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Episode 86 - Wonka Reality

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 56m·analyzed·Apr 22, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Wonka revealed with strong mechanical design but criticized art package and aggressive upsell strategy.

Summary

Dennis and Tony review Jersey Jack Pinball's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, a Pat Lawlor design revealed at Midwest Gaming Classic. They discuss the three-tier pricing model ($7,500 Pro / $9,500 LE / $12,500 CE), art package criticisms (comparing it unfavorably to Star Wars, citing repetitive Gene Wilder expressions and vanilla playfield design), and Jersey Jack's deliberate strategy to make the Standard edition unappealing to force home collectors toward LE purchases. The conversation also covers game features (four-flipper, seven magnets, virtual ball lock, 7-inch LCD screen, relocatable camera) and broader concerns about pricing strategy versus Stern's approach.

Key Claims

  • Willy Wonka Standard edition price dropped $1,000 versus Pirates to incentivize operator adoption

    high confidence · Jack Jersey indicated Standard's lower price was motivation to get more JJP games on location, driving it closer to Stern Premium pricing

  • Jersey Jack deliberately made Standard edition art packages inferior to force home collectors toward LE

    medium confidence · Dennis' analysis: 'I can only think of this as solely designed explicitly to try and force home collectors to feel obligated to upgrade' due to bare-bones cabinet/translight art

  • Dialed In is no longer Pat Lawlor's worst-selling JJP game (due to Wonka release)

    medium confidence · Dennis speculation based on Pirates' long production run making it unlikely to have outsold Dialed In

  • Wonka Standard edition completely lacks Wonkavator Super Ball Lock mechanism (replaced with virtual lock)

    high confidence · Dennis confirms Standard edition eliminated physical mechanic, replaced with software functionality

  • Gene Wilder artwork uses identical head/expression across all poses in Wonka art package

    high confidence · Tony and Dennis both observe copied-and-pasted Gene Wilder head with same smirk across all art assets

  • Wonka playfield art feels disconnected and vanilla compared to theme potential

    medium confidence · Tony: 'it feels like stuff that's just there. It doesn't flow together' and 'doesn't feel connected'

  • Jersey Jack LE is limited to 5,000 units; CE limited to 500 units

    high confidence · Dennis directly states production limits for each tier

  • Wonka is four-flipper layout with seven magnets

    high confidence · Dennis provides mechanical specifications

Notable Quotes

  • “I can only think of this as solely designed explicitly to try and force home collectors to feel obligated to upgrade to the more expensive unit because there's no other excuse to do it this way.”

    Dennis @ approx. 40:00 — Core criticism of Jersey Jack's deliberate strategy to disadvantage Standard tier, contrasting with Stern's approach

  • “The standard edition is a travesty.”

    Dennis @ approx. 35:00 — Blunt assessment of Standard edition cabinet/translight art quality

  • “It looks nice. It's clean. It's not overly busy like my problem with Oktoberfest.”

    Dennis @ approx. 30:00 — Mild praise for overall art package cleanliness while maintaining structural criticisms

  • “It had that feel to me. I agree. In fact, I think when I look at the play field specifically for Willy Wonka, that's exactly the comparison I would make is it looks like Star Wars.”

    Dennis and Tony @ approx. 25:00 — Establishes unfavorable artistic comparison to Star Wars' hand-drawn aesthetic

  • “It's just a logo on the standard edition. Ridiculous.”

    Tony @ approx. 45:00 — Criticism of bare-bones Standard translight design as corporate cost-cutting

  • “We're in a world with Dirty Donnie and Christopher Franchi and Jeremy Packer art packages, and this is not that.”

    Dennis @ approx. 50:00 — Contextualizes Wonka art as below contemporary industry standards for premium artwork

  • “That smirk, to me, it says, I hate candy. I just want a steak.”

    Tony @ approx. 52:00 — Humorous but pointed criticism of Gene Wilder expression choice as tonally mismatched

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyWilly Wonka and the Chocolate FactorygamePat LawlorpersonJoe KatzpersonJean-Paul DeWinpersonVikas DiopersonJohn YossipersonDennispersonTonyperson

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Wonka positioned as more affordable entry-point to JJP ($7,500 Standard) while maintaining aggressive upsell mechanics vs. Stern's more balanced Premium/LE differentiation

    medium · Standard priced $1,000 below Pirates; missing Wonkavator mechanism on Standard only; LE/CE have superior art to functionally force upgrade path

  • ?

    product_concern: Wonka playfield design philosophy vanilla and disconnected from theme potential; children's heads floating without narrative coherence; lacks factory atmosphere Dennis expected

    medium · Tony: 'Something a bit more fantastical than something that just felt like Photoshop clip art'; Dennis: 'doesn't feel connected' and 'very vanilla'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Wonka playfield art feels disconnected and vanilla; Gene Wilder expression identical across all assets (same smirk); lacks visual variance and thematic cohesion

    high · Dennis and Tony both note identical heads, same poses, lack of variance like 'You Lose!' or suspense expressions from film; Tony: 'stuff that's just there. It doesn't flow together'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jersey Jack's operator-oriented strategy to discourage Standard tier homeowner purchases through deliberate aesthetic degradation

    medium · Dennis: 'this art decision on the cabinet and the Translight is... very operator-oriented... there's this fear that homeowners will buy standard editions... Jack indicated they're his lowest selling count'

  • $

    market_signal: Star Wars comparison established as reference point for hand-drawn/Photoshop-esque aesthetic that audience found disappointing; Wonka follows similar artistic approach

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.349

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, April 21st. This is episode 86. I'm Tony. I'm Dennis. And we're going to have a good episode that we don't need 86. We did one. That's true. Oh. You're very proud of that. I'm great. That's not as good as the episode 66 one. No. That was just... That one wrote itself. Where does the expression the 86-something come from, though? I know, like, the restaurant industry uses it, but I don't know the origin of the number. I have no idea. Okay. If you know, write into us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. Oh, that's so slick. Thank you. Yeah. We're going to have them write in later because we're going to do another NVRAM giveaway, but we're not ready for that. Oh. We're ready for your introduction. My introduction. I'm sure you won't mention work at all.
1:07
Well, I have been so consumed with the fact that your brother-in-law got a 3D printer. Mm-hmm. And my wife, when we got together a couple weeks ago, they brought some of the stuff, and my wife likes it. So I introduced her to Thingiverse, and now she is finding tons and tons of stuff. And it looks like I might actually have an opening to get a 3D printer. Oh. It's got good and bad. And I've kind of wanted a 3D printer for a while. Yeah, you seem to like things that you could make. Yeah. That would lend itself to. It would give me some hobby stuff they could work on. Yeah. The bad is it would wipe out my pinball fund. Well, things cost money. So, I know. I don't know. So if you wait a year, that's what Eric did because that was his birthday present was that 3D printer, which he had to print his own printer or something. Yeah, the company it's from is part of a project that likes to set it up. They specifically set it up so you can use the 3D printer to create more 3D printers. Yes. You just still have to buy all the electronics. Right. We're not that cool yet. No, we don't have that. The technology's not quite there, but it's close. It's getting there. Ish. It's close-ish. Someday. Perhaps. Fingers crossed. Okay, so you love 3D printers now. And then I bought myself my birthday present, finally. Yes. Because me and my wife, we went ahead.
2:39
This Week in Pinball
media
Midwest Gaming Classicevent
Straight Down the Middlemedia
Pirates of the Caribbeangame
Dialed Ingame
Star Warsgame
Stern Pinballcompany
Dirty Donnieperson
Christopher Franchiperson
Jeremy Packerperson
Oktoberfestgame

high · Dennis: comparison of Wonka playfield to Star Wars 'hand-drawn... assets and then they were touched up by hand... reminds me of how... people were pretty critical of Star Wars'

  • $

    market_signal: Wonka Standard edition price dropped $1,000 vs. Pirates to drive operator adoption and compete with Stern Premium pricing

    high · Dennis: 'Jack Jersey indicated that the reason why the standard's $1,000 less now... was a motivation of wanting to get more of these JJP games operated'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Vikas Dio (new to pinball industry) brought in as sound designer, familiar with Wonka license from slot machine work

    high · Dennis: 'a new person in pinball, Vikas Dio. I believe he did the sound package for the Wonka slot machine'

  • $

    market_signal: Jersey Jack deliberately degraded Standard edition cabinet/translight art to force home collectors toward LE tier; contrasts with Stern's balanced tier approach

    high · Dennis: 'solely designed explicitly to try and force home collectors to feel obligated to upgrade'; Standard translight is bare logo only vs. LE/CE with full art; Standard art packages demonstrably worse

  • ?

    product_concern: Wonka art quality below contemporary industry standards (Dirty Donnie, Franchi, Packer); lacks stylized approach seen on Ghostbusters

    medium · Dennis: 'We're in a world with Dirty Donnie and Christopher Franchi and Jeremy Packer art packages, and this is not that'; possible licensing restrictions on stylization

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Collector's edition playfield art is different from Standard/LE prototypes shown (unconfirmed visual change expected)

    medium · Dennis: 'The playfield on the collector's edition is supposed to be different... They're doing something different. It's my understanding'

    • Her birthday was while I was in Texas. My birthday was two weeks later. And we made the decision that we just got each other little things, and our plan was to get something big for each other, but we didn't know what to get for each other, so we made the decision that I would buy something for myself or she would buy something for herself that was large, and we would just consider that as the gift from the other person. Okay. You know, it's okay. We spent the money. We just, you know, whatever. That's how we did it. That's how we decided to do it. That's a cop-out. I know. I've had multiple people tell me that that doesn't count as buying a gift for the other person. They bought it for themselves, And it's like, yep, but it works, and we're both spending about the same amount of money, so whatever. We're happy. So I finally replaced our old, fallen apart, rusted out propane grill that we used to use, like, all the time. And I replaced it right after it died. I replaced it with just a cheap charcoal grill that we've used, like, three times. So I actually got another propane grill. Okay. We will be grilling a lot again. When we had one before, we grilled. multiple times a week. And I bought a somewhat large charcoal one. I did for a while. It was a little too big, though, actually. I'd probably replace it at this point. But I just don't grill enough. Right. It's my issue. But I've never had a propane grill either. Yeah. See, that's the thing. When we had the propane grill, when we had it originally, it was back when I was working at a different job. And I worked overnights. And I worked weekends. And I was off during... I worked four tens for a lot of it. supposedly. Way more than that. But that was what it was supposed to be. And a lot of times what I do is I just kick that grill on and then throw some frozen hamburgers on it. Like, you know, you come home at 6.30 in the morning and you don't always want breakfast food. So, it's just like, it's the standard guy who works overnight problem. It's like, you work overnight and you want to go and have a beer, but if you're sitting out on your porch, grilling some hamburgers and drinking a beer at 6 in the morning, people look at you weird.
    4:45
    So, but we have a brilliant, so yay. What'd she get herself? It isn't finalized yet, so I don't know. Oh, so she didn't get herself something. Not yet. No, no, she has a short list.
    5:05
    The problem is she has to cut the short list down even shorter. She's got like three things on it. I think she's going to get two of them, but she hasn't decided exactly which two she's going to get. Okay. So, that's the joy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, whatever works is my philosophy. Yeah. Whatever works. Whatever keeps the peace. Well, that's good.
    5:31
    Well, unlike you, I've been working. So, I don't know. I just don't mind. Yeah. So, yes, my district meetings, as we call them, they've scheduled. These were all scheduled before I started. So I've been traversing the state. Most of these trips are here in April. I haven't had any of the overnights yet, but I will by the end of the month, where we go to these various regions in Kansas. And I meet with the members, and we talk about things they want and all of that. So it's going fine. one of the meetings was very poorly attended, so I'm almost assuredly proposing a restructure to this idea. I don't see the point in having a meeting for three people, which is what one of them was. I had more people presenting than I did people attending. Okay, that's a little rough. The discussions were good, and I wasn't really put out because it was only about an hour and a half away, but still, I have to consider everyone else's time, too. Right. It's not like the ones where you're going to be overnighting somewhere where probably the best you're going to get is a bedbug-ridden hotel thing. I guess there's always possible you could... But they're registering for these, so I already know those are poorly attended as well. So, that's where I'm... And there's a significant cost because there's renting the facilities, food is probably the biggest issue, and of course mileage compensation, just for me alone, can be hundreds of dollars for some of these, not to mention the hotel rooms. So that's the sort of stuff. But doing a lot of that, they all seem fairly pleased so far with the way things are going. So I don't think I'm going to get canned right away. Is this one of those things where even though it's not efficient due to the number of people there and the cost and everything, that it's still worthwhile because of the connections made and the, hey, we know you're out in the middle of BFE and this and that, but we still know you and we still love you and we're still there for you. I'm sure that was the motivation originally. I believe they started these up maybe five years ago or so. And my understanding is there was a board member, and he is still on the governing board, so this will be an interesting discussion, who felt that this should be something that's done for member outreach purposes. However, from those that have been involved in multiple years, my understanding is originally the attendance was pretty robust. The problem is there are already regional meetings that happen on a quarterly basis that the state organizes.
    8:10
    So state government's already doing four of these a year in these generalized districts. And then we're adding a fifth one that's not organized by the state, but it's organized by this nonprofit instead. So that's a lot of meetings. I think it's sort of a blend. I mean, I've only had one where the attendees hit 10 or more. And that would kind of be my initial thought is you've got 100 departments in the state. If you wanted one person from each one split around, surely 60 out of 100, especially when like 92 are members, would be doable, I would think. But some of them have been like nine or so. That's okay. and my old job if we didn't get six at something we would cancel it especially without west because of the cost but i'm not sure that the luster i think has worn off so my answer to you on that would be i think it makes sense this year because i'm new yeah so they should get a chance to talk to me but beyond that i don't think it's efficient use of money and we do so much virtually now like This is very different from what I'm used to. Non-board members at least log in and listen through the computer to the board meetings with this group. I'm not used to that. Oh, wow. So you can have like 20-plus people in on your board meeting. So they're already staying informed. So do we need to go to this level of effort? What I'm thinking is maybe proposing something like a regional meeting rather than a district meeting. Maybe do one in the north and one in the south, like Salina and Wichita. kind of middle of the state-ish. Right. I just don't know the attendance. Because then you lose one of the big pools. For the district people, every single one of these is supposed to be less than two hours away. That's not going to be true if I do it regionally. Right. But we'll see. But I've also got financial challenges, and I need to save money. Would it be better to do east and west, considering how wide Kansas is? Possibly. But if the people up in... up in Quinter and all that, and Norton County aren't going to drive down to Garden because it's still two and a half hours away from them, then what good is Garden City to me if Northwest Kansas refuses to go to Southwest Kansas? That's where I run into the issue. But yeah, it could be an east and west sort of thing. But it's also, where's the attendance? Like, the attendance in Wichita was good. The attendance in Topeka was good. It sounds like the attendance in Salina will be decent. The attendance in Iola, which is southeast Kansas, was terrible. So I just don't know.
    10:49
    But we're looking at that. Well, I'm still trying to find some additional grant funding to round out. I've been doing, as I've reported before, I've been doing a lot of contract negotiation to restore something that was going to be lost. I don't have the signed contract yet. Looks like everything's pretty much a shoo-in at this stage other than finalizing language. So that's half the challenge. The rest is to find some new project work that they just need. I mean, all I have now, my calendar is full of meetings, virtual meetings, in-person meetings.
    11:19
    I thought I met a lot in the old job, but these people meet too much, quite frankly. They meet too much. And I've started to bring it up, and I know it's not making all of them happy, but it's like I'm a doer, Tony. You're a doer? I'm a doer. So I don't want to sit in a bunch of meetings and constantly hear about what everyone's doing. I want to find a project and say, let's do something, and then you help the citizens out. That's why I went into the field in the first place. So I don't like people enough to want to meet with them. I want, just give me something that we can work on. Let's funnel some resources. Let's do some pilot projects or something, and then let's measure it. And then let's do what works and spread it around the state, not let's meet about it and talk about how important we are.
    12:03
    I've not been frivolous. A lot of this I need. I like that sound dark. because I've worked with these groups tangentially before a lot of meetings to discuss the meeting to set up the meeting not quite to that degree but a lot of the phone calls are so it's like we want to have a meeting about what well we need to plan these events and some of them are trainings that's another thing there's a lot of desires like Dennis you should go to this and this and this is a really good conference and I'm looking at it and I'm like well I need to factor in the cost. And you need to remember, you being them, need to remember I don't work for a department. I'd rather send a board member if they're going to learn something that they can have applicability. I'm running a nonprofit. It's an association of departments. It's different. We're not executing policy. So if it's a conference on policy, me going is almost a waste, quite frankly, because I'm not going to be able to translate that into anything. It'll keep me informed, but so would reading a white paper. Yeah. I actually asked them when that went. They didn't laugh. They kind of did. He said, if you want to talk to me, I'll give you the rundown on this whole policy thing. I said, is there just like a report I could read? He said, oh, Dennis, a report. That's so funny. No, there's not. He's like, no, there's not. He's like, okay. Well, then we'll have a meeting. Actually, there was a report, which helped out, but I still ended up having to do the meeting anyway. So that's kind of the life right now. But overall, I think things are – I've got, other than maybe one project, I've got, I feel, a pretty good handle on most of the active items at this stage, which is good for six weeks of work, I think. Yeah. But, I don't know, 20 years ago, they'd be much faster at it. But it's not 20 years ago. Idealism died a long time ago, Tony. So they get jaded. The one thing that they're having to get stuck with, though, is my sense of humor, which isn't all that different than what the listeners here have. And I've just started warning people. I'm like, this is how it is, okay? And I didn't hide this in the interview. So if you want to blame anyone, you can blame the governing board for hiring me. But I'm not changing my behavior. This is exactly what I advertised. You're getting everything I said you were going to get. If you want me to solve your problems, you have to put up with my jokes. And I don't think they all like that. But is this how it is? So you hired me? I mean, I can understand it if it was like, if you were like, you know, super one way into the interview. Most of them are fine. But one of our partners, I think, partner organizations, I don't think he gets half of what I'm saying. I can kind of tell, like, I think he thinks I should be more serious. But when things are dire, I will be serious.
    14:54
    All right. It's like, you can ask around when people have seen when it's serious mode. Serious mode is not a good time, though. It's not. That's when the hard questions come.
    15:04
    So be careful what you wish for. And speaking of what you wish for, I wish to move us into the pinball segment now. That's a good call. Let's do that. That's right. And I wish we could talk about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. And I guess because it's our show, we can do what we want. So that's what we're going to talk about. This was revealed a little over a week ago at Midwest Gaming Classic, which is a show in Wisconsin, I believe. We do have a link in the show notes, incidentally, to the deep dive that was released by This Week in Pinball. So it'll show you the photos. It'll go over a lot of where the rules are in the game, a lot of the highlights.
    15:44
    But obviously you're listening here, so let me give a little bit of background. This is a Pat Lawler design. It's a standard body width game from Jersey Jack Pinball. Software was done by Joe Katz. Animations, as usual, for JJP were done by Jean-Paul DeWin. Sound was done by a new person in pinball, Vikas Dio. I believe he did the sound package for the Wonka slot machine. So he's familiar with the license. And then the art was done by John Yusey, who he did the art for Sharky's Shootout. He's done a lot of art, but that's one I have that I know you've seen. So you can quickly put it in your head. But like there have been with Jersey Jack games, there are three models, the standard, the limited, and the collectors.
    16:28
    I wish everybody would just have one. Well. One general thing. Yeah, but then that's going to mean that. I mean, if they were all the same, that would be fine. I agree with you, Tony, but the thing that'll happen is then everyone's going to expect it to be defined as Stern defined it, and Jersey Jack doesn't want to do it like Stern defined it, because that makes Stern the one in power. That's my theory on it. But it's deeply confusing that the middle tier model is called the limited edition. Right. I even went and double checked this. I actually saw someone, I think, on Pinside say that the L and LE for Jersey Check didn't stand for limited. It stands for luxury edition. It doesn't. It stands for limited. I checked. Yeah, that makes no sense. A collector's edition, to me, sounds more like the mid tier than the upper tier. Sure.
    17:14
    Whatever. Yeah, exactly. Whatever. So we're going to talk a little bit about the standard pricing here later towards the end of the discussion, because that's one to really focus on, because this is significant. They dropped it 1,000 bucks versus what Pirates was at. So the standard is actually at $7,500.
    17:32
    The limited edition, the middle tier edition, is $9,500, as I'd say per usual. It's limited to 5,000 units. Oh, that's limited. It's limited in their world. And then the collector's edition, which is limited to 500 units, is $12,500. See, the even worse thing about the limited edition is if they somehow sell 5,000 units, they'll just create a new limited edition. It'll be the stoner edition, and they'll kick out another however many of those they want. Well, they have done special models on pretty much at least half their games. I don't know if they did it. I don't think they did it for Dialed In. They've done it repeatedly for Wizard of Oz, and they've done it before with Hotted as well. And then Pirates is, I guess, done. So I don't expect it. I wouldn't require them to have sold enough Pirates to hit their limited edition. Yes. Well, I guess, you know, Pat Lawler's probably at least pleased that Dialed In is no longer the worst-selling JJP. Yeah. Because I can't imagine it is anymore, obviously. We have to wait until people leak us the sort of details to know for sure. Right. Given just the sheer time that Pirates was on the line, it just can't have passed it.
    18:51
    A few other sort of statistical items regarding the game. Game is a four-flipper layout, seven magnets. The standard edition model does lack a mechanism. They pulled out the Wonkavator Super Ball Lock.
    19:09
    Instead, that functionality is there, but it's a virtual ball lock. the main toys in the game beyond the Wonkavator would be the spinning plate under the gobstopper. There's a spinning gobstopper on the game above the playfield, but there's a little plate that moves to be a ball lock that's open beneath it. It's called the Most Secret Machine.
    19:30
    The Theater of Magic Chest. Except the Theater of Magic Chest wasn't a spinning plate. I think there was a hole in front of the chest that opened up. I mean, still, functionally, it's pretty much the same Mac, yes. seven-inch WonkaVision LCD screen, probably the biggest screen, I believe, placed under a playfield before. So there's that. It's a toy. Air quotes. As opposed to not counting the highways built into the actual big LCDs that the highways highway have in the playfield. Highways, I don't remember what the size was on the one in highway in the playfield. I don't think it was seven inches. I thought it was bigger than that. Maybe. I'd never measured it.
    20:14
    And then a camera, but this time not in the back box. I believe the camera is what the little Oompa Loompa guy is holding. The little dinner camera. Yeah, it's in the play field. So they relocated the camera to a new spot. So the shots are a little better. Because dialed in shots was just, you know, a view from above everybody's head as they're looking down. Yeah. Well, I think it's to do like a Mike TV sort of mode to kind of put you into the screen. is my understanding of the idea. Because that screen back there is supposed to be the WonkaVision screen.
    20:49
    Well, let's go ahead and start running through the categories, Tony, because you watched part of the live stream reveal. I did. I did not catch that.
    20:59
    Maybe I bounced by it really, really quickly. I did watch. There was a coordinated release, and we're going to talk about the marketing as well after we go through the categories. But when this week in Pinball dropped their deep dive, there was also, especially when Lit Podcast had a panel interview, there was a promotional video put out by Straight Down the Middle. And I assume at the same time, but I didn't see it until the next day, Straight Down the Middle also put out a gameplay video. And that's what I used to experience the gameplay as I watched that, because it was more controlled. So I could hear the sounds and such. And the player, at least the player I watched, actually seemed to be able to make shots. Yeah, I've watched most of those also. Okay. And read several of the things. Let's start with the art package. So we're talking the playfield art. Now, we have to bear in mind, I don't think any of the prototypes that were shown actually had the revised. The playfield on the collector's edition is supposed to be different, like how Pirates was, where you had a squid-faced guy instead of a Johnny Depp guy. They're doing something different. It's my understanding on the collector's playfield. But we saw the standard and LE play fields. We saw the side cabinet and translight mock-ups for all three models. Considering just any elements of it, what do you want to say about the art? What do you think of the art? It was not at all what I expected. What did you expect? Something a bit more fantastical than something that just felt like Photoshop clip art thrown everywhere. Okay. I mean, it wasn't Photoshop clip art, but it had that feel. Kind of like Star Wars had that feel. It kind of had that feel to me. I agree. In fact, I think when I look at the play field specifically for Willy Wonka, that's exactly the comparison I would make is it looks, it's hand-drawn. It's been, maybe there were some assets and then they were touched up by hand or something, but you look at it and it reminds me of how, and people were pretty critical of Star Wars, and it was like, Star Wars wasn't Photoshopped. That was hand-drawn. Yeah, they're in the same poses you always see, but, I mean, Gene Wilder is basically in one of three poses, I think, on all art assets entirely. There's not much variance to him, and it does have a look that is akin to Photoshop. Right. And that's the thing, because I knew it had been, it just, it fell off. It fell rough. I thought that the play field would, and this was just an impression. I'm not really bothered by this, but I thought that the play field would better reflect the factory. That's kind of what I thought they would do. It would be like certain shots, and certain shots, I believe, will, I mean, there are certain shots that advance certain children to progress those elements that you're trying to do to collect them. But, you know, it's Wonka and there's candy scattering from his hand or whatnot. And it's very vanilla. Yeah. I found it vanilla. Kind of like how I found Pirates' Playfields fairly vanilla, too. Yeah, I went ahead and pulled up the deep dive to get a better look at the shot. And, yeah, no, it just, I mean, it's not. It's not bad. Yeah, it's not bad. It's not one of those ones where you're like, well, this is horrible. It's just not, it doesn't feel connected. It feels like they tried to connect it, but everything doesn't feel connected.
    24:32
    Like the way the kids' heads are kind of floating around here and there, and Gene Wilder and everything. Nothing just, it feels like it's stuff that's just there. It doesn't flow together. Right. It's just, it's just finesses. Yeah. My, I mean, my description overall would be that I thought that Yossi's art package, overall, I think it looks nice. It's clean. It's not overly busy like my problem with Oktoberfest. I think Oktoberfest art is way too busy. I don't think this was too busy.
    25:02
    We already talked about sort of the play field and the kind of Star Wars-y, hand-drawn-esque, Photoshop-esque look, which I don't think is what's going to appeal to a lot of people, though I don't think it's offensive. I did want to say regarding the cabinets and transwhites, that standard edition is a travesty. It's a travesty. And I've heard some other, obviously, other people have other opinions, and I find the argument that if you have a big problem with the standard, you're either too picky, which I think is ridiculous, or you should just go and upgrade to the LE. That is a bunch of nonsense. Stern would never do this to you at this point. Not, yeah, they wouldn't give you something that is so bare bones. I mean, you might as well just not have art on it at all. Here is where I heard, or read, I should say, that Jack, Jersey Jack, indicated that the reason why the standard's $1,000 less now, and again, we'll explore that a little more later, but was a motivation of wanting to get more of these JJP games operated. So that drives it closer towards the stern premium price. Makes sense. This art decision on the cabinet and the Translight is, I'm going to be kind and say, this is very operator-oriented. And by that, what I mean is, I think when they had their meetings about what to do for the packages, there's this fear that homeowners will buy standard editions. and this was a decision to try and stop that from happening. Operators won't care because the things are on location wedged in a row. We don't want homeowners buying SEs. Historically, SEs are the worst. According to Jack, they're his lowest selling count, and he would like to keep it that way. That's what I think to homeowners. He wants them to buy LEs. So let's make the LE have a demonstrably better, and I don't know who could say that the LE and CE don't have demonstrably better art packages. You can. But Stern doesn't do that approach. The pro and the premiums and the LEs have different art packages, and they're all good. And people argue all the time which one has the best package. It's been multiple times where we've had that argument where it's like, well, you know, the LE's nice, but quite frankly, in this case, the pro's the better one. So this was, I can only think of this as solely designed explicitly to try and, trick's not the right word, but force. home collectors to feel obligated to upgrade to the more expensive unit because there's no other excuse to do it this way. They could have just as easily taken the LE art package and changed the background shade if they wanted it to look different. You can't say it was more work to do it another way. You can just re-scheme one of the color shades in the background and say, that's the standard edition. It doesn't pop as much because we used mustard yellow instead of blue. Right, and having the Translite being just candy and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with no other art sets on it at all. I mean, it doesn't have June Wilder space, it doesn't have nothing up there.
    28:18
    It's... Boring. Really boring. It's boring. I mean, I'm less bothered about the... I mean, it's true, you can choose to put your uber-expensive JJP game in the middle of a row and not show off the side art. You can also say, well, the screen's so big on these JJPs, they practically don't even care about the Translight anymore. But the bottom line is, well, but they tried harder on the CE and LE, so I'm not buying it. They could have done more than just a freaking logo, and that's what they did on both. It's just a logo on the standard edition. Ridiculous. Totally. I think it's a total cop-out way to try and make people upgrade. If that what you resorting to you didn put in enough value in your LE to justify the upgrade Right You would have thought losing the mech alone would have been strong enough It does bother me So that the only thing about the art that bugs me, was that decision. Because it's so corporate. Yeah, I actually... The other thing that bothers me is on the art itself. And I noticed it originally, and I'd forgotten about it. Now that I'm looking through it again, every single Gene Wilder has the exact same head. Yeah. The face and the expression on everything. It's the exact, it's the same. It's what they did. It's the one, he's got like three poses and it's all the same face. Yeah. I mean, he's got all these poses, but the head is always identical. It's like they copied and pasted the head to every single one. It's a fair point. Because I think the way the head looks is fine, I'm not quote unquote dinging it, But we're in a world with Dirty Donnie and Christopher Franchi and Jeremy Packer art packages, and this is not that. No. It does not reach that level. It does not. So maybe licensor restrictions would have limited them from doing like a Jeremy Packer approach on Ghostbusters where it's much more stylized, which is kind of what I was hoping for personally. Right. Totally understand. License may have controlled for that. But everyone is just this stupid smirk.
    30:25
    I mean, it's just like... Like you'd like to have seen a shot of Gene Wilder where he's yelling the, You lose! Where's his you lose face? Something like that. Or the meme, the, you know, this suspense is terrible, I hope it lasts. Where's the suspense face? Right, the suspense face. Or when he actually smiles, it just has this stupid smirk. and all the picture of him is just the exact same stupid smirk. And that smirk, to me, it says, I hate candy. Yeah. That says, I hate candy face. I just want a steak. That's what it looks like to me, steak face. I've seen it. And if you look at the collector's edition, specifically, it's got the same smirk twice, once on the play field, once on the apron, plus the exact same smirk on the trans light and on the side. It's the exact same smirk looking at you in four different places. Yeah. I don't, again, I think the art package is fine. It's definitely not cutting edge. It definitely isn't revolutionary. And I don't see how anyone could get excited about it. No. But I could see other people saying it's totally fine. I could see that. Yeah, I mean, it's... Except on the SE, which is an insight. Right. The SE is, and I think you're right, I think the SE is... We're too afraid people are going to buy the SE instead of the others. and honestly, with the way they're doing that and if they're that afraid of the difference, are they selling the SE at a loss? I don't think so. Or close enough to a loss that they're going to have issues? I think a better way to say it is that there's a much higher percentage of profit return on the LE. Just like I believe that Stern makes, in raw dollar differential, makes more money on the premiums than they do on the pros. Well, yeah. Because I think when you factor in Black Knight and that Lexan upper play field and however many, what does it add? Let's say it adds $200 to the cost. Well, they added more than $200 to the premium versus the pro. Right. That's where that comes in. Yeah. In my mind. All right, so that's art. Layout.
    32:27
    Obviously, we can look at these photos and get a little bit of a sense of layout, but we did watch gameplay video. Yes, we did. It's hard until one actually plays the game to fully appreciate how a layout will function. though I'd like to, and I don't mean this to sound flippant or even arrogant, but I've gotten to the point where usually, based off of video, I can tell how well a game shoots anymore, as long as the players I'm watching are decent. Right.
    32:54
    My sense is that this is a good layout. I thought it looked, I heard some people compare it to a bit like Dialed In in terms of the level of flow. It does seem, especially the ramp shots, it is, are fairly flowy. it looked like a game I would like to shoot.
    33:12
    I've said repeatedly, I think on this show, if not, I've said it in person before, that Dialed In is my favorite Pat Lawler layout. I'm actually not a big Pat Lawler fan. So if it's flowy like how Dialed In is flowy, I think I would enjoy shooting this game. Pat Lawler says it's a mix of flow and stop and go. I need to witness exactly where the stop and go is. Dialed In was too, though, and I thought that was all right. I'm dialed in as J.J.P.'s best game, shooting. Yeah, the ones I've played, I would agree with you. I don't know if I would like this more or not. Without having played it, my normal rule of thumb is I'm not a big fan of four-flipper layouts, so I probably have a bias towards dialed in. My actual ranking order is three-flipper followed by two followed by four, and then each additional flipper lowers the fun factor. So five, six, seven, just gets worse as it goes along. I'm a team flipper layout. Sure. Terrible. Sounds like wood rail nonsense to me. None of which will touch the ball because it's a wood rail.
    34:15
    So in terms of the layout, though, I think where Lawler knows how to position his flippers well, the shots all have particulars where each of those flippers has a justified purpose. It's not a hobbit situation where you have a third flipper that was unnecessary and then leave it to your programmer to try and fake an excuse to use it. Doesn't look like that's going on here. I think Lawler did a good job with the layout. And I really appreciated when I listened to the panel interview, which he participated with on Special and Lit. He actually went on at length about the inferiority of the wide-body design and why he insisted on a standard. Of course he's going to appreciate that. Of course, because it's truth. Truth. His reasoning is a little bit different because he thinks wide-bodies actually make designers lazy, whereas I have much more geometrical based arguments on math reasons I think he intrinsically feels those when he does the layouts too but he was really articulating it with the desire to fill space and it's too easy to stick stuff in on wides so standards make him have to be more creative and I think he made good use of the space so I think without having played it I think that the layout looks good. Is there anything you wanted to add in terms of layout? Just as we've talked, I've put in my two bits, as it were. It looks good. It looks fun. Yep, looks fun. What about the sound? How did you feel about listening to the sound? Because I thought I got a pretty good experience. I heard a lot of people say you couldn't really hear the live stream well, which doesn't surprise me, but the straight down the middle gameplay video had, I thought, a pretty good capture of the sound. Unfortunately.
    35:55
    Yeah. Okay. I've read some people online complain about clip integration and call outs and stuff again the code is only about 60% done so I'm going to give that a pass I didn't judge it on that the sound effects I did not like the slot machine is a fair comparison it sounds like a slot machine in Vegas it's chirpy and chipper I'm not going to go so far as to say it doesn't tie to the theme but I just found it obnoxious. Right. It's not like Deadpool that had like the retro pinball sound. Right, right. It doesn't sound, yeah, it sounds like a slot, not like a pin. Yeah, and it was rough. So if you like slots, you may love the sound package on this, but I thought it was generic would be kind. Yeah, and the music was painful. And I heard, again, on the special Wynlett panel, so a big shout out for that, discussion about they re-engineered the songs to try and make them more upbeat, faster tempo to better go with pinball because a lot of those songs in Willy Wonka are actually slow. Really slow.
    37:08
    And I thought that was smart, but yeah, I just it just didn't work for me. Sound is low enough on my list, kind of like art, that the sound package wouldn't stop me from buying the game if I loved it, how it played. Right, because you can just turn it down. Yeah, just turn it down. But I thought the sound was annoying. Yeah. I was surprised at how annoying it was. It was... Because I like the movie, so I thought I'd like the sound. I thought the sound would be an easy, but it just doesn't work for me. And it's completely possible that, like you were saying, when they get more clip integration and audio voice, that stuff. Maybe. I mean, I remember Alice Cooper when we first heard the initial streams with the early software. Its sound package was pretty annoying, too. Right. But when we played it. It seemed better. But we were at a show, too, and it was hard to hear it. Yeah. But it wasn't all, like, screams and tinkling glass sounds and just, like, these high-pitched annoying sounds. Right. And this is like that. It's all like, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep. That's not really what it sounded like. You go back and watch something real to know. But it's something that, and that's been one of the biggest complaints I've heard about is that sound pack. That's something that's completely fixable off of software. So we can hope. Speaking of software, let's talk a bit about the rules. Now, I haven't watched enough to really experience the rules through the gameplay perspective. I've read the rules, though, and heard them explained on the special and lit panel. I, as the rules have been outlined I think they're fun one of the things that I really liked about Dialed In and this seems to be in a similar vein is when Lawler's on the pen his software guy doing the rules isn't doing journey pen stuff like Kiefer is always journey pens, Hobbit's a journey Woz is a journey Pirates is a journey, this is not a journey pen so it seems the flowchart's complicated I mean, there's depth to it. No, it is not. There's depth to it, but not like more depth than, say, Deadpool. Right. Or Iron Maiden. I mean, it doesn't have the kind of, I almost want to say crazy stuff that you have with the Hobbit and Pirates. And I'm not anti-Journey pin. I just, for me, Journey pins should be a very small percentage of the total pin output. I don't think you want a lot, just like how you don't want a lot of super shallow code pins like Munsters. But I think there's room in the industry to accommodate a game like that.
    39:47
    So the difference is, so I compare it to Dial-In, except Dial-In was a very mode-driven pen, where you were trying to always charge your phone and start a new mode, charge your phone and start a new mode. This is not like that. There are modes in it, but it was very much described as a pen of moments. I don't know if I like the term moments, but it's accurate enough. it's like there are things that you activate among the play they're not starting a mode but you do enough of something and a feature activates and you do it and a comparison I would give would be like how Hoops works the premiere game Hoops no modes in Hoops whereas like Silver Slugger has modes in Hoops it's just you do enough of something you do something and it readies something else and it's in that case of that game it's all a bunch of hurry ups everything's a hurry up this it has a few modes but it's also got things that you go along and you just activate as you're playing. So I thought it sounded fun. I like the idea of the rule set. Like I said, it didn't seem like anything. I call it event-based. Event-based, but there are some modes here too. So it's not a mode-free pen. Right. Which would be pretty unusual for today's age. Yeah. No, it's definitely... Kind of like monsters. How you do a certain number of shots and you activate something on monsters. Right. Event-based. Yeah. So, anyway, I thought that was, I thought it sounded cool. Yeah, no. Getting the golden ticket. That's the big thing is the gameplay looks and the rules sound good on this game. It just gets let down by so much else. Yeah. I mean, the only thing, and I've heard ad nauseum about how, kid multiball. Okay. So, I guess the licensor, well, more specifically the author's estate, did not want it to be called Bratz Multiball. multiball, even though they are called brats in the film. They're called brats in the book. So it became kid multiball, or as we refer to it, pedo multiball, because you're going around collecting kids. It's creepy. It's poorly phrased. There are at least a dozen other names you could call that. Right. I'm not going to get hung up on it. I'm just saying that maybe not make a multiball around gathering all the kids at all on retrospect, but I assume they were working on that and then they found out they couldn't use the name. Yeah. Pedo Multiball's creepy. Yeah, it's, I mean, hey, I love Multiball, but it's a little weird. Well, as you're playing it, and it's like Veruca Salt collected. I mean, we're talking, yeah, no, we're talking some, we're full-on van full of free candy, and there's candy all over this play field already, so, I mean, the parallels, people are going to, I mean, I guess we should be thankful that JJP didn't call Trudeau to design it. Oh. Oh, too soon? No. He deserves it, so I can say what I want.
    42:38
    Yeah, no, that was just, it's an interesting story, you know, interesting thing about the license. Yeah. But, all right, those are the main basics about the game itself that I wanted to touch on. I didn't know there was, like, another category of anything. Lights look good. Yeah.
    42:55
    Most of the stuff, like I said, there's a lot of stuff that you can't tell until you get, I mean, this is the last thing that we're going to talk about, but that's what we'll talk about last. Yeah, yeah. So let's go into some of those tangential, as we may think about, elements. I wanted to start with the price thing. This is where I think Jersey Jack was really, really smart. I don't think they've rolled that out 100% effectively, hence the issue with the art on the SE and that, like, trying to keep your feet in both ponds here. Yeah.
    43:27
    But this is the direction that I think Jersey Jack needs to move as a company. I think going away from just being home use only type. Top of the mountain. Because the air is thin up there. Right. That's the thing. And I don't think that company can make as big as their staff is. I don't think they can make enough money. Even with pinball growing in popularity, getting more and more popular every year, more and more people are interested in owning games. When you're saying like $8,500 plus for your bare bones game, the air is thin. I don't know if you can survive on that. I don't think you can. And I don't think that was necessarily the original intent. Wizard of Oz on the initial pre-orders were $6,500. That was huge for the time, but that wasn't that many years ago either. Right. I mean, that's the thing. When you step back and realistically look at the number of people in the hobby, and with the hobby getting more popular and everything else, even there, realistically, how many people can drop $10,000 twice a year? Three times a year. I mean, according to what they're wanting to do this year, it'll be twice a year just for JJP. Sure. And that's... And there are some that can and there are some that will. Right. But you have to consider what percentage of the hobby can. And then also, you have to, I mean, there are a few that will just buy everything because they have no standard. But you have to win these people over, usually. Not everyone is going to be, oh, yeah, I buy everything, JJP, because I got more money than cents. It doesn't matter. Yeah. A lot of people will look and they'll say, well, I can afford to a year, but you have to impress me. Right. You can't just stick in a bunch of color-changing LEDs and get me every single time. That may have worked for Wizard of Oz, but it's not working anymore because everyone's doing it now. But, yeah, that's a good point. So I think that getting down to 7,500 was very useful. I think, as we noted, I think it was a big mistake that they couldn't allow themselves to have a competent side art and translate art package with it. because that just shows that I don't understand that that's a – you want the homeowners wherever you can get them. Right. What did you think about the decision to drop a mech? This actually online I'm not seeing too much blowback, but for quite a while a lot of the JZ – I was going to say JJP and then I changed. A lot of the JJP fanboys I would describe them as were – that was one of the big to them selling points. Jersey Jack didn't make functional differences between their models. Now they have. Yeah, you still have the multiball. They didn't take away the multiball like how Black Knight Premium has a multiball that the Pro doesn't have. But people still complained about how, well, Star Trek Pro has a virtual kickback instead of a real kickback, and that's a mech, and it upsets some people. So do you think that it was smart for them to shed the mech to get it down $1,000 more? I think, yeah, I do. I definitely think it was smart and it was worth it. I agree. I mean, there's no way around it, especially since they left everything. The multi-ball is still in there. They didn't change anything. The game plays the same. There's just not a physical lock that's up there. Yeah, no. If that let them do that price drop, yeah. I like the, I mean, while I was very frustrated with Stern doing the pro premium LE models and the gameplay having differences, it's working for them. And so I think this will work for Jersey Jack as well. And take mechs away to get your price lower. And those mechs can be the incentive. That's why, because they're new at it, this is where I see where they made their blunder. They didn't need to sacrifice their SE art package. The mech should have been the motivation to upgrade. Yeah. Plus your other features like shaker motor and Vizzy Glass. They got some other perks. you can tell that they're scared about it that's why they gave it a crap art package is because they're just like I'm not sure these other things are worth people going up $2,000 and you know what I agree they're not it's the same thing I almost always run into when I looked at stars and it's like do I want the premium? I don't know do I need Groot arms all over the place? don't think so, looks like it's pro time and that's the thing that's something I've noticed is that with stuff that's missing, I'm thinking particularly Game of Thrones, I think the Game of Thrones Pro is the better machine. I've played both of them. I've played the Pro and the Premium extensively of that game, and I think the Pro is the better machine. A lot of people do. And, I mean, just because it has extra mechs and extra stuff and extra this and that doesn't always make it the better playing machine. So the loss of it, I don't think, hurts anything. Right. So let's explore what exists at this standard edition $7,500 price point a little bit and talk a bit about how we think this compares. So Wonka SE, $7,500. For $7,400, so $100 less, that's where Oktoberfest is sitting. And then at about take-home-to-your-door-shipped price, $7,300, so $200 less, That's where Black Knight Sword of Rage Premium is residing, if you were to go through a distributor. So, within a couple hundred dollars, so there pretty much is parity between those three games. How do you think, putting on your prognostication cap, Wonka does versus Black Knight Premium and Oktoberfest? I think it'll outsell Oktoberfest. I agree. I agree as well. I did see a little bit of discussion on this about Oktoberfest may actually, depends how you count things. I hate counting coils, counting necks. Arguably, Oktoberfest might have, and I say might because I didn't check, it may have the most functional mechanisms of all three of these. But I also agree with you. I think it's in the most trouble. Yeah. Because even though there are a few things about the art package, especially the SD art package on Wonka, I'm not pleased with. I do not like the Oktoberfest art package. Oh, no, it's terrible. Especially the play field, which is what you always have to look at. It's just so cluttered and busy. So visually, I think Wonka looks better. I think Wonka has a better light show.
    50:24
    I think both of them have obnoxious sound packages because they're all the clinking drink sounds and stuff in Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest is the worst theme of all three of these games. Oh, yeah. So I just don't know if it... Plus, I bias from looking at video and having played Oktoberfest. My guess is Wonka plays a lot better than Oktoberfest does. Almost definitely. So I agree with you. What do you think about it versus Black Knight Premium? Sword of Rage, of course. We're not talking anything else. Right. Even older. It's tough. it's tough for me to decide I think at the end of the day just total Black Knight outsells Wonka, total I agree, but that's not the question at the premium level premium versus SE Black Knight outsells Wonka I'm not sure about that I don't think no, I think just premium versus SE it'll outsell.
    51:31
    That's tough for me. I think there could be a lot of parody. Here's where I'm struggling. The advantages for Black Night. Better sound, but that's better sound effects. I don't think that's arguable. Better music, that's debatable. Some people are going to hate that metal package with Black Night. That's very true. Some people will hate that, but it's awesome. It's epic. Black Night $200 less, it's still I mean, if you're looking at it, it's still a difference of, you know, that's a couple shaker motors or whatever, so that could influence some people. That's an advantage to Black Knight.
    52:10
    And those are the things that really stand out to me about it that some people would prefer, whereas Wonka has a better theme. It's got the touchstone.
    52:23
    Wonka... It's a better theme. It is. I'm sure Gary Stern practically threw a fit about doing a Black Knight game. Because it's like, it's not, okay, it's not an original theme. But it's based off of a pinball theme. So who the heck cares? I just think that normally, if it wasn't to keep Steve happy, I don't think they'd have done it. Probably. And so Wonka's going to have to, Wonka wasn't a great license outside of the U.S. is my understanding. But it's a pretty popular movie. I don't know anyone who hates the movie. I don't hate the movie, but I know a lot of people, for a lot of people, it was this huge thing when they were a kid. It was this huge touchstone, and it was never that for me. It was a movie I was like, okay. I saw it a few times.
    53:07
    Compared to the other themes that Jersey Jack has done, I think it's one of their better ones. Oh, I would say without a doubt. I think the theme has better pull than Black Knight does. So there's that. Plus, one of the things that we have to consider, and we'll talk a little bit about it later because we played it, is if people get their hands on both iterations of Black Knight and they end up liking the pro more, you could end up having a Game of Thrones situation. Right. You do have a subset of people who will refuse to entertain the pro because the first two Black Knight games had upper play fields.
    53:40
    But if people are coming at it with an open mind, well, we'll talk about that. Yeah, we'll talk about that because we've actually played it. We'll talk more about that later. So, yeah, I actually think that their sales will be very comparable. I don't think one will dramatically blow the other out of the water or anything, but that's kind of where I'm at on it. Yeah, I think that's a very, very valid argument. But I think Oktoberfest was in trouble.
    54:05
    Oh, yeah, no, definitely. But I thought Oktoberfest was in trouble before we saw it. It was a terrible thing. That just shows you how a new company isn't, you know, they aren't going to think about everything as well as they should. and running with that. There are a lot of unlicensed themes, non-original themes that they could have picked. Like what they got registered for Sherlock Holmes. That would have easily been a better thing. Oh, much better. Well, part of that could also be a regional thing. There are regions where Oktoberfest is a huge thing. Maybe we're just not in that region.
    54:39
    Because... I just don't see it moving pinball machines. Right. It just doesn't matter. Yeah, there's no way. I mean, it's weird what people, it's weird what resonates. We were talking to one of our operators yesterday when we were at Pizza West, and he told me that even though he's had Jurassic Park, the original data used Jurassic Park on location for like a year now. Yeah. And so he was going to rotate it out for Black Knight, but you checked the coin box, Avatar had to go. Avatar wasn't getting the coin drop. No one remembers it. Right. But they know it'll change next year. It can change next year. That's what I mentioned. So he may put it back out next year. But every time a new Jurassic World comes out, people remember and they play Jurassic Park because it looks the same. Right.
    55:25
    Yeah. Now here's another element related to the pricing and the game comparisons. So we compared to the premium from Stern. We compared to American Pinball's output. Some of our podcasting peers, they feel very strongly that it's not fair to compare Jersey Jack's SE of Wonka to a Stern Pro. I was kind of curious what your thoughts are. Stern Pro or Stern Premium? Stern Premium. To Pro. What we just did, they would be fine with. It's not appropriate. Sometimes online you see this happen too. So I think I've seen some people on the forums say this as well. So, for example, if you were to go and say, well, Black Knight Sword of Rage shipped to your door is $1,800 less than Wonka SE, the response would be, that's not a fair comparison because Jersey Jack doesn't have a pro-level game, so you shouldn't compare those two. Do you think it's inappropriate to compare Jersey Jack to the pro line of Stern is what I'm curious about. I think it's an argument that can be made, but at the same time, because they name things differently, you should be comparing the lowest level machines to the lowest level machines. Since they both put out three levels of machines, I can see it. Compare the Pro to the SE, the Premium to the LE, and the LE to the Collector. Makes complete sense to me. the argument that, well, JJP's different, it's still their cheapest game is equal to the middle-tier game, and is it that much different? Well, I think the counter-argument on it is, yeah, but even the SE is essentially equipped like a premium from Stern. So even though it's their low model, it's not stripped down like a Stern Pro is.
    57:17
    But it, I mean, wow. And up until Wonka, there were no mechanical differences. Right. Now, I can understand that if there were no mechanical differences, but there's mechanical differences. Okay. I mean, how does it compare? I mean, they pulled a mech. That's the same thing that was pulled out of Star Trek Pro, a mech. Mm-hmm.
    57:39
    So, what other things make the difference? Well, I mean, I don't agree with the argument, so I was curious what your stance is, for two reasons. One, it's pinball. I can compare whatever I want to compare. Right. So I don't let people dictate to me exactly what I can and can't compare. That's my choice. And my approach is if we talking how do we define pinball My definition is very simple I not going to compare a Zizzle or The Pin to arcade pinball machines but I will compare any arcade-ready pinball machine that I want to another arcade-ready coin-mex-included system. So, now, you do need to go into it understanding that a Stern Pro is going to have a lot less mechanical complexity than even a low-end Jersey Jack pinball. Totally fair to note. But you also have to ask, just because Black Knight sort of Rage Pro model is $1,800 less, is it less fun? You see, that's where the question comes up. That makes it subjective. You cannot, in my, this is just Dennis' opinion, obviously, but in Dennis' opinion, you can't just hide behind your mechs and say, well, we suck in more crap, so we're above you. That's not how this works. You've got to have fun. Look at Hobbit. Loaded with stupid crap and one of the worst games I have played in a decade.
    59:09
    Now, it's not WWE bad. Well, yeah. No. But to say that it's somehow on this other plane because, well, you can't. It's got a moving Smaug head and it's got these individual control drop targets. It's like, so what? I'd rather play Game of Thrones Pro all day over touching that abomination. And a lot of people would agree with me. So the comparison is just because it's still pinball. It's still arcade-ready pinball. You could write either of them. Yes, you could. So when you're shopping, and that's the same thing when Deep Root. If and when Deep Root finally releases their games, and they're in, and let's say they offered a model at $4,000, I don't think the Stern fanboys can hide behind saying, well, it's not fair to compare a $4,000 game to a $5,600 Stern Pro. I was like, sure it is. If it's arcade ready, it's completely fair.
    60:04
    Maybe it's all basic street level style design. So what? It's ready to go. That's something that gets, in fact, the comparison is apt because money makes a difference to people. I don't like think, it's not appropriate in my mind to think that you have to compare dollars for dollars. It's a good way to try and think, well, what can you get for $7,500? That's one analysis. this, but it's not the only analysis. And you might find that things are cheaper and they're more fun. So, you can't just say, well, it's cheaper and that's its incentive. Yeah, that's an incentive, but if it's more fun and cheaper, it's win-win. Yeah, that's everything's on top. No, you're right. You're right. And that's where the whole question's of, you can buy two Stern Pros for less than the CE. I mean, you can get into all sorts of interesting math. That's why these comparisons, in my view are very valid and I don't I won't ever hide behind the price points and use them as a logic to not make a particular case. I think all this stuff has to compete. In fact, this stuff isn't just competing new. It competes against the used market too. Yeah.
    61:14
    When you're thinking about going out and getting a Bronze Worker's Dracula for $3,000 these are fair things to compete because it's real life. These are the real competitors for your dollar. That's why it matters. To me. Yeah, it's not just the people who are... But I was just curious. Yeah, no, I... I get that perspective, but I think it's a little myopic because it makes a lot of assumptions in a comparison. It's like you're trying to... The argument is that that's the only apples-to-apples comparison. It is from a certain point of view, but from a lot of other points of view, the apple is different. It's a different shape. It's about getting something that can take quarters and putting it on location. then that's not the threshold you need to rely on. You have to rely on what has that in place. And that's where my mind goes first. And that means used machines get factored in, pro machines get factored in, collector's editions get factored in, and they have to compete against each other. Because in theory, they're all competing for my same dollar. So earn it or don't. It's up to you. See, I think part of what we run into here is the whole team fanboy aesthetic thing that is very prevalent in pinball, as it is prevalent in pretty much everything. Everything's your guy versus our guy. Well, I think the vast majority of pinball people like fun pinball. There are pinball people who, if you put out the exact same game, I mean, identical in every way, and one of them said Stern on it and the other said JJP on it, there are people who would hate one of them and love the other. Yes. And now, where it is a completely fair apples comparison to do this like premium versus SE is if you want to do explicitly an examination of, for $7,500, who gives you more bang for your buck? Right. Completely fair comparison. That's completely fair. Sure. For just, for what's the better game, I want to buy a new in-box game, I want to buy the newest new in-box game, which of these is the better of a new in-box? Like, which one gives you more for the dollar? Right. Totally fair. It's full on. But you can't go into this assuming that that's the scenario, because actually for most people I don't think it is. No. I mean, right now, having played Short of Rage Pro, that we'll talk about more here in a little bit, having seen Wonka SE, having seen all of this stuff, if I was to walk out and buy a new in-box game right now,
    63:53
    it'd be Attack from Mars or Monster Bash? Mm-hmm. That's what it would be. Yeah. I mean, if you just want to take the newest game from every manufacturer, and nothing older, just the newest game from every manufacturer, Monster Bash, without a doubt. That would be the game I would buy. It's the best playing game of all of them. It's the most fun, anyway. Okay. Of the ones I've played. I don't know. Maybe Wonka is. Maybe. But for everything that's in it. It's hard to argue that Wonka's got more mechs. Right. I mean, it depends how you measure them. Moving drac, lifting little Frankenstein, hologram effect with the creature, spinners. Yeah. No, it's definitely, I mean, if I was going to sit down and just, I have blank to buy whatever I want. That's what I would buy right now.
    64:47
    Okay. A couple other things before we move on from Wonka. How the game was revealed. Let's talk a little bit about that. It's a two-fold thing.
    65:00
    All right. Regarding bringing in Special and Lit straight down the middle to put together a package stuff ahead of time, I thought that was smart. I thought that made a lot of sense. The package stuff worked. Yes. I was a little disappointed, maybe more than a little, when I saw the promo video, because I saw it on Straight Down the Middle's channel, and I thought it was going to be Zach and Greg talking about the game, and then it was like truly they were commissioned to do a promo corporate video. The gameplay video made me happy, though. Right. I was like, oh, okay, I get it. I misunderstood. I saw the promo video first, not the gameplay video, and I was livid. Oh, livid. Because, well, I mean, it was a – They sold it. It seemed like it was going to be, you know, a straight down the middle this and that, and it's like, oh, no, this is a commercial. Yeah. I was very surprised, actually, when I saw it. Whereas when I listened to the podcast special when lit, some of the same statements that Pat Lawler was making were made on that, but it was a conversation. There were questions being asked. I get it. They're doing the panel because they want to promote their game. That's why JJP is participating. But that worked a lot better for me than the promo video, and I was confused because I saw the promo video on the STDM channel, not the JJP channel. Right. The gameplay video from STTM, though, I really liked. The gameplay, yeah. I just like you. I think the promo panel should have been on JJP's. Maybe it was. I don't. I follow them, but it usually only shows you one video of its share or whatever. So when I was at YouTube. But overall, I thought that was very smart of JJP to do it like that. Because you were the one who really experienced it. What did you think of the live stream that they did through the Buffalo channel? it seemed okay. It wasn't as good as Jack's live streams. Okay. I heard two complaints, neither of which are really Buffalo's fault, in my mind, at least. One, the feed fell right when they were doing the reveal. See, and I came in after it came back. So that annoyed people, obviously. But what can you do? It's much. And then the other thing, which is what you brought up, is they then, for I guess a couple hours, showed regular schmoes playing the game instead of people who actually know how to play pinball.
    67:25
    And so I know a lot of people when I was, because I read this after the fact through the forums when people were live posting, and it was a lot of, whoa, this looks really brutal. I think this is too hard. I don't think I'm going to like it. And I was like, what? Really? I couldn't imagine. I mean, I'm looking at all the, JJP games aren't really known for their brutality. Maybe Wizard of Oz a little bit, but normally because there's so much depth in the code, but again I'm like well it's probably not a journey pin I didn't know the rules yet so maybe they made it a little harder but Lawler he's not really known at this point he's not like Richie Steve Richie he's not really known for sheer brutality which Black Knight is sheer brutality and then it was oh well no okay you had commoners you got peasants playing yes peasants are very important to selling pinball on location. That said, you don't introduce your stream with them.
    68:22
    The Buffalo guys know how to play. They should have been the ones playing it. Yeah. Nick and Kevin should have been the ones playing it.
    68:30
    I mean, they had enough machines. What they should have had is they should have had a machine set aside for streaming that was the Buffalo guys and people that they knew could bring in.
    68:44
    And then let the people who play like I play plenty of other machines. Right. That is what should have been done. And I chucked that on JZP. They should have worked with Buffalo to instruct how they wanted the stream to be. Yeah. So there were those two elements.
    69:01
    This will segue quite well into the last part I want to talk about. That's the overhype. Because I think it's safe to say this game was seriously overhyped.
    69:09
    It hurt itself badly. It was so overhyped. Right. And so, in terms of, for those that don't know, So here's at least the angle I'm coming from on it. There was, is, is still active, a thread on Pennside before the game was revealed. A number of people, not just podcasters, but also I think there was a distributor and some other people were allowed, invited in to the JKP factory and got to have a lot of hands-on time with the game in a controlled environment. Obviously, that made a lot of sense for helping build out this coordinated drop of special when lit, participate with, SDDM, participate with, all that stuff. There's social media slam, the PR push-out, this and that. So you need to give them time on the stuff early. Totally makes sense. But what ended up happening is people were talking about the game or writing about the game, depending on who we're talking about, on Pinside is where it then spun out of control. So people who got early time on the game were very excited about the game. People who got early time on the game started to exclaim things like, it's awesome. Okay. Totally fair. That's fair. And then the next thing you know, at least the next thing I know when I'm reading this thread, I'm seeing language that this is the most innovative pen ever. And that is where the overhype, in my mind, officially starts. Because it doesn't matter if it was a person who saw it early or someone on the forum who didn't, who made the leap, if it was a game of telephone and the words got corrupted over time. And the next thing you know, everyone is watching with bated breath this live stream, waiting to see this miracle technology, never been done before, and it's not there. There's nothing special, innovative-wise, that I see in this. Now, some of this was JJP's own language, so I don't think it was a game of telephone. You listen to Pat Lawler, and he, at one point in the interview on Special When Lit, says that this is, in his view, the most innovative game that you could develop in the 21st century with the technology that you have. Now, Pat is incorrect. Yeah. I get it. He's selling a game. He's promoting it right now. I don't judge him for saying that, but he is factually wrong. There is plenty of stuff in Multimorphics P3 that is not in this game that is more innovative. So don't come in and tell me, this is me being in my fact check prison, don't come in and tell me that your game's the most innovative. Does your game have Bluetooth? Your last one did. Where's the Bluetooth on this one? Where's Wi-Fi? We could put it in. Stern's been talking Wi-Fi since Spike 1, and no one does it yet, except P3. Right. So you're not the most innovative. You haven't done everything the 21st century allows, because you have a competitor company called Multimorphic who's done more than you. and we've been we have not been kind I think we've been very fair with multi-morphics we've not but innovation they've got it and so I'm not going to sit here and pretend that JJP has even matched them because they have not multi-morphics problems have nothing to do with innovation but this is where here's my favorite one where I can't remember I don't care who posted it I don't think it was anyone who saw it early why would it be the innovation stuff that was being speculated The one I loved the most was there was a rumor that Wonka was going to come with pinballs that were different colored, and the game would know which color ball was in play and interact with them differently depending on the color.
    72:56
    Now, that would have been interesting. That would have been awesome. No, here's where my mind, I'm like thinking, it's surely not using the colors. Are the pinballs going to be made from different metals? is going to be like how the Powerball was with Twilight Zone because it was ceramic. So it knew because it wasn't magnetic. It could interact. It would either have to be that or else they'd have to be custom balls with like an RFID tag in the middle. And then people are like, well, and what happens if the ball breaks or they get torn up and you need a new one? It doesn't matter because it's a bunch of crap.
    73:26
    To be fair, that would have been really innovative. I would have been like, holy crap, that's awesome. That would have been enough. What do you have? You have a Wonka Vader ball lock on two of the models, which is the Simpsons couch. You have a rotating, I hate the term gobble hole, but it is what Pat Lawler is, gobble hole-esque. But it's theater magic, essentially. It's a little bit different functionally. Yes, because it doesn't have the built-in magnets. Right, right. It's a latch. Yeah, it's actually less impressive. Yeah. But, so you've got that.
    73:54
    And, okay, you've got a screen, but we've had screens since Woz in the play field. So, okay, it's bigger. But how am I – it's cheap. It's a tablet screen. It's cheap. It's not – I'm not saying you can't do cool things with it. I'm just saying, oh, and you stuck a webcam in the play field. Well, yeah, but we know how big webcams are. They're teeny. Yeah. So it's like none of that – it's like – it's not that it isn't cool, but it's not innovative. No, it's all stuff that's been done. It's all stuff that's been done. And that's fine. I wasn't – I wouldn't have thought otherwise, but this is what happened with the overhyping. People just thought that it was going to change pinball. And it doesn't. It doesn't. It may be the best game of the year, but it doesn't change pinball. See, and that's the thing is we've had the discussion multiple times before. I don't spend any time on pin side. And the hype got so large, I heard the hype. Without ever going to pin side, I'd heard hype about how this was going to change pinball. I mean, I had thoughts going in my head because I wasn't on pin side. I wasn't going through this and that. I was like, are we talking like pinball 2000 level of something that's just so totally different? Are we talking like P3 level? We're looking at game changing, paradigm breaking, just sheer. It's a pinball machine. Yeah. And that's fine. The only problem is that it ended up going from hyped to overhyped. And the people who saw it early, I don't blame them. This is JJP's fault. Yeah. they, they being JJP would have been in their best interest to actually have instructed everyone the distributors who went in early everyone, gag order nothing can be said until the official PR drop at the reveal and honestly they shouldn't have done that at the reveal, I think all that promo stuff from Special and Lit and STDM, that should have dropped early so people could have seen, like how Stern does it, so people could have seen the play field and understood before the, especially given if you're going to have plebes doing the live stream right then at least people got a good clean look it's not flat get to see all the plastics because it's there's a lot of cool stuff in it it's not innovation so that was uh i think it was smart of jersey jack to try and put together this i thought it was really smart to try and like do an influencer campaign essentially you get straight down the middle especially when it's one of the biggest podcasts out there you get them to help promote your product by going on there and giving them exclusives and stuff, makes total sense. But they didn't think. I don't totally blame them, but it's still their fault. J.J.P. didn't think about the message spiraling out of control. Because here's the thing. I believe that all these people who saw this stuff, they love this game. I really believe it. They didn't mean for it to get overhyped. Because the overhyping hurt it. There are sales that have been lost because of this. That's why J.J. should care in the future.
    76:56
    I don't think it was a ton of sales. Some of those could be won back, but there were some people who just thought that this game was going to change their lives. It's ridiculous as it sounds. And when they looked and saw what it was, and it just so far from how that, and all that happened in under a week. It's a fascinating case study. Yeah, it is insane how quickly it blew up and then fell apart. But hopefully for when Toy Story gets dropped, JJP learns a few things from how they did this and they control the message. That's the thing is they lost control of their message. Right. So they just need to control the message a little bit better. And it's just a few steps that they need to take. But I think a lot of what they tried to do was really smart. I think with all the overhype issues, with everything they've had, this is still probably one of their best attempts at actually doing a decently put together launch. Yeah, and they're actually still doing it. Because I saw on Facebook yesterday, in fact, when we were out at our tournament, people posting who have access to the prototypes on Facebook talking about, well, here, here's Garage Night. We're doing Garage Night pinball. And it's like, it's not saying it, but it's implying that this game's already released. And it's very clever because that's the thing. That's my one other criticism of JJP. I think 60 Days Out is still too soon to do a reveal. It is. I think it needs to be under a month. but this is an interesting way to get around that. They're still bringing in people to play the prototypes in the factory, and there are people who have the prototypes and can bring people into their homes and stuff to play them. So that's a good way to keep the, like, oh, yeah, this is constructed. This is constructed. See, and I think another thing I think would have worked well for them, and it's something you see and you hear about, is when they did the launch here and they took, you know, however many games they took to Midwest Gaming Classic. They took either four or five? Five, I think. Five. If they have the prototype stand at home and they have five to take to the classic, I think they needed another, they needed to double that. If they had ten games, if they'd done that and then dropped games, you know, the following week at some of the biggest venues around the country and just left them there, it would have been smart because the game would have been playable on the street. So drop them at Logan's and Gold Watch and all those other places. Drop another five of them out there just to have them. I don't think that would have hurt them either.
    79:31
    Because all this hype hit, and sure, there's some people who are going to throw orders in, but there's going to be a lot of people who are going to be like, well, I want to play the game before I order it. As they should. And at 60 days out, it's entirely possible that there'll be another game that's dropped before this one could arrive. It could.
    79:55
    And then those people are going to take their money and go somewhere else. Possibly, yep. So, I mean, case in point, Black Knight's reveal just happened. And we literally played a Black Knight yesterday. Mm-hmm.
    80:13
    That's how it should be. All right. And the last thing is, while we were talking here, thanks for the glory that is technology, I did get it looked up, and we talked earlier about the LCD screens in the highways, and they were 10 inches. Oh, so they were bigger. You were right. Yeah. Well, I thought they were bigger, but they were also under the play field, not lifted under the glass like that. Well, speaking of bigger, let's move on to the bigger company, Stern, and talk about Black Knight's sort of Rage gameplay. Originally, my plan was for us to talk about Deadflip's livestream reveal of it. I do have a link in the show notes for people who want to go and watch that so they can experience the gameplay secondhand. But it turned out that we ended up getting one installed, I think, on Friday at Pizza West, one of our top locations. and we were there for a tournament yesterday and we got to, actually when I showed up, you were already there playing that game. I had that game in the tournament and I played it before the tournament. Yeah, I didn't have it in the tournament, but I did have it, I played it several times before. And I knew we were getting one, I don't know if it'll be the pro first or they're waiting for the premium at 403 Club, so I was really, really surprised that it ended up showing up. But I welcome our Black Knight overlords. In fact, I was joking with the operator because I figured it was bought by an area collector who sometimes lets the new games get routed. Right. And it was. And as an interesting aside, I guess he was at MGC because I was joking and I said, so when are you putting in Wonka so we can try Wonka out? Because I know we're getting Wonka at 403 also, but hey, if he said that's going to get it first, it's closer so it's more convenient for me. And he said, well, actually, the owner of the Black Knight, he went and he played Black Knight. And then I guess the next day, he's like, I want to make an objective, informed opinion. And he went and he played Wonka multiple times and went and played Black Knight multiple times. And then he walked away and said, Black Knight Pro is better than all of this and bought it. There we go. That's one person's opinion. One person's opinion. So I want to know your one person opinion. So what did you think of Black Knight Sword of Rage, the pro model? brutal but fun I really enjoyed it the biggest thing was because of where we are or where we were when we played it the sound is turned very far down to off on almost all the games there and I think with a Black Knight game the sound is a vital part of the game but it was still very enjoyable I would like to have more games on it before I get super into my deep thoughts on it. I don't really want to compare it to anything else yet. But even with me having a couple of pretty short ball times on my first game in particular, I still had a lot of fun with it. Yeah, I liked it.
    83:19
    Brutal is a good description. The center three shots are very dangerous because there are things that can quickly, if you brick in particular, make them come back. Well, I mean, the knight's shield isn't always up, so that can be a brick. The knight himself has a stand up right in front of him, so that will be a brick. And then depending on the position of the mace, the ramp in the middle could be a brick. I was surprised the pro model actually to get onto the two ramps, two vucks, vertical up kickers. So they're not as... The shots are very smooth, but it's not to the same level of flow that you might expect from a Game of Thrones or a Star Trek because they've got up-kickers to actually feed onto the ramps, which I thought was really interesting. Get some creative sort of layouts because it's sort of like a giant horseshoe shot instead that orbits around for that high-speed flow stuff. Otherwise, it felt very much like what you'd expect from a Ritchie layout, though, in terms of, you know, really good flow shots, not overly hard to hit most of them, good backhand options. So, yeah, I liked it. Animations were very impressive. I knew they looked good on screen. I spent a lot of time watching other people play it because I never had it in tournament, but I was next to it for several of my games. And, yeah, the animations are awesome. Yeah, I thought it was a lot of fun. I could definitely, I mean, again, I haven't tried a premium, so I don't know. But it's a fun enough game. You know, I don't know, for example, I was sitting thinking, if I was in the market for a new Unboxed Throne Pro, would I take this over Monsters? Yes. Would I take it over Guardians? I don't know. I really like Guardians' layout and the rules, but maybe. It's tougher for me because I already own several Steve Ritchies. Do I really need another one sort of thing? But I liked it, and I thought I could see why if people weren't going in with a Black Knight biased, why they might prefer the Pro. Yeah. Because I don't know if the upper play field is going to add enough fun to it versus how fast this was without it. And I like the speed. That's what I like about Richie games, the speed. And the same with you, with Game of Thrones Pro. I don't mind the upper play field on the premium, but I just like the speed on the pro so much more than I like the upper play field. Yeah, because in that game it feels like the upper play field. You get up there and it's like, well, I have a rhythm going, and now everything's broken. And it's all, yeah, where it seems much, we'll see. Until I play the other one, we won't know. But, yeah, no, I really enjoyed it. I think, based off of what I saw of the rules and what I experienced with the layout, I think Black Knight is a very good game for Stern. The license makes me wonder, will it do better than Munsters? I don't know. And Munsters, I think, did fine for Stern, but it didn't do as good as Deadpool. Which I don't think did as well as Iron Maiden. Right. But the thing is, how many people really...
    86:16
    Munsters was not a theme like Deadpool. It was a bad theme choice. It was a bad thing to reason. But at least it's a known thing. Right. And to me, Black Knight falls into that category of unthemed games, even though it's a theme because it's a pinball. There'll be some legacy pinball people who know it. Right. You can make that argument, but it's an unthemed game, and they're always going to be lower and less than the themed games because unless it's something super special that somebody knows and has a memory of or it's something that they really love because of the art packages or this or that, they're going to want to have Deadpool because Deadpool's awesome. Or Walking Dead. I love The Walking Dead. Or The Hobbit because you know I love The Hobbit for whatever reason But I mean the theme drives so many sales for people that that will hurt it It will have lower sales because of that theme I think Yeah. But I think the game has legs. I was, of course, with the overhyping was going on with Wonka, there was a lot of discussion about it. Wonka, well, it's like, well, Black Knight had a good week, and now Wonka will cry. Very, just looking at the gameplay reveal of Wonka, these are very different playing games. Very. Which you'd expect. Lawler and Ritchie do not design games at all remotely the same. The thing that they have in common is they both sell a lot of games. Yeah. So anyway, I think a lot of people will end up liking it if they like brutal Steve Ritchie. And if you don't like brutal Steve Ritchie, you don't have a lot of choices outside of that. So it's kind of what it is. But speaking of beloved themes, last thing to talk about in the realm of Stern would be Beetlejuice because the artist, Christopher Franchi, apparently put a post out on Facebook. I believe the post has since been pulled, but it was regarding from the studio death file, as he called it. And to quote from him, he showed a picture of a design he did for backglass artwork for a Beetlejuice-themed Tim Burton movie, with Michael Keaton.
    88:29
    And Chris Franchi said, I created this Beetlejuice backglass artwork a year ago and hopes it was going to be a future title I'd be working on. Sadly, that is not going to happen. I can't say it any better than George Gomez as to why. George Gomez, he's in charge of all projects at Stern, for those that don't know. So I'll just use his words to explain. Teams need to be passionate about what they work on. If we're not into a brand, how can they possibly make you a great game? There are four teams here. If you ask people, do you want to do this or that, and something doesn't get selected, then it doesn't get selected. Pretty simple, really.
    89:05
    You've seen the picture of the back glass. I've seen it. I think we agree that the art looks great. I mean, it's not surprising. If Christopher Franchi's art looked great, yeah, that's expected. He's got a photorealistic style, which I really like, but it's not photorealistic that looks like Photoshop. I don't know if that's not art. I guess it's either the composition design or how he does his line work or something makes it different. So it doesn't feel like you're actually looking at photos. Right. But it's usually very rich and vibrant. If you've seen the games, you know. So, I guess, what are your thoughts? I don't... Beetlejuice was a movie that was very iconic. It seems like it would lend itself very well to pinball. I was actually fairly surprised that none of their teams would be passionate about it. I'm not a passionate Beetlejuice person myself. But if I think of, would this lend itself to toys and rules?
    90:06
    I'd rather have seen this way more than monsters. Right. And here's the thing is, I have more interest in Beetlejuice than Wonka. Just because for me, I watched Beetlejuice a lot when I was young. Wonka came out over half a decade before we were born. Right. So it wasn't the same touchstone. I remember watching Beetlejuice with my family. On the other hand, I haven't seen Beetlejuice in... Decades? I've seen 20 years. Nor have I, and I've not felt inclined to re-watch it. Right, so I've got good memories of it. I've got great memories. I remember the cartoon. I watched the cartoon.
    90:49
    But I don't have... I don't know. Did it age well? Or is this one of those things that was very much of its time? Where back then in... I don't know. I have to rewatch it. Maybe. I mean, I remember Michael Keaton's character was over the top, and I think if you were to do something, especially if you brought him in and had him do collars and revolved it around him. That would have been amazing. Then I think it would carry, even if the movie doesn't hold up. Right. I mean, you still use them to clip. I mean, it's like, do the effects hold up? It was still a lot of physical effects, so it's probably a question. There's probably some of it probably looks better than others, but I mostly just remember that it had a very interesting aesthetic. if you're not focusing on the monster faces and stuff and more just Keaton in his outfit, I think that's probably fine. So, yeah, I mean, it's just really what could have been.
    91:41
    The final thing in pinball news that I was going to touch on is I did finally output another article. I've been way behind my planned article release schedule because of starting the new job, but I did write an article up. There's a link in the show notes. that was published over with This Week in Pinball back on Thursday, and that covers the impact of the dollar fee, because 2018 was the first year of the IFPA's dollar fee. Yep. And so I looked and examined total attendance figures and number of events. The long story short is pinball, IFPA pinball, has continued to grow, though the growth numbers are definitely way down from the averages. but still impressive growth levels. I don't want to, I mean, these are still, if it were GDP growth, you'd be like, holy crap, we're going to have inflation. We've got to do something. Yeah, the growth levels they were at were literally unsustainable. I'm not even sure the current levels they showed for 2018 are sustainable. We're still talking about a player base that will double.
    92:48
    I have to go back and check what I wrote. I think the events would double in a decade, but the player base would double in five years or vice versa. It still seems unsustainable. It's completely unsustainable. So in that regard, that growth was still there. The other thing was on, they talked about the idea of the dollar fee was to raise prestige. It's a long-term goal to generate more sponsorship dollars. Most of the discussion about that revolved around media. So I checked about with IFPA because they tracked their media exposure for the state champions and the national championship series. And that increased almost, it almost went up by 50%. So that was pretty impressive. But I think the jury fell out on that because, like, over a third of that was just Oregon articles, all about Oregon. So you really have to, what's your real goal here? If your goal is to generate sponsorship, is just having a few states dramatically increase their media exposure, is that going to do it? Maybe it will. I don't know. That's up to IFPA in terms of if it met their needs. Here's my understanding.
    93:53
    Given that the numbers didn't decrease, I don't see any reason why the International Flipper Pinball Association, which is what IFPA stands for, would get rid of the dollar fee. There's even a reason to. Right. But it was interesting just because the online discussions, normally when I release articles, I usually expect to get a little bit of criticism, like why didn't you look at this or that, and there's probably some of that out there. But actually, this is almost like it just tore the Band-Aid off of the dollar fee. So I've just got to watch all this drama, regurgitated people who are still pissed about the fee. I wasn't a big fan of the fee. I'm still questioning if it's really going to pull a Buckhunter and generate sponsorship dollars. I just don't know. Buckhunter's easy to understand, and watching pinball sucks. It does. I shouldn't say that because I stream it, but it's just like, it's hard. It's all about, it's interesting when you have the right crowd interaction between the streamer and the viewers. That works. You can't do that at a tournament level. That's not how it is. It's hard. But anyway, so this is something interesting to look at. So that's what we did. So that's it for Pinball News. Next thing I wanted to do, quickly announce here for folks. Let's do another non-volatile RAM or NV RAM drawing for pinball machines. Because, as Tony can see on my shelf, I've got baggies and baggies. Yes, my dad has produced. I could open a store and sell NV RAM. I have so many bags of RAM chips now. So we're going to give away another RAM chip to someone for their pinball machine.
    95:34
    And so U.S. mailing addresses only. I don't care if you're a U.S. citizen or not, but it needs to be a U.S. mailing address because I'm not going to spend $30 to mail it. So here's what you need to do. I need you to email us, eclecticgamerspodcasts at gmail.com with, and let's do something in honor of Wonka. We spent a lot of time really delving into it. So I want to know your favorite four-flipper pinball machine. It can be an EM or a solid state. I don't care. It cannot have more than four flippers, and it cannot have less than four flippers. So if you want to say Game of Thrones Premium, you can. That would count. You want to say Wonka? That would count. Monster's Cranium account doesn't it only have it's got the two below or the two up yep there we go there you go so let me know and then probably on Friday almost two weeks from now will be when I do the drawing and I'll do random.org and I'll get a name selected so but let me say what your RAM chip choices are we've got four chip types now so I can give you a 611 and obviously you don't have to submit a game that you're putting the RAM chip on I'll help you figure it out if you don't know which, but just quickly so you know what I've got available. We've got 6116 RAM, so that's good with the Bally 6803 boards. It's also good for William System 9 and System 11 games. So then there's the 6264 or 6256. Those are generally cross-compatible with WPC board set, White Star board set. Most early data East games take that.
    97:04
    6256 is required for Sharky's Shootout. I think it's the only game that only takes 6256. But depending on jumper settings, it may be easier for you to use one versus another.
    97:14
    And then what I did not have last time and I do now is 5101s. So those are good for classic ballet games, classic stern electronics games. Williams System 6 and 7 boards take those, like Firepower.
    97:29
    So anyway, and there are others. I'm not going to read through all the possible options. So anyway, just email eclecticgirmaspodcast.gmail.com, favorite four-flipper game, and we'll give away another one of those.
    97:42
    Flipper! I originally was thinking about doing 20 questions, but we're running pretty long. Let's drop it. Okay.
    97:52
    That's perfectly acceptable. So we'll segue over to a fairly quick video game segment. So, I didn't throw a lot in. There's been a couple things. You got like four things. I know, but none of them are super huge. I think probably the biggest one we're going to talk about is there's a non-confirmed reports coming out of Japan that Nintendo will be releasing a new edition of the Switch this year that is a smaller version that is designed more for portable play but it will still have the ability to connect directly to a screen. So they're maintaining it to a TV or whatever. They're maintaining that capability. Okay. But it's going to be a smaller screen? My assumption is They're going to go with a smaller footprint. Like, they came out with the 2DSs that were smaller, that were designed more for younger kids that were having problems with the big 3DSs. I think it's going to be something along those lines. It's designed to be, let's face it, this is their replacement for the 3DS because there's been almost no 3DS announcements in a long time. Do you think it's going to still use the same size Joy-Cons?
    99:02
    I don't think so. I think they're probably going to drop the Joy-Con to a smaller size Joy-Con. They're going to go to an entirely smaller size machine. Now, I'm assuming it will still have the detachable Joy-Cons, but we know nothing about this, other than that it's a smaller one, and it's coming out, and it's designed more for portable play. That's literally everything I know, and the fact that it will still connect to TVs. Okay. Do you think it will be called the Switch DS or the Switch U? Well, it won't be called the Switch DS, because that's the whole dual-screen thing. Yes. But it'll, I don't know. Switch U. They'll call it the main thing. The Switch 2. Something that will be confusing and make people not understand that it's different. Right. That's what I'm getting at. And there are rumors that there's going to be a higher-end Switch this year or next year. But those rumors are even more tenuous than the talk about the smaller Switch. Okay. That I don't know. We'll find out as things get closer. In a slight tie-in to our pinball discussions and video pinball,
    100:16
    Zen Studios did announce at Celebration that all 19 Zen Studios Star Wars games will be available on Switch on September 13th. Yes, and probably a good time to also note that Zen Studios apparently has now struck a deal with Stern Pinball to be bringing the Stern games over like they got the deal with Williams, Valley Williams games. So I assume the Pinball Arcade is months away from bankruptcy?
    100:46
    Or just closure. They may not even go bankrupt. Where they have left, Capcom and Gottlieb, have they released anything from Capcom? I thought maybe they had a deal. Maybe not. They have Gottlieb, which isn't going to carry anything. Right. No, they're on their way out. They're done.
    101:05
    Unless something magical happens. They need a new version. They need a better running version. And I don't think they have the resources to do it. No, I think you're right. I think it's done. I think the run is done.
    101:16
    So soon, I guess the big two will end up being Pinball FX through Zen Studios, and I guess Zacharia Pinball will be the other major one, because no one seems to be encroaching on their space. Right. Because those were the three. Those two in Pinball Arcade were the three biggies. There are a lot of little pinball acts that pop out. Pinball Arcade's been taking body blow after body blow for the last couple of years. Yeah. Well, I think it's their own fault. It is completely their own fault. Their engine just can't handle what they needed it to do. But Zend does have a lot of Star Wars pinball things. Yeah. So this is going to be quite a bit. Obviously, he's 19. Right. And the fact that what works nice with the Switch is the verticality. Yes. You can flip it on end and play it. And there's even groups out there that have special controllers that you lock your Joy-Cons into that holds your Switch vertically so you can play vertical scrolling shoot-em-ups and bullet hells and pinball games and all that stuff easier. Okay Now to a thing We've talked about so many times As of recently No this isn't the Steam versus It sounds like it is But it's Similarly related to a symptom That is from that fight Review bombs Now aren't review bombs negative Because it makes a games rating bomb That's what I always thought Until now Steam has been getting review bombed on Assassin's Creed Unity following the fire at Notre Dame and the reviews are all good they're so good they've moved the game's reviews from mixed to very positive and the reasoning behind all of this is because Ubisoft made the PC version free and they donated 500,000 euros towards the rebuilding of the cathedral. And they are pushing stuff everywhere.
    103:24
    And the cathedral was a major landmark in Assassin's Creed Unity. So, yeah, it makes total sense. I guess. I hate it. I don't think it's right to pretend a game has become good because of charitable works, because it implies something might be... Oh, I think review bombing is horrible, good or ill. Not to mention, while it was very generous of Ubisoft to donate so many euros to Notre Dame, my understanding is they've already received plenty of donations to fully fund a rebuild. Yeah. So it's kind of pointless at the same time. But okay. Interesting. It is interesting. People do what they can. Guys, the game still sucks, is what I'm saying. I still don't agree with you. It still sucks. It's not the worst of the best. If it's free, try it, I guess. I quit playing after the Ezio trilogy, so I really have no room to talk. I mean, that's the thing. I have limited it. But I've been told this isn't the worst Assassin's Creed. Okay. It's in the bottom half. This one did not fare well with people. But it's not the worst is what I've been told. Okay. So we'll see. We'll have to see how it goes. I think it's just interesting to see the review bombs on the good side. I think the reasoning is terrible. I think taking anything that doesn't have to do with the game itself and using it in a review for any pogs or whatever. Gamers do some really stupid stuff. I still remember when the tsunami hit in Indonesia. Yeah. And I was playing the MMO Final Fantasy XI, and there were people on there trying to organize a raid fight to go fight Leviathan for revenge.
    105:06
    Yeah. Wow. Cringe. A whole bunch of people have been crushed and drowned, and your show of unity is you're going to go and fight a boss in a video game. There wasn't even a charitable arm tied to it. It was just a big excuse. It reminds me of that story about after the Persian fleet, I think the first time they tried to invade Greece, and weather destroyed a whole lot of the ships that Xerxes, the lord of Persia, ordered his men to go and flog the sea with, like, wits as punishment. As like, oh, dude. But at least back then he had the excuse of being stupid. I mean, come on. Going out there and whipping, like, whip from the side.
    105:56
    I'm mad. Do you not know that I am the god lord Xerxes? Just like, no. Xerxes and Final Fantasy XI people, no. Just no. Don't do that. It's stupid. No.
    106:10
    Oh, sorry. Sorry for the little history lesson there. He probably did it too, Xerxes. What a dick. Okay. So what else is going on? Last episode, we talked about GameStop. Yeah, they're closing. Closing. They're, yeah. They're pretty much destruction to their class. The slow burn.
    106:37
    They launched a program to apparently try and survive. Okay. Okay, the name is horrible, but they're calling it Guaranteed to Love It.
    106:52
    That's literally what it felt like when I first... Okay, it sucks, but go on. It sucks, but we're going to continue.
    107:01
    Their program is entirely based around first-day game purchasers. And what it does is it gives people who purchase the game on launch day of that game 48 hours to play the game, and then they can return it for a 100% refund.
    107:21
    Okay. It's only available on one game coming out. Days Gone is the only one it's been announced for so far, which is coming out very soon, or last week. I don't remember.
    107:36
    And I don't know. It's an interesting idea. It just comes back to the whole, does people care that much about it that they're going to go to GameStop to buy it? I mean, congratulations, speed runners. You can punch through the game and take it back. Yeah, I mean, I don't think a lot of people will successfully exploit it, so I don't think it's high risk. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe if you're really, for younger buyers, cost-conscious buyers, it could be useful to make them decide between ordering on Amazon and going ahead and picking it up at GameStop. Just in case it's terrible. Right, if you're thinking like, well, I can only afford maybe a game a quarter sort of thing, then it would matter more to you, but I don't think it saves them. I don't think it's enough. I don't think it'll win enough people over.
    108:27
    I think too many people would rather save the $10 pre-ordering through an online service or something.
    108:33
    I mean, you don't get a physical copy at all. Exactly. And that's the way everything is going, physical copies. Why GameStop's in so much trouble? Yeah. So we'll see. It sounds like they're piloting it. Yeah. I don't think it hurts to pilot it. They have to try something. Sure. It's creative. name sucks. The name is so bad. Wow. Now maybe they could cross-promote it with Mickey D's. It'd be alright.
    108:59
    Come in and get the game on launch day, Scruffy McDonald's. Get your nugs. Get your nugs on the way home. Have some nugs. Play some games. Bring them back. It's okay. That might actually work better if you got a coupon for a free 10-piece that you bought through GameStop. These are gamers. You know it. It'd have to be a 20-piece. Wow. GameStop might not be able to arrange that deal, but we'll see. We'll see what they do. And the last thing is actually just a touch on an actual game.
    109:31
    It was announced at Celebration that Jedi Fallen Order is the new Star Wars game coming up because EA has the Star Wars license, so all Star Wars games come through EA, which is horrible for Star Wars fans. And it's not really worked out that well over the last several game releases. The Battlefronts have been weird. EA's cancelled like every game that sounded interesting, EA cancelled. But not this one. And what's weird about this is this is not your normal EA game. It is a single player only, story driven game put out by Respawn.
    110:14
    Okay, and that is an interesting mix of developer and against EA's sort of typecast format. I still haven't figured out how they're going to work loot boxes in. I'm sure it's going to be like extra experience. They may find a way. Buy a loot box. You'll get extra experience. You get a 50% experience. Response Camping Story with Titanfall 2 was pretty good, though. That's what I've heard. And we haven't seen gameplay. We haven't seen... We've just seen like a cinematic trailer is all we've seen so far. But the premise is very interesting because it takes a... You play the role of a Padawan fleeing and trying to survive after Order 66.
    111:01
    So it takes place between Episode 3 and Episode 4, and I'm assuming when it ends, you die. Yeah, I would assume so, too. But there's more Jedi floating around than... Apparently. Apparently Vader didn't do as good of a job hunting them down as I was led to believe originally. Because we know from other sources that there's at least two.
    111:30
    We'll see. EA has burned so many people on their licensing and they've burned so much stuff with Star Wars. I mean, there were petitions to remove the Star Wars license from EA. I think EA will be hard pressed to keep it after. I don't see how they can. I don't think Disney will break it early, but I don't. I don't think they'll resign. No. That said, I might buy this game. I won't pre-order this game. I won't. No way. What about with games? No.
    111:58
    Oh, okay. No way. I'm not going to go into GameStop because they've got, like, figures, or they've got the Funko Pops that they are the only ones who get the specific one that me or one of my daughters wants or for stuff like that or because they're the best place for me to get and sell a Roblox card for my daughter for her birthday. That's the only reason I ever go in there. Because when I go to Walmart or any of those other places, the Roblox cards are all sold out. Okay, well, I'm just saying you could return it after 48 hours, maybe, if they do it for this year. If they do it for this long. Yes. Well, this one, being a single-player, story-driven game, it'll probably be long enough that they'll do it. Because that's the thing with Days Gone. Days Gone is supposed to have a 30-hour story. Okay. I don't think that, outside of piloting, I don't think the GameStop strategy works unless they offer it for all games. I know. I think that's what they'd have to do. But there get so many people. So this is a definite maybe for you, depending on how the feedback is when it gets released. Right. It doesn't need feedback then. But being a single-player game that's situated around an interesting story with a company that has put out games that have good single-player games. Respawn makes me optimistic. They were the good Infinity Ward when Call of Duty Modern Warfare came out and had the good story. And then Titanfall had great mechanics. Titanfall 2 had a very good story. I didn't really play the multiplayer, so I can't comment on that. I said, I've not played Titanfall, Titanfall 2, but, I mean, they are also behind the release that was Apex Legends, and I play and enjoy Apex Legends. That's true. I'm terrible at it. I don't play it as much as I play other games, but I still play it and enjoy the mechanics of it. So, it'll be interesting to see. I know this is one of the last big things I think EA has announced. I think their license expires two years? Maybe. I mean, I'm assuming there'll be a Battlefront 3 later this year to come out in November, because they did Battlefield 5 last year, and it seems to be on the cycle. DICE does a Battlefront and then does a Battlefield.
    114:18
    Yeah, so we will see how this goes, and just hope that it turns out to be a good game. Okay. That's what I hope. I hope so, too. They need a win. They, being all Star Wars fans, need a win. yeah they've got a movie coming out they've got whole new places at Disney coming everything but the video games seem to be working fairly well some solo movie disappointments aside which the movie was okay it wasn't a bad movie but I guess that's the end of the show we did it under two hours it was a lot of wonka but that was the big news I don't, you know, the pinball news may slow up here for a bit. We'll see. Last year I kept thinking that and it didn't do it until November. Yeah, no, it went crazy.
    115:09
    We'll see how it goes. Yeah, well, I mean, JJP's saying another release later this year, but they can't do it for months and months. This game's not going to hit until June at the best. No, yeah. Can they do a big rollout of another game before this game's been on the market for at least two months. Like, people physically getting them. The original plan, as I heard on an interview, was nine months between games. Yeah. So I would assume nine-month reveal from April. So, yeah. Yeah. November-ish, yeah. That would make sense. But if you have feedback on any other reveals theme, or you want to do that submission for the NVRAM giveaway, or just to let us know how much you hate our opinions on Black Knight and Wonka, You can email us, eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. You can also contact us on facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We're on Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch as eclectic underscore gamers. And until two weeks from now, I am Dennis. I'm Tony. And goodbye, everyone. See ya.