I want to dance by water beneath the Mexican sky, drink some margaritas by the blue lights, listen to the mariachi play at midnight, are you with me, are you with me? Ah, happy Monday morning everybody! Can you feel it? Can you taste it? The Stern webinar is coming any day now. Is it going to be like today and tomorrow? Are they going to give us the teaser this Friday? I know this. I can sense it. Like you can feel like the calm before the storm. It's about to happen any day now. Now, the big question remains, what title is it going to be? And I really don't think anyone knows but the people over at Stern Pinball because I was hanging out this weekend with Chris and Melissa from Cointaker at Jack Bar. I'm here to report to everybody that John and I are on great terms. We hugged it out. He's about to have a new baby any day now, and he wasn't going to let a Godzilla topper topple our great friendship. I had such a good time there. I'm going to talk a little bit about my conversation with Chris and Melissa, who were in town because this weekend in New York City was the big New York City pinball championships. Did you hear it? Did you see it all over the news? Did you hear everybody talking about it? No. In a city as big as the Big Apple, I want to give them some advice on how they should handle this moving forward. And I didn't go. I didn't disrupt the moment. It's their moment. It's Tim Sexton and Crazy Levy's moment. They had all their tournament players. The best players in the world came through New York City, but I didn't really hear about it. I'm going to talk about how I would sort of think about running these tournaments. If you really want to get more conversation and you want to get more people to participate, you got to rethink it a little bit. We'll talk about that. But let's start with Stern's next title because, look, from what I'm hearing from everybody is this. So here's what I know. I know what I don't know. We do know that Brian Eddy worked on Venom with Zombie Eddy on artwork. We also know that George Gomez is making James Bond, most likely a Kapow title. Now, here's the interesting thing about 2022. I believe it is the 40th anniversary of He-Man this year. It is also the 60th anniversary of James Bond. So you have those two anniversaries happening in 2022. You know, it's also the 50th anniversary of The Godfather. So you would think from a marketing standpoint that these pinball companies would try to sync up a milestone moment with the theme and the launch of the game. But as someone who's been covering pinball for the last like seven, eight years, these companies always fail horribly at syncing up the release of a pinball machine with an anniversary or milestone for the property. Remember Alien tried to do it? They failed by like five years. Toy Story 4 came out like three years ago. Remember when Jack tried to make The Hobbit with the last movie and he missed that by a couple years? So for some reason, it's really hard to sync up your pinball release with a milestone of the theme. Now, if you were to look at this and say, okay, there's a James Bond anniversary and a He-Man anniversary, there's really no reason to get Venom out anytime soon because there's no new Venom movie right now. And Venom's a little bit more like of an evergreen release because it's going to be based on the comic book. They're going to make an all original like Venom adventure, if you will. So I don't really know if Venom is something that like needs to come out this year contractually. You know, when Stern signs its deals, they normally are contractually obligated to get the pin out in a certain amount of time. And they also have a window in which they have the license. Now, they could always renew the license. So what is it going to be? This is the big question mark. This is the thing everyone is hanging on to. Is it going to be Venom? Is it going to be James Bond? And is it going to be He-Man, Masters of the Universe? Now, out of those three, I think He-Man is the big question mark. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if that's going to be Jack Danger's cornerstone title. We know Jack has been active on social media saying he's a little bit anxious. He's getting nervous. Does that mean his game is next? I mean, Stern's got John Borg, George Gomez, Keith Elwin, Brian Eddy, and Jack Danger all working on pinball machines. Now, that's a lot of designers, and they've had six months now to get a lot of games polished and ready to go. Here's what I think is going to happen. I think we're going to see the next game in a week, and I'm hearing from people that are pretty reliable. I am hearing that the next title is not Venom. Really, really interesting. I think they might move Venom to like Q1 of 2023. And I think we're probably going to see James Bond as the next game. I could be wrong, but that is what I'm hearing from people that are pretty damn reliable. Now, am I excited about James Bond and making like the 60th anniversary of James Bond and bringing James Bond films to life. You know, I got to be completely honest. James Bond as a theme, it makes sense for pinball. It hits the pinball demographic, but I am also not really excited about James Bond. I won't be buying one to keep. I might be buying one to flip, but I won't be buying one to keep. It's just not a dream theme for me. There are some of you out there who it is a dream theme for. Now, we will probably see old school James Bond, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, stuff like that. But let me ask all of you a question. How many of you in modern times, how many of you with all of the great content out in the world, all of these great TV shows and new movies, how many of you out there go back and watch old James Bond movies? I'm going to put out a statistic, people, that's absolutely going to blow your mind. Do you know that 90% of the world's content, right content like videos music ninety percent of the content in the world has been made in just the last two years there just so much out there and I don know but like I don go back and watch old movies like James Bond at all I don go back and watch old He cartoons at all I feel like there almost too much on all of our content plates right now that to go back and watch this stuff is really hard. Especially when there's so many James Bond movies. It's not just like one film. It's not just like the first Top Gun. And when you get into like a cartoon series from the 80s, if they do this game, if they do He-Man, I really think they need to have the footage from the original show I don't think it can be the new Netflix show That didn't really work They kind of woke-ified He-Man It didn't really work I hope they don't do what they did with Ninja Turtles I hope they don't try to like get inspiration from the cartoon show And then re-animate it Like don't re-animate it I want to see the clips I grew up with as a kid I think that was the big miss with like Ninja Turtles It's like if you're going to do a throwback game to a cartoon series people grew up loving, don't reanimate it. Like if you reanimated Transformers, it wouldn't work. I think James Bond obviously appeals to the older demographic in pinball. I also think He-Man Masters of the Universe is an absolutely incredible theme for pinball. If you put Castle Grayskull underneath the glass, you are going to get a lot of really, really giddy people. And just the theme of it, like turning Adam into He-Man, I have the power, are you going to open up the drawbridge on Castle Grayskull, Skeletor, Battle Cat, you know, Manny Faces, like all the different personalities in He-Man, I think it's going to be really, really fun. And I think it's perfect for pinball. It's very colorful. It's very campy, right? But it's also got a storyline that's really easy to understand, like He-Man versus Skeletor. that is something I think a lot of people can get very excited about and you can see the world of He-Man under glass you could see the toys in the game like you could have many faces where his different faces rotate around and talk to you and do call outs like it's all right there like Ram Man like if you don't have a Ram Man as a pop bumper that pops up and down like then you're doing something wrong with He-Man and I think right now like right now coming out of Toy Story and coming out of a game that doesn't really have many toys in it I think all eyes are on the next Stern machine. I think everyone is looking for there to be like the combination we all want in pinball machines, right? We want a game with great artwork, great code, great flow, but we also need some fun toys. I mean, George Gomez said it the best. He's like, every single pinball machine should be built around three really satisfying shots and three toys in the game that create pinball moments. You know, when I jumped on Godzilla at Jack Bar this week, and I have to say this, like I don't play Godzilla as much as many of you do, but when I went from Toy Story to Godzilla, it was like going from just an average pin to probably one of the best pins ever. And Godzilla, when you play the game, there is just something about that game that just pulls you in in the first 15 seconds and it just makes you smile. Like it's just such a good game. The shots are so good. They're so smooth. But it's really about the personality and the campiness of Godzilla that just oozes out of that game. I mean, it comes at you from every single angle. And when you look up at the screen, I just love how the world of Godzilla is just perfectly represented in the game. They like nailed the theme integration, just nailed it. And then I go on a Toy Story and it's just it's just not the same. Like they just didn't nail the theme integration. And that's why you really have to play machines. You got to play machines and know you want it before you put your money down. Now, let's talk about that for a little bit, because I was talking to Chris and Melissa, and they're really good friends, and I love them, and I really think they're going to have an amazing tailgating party September 24th down at Cointaker. And I was talking to them. You know, it's always fun connecting with people like Melissa and Chris, because they know more than I do. Like, they know more about what's coming out, what's in the pipeline than I do, and Melissa won't tell me. It didn't matter like how many like frozen margaritas I bought them. They wouldn't cave and give me a scoop. But I will say this. I said to her like, is there anything I say on my show that just annoys you as a distributor? And she brought up the one thing that I've been harping on all year. She's like, Chris, you keep telling people like not to buy, not to put down non-refundable deposits. And the part you keep missing is that nobody is making them do that. Everyone has a choice on whether or not they want to go in on a game. And look, I totally agree with her on that stance. Nobody's forcing you to go in on a non-refundable deposit. But the part I have a big issue with is these companies, when they accept a non-refundable deposit, they have absolutely no consequences if they blow by their ETA shipment date for you. So if I'm a customer and I enter in on a non-refundable deposit, I think there should be a date by which I could get my money back if I don't have my game. And that's nowhere in any of the contracts. The only person who put this into the contract was Jerry with Multimorphic. If he misses his estimated ship date by six months, then you can get a refund. Let's face it. It's just been a rough year for non-refundable deposit people. If you bought Spooky's Games or if you bought Toy Story 4, like those were the two games that burned people. Nobody's been really burned on the big Lebowski because when you order one, Chris and Melissa will tell you it's a year wait. So they're not trying to tell you you're going to have your game in like six months. It's a year from the order date. You know, if you ordered a haggis, you got kind of screwed. If you ordered a fathom, you did get screwed. I'm not sure if they're even selling fathoms that coin taker, but it's really spooky pinball, right? You ordered the game. You didn't get to play it. You didn't get to see it. And then if you know you want to cancel your game, even if your game is like six months away from production, they won't let you cancel the game. So you lost money on your spooky game. And the same thing with Jersey Jack. I mean, Jersey Jack pinball, it's just unfortunate. Like if you ordered your Jersey Jack game, you either had to give $1,000 for the LE or $2,500 for the CE. Now both of those buyers have both lost their money. You can now get an LE for less than $1,000 off sticker and you can get a CE for almost $2,000 off sticker. So what do we do as a pinball community. Here's what we do. I think for the most part, unless it's a dream theme, you know you going to own right You know you going to own this and bolt it to the floor I think everyone going to start to be more patient I think they going to take their time I also think it going to be a non as we go into the end of 2022 and into 2023 Because I think Stern is going to clobber everybody. I really do. I think Stern is going to have one of the best like 18 months in the history of Stern pinball. And they're not going to have non-refundable deposits. Nobody's going to lose money going in on a Stern game. and they're absolutely going to show everybody how it's done. And all the boutiques out there that require non-refundables, I think more and more of us are going to look at those propositions as being a bad proposition for us. Because now there's a much greater likelihood you're going to lose out. There's a much greater likelihood the game's not going to be that great. And there's also just almost like a guarantee. If you wait on those boutique games and don't go in on them early, you'll be able to get one for less than MSRP. See, Stern games hold their value better. You know, Godzilla LEs are still holding strong. You know, I was thinking about this because I still look at Godzilla LE and I still don't like the armor on the game. I wish Godzilla LE just popped a lot more than it does. And I was thinking to myself, Stern's got this juggernaut hit. They've got this amazing game, probably their best game of all time. You could argue it might be their best game of all time. Are you telling me that Stern Pinball is never going to make a special, special edition of Godzilla? They're not going to revisit it at all? They're not going to do like a 40th anniversary like Elvira or Batman SLE? I think Stern Pinball, this is why they're in such a good position right now. Because they have the biggest catalog of games. They have the best catalog of games. Stern could easily, on a moment's notice, say, hey, we're going to take our top 10 games. And you could go down a list. Let's go down the list right now. The top 10 Stern games. Godzilla, Jurassic Park, Iron Maiden, Deadpool, Elvira, Lord of the Rings, Avengers, Stranger Things, ACDC, and Rush. How the heck is Rush over Batman, over Spider-Man, over Tron? Anyway, but those are their top 10 ranked games. Now, Stern Pinball could easily take their top 10 games and say, we're going to do a very special limited edition, like, masterpiece collection. Like, these are our modern masterpieces, and we're going to make $250 of each, and they're going to be $20,000 each, and they're going to come the most loaded, the most blinged out, beautiful versions of these games we've ever launched. and they would sell every single one easily. You know what I'm saying? It's like once you know you've got something great, then you can really make money off of it in a variety of ways. But you got to know you have something great first. And this is why Jersey Jack sort of blew themselves up with Toy Story 4. They didn't have something that was worth the price. They didn't have a masterpiece and they knew it. And they priced it like it was some incredible game. Like it was worthy of a price that should have been on games like Pirates of the Caribbean. And so you can't do that, right? You cannot do that. You got to know you have something great. So I think we're going to see Stern Pinball revisit some of their older titles. And look, I didn't even mention games. If you were to go off theme alone, like I still think stuff like Ghostbusters and Tron are in much higher demand than games like Stranger Things. Can you imagine? Just for a moment, close your eyes and imagine with Kaneda. If Stern Pinball remade a Ghostbusters special edition, if they closed the flipper gap a little bit, how much they could sell it for? It's scary to think how much they could get for the game. All right, what else is going on in pinball before I talk about the New York City Pinball Championships? So a little rumor I'm hearing is that Dutch Pinball is working on their game after the Big Lebowski. Now, it is going to be a game that's going to be another movie property. I am super excited to see what Barry can do over at Dutch Pinball. You know, here's why I'm excited to see what Barry can do. I still think that Barry is one of the best designers who understands how to translate a theme into pinball. I understand that he has only made one game. But his one game and his one effort is still better than anything Pat Lawler made at Jersey Jack. It's better than anything Brian Eddy made over at Stern Pinball. It's a better world under glass, I would argue, than any single pinball machine I've seen in the last seven years. Name me one better world under glass than the Big Lebowski. You can't. You just can't do it. And so I'm excited that Barry is not done. I heard from Chris and Melissa. They are getting games out. They are going to make it. They are going to make all of the Lebowskis. They are going to make all of the EAs whole. It's been an arduous journey. But you know who's helping Barry out with his next theme? Roger Sharp. So I've been hearing they've been talking to both Warner Brothers and Paramount about a movie property. I don't know what it is. There's a lot of movies to guess from if that's the hint, you know, and it's going to happen one day. Now, is it going to happen one day soon? I don't know. It probably will be a couple of years from now. See, I think Barry needs to go the route that I've been trying to tell J.J.P. to go. Just say you're only making $1,000 and charge freaking $15K, $20K and just call it a day. Load the damn pin up and watch everyone sell out. Just load it up. Get all the assets. Get all the toys in it and only make $1,000 and don't overload your manufacturing and then just make one game every two years and be the Bugatti and Rolls Royce of pinball. Everyone's afraid to do it. Everyone's always trying to compete with volume. Everyone's trying to put these high-end games on location. It's a big mistake, and it hasn't worked out well for anyone. All right, so we will see Dutch Pinball two years from now. Keep checking out, you know, a Canadian Pinball podcast will be on episode, like, 909 when we see the next Dutch Pinball game. But I'm rooting for Barry. I am rooting for him to get it done. Okay, let's end the show real quickly. The New York City Pinball Championships happened in New York City over the weekend. I think Ray Day won it by 10 points. There's a leaderboard. I was just going off of that. first and foremost I want to say look it was really cool that all these players from around the world came into New York City for the New York City pinball championships now here the thing here the thing and I know Levy and I know Tim Sexton run this entire thing but I do think they have to figure out a way to make it more interesting and more exciting. I was talking to Levy two years ago. Here's the main thing. If you're going to have a pinball tournament and you want to get people excited about a tournament, what is the number one thing that a tournament should communicate to everybody else out in the world. What's at stake, right? What is this for? Like how much money is someone winning in this tournament? I read the press releases they put out. I still don't know what was at stake. I still don't know what the prize money was. I still don't know what the champion got. So you don't even have that. They didn't communicate what was at stake. And when you read the press release, like I get it. Like they're so excited that it's back on after COVID. They're also very excited about the venue in Brooklyn. But when I read it all, I'm like, all right, it's like, it's more about promoting the fact that we're in a nicer venue and COVID is over, but there will be no reason otherwise to really be like, let's go. But I still think they need to figure out a way to make this thing more of a spectator sport. Now I saw today, they put up a video of the pinball championships. Guess how long the video is? 10 hours long. 10 hours long. You just can't get people into it. And then they had seminars. They had podcasters there. Of course, Kaneda was not invited. Kaneda, the ultimate hype man in pinball, completely ignored by all this stuff. But they could use my help. They really could. And they could also start to think about this a little bit differently. and I do agree that these laborious 10 hours of qualifying, like beautiful Carl Weathers in August in New York City and everyone is inside for so many hours playing pinball. See, I just think you need to do it differently. I do. I think it's more fun when it's like single elimination. I think it's more fun when it's heads up. I think it's more fun when it's timed. All of that stuff just makes pinball more fun. But ultimately, look, this is how they want to run this stuff. This is how some of these tournament players enjoy their tournaments. I just think pinball is almost never going to be a really good spectator sport. It's not. It's just not that fun to watch for the casual observer. It's just not there. And if you want to get people excited about it, look, it's hard, right? In New York City, it's hard to do stuff. It's hard to put the machines out. You know, pinball is just always going to be very niche. Like it is going to be very niche. Like when they say like, oh, there's pinball in 35 bars in New York City. That's nothing. There's like 10,000 bars in New York City, right? So it's still a very small niche community. Look, I think pinball is thriving for the people that want it to thrive. I think pinball is doing just fine with the people that care. Most people just don't care. Most people walk up to a modern pinball machine. They have no idea what to do. These games just don't work for casual people. And again, remember what I said, 90% of the content has been created in the last two years. Video games are more fun for most people. Watching Netflix is more fun for most people. If people have free time, the majority of people aren't saying to themselves, let's go play some pinball. And I guarantee you the majority of people are not saying to themselves, let's go buy a pinball machine today and spend like $6,000 to $15,000 we didn't think we were going to spend on a pinball machine. You know, I was just watching the Netflix comedy movie. I didn't finish it yet. The Bubble. And in the beginning scene, there's a fishtails pinball machine. And I'm like, this is going to do more for getting people excited about pinball than any pinball tournament could ever do. You just reach a broader audience and it's right there. See, to me, product placement is the way to go. The way the Wizard of Oz was in Ted Lasso. If you really want to get more people into pinball, it's all about placing it in content that people love. Only problem is this. If you get too many people into it, the price is going to keep soaring and soaring and soaring. And I think a lot of us sort of like missed the good old days when it was a lot more niche and it wasn't so hard to get every new game and we weren't paying ridiculous prices for an LE or collector's edition. And it was like super simple to get on your distros list for one of Stern's 500 LEs and it was no hassle. How many of you out there for years you could pay below MSRP for your LE, you know, enjoy the game, flip it a year later, make a few bucks and it wasn't crazy. Like you weren't buying a game for $7,500 and then listing it next year for $15,000 like people are doing now. The entire market is still stupid. It's absolutely stupid. Now, speaking of stupid, let me just end this show by saying this. I think a lot of people out there are waiting forever for Stern to get out its expression lighting and its toppers. Now, a lot of you guys out there that bought Rush Pinball and you bought the premiums, you were told you would be able to have the expression lighting system available, like pretty close to buying the machine. It's been eight months now since Rush has been out, and Stern still won't allow these buyers to enjoy the game the way it's supposed to be enjoyed. Why is it taking Stern so long to just release lights? Like, it's just a lighting kit. Is there a supply shortage on lights? And don't even get me started on the toppers. I mean, by the time the Mandalorian topper comes out, But I don't know, like half of us are going to pass away. It's just crazy, like the amount of revenue and just its own accessories Stern is leaving on the table. I don't understand why the topper department and the pinball making department can't just sync up. Why is it taking so long to make toppers? Stern, come on, get these toppers released. Which games need toppers? Like Rush Pinball, right? Godzilla needs a topper. And what about like Mandalorian? How do you, the Led Zeppelin topper came out, but the Mandalorian one still is not out. Anyway, everybody, thank you for tuning in to Canada's Pinball Podcast. I hope we get a new game this week. I can't wait to talk about a new game from Stern Pinball. And I do think if this game is loaded with toys, it's going to be a rough week for you Jersey Jack buyers, because if this game is something that looks like it's got more in it, you're really going to have a hard time writing a check for $12,000 to $15,000 for your Toy Story 4. Everybody be good. I'll talk to you soon. I want to dance by water beneath the Mexican sky. Drink some margaritas by the blue lights. Listen to the mariachi play at midnight. Are you with me? Are you with me?