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Episode 240 - Monster Hunting Listener Emails

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 9m·analyzed·Mar 2, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Listener emails prompt discussion of pinball vernacular, Stern remasters, Spike 3 timeline, and manufacturer viability rankings.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers hosts discuss listener emails on pinball and related topics, covering watch terminology parallels in pinball vernacular, Stern's potential yearly remaster releases following Metallica Remastered's success, Spike 3 platform timeline, and manufacturer survival rankings with American Pinball positioned at the bottom of the competitive tier.

Key Claims

  • Metallica Remastered was successful enough that Stern may implement yearly remaster releases as a production filler

    medium confidence · Dennis and Tony discussing Brian J.'s email question about yearly remasters; Dennis predicts they'll do yearly reissues to fill the production cycle previously occupied by Vault releases

  • Walking Dead is rumored to be the next Stern remaster after Metallica

    low confidence · Dennis mentions 'there's been a rumor going around saying that it's going to be Walking Dead' but notes the game didn't sell well initially

  • Spike 3 platform is in development at Stern but timeline is uncertain

    medium confidence · Dennis states George Gomez has mentioned it in interviews and indicates Stern is working on it; unclear when release or which game gets it first

  • Elwin appears to be the next Stern game likely to use Spike 3

    low confidence · Dennis speculates 'I think it could be Elwin's next game' but admits uncertainty about both timeline and necessity of platform change

  • Jersey Jack has never retired Pirates of the Caribbean despite its age; new ownership less inclined to rerun titles compared to previous era

    medium confidence · Dennis notes JJP tends to rebrand and rereleases titles but current ownership post-Jack seems less inclined; cites Harry Potter as more strategic priority

  • American Pinball is at the bottom of the surviving major pinball manufacturers list

    high confidence · Both Dennis and Tony confirm American Pinball at the bottom tier; Dennis notes it's been there for years and position hasn't improved with recent developments

  • HomePen manufactures machines in Taiwan, not Australia, despite being positioned as homegrown industry in Australia

    medium confidence · Dennis states 'HomePen is not actually built in Australia. It's built, I believe, in Taiwan at this point' while explaining Australian support for homegrown manufacturing

Notable Quotes

  • “I would like to see that back in some form or another [regarding World Poker Tour]. But realistically, no, neither of those games are going to be on that list.”

    Dennis @ ~mid-episode — Addresses which older Stern titles could justify remasters; World Poker Tour mentioned as underrated candidate versus obvious choices like Ghostbusters or Game of Thrones

  • “If you've never played WWE and you're at a pinball show and you see it, don't play it...you need to go to the phone number that has the person who owns the machine and brought it there. And you need to ask them if they're okay. Do they need a hug?”

    Dennis @ ~mid-episode — Severe criticism of WWE pinball machine quality; used as example of worst Stern game despite Dennis winning tournaments on it

  • “American Pinball does [make its bread and butter of income on selling pinball machines]. So, yes, American Pinball is at the bottom of the list.”

    Dennis @ ~end-episode — Confirms American Pinball's precarious market position compared to diversified manufacturers like HomePen

  • “I don't think Elvis [should be remastered]. There's zero reason to ever revisit it, ever.”

    Dennis @ ~mid-episode — Dismisses Elvis as remaster candidate despite Tony's suggestion; explains lack of appeal relative to other Stern catalog titles

  • “People get mad [about calling them 'tables']. It's like, we don't eat on them. They're not flat like that.”

    Dennis @ ~pinball vernacular discussion — Discusses community gatekeeping over terminology; notes legitimate complaint about drink-placement safety

  • “I think ACDC would make sense, even though it was repeatedly vaulted in particular...I would also go ahead and say, obviously, Lord of the Rings, obviously, Tron.”

    Dennis @ ~mid-episode — Lists strong remaster candidates based on gameplay quality and IP recognition versus obscure titles like Elvis

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonScott P.personBrian J.personRichard DaypersonGeorge GomezpersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyAmerican Pinball

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball's new ownership appears less inclined toward rereleases compared to previous leadership under Jack

    medium · Dennis notes 'Ever since the new ownership came in, it doesn't seem like they've been as inclined to rerun things like when Jack was running the company'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Pinball industry experiencing content saturation and repetitive design discussion terminology among community

    high · Dennis criticizes 'the same old seven card draw' of repeated phrases like 'world under glass,' 'colors pop,' 'flow monster' and notes exhaustion after nearly a decade of podcast coverage

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Consensus on game quality hierarchy challenges conventional wisdom (WWE critically panned despite tournament playability; Walking Dead improved significantly post-launch)

    medium · Dennis emphasizes Walking Dead 'got to be a very good game' after improvements but still lacks initial popularity; WWE 'was terrible' despite his tournament dominance

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Pirates of the Caribbean market demand exists but Jersey Jack deprioritizing relative to Harry Potter under new ownership strategy

    medium · Dennis states 'They got Harry Potter coming. Like why go back and do that? Just do Harry Potter already' indicating strategic IP prioritization

  • $

    market_signal: American Pinball continues to occupy bottom tier of manufacturer viability despite years at that position

    high · Both hosts confirm American Pinball at bottom; Dennis states 'it's not like it's moved up the list' despite ongoing industry changes

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.208

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, March 2nd. This is episode 240. My name is Tony. I'm Dennis, and a lot of people liked our Western discussion. Yeah, I enjoyed it quite a lot. One person didn't. Too much fast-forwarding. It's understandable. There may be others that didn't write and post something on our Facebook. But nonetheless, don't worry. We're not planning to repeat that. We had a lot of other suggestions, a lot of films we left off, but we were very judicious with limiting ourselves to three. So, I mean, look, not everyone can be a winner. Right. There were plenty of titles that could be on a top five or a top ten list, and having to go with three really cut it short.
1:02
But what's been going on, Tony? Anything? Nothing special. Like, oh, this is so great and special. It's just normal day-to-day stuff. I mean, I've been reading a lot, catching up on shows. Like, the new season of Reacher started. A new season of Invincible started. So I've been doing that, but I've been doing a lot of reading and a lot of work-related stuff and research for work and just nothing fancy. I've not been going out there going crazy or anything. I've just been kind of existing. Yourself? Yeah, I haven't started any new games or anything. but hey but in terms of interesting we for patreon potty just joined our patreon now and and william m upgraded his patreon so hopefully thanks to the western conversation i have no i didn't see a comment as to why i think maybe it was pity it was a pity a pity increase i don't know but we appreciate the support regardless and that is of course at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers maybe we need to do a more in-depth Western conversation just for Patreon supporters. You know what? We could see about doing that. Write in to us at eclecticgamerpodcast.gmail.com or post on the Patreon when I post the link to this video if you want to put it under the comment section there. And let us know if you'd like us to have a certain type of maybe off-topic discussion that we can just go ahead and put out for the Patreon people. I'm more than happy to do it. Oh, for sure. We did, in terms of some cleanup stuff, again, I don't want to focus on the Western discussion, but I do like to focus on when people write in to us. So we had a, don't normally cover like the comments posted publicly, but so in terms of messages though, Tony H submitted a message to us on Facebook saying, just finished the Tombstone episode. Loved the tangent Western discussion. Tell Tony I'm also hooked on Brotato, but I wimped out and set it to 95% damage and 95% health for enemies and allow retry of levels. I'm struggling with some characters still. Oh, no, some of the characters are incredibly, like, there are characters who even setting on the easiest setting, I haven't made any of the other adjustments, but there are some characters who I just cannot, I can't get a win on the original game, let alone the DLC with. I think I've got a, I think I'm up to like a 65% clear on it now, but it's definitely slowed down, but I've been playing it a lot. Okay. Well, that's part of the reason I put this in the intro. I couldn't let you get away with not saying bro-tato. I just figured people were tired of hearing about bro-tato because I've been playing a lot of it. But not Tony H. He's not tired of it. We also had an email from Ryan. And don't worry, there'll be more emails like in the pinball section. But this one I felt because it really related to our Western discussion needed to come in here. And he wrote, most distinguished Dennis and Tony. I really appreciated the Western talk on the last episode. I'd like to add one into consideration if you hadn't seen it, although it sounds like you may have. Namely, The Searchers. For the ripples it sent through cinema, which you can see in so many works. It helped flesh out and cement the anti-hero archetype that we so often see. Or we see so often, excuse me. Just look at the recent miniseries American Primeval, which is in itself fantastic. But to me, the movie doesn't exist without The Searchers. The parallels are too many to mention, none more so than the man of violence never being able to settle. My main reason to write in, though, was to offer companion pieces to a good Western marathon. Some movies to slot in between these iconic classics, which skirt the Western genre, which took a lot of inspiration from those classics, or which helped influence them, trying to avoid ones you spoke about on the pod. Won't deep dive, this email is already too long. But to me, these go hand in hand with a concerted effort to check out the classic westerns.
company
HomePencompany
Metallica Remasteredgame
Walking Deadgame
Pirates of the Caribbeangame
Harry Pottergame
Ghostbustersgame
Game of Thronesgame
AC/DCgame
WWEgame
Lord of the Ringsgame
Trongame
Spike 3product
Elwingame
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Pinball Degenerate Awardsevent
  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern appears to be planning yearly remaster releases as production filler, following Metallica Remastered success

    medium · Dennis states 'I think they will continue to do them as it slots into their production cycle' and 'I think they will do yearly' with remaster potentially replacing Vault release position

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Walking Dead rumored as next Stern remaster candidate following Metallica

    low · Dennis states 'there's been a rumor going around saying that it's going to be Walking Dead' but dismisses confidence, noting weak initial sales

  • ?

    technology_signal: Spike 3 platform in development at Stern with uncertain timeline and architectural changes to asset structure

    medium · Dennis mentions George Gomez discussing it in interviews and notes 'there's been some talk about the assets and stuff in directly' but provides no concrete release window

    • 5:11
    Number one, No Country for Old Men. Number two, Yojimbo. Number three, Sanjuro. Also number three, Kill Bill Volume 1 and Volume 2. Number four, Hell or High Water. Number five, Hidalgo. Number six, Prisoners. This is a rough one. All right. Well, thank you very much, Ryan, for emailing in. Do you I think we I think off off air, off the recording, I mentioned No Country for Old Men afterwards. You did because there was a like in terms of we had a little off topic, tangential discussion about what counts as as a as a Western and what is maybe more tangential, because obviously No Country for Old Men. It takes place a little bit in the past, like the 80s or 70s or something, not like during the wild, wild west. Wiki, wow, wiki, wiki, wow. Wow, wow, west. Save Selma Hayek from a metal spider. Wiki, wow, wiki, wiki, wow, wow. Sorry. I should have. No, that movie was terrible. But Selma Hayek needed to be saved from a metal spider. That's all I remember.
    6:23
    Of his list. Yeah, we had that conversation. No Country for Old Men is an excellent film with one of the – I often see that antagonist just in terms of menace that's portrayed is often used as like – for many, it's like the worst villain they've seen just in terms of the total lack of sort of the sociopathy behind it or whatnot.
    6:49
    These other ones, I don't want to – again, I don't want to spend a tremendous amount of time in the intro this time on a lot of this stuff. It's an interesting list. I do not view, though I get why you'd lump them together, I do not view Kill Bill Volume 1 as Western-inspired in really any way. Volume 2 leans into Western tropes. Volume 1 leans into Japanese.
    7:12
    Again, those have blended before. Right. I mean, The Magnificent Seven and The Seven Samurai is, I mean, it's ripping off The Seven Samurai. But I yeah, I mean, I'm overall of the opinion that samurai movies in general are just westerns for Japan. I think that's I think they're I think they all have the same kind of feel, the same kind of of of tropes. And they're they're they're same kind of like nostalgic hits to them. So I really consider them the exact same genre, just seen from a different angle. Now, I did want to add Hidalgo is like a guilty pleasure. or uh is it i've only seen it once okay i've never seen prisoners yeah yeah i know i haven't now i want to i want to look at that one now they said that it's rough yeah but the horse race run right in the in in the middle east yeah yeah with uh uh with aragon yeah yeah uh vigo morrison yeah yeah yeah yeah it's a yeah i can't say that it's a good movie i i don't know that i would it's very visual um i don't know maybe it is a good movie i think of as a guilty pleasure though because the whole guy's life was basically this made-up crap. I mean, this is so unbelievable.
    8:24
    So I guess I kind of punished it for that, but it's weird. And yeah, it's sort of like a Western film meets Lawrence of Arabia. It's about the closest I can try and draw some parallels. Was it a bad thing necessarily? Yeah. It's just a weird fish out of water. There's a lot of, come on, y'all paint. You can do it, pony. If you like horses, you'll like the movie. I'll put it that way. It's just, yeah. I think you're right. It's one of those things. I don't think a movie necessarily has to be good to be enjoyable. No, no. That's why Guilty Pleasures exists. Right. Just check out Blood Rain.
    9:00
    My always go-to on that whole Guilty Pleasure is, you know what? The Lost in Space movie with Matt LeBlanc was garbage, but it was still fun to watch just because of some of the acting in that movie. That's an interesting point. But it was a garbage movie. It was an interesting pick.
    9:20
    Well, speaking of picking things, people picked this podcast not to hear about movies, but to hear about pinball and video games. And so, as usual, we start with pinball. But there's no pinball news. I mean, I could bore you with little things like there's John Wick accessories for all three of you that bought John Wick, if you care. There's a $15 million topper. It's only $1,500. Oh. It looks nice. $1,500. I mean, it's high. They're all high now So there's that When it's getting to the point where You could just set a gun on top of it as a topper And it'd be cheaper than buying the actual topper I'll just put a Glock up on top of my John Wick And it's still cheaper than buying the topper Yeah, and the pinball show I made a joke about You should go now that Carl F. Bookerer is being Closed by Rolex and just buy one of those Watches and put it on top I've actually seen some on Joma Shop Under a grand so anyway uh that's a potential option the uh and then you know like uh the the alice in wonderland the one thousand dollar one like they're de-potatofying her face like i keep seeing we keep getting emails to the eclectic gamers podcast at gmail.com from them like showing the continued de-potatofication process however everything else is still wrong with the art like the cards are the wrong color they're the wrong suit they're all like it's just trying to make her not look like a literal potato with a wig a literal potato wig see see maybe maybe they maybe they they fell into the hole everybody loves bro tato so we'll just make alice tato alice tato that's right alice tato it's all inspired by your talk on bro tato uh but what we i will announce is uh the Degenes. I think that's how they call it, the Degenes. I don't know. I don't actually watch the Degenes. I don't watch much of it. Apparently the Twippies happened too. I don't know the results, so I can't share it here. Sorry, but they did happen. So congratulations to the winners on that. But Saturday, March 15th, 2025, 8 p.m. Eastern, live from Super Wonder Gallery in Toronto, Ontario. It's the fourth annual Pinball Degenerate Awards, aka the Degenes. Will they be booing the national anthem of the United States? I don't know, but it's Canada, so probably. Hosted by the head degenerate joe shervino this year's award ceremony will be presented in front of a live studio audience featuring a jam-packed night of pin entertainment including live variety acts comedy music a game show with prizes and most awards and the most awards in d jenny's history get ready for surprises fun jokes special guests and a whole lot of pinball degeneracy streamed live on youtube facebook and twitch you don't need to buy a ticket but if you did you won't need the entire seat because you'll only be sitting on the edge the edge all right i tried to sell it uh as best i could so uh good luck with i probably won't see that either but uh i'm so burned on burned out on awards 8 p.m eastern on a saturday night that's kind of late i mean that's like bedtime well not for pinheads they get up at noon I'm old so for the rest of the pinball segment again there really wasn't much of anything however no you go ahead are we going to say TPF is 19 days away you already said that in the intro we recorded we did the intro because I couldn't pronounce anything the intro started out garbage so we restarted because of me And Tony's like, I don't think that's – are you – you're not saying – like how many emails are we going to get, Dennis? And I was like, I don't want to do this episode anymore. And Tony's like, shall we restart? And I was like, yes, please. Yes, please. So you said yes. So you lost – there was an entire conversation. All right. Yeah, there was a part of you. 19 or 20 days. Yeah, we weren't sure. And Tony mapped it up. It's 19 days. Yeah, all right. So – and we're planning to be there. We have our tickets. We have our hotel room. We have everything. We'll be down there, as always, Thursday before. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we hope to see some of you there, but not all of you, because I don't want to make people feel like they have to go to TPS. Right. But if you see us, say hi. That's basically your only hope of seeing me, because Expo, you and I, we did Expo one time, and it was bad. I mean, it was really bad. Yeah. Really bad. And I hear it's great now. I've even heard people claim it's better than TPS. Can you show me on this doll where Expo touched you? All of the doll. It touched you everywhere. It was a bad touch. so anyway but what's a good touch is our listeners our listeners reached out tony they've saved the episode again we actually have some interesting discussion topics tied to this that i think could be enjoyable for us however i put those towards the end we'll start with some of the more discussion-based ones so first one is scott v who wrote in to us emailed in saying will you guys bring some watch vernacular over to pinball for example your next pinball on your next pinball initial reaction review say i have not seen this game in the wood i think it will catch on i always enjoy your show scott p well thank you all right so just to clarify because everyone else is like what the heck is that that doesn't make any sense so there is i have a lot of pet peeves just in life i'm just one of those people um you're peavy yeah i'm a as i i described on the pinball show i mom can we have lewis black we have lewis black at home like i'm the lewis black at home that's like my style so but the home version so not good at all the potato version of lewis black in wrist watches the community has their own phrasing you know they have their own terminology that they do and one of the ones that i hate but they do all the time is when they when you haven't handled the watch yet and you want to you'll say i can't wait to go and see it in the metal instead of in the flesh like because you are the person yeah why are we calling it in the metal and This is pervasive. Journalists do this. And I think it is extremely pretentious. It's like how some, I know some other watch enthusiasts, watch content creators, one of their trigger words is, quit calling them timepieces. Quit trying to act fancy. You're wearing glorified timekeeping jewelry. Oh, I'm into timepieces. No, you only like watches. Where's your collection of clocks? Where's your collection of sundials? They don't have them. They're all watches. that one doesn't set me off it sets others off a nice regulator wouldn't be bad all I'm saying for Scott, no, I don't think we need to because we already have the annoying vernacular in pinball, for pinball we just don't always think about it I'll give you the biggest one that still triggers I don't know, at least 25% of enthusiasts out there calling them tables that does it just sets some people off But that's common if you came in from the video game side because those are sold as table packs. And incidentally, my understanding from back when I did do some research on this is there was some historic use of the word table to describe a pinball game. It doesn't matter, though. People get mad. It's like, we don't eat on them. They're not flat like that. I'm tired of people putting drinks. You call them a table and people put their drinks on them, which, hey, I mean, that's a fair complaint. That is a fair complaint. People will be like, you called it a table. Come on. And I don't know how they say it like that, but they think it that way. So, I mean, we got stuff like that already. I don't know. Is there any weird pinball vernacular that stands out to you, Tony? I mean, you know, I get it. You're a wizard. How about that?
    17:02
    And then we invite it by continuing to call them wizard modes. We do. We do invite that. I was thinking it's like, like after a while, uh, in the hobby and especially doing the podcast and stuff I I got real tired of the phrase world underclass yes yeah well it it it it got it got real old yes and and i will admit there are some games that probably do qualify where you could use say that and mean it but a lot of games that's thrown onto it's just like no i mean there is a there is an entire waterfall of chaos behind where you could just start taking the things that people bring up when reviewing or discussing games and it's the same old seven card draw you know it's like it's like a poker hand and but it never changes and so it's like as you're like yes let's talk about the world under glass let's talk about how the colors pop let's talk about how it's a flow monster let's talk about how the designer knocked it out of the park it's so repetitive and we've been at this a long time tony a long time yeah i was thinking about that the other day we're we're closing in on a decade we're closing in on a decade who would have thought it that one could last this long i honestly didn't so anyway so we've heard it all before and the thing is we keep hearing it all again It's one of those things. But anyway, thank you very, very much, Scott, for bringing up the topic discussion and writing it for something for us to talk about. Brian J. also wrote in. This is what Brian wrote.
    18:40
    Do you think with the success of Metallica Remastered that Stern will make remasters a yearly release going forward as there is demand for them? Which of their older titles makes sense to remaster? I personally would like Ghostbusters. When do you see Stern finally release in Spike 3? Is there a possibility that Jersey Jack does their own remaster slash rerun of Pirates of the Caribbean since there seems to be demand for it and that it now has a wizard mode? Did you get your Submariner? I have just got on a list at a local AD for one, and I'm expecting a long wait since I have zero purchase history. Hopefully, it's not too long of a wait. I am also curious to see what Rolex releases with the 2025 GMT Master II bezel colors. All right. Thank you, Brian. All right, I'm going to take these in chunks for us because he asked like 50,000 things in this email. And so I need to carve it up because he actually wrote it as a paragraph, which we appreciate. So first, just again, not bore people too much to put the watch stuff out of the discussion. First, AD incidentally stands for authorized dealer. Think of that as like going to a pinball distributor to buy a game. Authorized dealers are the ones that officially get Rolex stock from Rolex.
    19:50
    I did not get my Submariner. In December, I was offered a Submariner with a date window. I do not want the date window. I want one without a date. I want time only, just like how Sean Connery's was, except it's a modern one because I don't want the literal one he had because that would be expensive and old. And I don't want either of that. So, no, I did not get mine.
    20:09
    Let's take the rest of these in chunks. Oh, don't forget the GMT Master II bezel colors, poop brown. Oh, well, he didn't ask for my prediction. He just said he's curious. Yeah, I'm telling you. So you're saying poop brown. I'm expecting Mr. Henke Brown. You think they'll call it the Henke? No, they'll give it just a string of numbers. You sure like waiting on lists. And then somebody else will call it like dark root beer or something like that. Diet root beer. That'd be if Tudor does it. They call them diet. Or pea soup green. So it's not the proper Hulk green. It's a whole other pea soup green. Steal it straight from Breitling.
    20:50
    Okay. So Tony's giving you some predictions to further satiate your watch interests. But back to pinball interests. So do you think they're going to do the yearly remaster? I don't know if they'll do yearly. I think they will continue to do them as it slots into their production cycle. I think a big portion of what will move forward a remaster to going on to the line is going to be just how poorly some of the other ones do. given the remasters are more reworked i don't i don't know how well it will work as a filler um without it being pre-planned again if they do it like they did with metallica where you're gonna have an lcd develop new rules added in on top of the old ones you know they threw in new songs and stuff um i think they will do yearly i think they will i think it's basically going to take the place of what vaults used to be which generally were a fall release kind of Between Cornerstone 2 and 3. So I'm going to get that specific. What older titles do you think make the most sense to remaster? Elvis. Elvis? You're wrong. I know. I know I'm wrong. You're so wrong. I mean, I normally will defer a great deal to someone else's question. No, no, that is so wrong. But, Tony. That was just the first thing that came into my head. Absolutely not. World Poker Tour would be more likely than that. It would. And honestly, I would enjoy World Poker Tour being remastered. I mean, I like Elvis. It's a fun game. There's zero reason to ever revisit it, ever. But I will say, I would like to see, even if it was rethemed a World Poker Tour. I enjoyed World Poker Tour. I like that as a game. I would like to see that back in some form or another. But realistically, no, neither of those games are going to be on that list.
    22:34
    I mean, I agree with him. Ghostbusters, I think, would be a great idea. It had been my prediction, in fact, as to the next one. Though there's been a rumor going around saying that it's going to be Walking Dead, which Walking Dead didn't sell that good for a start. It's a very good game. It got to be a very good game. I don't know.
    22:57
    I could see it, but like you said, it seems like there's plenty of them out there, and I don't know that the desire is that high. I don't know that it ever got high enough. I mean, some other ones I think would make a lot of sense for them. A lot of the music stuff, not Elvis, could make sense. I think ACDC would make sense, even though it was repeatedly vaulted in particular. So I would name that one. I would also go ahead and say, obviously, Lord of the Rings, obviously, Tron.
    23:28
    I think you could maybe even make a case for Game of Thrones, even though the theme itself is very, very dated at this stage. It was a pretty popular layout and stuff. For a lot of people, that was their last really good Steve Ritchie Stern was Game of Thrones. So those would be a few I'd throw out there as ideas.
    23:48
    When do you think they're going to actually release Spike 3? WWE. No. You are really wrong lately. You're not normally this wrong.
    23:58
    I have to, just to protect the listener, I have to call it out. Absolutely not. Elvis is more likely than WWE. In fact, if you've never played WWE and you're at a pinball show and you see it, don't play it. No, this is for your personal protection. Stay away from it. Don't play it. Honestly, what you need to do is you need to go to the phone number that has the person who owns the machine and brought it there. And you need to call them. And you need to ask them if they're okay. Do they need a hug? Do they need help? Obviously, somebody has hurt them because they own a WWE. WWE, so. Yeah, it's not good. You used to win it a lot, though. I did. It was terrible. I hated that game, but I don't think I ever lost on that game at tournament play. But that was the only time I would ever play it was at tournament play because that game was so terrible. That game was up there where when you drew it in tournament play, you sat there and actually thought about it for a second. It was just like, do I just want to forfeit because I don't want to play this game? I mean that's where it was When do you think they're going to come out with Spike 3 as the system instead of Spike 2 Stern for a game I don't know I don't know if there's been Been enough changes for them to warrant A full infrastructure change like that I mean a lot of people have been saying They've been working on it like Gomez Has brought it up in interviews Like a lot of people have been thinking it's Eminent a lot of people thought it was going to be In Metallica really Yeah, again, these are like plebes, not like people with a company. But yeah, they've indicated they're working on Spike 3. I guess if they're putting stuff together and redoing the architecture of it, it would make sense. But I have no sense of when it would be or what kind of changes we would expect to see in it. Hopefully it doesn't cause fires. I think it could be. I don't know if Elwin's the next game. I think it's Elwin's next game. I'm going to say that soon. That soon? Again, I don't know why they need to do it, but there's been some talk about the assets and stuff in directly. But anyway, we'll see. We'll see what happens. But yeah, I do think it will be the next L1 game.
    26:21
    What do you think about his question about the possibility of Jersey Jack doing a remaster or rerun of their Pirates of the Caribbean game, the Eric Minier designed game? I don't think that game needs one because that game's not very good, in my personal opinion. I never made it. A lot of people like it. I know they do, and they're entitled to their opinions. I just don't necessarily like it. But at the same time, I mean, Jersey Jack has never had a problem rerunning anything. They just slap a new name on it. I mean, how many editions of Wizard of Oz are there out there now at this point? I have no idea. I don't know. They don't really seem to retire stuff so much as just to pull it off the line for a while until they kick it out with the new something or another edition. So like the Black Pearl II Electric Boogaloo edition or something. Well, I don't think they'll redo it. Ever since the new ownership came in, it doesn't seem like they've been as inclined to rerun things like when Jack was running the company. And I don't see them going back and setting up their line to build wide bodies, especially with this being so much further away from the franchise. Now the market for this game is basically the people that are upset that they didn't get a game that ended up being worth over $20,000 when they had the opportunity. So I just don't think there's enough of a market for it. They got Harry Potter coming. Like why go back and do that? Just do Harry Potter already. Do it already. All right. Well, thank you again very much, Brian, for the email. Next email, Richard, Richard day. He wrote in. Hello, guys. I do not know if this will make it in time for your next show. I keep procrastinating on sending you an email since pinball has been slow. I have. See, he knew he knew, Tony. So he's helped us. He felt I have two topics for you. I started listening to you last year, probably early in the year when I went back to listen to your previous episodes. I would sometimes write down your answers to lists in a spreadsheet. See attached. I did not see the attached, by the way. One episode was 175. The topic, companies most likely to survive. What is funny as you talk? Sometimes I will Google the thing, game or thing you are talking about. So I have a visual reference. As I listened and Googled haggis, I found out it closed the day before. but what's your list look like now america american at the bottom i'm going to pause here on richard's email because the second topic is very different from this topic so let's let's take a breather thank you thank you richard all right um so based off of his his query on that what would be uh at the bottom of our list of the of the companies i for me yes it is america it is let me of but it's been at the bottom of our list for years it's been at the bottom of the list for a couple years at this point. But the thing is, is with everything that's happened with them recently, it's not like it's moved up the list. And of course, there's so many little boutique one-off groups that have made announcements. Oh yeah, they're small companies. That I don't even, I don't even consider them most of the time until they've got multiple, until they've got a machine or two out. To me, they're just something that might happen. Right. It's like Pinball Adventures like went on a hiatus. They emailed in and actually gave me an update about it. But they're so small, they were able to just basically pause and operate. They're not trying to run it as a full-time, only thing that they do sort of thing. Right. So, yeah, they're those that, again, and that's where when we start thinking about the company that did Space Hunt and stuff, I just don't know if it's a full-time thing. No, American would be at the bottom of, I guess, what we think of as the big players.
    29:57
    I would also say HomePen. I think whatever goodwill home pin in Australia had built up has basically been squandered by the behavior of the owner.
    30:07
    They built up goodwill? Again, I see this in watches, too. There's often this huge desire to support homegrown industry, especially in places where that industry doesn't exist anymore or never existed. In the case of Australia, they've had some past instances of pinball being built there. And so I think there's just a desire to try and support it, even though, no, HomePen is not actually built in Australia. It's built, I believe, in Taiwan at this point. The thing is about HomePen is I don't see them in the same boat as American Pinball because HomePen makes other stuff. It doesn't make its bread and butter of income on selling pinball machines. Right. American Pinball does. Amtron doesn't, but American Pinball does. So, yes, American Pinball is at the bottom of the list.
    30:54
    All right. So moving on to the rest of Richard's email, he continues on saying, here's a topic I'd really like to hear you talk about. Virtual pinball. I have a 24-inch playfield cabinet, run VPX, pinball FX, FX3, and Zacharia. It is a very simple setup. No fancy features like knockers or anything. I'd love to hear your thought on the mainstream products in particular, like FX and Zacharia. I think these video games get a little bit of a bad rap from people in the hobby. For example, Zach, Dennis's other co-host, talks really bad about virtual machines. But I think these video games serve a purpose. They can serve as an introduction to pinball. That is where I really started playing pinball. Zen pinball on a phone, then a tablet, a little on the Xbox, got the cabinet to play them on. I also started seeking out real machines to play.
    31:45
    Two additional points. One, I'm probably never going to own a real machine. Two, this is the only way other than going to shows that I will play some of the machines that are recreated in these programs. When was the last time you played some of those Zacharia tables, for example? Or even more current things. I cannot remember the last time I saw an Indiana Jones pinball adventure unless you go to a convention.
    32:06
    A follow-up question is, what are some of the Zen pinball effects tables you two like? I love Wild West Rampage, probably my favorite. it. By the way, Pinball FX did a Princess Bride around the same time as the Multimorphic one that came out. Lastly, I want to shout out Game On Pinball in San Jose. I think they have a great lineup of games to play. If it were not for them, I do not think I would get to play all the new machines. Also, California Extreme, our local game show where I get an opportunity to play old pinball and arcade games. Alright, I'm going to pause again. It's not done yet. But I want to pause again there to tackle the virtual topic. So, Tony, just thoughts in general on virtual pinball.
    32:47
    I don't have a problem with virtual pinball. I play it on occasion. I'm not a big fan of the full-size table setup. It feels like it just eats space, but I feel that way about pinball machines, too. I prefer to play when I do play it. I play it either on my tablet or on my computer. it is a good way to play games that you don't normally see you don't normally play and then like pinball fx they've got all sorts of their special stuff uh and their one-offs and they're just built around them games i mean i don't have an overall problem i'm not one of those people like oh it's not real pinball i i it doesn't bother me i just it's not something i play a whole lot like going back to the the what are some of your favorite like pinball fx i I don't think I've played any since some of the Star Wars ones that came out a long time ago. I enjoyed several of those.
    33:45
    Yeah, I'm fine with virtual pinball. I actually do have a cabinet with shakers and fake knocker sounds and all that. I mean, they're real knocker sounds, but I didn't use the normal coils. I used other stuff. My dad and I built it as a project. It sits in the garage now. It had future pinball and VPX on it. But yeah, no, I'm fine with it. It is a good opportunity. I do not play video game pinball very much. I do have a collection of real machines, and so I just tend to go down and play those. And we also have pinball on location around here. So if I don't want to play what I own, it's a 15-minute drive for me to get to some pinball to play. So for those reasons, I don't play as much as I used to. I do have the Zocaria game. I have played that a lot. It was probably the most recent one I did play but I think that was probably two years ago But those games are really hard to find like i think i played two physical zachariah machines in in my entire playing history uh so again to try all of those there's some really funky ones that are cool like that's where i first got to try the robot game um which i think i did see at a tpf a couple years ago uh so that's been neat i i like it uh but i don't put a lot of time in that i usually play other video games because again i I have pretty easy access to physical pinball at this point. So for those reasons, I don't do a lot virtually. In terms of pinball effects or the Zen stuff, yeah, the newer stuff I haven't been playing. I do remember when I saw that The Princess Bride was coming out right around when Multimorphic was, and I thought that was an interesting coincidence. I do like the Alien table.
    35:20
    See, I'm going to use table for the virtual ones. That one's decent. A lot of the classic ones. I played a lot of Excalibur. Are you a knight or merely a squire? I also liked whatever that haunted one was. Whisper isn't here yet. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I played a lot of that. It's like the base free one. That was like the free one that came with it. I ended up buying that game, but I put a lot of time in on the free table. I also played a decent amount, though I never got anywhere in it, in one of the other original ones, Rome. That's where sometimes I'll just go around and just go, Rome. Because it's Rome. I still just say it. I just go, what is wrong with you? I was like, Rome is wrong with me. Rome is wrong with all of us. The Mars game, there was Mars. That one was a weird one with the, so a lot of the older ones I put a lot of time in on. Excalibur was probably the one I played the most.
    36:12
    All right. And then we're not done yet. Richer heads. Sorry. One more thing. I miss rumor corner. So in the hopes of bringing it back, here are a few rumors. All right. Time to drop in the song.
    36:28
    Rumor Corner. Dennis Creasel's got the news before Napa Caves.
    36:42
    Is that right, Tony? Yeah. All right. Number one, Stern will release at least two more machines this year. and rumor number two the community is going to be upset about something on the second game released by stern if not at announcement sometime after it comes out tony are you not rumored tamed i am rumored tamed okay i hope the people are rumored tamed i mean let's be to be fair it's not much of a rumor to say i know but i didn't like he wrote like 20 paragraphs i didn't i wanted to be merciful yeah i mean richard you can you can be more aggressive with the with a rumor yeah incidentally just so you know you'd be like but you could be like you know what say people are gonna be mad about something sure pinball that is super safe but but but like i would have said like for number one are they going to release at least two more machines this year i would have said and they're gonna be uh ghostbusters remastered and king kong like that'd be what i tack on to that one and then for the number two the community is going to be upset about something king kong just just like dungeons and dragons gonna catch on fire like it's gotta go hardcore thanks for all your fun episodes richard well thank you richard for writing into us and providing us those discussion topics we do really appreciate it i have two more emails I also have a pinball section. You have one more. No, I have two.
    38:10
    Do I? Oh, did I? Oh, good catch. I pasted one in twice, didn't I? Yep. Okay. Well, Tony is being very observant. All right. Good. Because I was like, I didn't remember I had two more until I looked at the list. I was like, okay. All right. Only one more. But this one, this one's a little chunky. This one's got a little bit of girth to it. Christy wrote in.
    38:32
    Hi, Tony. Hi. Wow. sorry i i changed my mind what accent i wanted to do mid the way that one opened up with i was i was expecting to we were recording the podcast when the door came open and she walked in like a breath of smoke I want to do it all the time I had four slugs in me One was lead Three were scotch This is so bad Alright, Chris D He wrote in Hi Dennis and Tony See now I went Saul Sutherland Hey Dennis and Tony God, the high is screwing me up. I don't know. I got to change that.
    39:27
    Hey. Hi. Hey. Where are the drugs? Hey, Dennis and Tony. No, I can't. Where are the drugs at?
    39:41
    All right. Ike on this premiere of Soviet satellite. Hi. Hi, Dennis and Tony. If you could switch around any of the top 50 pin side games to be in the top 10, what would they be? Christy. I think I turned that to Dracula from Russia. But look, Chris, we appreciate the email. I can't. Things are going too crazy. It's good. It's fine. I've got it called up here. I'm looking at it. All right. Yeah, I had pulled out my phone earlier because I knew this one was coming, and I didn't post the entire list into our OneNote. I probably should have. So here's the thing. A lot of the top ten I actually agree with being the top ten. Like, I think it makes sense that Godzilla's in the top ten, Jurassic Park being in the top ten, Attack from Mars in the top ten.
    40:31
    Jaws, I would even say, would be top ten worthy. It is in tenth now. But if I could switch any around. So basically.
    40:42
    I would pull Elvira for Lord of the Rings. Let's be honest. I would put Lord of the Rings in. I didn't realize it had fallen out last time I visited it had to have been because of Jaws is way above it I would pull Jaws for Lord of the Rings sure I could see an argument for that too I'm a little surprised that Jaws is higher than it but I mean the rules are better okay yeah I would agree with you Lord of the Rings is definitely one I'm putting in I guess if he's asking to switch around you would pull Jaws for it or no you said Elvira I would agree with that let's see I would also probably gosh I'm trying to get through all of this list I don't want to make this too tedious for people but I'm trying to just get a good glimpse at what else is sort of oh my god John Wick's at 41 that's too high wow now I'm going to get all judgmental with a lot of this stuff yeah one of the changes I would definitely want to go ahead and make is I think that the fact that Walking Dead's not even in the top 50 That's what I was looking for It's not even in the top 50, that's a problem right there Yeah, it's 51 now, it used to be in the 30s last I thought Yeah, so I can't do that because I wasn't the parameter Looking at what I'm allowed to move around I would be tempted to either move Star Trek Or Elton John into the top 10 I think you need a Richie Flow Fest in the top ten. I wouldn't move ACDC up into it. But I'll go ahead and give it to Elton. I'll give JJP a shot here and say, let's take out Iron Maiden. I've never been particularly impressed with Iron Maiden, and it can go. I mean, it's a good game, but I don't think it's top ten good. Correct. I'd purge it out. I'm okay with Deadpool staying in top ten. It's pretty fun.
    42:40
    Monster Bash has got to go. I can't keep Monster Bash in there. See, would you keep Monster Bash over Jurassic Park Stern?
    42:48
    Or would you keep Jurassic Park Stern? I'd keep Jurassic Park over. I think Jurassic Park is one of Elwynn's best games. I think it's good, but I don't know if it's number three good. It might not be number three good, but the rules are all fleshed out on it. Personally, I would probably, after having all the time, I've played Jurassic Park a lot. Jurassic Park was my favorite Elwynn until Godzilla came out. But now I would put Jaws ahead of Jurassic Park as well. It's my number three from him. Okay. But he's such a good designer and the rules are so good on it. I would keep I would keep it. But what I think I would end up doing is probably going in and taking. Oh, gosh, it's so tough because some of these I don't like very much.
    43:29
    Yeah, I think some of these, you know, it's tough because a lot of these I do not like very much. I mean, some of this stuff, I'm just looking at it. I don't know what I'd pull back. It's got to be something just outside of the top ten.
    43:47
    I mean, I guess I could put Star Trek in instead. And then I've got Elton John and I've got Star Trek. But they're so similar. They are. I feel a little weird. You know what?
    43:56
    No, I don't know if I'd put it up to top ten. Like, I'd rather see Foo Fighters up there than Monster Bash. I would rather see Foo Fighters than Monster Bash.
    44:05
    You're not wrong. I might even argue that I'd rather see Foo Fighters than Deadpool. Yeah, I could see someone making the argument.
    44:14
    I just like how straightforward the rules are on Deadpool. But Foo Fighters is a very understandable game, too. So it does have that going for it. I guess those would be my swaps. I can't really. Most of this other stuff, it's tough. I'm sorry, Chris. I'd have thought it out better if I had tried to. I just, being limited to the top 50 has really compromised me. because I think it's a downright travesty that Walking Dead can't go into it, being at 51.
    44:41
    But you've got some other really strong things that are just outside of that space that I think are – like for me, Guardians of the Galaxy at 63, that's way better than John Wick, which is in the top 50. I can't – I don't know if I'd put Guardians in the top 10. I wouldn't, honestly, but it's stuff like that that just makes it a little tough for me. It's like Shadow being under John Wick and Godfather feels weird to me. Yeah, I just don't know. I don't know. Anyway, that's what I got. I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to modify.
    45:13
    You know what? TNA being at 65 doesn't feel right either, but it's outside the 50. Yeah, it's outside the 50. We can't. Rules is rules. That's okay. I think I would agree with you. I can see moving Star Trek into the top 10. I really do enjoy Star Trek.
    45:31
    You know what? I could see an argument for moving Whitewater up, but what would I replace with Whitewater? I could see replacing Monster Bash with Whitewater. I mean, I think Whitewater is a better game than Monster Bash, but I don't think either are top ten.
    45:49
    I really enjoy Whitewater. A lot of people do. But, again, the list on Pennside, I've always had that issue that some games feel like they are, overly advanced and especially like brand new games always jump way farther ahead than they deserve to be. Well, there's a recency bias in new buyers.
    46:15
    We could add in all sorts of psychological layers like they feel they need to justify their purchase.
    46:20
    You could even argue there's an economic reason to do it. Inflate the value of you plan to sell the game by boosting it up as high as possible. There's also the fact, simple fact of the matter that uh code rules uh there's just a lot more in the games now than there used to be because i remember when we first started doing all of this you know almost 10 years ago like the pinside top 10 was always just oh here's the williams collection it's like go look at the top 10 on ipdb and that's how pinside used to look it's going to be monster bash it's going to be medieval madness without the remakes it was just going to be them along with uh you know other a list the titles like monster bash uh you might maybe you'd even see like a congo or something you know it just depends i don't know if congo was ever up there but adams twilight zone just like games that weren't that good um that were up there because of nostalgia so i think twilight zone is still pretty high yeah still pretty high which is really high but it used to always be in the top 10 though you did so yeah there was just all that stuff that dmd williams era stuff was it It was like everything. And then you might see something like Metallica got in there and ACDC got in there. There were a couple of really popular survive the recession sterns. But yeah, now anything that comes out, it would not have surprised me if John Wick, when it launched at some point, was in the top ten. Even though you're like, no, absolutely not. No way you would think it. It's still surprisingly high. Yeah, it's above 50. That's not right. So, yeah. Anyway. Video games. Now, you actually had some stuff. I had to rely on the backs of the listeners. I have some stuff. Actually, I actually had to cut a fair amount because I was getting to the point where, like, I filled out the notes that I have, and I'm looking, and I'm like, I don't want to talk any more than this. This is enough. And I was looking at the number of articles that I had saved since the last podcast. I was like, there's a lot of other stuff, but I'm just done. I'm going to cut it off here. I'm done. This is what happens after almost a decade of podcasting. We just get done. Sorry, guys. I'm done now. Remember, you can support our doneness at a mere dollar a month at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We appreciate it. Next time, instead of Westerns, we're going to talk about 80s action flicks. You know what? I want to see people post in and say, do you want us to have a Patreon-only conversation about those guilty pleasure movies like The Lost in Space you brought? Oh, that. Like, we could really go in. We could. And do something deep on that. Because I like a lot of trash. And how many guilty pleasure movies would have Schwarzenegger in them?
    49:00
    I think of a couple. Yeah, could be. But into the video games, Marvel Rivals. When's Marvel? Big launch. Very popular. I've been playing it pretty much every day. You've been playing it constantly. Yeah, usually five or six days a week. Yeah, it had a huge launch. Did you know Jeff is voiced by the Honest Trailer guy? I did not. I did not know that at all. That's interesting. It's weird because it's not his voice at all. It's weird. This is my epic voice. And instead he's like, yummy, yummy. It's almost like a voice actor has range. What? No. Is he really a voice actor? I thought he was just a trailer guy.
    49:38
    Listen to me talk in my epic voice. Since their launch in January, they've amassed over 40 million players. so of course they did the thing that they have to do with a giant successful launch they laid off the majority of their united states-based design staff what uh yeah i heard about this and everyone's just like you've got to be kidding me nope they laid they laid apparently there's been a whole lot of it came out that halfway into development of marvel rivals when they went when netty's brought in their new ceo he didn't want to spend the money yes i read this To pay Disney for the rights to use Marvel characters. I totally understand. Totally understandable. So he had them design all new characters to make it all new OG just to slot in so that they weren't unlicensed. And that would have been terrible. It would have been so bad. I play it. I'm enjoying myself in the game. But let me be really clear. This game is only being successful because people know these are Marvel characters. That's why it's doing what it – that's why it got its foothold. This game has a ton – I mean, look, I still play Overwatch, too. I don't play it as much as I do Marvel. But the thing is, like, there's a lot wrong with Marvel rivals that you – like, they should have learned just from looking over. Like, they fix some stuff and then others – like, it's an unbalanced, like, cluster. It's ridiculous. But, yeah, the only reason people gave this a shot is because you could go around looking at Luna Snow and Scarlet Witch, not Red Woman and Freezy Lady.
    51:27
    It's so hard to build a brand new – I mean, because that's what Overwatch did. Back then, Blizzard was respected. No one gives a crap about net ease. Right. And that's the thing. That was their – that's what they wanted to do. Yes. And then they backed off of it. And so smart that they backed off. It was very smart to back off of it. Yeah, no. They laid off the two.
    51:48
    Nettie said it was the layoffs were a difficult decision made to optimize development efficiency as they laid off the U game designer and a lot of the level designers and just a huge swath of them But this is a thing that Netties has been doing since November where they're cutting a lot of their groups that they have ties to and their design teams that aren't based within China. and Nettie's has it it was it became so prevalent and so noticed that Nettie's came out and it said no no no we we still want to work with overseas stuff we're just making choices we're not like cutting all overseas stuff we're just making we're just making cuts here and there sometimes we choose stuff sometimes we choose to lay off everybody who helped design this game that was huge so uh yeah but no i mean they've had a they had a good launch the things have been looking real good but yeah no that seems to be it's not just netties it seems to be a super common thing in video games lately oh sure is you have a massive launch and things are doing great so the first thing you do is lay off everybody it reminds me of getting you know people giving funds and stuff, not to get all economic on folks and just seeing companies just take all their... They fire people and then they do stock buybacks. Right. You didn't need to fire people. You bought stock buybacks to force up the stock value for shareholders but you were already profitable. Then they fire people and they make record profits. It's like, okay.
    53:29
    How's that trickle down working for you? It was like, was it last year the year before when EA posted record profits. Yep. But their record profits were slightly lower than they had projected. So they laid off like 20,000 people because they were under projection. And game development, because again, it's like pilots. Like people are in the profession because it's a passion. So it's easy to take advantage of them, in my opinion. I think your opinion is correct. we have played some Pokemon Go in our past. Yes. Yeah, it's been a while. It's been years. I have co-workers who still play Pokemon Go. I can see it. I'd actually played Ingress, which was the game that came before Pokemon Go from Niantic. But then they realized paying licensing fees is how you are successful. Exactly. Pinball has tried to learn this lesson. Right. I like Pinball. That's why Niantic now has Pokemon Go, Monster Hunter now, Pikmin Bloom. all these licensed games that are doing good. Well, apparently, they're looking to be sold to Saudi-owned Scopely for $3.5 billion. Wow. They're selling Pokemon Go everything. It's not a done deal yet. It just kind of came out, but they're finalizing the deal. But a lot of fans of Pokemon Go and Monster Hunter and all that are having issues and concerns because Scopely is one of those companies that tends to buy things up and then aggressively monetize them.
    55:03
    They're known. They've got Star Trek Fleet Command and Marvel Strike Force, and that was one thing. When Scopely bought Marvel Strike Force from the original designer, the first thing they did was change it heavily, pay to win, and massively monetized it and its reviews and everything. And everything just, the floor dropped out. So people are concerned. The Pokemon Go, which is a mainly free-to-play, fun little game, is going to turn into another monetized monster. Pokemon Go, get your wallet. Yeah.
    55:35
    I mean, to be fair, it's Pokemon. People will and have been getting their wallet for it for the last 30 years. I think next year is the 30th. I think 26 is the 30th anniversary of Pokemon, actually. so they've definitely uh been around for a while uh reports have also come out uh come talking about all major console platforms sales are down we knew we've talked about sure before they're all long in the tooth because yeah they're all getting old uh switch is obviously down switch to is announced at this point we're just waiting for launch for an actual launch date We should find that out in the next month or so.
    56:16
    There are some rumors saying June. Okay. As early as June. Wow. So I think June might be a little early, but there are rumors that are starting to say June. But PS5 sales are down 38%. PS5 sales have dropped compared to PS4 sales at the same length of age. So PS5 is not selling as well at this age as PS4s were selling at this age. Xbox sales are down 50%, and Switch sales are down 53%. But again, Switch 2 has been announced, so that's not a surprise really.
    56:54
    We'll see what happens. I think we're, what, probably, I think we'll see Switch 2 we know we'll see this year.
    57:06
    I don't think we see a new Xbox or PS5 for several years yet, though. Really? Yeah, I don't. I have no sense. I could be completely wrong, but I feel like we won't see anything, unless maybe they do a little iterative bump like they've already done.
    57:23
    But I don't know that we'll see a major new system before 27. Okay. I could see it either way. I think there'd be more rumors out. Yeah, well, I mean, I just don't know. I mean, with Xbox, everyone's like, well, you're doing so much multi-platter, Are you even going to make another console? Which they keep micro-calls off. Yes, we're planning to make new hardware, and we're hoping that we'll win people over by it just being really well specced. Right. And that it's not going to be you're buying it because you want to play Halo. You're buying it because, like, you wanted a console, and ours has the GPU and everything that you want without going PC. Right. Which is entirely possible. But I think their moves are. But I haven't heard anything about, you know, like a timeline, and likewise I'm not aware from Sony either. But I don't follow them as closely But also in that line Has come out That at this point 40% of all console play time In the US are live service games We talked last time There was the whole discussion about Live service games are bigger and more popular And this is just more proof That live service games They're eating 40% of the total game time On consoles in the United States So live service games are definitely up there And apparently 70% of all PS5 and Xbox players have played one of the top 10 live service games in the month of January. So stuff like Call of Duty, Headquarters, GTA V, Roblox, Minecraft, Marvel Rivals, Fortnite, all that kind of stuff. So, I mean, as much as you may or may not like live service games, I mean, live service games definitely seem to be the big thing right now. so we'll see how this keeps going forward and how this affects overall game sales and console sales uh twitch has put out a whole bunch of information for their changes planned for 2025 but we're already in 2025 i know so they're they're pushing their changes and what their plans are for this year they are opening monetization to most streamers so they are opening monetization even without getting to an affiliate level it wasn't hard to get to affiliate So, yeah, it's interesting. Okay. Desperation. Very much so. They are also, this just proves more of their desperation in my mind. They're making changes to their enforcement rules so that violations have a drop-off time. So low severity violations will expire and drop off the account in 90 days, while higher severity violations will expire in one to two years. they're also opening it up so that once your violations that have gotten you in trouble have dropped off, if they're so bad that they've gotten you even a permanent ban or an extended ban, you can come back. Dr. Disrespect.
    60:15
    He's actually come out and said that his ban was, that he should come back. His ban was entirely against the rules and that he did nothing wrong. So we'll see where that ends up going because he had a full-on giant signed deal worth millions. Yep. So, yeah, they are definitely – I think Twitch is making some big changes because they – after the highs that was the COVID years, they are dropping hard. They also are introducing new tools to help streamers connect with brands to collaborate with because collaboration streams bring in a lot more money. Yes. So instead of requiring that all to be third-party where streamers work out with brands on their own, they're going to middleman it and get even more money.
    61:06
    Maybe they'll be profitable, question mark? Maybe. Possibly. I don't think so. We talked last year at one point, I'd started playing the game Baltro, which is that gambling poker game. It's gambling. It was rated PEGI, which is the Pan-European Game Information Organization. PEGI 18. Right. It was rated PEGI 18 because it was gambling. They appealed the classification, and they won. They have been re-rated as PEGI 12.
    61:41
    PEGI has said, The complaints board concluded that although the game explains the various hands of poker, The roguelike deck-building game contained mitigating fantastical elements that warranted a PEGI 12 rating.
    61:53
    Overall, the rules of PEGI is that anything game that teaches or glamorizes gambling is automatically a PEGI 18 title. So that's where Boltro fell into last year. But, yeah, now it's been PEGI 12. PEGI 12!
    62:11
    Yeah, I don't know. I haven't got my voice to break in there. That was impressive. It was. Maybe they'll use that now as the lead-in for all Peggy 12 games. No, because then they'd have to pay me for it. I don't know. Are you tied into generative AI? Are they allowed to learn from you? Not yet. I don't know what SoundCloud's roles are for our episodes. Well, it's true. Maybe we are. Maybe we are feeding the AI. Maybe we're part of the problem. We probably are part of the problem. We probably are. Speaking of the AI problem, The entire French voice cast of Apex Legends had received an amendment to their contracts from the publisher that would have required them to allow their voices to be used to train generative AI, and all members of the French voice cast refused and sent out an open letter to the fact that they refused to allow that. There has been no response as of yet, And everywhere I saw her that reached out to EA with questions has not received a response yet. But for those of you who've forgotten, currently we are coming up on, what, nine months in to the strike from SAG-AFTRA for game voice actors because of primarily the use of AI. and that they've been in strike since July except for on pre-existing contracts and certain other things. But they're definitely still pushing. And it's all about the use of AI and voice generation.
    63:44
    There's even been a little hit at Hades 2 over the use of generative AI. One of the voice actors said that they're not in Hades 2 because the developer wouldn't sign an interim agreement agreeing not to use AI, to which the developer replied that, well, our agreement's already stronger than that agreement, so why would we sign that? also that's in the U.S. and we're not U.S. based because SAG-AFTRA is a U.S. Right.
    64:26
    It's interesting because they said nobody's been fired, nobody's been changed and they're not using AI for any portion of their work. So it kind of just came out of nowhere.
    64:42
    They had a giant Pokemon push. My daughter was sure to let me know because her favorite Pokemon Starter is the starter of their new Pokemon Legends ZA, which is Totodile. What I find interesting about this and the memes, if you've not seen them, if you don't really follow Pokemon stuff online, there's memes going around, that the starters for this new Pokemon are Chikorita, Taepig, and Totodile. Well, Chikorita and Totodile are two starters from the same generation, but their Fire Starter was Cyndaquil, and instead they brought in Taepig, And now the whole thing is that the Cyndaquil has been canceled Cyndaquil was canceled So he was pulled out They put Tepig instead That's right And the last little thing Monster Hunter Wilds launched The launch was massive Over a million concurrent players on Steam It is the highest Capcom game on Steam For concurrent players ever.
    65:47
    The game has mixed reviews, but it's still continuously high concurrent player levels. People love their Monster Hunter World. People love Monster Hunter World so much,
    66:00
    or Wilds World was the previous one, Monster Hunter Wilds, just the Monster Hunter franchise overall, so much that the developer behind the PAL world, their little Pokemon knockoff that the government cited, or that the judges sided with them saying not all of their stuff is necessarily knockoffs and that they're protected on some of it gave their entire staff the launch date of monster hunter wilds off because they're like because they literally put out a thing saying considering we think so many people are going to be sick this day we're just going to preemptively close the office i thought you're going to say They've now got Monster Hunting added into Pal World. No, that'll probably be next. That's why they're really letting them so they can get ideas to bring back to the game. Can you – I mean, it's been so long. I can't actually think of the last time, like, I took a day off to play a video game.
    67:01
    A Fallout, maybe? Maybe a Fallout. Maybe. I don't know if I ever did that. I don't think I did. I know I have taken days off for, like, book releases that were books that I'd been waiting on for years. I've done that a time or two.
    67:19
    But even then, typically, it was, oh, hey, look, I'm almost maxed out on time. I need to use some time, so I might as well. Here's an excuse. It's like I took off my birthday this year, which is a Friday, so yay, three-day weekend. But because my birthday is April 4th, that's the release date of the Minecraft movie. So when I was talking to my family and I was like, oh, yeah, no, I got to prove I got my birthday off. My daughter's first thing is like, oh, you took your birthday off so you can go see the Minecraft movie. And I was like, no, no, I didn't. And to which her answer was, well, that's good because you need to take me to go see the Minecraft movie. I'm like, dang it.
    67:58
    I don't want to see the Minecraft movie. Maybe it'll be good. Well, her thing is she wants to see how bad it really is. Maybe it won't be good. She's like, it's going to be so bad. I just have to see it to see how bad it is. It's like, come on, do we have to?
    68:13
    Maybe it'll be a guilty pleasure. It could very well be a guilty pleasure, but I'm not holding my breath on it. Okay. Oh, well.
    68:24
    That's life sometimes. But it's also life to say sometimes things end, and we've gotten to the end of this episode. So if you want to reach out to us, the best way is through the email, eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. I do try and monitor Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast for messages, but that is not the best way to do it, especially if I'm going to drop it into the show just as an FYI because I have to screen grab it.
    68:46
    Again, you can support the show via Patreon at Patreon.com slash Eclectic underscore Gamers. We have three tiers with the lowest being a dollar a month. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. And that's pretty much it. I will be back in a couple of weeks. That will be our pre-TPF episode, and then we will be off to Texas. So until then, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye, everybody. See you.