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Ep 161 Reinventing Pinball with Gerry Stellenberg

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 24m·analyzed·Mar 4, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Gerry Stellenberg details Multimorphic's origin, P3 tech roadmap, business struggles, and why modular pinball works.

Summary

Gerry Stellenberg, founder and owner of Multimorphic, discusses the origin, evolution, and business model of the P3 modular pinball platform in an extensive interview. He explains how the P3 emerged from his personal frustration with owning 13 pinball machines, details the 8+ year journey from 2009 P-Rock board development through 2017 first shipments, and addresses community concerns about backwards compatibility, upgrade paths, and mechanical complexity of module swapping. Stellenberg also reveals business challenges, including 10 years without paycheck, reliance on early P-Rock board sales to other manufacturers, and the company's path to cash-flow positivity through successful releases like Weird Al and Princess Bride.

Key Claims

  • Gerry started Multimorphic because he owned 13 pinball machines in his house and realized the core problem: each machine ran the same game rules every time

    high confidence · Gerry Stellenberg explaining the foundational insight for the P3 platform

  • P-Rock board was designed in 2009, first P3 prototype completed in 2012, first production machines shipped in 2017 (8+ year development cycle)

    high confidence · Gerry detailing Multimorphic's timeline from concept to production

  • Gerry worked 10 years with no paycheck to build the company infrastructure

    high confidence · Gerry discussing the financial sacrifices made during Multimorphic's early years

  • P-Rock sales to other manufacturers (Spooky, American Pinball, Dutch Pinball) provided critical early revenue before P3 machines shipped

    high confidence · Gerry explaining how P-Rock licensing helped offset development costs

  • The P3 Rock board (2012 design) is 'still the most advanced control system in pinball' compared to Stern Node board, Spike 2, and others

    medium confidence · Gerry making technical claims about P3 Rock superiority; this is opinion stated as fact

  • Weird Al sold the most P3 cabinets ever, but each successive game release has sold more game kits than the previous one

    high confidence · Gerry answering directly about P3 sales performance

  • Princess Bride is the most commonly owned P3 game module

    high confidence · Josh Rupe and Gerry discussing module ownership distribution

  • Final Resistance (Scott Denise-designed module) succeeded despite being an original theme, which 'usually don't do very great'

    medium confidence · Josh Rupe making observation about original IP performance on P3

  • Over the past year, many P3 owners have purchased a second P3 cabinet

    medium confidence · Gerry noting a trend in repeat purchasing

Notable Quotes

  • “I found 13 pinball machines hanging out in my house. I'm like, why did I spend all this money? Why did I take up all these rooms? Why did I fill up my house to do this when I have a Nintendo Wii that has tons of games?”

    Gerry Stellenberg @ early in episode — Core origin story of the P3 concept; explains the fundamental problem the modular platform solves

  • “I worked for 10 years with no paycheck... it was pretty stupid to do that in the early days without enough money.”

    Gerry Stellenberg @ mid-episode — Candid admission of the personal cost of bootstrapping Multimorphic; reflects on early business mistake

  • “We started with preorders in 2013 with expectations we'd ship in a year. Four years later, we had our first production machine out the door.”

    Gerry Stellenberg @ early-mid episode — Highlights the gap between promise and delivery for Multimorphic's early customers; speaks to manufacturing/startup complexity

  • “The computer system of the first P3 prototype is more advanced than the most advanced pinball machines computer system today, other than the P3.”

    Gerry Stellenberg @ mid-episode — Technical defensiveness about P3 technology; claims continued technical superiority

  • “We get a lot of criticism and a lot of hate in the world, but we also have a great customer base that loves the machine and loves what we do.”

    Gerry Stellenberg @ late episode — Acknowledgment of community criticism; suggests P3 has polarized perception

  • “Every single manufacturer is probably one or two duds from a big problem. And the industry is soft right now as well.”

    Gerry Stellenberg @ late-mid episode — Industry commentary; suggests fragility across pinball manufacturing due to market softness and competition

  • “You can tell this is coded by someone that knows pinball, that knows what risk reward does... Colin McAlpine working on the rules... is very much done that.”

    Josh Rupe @ late episode — Praise for P3 code quality and Colin McAlpine's design philosophy; contrasts with 'giving all fixings on the plate'

Entities

Gerry StellenbergpersonJosh RupepersonScott LarsonpersonZachpersonNicolepersonColin McAlpinepersonScott Deniseperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Multimorphic has reached cash-flow positive status and is profitable enough to justify continued development; however, the company remains vulnerable to market downturns and acknowledges the industry is 'soft right now'

    high · Gerry stated 'We're making enough money with each game sale to justify continuing to build the next one' and noted 'Every single manufacturer is probably one or two duds from a big problem'

  • ?

    product_strategy: P3 business model is increasingly dependent on game kit sales to existing owners rather than new cabinet sales; Gerry notes the company could sustain itself on kit sales alone

    high · Gerry explained 'If we only sell game kits moving forward, if we never move another P3, our business can be justified because we have enough of those customers'

  • ?

    product_launch: Each P3 game module release after Weird Al has sold more units than the previous release; Weird Al remains the best-selling cabinet, but each successive game attracts new customers

    high · Gerry stated 'Weird Al sold the most cabinets ever since then every successive release has sold more game kits than the last'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Multimorphic employs a collaborative, team-based approach to rule design rather than individual designer-driven processes; emphasis on risk/reward balance and avoiding feature bloat

    high · Gerry explained the design process for Final Resistance: 'Bowen proposing a lot of ideas, but also everyone else proposing a bunch of ideas... It's a group effort' and Josh praised the 'risk reward' and selective feature implementation

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.253

0:00
thanks for tuning into the loser kid pinball podcast we are on episode 161 i am excited it is going to be a special episode i am josh rupe your your host along with me my co-captain scott larson and scott there's plenty going on and uh i know i know your favorite people in the world who are you going to be buying pinball from? Well, so Zach and Nicole, many have always helped me out and I just got some upgrades for some stuff. And the funny thing is I keep finding things that I need to add to my machines, such as even like toppers, armor, shaker motors. So if you need anything for your machines, Zach and Nicole have been able to help me out and we've really appreciated their service and for their sponsorship of this podcast. And so reach out to them if you are looking for that pinball machine. knew were used definitely so if you've been following loser kid over the last week or so you've noticed that uh i have received an interesting machine into my house i've done a first impressions and an unboxing of a multimorphic p3 system and i've been able to get more hands on to the system which i've been super excited about and i want to bring jerry on the owner and creator of Multimorphic P3 System to pick his brain on some of the stuff we're seeing, kind of some of the questions the community's asked before, and just kind of do a deep dive with you. So I appreciate you coming on, Jerry, to do this with us. Yeah, awesome. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Definitely, definitely. I mean, first off, where did this even come from? I know that in the past we've had kind of like there was PIN 2000 with Williams and whatnot, And then I can't think of, has there really been any other concept outside of maybe... Just virtual. Virtual? Nothing that integrates to this level. What was the company that originally owned Alien? They tried to do a modular system as well, but it didn't really work out with... Highway? Was it Highway? I think so. But other than that, there just really hasn't been this concept of video integrated with pinball in this way. What made you wake up one day and be like, you know what? I'm making this, and this is now my life dream.
2:22
The day was when I walked into my game room slash guest bedroom plus additional guest bedroom plus additional guest bedroom and found 13 pinball machines hanging out in my house. I'm like, why did I spend all this money? Why did I take up all these rooms? Why did I do all these things to scratch and itch the love for pinball that we all have? Why did I fill up my house to do this when I have a Nintendo Wii that has tons of games? I have a phone that has tons of apps. I have a computer that has tons of apps. Why are these devices, these really cool mechanically complex things, why are they the same thing every time I turn them on? so it seemed to me like a pinball machine should be able to run a lot of different applications a lot of different game rules but also when you get into that kind of level of gameplay variety why can't we change the mechanics too and so so that was the the basis of the idea um then it went through a whole a whole slew of uh technology needs right control systems and mechanical setup and all that stuff. And I'm sure we'll get into that, but yeah, it started out just me, me realizing I was addicted beyond, beyond the means. And I, and I didn't want my house to be that way. You're like, I'm at 13 machines. How can I double this with keeping the space I have? Exactly. You could have eight folded up in your garage. Like I do.

  • The business is cash-flow positive and profitable enough to justify continuing development, but the industry is 'soft right now'

    high confidence · Gerry on current Multimorphic financial status

  • “We really have to turn somebody off for them not to buy the next game. And obviously we're amazing at our jobs and create really cool stuff.”

    Gerry Stellenberg @ late episode — Confident statement about customer stickiness and design excellence; slight self-promotion

    • Josh Kugler
    person
    Keith Elwinperson
    Multimorphiccompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Dutch Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    P3product
    P-Rockproduct
    Weird Alproduct
    Princess Brideproduct
    Heistproduct
    Final Resistanceproduct
    Bowenperson
    Karenperson

    technology_signal: Multimorphic has released upgrade kits for all existing P3 owners, including early adopters, covering backbox LCD upgrades, speaker panels with RGB LEDs, and mechanical improvements to scoop assemblies

    high · Gerry detailed upgrade offerings: 'LCD... upgrade kit to everyone who had already owned a P3' and recent 'RGB LEDs in them' speakers and 'motor-driven' scoop replacement

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Multimorphic acknowledges significant community criticism and 'hate' despite having a loyal customer base; suggests polarized perception in the pinball community

    medium · Gerry stated 'We get a lot of criticism and a lot of hate in the world, but we also have a great customer base that loves the machine and loves what we do'

  • $

    market_signal: Over the past year, a notable number of P3 owners have purchased second cabinets, enabling different games to be displayed permanently

    medium · Gerry noted 'over the last year or so, we've had a lot of people add a second P3 to their lineup. Really?'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Multimorphic's development cycle from concept to first production ship was 8+ years (2009 P-Rock design to 2017 first P3 shipment), with initial customer expectations of 1 year missed by 4 years

    high · Gerry detailed timeline: 'In 2013, I think we took our first preorder with the expectations that we'd ship in a year. And four years later, we had our first production machine out the door'

  • ?

    product_concern: Module swapping requires basic mechanical competency (glass removal, module extraction/installation), which may be a barrier for casual/non-technical players; Multimorphic provides support across skill levels

    high · Scott Larson raised concern about 'mechanical savvy' needed; Gerry acknowledged 'It certainly can be' a barrier but noted support helps customers across experience levels

  • ?

    business_signal: Early P-Rock board sales to other manufacturers (Spooky, American Pinball, Dutch Pinball) were critical to funding P3 development; those revenues declined as manufacturers developed proprietary control systems

    high · Gerry explained P-Rock sales 'supplemented our ability to build the prototypes' and that 'when the P-Rock sales to certain companies started falling off, it was kind of pretty well-timed with Heist and Weird Al coming out'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: The pinball industry is experiencing increased competition with many manufacturers competing for the same pool of buyers; described as 'soft right now' with all manufacturers vulnerable to market downturns

    high · Gerry stated 'There are so many companies right now. We're all kind of competing for a lot of the same dollars. It's a tough business' and 'the industry is soft right now as well'

    • 3:56
    What was, was it special when lit? Was that the documentary where they went to the guy's barn? Like the garage? Yeah. He had so many of them. He kept building levels in there, like just out of plywood and stuff. You're like, that doesn't look safe. It looked like a house of cards. Yeah, yeah. That documentary, which definitely featured the more eclectic aspects of the hobby and the personalities.
    4:20
    So how long have you been doing multimorphic now? So we started as pinballcontrollers.com. That was a sole proprietorship that I started when I designed the P-Rock board. That was in 2009.
    4:38
    2012 is when a friend and I designed the first P3 prototype machine. We incorporated later that year after TPF that year. And we started shipping machines, P3 machines, in 2017. So we've been shipping seven and a half, eight years.
    4:56
    Nice. Okay. And, well, actually, you're probably going to follow up on that question. I think I'm going to turn. So go ahead. Josh. Oh, I was just going to say, so how long did it go from concept to actual games outdoor?
    5:15
    I started building, well, a friend and I in my garage in Austin, Texas, started building the prototype. It was, I guess, late 2011.
    5:26
    First prototype was 2011, finished in 2012, took it to TPF. We iterated, made another prototype 2013, made a third prototype in 2013, a fourth prototype in 2015.
    5:41
    And then we brought on a mechanical engineer. Or maybe it was a year before we brought on a mechanical engineer and actually designed what could be a production machine. I iterated through the details of that for a couple of years. And then we took pre-orders throughout that process.
    6:00
    In 2013, I think we took our first preorder with the expectations that we'd ship in a year. And four years later, we had our first production machine out the door.
    6:10
    So that is a getting a company off the ground is always challenging because you you have a combination of startup costs. You have a combination of there's going to be a while to break even.
    6:23
    And so how did you figure so you are the owner of the company. Is that correct? Yes. OK, so. So how did you decide you wanted to take this plunge? I mean, that's a big endeavor to say, hey, I'm going to start a company. And it's not just starting a pinball company. You're starting a company that is pinball but different. So lead me through that. Okay. So in 2009, when I created the P-Rock board, I also quit my day job to do not pinball stuff. to create a company. I feel like I have the entrepreneurial spirit. I didn't want to keep doing what the company I worked for kept wanting me to do. I had my own ideas. I wanted to pursue different things. I founded a company, went and started researching, not researching, I went and started asking VCs for support, pitched the thing to dozens, maybe a hundred different possible investors and through the process learned that the idea I had was beyond the means of a newbie startup founder to do. No one was going to invest in me to do the idea I had because it was too big for a no-name beginner guy who didn't have a lot of experienced support. But while doing that, I was creating the P-Rut control system. I created the driver boards, the switch boards, all the things necessary to create a pinball machine. And when I decided not to pursue the company that I was pursuing, that's when the friend and I just started tinkering around with this concept machine. The machine wasn't intended to be a company. It wasn't supposed to turn into this, or that wasn't the intention. We just designed a machine because we could. I'm an engineer in electronics and computer engineering, so I'm pretty good with engineering, electronics, and software. He was very good with the mechanical aspects, and we put this machine together for fun, took it to TPF, people seemed to like it, showed it to a relative who was in town, an aunt and uncle, and they were like, this is really cool. You said people really enjoyed it. Do you think you could sell it? Maybe. This was right around the time Jersey Jack had announced Wizard of Oz. They were basically the second manufacturer that existed at the time. They were in the early development stages.
    9:07
    This is a different idea. Maybe it's something we could pursue, but it's going to take a lot of money to do it. And they said, well, we'll help. we'll give you and they named a number that was an eighth of what i thought i would need to get it done an eighth um i had a i had a an acquaintance who was a business advisor and i went and talked to him i was like they want to give me some money to get this thing started but it's nowhere near enough should i what what's your advice and he said if someone's offering you money you take it And you give it a shot. And it was the worst advice I've ever received in my professional career because.
    9:51
    My estimates were accurate and building a pinball machine is complex enough. Home brewers know how expensive it is to build a single machine, building a company and infrastructure, manufacturing infrastructure, getting all the tools and the equipment and the training stuff and all the prototype materials and paying for all the parts and all that stuff over the years. It's a significant expense beyond what most people realize.
    10:19
    And it was pretty dumb to do that in the early days without enough money. So basically I worked for 10 years with no paycheck. some of the other guys working with us made and still make pretty big sacrifices because it's a it's a cool thing it's a passion thing it's it's a neat product that we all love to create to develop um yeah it was pretty stupid i went into it kind of without awareness of the challenges and the expenses that it would that it would incur so i know that the p-rock board so when did the P-Rock board get introduced to all of this? Because I know you started selling it to, I think Spooky picked it up, American was using it.
    11:01
    I'm trying to think. There was a handful. Dutch was using it. So was that helping offset some of the costs? How was that playing into things?
    11:09
    The P-Rock came out with the P-Rock in 2009. It was 2011 when Dutch Pinball picked it up. They built Bride of Pinball 2, which then they built the company around that, turned it into Big Lebowski. Some other people picked it up. Scott Denisey designed TNA with it after a different project with it. And Josh Kugler developed two machines, two homebrew machines. Keith Elwin developed Archer. These are people that started as homebrewers and went and got involved with companies. And most of those companies, because of the influence of those guys, adopted our control system as the control system for the machine. So Josh was our in to American Pinball. American Pinball basically started with Josh and the idea of the Houdini machine from way back. But Josh is like, yeah, I know the P-Rock, so let's get the P-Rock. Scott Denise, who became a very good friend back in those early days, he told Charlie, who at the time needed a control system solution after a couple of their first games, they switched to P-Rock. Dutch Pinball always was P-Rock. And yes, that brought in a good chunk of revenue that helped us pay for all those expenses I mentioned while we weren't bringing in revenue, while we weren't selling the machine yet.
    12:36
    You still incur the costs. You still have to move forward and develop stuff and order parts and try things out. So, yeah, that was a huge help. So one challenge that people have, and we see this with different iterations of games where they'll have – you go through the EM and then you go to the solid state and then you go to the system games and then you get to the DMD. And so each system has an elevation and iteration that needs to constantly be upgraded. And it's easy when you're developing a one-off because if you're developing a system, then it's like, well, we'll do the next 10 games with this type of system and then you can upgrade it. The one challenge I've always had with the P3 is how are you able to plan for that for all of your development and to keep the system current while you're also saying, well, if we upgrade it, we also have to worry about backwards compatibility because you have all these modules that still have to function. and so can you walk me through that because that's always been a confusing part for me and the p3 yeah so there's a couple things to unravel there but the the there's the computer system there's the control system which is more interfacing to switches and drivers and things and then there's the mechanical structure Sure. The computer system of the first P3 prototype is more advanced than the most advanced pinball machines computer system today. other than the P3. Because we're driving a big LCD, we use an off-the-shelf Intel motherboard with an NVIDIA graphics card and substantial memory and a solid-state hard drive. Basically, we took a desktop computer because we're doing the things in the pinball machine that a desktop computer does, and we put it in the pinball machine. So our computer system today, which has evolved because of availability, We can't buy the motherboards we first put in anymore. We can't buy the CPUs. So we've updated all of the technical components over the years, but it's still a computer and it still runs software. They're all running a version of Linux. The Linux kernel for the technical people has been updated throughout the process. The technology, though, is really the same, and there's really no limit to where that can go. Computers are going to continue getting faster.
    15:27
    All the motherboard makers and the CPU makers are going to continue making new versions and end-of-lifing the old versions, and we'll just continue evolving there. There's the control system, the P-Rock board. We originally designed the P-Rock board as a plug-in for existing machines, WPC machines and Stern machines, so people could drop it in and write new rules for it. The board in the P3 is slightly different. It's a modified version of that that we call the P3 Rock. It's got a programmable chip on it, and it interfaces to a modular set of driver and switch boards. The P-Rock system in the P3, we developed it in 2012. It's three years after the original P-Rock. It is the most advanced control system still in pinball. The latest control systems from all the other manufacturers, your Stern Node board setup, your Spike 2. People are predicting Spike 3. Who knows what that's going to look like? All of the control systems from all the other manufacturers are slower and have fewer features than the P3 Rock board that I designed in 2012. So there's there's there's an assumption that because our technology is similar to what it was 10 years ago, a little more than 10 years ago, that it's outdated. But that's entirely not true. It's actually still the most advanced in the industry for the mechanical structure. Yeah, that evolves over time as we come up with new features. But we're still using traditional switches, targets, rubber rings, drop targets. We purchase all those, as many things as possible. We purchase those from existing pinball parts suppliers because we don't want to have to reinvent everything. And those things haven't changed in 30, 40, 50 years. So there's an assumption because we have a technological machine that it needs to keep moving forward. But relative to what? Because relative to pinball, it's by far the most advanced system that existed 12 years ago, and it still is today.
    17:39
    We've created a number of upgrades over the course of the years. We started with a back box that had a translate in it. It just had a flat translate that you could change out when you swapped your game. You would change the image in the back box, and that's it. And then we came out with an LCD, so we replaced the Translate with an LCD. We offered that as an upgrade kit to everyone who had already owned a P3 with the Translate.
    18:07
    The machine behind Josh there shows a very cool backlit speaker panel with Princess Bride artwork. The early versions of the P3 didn't. They were a flat, black, solid speaker panel with a P3 logo in it. and I decided one day that in a lineup of modern machines, it didn't look as eye-catching as some of the other machines out there, so we added this artwork piece, and we recently released an upgrade kit for all P3 owners, including the very first one who bought a machine years ago, and we allow them, we help them. We have instructions to swap out their back box components to be able to show all these new features. The speakers now have RGB LEDs in them. All P3 owners who get this back box upgrade can enjoy those. There's things inside the game. The wall and scoop assembly used to be a coil-driven thing. Now it's a motor-driven thing. Functionally, it's the same way. Functionally, it works the same way, right? The scoop or the wall pops up, and that's all it really needs to do. If we need to add more logic or more interesting functionality to that, we'll make it available as an upgrade to existing owners. I can't promise we'll always make everything available to all previous owners. At some point, that doesn't work. But there's really no other product in any other industry that lets you avoid buying the new model of it and keep updating the old model. You buy a car or whatever or a computer, and you're choosing the new technology over your old technology. whatever features are in cars these days you can't really retrofit them into old ones so i i feel pretty good that we've supported our customers over the years we've given them all the upgrades we've we've added to the new machines and and we support them like no other and this is a question this is an interesting question because you you can't ask this to any other manufacturer it's irrelevant they they as you said come out with a new single themed machine that totally replaces or gets added to a lineup of older machines.
    20:25
    So I want to shift back to one of the things we were talking about earlier, just for a second. We were talking about the P-ROC and how that was making a good chunk of the income for multipomorphic, those in those early days. But as time has moved on, a lot of these companies like Spooky and American and whatnot have come out with their own proprietary boards. Has it affected the bottom line of Multimorphic? Or is it one of those things that Multimorphic's profitable enough that it was great getting you guys off the ground, but right now you guys are like a bicycle, you're up on your wheels, and so it doesn't really matter anymore? I'm not asking for specific numbers, just trying to kind of get an idea of where you guys land on this Yeah the last thing you said is the most accurate So the P sales to existing manufacturers supplemented our ability to build the prototypes to get off the ground to get to production It took a couple of years in production before we ramped up our volume enough to where the incoming revenue, which, of course, needs to offset the costs of building the thing. You need a profit in order to be able to support the future development costs. It took a couple of years before we got close to what I would say was cash flow positive. Cash flow positive meaning enough money is coming in to offset the money we're spending.
    21:54
    Discounts, the past money spent, debt, and all those things. Cash flow positive comes before profitability.
    22:02
    When the P-Rock sales to certain companies started falling off, it was kind of pretty well-timed with a weird out coming out. Heist and Weird Al coming out. Heist came out in 2020, right when COVID hit, actually.
    22:24
    And Weird Al was two years later. And those machines kind of took us from slight growth to significant growth. And that brought in enough revenue to more than make up for the lost revenue from a couple of manufacturers developing their own systems and designing out the P-Rock. Okay, so you did pull out the cash flow positive. Are you in the profitability stage? So every game is different. We've had good games that are great sellers for us, and we've had other games that haven't sold as much. We're in an okay place right now. We're making enough money with each game sale to justify continuing to build the next one and hopefully more than one after it. So it's a tough business, though. There's no illusion about it. But every single manufacturer is probably one or two duds from a big problem. And the industry is soft right now as well. So we're all kind of trying to maneuver through this difficult industry. And there are so many companies right now. We're all kind of competing for a lot of the same dollars. It's a tough business. But, yes, we are justifying the time and effort and money we're putting into it based on how many sales we're getting, which is all we could really ask for. Can we ask roughly how many is going out the door? We don't need like solid numbers. Yeah, it's a weird question with the P3. It's a weird question, right? Because every other manufacturer – it's not a weird question, but it's a different comparison because every other manufacturer comes out with a new game and they have to sell some number of that new machine, 700 of these. or someone needs to sell all 2,000 of their run in order to justify their business. We come out with a new game for the P3, and it's possible it moves zero P3 cabinets. Maybe it only sells to existing P3 owners.
    24:22
    Or on the flip side, maybe it's a theme that appeals to a ton of people that aren't yet in the pinball community or aren't people that own P3s, and it sells mostly new machines. So every game is different. I'm not going to answer your question directly. It's kind of delicate information. Sure. That's fair. But every P3 customer that we have might never buy a P3 again. They already have it. So they're customers for future game kits, and that's enough. If we only sell game kits moving forward, if we never move another machine, our business can be justified because we have enough of those customers who might buy machines. Interestingly, though, over the last year or so, we've had a lot of people add a second P3 to their lineup. Really? Which is really cool because now that we have eight Playfield modules, I mean, a lot of them are like, I really want their favorite, Princess Bride. I really want Weird Al in a machine all the time. I'm looking behind you, Scott, and I see your lineup of games. Some people just want a game that they can turn it on and play that instantly, and maybe they'll use the other cabinet for swapping games. So we were justified if nobody buys another new P3. If people buy more P3s, then obviously it's better for us too. Well, there are people like I have three switches. My kids lost one of them, but I have three of them. One of them is in the ether somewhere, so that does make sense. which game has been your biggest seller?
    25:54
    So Weird Al sold the most cabinets ever since then every successive release has sold more game kits than the last which makes sense because every game kit brings on some number of new machine buyers and the customer base continues to grow so it's a difficult question to give you a clear answer Weird Al made us the most money if that's what you're asking I guess it's just more of like let's just assume that I'm interested in X game module which one has the most out there is it Weird Al? X game module no it's Princess Bride ok I think that speaks to you're saying that Weird Al sold the most cabinets but each game was successfully has sold more than the previous one so that's cool because like with scott denisi's final resistance that means that like even uh uh an original theme in pinball which usually don't do very great has was successful on a certain level with you guys which translates very well in my opinion that's very cool for something like that because everyone who has a p3 bought it knowing that the value of ownership increases every time they add a game kit to it. So everyone's always looking at our next title thinking they're going to get it. So we really have to turn somebody off for them not to buy the next game. And obviously we're amazing at our jobs and create really cool stuff. So we don't generally turn people off. Well, and not like you're tooting your own horn. I think you should because one thing I've been facetious of, of course, I'm actually not, not tooting. We get a lot of criticism and a lot of hate in the world, but we also have a great customer base that loves the machine and loves what we do, and that's why we build these games. Well, and one thing that I've always been a big advocate of is software and code, and it has to feel right. And, you know, this is one thing I kind of point out in the first impressions video, but you can tell this is coded by someone that knows pinball, that knows what risk reward does and how to make, you know, with Princess Bride, for example, you know, as you wish, you even get to decide if you want to bring that multiball in. And there's a risk to bringing that multiball in. Same with like some multiballs aren't allowed during certain modes. It just, it's, the thing is, is, is other competitors will sometimes give you all the fixings on the plate and, and some of the best designers have learned. It's not everything that you give a person. It's how you give it to them and, and be able to know that fine balance. Right. And I can tell with Colin McAlpine working on the rules and stuff with this, he's very much done that. And honestly, code-wise, I'm enjoying both these. Weird Al and Princess Bride are really, really coded very, very well. And I just have to tip my hat to you on that because I think that's one thing, too, is people can complain like, well, if I get a game in my house and you get the honeymoon phase, right, and you love it and everything. But if the code's not really there, then six months to a year down the road, you know, it becomes this like, do I really want to keep it in my house? It's not what I was expecting. Do I want to see where the direction goes? But it seems like you guys have got it figured out with how to code these because I'm not getting bored with the gameplay. I've had it for a week, so I guess we could ask in six months. But overall, I guess worst case scenario, if I get bored with that, I just pull out the module and put another module in. That's the thing. It stays fresh over time, and you're not likely to burn yourself out on one thing if you have multiple game kits. But thank you for that. But Weird Al, we were mostly through the development before we brought Colin and Bo and Karen on board at the same time, right at the end of the Weird Al development. So that complement extends beyond our rules experts to the full development team. And we sit in meetings and design these rule sets as a team for months and months and months. for Final Resistance, which we brought Bowen on for the rules of that game. It wasn't just Bowen off in a room creating rules. It was Bowen proposing a lot of ideas, but also everyone else proposing a bunch of ideas, and Bowen kind of sifting through some of the ideas and presenting a cohesive package and then us all reviewing it, and we don't like this, but we love this, and let's try to change this, and that mode is a little too similar to one we put in the last game, Let's change it. It's a group effort. But you're right that people like Colin and Bowen and people with a lot of rules experience because they know they're encyclopedic about their rules knowledge. They know what is interesting for both beginners and for expert level players.
    31:08
    So one question I do have, and I've talked to Josh a little offline. So right now the game is at Josh's place, which is three hours away. So I'm planning on making a journey out there so I can experience it too.
    31:21
    Okay, one question I think I have and many people have. When you're removing that module and you're putting a different one in, here's my concern. I've talked offline with Josh on this a little bit. so first off when you have people who get in a pinball you have the people who only know how to turn it on right and then you get to the next level the people who have actually pulled off the glass and then you get to the next level of people who can okay i can i can maintain the top part of the game, maybe like do some stuff. Then you get to the next level of people who can get under the cabinet. Okay. It seems like replacing a module is kind of at that level. Someone who's at least familiar or comfortable enough with taking the glass off, taking a module out, putting another module in. And I'm wondering how you overcome that because there's a lot of people in pinball who are not to that level of being able to be mechanically savvy enough to remove and insert a new module into a game. And I bet that's a big barrier to entry for your business model. It certainly can be. Now, I mean, a lot of people bought Weird Al because they were Weird Al fans and wanted one machine. and then they learned through watching my emails or getting involved in the community that, oh, this is a multi-game system and I can enjoy more things on this machine.
    33:05
    Therefore, I'm now a pinhead and I want to learn how to do these kind of things. But yeah, I mean, some people, I guess I'm thinking about support. when people call us for help some people call us to your point with i i don't know i i need to adjust to this thing i shoot the ball around the orbit and it it comes out and it goes straight down the middle or whatever like okay this is a beginner they don't know that they can pull the glass and they can just kind of maneuver that rail to give themselves the better path so so we talk them through that. And we get other people who are like, I'm having an issue with a drop target. I've tested the coil. It measures such and such ohms. And I've traced it all the way back to the driver board. And those people know what they're doing. And we have customers that span the entire range of experience. And we have a great support staff that helps them. It hasn't really seemed like a barrier to entry, possibly because most people don't really think about the complexity of it when they buy the machine. When you buy a Nintendo, you just, right, you get it. You get a cartridge, you slide it in. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. So a multi-game pinball thing, it must be whatever. When we send a machine out to somebody, we send an email, give them expectations about the process, but also say, this machine is different. from a traditional pinball machine. It has a different way to control it. We have a different menu system than others. It's also a multi-game system. And here is a link to a full resource, a full web page with resources for helping you understand what you're doing. You might be able to get away with just reading the usage and maintenance sections, or if you need to get into troubleshooting, there's guides there too. So I don't know. I don't really know what to say other than everybody's different. And we as a company have to have the support and information for the full range of experiences. And we seem to do a pretty good job because unless someone just gives up on a tough thing or gets frustrated and sells the machine, We've been able to walk every single customer through any fix necessary for their machine with one exception or one type of exception, which is where it doesn't make sense for them to go any deeper. And we're just like, well, send us send us the flipper assembly back or send us the game module back. And we'll just address it here because it would take us it'll take us two weeks to walk you through the details of debugging something. Well, and I didn't even know this, but so I've been trying to go from the perspective of if I was a first time buyer. Getting this in my house. And I do apologize. I got to the part where it said this is different from traditional pinball. The first thing that went off in my head was like, well, duh. So I didn't read that part. You didn't even read it. Yeah, I know what I'm getting into, but I should have read that part. But yeah, on multi-morph. So Josh, the person who said on the video that we sent out this really great introductory email, we learned later on in his video that he didn't even read half of it. i read most of it well done josh well i got to the part i got to the part where it said this is different than any other system like that's obvious like okay so you're a stereotypical dude right now you're like i don't need to read the instructions oh no it gets better okay i went to go switch out because i wanted to get the experience kind of like you know as the as the common customer i guess sure and so we went to go switch out weird owl and uh into you know switch Princess Bride and the Weird Al. I was telling Jerry this today and I was like, I got frustrated because I didn't know what to do because I looked at the instructions, skimmed one. Yeah, I think I can figure this out. Stuck it down. I went to go switch it out. And why am I having such a hard time doing this? And I realized, oh, it says right here in the instructions, take all the balls out before you try to put the next module in. Oh, I should probably try to do that. But you guys have done like, it's a big piece of cardboard. As soon as you open the module, it's like, here are the instructions. Like you guys have done that in a way. And not only that, so I released the video for the unboxing in the first impressions and all of a sudden I got bombarded. I didn't realize you have a small army back there either. I got people, are you joining the discord? You know, have you done this? Like there's so many people enthusiastic about this. There's a very positive community that's behind multimorphic and they are willing to help you through it as well. So that would be One of my recommendations is that I've learned is if you're concerned about usability, if you're friendliness, you know, don't worry too much because there's a whole community almost any hour of the day, it seems like, willing to help you out if you're having an issue. And I feel like there's some other traditional pinball companies don't have even that kind of support of a community behind them. So that's one thing I just wanted to point out to say kudos to you guys because it is impressive. It's funny because from the outside looking in before we've been doing this experiment, I was always just like, oh, it's a bunch of fanboys. They're just excited for this product, right? But when you're in the ecosystem of P3 and you're nervous about the product, but you've got all these people willing to help you, it makes it feel more comfortable. It's easier to work with, and it takes that anxiety level way down, right? Right. So and that's something that's grown over time based on feedback. Right. We didn't always have that insert in the boxes. We used to just ship a play field out and people would get it. And some number of people would have issues with it. I installed it in my P3 and the launchers weren't aligned, but they didn't know the launchers weren't aligned. They just knew I put it in the P3 and it's not working. It's not launching balls. So we would we would debug the issue with them. And we would walk them through the steps to figure out what was going on and fix it. And we're like, we've gotten enough. We've gotten enough support calls for this problem. How do we avoid or minimize the number of the same call? Let's create an instruction thing that you're forced to see as you open up the box. You see it. It's in the way. You have to set it aside in order to get the module out. Hopefully some percentage of people will read that and realize, OK, if I put this module in, there may be a couple of. there's so basically with any mechanical system things have to be aligned properly and you make a machine and if you make one machine things are aligned this way and if you make another machine they might be a millimeter off in the other direction because someone tightened a screw down while pushing this way or tightened a screw down while pushing this way it's called tolerances you might get a new play field plug it in and it doesn't quite line up to the position of your up kickers well We provide very simple adjustment, we call them adjustment screws for that. You go in the back of the play field, you turn a nut to tighten up the interface. It pushes the tubes forward and magically starts working. You may have to do it, you might not. It's a mechanical thing and they're all slightly different from each other. But we now include that instruction so that people aren't freaked out when they plug it in and it doesn't work. And that's an example. There's 40 different examples of things that we've improved over time to help people avoid the frustration that happens when they just don't understand how the thing works. And yes, it's traditional pinball. Yes, it's got driver boards and switch boards and FET circuits like any game has. It's got a CPU that runs the code. But the mechanical setup is a bit different, and it intimidates people. So we've worked hard to get there. I appreciate you recognizing that, Josh.
    41:15
    Now, how do you – one of the challenges with the P3 is all the mechanical parts are mostly in the back third, right? And so you're dealing with swapping that out. However, how do you incorporate – I know most pinball machines have most of the shots generally in the back third, but there's an encroachment that comes down depending on the game, and it surrounds it. I mean, you look at Godzilla. You look at those type of games where – Deadpool. Yeah. There are things that are closer at you. So how do you prevent the trap of every game feeling similar to the other one because most of the things are in the back play field? how can you bring the action closer to the flippers? So to the first statement, let me just contradict it a little bit Okay Because everything in the back third everything seems like they in the back third above the play field Below the play field there are these huge mechanisms for the walls and scoops that pop up And in front of that, there's the big LCD.
    42:25
    Above those things in the lower portion, there's the hanging flipper assembly and side target assembly. So mechanically, it's pretty rich throughout. It just presents a little bit differently than a traditional machine. Before I answer your question directly, the screen, the open area that people see when they look at a P3, that screen is the magic. That's the best part of the machine, in my opinion, of course, because that screen delivers so much more story immersion. It gives you the dynamic artwork, the dynamic reasoning for hitting a shot. Why am I shooting this orbit? I'm shooting this orbit because a blinking arrow is, an arrow is blinking? Or am I shooting this orbit because there's stuff in the scene that is pushing me in that direction and giving me a thematic reason to do that? We tell the story of the game through the LCD. And we also add virtual targets. There might be moving targets. There might be virtual rollover targets on the screen. We add a lot of interactivity to that empty area. So I say we've replaced the painted piece of wood that has a few pixels of LEDs on them with this fully immersive dynamic experience. We took, instead of having 40 switches and a few LEDs on a play field, we have 2 million RGB lit rollover switches. Me joking, of course, but the LCD has a lot of pixels and everyone can be semi interactive because we can put virtual targets there.
    44:09
    Now, the direct answer to your question that I avoided for a long time. The flipper assembly is a floating assembly. This is a thing that slides in the front of the machine. The flippers hang down from a piece of clear polycarbonate. It's got slingshots. It's got flippers. Above those are the side target assemblies that do the same thing. They hang down from the sides. If you actually pull the playfield frame into service position, open up, we have a hinged front door to the playfield structure, and look down underneath the flipper assembly, the side target assembly, there's an air gap to the LCD, and there's nothing in there.
    44:49
    It's a complete air gap, and we do that because we have infrared light shining across the playfield surface, which is how we track the position of the ball. But the point is we have hanging side targets. We have hanging flippers.
    45:03
    Heist has a crane mechanism that starts in the back and extends out over the play field. You can't see me on the camera, but it extends over the play field. It presents a hanging, moving target that gives you things to shoot for lower in the play field. We so far, I think we've successfully created eight fully different gaming experiences in what most people call the back third of the play field. I don't think many people are going to say Princess Bride feels like Weird Al, feels like Lexi Lightspeed, feels like Drained or third party developed Drained or any of those things. However, if the theme ever calls for something lower in the play field, we're not going to do it just to tick a box off of a checklist. We're going to do it because the theme speaks to us and says, this is the time you need to hang some more things. We need, I don't know, an upwards drop target or something, or we need a scoop to catch the ball or whatever it is. We can do it. We can hang it over the playfield surface. We have to engineer it a little differently than the traditional mechanism.
    46:20
    But it won't be long before you start to see mechanical things in the middle area of our playfields because some things want it.
    46:33
    So I've got a couple questions now that I've had this in my house for a week now. um one thing that i have noticed that like expo and tpf and stuff like that um is the upper playfield does have a sticker versus the traditional printed on wood um what is the long-term viability of the sticker and have you had any issues with it peeling or anything like that okay so we started first playfield lexi light speed 20 started shipping in 2017 we put on a sticker is the informal word for a vinyl decal with a laminate on top of it so it's printed artwork on a sticker and it has a protective layer called a laminate a protective layer of clear plastic on top of it so it's not just a weak thing that the ball is going to destroy as soon as it rolls over it. However, it's not a clear coat, and it's not as durable and thick as a clear coat. And people that put – well, we kept that same process through Weird Al, I think.
    47:52
    And people that put Weird Al on location and got 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 plays in the course of a year, they started to see the ball wearing through certain spots where there was a scoop that... So the good news is for those people, it's not clear-coated. So when they tear down the play field to clean it, like most good pinball collectors do, we can send them a new decal and they can replace it and they can have basically a fresh play field after reinstalling everything. So that's a good thing. But after Weird Al, based on that experience, We upgraded to a 10 mil, 10 thousandths of an inch, 10 mil thick laminate, which we've put million cycle tests through them and not seen a lick of wear. We have vertical up kick tests that bring the ball up and just drop it onto the playfield surface and they're not wearing at all. So, again, over time, we've learned from earlier decisions. Our current playfields, Princess Bride, previous playfield, I think we did on Final Resistance,
    49:06
    have the 10 mil laminate, which are fully, I mean, they'll wear eventually. Clearcoat will wear eventually. They dimple and do other things and will wear eventually. But they're pretty solid. We don't expect to get any feedback of worn playfields with the Princess Bride.
    49:24
    Do they peel? They peel if they're assembled poorly, meaning if the playfield surface wasn't properly cleaned, it had dust on it or some kind of debris on it when you apply the decal, or if the decal isn't properly pressed to the play field, it might not be adhering properly, and you could see some peel. But when that happens, we made a mistake, and we get the play field back, and we do it right the second time and send it back to a customer. It's pretty rare that that's happened. It actually happened very seldomly on original play fields. The new material, the thicker material, actually requires an enhanced process to get it on there solidly. But like everything else, it's part of the process. You look at clear-coated play fields and you see a ton of drama out in the industry about the quality of the clear coat and the pulling and the chipping and all the other things. We don't have that problem because if something happens with your decal, like I said, we can unassemble your play field, put a new one on there, and you're good to go. And honestly, that only takes a few hours. Well, and it just dawned on me while you're saying this. you know one of the other things too is a traditional pinball if that does happen and the person doesn't feel confident in fixating it and they don't want like and it's in a place that you can't just stick a washer over it um you know you don't want someone to send you just a blank play field and say go for it i mean absolute worst case scenario with your stuff i can pull out a module in five minutes if that stick it in a box and ship it to you guys and let you take care of it and and i'm not gonna it's funny because it's like well and then best like even then it's like well i have another module i'll just stick it in the game we'll play that while while princess bride is off to multi more multimorphic i guess i'd never thought of that and so just dawned on me right now that's actually it's actually kind of cool yeah we do that we've we've done that a few times someone has a strange mechanical issue that we simply can't walk them through we can't get enough information over the phone or a video call to help them debug it, and we just ask them to ship it back. Stick it in the box. We'll send you a label and get it back here. Flipper assembly. The flipper assembly just slides out of the machine. Someone recently had a very strange problem we've never seen before, and we weren't sure if it was a power problem in their machine, in the wall, in their room, in their location, whatever. We actually sent them a new everything. We sent them new cable harnesses, new flipper assembly, new power supply, new everything. We're I'm like, I don't know what it is, but we're sending you everything.
    52:00
    He's on location, by the way. So we're sending you everything so you don't have to take your machine down for three weeks and send everything to us. We're sending you everything. Swap in the components until the problem goes away, and then send us back whatever the source of the problem was, and then we can debug it ourselves. He did that.
    52:19
    You mean, Josh, it's not the same as sending you a play field and saying you have to repopulate it? Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying. Can you imagine? Yeah. But to Scott's point earlier, I mean, if that's what you're telling your new-to-pinball customer, it's like – Good luck. You might as well send a technician out to do it for me because – Yeah. But with us, yeah, just stick it in the box, send it to us, we'll take care of it, we'll send it back, you just plop it back in and you're good to go. Have you ever had a problem with the LCD screen considering there's a steel ball that's ricocheting off everything inside there? Any damage to that? No, because we knew we couldn't have a ball smashing around an LCD. There's actually a quarter-inch thick piece of polycarbonate above the Playfield LCD. So the ball is rolling on. And polycarbonate, by the way, is one of the major ingredients in bulletproof glass. It's very durable. It's a very durable plastic. It's kind of scratch resistant. It doesn't shatter or crack. It will crack, stress fractures and things. But it's super durable, and it's easy to clean with plastic polish. So it's also super easy to remove from the machine. So when you fold down that front door I told you about, the flipper assembly can slide out, But also the playfield surface, the rectangular piece of polycarb that the ball rolls on, you can literally just slide it out the front of the machine. So if it gets scratched or overly dirty and you can't clean it off with some simple plastic polish, you just swap it and put a new one in there. It takes 10 seconds.
    54:00
    So one of my gripes, and I know that I've already talked to you about this, but I want to know the MDF. Why do you guys do MDF instead of actually just routing out some channels and putting some T-molding in for your corners and stuff? So we don't use MDF for edges or corners. What we do, so the cabinet sides are half-inch plywood, nice, good Baltic birch plywood. Traditional machines are three-quarter inch. We use half-inch plywood, and then we use a quarter-inch piece of trim. that we send around the outside edges of the side, and that frames the artwork. So that quarter-inch piece of trim is an MDF material. It's just about two inches worth of material that goes all the way around the outside of the side of the cabinet. It's a cost-slash-easy-to-work-with kind of tradeoff. And I know on the body it's not a big deal because it's kind of protected by the plywood, and it's protected by the metal of the trim and stuff like that. But on the head, that's like what your corners are up on the very top corner. I see what you're saying. Yeah. So that was only my – because like a traditional pinball machine, a newer one has T-molding around the edges and stuff like that. I see. Yeah, I thought you were talking about the lower cabinet. But on the back boxes – That was fine on the lower cabinet. I didn't even notice on the lower cabinet.
    55:27
    You know what? In our history of eight years of shipping these machines, you're the first person ever to comment on the material in the back box. Okay. You're also the only person, the first person who got this $15,000 machine set up with two games on it and ran it into their wall as soon as they unboxed it. Well, you know me. I was testing durability. Strong work there, Josh. Yeah. Just so you know, that was Josh who damaged that. It was not Scott.
    55:59
    Okay. Actually, speaking of that, when you have these game modules, two things that I would be afraid of by owning the game. One, what happens if I'm taking a game module out and I drop it?
    56:17
    So that's one thing. Two, how do you store these? because if you have, I would say, yes, you have the box that it was shipped out in, but I would say if you have like a Wii or a Switch or something like that, there's like a cartridge cover that you put it in. So is there anything available like that to like, hey, I'm going to take this out and I'm going to store it in a nice looking box or do I have a cardboard box underneath my game? So first question was what happens if you drop it? Don't drop it. It is a $3,000 to $4,000 thing you're picking up, so you're probably likely to be pretty careful with it. But, of course, if it – so a little inside story.
    57:07
    We built the first prototype of one of our games. We got it ready for our photo shoot, our video shoot, so we could build the trailer. And it fell off a table and landed upside down on the floor the day before the video shoot. and this is our only copy of the play field. So it was a mad rush to replace the correct plastics and to get it looking presentable again for the video shoot. Anyway, it's, yeah, there's stuff on, there's lots of stuff. The reason it's $3,700 or $3,500 is because there's a huge number of mechs and plastics and metal rails and everything else and they can get bent or dinged or broken if you mishandle them. It is safe to set the playfields on their side or on their back. It's obviously better to put it in the protective casing or the foams that we include in the boxes.
    58:10
    The boxes are reasonable storage places, storage containers for playfields. They're sized to fit right under the machine. So most people with a lot of modules will store a couple under their machine and then put others in the closets or hide them away where they're not in the way. We don't currently offer a pretty cabinet kind of storage setup. People have shared plans for building a pullable cart that you can slide under the machine that can have a couple of play fields in it. We've tinkered around with those ideas. There's a third party, AEP3shop.com, who sells a cabinet quality, really pretty storage, stackable storage container for P3 modules. We may start selling something like that someday. There seems to be a pretty good level of interest in pretty cabinet quality storage for these things. And yeah, we don't offer anything yet. people mostly use their shipping boxes, but it's something that we would like to make pretty or something. Well, just give them a sticker, a decal sticker, and they're just going to wrap around the box so it looks pretty underneath the game. That's funny because one of our customers did exactly that. They sent us pictures. They're like, I bought a decal and I wrapped my box with it. Now it looks like a cool crate instead of a cardboard box. Hey, I'm just helping you out here. That's a cool idea. Well, there is that Deep Root company that went out of business. Oh, my gosh. You could go buy some pin pods from them.
    59:46
    In pods for your play fields. And the thing is, everything is a cost trade-off, right? We want our play fields to be very inexpensive, to not be perceived as an expensive purchase that defeats the purpose of owning a multi-game system. So you add a lot of expense to the shipping.
    60:05
    Do you want your money in the play field features or in the shipping box? That's true, too. Well, it could be. Seriously, these toppers that I'm buying and putting on machines, They're selling. They're not cheap. And so I guarantee in the pinball community, if you offer it as an additional option, it's not required, but I guarantee you're going to have people who want to buy it. Yeah, it's a cool idea. I like it. Yeah. So you talked about when you first came on the scene, you've had multiple homebrewers between Scott Denisey, Keith Elwin, all using the P-Rock and whatnot. Time has changed. It's been over a decade now since P-Rock's come on the scene, and there's been other companies that have come out with their own pin board or whatever you want to call it.
    60:51
    Do you think P-Rock's still the go-to, and what do you think of the current state of homebrew? I'm actually a little out of touch with the state of homebrew. At some point a few years ago, the fourth or fifth or sixth homebrew option came online. and somebody started selling another board that people could use to create homebrew machines. And to me at that point, it's uninteresting. It was cool in 2009, 2010. There were no homebrew options. There were plans for building a board from scratch that you could connect to pin maim and you could do some stuff, but there was no off-the-shelf board. We created that board and we fostered the growth of a homebrew community that now is thriving. It didn't exist when we started. We created online forums and set up booths at Expo and TPF with homebrew machines with friends of ours who bought P-Rocks and started building machines.
    61:54
    That was really a big step, I think, in the evolution of the pinball community and the pinball industry. Nowadays, it's kind of a commodity. And when I say it's uninteresting, I don't mean as an idea, as a product. It's uninteresting to me as an innovator. I like to create new things and then move on to the next new thing. And that's what I get to do every year or so by creating a really cool new game that has new features and new mechs and new levels of software integration. And that's more interesting to me at this point. Now, you are not in Chicago. Is that a plus or a minus? A blessing or a curse? Yeah, well, okay, because now we know that Jersey Jack moved from Jersey to Chicago because there is a think tank. There's something about the community that there's a little – people change jobs. There's like a knowledge of how pinball works. And so there at least is a workforce that's familiar with pinball in Chicago that is not available elsewhere. And so all the supplies are there all that kind of all that So being away from pinball Mecca does that help you or hurt you or a little of both
    63:28
    Probably a little of both. I don't. So I think the bigger deal than the talent pool, there's designers, but designers, you saw with other companies, These designers will fly around and relocate to a new company because they get to work for a couple of years wherever. The talent pool for assembly doesn't really exist for us in the sense that there's no special knowledge needed to put together a P3 or a P3 play field. We don't create our own wiring harnesses on a pegboard and follow intricate instructions or whatever. We outsource. Our engineering team defines the drawings for every component, and then we can send them all out and get them fabricated, bring them back in. And anybody who can read and use simple tools, a screwdriver or a wrench or whatever, can assemble our play fields. So there's no special talent required for the manufacturing of our machines. The talent is in designing them. And we're not in Chicago. We're not near all the designers, all the traditional designers, but we're also not building a traditional machine. And we're also living in the Internet age. So I was on a call today with a design team, and one person's in Connecticut. Michael Ocean is up there. Steven Silver is in Houston. I'm in, obviously, Round Rock, Texas. We've got people, Rory, one of our graphics guys, is in California. We're all over the country. In fact, we've worked with people all over the world, and that's not really a big deal. The biggest reason I think companies tend to want to be close to Chicago is because a lot of the part suppliers, a lot of the fabricators who create wire forms and targets and all of the things that grew from the heyday of pinball, grew out of the manufacturers all being in Chicago.
    65:35
    We can buy the ones we need from Pinball Life, and the rest of our machine is all custom. we don't do anything that any manufacturer who can bend metal couldn't do. So we actually get a lot of our parts fabricated overseas. We bring them in. We send them specs. We bring in the parts, and then we put together the pinball machine. I don't think it would be an advantage to be in Chicago.
    66:05
    It would be cool to be near the other companies that have access to the exact same vendors and send out or to talk to someone about a wire form and say, you've built wire forms for 40 years.
    66:14
    Anyway, it's not a good thing. It's not a bad thing. It's just a thing, and we have a great team of people here and around the country who we can interact with. How many full-time versus how many contract do you have? So we actually, all of our developers, not all of them, most of our developers are contract, and we have 15 developers. We have audio people, video people, mechanical people, you name it, software developers. We have a whole team of software developers, multiple games worth of team members because we're usually developing at least two games in parallel. Our full timers in Round Rock, Texas, are mostly our assembly staff, our production team.
    67:00
    And that ebb and flows. Right now we have seven people in the factory floors spitting out Princess Bride play fields and refilling the stock of P3 machines. We had 15 people on the floor in the peak of Weird Al machine production.
    67:20
    So ebbs and flows, but we've got a ton of developers. How many hours does it take to take the initial, like the P-Rock system from start to finish? how many hours does it take to manufacture?
    67:34
    A machine. Yeah. So you make one Princess Bride, how long does it take? To go from the start of the assembly line to the end. Sometimes they say it takes 40 hours. When I've talked to other manufacturers, they said 40 hours, 28 hours, or something like that. So Princess Bride play field takes about 16 hours. Lexi Lightspeed play field takes on average about nine hours. Heist Playfield takes 20 hours.
    68:05
    Weird Al takes about 20. Those are all game kits, playfield modules, and they're varying degrees of complexity. Cannon Lagoon, which is just a few shot lanes in an LCD, takes under two hours. The base P3 system takes 60, 60 to 65 hours to build the frame, the cabinet, the back box, the wall and scoop assembly, the trough assembly, the flipper assembly. There's a lot in a P3, and it's a lot of parts, and it takes a long time to put it together.
    68:38
    But that's something you buy once, and then you fill it up with game kits. Yeah, definitely. And now there's eight game kits, right? Eight game kits, and it's 15 now add-on games, so there's a total of 23 games for the system. I actually just downloaded Rocks tonight. That's pretty cool. It's like your version of Asteroids with pinball. And that's a unique experience as well. So how much are each module? There's expensive modules, less expensive modules. I mean, what do they range? What's the high and what's the low? Princess Bride is our highest at $37.50. It gets you the full game kit. You stick it in your machine, you enjoy the whole experience. It's what we're looking at in Josh's background. cannon lagoon is our least expensive it i believe is 1800 lexi light speed cosmic kart racing those come in around i've forgotten because we changed the price a year or so ago i think they're 2600 okay are they 3000 now i'm confused anyway around the $3,000 mark for a game kit final resistance is $3,400 heist is $3,250 weird al was $3,500 okay and I actually I'm on your website and I clicked on it well it said the P3 game matrix and so that actually tells you which base game and then if you want extra add-on games to download it tells you which ones are compatible with which right because certain mini games we used to call mini games now we call them add-on games sure rocks for instance rocks works on every single game kit that has a wire form and an eject that can get the ball over the walls and scoops because rocks lifts all the walls and scoops up while you're playing it so that works on seven of the eight play fields a game like dungeon door defender only plays on specific playfields that have features that integrate well with the rules of that game, and that's The Princess Bride and Heist.
    70:55
    Birdwatcher by Ian Harrower. It runs on every single playfield. Barnyard runs on every single playfield. Shoot and Scoot, every single playfield. Lexi Lightspeed's Secret Agent Showdown is designed specifically for the Lexi Lightspeed playfield. so historically p3 is claimed tpf as their launch event of the year it was it's where you had showed princess bride's where you showed word al that's where i played it was a tpf can we expect something coming up at tpf this year we try to hit tpf every year with a new game because it's our home show we the logistics of getting machines and games there is is easier we can bring a team of people to support the games unlike flying people out to a remote show is a lot more complicated um the history shows us bringing a game to TPF the last few years. We're trying. We're trying. No guarantees. We won't put out a game before it's ready, but we're trying to get it there.
    72:05
    All right. Now, if people are looking to buy the P3, what is the way they do this, and what's the current wait time? So jump on the website, multimorphic.com. there is a product listing for a P3 with the various trim levels of the Princess Bride, or you can select the base model from a drop-down bar. I think it's which game module you want installed in the machine. We ask for a deposit up front, and then we ask for the remainder when the machine's on the production line. The time difference between that today is it's a week. You put in your order for a machine. A week later, we'll be telling you your machine's basically ready. Please pay the balance. We have every game except the Princess Bride right now. Every game kit is in stock. So if you want a machine, we pull it out of our inventory, reconfigure it with final resistance or whatever you wanted, put it through final test, let you know it's ready to go. And that happens very quickly now. Of course, when we launch the next game, there's going to be a run on machines. There's going to be a run on game kits and the queue may grow up again. It took us a year to get through the princess bride. It took us a year and a half to get through weird out. So who knows? It could grow to be a long lead time again, but right now it's, it's super short. So if I already own the P three and I'm looking to buy the next module, say, say what, so you actually do bring something to the CPF and I love what I see. how far out am I before I can receive the module in my home? It depends how quickly you clicked the button. Because if 1,000 people click it right around the same time as you, then it could be a week, it could be a year. I don't know. So we process two build queues, one build queue of machines. So we'll launch a new game, and some number of people will buy a new P3 to have it configured with that game, put it in their house.
    74:17
    And then separately, we have people that already have a P3, and they're buying just the game kit. So for every two game kits we build, one goes to the machine queue, and one goes to the game queue for existing customers. again as if you're the first person to click buy then you're going to get it very quickly or as soon as we start production sometimes our production's delayed four or five months because usually we take we use launches usually to gauge interest we don't have tons of money so we don't go out and spend a million dollars to seed our production line we can't afford to do that so we generally say hey here's a new game some number of people buy it we're like cool we'll buy that many parts or twice as many as that parts or half as many and we'll do two runs or whatever it happens to be um so usually our production lags our announcement by a few months but once we get going first person to click buy gets it first and the last person to click but we had people complaining they complain um it happened again with the princess bride people are like i clicked by within 60 seconds of you announcing the game why is it taking nine months to get my get my game I'm like because someone clicked on 59 a lot more people clicked on it in less than that yeah it's just the nature of the beast you say go and people buy it and then it takes time to make the things do you have a program where like legacy people who have bought we have this in other aspects of pinball where I have friends who are like on every limited edition list they want And they want to buy it. So do you have something like that where you have legacy people who have P3 systems and they say, hey, I just want it. Just put me on the list. Do you have anything set up like that? So we did that one time. We got people saying, I don't care what your next game is. I know I'm going to want it. I want to preorder it now. and when we did that, it meant the first person who clicked buy when we announced the product was – Eight months away. Yeah, and it's a bad experience for new buyers. Sure. So we didn't do that again. Okay. I'm not opposed to doing it again. Maybe we separate into three build queues or something and say this one's dedicated to the people that pre-bought. I don't like a new person being excited about a game and clicking buy now super early and then having to wait forever. And then they're at the end of the line. Yeah. No, I get that. I'm all about fairness and giving people what they expect or hopefully what they expect. Yeah. Well, one cool thing that you've actually worked out with us now, Jerry, is if someone listening to this podcast wants to get in on the P3 system right now, like you said, you have some in stock and you want to take advantage of some money off. you can get a thousand dollars off right now the way it works is if you email loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com we will get you in touch with jerry and we will facilitate that thousand dollars off and like i said on the first impressions video if you've been dying to get into the system and you just you want to get in you do this does apply to you have to get a p3 console or a p3 system along with a game kit and the cheapest one out there right now is canon langoon like i said it's not the most immersive game you can buy for the system to the entry level yeah it's entry level it gets you in the door at 8900 which is pretty amazing considering mid-tier games are about 10 grand for other for traditional companies so it really brings because that's been one of the complaints over the past few years it's like i want to get into the system but the getting in's a little above where i feel like comfortable paying into now we're helping you get that down to a place where it's like oh yeah actually Jerry's helping you get that down this is all Jerry we're just giving him a forum to talk exactly the team of people at Multimorphic the large very large and dedicated team of people are trying to do what we can to help people get into the system and I think you guys are doing an awesome job of it But we went for about an hour 20 now. Is there anything we missed that you feel like you're just like, Jerry, you're like, guys, I want to talk about this. What topics do you think that we missed in our interview? Honestly, I appreciate the difficult questions, things related to the business, things related to challenges we've had. I enjoy talking about all aspects of the machine, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so. We didn't talk about specific features necessarily. necessarily and and we have a ton of them and go ahead no i i was just saying yes we didn't talk about that but i want to do a follow-up episode because what i want to do is talk about game development so this was me dipping my toe in the water and josh too since he actually has had the game to to say hey these are all these questions i mean i've had pinball for 10 years and these are all these questions that i've had about okay what would what would push me to try something different, although similar. And that's what a P3 is. It's kind of like a pinball machine and a console game had a baby because there's aspects of both of those. And add the interactive thing with the screen. And so I'm trying to figure out the best way of incorporating that entire system. But now we want to bring you back on because we want to talk about how the game development happens. Like how do you select the, how do you select the themes that you're going to do? Who is going to be designing this? How do you get the rules? And so this is only the first episode of the P3. This is kind of like your P3 101, like your intro to the P3 system. Yeah. Awesome. Obviously happy to do it. We can get you in touch with our developers. We can,
    80:35
    we talk almost daily. our whole development team kind of gets together and talks about the features or the issues or the new things we need to develop. We can get anyone on the call with you and talk through the process. Different people bring different perspectives. And we all love talking about it because we all love the machine and we all love bringing cool things to customers' houses. It is definitely a unique experience that you can't get anywhere else inside of Pinball. I will give you that. And I don't think anyone can disagree with me. They could try, but they're not going to be able to succeed. So if anyone wants to get a hold of you, Jerry, what's the best way to get a hold of you? So gstellenberg at multimorphic.com is the best. I get emails night and day, and that might take me some time. But if I don't respond in 24 hours, just ping me. You can imagine how many emails I get. But multimorphic.com, if you need support, you talk to support at Multimorphic. If you need sales help, if you're looking at pricing or want some help understanding what you need to purchase, sales at multimorphic.com. Just head to the website. All the addresses are there. Awesome. And if you want to get a hold of us, we are Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. You can get a hold of us on all the socials, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, which is weird to be saying now because I was always like we're never doing TikTok. And now we're getting thousands and thousands and thousands of views on TikTok. So I guess we're on TikTok. Josh is dancing on TikTok. Yeah.
    82:03
    But if you want to get ahold of us, that's the best way to do it. Silver ball swag. If you want some of like our hockey Jersey, I want to give a shout out to my local Hawk team, the Vernal Oilers. They just create, they just did 44 and zero. It's the only season that's ever happened. I'm like, congrats to those guys. They're playing the championship games up here shortly. And yeah, buy a hockey Jersey for them. And then anything else I'm missing, Scott, you know, it just, I definitely want you guys to check out the P3 system. Check out Josh's videos because that is going to answer a lot of your questions. And Josh and I have had a great time in the last couple weeks talking about him experiencing the P3 because this is really our foray into it too. And we certainly appreciate Jerry to come on and Jerry reaching out to us to talk about the system because this is certainly a new aspect that I don't have much familiarity with. So I'm really grateful that we have this opportunity. And hey, all pinball is good pinball, right? And this is even like a different aspect of pinball that I don't really know much about. So this is great. And if you want to hear, not from me and company people talking about the machine, but want to hear feedback from owners, from people that have experienced the P3 Jump on our Discord channel, because the P3 Discord channel is where there's literally hundreds of people there hanging out daily talking about the P3 and answering questions and giving experiences and talking people through stuff. Yeah, if you want to be the fly on the wall, everyone's always like, I want to know what's going on inside the company. I mean, obviously, they're not going to give away trade secrets in there, but a lot of the people that work at P3 are in that Discord, and you're going to feel like you're part of one of the company. I know also my phone was blown up yesterday when I joined and everyone's waving and saying, like, welcome.
    83:57
    What's going on now? Well, thank you again, Jerry. And Scott, give us our last words. You know what? I want you guys to go and check out The Princess Bride. And you know what? Maybe keep your antennas up because I sense something's going to be coming soon.