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The Pinball Show Ep 187 BONUS: MORE 2025 Game Sales Data & Industry Pattern Analysis

Pinball Show Patreon Feed·podcast_episode·49m 18s·analyzed·Jan 14, 2026
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Flippin' Out reports non-Stern games hit 50% of unit sales in 2025, driven by Harry Potter, Dune, and Beetlejuice; Stern weakened by poor cornerstone performance.

Summary

Zach Sharpe of Flippin' Out (a major Stern distributor) shares detailed 2025 game sales data, revealing non-Stern manufacturers achieved 50% of unit sales (up from ~30% historically), driven by strong performances from Jersey Jack's Harry Potter, Barrels of Fun's Dune and Winchester, Spooky's Beetlejuice, and Chicago Gaming's Medieval Madness remake. Stern's cornerstone titles underperformed relative to expectations (Star Wars sold 30-40% less than King Kong; John Wick was a major miss), while legacy titles like Jaws and Godzilla continued strong secondary-year sales. Sharpe predicts the non-Stern surge is a temporary 'blip' tied to favorable licensing convergence and production constraints, expecting Stern to recover market share in 2026.

Key Claims

  • Non-Stern sales increased 30%+ year-over-year while Stern sales increased ~13% for Flippin' Out in 2025

    high confidence · Zach Sharpe, Flippin' Out sales data, discussed as direct business metric

  • Stern Pinball represented 50% of Flippin' Out's 2025 unit sales, down from historically ~70-80%

    high confidence · Zach Sharpe explicitly states this breakdown and emphasizes it's the first year this happened

  • Star Wars Fall of the Empire sold approximately 30-40% of King Kong unit volume

    high confidence · Zach Sharpe comparing Stern cornerstone sales data; described as 'worst selling Stern cornerstone of the year by a pretty decent margin'

  • John Wick sold less than half the units of Star Wars Fall of the Empire

    high confidence · Zach Sharpe, direct sales comparison: 'Even at that, we sold less than half of that for John Wick'

  • Jaws (all versions including 50th anniversary) outsold Harry Potter and Beetlejuice combined

    high confidence · Zach Sharpe analyzing 2025 sales data; notes Jaws 50th drove secondary-year sales surge

  • Flippin' Out sold more Godzilla Premium units in 2025 than King Kong Premium

    high confidence · Zach Sharpe, surprise revelation about 2025 premium model breakdown

  • Jersey Jack Pinball was Flippin' Out's second-biggest selling manufacturer entity in 2025, primarily driven by Harry Potter sales (31 Avatar CE units also sold)

    high confidence · Zach Sharpe, confirmed in sales meeting with business partners; Harry Potter dominated JJP portfolio

  • Flippin' Out sold only 1-2 units of several Pro models: one Foo Fighters Premium, zero John Wick Premium, zero Avengers Premium, one John Wick Pro, two John Wick Pros total

    high confidence · Zach Sharpe citing specific unit counts from 2025 inventory

  • Uncanny X-Men sold more units than Star Wars and approximately equal to D&D despite strong launch followed by poor reception

Notable Quotes

  • “The narrative of pinball is dying. This was not a good year for pinball. It was a good year for flipping out.”

    Dennis (podcast host) @ Early discussion — Sets up core tension between negative community sentiment and strong distributor sales data

  • “I would guess that the numbers that I'm seeing reflect, I just don't see how Stern had a significantly worse year than their prior, just based on the data that I'm seeing with my numbers sales-wise... I'd say it was more plateau.”

    Zach Sharpe @ Early analysis — Challenges 'pinball is dying' narrative with data-driven perspective on Stern performance

  • “Star Wars sold roughly 30% to 40% less sales versus what Kong sales [were]. So it's 30% to 40% less sales versus what Kong sales.”

    Zach Sharpe @ Mid-discussion — Quantifies underperformance of Star Wars relative to King Kong despite bigger IP

  • “Jaws 50th plus all your legacy Jaws outsold everything else... all the Jaws together past both of those.”

    Zach Sharpe @ Jaws analysis — Demonstrates unexpected strength of secondary-year remaster and anniversary editions over flagship titles

  • “We sold more Godzilla Premium in 2025 than we sold King Kong Premium... that's nutty.”

    Zach Sharpe @ Premium model breakdown — Highlights surprising performance of Godzilla over newer, heavily marketed King Kong

  • “Even at that, we sold less than half of that for John Wick. Ouch. The prior year.”

    Zach Sharpe @ John Wick analysis — John Wick positioned as major commercial failure despite popular movie franchise

  • “This is probably the first year it wasn't [higher Stern percentage growth]. And that is a perfect segue into a percentage breakdown between the companies.”

    Zach Sharpe @ Market share analysis — Explicitly marks 2025 as watershed year for non-Stern growth

  • “I think this is a blip and we'll see if I'm right or wrong in 26. There was just a convergence of factors that happened on the non-Stern companies.”

Entities

Zach SharpepersonDennispersonFlippin' OutcompanyStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyBarrels of FuncompanySpooky PinballcompanyChicago Gaming Companycompany

Signals

  • $

    market_signal: Non-Stern manufacturers achieved 50% of Flippin' Out's 2025 unit sales (from historical ~30%), marking structural market share shift driven by product quality and favorable licensing convergence

    high · Zach Sharpe: 'Usually I would bet at least probably 70% Stern and 30% everything else. This year, it was split. Stern Pinball was 50% of our business.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Non-Stern manufacturers (JJP, Barrels, Spooky, CGC) secured superior IP portfolio in 2025 (Harry Potter, Dune, Beetlejuice, Medieval Madness remake) while Stern's cornerstone selections (King Kong, D&D, Star Wars, John Wick) underperformed relative to prior years

    high · Dennis: 'It felt so much like everyone else in the industry figured out what licenses to get and Stern just kind of stepped in it and didn't do anything notable.'

  • ?

    product_concern: John Wick Pinball major commercial failure, selling <50% of Star Wars; attributed to designer inexperience, barren launch code, poor timing (June launch), and media influence (Gun Gate controversy)

    high · Zach Sharpe: 'It was a new designer. It was a theme that really nobody was asking for. It was the code at launch, pretty barren... When they place each of these cornerstones, there's hotter times than others, and it just was not launched in a hot time.'

  • ?

    product_launch: Jaws Pinball 50th anniversary edition and continued Premium sales drove unexpectedly strong 2025 performance, outselling flagship titles; secondary-year sales becoming major revenue driver for Stern

    high · Zach Sharpe: 'We sold more jaws pinball machines in 2025 than we did in 2024' and Jaws 50th 'surpasses all of Beetlejuice sales... surpasses all of Harry Potter sales'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.148

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. Thanks again for the ongoing support as a Pinball Show Club member. Enjoy this exclusive TPS content and make sure to visit the Pinball Show Club Discord to chat about the bonus material.
0:19
Okay, Dennis, these people, they got the taters. Now they want the meat, the juices. They want them to flow throughout the data points of 2025, game sales and trends and everything like that. So where do you want to start as we extend our tiny hand to them to help them into this more deeper dive? They promised a deeper dive. Okay, so we talked about all of the numbers, I guess, or the trends. Yeah, you mentioned over 30% increase in your non-stern sales versus 2024, over 10% increase in stern sales over 2024.
0:56
So you've shown that Philippine Out had growth. Um, maybe before diving into the numbers, I'd like, I'd like to hear your opinion on this because you brought it up several times in 2025. Uh, and I don't follow the same, I guess, forum discussions that you do. The narrative of pinball is dying. This was not a good year for pinball. It was a good year for flipping out. How do you reconcile this? Do you think it was a good year for pinball? And these people are just wrong and they're spinning a story that they, they just assume pinballs down because there's economic uncertainty and yada, or, or do you think there is some truth to maybe where they're coming from, but your experience is quite different. So I, I guess I struggle to reconcile it, but I'm, I'm curious what your opinion is of that. Yeah, I don't. Yeah. It'd have to be opinion. Cause I just don't know.
1:52
I don't know how other dealers didn't have Stern did and how other manufacturers did direct or anything. I would guess that the numbers that I'm seeing reflect, I just don't see how Stern had a significantly worse year than their prior, just based on the data that I'm seeing with my numbers sales-wise. So if they did, if they had a dip, it had to have been minor. It wouldn't surprise me if they did better in 2025 than in 2024. If I had to put money on it, I'd say it was more plateau, and the difference that I'm seeing is more company growth than anything. Because when I look at a 13% increase for us on what we've shipped, and then I see a 35% increase, and then I see a 30-plus percent increase on non-stern shipped, I say that's the product difference right there for non-stern stuff. I'm seeing better products from non-stern. That's why I'm seeing 30% there. But it doesn't make up for all of the 30-plus percent. So what's the difference there? If we're looking at about a 20% difference of growth between non-stern and stern for us, then some of that, or a large majority of that, is what is being produced, what is coming out. That's the product itself. But it still leaves 5% to 10% of just general growth of companies. I would guess maybe 5% more growth from non-Stern stuff, if I threw just a guess based on these numbers. But I think Stern's doing okay. But I think they're probably not happy with their 2025 because every company like that wants to continue growing. Right. Not every company in pinball wants to continue growing. Those with investors would.

high confidence · Zach Sharpe comparing Stern cornerstone performance; notes Plunge Gate rule update damaged X-Men reputation

  • Non-Stern backorders are approximately 20 times higher than Stern backorders at Flippin' Out

    high confidence · Zach Sharpe, reflecting on production capacity constraints across non-Stern manufacturers

    • Zach Sharpe @ Forward-looking analysis — Positions non-Stern surge as temporary anomaly, not structural market shift

  • “It felt so much like everyone else in the industry figured out what licenses to get and Stern just kind of stepped in it and didn't do anything notable.”

    Dennis (podcast host) @ Licensing analysis — Articulates perception that non-Stern manufacturers outmaneuvered Stern on IP selection

  • “Stern it's Stern's market to lose in 26. I don't think that Jersey Jack will have the insight to immediately alter that model.”

    Dennis (podcast host) @ 2026 forecast — Predicts Stern market recovery and questions JJP's strategic adaptability

    • Multimorphic/Pinball Brothers
    company
    Carl Dagger / Winchester Mystery Houseperson/game
    Jaws Pinballgame
    King Konggame
    Star Wars Fall of the Empiregame
    Harry Pottergame
    Beetlejuicegame
    Dune Pinballgame
    Winchester Mystery Housegame
    John Wickgame
    Medieval Madness (remake)game
    Metallica Remastergame
    Walking Dead Remastergame
    Godzillagame
    Uncanny X-Mengame
    Foo Fightersgame
    Avatargame

    manufacturing_signal: Non-Stern backorders ~20x higher than Stern backorders at Flippin' Out, indicating significant production capacity constraints and fulfillment challenges for independent manufacturers despite strong 2025 sales

    high · Zach Sharpe: 'I've got 20 times more non-stern stuff on back order than I have stern stuff on back order'

  • ?

    code_update: Uncanny X-Men received significant code overhaul after Plunge Gate controversy; community backlash to rule changes attributed to damaging sales trajectory despite strong launch

    medium · Zach Sharpe: 'Plunge Gate hurt it... people hated the rules. Let's put it that way. They hated the rules.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community narrative of 'pinball is dying' contradicted by actual sales data showing 13-30%+ growth for distributors; gap between pessimistic forum sentiment and strong distributor performance

    high · Dennis opening: 'The narrative of pinball is dying. This was not a good year for pinball. It was a good year for flipping out.'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern retains market dominance despite non-Stern gains; expected to recover market share in 2026; non-Stern surge described as temporary 'blip' rather than permanent structural change

    high · Dennis: 'Stern it's Stern's market to lose in 26. I don't think that Jersey Jack will have the insight to immediately alter that model.'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Anniversary and limited editions (Jaws 50th, Metallica Remaster) driving unexpected secondary-year sales volume; FOMO mechanics more effective for recapturing prior interest than new cornerstone releases

    high · Zach Sharpe on Jaws 50th: 'A call to action. Like people who did not buy Jaws, they knew it was good. They heard it was good. Whenever this new offering came, then people are like, shit, okay. And it's limited?'

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Canadian and international retaliatory tariffs in early 2025 potentially impacted Stern international sales (Canada, Australia) but minimal impact on domestic US distributor like Flippin' Out; foreign market contraction may partially explain Stern's modest growth

    medium · Dennis: 'Canada instituted retaliatory tariffs pretty early in 2025... the price of pens, if they got significantly higher to get in Canada... would affect a company like Stern'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Jersey Jack Pinball rumored to release Sonic in 2025/2026; production strategy with Sonic as new title while maintaining Harry Potter production may face challenges given backorder volume

    medium · Dennis: 'Jersey Jack has got a banger coming. They do.' [referring to Sonic]; discussion of dual production lines creating delays

  • ?

    industry_signal: Zach Sharpe (Flippin' Out) shares detailed confidential sales data on podcast despite business risk; indicates strong community trust and commitment to transparent market analysis despite potential competitive disadvantage

    medium · Dennis: 'I'm giving people information that typically I would not give' and 'it's probably not in my best interest to release any of this information'

    • 3:47
    Yeah. The closest I could get as a non-dealer to reconciliation on this would be with everything that happened in the kind of – we'll call it a trade war, tariff war. I could see that the foreign markets decreased for Stern in particular because I believe Canada instituted retaliatory tariffs pretty early in 2025. So because of that, the price of pens, if they got significantly higher to get in Canada, Australia as two big – smaller but big markets for Stern, that wouldn't affect you in any way. True. Or U.S. sales really in any way. But it would affect a company like Sturd. If you had more international companies that were subject to tariff in your portfolio, that would have been an interesting thing that I would have asked you for. But you don't have a lot. I think you basically got Pedretti and Pinball Brothers. But like if you had Dutch and Hexa and all of that and Home Pin and Pinball Adventures, maybe I would be curious at that point to have asked you, How did those sales do in 25 versus 24 with the American tariffs that apply to those brands? But flipping out, I don't know what your portfolio total was of overseas, but I think from the way you ranked them, it's pretty small. It's very small. So even if we did have some of those companies we sold for, the quantity of what they're moving compared to domestic stuff is so small that I don't even think the data point would be significant. It's not big enough to even pull anything. Okay. I wanted to open with that as a query. Well, didn't Star Wars, they couldn't sell those? I forgot about that. That was some speculation about why the LEs were so available early on in particular was none of the European dealers were allowed to get it. I don't think it was – but that was a weird licensing thing that came up. They had their own separate licensing for different locations. And and so that kind of explained why Star Wars did. And again, where you ended up placing, I'm trying to remember, I think back in the main episode, you noted across all trim levels, Star Wars sold worse than D&D. and normally I would say that's very surprising granted D&D had basically the entire calendar year and Star Wars didn't but it's Star Wars and you know how it is with Christmas and Star Wars I would have thought that it would have passed I wasn't too surprised that it was beneath King Kong but I was surprised that it didn't pass D&D yeah it was our worst selling stern cornerstone of the year by a pretty decent margin We aren't to 50% of what we sold King Kong-wise with Star Wars, Fall of the Empire, but we're probably 30%, I mean, 70%, however you want to look at it. Of the King Kongs we sold, 70% of those numbers, that's how many we sold of Star Wars, I guess. So it's about, so Star Wars sold roughly 30%. Maybe 60%. Maybe 60%, yeah. So it's 30% to 40% less sales versus what Kong sales. Star Wars. I mean, granted, it was the last corner zone, so it did have less time to work with. But it did have – I mean, there's still plenty of – and again, with what you've shared before that, most of the time, most of your sales happen the first couple of weeks. You wouldn't normally expect to see that level of gap, especially against D&D though, like a niche title, arguably a niche title. Even if we're looking at Jaws, I'm looking at these numbers right now. Jaws is just incredible. Like the total number of Jaws, at this point, if we're looking at Jaws just to release, that is pros, premiums, LEs, and a 50th anniversary. It surpasses all of Beetlejuice sales. It surpasses all of Harry Potter sales.
    7:56
    I'm trying to think. Let's see. All the Jaws' together past both of those? Yeah, all the Jaws. Yeah. Wow. Not both together, but like Jaws versus Harry Potter, yeah. Jaws 50th plus all your legacy Jaws outsold everything else. So Jaws came out in... 24.
    8:17
    Okay, so these numbers are crazy. This shows what I've been saying, but I didn't know quantitatively it was like this. But this is true now that I see numbers. Remember I kept saying like, man, a year later, that's when Jaws finally hit. that's when people finally were getting on this game all that so based on these numbers we sold more jaws pinball machines in 2025 than we did in 2024 that's that's very surprising to me yeah i mean i i know that the appreciation for the game grew i didn't realize it grew that much for sales i i understood that jaws 50th would really goose it though in a way well no it was Is that Jaws 50th? Yeah, that's what it was. I mean, that's a new product offering. Yes, but I still want to – I am still surprised about it because quite bluntly, compared to the other anniversary ones, this one looked the least different to me. You could easily argue it looked better, but the prior game wasn't disliked. Like what was the most disliked visual aspect of the prior one? Some people didn't like the Translight first-person perspective on the premium of Quint getting eaten by the shark. I don't think there was anything. I don't know if anyone didn't buy it over that. We're still selling a lot of regular Jaws premium. Still selling them.
    9:44
    I don't know. I mean – I think it was just call to action. Like people who did not buy Jaws, they knew it was good. They heard it was good. Right, right, right. Whenever this new offering came, then people are like, shit, okay. And it's limited? Crap. Okay.
    10:00
    Crystal ball me here, Zach. Does that happen with Kong this year? I can't say that because there's not a special edition.
    10:10
    Absolutely. My crystal ball is, and I've been saying it, King Kong will be kind of the stern hit of 2026. It's that year later kind of thing that Jaws took. Same thing. We'll see the same thing. But from a numbers perspective, if it's going to be tough because Joel's had a whole new edition. Yes. And King Kong's not going to have that this year that I know of.
    10:31
    So, yeah, I think from the hobbyist perspective, yes. There's a good chance. Okay, here's another way of saying it. There's a good chance that we sell 60% in 2026, 60% of the Kongs that we sold in 2025.
    10:49
    Okay. And that's pretty big considering one of our biggest sellers was Joel's 50th. of last year, which kind of was the reason that we sold so many. But if we look at, man, we've just sold a lot of Joels, but even Godzilla. Remember, I surprised everybody with the whole, we sold a crap load of Godzilla. We sold more Godzilla premium in 2025 than we sold King Kong premium. then we sold Dungeons and Dragons pick your model then we sold Jaws Premium then we sold I'd say Medieval Madness Merlin Kong LE, Star Wars LE all of that but I'm limited as to what I can buy of those but to say that we sold more Godzilla Premium in 2025 than King Kong Premium that's nutty than Jaws Premium him the regular joel spring nutty right crazy just to show you you had mentioned on the main episode just kind of conversational conversational extending this uh you mentioned that jersey jack pinball uh for 2025 was your second biggest selling entity next to stern and that that it hadn't always been that way uh now obviously you noted in the detail numbers the emphasis on on Harry Potter and where it placed. Was it all driven by Harry Potter Did you have good Avatar sales What about other JJP legacy games I would say predominantly it was Harry Potter I didn hear the other ones I know we only went so far down the list, but we don't need you to run through every SKU because it's ridiculous.
    12:31
    But it was surprising because some of this information I was pulling from one of our sales meetings for the end of the year recap of just presenting things to Greg and Ken and Nicole and all that. But I reminded them, this is pretty telling in that I'm giving people information that typically I would not give. But in 2025, just a reminder, because sometimes people crap on Avatar. Like, that game didn't sell and all that. And I didn't really would have thought it would sell that great either. But we sold 31 Avatar CE games. 31 in 2025. that's a lot of avatars in my opinion. Now, again, some huge dealers may say that's nothing. Some small dealers are like, I didn't even know they made 30 more, but the bigger, like they sold 31 avatar CE games. That's a, that's a lot. So I reminded the guys like,
    13:29
    eh, it's still, there's some games that you sell a lot of. On the other hand, Dennis, there's some games that people would think just naturally sell that really we didn't sell much of in 2025. For example, We only sold two John Wick Pros the whole year. Only one Foo Fighter Premium the whole year. It's no wonder they pulled Foo Fighters from, like, Evolve. We only sold one. Right. John Wick Premium, zero. Didn't sell any John Wick Premium the whole year. We sell a lot of games. No Avengers Premium. I don't think we sold any of those. Venom Pro, Star Wars Pro, and Mandalorian Pro. The original Star Wars Pro. of those rich original Star Wars. Yeah, we didn't. Yeah. So.
    14:14
    Again, I think that says a lot. Yeah. When you compare when you compare those kind of things, it's interesting. Now, we're talking about like we're comparing to last year, some of the titles, the Stern titles. Let's compare some. I always said that people crapped on Uncanny X-Men. I said, look, it's so great when it came out, though, like everyone was ordering it. It went dead after that. Plunge Gate. In 2025, we really did not sell many Uncanny X-Men. Plunge Gate hurt it. And I still don't have enough time on X-Men to say a whole lot, but people would go to the past or the future. I don't know. The rules, didn't they rebuild them from the ground up because it just wasn't working? A lot of it. Yeah, a lot of it. Anyway, people hated the rules. Let's put it that way. They hated the rules. But to put into perspective, the Uncanny X-Men, we sold more on Caney X-Men than we did Star Wars and Dungeons and Dragons.
    15:17
    Given how strong it launched, I'm not really surprised about that. I am on Star Wars. I'm not on D&D.
    15:26
    This is interesting as well. So when it comes to Godzilla, we barely sold more Godzillas in 2024 than we did in 2025. So it is decreasing. It should, but it's close. But it's closer than it should be.
    15:44
    We sold, not to surprise, we sold more Metallica remasters than we did the Walking Dead remaster. No, that shocked no one.
    15:52
    Let's see if I can shock you with something else here then. What about John Wick? John Wick was a really controversial release. I've heard more people appreciate it now, kind of like how James Bond got more appreciated as time went by. I haven't played John Wick in several months I didn't care about the whole Gun Gate thing, I thought that was stupid I didn't like how it shot and I still, last I played it, didn't enjoy it Here's how Godzilla fared and it is not a pretty picture Not Godzilla John Wick You can't say Godzilla is not a pretty picture because Godzilla is always a pretty picture John Wick wasn't a pretty picture This is just to show you how well it did not Or hell. Like how big of a miss it was. Yeah. Star Wars Fall of the Empire was our least sold cornerstone of 2025 for Sterns.
    16:47
    Even at that, we sold less than half of that for John Wick. Ouch. The prior year. It's such a popular series of movies, too. It just fell flat. Do you think that was Gun Gate? Do you think that the layout wasn't very well appreciated? I mean, I still remember the interview with Gomez where he said he finally went and said, you're done, one more layout, and we're releasing it. And he rejected a whole bunch of the original ideas. Yeah, I think that media influence does play a pretty strong role in a hobbyist, collector-based community that listens and consumes a lot of content. But that's not all of it. I mean, it was a new designer. It was a theme that really nobody was asking for. It was the code at launch, pretty barren. It was the timing of which they launched it. When they place each of these cornerstones, there's hotter times than others, and it just was not launched in a hot time. I think that was the spring, summer. Yeah. It was like a June. I know historically back in the arcade era, summer sales were really bad for pinball. So just that one did not do well. So let's talk now about percentage. I'm trying to think if there's anything else here that we can look at. I've asked all the things I could really come up with that I think the listener would be curious about, but I'm just one person. Okay. And then you guys can always e-mail if you guys want more information, thepinballshowatgmail.com. And you'll e-mail your QuickBooks over. I'll be as transparent as I can be. which makes sense. But I mean, it's probably not in my best interest to release any of this information, arguably. Right. There's what's the benefit here. It's there's a benefit, probably none, but probably not harmful either. Sort of neutral. I wish I had a percentage of in 2024, the increase in sales that we had with Stern versus non Stern, because we've seen that big bump. and that's because non-Stern stuff was killing it in 2025. Yeah, a lot of companies put out games. They actually were licenses people were interested in or had some other hook that got people in. So it was a really interesting year for what I'm going to broadly call the independents. I'm pretty confident to say that the percentage increase our company has seen with Stern has historically, since we've started, been higher every single year than it was for non-Stern stuff. This is probably the first year it wasn't. And that is a perfect segue into a percentage breakdown between the companies. So this is all the products, not new products, just all the products that we sold in 2025. And by not new, you mean older line stuff. Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden are still selling. But you're not counting the used arm of Flippin' Out, are you? Nope. Okay. Only new products. Okay. So new product, but not just products released in 25. Correct. Okay. I understand. All right. That was Stern Pinball. Now, I've said before, like, oh, my God, Stern Pinball is what we sell. I mean, we sell more Stern Pinball than anybody combined. We sell, you know, that kind of stuff. And what's the thumbprint in pinball?
    20:14
    We've heard 80% to 90% of the share of the pinball market. Now, what does that mean, though? Does that mean altogether the products, or does that mean new products? I don't know what that means. I would just assume, I would assume, but it's a guess because I don't know either is that is the number of games that they ship in a year.
    20:37
    And you add everyone's get that everyone, they're 90, 80 to 90% of that total. Then I can definitely still see that. I can still see it. Okay. Because it goes to show you 20 times more non-stern stuff on back order than I have stern stuff on back order. I don't, I don't think that is a negative thing to say about Stern. I think that says more about sure that they had a non-Sterns had great year. You're still going to make these products. I think that the struggle this year is going to be for manufacturers that are not called Stern pinball on what they're going to do to get all of these back orders out to people. Sure. I mean, it's 20 times is a big number, but you know, obviously with the year's context, knowing that both Winchester and Beetlejuice both were basically just pre-orders.
    21:30
    It's not like they had expected to get the games out by now. That's true. So I do want to put in some qualifier because I know, given where they both ranked in your list that we discussed with everyone in the general show, that those obviously were very high level of your numbers. So those are kind of – you're right to point it out because in a perfect world, they do it like – in my view at least. In a perfect word, they'd be like Stern and Beetlejuice would start production two weeks after they had done the sales. But that's not what they do. In context, for a thousand Beetlejuice, Stern could have created – They'd be done within a month. Two weeks. Two, three weeks. Within a month, the whole run would be built, shipped, and they'd be done with it. Harry Potter within a quarter? They could have had every Harry Potter ordered, built, and shipped? Yeah. And for Stern, I mean, again, why I think they think of that 80 to 90 in that way is just like they did in December and they're going to be doing here around June or whatever.
    22:30
    They do these catch-up runs on older titles, but those are still a big part of their sales as you've just demonstrated with Godzilla and Jaws. Yeah, with JJP, think about this. They have a lot of Harry Potter still to build. They know that they can continue selling that game, Dennis and viewer. For years. So they've not really had to face this. No, that's what's so interesting for them. Because they're going to come out with, if it's rumored, Sonic, they're going to come out with a new game this year. But they've got to be careful that if they're running two lines, that new hot game is going to feel even more delayed in its production than Harry Potter has felt, because they're also going to still be making Harry Potter.
    23:15
    What do you think? they're really just going to shut off harry potter until they build six months worth of uh of rumored sonic maybe i mean but there's a big risk to that because that's going to piss off a lot of people that maybe have been waiting quite a while to get those harry potters again no you're right to have but because stern lives this every year like you mentioned godzilla sales for you were only slightly lower than they were last year you might speculate i don't know if you have, you might speculate that your sales in 26 of Godzilla Premium is going to be a little bit less than 2025. Stern has to factor this in and keep building the dang things. Yeah. That's why we're seeing them vault some stuff. Yes. Some stuff's got to be vaulted because they're not selling, as I talk about. The Foo Fighters probably buy. So this was the biggest year in our company's history for non-Stern products. The biggest. in that we're looking at percentage. Usually I would bet at least probably 70% Stern and 30% everything else. This year, it was split. Stern Pinball was 50% of our business.
    24:27
    Now, I don't know how people perceive that. They could perceive that as, holy crap. That a lot of business from one entity half of Flippin Out business is just Stern Pinball Or they could perceive it as wow that I thought it would be much higher than that These non-Stern manufacturers really are catching up here. How do you interpret that? I viewed it as, well, let me ask you a clarifying question. The breakdown, that 50%. How do you calculate that? Is that money brought in revenue or is it number of units? Units. It's not revenue. Okay.
    25:10
    Not necessarily a big deal. That's a good question. But it could matter if there's big price disparities between certain products. I'll say this.
    25:20
    Stern, overall, historically, I've said they've got pretty much the best system on how to distribution system, sales, production, all of it. Pretty much the best system. And I would still hold to Stern probably does the best for their dealer network than the other manufacturers from a financial standpoint. I was thinking when I said revenue, I meant gross revenue, so not factoring in what profit margin you were making. Again, it's just one because, again, JJP gained sell for more money on in general so that's why i was wondering okay so all right um what i think this is a blip and we'll see if i'm right or wrong in 26 but i think this is a blip i think there was just a convergence of factors that happened on the non-stern companies that came together to just for a very small period of time eat into that total total unit market share dropping them down to 50 i just don't think well we'll have to see but you had obviously harry potter the biggest license that had never been made before known to be held by jjp so people you jack even sabotaged his own avatar sales telling people at the show they were pushing avatar to save your money and wait for harry potter so you had that hit you had beetlejuice which a lot of enthusiasts had been really excited about uh evil dead ended up having great legs because the game shoots really really well you had bruce camwell but again that one didn't initially just like light the world on fire people got their hands on it and were like wow spooky has really stepped up their quality they've stepped up the gameplay experience it resonated very strongly in that regard cgc smartly finally issued some new medieval madnesses so that was a really good move on their part and And then kind of like what we saw with Jack Janger finally got to do a real pinball machine and had Foo Fighters come out. We had Carl get his Winchester. Nothing theme except one, people like haunted houses in general. But two, I think most of those sales were driven by just the excitement of such a high level player. We're all looking for the next Elwynn and he may be the next Elwynn. And the reaction to the game is this game is the real deal. And that then helped goose a game that didn't initially do well enough because the code was garbage when it came out. But Dune, which got its code cleaned up pretty damn fast. It did. And is a real good world under glass. Arguably the best one of the year. and is if you didn't care about the movie and you definitely don't have nostalgia for it finally did justice to a book that has been beloved for decades a book series but this one's focused on one so you just you had these non-sterns getting things like dune carl d'angelo uh harry potter and beatles like that's why it is what it is if this was a bunch of here yeah here's a Bride of Pinbot remake and oh yeah we decided to go ahead and launch Junkyard as the CGC remake and sorry to be oh yeah here we go and JJP is like we've done Bob Marley it's not you see the year would have been like what you're used to but the thing that I remember walking away from 2025 from where i think people maybe not necessarily down on pinball but down on stern would say is it felt so much like everyone else in the industry figured out what licenses to get and stern just kind of stepped in it and didn't do anything notable but it doesn't to me from their rumor mill sound like stern may has that problem in 26 king kong is not an exciting license It's less exciting than Godzilla.
    29:34
    D&D was niche. Maybe a smart move, given the sales. I think it was. You'd think Star Wars, except, I mean, they've been doing Star Wars stuff. We haven't had a break on Star Wars. They still make the old Star Wars. I don't think the theme itself didn't hurt that product. It wasn't a theme. And then last year, or I should say two years ago now, 2024, Metallica remastered Set the Pinball World on Fire. and Walking Dead was the biggest flop they did this year, from the questionable choice on the animations to the fact that none of the new code was in it. So why am I supposed to want to buy it?
    30:11
    Yeah, that's true. I'm going back to your blip thing. Blip. I think it's a blip. I don't know if Stern recovers back to their 24 level in flipping out sales in 26, but I bet you it's higher than 50%. Yeah, because when I was listening to you, I was like, okay, Let's see. It's the blip. I stole it from Marvel, you know, the thing that Stern usually sells. But this is a blip that I think may persist a little longer than a year. It could be. Because I'm thinking, all right, Jersey Jack has got a banger coming. They do.
    30:46
    Spooky Pinball said, oh, you think Beetlejuice is going to hold my beer? That's going to persist. I think that barrels, they've proven now what their creed is. They've proven what they can bring to the market, and now they're going to be a force to be reckoned with. Now, will any of those companies have as good a years?
    31:09
    Well, spooky is hard to say because they limit their things. I think they sell more, and I think they'd probably do better. Barrels, they're going to be pretty much making Dunes and Winchesters most of the year, so hard to say that they have a step up. Jersey Jack, you're not going to compete with Harry Potter, but with the addition of Harry Potter and New Game, maybe but stern it's gonna have a better year too so where i agreed with your blip non-stern stern it's like we caught up i think stern's like a little bit higher so the blip almost is just shifted the big thing for me has to come down to production though so as you noted with with spooky for example let's say their next uh their next game has got more hype behind it than even Beetlejuice does, but they've already conveyed that they're not comfortable going back to Scooby-Doo levels of production because of quality concerns. No desire. So they may build more. If they're smart, they will, but it's only going to be at best a few hundred more. 25% more. So what that means for your share of sales,
    32:17
    I'm not saying insignificant, but not it's not like a game changer. JJP, I fully expect that for their next game, they will go back to limiting the CE count, not by time.
    32:31
    And so I may be wrong on that, but I am gambling here that they're going back to the usual model because they do not have the confidence they did with Harry Potter because nothing is going to do what Harry Potter did. You're very right, though, to bring up that a lot of those Harry Potter sales may actually happen in 26. That's the part where I have to hedge a little bit. but I don't think they're going to realize limited company too I just don't see them moving the needle much on that percentage so Stern it's Stern's market to lose in 26 I don't think that Jersey Jack will have the insight to immediately alter that model I think that they might be riding a high on Harry Potter and because of whatever undisclosed reason. I don't want to hypothesize why they might. But maybe they're just like, we think this can continue. I mean, look what it did for Harry Potter. It will take a punch for them to realize, oh, shit, that didn't work. Rather than them being insightful enough to be like, wait, we know that this isn't Harry Potter. I think there's a good chance they'd do the same thing. Same thing. Okay. same thing well we'll see you soon enough i suppose and by soon enough i mean the fall and like when it comes to jersey jacks all this stuff is contingent upon like because you think about beetlejuice and spooky pinball for myself i'm talking more selfishly because this is more inside pinball here on how i run my company some of this stuff is tough because i'm it's tough to convey with some of my business partners being these manufacturers that we are We're very grateful to have the partnership. We love the partnership. Look at the growth that we're building with you guys, and look how much better we're doing than other dealers for you. All of this stuff. But at the end of the day, if I can only sell so many products and I'm capped, you can put yourself in my shoes if you're in Dennis. Like, I'm running a company here, and if I know I have the ability to sell this much stuff, but I'm only given that ability by the manufacturer to sell this much stuff. What do you do as a company?
    34:38
    My hands become tied. Yeah, no, there's nothing you can do. Well, one could argue it would be ignorant to not do anything else. You have to do something. If you have that ability and resource to sell that product, but you can't get it from the manufacturer, you've got to do something else. You can't just sit there twiddling your thumbs. That's killing your company. Right. So that's what hurts. Yours. I mean, though, there's nothing you can directly do to get more product from that manufacturer. Ergo, you will sell more of another manufacturer's product instead. Yeah. That's what's tough about it. Even when Jersey Jack, everybody was like, well, you can buy as many as Harry Potter as you can. However, I think maybe some people would be surprised to hear we could have sold 25%. We bought so many Harry Potters. I could have probably sold 25% or more. Harry Potter's with just the way they allocated their production line.
    35:40
    That's significant. But the problem is not all manufacturers really. It's weird, but it's tough for me as a business because I'm like, even if I want to be able to sell some of this product, I'm really good doing it. My hands are tied in a lot of ways and some manufacturers just aren't. they're just not as interested in my hands being cuffed.
    36:05
    So they may see it. I mean, again, I don't know what they're thinking is. They may see it as well. That 25, I don't either. That 25% was sold. It was a sold by a competitor of yours. And yeah, they don't care if you sell it or they sell it. Like they still were going to sell the same number. Bob went to you first. Bob ends up going to another distributor. J.J.P. still made the sale, so who the hell cares? I think a lot of people would think that, but I think the higher level business would say, and this is what I present to manufacturers, okay, if that might be the case, if I'm able to sell 100 of a product and somebody else is able to sell 5 of a product, who do you think is better at selling that product? What would they say? They'd say, well, the person selling 100 okay all right I agree with you Thus why would you equalize it when it comes backhand to say well your 25 was sold somewhere else Who do you want to sell on your product more I would be putting a lot of mine into the ability for the person to sell it better I don't know why some of these manufacturers have really broad networks of very, very small distributors. There's no – because from my non-business world experience, at some point you you have to have a certain volume to achieve an economy of scale like i a lot of what we do where i work and such so i'll have to emphasize like there's always pressure to reduce uh you know statewide administrative fees and stuff and it's like well you got so many little places where you're just giving them a little bit of money sometimes you have to do this for geographic reasons and stuff but the bottom line is it's not efficient there's no economy of scale once you reach a certain size you don't have to be the biggest, but once you cross a certain threshold, you now have achieved an economy of scale. So from that regard, I don't know why a business that sells would let distributors like order less than 10 of a unit and say that they're a real dealer. I don't get it, but.
    38:02
    And some companies aren't really that interested in selling. Like that's not their goal. It doesn't make business sense, but that's kind of where they're at. Like if you ask Spooky Pinball, I don't think it's a surprise to hear that Spooky Pinball, they only want to sell so many a year. So even if Flippin' Out could sell 1,000 Beetlejuices, they don't want to make so many. I can see a private business deciding that their goal is not growth, growth of manufacturing capacity, growth of production, growth of additional customer. I could understand that.
    38:36
    I don't understand why when you have what you have, why you wouldn't want to maximize the efficiency of being able to – it's just less contracts. Like the less distribution you have, the fewer contracts you're managing, someone pisses you off. Obviously, you don't want to go sole source most likely because in that instance, you're kind of over a barrel with your sales partner. That makes it tough. That's their argument. There's a middle ground where you don't have 20 of the guys.
    39:05
    Or 50 or 75. But you have more than three. Like, you know, like it's not that. Some of the smaller manufacturers, this is way inside. I don't know if anybody even cares about it. Some manufacturers, here's what they will do. And I always, I poo-poo them. I tsk them when they do this. Is they'll have a nice network of dealers, right? And we'll sell a lot of products, all of us dealers. But then they're like, shit, we still didn't sell as many of that product as we wanted to. So then they start adding on people they know probably aren't in their best interest to add on as dealers. Because they're willing to buy a couple more units. And then if we add another 10 of these and they're each willing to buy three of these games, that's another 30 units. And I always tell them, you've just got to be careful, guys, because you adding 10 dealers has pissed me off. I mean, you're getting people in my way. They're in my lane. The reason you didn't sell that extra 30 is because of the product itself. And if you're really in a stretch, that much of a stretch to sell 30 extra units, come back to the larger dealers and say, hey, I need some help here. I'd like to move some more units so that we don't have to add more dealers before you just go adding Bob's Billiard Room to sell two of these units. Because the problem is then next game it comes out, you're going to start allotting Bob's Billiard Units, fucking two or three. Like, those are my cut. I get it. Stop, you know. Unless you, like, when you do that, then your big guys are going to be like, all right, does it make more sense for me to look to sell other products elsewhere? It's all business. I get it. The good thing is we have good relationships with all these people, so it's fine for us. But, yeah, it's just back to the percentages. 50% stirring this past year, flipping out pinball. Jersey Jack pinball with their big Harry Potter launch made 20%. So that's bigger than we've ever had with Jersey Jack, 20% for the year. Barrels of fun, 11%. 10.9%.
    41:05
    Chicago Gaming Company, 6.9%. Spooky Pinball, depends on how you look at it. If you're saying Evil Dead, it's like a little over 5%. If you're saying Beetlejuice, a little over like 10%, 10, 11, 12%. Pedretti Gaming, only 1.8%. I hate to see that.
    41:29
    Pinball Brothers, 0.9%. So if we're talking about being shills, right, anybody that sees me ever advertise for like incredible technologies at 0.6%, if I was a real shill, I think I'd be focusing on the companies that I'm doing 50% of business with, 20% of business with.
    41:52
    So, yeah, and it goes even lower beyond that. Like American Pinball. Right, yeah. We're well under 1% at this point. American Pinball. We like picking on them. 0.4%. And if we're counting what was actually shipped, because I inventoried some of the GTF, 0.1% of our business. They didn't have a new game, and everyone's scared to buy them because they think they're going out of business or shutting down the pinball division. That is rough. 0.1%. So that's a pretty big breakdown right there. See if there's anything else. I think it's about.
    42:29
    I can't think of any other questions. But I have. Man, I gave them too much. Maybe. I said too much.
    42:38
    People know too much about flipping out now. They do. No, I don't think. I think it's just pretty relevant information that makes it very interesting for people in the hobby to kind of put things into perspective of how the year went in 2025 for just one data set of one dealer compared to the masses. But as you guys can now see, it's probably a pretty decent representation across the board as to how things went. Yeah. I'm tired now. Do you think 2026? I have a hard time believing that our 2026 will be bigger. I don't expect that growth year after year. I don't. Right. Nor do I build based on that. I like build based two years prior. I'm conservative. Right. this is tough obviously it's always it's all tough i think you might see an increase in total sales of stern yet again but i think it's single digit percentage um not sure that you're actually going to move more non-stern i actually think you'll move less i just don't think i just don't think the numbers are there um harry potter is an anomaly i get uh you know i know the jjp rumors it's just it's not it's not as strong because nothing is as strong as harry potter and i just i think a lot of people i think a lot of people also we know a number of them you more than me really stretched to buy a lot of these things in 25 and i think 26 for many people is going to be a recovery year they're not going to like what they see trying to sell them used and there's just going to be a lot more judiciousness in trying to decide you know what yeah i think my kid might like pokemon but dang nabbit i already ordered beetlejuice and i'm waiting for that thing and i bought harry potter for the kids last year and i bought kong for myself i can't be buying three games every year i don't have this even the money i don't have the space for it all yeah that's and we've heard that space thing for a while from people i mean it's like i mean We have some Nordman people who have come in and do our pinball happy hour who are listening to this now who have been like, yeah, no, they have a pinball fund or however they like to budget for their hobby. But they're like, it's not that they can't make the room either. It's I like everything I own. I was just thinking last week. I was like, you know what? I got three games in the garage. I've got 10 games total. I don't like going over seven. What would I start getting rid of? But I'm kind of like – it's kind of easy to get maybe back to seven. But after that, I'm like, but I don't – I like this game. Do I really? Like, yeah, I don't play Walking Dead as much as I used to, but I like Walking Dead. It wouldn't be hard to get again if I got rid of it. But do I really want to get rid of it? And I – ultimately, if I did, I don't think I'd lose any sleep over it. But it's like it's getting to the point where I'm like – I don't want to get rid of Godzilla. I'm not getting rid of Hoops. I'm not getting rid of Jaws I don't want to get rid of Deadpool Star Wars is still my favorite Steve Ritchie but I don't play it as much I haven't been adding as much whereas when I was first in the hobby I got Xenon I don't really like it this game's going try a different one Silver Slugger great layout terrible rules I'm done with it played it I got through the Wizard Motor Shockey shootout time for it to go But I don't – I'm not at that point anymore, and I don't like filling my garage up with pens. Yeah. Like for my business, I see me – I think it's going to be – man, we sell so many Sterns. We sell so many damn Stern games. But I still think there's a possibility of the new games coming out. Unequivocally, I say I'll sell more of the new titles than I did the previous – any previous year. because that's the continued growth my company is having. But I don't know if we have an anniversary like we did with Jaws to boost total numbers of the new products. So that's going to be tough. I'm with you. The non-stern stuff, I don't think I have as big of a year as I did. But I think what my focus is on flipping out pinball is not to be dramatic or egotistical, but I'm really happy with where Flippin' Out Pinball as a dealer is in this industry and hobby. I do feel like we are the best distributor in the entire world. I do. I've had to point that out, to back that up, qualitative measures to point that out. So I'm not as focused because we took some big moves sales-wise in 2025 for stern and non-stern stuff. We did. And it paid off. I'm not looking to make as big of moves there. I'm looking to maintain status quo in what we did, not looking to increase. I'd love to sustain that. But what we're looking to do is focusing on different ways to make buying and owning pinball machines easier for the pinball person in 2026. So our resources are going towards different avenues, upholding what we have been sales-wise, but doing different things to make buying, selling, trading, all of that easier. and then we're venturing outside of pinball and a lot of things too that's why i bought brought ken cromwell on to do because some of these manufacturers i love them to death but spooky pinball i can only sell so many uh george jack will only ship me so many um barrels i can only sell so many stern even le's for most of the leases i can only sell so many i tried to go back and buy more, what was it? There's none to, even like Jaws 50th. I would have loved to have bought more of those, and I'm inventorying a lot, but going through them, I would have bought another 25% today if I could, but I can't. So there's only so much that I can do, and I've found that I twiddle my fingers, and the more I twiddle my fingers and I can't get the product that I'm capable of selling, the more my energy might go into things that aren't helping me. So I need that to go into things that are helping. people unless those manufacturers want to, you know, come to the table a little bit more, but 2026 is super exciting and yeah, to be a defining year for me in this hobby as a career, fun times.
    49:14
    Hopefully I don't tank the entire company.