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Episode 28 :: The Electric Bat Cast

Electric Bat Cast·podcast_episode·46m 42s·analyzed·Aug 11, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Electric Bat discusses routing strategies, location leaderboards, and industry manufacturing constraints.

Summary

Rachel and Cale from Electric Bat Arcade discuss operating pinball machines, including tournament schedules, routing best practices, and industry economics. They cover Stern Insider Connected integration for location leaderboards, provide detailed guidance on approaching businesses with routing proposals, analyze why pinball machines use lower-quality parts than comparable industries due to market size and historical disposability mindset, and introduce their new apprentice tech Patrick who was promoted from bartending based on problem-solving skills and attention to detail.

Key Claims

  • Electric Bat has had 2-3 dozen people start routing pinball machines as a direct result of listening to the podcast

    high confidence · Rachel: 'I think we're over two or three dozen people that we know of that have put machines on location as a direct result of this podcast'

  • Pinball industry is under $100 million in total size (including Stern, Jersey Jack, Spooky, and parts suppliers)

    high confidence · Cale: 'You're south of 100 million' when comparing pinball to bicycles ($100B+) and RC cars ($2.5B)

  • A single button replacement mold would cost $100,000+ for pinball parts, making it financially unviable for such a small industry

    high confidence · Cale: 'to make a new tool is a hundred thousand dollars' citing example from Marco Specialties work with McMaster

  • Pinball machines historically were designed as disposable equipment meant to be replaced yearly, not for long-term durability

    high confidence · Cale: 'These machines were made to be purchased by operators and put on a route for about a year and then go into a dumpster'

  • Brandon Passy placed a Stern Led Zeppelin Pro on location at Jobot bar in Phoenix and registered it with Stern Insider Connected

    high confidence · Rachel: 'Brandon Passy purchased a machine from us, a Stern Led Zeppelin Pro, and he put it on location out in Phoenix at a bar called Jobot'

Notable Quotes

  • “We are building that community that we talk about. Across the world. It feels so good that so many people are joining us in this cool hobby.”

    Rachel @ ~22:30 — Expresses the community mission of Electric Bat and the podcast's broader impact on growing the pinball routing ecosystem

  • “The buying power as an industry, you know, is not where it is with these massive, massive industries... the pinball industry is tiny, although it is growing, how tiny this industry is. And that does affect the buying power of this industry.”

    Cale @ ~55:00 — Key insight explaining why pinball manufacturers cannot justify expensive tooling for improved parts like their larger competitors

  • “What you really need to learn is the problem solving... if what the symptom is, how to find what the originating problem is and how to solve that.”

    Cale @ ~70:00 — Core philosophy on tech training emphasizing diagnostic thinking over pure technical skills

  • “It's a cup in the bucket for the pinball industry... if you think pinball machines are expensive now oh yeah hold on to your seat... they would be astronomical”

    Cale @ ~55:30 — Illustrates the direct correlation between industry size and product cost; better parts would make machines unaffordable

  • “I would do it face because face is always the best way to do anything. But I would also bring what you about to say in person on a piece of paper because it's going to be kind of a fast conversation.”

    Rachel @ ~28:00 — Practical routing advice: in-person approach with written documentation to facilitate follow-up decision-making

Entities

RachelpersonCalepersonElectric Bat ArcadeorganizationBrandon PassypersonPatrick SwayzepersonStern PinballcompanyMarco SpecialtiescompanyJobotorganization

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Electric Bat expanding operations and staff, promoting bartender to apprentice tech role; indicates growth trajectory and confidence in business sustainability

    high · Patrick Swayze hired and promoted to apprentice tech position based on soft skills and problem-solving ability

  • ?

    community_signal: Electric Bat reports 2-3 dozen people have started routing machines as direct result of podcast; MN Retro Gamer and Blake examples of community members taking action

    high · Rachel: 'we're over two or three dozen people that we know of that have put machines on location as a direct result of this podcast'

  • ?

    community_signal: High demand for tech training opportunities; multiple people asking how to become technicians; no formal schooling exists for this skillset

    high · Rachel: 'people have stopped me... been like, how do I get a position like that? How do I become a tech? There's no schools for this stuff.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Discussion of short-playing games (Iron Man, John Wick, Black Knight Sword Rage, Bond 60th) preferred for multiplayer/tournament play due to faster ball times

    medium · Gutter Ghoul question about short-playing games; hosts recommend Iron Man, John Wick, Black Knight Sword Rage for group play

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Historical context that pinball machines designed as disposable annual products, not durable goods; explains legacy parts quality standards

    high · Cale: 'These machines were made to be purchased by operators and put on a route for about a year and then go into a dumpster'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.140

0:00
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the, I think it's the 29th episode of the Electric Batcast, a podcast about operating pinball machines. Yes. And we sprinkle a little video games in there also. From time to time, we do. From time to time. I'm Rachel. Oh, my name's Cale. Pleasure to meet you. What's happening? uh first we're going to get into what's coming up at the electric bat arcade uh is there anything special going on we it's always a special time at the bat as far as tournaments go i like that attitude yes uh as far as tournaments go we have chewy's all classics world famous bounty knockout coming up on the last sunday of the month which i believe is the 31st this month and then our usual Tuesday nights, league night, 630. Tuesday night league nights. We do six. We break it up into six week series.
1:04
I think we're on the fourth week. So then you have the fifth week. The sixth week. And then what happens the Wednesday after the sixth Tuesday? The coolest damn thing is the finals. And we get to stream that. So if you're not local and you don't get to come watch it in person or participate in person you can watch you and surge streaming that and we're going to have a special guest this time oh you have a special guest on chewy's knockout which will also be streamed there's a lot of streaming coming up that's going to be jamie birchall from the jbs show that's that's him from texas wow everything's bigger in texas and jamie's personality fits that bill exactamundo perfect can't wait for him to come out uh also sponsors stern insider connected that's right stern pinball's insider connected make an account log in get your achievements do a lot of cool stuff with that um our friend brandon passy brought up insider connected because he you know the the whole reason we do this is so people learn about routing pinball machines and start to route them themselves. Onesies, twosies, whatever. Build an arcade, whatever. Just let's build the pinball community bigger and better, one machine at a time. It's going to take time, and we're here for it. Brandon Passy purchased a machine from us, a Stern Led Zeppelin Pro, and he put it on location out in Phoenix at a bar called Jobot. It's not just a bar. They have ice cream. Coffee. Food. Great looking food. It's a fun place to hang out and you can get food, I think, until 4 a.m. So it's a great late night spot.
Jersey Jack Pinball
company
Spooky Pinballcompany
Pinball Lifecompany
Laurenperson
Blakeperson
Gutter Ghoulperson
MN Retro Gamerperson
Jamie Birchallperson
Surgeperson
McMastercompany
  • ?

    industry_signal: Clear articulation of pinball industry size constraints (~$100M total) limiting ability to fund manufacturing improvements; explains why industry reuses 1970s-era parts designs

    high · Cale: 'You're south of 100 million' and tooling costs ($100k+) make part improvements financially unviable for industry size

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Patrick Swayze promoted from bartending to apprentice tech at Electric Bat; exemplifies non-traditional tech training pathway based on soft skills rather than prior mechanical experience

    high · Rachel and Cale discuss Patrick's hiring based on attention to detail and problem-solving, not prior pinball or mechanical experience

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern Insider Connected gaining adoption at locations; used by Brandon Passy at Jobot bar with display leaderboard planning

    high · Brandon Passy implemented Insider Connected with intention to add monitor for public leaderboard visibility

    • 2:52
    Unbelievable. Now it has a pinball machine and it's registered as a location. You get that special check mark when you do the achievements there. Yes. Yes, it's very important. And he made a point to do that because he knew how important it was to, I mean, it's free. Why not do it? you know register your machine and make sure you have a a leaderboard set up and he's gonna he hasn't done it yet but he's gonna get like a small television or computer monitor and so people can see the leaderboard even with one machine it's so important because that gives 10 people the opportunity to see their name right there on the wall right show off to their friends everybody wants to see their name in lights and and it means so much more than just having your name in the traditional manner where like gc high score one high score two we have to scroll through them this way it's just like boom there they can see everybody's name and they can go oh i need to beat that person that person beat me last week yeah it's a really great thing to do uh brandon called roper over at stern got everything set up and it was he said it was it was a very simple process right and and i think again this is like the placebo effect it works whether you know that you're doing it because you want to see your name or not. It's just a fact that having a leaderboard up will make you more money.
    4:19
    Bingo. And more fun. Also, thank you so much to Marco Specialties. That's where we get all of our pinball parts from and you should too. And if you use code EBA150 at checkout. Rachel, what do you get you get free shipping on any order over 150 right team up with your friends if you need to hit that benchmark get that free shipping get your pinball parts love that and uh let's not forget game room goodies game room goodies.com for all of your game room needs pinball machines jukeboxes skeeball skeeball video games you can get one of those big buck hunter games that we talk about so much yes all at game room goodies thank you so much for the sponsorship let's get right into questions because i want to knock out these questions real quick i only have a couple of them because i am very excited about the main event and the main event is is it the earnings report it's the earnings report i'm so excited to hear about this one because um for your viewers at home, we know about this story, but they don't. We were driving in the car together. As we often do. And you start smiling and going, you're going to be so surprised by the latest earnings report. Yes. You don't ever tell me what they are. Right. I just tell you what your feelings are going to be. You want that raw emotion. Raw. When you look at me in the eyes. I give it to you raw. And the top 10. Yes. And we're excited about that. Let's get into a few questions to warm the audience up before we get to the main event. We have our friend Lauren. Lauren is a life coach. He is. And he is writing us through Discord.
    6:13
    Batcast interrogative. I love that. Does an arcade pay tax on the purchase of a machine, or does the use of the machine in the arcade satisfy the exemption?
    6:27
    Well... I'm going to let you answer that one. You want to know why? Because I don't know. Oh, yeah, I do. I am the one that handles all this. Lauren, if you think the government is going to miss an opportunity to get money, you are sadly mistaken. In multiple ways. Right. So you pay tax when you buy the machine. And there's, you know, you can buy out of state. Technically, you pay tax when you buy the machine. You pay a stamp, a tax stamp, I guess it would be, to be able to route the machine in most cities, including ours. Then you pay sales tax on the money you make on the machine. Unbelievable. You pay payroll tax on the people you pay to work on the machines, and then you pay income tax on the money you make having an arcade that operates these machines. Kind of makes me think that we got in the wrong business. We should have started a government. Yes, yes. That electric bat, the country, is coming up next. We already have a currency. It's backed by the dollar. It's a fiat currency. Yeah, tokens. There we go. Fantastic. That's going to be the way of the future. Start governments, not arcades. That's right. We're going to buy an island. Yes, over by Malta. You know, there was an island off the coast of South Carolina we used to drive through, me and my family, growing up in South Carolina. I think it was called Lemon Island. I don't know. Oh, there was like a bridge to it. Yes, certainly. And I was always fascinated as a young child because there was a giant for sale sign on the whole island. you could buy an entire island i think it back then was like a million bucks but yeah i was like wow and i was running through my head like how do i get this type of because i could have an island you could be robinson crusoe man that was that was really cool uh thank you so much lauren for the um question you never did buy the island no no no long story short spoiler tldr no island i wanted to make this isn't a question but i wanted to mention this this was kind of funny um mn retro gamer uh left a question not a question a comment on on one of our social media posts like laughing saying uh i don't think kale is ever going to get my name correct not like he was offended but because i i would i would call it nm retro gamer yeah yeah minnesota it's so funny uh and and i don't do that on purpose uh uh i have uh dyslexia severe dyslexia yeah i was uh diagnosed when I was a child and which makes reading like real damn hard. Right. But that's why I like doing this because this is like an exercise. Of course, it would make more sense. You're a seasoned reader with a gigantic library. It would make more sense if you read it. But this gives me a chance to like practice and it adds a little fun. I think it adds a lot of personality. I enjoy your reading the questions. Me too. Let me tell you. But yes, please don't be offended. It is definitely not intentional.
    9:39
    Good times. We love MN, Retro Gamer. He's always hitting us up about all kinds. And a lot of stuff behind the scenes. He started routing after he started listening to the podcast. And he always shoots me some questions on Instagram. You know, I think the number of people, because we do get some offline just comments, questions. and like, hey, I started routing because of you. I think we're over two or three dozen people that we know of that have put machines on location as a direct result of this podcast, which is wonderful. Man, that feels good. We are building that community that we talk about. Across the world. It feels so good that so many people are joining us in this cool hobby. Yeah.
    10:25
    We are the world. We are the children. That's right. next question blake i love blake he's always lucky yeah he's shooting me all kind of questions and we we chat on instagram what have you uh question for the bat cast i think i'm ready to start routing a few machines mostly just to add some fun to my town more than a revenue generating endeavor here's my question how do you typically approach a business with an offer in person in writing what are the things to cover in the communication to help them to say yes these are with businesses i know and owners i trust but i want to preempt questions they will probably have oh that's a that's a fantastic question it's one that we get asked a lot so i'm glad someone wrote in with that uh let's get into it let's get into it so i think number one it's fantastic that you're considering businesses that you already know and trust and like the owners of. That relationship is paramount.
    11:30
    Yes. Number two when you go into a business I would do it face because face is always the best way to do anything But I would also bring Especially something like this Yes Yes I would also bring what you about to say in person on a piece of paper because it's going to be kind of a fast conversation. They're probably going to be distracted with their day job. And you want to leave them something to refer to when they think about it later.
    12:01
    Here are some things that I would include on that. Number one, I would make this, the beginning of this, be a test run, a trial run. And I think three months is a good time period for that, because you want to be sure that it's good for both parties. You know, it may not work out how you thought it would either. So you want to have an easy out that's not offensive.
    12:23
    Just saying, hey, we'll revisit this at the end of three months. then I would have something about be clear about when you will bring the machine and what they can expect from you as far as maintenance and payment on the machine. For example, I would say I will bring it on the first of the month so we can get started with this new cool arrangement. I will be by twice a week to make sure the machine is in good working order, fix any issues that have come up.
    13:03
    I will do audits on the first of every month, and I will pay you X percentage of that audit at that time. As far as that percentage goes, that varies. We've seen it go anywhere from 50-50 to 100-0. Where do you think is a good number? I like a 70-20 split.
    13:27
    That leaves 10%. Well, the 10% goes to us as a consulting fee. A 70-20 Nintendo Electric bat. You may not know who they are, but they're going to get 10% of your money. I like where this is going. Yeah, I would recommend something, either a 75-25 or an 80-20. You do want the business owner to have some skin in the game because that helps keep them motivated to make sure that they, for example, notify you if there's issues with the game, that they keep the machine clean, like the glass clean. Obviously, nothing underneath that. Right. And, you know, don't stack stools and things in front of it. Certainly. Because that's going to be an impediment to your earnings. So I do think 75-25, 80-20, somewhere in there is a good split. And that should be in writing. Right. Are there other things that you can think of that should be in this initial approach? Well, one other thing you want to stress to the bar owner and staff that there's they're not going to have to do much. So so one thing you have to get timers like mechanical timers. we've tried the digital ones that are like wi-fi and they're anything anytime something is connected to the internet and automated there can be glitches that's why we like using mechanical time the old school with timers with the little the kind that turn your lights on when you're out of town so people don't rob you right right um just let them know it's going to be on that so they don't have to worry about turning it on or turning it off at night that's that's a great point yeah yeah just let them know it's going to be a very easy thing but i think with that initial approach those are the things that i would cover after they agree you can add a few more things like talk to them about hey we'd love it if you'd clean the glass if it you know however often every couple days yeah right if you're in arizona every single day because we have so much dust and and the other important thing is and there are so many ways uh different arcades deploy some type of thing like this to notify the operator of issues, stuck balls, broken rubbers, all that kind of stuff.
    15:44
    People like using the QR code. You can create a QR code and put it in the way the price card would be, but also have the pricing information also.
    15:56
    Don't forget that. because when lots of times when people see the 25 cents on the little um the coin the coin slot coins they think that's all it costs right you do have to have that price yeah so let them know it's a buck or 75 cents or whatever per play um yeah so use the qr code or uh what we do the analog method is uh the clipboard but you're not going to get notified if somebody writes something on the clipboard so i think if you if you're just operating one or two machines here and there maybe one or two machines at another place the qr code is a great way to do it you want to be notified and that's going to help keep that relationship going well long term because if that machine is broken in the corner maybe not your fault you didn't know right um that gets very tiring for the business owner because it doesn't look good certainly broken equipment so that's a fantastic point and there's a great free way to do it i think you can use like google forms to where that when they they hit the qr code with the other phone and the camera uh it goes to that and they can just a short description of what's going on and you flip or don't work you get an alert yep yeah yeah do you think that's a great question if you have any follow-ups along those lines that is something that we get asked a lot how to how to do that initial approach right so in person but bring some paper with the facts that we just covered. And if they are stern machines, um, the, the cash, if it's allowed in your County, um, the, the tops, the, the tournament, the cash game, the cash game is a great way to bring people in. We've, we've done it. It's, it's insane. Yeah. And we'll, we'll talk about that later. We will.
    17:44
    Good deal. Thank you so much, Blake. If you have any other questions, get in touch. How can they do that? He's in the Discord. How can somebody else get in the Discord? You go to your browser and you... On the World Wide Web. World Wide Web. Type in electricbatarcade.com. A website will pop up. And you go to the podcast tab and that will lead you to our Discord link and a bunch of other ways to listen to the podcast and watch. Fantastic. Yeah. You know, it wouldn't be an electric bat cast without a question from Gutter Ghoul. And here we go. The number one questioner of the electric bat podcast. Twippy goes to Gutter Ghoul. Yes. We have to make him an award. Yeah.
    18:33
    Comments on the steel quality from the last show. So cool to hear about the firsthand testing you have seen. Do you think there is a way to refab modern parts with that old quality steel or is there none to be had no matter where you look? I think there are people who refab ramp plastics. Is the juice just not worth the squeeze for those metal components? He's talking about the last back cast where I think we were talking about the longevity of pinball machines. and we weren't concerned about the electronics as much as we were the the physical the mechs yes brackets all that stuff that snap and we see that a lot because we we get a lot of use in these machines i know that you have an opinion about this you have something to say yeah i was um when i first got this question i started thinking about it because um it all it's across the board with all pinball manufacturers. I mean, this is just a steel they're using. They're all using a lot of the same parts. Steel's lots of times coming from the same places.
    19:50
    And I started thinking about some other hobbies and other jobs I've had. For a while, I was in the bicycle parts business.
    19:59
    I worked for one of the largest bicycle parts distributors in the entire world. and I dealt with derailers, all the Shimano stuff. All the high-end things. Yeah, and the low-end stuff. But a lot of the high-end stuff, you're talking about stuff that folks are using in Tour de France, like big races, like Lance Armstrong stuff.
    20:25
    And these were incredible, incredible mechs that were indestructible when you compare them to pinball stuff. um also the the remote controlled car business um i recently got into building rc cars yeah the kitchen table right now it's just covered it's covered in tools and parts and it's it's a lot of fun it looks cool but uh the the most recent kit i was putting together it's made by an american manufacturer um team associated they do the rc10 it's a classic uh car uh from the 80s um and i was just blown away by the quality of the parts i remember you were putting it together and you came and got me in the other room i had to just to show me a washer you said rachel look at this washer hold this and right it was it was like some a washer i had never seen before it had weight to it it felt like stainless steel i mean it was just like it had a finish that was like nice and machined and not stamped and this is on an rc car right but but the same thing with the plastics i was like like hold these plastics like the the a arms that the the axles are attached to and everything i was like feel the the the strength in this plastic just unlike anything you see in a pinball machine and i started thinking and i was like i did some research into these two industries um i'm sure there are many more examples but let's just take these are two we know about i have a connection with you you more specifically yeah uh of course bicycles are huge. You're talking over $100 billion industry.
    22:15
    RC cars. I looked this one up. It's like $2.5 billion a year. Wait, bicycles are $100 billion? Yeah. And RC cars are two and a half times bicycles? $2.5 billion. Wow. Yeah. Bicycles are larger than RC cars You said 100 billion Like 800 billion For bicycles? Yeah I thought it was like a couple hundred billion Okay And then 2.5 for RC cars Okay So RC cars are much smaller Right I mean, is that right? Did I say that right? No No, I didn't at first Right Okay, so Now we're clear Are we clear now? Many hundreds of billions for bicycles and a couple of hundred billions no 2.5 oh 2.5 yeah i'm sorry i messed that up okay okay cool all right um yeah so these are massive massive industries what do you think the pinball industry is um so if take Stern Jersey Jack Spooky and then even like the parts guys let's talk just about the biggest, you know, Marco and pinball life.
    23:31
    You're south of 100 million. Whoa. So we're talking many, many, many times. Right. Larger. And that, when you think about how small this industry is, the buying power as an industry, you know, is not where it is with these massive, massive industries. I think something else you have to think about is historically what the pinball industry looked like. These machines were made to be purchased by operators and put on a route for about a year and then go into a dumpster because they want you to buy the new one over and over and over again. And all of these mechs are the same. Right. They over time, they didn't change those. They're essentially. From the 70s. Right. From the 70s, we're still talking about the same parts. With that mindset originally of being a disposable piece of equipment, to now people expect it to last a long time. Right. But if you're going to go and build a whole new mold for these, you're looking at tens of thousands of dollars, if not $100,000, for each part. Correct. So the financial incentive is really not there. And I have a specific example of something like that. You know, when I was working at Marco's Specialties, we noticed there was a button that was defective. Things were going on with the button that were undesirable. And so we reached out to McMaster, where it came from, and we're like, man, there's a problem with this button and they were like yeah we're aware of it but we can't really do anything about it because to make a new tool is a hundred thousand dollars wow you know in a small industry that you know you're not going to just jump in and spend a hundred thousand dollars but you know just when you think about bicycles rc cars making billions and billions of dollars a year, that $100,000 is no big deal. It's a drop in the bucket for them. Right. It's a cup in the bucket for the pinball industry. And I think we just need to be reminded of how absolutely tiny, although it is growing, how tiny this industry is. And that does affect the buying power of this industry. So the short answer to that question is, yes, it would be possible. but if you think pinball machines are expensive now oh yeah hold on to your seat yeah they would be astronomical right yeah you would nobody be able to afford them that's really interesting i think that's a i think that's the perspective that is hard to imagine for outsiders or people that experience the hobby from the player standpoint right it just may not have the industry experience. It's really interesting. Right, right. Yep. And there you have it. Is that it? Yep, that was it. Oh, no, no. We have one more from Guttergool.
    26:56
    There's a little footnote. Oh. Also love the idea about the shorter playing games. On the last podcast, we talked about how much fun the shorter playing games are, especially when you're playing four-player games. four friends get together uh you don't necessarily want to play a jaws jurassic park you want to get to your turn yeah or godzilla right you know while somebody's you know playing has a 30 minute long ball right and everybody's just kind of bored you want those quick playing games what are your favorite short playing games are there modern games like iron man that fit the bill iron man's a great example yeah iron man was one of the examples i gave in the last podcast i think some Other ones might be John Wick. That can be a fast-playing game. Yep.
    27:43
    I think also Black Knight. Black Knight's a phenomenal game for this. I think you're saying specifically sort of rage. Yes. All of them are fast-playing. All of them fit the bill. Yeah. But if we're talking specifically about the more modern games, I think Black Knight sort of rage is probably the best because it's also shit-talking your friends while you play, And that adds that little extra something that makes it super fun. Also, honorable mention, Bond 60th. Oh, yes. If you have access to one of those. Great short playing game. Great tournament game. Yes, that's a great one. Steve, no.
    28:23
    Keith. Keith Elwin, instant classic. Yes. Steve Elwin is the crocodile guy. I think that's Steve Irwin. Oh, yeah. Well, him too. Basically the same.
    28:34
    Yeah, cool. Thank you so much, Gutter Ghoul, for the question. Also, I wanted you to get into we have not a new employee, but an employee with a new position. Yes. You know about this? I do know about this. The BAT has a brand new apprentice tech. Yes. And people have stopped me because we did a social media post about it. And people have stopped me in the arcade and been like, how do I get a position like that? Yeah, that is a question that we get in person and online a lot. I'd like to. How do I become a tech? How do I work for you to become a tech? There's no schools for this stuff. There's no schools.
    29:22
    So in this particular case, here's how it happened. she was bartending for us and immediately i noticed that she had just an excellent attention to detail i should say she is patrick swayze patrick um which is so important in any business really but this one in particular because if you have a poor attention to detail things get fried and broken um she was also just like a really good problem solver i would get notes in the morning like here's something that came up and here's how I solved it instead of a phone call in the middle of the night which I don't mind if it needs to happen please call me but I didn't get one she she figured out how to solve it on her own and that problem solving is so important and the third thing is that she wanted to work for us full-time so many of our employees it's you know they may bartend for us one night a week two nights a week but they have other jobs as their primary income, which is totally fine. We love that. But training somebody to become a tech is a significant time and therefore also financial investment on our part. So we really want somebody who's going to be there and not just think, okay, that was cool. I'm glad I learned it. Now I'm going to go work at Red Lobster and manage that. What was that about? we have so many people that that that say hey can we just like shadow you yeah just like look over your shoulder i'm not gonna you know bother you or ask any questions and stuff you know and and how does that feel when someone is doing that when you're working on a machine they always ask questions and no because the uh enthusiasm like i've done that with some people they're like hey can i watch what you're doing yeah absolutely shit and they're like oh i'm not gonna bother you but once you lift the play field all bets are off all bets are off and they have all kind of questions which makes sense if i would have haven't seen well i can remember the first time somebody lifted a playfield i had all kinds of questions yeah you know what are these round cylinder things what does this do how does that work right oh my god how do you learn about this it just goes on and on and on yep and even if they don't ask you questions they're still looking over your shoulder and so you're trying to problem solve with an audience which is maybe not for everybody i like that you like that i get off on that you you'll do anything like the more audience the better for a lot of us and that is just like all i'm thinking about is like this person is what you know i'll end up messing up because somebody is looking over my shoulder right so uh we also get people that say i you know i work on my car i so i i feel like i'm mechanically inclined i will tell you that the physical technical part of of working on pinball machines for example how long would it take you to teach somebody to rebuild a flipper uh so i mean like probably like an hour but for them to actually be able to do it on their own i mean it's going to take some practice but the actual physical part like showing somebody that part like i can teach somebody to solder in a very short amount of time, right? All of that stuff is whenever I think people are thinking, I want to learn how to tech, which to them just means I think that I need to know how to rebuild a flipper. I need to know how to solder this. I need to know how to do all of these things. But what you really need to learn is the problem solving. And I think that is so important to reframe your mind in terms of learning to tech. You need to think about how, if what the symptom is, how to find what the originating problem is and how to solve that. Yeah. So those are the things when people are saying, I want to learn how to tech. Right. What you really need to do is learn how to be an excellent problem solver. And that's a good point because some of the problems we've seen multiple times are not technical. for example we've even gotten calls from people like i have a stern machine it will not start it and it's like do you have all of the balls in the machine oh my god i don't right yeah you know is it plugged in did something get pulled out of like just some really basic yeah stuff like that so long story short about patrick she just had all these qualities and i thought this is somebody who I think will be an excellent problem solver, I want to take the time to teach her how to do what we do. Yeah. So to everybody out there, consider, of course, you can learn the technical stuff. It helps to learn it from a person because they can show you like yes or no on the, like that's a cold solder joint. But there's certainly like the school of YouTube for learning the technical stuff. but the internet cannot teach you how to, you know, the logic and in problem solving. So certainly think about that. If you want to be a tech, I think it's great. And I love the way you're teaching Patrick from the ground up.
    34:42
    She has zero prior experience working on pinball machines. Right. I mean, you started with, this is how you open the coin door and this is how you take the lock bar off. This is how you take the glass off. That like day one Right And went around to every single machine to learn the different latching mechanisms of some of those old you know if you got like old got leaves or something sometimes you gonna like really jam it up and there some some machines just have some every machine has its own personality and you want to be comfortable with all of them and they're all great personalities every last one of them is great super great that's that's right that's the way i feel i do too uh cool let's uh thank you so much everybody for these questions um let's let's get some more let's make the next backcast a banger and and come up with some cool questions that we can get into but right now this is what everyone has been waiting for ladies and gentlemen the main event the earnings report and from this is from july july all right so famous for the fourth world famous july 4th yep yep okay what do we have well you told me this is we're gonna i'm gonna see some surprises you're gonna be surprised not just me the whole audience everybody is gonna be surprised there's gonna be some explaining are we gonna start with 10 we will and number 10 is black knight sword of rage okay did that drop do you remember where it was last month it's always kind of around that number so that's not a surprising spot for that steady earner people really like the shit talking okay number nine dungeons and dragons okay dropped a little bit dropped number eight the simpsons this has this been in the top 10 i don't believe it's ever been in the top 10 so weird i don't uh i have no explanation yeah for why it earned that much but we have noticed a lot more people playing it people love especially casuals and families really yeah they Of course, hey, it's the Simpsons. It has funny call-outs. When we're in the office, we can always tell when somebody's playing the Simpsons. You can hear it. And this is the Stern Simpsons, just to be clear. Oh, yes, not Data East. This is the Stern Simpsons. The good one. Yes, the good one. They're both good. I don't want Gary to get mad at me. No, this one is significantly better, as reflected by the price tag. Right. Number seven is Evil Dead. Oh, that dropped a good bit. It did. This is really interesting. Right, because you have to wonder what are six games that earned more than the game that we see people on all the time. You are reading my mind.
    37:26
    Number six is Jaws. Wow. Number five. Hold on to your seat for this one. Godzilla. Get out of here. Hold on. So we have four more games and I have no idea. Right? Yeah. We have four more games. That made more money than Godzilla this month. let's hear it let's what's number four number four is ghostbusters wow now i kind of have an idea of what's going on here because we we moved a few games from our location up north back down south down south yes and uh ghostbusters is one of those games so this was the first month the first full month it was back so this kind of makes sense right so People hadn't seen it for a few years. And it's such a good, it's one of my favorite games. It is one of your very favorite. I see you out there playing it a lot. Number three, this is going to make sense to you after you hear it. Metallica Remastered. Oh, because of the cash game. It is a cash game. The T.O.P.S. tournament. So this month we had it on the T.O.P.S. tournament setting, which you can do with all sterns, all modern sterns. You just need that little tournament button. Little $10 tournament button. and uh bill won 105 dollars holy crap like by winning the metallica tournament this month wow so that did incentivize people to bump those earnings number two this one is going to be very surprising to everybody the monsters oh yeah you know i didn't even have a good guess but you didn't give me a chance you knew i wouldn't have gotten that one i just saw you And this is the same thing with Ghostbusters. The Monsters was up north. We brought it back down. I think this shows the importance of if you – this is hard. But if you are able to rotate stock – Do it. Yeah. It makes a huge difference. Right. Even if it's just like a couple of games you keep back in the office or something like that, and then it's like you keep it hidden away for a couple of months. Just a few games, like if you have a home collection, just rotate your home collection with your location collection. That's good for you, too, because you get to play some new games at home. Yeah, that just, when I saw that, I double-checked. I went and double-checked the audits on the machine.
    39:53
    One thing that does surprise me, and the earnings are probably close, you would know, but that Monsters earned more than Ghostbusters. yeah i think that theme particularly in our location that's just a theme that people and just so people know it is a black and white premium yeah which looks really cool yes yeah but we have a lot of people that uh i mean that that theme is a good fit for our location yes certainly um so we're at number one number one but before that notice big buck hunter all of these games blew out big buck hunter this month that's odd right it is except big buck hunter didn't earn significantly less than it has these are these games which goes to sometimes people ask if i put more games in am i just dividing the pie into more pieces sometimes that answer is no like these games are just earning more uh big buck was stable wow so number one number one spot drumroll please should i guess yeah is it dune yeah it's not dune dune is not uh dune was not it wasn't there in july is that what you're saying yeah okay this is king kong oh my god elwynn yes steve irwin's nephew ladies and gentlemen the king of monsters is back i absolutely love king kong i've been playing that more than any other game man it's a great game The shots are so cool. I mean, the base code is there, and it works. Sweeping the drops, hitting the button for the log jam diverter, and you can trap up your ball on that tiny flipper. The whole thing, man, that helix ramp, I love the feel of it. I cannot wait to see the direction this code goes because, you know, there's so much more coming out, and this game is fun. You know what I like about all Elwynn games is the fan service, how he's able to integrate really cool features from machines of the past and machines that not everybody cares about. For example, in King Kong, I'm thinking of Fongo.
    42:13
    Fongo isn't the most popular game in the world. And there are great games. It is a great game. There are a ton of them. So not everybody is familiar with it. So he's taking some of those really cool moments from Congo and integrating it into King Kong. And he's done that with all of his games. And you can just tell, like, this is a pinball machine made by a person who loves playing pinball machines, who has a deep history with pinball. And it shows, like, just that love really comes through. It's like the difference between a meal made with love and some Aramark shit that some guy who's hung over and pissed off in the kitchen slopped onto a plate. I couldn't have said it better. Also, because he did operate machines, here's some of the easiest games to work on. Yes. You have a lot of room. You're not, like, taking off three million ramps just to change a rubber. He really thinks, and I don't think he's, like, purposely thinking about that. It's just, like, in him. It's just, like, this is how you do it. Purpose or not, it's a pleasure to work on. So, like, this game, I'm so happy to have it. I'm so happy it came out. Bravo.
    43:27
    Right on. Thank you so much for the main event, the earnings report. I'm excited. I am really excited to see what happens next because this is really shaking things up. Yeah, I want to know, like, do these, was it just a flash in the pan? Like, oh, we missed it. I want to see you again, but now you go back down to your regular level of earnings. For sure. Or does it have a taper off, like a brand new game? What does that map look like? Interesting. And then in about another month, we're going to see a new game from Stern. Oh, yeah. Can't wait to see how this one earns. Yeah. Because the rumor is it is a massive franchise. A massive, like a real star of a franchise. That's right. 100%, Rachel. There you go. Cool. Well, let's wrap it up. We have to get to the arcade. There's some exciting things going on. Today is the Punk Rock Flea Swap. Wow, and it's like a Punk Rock Farmer's Market. They take over Yucca Taproom. They take over the arcade.
    44:32
    You can still play games. Yeah, you can still play games, but you can also buy an Eraserhead hat. Yes, which I have done at the Punk Rock Flea Swap. Right on. Do you have anything else? to tell the fans. They can contact us with questions at electricbatarcade at gmail. They can order merch off the website. They can join our Discord, which has almost 420 members. We're right on the cusp. There's a lot of talk in the Home Gaming channel about Battlefield 6. Yes, you played it all day yesterday. Everybody's playing this beta. It's so freaking cool. Join us. We have a great group playing that. And having a lot of fun. It's not just pinball all the time. No, just good times all the time. That's the rule. That's right. Good times all the time. Fantastic. Thank you all for joining us. Stay tuned to our social media. We're going to do some streams, some tournament streams. We're going to do with Serge, our commentator. The resident expert. Yes. We're going to do some streams, some like tutorial type streams. Oh, like the old Bo and Papa ones. 100%. We're going to mic him up, and him and I are going to play some games together, and he's going to do a deep dive into the rules. I am so excited about that. So actually, if you want to get on the Discord, let us know which games you want to see streamed. Which games do you want Serge to do a deep dive on? And he'll do it. Yeah. And if you want to know which games are options, go to our website and then click on the games tab. And there's an updated list that we scraped from pinball maps. Yeah. Okay, cool. All righty. Thank you all for joining us. We're going to take off. We're going to go to the arcade. We have some stuff to do. And we'll see you next time. Thank you so much. We're going to do the bat handshake, right? Yes. Let's do it. Bats out.
    46:30
    Whoa. you see so it wouldn't be a bad cast if something didn't fall down at some point oh he man almost took a dive all right y'all have a good day we'll see you next time