Welcome everybody to your weekly installment of Canada's Pinball Podcast. It's a day late because normally I do a show on Monday, but I went to see Cypress Hill Sunday night. I got way too much inebriated and I was hungover yesterday. So here we go. Tuesday morning. What do I want to talk about? I want to talk about where we go now. That pinball expo is over. The show came and went and we saw some new pinball machines, but we didn't really get a surprise. Like I thought American Pinball was going to come out and actually show us a little bit more about their new game. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about where this hobby is headed as we move into November and December of 2022. So here's the thing. I'm going to go around the horn. We're going to talk about what happened at Expo, what we saw, where I think these companies are going to go in the marketplace of pinball. So let's start, obviously, with Stern Pinball and James Bond. I think this game is going to end up winning all of the trippies for best theme, best pinball machine. I'm not so sure it's going to deserve it. Most people won't even have a chance to play James Bond by the time the Twippy voting opens up. I think it's through December because we now know the time frame for James Bond where it's like the pros are going to be on the line in like November and the Ellies are not going on the line until December. Now, this has been a really stretched out launch of this game. They clearly had to get the game out to hit the contractual obligation of the 60th anniversary of James Bond. We still don't know what the Keith Elwin game is. We don't know how much it's going to cost. But here's my take on James Bond. I don't think because of its slow rollout, this game is ever going to really land in the pinball world the way Godzilla did. And I think Stern with Godzilla showed us all that they could do it, right? They could design a game and they could launch it for us so that the first week everybody is unboxing Godzilla's, everybody fell in love with the game. And there was so much in that game on day one that this feels like the old approach that Stern used to do where they would launch a game. You don't know it's great yet. You know how it shoots, but you're not sure about the final code in the game. And this is going to be very much like Stranger Things. I think James Bond is going to come out and I think you're going to have to wait a very long time for the code to be mature. And I think the days of living with that, right, the days of building the ship in the ocean. I think people have moved past it, especially at these prices. Who wants to spend this much money and not really know if the game is great or not? And look, do I think Stern's going to figure this game out? Yes. How long will it take? It's anybody's guess. There's a lot of content they got to work with. And we know that when you're dealing with like movie clips from like seven films, it's not easy to code a game with that much content. and especially since they have the rights to put a lot of that content on the screen, I think it's going to be a much slower burn than people realize. You know, and then so the question is for all of you out there, do you really want the game this early? Do you want to play this game so unfinished? If you ask me, I don't. I don't want to play a game like this anymore. I don't want to play a game that's only like 50% there. I don't. I really don't. I think when a game gets released, we should experience it for the first time the way the game was meant to be experienced. It is like watching a movie in which not all of the special effects are put into the movie. And then you see the movie, you see it again four months later with a little bit more special effects put in. And then a year and a half from now, when all the special effects are put in, you are asked to get excited about it all over again. And I just don't think these slow rollouts like really work anymore. And I don't think they work for this much money because I think the hype is gonna move on. And I think with the fact that they're making a thousand James Bond LEs at this much money, this is the most expensive Stern LE they've ever put out there next to Elvira and Batman SLE. At this much money, I don't think you're ever going to have a hard time finding a James Bond LE to buy. Do I think they're going to go up thousands of dollars in value? I do not. I really worry about the premium buyers. I really do. Because I think if you're buying premium machines now at $9,700 plus tax, how is a premium even going to come close to holding its value at that much money? It's just way too much money for a game they will make for years. Stern Pinball will be making James Bond for the next five years. So do you want to own a premium right away and buy it in 2022 and it's incomplete or early 2023? You might as well wait to 2024. because here's the thing. If you wait to 2023 or 2024, you're going to be able to get a used premium for thousands of dollars less. The market is going to get really interesting in pinball. I don't think the bubble's going to burst, but I do think we're going to see a correction, if you will. I was on Pinside last night, and I saw a gentleman listed his Medieval Madness Royal Edition for $24,000. It's not even new in box. It's opened up. It's a played game. It's a used game. That game, brand new just a couple years ago, was $10,000. This is where we're going to see a slowdown in the pinball marketplace. These insane increases in prices, right? This isn't just a gradual increase in price. It's not a game that went from $10,000 to $12,000 to $14,000. When you go from $10,000 to $24,000, that is inane. That is bonkers. That is silly. And I think what we're going to start to see more and more of, I think we're going to see games like that sit forever. Now, when you price a game like that, you're not pricing it to sell. You are pricing it to the point where you're like, only a fool and their money will go after this kind of game. And I'm just looking to hook one really rich guy that doesn't really care. I mean, that's what happens when you price a machine like that. And I will say this, it only takes one person who wants it that bad, who's got that much money who doesn't really care that they're paying a 140% increase in the price of the machine. And is that person out there? I don't know. If that person buys the game, I'll tell you what they won't do. They won't reveal that they bought the game because it's a foolish buy at that much money. I think we're going to see over the next 12 months, prices come back down to reality. I really do. I don't think we're going to see this crazy inflation continue. I think there's going to be so many games in the marketplace, so many games for sale in the marketplace, and so many more LEs now, right? Think about it. Stern going to come out with three more LEs in 2023 So speaking of where Stern goes next So after this game it going to be interesting What game do we see after James Bond Are we going to see Venom which we know is pretty much already done The other game I'm hearing about is Jack Danger's next game. And here's the rumor I heard. We keep hearing people say He-Man, but I heard the other rumor is this, that Jack Danger's machine is going to be a music pin. And the two musical acts that I'm hearing could be Jack Danger's game are Foo Fighters and Motley Crue. Now, between those two, I would rather have Motley Crue. I'm not a huge fan of the Foo Fighters. It's not that I don't get why you like them. I just don't need a Foo Fighters pinball machine. Stern is making it really easy for guys like me. I'm 46. I was born in 1976. James Bond, Sean Connery is not for me. Now, Foo Fighters does fall into my wheelhouse, but they're just not a band that I love. I mean, I just don't. I have enough music pins in my life. I have one Guns N' Roses machine, and that's good enough for me. I don't want like a row of music pins. So we'll see if it's that or if it's He-Man. Look, I would rather it be He-Man. I think He-Man would be amazing. It speaks more to me than Foo Fighters even. And I think He-Man's the right kind of campy fun for pinball. I know some of you out there are throwing your like computer out the window right now being like, Kaneda, He-Man's for kids. What are you talking about? But they got to make it based on the original He-Man. not the new woke version of He-Man that wasn't any good. Right, so we've got Venom, which is Brian Eddy. We got Jack Danger's game. And then we got Keith Elwin's game, which is also going to be coming out sometime in 2023. I think Elwin's game is going to be Jaws. I'm going to die on that hill that it is going to be Jaws pinball, that they are going to make it like Jurassic Park, make a game inspired by the Jaws movies and not use the actual footage from the movie itself. So I think we're going to see Keith Elwin Jaws. And I don't think Stern does another price increase. I know a lot of us are getting like deflated by the price of pinball now. And it is a little deflating, right? How can you have a topper go from $1,000 to $2,000? There's not even a gradual increase, right? It's just accelerating so quickly. And I think it's accelerating too quickly. And I think a lot of us out there feel this way. And I think a lot of us out there have the power. Like you are like He-Man in your pinball buying worlds. you have the power to not buy to just wait and see which ones of these games are going to actually end up being great are going to end up being masterpieces because I do think for this much money a game needs to check every box not just a few boxes every single box needs to be checked if you're going to ask me to spend over ten thousand dollars on a pinball machine that's not even that rare I need to just make sure I don't want to sell it and I think a lot of us are looking at this hobby now like that. It's no longer about investments. It's no longer about trading a game on because you know you're probably going to lose money if you spend these prices. It's not even about that anymore. It's just like we just want to buy games we love. Many of you already have a lineup of games that have so much stuff you love. Now, speaking of like gameplay, I heard this about James Bond. I heard that the ball times are long and that's making people concerned. I just want to say this. I think the indictment of long ball times is absolutely silly. I'll tell you why. How many of you out there mostly play your games by yourself? And everybody always wants really deep code. You want a ton of assets. You want all these different mini wizard modes and wizard modes and things to achieve in the game. Well, let me break it to you. You can't achieve a lot in a pinball machine unless you have long ball times. Like how can you make a game brutally fast and have a lot of draining going on and also see a lot in the game? And so if you want to have a game with tons in it, you're going to have to give the player some time to get through the game. Now personally, because I pretty much suck at pinball, I somewhat enjoy a longer ball time game. I liked playing Lord of the Rings because I could see so much in the game and it also makes you feel like you're a little bit of a better pinball player than you really are. Now, for people who are really good at pinball, long ball time games, they upset you. And I understand why, because you can spend a half hour on a machine and still be on the first ball. But for a home environment in which you are primarily playing by yourself, don't lie to us. Most of you out there listening to Canada's Pinball Podcast, we're not the best pinball players. And we actually enjoy having long games on our machines because we get to see more of the magic. It's just that simple to me. You get to experience more of the wow moments if you can maintain a ball in play. All right, so Stern Pinball, they're going to have another Stern year. So let's go to American Pinball because I was really surprised that American Pinball and Christopher Franchi showed people some images of the new game at the tailgating party at Cointaker. And then we saw nothing, nothing whatsoever from American Pinball in terms of their new game. But we did get confirmation from Dennis Nordman that the new game is going to be inside a completely new cabinet, that he's redesigned the pinball cabinet for this game. And Kaneda told you many, many episodes ago that this is going to be a cabinet that looks like a tank when it is folded down. So I totally think it's going to be like Galactic Tank Force or Space Force. And whatever that cabinet looks like, I think it's going to look like a tank or a spaceship, like the cabinet itself. Now, is this music to your ears or are you nervous about this? I was just thinking about it. It makes absolutely no sense that the cabinet looks like something when the backbox is folded down. So I hope that is not the case. The other thing is this. What has been American Pinball's biggest problems with their games to date? They stand out in a funky way in a lineup. They don't look good in a lineup, okay? So I'm a little bit nervous that if they get overly ambitious with how the cabinet looks and they make it look too jarring and out of place, that once again, American Pinball Games are going to stand out of a lineup in a really weird way. Now, why I do think it's cool to make a unique cabinet maybe sometimes for a game, the problem is this. Now your American Pinball Games just won't look right next to each other. One of the greatest things Stern has done is they have consistency. Stern games look so good next to each other. And you can put them next to each other, even if it's the LCD, even with the DMD games. There's just something about that standardized cabinet. When you line up Stern games and they're all the same height, and you put the Stern pinball alley sign above them all, it just looks great. It's like matching luggage. It looks terrific. And then when you try to put an American pinball game into a lineup of Stern machines it looks horrible It looks horribly out of place It just doesn look good aesthetically Jersey Jack games look better together They went through a little bit of a period where they were wide bodies than standard bodies They changed the backbox a little bit But for the most part JJP games look great next to each other And so look it seems like Dennis Nordman and David Fix and Zofia Ryan over there are going all in on this game I talked to someone who's seen the game. They said it is packed. But the question becomes, where is it? Like, Expo is over. We didn't see anything. They didn't tease it. They're still talking to us about Legends of Valhalla, a game that has no demand. There's no new demand for Legends of Valhalla. It's so weird to me. Like, you can go get a used deluxe limited version of the game for a thousand or more off sticker. So why would anyone order the standard deluxe or whatever the different versions are? There is no new demand for this game. And now it feels like American Pinball is not going to get out their new game this year. And there's no real timing, right? Like, right, does anyone know when the new American Pinball game is going to be revealed? I would just have to assume if they're not going to do it in the winter, they're going to wait to like TPF to do it. But here's where the battleground is going to happen, right? Because we know Spooky's new game is coming out this year. I think we're going to see Scooby-Doo sometime in December. I wouldn't be surprised if Spooky doesn't tease it on Halloween, everybody. It's called Spooky Pinball and they've already sold all of their Halloween games. So what a perfect time for them to tease their next spooky inspired pinball machine. But I think spooky pinball is going to come out with their new game. And American Pinball is going to be caught sitting on their hands again and have nothing new to sell you. And by the time American Pinball releases this Dennis Nordman game, they are most likely going to be competing with the next game from Jersey Jack Pinball. If that's Godfather, they're probably hoping it's Godfather because if it is Godfather, I don't know who's buying that title. I have to be honest. And they're also going to be competing with the next game from Stern Pinball. Will it be Venom? Will it be something else? But my point is this. This was a perfect window for David Fix and Team American Pinball to march in with a new game during a great sales window. And what are they trying to sell us right now? A game nobody really wants, Legends of Ahala. They just can't get the marketing down. Why is it so hard? Why is it so hard? Haven't they been working on this game for years? Just get it out. It's like nobody can stay on a schedule. And I understand there's a supply shortage. And I guess it's a good thing that they didn't reveal something until they actually can have the game on the line. But look, I think everyone's excited to see this Dennis Nordman game. But I'm a little worried that American Pinball, from a marketing standpoint, just never seems to have any strategy. All right. So we got American Pinball. We got Stern. Chicago Gaming Company. Everybody is still waiting on their Cactus Canyon LEs. I have not seen a single one unboxed. It is crazy that they brought that game to Expo a year ago. The game is not even eligible for a Twippy because it's been out already for a year. I don't know if the Topper is eligible for this year's Twippy, but Chicago Gaming Company is another company that just can't seem to get the games on the line. But if you're Chicago Gaming Company, aren't you looking at one thing right now? Are you seeing these Big Bang bars? Are you seeing one sale pending for $33,000, another for sale for $40,000? If you're a Chicago gaming company and you have the ability to remake Big Bang Bar, why wouldn't you? If you're looking at this marketplace, oh my gosh. I mean, this game is selling for hotcakes. But again, the devil's advocate is like the only reason it's selling for that much money is people think the game is not going to be remade. If you flood the market with new versions of the game, then you start to really eat away at the value and the rarity of the machine itself. All right, so Jersey Jack Pinball, when's the next game going to happen, right? Toy Story Demand has also dried up. I don't even think Greg sold his game for $10,200. People are just losing two grand overnight on the game. Now, look, more and more people have been playing the game, and everyone's going to come to the same conclusion. It's a fun game to shoot. it's based on the theme nobody wanted in the toy story world and it's a shallow game so if you spend this much money on it and you bring it into a home environment there's a really good chance you're going to see most of the game in a month or two and after that wears off is it going to be a game you're going to want to own for a long period of time and the problem is is now that people are seeing the prices go down and down and down you're going to want to get out of it quickly because if you hold on to it too long, you might be losing like three grand on a brand new pinball machine and nobody wants that to happen. All right, what else is going on in the pinball world? So let's talk about Haggis for a second. Now look, you know Kaneda, I try to hold everybody accountable for the things they say they're going to do. Now Damien told customers months ago that he was going to finish all of the mermaid editions of Fathom by the end of the year. Now that is happening in just a couple months, and I think they are making 250 Mermaid editions of this game. Do you think he's going to hit that milestone? I can't imagine they're at that number. I don't even think they're at half of that number of fathoms built. I also heard that the Duck Pinball guy, you know, the guy from South America, from Brazil, I think he's from, I heard that he has left Haggis Pinball. So we know when he went over there, he was all excited to help Damien build these games. It's still one big mystery to me. I have no idea like how many people are making these games. The games are going out like whatever they're doing. I don't know if like magical little Australian elves are coming into the factory every night, but someone's making these games and that's a good sign. And the quality of the games is there when people are playing these games at shows. It's very impressive. So look, I think you're going to get your game. It's never been about that. I'm just not sure how they're going to make money if their production is so slow. Like, how are they going to stay in business in the long run if this is the case? You know, but it's the same problem with Jerry over at Multimorphic. They just can't find the people to make the games. Like, even when I was watching the American Pinball Tour that David Fix showed us at his like seminar at Expo, I always notice how few people are in these companies. Like you've got all of these parts and you've got this assembly line and you just never see many people coming in every day working on the machines. The only company that always seems like it's loaded with people is Stern. Everyone else, it always feels like more of a skeleton crew that's basically building these things slowly. Like it is not a fast operation building pinball machines. I think the only people that should be a little bit nervous are the Haggis series ticket holders who, for some reason, ordered the next four or five machines. Like, good luck. I hope you get those games. But I think it's going to be a long wait for this company to move on to their next game. Because remember after they build these mermaid editions they also have to go build all the other fathoms they got orders for I going to go out on a limb and say that I don think Haggis Pinball is going to build anything other than Fathom in 2023 I don think we seeing another game which is a long build cycle. And again, I hope they get it done, but I just think they completely underestimated how hard it is to make pinball machines. All right, so we covered off on Haggis on Spooky. Dutch Pinball is slowly getting it done as well. Nothing new to report over at Dutch pinball. Let's talk about the pinball brothers. They showed up to pinball expo with prototypes of queen pinball. And I want to question this move. Why would you show up with a prototype game that has code that is clearly, clearly in need of work. So you're letting people jump on the machine for the first time to experience the game in a way that is not very satisfying. I was hearing stuff like when the ball would drain, if you were in a song, the song would stop playing, which was really weird. Like that doesn't happen in Guns N' Roses. Like you're supposed to be at a Queen concert. Now, that is obviously something they can fix with coding. But again, why would you come to a show and show your product in an incomplete way that's not going to win people over? And I don't get it. I really don't get it. A company like the Pinball Brothers is not Stern Pinball. Nobody's got the confidence in their coding that this game is going to get incrementally better. Stern Pinball can show up with something incomplete and everybody will forgive them. You know why? Because they have a track record of making some of the best pinball machines in history. What is the track record of the Pinball Brothers? They made Alien Pinball with Andrew Highway. That game was coded by Andrew Highway's people. this game has probably been somewhat coded by the team over at highway it's a leftover game from andrew highway's period with this company so who's even coding this game like who's making this game do you have faith in the code team over at the pinball brothers to really knock this game out of the park i watched video footage of this game and i struggle to find anything really interesting in it like it's okay. It just feels like Guns N' Roses light. But my point is this, you really do only get one chance to make a first impression. And for some reason in the pinball world, marketing and marketing basics continue to be a problem with these boutique companies. It's almost like you want to take credit before you should take credit. Yes, going to a show with your product and hanging out with fans and hanging out with the community. That is a reward for the hard work. But you should not show up at a show unless your game is done or your name is Stern Pinball. I mean that. Not even Stern should show up with incomplete games. I don't think showing James Bond in this form is doing anything for them. I really don't. And you can see it. Like the feedback from people on James Bond is like, yeah, it's good. It's all right. I don't know. The ball spends a lot of time in the pop bumpers, but I'm not quite sure where the code's going to go, but it's probably going to be great. I mean, that's it. That's the feedback. It's probably going to be great, right? I wasn't hearing that about Queen. Like it's probably going to be great. You know, there's some Queen fanatics that'll buy this game, but for the most part, how do you put Queen pinball at over $10,000? How do you put it in your consideration set right now? If you're a pinhead, how do you do that? When are you even going to get your game? Do you remember when they revealed this game, They said they were shipping products to customers in like October, November of this year. They took people's non-refundable deposits on those orders. Now we're learning the game's not even going to be on the line this year. And so this is it. It's like another failed launch. And I think as a community, and I'm not just being like negative Canadian because I love pinball. When are we just going to say, stop doing this? Stop launching your products in the worst way possible. like just wait what benefit does it do showing an incomplete game all you're doing is turning people off to your product you know many people probably walked up to queen and had an experience with the game that was underwhelming because they're playing an incomplete game right and it wasn't just like the ball draining and the song stopping i'm also hearing the call outs in the game were horrible horrible call outs like they put you to sleep how can you have a rock and roll machine with high energy queen music and then your call outs are like they're on quaaludes. And it's like, when are we going to learn this lesson? We learned this lesson with Rob Zombie. Remember Rob Zombie's call outs? They were the same way. If you're going to do call outs for a pinball machine, you've got to have some enthusiasm, some energy. This is a high energy game pinball and you can't just be phoning it in. But again, a lot of this comes from experience and they just don't have experience guiding people on doing call-outs. Oh, it's so easy. You know, look, some of this is hard. Like, look, I get making pinball is hard, but some of this isn't hard. Like, it's not hard to get energy in your pinball call-outs. It's not hard to get good artwork on a pinball machine. It's not hard to design an orbit that's not clunky. I'm sorry. We are way too forgiving as a community to some of the boneheaded mistakes we see happening over and over and over again in pinball. All right, what else is happening in pinball? Who's going to win the winter, right? I keep saying this. Who's going to win the pinball winter? I think it's going to be Spooky. I'm calling it right now. I think the game that's going to have most of the hype is going to be Spooky's new game because I think when they reveal it, I don't know, there's just something about it. It just feels like it's going to be a dark horse. I think there's a lot of people that just don't care about Sean Connery, James Bond. I mean that. And it's nothing against James Bond. There's so many of us. It's just not a theme for us. Now, will Scooby-Doo be that theme? Probably not, right? It's like you're either like this old man or little kids that would wear Scooby-Doo pajamas. It's like, where's the game for just normal dudes like me? Where's Top Gun? Where's Cobra Kai? Where's Fifth Element? Where's Big Trouble in Little China? Where's The Matrix? It's really easy to make a theme where you could see someone aged like 40 to 55 would love this theme for pinball. Everybody, thank you for tuning in to Canada's Pinball Podcast. I will be back later this week as we see what happens in this pinball world. I fully expect the Keith Elwin game to be any day now. Stern's going to have to get this thing out any day now. And it is going to be the talk of the pinball world when it drops. but I don't think in the right way. Everybody be good. We'll talk to you soon.