The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round. Hello again. My name is Jeff Teolis. My name is Martin Robbins. Welcome everybody to the final round of Pimple Podcast episode 22. This is an exciting time of year, Marty. People are pre-voting right now for the Twippies. Do you think we might get a vote? I mean, if we don't, we don't get on the drop-down menu. And then we quit the show, I assume. Yeah, that's exactly right. We are only in this for a twippy. So anything else means we're cancelling the show. Yep, that's it. The pressure's on you. But we will tell you about a special award. Listen carefully later in this program because it could be coming to you. Yeah, for a small fee, maybe. What's a little money between friends, eh, Marty? Exactly. Marty, it's tough to know who the president is these days in countries, in clubs, memberships, whatever you will. The IFPA, I've seen a lot of signs questioning who is the IFPA president. Some people concede, some don't. Some people just, it's like they never want to leave that position. That aside, we're going to contact, I believe, according to the website, the actual IFPA president. Should we talk to him? Well, it depends on who you're talking about, because I remember that there was, let's say, a popular vote. And I believe you won the popular vote. I forgot about that. Did you win the college vote as well? I don't know. You know, that's the thing. I mean, it's kind of like in Russia, you know, Putin is trying to extend his stay. But let's put politics aside. OK, we just had Thanksgiving, not you or I, because we're Canadian and Australian, but a lot of Americans gathered together and enjoyed great family time. So let's just have one big happy family with the IFPA president, Joshua Sharp. Hello, Josh. Actually, I changed it to dictator like 10 days ago. And so you should, by the way. You guys have been checking the site nearly as much as you used to. Is anybody checking the site? No, the numbers are way down. Now, that being said, I did maybe suggest a refresher in mid-November because, I don't know, one of the sharp brothers went down in an absolute fury i did you i did you a favor is that i had to rebuild a little bit ago and noticed that it caused myself to go up which was amazing are you still riding high above uh above zach uh zach 64th yeah yeah he's getting a nosebleed looking up at me all right let's just be honest okay and not only that by the way sorry marty we'll get to the interview and maybe we will we will who knows but not only that another punch in the face to Zach is that in 2017 was the first time I ever played your brother in an actual competition. I had advanced in the playoffs to, I don't know if it was the quarterfinals of the Papa classics event at the old Papa facility. And I beat the living shit out of them on Ali. Well, unfortunately with Pinberg and replay effects and Papa and selling a lot of their games, I purchased that Ali game, sent a picture to your brother just to say, Hey, this is here. and his note to me was, get that out of our fucking country. I don't like to brag about wins. Marty, do you have any questions for our president? Probably the big question really is, what is it meant for IFPA in 2020 and what do you think it's going to look like? I mean, IFPA in 2020 is made for a much better marriage and a chance to be a much better father. I mean, I don't know. I feel like you go through the stages of grief or whatever, and I've just, like, I've reached acceptance that, like, and I was joking with Amanda about it. I have put in my mind that I'm kind of good with all of this COVID nonsense for like a year, which for me would be like, you know, March 17th was the day I packed up my office and brought all my crap home. And one of our engineers got us all, you know, set up working remotely or whatever. So I'm kind of on autopilot until March 17th. And then if March 18th hits, like, I don't know, I might have a nervous breakdown if I have to go more than a year, which it's looking like, you know, is possible, probable. I don't know, somewhere somewhere between there. So one day at a time, even with all the vaccines. I mean, those are pretty promising. It is. It is like I there's definitely, you know, the light is at the end. It is at the end of the tunnel. You could see it. But like the distribution of the vaccine, like stuff just going to take time. Right. And just seeing, you know, obviously like the first responders and essential workers who are going to get it first. Like, I remember there was some news program where it was like they laid out the phases of vaccine distribution. And I can remember like reading like and phase one that it's like, oh, no, I'm not that phase two. No, I'm not that either. Phase at some point you get to like phase five, the rest. And I'm like, yeah, I'm in the rest. You know, it's fine. It's just going to be a bit even even when things get going, which I guess could be. I mean, they're talking like mid-December, I think, maybe, for the Pfizer one, for like emergency use to start. So it's good. It's good. I'm just kind of like I've set my expectations at a year, and I would love to be like pleasantly surprised if it happens before that. But it's cool, gentlemen. It's cool. Well, the last time we had you on, one of the things we talked about was that at that time, and obviously so much has happened since then, there still were a lot of people I guess inquiring slash requesting that IFPA start opening up tournaments are you still getting a lot of inquiries from people saying well come on there's a vaccine just open up for god's sake or you know it's more it's a lot of the and I feel like you know I brought this up the last time that I was on with you guys that there's a whole lot of like it's not really that bad in my area we're back to normal you know whatever and you know for us as a global organization we've taken the stance of of really wanting to make sure that we are either open for business or we're closed for business we're not going to be here and say like we are allowing australia to be open and the united states to be closed and we will continue to track the u.s and let you like I don't have any interest in sort of micromanaging the openness of sanctioning events. So for us, you know, we're continuing to look based on responses from our state and provincial and country representatives. When it is safe to play in a majority of the world, we will flip the switch and turn things on, knowing that there's still going to be a good chance that much of the world won't be able to play. Most likely, you know, if they're even when vaccines start and, you know, votes change from no to yes, you know, all over the world. You know, there may be some places that will be sort of behind the times and get started a little later. But we're prepared to, you know, when when we can service the majority, we'll turn it on and then get the roaring 20s going. Becker and I were talking about kind of our vacation from IFPA management responsibilities and that we both kind of were joking it's going to just be a total shit show when the lights are back on. You know, I fully expect those events that were monthly, you know, going weekly and those that were weekly going daily. People just like prohibition ending, man, people going crazy. Speaking of majority, which you keep using that word majority, is that 50 plus 1% or is it based on kind of like electoral votes? You know, the United States certainly has more players than maybe, well, definitely Australia or Canada. Is it going to be weighted? What are the factors and what are the current numbers? Because I know you're getting reports from your state directors and your country directors. It's definitely weighted. It's kind of the House of Representatives approach that we have in the U.S. So the level at which, like for Australia, for example, I hear from Dan, and it's a countrywide decision that he is letting me know about. It's not broken down to states, whereas for states here in the U.S. and provinces up in Canada, we do drill down to that level. And I guess Dan is welcome to drill down to that level in Australia. That's just not how I've been receiving his vote on our spreadsheet. But, you know, everyone gets a certain amount of weight based on either the number of events or the number of players that are within that country. I think it's the number of players in that country that are registered. So what we're hearing really is there's still not an overwhelming desire for people to open up. No, it's, I mean, even with this announcement that we're planning on making at some point after this show airs or before this show airs or yesterday or whatever the day, I don't know what day it is. Oh, thanks for the exclusive. Appreciate it. You like that? That's fine. So in our working doc that will be this post on our site, it says only at 26% support globally right now to reopen. And if I go to the spreadsheet, it is currently at 19%. so so some some yeses have become no's in the whatever week plus uh in the two weeks since this doc started because it looks like it was open november 10th yeah well yeah two weeks so we're heading the wrong direction boys at the moment we are with numbers we are with sadly arcades and businesses and people's livelihoods and jobs and all of these things that we maybe he took for granted, but I do have to ask you about that because you and Zach were recently on the Super Awesome Pinball Show and talked about when Pinberg and ReplayFX, sadly, had to make the decision. And it made sense because ReplayFX, the biggest fundraiser for Replay Foundation, was that event. That didn't happen last year. That's a big hole to fill. So that was part of the Stern Pro Circuit. Other places, I know Buffalo Billiards, they've at one time been part of the Stern Pro Circuit with their Bat City Open. They have closed down. I don't know of other places. I hope, fingers crossed, everybody's going to be okay. What happens to the Stern Pro Circuit from two standpoints? One, the number of events. Is it still going to be 20? And also, two, I guess the finals, too, because the finals, for those that don't know, it was all Stern and Data East games, and it was a mix of new and old. Well, the older games kind of came from Papa. You know what? the older ones weren't happening this next time anyway. They weren't? Pre-Papa, you know, doing what they had to do with Replay. It's all modern then for the Stern Pro Circuit Finals. That was in the books a long time ago, actually. I dare say shortly after the last Circuit Final. Why was that? I think for, you know, obviously the Stern part of the partnership, highlighting their products and our need and want, or I guess Stern's need and want to push You know, marketing-wise, being able to sell that as a potential promotional tool slash product slash whatever, you know, production, having there be a focus on their product that you can buy and is in stock at your local distributor was something that I think they were interested in shifting things towards. and the ability for Zach to kind of let the Papa guys know, like, hey, you don't have to bring – I mean, it's a pain in the ass for them to haul out games from Pittsburgh to Chicago, especially in the city where you can't park anywhere. I remember Steinman and Doug, it's like, you know, hey, where do we throw this trailer that has 10 games on it? And it's like, well, it doesn't fit in the parking lot in the bar because the trailer sticks out in the middle of the street. Like, it was a logistical challenge, you know, the nice way to say that. But, you know, it was just going to allow a much easier time for Papa and a much better showcase of games that Stern is selling for Stern. What do you think are the best modern Sterns for tournaments? I mean, anything that's Lyman or Keith Elwin. That's like having a cheat sheet to a test. That's usually just the right answer. That's my answer if Amanda asks me what's for dinner. I'm just like, I don't know, Lyman or Keith Elwin. That's all good. I'm on a Lyman diet, actually, right now. I don't know. Most of the games are good. You know, I think, I can't think of any that are, like, nasty, terrible that we won't use. You know, like, Black Knight works great. I mean, I haven't played Turtles. I haven't played Avengers yet. But, I mean, I can't think of anything that is on, you know, our shit list, so to speak. So the other part of that question that I asked was the number of Stern Pro Circuit events. There are 20. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, in 2020, only two of them happened before everything was shut down. And that would have been Pinmasters and Indisc, the IFPA Open. Okay, so how are we going to move forward with this if next year, let's just hypothetically say, whatever those events that were in March to May or June don't happen, does the stern pro circuit take up just the two events from 2020 and then whatever's left of 2021 that will certainly be my vote like i i'm pretty sure that indisc isn't happening i mean i would have booked my flight by now i think for a january event i was just watching carl's stream of hot wheels before we started recording and i pretty much he said it's not going to happen okay i mean he should answer that in our freaking slack channel that carl you're listening to this just respond to my message he didn't say definitely he just said pretty much and his reasoning being there's just probably not going to be enough people turning up anyway yeah i uh well the prize game is secure just in case it does happen because that's uh ifp's responsibility so we have that in hand okay so what you were saying though is your idea is whatever remaining events in 2021 that happened and the ones that did happen in 2020, that makes up your Stern Pro Circuit. I guess what I'm asking is, are you going to try to make up the ones that are lost? Are you more focused on whatever the end of the calendar year is? It's always going to be a calendar year. Even if it's not 20, even if it's something like seven or eight? Sure. We didn't have 20 last year. I know, but seven and eight are different than 16, 17. I mean, it's not 20. You're right, but it's... It is what it is. Like, we're going to power through it. I mean, you know, you see what professional sports did, right? Like, baseball was, what, 60 games instead of 162? Yep. That's 37% of the season, Jeff. And were you just as excited about your baseball playoffs? Blue Jays made the playoffs. You're damn right I was. See? See? Cubs and the Sox both made the playoffs. I was, like, super stoked. But, listen, I think you roll the COVID dice as best you can. I mean, Illinois had a great basketball team last year, and then the tournament got zonked. And you just roll with the punches that you're given. And if we're stretching into a non-calendar period, at some point you have to reconcile that, right? Is there a minimum number, though? Because, and the reason I ask this, for those that don't know, the Stern Pro Circuit event, when you are a participant in those events, $5 from each player goes into the fund. So obviously with less than 20 events, that fund, which is very attractive for the 20 players that make the finals, is now going to be significantly reduced. And the nice thing that you did with those 20 players is the worst guy gets a guaranteed whatever amount of dollars. I think it was like $500, $600. Yeah, but that also came from Stern's subsidy. But that wasn't just event totals. That was Stern throwing money in. So where did that money go? In your pocket, I assume. It went into Zach's pocket, and then he transfers it to my account. That's how we do it. No, that's how we, like the $600 per player, like the total that we collected from the, what was it, 18 circuit events that happened for the 2019 season, you know, was only $11,000. And I think, let me see if we have, do I have the details on? Be careful. You don't want to say, you don't want to slip up here. I'm going to look. I'm going to look at my own. Bank account? Yeah. Where is it? Rules. Under your mattress? It'd probably be more interest there right now than in the bank. So first place, five grand and a pro new in box game. Second place, two grand. Third place, 1,500, 1,300, 1,200, 1,100, 1,000, 900, 800, 700, and then 10 players with 600 each. I dare say that adds up to way more than $11,000. I'm thinking of my friend Steven Bowden, who was the number one seed going into the Stern Pro Circuit Finals. Guaranteed fourth, right? And at the time, guaranteed a certain amount of dollars, which I assume is fine because that's 2019. Yeah, oh yeah. Okay. The 2019 season final is going to be held. I think, you know, Zach and I have already kind of begun talking about some possible ways of doing it. And because, like, the ability for us to not have the show, or not the show, but the concert, whatever the hell it is, the event that went along with the circuit final, you know, that's far more logistically challenging working with JWoww's schedule, right, than just the 20 players that I could see us. You like that? Way to hold it together. Yeah, I tried. Putting 20 people that we know really well and scheduling a time for everyone to come in, I don't know, a couple of days before Pinball Expo or a couple of days before something that we could provide, you know, meaningful here in Chicago. I mean, you saw the people that the circuit final is potentially one game for people, right? There was a whole big thing about us changing the format. And it's like, nobody's going to travel to Chicago to what? Lose one game and then go home? And it's like, all right, well, then I'll get to play because I'm ranked 175th of the circuit for the 2019 season. And, you know, guess what? Everyone said yes, except for Colin MacAlpine because of his scheduling issue. So we're not worried. If we tell those 20 people it's a random Saturday in some month in 2021, we're going to go to the Stern Arcade, or we're going to go to Jack Danger Studio, or we're going to go to my basement. Whatever we're going to end up doing, we're going to play that out with those 20 people so they can get paid, and we can close the books on that season. And I would guess that more likely than not, all of those 20 players will show up. I'll be wearing my belt. So I know, obviously, you've talked about what's happened with Replay Foundation and Kinberg. What has it meant to you? Man, it's like I feel like after talking with my dad about it and his, you know, it was like a brother almost of the family. You know, is Papa going to be OK? Is Papa going to continue? It felt like he was talking about a family member. Just like, oh, is it in hospice or is it in surgery? It'll get out and we'll be able to meet for Thanksgiving and have Christmas again. Shit like that. Like we, yeah, it's tough. It's tough. But I think Zach, Zach was in a far more positive mood than I was. But I've come around to feeling far more in the Zach zone lately that they have, you know, assuming Kevin gives the blessing for the brand to continue in some way. You know, there's a really passionate crew in Pittsburgh that I think could carry the mantle for that brand and do, you know, run events that are at the caliber of what that brand, you know, deserves and is recognized for. And I see their team, their local team, a lot like, you know, the IFPA team when we started out. We were just a small group of idiots that wanted to change the world. So we did that. slowly, day by day. Now, I don't know. I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful that it's the end of a chapter and there will be a next chapter in the book. How do you guys feel about it? I mean, you guys have been equally invested, I think, at least maybe not as long as Zach and I have, but recently, you know, certainly just as invested as players. Yeah, look, I probably had mixed emotions. It's harder for me because I've only been there twice, right? So I don't have that same connection. You were the Trash Talker Invitational winner for crying out loud, Marty. That is true. But it was more the gravity of it being like, whoa, if this goes, that's a pretty big blow for pinball, really. I don't know. I don't know if I see it that way. I mean, Papa has gone away before. Well, you know, it was it was gone in 1998 through 2004. And that was when it was truly like one of the three events on the calendar. I mean, that would be in 1999. It was the equivalent of losing like twenty five hundred events on the calendar. Like it was it was a monumental thing when when Epstein stopped doing it as great as and, you know, Zach touched on this as well, relating Pinberg to the Stern Pro Circuit As great and as huge of an event as it is, it's just one event. And people miss it. You know, a thousand people go, but people miss it because they couldn't register in time. People miss it because Jim Belsito will miss it because he has to take his daughter to a daddy-daughter dance, which I have now been participating in as well. Like, life kind of happens, and it's still only one event. So I don't see it as like the sport is crumbling to the ground, you know, by a long shot. Hey, I saw those daddy-daughter dances on the new Borat movie, the debutante dances. I hope it's nothing like that. I just want to say that. But the point is, you asked about what does it mean to me. I got to say, out of everything I've done, and I've done a few things in this podcast and Pinball Profile, pretty big thrill for me. And I don't take it lightly that I got to be on the stage with you and Colin and Keith and Jim Balcedo and Massenkoff and Chris Stevens, it seems, every year. And young Andy Rose and Daniele when he shows up. but just to be with those great, great players and just see how unbelievable competitive pinball is. See how the real people do it, Jeff? You know what? I can't make a joke. Yes you right See how these people got up the pyramid from 1 people to the top four and just learning the different traits and the coolness and really just like your brother is perhaps the most calm player ever I do need to check DNA because you're a spaz out there. The not like this bullshit, the high kicks. Yeah, I mean, all that garbage, you know, whining about high hand, that crap. But your brother is like, I want to check his pulse. He doesn't move and he won it. I mean, so learning the different styles. L1's obviously like that, too, but you'll see him get mad once in a while if he's got stuck on, like, Pirates of the Caribbean, JGP, and give a little donkey kick. Things like that. But, you know, that Family Guy game and all these kind of great memories. I'm going to miss that and certainly the people that maybe I only saw once a year. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All of the non-pinball playing stuff, for Pinberg especially. You know, I mean, everyone's gotten used to Papa not happening for a few years now. But the getting together and, I mean, you couldn't go around in Pinburgh without being paired with someone that you're like, oh, shit, man, how are you doing? Or walking to your bank and running into like a half a dozen people on the walk. And, yeah, man, I mean, that's what it's all about is connecting with, you know, these people that all share all these diverse backgrounds that have a shared passionate interest in this weird little game that we play so seriously. Well, also having fun. Even though it's serious, it's also fun. Tournament people know how to have fun. I don't know if there are certain podcasters that don't believe that, but it's true. Marty, what about your point of view and all your Australian friends that went to something like Pinberg and just saw the grand scope of it and went, I am now into competitive pinball, or even I'm now going to run tournaments and events. That is where I think Pinberg's biggest loss is going to be the number of fans that were created. Well, I'm going to take that one step further, if you will allow me. And I guess from an outside country looking in, there were always two institutions that represented pinball. It was PAPA and it was IFPA. Different lenses, but I reckon a lot of influence from both sides. So I don't just see it as the one event, obviously best event, biggest event going. I see it as this institution that has had a big influence on me and a lot of players. And so that really means now of those two influences, IFPA remains. And I would say to you, Josh Sharpe, it's up to you to save pinball. Oh, fuck, we're screwed. I think that's the Pinberg takes resources and lots of money and lots of time to organize. doing all the other things that I think you just mentioned within the context of Papa serving as this access point for competitive pinball as a whole. That doesn't take any money to do. It just takes effort. You know, I mean, we started IFPA with like, you know, zero dollar bills collected. And it was just time and volunteer work from people. Right. Like, so I'm not I'm actually not concerned about that part dying and going away. You know, I mean, Zach and I messaged Doug already because, you know, we had similar fears of, hey, man, so the next Stern Pro Circuit call, you know, do you want in? And it's like, fuck yeah, man, I want in. And it's like, all right, good. So, like, things are continuing. It's not like the SPC group, you know, lost one of the three members of the tribe. We're still, you know, we're still together. We're still here. and we'll still be leaning on Doug and the people that he leans on on the Papa side of things for guidance when we make collective decisions. The one thing that became very, very popular to a lot of players at Pinberg was the match play event. And I think it's probably safe to say, I should ask Andreas this, but I would assume many tournaments that were first-time creations were done in that match play format. We still see City Champ. We still see the 24-Hour Sanctum. But we see a lot of Pumpin' Dumps now. We see all kinds of other different formats. I hope we don't lose the Match Play format because it's very, very special. There are some pros and cons to that format. And I guess I want to talk to you, Josh, who's played everything. What are some of the pros and cons for you for different formats? And we'll start with Match Play. I mean, Match Play goes back to, I remember describing when the first Pinberg happened. and it was like, oh my God, they're doing a league season. You know, our league season is Pinberg and we've been running it since 1998. And I believe like the idea of running a whole league season in one day. And it's like, hopefully, you know, try to explain to my dad. So I'm going out to this thing. What is it? You know, league, we play, you know, five games a night for seven months, once a month. We're going to do that in a day. And then you're going to do it a second day again. And it's just like, oh my God, are you kidding me? The social aspect that you get out of, you know, our league here, you, that's the best part of match play to me is, especially in four player groups, you're only playing 25% of the time. So you have 75% of the time that you can connect with people, you know, if it's, if it's our, our local monthly tournament that was match play for a while out here. And I think is currently that now, I think we do four or five sessions, you know, to a given time. But you're left being able to, like, connect with people. And how great is that? It's far less than the solitary experience of, like, a pump and dump when you get to visit with people when you're in a queue line, which after, you know, Carl's queuing software, there's no real need to sit in the charity bar and talk with the people around you. But that's my long-winded answer that the human connection of match play is the best part for me. So you mentioned leagues. I've mentioned on this show and head-to-head as well. In Australia, we don't have leagues at all that I know of. We may have one or two. What sort of percentage of all the tournaments that you get in North America are league-based? You know, that's, I mean, the answer is I have no freaking clue without doing some sort of like Brian Shepard email deep dive query me something. I think Whoppers have impacted how we play and the whole TGP and getting to 100%. And then anything that you're playing beyond that is kind of whatever air quotes wasted opportunity for more Whoppers. That our league runs for seven months and our TGP is whatever, 850%. And we just don't care because we've been playing since 1998 when Whoppers didn't exist. And I think the newer communities and even, you know, Australia, there's a lot of people that are into these Whopper points, guys, that the idea of playing for an entire year for one quote unquote event for a league just isn't as appetizing as, well, we can get together still the same amount of time, but we can submit 12 different nightly results and we can get so many more points that way. that the construct of what a league is, I don't think is really as important as it used to be. You know, the monthly tournament we get here at Level 257 or Pac-Man Entertainment, whatever the hell it's called now, it's like a league with respect to the social atmosphere because you get a lot of the same people that are coming month after month after month. We just are submitting the results after every evening rather than holding those results for a year. So it's tough to really tell a league from a, what do we used to call them? Damn it. One of the old Whopper formulas, periodic tournaments, used to be a classification that we had. Okay, again, more pros and cons of different formats. You run Pinmasters, the pin golf format. Yeah. I think easily one of the cons is you can only have so many people and you have to have a lot of games. Yeah. one of the pros is I like golf right so I get to scratch my own personal itch gross I guess I mean the other the other like the pro for me is the idea of trying to accomplish something in as few balls as possible is a different play mechanic where house ball management really matters because you never have to drop a huge score on the game you know to to be successful it's about you know doing it in as few balls as you can. So the pressure that comes along with, I only need to get 10 million on Tron, which I've done thousands of times in my life, except in this situation, I now have to do it on one ball and the pressure that, or on two balls, like the pressure that now comes with, I don't need to get to see a simulation. I don't need to get to portal. You can start putting yourself into kind of situational play opportunities where how you play the game might differ from how you would play it in, you know, a regular pump and dump, right? Like a standard pump and dump format. So I enjoy that. The cons are usually, at least with us, you're only in, even though you're playing nine games per day, you're with the same group of four. So you don't get as nice of a social experience, mixing groups during the round. Although, I mean, I end up talking with a lot of people even outside of my own group, but that can be something that I would see as a con is sort of being with three people one day and three people the other day and kind of missing that match play experience of being able to connect with a higher number of people. Other cons are the tilts are usually set up like shit. Oh yeah, yeah. You mentioned Pump and Dump. That seems to be very, very popular. The biggest pro is it creates a lot of money for the plot. Yeah, I think the other biggest pro is the barrier to entry, right? If you're going to play in Pinberg, you know, you're committing to what? Between the entry fee and the entry into replay, it was like 200 and something bucks. Is that right? Yep. So Pinmasters, I think it was $150 for the entry fee. For Pump and Dump, like, I mean, the joke with me and Zach, you know, back in the day, it's like, I'm going to go qualify on $20. You know, watch me and it's like oh damn it you know i qualified on 40 bucks you beat me there was the barrier entry at three dollars at a time makes it so for people like my brother's friends they would know that hey i don't have 200 to play in pinbird but i can bring 60 bucks and play in this pump and dump and get 20 games out of it and have a relatively fun competitive experience for myself on a budget that works for me. So it's very budget flexible. Yeah, Bob Matthews has never said watch me do it on 20 bucks. Only competitive players will get that. But you know what I mean? Like you're not pot committed from moment one. You can put up some scores early and be, I mean, you know, Escher could probably qualify on like six bucks plus whatever free entries you get. I I mean, it's nice to be able to have the ability to do that. If you want to chase top qualifier, you can keep dumping if you want. The scheduling, like, you know when you can go get dinner at a pump and dump? Whenever the fuck you want when you're hungry. You know when you get dinner at Pinberg? When a thousand other people are getting dinner at the same time. I think an interesting format that the league that I started, Melbourne Super Bowl League, was this format. I believe you may have killed it off. That's the selfie league. Oh, yeah. It's not dead. There's still selfie leagues out there? Yeah. Pros and cons? They're just not worth as much as they were when they first came out. Yeah. That's probably the big con. But obviously, you know, every format's gone through the... It's like the new very attractive person that walks into the bar and, like, the lights all shine on this one person and the music turns down and everyone's, like, staring at this person. And I feel like selfie leagues went through that and flip frenzies went through that. And who knows what will be next. But it had its moment in the sun and it got to a point where it was having a negative impact on just how it was scoring whopper wise compared to other events. And we've never been bashful about making changes to our formulas to try to balance things. Both with respect to the competition level of the event that's being held, along with the ease of access for people to be able to, air quote, participate or not. So, yeah, like when we ran it, I mean, I thought it was a blast because I could play whenever I wanted, which would usually be like on the way home from work, I'd go play one or two games. and you know when things started it was our facebook we created a facebook group for our selfie league and it was very active so you'd have people that were posting you know almost daily and and the ability for me to like send a text to lyman you know if we're kind of gunning gunning for each other on game of thrones for a given month and you know i'll stop off home from work and shoot him a text and it's like hey man i do let send him a picture that's like 4.2 billion and, you know, he'll send me back an LOL. And then three days later, he'll send me like $7.8 billion. And it's like, God damn, I got to get back over there. So it was a great way to sort of scratch an indirect competitive itch. And for those that I guess valued Whoppers over Substance, you know, a lot of those leagues died out when the Whopper, you know, insane Whopper values died down. But I do know areas where, especially, I mean, during COVID now, you know, it's been a very popular format that people have been running non-sanctioned, you know, during this hiatus period. Josh, can you please go get some cream? You've been talking a lot about itching and starting to, it's getting a little creepy. But the point is. Go some distance. It's a great format for social distancing. I liked the selfie league aspect of whenever was convenient for you. Yeah, that was something that was good because you couldn't always make certain dates or league nights. Got it. Yeah. Now, you did say something in that pro and con about selfie leagues when you were talking about it was kind of fun. It was the new thing. You said the same about flip frenzies. I don't see a decrease in flip frenzies. Are you seeing something I'm not seeing? It's been eight months since I've seen anything. So it's tough for me. It'll take me a little bit to get back on the bicycle and start riding again. But, no, it's still, it is a massively efficient format, right, for turning games around for people. So, yeah, I think it's still the most attractive person in the room probably. Yeah, I loved it when it came out. I'm not a big fan of them now. What? What turned you off? What happened in Australia in January? Go ahead, explain. Where did it touch me? no it's more so that it is and people love the speed dating aspect of it it comes back to what you were saying before josh i i like the being able to stand around and be social and chat with people yeah you know what's interesting i don't know if you've done with this marty on your side but i can remember you know you can you can fuck with the cues or whatever of of how many people are in the queue. And in the beginning, everyone was so fixated on playing as much as you can. It's like, you know, our queue would be, I forget what Andreas recommends, it's like 10% or 20%. 20. And people were like, why am I standing around? Like, we could be playing, we have eight people here. And then you could see as the months went by, there was almost like the reverse became true, where it's like, man, do you think we could just, if we made the queue a little bit bigger, we could have some more time to hang out, finish our beer. Like, there was definitely that. I'm going to piss my pants. I've got this itch. Yeah, I know. Well, you're in the hole, man, so that's on you, bro. But, yeah, the lack of ability to be able to socialize is a real thing. Yeah, there you go. That's what I think. I feel like I'm taking an exam. Do you want to ask him question number seven? No, no, no. I think this one's going to throw him. Yeah, do you want to put the gloves on? actually i i with all of uh i had my first prostate exam that was fun did you go to a doctor i did yeah with with my dad and zacks everyone's having issues i had my first ekg i had my first prostate exam i got all got myself all checked out boys by the way that thinking that like i'm i'm a day away from like the next person to have a heart attack if you are over the age of 40 absolutely men get that done yeah that's my dad he used to do 45 and he uh he said he found someone at 41 who like was feeling something and now he he does it for you know 40 and over no big deal just get it done you know trust me early detection is everything so good on you for doing that absolutely okay and speaking of which by the way this airing on december 2nd of course we are live This isn't a prerecorded podcast. So happy birthday to Colin. You'll be 41, not as big as last year, but I did give you a gift earlier this year. Marty, I told Josh he needs to watch The Boys. Phenomenal. Like, I actually can't believe some of the stuff they showed on TV. Like, it was, Jeff, you definitely warned me that it was some extreme watching, and you did not lie, my friend. that was... And I think I had finished season one, and you were like, you ain't seen nothing yet, man. It's season two. And I was like, holy shit. What am I watching? You can always tell when the warning comes up. Normally, it'll have, like for us, it's rated R. And then on the right-hand side, it will describe why it's got the rating. And there might be one or two points. This is literally a laundry list of anything that's offensive. Did they shrink the font size to include everything that's included in this episode that's batshit crazy? Inappropriate fisting. All right. Could you see it as a pinball theme? Yes. Man, I don't know. I don't know. You know, we, so like the answer is of course yes. Yes. It's not a good business decision. Bullshit. I can tell you. No, it's not. There is, when you take a theme and, you know, we dealt with this at Raw Thrills. we made a Walking Dead game. That is an excellent game. And the amount of times that we couldn't sell the game because of the theme, regardless of the amount of money that it earned or how good of a game it was, you are taking some segment of your market and you are turning them off immediately. So rather than picking something that can be sold to 100% of your potential customers, You know, with our Walking Dead game, let's call it like a third. You know, we took a third of our customers and they were just no at jump. And having an upside of a saleable product at 66% of your potential market capacity is not a good business decision. It's just not. Okay, Rick and Morty, spooky, 750 machines sold out instantly. I guess it depends on the company, right? Yeah. Yes, not everything is stern, Josh. I was talking about Roth Rolls, my man. I know. Okay, Josh, I do have to ask you about you helping out with another company. It wasn't Stern. It was American Pinball. And I don't know if Marty's played it yet. I actually had a great time playing Hot Wheels. What did you do? Because, I mean, Joe Balcer, Kugler, Schrober, all you guys, and Josh, great game. How did you make it better? You know, just provided input. I mean, I'm on their Slack channel and was brought in at some point in time after my dad was brought in. You know, he did the licensing for it. So I don't know. I mean, pretty early on, I talked with those guys about, like, my game philosophy and sort of where they went with Houdini and Oktoberfest and where I thought a good direction would go. Just no matter what the game was, I think it was already Hot Wheels by the time that, you know, I was brought in. But just some of the best practices, I guess, from some of the best games that have been made and leaning into those best practices and being less worried about copying things and being more worried about making something that is fun and easy to understand. and leaving the, I feel like with Houdini and Oktoberfest, you know, there's something to the nuance of rules where if you push the nuance of rules too close to the start button, it can be a negative. I think there's a place and time for nuanced rules. And I think they got that balance much better in Hot Wheels. You know, the features themselves are very accessible. And, you know, some of the strategy that comes into play is sort of picking your timing on when you're executing stuff. But the fun and enjoyment of each of the aspects of the game, you know, I think are all readily available for anyone to tackle. And I think that that helps make it a fun game to play. I know my kids still, you know, play it out in the basement all the time. It's one thing I noticed when I watched a lot of streams, and as I said before, I was watching Carl try to get to the wizard mode. The thing that really stood out as a difference for me is the rules framework itself is a lot more accessible. It's easy to understand, and it doesn't lock you into a certain path. There's a lot of things on the table. I'm assuming that's part of your input? Yeah, for sure. You know, the whole idea of the hero cars being these big, you know, it's like the Attack from Mars lights or the medieval madness, you know, inserts leading to Battle for the Kingdom. There's something I'm a big believer in, you know, watching the Raza stuff with with Deep Root and, you know, seeing where listening to to Ray bitch on our Facebook group about like, why don't people look up at the LCD to read the rules? It's all right there. And the answer is because people don't look up in the LCD to read the rules because they don't care that everything that you can put on the play field. I'm a big believer in the moment you are asking a player to look further than the play field for stuff, it's just a risk. Like people, you know, watching the Insert Coin documentary that I was talking to you guys about before we went on, but there's an interview with Eugene Jarvis talking about when Cruisin' USA came out in 1990, whatever, and Eugene got made fun of because it was this super easy game that was for casuals and it was kind of a joke. And, you know, people made fun of him for not making a game for gamers that a lot of the other guys over there were doing at the time. And I think there was something to be said. Eugene made the comment based on, you know, we have a cruising game at Rothwells that just came out And he made a comment on the movie that if I released that Cruisin' USA game today, people would walk away because it was impossible to play, impossibly difficult. That, you know, we see this every day at Raw Thrills. The casual player the novice player is so much more novice than they were 20 years ago 25 30 years ago There was this I don know I don know if it was a question of like when I was a teenager I went to arcades for fun So I played video games as a pastime And I don't know if that's a thing as much anymore, certainly in the arcades and certainly, you know, pinball as a subset of that, that people don't know what they're doing. So asking them to look anywhere or try to understand anything beyond getting some immediate feedback physically or otherwise, you know, light, sound, speech, they need to be taught at that most basic level for something to be meaningful to them. Yeah, I think it's a sign that certainly in Australia, I'm assuming based on the arcades that I went over into the US, they're pretty much kiddie gambling devices now. So the last 10 years, people haven't been going into arcades to learn how to play skills-based games. And they'll have driving games like Initial D or whatever it is. It's empty. The kids are playing for tickets as opposed to playing for skill. I cannot comment on kitty handling devices. Yeah. You're right. For the fear of this podcast being evidence in a court case someday. Yeah. You're now messing with his bank account. You're messing with my livelihood, Marty. Okay. Let's get back to pinball. One last thing. We just wrapped up our most underrated battle royale. It was games that Marty and I picked. We picked eight each, and it came down to Mustang versus Demoman. I think I know which game you're going to pick. What was the most underrated for you, Josh? Underrated? So the category is underrated? So let me take it back a sec. So, yes, this is not whether it's good or it's bad. It's just whether it's underrated. So I just want to quickly read out 16 of the titles that we nominated, and I want you to pick out what you think of the 16, and then we'll get you to adjudicate on the final. So we had Barracora, Harley Davidson, Stern 99, Corvette, Mustang, Batman Forever, Lexi Lightspeed, WWF Royal Rumble, Alien Star, Demoman, Stellar Wars, Space Shuttle, Jackpot, Sopranos, Lethal Weapon, NBA Fastbreak, or the Avengers, Stern. The old one. The old one. You went so fast I didn't hear most of this. But, like, and Mustang was in that group? Yep. All right, so that's probably why I didn't hear it, because I was listening for another title that I think is more underrated than Mustang, and I don't think I heard one. Well, so then it came to the finals between Mustang and Demolition Man. I like it. I mean, I think Mustang is a more underrated game than Demolition Man, even though I think Demolition Man is a better game than Mustang. Does that make sense? Yep, yep, yep. A lot of people have said that. And it's funny, Vic, because I don't know if you've seen the results yet. I have not. No, I haven't. I have. Okay. And the winner by one vote. Bullshit! One vote. I am not even lying. By one vote, went to Mustang. Wow. I want a recount. And I do. I'm sorry. That one vote, come on. You and your IP address. I tried to get Pinside PD to vote for Demoman. Oh, one vote. One vote was the difference. Wow. It was that frickin' Keith Elwin endorsement for Mustang. I remember, and that was Jack Benson, the programmer Jack Benson. I can remember Zach and I going in to play, and I just remember Jack was this new kid out of college that was into pinball, and it was like, oh man, this guy is great. He knows all these classic Williams games. He knows how to get some entertainment out of rules here. We were high on the Jack Benson stock back then. And I forget the games that came out around that, but now I want to look it up. Ghostbusters? No, no, that would have been... No, let's see. 2014. Game of Thrones? Game of Thrones, Kiss, WrestleMania, Mustang, Star Trek. I mean, it came out against some really tough games. Let's see. Oh, no, never mind. Hold on. Walking Dead. But that was shit, Walking Dead, when it first came out, before it became, like, the greatest game ever. Game of Thrones, Wrestling, Kiss, Ghostbusters, by the time you got to the next Trudeau one. So, and then, yeah, before that, what? Avengers? Avengers, Metallica, X-Men. You like his stuff is what we're hearing. Yeah. Okay, so... Spencer Nard had his name right. It was fresh, man. We came up with 16 most underrated, and we did get a lot of comments, didn't we, Marty, about people saying, what about this? What about this? That's correct. And so we are now, we're going to do another underrated battle royale, but this time they're all going to be nominated by everybody else. Jeff and I will just run the event itself. But we wanted to give you, the person that is about to save pinball, kind of like your dad did, right? So no pressure. We're going to give you one of the 16 slots. We want you to tell us what you think is, and the only prerequisite, it's got to be outside the pin side top 100. What do you think is the most underrated pinball of all time? It can be an old game, modern game, doesn't matter. Wow. High hand. How do I, yeah, right, that thing. Let's see. Let's go down really quick. But you already, like, Sopranos is an underrated game. You know, it's one of those, like, Lyman. We had it on the list. Yeah, I know, I know. Yeah, what have you had? I mean, how would I pick one that you've already done already? Quit your bitch and just find one. You're on Messenger at the moment? I can be. Like also look at something that's ridiculously low that, you know. Yeah, I mean, but then are you saying, I guess. It's most underrated. Like there's no way this is a sub 200 game or. And I guess Pinside is what you guys are using to justify that rating. Yeah. Is there not another Bible? I guess. Let's see. All right. So I'm going to go from 200 to 300 and pull one. Oh, yeah. All right. Godzilla. Okay. Good pick. Why do you think it's underrated? Because Pinside says it's 220th, and the game is fucking great. What do you like about the game so much? I just love the basic premise of being able to pull through all those multi-balls and the risk or reward of trying to light multiples before you start versus just starting one as fast as you can and pulling them in. And I don't know. It's just really satisfying to me to be able to pull those multi-balls in, get to save New York, and then have to do it again if I'm in some sort of epic battle against someone. It doesn't get old to me. Marty, it sounds like he's saying nobody should remake a Godzilla pinball machine. You heard it from Josh Sharpe. You heard it. Yep. I have no comments. Thanks for I could make a joke that would not be seen in the brightest of lights at the moment. So I'm just going to move on. Walk away from it. Walk away, Josh. To 230, which is Surf and Safari, which is another. Yes. We love Surf and Safari. We've mentioned that. I heard them talk on Slam Tilt podcast about that game that they need to do something about the skill shot. What am I missing there? Oh, because it's stupid Gottlieb Random Awards. So you've got to put the cover over it. Okay. You know what? I think I've played it in competitions where they always do it. So I don't know what it's actually original setting. At Papa or Indisc or Becker's or IFPA, you have only played it that way. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, that's probably why the people, it's probably ranked where it's ranked because the people that play it, play it how it came out. High Roller Casino is another good one, $2.66. Okay, you're giving some people some suggestions too as they listen. There's three good ones. Well, enjoy your son's birthday, enjoy your birthday weekend, And, you know, I can hardly wait until I get my Ali machine, memories of your brother. Just to let you know, I also tried to buy Flash Gordon and Car Hop, the two games I beat the shit out of you on. Oh, Shepard tried to buy that Car Hop, too. Did he? Popular choice, yeah. Anyway, Josh, all kidding aside, love having you on, and thanks for everything you're doing and the Women's Advisory Board with the IFPA. I know it's not the easiest year, but I really do like the decisions you've been making. Thanks. I'm going to go upstairs and get yelled at because this has been the longest half an hour, as I will be reminded by my wife here shortly. Well, we're not done. I was just giving you that. Yeah, we've got more. I'll walk up. Now would be the best time for me to put her on, Jeff, for you. You can get her on. Hey, Marty, I did try to get Amanda on Pinball Profile. I can put myself on mute, leave you guys on, and just walk in the room. You can hear what this conversation is going to be like when I walk upstairs. No, I don't like violence. That's right. This will be evidence. in my murder. All right. The last words of Josh Sharpe. Thanks very much, buddy. Thanks, Josh. Thanks, guys. Take care. So there we go. Josh Sharpe, friend of the show. What did we learn, Jeff? I've said it before, all joking aside that I do with Josh, which is obvious joking. I'm really impressed with what he and the Women's Advisory Board have done in really finding out what's going on across the world as far as COVID-19, what's open, what's closed, what's possible, how to keep people safe and nobody wishes we were in this predicament but i think they're doing the right thing and we will get back to competitive pinball i mean we have it in some small way we talked about pin Slash we talk about the icr and some places you know i know level one you can watch them on the stream they've had some very safe competitions and and they're happening in and around other places title town in wisconsin i think of and okay great you know good for you for doing those precautions. They're not IFPA endorsed. That's okay. You're doing other fun things. It's still pinball. It helps location pinball, but we've passed the halfway point of this and things will get better in the next few months as opposed to being worse. I hope so. This is my other point I'm going to make about Josh Sharpe as well. So we've obviously had him on the show and he's been on Pinball Profile a few times. I'm talking this year. In the past, when you talk to Josh about the situation. He's pragmatic, but he's pretty cool and pretty relaxed about it, and we'll see, and all that kind of stuff. There was a difference this time, and I think really the difference is that we've now had, since that time, six to seven months of people speculating and asking, and then obviously ReplayFX happens. There was a difference there where I think he really understands the gravity of what competitive pinball really means to people and i think beginning of the year it's like you know what we won't do tournaments but people will survive whereas i think now the tone i was getting was i realized just how important this is to people we've got to stay the course but i really want everybody back competing at some time that was the difference for me that side of pinball unfortunately has taken a big hit obviously there's no real competitive pinball. There's no IFPA going on right now. The state, the provincial, the country championships, these are all going to be on hold. But you know what's not on hold is the fact that pinball companies have put forward, and I'm talking about every single pinball company, have put forward unbelievable games in 2020. This is the first calendar year I can look at and go, there is not one clunker. Every game that's been produced in the calendar year of 2020 has been absolutely fantastic. I would agree. I didn't get to play Avengers this fortnight. It didn't come out in time, but by the time we record next time, I definitely will have played that. And then that only leaves Hot Wheels, of which I said before I watched Carl play, and I really want to play it. But you're right. I think all the games this year have just been great. 2020, good year for pinball companies, no question about it. And you know, for almost a year, we've been raking in the big bucks with our sponsors of the week but it's time to give back to the community with our public service announcement of the week in 2020 the holidays are going to be a lot different during the pandemic but here at the final round pinball podcast we want to point out the positives first because you're working from home you won't have to get your boss a here you mean so much to me gift or you won't have to participate in the stupid office secret santa oh shit i just drew ted's name from accounting everyone hates ted asshole. Also, you won't have to see those relatives of yours that you really don't want to see. Be honest. We can't pick our families. And if we could, there's a few we'd leave off the list. Plus, with the pandemic, do you really want to head to the shopping malls right now? No need. Let us teach you about the art of re-gifting. Anything is possible to re-gift, like the endless supply of candles you accumulate, or the gift cards you'll never use, or even those hats and t-shirts from the Loser Kid podcast. You can re-gift things like fruitcake. Good chance it's five years old anyway. Or re-gift soaps, gift baskets, or even booze. What the fuck are you talking about, re-gift booze? No. Okay, fine, fine, fine. The point is, make 2020 the best holiday season yet by saving money on gifts and spending it alone and drunk. Okay, Jeff, so there is one thing I look forward to the most every fortnight. In between recording the podcast, I'm thinking, oh... Getting your money back from empties from gin bottles? Is that what it is? That. And I just, I often am just wondering to myself, what is Jeff up to? So I'd like to know, what have you been up to this past fortnight? It's forced, isn't it there, Marty? But the point is, it's a good segment to get some insight on you and I. So as you know, when I came to Australia to do some vacationing, win pinball tournaments and things like that, I had to go through an enormous amount of shots to come to your country because apparently you're infested. And I think, honestly, I'm not even joking. There were nine rounds of shots. Some Japanese monkey shot I'd never heard of. Hep A, Hep B, all kinds of shots. and there was actually a follow-up this week. So we got some Hep A, Hep B shots and we had to follow them up a year later. Plus we got our regular flu shots. Well, Ann and I went and this guy I remember last year was trying to sell us everything. So maybe that's why we had nine shots because I thought we only needed a couple. We wound up just getting, we were pin cushions that whole time we were there. So we go back and here's the salesman trying to sell us more stuff. Ann and I are there in our sleeveless shirts getting ready to be poked And the guy says to Ann, my wife, who you know and is here right now. Hi, Ann. Hi. The guy just out of nowhere says to Ann, hey, you know, we do skin rejuvenation. It was awesome, Marty. My wife's a lovely woman. She doesn't need skin rejuvenation. But do you believe the balls on this guy just to throw that out there? Like there was no segue. It's just, you know, I was like, wow, that's guts. I mean, at least have like a rotten apple on the table and go, hey, speaking of rotten apples, how was your turkey? Speaking of turkey necks, I couldn't believe this guy just did that to my poor wife. Poor Ann. Make her feel better, Mike. So what did you get done, Ann? Well, you know what? I wasn't completely surprised, I guess, because I remembered him from last year when we had our shots. and he was definitely pushing the wild monkey bite shots, the spider bites, the snake bites. He was pushing lots of different shots on us. And so, yeah, his timing, I think, was pretty bad. Real ladies, man. So I think, and I think it is just to let everybody know, this will be our competition of the week. Last time it was underrated pinball. This time the poll is going to be, did Jeff and Anne get either HIP A or HIP B from when they were in Australia? So you can vote now. The quarantine is just convenience right now. Let's just put it that way, okay? You see what we went through to come and see you, Marty? I really appreciate that. I'm really surprised that you would need shots, though. I mean, when I come to the US, I need nothing, really. and chances are I'm probably going to catch something more from over there than I do in Australia. So I don't get it. But there were other places you were going to as well, wasn't there, besides Australia? That is a good point. We started off in Indonesia. So all you Australians know about the Bali belly. So, yeah. And by the way, I was extremely sick there. In fact, the day before we flew to Perth, I had intravenous. My fever was ridiculous and I wasn't even going to be allowed to go on the plane. It was crazy. Major, major man sickness there. It was touch and go, Marty. I wasn't sure if he was going to make it. Well, you better get that rejuvenation in case I do kick the bucket. You want to be out there on the market there, honey. I can tell you now, having met you, you do not need rejuvenation. Jeff, on the other hand. Maybe husband rejuvenation. Well, that's the thing. All right. Bye, Anne. Thanks very much for coming on. Love you. Appreciate you talking to Marty. Say bye. Bye. That's awesome. And you know me, Marty. Whenever I hear something, I never let it go. So I'm going to... I do know that, yes. Oh, yeah. My poor wife. Anyway, we're still married. That's the main thing, I guess. Well done. You are a very, very lucky man. Like, luck does not sell it enough how really lucky you are to have someone like Anne. It makes you think of overrated and underrated and things like that, right? And Josh, we talked about our underrated battle. So first of all, before we add his pick to the list, it really came down to one vote. It was one vote, Jeff. I am not even. Because with the way Poll Tab works, I've set it up so we can't even see what the results are until it's over. And it was really interesting. I mean, no one really gives a shit. It's just for shits and giggles. I was actually a little bit anxious to see what it is. Because, I don't know, I just felt so passionate about Mustang being so underrated. And also, there were a lot of people that were commenting on how Demolition Man is the better game. And that was really, I would say, was not really in question. So, I was just like, you know, what is actually going to win? But to come down to one vote was just, my jaw dropped. I just went, holy crap, Jeff's not going to be happy about this. No, I'm fine. That's fine. I concede losing. I have no problem with that. What do you think I am? But I'll tell you this. Looking at all the comments that were on our final round Facebook page, I thought it was going to be a landslide for Mustang, especially when Keith Elwin gives his freaking endorsement for Mustang. Way to wave the stern flag there, Keith. All right, thanks very much. Come on, we're talking about a game that's 20 years in difference. Maybe he hates wide bodies. I don't know. But Demoman is ahead of its time, and I just see how much they go for. I was thinking really the price range. You know, I don't think you can get Mustangs for a steal, whereas I think you can get Demoman. And for the money you're spending, I think Demoman doesn't make it underrated, but it's a better game. Therefore, the price is underrated. So there you go. Here's the quote. I won't say who did this, but this was the comment that I did a screen cap because I knew I was going to read this out because I think this kind of sums up a lot of the voting. The quote says, and this was in response to our Facebook post, it says, I never thought Demoman was underrated. It's awesome. Clear winner. Which is confusing, right? Which is basically saying it's not underrated. It's the best game. Therefore, it's the winner. No, no, no, no. We're saying what is the most underrated? And you heard Josh Sharpe's reaction was like, oh, Mustang, obviously. It is so underrated. And that was kind of the point. And we always knew that this underrated Battle Royale was going to be a little bit confusing. And when people are sort of saying, oh, no, Demoman's definitely a better game. Mustang's not a great game. And, oh, I haven't seen it. That's what I'm saying, that my point about it being underrated is either people haven't played it or they played it when it came out. It improved a lot since. So it's underrated because people just aren't exposed to it as much as they should. Whereas Demoman, I think, had its time. It's got its fans and it's got its people that are indifferent to it. But it is a lot more well-known than Mustang. So in my mind, that's why I thought Mustang would be considered more underrated. So what you're really saying is the voters of this poll were not qualified. They didn't read the questions properly. They answered incorrectly. Any Demoman vote should be thrown out. And all that says to me is, since we fucked this up, we've got to do it again. you know you got josh to throw in a pick there i forget what he said zilla it was godzilla that's right the sega godzilla game good game so we want to do another bracket and we want you we're hoping we have more than 16 listeners i think we do but there's a couple of things you can't pick a game currently in the pin side top 100 and it can't be in our original bracket so if we can come up with 16 games i'll be happy with eight even well we're happy with as many as you want so we are going to put a post up on Facebook and on Instagram, all you need to do is reply to that with a game that you believe is underrated. What it's going to come down to, if we get more than 16 unique games, we will then rank them according to Pinside's rankings. And do another bracket and let you vote. Now think about this. Why would you want to do this? Because you own one of these games and you're planning on selling it so if it can go in the final round underrated battle royale part two you're going to get more money for that piece of shit game you've got so vote for that game and what what also is going to happen the winner of the people's underrated battle royale the winner of that will go against mustang in the battle of all royale battles royale oh boy this is It's a good thing there isn't competitions because our hands are full with all of this content. My goodness. We're going to have to go weekly. This bi-weekly stuff, there's just so much to talk about. But can we just... One more point on it. One vote. One vote was the difference in the last Battle Royale. So you've got to vote, guys. Thanks, Dennis Dorbin, for not voting for Demoman. Appreciate that. Well done, mate. Way to go, buddy. Maybe he did. Do we not know That is the weird thing about Paul Tabbs We don know who voted do we We don know I had pretty big restrictions on it as well so you couldn go in there and do multiple votes So, I don't know. It's as fair as possible, I guess. But you know what was funny? Even in the semifinals, Mustang was a very slim winner over Alien Star, too. Yeah, again, I think that comes down to... Alien Star is also criminally underrated because I don't think people have really been able to play it. They're just not around. I've seen, I've played it. It is fun. It's a really fun game. And yes, I've been critical of the one thing, but that one thing is so satisfying when you get it. And it's fun outside of that anyway. A lot of people haven't played it. So if you haven't played Alien Star, you can't really say it's underrated. You have no opinion either way. So Mustang probably had a bit of an advantage there. But also, don't forget, we are loosely based on competitive pinball, and all the tournament players rate Alien Star. That's a good point. I know some of the ones on my list that didn't make it before, and I'm not trying to influence anyone, but I know I had games like Surf and Safari and Genesis. Genesis gets kind of beaten down because of the ugly back glass, but Surf and Safari has been a fun competition game. Those are some underrated games that come to mind for me that are outside the top 100, but I don't want to influence anybody's pick. If you have your own, certainly throw them our way. We would love to hear them. One thing that we did see over the last couple of weeks, and other podcasters have talked about, we just haven't been able to say anything, and it was actually on the Pinball Network on one of our fellow streamers here. We got to see gameplay of Raza, which was very exciting. We did. What are your thoughts? Very similar to what I saw a year ago in Houston. As far as the play field, I did notice that ramp was a lot easier to hit, which was great for many people. I'm telling you with my hand up, I was one of the people that played it. I had no problem hitting it. It was a perfect shot to do it, but now get a little bit of give there. It's a much better design. No question about it. The surround sound will be neat to hear live because when you stream, you can't really capture that. The artwork and the side art and the backboard just look spectacular. I'm not trying to be biased, but I am a fan. The pin bar excited me to no end. It's unique. It is innovative. And I can hardly wait to get my hands on it. Let me tell you. I'm still indifferent slash cool about the pin bar. It's fun. It's great. I'm not that excited by it. But I'll tell you the one thing. The one thing that I looked at and went, that right there is really cool. The MagnaSafe. being your thumb on the right flipper. So you don't actually have to move your hand at all. Just your thumb goes onto that. That's great. I looked at that and went, so simple, so obvious. Why hasn't anyone done that before? There it is. You know, this is going to be the first time I've ever mentioned this, but I'm actually not a fan of the action button. Wait a minute, I've been saying that for three straight years. You've said that nearly every minute of every day. Yeah, Keith even put on Avengers, There's the action button champion, Teolus00. I love that and it made me laugh. But the point is, yeah, I like things close to where your hands are. I don't mind the odd. Deadpool's action button doesn't bother me because it's the boom. It's when you want to do it. It's the ones like Star Wars that drive me nuts. I don't mind ACDC. I don't mind Walking Dead. I don't mind those kind of things. I don't mind certainly Jurassic Park because of when you have to use it. Your hands don't need to be on the sides when you're hitting that button. but this Magna Save, yeah, that's kind of cool. Find out how many people have actually saved the ball during Black Knight Sword of Rage. You're lucky to get 10%. And if you're getting it, you're anticipating it going there. You're seeing it go off the left sling and thinking, maybe it's going to go in the right out lane. I'm going to hit it now. And as it hits the sling, maybe it'll catch the magnet because by the time the ball gets there and you get to that action button in the center, it's already gone. Well, if you think about the Magna Save when it came out originally, which I'm assuming was Black Knight, and I think you had... Oh, what was the Egyptian one that also came out at the same time? I think Egyptian. Are you saying the birth of the actual one? Of the Magna Save, in particular. Oh, of the Magna Save. Because that's what you're saying. With Black Knight, it's gone by the time you get it. But the original Black Knight, because it was a lot floatier, you could predict. And the reason why I bring that up is that Rick and Morty has got a MagnaSave as well. You'd drained the ball and the ball had gone into the shooter lane ready for the next player before you realized that you had the MagnaSave. You know? So I see how that works. You have to spell, is it slam or save? I think it's slam. No, that's for the pop bumper. The pop bumper one. Oh, there's a different, oh, that's right. So there's the bar that goes up on the right that creates the MagnaSave. Okay. Yes, there is. There's another flipper button on the right. But because the machines these days are so much quicker, you've got no chance. I was watching your stream on Melbourne Silver Bowl. Even though it happened weeks ago, I watched it again to see. I was tired, I think, when I originally watched. And I want to watch Rick and Morty. It's the one game, along with Heist, that I haven't played this year that are the new games. And so I was watching you and Ryan and Jesse play Rick and Morty. And boy, it looks so much fun. I mean, I heard Bruce and Ron talk about it on Slam Tilt Podcast this week, and I got to tell you, I'm so jealous of people playing that game that I can't get my hands on because the call-outs made me laugh. Just the unique design, that Scott Danesi-y feel. I think you even said it's like TNA Part 2, but really, it's something unique. And just watching all the different shots and the speed of the game. It's funny you should say that about the speed because that's something I really want to highlight this week. is something I've learned over this pandemic is that I was always into where the shot is on the flipper and paying less attention to the speed of the ball because as a competitive player, what we try to do is trap up. So when you trap up and release, the speed's always going to be the same and it's just a matter of finding the shots. Well, if you can't trap up, the speed is the biggest factor. Well, that's true. And with Rick and Morty in particular, because it's got that left pop bumper instead of a sling. And also the rubbers are really bouncy on Rick and Morty, so it's quite difficult to trap up, even getting a live catch. It's actually, I mean, I don't know how to describe it, but there's just this window of opportunity to get your live catch just right. It's even slimmer on Rick and Morty just because the flipper rubbers were just so much bouncier. The speed is everything. I was thinking of a game I have in Fishtails. All right, so if you want to rock the boat, you know, it's those alternating shots left, right, up the middle of the play field. And you do six of them and you get the monster fish, if you recall that game. So trapped up, it's easy to find those shots for me. But because you're not always trapped up, when you go down the left in lane, the right part of the boat will be lit for a certain amount of time. It's a long amount of time, but you usually do it on the fly. So that's where speed really comes into play. How smooth did it come down the in lane? If it comes smooth and flies down there, the faster the ball, the earlier you have to flip. And that's the one thing, especially with a game like that with lightning flippers, which even makes it harder. I've been really focusing a lot on the speed of the ball. And I've always, my friends and I will talk about where on the flipper to hit the shot. And I've had friends say to me, I don't think of that at all. And I kind of thought, that's weird. That's all I think about. But again, I'm thinking of being cradled up, releasing, and it's there on the flipper, which means nothing when it's live. I'll tell you who definitely thinks of the speed of the ball, and he's been doing it for years, is Andrei Masenkov, because that guy never traps up, or hardly ever. So he really understands the speed of the game. I don't know, it was an epiphany this week. Well, funny you should say that because I do trap up now, but obviously I was back in the day traditionally an on-the-fly player and I love flow games. What is highlighted to me is this new gripe that I have with pinball machines that aren't dialed in perfectly. And it is flipper hop. And I have it on my Jurassic Park, so on my left flipper. So if you do the ramp to the left flipper and you want to then get to the right ramp, I've got flipper hop. So it's just really difficult to get your timing right because of that little bounce. You're a slave to the bounce as opposed to being able to be in control and it being me and my timing that gets that shot. So Jesse J and Ryan C on their podcast talked about it a few episodes ago and how you can raise effectively the metal rail to be in line. That's the best way to fix it. But it's now, as I've been playing a lot of games, it's the one thing I'm really noticing, particularly on these fast games, if you've got flipper hop, fix it, because that's really going to detract from the flow of a game. I have an old Flight 2000 game, so an old Stern game, wide-body game, and my left plastic was broken. It's an older game, right, 40 years old. I found replacement plastics, put that on, no more flipper hop, which is great because in a game like that, you really want to rip the far right spinner. Again, wide body, so it's end of flipper. But if you have hop, it's guesswork. And I was watching you on Melbourne Silver Bowl the other night. We're recording on Sunday. You were doing this on Saturday night. You were playing the most fine bally kiss game I have ever seen. We'll get to that in a second. But I did notice on the left in lane, there was a flipper hop, which makes it hard to hit the right spinner. So it's funny you bring this up. I don't know if That's the association there. But let's talk about, first of all, that collection. And this is, I forget his name. Please forgive me, but you're going to tell me. The man from Haggis Pinball. Yes, this is Scott Seisman, who is the creative director for Haggis. So he is effectively responsible for, not the assembly, but anything that's kind of physical about the machine. So he and Damien were instrumental in developing the new play field that, obviously, Sledgehammer Test, but also the cabinet build and the backbox and all that kind of stuff. And when we had the virtual pinball expo that we were part of, and Haggis did their Q&A as well, he was on that and he started rattling off all the games that he has. So I've now been there twice. And I don't want this to sort of sound like another shill for Haggis, but it's going to anyway. But it now makes sense why the build quality of Haggis Machines is so good, because I've now seen Scott's collection, and he is a restorer. So I streamed, it was last night, I streamed Bally Kiss from 1979. This game looks like it's new in box. I am not even kidding. New in a box. Do you look underneath the playfield in the cabinet? New in box. There is not a speck of dust in it. It is just immaculate. So we streamed Kiss last night. And the point I want to make about it, besides, obviously, yes, there was a bit of flipper hop. Kiss, by Bally, 1979, in case you didn't hear it before, doesn't get a good rap at all. People sort of say it's overrated and it's really the theme that people go for and that's why it goes for a lot of money. Not only was this new in box to look at, it was new in box to play. The flippers were strong and snappy, as were the slings and the pop bumpers. And I've played KISS many, many times before, and I've just gone, eh, it's alright, it's not that great. This was great. This was so much fun to play as a four-player game. We were playing four-player games all night, so it was a great party game as well. But when you've got a game like this, which is in just perfect condition, it absolutely transforms the game, and we had so much fun playing it. It is a great competition game because, yes, boy, oh, boy, if you can plunge and hit that center lane, you're way ahead of the curve because you spell Kiss immediately and you light those thousand spinners, which alternate from left to right. If you've got a juicy spinner and you can hit it, because the whole object is really to try to get it back up top to spell Kiss again. The bonus goes up and up so much, and then by hitting the A, B, C, D, you can multiply the bonus. There's the colossal bonus. It's a really, really good competitive game, but when it's dialed in, like I saw on your stream, that's a good game. And, boy, this guy's got a collection too. I mean, it was all... It was solid state heaven. And particularly barely solid state. So I'll tell you the list of games that he's currently got in his collection and I would say, like, because he restores them, some of them, probably about two or three of them are in an early stage of restoration. But I'll list it. He's got Evil Knievel, Electra, Xenon, speakeasy tiger rag which is a bell games game playboy paragon fireball 2 centaur fathom embryon medusa nitro ground shaker flash gordon viking skateball matahari frontier and then obviously kiss that we just played and these games these games look like they are new in box it is just it's bizarre to play these games which we've all played in tournaments and collections over the recent years but to play them in this condition is new level i've got to tell you it just it just brings that joy back to pinball that you feel when you've got a game that is just ridiculously dialed in go to twitch check out melbourne silver ball check out the vod of the kiss valley game and you'll see a lot of those games you'll see the original play field you'll see what kind of incredible work scott does and really it bodes well for haggis pinball with someone like him on the team so i'm very excited yeah fine did you see that the trip pre-voting has begun oh wonder who won favorite podcaster uh kaneda again who's gonna win best streamer do you think jack danger of course again no one can compete with those two so what can people compete for marty only the greatest awards in pinball history from two of the most respected pinball media personalities around who oh yeah us it's the 2020 reach arounds other shows will ask for your bits on streams or support on Patreon, we go one better. You can pay for your awards. Are they really awards? Awards, rewards, who cares? We're getting paid, Marty. So what you're saying is paid awards are rewards. Gotcha. You're not suggesting that some awards are paid for. No, no, never, ever. Golden Gloves. Internet votes. At least we are honest. Buck up to win. Why would we be asking for money? I can only assume it's to make up for the lost revenue by running a public service announcement this week instead of our lucrative sponsor. Well, yes, but also think about it. We give a great show every couple of weeks. We put in our time. We ask for nothing in return. But there are hard costs to doing this podcast. Like when we received our Rolexes. It's not cheap to insure them or to get them cleaned once a month. I didn't even realize when we got our Porsche Spiders that the premium gasoline is way more expensive than regular gas. Plus, it sounds like you have to get that skin rejuvenation package for a certain loved one. Oh, I'm telling her you said that. But you're right. It does add up. Here are some things up for grabs. For $75, you'll get the You Keep Your Mouth Shut Reach Around. Not only will you get the trophy, but Jeff will never be allowed to mention his pinball profile world tour win again on this podcast. Oh, okay. Right back at you. For $75, you'll get the dry reach around. You get the trophy and Marty can't drink on Melbourne Silver Ball for one month. How about the give it a try reach around? For $100, you'll join Jeff and I on a future final round episode as our special guest. That is a hell of a deal. Josh, in fact, paid $300 to be on today. For only $50, you can win a top fan reach around. So the next time you're loading your trailer with 10 new pinball machines and you ask yourself, what is missing? It's the top fan reach around. I'm talking to you, Joe Fox. Are you not looking for an award? Well, for $25, you can get a personalized signed photo of Jeff and I. And screw Cameo, for $50, you can get your own custom video message from Marty and me. That's the gift that keeps on giving. What about podcasters and streamers who will lose again at the trippies this year? Well, the first streamer and the first podcaster to fork over $60 will win the Look At Me reach-around. If more than one donate, you can still win the sloppy second reach-around. But not everything is a cash grab, Jeff. What? That is bullshit. No, if you email us at finalroundpinball at gmail.com, you could win a random reach-around. Yeah, let's face it, aren't random reach-arounds the best? When you least expect them, ah. Or you can go to the Twit Promoters database and leave a review and win a Talk a Good Game reach around. This year has been hard enough, so don't go this holiday season without your very own reach around. By the way, I've got some pretty funny trophies on my little mantle. My favorite one ever is the one I got in Australia. I actually got two. I have a certificate on my wall that I can't read. I don't think any podcast has uttered that word yet, but I'm an honorary such and such of Australia. and then when I was there for the, I'm not going to say who won, the Pinball Profile World Tour event, when people were playing me, I had to drink out of a special shot glass. That is my absolute favorite shot glass ever. So thank you for that. Email me and I'll send you a pic. That's it. My favorite trophy that I have, so we used to, in fact, the first competition or tournament that I ever used to go in was at a pub called the Peacock Inn in Northcote. That's where I met everybody for the first time. Jimmy Nails, that's when I met him for the first time. He was running it there. And I remember winning one of the seasons. So it was a monthly tournament, but then every quarter they would have a season. So it might have been the winter season. And I won that. And my trophy was a giant peacock, like proper molded ceramic peacock with a silver ball. But what I love about it is this peacock looks like a bit of objet from the 60s. It is so retro inspired. It is hilarious. It's my favorite trophy. Unique trophies are cool. No question about it. And there's some unique prizes too. We talked a little bit about it with Josh. The tournament coming up this weekend, Pin Slash with IE Pinball. and uh boy they've got some neat prizes there scorebit they've got some translates some pin shades from jockton and of course some great cash prizes so it's nice to see some competition happening saturday 3 p.m eastern december 5th that would be noon pacific i have no freaking idea what actually you do know i do know because i've had to bow out of the tournament i know you are all so disappointed because you were rooting for me but yes no the i looked at the time and i thought oh because carl's in west coast when he says 3 p.m that's going to be 3 p.m west coast that is not the same as 3 p.m eastern which is 7 a.m in the morning so i couldn't do it 10 a.m you could have done but not not no i i've got neighbors on either side like we share walls so 7 a.m. in the morning was just going to be impossible. So I am out, but I can watch, so I will do that. Speaking of time of day for tournaments and playing pinball, are you better in the morning, afternoon, or late at night? I am better, and this is not joking at all, I am better depending on how much I've drunk. It doesn't matter what time of the day. Usually about between two and three drinks in, that is when I'm playing my best. Really? No doubt. you know I don't like being tired playing it's a long long day especially like a pump and dump I might fire a Red Bull for my last 4 or 5 hours but I think I much prefer later in the day than I do first thing in the morning and a lot of these tournaments if you make the playoffs they kick off at say 9am in the morning and that's tough but what I was referring to it would be tough to take a drink at 9am in the morning and you could hear the indifference in my tongue this is Australia so in fact one of the best tournaments that I did was the Australian Championship Series this was a few years ago in Adelaide and it did start early in the morning and I just thought well I've got to start drinking so I did at about 10 o'clock in the morning and and I came second in the tournament and the secret was to manage my alcohol level so I was never under drunk I was never over drunk I was just always in the zone, and that was the secret of my success. Marty, we've got one more show before the Christmas holidays. Do you know what I want to do next podcast is build a Franken pinball machine, meaning we're going to take the best of everything. You know how you build a bear for Christmas gifts? You've seen those build-a-bear machines, haven't you? Yeah, of course. Yeah, we've got them here. You spend $50 for $2 worth of shitty stuffing material. Yeah, kids lap it up. Yeah, exactly. What if we did that for a pinball machine? Okay, I love it. Kind of like the Homemobile from The Simpsons. Yes. So just think about that for the next couple of weeks, all right? We'll come back with some ideas, and maybe we'll take some feedback from you too, because you can always reach us at one of our many places on social media. Okay, finalroundpinball at gmail.com, finalroundpinballpodcast on Instagram, finalroundpinball on Facebook, and finalroundpin on Twitter. Good chance you'll fuck it up. I know I do. there's four different things there so that's we're on there it's just a matter of finding it but the point is you found this podcast we got some good numbers back from TPN so thanks very much it actually makes us think I guess we're doing something okay here and I know I have fun doing it with Marty I can't speak for you well let's summarize it by ending with this this is an email from Brad Brad says hello Jeff and Martin just wanted to send a quick note to say thank you for all the episode greatness of Final Round. I've not yet done any official podcast reviews as I'm very lazy when it comes to this sort of thing. But when I finally go for it, it's going to be a five-star bonanza for TPM. I'm in absolute hell with this COVID pinball apocalypse and the only thing that has saved me are these great podcasts. I'm fairly new to the hobby two years in and completely obsessed. I've run through my fair share of hobbies that have some point faded away, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that pinball is here to stay for me. I'm saving for a pinball machine and I'll get there, but with four kids, it's a no small feat and you know location play is difficult these days. Anyway, I'll get there and we'll all get through this thing eventually but damn, it's been a rough ride. I realise, of course, there's been so much more significant loss for people during this time on many different levels. Complaining about my lack of pinball seems pretty petty so I won't do too much of it but it's nice to connect with people who I know likely feel the same way I do. Every time I listen to you guys, it's a guaranteed smile on my face and it just never fails to brighten up my day. I so much appreciate the time you guys take to do this I just wanted to say it's meaningful to me and thank you. There you go. Thumbs it up. Brad Johanson from New York. Thanks very much, buddy. That's awesome. It makes us feel good. Thank you very much. We will do this again in a couple of weeks. My name is Jeff Teolis. My name is Martin Robbins. It's been our pleasure.