Triple Drain Ep51: Tournament lighting debate and GTF streaming disaster expose American Pinball code reliability issues.
Summary
Triple Drain Podcast Episode 51 covers two main topics: supplemental lighting in tournament play (prompted by listener email) and Joel's problematic stream of Gottlieb's Greatest Hits (GTF), which experienced multiple critical software and hardware issues including ball tracking failures, unreliable multiball locking, malfunctioning co-op mode, and audio dropouts. The hosts discuss GTF's known issues reported on Pinside, American Pinball's dismissive responses to bug reports, and broader industry concerns about code quality relative to competitors like Stern and Jersey Jack.
Key Claims
GTF's 18 gigabyte code update took over an hour to apply to the machine
high confidence · Joel describing technical process of updating GTF code before stream
GTF has a documented issue where opening the coin door too long causes capacitor failure that disables all coils
medium confidence · Joel explaining the technical issue he encountered; confirmed he researched it and learned about the capacitor problem
GTF's ball lock mechanism pushes balls out when a new ball enters, causing the game to lose track of multiball state
high confidence · Joel detailed explanation of VCK (vertical cell) power issue causing ball ejection from lock; multiple reports on Pinside confirm this
American Pinball has dismissed GTF bug reports by claiming they don't see those issues on their machines
medium confidence · Joel citing Pinside thread responses from American Pinball, saying 'we don't see that on our game so it must be unique to yours'
GTF's co-op/team play mode doesn't work intuitively and requires undocumented steps to enable
high confidence · Joel and Jared spent 20 minutes trying to activate team play; mode selection appears at ball two of player two unexpectedly
GTF's magnet lock for ball capture fails approximately 50% of the time even when the green arrow shows it's ready
high confidence · Joel describing the magnet not engaging despite the lock being shown as ready; traced to two-switch detection issue on Pinside
GTF has audio dropout issues where game music drops out when too many sounds play simultaneously
high confidence · Joel reporting audio drop during stream that resets only after draining or major events
Stern games maintain consistent ball tracking and code reliability that GTF lacks
high confidence · Joel comparing his experience streaming Stern titles (Bond, Labyrinth) with no problems to GTF's issues
Notable Quotes
“this game's actually pretty good and I was a little nervous going into stream thinking I'm going to be accused of being a shill because I'm going to have fun with this game tonight”
Joel@ 15:52 — Joel was worried that praising GTF after setting it up would damage his credibility given widespread negative community experiences; shows the game has reputation issues
“18 gigabytes... Stern updates like five”
Joel@ 17:10 — Stark contrast in code update size between manufacturers; highlights unusual technical approach by American Pinball
“the game doesn't keep track of balls correctly because what'll happen is that ball is rolling down ready to play and there's already been another ball ejected into the shooter lane so you've basically got a freebie multiball”
Joel@ 19:40 — Explains critical game logic failure that breaks core mechanic (multiball); demonstrates cascading failure from one bug
“these are software based issues and unfortunately American pinball already two games... this was a software update that was supposed to help with some of these issues but what I'm reading on pinside is people have like submitted videos showing exactly this ball tracking issue”
Joel@ 26:09 — Joel's evidence-based critique of American Pinball's response to known issues; suggests pattern across multiple games
“the fact that the co-op mode doesn't or the team mode doesn't work in any sort of intuitive way makes no sense”
Joel@ 25:41 — Core UX/design failure in a modern game; indicates lack of user testing or QA
product_concern: GTF experiencing critical code issues: ball tracking failures, multiball lock reliability, co-op mode broken, audio dropouts, magnet failures. Multiple issues confirmed as known problems on Pinside forum.
high · Joel's detailed stream documentation, Pinside forum confirmation, multiple owners reporting same issues
?
code_update: GTF received 18GB code update (vs typical 5GB for Stern) that may have introduced or worsened existing bugs. Code update process itself caused coil failure requiring restart fix.
high · Joel describing 18GB download, hour-long installation, subsequent coil failure immediately after update completion
?
community_signal: GTF has accumulated significant negative reputation in community from ball lock issues and unreliable multiball. Joel initially hesitant to praise the game on stream due to fear of appearing shilled/losing credibility.
high · Joel's pre-stream anxiety about being accused of shilling; Josh Sharp's dismissive response; multiple Pinside reports; Joel noting owner defensiveness on forums
?
content_signal: GTF presented significant challenges for streaming content due to technical failures, making it difficult to demonstrate gameplay or explain rules. Joel unable to showcase game potential due to software bugs rather than design issues.
high · Joel's 2-hour stream derailed by cascading technical failures; comparison to smooth Stern and Jersey Jack streams
?
gameplay_signal: GTF's broken mechanics force players to abandon core strategies (multiball) and rely only on modes and tank destruction. Game's communication of valid states is poor (magnet shows ready but doesn't engage).
Topics
Supplemental Lighting in TournamentsprimaryGTF Code Quality and Reliability IssuesprimaryBall Lock and Multiball Mechanics FailuresprimaryAmerican Pinball's Quality Control and Customer SupportprimaryCode Update Process and File SizessecondaryStreaming Pinball and Technical ChallengessecondaryCo-op/Team Play Mode Design FailuressecondaryManufacturer Comparison (Stern vs American Pinball)secondary
Sentiment
negative(-0.75)— Episode is predominantly critical of GTF and American Pinball's quality control. Joel's streaming experience was frustrating and he carefully documents systemic software issues. However, the tone remains collegial and problem-solving-oriented rather than hostile; hosts acknowledge the game's beautiful art design and take some responsibility for not troubleshooting during stream. Lighting discussion is conversational and positive. Final message to GTF owners is sympathetic but firm about code reliability as a baseline expectation.
Transcript
youtube_auto_sub · $0.000
[Music] the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast oh man we're here we're here it is Thursday night it is uh 9:45 at night what a great time to be in pinball and this is uh this has been an interesting week but we knew we needed to record it was time to record and here we are episode 51 51 once again congrats guys we made it 50 we are now we bridged that so now 51 here we go um yeah this should be a good episode we actually we've got a lot to talk about uh and we're just going to let it all out we're just we're just gonna let it all out uh good and bad good and bad so um I'm guessing we're gonna get some emails on that episode and that's totally fine but um Travis are you ready to go you all riled up Joel you are no longer the worst thing so there you go love wonderful Tom how you doing I saw you lift that Prime bottle up you you are in you got the elect yeah he's oh the Logan Paul thing is that what that is those influencers those YouTube influencers man who knows maybe I'll get a sponsor there we go all right here we go three guys who like the talk ball so we came up with a CL our name we jool and TR time talk in all and we call ourselves triple drink triple drink triple drink trip triple triple drink oh here we are okay so stuff to cover tonight stuff to come cover tonight first off thank you so much for everybody that supports this podcast um you know anybody that supports us on patreon really appreciate that I was thinking of you guys because our Zen Caster yearly subscription just got autoaid to me so once again I really thank you so much for the people that support us on that you know it's just one thing that that we can help do as well as continue to you know do merch and all that fun stuff so really appreciate that also thank you to all the people that write us emails I do think we're probably going to get some emails this um this episode just because uh you know I I feel like the just the industry is a little riled up right now so uh feel free to share that feedback if you want um uh you can always email us atgmailcom or just comment on the YouTube video you know we read those we react to those should be good um we did get one email though that I wanted to uh read because I thought it was a valid question I'm curious what uh your guys thoughts are so Charles Charles EMA emailed us first-time listener longtime listener first-time caller got into pinball last year I recently started playing in a few local tournaments the venues that are hosting at are dimly lit and there are times when the Playfield light show causes me to completely lose side of the ball what are your thoughts on supplemental Lighting in tournament settings whether that be a headlamp like Andy Rosa uses or i' even seen some folks on Fox City streams that use little magnet pocket lights so I thought that was a valid question Michael Linberg yes so Tom being that you run Fox City streams sure what are your thoughts of supplemental lighting during tournament streams or tournament just tournaments honestly uh I think it's a good idea because uh typically I I'll use them when I need them so uh if if the Playfield is legitimately really dark and you're in a dark room it is hard to see the ball going around and especially when you got flashy lights and uh or or strobing GI which uh is just really nasty but uh uh I uh I will I'm not afraid to to throw either a a a head headlight on or a magnet light the thing you got to watch out with the magnet lights is is some of the older games have like stainless steel so it won't uh won't stick to that uh on the rails but um uh other than that I would say I am a huge fan of pin Shades the Travis is like SWAT is like SWAT a like a random Gat I apologize just ignore me go ahead Tom you're doing great um I I have found pin Shades to be really helpful when there is a lot of flashy lights and dark and darkness um for instance uh Tilton Tuesday we have our district 82 big big tournaments on on like every other Tuesday almost and uh uh Last Action Hero is notorious for like just flashy lights uh I wore pin Shades and it was like night and day difference I I could actually see the ball my eyes weren't uh going in and out uh people made fun of me all night but I didn't care cuz uh you know what you beat them it's yeah it's my eyes when you uh you I said to somebody they're like why why do you want the lights on can't you see in the dark and I said well you know when you for nine hours a day when you're in a well-lit room and you have a light in a tunnel uh and you're working in a small environment like that all day and you're wearing magnifiers uh you get used to the light in your eyes and when when you go from light to dark it's a big uh big difference so so once again your career is getting in the way of uh your professional pball I I'm not a big fan of playing in the dark uh some people are uh I know our our locals here at uh in Wisconsin prefer to play in the dark um you know I I think that's fine for like a barene or whatever I that doesn't bother me but um you know you're playing in major tournaments it's it's kind of nice to see yeah and um do you guys like officially if you look at the what is it the ifpa rule book is it is there any particular rules on what's allowed what's not allowed I don't think so is there Travis I don't think there's like a you're not sure I mean sometimes it just feels like a free-for-all but I don't I mean I don't know there I think there probably is in terms of not using I know I think it was like Neil shatz or somebody a long time ago brought out actual rules and just put them over the glass there's even video of it like going over the rule set and setting it back down so you can't do stuff like that but I know you can use light but then somebody else one time was asking me if they could use something that actually measures a plunge or something like that and I think that would be illegal I don't know when we were in uh when we were in Bulls and balls in Germany in folda uh they some some people were trying to use headlamps like I know uh I think it was Bob Matthews actually uh they had they had like built a new room room and it was really dark in there there was some lighting obviously but it was pretty dark and they were like no you you can't these are like visual aids you you can't you can't use a a headlamp or anything and can you wear glasses are you allowed to wear contacts right can you correct your vision with glasses I mean oh well that's that's yeah get yeah but but anyways uh you know people were like begging I remember Jeff tiis he was like he's like stream me so I can see what I'm doing well Jeff's also like 80 years old too so he probably has part time seeing yeah I mean he did get a senior discount if you saw him Facebook I heard about I read that that was cracking me up I um honestly I I um yeah I when I built my basement here um I ran all the electrical and so I I have the light directly over my pinball machines on a different circuit so I'll have those off but I have all the other lights in my room on that's how I'm normally playing which works really well it avoids glare but then I play so much streaming and streaming you're just flooding the game with light so it's you really kind of get spoiled with it you get spoiled with having constant bright light so I uh I there are times and I watch tournament streams and you realize even with that little bit of light that you may be added it's still looks so dark I I feel for you guys guys so um I don't know Travis you ever whipped out a light or a headlamp or anything like that in a tournament or you just tough it out it's yeah it's F I mean I like I said 10 years yeah I used to have uh lasic and then it just my eyes finally changed I got it when I was 18 and around 38 it finally changed so that's why I wear you see me out at events or whatever I wear glasses cuz usually other times I wear contacts but wearing contacts while trying to play Pinball it's just too IR so I just go with glasses so your body's just delayed is what I'm hearing so that beard might finally happen at about 40 so you know what happened Joel after I turned 40 my daughter legitimately earlier this week came up to me and she said Dad I'm afraid you're going to die and I'm and I'm like and I'm like well she said because you turned 40 oh it's like yeah she was like you're so old now I'm like well technically you're right I am going to die at some point but not like you know I don't plan on anytime soon want to make it to at least 45 yeah yeah random comment but I I literally just put my kids to bed and we go to the library all the time and my daughter's like hey I got a new book from the library the book's called my grandma left me a rocket that's what it's called and it's like a children's book sounds like a dope book yeah my grandma left me a rocket I was like okay let's open this up first three words when my grandma died was like what and it's literally the whole book is about like how she played with this child and they imagined all these things so she left him you know heartbreaking anding at the same time the fact that this is a straightup children's book and the first three words are when my grandma died I was like oh my gosh pod is getting deep here okay so with that well speaking of Grandma dying that's that's a good segue to the next segment no not at all Joel like okay uh gtf gtf speaking of streaming with lights there we go that's a better better segue there um all right so here's the deal I I obviously I stream for Zack on flipping out and I thoroughly enjoy doing it and honestly the rule is I'll stream whatever Zach wants and and he will he typically you'll stream whatever Zack makes you stream yeah but I'm not upset about it like I don't I don't no I wouldn't be either I don't care I don't I I just U legitimately all Pinball's fun or you can have fun with pinball why not and then now that I'm streaming more consistently with my brother like we're we're here to have a good time I don't care what the game is sure some games are more fun than others you haven't played Thunderbirds have you we're just no so uh you know the majority of the games that we stream are games that you can buy from flipping out it's like like a you know a marketing thing it it makes sense um so gtf gtf obviously he's been out well over a year or I think it's at least a year and he um that's just always kind of been there it's always been like well you know if we have a little we could stream gtf you know it's just always been a thing and uh I was looking at my schedule because I've traveled a little bit for work and we we realized we had kind of like a two- week span where we're like okay what's a game that we probably will only stream one time because some of the games will stream it try to discover it and then the next time we stream it we try to get somebody from the company on to help explain it a little deeper you know you don't want to over stream it or people get bored so like gtf gtf is probably a oneandone stream um yeah Zach warned me a lot of people warned me actually a lot of people warned me when they heard I had a gtf to stream other streamers warned me they just said okay if you're streaming gtf be prepared to take the glass off be prepared for technical difficulties just be prepared that's basically the warning I got um I was not prepared I was not prepared for it I was frustrated by the game before I even started uh capturing video was for whatever reason I have a nice capture card in my computer I'm pretty sure it's the same thing that Carl D'Python Anghelo uses for whatever reason can't capture that screen it was it comes in at some strange resolution I don't get it spent almost an hour of my life trying to get that working right before the stream panicking gave up put a video camera on it here we are so I'm starting the game frustrated I'm starting the stream frustrated and yeah it just went down from there it went downhill from there and it's um I will say uh gtf honestly probably one of the top five art packages of any pinball machine I've ever seen the game looks beautiful uh when I unboxed it or not unboxed it was Zach's personal line and when I set it up down here I'm like this game's incredible this game looks incredible the tank as dumb as it is it makes it stand out like it's just it has the Treads the tread the lights on the tread our sound activated I mean it's just absurd it's absurd all around have you folded it down yet to see it in its full tank I have and um honestly my kids think it's hilarious because they're like What's the game I'm like well there's she this evil ladies trying to steal your cows to take your planet's ice cream I mean they're just did you let them ride on the tank no no I did not I did not but there opportunity there was so much there that I was just like this game's I get it now I get I get the potential Vision it's so crazy it's one of those this is is so dumb or this is so crazy it just might work just goofy fun just what it is yep yeah and the night I set it up I was playing it and I'm like this actually shoots decent like every time I've played it Tom wants to SP sponsorship by Prime if we can make like with what you're saying you were pretty happy about the game you were saying some very good things about it in our chat you were very fired up happy for you Joel yeah everybody no I think you just knew you knew it was coming you knew I was I was yeah so every time I played it anywhere the the flippers felt so mushy or so weak I could never hit the ramp and there's there's only one ramp in the game and it diverts two ways but it's kind of an important shot so it's like I was just I I just could never get anywhere or I was pissed off with the tank because I know remember at tpf you hit the tank and the ball would literally jump over the flippers yeah which they've made a fix for so it's every previous experience with gtf probably 10 plus different individual physical machines always terrible I set this one up I know I know Zach with has said many times on the pinball show he actually likes the game so I was I I was prepared like this game might be okay uh played it that whole day played it the whole next morning and honestly in some of our Facebook chats you knew it you read it I was like guys this game's actually pretty good and I was a little nervous going into stream thinking I'm going to be accused of being a shill because I'm going to have fun with this game tonight my brother was excited to play the game I was like if we walk away from this saying it's good I I'm almost going to lose credibility because of how many negative experiences people have had I was like embarrassed to say I'm enjoying this game well all I had to do is stream it because it just over the course of two hours everything fell apart everything fell apart um and yeah long long story short it's there are some simple things there are some simple things when everything cuz I haven't got a chance to watch I I've seen the highlights yeah so I'll just ask what was the first thing like how long did you how long did you get to play before you were like oh crap something's that because obviously you got to play before the stream yes and everything was fine so that means you had game time on it prior so what happened was I upgraded the code I updated the code there was code that had come out a few weeks ago the process of updating that code was download it put it on your USB stick put it in the game that download file was 18 gigabytes 18 gigabytes nice like a St up package the stern updates like five and that's a whole new image sometime except for rush rush was rush but this is 18 gigabytes and it took well over an hour to do so I literally set it started going and I went to the other end of the B uh the basement watched a show came back it said it was done and I went to play a game and none of the coils in the game worked not a single one turn the game off turn it back on nothing's working I'm like what just happened but the game thinks it's fine there's it's not showing any errors it's not saying there's any problem I hit the start button it's acting like everything should start it never kicks a ball in the trough you're hitting the buttons none of the flippers are moving nothing I realized like I have nothing I got nothing and got nothing it was late it was late at night and I was like I'm going to bed I'm going to try again in the morning uh what I come to realized is apparently there's something in the game where there's some circuit where if the coin do open too long it like some capacitor dies or something and you lose all your your all your coils like that's a thing and people complain about it because if you're if you're a tech during a stream and you leave that door too long because you're trying to fix something or repair something dies and the fix is you shut it all and you leave it alone you leave it alone for like five or 10 minutes and it will magically fix itself did you try blowing on the cartridge sure didn't sure didn't so the next morning when I turned everything on it worked so it just needed a nice the fix you thought would work worked the problem was I tried tried to fix it before then and my fix was like okay none of the coils are working so let me just reset everything so all the settings that Zach had like fine-tuned on his machine I had reset it I had reset everything what that caused was the main locking mechanism for the ball the main multiball locking mechanism in the back there's a vck that shoots a ball up and it's supposed to hold the balls well whatever the mechanical thing is That's supposed to hold the ball back if that vck is too powerful and there's a ball sitting there when the next ball comes in it knocks the first ball out so the game thinks there should be two balls locked and what's happened is the second ball has pushed the first ball out and it's out in free playing area and the game can your flippers still work yeah when that's happening and that's the thing is the game doesn't keep track of balls correctly because what'll happen is that ball is rolling down ready to play and there's already been another ball ejected into the into the the shooter Lane so you've basically got a freebie multiball so here I am not knowing the rules when I first played and I was just thought oh this is odd it's a two ball multiball I thought it was supposed to be a three but as soon as you start playing that path the game is screwed the game has no because you drain but it still detects a ball so it doesn't know where you are it just it just it it just ends up in an infinite Loop of confusion you're saying so I'm like cool that's great so as I'm streaming I'm realizing like I cannot I can't count on multiball it's almost like I have to avoid multiball not only that to but you're you're okay at doing that so multi yes it's not a big deal right yeah no big deal so the other thing is to get the ball into the buck there's a magnet that's got to grab the ball and drop it in so there's this arrow on the left orbit it flashes green when that lock is ready well guess what 50% of the time when you shoot that green flashing arrow that magnet never grabs the ball it doesn't even act like it wants to grab the ball so I'm trying to explain these rules which I thought I understood and I'm telling my brother like yeah when this it let's lock a ball shoot the shot it rolls right by it I'm like well maybe we have to do something else to qualify it even though it's flashing green turns out there's two switches there and there's some issues with that where if both switches don't detect it the magnet never comes on these are known issues that have been reported within the gtf thread so I realized quickly into the stream you know the key one of the key parts of most games is multiball how do you get multiball how do you bring multiball into a mode here I am 20 30 minutes into the stream I'm like I gotta just ignore that I can't count on it so let's ignore it so then I'm just only counting on modes and you know when you're only playing a game with a handful of modes and that's all you can do is either bash the tank or play a few modes and the number of shots in the game is rather limit limited there's not a ton of shots in gtf I don't know we got to about 45 minutes in and I'm like I don't know what else to do I don't know what else to do in the game you should have folded it up and rode the tank around on the stream should did yeah so the other issue with the tank is um there's like six or seven I don't know maybe six tanks you're supposed to defeat uh defeating tank one pieace cake two not very hard but it's as soon as you get to three the number of hits you have to put on that tank is insane like it is oh it's like 20 plus hits I mean it's so many hits that's a lot yeah yeah and that's only the third level so it's I think I got throughout the night I got through the third one like once or twice and it's just like there's two more to go and you know they're only just adding more hits to it so it's just like okay well trying to destroy all the tanks that's not particularly fun so where it really fell apart though was somebody on stream reminded us there's a co-op mode um so we spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to actually do co-op mode you know TNA for co-op mode you you push and hold the start button when you add a player that doesn't work you know Stern you push and hold both flippers no somebody says you got to push and hold like the right flipper there's two buttons on the right and hit start we tried everything we were restarting the game I think resetting the game over and over again freaked it out even more then we come to find out team play is a feature you got to turn on so then we turned it on then we thought we were into it we're like sweet boom start a menu pops up it says choose your team we're like we're in it player one I choose my team then I go to hit player two thinking I would choose their team no the game just starts reset reset I mean 20 minutes we finally like we're done with this we're done with this just went to play a normal two-player game we get to ball two of player two and a window pops up that says choose your team no way yeah yeah all two of player two is when apparently that's the point where you choose your team and that's where we realized oh I think team play only expects you to have four players because that's the fourth ball oh ball two of player two so it's like dang did they not think about like what like what is this so it's just it was literally stuff like that one after another after another and this is all on stream it's all on stream it's all to be watched I don't understand it Jared and I were losing our mind we're having a great time like we just we just like embraced it at this point you know just yeah I I saw the uh the clip of you with I guess somehow yeah how how did you do that you had like the voice echo thing I picked up my kids have this little karaoke mic and I picked it up and just started uh you know we just kind of started announcing our feelings and and um yeah like do you want to play a game that uh has a consistent reliable ball lock no you know like it was just we just we just rolled with because what else are we going to do what else are we going to do at that point I mean you got to send that to Tom for his tournament streams of course got the best I popped in there when some of that was happening I was like what is going on so like Joel has finally lost it much was I'm like he has gone off the deep end all these years of weekly content have finally like just burnt out to where he just lost it so oh and then also there's audio issues like the just the the game audio like the music just drops I think it's when too many things over go over top it just drops it's gone so you have is some random sound effects until you either drain or do a major event which kind of resets everything so do you think all this is just because of the code update because this just it just seems like some wild issues for a game that's been getting manufactur for over a year but that's when I dove into pinside and found that people somebody had clipped I think it was uh pin monk had clipped my little rant at the end of the video shared it and multiple multiple people were like this describes being a gtf owner perfectly because honestly every issue that we ran into are known issues was yes so that's what I ran into where it's just like the fact that the co-op mode doesn't or the team mode doesn't work in any sort of intuitive way makes no sense and right so that to me I'm not trying to be like a debie down or anything but it's just like these the issues these are software based issues and unfortunately American pinball already two games p no Valhalla was that before gtf or after it was before before okay but it's like they have gtf this was a software update that was supposed to help with some of these issues but what I'm reading on pinside is people have like submitted videos showing exactly this ball tracking issue like if this lock fails it doesn't know this and basically American Pinball's response apparently has been well we don't see that on our game so it must be unique to yours so it's like or the audio dropping out and they're like yep I updated my code you know I'm reading this was a week or two old I'm updated my code nope audio still audio dropping issues still the ball track I don't know so there were people you still having the issues I like have you tried to play the game afterwards so one thing I did do was and that's I lowered the vck power and that helped because now it's not pushing the ball out as much previously it was pushing the ball out 100% of the time see listeners out there Joel is trying to come up with Solutions he's even gone to pinside yes I read things yeah no so I uh now it's like one out of every five times it'll push that ball out um but once it's out it's done like you're screwed you can't you can't like the game doesn't know how to handle it right so it's just I can see it's one of those things where I think that's my plea that that stream and some of the comments there are gtf owners that are defending like I don't have these issues great but my my plea is like there is so much potential in that game and I just think they really American pinball needs to pay if it's I think whoever's coding that game I don't think it's somebody that works at American pinball I think it's they needs to hire out I don't know but they if they would sell so many more if the the code was consistent and reliable and that's the main thing that has been probably the biggest eye open is a lot of the other games that I stream the code is consistent and reliable and that's something that is not easy to do and I remember when I did my first Labyrinth stream talking to some of the labyrinth employees in the background how nervous they were because they wanted to make sure the stream ran well and I get it now because when you have a stream that doesn't go well it's not a good look and you know honestly every time I stream Labyrinth no problems at all you know the majority maity of all Stern games that I've ever streamed even new or early code like Bond code that we got we were one of the first like they can keep track of balls you know that's not like so I just it was kind of a a pat on the back to a lot of the other companies that I've streamed like you know I give me a consistent and reliable game give me that that's I can I can find fun in that but once you have a game that's FL I mean you guys know hardware issues if a switch is is flaky in your machine it kills the fun of that game but some of this wasn't Hardware this is software and if the software is flaky like what are you gonna do so I don't know you guys have played gtf apparently you guys you guys have had similar issues or complaints but it's that was last time last time I played it was at a show called tpf a year and a half ago I think I think I did try it one more time at interium last year I think when I was there in August and on ball two it malfunctioned on me and so I just like stood there for a moment nothing happened went and got somebody I told him something is happening here cuz it was the game was way off in the corner because they had it away from everything else if I remember right I might be getting my dates wrong but I do remember playing that and then I remember walking by and actually seeing out of all people playing it Josh Sharpe oh yeah of course I said hello to him and he said f off so yeah there you go you get that too back to our original uh email uh we may or may not have shared that with uh potentially the president of uh ifba and his response may or may not have been something along the lines of uh don't be a wuss you know that was just just saying maybe maybe the G version yeah hey Mr IP president what are your thoughts on this don't be a wuss um well that's not the views of triple drain triple drain we say you do you you do you bring a light dominate like Tom that's what we say yeah okay so gtf Tom you have you played G gtf is there a do you have one onc yeah there's one at Lumberjack Johnny's in Appleton um I really haven't seen many issues with it uh I don't know if I don't think they have the ball lock though like it kicks it out but maybe maybe it's not that's the thing maybe they don't and it's kicking it out every time like like mine was and uh but if you can get to a three ball multi I mean maybe that's the trick you just go to Virtual and then it that's what I think it's set up but then you get your three ball M and those are the things that I should have done better I should have tried to troubleshoot Something In The Stream you know let me it's definitely your fault Joel I don't know thought of turning the buck down I literally figured that out 10 minutes after I shut the stream down or I should have just set it to Virtual we all know Zach is sabotaging American that's what seeing some of the uh some of the comments are like well if your goal of the if the goal if your goal of the stream was to kill this game then you guys did a great job it's like that like we weren't trying to why would anybody selling a product for a company want to kill it that's a great idea Tom that's that's it was a unique opportunity for some memes though like the Grim Reaper meme that's going door too I wish somebody would have put that out with Joel's face on the Grim Reaper God instead I don't know would have been awesome I mean it was fun it's I send in your artwork to Triple Dre that the reality is is that you know we Joel you've talked to us candidly like you know in chats and all that about gtf and everybody knows that you've been like super excited about gtf for a year and a half now talking about lunch box and gtf and all that and we were all excited about the idea of it because it's just so goofy and it's so out there it's like it just might work like a be horror movie or something like that and yeah the art looks fantastic it looks yeah great so does yeah I mean hopefully it gets figured out hopefully like whoever owns it hopefully they're enjoying it you know cuz I mean you want to see pinball do well but yeah you got to be honest about what's happening it's kind of hard hard to if a game's malfunctioning during the stream over and over and over again there's over 100 plus people watching it kind of can't hide things at that point makes it a little bit tough yeah and that's what um yeah I just I got multiple messages for it uh some you know defending it some like thanks for putting this out in the world because as an owner I wish American pinball would acknowledge these things then had other people like that's the best stream you've ever had you know like they're just just our misery things go wrong best stream you've ever had I'm like okay all right well um but yeah okay well that's uh that's enough of that um we'll just we'll just go yes we'll just go ahead and get to our last topic our last topic is John Wick joh almost done yeah we're almost done 30 minutes in it's gonna be the shortest podcast we've ever ever listened to um or ever recorded uh John Wick John Wick is here John Wick is has been revealed um and we're gonna kind of tackle this in two parts so first we're going to tackle it just genuinely as pinball enthusiasts as the three of us looking at a new game just looking at what was released you know this is the first game from Elliot uh something I think it's pronounced isan ellot I thought Tim ston did the game Timon lead yeah we'll get to we'll get to that we'll get to it but new game new game so just just straight up initial reactions as a pinball machine like what were you know it's new day like you guys did probably the same thing rewatching the trailers looking at the shots zooming in trying to figure out the mechs we'll start with Tom Tom did this tickle your pickle were you ready were you ready to go on this pinball machine to add it to your collection yeah I mean I did uh I did talk to Zach about getting a pro okay so um I I like the shots I mean I like the fact that there's three ramps they look kind of tight um but uh I I didn't really care for the the mechanisms on the premium okay I I didn't I I the the car moving I thought that was pretty cool honestly uh but the what is it like the weapons crate yeah the Box um I wasn't a big fan of that box just sitting on the lower Playfield like that um that just my opinion maybe if I played one and got to experience it but I just think it's going to make the game a little clunky okay so um I was just like yeah I saw what I saw and I'm like I'm going pro and this one um so okay maybe I may I might start start going pro on all the games if I if I buy them so we'll see you know I'm not um the I mean typically the game that I stream is the pro and I I actually kind of like it because if you can fall in love with a game and it's a pro it says a lot about just the layout and it says a lot about the code and so to me it's like if you fall in love with the pro there's a decent chance that then playing the premium or upgrading is only is potentially going to upgrade that fun and that's at least how I felt about Jaws that's how I felt about Godzilla you know it's if you can fall in love with the pro like even Venom I actually had fun on Venom Pro and then I go to play the premium and the shots are now physically changing and it's like well this is way better so um I don't know for some people it's weird though now how Stern's making them though it used to be advantageous to get a pro to to almost try it out and then resell it if you would potentially get a premium but now they're kind of doing it flip-flop but anyways uh Travis your initial thoughts just looking at the game for it being a pinball machine no marketing no theme enthusias wise or as a dealer because the first time I saw it was as a dealer I don't care about your job I want to know about you as a pinball in person maybe he cares about his job um let's see I'm like I'm having to go through all my feels because I didn't really get to think about well no I'm saying I didn't get to really think about this game from the Enthusiast perspective until like an hour later right because I had I had to break down well that's a whole another thing I'll just talk about from the Enthusiast point of view yeah you know me personally I like the theme because I like the John Wick movies have them have all four G or all four movies 4K love the cinematography like I'm huge into that like I'm a movie like you not I won't say buff but I love watching movies on my free time okay so John Wick I've probably seen these movies multiple times and the idea of pulling something into pinball is exciting to me just from a player's perspective okay right and when I saw this layout it did not look like a layout that's the type that a casual would do too well on so when I see it I'm thinking well wait that word well sorry a brand new player would do well on so I see it as a challenging layout so for me personally as a player that kind of excites me a little bit I was excited that there was going to be a new designer in it that has new ideas possibly or you know because I don't know who they've been mentored by I don't know you know what they're all about so I was curious to see that that was exciting and of itself and uh yeah I mean to me I'm interested in playing this game because of what the layout looks like and I'm interested in playing the game based off the potential of the rule set in the code it's fascinating to me how the AI combat system that they dubbed I'm interested to see how that works in relation to how the ramps work since the ramps are the allies and just to see how the enemies would react to that so there's certain aspects of that that caught my eye I was interested in and I do like the IDE of where that shot is to the red circle area the red circle Club just because it reminds me of the kiss shot it's like the whatever it's called the star child shot or St yeah yeah so i' I've always been fond of that shot from John Borg so something like that uh fascinates me it's just when I first saw this I start really thinking about where I've seen some of these ideas at before like the left ramp kind of reminded me of Foo a little bit although it's way further up on the Playfield the right ramp kind of gave me lead Zeppelin Vibes a little bit just because it's a quick 180 you know and I kind of saw some kiss Vibes and then at the same time I saw you know like a partial Venom type Vibe just with the center ramp just kind of where it's at and just how it goes around so you know there's just certain things on it that seems familiar but I am very interested to see how that right ramp really works just because where that entrance is on the right side with a scoop right there's no orbit right there it's just scoop and then those gold targets right there and then right ramp yep so that's interesting to me but yeah just like Tom was saying saw the premium saw what was on there I don't know I I still don't know what to think about the trunk because that spot that's an interesting spot if it's a pop bumper but that trunk I don't know if that's going to react to anything at all besides just kind of thuing off it I don't know yet and I haven't really got a good feel of that Beyond watching whatever gamepl has been available since then and the only gameplay that's been available to watch has been on the whole influencer thing we'll we'll get it that's all I have to go off of right now so the trunk I know it it registers hits like it is a bash toy correct on on the pro and it opens up on the pro or it opens up on the premium and the Le and on the pro it's just automatically open yeah so I'm I'm guess on a premium andell when the trunk is closed and it's down it's not just a dead like you're hitting a wall like I would assume there's some give or a little bounce but I also don't think it's Rea like pushing your ball away or anything so it's probably like a hard target like just a bash toy just like just like you look at this it's your ball is going to be rebounding off a lot of different things right I mean you do have your three ramps you do have your two orbits but most of the other time it's like you got the car back bash you have Captain ball at the building bash you have the gold targets right there you have the Blood Oath targets to your left you have the trunk right there or whatever you want to call it so I mean there's just yeah it just seems like that there's a there's a chance for some clunk that is there but obviously it's it's meant to be that way though otherwise those things wouldn't be bash optional so I am curious to see how how that works when we see the gameplay and how that works with we get to play it yeah um yeah no my my initial Impressions um you know first one would be obviously theme and it's it's it's a theme that's potential like would I would I own this game potentially you know there are there are other themes out there like alvra like I know I know that's I just I'm not going to be able to have that in my house and so it's like there's or Texas Chainsaw Massacre I'm not I'm not going to be able to have that in my house so uh this is potential potentially uh and then the second thing noticed always right off the bat is just art the overall vibe that the game gives off and honestly that I love the art I love the art on this game um I my favorite color is purple purple and greens I mean that's why I love the gtf art purples greens pink neon that type of look that it gave out somebody one of the podcasters said it kind of gives them A shadowy vibe I love the art on Sha shadow that Noir type style so this neon look the way that they they stacked up the Plastics um so that the the the cityscape glows that way um when I had Guardians of the Galaxy I had these plastic protectors that basically did that I loved the way that looked so my initial Impressions looking all over the art I'm like I like Randy Martinez I'm like I am loving this art I love the way this this pin artistically looks so I was like big old thumbs up for me loving loving this art package loving the way it looks um and uh and then I started looking at the shots and it's like okay this is a new designer now I have no room to talk I've never tried to design a pinball machine it's clearly got to be hard but you know I I got to give credit where credits du Jack danger he came out with Foo Fighters and it was just like wow that is a an an incredible layout for a first go you know like that it was Innovative it was unique some very interesting shots took some risk you know with some of the the the cfu Target and the inline Target like took some risk and it paid off that game shoot really really well so I I say this not to be negative but when I saw this game I'm like okay Elliot's layout it's a little safer it's a little safer you know three ramps some you know got he's a mechanical engineer doesn't surprise me that there's some X on there um but they're not they're just you know they're their bash toys essentially I'm not trying to downplay it obviously what the car does is unique but it's not like it's you know the Medieval Madness Castle or the or the the Drake building in Godzilla you know these like crazy unique mechs it's just like okay that's an interesting spin on a bash toy um I do like that the the tar the the car is essentially a bat toy on the side it can hold back a ball then it moves and I love game State changes so I do like that the trunk you know eliminates a shot then it opens up and now you have an extra shot it would be curious to see you know so I would say the overall layout I was like okay right now you know just my initial impression of the layout give it a b maybe you know just not not bad not not blowing blowing my skirt up as my dad always says but um yeah it just it was like okay that's that now code this early on I don't care and the reason I don't care is because Stern will fix it if it sucks Stern will make good code typically the code is going to end up I would say at least a b like Stern is very consistent at at doing that but they they sprinkled in some good stuff with like the the the enemies AI you know reacting to that I thought that was that's like okay so depending on how you play that'll be really interesting on how tournament Players decide to because you guys are all about your path so it's like do you purposely Miss shots to make it easier later on I don't know like you know erer is GNA try to outsmart the AI and find a way to help him I I thought it said somewhere that if you kill enemy or I guess if you defeat enemy I I don't know how they're doing on here but anyways once you defeat an enemy I thought it's said something to the extent that that actually increases your mode value or your multiball value I could swore I read that on the rule card I could be totally wrong but there has to be some some way it there has to be a benefit to doing it besides just it being in the way so okay I I I was getting the vibe that and I don't know which way they're going but it's if you for whatever reason have that middle ramp dialed in well are they going to start putting enemies on that to slow that down or they or they realize you know what that's that's the shot he does well so let's actually put the enemies like are they going to help you and put the enemies elsewhere are they going to put the enemies on the shots that you're best at to try to slow you down that's the vibe I'm getting which is good oh Travis has his hand up yeah oh he's reading oh we're pointing I'm reading it right now it says defeat enemies to increase the shot values during jobs and battles and multiballs okay yeah it's I don't know I mean there's that's unfortunate with all the media that's out there right now now we really don't have any idea how the code is um we're recording this on a Thursday night I think they're streaming it tomorrow have they announced when they're streaming is it tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow at 4M Yep this may or may not be released before the stream so enjoy the stream tell us how good the code is I Don't Know audio let know how it goes I'll be on a flight so I do like uh I do like the call outs the fact that they got the movie actor I I just he has a good voice um but yeah I would just say My overall you know coming away from reveal day I was like I'm looking forward to playing it am I am I pulling my wallet out is it a must have no uh just right off the bat but I would it's not a dream theme of mine so it's not no surprise but I'm looking forward to playing it looking forward to streaming it uh one thing that did really excite me is the fact that the expression light kits are available for all three models as well as the speaker light kits and if you think about it if the speaker light kit is available for these games I'm guessing you could buy a speaker like kit and put it in Jaws so all your premium owners may be able to get the speaker lights to match the Le lights I think you could probably do that um just a thought just a thought if I had a premium that's what I would do um so I like that I like that Stern is releasing those as additional accessories um so I don't I came away I I've been on a business trip all week so it was literally like I kind of had to set aside 10 minutes to step away and watch this but I walked away feeling good um and then I had a chance to catch it up on it all later and that's when and I started reading all the other comments so anything before we dive into those comments anything Tom you said you're interested in a pro is that right or you're you're thinking about it yeah I'm I'm interested in a pro okay I I I think it's going to shoot well honestly but yeah you know until you actually play it so I I that's the thing I don't want this I don't want to discredit like there's a lot of good here and there's a lot of potential to be great here so let's not diminish that I got to AUST to play it and get one so it's going to yeah it is weird how they're doing the the release structure so um by that time I might decide I don't want it so a true yeah if um if you guys listen to this podcast P for pure joy positivity and entertainment thanks for listening you can probably turn it off at this point but if you want to hear some other opinions go to our patreon yeah go to our patreon yes got to hear some other opinions here we go um I was so surprised about the gun comments because I didn't notice it I scrutinized the art I did not notice did either of you guys notice it until you read a comment I really wasn't paying attention I just figured there were guns everywhere so I wasn't even looking for it all right so it I'm going beat out I'm going to be flat out honest in the middle of the webinar I realized it I was looking at it and I was just think to myself no effing way and I just I looked closer and sure enough I was like oh my God and I immedately texted my work chat and I said oh [ __ ] like I knew I knew immediately immediately as soon as I saw that I knew that this was going to be a thing and rightfully so because there's numchucks well I mean so let me preface this with I know for me I don't care like whatever your politics are so this is not going to be a political discussion I don't know how you two feel but we're not going to bring politics we don't care F way but I understand by saying we don't care some people are going to get really fired up so it's that's fine that's fine somebody our goal is not to fire anybody up right now hey no that's fine if you want to care that we don't care about politics during a pinball podcast go right on a head I'm just speaking from as somebody who wants to put a roof over their head by selling this game as soon as I realized there was no guns on it I said oh [ __ ] I knew immediately just because so real quick clarification Travis works for a pinball distributor so his view the pinball company so I'm watching it on the webinar y this has changed your the way that you look at pinball has drastically changed since you started working in the industry well yes and no it's it's one of those things to where I still at pinball through a Fan's eyes right but I also got to look at pinball based off what is reality because reality is what makes money making money is what keeps me employed and keeping employed is what keeps my kids fed and keeps me from having to sleep on the couch at night so you know let's just get that straight but yeah when it came to the guns thing as soon as I realized that I was just like oh crap this is going to be bad and the reason why I knew it was going to be bad is because the whole thing about John Wick is gun fu that's a big deal like how he does all his fighting stances how he does all the choreography everything that's a huge deal with this type of theme and so when I saw that this wasn't on the art especially when it wasn't in the crate I was thinking to myself people that are big fans of this yeah they're going to be pissed and the reason why is because the art plays a huge part in their decision making and for them art is firmly attached to theme integration firmly it's I mean I've talked to you guys about this before we sell limited edition pens to people that just get them for the art because they see it as an art piece so when you do something that kind of betrays or subverts expectations of somebody that is a huge fan of that theme that's the reaction you'll get and we're not even talking about the whole political reaction to it like whatever I don't care I care about what do fans of this game that are high intent consumers that want to potentially buy this game what are they going to think I knew immediately as soon as I saw that I was just like what is happening like I just yeah immediately imagine imagine Star Wars without a lightsaber right you know yeah literally is that yeah it is it is that it is that it's bad well I'm just trying to think of you know obviously Jaws I would I would assume you know the art is revealed on Jaws and everybody's like where's Brody where's Brody or Jaws comes out immediately wait the shark doesn't eat the ball I mean it's just they see one thing and it's like ah crap you know it's like this is this is the whole that the Doug you know you're already backpedaling from a sales perspective in the game isn't officially out like see yeah well there's all kinds of things that goes on with license right there there's all kinds of things that I've learned about over the past couple years that's opened my eyes to to different things and then there's other things that I thought would be true ends up being true so on and so forth but one of the things about this this is just different than not having Brody or a character on right it it's almost the gun is an extension of John Wick himself sure so just just like Tom said it is like his lightsaber that's how important it is if you see all the movie posters it's there it's the classic quotes of everything it's the main action scenes to it and so yeah as soon as I realized it wasn't on there I just I could not believe it that was just that was the first thing that just really caught my eye because I was in the middle of looking at it and seeing what all characters made it on there because they were talking about you know what characters are part of the game and then I realized well wait if there's different characters of the game that means they have to get approvals for different people people and there's a lot of people in John Wick so they may not be able to get everybody and of course if you look at it you can tell well they didn't get everybody but they got the people they wanted to so in doing that that's when I realized wait I don't see one gun anywhere in there and I'm just like people are going to be pissed instantly I I just I knew and I made the decision early on I was like I told uh Dominic my cooworker was like I'm not going to post any pictures up on our socials anything because this is going to cause a storm I know what's coming I want to avoid it we're just going to wait we're going to wait it out and sure enough an hour later wow it's like oh yeah [ __ ] just hit the fan yeah yep exactly I know Distributors um and this can lead us down a whole another Direction but it's um Distributors are they're given a seminar they're shown the game like 30 minutes before everything goes live and that's the official first time that they see any part of the game and so I know Distributors are spending that 30 minutes and in the back of their head they're trying to figure out how do I think this game's going to sell because I have to I have to tell Stern I have to basically commit to buying a certain number of these very soon absolutely blows my mind like that you have to make a decision like a split second decision yeah I mean it's kind of so without going too deep in the woods it's not like an instantaneous decision sure but but it is decision yeah it is a decision to figure out okay how is this going to sell what what is this going to do and you know to be quite honest with you it's it is impossible to do a webinar find out about this game and then get the assets literally as soon as the game goes live for everybody else that's when we get the assets on our like I said I can't speak for any other dealer or distributor out there I don't know their strategies I don't like everyone has a different strategy to go about it they have a different customer base that they that they go to for us we rely heavily with online we rely heavily on online marketing with search engine optimization spend I mean I'm telling you right now we spend a lot of money on marketing just to get the stern brand out and just to sell these games so we have to make these decisions based on on inventory levels based on Revenue based on potential Revenue based on outflow based on inflow and so without getting into the weeds it's just us trying to figure out how not to lose our [ __ ] or how to gain a lot of [ __ ] back that's that's really what business is at the end of the day but yeah it's just it's very difficult and it's very stressful to see everything just like come into us like right after we see it we're trying to figure out okay how do we do this how do we navigate navigate it this way how do we go this direction and then on top of that we're we are trying to figure out okay we got to put this on the website how do we want to do this we got to put this we got to figure out like what keywording we want to do we want to figure out who do we want to get this out to what is the consumer base for this what are they going to think and yeah that's like this is all things that are happening that we have to discuss and we have to figure out in real time it's not one of these things to where these games come out and then our phones are just ringing off the hook non stop and we just like yeah fish in a barrel that's not how this works at all especially today so yeah it's just on top of like okay how's the customer going to react to no guns how are they going to react to this how are they going to react to a new designer how are they going to react to the theme yeah all the all these things play in into decisions for sure no doubt well and and some of these decisions I mean you you're playing the hypothetical game of you're trying to make some of these calls you know for you we all hear rumors speculation we're just we we speculate on rumors yes it it's incredibly frustrating Distributors are not given there's no heads up so it's not like a distributor is you know a month out three months out whatever like hey just heads up this is our next game no they hear they get the first official word that this is the game you're G to sell when the teaser trailer comes out that's the first official word that comes out so otherwise they're just going yeah they're just going off of rumors I mean I've heard other Distributors that they're like the best news I get is from podcasts from podcasts when they interview designers or they interview you know staff that drop little nuggets or or the ones that drop rumors that are correct yeah there's plent that drop incorrect rumors too yeah and that's the thing yeah and it's one of those things to where I personally I don't listen to a lot of content anymore the reason why I don't listen to a lot of content anymore is because I try to have a pulse with what is actually happening and a lot of stuff out here is not correct and then some stuff is correct right it it just depends and it depends who somebody's getting the information from because keep in mind it's sometimes not direct from a source it's sometimes three or four levels down something get distorted it gets watered down or it could just be the opinion of whatever dealer or distributor that they're getting that information from and they're just through a narrow view based on their ecosystem right so yeah if their ecosystem is just selling to operators that's going to be a lot different than somebody's ecosystem that goes to retail right it's two it's just two entirely different things so what we have to do on our end honestly is setting up for every potential game that could come and we have to brainstorm what could this game look like look like what could be the assets on it and how would a potential customer react to that and we have to brainstorm on these things way ahead of time so it's just it's pure speculation and then we try to fill in the gaps is and that's how I like to do I try to fill in the gaps with what I know with what I understand with what I hear and with what I can confirm and so sometimes it's like well I know a little bit about this sometimes it's I don't know anything about this it just it it varies and it makes it makes for a lot of sleepless nights I'm not going to lie it is incredibly difficult to try to advise on certain decisions that they're not like 20 decisions these are six fig decisions these are like so you know it's just it's tough it is very tough yeah let me tall let me let me go ahead and set this on the T for you so um so you as a distributor you are not allowed to actually you you don't you don't officially get to see anything or hear anything until the teaser trailer and then you definitely don't get to see anything visual anything about the game until that 30 minutes prior to everybody else seeing it so you get you get a 30 minute Head Start 30 minute are you asking if I have official looks at assets prior to that because no we don't like in terms of assets yeah no we don't have any access like we don't have any of that it's the webinar once we get to the webinar then we can see it and then we could kind of figure it out from there as soon as it goes live all the assets drop and then that's when we have to populate it on our socials on our website yeah all so how does it make you feel knowing that Stern tried a new marketing technique this this reveal where they had uh media blitzes with different influencers in the arcade realm where those arcade those influencers were given exclusive access to play the game as well as exclusive assets to Media creation and media as in here are hres images here's hres anything you need so that they could produce uh creative material that would drop at the same moment as Stern's creative material so they don't sell the games right but they were given all that exclusive access one week plus prior than every actual person that sells the game for stern so just a just just with that in mind how does that make you feel Travis man you're putting me on the spot aren't you Joel um Tom how's it feel why why Travis say yeah I think it sucks yeah let me um okay let me preface this before I say whatever it is I'm going to say next let me let me preface this I don't have anything against the people themselves involved in any of this if you're a YouTuber yeah if you're a content creator th% you do you if I would have got the call I would have been there with a smile on my face I don't fall anybody if somebody gets the call they're just Tak advantage of what's in front of them and the opportunity I do not anybody for that I I want to be crystal clear on that in terms of so I I guess your question is is how do I feel about it in terms of being a dealer that wants to sell these games yes I know that this I know that that is something that you and many other dealers have asked for for a long time right and you've never had it and now you see that there are people that got that privilege um and it wasn't you so I'll put it this way I I would aware that there was influencers being used before for other things like if you just pay attention to it I was aware of you know PR firms or 47 all that like I I like to keep a pulse on all this so I was aware of that so I just assume that eventually that would happen for something like this and I guess you know without giving away too much information with what was exactly going on in the webinar it there was wording there that instantly clued me in I'm like wait they're doing different Market initiatives right now right so Stern is Stern's really good about going to like breweries locations launch party all that you could tell they're trying to get out around to different places but in terms of just knowing that how this works how the assets work who has access to it who doesn't have access to it it is like I I don't want to like be Super H hyperbole or anything and say like it's Soul crushing but it is professionally it's very frustrating okay like it it it is so like CU on my end I try to do my best to create content to push the stern brand and I don't want to like I want to be upfront with everybody the content is also there to help push the brand I work for as well but if you watch anything on our YouTube channel I never say on there ever buy a machine from us I never do that and the reason for that is is that want to try to create as much value for the viewer as possible whether they become a customer or whether they just become a pinball fan and become a customer somebody else I'm cool with it either way that is my goal is to bring value because I am so passionate about this in the team behind me or with me with the pinball company they are passionate about too and I think there's lots of people that are passionate in the pinball community that work for the various manufacturers that do the content that get paid you know by the manufacturers or that work as dealers or Distributors what you know we all love this right or at least most of us I'm sure there's lots of people out there that it's just a job you know which is whatever but yeah it's just it's really frustrating because I I personally and I wish all dealers could do this I would love to be able to have all assets ahead of time create the content I want to create right something that actually puts this pinball machine and puts all the effort that the the men and women that have created this machine and put it in the best light possible for them not not to to like blow up my own ego right it's like I don't care there's lots of egos in this industry and I know we joke about it all the time in this podcast but honestly like I don't care like if I was faceless I don't care like I I just want people to get value out of pinball I want people to enjoy pinball and I want to make it to where people canar learn about these games easier I want people to be able to learn who the designers are to learn who the coders are to learn who the artist are to learn about these people that are behind these games and love what they do and work their asses off to bring this to us like that's that's what I want so that's just kind of the Viewpoint I'm coming from because I realize if I had assets ahead of time I could put this game in the best light possible if it's the designer the coder the artist Stern and us like everybody wins and the viewer the viewer would get a different spin on it a different perspective on it so that's kind of the way I look at it so that's where my frustrations probably lie within that so like I don't know how else to say it no I think it's all completely valid and the other side of that is um uh you know I I'll admit I was jealous I was jealous uh to see see the the people that were given access to fly out record interview you know I I I I thoroughly you know I do feel like I actually have relationships with some of these people in the in the pinball industry and and I I cherish that I value that highly and I and I love the fact that I get to stream things uh and create fun content I know obviously like Tom Tom does it uh you know for all the women that that flock towards him but they also do it he does it for the passion of creating highquality pinball content the majority of what he creates is competitive but I know I can right now if George fiser with Don't Panic flip Manu Carl D'Python Anghelo me Tom any of these people that are constantly creating pinball content got that phone call from that marketing firm we would have been there in a second and and would have been able to have very educated you know we're passion about this hobby good questions know what to film know what to show and once again I'm not trying to downplay the creators that did do that you know if you happen to be one of those people and you're listening to this that's all that's so great that you got asked and good on you for taking taking advantage of it and doing the best that you did um but those are the things that like that's what we do on a weekly basis so was it surprising that none of us were contacted a little bit it is it is a little bit surprising so is was Stern trying to do something different with marketing they knew we were going to create content anyways that's what we do we were going to stream it we're going to do those things so they're trying to extend to a new crowd try to reach new people that's fine right and and and that's what was said a lot and honestly when I look at it I I don't see who is reached in this and when I think about it from a Content marketing point of view right I think about it from okay like I have to do this every day and I've done this every day for two years and it's figuring out who is our high intent demographic when I say high intent I mean somebody that wants to buy a pinball machine that's what I have to figure out and then on top of that the reason why we have our content the way we we have it is to help people who discover pinball and to get hooked on pinball okay because that's what we need in order to survive in order for this industry to truly survive it has to have new people come in you cannot like stop that from happening and so when I see what Stern is trying to do with this that's my assumption with how they went about this roll out my assumption was is that they are trying to go after a new audience and I I could have swore I might have even saw like maybe it was George Gomez I don't I don't want to talk out a turn or misquote somebody but maybe somebody said that they were going after a younger demographic right so so pin the pinball industry has this backwards I see it all the time to where somebody says this is an old man's industry and we always hear like race get thrown into old white man confuses me because I'm biracial like I don't know if people realize that but you're old now so exactly it's it's still you it's just it's so weird to me when we we go about this direction that it's a lot of times it's not just age it the segmentation is way different than what people realize it's truly based on income in a lot of instances and it's based on where people are at in their lives so I know for a fact some of our customer base goes from the 24 to 35 year old range right somewhere right in there but they're not they are high income earners and they have certain behaviors that we have to identify why you know how they are the way they are and why they are the way they are sorry remember we talked about the [ __ ] right me it's a robot voice if yeah I can hear it that's great wife's taking a [ __ ] upstairs Go Figure It come on Monica we're recording hold it in but it's so it's a segmentation right we're talking about high income earners yeah okay and if you're younger and you're a high income earner I'm sorry but you're not sitting there just watching videos on YouTube all day long right and if you are watching videos on YouTube you're focused on Tech that that's what they focus on is Tech and then if they do consume any other content it's either based off Facebook or it's based off Tik Tok those are the two things and so when I see the audience that they went for right now it's just that's not a buying audience so I have to think logically about this that they're going after people that they're hoping that they can introduce them to the stern brand right and get them hooked onto pinball and that's a long-term play that's to get them to convert to a customer 5 to 10 years from now that's not for them to convert to a customer because I I watched all the content none of it was about converting right now none of it was aimed at that right because otherwise the content would have been presented a lot different the directive would have been a lot different and how to present this right it just kind of seemed like there's like gameplay it was overview it was you know hey look at the like that's what it was and that's fine it just you always have to ask yourself and we talk about this all the time in business you always have to have a why for why you are doing something if you have an idea if you have a project you're doing if you have like some path that you're going why are you doing that and then you look at it from a 360 degree point of view you know or Compass view north south east west that you you got to answer the question why are you doing that how are you doing that is this good like what's the good stuff that comes out of this what's the bad stuff that comes out of this what's the opposite way of doing this so that way you can see it from every single point of view and that's the way that we approach it and that's the way I approach it so that's the way I've looked at this situation is seeing it from every point of view and the only thing I can think of is that this was just aimed at just throwing a net out there and trying to find somebody that was young that might be into pinball and when you do something like that what actually ends up happening it's not that people out there were influencing from Stern I think it was Stern influen for them because I mean who's who's going there to watch it it's going to be a lot of pinball enthusiasts and then you see all them they're all pissed off about it and it's like you know I I don't I don't know if people should be pissed off that there is people that have access to the content I think it's it's right to be annoyed upset whatever you want to call it that you don't have access to that content and I get why they didn't use like pinball creators with that sure because again that tells me they're trying to go outside that right but what's the why are they wanting to introduce a Stern brand are they W to push John Wick are they wanting to increase the awareness of pinball are they want wanting to increase the awareness of the people behind Stern Pinball because you saw you know Seth Davis was on a lot of stuff you saw Zach Sharpe on a lot of stuff is that the goal to do something like that so it's like th those are the things that that I wonder that I'm curious of that I have notes on that I'm trying to answer myself and I think that's that's the way I view these things when I see people doing content that's how that's the the Viewpoint I I look at yeah and I yeah I think I'm I'm not I'm not upset about this h hly like I'm I I look at this as at the end of the day um I know Zach he's was flipping out he's he's buying these games and I'm gonna have a chance to stream one and I'm looking forward to it that's that's and I and I understand I'm I'm super grateful to team up with Zach and be able to do that um but I also know that my situation is very unique being that I have teamed up with the distributor and so I'm able to play games and it's not I'm not buying these games I'm I'm I'm borrowing them and I give them back but when I look at a lot of the other pinball creators in this hobby you know Tom's one of them if he streams a game it's cuz he bought it he bought that game and he had to put money forth on that and I know there's plenty of others I mentioned George Don't Panic flip earlier like he is constantly buying and reselling buying and reselling Carl buying and reselling buying and reselling um and there's a cost to that there's a cost to that you're taking a risk every single time they buy a game to try to stream it and uh so what surprised me was to learn that there is actually with this Market Mar firm that Stern uses there's a content creator like lease program where they have certain content creators where this marketing firm gives them pinball machines for two months just to make content and what was new to me was and I I'm not trying to offend anybody here but these are creators that I don't know of i' never heard of you know uh the all of us the three of us are very passionate about this hobby these are content creators in the arcade realm that I'm not familiar with so these are people that this marketing firm deems worthy enough to have games for free to create pinball content but I haven't seen their pinball content so that's what I don't understand is there are already people in this hobby that make extremely good pinball content that I think this marketing firm could team up with to really make good pinball content but is but what's the goal is it the high quality pinball content or is it just to have a user group outside of pinball maybe 8,000 10,000 15,000 Subs on a channel are they just shooting for views that current pinball creators don't get that's the only thing I can think of is they're just they're trying something new they're trying to Branch out from the pinball Enthusiast crowd the problem is so if somebody really wanted to truly get into a new demographic and if they truly wanted to appeal to a demographic that falls under the income that would actually be interested in buying this right you got to go to a tech YouTuber flat out you got to go to unboxing therapy go to marus brownley yeah you have to you can look at his demographics I guarantee they skew younger because most demographics on YouTube do skew younger but he also has what 181 19 million it's a tono kids what they did was huge for pinball auth but here's the thing with influencers just because they a lot of views it doesn't equate the cells at all it it doesn't and so that's why you gotta again it goes back to the why what's the why and I don't believe using influencers is aimed at creating a condition for more pinball sales I don't think that that's why if it is it's missing the mark completely that that's why I don't think it's happening like that I think it's specifically designed just to get pinball out there to get people to realize it's a thing but you know if you're going to do that you you have to reach out to tech people like we've seen the slow-mo guys do it right sure we've seen what was it Adam Savage do it on the tested crew what they did for Labyrinth yeah you've seen um what's his name I don't even know if he's been reached out to but the twitch streamer that's um my God shroud right y who's a big time twitch streamer you know for first person shooters so again it's like okay what are their core demographics that are watching this are they going to be somebody that would be interested in pinball in that way and are they going to follow their Journey like start their Journey right there and eventually 5 10 years from now convert to be a customer because it's a long journey right so you're trying to get that hook Point get that hook point then you keep going with it and to me the only way you truly get that hook point and you truly get known is you send out p to The Tech Guys to Mr who's the boss to you know like you said Maris like you do you do it with everybody that to me that would make more sense more than anything yeah if if you're wanting to if you're wanting to get see and it has nothing to do with again subscribers or you know views at the end of the day because I'm telling you it doesn't push the units regardless it has everything to do if you can go to where the income is sure right if you go there that's when you get potential for conversion otherwise if you're not well you're doing it for a whole another reason yeah I am I I have no marketing background so any of my thoughts are just my own I have no no no no Foundation here to build on to but but the reality is as much crap as I give Travis this is Travis's job so I actually trust his views on this I actually trust his views on this and um yeah when it comes to just pinball or people playing pinball tested I I have watched tested Adam Savage tested for years and I used to listen to their podcast and there was actually a guy on the podcast his name is Jeremy and that was before I was into pinball I remember Jeremy was into pinball is into pinball he operates games so po like the tested podcast gets a ton of listens and whenever a new game came out Jeremy would have a segment of explaining the new game so he was one of the first people I'm like why in the world is Jeremy not one of these people like that's who give the game to like he already has the fan base he already actually has the passion for pinball he's been in it for years like that's the guy you want to give a pinball machine um and then some of the other things I've seen on YouTube uh uh people know I love Turtles and so for some odd reason I've started going down the the the path of like these uh toy collectors and uh I saw this this toy collector uh this guy traveled around and and filmed some of the biggest Turtles toy collectors uh around the US and multiple ones you know have rooms full of the Turtles action figures multiple ones all have the turtles arcade cabinets and they both said like I have the two arcade games but the game I don't have yet is the pinball machine like they know there's a Turtles pinball machine and they're goingon to buy it just because there is a Turtles pinball machine so that to me I'm I realized in that moment like when turtles came out why did Stern not reach out to any of these toy uh YouTube channels like hit the demographic of Turtles um so I'm not I I I don't know if Shar listens and I'm not trying to tell him how to do his job because I don't know well plus two we don't know who said no right we don't know who's been approached true you know a lot of us and I can tell you straight I don't have that type of communication with anybody at Stern to even know what the strategy is we we're doing our own strategy and anything that I talk about here this comes from my background of 20 plus years of doing my own businesses I mean uh a little bit about me I did business right college did all that dropped out because I was like you know what I don't want to finish this degree because I don't want to go work a 9 to5 I want to work for myself and I always want to do just entrepreneur stuff so that's all I did right own my own business have sold my own businesses been an angel investor had Angel Investing and I've been fortunate enough to get myself in a certain position in life with Monica but along with that has come a lot of idiot taxs too to where I've done some dumbass stuff right I've made the mistakes with marketing I've made the mistakes with inventory management I've made the mistakes with Investments so I have the scars from that from that experience so that's the background I come from from understanding what has worked what hasn't worked and I spend every day studying this and trying to figure out okay what is going on with pinball because I wanted to come to pinball because I saw a gap that not like I don't know who else sees it or whatever but I saw a gap there and when I've come into it I still see it it's still there and it's happening right now with this game it's just you know it it just looked like a great challenge to come in do something that to where I could apply what I know what I understand along with what I'm passionate about and so when I see these things just happen it just yeah it drives me a little crazy sometimes right so it's just yeah it's just I I wish was different it's not but all I can do is control what I can control and that's what I will continue to do and as of right now the way that this game's going we need to figure out a lot of control let's just put it that way okay yeah I mean yeah Travis doesn't have all the answers he doesn't know how to solve this but I think I do think you do have a Val like a valid enough opinion I don't I don't have a valid opinion sorry Tom you don't have a valid opinion either you know uh but it is interesting on the outside looking in and and seeing how uh upset um some of the Distributors are getting um that to me um uh you know start the what about the collectors yeah I was about to say there's a whole other issue right now besides that yeah right now to finish my thought what I was saying was just like Stern's main point of sale is to the distributors right and so we've been talking about this for multiple releases that there was a time where there was a time where the Distributors couldn't get enough machines give me giv me giveme giveme give me I don't care what it is give me giveme giveme I'm gonna sell it and then things started to slow down and they got a little more but they were still taking it they were still taking the games and then unfortunately with some of the recent releases Distributors have too many games and now they're picking and choosing how much they take and so that is as a collector if the people that are actually selling you the game are struggling that is going to hurt us and that's something that I I just hope that Stern can figure out that relationship to make that you're getting you're getting into something else now though right we're we're talking about now how well is John Wick selling right and how everything's doing okay yeah because this is totally different than influencers and marketing and all that like it's totally different totally I just know um I we can go into it though I look if you want to talk about before we go into that cuz maybe people have fallen asleep you know because they don't care about the business they're The Collector they're caring about themselves so who better to talk to than Tom Tom craft as an leie buyer I know we give you we give you a hard time that you're the Ellie buyer but you keep saying maybe I'm not the give me [ __ ] yeah you know why I do because look at your freaking camera Tom look at all that powder coating behind you Tom those are Lees just ignore it yeah just so I don't know like how do you feel like how how are you feeling as a uh like I don't know is this I don't know yeah I mean I game games are games are expensive and uh you know uh especially especially at the Le price and if you're going to put it out put it out an Le game it it at the prices they're going for you better deliver uh that that's all I have to say about it I mean um you know oh um sorry oh that's okay I was sorry Tom I was uh were you getting a message or something no what I was hopefully he's buying a John Wick from us when you were talking no when you were saying Ellie better deliver uh my brother when we were talking about gtf he's like how much does this cost and I was like because it's limited edition and I was like well how much do you think it costs and uh and I was like Jared that game costs more than a Godzilla premium and he almost lost it he's like how he just couldn't he couldn't understand that um but anyways yes you're right the ell have to deliver yeah I mean we're we're all trying to buy an experience here and you know as as a uh as a manufacturer of pinball machines you you better well damn deliver on it uh for the costs we're paying for them you know I'm I'm starting to get tired of uh you know code not being done on games I mean I know they eventually get done but uh you know it it shouldn't take a year and a half to to finish a game I'm sorry you're meaning like code at launch you wish it was a little bit further along or just at yeah at a certain spot yeah so okay so like fu fu just got 1.0 right a few like a month ago month and a half Foo is a great game I it was a year but luckily when it came out the code was good and it only got better but there's other games like James Bond where you bought James Bond and sold James Bond because you didn't like it and then fast forward however many months and the code finally got to a point where you liked it and then you ended up buying it back yep yeah yeah but um all right well Travis uh they're just flying off the shelf right how um you're hilarious Joel um I'll just I'll just be flat out honest because I think I think being authentic at this point that like there's no need to lie it was legitimately like our worst sales date like ever in the history of the company for any launch like we we didn't sell One John Wick day one nothing like there I mean that there there's no there's nothing else to say like it's it did not go and that's for a variety of reasons and this is stuff that we have been talking about like even on this podcast we've talked about this day coming for well over a year for now like we knew it was coming but just to clarify some other Distributors do Le lists so if they know they're getting X number of L they might already have a list filled so day one it's like they already have games sold before the game was even released I know you guys don't do lists you guys really are I cannot speak for anybody else that is their business bus what I can say is we typically sell between 12 to 15 on day one of all the pins combined that's typically right around where we're at and I feel pretty good about that because that's on top of everything else that we sell like that's that's a good deal to you know just get on the website you know get people coming in call some people like we still we have you know our our group of buyers that we contact that we talk to but no this just this right here and we're legitimately at free ship like we we knew that we needed to get this product priced correctly to get it because it's just it's not a theme that has any Nostalgia for people it just doesn't you know and I I don't want to sit here and [ __ ] people and tell them yeah it's just it's going great it's it's not a knock on the game quality itself it's just a fact you own all four Blu-rays Travis you have them all four of them in 4k right but again it's it's based on like I said I like the game right if I if I was a you know out there and not working in the industry I would probably want to buy one right but that doesn't just because the theme is well-liked doesn't mean it's going to work for pinball right now right if you're in the 80s and 90s That's The Sweet Spot like people got to feel Nostalgia for stuff to spend this type of money it's a lot easier to spend $100 on something that's kind of new right on a theme or whatever like a little statue to put up on a shelf or in your corner yeah but asking a lot of people to get a premium product that's that's a big ask and that's incredibly difficult to do and I don't I don't know like my thought process is knowing what buyer Tendencies are knowing what themes that they've asked about knowing what themes that they search that's huge like knowing what they look for like John Wick doesn't it doesn't come close to that it was the same way with Venom you know just like I told you guys before Venom didn't touch that either so it's just so why well on day one was it Nostalgia Nostalgia um the fact that it's Keith Elwin let's let's just let's call it what it is like elwin has turned this industry upside down because it's an event every single time he comes out with a Cornerstone it's an event right yep that Cornerstone is priced exactly the same as everybody else right right yeah so like even John Wick has a brand new designer first ever game that they've designed that's priced exactly the same as Keith elwin's fifth Cornerstone that's not a fair battle like who who do you think's going to win that battle every single time it it's going to be Keith Elwin so like it's it's not even a question it's not to say like oh it's a guaranteed that eln games will sell out it's not like nothing's ever going to be a guarantee right but he also has The credibility behind him in the clout behind what he has done that makes it a lot easier somebody can come in like we have people that come into our showroom that will look at a they'll look at a Jurassic Park they'll look at a Godzilla and I've been asked this question several times why does this game look different compared to the other ones and those are people that don't know the designers yeah don't don't know anything about pinball but they ask they can just tell he has the it Factor so yeah that's like that's the difference there and so when somebody has the it factor and their priced exactly the same as everything else like yeah it's like the the better Design's going to win out the person with the reputation is going to win out that's just that's just how it is and I asked this with no offense to Elliott but if if Keith Ellen would have designed John Wick that's it do you think sales would have been better today I think it would have been better I don't think it would be a sellout okay I think it would be better but you know like because well like all the videos that came out like a lot of people thought Tim seon designed the game they didn't even realize it was a new design yeah I don't know why Stern didn't I don't maybe Elliott doesn't want to be in front of the camera well even even like the content or influencer marketing it didn't really talk about yeah how this is a new designer at all you know and so it's like stuff like this it's when you're when you're selling these themes and you're selling a product you you got to create some type of connection right people feel a connection to Keith elwin people feel a connection to Jack danger people feel a connection to johnra y yeah so that's the difference though they they have a connection to it right they have a full catalog to draw back on Nostalgia with Jack it was people that were fans of his stream and since he's been associated with the stern brand for years now and he was the face right I mean Elliot Elliott's been with you know the stern brand for years now and he's been mechanical engineer and all that but he's never been at the Forefront so it's an unknown commodity right now and that's that's what's happening a lot of I wish that they would have put him out there a little bit more regardless of whether or not he wanted to do that because that connection is sorely needed I mean look at not saying that like Elton John just blew off the doors on sales like I have no ideas since we don't do Jersey Jack pins but people knew a Steve Ritchie was coming right Steve Ritchie Jersey Jack pin and that was that was like a mini event for them you know or when Scott Danesi is going to release a game right or stuff like that like people just make those associations I think that it's important to have people make those associations the only reason I'm asking this and I'm not trying to I'm not trying to it's just I know your particular business is a lot outside the pinball Enthusiast so a lot of specialize we specialize in finding people brand new to pinball that that's where I brand new to pinball they don't know Steve Ritchie they don't know Keith elwin but yet we educate them oh that I mean that's what you do okay you educate sorry Tom you had a question go ahead Tom no I'm good got he's like I'm good that's what that's what you do because we all start from somewhere right so okay when a new customer comes in they they they they're curious right you lead curiosity you let them answer their own questions because then they start figuring out what it is they like what theme do they like and I I say this all the time a brand new customer somebody brand new to pinball everything theme is brand new to them yeah even if it's come out seven years ago why do you think Star Wars still sells as as well as it does yeah it came out in 201 what 2017 it's been nearly seven years at this point so that's a difference and that's that's what I see a lot of the time we see brand new people come in and it's just just you you educate them on what they are telling you that they like so if they want a super fast playing game then it's easy to say okay you know this flow monster here will do just that oh you you grew up being a Star Wars fan oh look here Star Wars and Mandalorian two two pins right here like stuff like that that that's what you do you help them with their journey and you help them learn about pinball and that's exciting to do yeah no I I don't know I know um I enjoy this podcast I enjoy this podcast I enjoy talking with the two of you guys and I know all three of us have very different backgrounds we have very different professional careers uh we all love pinball we all approach it in different ways and um I also know the three of us viewed this release this this week in very different ways um where Tom's like okay I might buy a pro I'll give it a shot I know I'm like all right I'm looking forward to playing it in two three weeks uh and Travis unfortun this was a rough week this was a rough rough week for him I mean because he has his business hat on and he's his big boy pants and he's the game looks great to me like I I think the game looks cool and all that I I want it to do well so I'm trying to figure out how how do we get this game to do well now obviously conditions are tough just like Tom's talked about like there's a there's so many variables at play here when you look at pricing you look at the amount available you look look at what is consumer Behavior right now and I think a lot of the reason why things are happening a lot of people bear responsibility in this I I don't think the responsibility is just on Stern I know I've heard a lot of blowback I've read a lot of blowback like Stern's doing this pricing they're you know this and this this but us as dealers and Distributors you know we are the ones that are selling these to the consumer we're the ones that are buying from Stern to sell to customers like it's a B2B exch obviously so we bear some responsibility for it as well for why things are the way they are like how what is our pricing models and the problem is and Tom you can you can chime in here if you think that this is right or wrong I feel like that there's two distinct opposing forces happening right now in pinball right you got Rising prices yet you have a pinball Enthusiast consumer base that wants to feel like they're getting the best bang for their Buck the best value yet they have been trained to try to get that value at like the least pain Point possible meaning the lowest possible price yet they want to retain that value or even more value as a used product too yeah it's to composing like or two opposing forces so what do you do about that and that's what like a lot of people aren't thinking of that the behavior that you reward is the one that you're going going to encourage so if we've trained a full consumer base to look for these pins at either map pricing no tax free shipping they're going to start judging these pin just based off price alone and when you turn your product into a commodity priced base driven product that's dangerous that is very Danger ous and that is precisely 1,00% what has happened here and we talked about this exact subject nearly a year ago that this was a possibility we saw it Brewing I know three of us have talked about this privately and so when you mix that in it's just like pouring gasoline on a fire and so it's like yeah of course somebody that was used to buying an Le at 9,000 no tax free shipping no friction whatsoever because they got on list they would get it zero friction they're going to start fing that pain once that price goes up like immediately so what like what do you do there you that's the tough part that's what's happening just be flat out honest that is 100% what's happening right now yep I agree so the question is how do we fix that and Tom's got the answer so uh right I don't I don't know I don't know the answer I mean I think we we kind of essentially gushed about Elton John the other day and the one thing we kept coming back to with Elton John is its price and and nobody's you know people aren't rolling the dice on it because they're afraid just based off a history of jjp if you ever go to sell that game people assume that game is now $2,000 less or assume and it's just with these high prices there's a lot less people that are going to roll the dice on a theme that they're not super passionate about potentially a layout they don't know or a designer they you know it's just this is kind of an unknown right now and um with this game and I know Venom was a similar way it's it you know there's there's only one hottie Frisco pinball yeah loves loves Venom to the level that he does and he was all in regardless and uh right so it's it's tough and that's where I hope I just hope I I knew through this week in correspondence and and conversation and looking at what's going on um I just hope this isn't hurting distributors or buyers or Stern you know I I feel bad I genuinely feel bad for somebody like Elliot that he's obviously put a year plus into this this is he's super like this is his game this is his first one and obviously I I wish every game would you know would be knock out of the park or whatever blow out of the water like I it's weird it's just a weird week well it's just what has to happen is pinball has to get back to where we talk about the merits of the pinball machine itself and not what is the price and that's the problem this indust like everything is fundamentally broken if the main driver of how people view a pin is just through a price value it's will this like pin lose money will will it gain money can I flip it can I not flip it if I buy this I'm going to instantly lose $2,000 and I get it it's not saying like somebody as a consumer it's the wrong way to think about it because the consumer is free to do whatever they want and just like we talked about the behavior that we reward is what we encourage and so that's where we're at right here right now so I the industry has to figure out how to get back to the focus is on the pinball machine itself on the value of that pinball machine I agree but I also feel somewhat hypocritical because we talked about the pinball machine and the things that we liked about it for whatever 15 minutes and then we've talked about all this for an hour and that's the thing that I that I hate is looking at the the media right now it's just nobody's talking about the way the flow of this game or really but we don't know we don't know so we what are Media or the media blitz in the release yeah how many of the influencers are buying the game well yeah they're borrowing they they're on the program they just get a borrow it I mean they could be they could be renting it I don't know I have no idea I mean so here's here's the thing okay well let's do a little exercise here because this is important I asked you guys this this question earlier yes all right so what things here are the most important to you for a pinball machine mix up the order this time I'm going to mix up the order he like put it in the perfect order when he asked us yeah I did I did yeah okay so is it going to be code theme integration gameplay art LCD integration or theme now those things what's the most important to you if you're going to if you're going to buy a new unbox game day one day one theme day one so you're making an emotional buy theme that's what a day one buy is you're all In theme he was all in on Rush he was all in on Foo you be all in on Red Hot Chili Peppers theme theme is absolutely theme okay the only new one box I ever day one that I went put my order in was Turtles right okay so what would be the second one for you guys uh probably game play for me art okay if if the art if I can't look at the game or it's inappropriate or it's whatever art is typically that could kill a game for me right so what would be the third thing code um layout would be the game I I'm picking the three things you can't change right exactly okay so we'll just make thisas game play layout aren't they kind of the same sure I'm just mean that's the same release it's you're not GNA the game you're not going to buy Foo Fighters and it magically changes into another band you're not going to Magic you can't change the art play Field's printed and you can't change the layout if there's a clunky shot it's a clunky shot same thing y so what would be last out of all that LCD bring the DMD back okay Tom what would be last for you uh yeah I'd probably say LCD I mean i' I'd take the artwork over the LCD so the reason why I still think the LCD is important I know team LCD it is I yes here's here's why I point this out though because even George Gomez said this on Facebook and this image has been shared everywhere and this gives us an idea of how stern was thinking about this that he even said and this is like a direct quote I'm reading it right here we didn't worry too much about it talking about the guns on the Playfield because there are plenty of guns in the film clips and we have clips from all four films film was shot in 4k which makes it look amazing on the display the issue is here is that a lot of people value the art right you remove something from the art and you're putting on something that most people will put dead last when it's up against these other parts of the pin good point the majority of people will so in the way that they're pushing John Wick right now it's about having 40 minutes worth of video clips on there and so to me it's like when I think about this logically I know Tim seon understands pinball I know he understands rules I know he understands coding I really want him to be able to take all of his energy and focus on that not not focus on trying to figure out 40 minutes worth of game clips that the vast majority of buyers aren't going to watch while they're playing like the vast majority of people put dead last in something that they even desire it's just it's one of those weird things that pinball has just gotten so deep into that I think that they're forgetting a lot of just the physical aspects of it right that's what made pulp very popular immediately is the physical aspects of it so I don't know it's just an exercise right there just to ask you guys because I've been asking a lot of people that and it's so I'm curious what the listeners that that are here what did they think right out of that list how would they rank that because so far the vast majority of people put LCD integration last it's not to say it's not important correct there are aspects of it useful I'm just saying weight it up against other things other buying decisions what what makes somebody buying a pinball machine for the display well that's what I've talked to um I've talked to a few of the stern uh employees that actually that's what they do is the the LCD animations and I'm not trying to downplay what they do because yes a game can be bad they're great for what they are a game can absolutely like turn in the wrong direction if it has bad animations or like like no offense like Avengers Avengers is kind of lifeless when it comes to the display like that's absolutely an area that they could improve um but but but it shoots so good yes that's the thing it was that's not the the make or break it for me and um that's why a game like pul fiction can be so freaking good and it it didn't rely on the LCD at all um so just to to clarify one little point which is which is what George tried to clarify and the whole thing about the guns this is not unique to John Wick uh apparently there was similar stipulate that's what I'm a little curious because he said it was Lion's gate it was the brand owner that said no guns on the Playfield but then he went on to say he had the same issue with James Bond the only reason there are guns on the Playfield is because they took poster art that's why it was literally copy paste they did some cleanup they did some redrawing but it was it they basically took pre-approved poster printed art and so all the graphics that include a gun on the Playfield or on the cabinet are from posters there's nothing new that was created that has a gun while everything in John Wick was created new and he said they actually had the same limitation with Deadpool and so what did they do in Deadpool I actually went back and looked at the pictures every gun that Deadpool holds in the game in in the the the art is a like a fantasy Blaster it doesn't look anything like a real gun so they got they were able to get around it by making it look alien or space age or something obviously if if John Wick was holding a an Alien Blaster people would be pissed so I understand why they avoided it completely obviously took the artistic direction of do we want to do copypaste poster art again or do we want to actually let Randy Martinez do what he does create all the art from scratch I think he produced a beautiful absolutely amazing beautiful art package just happens there aren't any guns and I don't know what that means I don't know if that's like it just that is what it is or if they could have paid a certain amount and licensed a Glock I don't know I don't know how that works it it's it's hard to say all I know to say is is from the people we've talked to that are John Wick fans that are interested in buying the pin that did play part of their decision to not go ahead and buy the pen right now currently so that means what what that means is that they they may still buy in the future but that means now everything else that we just talked about that we listed as things that would want us to convince you know to buy day one that didn't convince them so now we move to the next day we move to tomorrow what's going to convince them to come on board so something else has to pick up that's why it could be gameplay it could be sound it could be code it could be a lot of those things it could be LCD integration like I mean that's just what's going to have to come now but yeah it's definitely it's unfortunate I'll put it that way that Stern's hands were from what we understand tied from that because as soon as we saw that like we didn't think it was a Stern decision at all at the beginning because it would make no sense to do something like that no Le because their other games all have that like Mandalorian has that Deadpool has that yeah but those are fantasy BL that's what I'm thinking it's I realize now like a lot of these are they maybe so that's it makes me wonder3 have guns on it yeah but that's old like that's what I'm thinking [ __ ] if it's old but I'm saying like when it comes to like a modern Stern game I don't I honestly this is side note I'm interviewing George go miss tomorrow so this is something that I'm specifically going to ask him so I assume that's going to come out after this and I'm very curious to hear his answer on this um I also realized we're almost two hours in and if you look very closely on Travis's camera there is a blinking battery power light which go out isn't it any moment now Travis IED I don't know just kind of closing thoughts um I don't Tom or Travis do you guys I mean this has been a it's been an interesting podcast I hope people if you're still here thanks for listening I hope I don't know sh like tell us on tell us on YouTube send us an email like was this good bad boring awful informative I don't know I just I'm gonna get to work after we get off here Joel because I got to figure out how to move some units that's what I'm going to do I'm going to control what I can control and I'm going to try to sell a bunch of John Wicks I think I'm going to buy 400 of them I'm going to hold on to them until 2044 and I'm going to hit the Nostalgia timeline perfect I'm going to pounce I just know we've been we've had a very active Facebook Messenger group I've learned a lot this week Tom I know you've sat back and learned a lot as well and uh I just obviously I for for Travis and Sanity I felt like we needed to let him let him let him let it all out so um I think the game will play great I yeah yeah I think it'll play great I have no qus about how the game I agree I agree I just want I we all need other people to think that and open up their pocketbooks open up their wallets open up their Bank open up your heart I John Wick there we go there's my shell y okay I'm going to try to go to work guys any other closing thoughts there Tom no no well let's plug it up then let's plug it up uh Travis go for it I think by the end of this everybody knows what I do so yeah I'm here on Triple drain had a lot of fun I am passionate about pinball I love pinball I want to see these people that are behind the pins the people that put their Blood Sweat and Tears into I want to see them pushed the right direction in terms of celebrating their success their hard work and I want the in consumer to get as much value as they possibly can get that they deserve to have as well that's what I want that sounds great and world peace right and that's yeah tell them go for it man uh I'm I'm just on Triple drain that's all I do know no that's not true that's not true at all I see the streaming rig right behind you yeah it's it's it's going to be put away n everybody go check out fo I'm retiring no he's not no he's not he's retiring he's retired for the next five minutes screw pinballed yeah box pinball check it out I'm g go stream my arcade one-ups uh gez uh I'm Joel I stream for The Flipping Out YouTube channel I doubt we're gonna have a John Wick in time for this Wednesday but uh hopefully the Wednesday after that and honestly I am excited to stream it uh also so I'm not telling anybody how to do their job that wasn't our goal today so if any if anybody at Stern or else apologizing already I just don't want I'm not I have no to talk you can you can talk I don't have own I own it I regret nothing yeah and the content creators that made the content good on you good on you for making it um I don't blame you for making it I wish I could have made it that could have been but now I sound jealous now I sound like P like Petty I don't know like pinball how about that just own it own that you're Petty it's fine I'm not but I'm not but I sound Petty but I'm going to be able to make I'm going to stream it in two weeks so I'm good I'm I'm happy the influence gtf what Tom what you watch yipsy pinball this weekend for The Amazing Race there we go that's it'll Pro this will probably come out after that so you probably goal is tomorrow goal you gonna win it Tom go tomorrow aren't you a returning champion of that or was that two years years ago yeah two years did you go last year no did not Michelle was having surgery so I couldn't go that was a good decision to not to not go to not go you made the right call on that one Tom good luck Tom thanks all right well yeah if you made it this far thank you thank you for listening uh that was uh that was Travis's Ted Talk um yeah we hear a lot of Travis TED Talks so this is the first one we've shared with uh with the users listate about pinball what can I say I see it from a different point of view imagine imagine all right Tom you get those last words uh good night
IFPA president responded to supplemental lighting question by saying 'don't be a wuss'
medium confidence · Joel hinting that they shared the lighting question with 'potentially the president of ifba' and got that response; treated as light-hearted commentary
GTF's third tank level requires 20+ hits to defeat, making late-game tank destruction unfun
high confidence · Joel describing tank progression difficulty during stream
“I give me a consistent and reliable game give me that that's I can I can find fun in that but once you have a game that's flaky... if the software is flaky like what are you gonna do”
Joel@ 28:51 — Joel's closing argument: reliability trumps content as essential baseline for enjoyment; implicit criticism of American Pinball's QA
“Josh Sharp... he said f off”
Travis@ 30:01 — Brief mention of Josh Sharp's dismissive reaction to GTF; adds anecdotal evidence of frustration with the game
“I should have tried to troubleshoot something in the stream”
Joel@ 31:23 — Joel self-critique; reflects on how better troubleshooting could have salvaged the entertainment value
“your career is getting in the way of your professional pinball”
Travis (joking about Tom)@ 5:53 — Light-hearted commentary on how Tom's daytime work schedule affects tournament availability; reflects balance between professional careers and pinball
“when this it let's lock a ball shoot the shot it rolls right by it I'm like well maybe we have to do something else to qualify it even though it's flashing green”
Joel@ 20:50 — Shows how broken mechanics force players to second-guess valid game states; indicates poor game communication to player
high · Joel forced to avoid multiball entirely during stream; confusion about lock readiness indicator
?
design_innovation: GTF's tank feature is visually impressive but mechanically problematic (ball jumps over flippers, tank hit detection issues). Beautiful art package cannot compensate for unreliable mechanics.
medium · Joel praising art/tank design but acknowledging gimmick doesn't work reliably; previous TPF event where ball jumped flippers
?
industry_signal: Clear quality gap between established manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack) with reliable code and newer manufacturer (American Pinball) with systemic software issues. Reliability emerges as essential baseline.
high · Joel's direct comparison of code reliability across manufacturers; Stern and Jersey Jack streaming without issues; American Pinball's dismissive responses to bug reports
?
product_strategy: American Pinball's response to documented GTF bugs is dismissive ('we don't see that on our game') rather than collaborative. Suggests weak QA and limited ability to troubleshoot customer machines.
medium · Joel citing Pinside thread with American Pinball's dismissive responses; pattern across multiple bug reports
$
market_signal: GTF's reliability issues likely impacting sales despite strong art design and Gottlieb IP appeal. Joel notes game has 'so much potential' but needs code fixes to sell more units.
medium · Joel's assertion that reliable code is prerequisite to sales; defensive tone from GTF owners on forums; Joel's pre-stream credibility anxiety
?
operational_signal: Community developing practical solutions for dark tournament venues (headlamps, pinshades, supplemental lights). IFPA hasn't created clear rules, leading to ad-hoc solutions. Suggests venue lighting is real competitive issue.
medium · Charles's email; Tom's experience at Fox Cities; multiple players using headlamps and pinshades; IFPA response indicated as informal/dismissive
?
manufacturing_signal: GTF's issues suggest software was released before adequate testing/QA. Large code updates may indicate hurried patches rather than systematic fixes. Indicates potential capacity/resource constraints at American Pinball.
medium · Joel's observation that co-op mode shows lack of user testing; large update size; multiple cascading bugs; dismissive customer support