Episode 816: "Kaneda's Candid Take on Everybody Else"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·36m 55s·analyzed·Jun 23, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Kaneda grades all pinball manufacturers, reveals remake rumors, and critiques industry-wide delays and customer service failures.

Summary

Kaneda delivers a sweeping industry critique, grading all major pinball manufacturers from A (Stern) to F (Home Pin). He discusses rumors including Big Bang Bar remake (likely Pedretti), Princess Bride for Spooky, and Indiana Jones licensing confusion, while lamenting delayed products (Chicago Gaming's Cactus Canyon, Multimorphic's long wait times), poor customer service (American Pinball, Chicago Gaming), and the concentration of market share in Stern's hands. He criticizes companies for broken promises, lack of transparency, and uninspired theme choices across the industry.

Key Claims

Stern Pinball dominates the market with approximately 90% market share based on sales and distributor revenue
high confidence · Kaneda stated 'Every time I see people's game rooms, I see mostly Stern machines. If you're a distributor, you're making all your money selling Sterns mostly' and 'that why Stern got 90 of the pinball market'
Rick at Planetary Pinball owns the license to Big Bang Bar and is shopping it to manufacturers for remake; Pedretti Gaming is the likely partner
high confidence · Kaneda: 'The license is owned by Rick at Planetary Pinball' and 'If I were a betting man, I bet Pedretti Gaming is remaking the game. I bet that's why they said it's not going to be Twilight Zone'
Gene Cunningham's original Big Bang Bar remake cost him years of stress and he charged only $4,500, whereas modern remakes would cost $45,000+
high confidence · Kaneda: 'Gene Cunningham who remade the game originally... Remaking that game basically killed the guy... I think it was like 4500 bucks is what he charged people... people would probably charge 45,000 to remake Big Bang Bar'
Jersey Jack's Godfather CE shipments won't reach domestic customers until July, coinciding with Stern's Venom reveal at Comic-Con
high confidence · Kaneda: 'they are not even shipd a domestic godfather CE until sometime in July and July twentieth we are going to see Venom At come and new competition'
Brian Eddy has been working on Venom for over two years and will have the game playable at Comic-Con in 30 days
high confidence · Kaneda: 'Brian Eddy has been done with Venom now for over two years... And we are gonna see Venom at Comic-Con. So we are 30 days away from the next Stern Machine'
Chicago Gaming Company promised updated code for Cactus Canyon over two years ago but has not delivered it
high confidence · Kaneda: 'It's been over two years since that game's been announced and the updated code that was supposed to have lime and sheets on it is still not available and may never be available'
American Pinball failed to respond to a customer service email for a week, resulting in order cancellation

Notable Quotes

“Every time I see people's game rooms, I see mostly Stern machines. If you're a distributor, you're making all your money selling Sterns mostly.”
Kaneda @ early episode — Establishes Stern's market dominance and explains why other manufacturers are struggling
“Do we need another Big Bang Bar? Do we want to see these games that are beautiful to look at? The gameplay is alright.”
Kaneda @ rumors section — Questions the strategic value of remaking rare collectible games and discusses impact on original values
“If you are on the road, what does your internet stop working? Does your email no longer come in?... If you are American pinball how are you selling nine to eighteen thousand dollar product and you're not immediately answering every single email?”
Kaneda @ American Pinball criticism — Harsh critique of American Pinball's customer service failures with concrete comparisons to his own podcast customer service standards
“The games are freaking amazing, but everything else they do is like a failing grade. So multiply that A plus game times an F for communication, an F for correspondence, an F for marketing...”
Kaneda @ Chicago Gaming Company grading — Illustrates the paradox of Chicago Gaming's superior product quality coupled with catastrophic operational failures
“He's not making games for pinball enthusiasts. Okay, he's making games for nobody then.”
Kaneda @ Home Pin section — Critiques Home Pin's stated business model as fundamentally flawed for the pinball market
“Well, that why Stern got 90 of the pinball market... only Stern gets in A, everything else is C here D here”
Kaneda @ closing argument — Connects his grading system directly to market outcomes and Stern's dominance
“It's fun knowing that there are some crazy unicorns out there in the pinball collecting space. And sometimes I wish companies would just say, hey, we're never making this game again.”
Kaneda — Expresses tension between collectibility/rarity and manufacturer strategy in remake culture

Entities

KanedapersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack Pinballcompany American Pinballcompany Rickperson Planetary Pinballcompany Pedretti Gamingcompany

Signals

?
rumor_hype: Big Bang Bar remake rumored to be in production with Pedretti Gaming and Planetary Pinball; Kaneda questions strategic value of remaking rare collectible games
medium · Kaneda: 'If I were a betting man, I bet Pedretti Gaming is remaking the game' based on Pedretti's denial of Twilight Zone remake
?
machine_intel: Princess Bride pinball allegedly in development at Spooky Pinball; Kaneda played clip after Spooky show but did not elaborate on confirmation status
medium · Kaneda: 'The big rumor I said this week that no one really seems to talk about is that Spooky Pinball might potentially have The Princess Bride as a game'
?
product_concern: Jersey Jack Godfather CE domestic shipments won't begin until July; timing coincides with Venom reveal, creating competitive disadvantage
high · Kaneda: 'they are not even shipped a domestic godfather CE until sometime in July and July twentieth we are going to see Venom At comic con'
~
sentiment_shift: Marked increase in community frustration regarding Stern's dominance; other manufacturers' inability to compete drives enthusiasm toward waiting rather than pre-ordering
high · Kaneda discusses secondary market pricing trends showing later-in-line buyers getting machines at or below MSRP as hype diminishes
?
community_signal: Kaneda's Pinball Podcast membership dipped below 600 to 599 members; attributed to honest critical commentary driving away some listeners
high · Kaneda: 'we just dipped below 600 club members. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now struggling to find an audience at 599 club members'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.111

0:00

If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says, when she says she loves me. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Welcome everybody to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. I'm your host Kaneda. It is Friday. We are rounding out the week with Kaneda's candid take on the pinball industry. I think I was a little bit cranky yesterday when I did American Pinball's review. We gave them a D. Would I change the score today? No. I mean they've made themes people don't really want and the one theme that begged for a bunch of toys and Hot Wheels, they didn't put any toys in the game and I don't think David Fix has fixed the company. I think they need new direction, they probably need new leadership and they need new designers and new ideas over there. So they're another company, right? Where they're either gonna put up or go away, right? Steve Ritchie needs to knock it out of the park for Jersey Jack. We're gonna need to see this Ryan McQuade game because the Dennis Norman one didn't live up to expectations. And in summary, so far this week, we have given Stern Pinball an A, Jersey Jack Pinball a C, Spooky Pinball a B-minus, and American Pinball a D. All of a sudden it doesn't look like there's a lot of parity in the pinball industry. It seems like only one company is running away with it. And guess what? They really are. I mean, that's what's happening on a sales level. Every time I see people's game rooms, I see mostly Stern machines. If you're a distributor, you're making all your money selling Sterns mostly. And so here we go. Now look, here's what I want to do on this episode, because we got Chicago GamingCompany left, I'm going to summarize and give a score to all the other companies that are trying to make pinball or are making pinball in the pinball space right now. How's that sound? We'll give everybody a score. We'll give something for everybody to chew on who's out there in the pinball world. But before we do that, let's tackle a lot of these rumors that Jason Knapp has been putting on Knapp's Arcade. Some of them we've said before, some of them are brand new. I think everyone in the pinball content space has been circling around these rumors for a while. The first one is that Big Bang Bar is going to be remade. Now look, this is going to happen. The license is owned by Rick at Planetary Pinball and as I've been saying, Rick is shopping around manufacturers to remake all of the games he has that are remake potentials. Big Bang Bar is one, Theater of Magic, Circus Voltaire, Toten. The list goes on and on and on when it comes to the titles that Rick can remake. Now Rick has all the parts and he has everything ready to go. He just needs someone to screw these things together. But the real question is do we need another Big Bang Bar? Do we want to see these games that are beautiful to look at? The gameplay is alright. It's not the best playing game. But it's a little bit of a shame if we remake more Big Bang Bars. I'll tell you why. Gene Cunningham who remade the game originally, the game basically killed him. Remaking that game basically killed the guy because he had to go through so many years of stressful movements to get the game made and he finally did deliver. And here's the crazy part, I think it was like 4500 bucks is what he charged people to remake that game. I mean think about it today, people would probably charge 45,000 to remake Big Bang Bar. But do we want more? Do we need more? Would they update the code? Would they update the display? When we take these rare games that are collectible because they are rare and then we significantly increase the volume of the amount that are out there, I don't like that because then all of a sudden you've removed what makes the game special in the first place and that's its rarity. That's its exclusivity. And the other thing, if they make this new version better than the old version, yes, they're going to torpedo the value of the original machines or the remake machines that Gene did. And that's just the thing about pinball these days. It's like, I think certain games should not be remade. And it's fun knowing that there are some crazy unicorns out there in the pinball collecting space. And sometimes I wish companies would just say, hey, we're never making this game again. It would be nice if Jersey Jack was like, we're never remaking Pirates, right? Those thousand units out there are going to remain valuable within the collector space because we're never rerunning it. They're always ambiguous about that. So Big Bang Bar coming back. If I were a betting man, I bet Pedretti Gaming is remaking the game. I bet that's why they said it's not going to be Twilight Zone, which I reported. But trust me, Pedretti Gaming and Ricket Planetary, they've teamed up. It's two weeks away, I hope this isn't две weeks. Out Pinball Podcast wilderness ... .

5:50

Designing of Jon Wickvieck and phenomenal og Myock�el forcément Everyone know one thing, ada So I think it would be really neat. How awesome would it be if the Ellie's came with the special gold coins? You know the currency that all those hitmen used to check into the Continental like I think you need to have each game have that and it like Starts a unique mode like they need to RFID tag that coin and it starts a unique mode when you put it down on the Apron of the game how awesome would that be? I also see this game being something like Tron where you use like lights and mirrors and make it feel like John Wick is Following The big rumor I said this week that no one really seems to talk about is that Spooky Pinball might potentially have The Princess Bride as a game. Now look, I played the clip after the Spooky show, but I never talked about whether or not Princess Bride would be great or not, and I do think it would be a fun campy game. If they can get all the assets from the movie, I think it could work. The main thing with Spooky now though is I'm not sure they can sell 2000 of every single theme. And I think they're going to have to figure out like what their marketing strategy is moving forward. But I do think the Princess Bride, if you made it right, could find a place in people's game rooms if you wanted to sell like 1200 of them. I don't think that would be an issue. And I don't get why people don't like the movie. If you look at the Rotten Tomatoes score of this movie, it's 94%. I'm a fan of pinball and I think it's a great classic film. I think sometimes people forget that pinball is a toy that is supposed to bring joy into our homes. Not everything needs to be serious dad rock, like old man boomer yelling at the clouds themes. This is not a terrible theme for pinball. It's much better than Ultraman. I actually think it's a much better theme than Halloween. Halloween is a movie where Mike Myers doesn't say anything. And that's not a great theme for pinball and I don't think it translated well into pinball either. Scooby Doo much more fun than Halloween, much more fun to play. We got that and then I saw today Jason is posting all the different licenses and properties and then I saw Jason also posted about Indiana Jones. Now look, I said Indiana Jones is going to be made by Stern. He said it was going to be JJP then he changed his mind and then he said it's not John Borg. at Penn Pass forward�tał footprints at breeded C西 Chiez at the hands sinovi is bite world rated Rуль akin alashkaririzai Identity in a Could be John Borg it could be Brian Eddy People forget Brian Eddy has been done with Venom now for over two years Zombie Eddy will be on the Venom game He been working on that package for a while I know he excited for you to see the game And we are gonna see Venom at Comic-Con. So we are 30 days away from the next Stern Machine. And Stern once again does what Stern does best. They just keep the ball moving forward. And you know what Venom means? It means the death of Galactic Tank Force sales. It means the death of the Godfather. And I know, and this is what's gonna happen once this game comes out and you see the Todd McFarlane and Zombietti artwork, the Ozzy Osbourne music and that big Venom mechanism that's gonna be in the game. It's gonna be sexy as hell. And then there's gonna be all this excitement for it. The code is gonna be done. And then good luck trying to sell people GodfatherLEs. And we're the Godfather CEs. Once again, Jersey Jack is making CE owners wait over four months to get their game. And I know someone said like, well, that's how long I waited for Guns N' Roses, but people forget there was a delay between Guns N' Roses, Ellie and CE because they were trying to fix the playfield issues. There were no playfield delay issues. I think there's some parts delay issues with the Godfather. Now you've got all these CE buyers and a lot of them are starting to lose Pacience great by the time they get it Venom will be revealed remember they are not even shipd a domestic godfather CE until sometime in July and July twentieth we are going to see Venom At come and new competition. This is why waiting and seeing is the smartest move because if you lock money into godfather's anymore$2500 or non refundable deposit. If you didn't do that come July twentieth now you can decide which came you want more. And you can go play Venom because we know Stern's gonna have the game on the line. It's gonna be at ComicCon ready to play. And so why wouldn't you just wait? I mean, I told everybody if you had waited to July or August, you can go get Foo Fighters LE for 13,000. You're gonna be able to get Venom LE. You're gonna be able to get Godfather CE, Galactic Tank Force. And heck, you could order as many Galactic Tank Forces as you want. Like none of them are sold out. They're not flying off the shelves. And that's where we're at in pinball. And again, at these prices everybody, isn't it just more fun to wait it out and then just pick the thing that really, really speaks to you after having jumped on every single machine? That's awesome. It is so awesome to have some of the power back as the buyer and be able to play everything before you make up your mind. I was just looking at a Scooby Doo with butter cabinet went up for sale on Pinside for $10,000, right? So that's how much that game lists for and it's game number 300 and something new in box. So imagine if you ordered Scooby Doo and you are number 700 and something or 800 or 1000. You could today have that game fully optioned out in your game room tomorrow and not pay a penny more. But now the guy waiting at the end of the line, he knows that his game is going to lose so much value by the time he gets it and he could have cut the line and got his game this weekend if he simply listened to Kaneda. The more I do shows, the more we're starting to lose some fans. We just dipped below 600 club members. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now struggling to find an audience at 599 club members. I love it. I do more effort this week and I lose a few people. Maybe I should just shut up and go away. My haters would love that, but no, I love doing the show and we're not going to stop doing the Saturday Morning Spectacular if we dip below 500. Now that I'm at $5.99 and we're not even at the end of the month, we're going to dip all the way down to like $5.90, $5.80. It's going to happen. Look, do me a favor, everybody. If you have friends in pinball who are not part of the club, come on, just tell them, dude, $5. It's nothing. You're going to get the best, most entertaining, consistent pinball podcast on the planet. All right, so let's talk about the rest of the pinball companies that are out there and what grade would I give them? Chicago Gaming Company. I mean, look, we're not going to have to I'm glad to talk about this company from like how good are their designers, how good are their games. I mean they've been remaking classic games. They've been remaking some of the greatest pinball machines in history and they've made them all better. Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, Monster Bash, freaking what's the last one, Cactus Canyon and now they're going to be the company that screws together play mechanics is Pulp Fiction. So from a pure quality standpoint, this company makes the best quality product possibly in all of pinball. We don't see the issues with the playfields. We don't see cracking cabinets. These things are built like tanks and everybody who I speak to who has a Chicago gaming company game always raves about the quality. So they get an A++ for quality of product. Now, this company takes forever and a day to get product to market. The delays are ridiculous. They take forever. Why is it taking so long to remake something that was made 30 years ago? There's no reason why it should be taking them so long to screw the games together. And then they say stuff like they're gonna have updated code with Cactus Canyon. And where's that been? It's been over two years since that game's been announced and the updated code that was supposed to have lime and sheets on it is still not available and may never be available when you look at the direction of this game. And then they did the sleazy thing of like bringing the game out and saying the topper was Special thanks to Ryan White who is hosting our broadcast. The Topper for everybody else to buy with the SE+. And because of all these delays and also they have the worst communication in all of pinball, Ryan White disappears for months. People will send emails to this company and not hear back for months. Distributors don't know what's going on with the product. Consumers don't know where their money is. Nobody knows what's going on with Chicago Gaming Company at any given time. It always feels like Ryan's like hiding out in Mexico or something. I don't know what's going on with this company's communications. So overall, as a company, the games themselves are amazing, but the company itself and the way it's managed and how they run their marketing and their communications and how they've built or destroyed the relationship with its fan base. I'm going to give Chicago GamingCompany a C+. You know, another C within the title of this company. They get a C+. The games are freaking amazing, but everything else they do is like a failing grade. So multiply that A plus game times an F for communication, an F for correspondence, an F for marketing, an F for how they roll out games, an F for delivering code that they promise, an F for hoodwinking people who bought the LE saying the toppers were exclusive. Everything they do when they do stuff, they just do it wrong. The only thing they do right is the best damn games. And that's the sad part, right? Is the hard part is building a quality pinball machine. And that's why this company is so frustrating is they do the easy stuff wrong. You know, I was just listening to someone on pin side say something like, I sent American Pinball an email about my Galactic Tank Force order and an entire week went by and I didn't get an email response. So I then canceled my order for the game. And the excuse I got from American Pinball was we were all busy being at shows and expos and I just want to say this for the record. I work a nine to five job every single day. Okay, I charge people $5 a month to listen to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. I check my emails every single day and I respond to every single question I get about a $5 product. If you are on the road, what does your internet stop working? Does your email no longer come in? The whole point of email is to be able to reach people anywhere they are at any time because our devices make it simple if you're American pinball how are you selling nine to eighteen thousand dollar product and you're not Immediately answering every single email that comes into this company there's no excuse for it like this behavior is lame and they just cost themselves a sale and now they've got Kaneda talking about it on his podcast so five hundred and ninety nine And souls are now hearing that American Pinball's customer service is also kinda lame. And you can't just have ferret on pin side being the only communication between your company and your customers. That's Chicago Gaminging Company. They get the C grade or the C minus or C plus. I even forget what I just gave them. Alright, let's talk about everybody else real quick. Dutch Pinball. What do we give Dutch? They're doing it. They're making the games. I mean it took a decade to get there, but everyone who's an EA on those games, an early He is C r or the factory looks beautiful you can eat off the floor Dutch Pinball looks like they in a good position to get to their next game and so I give Dutch Pinball in 2023 Dutch you get a B- and the reason why you get a B- is because you made people wait forever like I'm still gonna have to downgrade you but if I were to go on like the game itself yes the games are rolling out they're trickling out not as fast as people would like There still are some quality control issues with the game that I would like to see ironed out. I'm still seeing people like problem shooting this game all the time. Hopefully on their next game, they figure out a way to get everything to work together. But I also think that Big Lebowski is the reason why a lot of these modern pinball companies have made the games more bearing because the more you put in a game mechanically, the more that can go wrong, right? You need all these optos to have like to have like bowling alley mechanisms going and rugs unfolding and All of it is super cool, but every time you add something mechanically, you open the door for something going wrong mechanically. But I really look forward to Dutch Pinball's next title. And look, to me, this is the new company that I want to see get one of my dream themes. And I've talked to Barry and he's like, Chris, you're going to be blown away by the next game we have and you're going to be super excited and I can't wait to show it to you The end of the day, I'm going to be doing the rest of the world and I'm super excited and I'm happy to see everybody at Dutch all smiles making this game and it's a beautiful assembly Line and they're doing boutique right finally after a decade they are doing it right and I can't wait for the next game from Dutch. Alright so Dutch you get your B minus let's go on to freaking Multimorphic P3 Multimorphic a company that is the most successful company in the world if you ask Jerry but if you ask anybody else this is another company. This is another company that's been around for 10 years. They have a platform that they've doubled down on. They have a platform of interchangeable Modular System Pinball that is a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist. They have solved the problem that nobody really needed solved and the sales are indicative of that. Now, that being said, I have had fun playing some multi-morphic games. I love the head-to-head stuff they have. I think Weird Al is a great theme Under the 18th rosπ yo Out sold the Weird Al game and then you're just kind of thinking to yourself, well, wait a minute. If it's gonna take a year to get my Weird Al game if I order it today, how have you now taken orders for the Scott Denise game? What is that, two year wait? Nobody really knows. We know they have people over there. He's shared photos of their production team. But this is another company that after all of this time, the fact that people still don't know how many games a week can they make, they still don't know when they're going to get their product, all of it is just still shrouded in mystery. And I think we all know the answer. There's a reason why they don't tell us any of this stuff because they know it's embarrassing if they reveal to us that they're only making like three games a week or five games a week because if we knew that, people probably would not order it Today at Stern Pinball mankind Canada we extremely learned not only Impact Fiction, Genere setzt, N Halling, Hard Lily Youtuber, N meticulousEssa, Sophi Meisel TotalBeattic.com End the monotone flipping

22:59

The inflation goes higher and higher and higher people these companies don't have outside investors They're the ones that are going to be in Jeopardy of Closing if we keep seeing prices go higher and higher because no one's gonna buy $15,000 games if that's what Jerry needs to charge or or if centaur is like twelve thousand dollars. It's just not gonna work so Multimorphic again, I don't mean to be harsh, but you know, they're just another company I'm going to give Multimorphic a C grade. They don't deserve a D. I'll tell you why they don't deserve a D. Because they actually do communicate with their customers. They do tell you how long the wait's going to be and they've never ripped anybody off. They've never really lied to anybody about anything. So I do want to congratulate them and at least being transparent about enough of the stuff that people want to know. But you know they haven't had themes people really want. The games themselves haven't really caught on fire and after a decade I feel like if Jerry just made a normal pinball machine he would make himself millions more dollars and I don't understand. I don't understand why he's got this vision and it's just not catching on. Alright so let's go on to who's next. Okay, let's go on to who's next. Home Pin. Home Pin making Spinal Tap. Did you see the news here? After months of testing this game in a bar, they've now added a center post down the middle of the game to keep the ball times longer so people can see more of the SpinalTap game. Only problem is this. Nobody's gonna see more of the SpinalTap game because nobody's gonna buy this game. The same way nobody bought Thunderbirds. You know, they interviewed Mike and Mike said some silly thing like he's not making games for pinball enthusiasts. Okay, he's making games for nobody then. So congratulations finding out how to manufacture stuff over in Taiwan. Congratulations on openly admittingting that you're not trying to sell to the very people who are the only ones who will buy your product. That's a really smart marketing move. I mean, this guy's a genius. I mean, he's either crazy or the biggest genius in the world of marketing. And I just think Home Pin is another company that I never really cover because nobody really cares. And they get an F grade because again another company that's been around forever and what they're making is not even nearly as good as a Stern Pro and the games cost more money and everything they've done so far has been an F in my book and they get an F. Sorry Homebid, you're not going to get interviewed by Kaneda Mike, don't want to have you on. Alright, uh oh, are they going to be documenting this and taking this to the legal courts of Taiwan? Kaneda just hurt your livelihood. Uh oh, 599 souls not buying Spinal Tap. Alright, what else? We got Haggis Pinball, Damian and Marty over there and their feet sticking out from the corner on their production video. That was a lie. That was staged. That was not a real production video. Alright, so look. I've made fun of this company more than anybody. I've been unkind as Damian says. I think Haggis Pinball is another company that bit off more than they can chew. You know, ironically their game is Fathom Mermaid Edition because financially they have to be underwater. There's no way they've made a profit on this game. cz The Mark begins Rayman with the Eine Imlem Out I'm a fan of the guy who says you will have your game in 8 weeks and 8 months go by. I don't like it. I beat this dead horse enough. They make a beautiful product but everything else, again, I'll give them like that. I'll give them the beautiful product so they're going to get a D-. I'll give them a good score for the product but everything else they've been doing is an F in my book and this community will not accept it when you do stuff like this. Like we all know all too well what a company failing looks like and it looks like they're not really succeeding if this is how you treat your customers. Again, I'm not the one who told people you're gonna have your game in eight weeks and then eight months go by, okay? So how do you not give that a failing grade because the product is so sexy. I will give them a D minus. D minus for Damien, okay? D is for Damien, people. All right, Kaneda, you're never gonna win a trippy. You have no free shows. What do you do in six years in a row You just ragging on everybody D here C here only Stern gets in Hey what going on Well that why Stern got 90 of the pinball market I have an idea I someone who is introverted from apology to stress on cir parleist I'm sorry if I missed that part. Pinball Adventures, Andrew McBain's company, I mean look, this is another one where there's not a lot of attention on them, if I say I love or hate this company nobody's really going to care, I just feel like they're off doing this thing in the side that I don't really get it, I don't get who the theme is for, I don't get any of it, I don't get how you're trying to make this IP stick within culture, it doesn't make much sense to me, You can make Sherlock Holmes, they can make Moby Dick, they can make a bunch of themes that are open IP, they can make a Winnie the Pooh game, they can make an Alice in Wonderland game. Do you people not know that? Alice in Wonderland is open IP, so how do you pass on those and make Punny Factory? Okay, that's it. That's all I'm gonna say. You know, they wanna make their own IP, something sticky within culture, and I don't think it's really gonna catch on. But again, like Andrew McBain seems like he's fine. He's independently financing this whole thing. They haven't lied to anybody. They haven't taken anyone's money and then knock out them product. And so if you're gonna go over here and do a pinball adventure or pinball venture, right? And you're gonna do it your way, even if it makes no sense to Kaneda, like I actually do applaud the fact that they haven't misled anybody or stolen anyone's money or done any of that shenanigans. I think on a game level, yes, you know how I feel, right? And you feel the same way. So what score do I give Pinball Adventures? I mean, I'm gonna give them another like, I don't know, like C minus D plus, like somewhere in that area. Again, just because it's like, I don't know who wants this stuff. I'll give them a C minus, right? I don't think they deserve to, you know, like again, on a game level, yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people are like, Kaneda, this is supposed to be candid. Like that game should get an F. And the reason why it doesn't get an F is like, it's actually been made. And again, like they just, I don't know, they're doing it. Do I think anyone's buying it? No. But D minus. Alright, D minus. Is that fair? I'll give them a D minus. Alright. I think now that they know how to make games, they need to make stuff like Moby Dick or Sherlock Holmes or Ten Commandments. I'm giving Andrew some free advice. Don't make like Sushi Ninja. I think that's next. Sushi Ninja. Like what is happening? I would walk into a room and be like, we need to stop. Like there aren't like little kids who can afford $6,000, $7,000, $8,000 pinball machines. Who is this title actually targeted to? I love sushi, I love ninjas, I love pinball, I'm not buying sushi ninja pinball, okay? It's just that simple. Oh, okay, so I forgot the Pinball Brothers. Pinball Brothers has successfully brought the Andrew Highway Alien Machine to market. They've also brought Queen Pinball to market. And so those are their two titles. They've been working in Europe and they've got manufacturing going. And so look, Pinball Brothers is another one. I just can't wait till they get past the Andrew Highway creations. I don't really have any interest in either of those games. Obviously Alien is the better game than Queen, and there's a lot of awesome assets in that game, even though they're missing Ripley. But my thing with Pinball Brothers is like, where do they go now? And I think that's going to be the big question. I do think we're going to see the Pinball Brothers be part of this remake world. Like they might be working with Pedretti and Planetary to give you Big Bang Bar or Tales of the Arabian Nights. So we'll see what happens with the pinball brothers. I think Pride's been driving this operation a lot more than probably Profit, but they're probably doing all right now. I don't think Queen is lighting sails on fire. Alien sails have to be drying up by now. Um, but I would give the pinball brothers, you know, they're the another one that's just like, yeah, you know, a C plus B minus. Like they're in that territory for me. Nothing they've done has blown me away. I'm happy they've course corrected the mistakes by Andrew Highway. But you know, I also wonder, you know, what's the future look like for a group of people that actually believed in Andrew Highway and we haven't seen a game from them yet that they've designed without Andrewhighways design team. Because think about it. Who is the designer over at Pinball Brothers? You don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's Dave Sanders. Maybe it's somebody else who's doing their product, who's doing their software like this company still to me doesn't really have that unit in place that makes you feel good, right? The same is true at American Pinball. Who's their main designer at American Pinball right now? Is it Dennis Nordman? No. They just contracted his game. Is it Ryan McQuaid? Maybe. What games has he made that are great? We don't know, right? He made one homebrew game. So that's my thing. And then you look at Stern Pinball. Well, who are their designers? And you know exactly who they are. Who are Jersey Jack's designers? We know exactly who they are. You know, and that's the thing about pinball. Who's the designers over at Spooky? We know who they are. Now, for better or for worse, you should know that stuff. Like if you want to be a I'm a pinball company and I can't tell you who your lead designer is. You're not going to get a great grade. It just would make me feel really unsure what the future holds for you. You know, look at Haggis Pinball. Their lead designer, and they've stopped talking about him, is Marty Robbins! Their lead designer is Marty Robbins and he's making the War of the Worlds. Jason Knapp, if you're listening, you haven't had this rumor. Marty Robbins' title is the War of the Worlds. It's open IP. At least it's a smart choice. It's an interesting thing. And maybe they got the Orson Welles like radio address. I also think that is open IP as well. All right. So that's it, right? Everybody we've covered off on everybody. We did pinball brothers. And then the last one I guess is space hunt. I'm just going to give them an F because nobody wants space hunt. Sorry, my friends in France. It's not personal, but you guys came out into the pinball world and you made space hunt. All right. I work in marketing. There's all this open IP available and you landed on space hunt as a way to put your company on the map. You get an F like that's a failing idea and it's not going to work and you're not going to sell games. And that's what kills me. If you're going to go through all of the effort to make a pinball machine, pick something people want. It's that simple. A little market research in the boardroom before you even put a single screw into a piece of wood will go further for you. Then just slapping some silly name on a game and thinking people are gonna buy it because you made it. That's not enough anymore. Especially when your game costs more than a Stern machine. I mean, we're not stupid. Everybody, I'm going to the Bahamas next week. I gave you a week long of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. I hope you appreciate it. Do me a favor. Get a friend to sign up for the Kaneda Club. It's only $60 a freaking year. These toppers are $1,000 with flat plastic. And then tomorrow during the Saturday Morninging Spectacular, we might have a little bit of a guest appearance by Brenda because we want to do something where we raise as many stars as we can for Brenda. And the promotion is going to be this Brenda's Bahama Mama Spectacular. All of your stars contributions are going to go to getting Brenda a Bahama Mama drink. And we want to get as many Bahama Mamas into Brenda as we can so she will find me attractive again. We can do this together! You could be the reason why intimacy might return to Kaneda's world. No, I'm just joking. We have a really great relationship. And she's also like not keen to do any of this. But we're gonna make it so that Brenda gets a bunch of Bahama mamas when the world's greatest mama takes a much-needed vacation. Neither of us have been on vacation in two years. We have not been alone for four days in those two years since Killian's been here. I hope you enjoyed this show. I apologize if I've been a little bit cranky this week. It's hard. I got a lot of work to do. I tried to take time off. You know, the modern world is difficult. It's difficult for Kaneda. I just really wish I could find a way to inspire the younger employees where I work. It's called work. I don't get it. Nobody comes into the office. Answer me this question, people. Why would anybody work remotely if the headquarters of their company is in the city they live in? What's your excuse for being remote every single day? Sure, I'd like to be at the gym at 3 o'clock every day or take a shower in between meetings, but it's called work and they pay so they know where I am. I sound like an old man boomer who's excited about the Princess Bride. Later, everybody. OLSONVILLE COSTcopyrights.com BusinessClass User remember roysonVanias contents