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Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast October 2021 recap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·3h 28m·analyzed·Nov 2, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

October 2021: American Pinball launches Legends of Valhalla, Chicago Gaming reveals Cactus Canyon remake, Stern hires Seth Davis as president.

Summary

October 2021 pinball industry recap covering major announcements: American Pinball unveils Legends of Valhalla (designed by Riot Pinball), Chicago Gaming officially reveals Cactus Canyon remake with SE/LE pricing, and Stern Pinball announces Seth Davis as new president while emphasizing Insider Connected platform development. Interview with Skolbit team included.

Key Claims

  • American Pinball expanded Legends of Valhalla limited edition production from 300 to 500 units due to high demand

    high confidence · Jonathan Houston and Martin Ove discussing LE allocation; expanded from 300 to 500 units

  • Chicago Gaming Cactus Canyon SE priced at $8,000, LE at $9,250 with 1,250 units limited edition

    high confidence · Direct pricing statement during recap discussion

  • Chicago Gaming working with Scorbit to incorporate their internet-connected system into Chicago Gaming software

    high confidence · Houston and Ove discussing Chicago Gaming's partnerships at Expo

  • Stern Pinball invested millions of dollars in developing Insider Connected platform over two years

    high confidence · Gary Stern quoted: 'we have started with Georgia's development over the last two years and millions of dollars invested to create Insider Connected'

  • Seth Davis came to Stern from Disney where he worked for 13 years on streaming and connected gaming products

    high confidence · Seth Davis biographical statement: 'I worked at Disney for about 13 years. I spent some time the last couple of years working on Disney streaming'

  • Stephen Bowden, former Deep Root Pinball staff, joined American Pinball as corporate account manager and creative/marketing consultant

    high confidence · Houston and Ove discussing Deep Root departures and American Pinball hires

  • Cactus Canyon remake uses flipper buttons (not a gun mechanic) to control the shooting gallery topper

    high confidence · Discussion of LE topper functionality: 'it is all done with the flipper buttons... lights up on the left and you either shoot or you don't shoot'

  • American Pinball announced American Dream contest for homebrew developers to submit games for Expo 2022 with potential production deal

    high confidence · David Hicks announcement at Pinball Expo American Pinball seminar

Notable Quotes

  • “when the game is announced, he wanted the game to be straight up... games were ready to be played at locations, preferably in the US and in Europe and Australia as well”

    Martin Ove @ Early in American Pinball segment — Explains American Pinball's announcement strategy of ensuring playable games at locations before official reveal

  • “I'm 76 years old, Jonathan, and we need to continue the pinball company and the pinball market and its growth to the future”

    Gary Stern @ During live interview segment — Explains succession planning rationale for hiring Seth Davis as new president

  • “our future direction is not a change in a direction but an addition... we have started with Georgia's development over the last two years and millions of dollars invested to create Insider Connected”

    Gary Stern @ During live interview segment — Clarifies Insider Connected as expansion of existing business segments rather than strategic pivot

  • “There's, you know, 350 people in our building at any day, an extended community of people making their living supplying those parts, maybe 3,000 people have a good part of their living coming from it”

    Gary Stern @ During live interview segment — Demonstrates scale of Stern Pinball ecosystem and employment impact

  • “I'm thrilled... I'm a week in now to being at Stern and part of the team, and learning a lot from Gary and the rest of the team here”

    Seth Davis @ During live interview segment — Davis's initial impression joining Stern during transition

Entities

American PinballcompanyLegends of ValhallagameScott GullixpersonFrank IgliottipersonChicago GamingcompanyCactus CanyongameStern PinballcompanySeth Davisperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Gary Stern transitioning from president to CEO/chairman only, demonstrating succession planning and leadership development at Stern Pinball

    high · Stern quote: 'I'm 76 years old, Jonathan, and we need to continue the pinball company and the pinball market and its growth to the future'

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball invests millions in developing Insider Connected platform as expansion of business segments into connected gaming ecosystem

    high · Gary Stern: 'millions of dollars invested to create Insider Connected' over two years; described as addition not change in direction

  • ?

    event_signal: American Pinball announces American Dream homebrew competition inviting developers to submit games for Expo 2022 with potential production deal

    high · David Hicks announcement at American Pinball Expo seminar; open invitation to homebrew community with audience and American Pinball voting on winner

  • $

    market_signal: Legends of Valhalla demand surge expands LE production from 300 to 500 units; both SE and LE sold out to distributors quickly

    high · Houston: 'originally that was 300, but the demand was so high that they expanded it to 500' and 'all sold out very quickly'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Stephen Bowden transitions from Deep Root Pinball to American Pinball as corporate account manager and creative consultant

    high · Houston and Ove discussion of Deep Root departures continuing; Bowden responsible for rule/storyline development at Deep Root

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.626

0:00
American Pinball announces Legends of Valhalla Chicago Gaming reveals Cactus Canyon Remake Stern releases Jurassic Park Pin and Elvira 40th Anniversary Edition Interview with the Skolbit Team Hi, my name is Jonathan Houston. I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine.
0:31
And I'm joined today with... I'm Martin Ove and I'm the editor of Pinball News. And we are here to look back at all the excitement that took place in the pinball world in October 2021. And, although we say every month that it's been an exciting month... But this time... I think we're going to have a very exciting month to discuss. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Lots of things going on.
0:58
A couple of new games, new equipment, new systems. Yeah, it's really packed. So, really, we should just get on with it, really, rather than just waste any more time. I think it's going to be quite a long one, to be honest. Yeah, well, speaking of that, we pre-recorded the interview with the Scorbits team, which is an hour and 23 minutes. So we're saving that to the end of this podcast because if you're not that interested in that, then it's easier to just skip at that point but still having heard everything else instead of skipping through the podcast, trying to find the end of the interview. Yeah, although I would say that if you're not interested in it now, give it a listen because it might be something that wins you over and introduces you to a whole new way to play games. But anyway, we'll come to that. Oh, it's definitely exciting. I'll give you that. So by all means, give it a chance.
2:04
But we'll save that for the last segment of this episode. And we might be doing a live interview as well,
Gary Stern
person
Insider Connectedproduct
Riot Pinballcompany
Stephen Bowdenperson
David Hicksperson
Pinball Expo 2021event
Scorbitcompany
Jack Dangerperson
Two Steps From Hellcompany
Lyman Sheetsperson
Josh Sharpperson
Pinball Magazinemedia
Pinball Newsmedia
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Seth Davis hired as president of Stern Pinball from Disney, background in connected gaming and streaming products (Disney+, Star Wars Jedi Challenges)

    high · Official press release and live interview with Gary Stern; Seth confirms 13 years at Disney, work on streaming and connected products

  • $

    market_signal: Chicago Gaming Cactus Canyon SE/LE pricing ($8,000/$9,250) came in lower than community expectations, generating positive reception

    high · Houston notes: 'I think a lot of people were expecting the limited edition to be more expensive than it was... I think they were mooting it would be over $10,000. So when it came in at $9,250, there was a lot of excitement.'

  • ?

    announcement: Chicago Gaming officially reveals Cactus Canyon remake with SE/LE pricing ($8,000/$9,250) and 1,250 unit LE allocation at Pinball Expo

    high · Ryan White presentation at Expo with game floor playable immediately after reveal

  • ?

    announcement: American Pinball officially announces Legends of Valhalla with 500-unit LE production and day-of-announcement playable locations across US

    high · Dave Hicks strategy of waiting until games were ready at public locations before announcing; games available at 8+ arcades on announcement Saturday

  • ?

    product_strategy: Cactus Canyon LE features animated bionic Bart shooting gallery topper with 360-degree arm rotation, distinguishing it from SE version

    high · Discussion of LE topper with spinning arms versus SE version without; playfield cosmetic differences including paint trim and shaker motor

  • ?

    product_strategy: Chicago Gaming developing paid code update by Lyman Sheets and Josh Sharp as first iteration of paid code DLC for Cactus Canyon

    high · Announced at beginning of month; will not be available for some time as developers just starting work; pricing and content not yet disclosed

  • ?

    technology_signal: Chicago Gaming rewriting operating system to integrate classic Williams-Bally menu with Chicago Gaming settings into unified menu structure

    high · Houston and Ove discussion: 'they've rewritten their operating system... all that's been combined into one standard menu so it's not split anymore'

    • 2:16
    which is something that we haven't done before. So, bear with me. I'm looking forward to that. Right. Okay, but let's start off with our headlines then. And the first one of those was from American Pinball. And we've been waiting for the announcement of their fourth game, is it? Yes. For quite some time. And although I think we knew, I think we even mentioned what we thought it was before. Yeah, I think it was. It would actually come as a secret, so to speak. Yeah, that's right So, yes, they did officially launch Legends of Valhalla Which has been produced by Scott Gullix and Frank Igliotti of Riot Pinball Right, who you might know from Wrath of the Limbers from a couple of years ago Absolutely, the game, or Woolly as it was otherwise known Which they sold a certain number of but didn't take enough orders in order to take it into full production. Yeah, I think... So Scott moved on. At some point, Spooky was interested if there was enough demand, and that didn't seem to be there. And I think it was a highly costly game. A wide body with lots of... You're right. There was a lot of mechanisms and devices and things on there. But it was a very impressive game, absolutely. It was. Yeah. So good for Scott. and Frank that they landed Legends of Valhalla with American Pinball. I believe they produced five prototypes themselves before American Pinball picked the title up and took it into production. So congratulations to Scott and Frank for getting a deal with American Pinball. and from what I understood from the Pinball Expo seminar of American Pinball, it's not a one and done deal as they mentioned it. So we might see more from Riot Pinball in collaboration with American Pinball. I think it's also worth saying that it wasn't just a case that Scott and Frank produced the game and delivered it to American and they built it. The game was much further developed by American Pinball. So the whole team there worked on it, made it something which could be mass produced. They developed the software further, changed some of the play field features, did a whole new music track to it and voice calls as well. The music is, I think there's like 22 tracks from the group Two Steps From Hell. Yeah. Which, who I thought, now remind me whether this is, you might remember better than I do, didn't they do something for, didn't they do the music for Jersey Jack pinballs, sort of intro?
    5:17
    Oh, there could be. I might have to look it up for that leader, I'm not sure whether that was them, but. Yeah, I think it was. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I think that's the case. But anyway, one of the key things that when the game was announced, that Dave Hicks told us before in an interview, is that when the game is announced, he wanted the game to be straight up. We couldn't publicly say that we knew up front why he was delaying the announcement of the game, because that's what happened. The game was ready to go. He could announce it any minute, but he wanted to wait until games were ready to be played at locations, preferably in the US and in Europe and Australia as well.
    6:00
    Obviously, there's heavy delays in transport overseas of games, so Europe and Australia didn't work out, but he did get games on the day of the announcement available at public locations in America. Several arcades across the country had the game set up so people could play it right away. Yeah, it was rather unusual, because the announcement was actually made on a Saturday, which is not a normal business day, but that's the day when the game was available to play at a number of arcades, I think there were about eight, and then from the following Monday it was available at another bunch of locations as well, so if you couldn't play it at the weekend, then you could play it on the Monday. Yeah, and that was the Monday before Pinball Expo.
    6:53
    Yes, indeed. So, I don't think we said it, but it's been taken into production now with a limited edition version, which will be 500 units produced. Yes, originally that was 300, but the demand was so high that they expanded it to 500, if that's the correct expression now. Yeah. So, it's 500 units now. I'm not sure whether they might increase that number again. so far the standard edition has not been announced yet so it looks like they're trying to mostly sell limited edition games which I can understand of course but if it's a limited edition game it doesn't mean you can keep on increasing the production number no that's right and there's no guarantee that they will actually ever produce a standard edition but the intention is there if they think the demand is sufficient. Right. But if you're interested in a Viking-themed pinball machine, there's not that many around. Of course, there was a belly Viking in the early 80s.
    8:06
    That's true. Probably one of the few that I can think of, or the only one, actually. But it's interesting. And Jack Danger already hosted a gameplay stream, which also saw the introduction of a new American Pinball team member, so to speak. Stephen Bowden, who has worked at Deep Root Pinball, has now joined American Pinball. Yes, if you ever thought there was any doubt that everybody was fleeing from Deep Root and trying to get work elsewhere, Well, here's proof. Yes, Steve's joined them as corporate account manager and creative and marketing consultant,
    8:57
    which is a fairly wide brief, I'd have thought. But as we know at Deep Root, he was responsible for rule and storyline development on games there. But, yeah, we'll have some more Deep Root news later. But good to see Steve landing on his feet and ending up at American, where you can no doubt further in halt their game development. Right. And finishing off with the legend of Valhalla, or getting back to that,
    9:31
    Scott and Frank from Riot Pinball did a great interview with Pinball Profile, Jeff Yodis, which is highly recommended. So if you want to hear more about the development of the game and how the integration went with American Pinball and so on, then by all means, check out one of the most recent Pinball Profile episodes.
    9:56
    Yes, episode 320, if you're on the website, pinballprofile.com. Thanks. Yes. And then last but certainly not least, well Pinball Expo is definitely going to be mentioned more in this episode but American Pinball did have an interesting announcement at the show at the end of their seminar David Fix basically announced the American Pinball American Dream contest which is basically an open invitation to the homebrew community to create a new game,
    10:40
    bring it to Expo next year, and they will find a way to have the audience put in votes for what they think is the best game, and the American pinball team will also be voting on what they feel is the best game, and the sum of those should determine a winner where American Pinball will take that game into production.
    11:11
    Yeah, absolutely. Now, there's no information at this time as to what the developers will get in compensation for doing the design work on a game, but it's a way for a homebrew. And it doesn't need to be a new game. It could be a game which had been presented before, but it needs to be developed sufficiently that it's ready for the American pinball team to do the same kind of tweaks and adjustments and make it production ready as they have for Legends of Valhalla. Right. Which, you know, I'm not downplaying that at all because I'm sure there was a significant amount of work. You know, some of the things were certainly changed on Legends of Valhalla to make it more fun. You know, the addition of the Thor hammer and the magnet underneath it, which replaced what was previously just an up post.
    12:08
    And, you know, the beefing up of the sounds and the music and the voice calls and that kind of stuff. So what they're looking for, and I'm not sure exactly who's going to have the overriding say on this, I'm sure it's... I'd like to think it'd be American Pinball who would make the final call on it rather than it being subject to a public vote. But they'll be looking to see just how ready it is to take into production and how much extra work it needs. And it's a great chance for somebody who's just developing a game and it could be their dream theme. And it, rather than just being their garage project, can actually go out into the wider world. And so, you know, the clock is ticking until, I guess it's going to be October 2022 to get your game ready. Yeah.
    13:00
    Interestingly, and I'll give you a little scoop here, I'm intending to enter that competition. My goodness, I think I know what you might be putting forward.
    13:14
    You might be right, but this is a... Will I discuss that any further at this stage? No, but I do have actually a very simple, yet extremely fun, I would say, game design that I developed already a couple of years ago, which I have a virtual version actually running. And I'm looking to prototype it. If I can manage to do that, why not bring it to Expo? Unless I find already a manufacturer Who's interested in doing it before that But if plan A fails Then there's always plan B And who knows, American Pinball might End up choosing it as being The best game in the competition Next year Yeah, well, fingers crossed And I know exactly which game you're talking about And it is a fun one And let's see How you can develop it Over the coming 12 months Right, so, yeah. So, well, that I think sums it up for American Pinball.
    14:23
    Yeah, I think so. Well, there is, of course, the American Pinball seminar that was held at Pinball Expo, which you can watch back on the Pinball Expo Twitch channel. So if you're interested in that, then make sure to see what they had to say at the event. They were joined with, well, David Hicks, of course, was there.
    14:46
    Josh Kugler was there. Scott and Frank of Riot Pinball were there. And there was one other guy, and I really apologize for not remembering his name. I think it was a mechanical engineer, if I'm not mistaken. But anyway, do check out the stream on the Pinball FO Twitch channel. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, so moving on. and our second headline was from Chicago Gaming. And they also tie in with Pinball Expo, because it was at Pinball Expo where they finally revealed what everybody already knew was coming, their Cactus Canyon remake. Right. And we knew it was coming, we just hadn't seen it yet and it hadn't been officially launched. And I have to say it was a bit of a strange launch, to be honest. It didn't really go that smoothly But at the end of the day The start of the show was the game Right I sort of sense what you're hinting at From what I got So American Pinball had a seminar scheduled And basically Ryan White Introduced himself And said well this is a game And are there any questions?
    16:05
    Yes Well, it was kind of, the game was wheeled in just before the start of the scheduled seminar time. It sat there.
    16:15
    Ryan was obviously having a bit of a problem getting his video to download, his promotional video to download and play. In the meantime, people were walking up to the game, having a look, taking photographs and video and that kind of stuff. It was the limited edition that they had there, which has a very nice topper to it and a nice bottom arch as well. But there was no explanation about what they were seeing or what it cost or anything like that. It was just sitting there in a track mode. And then eventually the video kind of played but didn't play all the way through and kind of stopped halfway.
    16:53
    And as you said, then it was kind of like, well, okay, here's some basic facts about it, which are that there will be two versions, the standard edition and limited edition at least initially there will be the two versions there might be another version I have to make a comment about that because I believe there's two indications for the less featured game because at one point it was called the standard version and at other points it was called the special version and I've even seen mailings from distributors offering the special edition.
    17:35
    So I'm a little bit torn in between, like, is it a special edition or is it a standard edition? Because it both starts with an S, which is not very convenient. It was an SE and an LE. I thought the SE was a standard edition, and I've certainly seen it referenced that. Now, there's also the potential, and I've seen this written on various places, of an extended edition. an XE, but I don't know whether that's certainly not confirmed at this stage. Right. And I'm not entirely sure what else they could add to the game. There is going to be the additional code by Lyman Sheets and Josh Sharp, which was announced at the beginning of the month that they were working for Chicago Gaming. And as it turns out, during Expo, that additional game code will be a paid add-on.
    18:34
    Yes, and it won't be available for some time, because they've only just started working on it. Right.
    18:41
    But still, it's interesting, and that would be the first iteration of a paid code update. Yes, I suppose it is, although, I mean, it's arguable that you could say that that's what the P3 machine does, because you can buy the Playfield, and then you can download more software to play in a different way. I stand corrected, thank you.
    19:11
    But let's go back to the basics of this. Okay, so we have the standard of this SE and LE. Yes, SE and LE, let's call them that. Right, okay, so the limited edition has this shooting gallery topper on top of the back box, which has a bionic bard figure in the center with his arms moving, that reminds me a little bit of Champion's Pub.
    19:42
    Yes, that's right, yeah. Well, except they spin all the way around, and on Champion's Pub, they only sort of move up and down a certain amount, a sort of punch. Yeah. Whereas this time the arms can rotate 360 degrees on either side. It looks a bit weird, to be honest, but... Yeah.
    20:01
    But that aside, it's a nice animated model. Now, the SE version will be priced at $8,000, and the Airy version will be at 1,250 more, at 9,250.
    20:17
    And... Limited to 1,250 units, if I'm not mistaken. I'll say the price difference is $1,250, and the number of LE units is also 1,250. I don't know if there's any symmetry there.
    20:33
    And apparently all sold out very quickly. So if you want to get a limited edition version of it, which looks like it's the way to go, given the relatively close prices and all the extra features you get, including the topper and also a bit of paint trim and shaker motor and a whole bunch of different changes to the playfield, which we can go into another time. But the topper that you mentioned, we did talk about before on this pin cast, and we were speculating on how exactly it would work, that you'd shoot the bad guys and not shoot the good guys, but apparently there isn't a sort of gun that you draw. it is all done with the flipper buttons. Yeah. So it lights up on the left and you either shoot or you don't shoot, or it lights up on the right and you either shoot or don't shoot, depending on whether it's a good guy or a bad guy. Walk out. Right. So, yeah. Well, usually Chicago Gaming also has a third model. I'm trying to get a picture here.
    21:43
    Usually they have a classic edition, a special edition, and the limited edition. So, the classic edition usually has an orange dot matrix. Display. Smaller also.
    21:59
    Can't remember if the special edition or SD, whatever we want to call it, that we've seen at the show,
    22:05
    has the full colour. Yes, they both have the full colour white display. So, let's go. The Risen's a classic, or hasn't been shown as being a classic version here. Yeah. So, well, I suppose there weren't that many of those sold anyway, considering the upgrade that you're able to get or the benefits of the special and limited editions in previous games.
    22:34
    Yes, and it's also worth mentioning that both the SE and the LE, as presented, have updated code on them, which adds some extra features. Obviously, it works with the topo on the LE, but also it's got the bionic bark mode added in, which was missing from the original rules, but added in the continued version of Capture's Canyon. But you can also, if you want, just bring it back to the classic rules as were in the Bally version of the game. If that's how you want to play it, you want to keep it old school, you can do that as well. Right. Obviously, the game has colored animation based on the original dot matrix display animations, but completely redrawn in a higher resolution.
    23:32
    And what's also interesting to notice is that the bionic barred figure on the play field has been completely redesigned. it's a different face, a little bit bigger from the way that I remember it, and of course the face now is similar to the one of Bionic Bart on the topper of the game. That's right. Yeah. And it looks a little bit more, well, bad, I would say. Yeah, a little menacing, I think that's right. Yeah. It's also, we should mention, everyone's talking about connectivity to the internet at the moment. Chicago Gaming haven't added or haven't developed an internet-connected system at the moment, but they did say they were talking to the company Scorbit, who we mentioned earlier and will be talking to later, about incorporating their system into the Chicago Gaming software in the same way that Jersey Jack Pimble have done exactly that. And the other change that they've made is that they've rewritten their operating system. Previously, when they were doing the remakes, there was the classic Williams-Bally menu system, and then there was a separate button which took you into the settings for the Chicago Gaming settings. now all that's been combined into one standard menu so it's not split anymore so it's a lot more integrated and you just have to go to one place if you want to change something which is obviously makes sense I think yeah okay so both versions of the game were set up for people to play on the Chicago Gaming stand at Pinball Expo and I think people were impressed from what I've heard yeah absolutely Yeah, the seminar was a bit odd, I would say. But there's some information there. You can watch it back. And basically, after the Q&A was done, it was just like the rest of the hour streaming of people playing the game. Or watching the backs of people playing the game. Yeah, the game was on the floor in the vendor hall. So go out and play it. That's the message. What I did find interesting, I was watching the seminar live, and at the same time I was browsing on my computer on Facebook, and several people were actually streaming gameplay from various games at Pinball Expo from their phones and so on. So in that sense, it was kind of hard to miss if you're connected with those parties or distributors that were streaming gameplay during expos. I thought it was kind of interesting. Yeah, well, yeah, it's a good way of doing it, I suppose, in getting it mass-streamed simultaneously from across the show. I still sense a little bit that there was a little bit of a rush to get the game there, because I don't think I've seen any promotional material.
    26:45
    No. I've got some distributor emails and they were saying we haven't got any official pictures yet, but here are the details and if you want to order it, then contact us. Right, okay. If you're, by the way, still looking for a Cactus Canyon game, I think Planetary Pinball mentioned on their Facebook that they are the biggest distributor for Chicago Gaming remake games. and if you're looking for a game they might have a certain allotment that is not sold out yet it's reserved for them so it does count towards the 1250 units but they might not be completely sold out so basically sold out currently means that all the distributors have ordered all available 1250 games but they might still have games available Yeah, it may not have sold them all yet at this stage. So check with your local distributor if you are tempted to get a Cactus Canyon remake. I think a lot of people were expecting the limited edition to be more expensive than it was. So I think that was a pleasant surprise. I think they were mooting it would be over $10,000. So when it came in at $9,250, there was a lot of excitement. Well, we don't know yet how much the code update from Lion and Sheath and Josh Sharp will be, but... Yeah, true. Or indeed what will be in it and whether it will be worth spending the money. But we'll see. And that won't arrive for a while. So there's plenty of time for people to enjoy their game as it is now before thinking about spending some more money on it. Right. Okay. Well, that's also a good way to generate more money. and have people play the game for a year or so, and then, hey, there's more stuff available. You want to buy it?
    28:47
    Yeah, that's right. Where they might be reluctant paying everything up front. Oh, well, yeah. That almost leads us very nicely into our next company, who, well, yes. Well, okay, let's go to Stone Pimble then. And it's been a busy month for them as well. Oh yeah, lots of news from Stern Pinball. So yeah, I think the news that surprised the people the most was a press release where Stern Pinball announced that they hired Seth Davis as president of Stern Pinball.
    29:35
    Seth Davis is coming from Disney. and currently Gary Stern is CEO, chairman and president of Stern Pimble. Well, he was president. He still is CEO and chairman.
    29:53
    Yes. Well, that sort of made me wonder, okay, if he's no longer president, then what is he no longer doing?
    30:04
    Yeah. Well, only one way to find out. how about we give Gary Stern a call I think that would be a good idea ok so hello oh my god I got the wrong Gary oh you idiot sorry Gary I meant to call Gary Stern talk to you in a bit thank you bye no problem sorry about that I dialed the number for the wrong Gary let me try again Yeah, okay, let's do it properly this time.
    30:41
    Jonathan. Gary. Jonathan. I'm nice to talk to you. How are you? Yeah, I'm good. Seth is sitting here with me, and we have a few minutes before we have to go to our next thing. Right. So you were asking about Seth joining us. Yes. So, well, thank you for joining us, Seth, and welcome to the company, I suppose.
    31:08
    How are you doing here? Suppose, you suppose, definitely. I'm thrilled. Right, okay. So if you don't mind me asking, Gary,
    31:19
    so you're stepping down as president of Stern Pinball, and that makes me wonder, what tasks will you no longer be doing and what will Seth be doing? well that's a good question which we will work out over time Seth I remain as the chairman and the CEO for the time being my partner Dave Peterson remains as the vice chairman and EVP Michael Donald stays as our CFO, George continues as our chief creative officer Kevin continues as chief operations officer and John Biscaglia continues as the Chief Rebner officer. So what we've done is we have started to look towards our future and developing a further management team that will go on. I'm 76 years old, Jonathan, and we need to continue the pinball company and the pinball market and its growth to the future. So Seth's going to tell himself a little bit about himself, but management remains intact and growing.
    32:36
    Yes, I'll be the CEO for a while. We'll see how that progresses and how long. It says learning right now, but he knows a lot that deals with our future direction, and our future direction is not a change in a direction but an addition. Many years ago, we were basically a coin-op commercial company. We developed as the world was changing into a commercial game and collector, enthusiast, and general homeowner game. And that was a change and a growth in the business and in the market segments. And to augment all of those segments, we have started with Georgia's development over the last two years and millions of dollars invested to create Insider Connected. And this is the next development of pinball. The game's still under the glass, but the development of what this does, and if you talk to people who are at Pinball Expo, you'll see how excited they were, or people who went to the Bar Arcade, Logan Hardware, or Logan Arcade. Now, you've been there, so you know what I'm talking about. We had an event there, very successful. So Seth can tell you a little bit about his background with the Disney Company, him before that with GE. I'm going to let him do that, and then I might let you ask a second question, because all of this is still the answer to your first question. So, Seth, tell a little bit about yourself. Sure. It's nice to meet you. I'm Seth. Likewise. And I'm a week in now to being at Stern and part of the team, and learning a lot from Gary and the rest of the team here. As Gary said, my background is in a variety of connected gaming products. So I worked at Disney for about 13 years. I spent some time the last couple of years working on Disney streaming, things like Disney Plus and their connected services. Before that, I spent a decade in the games business doing a variety of products, some of which were connected products like Disney Infinity and Star Wars Jedi Challenges.
    34:48
    Before that, I did grad school. Before that, I was a GE. So I had some experience with manufacturing and physical products and some of the stuff that we do here. So I'm very excited to be here. Business is doing extremely well. Stern Company is doing extremely well. And I'm happy to be here to help take the company to the next level. Right.
    35:10
    So have you already got an idea what your task will be since? Well, we know Gary. And I don't think there's many people in this hobby or industry that can see Gary slowing down?
    35:27
    Well, I'm getting a little older, but having said that also, you know, we have to develop and have the future of this business. And, you know, there's a lot of people who enjoy our games, both to make their living and as their hobby.
    35:43
    And we have a lot of employees, both here and in our extended community. There's, you know, 350 people in our building at any day, an extended community of people making their living supplying those parts, maybe 3,000 people have a good part of their living coming from it. So we have to secure the future.
    36:03
    We'll sort out how we do all this. Ultimately, as the president, he's going to have a day-to-day responsibility that I don't have. But, you know, give us time. But more important than that, you'll get a chance. you guys don't come to IAPAS but you will get a chance in London you usually come by there and you'll both be there I'm sure so you'll meet Seth and you'll have a chance to talk with him at great length ok well I'm already looking forward to that so does that mean that You still will be traveling the world, the globe, to promote Stern Pinball, or are you slowing down on that slowly as well? I'll tell you.
    36:58
    I'm going to answer this in a very interesting way. Yeah, I slowed down traveling the world. You're not allowed to. There's COVID out there. Right. I have not been out of the country in a long time. I didn't leave Chicago for some time. You know, I travel around the United States. But, you know, one of the things that's concerning about traveling out of this country is getting back. And, yeah, we're allowed to come back. But if you test positive three days before you come back, which you may be, well, I've been vaccinated, but you can get stuck. I have friends who have been stuck, you know, for an unplanned vacation of a month in Italy. Now, that sounds great unless you're quarantined in Italy, you know. So, you know, the world is under a lot of pressure right now, Jonathan. So I can't answer how much I'm going to travel. But it's not related. You know, I'll probably, if it was unrestricted, I would probably travel just as much. But only because I like to travel. I might not work while I'm doing it, but I pretend to be working. But, Seth, you were starting to say, and then we're going to have to run along to our next thing, Jonathan. Yeah, so, I mean, there's a few focuses for me, and one of them is what Gary just referred to, which is we're spending a lot of time with our partners and customers, getting to know them, getting to know their needs, and what people are looking for. And so, you know, speaking with our partners and our customers and listening to them is a big part of what I'm doing here over the next few months, in addition to spending time with the leadership team here, as well as providing some input on, you know, Insider Connected and where that all goes next. So those are kind of the most important tasks for the near term. Right. Okay. I'll let you guys go to your meeting. Thank you for your time, for answering a few questions, and looking forward to meet you in London.
    38:56
    And I look forward just to seeing you in general again. It's been too long, Jonathan. It is. I know. I used to be at Expo, but I wasn't there last week.
    39:05
    Yeah, I know. And you missed a great show. So anyhow, we had a great time, a great showing, and a lot of people signing up for Insider Connected. Great. And a lot of operators were there really interested in signing up for it. So anyhow, we're going to move along to our next obligation, and I'm glad you called. It was good talking with you. Okay. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Thanks. Bye-bye. You too. Bye-bye. And there you have it. No, very good. Yeah, Gary Stern and Seth Davis. Very interesting to... Well, what's your take on this? Well, I would say when the press release came out, Gary Stern was very bullish and saying he's still chairman and CEO and he's going to be there until he basically pegs out and they'll be carrying him out in a certain people box with his boots on, he said. But in that interview, he certainly sounded like he was getting ready to stand down before too long. He said he's still chairman and CEO for now, but that didn't give him the impression that he was going to be there for a long time. No, exactly, yeah. Yeah, interesting.
    40:31
    So remember where you heard us first. Yeah, all the talk about needing to plan for the future and develop a line of succession.
    40:43
    And yeah, as you say, you heard in that interview right here on the Pinball Magazine, Pinball News, Pincost. Right. But there was lots of other news from Stern Pinball. Well, before we move on, I think it's probably just worth having a little rumination on Seth. appointment as president, because although we didn't actually get to find out exactly what he's going to be doing Well, he doesn't know it himself. No, he's going to spend 90 days, he said, learning the business before he actually sort of starts making any kind of decisions about what needs to be done. But you said in the introduction that he comes from Disney, where he was responsible for, at least partly responsible, if not entirely, for their streaming services, There's Disney Plus and I forget what their other streaming service was. But it's basically about revenue generation. Right. So he's a guy who knows how to build revenue from customers from a company and get them to subscribe to services. And that's something which we've been talking about quite a lot recently with the Insider Connected system, which we'll talk more about later. but it certainly wouldn't be an entire surprise if the Insider Connected is seen as a major revenue stream on top of game sales and an ongoing one, a subscription service in the same way that Disney Plus is a popular and lucrative income stream for Disney. Right. So, yeah, it looks like it's heading that way. At the same time, I'm wondering what that job interview went like. I mean, so what will you be doing? Well, we don't know yet.
    42:43
    Yeah. I mean, your first question to Gary sort of hit the nail on the head. What are you not doing that you were doing before? Then at least we'd know what Seth is going to be doing. Right. But we'll find that out in due course, I'm sure. And we'll both be there at, as you say, at the London show in January to interview them. And I might actually be able to get to speak to them a little bit before that. But we'll talk about that a bit later, what my plans are for the coming month. Right. Okay. Now, speaking of Stern Insider Connected, those kits that you need to make your game Insider Connected connected, those are now available from distributors for $199. Yes, that's right. although they're in relatively short supply at the moment and they are being, or should be being instructed to sell them to operators rather than to home collectors because they want to get more people out there using the Insider Connected system and putting it on location will obviously attract more, well, will be there in front of more people than it would be if it's sitting in your home game room or basement or whatever. So that's their plan at the moment. And they obviously intend to bring out a lot more kits, but we've spoken many times about supply chain issues, and it affects everyone, and Stern haven't shied away from the fact that it's impacted on them either.
    44:31
    So that kit is available in, well, I was going to say two forms, but actually there's a whole range of different forms. But there's one for the pro machines. If you're fitting it to a pro machine, then you get an entire new bottom arch or bottom apron with the QR code reader installed and the decals for that QR code reader. Because that fits across every model or every title that they've produced.
    45:02
    That's true. Yeah, there are a few. Good point. They say you should be able to peel off the decals off your old apron and apply them to the new one. But if they get damaged, then you'll be able to get new ones from Stern for that. Which you can buy for an additional fee. I'm sure, very reasonable, I'm sure. They're obviously keen to keep... It's $199 for an entire new bottom arch with a QR code reader, as well as a Wi-Fi dongle wiring kit in order to power it, and a microSD card. I don't quite know what that does. maybe it's a software update, but that's included as well. So that's not, you know, for Stern, $199, it indicates that they're not price gouging customers on that and they want to get the system out there and get it adopted so they can then start charging you for the entire connected services. But for the LE models, the LE models and premium models, they have a different bottom arch, a metal one, and they have sort of illuminated inserts on them. And in this case, the kits basically replace the plastic inserts that you've got there and allow you to put the QR code reader in there and come with decals to add to the game, but along with the Wi-Fi dongle and the micro SD card and the wiring kits as well. So, yeah, there are a few sort of awkward games where it doesn't quite work that way, such as Batman, Elvira, The Beatles, and... Strange to think. Yeah. Good point, yeah. Yeah, so they're not available yet for those games, but will be soon. I mean, obviously they're working flat out to get this system pushed out to as many people as we possibly can. Right.
    46:58
    Yeah, but... And there'll be signs. Yeah, sorry, decals and signs and things that you can stick up and say this is an insider-connected game. Yeah. Okay, now if you have any questions about Insider Connected, George Gomez did a full hour seminar at Pinball Expo
    47:19
    on the subject of Stern Insider Connected where he went into very much detail about the possibilities it creates for operators and players.
    47:37
    I think it was rather interesting, and I think Stern is even planning on educating operators how to use Insider Connected to boost their revenue, which I think is a positive thing. And also probably much needed because there are plenty of operators who are no marketeers or have no clue how to handle all this data that suddenly is available to them. so you might have to teach them first what the data is telling them and how they can benefit from knowing this data to their advantage yeah there were a couple of very interesting points come out of that seminar at Pinball Expo one of which was about the timeline for the rollout of Insider Connected it was originally going to be much further developed than it is at the moment before it was launched but the pandemic uh basically put a stock to all work the funding for it was uh was frozen when when the factory was shut down and was only fairly recently reinstated so it should there's an awful lot more to come for the insider connected program and what you're able to do with it and the uh the features and the challenges and everything that you'll get from scanning yourself into a game before you play it. And that's going to roll out over the coming year. And it was also interesting to...
    49:15
    Well, the other interesting point was, yeah, how it was developed from the all-access thing, which was John Buscalia-driven system in order to provide a kind of loyalty scheme for pinball players. And also the fact that George said that he's very much a proponent of downloadable content for games. He was likening it to his Xbox or his PlayStation. When you play a racing game, it then offers you the opportunity to buy another pack of different cars that you could be racing, and he said, I am the guy that kind of buys that stuff. And that's what's driving his thoughts, really, as far as Insider Connected goes, and downloadable content in general for new games. And Dan, I think he mentioned a couple of things, although I might not remember it correctly.
    50:22
    But he mentioned, like, with certain achievements, You can download exclusive artwork, for example, in some way and print it yourself or what have you. But he gave a couple of examples in that seminar of the benefits of playing with Insider Connected and how it enhances your game. And you can also collect certain stuff that you otherwise would not be able to collect. Yes, that's right, there's like a treasure chest Where you get given gifts And achievements Achievements as well, which is a big thing And you're able to get the badges As you said, to get those Either electronically or in physical form If that's a thing you like collecting Right, so As I say, a lot of this Is going to be rolling out in big ways Throughout 2022 So keep an eye on what pin side on a insider pin insider connected is going to have not pin side connected necessarily and of course we'll bring you all the details here as well right there was one other thing that I found very interesting although it wasn't mentioned in the Stern insider connected seminar actually Keith Elwin mentioned it in the Godzilla seminar where basically he indicated that Godzilla was supposed to be a George Gomez game.
    51:57
    Up to the point where George had told Keith like, Keith had shown interest in the theme and George told him that he couldn get it because he wanted to do it himself And then George was too busy with insider connected at least that what i assume so um yes yeah that right and also don get george to bring out his own game as well right so uh so that's how keith ended up doing uh godzilla instead of george and that sort of made me wonder and i was hoping i did try to ask that question in the chat of the seminars at Pinball Echo, but didn't get asked to George, which I was hoping would happen. I'm actually curious whether we will see another game from George or whether he's now more dedicated to making Insider Connected become a success.
    52:56
    But, well, we don't know the answer yet, so hopefully we get the chance to ask George in the future. Or maybe come to London or another show in the US where you might be willing to answer that question.
    53:12
    Hmm. Yeah, okay. Well, more on that later. But that's only just one of the things that has been going on. Well, one of the other things we've gone on to soon. We've mentioned Seth as president and the Insider Connected kits. but there's been game releases as well, game announcements. So let's start with the first of those. Well, reveals even. Yeah, two.
    53:39
    The first being the 40th anniversary, sorry about that, the 40th anniversary edition rerun of Elvira's House of Horrors. And no, it's not that Cassandra Peterson, who plays the character of Elvira, turned 40. now she turned 70, but Vyra is already 40 years part of her life.
    54:04
    And that's celebrated with this special edition, limited to 199 units. And what was interesting in the press release, and I think, now it was only mentioned in the press release,
    54:21
    there was usually stern mentions, the MSRP for their games. In this case, all they said was call for a price.
    54:32
    Yes, that's right. Rumor has it that the game is sold to distributors for $15,000, and they are free to market up with whatever they think they can get for it.
    54:47
    Yes, it's a strange game, a strange release, But it's not the first time that they bended the distributor pricing model a little bit. I think CERN is sort of testing the waters with how far they can go with these type of new pricing strategies. I mean, if you remember when they did Beatles, the games were sold in lots of 10, 7 gold, 2 platinums and 1 diamond game for a total price of, I think, from the top of my head, don't quote me on it if it's wrong, but I think $70,000 for 10 of those games. and distributors were all free to charge whatever they wanted for those games.
    55:49
    This is slightly different, but still with some similarities. Yeah, the model kind of sits in underneath the signature edition of Elvira's House of Horrors, which was the one that came with the little swatch from her couch, which I think there were only like 50 of those or something like that, and above the limited edition version, which I don't know how many of those there were, I can't remember exactly, but there are 199 of these. So the design of it is very purple, I think it's fair to say. It's got purple trim, purple legs, purple armour, everything around. Some of the red in the original cabinet has now been turned to purple. Yes, it's got different cabinet artwork as well. I think the back box is the same, except it's now got an Elvira 40 years sticker applied to it, as has the cabinet as well. So I don't think that's changed. But I think it might have some different interior art as well. And the game comes with an autographed Elvira trading card, which the Signature Edition did as well. but also an autographed copy of her memoirs, yours cruelly, Elvira's memoirs of the Mysteries of the Dark. Right, so that comes with that, although I suspect that's probably not too difficult to get elsewhere if that was the thing that sealed the deal for you. But yeah, it comes with what they call a paranormal purple sparkle powder-coated pinball armour. Right, so there you go. And, of course, being a new game from CERN, it means it comes with the Insider Connected already installed, which is the first Elvira game to have that. Right. So I would not be surprised if all 199 units are already sold out. Yes, I think so, yeah. But you might still be able to find one with certain distributors, I suppose. but yeah it's interesting to see a rerun of a game that I personally didn't think was going to see a rerun or a new model I wasn't expecting this one I've seen prices being quoted of 25, 28 from distributors so I think that's not a bad markup for a distributor, say getting it for £15,000, I can say for £10,000 or more.
    58:33
    Which isn't bad. No, true. But this wasn't the only new game that's going out. Most certainly was not. Because, well, we know, or we're very familiar with the Jurassic Park pin that was designed by Keith Elwynn, has been out for some time, but there's now a new home version of Jurassic Park Pin, as in capital Pin,
    59:01
    which has been designed by Jack Danger. I think this has been quite widely trailed that he was working on a project with Stan Pinball, and this is exactly what he's been doing. This is his first game design for them. Jack obviously is very well known as a pinball internet screamer through his Deadflip Twitch channel and YouTube channels. And, of course, he'd been designing his own game,
    59:30
    in fact, several games, on his YouTube channel. You can see his progress there and had help from many people in order to bring that to conclusion. And I think when he did, he sufficiently impressed Stern and George Gomez that they offered him a job. doing design and this is the first title from him. Yes and I think it's very interesting that
    59:58
    if you do your first game and you get immediately the license for Jurassic Park I think they have a very good faith in the qualities of Jack as a designer. Yes this is the home version as we said before, and it's the next in the series of pin games. And for future years, Stern tends to come out with such a game, such a home version game in the fall,
    60:31
    trying to benefit from the Christmas season, I suppose. That's right, yeah, get all those holiday season sales. and indeed they are going to be producing it in time for that. And it's a smaller game. Obviously there are some cost reductions because it hits the price point of $4,599, which is $1,600 less than the Pro version and $1,900 less if you consider the Pro with the entirely connected QR code reader. installed right which they charge an extra 304 so um it's yeah it's a decent saving and and usually it's not just a re-arting of an existing home version which we've seen before it's actually a completely different design that Jack's come up with and uh a different software from uh
    61:30
    was every interactive toy which we haven't seen earlier on the uh on the pin models yes um well That's right, yes. That mechanical designer, Rob Blakeman, has come up with a very nice T-Rex mouth design, which allows the balls to roll in underneath and come out through the mouth itself. Right. Which I think makes it more interactive than the pro model is, to be honest, because I think the pro model doesn't do much, does it? So the T-Rex head. I hope the lady gets... Sorry, can't answer that, so... It's also nice to mention that software was done by Wei-Feng Cheng. Yeah. Who, well, it's a regular face at Stern. I think he worked a lot on WrestleMania back in the day and other games as well. Actually, he was already there when Stern was still doing Dot Matrix games. So he's almost a senior at Stern, I would say. Yeah, he's been doing some quite a lot of stuff on the Entirely Connected as well, I So, yeah, so the team there have put that together, and, yes, if you want to, it's being sold through the standard distributor network. I don't think it's going to be turning up in a supermarket or like a Walmart.
    62:54
    Yeah, yeah. So contact your usual Stern distributor if you're interested in getting one of those. The only downside to me is that the display is very small on that game. It has an LCD display, but it is really quite tiny. Well, that's one of the things that's easiest to upgrade if you want to. Oh, well, yes, but you'd have to replace the whole speaker panel. Yes, speaker panel. It could be done, and I'm assuming it's just a standard HDMI feed going into it. Right. But it just seems that it could be a little bit bigger than that, and it would shout, you know, as being good value, whereas that, to me, looks like a cheapening of it, where the rest of it looks absolutely top-notch. Oh, yeah, it looks like a very good game. Still consider, I think, the playfield, and possibly also the cabinet is not standard plywood, but MDF. That's correct, yeah. And the cabinets were bolted together as well With highly visible bolts But at the end of the day It's a cabinet And as people have said many times You don't play the cabinet No, but if you put it in a moist room Then M.D. is not your friend, I suppose That's true, yeah But congratulations To Jack on his first game And the rest of the team Of course And all congratulations to you as well at Stern Pinball because at the Pinball Expo, Gary Stern had a nice presentation made to him. Yes. He was inducted into the International Video Game Hall of Fame in the category of Walter Day Lifetime Achievement Award for the class of 2021.
    64:49
    Which is quite a mouthful. It is. Yeah. So I suppose it's a Lifetime Achievement Award and many of you may not be familiar with the video games that Gary Stern actually was involved in during his days at Stern Electronics. Yes, he was, Stern was a major producer of video games during the boom of the early 80s And I'm not a video game historian, so I wouldn't be able to read off any of the titles that they did produce, but I'm fully aware that they did produce many of them. Yes. I don't think there were that many standout titles. I think they might have had one hit game, which I can't remember what the title is. So here's the contest.
    65:44
    I seem to remember Berserk as being one of theirs, but I could be wrong on that. So, but I do seem to tie in the dessert game with seeing the big Stern logo on the side of the cabinet. But, well, yeah, go on then, do your contest and what the prize is. Yeah, then we have to give away video games.
    66:06
    Sorry, then we have to give away prizes. We only do that on our events. Yeah, so you think you know the whole quiz. Exactly, yes. And as we haven't been to go to any shows recently, we haven't been doing that.
    66:22
    Right. But I do have a list of arcade games manufactured by Stern Electronics. Okay. Okay, I can name a few. It's a list of like, I think, close to 30 titles. Berserk is certainly one of them. Astro Invader, Scramble, Super Cobra, Turtles, Armored Car, Amidar, programmed by Konami, Frenzy, Tutankham, Poojan, Rescue, Anteater,
    67:01
    it's all titles that I seriously never ever played. But, well, it's like a list of, I think, close to 30 titles. So it's very logical to induct Gary Stern into the, or at least award him a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in arcade video games between the period of 1980 and 1984.
    67:31
    Oh, okay. That was the time span, was it? Yes. Okay, great. And after which he was doing great research, I suppose.
    67:40
    Yeah, I do remember Stern, in the early days of Stern Pinball, as we know, they also did a Monopoly redemption game, and experimented with a Spider-Man redemption game and some other stuff, but I think they quickly abandoned those.
    68:02
    Many people might not even realize it was Spooky Cookie Carnival, or Simpsons Spooky Carnival. It's also not a pinball machine But developed by Stern Yeah, originally called Simpsons Crazy Carnival But subsequently renamed Ah, okay Right, okay Then some hot news Which was shared all over Social media And I was very happy that it happened There was a Photo shoot by Actress and Singer Jennifer Lopez, not a very unfamiliar name I suppose posing in a game room in front of a certain Jurassic Park game, of course Stern shared it but many other people also shared photos of, well can't ignore that she's a beautiful woman and a very sexy one and it's very interesting to see her pose in a game room. Too bad she wasn't playing a game, just posing with the machines and the vibe of that room, I suppose, in terms of lighting and so on. Very nice photos. So if you're on social media, either you already saw them or looked them up.
    69:26
    I admit I didn't see that one, but I will go and check it out. Thank you. Okay. And then, well, there's code updates. news.
    69:37
    Yeah. Well. We'll just mention, I think, that there were a couple of code updates for Godzilla, which is not really surprising, considering it's the latest game and still actively being developed.
    69:51
    Version 0.80.0 is the current version. And before that was version 0.79.0, which had quite a lot of changes to it. not unsurprisingly but there's too many to list here really but there's a lot of mode changes, a lot of scoring change, balance changes super jackpots and things score 2 million rather than 1 million some values have gone up, some gone down so just little tweaks to make it a little more balanced in the way that the game plays as well as a few bugs of course as we always get, and some adjustment changes as well in the menus for how long people get to play the modes. So, you know, if you're interested in that, you're only interested in that if you've got the game, really, or are about to play it. So if you are, go to the CERN website and you can go to the software download menu, click on the You Accept to sign away your life, and you can read the notes for yourself. Right, okay. And last but not least on Stern Pinball, obviously they had a big presence at Pinball Expo, which started with a virtual tour of the Stern factory, which was actually a paid event that you had to pay $60 for. it was a live feed from the factory which was broadcast in a special room at Pinball Expo that you could only access if you bought a ticket and that stream would not be shared anywhere else so I haven't seen it and then traditionally Stern sort of takes over the Pinball Expo Saturday after the autograph session yes so if you're interested in hearing from various Stern Pinball designers and other employees it started at 3pm with the making of Led Zeppelin hosted by Tim Saxon and not surprisingly no Steve Ritchie although Steve designed the game followed by Jack Danger and Jason discussing their Jurassic Park project.
    72:25
    The Making of the Mandalorian with Brian Eddy and Dwight Sullivan was next after that. George Gomez did his Insider Connected talk, followed by Keith Elwin and his team discussing Godzilla. And the evening was closed off with Family Feud Without the Family, a quiz hosted by Dwight Sullivan and Corey's Thub yeah so basically it's turned to go over the entire Saturday evening session with seminar after seminar after seminar yes but highly informative highly recommended so check out Pimble Expo on Twitch to watch these seminars again yes and also a little plug there, if you go to the Pinball News article about it, you can see a short write-up about each one as well as a link to take you straight to the relevant portion of the Pinball Expo Twitch stream because it's at the moment, and I'm sure it will change, the entire day is just presented as one long like 13 hour clip and to find the actual seminar you want is not so easy I certainly got to find the start of it when you're scrolling along 13 hours of timeline, trying to find the exact second where the seminar starts and not the bit where they're setting up the microphones and that kind of stuff. So, those things are available on Pinball News. I also have on the Pinball Magazine website an article with the highlights of Pinball expo that also includes the direct links to these video seminars excellent so we got you covered wherever you end up reading about it so that was almost the end of the news, there's one more item though which is indirect really and it's a story about a chap called Wayne Tedder who comes from Ontario in Canada and has beaten the world record for the longest playing pinball player on the same game. Night and night and love there. Yeah.
    74:54
    It's the official title recognised by the Guinness World Records Authority, or it's going to be shortly, once it's verified. and took place at the Player One amusement group, their showroom in Ontario,
    75:16
    in a place called Mrs. Salga, who I don't know who she is, but apparently that's where it took place. And the reason it's in the Stern section is because it was playing a Stern Beatles, a gold edition machine, from Thursday, October 21st from 8.09am and it continued until Saturday, October 23rd at 8.09am. So two full days. Right. And yeah, it was all played on the same Beatles machine without any problems, although there was a standby machine available in case he needed it, but he didn't. So congratulations to him and to Player One Amusements for hosting the whole thing and to Stern for producing a Beatles game which stood up to 48 hours of continuous play. Yeah, well, not only that. I can only imagine that Wayne Teller can't hear any Beatles songs from their game anymore for some time. I mean, no discredit to the game whatsoever, but playing it for 48 hours non-stop, I don't think you can hear Okay Congratulations Wayne Yes, okay, moving on Swiftly Hager Springball in Australia Yes They are building their Celts game Yeah, and providing us With lots of updates Of, well, almost anything You can think of Yeah I seem to go in bursts of having no information and then going into overdrive and producing lots and lots featuring every stand-up target and leaf switch and um well you name it it's um it's like it's currently on the facebook page gluing of uh enclosures printing decals yeah um you name it and you probably somebody wiping the floor you might actually see that as well yeah that's right But, no, it's good that these updates are coming and Kel's nearing production, I would expect.
    77:34
    Yes, although there's no sign yet of any production of the Fathom Revisited games. Though I guess they want to get the Kel's ones done and dusted and out and to the customers, and then they can really get their teeth into the Fathom games. Right. So, yeah. I suppose that's all to report on I think so While we're on the other side of the world Holbein Has also been teasing Quite a bit Yeah they have Which is unusual because normally you don't get very much From Mike and the team But yeah they've been showing pictures Of parts for the upcoming This is Spinal Tap game Which as we announced here, is their next title, and is codenamed, well, they refer to it as TAP, whereas the Thunderbirds game is referred to as TAG. So that's not confusing at all. The TAG name comes from back in the days when it was called Thunderbirds Are Go. It was going to be called Thunderbirds Are Go after the TV series, but I don't know whether that's still going, whether it's gone, whether Thunderbirds are gone. But the game is just called Thunderbirds anyway So that's tag And the final tap is tap Anyway, so they've been showing pictures of things like The toroidal transformer that's going to be used for power on the game Rather than just using a switching power supply Which Mike, in my opinion quite rightly as I said, is not really designed for driving highly inductive loads like coils and solenoids and things like that. And also the new metal bottom apron, which he told us about before, which is going to replace the plastic one that was in use for Tag.
    79:31
    But I think the ones he was showing on Facebook were actually Thunderbirds ones, all these that he had Thunderbirds artwork on. Yes. Other than that, there's a little sneak picture of a bit of the play field from Spinal Tap, showing some purple slingshot star posts, and the other information that the game will include pinball callouts from what is described as the original band members, but it doesn't say how many of them, or which ones, so it's good that they've actually got some custom call-outs going into the game. Which is excellent. Yes. So, well, I'm still waiting for photos of a completed and fully built playfield. Obviously contractual obligations should have the game shipping before the end of the year, and we're getting closer and closer.
    80:34
    Yes, but equally those same contractual obligations means they can't show it until it's fully approved by the licensor, I'm sure. So that needs to be done. Yes.
    80:47
    Okay, then, well, let's move back to the US. We found an interesting piece of information in the San Antonio Express News regarding Deep Root Pinball. Yes, in our previous coverage of that I was speculating and saying I didn't expect there would be any kind of criminal prosecution against Robert Mueller for everything that's gone down with the Deep Root family of companies which includes Deep Root Pinball and I thought it would just be limited to the civil cases which the SEC is prosecuting any potential civil cases from investors. But I could be wrong on that, because according to the San Antonio Express News,
    81:37
    the San Antonio Investment Advisor, Robert Jeffrey Mueller, is facing possible criminal prosecutions after security regulators referred their civil fraud case to the U.S. Attorney's Office. and Robert's attorney, who is one of his attorneys, Jay Hullings, said he'd already met with the assistant US attorneys handling the case and said it's an investigation they are moving forward on. They may not have issued any subpoenas yet, but I think we can assume that those are probably coming.
    82:21
    So it sounds like they're expecting some criminal prosecutions to be coming along and in preparation for that his lawyers have asked for $87,000 in order to build his criminal defence in preparation for that. So no indication whether that's been approved yet. I think there was a freeze on most of the expenditure from the through funds, but they were applying for money for living expenses, and also, as we said in the last pincast, also for potentially preparing for bankruptcy or closure of the businesses. Right. But, yeah, asking for extra money in order to prepare for criminal defence, which is, well, it surprises me. I didn't think that was going to be happening, but we'll see if it does. Living in Texas does have its benefits, but if you're going to jail there, I'm not sure that's a benefit. No, I wouldn't have thought so, assuming that he was found guilty, of course, of any criminal misdeeds. I do have a question and I'm not sure whether you can answer it but if this turns out to be a criminal case does that mean that he gets arrested and locked up or will he be able to stay out of jail until he has a court hearing that depends upon whether he's able to post bail on whether bail is granted in a situation like this. It probably would be, because I don't think he'd be much of a flight risk, to be honest, being as well-known. But him being able to post his own bail might be a bit difficult if all his assets have been seized. So he might be able to get somebody else to post bail on his behalf, and depends what the value of the bail is set at as well. So it's impossible to say, but I very much doubt he would be held in prison. To be honest That's just my take But in the meantime One other item of Deep Root Pinball news Is if you were looking to go to their website In order to remind yourself Of the story of Raza And the upcoming games And well basically the website's gone It's been taken down So going to deeprootpinball.com Doesn't get you anywhere at all now It just comes up with a site not found But there's always the internet archive There is indeed, yes. And I'm sure it's been screen grabbed a number of times by various people over the years. Right. So that's Deep Root News, I think, from San Antonio. Well, still some news. I wasn't expecting any. And, of course, the news that Stephen Bowden already has found a new employer, which we mentioned earlier. Do we know of any other DeepRoot employees that have found another employee yet? No, I've seen a few posts from John Norris who's sort of been touting his skills, saying basically designer for hire, I'm available if you need any work doing. But no, I don't know of any other confirmed appointments, we'll put it that way. Right. Okay. Well, maybe, who knows what will happen with some of the others that were in San Antonio.
    86:13
    Moving north, close to the upcoming Midwest Gaming Classic. Yes, don't remind us. Spooky Pinball from Benton, Wisconsin.
    86:30
    had some news. The first news they had, no, that's not true, but they had some code updates, which I'll let you get into.
    86:41
    But we mentioned earlier that they were working on an expansion of their building, and they announced on their Facebook page that the final assembly and game inspection building addition is now finished. So, construction work is done and they are doing the final assembly and game inspection in that section of the add-on, so to speak. And it's done, so good. And the pictures I've seen make it look a lot more spacious than it was previously in their old building. Right, well, they need a visual of the game, so... Yeah, they do, yeah. Yes, and those two games that are currently building, of course, are Halloween and Ultraman. Right. And now, of course, Halloween has just been and gone, of course, from the end of October, the last day you were covering. Yes. Indeed. And what better time to bring out a code update for the Halloween game? I understand with lots of new video. Yes, apparently so. Well, lots more audio added, lots of movie audio clips added throughout it, but yes, they have added more video as well. In fact, there's a whole bunch of things, there's a bunch of fixes as well, but also just like tweaks and adjustments and some more clips, like the Asylum intro has been updated and tilt animations are now different. and there's a whole bunch of new animations and light shows and light shades as well in there. So I think that's trying to address some of the concerns that people had, I think, when they first saw the game and thought it was very lightly coded. So it's coming together and it's going to take time, but they are moving there and this is version 1.02, which came out on Halloween, but was actually immediately removed because version 1.03 is imminent. So by the time you listen to this, 1.03 might even be on the website and available to update. And also Ultraman as well, as we mentioned. That also had a code update this month, 1.02, the same as the Halloween was. And that's a smaller update, and it just fixed a few minor bugs in the game and updated a few things in the settings and the flipper power and the timing for various things. So, you know, not a huge update, but certainly worth having if you have an Ultraman. And not many people have got them yet, but more will be coming, I'm sure. Right. So, also spooky related, trying to look it up right now, but I'm not scrolling fast enough.
    89:40
    But I did see... Bring in the latest news. well apparently there's a lot of Halloween collector's editions being offered for sale priced at for example $1500 whereas a game that was like over $7000 if I'm not mistaken so I'm wondering are people selling their entire game or their spot in line for $1,500? Well, I think both, from what I've heard. And some people I know bought more than one, and are selling the second one in order to effectively try and get enough profit to fund the first one.
    90:28
    Which is not a bad policy if you can do it, but it requires... I think when people first knew about the game, every Russian bought it, and it sold out very quickly. Then there was the usual sort of buyer's remorse and a few people dropped out and some places were going very well and they were then taken up and then when people started getting the games I think there was a slight underwhelming about the level of gameplay in it at that time even though everyone knows it's going to improve over time but I think there was a some people were then looking to either bail out either on the game that they've got or on their spot so they were trying to sell that But if they try to summon for 15 and they're getting that, then that bodes well for how well the game is being received.
    91:21
    Yeah, I'm not sure about that. But, I mean, I see people offering their spots for $1,500 or $2,000. And then, of course, you still have to pay for the rest of the game. I was thinking, sorry, I was thinking $15,000. You're saying $1,500, right? No, 1,500, yes. Right, okay. For 15,000 you should get two games, I suppose. Yes. So they're selling a spot in line, but you still have to pay the rest of the game as well. Right, okay. So this is the deposit that they put down. This is essentially what they're selling. Right, yes. And their spot in line and, oh well. But there's over a dozen, I would say, being offered right now, which I'm not so sure is a good sign. No, I would agree with you in this. That's the case, yes. That's probably the bit I was talking about just now, where people were a bit underwhelmed when they first saw it and decided to bail, but it's a non-refundable deposit, but it can be transferred, I guess. Right, OK. Anyway, I figured I'd mention that briefly. Let's move on to the no-news section.
    92:30
    Well, we'll start with your neighbour's Dutch pinball. Yeah. And you've been in touch with Barry, and what's he got to say? Well, we briefly texted today. I asked whether there was any news, and basically he said the sourcing of parts is improving, and he's hoping to scale up production soon.
    92:55
    Okay. Well, I'm sure he is, yes. Yeah, well, I've been hoping for that for years. But that's the news that I got. So I'll just share that with you and take it for whatever you think it's worth. Hmm. Well, sourcing a part is obviously a problem, but it was interesting that one of the things that come out of the Pimwell Expo seminars, and I forget exactly which seminar it was in, I was just hearing it. It might have been George's one, but... I think it was Gary Stern actually mentioned that they have a problem. some of their games use a chip that is also used by Ford Motors yeah for the F-150 truck yeah something like that and that makes it for them impossible to get or to source those chips so they are building games that don't use that chip yeah but he also said that they kind of preempted this supply chain problem or at least they saw it coming and took steps to try and mitigate it by renting out a warehouse and stockpiling the common parts they're going to be needing. So they bought all that and they got, I can't remember exactly how many they said, but, yeah, they think they've got enough parts to keep going.
    94:25
    Well, that also explains why you're re-running Elvira, I suppose. Yeah I'm not sure how many unique parts There are in that game But obviously They were saying how difficult it is To get parts from suppliers But they think they're in a good situation With their stocks I think Ford can make a fortune If they start selling chips Yeah, fortunately They also have to make cars And trucks Which need them So Yeah Multimorphic Yeah, I haven't really had any news From Multimorphic Other than Jerry being At Pimble Expo I don't think he did a seminar this year No, I don't think he did They did have a big Selection of P-Rock based Homebrew games there Which would obviously tie in well With the American Pimble American Dream competition because of course American Pinball is also using P-Rock still on their games and although they had stated their intention to move away from that in due course there's no sign of that happening just yet.
    95:43
    So I'm assuming, I didn't hear it for sure, but when Legends of Valhalla was developed, it wasn't developed on P-Rock but it was ported over to the American Pinball system Well, maybe it was the American P-Rock, but using P-Rock, using multimorphic driver boards, and American Pinball had their own, had some of their own driver boards, so the code for that and the drivers for that had to be rewritten for the American Pinball system. So that's probably what went on there. But, no, that homebrew section that,
    96:18
    using P-Rock games, or using the P-Rock system at American, at the Pinball Expo, would be, could well be where the winner of the American Dreams competition comes from. So if you've got a chance to play those, you may be one step ahead when it comes to seeing what the next American Pinball title is going to be. But isn't it going to, I mean, if you develop a game on the P3 system, would American Pinball be able to take it into production? I suppose you could, but they don't have the cabinets for the P3 in their arsenals. so I'm not sure whether that would work. Although it's very likely that a third party or an outside party starts developing kits for P3 as well. It doesn't have to necessarily be multimorphic, of course. No, no. Other companies have certainly produced software games for it. Right. But they might as well produce hardware kits. Yeah, no reason why not. As long as you've got the manufacturing capability or can work with Multimorphic to manufacture it for them. yeah right but I rather don't see anybody coming up with P3 designs and so on because my entry looked rather pale I suppose or stale what's the word ok so I don't encourage I don't encourage anybody to bring their best game Please don't No Leave it clear for you to win Yeah I'm sure Everyone will Hate your advice And turn it up with an empty box Okay so maybe this is Speaking of this American dream contest Maybe this is Something to consider For pinball adventures Ah Take their Pony Factory prototype to Pinball Expo next year, and maybe American Pinball will do the manufacturing. Ah, but why would they do that? Because a new video from Pinball Adventures that came out this month shows all their manufacturing capabilities. We showed their office, their test area, and manufacturing facilities for cutting plastic, metalwork, wood, Of course, what wasn't said was that we think all those were, well, certainly the industrial side of it, were contract manufacturers who are doing work for pinball adventures in producing parts for them and constructing assemblies, but that's not obviously their only job because, well, you can't buy a punny factory at the moment, even if you wanted to, so they wouldn't do very long with no sales. But it was kind of presented as Andrew going round the various factories as if they were his and saying, this is where we produce this, this is where we produce that, and Blur's, in fact, I don't know, it seemed a bit odd, anyway, put it that way. If you want to see it for yourself, you can go to the Pinball Adventures website and you can't go to the website because the website's down there. Is that back online? No, it's not. You can watch it on YouTube. Yeah, it was on YouTube. You can certainly watch it on YouTube. I think we mentioned before they had those videos still available on there. There's no indication of the availability of the game or what its eventual price is going to be. There were some other shops in the design area which showed a little bit of the Elements game which was slated to be their second title and which seemed to have a completely different display and cabinet design to Polyfactory which seems odd you'd think if you were starting off with a new company you'd have some commonality at least in the cabinet but no it was very different it had the display and speakers were actually in a top box not actually in the back box which is maybe not exactly where you want have your display, but here you go. The back box is just a complete piece of artwork, and with no display in it at all. The third game was also glimpsed, or a third game was also glimpsed. I couldn't quite see what it was, but it was also another different design of a cabinet. But they did have a display in the back box, at least. They're not making it easy on themselves. No, I mean, maybe these are just prototype ideas, and they'll pick one and go with it, when they actually start producing but for now interesting but a lot of promotion, a lot of self-promotion but no indication of actually anything being available yet right, ok moving on to Pimble Brothers based in Europe, manufacturing in Italy yep, no news on the fact they're still churning out Aliens, either in the standard version or the limited version Right, and the Queen prototype still being on display in the Queen pop-up store, I suppose? It is, it is. It's still in London, it's going to be there until, well, basically after Christmas, so the start of January is when it will be there. It's interesting, there's another pop-up store just appeared just around the corner, which is a David Bowie pop-up store. I haven't seen anything about that Previously there was a Who one That was a couple of years ago Yeah, exactly And they had a Tommy game in there But as there's no David Bowie game There's sadly no pinball in the David Bowie pop-up shop The David Bowie game could be cool Yeah, plenty of material to work with there anyway moving on to something where we do have some news I can just see the steps of let's dance da da da da da every time you make a shot I can see that work so oh well good for homebrew yeah so oh maybe a good here's a suggestion for someone to enter the American TV content do a David Bowie pin So, yeah, I suppose, sort of last but not least, we haven't discussed Jersey Jack Pinball yet.
    103:17
    I suppose the most interesting news from Jersey Jack Pinball was that they hired a fourth pinball designer, in the person of Mark Seiden, who is a known designer in the homebrew community. He's been working on a game called Metroid, which was also on display at Pinball Expo. But prior to Pinball Expo, Jersey Jack already announced that they hired him. So probably to avoid anybody else, any other manufacturers scooping, Mark away so yeah interesting there's obviously a trend developing here you know with Jack Danger developing his homebrew machine and being snapped up by Stern Riot Pinball team developing their homebrew game getting snapped up by American Heath Elwin yeah with his brother Randy getting snapped up by Stern and now Mark on his Metroid game and he been snapped up by Jody Jack Right and that seems to be the way into the business Yeah, good point. Yeah, the Kugler family, amongst others, and did a follow-up game as well. Yeah. Yeah, so he's... Yeah, that's your route into pinball business, if that's what you want to do, I think. prove you can design a game and build it and see it through to conclusion and that's how you get in right and congratulations to Mark for landing yeah absolutely what's very interesting I think from the perspective of a junior game designer like Mark coming into a country being able to be mentored by both Pat Lawler and Steve Ritchie, I don't think it doesn't get any better than that. Well, and Eric, of course, as well, who's got quite a lot of experience developing games, and knows the electronics inside out as well. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, what a great position.
    105:34
    It's a bit strange, though, because I didn't get any press release from Jersey Jack Pinball about that at all. No, me neither. I think we pissed off somebody over there, and oh well, it was on their Facebook and we noticed it. So happy to bring you the news, happy for Mark to be on board at the team, but you'd expect a press release for news like that. Although it might still be, I think it could be two years before we see Mark's first game being taken into production at the current pace. And that's not a stab at JJP, but we're still waiting to see whenever their next title will be announced. And as it looks right now, they're probably busy building Guns N' Roses at least until March of next year or maybe even summer next year. So who knows? Yes, they can set up a second assembly line. We'll just have to wait and see But if you wanted to announce anything Then I suppose Pinball Expo was A good Place to do it And I don't think they discussed anything Of a timeline for When the next game Will be available Well I think they have got some history Of announcing a game Or their next title at the Midwest Gaming Classic That's certainly happened In the past I can't remember which game it was, whether it was Wonka. No, it wasn't Wonka. Yeah, it was Wonka, wasn't it? No. Well, Wonka was simultaneously at MGC and in Europe as well. Yes. So they have revealed games at MGC in the past.
    107:19
    And as MGC is taking place this coming weekend, who knows? Perhaps we might see the next game there. That was when MGC was taking place in April. and now MTC is taking place in November, so that might be a difference. Yeah, but no, the timing is right. They've certainly worked with Dan and the team at MTC to do a launch like that in the past, so it wouldn't be new ground for them, although the time of year, as you say, is different.
    107:49
    But anyway, yeah, so apart from Mark being appointed as their newest member of the design team, and again, gracias a him JJP have been, I think we mentioned this before about maybe we didn't, I think we did about teaming up with Scorbit yes, we certainly have mentioned that in the past and they've introduced their achievement system into the JJP games and we will talk a little bit more about that soon as in a couple of minnows Yeah, but the news here is that apparently JJP and Scorpbit recorded a video together, which they published, explaining how the achievements work and so on. You can watch that on YouTube. And if you receive the Pinball Magazine monthly newsletter, there will be a link in there linking you to that video, as well as to other videos discussed earlier in this pincast, of course. so that was sort of the news that there is this video and of course well we have this interview coming up with the people from Scorbit in a couple of minutes so stay tuned for that because that includes more info on how it works on JJP games as well ok but other than that there's been some code updates of course no month will be complete Mostly related to those achievements, which, well, there are codes updates for various games, Gundam Run, Wizard of Oz, and Hobbit. So almost all JJP titles receive the code updates implementing achievements with Scorby. Yeah, and it's interesting because The Hobbit have been asking for some updates for that, but all of them, in addition to the implementations of the Achievements Awards, they've also had some bug fixes and other tweaks to the game and to the core code as well to make, it doesn't actually specify exactly what they are, but maybe there's only some little niggles in the game which have been annoying over the years, then maybe those got fixed in the latest update as well. But anyway, it's nice to see all of them getting some love, all the way from Wizard of Oz up to Guns N' Roses, all getting the achievements from Scorbid added. Yeah, there was one thing I noticed in the code update for Dialed In that sort of raised my eyebrows. the dial-in mobile app is no longer supported from this new version forward.
    110:49
    Yeah. That was something that, when the game was announced, that was certainly something that they showed off and was certainly one of the important features of the game. But no more. Yeah, it was a world first To flip the ball Use the flippers from the phone A bit disappointing that's been taken out I don't know why that is Whether there's some security violations now Which means that they're not allowed to do that anymore But I originally thought Oh, maybe now they've added the score bit stuff in They've had to take out the Bluetooth connection And replace it with a Wi-Fi one But, of course, they also allow the connection of Bluetooth headphones to the game as well, which you can access by holding in the right flipper button in a track mode, and that requires the Bluetooth dongle to be connected. So Bluetooth connections are still there, so I don't know why the mobile app is not supported anymore. But, I mean, it was kind of, it seemed like a bit of a one-and-done thing. It was there, and it did what it did, and it wasn't going to be diverged any further. but I can at least claim to have been the first to implement such a thing no matter how practical it was to actually use it. Right okay and closing off with Jersey Jack Pinball news I suppose Pat Lawler did a seminar on Pinball Expo which I seriously thought was probably the well I haven't seen all of them yet um but i was watching this and i was like this is pure gold pat was really on fire
    112:42
    it was really a very interesting uh seminar where he he dove into his 41-year career in a coin up digging up stories and details that i was not aware of so pure gold, thank you Pat from the bottom of my heart I thoroughly recommend that you go to the link either on the Bimble Magazine site or the Bimble News site and watch Pat Law's seminar of all the ones I think it's probably well from a historical point of view it's certainly the most interesting one of the entire show it's kind of like the opposite end of the other spectrum from all the new game design teams telling you how they produce their games now to go back and see how games used to be produced and the interactions between various companies, including court cases and how Williams were poised to get out of pinball altogether in 1983 if they hadn't won a patent case against Dave Nothing Associates who held the patent for the use of microprocessors to control a pinball machine. Fortunately, they made some mistakes in the court case, and that patent was overruled, and Williams carried on in pinball. But it was touch and go at that point, as it had been for many companies at various points in their history. But Pat knows it all, and he relates it in a very interesting and accessible way. So, yeah, go listen to it. If you haven't already, go and watch it. Yeah. So, also, what I found interesting, that was in the Jersey Jack seminar, which is a different seminar. It was the evening after the Pat Lawler seminar, where Pat made a comment where he basically said, like, he got the feeling that people were expecting him and Steve Ritchie to be bitter enemies or something like that. and apparently they are best friends, or at least now. Okay, good. Yeah, well, I think that probably goes back to the days of Williams, where I think it was very much described as having design team gangs, and if you weren't in one gang, you were hated by all the other gangs.
    115:13
    I call that healthy inner competition inside the company. It can be healthy, it can be destructive as well. I think it drove the teams to try to outdo the others, which some say killed pinball, but it also resulted in a lot of innovative features that otherwise we might never have seen. Yeah. So anyway, that's an interesting point.
    115:52
    You're right. I think a lot of people did assume that there was that rivalry between them. And that's great that that's not the case. So let's move on to any other news. And now we mentioned that we weren't at Pinball Expo. But despite that fact, it still seemed to take place. and MGC is also taking place as we say this coming weekend and we won't be there either if you're wondering why we were supposed to be there and do our quiz we were supposed to be at MGC we were meant to be at Expo covering all that as well but we were bound to be in Europe by the authority of a certain Joe Biden have you heard of him? Name's familiar, but I can't place it. But anyway, the point is we're not allowed to fly to the United States until the 8th of November, unless it was for urgent business. And, well, it's hard to swing that one for us. So the point is we couldn't be there. Yeah. Stefan Riegler the Austrian importer for many companies Ernst Pimbal managed to fly to the US and he was at Expo so I applaud him for doing that I hope he had a great time he was one of the very few if not the only European I suppose I think there was somebody from Spain also who went over there but I don't know exactly who that was but you're right it was certainly devoid of most European visitors this year and neither of us nor our good friend Gary Flower were able to head over there which I mean for him it must be particularly galling because he'd been to every Bimbole Expo up until this point and this was the 37th I did have a funny moment in the chat one of the days of Pinball Expo on the Twitch channel where Gary in the UK has a username popped up and I responded, is that you Gary? and indeed it was Gary yes, I was actually watching that chat at the time as you were posting it because I had already spoken to Gary and he said my username on the chat is Gary in the UK and said, oh right, okay and I told him what mine was Pinball News I think and so then he had to see him posting and then you asking if it was him was quite funny anyway, so we couldn't go to that we can't go to the Midwest Gaming Classic which is this weekend as we say maybe Toy Story or whatever the next JJP game is, will be announced there if it is, we'll be reporting on it, obviously at that point Now as I said Can't fly to America until the 8th of November But I'm heading off that way On the 10th of November Well yeah you're a rough in Well I couldn't go to Expo And I couldn't go to NBC And it wouldn't be the same without All of us going there So I'm going to the Houston Arcade Expo Are you up as well? then hopping over to IAFA for a quick flying visit into there for one day only and then heading up to Pintasfit, New England where Gabe and Dave Marsden there have invited me up there to do a seminar and I think I'm interviewing Jack Guarneri you know, Jersey Jack remember him? yes I think I'm doing a fireside chat I think I have a question for Jack I'll tell you later I bet you have yes ok that's my itinerary so I've been reporting from some three shows I've never been to before so that should be nice but before that I actually went to one trade show not exactly I appersize but a little one in London the Autumn yes Yes. And how was that?
    120:29
    Pretty boring, I have to admit. It's a pretty small event. There's not a huge demand for new equipment in autumn, going into winter when a lot of seasonal locations are closed for the winter. But there were three Pimble Machines there, which was nice,
    120:47
    including the first appearance in the UK of Godzilla. So I got to get to play that quite a bit. And, well, three games. And it was only a pro, but I thought it was really nice. I really enjoyed it. I thought it played very well.
    121:03
    And the rules seemed to be reasonably understandable as well, which was nice. It took a bit of coaching. I met Gary there, Gary Flower, and he played it a couple of times before, so he was able to give me a few hints. And, you know, played that, and next to it was an Avengers, I think. There was also a Led Zeppelin there, which was a premium, I think.
    121:34
    I think it was a premium. But fortunately, it was on somebody else's stand that was demonstrating contactless or cashless payments. So a bit like pay range. But it's one that's designed by the industry for the UK. and so it was really just there to show how you can use your phone to put a credit on a pinball machine and it wasn't actually playable, which was a shame but there you go so a fun little show obviously a report on people news but the first time going to that one as well so it's nice to see how that compares to the big show that we will all be going to you and Gary in January at the Excel Centre in London.
    122:26
    The COVID beast. Yes. Yeah, quite, isn't it? Assuming no more lockdowns come along. But anyway, those are my plans anyway for the next, well, this month, actually. Now we're in October. Oh, we're in November, rather. Yeah. So you'll be hearing all about it in the next podcast. Right. Okay. So, well, the next podcast will be called Martin's Travels.
    122:52
    Yeah, I'll be coughing and fluttering. Probably come back with some kind of illness. Hopefully not the big one. Right, okay. So, but we're not done yet. No. As we mentioned at the beginning of this pin cast, we did an interview with Ron and Jay from Scorbit, thank you for that and I think it's very interesting it's a bit lengthy but it was interesting enough that I didn't want to take anything out so you get the full unedited uncensored version of the basically the entire thing including a special guest appearance by my dog as well. Oh, was it your dog? Yes, it was my dog, yes.
    123:47
    Okay, so Martin's dog is making a guest appearance. It was quite unusual. Usually we have Gary popping up doing guest appearances, but not this case. Sorry.
    124:00
    But I suggest that we, well, before we start that interview, let's say goodbye now and then do the interview with Corbett and we hope that you will tune in next month for the highlights of November. Yes. Indeed.
    124:19
    We hope you've enjoyed this wrap of what happened in October. And, yeah, we'll see you next month for the November pin cast. And, as I say, we'll leave you in the capable hands of our interview with Ron and Jay from Scorbit, who will tell you all about the system and how it works with the various manufacturers and what you can do with it and where they're going with it. So it's quite an expansive interview. Okay. Thank you and bye. Bye. We are now joined by Ron Richards and Jay Adelson, who are two of the three founders of the Scorbit platform. And they're here to tell us basically how the system works and what they've been doing with it, the new features they're adding and where they're going to be taking it in the future. So, welcome, guys. Welcome. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having us. Big fans. Thanks.
    125:16
    Well, I thought we'd better start with those people who... Have been living under a rock for years. Exactly. Yeah.
    125:26
    I want to say a little bit, no, just a brief summary of what Scorbit is and what does it add to a game for someone who owns their own machine and have been enjoying it up until now, but think maybe they could add something to it. And what would Scorbit do for that? Well, I've got to say, it's funny you say, for those who have been living under a rock for years, because, I mean, while that's really flattering, I feel like we have a ton of work to get the word out about Scorbit to everyone who plays pinball. So we appreciate the opportunity.
    125:58
    But, yeah, at its heart, Scorbit is basically, we sum it up as connected pinball and what that basically means is that we built a device called the Scorbatron that allows you to connect your pinball machine to the internet if it is not a modern machine like from Jersey Jack or CERN, they're now CERN, who enable Wi-Fi but you can take a pinball machine from the 80s, a solid state pinball machine and put our device in it and be able to connect it to the internet and have the scores load automatically up to the Scorebit platform and then use the Scorebit app to keep track of your scores, challenge your friends to beat your score. We just recently rolled out a new achievements platform so we can create new ways for you to interact with pinball.
    126:47
    And all in all, it's just a way to make pinball more fun and connect all of us more together than just all being at the same arcade or at the same show like Pinball Expo or a tournament. you know you guys in Europe we could connect via Scorbit we could challenge each other and try to beat each other's scores and things like that and what's also great is that it's the Scorbit mobile app is for use on any pinball machine it doesn't require our hardware so if you want to you know a way to keep track of your high scores connect with friends see what scores your friends are getting things like that Scorbit is a great way to connect players together Jay did I miss anything there? No I think you got it I mean And, you know, we sort of see the reason we call it a platform is because, you know, when you connect machines, whether they're old or, you know, brand new to the Internet, and then you also have this app, there's a whole variety of applications that you can do with that relationship. You know, the one that I think comes immediately to mind is, of course, all of the social elements. But we have this other set of products called Scorebit Vision, which is just visualizations of this data in different ways, things for streamers or for a big game room or over a bar.
    128:07
    And we have this API, which is basically a programming interface that allows anyone to create these applications on our platform. and so we see a day where there's lots of third party and really interesting ideas that come up that we at Scorbit may never have thought of Right, I see So before we go any further with that what are your backgrounds as far as technology goes and also as far as pinball or arcade history goes were you into all this before it started and you were desperately looking for a way to achieve what you've done?
    128:52
    Yeah, it's like the work stuff and the fun stuff. So, Jay, you've got a much better resume than I, so why don't you go? That's not true.
    129:01
    I'm sort of an addicted entrepreneur. I've started 15 or 16 startups in my career, and I started as I founded a company called Equinix, which is the largest data center company in the world.
    129:17
    I started and I ran companies like Revision3, which was the first internet television network, which I did with Ron, which is how I met Ron, which is fantastic.
    129:29
    I also, you know, I spent a great deal of time on consumer stuff with Digg, which is D-I-G-G, which was a social news website where I was CEO for, I don't know how long, half a decade, six years. and I've done a bunch of internet infrastructure companies you know if you've ever heard of New Relic they bought their infrastructure product is a company that I started years ago anyway but more importantly than all of that is that I'm a child of the 80s and you know I grew up with arcades yeah of course I'd say there were two The two nerdiest possible things that I added to that was I was a telecommunications nerd as a kid. And I'm sure that everybody out there who has ever, you know, who grew up at the same age as me knows the type. I was always online from age probably eight until, you know, today. And so for me, you know, connected platforms and all of my stuff, you know, it's a similar thread. And I think, Ron, you had a very similar... Yeah, very, very similar. In fact, actually, the first time Jay and I ever met, I was wearing a T-shirt with a RF converter, a street print on it, like the thing that I use to connect my television to my TV. Oh, yes. And so Jay instantly was like, man, we're going to be friends. And so that was kind of a big moment. But yeah, no, similar to Jay, I went to school for television and film and have always been in front of a computer. I think my dad put me in front of an Apple II Plus when I was like five.
    131:14
    So I've always been in front of a computer. It was online as soon as I could. I think the first time I got online was like 1994 when everything had a gray background.
    131:24
    And I thought I wanted to be a filmmaker and make TV because I love that aspect of entertainment. But then as the 90s went along, I saw there's a lot of money over there at the Internet, and that was stuff that I could do pretty easily. So I pursued a career in the internet and kind of fell into doing a lot of kind of marketing stuff and business development stuff, but also mainly content and community building. I actually in my spare time started a website all about comic books called iFanboy, and that led to a podcast, which is now the – we launched that podcast in 2005, and it's the number one all-time podcast about comic books according to Apple, which is a great honor to have. Wow. And, yeah, and then from that I was able to leverage, you know, the stuff I did digitally with my interest in comics and pop culture, and I worked at Image Comics and worked for a couple other places and fun stuff like that. I was living in San Francisco for 10 years, and Jay was also in the Bay Area, and our third co-founder, Brian O'Neill, was in the Bay Area, and we all worked together at Revision 3 and Dig and things like that. And across the street from my apartment was a bar with a medieval madness, and me and Brian just were hanging out one night and just got drunk and played that pinball machine all night. And it was like the first time that I figured out, like, oh, wow, he hit that thing. This thing happens. And, oh, wait a minute, this is how you get multiball. Like, it was like an amazing night where, like, it all kind of, like, I knew what pinball was, but I didn't get the rules. I didn't get the complexity of it until that night when Brian and I were trying to hack it. Actually, Brian's wife was there, Allison. We were trying to hack it. Basically, we were trying to figure out how to get the best score. And from that moment, we were just hooked, and we just started going from bar to bar in San Francisco to play pinball, not knowing that the Bay Area had such a great legacy of pinball, great history going back to the 90s, right?
    133:09
    And we, you know, I remember just searching online, I discovered that there was a pinball league forming. And so Brian, Allison, and myself all joined, and we were amongst the founding members of the San Francisco Pinball Department, which is a huge league in San Francisco that's still going. That's awesome. And Andre Mazenkov was in the league and some other great players. Neil Schatz, I guess, would have been there as well. No, no, this was after Neil Schatz. I could have played with Neil Schatz.
    133:37
    This was like 2015 or so, maybe. Oh, right. At that time, you would see the NES initials, and it was like, ooh, Schatz has been here, right? Like, it was, yeah, he became more of a legend at that point. But, yeah, and that's how I learned, that's how we learned to play pinball, learned all the game rules and things like that. Started going to California Extreme and then ultimately Indisc and then went to Pinberg and was like, oh, my God, this is amazing. And just loved what we were doing. And that kind of ties into the foundation of Scorebit because it was actually at – we were playing a free-gold watch in San Francisco where the San Francisco Pinball League would play. And I was playing with one of my friends and he was playing Stern Trek. And he kicked my ass. He had a really great game. And he got all excited. and was like, wow, I think that's my highest score ever. And he took out his phone and opened up a text file, and I looked over his shoulder, and he had a list of game names and a score next to them. And he scrolled down until he found Stern Trek and deleted his score and typed in his new score and then put his phone back in his pocket and went to play the next game. And I just went, oh, goddammit, that's a good idea.
    134:49
    So at that point, we basically, I tend to have, and Jay, I think you suffer from this too, have a tendency to turn our hobbies and interests into work.
    135:00
    And so at that point, I was really, really excited about the idea of making an app to keep track of your scores. And at that time, I don't think Pindigo was out yet.
    135:09
    And, you know, at that time, it seemed like it was a real no-brainer, just make an app that would keep track of your scores. And it was actually at California Extreme when I was telling Jay the idea. Jay said, yeah, that's cool, but what if we put a device in the machine that made it You didn't have to type the score in at all.
    135:26
    And from there, we were off to the races. And then Scorbit was born, and then it became, how many years, Jay? Like five years of hardware development and trying to figure out how to do that? I mean, honestly, that was right around 2015. So it's been close to seven years since we started that idea, which is really kind of crazy when you think about it. I don't think anybody in their right mind would have created score a bit were obviously completely insane. That's where the little alcohol helps them. Yes.
    136:00
    Well, it was funny because I remember being at Pinball League and talking to one of our friends, this guy Darren Ensley, who's big in the pinball, in the Bay Area pinball area, and I was like, yeah, I know there's got to be a way to either, you know, we're talking about how to do it. And he's like, well, sure, yeah, you could do that if you can figure it out, but why would you? And, like, it kind of got dismissed as kind of like a hobbyist, you know, kind of hackery kind of thing. But, you know, Jed. I like problems like that.
    136:27
    Yeah. I mean, but what Ron is, you know, he articulates way better than me is just that these things kind of take over. You don't point, like, to a point on a timeline and say, you know, eureka moment. It's like suddenly you don't remember it not having been an obsession.
    136:52
    Yes, I can certainly empathize with that. So you've got this idea, this grand idea, going to get the scores out of machines. Now, I'm sure anybody who looked at that says, how on earth are you going to do that? Because there are so many different machines out there. They all present scores in different ways. They all have different board sets and operating systems. there's no commonality amongst them not even amongst manufacturers they change their systems over time as well so it's a big technical challenge as to how you actually are going to do this now when I first saw it I thought oh I see what you're doing, you're sniffing the video and then you're doing sort of optical character recognition on it and trying to work out where the scores are and where the player number is and the ball number and all that kind of stuff but that itself just saying it like that makes it sound easy but it's not of course is a very complex problem. Where do you start when you decide what you want to do? Where's your starting point? Well, I'd say you're right. It's a huge complex problem. The number of machines manufactured make it complex. And also, like, that is a way to do it, but that's not the only way, and that's not the only way we do it across all the – like, we basically – part of it was looking at each machine and figuring out what's the best way to make this happen. And so, you know, like, it's breaking down the problem and seeing what gives us the most flexibility in terms of accessing the scores or data and integrating it, but then also something to consider, at least with the hardware, is how do you do that in an affordable device that can be sold at a price that people can afford? Right, that's right.
    138:30
    If you don't mind me asking a technical question, so you have this Scorpotron device which you which the owner of a machine puts in the game and there are I assume, correct me if I'm wrong there must be different ways to connect your game to the Scorpotron or do you have different Scorpotron boards for each type of different machine or brand or you know So you're asking the right question.
    139:08
    We actually are able – so I have to take one step back because understand that in order for any of this to work, you have to find the commonalities, starting with the cloud service, the actual infrastructure and the Internet part. Let's assume for the moment that that's the same and has the same capabilities no matter what the source of data is, right? Right. So once you have that, and by the way, that is not trivial. In some ways, that's harder than the hardware.
    139:39
    Then what you have to do is you have to find the commonalities between all machines. And those commonalities tend to be things like the display, like you mentioned, or a CPU, like the 6809 Motorola CPU. and you define a specification and you figure out how you're going to get that data off the machine. And then we build the score-by-chon itself, which can take inputs from all these different types. So the score-by-chon has four ports on it, and you can plug into those ports different kinds of probes or serial connections. You know, the most common, you know, classic example is we have a small piece of electronics called a DMD probe that's designed to work on any DMD. And then that connects with a cable to the Scorbitron. But in the case of a, you know, a Stern Spike 2, for example, you would use a USB serial cable. Or in the case of a, you know, a Bally or a Stern, you know, MPU 100, 200, or, you know, 35 board from the late 70s, early 80s, we have another probe called the Solid State 1 probe that actually sits on the display bus. and the magic here is it all gets converted ultimately to the same kind of, we call them frames, but basically it all gets converted to one common type of data and then the Scorbitron interprets that data and then sends it to our cloud service.
    141:20
    So there are a lot of parts. And then, of course, if you install in a pinball machine from, you know, 1995, or if you install in a pinball machine from 1977, we had to accommodate all these different power situations. So we also developed small pieces of electronics that are designed to take the power somewhere, you know, the correct place, and feed it into the Scorpotron so we can turn it all on. Right. And that's, I mean, that's, so that's a, so when a customer or a user wants to get one of these things, they just tell us what pinball machine it is. You know, if it's Medieval Madness, we know it's a WPC. It's going to need this type of power adapter. It's going to need this type of data cable. It's going to need a DMD probe and, of course, the Scorpotron.
    142:14
    Now, if you've got a Jersey Jack game or a game that has a direct API connection, you actually need nothing other than Wi-Fi connectivity. And an account on Squirtbit to log into. Right. Okay. So this might be a little bit off topic, but then again, not. You mentioned 1977, which actually was like around the time when electromechanical machines were abandoned and solid-state machines took over. I assume SCORBIT doesn't work on Electromechanical games It Technically well as Ron said You can post any score you want Using the app manually But we do not have an Electromechanical interface and it's actually Kind of funny because at every expo And every User group we have someone who's come up to us And said I have a way to do this Right? So do we Yeah We know how to do it. I could think of, I mean, there's actually several ways to do it. It's just whether or not, for us, because we're building a business here, whether or not the research and development and building the hardware to do it is justified by the number of people who would buy it. Someday I would like us to do it, just purely to be the one, to say that we can work on every pinball machine. But right now, while we all love our EMs, the market is much bigger for moderns and D&D machines and things like that.
    143:49
    You've got a point there. You've got to run a sustainable business first, I suppose. We've had, again, over drinks several conversations about, oh, well, you can put a camera in the back box or you can install a counter. There's a bunch of different ways to do it. Someday we'll get there. I hope for a day at least.
    144:09
    I may or may not be secretly working on that he loves to solve problems I tell you sounds fascinating now we talked about the Scorpitron board ok so and as you said we tell you which game we're going to fit it into you supply the appropriate probes to go with that and power supply hookups now that is a fixed price for Well, it's a fixed price for the board, but there's also an ongoing subscription for that. That's right. Now, something which seems strange to me is if I'm running the Scorbitron system on a Jersey Jack pinball machine, for instance, I get all the same functionality, but there's no subscription for that. So why is there a charge for one and not for the other when you're utilizing the same service? no it's an excellent question and i think a lot of it has to do with um uh what you know this this concept of platform as a service right and and when you when you're building a business like this and you look at the relative costs of maintaining a user you know sort of the blended cost of that and you are maintaining a device even though the customer owns the device right the firmware the monitoring the management of that device you have to kind of blend into that whole world you know that cost and the the beauty of of what jersey jack did and what you'll see from some other manufacturers soon is that uh you know they're really taking on a lot of that effort for us because they are in fact building the network stack on top of that on top of that platform. And that is a really, it makes our life a lot easier. I mean, I think that's one piece. And I think, I think the other piece is that, you know, we look at it as a license. And we have these two license types, you know, a standard license type and a pro license type. If we could give it away, if we could give it the standard away to everybody, if the cost of those maintenance score returns was zero, then we would happily, you know, be one of those freemium style services. But we think that, you know, the $3, $4 a month or the, you know, $40 a year standard pricing, you know, so far, you know, our users have been more than happy to help us with that. And that may change in the future. and then you have this other whole really it's an entirely different business model around the pro services yeah we'll come to that in a minute I'm just speaking from personal opinion and being somebody who's very tight with the money I spend on my games I don't mind spending 300 bucks on a board to go in the back but if it's sitting there it's winter and the games are in the garage and the games are not getting played, I don't want to be paying money every month for a service I'm not using. Which is fair and something we've heard from other users. I mean, it could say, you know, it could maybe motivate you to go play your games some more. But I'd rather pay an extra $100 up front and not have to pay a subscription.
    147:53
    We've heard that a lot. and weighing it out, the concept of a lifetime subscription. And we looked at other companies that have tried that in the past, like I don't know if you're familiar with TiVo and other companies that did lifetime subscriptions.
    148:13
    And the math on that really depends on how low you can get the hardware, believe it or not. so I think that if we can get to the point where the hardware is relatively trivial and inexpensive which by the way we think we can we would rather flip it around the other way buy a lifetime subscription and get the hardware for free you know the it is not we're a small enough business that you know we don't and we're not venture backed we don't have you know some billionaire financier to let us go for a decade but once we get our costs to deliver the service down enough I think that we can start to you know experiment with some of these different models like a lifetime subscription and free hardware is my dream that's what I want to get to cool exactly it's not my thing yeah you're not hardware guys it's not a manufacturing facility but I'm bearing in mind all the time that you are running a business here and you know and there needs to be a revenue stream from somewhere and you have ongoing charges in order to maintain and develop the platform exactly I mean it's a keeping the lights on kind of thing you know because as great as you know as great as it is you know we've built a cloud based platform that requires maintenance and has charges and you know you know all that sort of stuff and so but again like you said this isn't our approach hasn't been a hobbyist kind of thing where we made this thing kind of like no we really want to we want to be a a sustainable business in because we love it we think that we have a lot to add to it um and and ultimately our main like mission our main goal is to make pinball more fun promote pinball playing among communities and just have everyone be connected through this game that we've all collectively been connected by ourselves and share that love. But it is a business. So there are realities that come with that. Okay. Well, you're not homebrew guys, but I mean, Jay will have seen this particularly when he's just been to Pinball Expo, but there is a big homebrew community out there building their own games. Now, how easy would it, or is it even possible for these guys to hook their games into the Scorebit API? it's actually not okay well let me let me be careful how i put this uh you know for a developer who is used to working with apis and and you know um you know building something like a home pin most of those guys who have done that i would put into this category i would find our api relatively easy to use. And we have a number of HomePen users who are, in fact, developing right now against our API, and we welcome anyone who wants to come and develop against that API to feel free. And our commitment there is, you know, we're not in the relative scope of our users. It's a small enough group that we are willing to, allow anybody who connects that way to have an API connection and not have to pay for that standard license.
    151:44
    In the future, what I would like to do is I want to make that even easier. I want to get to a point where we have a piece of hardware that is so inexpensive that a HomePen user would say, well, network stack? Scorbit will take care of that for this inexpensive piece of hardware. but it really just depends what's wonderful about the direct API integration is it really gives you a lot of control over applying your creativity to that cloud experience so yeah we do have an open platform it is our API is there for people to use we have a Slack channel and a Discord channel where a lot of these people come to meet with us and ask questions and we will be releasing a developer portal that makes a lot of this easier without having to ask us questions directly. You'll be able to just go on and get your token.
    152:46
    Is that API a two-way API in that if I decide I want to write a bit of code to pull down the scores for Medieval Madness and see who's got the top 100 scores in the world, I can do that, can I? Yes, you can.
    153:06
    So the Scorbit Vision platform, I mentioned it earlier, which gives you the visualizations, that was written to be a reference example of using that data. And so, you know, Ron and I talk about it all the time. We have seen some incredible stuff done by users over the years. Frankly, better than we could do.
    153:31
    And, you know, during the dig days, we were one of the first open APIs. And the stuff that people created, you know, animated, beautiful visualizations, trends, fantastic stuff that we could not have dreamed of. And I just know that that's in the future. Particularly those Twitch streamers. those guys come up with some so creative and so like they're making awesome stuff and ways to use the data and ways to like you know when stuff happens in the game things happen to the environment like so that's the kind of stuff that and Brian or one of our co-founders him and his wife stream from their house and he's pushing us a lot to create this sort of stuff because he wants to use it like so much of what we do with Scorbit is motivated by a personal like I want to do this, let's go build it. And more often than not, it comes from talking to other pinball players or pinball streamers or other developers. Another great example for the idea of this open platform is we're working very closely with Andreas from Matchplay.
    154:38
    And he's actually currently working on the Matchplay tournament software, next version of it, and he's integrating Scorebit all throughout it to make scorekeeping easier. How many times have we been in a tournament where it's noisy and the person, the scorekeeper writes the wrong score and it takes hours to get it fixed and things like that. You know, if you have, you know, scorebit-enabled machines that can push the score directly to the tournament software, you have less, you know, chance of human error.
    155:09
    You know, we'll probably need to come up with other ways for people to earn free tickets into the tournament, you know, because I know I've done that. I scorecapped at games in order so I can get, you know, that extra hour for scorekeepers and that sort of thing. But ultimately, you know, having the scores be as accurate as possible is the goal for a tournament. And what's great is that Andreas is totally on the same page with us about the importance of an open platform, of open systems where, you know, data can pass, you know, whether it's from the open pinball database into Scorebit, to pinball map, to match play, to all this sort of stuff. And, like, really what we're hoping to build is just, you know, we're hoping to work with everyone in the pinball industry is to build a open platform that works for all manufacturers, all machines, all players, so that everyone benefits because closed systems don't benefit anybody but the people who have closed the system. So, yeah. Right.
    156:03
    Stern recently introduced their Insider Connected, which is a system to log scores if you have an account and so on. so I definitely see similarities. Is there any chance of a collaboration between Stern and Skorby We love that Yeah there certainly is a chance You know we approached Stern a number of times over the years. We love what they're doing. And by the way, I got a chance to use Insider Connected both at California Extreme and at Expo. And I really love what they're doing.
    156:49
    You know, George and Tanya and all those guys over there have really, they really crushed it. And, you know, it is, as you point out, I mean, it's serving a lot of the, you know, from a score perspective and achievements. They've definitely created the content and the mechanism.
    157:10
    To interconnect that with score bit is, you know, an afternoon of work. And it's a choice that they really have to make internally if they think it makes sense for them. They know that we're open to it and would love to do that. I personally think that we could coexist extremely complementary, you know, in a complementary way. I mean, Ron, maybe do you agree with that? Oh, 100%, 100%. I mean, there's definitely, you know, like what's funny is that like I'm so glad that they rolled out that system. if anything for our friends who are operators to get over-the-air updates to their machines.
    157:51
    That is just such a key thing to operators, so I'm glad that they are making this change. Like Jay said, the system is awesome. It looks like it really is a good solution for them. But at the end of the day, there's nothing holding them back from connecting to our API and coexisting in the way that Jay said.
    158:09
    When we started Scorbit, we reached out to all the manufacturers to be like, hey, we exist, we want to work together, you know, and we extended that offer to CERN. I mean, I'm pretty sure, Jerry, before they started working on what they worked on, I mean, it was years ago at this point.
    158:26
    And where we left off was like, great, doors always open. So they know where to find us. You know, like I'm friends with Zach Sharp, and we chat and work on other stuff on the side together. And so, like, we would welcome it. But their creation of the insider connected system doesn't preclude the use of Scorbit or Scorbitrons on a modern Stern machine. That's correct. It's on top of their system. Yeah, we've used it with all games all the way up to Godzilla. And let me be honest, you know, an operator does have to buy a Scorbitron, right, to do that. And that's kind of a bummer. Because if you bought Stern Insider Connected and you know the machine is already connected to the Internet, I mean, it should be like what Jersey Jack does, right? It should just be able to connect without having to do anything. Or an API-to-API relationship where there's no machine to score bit relationship, but just their cloud service and our cloud service can talk with each other. All of these are options. I just want to make it as easy for the operator as possible. and so yes you can use our product in their product and you know I think that that you know I mean we have hundreds and hundreds of of Stern Spike 2 customers out there who are already connected to Scorbit and heavily using the product who you know I think also want to use Insider Connected at the same time yeah because also because the Scorbit the Scorbitron gives them more tools for, you know, for live streams, for like we mentioned, Twitch streamers and things like that, you know, and that's been pretty clear and that's an area they don't want to get involved in. And so, you know, yeah, there's definitely a world where we all can work together. So hopefully they are interested in embracing an open platform and letting everyone be connected. Okay. So one of the things you mentioned about what Sona done and about what you have done as well, is the achievement system. Now, that was something which, to me, sort of leapt up and said, oh, this is a sea change in what Scorbit means to me as a game owner. I've had my machines for a while, I know them well, I'm very happy with them, but this seems to add another level on top of the existing game. You know, it's adding features to a game which I didn't think was ever going to get any more features. So that, to me, suddenly became a very interesting idea and could sell Scorbit to me. Now, can you explain how these achievements work, which games have them or are going to have them, and how they integrate with the game itself? If you know a game already, what differences are you going to see? Ron, you want me to take this one? Yeah, go for it. You've been so close to this stuff. Well, you know, a few years ago when we came up with the, you know, we flow charted out, you know, how achievements would function in the system and started talking to manufacturers and game designers, there was one unifying principle about achievements, which was that they needed to be flexible to exist beyond just the single game. So we all have achievements that we achieve while we're playing, but the achievement itself and all of the logic behind it would need to have sort of greater superpowers around, you know, other variables. So if you list them all out, I mean, we know the ones that we're familiar with, game modes and scores.
    162:23
    Obviously, there are other things related to time and duration, you know, the place you play, the specific machine you play, maybe the users you're playing against.
    162:36
    There are so many different, or in the case of Pinball Expo, we had an event-based achievement, where if you played a game and hit a certain score at Expo, it knew you were at Expo. So we created all that logic in the cloud. We created a user interface that a game designer, someone like Eric Meunier or, you know, anyone could go on there and basically create whatever they dream up.
    163:07
    And once that logic exists, then it's a question of there's sort of a spectrum of how integrated you want to be with it. so in the case of Jersey Jack they chose a full integration which meant that as achievements happen they appear on the screen and you know at the beginning of a game when you claim a player slot and I should point out that this is a really important aspect of why you need this app in the first place is because you're attaching identity to a game right from the start and that's a very important thing because if you don't attach your identity at the beginning then the system really doesn't have any way of knowing what you previously achieved and so the game downloads what you've done already when you start and may or may not react to that information during the game and then scorebit takes care of the rest because then what we're doing is we're sending you a push notification or adding the achievement to the profile.
    164:19
    Now, you asked about, like, what games have it. You know, all of the Jersey Jack games. I'm glad I'm not the only one with a dog, by the way.
    164:29
    And all the Jersey Jack games. But we also, you know, our commitment to JJP and this relationship, we wanted them to roll out all their achievements first, you know, which is almost there. We're just about finished with that. And then we'll start rolling out DMD achievements next, and then we'll move to solid states. And the DMD achievements, one of the nice things about our hardware, and one of the reasons we designed it the way we did, is we can actually change what's on the DMD. Yes. So we can do. That's the key thing. Yes. Yep. And we can actually show you the achievement as it's happening, and we can certainly add that identity to what you see on the DMD, you know, welcome, your last score was this score, and our score vitrons download all that information just like the Jersey Jack machine does and then we'll process that data in real time.
    165:32
    It's a lot. It was a lot. And just to add to it, because Jay quickly touched on it, but those event or location-based achievements. When we sat down to set the achievement set, we're like, all right, you can get an achievement when you hit the wizard mode or when you hit the wizard mode ten times or when you get this kind of multiball ten times, but the location achievements are what I like. So I often play at Jack Bar in Brooklyn, and you can have the achievement of having the highest score on the Guns N' Roses at Jack Bar that only I can have that achievement, and then there creates competition amongst the other players, to win that achievement back from me, right? And it gives the operators and venue owners tools to better promote and market their games, and there's a reason to come to their place to play their game, because their location has the only kind of, you can only get this achievement at that arcade or at that bar. Right, and this is something which an operator can set up, can they? Right. Okay, right, as far as the operator subscription. Correct, yeah, yeah. So an operator who's managing their machines on Scorbit, they can manage their, you know, the locations that their machines are at, you know, all the information that's in the Scorbit app, you know, the price per game and all that sort of stuff, and then also be able to set up their own achievements and work with the venue to be like, okay, if somebody gets the Cactus Canyon King achievement for this bar, then give them a free drink or have some sort of promotion tied to the achievement,
    167:06
    opportunities are pretty limitless there. Right. So does that also mean, obviously, players using the Scorebit app, does it mean that, let's say, you have a high score at Jack Bar in Brooklyn and someone else comes along, puts down a better score, would you get a notification like, hey, your high score has been knocked off or something like that and give you sort of an incentive to go back and to try to better your score? Yes. Exactly. Yes.
    167:48
    Notifications. I never knew just the levels of complexity and the different, you know, sort of sensitivities we needed to be very, very careful about with notifications. So, yes, like right now, when you open up the Scorbit app, you'll see in the settings there's a bunch of notification controls because I follow a thousand people on Scorbit. So Scorebit app, the way it works is, you know, like things like Instagram and Twitter, you know, you go on and you follow the people you're interested in, and then that is the context by which you would be notified. So if you think of it, there's two different things. There's the machine that someone gets the GC on or they beat your score on. You might want notifications for that if anyone does that. But you might also really only care if your circle of friends, if somebody beat your score, or in your league somebody beat your score.
    168:56
    And this little nuance between sort of public and semi-public and private groups, we built the system to accommodate that. And so our first, you know, notifications were designed around the, you know, the high score or the top score. and we have this little button that we have that we're waiting to push around, you know, when your friends beat your high score. And one of the reasons why we didn't do that yet was partially the pandemic because, you know, venues were closed.
    169:35
    We wanted a focus to be on that camaraderie, you know, that competition between social groups. And then later, as people started going into public locations again, which is now starting again, you know, really activate those other ones. And achievements is another example. In the achievement itself, in our definition of the achievement, the game designer gets to decide whether or not that achievement is worthy of a notification for all your followers or just yourself. You know? and it's actually a control that the designer has or the creator of the achievement. So you might say, well, most achievements, since everybody gets like a certain percentage of them, really only matter to yourself.
    170:26
    But if you get that crazy thing where you hit wizard mode 17 times or completed, what is it, Valinor on the rings, You know, at that point, I want the entire planet to know that I've achieved that. And so anybody who follows me should see that, right? And so it's this new canvas on which to paint. And, you know, I was talking to folks like, you know, Pat Waller and folks that have been involved for a long time. And the beauty of it is they were already thinking of these things. They were thinking of them, and it's sort of like the technology finally got to the point where they could express themselves this way.
    171:20
    It's really exciting stuff. Great. So, Scorvage is introduced currently or included in Jersey Jack pinball machines. Does that mean that you have a hotline, so to speak, with a design team of a certain game to make sure that it's implemented correctly? or are they able to figure it out themselves and no need to assist them all the time?
    171:57
    You know, we basically gave them the specification. I mean, obviously we're in regular communication with them, but we gave them the specification, told them how it worked. You know, this is actually a year and a half ago. Yeah, it's been working for a while, yeah. And we gave them all the specifications and said, here's how it can go together, you know, in a document. And they went off and started working on it. And the joy that they had, you know, coming up with some of the – I don't know if you've achieved any of these things yet on a JJP machine, but they're really funny. And they're really interesting. And it kind of works, the way it works right now is that there are, we call them achievement groups. Because often within a game, not always, but sometimes there is this concept where you're counting something, like how many Wonka bars you have or maybe how many multi-balls you've achieved in a single game or across multiple games. Whatever it is, you're counting. and if there are multiple achievements based on different numbers of things you've achieved, we call that a group, like levels, right? Like level one achievement, level two. And as soon as you achieve the first level, you actually are able to see what the other levels are and what you need to achieve them. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Which is an incentive to go for them as well, I suppose. That's right. You know, we do have customers, users, players who say, I want the master list. They're the completionists, right, who spent like two years on Skyrim finding every Easter egg.
    173:52
    Those completionists, you know, one of the things that they really want to do is open up the app and load up, you know, Twilight Zone, and then see all the achievements listed out for them to hit so they know they've achieved them. we'll get close to that there are definitely some designers don't want them all revealed for various reasons because they want it to be kind of a fun surprise but I think that one of the things we will be releasing probably in our next software update is the total number of achievements and how many you've done because there are a lot of them and people want to know people want to chase them which is great which I think is a nice aspect of it. People kind of get their teeth into it, and they want to be completionists. I mean, we all know how it is. I want to try every mode. I want to do everything. I want to get every achievement. And so we're working on how to expose that information. But what I'm even more excited about the collaboration with Jersey Jack is that we were able to work with them to have them to include achievements in the code updates in the existing games, but I can't wait for the next game that is designed now that Achievements exists and it's integrated into the game code, you know, not post-release, right? I think that's where we're really going to see a lot of the game designers kind of shine because they can add that angle and that element to what they're putting together for the game.
    175:20
    You know, it takes a while to develop, you know, pinball machines, especially modern complex machines like the ones that Jersey Jack puts out. I mean, Guns N' Roses by itself, the light show by itself is amazing. So I'm excited to see what they come up with, knowing that this is an aspect of a dimension that they can add to their games.
    175:39
    Okay. Now, obviously, when somebody walks up to a machine, scans the code, or registers themselves as playing that machine, there's a certain amount of user data which is being uploaded or being stored in the cloud. know who they are, probably an email address, where they are, what games they're playing, what games they've played before, what scores they've achieved, and various other bits of information. And I guess there's information about the machine itself from the operator's side. How can users of your system be sure that their personal data is being held in a secure way?
    176:17
    That's an important question. Yeah. It's because of our experience in the past, you know, operating consumer Internet companies, you know, we are very familiar with the sensitivity around user data. So the first number one thing is you never store anything you don't have to. And that is absolutely paramount. You basically start with an agreement with the user, you know, when they, you know, register and connect. and some of it is obviously written down in the privacy statement that you could see on the app, but I also think that a lot of it is just sort of a, let's call it a handshake agreement as you start. It says this is the type of service this is and this is the expectations you should have. And I think the expectation we are setting is this is about the games. It's about the games. It's about the scores. It's about the modes. When you go look at Carl D'Angelo's score for a game when he got $830 million on Guns N' Roses, and you're looking at what Mosey's achieved, we consider that public information because it's a leaderboard item.
    177:36
    Anything other than that account name and their avatar that they uploaded to share with everyone, none of that stuff is, first of all, we don't store it. You know, the only reason we have an email address is so people can get a password reset. Right. And so, you know, we don't keep any personal information, you know, from an operator perspective also. Any of that sort of quantitative data we believe belongs to the operator. So it's not ours to use and sell and so forth. I do think that there are exceptions to that where you're collecting anonymized information about sort of what people click on or, you know, how, like, for example, we track how many scores and achievements are achieved, you know, per minute. You know, that kind of, you know, key performance, key product indicators that help us design our product. but personal information, the demographic stuff that you hear about like online websites doing because they're targeting ads is meaningless to us, it doesn't offer us value and it's funny because for all the years now that we've been connecting machines and Jersey Jack, when they launched Guns N' Roses it was connected from the day they launched it there hasn't even been one conversation about what data can we have. It's always been about how do we get the player, the game information visible to everyone.
    179:23
    And a huge part of that also is that the trust that we have with our users and the trust that we have with operators and the trust that we have with Jersey Jack and other manufacturers we work with is that if we're going to set up this cloud platform, it needs to be bulletproof and it needs to have everyone's best interest in place. and make sure the stuff isn't accessible, especially if we have an API that allows streamers to reach into or developer APIs. Part of it requires the setup so that, to Jay's point, we're not storing any data that we don't have to, but the personal identifiable data that is truly the user's privacy is not accessible via an API. Like that's just, it's kind of, it's almost kind of one-on-one in terms of building these kind of cloud software platforms. And so we take that super seriously because that's, you know, it's the cornerstone of everything that we're building, right? So we respect everybody's privacy and we want to make sure that, again, you know, that we are benefiting the community. And a part of that is by making sure the platform is secure and making sure that, you know, nobody's information can get out there in any way. Like, you know, like, you know, like, obviously we run a business, so we're selling stuff. We take credit card numbers, things like that. None of that, that is all walled off away from the cloud platform, right? Like, so, you know, you need. It's not, we don't even store credit card information. So we use our processor for it. You know, another classic area of focus around privacy is location data. So the app says when you turn it on, can we use location while the app is on? The app never sends us that information of where that user is. However, the user does get the query based on a lat long and pull down the list of venues near them that the venue records have address information, obviously, and it then organizes that based on distance. But that location data that the user has is not tracked. It is not sent to us. Right. It's all handled locally within the app. Exactly. And that's, you know, not only is it enforced by the stores, like the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, but it's also just good practice because I don't want to have anything that I don't need to tempt anyone to, you know, any kind of, you know, miscreant behavior. I mean, Jay and Brian and the rest of the tech guys are more the tech guys or I'm more of a business guy. Like, I would just, I would die if there was ever any sort of, like, breach of trust between us and our users. I mean, that's the core tenet of doing business, right? So, knock on wood, right, of course, but, like, that's, you know, you show up and you want to do something like this. There's a clear way. I mean, it's 2021. This has been established in the Internet space for a while now, how to do this and how to do it right. And, of course, you know, we're following that to the T. Good. because, I mean, one of the reasons for the question on security is that you have said that you're going to or planning to add a payment system to the scoreboard to allow people to pay for their games through the app. Now, how is that going to work? And you also said that you're not going to charge for it. It seems like it's a potential area of, well, a potential nightmare having to do with all that. And if you're not doing it for free, it seems hard to see how that's going to work on a business case for you, other than just expanding the use of SCORBIT generally.
    183:13
    Well, do not underestimate our desire to expand the use of SCORBIT. No, no, no, that's my next question. Yeah, you know, so where payments are concerned, it's really, really important. A couple of things are really important to stress. First off, not everybody wants payments. I would say the majority of our operators are interested, at least I'm trying it, but there's a lot of operators who are very, very sensitive about digital platforms. And so one of the things that, back to privacy and sensitivity, we will never, ever store information around the numbers of transactions that are happening or earnings in our own systems in a way that could be accessed by anyone other than those operators. So that's number one, I should start with that. As far as the actual payment transaction goes, it's not our business model. Our core competency is bringing people together who play pinball, is to get people to play more often. And part of that core competency is around reducing friction.
    184:26
    And one of the obvious areas of friction is not everybody's carrying cash or a credit card. and so we offer this as a way to speed up and increase total numbers of plays. My favorite story and the influence around this was there's a bar in San Francisco that had a change machine that was empty for a week and a half,
    184:49
    and unless you were a diehard pinball player with our little stack of quarters that we rolled in, I watched normal people walk up to the machine and go, take a dollar to the change machine, like, oh, I can't get quarters. Oh, well, and I won't play. That's like lost conversion of introducing pinball to new people, right? You know, if they could use their phone the way they do with Apple Pay and things like that, they would be playing again, and you wouldn't need a change machine. You wouldn't need, you know, the fact that the machines didn't have dollar acceptors, bill acceptors, by the way, is another story. That's that operator, but still. But it is important to point out that there are business models out there which take a percentage of the transaction, and that's how they make money.
    185:39
    It's really important. I've learned this over the years as a CEO but also as a venture capitalist. It's really important that the product and the service be aligned with the revenue and how the revenue works. and that you're incented to deliver enhancements and improvements that are specific to what drives revenue, right? And when those are aligned, you get a great relationship between the customer and the service provider. In this case, it's true that making payments easier is aligned, but if I'm taking a percentage of the transaction, then it changes my behavior in ways that I don't think the operator wants. So what I'll do is I'll just pass through my costs transparently. So we're not going to be, you know, we're not going to replace, you know, Square or Stripe or, you know, PayPal or these, you know. We'll hand off the actual transaction to a transaction processor, and then we will open book, show that to the operator. And I realize that may seem kind of ridiculous when you have millions of dollars of revenue passing through these machines.
    186:57
    But it's not, it just doesn't make sense for the long term for us to be doing it that way. And so what will happen is you'll have an account with Scorbit just like, you know, you do today. And you'll be able to buy credit in the way that the operator specifies. So some of the operators are fine with there being sort of general credit that you buy and then put into machines. Other operators want it to be specific to a venue where, you know, if you buy credit for a venue, you can't spend it in another venue.
    187:35
    And all of these, you know, some want the dynamic pricing to change during happy hour. Some don't, you know. All of that is built into our system. And so it's really more about sort of the operator's decision around pricing and how to, you know, the bundling of, you know, if $1 gets you one play and $2 gets you three plays, what happens if you put in $20, right, or $50? What is the advantage that that operator is giving to the player? and so all of this stuff is just about enhancing the relationship between the player and the game and making it a better experience and I do think that we can do that without having to take a tax along the way and on a purely sort of functional level if it's working with a scorebitron how does that actually credit up a game?
    188:36
    Well, we developed a product, a piece of hardware called the Scorbit Link. And it has not rolled out yet. We showed it for the first time at Expo. This is a little bit of breaking news for you guys, for people who didn't go to Expo.
    188:50
    Tell them all about Scorbit Link. It's amazing. It's a bit of a scoop. I mean, what the device does, and there have been devices like this in the past, right, is it sits between the coin door and the MPU, usually interposed in the harness. So you put it in a place that's convenient. For games like Spike games, it tends to be in the front of the cabinet, and if it's a SAM or a WPC or what have you, it would sit in the back box. But this device basically takes commands from the Scorbitron. And the Scorbitron, which is connected to our cloud, over a socket. I mean, the beauty of this is that in our lab, testing, sending to the cloud and back, we're able to do a coin drop in less than 300 milliseconds. And when you compare that to the types of transactions that Bluetooth systems have or other types of coin systems have, I think we can get that credit in the machine faster than if you put a dollar bill in or faster than if you swipe your credit card. so that's pretty exciting stuff you know the score bit link also adds the ability to control all the menu buttons and start buttons and all that kind of stuff and so when you combine that for certain games where we're not doing CPU probing and we're like doing like the D of D we're able to basically pull all of the data that the operator wants, change the tournament settings for like an entire league night and then change it back for all the games at the same time.
    190:31
    It adds another dimension to the stuff that we're working on for operators, which has been, you know, currently right now an operator, if they have a machine, if they have a Scorbitron-enabled machine, they can see in the app if the machine's on or off, right? And to the average person, that probably sounds, you know, fairly simple, but when you think about an operator who's got, you know, 20 locations and they physically need to drive to every location in to check to see if the machine is working or not, being able to see if the machine is turned off allows them to optimize their route. Or like, you know, no, okay, I don't need to go there this week. I can go there next week because everything's running okay, right? And this extends that to being able to utilize those menu buttons, access the remote information for all stuff remotely so that they can be better operators.
    191:17
    You know, we're really, you know, like a lot of our work in the past year, it's hard to that we've only been out really for a year with the Scorbitron, but it's been mainly focused around players and the player experience. And year two for Scorbit is really going to be focused around operators and pinball machine owners and venue operators, you know, venue owners, so that they can optimize their machines and run better businesses with Scorbit. That's our hope, at least. Right. Okay, so is the Scorpitron able to notify an operator if a game is malfunctioning in some way, like when a credit dot appears or something like that? Yeah, yeah, it does. We're able to not only see that the game needs service, we can actually, what we will be doing for operators is be able to conduct that test report and extract data from that test report. It won't be in our first version. You know, our first version will be more around, you know, this is alerting for service. But I think that as we talk to operators, it's interesting because I thought they would want more test data. and I think that what we're finding is they're much more interested in audits, other types of audits, than the test report. And I think maybe it's because they're desensitized because they break a lot. So their assumption is there's always a service they can perform on the game. What they want to know is are people playing it and is it earning?
    192:57
    Somebody operating it. That's right. You know, in the Bay Area I know a couple of operators who want the machine learning analytics because what they want to do is they want to do predictive maintenance where, you know, over time the data, you know, over a large data set, I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about, you know, you are able to actually do things with the data as an operator to say, well, you know what, that Bride of Pinbot, the slings, those sling rubbers seem to wear out at this pattern. And looking at the actual data of how many times it's triggered, you're able to say, well, I'm going to need to do a rubber refresh on this game, you know, once every six months. And that's the kind of thing that I think, that's more of a longer-term opportunity. And it's something that will probably prioritize those analytics, the very specific reports, based on the highest level of need. And as Ron said, right now, it's is it on and is it earning, right? Right. So Scorbitron, from what you guys are telling me, could be a very interesting tool for operators to motivate people to start playing their games. and there's ways you can set up incentives with the location,
    194:33
    play three games, get a free beer or something like that. And I see the potential in that, but looking at history in pinball, operators usually are not marketeers.
    194:52
    They set up a machine, they put it there, and once in a while they collect the cash box, but they're not the ones actually going out trying to get people to play it and market it, so to speak.
    195:10
    Does it need some, or do operators need some form of education to maximize the possibilities with Cogatron? Or have you thought about that? Potentially. I mean, part of it is that I think that it's the – and you're right. I mean, a lot of operators are just purely operating the machines, and it's up to the venues to market it. A lot of operators operate a venue. You know, like I used the example of Jack Bar, you know, where all the machines there are John Owens. He's the bar owner and the operator, right? And, you know, there's other locations around that. And what we've discovered is that no one operator, no one venue is alike. and so what we're just trying to do is we're trying to build as much you know kind of opportunity for both venue owners and operators to take advantage if they want to and if they if that is what their business you know kind of lines up for that those are the business kind of business people they want to be that's okay so um you're talking about things that are coming up in the future but one of the other things i thought i heard you say and correct me if i'm wrong here is that you're thinking of moving or you're planning to move Scorpitron into the realm of video games and effectively do the same kind of thing for them as you've done for Pinball. Is that correct? Well, we did get a question at Expo about that and we get calls frequently from various organizations, some publicly traded organizations even, who have asked us this question a lot. and I have to be clear I mean what Ron said before about the community and the pinball community look it's our priority and we have so much to do within the pinball universe right now you know I'm like sitting next to two System 11s right now that I'm like you know there's wires coming out of it because I want to get that product out there for the converter and I just feel like there's so much to do in pinball. Now, when we created the hardware, we knew that there would come a day when the arcade owner was going to say to us, hey, I've got Galaga and Donkey Kong sitting next to me and I really want to be able to not only grab the scores but also be able to screen the screens. So one of the reasons why the Scorgotron has the capability of doing real-time video encoding is partially because we were anticipating this need.
    197:45
    And so it's the same technology. It's a different connector, literally. So it's not an expensive, you know, years of R&D for us to convert over.
    197:58
    When we prioritize that, I think, will be when we can catch our breath around the demand around pinball. And there is a lot. And it's, there is a personal, I mean, probably more for me even than, you know, Ron and Brian. I mean, when Scorbitt started, Ron and Brian knew that I would probably become obsessed with pinball when exposed to it.
    198:29
    But, and the way they did it was like, they kept inviting me to play pinball with them, and I kept saying no. and finally there was California Extreme was happening and I knew that half of that show was video games. And so they said, hey, come with us and you'll check out the video games and we'll go play pinball, you know, whatever. And, you know, it was a very thinly veiled attempt and very successful getting me to cross over into pinball.
    198:59
    But in many ways the arcade games are a simpler problem and I honestly, you know, even our CPU probes are capable of handling it. I just don't want to make a commitment on timing of that, but eventually I think to make our users happy, we will create, you know, those connectors.
    199:23
    I also want to point out, and I'm sure, you know, listeners, everybody knows this, the communities, while they overlap, they're very different too. There's different players, there's different organizations that handle tournaments, and you've got the Twin Galaxies group, and you've got all these different folks. And we also want to respect that community's needs, which requires a lot of interaction and a lot of research. Research. I was just going to say research. I mean, so much of what we've been doing in the years that we've been working on this is talking to operators, talking to owners, talking to designers, talking to manufacturers, really understanding the guts of pinball And, yeah, we would, you know, once the pinball business has been a spot where it's good, then we look, you know, how we can expand to the rest of the arcade.
    200:12
    Great. So if people wanted to add Scorbit to their pinball machine, how would they go about it? Do they have to buy it through the scorbit.io website? Correct, yeah. So first and foremost, everybody listening should go to either the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store and download the Scorbit app and create your account and get on board there because whether or not you have a scorebit device in your machine or playing on a machine with a scorebit device, you can still use the scorebit app. You can, you know, similar to how Pindigo and some other apps out there work, you can take a picture of your score, you can upload it there, you can keep track of your scores, you can participate in challenges, you know, all that sort of stuff all happens in the scorebit app. So that's the first kind of entry point. Then if you want to add a scorebitron to your machine, go to scorebit.io. That's where you can purchase it. The way it works is that you type in the game that you want to add it to. That way we know which cables to give you and things like that.
    201:07
    And then from there you sign up for your subscription and look at all the pricing. We offer discounts. We offer volume discounts. So a lot of operators are like, hey, I have 30 machines. What can you do? And we're like, of course. Well, we're going to knock down the price the more that you buy. So for any operators out there, any folks with a large collection, we heard you, and we adjusted the pricing, you know, because, you know, it's great. If someone's willing to commit to buy 30 Scorbatrons, of course we want to work with them in that way.
    201:37
    And, yeah, once you do that, we ship them out to you and have instructions on how to install it. It takes – I installed it on my Data East Guns and Roses earlier this year. I told Jay, I'm like, I'm doing it myself. I want to act as a user, and I had it up and running in 15 minutes. It was very simple. Yeah, and I just want to point out one thing about the discounts is that it's cumulative. So it's not just like if you buy 30, you get a discount. It's actually we remember how many licenses you have, and the more licenses you have, the lower your hardware cost is and the lower your subscription cost is. And we adjust all of it and prorate all of it when you add more. So we had a bunch of, you know, last March, I think we had like an order, a group order where there was like 75 machines. People were lighting up all over London with SCORBIT.
    202:36
    And, you know, some of those guys waited. They intentionally ordered more to have more licenses because they knew we were going to be installing them over time. And they got their price down, you know, significantly by doing that. and others who have one and then later increase more, their total advantage is tiered pricing, so they get a better deal. So it's all kind of magical through that front door, and we encourage people to check out the website, take a look around. But also come to our Discord channel.
    203:14
    We have a Discord channel on the various forums, like Chilled Forums and Pinball Info. Pinball info and Pinside, of course. And, you know, please come talk to us because we want to hear.
    203:29
    Okay. One detail from that. You mentioned that when you buy the Scorbitron, you specify which machine it's for so you get the appropriate probe and power supply. Is that in any way locked to that machine once you install it? Or can you then decide later I'm going to move it to another machine? if it uses the same connections. Yeah, you can move it around. And if you need other connections, we have an accessories store at scorebit.io slash accessories where you can buy a kit. It's like if you move your scorebitron from a Godzilla to a pinball magic, you're going to need the Capcom kit, right? And so we'll send you a DMD. Well, you'll buy the DMD probe, and then you'll get the Capcom power kit. And it's all on our website. You know, we do, it is a board, like, on a metal back plate, and we even have some users who have developed 3D printed cases for them. But, you know, obviously if you, you know, if you mount it permanently, what we really want you to do when you sell that pinball machine is leave it in the pinball machine and sell it and then contact us, and we'll give you a deal on a new one to replace it because we want Scorbit in as many pinball machines as possible. Yeah, we've had a couple of situations where people installed Scorbitron, sold the machine, kept it in the machine when they sold it. The person who bought it then signed up their account and just kept on using the device without ever taking it out. And we have a little transfer process to enable that.
    205:09
    Yeah, it's a fun way to keep, you know, kind of pay it forward. It's also like, I mean, the Scorbitron device is very similar to ColorDMD in that respect. Like it should be, you know, all pinwall machine owners should see it as a device that are, you know, they're upgrading their machine and then, you know, ideally it lives with that machine after you sell it or move it or change it or that sort of thing. Right. Okay. I do have on my end a final question. Maybe Martin has more.
    205:38
    Let's say I'm in a location. and that location has Scorbatron installed on their pinball machines. Is there any way that I can, as a customer, see that that machine has Scorbatron in it? Yep, absolutely. So if you open up the Scorbat app and look in a location, and all the locations list all the machines that are there, the machines with the Scorbatron in it have a little Scorbat logo next to it. Okay. But is there on the machine itself, like a decal or something, pointing out that that machine is Corbett-enabled, so that it might, if I walk by it and I'm like, oh, hey, I didn't know this was a Corbett-on or a Corbett location, how about I play some games and add some scores to my profile? Well, every machine that is in the Scorebit system has a unique identifier. And what we've done is on the app and in our new tools website that is going to be released shortly, but on the app right now, you can generate, you can display and print a QR code. and that QR code not only identifies it, you know, you can print it and put it on your instruction cards on the apron,
    207:07
    and not only does it identify it as a score bit machine, but if you scan that QR code, whether you're in the app or you don't have the app, it will automatically handle it for you. So it will navigate to the venue, to that machine, and claim the player slot. So it's sort of like a multifunction identifier and QR code. And, of course, we provide, you know, vinyl clings. Yeah, we have stuff like that if a venue operator wants that, we can work with them and provide that. So we've made static clings, we've made stickers, we've made signs and all stuff like that. There's a venue that we worked with where we actually made 11 by 17 posters that they sent them the PDF and they printed them to put up there that shows like install the app, download, you know, like they kind of explained how to use it. So, yeah, we're totally open to working with venue operators and owners to help market for sure. Okay. Sounds good. Great. Yeah. Well, thank you very much, Ron and Jay. I think we've learned a lot today and a little bit of breaking news there as well. Yeah. So thank you for that. Thanks for having us, and we'll keep you posted as we announce more new stuff. And thanks for doing what you guys do. You guys are a crucial part of this fandom, and so we appreciate all the reporting and all the stuff that you guys do and your passion for pinball. So thanks so much, guys. Pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ron and Jay from Scorbit.