the factory workers, as we're doing the tour, they'll smile at you and wave like, hey. Yeah, it was really cool. Really, really, really cool. So maybe I've put some footage in of that in here. I'm not sure. But when we got there also, we had Seth Davis, the CEO, and George Gomez, the chief creative officer maybe. I think he's like the chief. He runs, George runs the design studio. So he's kind of the boss of everything that goes into the game. Yes. Yeah. So they gave us a little presentation of the new Spike 3 system on these, and he also gave us a little preview of a sizzle reel of the new Star Wars machine and talked about some of those features. But the Spike 3 kind of the system that the new game is on has some really, really cool features. Yeah, think of Spike 3. It's a new operating system. So the easiest way to equate that, I mean, I guess with smartphones, it would be like when iOS does an OS update. Or in, like, gamer terms, it's kind of like going from, like, a PS4 to a PS5. Because you've got, it's got like an upgraded CPU. Does it say how many more times powerful it is? Well, I took notes. We couldn't take pictures, but I frantically took notes. So that's why I'm holding this piece of paper, because I want to get it right. But the Spike 3 system has increased processing power. So I don't know if they said like how many more times powerful. And I don't want to quote George, I think it's at least two times more powerful than the Spike 2 one. They said two times the memory. Two times the memory. So your memory is good there. Yeah, so that's probably like RAM. And then while the back glass artwork at the top stays the same, there's actually a larger video screen on it. It's 35% larger. It's 18 1⁄2 inches, has more pixels, and it looks badass. It looks great. And what's weird, if you just see the Star Wars machine by itself, you don't even realize it's a bigger screen necessarily. Because the back glass, like Steph said, did not change. The back glass size is exactly the same. So it fits within that same area they have. But when you look at it next to a Spike 2 game, it's like, wow, that is considerably larger. and it's a higher quality display. I can't remember how many more times colors he said it does. It can produce tens of thousands of more colors than these displays do, and it's a kick-ass looking screen. It looks so good. And I think that's about the perfect size because the Jersey Jack has like a 20-whatever inch, which is really cool. We have the avatar, and that's really cool. but then you don't get the back glass art yeah i love the art and like the back glass art i think it's one of the coolest things of the pinball machine you get it goes jersey jack screen you don't really get that kind of it's just a different experience different deal yeah it's a totally different and all right so other stuff that is coming with spike 3 is um better networking and power handling because i don't know if you can hear these fans on this game on these games like the power supplies have a really loud fan spike three games apparently are like pretty much silent which would be awesome although i kind of sometimes i take a nap over here and i like fall asleep to the sound of these fans yeah that's good that's a good trick oh yeah here we go yeah um it's also going to have better wi-fi and that's nice um let's see new speaker lights to support upgraded electronics then something that streamers are going to be well they they did not say this but they um they said that there is going to be an hdmi output with audio yeah so do with that do with that what you will there is one output so you can take one hdmi cord get your video signal from the screen and the audio signal in one cable, which is going to be awesome. Because if you want to do that now, on like a Spike 2 game, you would have to do a mod, two mods, one mod to get the audio out, one mod to get the video out, and it's two separate cables. You could do that with one cable now. And while George and Seth did not say this, I am saying this, that's going to be a heck of a lot easier for people who might want to stream. People like us. Yes. Because you notice if we stream Jaws or when we stream John Wick or The Black Knight, I have a camera on the score display, and now we can just pipe that right in because I'm not going to put a $150 mod on all these machines. The one thing I wish they'd done with the HDMI is put it on the coin door. Yeah, that would have been cool. It's put the HDMI, because I'm assuming it's in behind the back glass. Yeah, I didn't see anything on the corner. And you'd have to route the cable down and out the bottom of the game. That's fine. At least it's there. Yeah. So that's awesome. That was like one of the main things I was hoping for with Spike 3. It's like, give me an output so I can stream this easily. Yeah. And now we got it. Your wish was granted. Thank you, Mr. Gomez. And then they also said that depending on popularity of a title, as they create more Spike 2 games, some of them may be upgraded to Spike 3. But again, it depends on popularity of a title. They did say that was a huge amount of work. They basically have to rebuild all the code of the game because it's not sort of backwards compatible, really. So there would have to be mega demand. But it's possible. But it wouldn't be crazy to think that there may one day be like a Spike 3 Godzilla. They did not say that. No, they did not. They didn't say this. This is me speculating that you could maybe see a Spike 3 Godzilla, or you could maybe see a Spike 3 Stranger Things. Or, you know, if they do an anniversary edition of any of those existing ones, I would bet you it would be like a Spike 3. Yep. But that's my speculation. Nobody at Stern actually said that. No. Let's talk a little bit about the game overview. Yeah, so the game, because that's why you're watching this, is the game. The game Fall of the Empire. Fall of the Empire. It's pretty badass. And the code, out of the gate, like, the code seems really pretty full. Because all the main shots are for, like, a character. There's, like, a Luke one and a Han Solo one and a Chewie one. And there's already, like, a mode for every character. There are four multiballs. On the premium and the LE, there's, like, a center ramp that's down. starts down and then you hit this sketchy target up the middle that shoots the ball back at you pretty fast then the ramp comes up and you can hit that for like a hyperspace yeah so there's like a hyperspace multiball well that center shot too is super repeatable the center shot you can drill it like i was able to hit three or four times in a row and so that's that's like the friendly shot in the game it's kind of your bailout shot like oh shit balls come a quick what I shoot for go up the middle yeah so like being super repeatable means it's kind of easy for everybody you know it's it's approachable for for newbies but also like there's some challenge it's you know still challenging to get through the modes if you're more experienced yeah because I think a lot of newer people that aren't are not aiming their shots they tend to hit the ball up the middle a lot and that shot's real makeable it's not too tight but to the left of that shot is the Death Star shot. That shot's not easy. No. That shot's hard. It's tight. Yeah. You have to hit it once, and then it opens the Death Star, and then you can lock three balls in there and get the Death Star multiball. So satisfying when you hit it. It's awesome. It's an awesome shot to hit. It is not easy. And then to the left of that is a little deal. It just goes up, and there's a little saucer, like a little curvy deal on a saucer at the top of this little lane. And that is the Luke. That's the Luke shot. And that's also right next to the AT-AT. The AT-AT stands between the Death Star and the Luke shot. But you can lock three balls in there. That's a virtual lock. Like you go up there and it'll lock it and it kicks it back out. Once you lock that three times, it starts the Battle of Hoth. multiball and if you beat the battle of hoth at mech he like falls down yeah so that's pretty cool super cool so there's though there's the hyperspace multiball up the middle there's the death star multiball there's the battle of hoth multiball and then over on the right side and that luke shot by the way it's easiest off the left flipper it's a backhand almost like the left ramp on Venom, similar spot on the flipper. When you can find it, it's pretty repeatable. It's real hard off the right flipper. Over on the right side, there's kind of a tall plastic ramp that's got this like kind of spirally deal where the ball goes down. That's like the Jabba's pit. And on the Premium and the LE, there's like a sculpt. There's a Jabba sculpt on those that's like lit up. Yeah, it lights up. It's cool. You don't like interact with it in any way, but it looks cool. There's a multiball you can get there. I can't remember what that one is called. So that's your fourth multiball. So off the rip, the game has modes for every character. There's a Darth Vader scoop on the left that's your mystery. And I think if you light extra ball, you collect it there. Maybe the extra ball's on the orbit. I can't remember. You have four multiballs. You get characters for every mode. I think the only thing you're really lacking yet is wizard modes. Mm-hmm. So it's, and like, I don't get to wizard modes anyway. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be fun right out of the box. We played it with a few other folks, and it was so fun. And Steve Bowen tore it up. Is it Bowen or Bowen? Is it Bowen? Oh. I don't even know. I need to look him up now. He's a really great player. Is he from Chicago? Yeah, he lives here now. He's a killer player. We played on the Hup Challenge, did a little video, and we played some with them. I beat Steve in the second game, but he didn't have a good game because he tore it up. Yeah, he was like $400 million on the first game, something like that. Over $300. Yeah, so he was jamming out. That guy's so good at nudging. So the gameplay, like a good player can shred the game. But he didn't beat the game, so there's enough code in there. Because I think this code's way farther along than Uncanny X-Men was when that launched, or John Wick when that launched. Or Bond. Or Bond when that launched. So the code out of the box, I think, is really fun. The game's fun to shoot. It feels like a John Borg. Oh, we didn't talk about the... On the Premium and the LE, you can use the Force. Yeah. With the action button. To save the ball. To save the ball. And it can go a couple different ways. And it's more powerful because if you hit stand-up targets, it's like little stand-up targets in front of all the ramps. And you can spell force. And if you spell like half of force, you kind of have the ball say, but it's weak. And then if you complete force, then it's like stronger, I think. Yes. And I think when it's weak, the force with magnets takes the ball from the drain area, not in the drain, but just behind the flippers, back to the, what do you call that area? To the in lane? The ball launch. Oh, into the plunger. Yeah. Into the flapper area. Because I think you can save it from the left out lane, too. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure it takes all the way around. Mm-hmm. So the force thing, though, it takes skill because I never successfully did it. Well, the other way the force works, I think when it's supercharged, we could be wrong, but it brings it back up into the play field. A middle drain will catch it. And I think Steve was able to do that a couple times. He has the force. He's got the force. I didn't have the force. Because if you don time it right it just gone So it really challenging But yeah there definitely some skill so you can save the galaxy once and for all And then when you have a ball save going it like Yoda eyes Oh, his eyes are... We did film that. It's like Yoda's head right between the flippers and his. There's insert lights behind his eyes. His eyes are like flashing. It's super cool. Yeah. I really like that. Oh, and we did not mention the call-outs for the game. Well, yeah, so this game is really focused on what people call episodes four, five, and six, which I call the first three Star Wars because I'm old. But it's four, five, and six, so Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Yep, A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. Okay, New Hope. For the Star Wars nerds. Anyways. So it's focused on that. So the artwork is all revolving around the characters and the moments of those games or the moments of those films. And it's pretty awesome because, I mean, as a Gen Xer, those are my Star Wars. Yeah. And so the cool stuff is that art was all hand-drawn, not by one, not by two, not even by three artists, but by four different artists. That's right, because they had like a – the artists did the character models, the character drawings, and then they had a person that specializes in likeness and fine-tuning. And they did stress there was no AI. Yeah, they did stress. There's no AI used in this art. It's all hand-drawn, hand-painted, whatever you want to call it. But there's three different back glasses and cabinet. Yeah, and they're all pretty amazing. Yeah. And I don't know if I took pictures of all of them. But you know who did? Stern. So everyone, probably by the time you see this, if you're a hardcore pinball nerd, you've probably seen the Stern sizzle reel. Maybe we should even link it in the description. Yeah, we'll link it in the description and probably a link to the game on Stern's website. Yeah. So you can fully see all the different models because I'm sure we're going to miss some details here. I'm pretty sure they probably took better pictures and video. They probably have better pictures than us. But my favorite back glass, I think in cabinet art was the premium. Yeah, me too. I think the premium looks the best. I think what was really cool, and George called this out, that they used the double stripe that is just so iconic Star Wars around the edge of the back glass. So he said people have thought like, oh, the back glass is smaller with Spike 3. And it's kind of an optical illusion because of how they integrated the Star Wars like brand artwork. It's like this exact same. If you bought Star Wars toys as a kid, it's got those couple lines that go all the way around the edge and it says Star Wars at the top. Yeah. And that is around all the different Backglass arts. So the Backglass looks like you picked up, who made those toys, Mattel or Kenner? Maybe Kenner. I haven't heard that name. But there's a new Star Wars toy at the KB Toys. Remember KB Toys? Sure do. Is that still a thing? And so it looks like it'd be a package for that, but like a really kick-ass, like the best Star Wars toy ever made. And the premium back glass, it's like got all your main people kind of right there in the middle. And then kind of in the back, almost translucent, there's like Darth Vader's head, and you can see his hand like reaching, almost reaching over them. The Ali back glass was more kind of Battle of Hoth based. Had some like, I don't like, some TIE fighters and stuff on that. More looked like Battle of Hoth based. And then the pro back glass. I know the pro cabinet art is more like Return of the Jedi. And I can't remember exactly what that back glass looked like, but maybe we have it. Maybe it's playing right now while I'm talking. Don't know. We don't know. The other thing that our friend Mike Vinikour helped out with was there are over 1,000 clips from those three movies. Yeah, 1,000 clips. 1,000 clips. And all of the call-outs are C-3PO. Yeah, I was going to say that, and then you changed the subject. Oh, well, yeah, I did. It's C-3PO, and I think the real C-3PO voice is that. Which I don't know really what that means. Is that guy still alive? I think it was that voice actor. Huh. Because it is C-3PO talking to you, doing all the call-outs. Yeah, it's pretty great. Yeah. It's pretty great. And you just... Well, do you want to talk about the gameplay a little bit? I kind of did a little bit. I described the shots. Well, I want to say that my experience in playing it... Yeah, what's your experience in playing it? My experience in playing it, and I'm not a great pinball player, played a few games and i feel it was really fun and i'm not really a super star wars nerd like at all not at all you don't really even like it no mike caught up on all the shows on disney and i feel like you're a star wars nerd now which is great i love that but But you really do get, I felt really immersed in it. And it's, maybe it's because we've been playing for a little while now, but I felt like I knew what to do a little bit off the rip, clearly if you spend more time with it. But it's such a great theme for pinball. It is. I'm so glad that this is, what, the third, fourth Star Wars pinball? Maybe fifth. Maybe fifth. Yeah, I mean, because there was that old, like, real rare one. There was the Pinball 2000 one, which is kind of like the Revenge from Mars. There was the other John Borg one, the Data East one. Which people love. There was the Steve Ritchie one. Mm-hmm. There might have been one other. Mando. Mando's, like, sort of counts. I mean, it's in the universe. It's in the universe. This is, like, maybe the sixth one. Yeah. Was there a Sega one? I don't even know. I don't know. So it's like the fifth or sixth or seventh Star Wars pin. We were watching a podcast the other night, and Zechmany said he'd be fine with one every five years. And I think probably you could do one every five years. Yeah, I mean, it's one of the biggest franchises in the world. And I feel like what's interesting about Star Wars is there are people our age who were kids, or maybe a little bit older than us when it came out. and every generation has had their Star Wars and their parents introducing them to Star Wars since then. So it's just a really smart licensing deal. Yeah, because I remember there was a period when your sister's kids were, like Frank was five or six, and he just wanted a bunch of Star Wars stuff. Yeah, my sister told him if you want to be a Jedi, you have to fold the laundry. That's how you get your Jedi power. Uh-huh. So they're into Star Wars, and I don't think they're into it now because they kind of outgrew it, but they'll probably come back to it. If there were movies out, they would probably go see them. He's in Frankston High School now, and probably five, ten years from now, he'll probably be back into Star Wars because he'll want to reminisce about when he was six years old. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so really super smart. But the game, I loved the artwork. I loved the feeling. I love the experience, the toys on the LE and Premium, so cool. I didn't play the Pro, so I can't really say anything about that. I don't think you did, though. I played the Pro. The main difference in gameplay, so you're not, if you're thinking about a Pro, there's no big difference in gameplay other than you don't have the Force. It's like a conventional ball saver, so there's no button on the Force. and then the center ramp on the le and the premium which starts down and you hit a shot to lift it that doesn't exist in the pro it's the ramp is just up and you have to do i think you have to hit like the right ramp or something you have to hit something to qualify the center shot yeah because the center shot is too easy so that you have to hit a different shot to qualify it but that's, I think gameplay-wise, that's it. But what you are missing is a lot of the sculpts. Yeah, and they're cool. So there's no Jabba sculpt. And then on the right and left sides, there's like a Darth Vader head, and there's a Stormtrooper sculpted head. Those are not in the, I think the Millennium Falcon was in the pro, though, right? I think so, too. And I think the little at-at thing. But at, as in all. So if you're thinking just strictly for just gameplay. Go pro. The pro is fine. It's totally fine. And I'm usually like, we're usually, both of us are usually like pro people. We have a Wick pro, Zeppelin pro, Foo Fighters pro, Black Knight pro. Like most of our sterns are pros, except for Jaws. I'm Kenny X-Men pro. So the Pro is fine for gameplay. I think I like the cosmetic upgrades enough. And I love the back glass. And the back glass on the Premium. If we get one or when we get one, that will probably go Premium. The LE looked really cool, though. The LE's got the speaker lights. LE has the expression lights already in it. The Premium has the cabinet is ready for Expression Lights, but you'd have to buy them. You could not put Expression Lights in a Pro. No. The powder coat on the LE is a cool blue. The LE looks really cool, and I think the LE over the Premium has upgraded sound. Yeah. It's got separate tweeters. Yep. But all of Spike 3 games have vastly improved sound over the Spike 2. They can go way louder and way louder without being distorted. And John Borg played the game and cranked it up on the premium. He did. I didn't get to hear the LE cranked up. I should have done that. Well, they said they're making 770 LEs also. So we'll see. I hope that goes really well for them because they're really cool. Yeah. Yeah, 770 LEs because of the Star Wars was released in 1977. Oh, is that what they said? Yeah. I missed that. So that's why it's 770 LEs. That's pretty cool. Also, the LEs are going to be shipping mid-September, which is next week. Yeah, next week LEs will be shipping. So I bet they put it, it probably goes on the line like Monday. Yeah. I bet. Or maybe even today. Could be today. I think they were waiting on some final licensing approval. But that was mostly digital. Oh, like the code base so they could probably make the game? Yeah, because somebody had told us they literally are going on the digital assets that are on the screen that the Disney legal team literally goes frame by frame through it. Yeah, they had to approve every frame of footage. So crazy. And I did ask, is this the same team that you dealt with for the home edition? And they said, no, it is not. Oh, different? It is not. I guess that was original because this is the Disney, I'm sorry, the Star Wars Home Edition that's currently at Costco is kind of like an updated version, the Plus. Update of the other one. So that was originally approved eight years ago, I think is what they said. So totally different team. So I think all they had to get approved because the Home Edition Plus has achievements, which Mike Vinikour designed. And we watched him like right. We played that game with Mike, and I think he got about every achievement. Yeah, he got 10 million. He was shredding this game, and he's getting all these achievements. And I was impersonating Mike saying, I made you, because he's racking up the achievements, because he made them all. That's great. He's like, this is the first time I've played it logged in. It's like, boom, achievement, achievement, achievement. He had high score number one on the game that's in the Stern Lobby, and there's some killer players that go through there and play. Yeah, it was pretty fun to watch. But that game's fun to play. Oh, my gosh. Well, I mean, yeah, Mike Vinikour got over $10 million. I think I got $300,000 on my game. I might have had almost $3 million, $2 million. Yeah, it did suck. I think I cracked $1 million. I think I was around $2 million. Not $2 million, probably won something. It was fun, though. Mike crushed us. It was fun, and it is a real pinball machine. It's a real pinball machine. And George Gomez had said that the relationship with Costco is awesome. Costco is super happy with the sales that are going through. Stern is super happy with the sales that are going through. And we saw a lot of those are made and ready to ship back out to more Costco. So that's pretty awesome for pinball. Yeah, they had probably like 100 or so of them in boxes. It was like the final shipment going out to Costco. I think they said it was sold like double what the Jurassic Park one did. Yeah. So that's awesome. I think I wrote that somewhere, but maybe I didn't. So we've covered Spike 3. Yep. We've done an overview of the game. Yep. We should probably roll an interview. Before we get there, I just want to go through the timeline of this thing a little bit. Okay. Because you're probably curious when you will be able to see this. So the LEs are shipping mid-September. Then they'll do the pros. And if you are in Colorado, they're anticipating that these are going to be ready to share at the Colorado Pinball Showdown, which is September 18th through the 21st. It's like next weekend? Yeah. Or this coming weekend? No. Today's the 11th. It's the 11th. So it's next weekend. It's Riot Fest weekend. Okay. We'll be at Riot Fest. And then they also, George confirmed that accessories for Fall of the Empire will be available by the end of the year. So how about that? I think they did say, too, that the accessories for the game after this one are going to be ready when the game launches. I think I heard someone say that. Oh, really? They didn't say, I don't know what the next game is. I didn't say that, but I think at least the topper for the next game is going to be available right when the game launches. Hopefully the LE would come with the topper. That would be nice. One other thing I want to mention that we didn't hit on is everybody is talking about tariffs and things are increasing in price, and they told us that the pricing is remaining the same. And the last time that Stern did a price increase, we weren't into pinball. We weren't around for it, but it was three years ago. And a lot of the parts that they source, I found this so interesting, a lot of the parts they source for the pinball machines come from the Midwest. So Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, they called out. So that's pretty awesome. And part of the reason why they are not increasing prices is part of their determination to grow pinball and continue to make it as accessible. I mean, it's an expensive thing, let's be real. But they really want to grow pinball and kind of a rising tide lifts all ships sort of thing. Yeah. So I understand that the games are – it's a crazy amount of money to buy pinball machines. It's a huge investment. And I think a price increase they probably know would have hurt them badly, but their costs to create these things have gone up. Yeah. So they're just kind of eating that in the margin. Yep. And I feel like they're including as much, like the Star Wars has as much stuff in it as any of the other last five or ten games. I'm sure there's going to be some folks, when you see the gameplay, like it's not innovative because it's kind of a fan layout. I mean, it feels like a John Borg machine, which I love. Oh, you do? Yeah, I do. I love a John Borg. So, like, Google thinks I'm talking to it. Every time I say John Borg, Google wants to say something over there. Maybe she likes John Borg, too. Probably. Everyone loves a Borg. But, like, the layout is not, you know, there's nothing, like, mind-blowing in this layout where it's like, this is something that's never been done in pinball. Like, I think the Jedi ball save is pretty new and unique and innovative. Yeah. But in terms of the shots, it shoots like a John Borg. It shoots like a John Borg, and it's super solid. Two flippers. Yep. The other thing that I wanted to mention that they talked about was pinball's small as a whole, and that there's been a lot of rumblings with people outside of the U.S., especially in Europe, kind of butthurt that this Star Wars machine is not coming to Europe, and that Stern did not secure the license for Europe or Asia. And as we understand it, the Lucasfilm Disney folks, Disney International actually, didn't think that pinball was large enough to go into those markets. So Stern has told the international people, like, if there is a demand, they're willing to, I'm using these words, invest in that. But I can only imagine that it has to be a pretty significant investment for that license. And if they don't think the demand's there, it doesn't seem like a smart business decision to invest in something that you're not going to get a return on. And it almost sounds like it's not even that Stern decided to not do that investment. It almost sounds like that the Star Wars International, the ones that hold Europe and Asia, that licensor didn't want to do it. I don't know if it's even fully Stern's choice to say, like, if we do this, we'll lose money. It sounds like that that licensor basically said no. They didn't think that pinball was large enough for that franchise in Europe. That's the licensor saying that. Yes, the licensor said that. So it's not like people in Europe, if you're mad at Stern, like, I don't think this is their fault. Because it sounds like it's the licensor saying, like, yeah, you need to show us that this is going to do better than we think it's going to do. which is why they've asked people in Europe, like, call your distributors and say you want it, because I don't think it's Stern treating you as like a second-class market. I think it's the licensors saying, like, yeah, people don't play pinball here. We don't want to do that. And the Lucasfilm Disney International and the domestic version of that, they like to do sponsorships. They like to do those partnerships. I think somebody had said that that licensing has done over $46 billion in sponsorships. So they want to do those things, but I guess they want to make sure that they're successful. They want to protect the Star Wars brand, I would think. So the license holder probably doesn't want to do a product that's viewed as like was a failure or like a flop. Yeah, I can understand that. so if you're in europe like and you know a distributor call them and tell them you want this machine if you want it yeah all right interviews interviews we'll start out with raymond yeah so that we did a quick interview here with raymond we try to keep this we try to not be punishers to these guys because they working that day do you want to explain what a punisher is A punisher is somebody that really lacks social skills And if they encounter people that they are fans of or that they think are important, they will get them and they will not let them go. and they will just talk and talk and talk and talk. Because they're so excited. They're so excited. But, I mean, I don't even know what the channel was. I saw like an old interview with Gomez. It was cringy. From some fest where he clearly had been doing like interviews all day and this guy had poor George in there for like an hour and 15 minutes and asking a lot of questions that you could just look up the answer. We didn't want to be that, so we try to keep these to five to ten minutes. Just a few questions, so don't get mad if we didn't ask what you would want to ask. Let us know what you'd want to know, because I'm sure we'll get another opportunity at some time. We'll probably have all of these guys back on. We're going to have John Borg come over here anyways. Let Borg come over here. I mean, he did not say he was going to. I fixed a couple of my games. I'm just manifesting it. He's probably a pretty good tech, I bet, John Borg. Probably. He'll come down here, tweak up, dial in a couple of our games. Yeah. So Ray, what did Ray do? Ray did the code. All right. And he did the code for, like, his most recent was Metallica Remastered, which is, that's Lyman Sheets code, but, like, all the additional things on it was Raymond. It's badass. Ray Day. They call him Ray Day. I think that's his name in the game, like his Insider Connected name, I think. It might be Ray Day. Okay. Yeah. We call him Raymond. Raymond. Let's listen to Raymond. All right. Hey, everybody. It's Steph and Mike, and we're here at Stern's headquarters in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. It is absolutely spectacular and super excited to ask a few questions of Raymond Davidson, right? Yep. And what's your title here at Stern? Lead software engineer. And tell us about your role on Star Wars, the new Star Wars. Yeah, so I was kind of the lead programmer, kind of in charge of making sure all the software gets in. So they make the play field, and then I have to make it do things. You make it sound really easy, but I know it isn't. No, no, there's a lot that goes into it. So, yeah, I've got a question, Raymond, about that. So you've done software on mostly music pens before, right? Yep, Metallica, Rush, Foo Fighters, Led Zeppelin. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we love all of those. But this is like your first non-music pin that you're kind of lead on. Yeah, yep. So what's it like when you've... So Metallica, Rush, pretty wide open in terms of what you can do with the story. Right. Whereas now you're coding rules for Star Wars. Yeah, so that actually changes a lot of how you approach your rules because you can't just stack things willy-nilly where you're doing all this stuff at once, even though that would be cool from a rules perspective. You've got to respect that people want to see the narrative of the game unfold, and you've got to show the moments of the movie, and the storyline has to make sense. You have to have a logical, like, okay, if I do these things, then I get this wizard mode, and it makes sense that I get this wizard mode because it's themed appropriately. But you also have to have the pinball still be fun, So you can't just have it be a linear path where every game you're literally starting from New Hope and then doing all the events of that and then doing Empire Strikes Back. So you kind of the way I describe the philosophy we went with is it's like little windows into times of, you know, scenes in the movie. And when you're in the window, everything plays in order. It gets put front and center, but you're allowed to jump around, which gives the game a nice varied feel each time you play it. Cool. Yeah, so this time I might go for the AT-AT multiball, and the next time I might go for the Death Star. But I can do them independently, kind of at my choosing as the player, which one I want to start first. Not chronological. Right, yeah. Unless you choose. Unless you want to, yeah. So when you got tasked with this job, you're doing Star Wars, did you go hardcore binge on the movies to take notes and refresh? Watch them and be like, yeah, that scene will work great here. Also, Mike Vinikour was a huge help. He's like a huge Star Wars fan. Right at the beginning, he's like, I want to help on your project, Ray. I'm like, okay, yes, we need as much help as we can get. And so he did a lot of the first cutting of clips and things, and then I kind of went through. And my other programming partner, Andrew, he also helped picking the various scenes because there was just so much to do on this game. Yeah. So we had a lot of people helping. Yeah, because you've got three movies to cover where a lot of things happen. You can't fit it all into a pinball. But I've got two games on it so far. I really enjoyed it. Great. I love a John Borg layout. He's actually my favorite. Somehow it's like fast and smooth, but in your face, but also familiar in a weird way. You know, he's great. Yeah, like a John Borg machine is almost like, if you're into music, it's almost like a Ramones song that maybe you've never heard where it's like instantly, like I feel like I've heard this song before, but it's new. And it just feels good. It's like catchy. It's like catchy. All right, two questions left. One, since a lot of the people who watch us are new to pinball, do you have like a main tip that you like to give to new pinball players? Well, I mean, shoot for the flashing lights. So first of all, you can aim the ball, and it's not just all about not draining. I think that's a lot of people don't realize that there's actually objectives. So if you're looking for objectives, just see kind of what's lit up and try to, you know, if you want the ball to go towards the middle of the play field, you flip earlier, and if you want it to go towards the end, you kind of have to wait a little bit, and that can be scary because people are afraid of it going down the middle. Yeah. But, you know, just keep practicing and and kind of if you missed a shot on one side, overcompensate, try to miss it on the other side and just kind of dial it in that way. Yeah. Just lots of practice, too. All right. So this last one, again, since a lot of our fans are viewers, I should say, are music people, music fanatics. You are a music pinball guy, and I know you love all of your babies equally, and your favorites change all the time. But in this moment right now, do you have a favorite music pin that you like playing? It's hard not to go with the Metallica Remastered, which I kind of helped bring to the modern era, but was based on a game that was kind of already done, and it was already done so well. So I had a lot to already work off of. so I love the Metallica and I'm also really happy with the Foo Fighters one that I worked on because we kind of got to do our own little story with that a little bit and I just love the shots on that game too, that game's really cool that's one of Steph's favorites yeah, I totally agree with you we've got the Foo Fighters at home don't have a Metallica remastered yet but I think Metallica remastered, we just ranked our favorite music pins, it was number one for both of us wow, I gave the right answers Well, there's no wrong answer in pinball, that's for sure. So congratulations on an awesome new game and all of the hard work that you and the team did. I can't wait for everyone else to experience it. It is absolutely incredible. You guys are going to love it. Big deal, big day here at Stern. Thanks, Raymond. Thank you. Thank you so much. How cute is Raymond? Yeah. I think Raymond, before we interviewed him, I think he seemed a little fearful and thought, like, am I going to be punished? I felt like I had to lure him. But then I think he enjoyed the interview. I hope he did. So thank you, Raymond. Yeah, thank you so much. It was really nice of you. All right, who's up next? Next? Who is up next? I don't have the list. It is our friend who's taught you how to do a few things on the Stern machine. Oh, we're going to do Kyle next? Yeah, Kyle. What's Kyle's last name? I forgot to look it up, but we just call him Tech School Kyle. Tech School Kyle. Kyle also is a punk rock fan. He's got Jawbreaker tattoos. And I happened to be wearing my Jawbreaker shirt yesterday under my punk rock pinball hoodie, and I saw his tattoos. And during the factory tour, there was a pause, and I went up to him, and I'm like, you're a Jawbreaker guy? You're a Jawbreaker guy, aren't you? And he's like, yeah. And I show him the shirt, and he's like, yeah. So not only is Kyle super knowledgeable on the technical fixie side of the mechanical side of the pinball machines, he's a punk rocker, punk rock fan, super cool dude. So nice. We asked him a few questions about being noobs owning a pinball machine. He gives you some tips on, everybody asks a tip on how to play, like a little tip if you're newer to pinball, like a tip to improve your game. Yeah. So let's listen to Kyle. Come on in, Kyle. One more interview with the Punk Rock Pinball team, and we have our new best friend, Kyle. Hi. Kyle, what's your last name? Spitteri. Spitteri. And what's your title officially? My business card says I am a technical support engineer. I finally have an engineering title, even though I've never been to school for it. Well, congratulations. Thanks. Well, you have a whole series of really cool videos on Stern's YouTube channel. We've watched a bunch of them. Stern Tech School? Yeah. Stern Tech School is the series. Those are like playlists on the Stern channel? Yeah. So check those out if you need to figure out how to work on a Stern pinball machine. Kyle's got some awesome tutorial videos. I learned how to rebuild flippers watching those videos. Mike is a student of your Stern Tech School. Awesome. Excellent. So we have a question for you about maintenance. Yeah, so let's say we are pretty new to owning pinball. We've just owned pinball machines a little over a year. And we went crazy and started with one now we have 16. But let's pretend I'm getting my first brand-new machine today. and as a new pinball machine owner, what are, say, two or three things I should do in terms of maintenance to prolong the life of my machine? Okay. One thing I like to tell people when they get a new game is become intimately familiar, right? You're going to take delivery of it, take the glass out, make sure everything's tight, right? Open it up, whether this is new or old, right? Whether you're buying a used game or you're taking a game out of a box, It's always good to just do like a once over, make sure that everything is tight, everything looks good before you start putting it into operation. Right. Games that get put in trucks take rough rides sometimes and you never know what jiggle loose. Another thing I like to tell people is like pinball games are not like a car. They do not have a maintenance schedule. Like every 500 games, you better go and change the flipper oil. No, you don't need to do that. Like address problems with the game when you see something. If the game starts to get a little dirty, get in there and clean it. When you get into your game and clean it, it's another good time to check. Are the rubbers looking okay? Oh, look, that one's starting to crack. Let's replace that. Little preventative things here and there. And the third thing I'd say is maybe just don't be afraid of it. Take it apart. Remember, a human built it, so a human can fix it. You do not need to be afraid of treating it rough. It doesn't need to be treated with white gloves. It's not a Tiffany egg. I don't know. Maybe those are sorts of things that I'd like to tell people to just instill confidence, I think. Become confident manipulating and working your way around your game. Okay, I love all of that. And then watch the Stern Tech School videos if you have a specific issue. Yeah, they're very well done. You've got the shooter rod one. You've got the flipper one. Trying to address common things, right? Like how can I adjust my flippers? How do they work, right? Some people are visual. and maybe they need to see and be told how things work. Otherwise, there could be people that just can look at something and be like, I get this, you know? So we try to address some common things, but then also try to address things that are game-specific, like how do I work on this thing on Jaws, or how does this complicated thing come out of Jurassic Park, or you know what I mean? How does the Kong come out of King Kong? You've got one on that I saw. Yep. I have a controversial question. I love these. Controversy. On a new Stern. So we don't have to talk about all the different types of pinball machines since the history of time. But on a new modern pinball machine, what do you recommend? How do you recommend cleaning it? The play field? Yeah, cleaning the play field. And if you don't want to step in it. This is a polarizing topic. I'm going to step in it. It is. It's very controversial. Yeah. I'll tell people. It's like you ask 10 people, you'll get 15 different opinions. But, okay, I've been doing this for, I think, every single pinball game I've ever cleaned, I've used Novus No. 2 and a microfiber cloth. You don't need to use a ton. You're not going to take the paint off. A lot of homeowners that maybe only play your game 10, 20 times a month. I mean, it's not even going to get dirty enough. You might not even need Novus. Just use a dry rag and get some of the dirt off. But a little bit of Novus on a rag and go for it. I don't like waxing games because I don't like how crazy slick and slippery the ball gets. But, you know, it's your game. Do what you want. but novice okay so you're saying no need to wax like a modern clear-coated play field after you know this if you want to it depends i guess it's yeah it's not doing harm if you choose to do it absolutely not but you should be aware that some waxes like you might see at the car store is going to be called a cleaning wax um those can be more abrasive than like a novice which is a very fine fine fine fine plastic polish right so your car has a lot more clear So having something that cuts a little bit is going to do a good job at keeping it shiny. You don't want to use something that abrasive on a pinball game. So if you're going to wax your game, like a pure carnauba wax would be my recommendation. And I do that on my EMs. I don't do it on my modern games, but I'll do it on my 80s and 70s games. And you don't use Novus on those? Only if they're really dirty. But that's the thing is I bought a lot of those games 10 years ago. I cleaned the dirt off, and now I just wipe them down when they get dirty. you know okay so you know the wax does make it fast as hell like it makes it so we've got a friend who waxes his balls like that person likes hard like his pinballs you know well you know this is a family show uh he waxes the pinball he novices the pinball yeah we know two people that do that i waxed my tna my total nuclear annihilation once and it was like so unfun to play for a long time because the ball just like teleported back and forth and i was like okay Last question Do you want to do the music pen one? Oh yeah, two questions What's your other question? I'll do the music pen one What did you have for the other one? The other one that we've asked everybody Oh yeah Sorry, the other one we've asked everybody You've probably seen it already But as a starting player You probably can't talk about a dream theme I don't think you should I don't think I'm supposed to We'll do this a different time So this question, right now today, what is your favorite music pin to play today, right now? Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden. But? It changes. I mean, that's natural. It could be different next week. Mustang actually has a really cool soundtrack. I think maybe I mentioned this on your tour. I mean, it's got a lot of music in it, and Mustang has a pretty bitchin' soundtrack. Cool. We'll have to play that one. Yeah, we will. Let's go play it now. All right. Yeah, let's go play it. Go play Mustang. But first you have to answer the last question. Last question. Lots of new people, lots of great players are watching this, but a lot of new people. What is your one tip for a new player? Learn to control the ball. Learn to catch the ball. If you're playing on location, it might be worth like 50 cents or a dollar just to play a game of pinball where you're not playing, but trying to catch, stop, and then learn to aim your shot, I guess, is like a secondary. Catch the ball, aim the shot. But that's what I'd say. That's what I'd say. Great. Nobody has said that yet, but that is great. And we're not good players yet. On average. But early on in Jaws, we did play two-player games at Jaws where you had to catch the ball, and we could see who could catch it and then hit the most intentional shots in the game. Yeah, we'd have to call it. No, that's awesome. You've got to call your shot. Like, I'm going to hit North Beach. You're catching it. You're trapped up. Hit North Beach. We didn't hit it very often. No. But, like, that is a great tip. Yeah, I mean, because you get a lot of people just expand on it, right? Like, a lot of people, A, don't realize there's rules in pinball, and B, don't realize that, like, it is a game of responding to what it's trying to tell you, right? This light is flashing. Catch it. Shoot it. Yep. Right? So learning how to intentionally stop the ball. I've been trying to learn how to drop catch and live catch for 15 years. I still can't do it. It's so hard. But that's the fun of pinball, right? Yeah. Yeah, you just keep improving your skills, and some days are better. Some days the sun shines on your face. Some days it doesn't shine. Some days it doesn't. All right, we're going to go play Mustang and see if we can't drop catch and live catch. Maybe a dead bounce. Let's give it a shot. Let's go do it. I mean, Kyle, look how tall Kyle is. He's so tall. Because I'm just about six feet tall. yeah he's he's a giant a gentle giant yeah for sure so nice he gave us uh he gave us a jaws the the fin because our fin is got a little weird it was like not registering right and he was showing us how to fix it and he's like i have one in my office i'll just go get you i'll just go get it for you and he just gave us the yeah he was like fin mech for the jaws that way you don't have to go through your distributor or your dealer to get it. And we just cut out the middleman on that one. Yeah, just got it straight from Kyle. Thanks for that, Kyle. Thanks again, Kyle. Yeah. Yeah, so nice. Hopefully he's not getting in trouble if any stern big bigs are watching like, Kyle's giving out Jaws pins? We'll give it back. What the hell? We'll give it back. We'll ship it back if you're in trouble. And then you can ship it back to us. Yeah, what the hell? What the hell, Kyle? um the other thing kyle i think he said he commented on one of our posts about mustang he did and as a music pin and i got to play that one and it was pretty fun it so it's a ford mustang pinball machine by stern yeah who designed that one i don't know if i meant to look it up i'm gonna look it up as you talk but it was really cool and as you look it up i'm i'm also curious the one that was in Stern's lobby where they just have these bazillion machines was a special one. It was numbered out of 500. And I was wondering, like, you tell me, did they, was it just like a limited edition thing that they did? The Mustang? I'm going to see how many they made. Who do you think designed that based on shooting it? I don't know. Borg? No. Steve Ritchie? Nope. It's Trudeau. Oh. It's fun game nonetheless It's unfortunate that How many did they make? It doesn't even say how many They made This is a solid state I thought it was a DMD game Yeah it was a DMD game Oh it is a DMD game It doesn't tell me how many they made I think it was kind of shortish It's worth $4,700 to $5,400 Well if you see one out in the wild Hop on it Give it a ride. It was pretty fun, and there are some pretty great music call-outs on it. Yep. All right. Next, we've got a couple questions for the Senior Director of Marketing. I think that's his title. He'll tell us. He says his title on the thing. He's some kind of Director of Marketing. Yeah. Mr. Zach Sharp. Yeah, Zach Sharp of the famous Sharp family. Is Zach Sharp the one that coached up Jack Danger on how to play pinball? Yeah him and his dad Roger Sharp Zach and Roger made Jack Danger the player that he is This is the legend And oh what a player that is I mean he is a player He a great player He's probably better one-handed than I am two-handed. Also a very tall human. Very tall. Not as tall as Kyle. Tall, yeah. Kyle's taller. But two tall drinks of water there, I'll tell you that. So let's hear me ask some nerdy questions about marketing to Zach. All right. Okay, everybody, we are not stopping with these really quick interviews with super cool people here at Stern's headquarters in Elk Grove Village. And we have Zach Sharp. And, Zach, what's your official title here? Senior Director of Marketing. I love it. And you may not know this, and you may not know this, but Mike and I work in marketing, too, so we love to talk to other marketing people. Our brains never stop. It's a fun field. It's so fun. And wanted to ask you a couple quick questions that we've been curious about kind of as marketers. And the first one is, I'm really curious, when you're developing, you know, working as a team on ideas and considering different properties and licenses and that sort of thing, how much do you look at consumer behavioral data, I'll call it, like IRI or Nielsen, to determine what kind of crossover there may be with specific hobbies or interests or properties. Do you guys do that kind of stuff? Oh, yeah. I mean, we take everything into account because, I mean, not only from a domestic market, but we also have to look at a global scale too because some properties might perform well in Europe, but not necessarily in the U.S. So we take all things into account. And then to your point, is there any kind of crossover? and we saw some great crossover with Dungeons & Dragons. We're kind of that, like, not nerdy culture, but gamers very passionate about, you know, their property. And we saw some, like, really cool synergy with that licensor and that game. Obviously, it always helps when you have a really fun game, too, because then what's a better marriage than a good product, a good theme, and a fun pinball machine? Well, we think you hit it out of the ballpark on that one. And just as a follow-up question to that, But is that how you landed on Dungeons & Dragons? Was it really based in data a little bit more than? Not holistically based in data, but we definitely take it into account. Because there's also the element of just licensing in general. Because one of the big questions is, oh, how did you land on that license? Did they approach you? Did you approach them? No offense to us, we're asking Lucas to do Star Wars. It's not vice versa. But then there's bands that approach us, like Metallica with the remastered. They saw that we did a Rush machine with the LCD. We did a Metallica 15 years ago with the old dots. But they saw a new version with the pinball machine having the LCD. And it's like, well, we want that. So it's like they're approaching us. That feels cool. Yeah, twist our arm, Metallica. I guess we'll do another pinball machine with you. Well, I love the Metallica. Super cool that they reached out. That's got to feel very cool. So congratulations on that. And we love the remaster. It was the top of our list of when we ranked our favorite music pins. Oh, nice. That was number one. It's so great. Yeah, we each had a list. It was number one on mine, number one on yours both. Yeah, we love it. And Dungeons & Dragons, while we were driving up here this morning, we were talking about what a smart move that property was just to bring in new players into the world of pinball. So, like, yeah, kudos. Well done. Thank you. And I hope it's been a big success for you guys. Absolutely. Yeah, I think it was because there was a big kind of computer YouTube channel, and you sent him like a D&D to unbox. Yeah, Linus. We love that. And there were some, I'm not going to say his name. There's a grumpy pinball guy. It's like, that's so stupid. Which one? No, I'm joking. There's a lot. There's a lot. We don't say his name on this channel. He's like, that's so stupid. It's like, that video got half a million views. Yeah. So I was calculating that on the write-up. Let's say half a million people watched it, okay? Mm-hmm. if one half of 1% of those people decided to go play a pinball machine, that's $2,500. Think, right? Half of a percent of $500K is $2,500. I'm not a mathematician. We're marketers. We're marketers, so we think yes. This is like a music and pinball channel. Let me do that. But if that video got 2,500 people that had not played pinball to go play pinball, Of that 2,500, I bet you like 50 to 100 of them are now playing pinball regularly. Yeah. So you nailed it with that, in my opinion. And what's great is there's a false narrative that we gave a machine away. That's not to keep. It was just to borrow the machine and create content. So it wasn't even like giving away a machine. And I think he even said on the video, like, this isn't mine. Like, he's setting it up. Yeah, he's a fan. Yeah, real smart move. So, yeah. Thank you. We're cheering and rooting for you guys really hard, and everybody in the community for sure. But I know sometimes even though Stern is the biggest pinball manufacturer in the industry, you're not a big company. Oh, I mean, in the global scale of the world? No. It's not a big company. I mean, take a poll on the street. Do you know what pinball is? Like ping pong? They still make those things? Yeah. Trying to shift that narrative, and every year, every product launch, we shift that narrative. Yes, and we're rooting for you, and thank you again for inviting us to come here today. It's been awesome, and we can't wait to share this with all of our buddies. Yes, and that's what kind of we're doing here. Like the channel we're talking on right now, we've been around almost 10 years, and most of you have been watching like hundreds of punk and indie bands come play in our basement. And we've got, you know, almost 11,000 subscribers now, and then we became pinball addicts, and we think punk rock and pinball kind of hand in hand. When I was younger, and I've been playing since the 90s, we'd play at venues all the time. More venues should have pinball machines. Every venue. So we're kind of trying to pull in some of you pinball-curious music people into pinball, and I love what you did with the D&D kind of crossover there, so I think we have kind of a unified goal here to grow this thing. Let's go do it. And maybe even win a game. So we've got our D&D sweepstakes going on right now through September 28th. Oh, wait, what? Yeah. Okay. Is that by joining Insider Connected in the email? No, so you can get two entries, but one you fill out a form. It's on our website. We have it on social. We posted it. We'll bump it up again. Has it been up for a while? For a few months now. Yeah, yeah. It's closing up. So if you've already done it. Yeah, I think that's why I forgot. And PerryMenembaugh.com. No, we will tell everybody about that. That is awesome. Thank you for that reminder. And then one last question. Yes. Because we've had, I think most everybody we've had in today, because a lot of people watching this channel, we have some hardcore pinballers, but a lot are new. If you're giving me, let's say I've only played 10 games of pinball in my life. I know you're a good player. Thank you. What's the first thing you're going to tell me, like, Mike, you need to practice X if you want to get better at pinball? I kind of have, like, three things. One, don't be afraid to nudge the machine. I mean, these are commercial-grade pieces of equipment. We just told Deanna that from Sincere Engineers. We just taught her that. The game will tell you if you're being too rough with it. So risk-reward, but don't be afraid. I mean, the game won't bite you. Shoot the flashing lights if you don't know what you're doing. The game does a really good job of telling you what to shoot for to advance. And this sounds counterproductive, but don't be afraid to not flip. So there's this move called the dead flip, which you can let the ball kind of bounce off of a flipper to get control because that's what it's kind of all about. Don't just be reactionary, you know, see ball, hit ball. Like try to slow it down so you can aim your shots. And that's kind of like my go-to tips and tricks. The dead flip one I think is huge because – Play one-handed. It kind of forces you to learn how to let the ball bounce around. You can kind of see how much the ball is not in danger, even though you think it would be. So obviously if the game's on free play, you can do that more. Paying a dollar a play, you might not want it. It's nice to have one at your house. It's on free play because I was practicing dead flipping some months ago and just amazed how many times you can let it just bounce back and forth and back and forth. And it slows it down. Well, it's scary. It is scary. It's terrifying. Sometimes you just have to get out of your comfort zone and try something new. And like Pippi Longstocking said, I've never done that before, so I'm probably pretty good at it. One of the first guys I saw dead flip was our friend Joe Sharp, unrelated, but also a fantastic pinball player. It's in the name. It's in the blood. We would play tournaments and finish in last place, and I'd watch Joe and CJ and like, they're not even flipping it. What are they doing? So the dead flip, listen to Zach Sharp. It works. And with that, you've had a long day. We'll let you get back to it. Thank you. Never a long day in pinball. Yeah, right. We could be bankers. This is a great day, though. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. And we're back. Thanks, Zach. Yeah, it was super nice to meet Zach. Very cool, nice guy. Real nice guy. All right. The grand finale. Mike's moment. This one, I had to try to keep it together. And I was a little bit nervous. for this one. I think I could hear it because I just mixed the audio from it. But I did have to tell him to put the mic, talk into the mic, and then he did it for a second and then he put the mic down lower again. But he did a great job. If he comes over, he can coach us up on pinball and I can coach him up that the microphone should be close to your mouth. He's so cool. He's so cool. And he's just such a chill guy. John Borg. John Borg. Yeah. So let's see what John Borg. We just got a couple questions about designing this new Star Wars pin from John Borg. Yeah, we're not screwing around here, John Borg. All right. Hey, everybody. We are absolutely super excited that we have John Borg here with us on Punk Rock Pinball. My favorite pinball designer. Pleasure to be here. John Borg. Mike has been preparing questions. We live in Bloomington, Illinois. We drove up this morning, so we've been preparing these very specific questions for you. And we know your time is valuable, so get to it, boy. Yeah, first question. So you were tasked with doing this new Star Wars machine. Yes. You've done the Data East one, which is a fantastic game. 33 years ago. 33 years ago. Yeah. 33 years ago. Talk into the mic. So when you got tasked with this one, like when you're starting your research, was your first move to like binge watch these films? Oh, yeah, I binge watch. I think I spent a couple months looking at scenes and pulling speech and time stamps. That's the big thing, time stamps. Because all the dialogue that's from the films, I have to be able to provide a list so that that stuff can all get pulled and found quickly and easily without someone having to search through and find everything. So you're taking notes, hitting pause, like right on time. Going back, going back, going back, going forward, go back, go forward, go back. Get the time stamp right. So how soon do you want to watch the Star Wars movies again? You know what? I want to watch some of the other ones now. Yeah. I don't know. You know, there's a couple that I haven't seen. I never saw Mando. Oh, my gosh. And I love Bill Burr. Mando's great. And I meant to see it, but I just haven't had a chance. So when the rumors were swirling around earlier this year that there may be a Star Wars coming out this fall, I just want you to know, you can tell your friends at Disney, it reignited a spark in Mike. who has not watched any Star Wars in years, and he went deep. He started with Mando. Do you want to know why I did this? Why? Because you were designing the game. Oh. And I'm like, the new Stern is going to be, because I wasn't a big Star Wars guy. You hear that, Disney? I wasn't a big Star Wars guy. There are some people that know a lot more about Star Wars than I do, but I know a lot, but some of these guys, they know it all. Yeah, I've heard Mike Vinikour knows a bunch. Mike Vinikour is really sharp. So, yeah, I hear... Seth and George both have some pretty in-depth Star Wars man knowledge, too. So I hear the next Stern's a Borg. It's going to be Star Wars. So I'm like, I'm going to get back into this. Awesome. Because I'm going to like this theme because it's the Borg and I'm going to want to have the game. So John Borg and Stern Pinball got me back into Star Wars. Thank you. Awesome. And I have just one other question, and then we can let you go and we can eat some lunch. All right. So your pinball machines, your layouts, are kind of notoriously a little bit challenging, especially on the outlanes, a lot of people say. I tend to shoot really good on your games. Are you talking about getting bored or just the outlanes are big? I'm talking about kind of getting bored. Yeah. Well, I do add rubber there now. I don't have that wire form that's right at the edge. Like on Monsters. Monsters? Monsters has the wire on the right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody, I went to a show once, and I saw a girl, she had a T-shirt, and it showed a picture of the out lane and the return lane and the slingshot, and it showed the ball bouncing into the out lane, and it said, I got bored underneath it. That's awful. And then that's when I, it's like, I've got to start giving, I've got to give them a rubber ring. I've got to give them a mini poster, at least to give a sporting chance. Give us something to bump off. But when you, so you've got a theme now like Star Wars, like the new Star Wars. you want it to be challenging for a great player, but you also want it to be approachable for a noob. So what goes through your mind in terms of the layout to find the balance? This is hard enough for tournament guys, but it's still approachable. Like the center shot on this game, the ramp goes up, and most novice players flip with both flippers in some cases, and they shoot up the middle a lot. So I put that there. So they're going to be rewarded when they hit that shot. They're going to go, oh, my gosh, it went through the back panel. It came out over here, and now here it's back on the flipper again already. I just made sure that the Sarlacc pit is an easy shot. It's kind of up the middle. The Death Star shot is up the middle, kind of sort of to the left a little bit, and it's a hard shot, and that's the one that you – if the Death Star wasn't hard to defeat, then we wouldn't have all these movies. That's true. Yeah, Death Star should be hard. You've got to just pound away at the Death Star. And I played the one game I got the Death Star multiball. And I'm that great. I blew up the Death Star 1 today for my first time. Nice. And it's awesome. The game goes, the flippers die, ball goes out, you know, you get the, you know, oh, my God, I can't believe I just did this. The pinball moment. And then all of a sudden the lights go all blue, and then it goes all red. And then the ball comes back out, and then you've got to go back and you've got to defeat Death Star 2. And then all the character modes are, there's three modes for each one. So there's a lot of depth in the game, too. So you're going to be busy. And that's like already, those modes are in there already. So it sounds like pretty deep code. It's pretty deep. Pretty deep code at launch. Probably more than I'll be able to get to a player like me. It's very enjoyable to play as it is right now. Amazing. And it's not completely finished yet. Yeah, having played three games, I really enjoyed it. Can't wait to get one. And that's all we have. See, it's painless. Awesome. That's all we've got. And usually we ask, like, do you have any advice for a new pinball player? but I feel like on Star Wars you just told us what to do. Yeah, you've got to practice using the force magnet at the bottom of the play field. Okay. So when you spell J and the E in Jedi, the action button lights. So if the ball drains and it comes down toward the magnet in the middle below the flippers, right when it gets to about the magnet, you hit the button, and it propels it up the right part of the outline, and it goes right back into the shooter lane. There's a little opening there. I've got to go experience this. So you have to hit it at the right time, right? When you look down and you're looking down, you can see a little bracket that we added that kind of helps bump the ball toward the magnet. Right when it hits that bracket is when you want to hit that button. It goes whoosh, and it goes right into the shooter lane and gives you your ball back. Awesome. Use the force. Use the force. Yeah. Thank you so much, John. Thank you, John. Thank you very much. This is awesome. It was nice to meet you both. And congratulations on an amazing game. Everyone's going to love this. This is incredible. Enjoy Fall of the Empire. Mike, I think you did a really good job with those questions. Thank you. And you didn't really fanboy out. I tried not to. I did tell him he was my favorite designer, as you saw. I asked John and Raymond kind of a similar question because I just wanted to know. I just wonder when you get a theme, where the hell do you even start? Like, I'm doing a Star Wars pinball. What the hell? What am I going to make it do? Yeah. I also had a perimenopausal hot flash during that one. Did you? Oh, God. Sweating? Mm-hmm. Sweating it out? Yeah, I was like, oh, my gosh. And that room was cool. That was like the coolest room in the thing. There's a little bit of background noise in those, but I was able to get most of it out. There was like some construction going on behind us. But, yeah, it was kind of warm in the place. It was a warm day. It was a warm day. Yeah. All right. I think we can wrap this up, but before we do, I got a package in the mail oh yeah let's see this I forgot we were going to do this I know I did too we were going to do this at the beginning but we're doing it at the end I don't know what's in this but this is something from sincere engineer addressed to me it arrived today in the mail did you know she was going to ship you something I had no idea do you have a guess let me feel it I think you're right I think you're right. I think you're right. Let me see it. I have an idea what this is. I could be wrong, but I think I'm going to guess it's a DVD of the movie Dirty Work. Which is so awesome if it is, because I don't think we have a DVD player. No, I don't know that we do. Like, none of our computers take... No, and I don't think my Xbox... Does my Xbox take it? I have the Series X, but I don't know if it takes discs. It might. All right, I got my thumb in there. Really wrapped up good. I think it's a Dirty Work DVD. I could be wrong. Oh, it's even more than a Dirty Work DVD. It is a multi-feature of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Dirty Work, Married to the Mob, and Men at Work. I have seen the other three. And then we watched Dirty Work the other night. But I fell asleep. You only made it like 20 minutes in and fell asleep. That's what I do. I think our Xbox might play DVDs, so we may have to go down in the basement and watch the Dirty Work. I love Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. This might be the, is it like an extended cut? Because I think she said there's like multiple versions. No, that is like dirtier work or something like that, I think she said. This is amazing. It's a treasure. This is amazing. Deanna, you rock. And she's got a postcard with the full band. That is ridiculously cute. That's a good idea. Yeah, it's a great idea. Sincere Engineer postcards. What a good merch idea. that's a really good like merch table deal and then she said hi guys i tried i tried buying just dirty work and they sent me this four pack lol enjoy um it's my favorite movie ever thank you for telling me about pinball i'm a fan deanna so she is a fan because she's been like messaging you yeah favorite game did we talk about that in the last i think we did we did yeah half price nights on Wednesdays at Dave and Buster's. Yeah, we talked about that last episode. Yeah, she's a fan. The days all blur together. So she's going on tour soon. Go see her. Challenge her to a pinball game. When she's coming to your town, send her a message. Comment on her social posts and name the place. See if she shows up. This is officially going to be by far the longest episode. We warned you. It's a long one. They could watch it in a couple parts. Because even without the interviews, just us talking here is like almost an hour. Woo! It's like a feature. It's like a feature film. It is like dirty work. It's probably almost as long as dirty work. We just made a movie. We did. This is not a podcast. This was a movie. All right. Well, thank you, guys. We will see you next week. Yeah, see you.