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Ep 53: Chowder League

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 5m·analyzed·Mar 25, 2022
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

IFPA rule changes threaten multi-location leagues; NEPL faces structural overhaul despite success.

Summary

Chuck Webster, organizer of the New England Pinball League (NEPL), joins Jeff and Martin to discuss major rule changes from the IFPA affecting large multi-location leagues. IFPA now requires leagues with 50+ members that allow concurrent play at multiple locations to split into sub-leagues rather than report as one unified league. This threatens the NEPL's structure despite its 300-400 players and 20+ locations. The conversation covers league economics, WHOPPER points priorities among players, operator dynamics, pinball restoration projects, and music-themed machines.

Key Claims

  • New England Pinball League is the biggest league in the world by participation

    high confidence · Chuck Webster states NEPL has 300-400 signed players and 315 who finished the season, with over 20 locations

  • IFPA rule effective January 1st requires leagues with 50+ members and concurrent multi-location play to split into sub-leagues

    high confidence · Jeff reads the explicit IFPA rule definition on air; confirmed by Chuck Webster

  • Approximately 55% of NEPL players don't care about WHOPPER points, 42% somewhat care, 3% consider them very important

    medium confidence · Chuck Webster describes an informal poll of league members, noting these are approximate figures

  • NEPL locations saw strong post-pandemic recovery with multiple new brewery and pool hall venues opening

    high confidence · Chuck Webster confirms recovery in Boston area, though supply chain constraints persist for new games

  • Current pinball market conditions favor sellers/operators: machines are appreciating in value and location revenue is strong

    high confidence · Chuck and Jeff discuss games selling for $1,000+ above purchase price and location-based returns

  • Sub-league structure would restrict players' ability to play at multiple locations and qualify for finals

    high confidence · Chuck Webster explains impact: players wanting to play at 5 locations couldn't receive WHOPPER points or qualify for finals

  • Pinball availability remains constrained despite growing demand from leagues and locations

    high confidence · Chuck states 'it's tough to get games' for new locations; both Jeff and Chuck cite supply chain difficulties

  • Stern Rolling Stones is too easy from a competitive standpoint due to wide, easy-to-make shots

    high confidence · Chuck Webster personal assessment of the machine's play characteristics

Notable Quotes

  • “It's not targeted at us, but it really affects us more than anybody else. Maybe the Pittsburgh Pinball League is close, but other than that, I don't know of any big leagues that are going to take the hit like we are.”

    Chuck Webster @ ~08:15 — Captures the disproportionate impact of IFPA rule changes on NEPL despite not being explicitly targeted

  • “You're being penalized for being too big. Yeah. I think that's really what it comes down to.”

    Chuck Webster @ ~12:45 — Distills core complaint about IFPA rule: successful growth is being punished

  • “Roughly half the league thinks they're somewhat important. The other half don't care about them. For those people that don't care about Whopper points, it doesn't matter.”

    Chuck Webster @ ~14:30 — Reveals divided player motivations and questions the rationale for maintaining WHOPPER-centric league structure

  • “The league is going to continue. There's absolutely no doubt about that. It's just a question of do we do the sub-league thing?”

    Chuck Webster @ ~20:00 — Clarifies that NEPL itself will survive; uncertainty is only about IFPA affiliation structure

  • “Right now you don't sell games for less than you pay for them. Most people are making more money on their games. They're selling $1,000 over what they pay.”

    Chuck Webster @ ~40:30 — Documents current strong secondary market for pinball machines

  • “I have a couple games on another brewery down a couple towns away. I'd like to get a few more on location. But the big reason why I'm operating games is because I've run out of space in my house for my collection.”

    Chuck Webster @ ~32:15 — Reveals collector-to-operator pipeline driven by space constraints and market opportunity

  • “The hard part right now is getting games. If you wanted to start a new location and want to buy some new starts, it's tough to get games.”

    Chuck Webster @ ~43:00 — Reinforces supply chain constraints as limiting factor despite strong demand

Entities

Chuck WebsterpersonNew England Pinball LeagueorganizationJeff TeolispersonMartin RobbinspersonIFPAorganizationPittsburgh Pinball LeagueorganizationMitch CurtispersonPintasticevent

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: IFPA implemented mandatory sub-league structure for leagues with 50+ members at multiple concurrent locations, effective January 1st, fundamentally altering reporting and player qualification criteria

    high · Jeff reads explicit IFPA rule; Chuck confirms this affects NEPL more than any other league; discussion of player movement restrictions and finals qualification changes

  • ?

    industry_signal: Rule change perceived by NEPL leadership as disproportionate punishment for league success and growth; unclear rationale behind change creates organizational uncertainty

    high · Chuck states 'you're being penalized for being too big' and expresses suspicion someone 'doesn't like that we're so successful'; Jeff notes this could signal 'death of leagues'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Sub-league structure threatens core competitive appeal of multi-location leagues by reducing player mobility and potential to compete across venues while maintaining unified standings

    high · Chuck explains players wanting to play at 5 locations can no longer receive WHOPPER points or qualify for finals; concerns about concentration of players at larger venues hurting smaller locations

  • $

    market_signal: Strong seller's market for pinball machines with games appreciating $1,000+ above purchase price; location operators seeing solid returns; current conditions favor asset holders

    high · Chuck and Jeff confirm games sell above purchase price; location revenue up; 'it's a good time to have a good collection'; supply constraints increasing scarcity value

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: New game availability remains constrained despite high demand from expanding location base and league growth

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.197

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round.
0:40
Lucky you, it's us. I'm Geoff Teolis. Lucky. That's quite subjective, but sure. Lucky you, it is us. My name's Martin Robbins. This is the Final Round Pinball Podcast. Lucky you. I didn't say it was good luck.
0:58
Fair enough. There. Episode 53. Here we go. And I've got to read this email to you. I don't know if you saw it. It just came in. And we normally say this for them, but I thought I would bring it up to you, Martin. Because you always say just ignore stuff like this, but I can't ignore this one. So this came from America1 at gmail.com. I'm even giving the guy his email address. I don't even care. He said, I'd like to like your show, but I'm sick and tired of your funny accents. Can you get somebody who sounds normal on there? All right. Fine. I mean, so we've looked and we have found someone that I think you'll enjoy his voice.
1:41
I don't know. Will you be the judge? All right. He is from the New England area. You know him. You love him. He is Chuck Webster and he joins us right now. Hey, Chuck. How are you? Hey, Jeff. Hey, Martin. How you doing? Yeah, really good. Bye. We just pissed off the fan. I speak perfect English. Sure.
2:00
So can I just start? Jeff and I, just beforehand, we said, was Chuck on our show before or was it head to head? Because I remembered something about chowderhead. And I don't know what that means. So what does it mean? Chowderhead is just a term that the locals are called. We're known here in the Boston area for our clam chowder. So they like to call us chowderheads. Sure. Okay. Do you say that as just a term of endearment or does it give you the shits? It depends on who you talk to.

  • “I consider a restoration when you touch up the play field and clear-code it and turn a really bad game into a great game. Whereas my Kiss, it was literally, there was not a single part of my Kiss that came from a Kiss.”

    Chuck Webster @ ~55:45 — Defines restoration philosophy and distinguishes between true restoration vs. scratch-build projects

    • Jim Swain
    person
    Gabeperson
    Derekperson
    Final Round Pinball Podcastorganization
    Sterncompany
    Wicked Piss of Pinballvenue
    Southern New Hampshire Pinball Cluborganization
    CPRcompany
    Led Zeppelingame
    Rushgame
    Metallicagame
    Stern Rolling Stonesgame
    Beatlesgame
    Weird Algame
    AC/DCgame
    Kissgame
    Trash Talker Invitationalevent

    high · Chuck: 'it's tough to get games' for new locations; 'all the companies' facing difficulty; operator waiting for supply to normalize

  • ?

    collector_signal: Collectors deploying games to locations as space constraint workaround, creating secondary market for operator inventory and boosting investment returns

    high · Chuck explains he operates games because he 'ran out of space in my house for my collection'; Martin describes similar strategy with Jurassic Park Data East

  • ?

    venue_signal: Boston-area pinball venues recovering post-pandemic with multiple new brewery and pool hall locations opening; league growth directly supporting venue expansion

    high · Chuck reports 'things are coming back pretty strong' with 'multiple new locations that have recently opened up, mostly at breweries, one pool hall'; league nights bringing 30-40 weekly players

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Stern Rolling Stones criticized as competitively weak despite decent code; playfield design (wide, easy shots) undermines tournament viability despite fun casual play

    high · Chuck: 'from a competitive standpoint, it's just too easy'; 'shots are a little wide and they're easy to make'; 'without Mick on a stick' it would be better

  • ?

    product_strategy: Manufacturers continuing aggressive music-themed pinball releases (Led Zeppelin, Rush, Metallica, AC/DC, Beatles, Weird Al); theme shows strong market appeal to collectors and operators

    high · Chuck notes 'a lot of good music pins out there' recently released; discusses personal music pin collecting focus; Led Zeppelin LE/Premium identified as excellent competitive machine

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Active third-party ecosystem enabling custom builds (CPR playfields, interchangeable classic Bally/Gottlieb parts) allowing collectors to create machines that don't exist in original production

    high · Chuck building Dolly Parton custom machine from Silverball Mania cabinet; Kiss scratch-build using CPR playfield; notes classic machines' parts availability advantages

  • ?

    event_signal: Pintastic show organizers potentially capacity-constrained; community requesting multiple tournament tiers (main, classics, women's) to justify travel costs for international participants

    medium · Jeff requests additional tournaments (classics, women's) alongside main tournament; notes cost burden for travel; Jim Swain reportedly 'tapped' running current tournament; NEPL members suggested as volunteer support

  • ?

    community_signal: Community split on WHOPPER point value: ~55% indifferent, ~42% moderate interest, ~3% highly motivated; suggests traditional scoring incentives may matter less than assumed for league retention

    medium · Chuck notes informal poll showing majority don't prioritize WHOPPER points; worries about 'vocal minority' making decision for league; suggests non-WHOPPER 'Fun Night Fridays' format viable

    • 2:37
    Okay. And how it's used, obviously. Exactly. You say tomato, I say tomato, they say chowderhead, we say cunt.
    2:47
    We do. Quite a lot. We do. Chuck, how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing well. I found a few things interesting. I've been watching your social media feeds and, of course, we talk on a little group chat. Martin, myself, you, and some other podcasters. And we're going to get to the famous New England Pinball League. It is perhaps the biggest league in the world. I don't know of one bigger. Is it safe to say? It is the biggest league by far. The reason I want to bring this up is because there have been some changes as we get back into, quote-unquote, competitive pinball and league play. There have been some changes to the league rules. Have those changes affected the New England Pinball League? And if so, how? Yeah, it's definitely affected us. Long story short, the IFPA has decided to do away with big leagues. I should say do away with big leagues. They want to change the format where big leagues are separated into sub-leagues by location. And for us, that's really tough because we have over 20 locations right now. And to organize and make it all work, it's going to be tough. so I'm not sure what's going to happen with the IFPA and the New England Pinball League we may not continue we're discussing it now I've seen a lot of chatter about these can you really just explain to me what this change is without how it affects NPL because I know it does but what is it just in dot point of what they've said is the change dumb it down chowderhead essentially they came up with a new rule that, like I say, every big league that has multiple locations are going to be set up into sub-leagues, and then you can have a final. And right now, as far as I know, it really only affects two, maybe three leagues, and none of them are affected like the New England Pinball League. It's just, yeah, I won't say it's targeted at us, but it really affects us more than anybody else. Maybe the Pittsburgh Pinball League is close, but other than that, I don't know of any big leagues that are going to take the hit like we are. I'm still not sure of what the change is. Let me figure this out. Is the reason it's affecting the NEPL is because you have so many locations, but you have simultaneous nights. So you would have a league night on a Friday night, but it's at two different locations. Is that the problem?
    5:15
    I'm not quite sure. Sure. We do have that happening, but I haven't really heard an explanation that I really grasp. I think it's just that not all players can be at the same location at the same time. The way our league works is we play eight weeks, and after the eight weeks, actually we play eight weeks. After five weeks, we split up into A, B, and C divisions, and then we continue the league until the eight weeks are up, and then we have a finals. So we have one giant standing, and then at the finals, we say take the top 32 people of each division. Like I said, have a finals that basically everyone who does well in league gets to play in. But for whatever reason, they want to split it up, and I don't really understand why they're doing it, but they have their reasons, and we're just trying to make the best of it. What I'm trying to understand, and when I read the rules for the new leagues, and this all took effect as of January 1st, they have certain rules for leagues. For example, a minimum of six nights. Well, you had that with the NEPL. Yep. A minimum of four of them had to count. You have that with the NEPL with five of them counting. Yep. To count players, as far as the IFPA is concerned, and as far as these are the players that count towards the league, they would have had to play half of the league nights. Not half the ones that count, half the league nights, which in this case would be a minimum of three, because you have to have a minimum of six. So with the NAPL, what I'm hearing from you is, okay, you would have had to play at least four nights to be qualified. But I'm trying to look on IFPA right now, and I know Josh is listening right now, and he's going nuts. But, you know, here you are running the biggest league. Here I am pretty into competitive pinball, and I'm trying to figure out how this works. And, Martin, the three of us don't really understand it, so I'm trying to figure that out. And I'm reading the new league and tournaments definition page. But it's not clear, and nothing's been sorted, it sounds like, for you, Chuck. Well, I mean, Josh has tried to explain it, and we understand what the new rule is now. I don't know why there was an issue.
    7:31
    Our league has never tried to take advantage of Whoppers at all. If we wanted to run a monthly league, we could do it and jack up the Whoppers, but we don't do that. Here's the rule. Here it is. Any league of 50 or more members, that's you, that allows sessions to be played concurrently in multiple occasions at different times, that's you, can no longer submit IFPA results as one giant league. This flexible scheduling will still be allowed. However, the reporting of these leagues will be separated into parent and sub-league submissions. So that's what's going on with the NAPL. Yes, that's the rule. Now, why it's there, I don't know. So Marty, Marty doesn't play in leagues, and they don't really have a lot of leagues in Australia, do they? Not really at all, no. Here's the thing, and this is interesting. Don't say it's boring if you're not a league player. This is really about the IFPA and trying to figure things out. When this came out, I said to Josh, and I've said it to you, Chuck, I think these changes may be the death of leagues, or at least some of them. Chuck, what do you think? The mega league. I'm not sure what's going to happen there. You're being penalized for being too big. Yeah. I think that's really what it comes down to. I've heard a couple different things from different people. I won't name names, but someone that doesn't like that we're so successful. Ultimately, that's the only thing I can think of. And we love the IFPA. We want to be part of something bigger, but we also have to look out for our best interest. We have 300 to 400 players. Actually, we had 400 players sign up last year. We had 315 finish the season, and that was with COVID. So, like I said, we're growing and bringing stuff. We're doing really good things for pinball, but this threw us for a loop, And I just don't really understand why it's a negative.
    9:21
    So Marty, leagues aren't in Australia. When you hear things like this, when I say death of leagues, it doesn't mean death of pinball. I just think there'll be more tournaments versus leagues if there are difficulties and restrictions for making leagues harder. In London, Ontario, where I have a lot of interest in pinball and it's my hometown, it's tough to find locations for six different nights. So that's a real burden if it's going to be someone's home and we've got to play their six nights. So that is maybe causing the death of certain leagues. Could be that one. Who knows? Yeah, look, again, I'm trying to obviously understand it from a non-league. I've never been in a league. I think we do have a league up in Queensland, but it is at the one location. We have had tournaments or comps run where it was a different venue each time, but it was the same players moving to different venues. I think what I'm hearing here is that you've got multiple venues all being fed up to a pool of results that goes into the one system. Is that what I'm gathering? And what they're really saying is, well, hang on, if you've got this particular location and these people only go to that location, it should be counted as its own individual league. But that's where the problem is. Our players don't go to just one location. Every person in the New England Pinball League can play at any location any week. So people bounce around all the time. You never know who's going to be at a location. So for one week, I could be at the Wicked Piss of Pinball Pit. The next week, I could play at Double Bull Tavern. And like I say, you never know who you're going to play against. You're allowed to play at all different locations. And because of this, people have really flocked to the league because they want to check out the new locations. And because so many people have gotten involved, it actually has expanded and more locations have opened up to support the league. Yeah, it's really taken off because of the ability for players to go from one location to the next and still be playing in the same league. So the question that I know was asked was, of the players in your league, what was it a percentage of all these players are really fixated on whoppers versus those people just wanting to do well in the league and have fun?
    11:44
    We took a poll, and this is not a scientific poll by any means. Roughly, call it 55% said they could care less about whoppers. Sure. roughly 42% said they somewhat care, and about 3% say they're very important. I may be off on those numbers a little bit. I don't want to give you exact percentages. I don't have them in front of me, but that's approximately it. So, like I say, roughly half the league thinks they're somewhat important. The other half don't care about them. Here's the thing. For those people that don't care about Whopper points, it doesn't matter. You don't even have to be in an IFPA tournament. You can just run, hey, it's Fun Night Fridays. at whatever, and that will get the people that are looking for casual fun play to still turn out. Those that want the Whoppers will be, eh, I don't care. So here's the thing. These leagues, those that care about the Whoppers, care about having a lot of people there. They care about having those people that don't care about Whoppers, whereas the people who don't care about the points, they don't give a shit who's there or not. So that's kind of the weird conundrum, if you will. um yes and no i i don't think we'll lose any players if we don't have walkers i think everyone will still play the league because the league i mean unless until you experience our league you don't understand how good it is it's how fun it is i really don't think we're going to lose more than i'll say more than two or three players out of 400 i think well i think we'll continue to grow but there might be like i say one or two players who may not continue because of walkers but I think everyone else will. I really deep down feel that way because we're, like I say, it's a blast and we're well established. Now the problem is if someone wanted to start a league like ours, it's going to be very difficult to convince people to do it because everyone is so Whopper-centric. All the existing locations are really trying to drive Whopper tournaments. No one's really running tournaments for fun anymore. So I think it would be hard for another league to start up like ours just because of this. Okay, so then if you, let's say you have to, I guess, fall into line and each of those individual locations now have to submit as individual leagues does that still keep i guess the wheels running and the incentive there for people to go to multiple locations anyway but just compete as individual again i'm trying to i'm trying to relate it to me where you know we've got i think three possibly three different comps running in melbourne at the moment and it was as if all three of them came together and said okay we're now going to compile all our things under the one league. Again, I think because we are so casual, I think people just are interested in getting a slab of beer to win the night rather than where they rank in the world. Mainly because, again, Australia's numbers, because we've got fewer players and fewer events, it's very hard for us to compete on a global scale anyway. So I think people have sort of given up on the idea of Whoppers meaning anything anyway. So I guess my question to you is, is people still going to enjoy it even though they're now competing for individual location glory? Well, again, I don't know if we're going to do this. I'm not sure if we'll continue. That's to be determined. But I have every – Well, why would you stop? I'm confused. If Whoppers don't matter to half of them, why would you stop? Why would we stop being IFPA, getting Whoppers? Why would you stop the league if half of you don't care about the points? Oh, no, we're not going to stop the league. The league is going to continue. There's no question about that. It's a question of whether we'll continue to be in the IFPA. Yeah, no, we're going to continue. There's absolutely no doubt about that. It's just a question of do we do the sub-league thing? To do the sub-league, it changes a lot of the reporting requirements. It changes the ability of players to be able to move around as much. For example, if a player wants to play at multiple locations, let's say I want to play at five different locations in a season. I won't be able to do that and still receive whoppers. And I won't be able to qualify for finals as well. I'll give a slight counter. And if I'm getting the new rules wrong, please let me know. But it also could mean that if somebody isn't necessarily doing well in the grand scheme of the league, but they're doing particularly well at a location, they might gun it just for one location and get their glory there, whereas they wouldn't if it was all being joined together. That's exactly right. And what I afraid of is that there be let say a couple of big locations that might have 40 or 50 people or actually maybe even 100 people showing up each week And those locations are going to draw more people in from some of the smaller locations which are going to hurt the smaller locations So it actually ends up hurting the league because we have one big location and all the smaller ones are going to suffer because of it. Well, I would think that the smaller ones, if it was me and I saw a smaller location, I'm thinking I could probably win that because there's less people that I need to beat in order to get to the top of that one. Yes, but the points would be much smaller too, though. But smaller points that you can win are better than bigger points that you can't win.
    16:53
    But if you look at how the whoppers get dished out, if you do, let's say, a 100-person location, if you finish in the top 20 of that 100-person location, you're going to get a lot more whopper points probably than you would if you came in second or third at a smaller location. Sure, sure. So it's, I don't know. It is. I don't envy your position because it's all just theoretical change at the moment. And it's going to be behavioral change that you're not necessarily in control of because that's people and their behaviors and their desires. So you really wouldn't know how people are going to react until it's in place. Yeah. And that's probably what's scary. It is. It's very scary for us. The vocal minority is very loud. and there's a handful of people, not even a handful, there's a couple people who are making a big deal about lack of Whopper points. Most everyone else is not really, they don't really care that much. But like I say, the vocal minority is making it scary for us to make a decision. We're going to take a vote on it this week and we'll see what happens. For those listening that don't care about Whopper points, we're going to move on. But at least for the last 20 minutes, we've given you the King's English. you were concerned about my accent and Marty's. We've cleaned all that up, so there has been some entertainment value. The nice thing is you've got locations. You've come out of the pandemic. You're still strong. And Chuck, I didn't know this. Is this like a little secret? I didn't know you were a little operator yourself. Yeah, I operate a few games. I help out my buddy Mitch Curtis a little bit. Who just turned 40, by the way, I noticed. Yes, it's Mitch's happy birthday, Mitch. I'm helping him out. I have a couple games on another brewery down a couple towns away. I'd like to get a few more on location. But the big reason why I'm operating games is because I've run out of space in my house for my collection. I needed to find space for a new game, so I figured I might as well just operate a few. Marty did that for a little bit, didn't you? A little bit. Yeah. Didn't you have Jurassic Park Data East out on location? I think I've really only ever had Jurassic Park Data East and My Hobbit. My Hobbit was out on location for a month, and it was the Smaug Special Edition, and I saw people beating it up, and I went, you know what, I'm bringing that home. But yeah, Jurassic Park was an awesome story because it made in returns more than what it cost me, and then I sold it for more than what it cost me. And he bought his second home.
    19:19
    Well, if I'd done it now, yeah. Prices are ridiculous at the moment. Are you having that kind of success? I know Mitch has been doing it a long time, and the pandemic just wiped out so many places. Flat Top Johnny's was wonderful, and we lost that. But how is it in the Boston area now? Things are coming back pretty strong. Like I said, we have multiple new locations that have recently opened up, mostly at breweries, one pool hall. It's coming back pretty strong. The hard part right now is getting games. If you wanted to start a new location and want to buy some new stars, it's tough to get games. It's tough for all the companies, no question. It's been difficult, but I think hopefully we will get out of this kind of supply issue in a while. But is that also a statement of how popular pinball is? We're just seeing all these great titles come out and people are getting interested, whether it's leagues and people realizing that they're good investments because they certainly are that. Right now they are. Oh, they're great investments. So I guess, yeah, someone like yourself who has that big collection is going to be sought after for being an operator. Yep. And I don't want to sell any games just because I know I can put them on location now. And, yeah, it's a good time to have a good collection. But here's the thing, right? Like, has the amount of money that would go through location pinball, has that gone up or has that stayed the same?
    20:44
    I would say it's gone up. Well, I'll only speak for this area. And I'll bring it back to the league. New England Pinball League, most of the bigger locations around here are pretty much all the locations. are now a league site. And if you have a public league location, chances are you're going to be bringing in 30 to 40 people every week for a night of pure pinball. And that's really helped boost the sales of league nights at the locations. If you can fill up a location one night a week, you're going to do pretty well. No, the reason why I ask the question is because I know that there are people that have said, I could put my game on location and earn X amount of dollars. or I could sell this machine and I could probably make two years worth of location money. That's probably true, but you could also put the game on location, make a good chunk of change, and then the game is still actually going up in value. You're not losing any money right now by having games. I'm not sure if that's going to continue, but right now you don't sell games for less than you pay for them. Most people are making more money on their games. They're selling $1,000 over what they pay. Oh, for sure. That's not going down as of right now, anyways. That's right, Jeff. It is a good time to be selling games, no question about it. It's just getting that inventory back in return. You say that, you smart ass, as in like, oh, the bubble's bursting. I get where you're fucking going.
    22:11
    What Chuck and you and I all agree is we've said it over and over, right now, right now, right now. Is it going to last forever? Chuck, what the fuck are you doing in there? My cat is on my desk knocking stuff off.
    22:27
    He's got a tuxedo cat just like mine. Nice. What's his name? Razzle. Okay, nice. Come on, Razzle. Leave me alone.
    22:38
    Sorry about that. That's okay. Oh, he just threw the cat outside. I don't like that. He's going to be climbing on top of the pinball machines any minute now. Does Razzle show up on some of your streams, on your Wicked Pista streams? He has, yep. He has one stream. I was running a tournament and he actually jumped right up on, I think it was Led Zeppelin as Bowen was playing it. It was pretty funny. If you've watched Chuck do some wicked piss of streams, there was something he did. And I want to say it's almost a year ago. And it was it was a restoration stream, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah, I think that was a Rolling Stones game I was working on. And, you know, it was during the pandemic. I was just bored. So I just turned the camera on as I was doing the restoration. But it was fascinating. I mean, it was different. There are a lot of streams out there, and I certainly endorse all of them on Twitch and like watching the different varieties out there, but you see a lot of gameplay. You don't see a lot of restorations or tech things, and that was unique to see what was all involved and made me realize I never want to fucking restore a pinball machine ever.
    23:38
    I'm feeling that way this week too. I've been doing three different projects right now, and I'm getting a little tired of them. What would you say has been your best restoration?
    23:47
    That's a tough one. My best restoration was probably my... Oh, it's got to be your Kiss. Kiss is different. Kiss was a scratch-build game. It's beautiful, and it came out super nice. But as far as an actual restoration, it really wasn't a restoration. It was more of just a build project. I consider a restoration when you touch up the play field and clear-code it and turn a really bad game into a great game. Whereas my Kiss, it was literally, there was not a single part of my Kiss that came from a Kiss. I bought the play field from CPR. I had all the parts from used machines from other games, and I built that from scratch. And it came out beautiful, don't get me wrong, but I don't know if I can call that a restoration. It's more, like I said, a scratch build. Isn't that crazy? All different parts for the Bally Kiss machine. I know. Yeah, and the Bally's, actually, Bally's and even classic stores are great for that because the parts are fairly easy to find. So you can take a play field and buy a reproduction play field and reproduction back glass and plastics, and you can build games. You just have to find all the parts. And like I say, most of these parts are available. So like right now I'm building a Dolly Parton. I collect music. Is this a pinball machine or like a doll? What are you talking about here?
    25:04
    Dolly Parton pinball machine. Thank you. I collect music pins, so I wanted to get a Dolly Parton, and you cannot find any anywhere. At least around here, I couldn't find a decent Dolly Parton anywhere. So I found a Silverball Mania cabinet, and I'm stripping that down. I'm going to repaint it for Dolly. I got a new play field. I'm going to put a brand new play field in it. I got all the parts ready to go, and I'll have a brand new looking Dolly part. And for less than I could find a – well, I can find one at least. I was going to say less money I can find one for, but I can't even find one at any price right now. I've only ever seen Dolly Parton pinball machine once in my life, and that was at an airport in the US. I can't even remember which one it was, whether it was Vegas.
    25:49
    No, it wouldn't have been Texas. But yeah, it was in the gate lounge. It's the only time I've ever seen it. It is so rare. They made a fair amount of them, but for whatever reason, you just don't see them. Maybe all the Dolly Parton fans are collectors and are hoarding them. Same thing with Ballet Kiss. You don't see a whole lot of Ballet Kisses, or at least you don't see them for sale. I think all the collectors out there have them and don't want to sell them anymore. And they're expensive when they are on sale. Yeah. Yeah, they're crazy pricing. Actually, everything's crazy pricing right now. So you like the music pins. Give us your top five and maybe talk about some of the games that have come out recently. Because we've seen Zeppelin, we've seen Rush, we've seen GNR, Weird Al even. Yeah, Weird Al. I was watching that stream tonight a little bit. It looks interesting. Yeah, it's on. I don't know if I can give you a top five. I like most all the music pins. I think Beatles is a great pin. Led Zeppelin. The Led Zeppelin LE or Premium is a great pin. The new Rush is Dynamite, Metallica, ACDC. There are a lot of good music pins out there. Stern Rolling Stones? Swing and a miss.
    26:51
    I have a Stern Rolling Stones. It actually is a fun game to shoot, but from a competitive standpoint, it's just too easy. Well, that game would be great if there wasn't Mick on a stick, because the code's good. You take that out, it's a good game. There's nothing wrong with it. But it's, like I say, the shots are a little wide and they're easy to make. But it's fine. Out of my modern music pins, that's probably my least favorite. But like I say, it's okay. It's got its ups and downs. It's not the worst game in the world. You get to see a lot of good games there in the Boston area. And, of course, one of the best shows is Pintastic, which is back in June. And that's a show I've only been to once. I've got to get back there. And I think Gabe, Derek, and all the staff do a great job. The one thing, and you can bang this drum for me, will you, Chuck? Okay. To get myself and others back there, get them to have more than one tournament. Because we have to think of how much money it costs us to go to these different events, flying, hotel, all that kind of stuff. And you want to play. And when there's only one tournament, I wish there was more. You know, a tournament that is that big, you need a main, you need a classics, you need a women's. And I think that would be wonderful if Pintastic could do that. I don't disagree. It's just a question of getting the right games and the manpower to run it. Jim Swain from the Sanctum runs the main tournament there, and he does a fantastic job, the silver ball rumble. It's a great tournament, but he's tapped. I can't imagine him trying to run a second tournament. Well, all those people in the NEPL, step up, help out. They certainly have the games to do it. You don't need a lot of games for a tournament, and especially if you're just doing something like a classics or a women's.
    28:32
    Boy, I'd like to see that happen. I'll tell you what. You do that. I'll be back there in no time. Well, we can definitely make a second tournament happen using the Southern New Hampshire Pinball Club room. They usually get a whole room to themselves. And they actually ran a women's tournament last year.
    28:48
    Yeah, was it last year? Whatever it was, they ran a women's tournament. They had one when I was there in 2019. Yeah, they used to run the women's tournament. Like I said, Jim Swain would run the silver ball rumble, the main tournament. and then last Pintastic they actually did a NEPL it wasn't a tournament but it was like a mock league night so people get the taste of what the league was like I wasn't involved in that I'm not quite sure how it went but that was something else they did but yeah I don't disagree it'd be nice to have some more tournaments there yeah look Pintastic is one of those ones that's always on my radar and our radar collectively being Australia and also Haga so you know it's one of those ones that I really want to get to And Derek reaches out to me every year, seeing if I'm going, and I'd love to be able to catch up with him as well. So, yeah, one day. It's a good show. They started just a few years ago, and they've really grown quite a bit. Do you know one thing that Chuck did there, Marty, when I went in 2019?
    29:47
    No. I mean, that could be many, many things. Oh, you'll like this. You'll like this, Marty. He ran a trash talker. And the reason we bring this up is because Chuck is the guy behind the Trash Talker Invitational that happened at the – was it the last Pinberg or the one before that? Whatever it was. I've done it at a couple of Pinbergs. The format keeps changing a little bit, but I've done a couple of Pinbergs. I've done several locally. I did it at Pintastic. And, yeah, the Trash Talker format, it's a really fun event. Yeah. I've heard it's only the best of the best win those tournaments, too. You have to be really good to win the Trash Talker tournament. Correct. I don't think Jeff's ever won one. No, I don't believe he has. Jeff, ask me if I've won one. Chuck, we want to thank you very much for coming on the show.
    30:38
    Yeah, you won, but you also had ringers on. You had Carl D'Angelo on your team, if I recall. Sure. Okay. I had two nobodies. I had Greg Pepperoni and David Raminson and a bunch of nobodies, and here you are stacking the team. That's bullshit. Eh, well, you know. I seem to recall Mrs. Pinn beating David Robinson. Mrs. Pinn, and I remember it very well, she beat Adam Becker, Stephen Bowden, and my David Robinson on Algar. Yep. Oh, yeah. She was over the moon for that. Oh, yeah, that was a highlight. That made her day. That made a whole tournament, I think, or a whole week. So I had to play. All I remember is dialed in. It was the first game. and it was, I think, Nick Lane, Bruce Nightingale, so Nick from Buffalo Pinball, Bruce from Slam Tilt, myself from Pinball Profile, and Marty was there on behalf of Head to Head, and the chirping that went on was, you think we horse around on this program? That's nothing. Child's play was way worse, and it just bounced off Martin. It drove me nuts. We couldn't say anything to get him off his game, and I remember your score. I think you had a million on Dialed In. I think it was actually a lot more than that. It was big. And I always said, well, look, because I did so much streaming, and I have to stream and chat and be distracted constantly, I think even Bruce Deitnigale had like a boom box and put that right next to my ears and in front of my eyes, and I'm just like, I've had worse than this. So, I don't know. It was pretty impressive. Yeah, it was very fun. Yep. Would you win, Marty? Shut up. Would you win? I won.
    32:27
    I can't remember what it was, but something like $800. And that money went to Beyond Blue, which is a fantastic charity in Australia. And that's it. Move it on. There was also a big trophy, I recall. Was there? Yeah. Do you remember, Chuck? I remember that. You went out of your way to make this lovely trash can trophy which I thought boy anybody would be so proud to have that That right That should be cherished I mean fuck I flew there and I still would have flown it back People will kill to win that trophy I can tell you now, it was cherished. Just not for a long period of time. Wait. Okay. Sorry. You want to take that for security? What a dick. No, exactly. So I just think you are. Nah, I think you are international country phobic, which is a new word I'm making up Because you've intentionally made this trophy thinking, oh, it'll go to an American, no one else will care. But I couldn't get that on the plane, so I left it in my hotel room. Jeez, I've won tournaments in other countries, other continents even. Maybe your own. I had no problem with any kind of awards. The size of a garbage bin. Doesn't matter the size, it's the pride. Literally a garbage bin. It was a garbage bin. And I'm not saying that the trophy was garbage. which I'm saying it was actually a trash can. Chuck, does that disqualify him from any of other of your tournaments that you run? Again, if you're just going to show that blatant disregard for the effort. I mean, it's not like you just looked in your pocket for some loose change. Oh, here's the trophy. You went out of your way to put this together and invited so many people in there, and this prick doesn't even take it back to Australia? Just stop for a second. Stop for a second, right? Okay. So if you get so hung up on how people treat their trophies, next time this podcast is released, I want you to have a photo. I'm going to talk about it. You can't talk about it. He came to Australia, won the tournament, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Sorry, I didn't hear you. What did you say? I want you to release photos of you with the trophy that you got when you won the tournament here. Okay? Is that going to happen? Can I say it? I won't show the photo. I'll say it. It's sitting on my fireplace. Good. I want you to take a photo of it in action and then post it on socials. It is a photo of a mug. If not, then you can shut up about my garbage bin. Chuck, it's a photo of a mug. This is a mug that I was given. It's a photo of a mug? No, no, no, no. Sorry. I won this mug. It was a flip frenzy, and everyone that beat me in a flip frenzy didn't happen often, trust me. I had to drink a shot of Fireball, but I had to drink it out of this mug. Okay. Which, it's a penis. Instead of being a sippy cup, it was a huge cock.
    35:18
    So, listen, I could care less. Okay, good, post it. Yeah, I'd like to see that. If you don't, I will. Oh.
    35:29
    Well, anyway. That's right, checkmate. If I was worried about it, it wouldn't be on my fireplace for all to see because it makes for a great story.
    35:39
    Right beside the Honorary Australian Award I received, the Victoria Pinball 2020 Award. I'm going to read it right now. Hold on. It's on my wall. This was presented to me. I'm reading it verbatim. Victoria Pinball 2020, Honorary Australian Award. Jeff Teelis, Honorary Australian for being a massive cunt.
    35:59
    No, you win it every year. Fine. Chuck, have we learned anything? Have we learned how to make leagues better with penis cups and special trophies? Yeah, that was fly for us in our league. We're a little too family-friendly for that.
    36:21
    We thought we were. Yeah, yeah. Family-friendly down in Australia has a different meaning probably. We should go back and read that email. Hey, can you guys swear less?
    36:32
    It was really funny because it was literally from that moment forward, we stopped beeping our cunt. It's just a word. Who cares? Anyway, Chuck, I want to thank you for your diction. I want to thank you for your eloquent voice. It's a pleasure. If anybody should have a podcast, it should be you. Since you don't, we bring you on. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, I hope things go well for the N-E-P-L. Well, say hi to Marty's old partner in crime, Joe Lemaire. Hope he's doing well. Yeah, Joe Lemaire. I knew that. He actually gave me a T-shirt from your league, so thank you. Yep. Yeah, Joe's a member. I have one of those. Nice. It's a black shirt with white sleeves. It's great. I've worn it on a few tournaments. You have the New England, Narragansett New England logo one. That's a good shirt. It's a great shirt. Yeah. You'll have to get me there in Boston once again. You need to join our league. You need to have a Toronto version. A Toronto chapter. Oh, that would be funny. We actually have a couple people in Chicago that want to start a Chicago site. It's not going to happen. Right. How are the playoffs going to work? All right. Well, that's just it. It just wouldn't work. But several of our league players have gone on to work for some of the pinball companies, and they miss playing in our league. And Mark and Aaron Seiden are always talking about they want to have the Chicago AAC site. Well, we'll see. It'll be a little tough to do. Yeah, you'll have to bend the ear of that IFPA president. And we know that next week it's April Fool's, so I'm dying to see what he comes out with. Yeah, it'll be something, I'm sure. And like I say, from the league perspective, we want to be in the IFPA, but we're just not sure what's going to happen. We think there's a value to that. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. Chuck, you take care, buddy. Good talking to you. You too, Jeff. Good talking to you too, Martin. Yeah, thanks, mate. Speak soon. Take care. So that was the chowderhead himself, Chuck Webster. Nice to speak to him again. but what did we learn besides the fact that you also left your trophy from australia in australia which i found out in between recording just now yeah i didn't want to take it back because i felt bad all these people came out and so simon has the championship trophy so that's fine what do we learn from chuck honestly i couldn't understand a word he said i have no idea i really you tell me okay what I did get out of it was concern for leagues for the IFPA. And I am legit when I say I don't think it's gonna be the death of leagues. I think it's gonna be the death of some leagues, because it might be difficult under the parameters. It doesn't mean the league will be dead completely. It just might not be an IFPA league. And that's the one thing I know in the four leagues I'm involved with, very likely two of them are now not going to be leagues anymore. They're just going to be, you know what, we're just going to run tournaments. And the big thing about that is, if you're doing six nights and then you have a playoff, well, the playoff only half the people can play in. Why not just run mini tournaments on those six slash seven nights and do it that way? And then everyone's involved. You don't have to exclude anyone. And you can probably do it in the same amount of time. There's your whoppers. Yeah, sure. I think what I was sort of getting from this scenario is you've got people that are running these big leagues thinking that they're doing a good thing they're growing the pinball community they're not worried about whopper farming it's not all about that it's just getting and then all of a sudden these changes happen that really impacts them significantly and they kind of think why why did this happen to us when we were doing the right thing we've been growing and growing and growing getting all these new people in and this and i think that's i guess logically i and again i was trying to have a logic conversation back and forth to say well hang on this could happen and that's fine but i think it's more an emotional side of hang on we've been working for years to build this and now this without notice why i think it's that's just the question is why what i don't understand in this change is whether it's a league, whether it's a tournament, it caps at 64 players. So at 64 players, it takes the top 64 players and uses their ratings and rankings and all that kind of stuff to determine how much the tournament is worth. So even though they have 400 people, it doesn't mean the tournament's necessarily worth more. It just means it's worth as good as the top 64 players. So I can see the concern of, well, you're including too many people that are maybe not there for the Whoppers, but you've kind of eliminated that because you've got a minimum number of knights and all that kind of thing. So those people that are just one and done, they don't count anyway. So I think that's one of the reasons they made the big change from six minimum knights, four of them count, and people that show up three times can be included. I get that, and I think that is a good change. I understand why IFPA did that, because before you could do four nights, top two count, so anybody who shows up for one would be given points and all that kind of stuff. I get that. So that was the way the formula was before, and people could exploit that if they wanted to, myself included. But that's now being prevented. You can't do that anymore, and that's fine. Can I ask a question? Do you know of, and I obviously don't want names, but do you know of people that are just so ridiculously focused on getting whopper points that they do behaviors that try to exploit the rules? Like, again, just for me, every time I get these rules that come in and I'm thinking, okay, obviously something's happened for there to be such a drastic correction in the rules format. But is it widespread or is it just a couple of bad apples? That's what I'm trying to work out. Are there people that are just so obsessed by this stuff that they find loopholes and exploits and then ruin it for everyone? Do I know people? Yes. Do I know people? Let me grab a mirror. Do you? Absolutely. How? And I'll tell you exactly why. I have no problem. Hey, hand up. I'm one of those guys. And I'll tell you why. It's about time equity. It's about how much time. So there's a league near where I live, and they're wonderful, wonderful people. I really, really enjoy the league nights and all that kind of good stuff. They play, I think, 13 weeks. And the top, let's say, eight, top 10 weeks count. That's overkill. And what I mean by that is you don't need to play that many times. You've already maxed out once you have that 25 TGP, which they've done on pretty much the fifth night because the playoffs will get you there. So that's more, I think, of a social league, or at least it is now, but it's about time equity. It's about, okay, I only have so much time to play in these different events. I much prefer, me personally, I would rather play in tournaments than leagues. Although what I love about leagues, and I still play in leagues, even though the points don't matter, I like the social aspect. I like going to different people's homes or different locations. I like the different people. That's why I play leagues. It has nothing to do with points. So I'm kind of both people. I'm one that looks for opportunities, and I also look for enjoyment of, oh, you know, I wouldn't mind going to that person's house because they have this game I've never played, and it'd be fun to play. And it's good people. It's a good hang. You might have side little tournaments where you and your buddies, okay, I bet you a buck I'm going to win this game. That kind of crap. That's what I enjoy. And really simple bragging rights. It has nothing to do with whoppers. So for me, the leagues I run or I'm involved with, I'm looking to maximize the whopper-tunities. Yeah, that's fine. But I'm not – what I'm not – It doesn't take away from the fun, by the way. No, but I know. But what I'm not hearing is that you're finding loopholes that are so drastic that they have to then make these drastic changes that fucks it up for everybody else. I found one, and it was. We would run four nights, and the top two would count. Based on the old rules, if you showed up to one night, you would be included. That's not an exploit. That's not a loophole. That's not screwing the system. That's just the way the parameters worked. I do know of other leagues that ran two nights. Your best night counted. So, you know, that's, I guess, the minimum you could do. You could probably do one night. But that's not really a league. It's just a tournament. I know another change they did. Here's a big one. Some leagues would run two league nights on the same night. So from 7 to 9, we're playing these four games. That's league night one. And then from 9 to 11, we're playing league night two. That's now, you can't do that. League nights have to be seven days separated. So I get that. Yeah, I get that. I don't fault those people for doing that. That's the way the system was. They didn't cheat. There's zero cheating going on. It's like, okay, that's what the rules are. so they've changed it. No, I know what you mean. They're following the rules, and that's why they've got to tighten them up. Like, years ago, we used to have,
    45:56
    you know, I can't remember what it was, but there was a location that had, let's say, five machines. Each individual machine on the same night had a mini tournament, and they all got separate results. It's like, hmm. When the IFPA first announced that you were not a player until you have five scores on the IFPA card, well, I thought, okay, and they were about to introduce the dollar, So we did this thing called the EM Challenge, and we had five EMs, let's say, and we're going to play one game, best scorer wins. So the amount of points you got was nothing. It was direct play, but that counted as a tournament, and we do it on this one, this one. So every league member had their five nights, and they were now a quote-unquote player that helped towards Whoppers because if you're not a player, if it's your first time ever, you don't help contribute to those Whoppers at that event. So you needed to have a minimum of five. So we did that all in one night, and I know a lot of leagues that did that. So there's a difference between an exploit and a cheat. It was not a cheat. It definitely was an exploit. Great. Love it. Thanks for answering my question. Really, the big question is, what has somebody done? Where has the bad man touched you to warrant these massive changes to leagues? Who's been exploiting this? Is that what they're saying, that NEPL, because that's a big exploit and it's unfair to other leagues? Is that really what they're saying? Oh, I definitely do not think the NEPL was exploiting. No, I don't think they were, but I think are people saying that they are? Well, I'm pretty sure I asked Josh when the changes came out. I'm not going to say who the people were, but I said, NEPL is okay. And I remember Josh saying, yeah, they're fine. They're definitely not exploiting. Okay, but there are people that are. That's all I wanted to know is that this is happening because people are taking advantage of the situation and it's not seemed fair across the board. Here's the really big thing that's happening now is we know there are a lot of we call them whopper farms and there is no bigger one in the world. And this is not a knock, but there is no bigger one in the world than District 82 in Wisconsin. It is a place I'm dying to go to and I will be in a couple of weeks. and I don't think what they're doing is wrong. I think what they're doing is spectacular. It just sucks that not everyone can experience it. They have big tournaments, many nights, and they have a Tuesday night tournament. Tuesday night, 68 people. Gee, that's freaking huge. And they've got great, great players there. Tom Graff, who we know and love, he's there. And there's this young girl named Cassidy who's just, I think she's the number one woman player in the world right now. She's a great player. If you ever watch any of the Fox City streams, you'll see some of these wonderful players. And then they have these big, big events. The one I'm going to is called the Great Lakes Open. And that's in April. And that's going to be, I don't know, 120 some odd people. So I don't think what they're doing is wrong with these events. It's just they have the opportunity. How many places have these kind of opportunities where they can draw from all kinds of people? I mean, I'm flying in from far away. But the people from Chicago, that's a three-hour drive, you see. You have Raymond there, Tim Sexton, and Jason Werdrick, and Keith Elwin shown up a few times the Sharp brothers Why wouldn you That a great again it all about that time equity It all about how much time do I have to invest in all these tournaments Do I have to do all these leagues over the course of four or six months or can I just do a bunch over two, three days? And a lot of the top players, myself included, give me those two, three days. Let me cram it in. That's what big tournaments are. Do you know that I'm running a tournament at this place called Maple in Mississauga, and I just set it up, and it's not a whopper for them by any means, but we're going to try it out. 48 players, three tournaments on one day. So we start off with a classics match play. So it's all EMs and early solid states. We do 13 rounds, no playoffs. Probably going to take about four hours. Take a little break. We do a flip frenzy, timed for three hours, and then a mini playoff. And during that mini playoff, we have like a big pizza dinner. That'll be, you know, three, four hours. And then we end it with a fair strikes tournament. And that fair strikes tournament, So when you're done, you can get the hell out of there. But this is probably going to run from 11 to 11. And it's new for some people, but anybody who's gone to a big tournament, whether it's Indisc or TPF, you're playing in these tournaments, and you're playing that amount of time. You might be in queue, but you're playing, you're playing, you're playing. So it's no big deal for us top players who travel and do all these big Stern Pro Circuit events to play long time or in the pump and dumps, but we're going to try it here in Mississauga. So that's kind of – and really? That's just keeping up with the Joneses. There's so much out there. We can't always be in Germany with what Tobias is doing or the Boras Open or District 82 or some of these other events, so we kind of have to create them. Yeah, fair enough. That actually sounds like a great event. Surprised you're putting it on. Well, the players will come out. I'm not so sure how the casual people, and maybe it's too much. Maybe two would have been good, but I thought, oh, let's try three. And, you know, it's a good location. I wanted to try it, so we'll see. I'll let you know how that goes. It's in May, so I've got a little bit of time to make sure everything goes well. But, yeah, how about your last two weeks? That's what I did this week. Oh, man.
    51:17
    Are you sober, buddy? Yeah. I am very, very hungover, I will admit. I went to a gin festival yesterday where there was, for three hours, tasting of over 400 gins. And I don't know. I would have tasted maybe 100 different gins. Seriously? Oh, easy.
    51:43
    Jeez. Easy. So, yeah. Did they sell spare livers in the gift shop? They should have. It was a full-on date. So I'm the day after, effectively, is what Jeff's getting at. Look, the last two weeks have been full-on for us, particularly here at Haggis. hopefully by the time this podcast comes out you would have seen me doing a demonstration of the 2.0 revisited rule set for fathom nice oh i'm i'm loving what i see i just hope everybody else loves what they what they see and what i see but yeah you know you mentioned before supply chain has been a big challenge it's been a challenge for everybody so damien will be doing an update hopefully it's gone out by the time this airs but yeah look it's one of these weird things where for the most part we've got a lot of people that are really backing Haggis and we really appreciate that I've had a lot of people reaching out saying if I was going to TPF I'm not I wanted to but it's a case of do I go to TPF for a week or do I stay here and get games in a box out to customers that are screaming for their games so it's a logical decision to stay back here so we're all staying back here just so we can get games out the door I'm excited. I'm really happy. I know how hard you've worked. And I know people, not just with Haggis, but all companies, where's my machine, where's my machine? And you're hearing that for people that bought games well over a year ago. So you're not alone. It is a supply issue. But I know how hard you've worked. You've got all the Celts out. And even while Celts was being done, is it safe to say, I mean, I think we can tell people, you were working on Fathom 2.0 at the same time. It wasn't just like, okay, we have to complete all Kelts and then now we start with Fathom. It was kind of some simultaneous things. No, absolutely. I mean, I designed the rules for Fathom over a year ago. And so I have been working on it throughout that time to get it where it is now. And there's a lot more enhancements coming to it as well. Because the more I play it, the more I keep... I obsess about these things. So I play the game. I get into the modes and then I dream about it at night and I think about what I could do to make it even better so the next morning Greg comes in and he's got a list of all these changes that I've made and it will continue to evolve the framework's there how you get to the final wizard mode is all there there's a lot of enhancements to the game that are coming as well so yeah, it's just a non-stop obsession for me at the moment It's exciting and And how nervous are you? Because we're going to, like you say, people are going to see it. And I do want to ask, how much have you changed since when you first said, oh, I'm done the rules? Oh, quite a lot. Okay. A significant amount. The framework itself, how you get to the wizard mode, has pretty much stayed the same. but just about every single mode, every single multi-ball, some of the rewards that you get, they've all changed. And some of them significantly, some of them just to make them more enjoyable. Yeah, I mean, the call-outs have changed. We've had to re-record some call-outs with new voice talent. We've added new music just to better fit the mood of the machine as well. So there's been a significant amount of work. And I know that sort of people are saying, you know, there's been a lot of radio silence. And it's just that we wanted to get to a place where the next update that we gave showed you what the machine looks like in an enjoyable state. And I've said many times before on this show that I'm quite particular about a standard. And I've sort of said a number of times I'm not happy where the code is and I want it to be just fleshed out a bit more until we can show it. And that's where we're at. But there's still lots to come, as I've said. Lots more polish, lots more choreography. There's light shows, there's more call-outs, there's more sound effects. There's a lot more coming. It's just been coded as we speak. I'm excited for you. It'll be good. It'll be... I'm anxious because I know that... I know pinball and I also know that I've been a pinball commentator for many years. So I know it's my job to pick apart rules and I'm now on the other side. So I'm looking forward to it in a way.
    56:16
    Some programmers do codes based on what they like. And I wonder how much you are going to cater to what you think the mass is like, even if it differs from something you may prefer. I have and I think that was a lot of people have asked that question of me I have tried to emulate what I believe are other people's enjoyable experiences in pinball not necessarily mine and what I like and what I don't it's more so I've just spoken to so many people throughout the years about pinball to know what people like and what they don't like so I've tried to avoid some of the things that people don't like and obviously tried to add in there some exciting and enjoyable things that some people will be familiar with and they will get a bit of a kick out of it okay enough said we'll just have to wait and see it's going to be uh it's going to be very soon i know you've been working hard and uh i know you would like to get to tpf but i think you did the right thing to make sure that these games are being done speaking of tpf speaking of games the first stream of weird owl came out from multimorph p3 You watched a bit, I watched a bit Your thoughts? My first thoughts are, there is polka in the game Yes But only a very small bit When you drain the ball and it goes Hey! That's from his polka So I was happy that that was in there at least It looks good, it's enjoyable I think theme integration is fantastic Yeah, it's a great game How long did you watch the stream? Probably, I don't know, maybe half an hour Oh, okay Why is that? I think with every stream, so I'm not just talking about this one, I'm good at about 10 minutes.
    58:07
    Haha, yeah. That's when I tap out. I've seen the flippers flip. I've seen some of the modes. It's so difficult to stream a new game, in my opinion, because, and I was begging in chat, can you please explain where the shots are? Can you please explain what this mode does? Can you please, not just flip and stuff, but give me a little bit. Just give me the basics. And I don't get that from any of these.
    58:35
    Sometimes a little bit more than others, but I've come to the conclusion, and we have people listening that are coding games and making games. I've come to the conclusion they might not be the best spokesperson. And I'm serious because they are proud parents of their baby and they're excited and they know everything about it, but they run before they walk. And I don't get the basics. We've heard the excitement of some people on these streams where they go, well, there's this, this, this. But don't forget that you might want to, you know, stack this with this. And I'm fucking lost. Well, we are probably going to get criticized from our video for it being too simple. Because all we're really going through, and I've said this many times, that I really want people to experience the code firsthand. when they receive the game. So all we've really gone through in ours is how do you start Mermaid Multi-Ball? How do you start Lagoon Multi-Ball? How do you start a Mermaid in Battle? How do you do that? And then we'll show that pretty much starting, but we're not going to show all the intricacies of the game because we want people to learn that and experience it themselves. I love the look of the game. I'm dying to play it. The integration is one of the best I've ever seen. I didn't get what I wanted out of the stream and I say that about almost every launch stream and it's no fault of their own I'm not flipping it I do agree with you when I say I watched it for half an hour I watched it three lots of ten minutes each so the first time they were going through the game at the end, the third session I think they were playing timed games as well like they were on for, I don't know, maybe 15-20 seconds each I still didn't get a sense of how things were lit, how things were started, what they were doing in the mode. But I'm okay with that because as I've said to you many times, I want to experience it myself. I don't want to see a stream that tells me how to do it. I just wanted to see, does it shoot good? Does it look good? Does it sound good? Are people having fun? That's fine. I'll work the rest out myself when I play it. Well, it checked all those boxes. Let's just say that because people were having fun. There was lots to see. I was lost. And I think the people that are so close to it forget we are all seeing this for the first time dumb it down a little bit look just give me okay i'm i can't remember which stream it was it was one of elwyn's games and before they started playing they said here's this shot here's this shot here's this shot here's this shot this is what this does and then they just then they just fucking played i was like okay all that that was what i did didn't mind but because there are so many shots on a multi-morphic game i was lost and I'm watching on a phone. Okay, that's not good. Go to my iPad. Still can't see the shots because it's small. And I think you've got to remember when you're streaming these launches, people are seeing this whole thing for the first time. So you've kind of got to give us a little help on that. No, but I know what you're saying, and that's what you need. But is that what everybody else needs? Or are they just like me? They just need to see that it's legit, looks good, sounds great, people having fun. That's really, I think, what the majority of people want. yeah I agree I do agree about that I think what I was looking for would have actually helped them more because they would go into a different mode and I had no idea what the hell was going on and they're flipping away and I'm like uh some of the modes they explained a little better than others I thought Colin did a good job with that but others I was like I don't know what the hell's going on here I don't understand uh I'm lost so there's just so much on that and the reason I think it would have helped is because because there is so much on that machine and they should be proud of everything they've done there's it's the most complete game we ranted and raved about it last week with comic alpine and i think it's going to be a big hit at tpf i just hey listen i've already sold out of all the uh limited editions so it's maybe a bonus video if you will does it sell some more units probably maybe it looks good but i just uh i was confused so i don't know if it helped me i already was a fan of it i was already excited from the promo video i didn't get more excited by watching this and i could have yeah no i i i'm not disagreeing with what you're saying i got out of it what i needed and i was satisfied so i think i think a lot of people are like that they just wanted to see it and a lot of people in chat were loving it so you know i don't know yeah it's also it is also really hard to explain these things to people over the internet anyway. I have gone through the rules on my games so many times. And let's not forget, I'm a qualified trainer. I used to do that for a living, train people, particularly in visual mediums. So I know how to communicate. Pinball is just not that easy for people to understand sometimes. You might have just explained my concern. When you're too close to it and you've created this from scratch, you're thinking about something five, six moves away, so to speak, and you lose some of those people. No, I know, because I'll give you an example. If you're reading Chapter 7 before, you should be reading Chapter 1. Look, the example I'll give for me is one of the best modes in Fathom 2.0 is a secret wizard mode. Now, I could go through it because I'm so excited, or I can just say, you know what, I just want you to learn how to play the game. I'll show you how to get to that, but I don't want to go through it because it's complicated and I want you to enjoy it for the first time. Even like the mermaid queen, which you've got to get through four mermaid battles to get to the queen. I'm telling people how to get there, but I don't want to go through the game mechanics, even though it's really exciting for me as a rules designer because I'm really proud of what I did. I don't have to go through that right now because I think that's going to be too confusing for people. Yep. Anyway, let's just tip our cap to Multimorphic. You've got a winner there. And a lot of people watched the stream, like you said, in chat. They were loving it. So it's going to be a massive hit at TPF. I don't want to take up any more of your time because I know you're busy making Fathom 2.0. And in fact, you are at Haggis right now. I am indeed. So this podcast is the reason for the delay. Too bad. Too bad 2.0 bad You know we wanted to go back to back shows We were a little late with the last one So this is a shorty We will be back in a couple weeks I think Ryan C is going to be joining us Oh that's always fun Too exciting Yes Alright Marty you have a good one Thank you and don't forget everybody If you want to contact us Finalroundpinball at gmail.com Finalroundpin It's at Twitter And finalroundpinballpodcast on Instagram Chat to us We always chat back And make fun of you Pretty much so that's the deal i mean that's that's how it's going to work okay we'll be back in a couple weeks thanks very much thanks everybody speak to you soon