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The Pinball Show Ep 109: Mom’s Spaghetti

The Pinball Show·podcast_episode·1h 50m·analyzed·Aug 15, 2022
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Stern clears SKUs in September; Spooky rehires talent to stabilize next release.

Summary

The Pinball Show hosts Zach and Dennis discuss Stern's aggressive game discontinuations in September (TMNT, Guardians, Led Zeppelin), speculate on upcoming reveals and production scheduling, and analyze Spooky Pinball's announcement that Ben Heckendorff and Eric Pripke are rejoining to assist with coding on future titles. They debate whether pinball coders are now more important than designers, discuss Halloween's poor reception and code quality, and assess Spooky's competitive position after recent game struggles.

Key Claims

  • Stern announced Last Call for TMNT mid-September, bumped up from December, following Guardians Pro last call and preceding Led Zeppelin Pro/Premium last call

    high confidence · Hosts cite official dealer communications from Stern about last call announcements and production scheduling

  • Typical Stern production run involves 800-1,000 Pros, 1,000 LEs, then Premium/Pro runs based on Gary Stern interview

    high confidence · Dennis references 'recent Gary Stern interview' with specific production numbers

  • Spooky Pinball announced Ben Heckendorff and Eric Pripke are rejoining the team to assist with coding on next games

    high confidence · Hosts cite Spooky's announcement; Zach references arcade article confirming Ben Heck's involvement with Spooky's next release

  • The pinball coder is more important and impactful in 2022 than the designer

    medium confidence · Zach states he told this to Stern executives in private Zoom call and observed their positive reaction; Dennis agrees it's bold but defensible

  • Halloween's left-side three-scoop design is the primary layout flaw; rest of design is sound

    medium confidence · Dennis defends Halloween layout against broad criticism, identifies specific mechanical issues with center ramp rejection and scoop design

  • Rick and Morty code quality was the primary appeal of that game despite animation/presentation concerns

    medium confidence · Hosts acknowledge Rick and Morty's animation issues but credit strong code, particularly Eric Pripke's contributions

  • Spooky has sold units at significant losses since Halloween release due to quality/design concerns

    medium confidence · Dennis states 'we've known people' who acquired recent Spooky games excited but 'sold them at very significant losses'

  • September represents a clearing-out period for Stern's current SKUs, suggesting preparation for new announcement

    medium confidence · Hosts speculate that aggressive discontinuation schedule in September may signal upcoming reveal and production shift

Notable Quotes

  • “September is where games go to die, it sounds like.”

    Zach @ ~26:30 — Encapsulates the aggressive discontinuation of four Stern titles (Star Wars Pro, Led Zeppelin, Guardians, TMNT) scheduled for August-September last calls

  • “I think that the pinball coder is more important and impactful in 2022 than the designer.”

    Zach @ ~41:00 — Bold claim about industry dynamics; states he made this assertion to Stern executives and observed positive executive reaction

  • “Poor rules can essentially sabotage any game to make it unfun... if you have rules that don't shoot the left side of the playfield, why does it exist?”

    Dennis @ ~44:30 — Defends importance of code/rules by explaining how weak rule design renders playfield elements pointless

  • “I think we're right at the bottom of where Halloween, price-wise, will be. Once they stop making them, it's going to go up.”

    Dennis @ ~59:00 — Price prediction for Halloween pinball; suggests scarcity will eventually drive secondary market value

  • “Don't sleep on Spooky Pinball. Don't count them out yet... they are super passionate about making pinball machines.”

    Zach @ ~49:00 — Despite Halloween struggles, Zach expresses confidence in Spooky's recovery and long-term viability based on passion and commitment

  • “I think that Ben Heck is quirky as shit... but I think he has a brilliant mechanical and coding mind.”

    Zach @ ~67:00 — Assessment of Ben Heckendorff's controversial personality balanced against technical expertise justifying hire

  • “People see Spooky as a legitimate manufacturing business now. I think they've lost a lot of that rooting for the underdog thing.”

    Zach @ ~77:00 — Market sentiment shift: Spooky no longer benefits from underdog support; now held to professional standards

  • “Everything about it seemed like, let's get rid of all the experts and let's design everything by committee.”

Entities

Stern PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyBen Heckendorff (Ben Heck)personEric PripkepersonZachpersonDennispersonBruce Nightingaleperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern's aggressive discontinuation of four titles (TMNT, Guardians, Led Zeppelin, Star Wars Pro) in August-September suggests SKU reduction and preparation for new product announcement

    high · Multiple last-call announcements compressed into 6-week window; hosts speculate this creates production capacity for new reveal and manufacturing ramp

  • ?

    community_signal: Spooky Pinball continuing code updates on sold-out Halloween and Ultraman titles despite completion of production, signaling commitment to product quality perception

    medium · Hosts note Spooky continuing to work on Halloween/Ultraman code; debate whether this is necessary for finished product optics or genuine improvement focus

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Shift in community perception: Spooky no longer benefits from underdog rooting; now held to professional manufacturing standards after recent game quality issues

    medium · Zach notes 'people see Spooky as a legitimate manufacturing business now. I think they've lost a lot of that rooting for the underdog thing.' References secondary market losses on Halloween/Ultraman purchases.

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Claim that pinball coder is now more important and impactful than playfield designer in 2022, particularly for complex rule sets and technology integration

    medium · Zach asserts this in private Stern meeting; Dennis agrees it's defensible given poor rules can sabotage any design; both note rule complexity increasing

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky appears to have designed Halloween by committee without clearly announced named designer, contrasting with previous successful Rick and Morty approach

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.330

0:00
Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised.
0:12
The Pinball Network is online. Launching the Pinball Show. This week on the Pinball Show, Dennis and I talk Monopoly stress. Sturm Pinball giving a last call to numerous games which possibly opened a portal into the future. We talk spooky pinball editions, the pitch for an eminent pinball machine. We play this or that pinball coder edition, and of course, pinball market trends. For everything pinball, it all starts here.
0:47
Pinball is a game of skill. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. It's time for the Pinball Show.
0:59
It's pinball with personality. Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity, just everything you ever wanted, one moment,
1:18
could you catch it? Just let it slip. Yo. Hey, everybody. It's us. Dennis and Zach with the Pinball Show at episode 109. Dennis, in this episode, I hope that we don't lose ourselves. I'm not afraid. That one's so predictable. I'm not afraid.
1:35
And sometimes when you talk, I love the way you lie. A little foreshadowing there. Dennis, how are you today? I'm fine. How have you been? I've been... Actually, I've been in a lot of pain. But for show business... Emotional pain? Great! Emotional pain? No, not emotional. Physical pain. My back, man. My freaking back. I've got to get saved, Dennis. It sucks. Oh, yes. You did have surgery. No, I didn't have surgery. No, you should have had surgery. She chose the non-invasive option like everyone does thinking they're going to get out of surgery. What a great choice. My wife says I was delusional. She was like, Zach, you need back surgery. You cannot walk. And I'm like, yeah, but if I quit all my bad habits and I build my core and I start running and I eat healthy. And she's like, number one, you're not going to do that. Number two, that's not going to fix a broken back.

Dennis @ ~64:00 — Criticism of Halloween's unnamed designer and apparent lack of clear creative leadership, contrasting with previous Rick and Morty success

Bowen Kerins
person
John Borgperson
Dwight Sullivanperson
Lyman Sheetsperson
Gary Sternperson
Pat Lawlorperson
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtlesgame
Halloweengame
Ultramangame
Rick and Mortygame
Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castlegame
Guardians of the Galaxygame
Led Zeppelingame
Star Warsgame
Monopolygame
Rob Zombiegame
Gangbustersgame

medium · Dennis notes lack of announced designer and states 'everything about it seemed like, let's get rid of all the experts and let's design everything by committee'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Some dealers reporting Star Wars Pro/Premium discontinuation rumors; no official confirmation from Stern

    low · Zach notes 'some have said they're discontinuing... I have not heard that yet. That's just some dealers are saying that. That's news to me.'

  • $

    market_signal: Halloween pinball price likely at bottom; scarcity will eventually drive secondary market value despite current quality perception

    low ·

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ben Heckendorff and Eric Pripke rejoining Spooky Pinball for coding assistance on future titles

    high · Official Spooky announcement; Arcade article reference confirms Ben Heck involvement; hosts acknowledge this as response to Halloween/Ultraman code concerns

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market losses on recent Spooky games (Halloween, Ultraman) suggest potential concern about sustaining FOMO-driven day-one sales model

    medium · Dennis references 'people who acquired these games really excited... have sold them at very significant losses'; Zach implies concern this may erode Spooky's future demand

  • ?

    announcement: Stern's production scheduling suggests possible new game reveal around August 30-September aligned with end of Led Zeppelin/Guardians/TMNT last calls

    medium · Zach previously guessed August 30 reveal; hosts analyze production capacity timing and note December launch window is traditionally used for reveals

  • ?

    product_concern: Halloween pinball criticized for slow animations, center ramp rejection mechanics, and left-side scoop design; however, potential for code-driven recovery via updates

    high · Both hosts acknowledge layout/mechanical flaws; Dennis defends non-scoop portions of design; both note code can be overhauled to improve experience

  • ?

    product_strategy: Spooky's decision to rehire Ben Heck and Eric Pripke suggests confidence in next game and desire to avoid repeat of Halloween's design-by-committee perception

    medium · Timing of announcement and specific talent rehire suggests Spooky is signaling creative leadership return for next title

    • 2:28
    And I'm like, but maybe I can regenerate, like, stem cells. I am delusional. I don't know what's wrong. I don't know. It's probably too early for it. I just had this funny, I don't know if you ever saw the movie The Core. No. All right. It's a science fiction movie. You'd love it because it's from the 90s. It was. 2000. So it's back when we were having a lot of those disaster movies, you know, Independence Day, Volcano, Dante's Peak, all that stuff.
    2:56
    This was part of that chain of them. I don't remember exactly when it came out. Okay, well, oh, it has Stanley Tucci in it. Oh, Stanley Tucci. 2003, that's when it came out. It's got Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Schwenk, Okay. Delroy Lindo. Mm. Stanley Tucci. Okay. Those are probably the biggest names I would know. So, anyway. I'm starting to have one of these pit burns. DJ Qualls. This is the hacka. DJ Qualls is in there? Yes, right. That's the hacka. Very nice. All right. So, the plot of it is that, trust me folks, this will all make sense. So, the plot of it is the Earth's core stops spinning. Oh. And so this team of scientists have to drill to the center of the Earth to set off a bunch of nuclear explosions to try and restart the rotation of the Earth's core. Because the Earth's core is not rotating. We don't have the magnetic field to protect ourselves. Yeah. So I just, when you mentioned your core, I just started imagining you doing a hula hoop. Trying to get back in sync? Yeah, trying to, my core has got to spin. I'll be okay if I restore my magnetic field. I imagine you wearing those stupid little magnet bracelets and stuff. Oh, yeah. The little beanies. Magic magnets. Copper. Lysol incense and hula hoop. Hula hoop my way to a new back. For any of you out there that have had successful back surgery, if you guys have any good surgeons, I just don't trust somebody digging into my spinal cord. It just sucks, man. Well, if you can't trust an expert, who can you trust? Myself. I'm going in.
    4:38
    Yeah, how hard could it be? Right. I just want them to clean it out a little bit. I just want to get out of the Dyson. There we go. It's a hot spot. My disc has exploded. Just clean that out. You've got a bunch of dust bunnies around, you know, T5, T6. Yeah, that's right. We've got those sucked out. Oh, man. They do a disc replacement I'm looking into right now. An artificial disc replacement. Oh, do they do that now? Yeah, typically they will fuse the vertebrae, which weakens the upper and lower below that fusion. Hence, more surgeries. I don't want to do that. And then you can do things like they just kind of clean it out and stuff. That's what I'm looking at because it's pushing, not that anybody cares. But I have a ruptured disc that has just blown out, and it's pushing on my sciatic nerve, and I'm just always in pain. Nothing helps it. And I have probably degenerative disc disease, so lower vertebrae are narrowing and stuff. So, yeah, they usually fuse two vertebraes together, but it fucks everything up. But now there are disc replacements that they do. Ah, I had not heard of that. Yeah, with some good success. Well, discs go bad. As long as they don't hit the nerves, a lot of people do all right when the discs fail. But obviously, if it's hitting against the nerve, that's a problem. My whole right side of my leg is numb. And you can't pinball, so moving those around has got to be great for all that. So I've got to have surgery, Dennis. I wish you luck. Will you pray for me?
    6:16
    Just like I don't pray. No, I don't. I won't. Good luck, though. Will you send good thoughts into the cosmos for me? Good thoughts.
    6:26
    It's such magical thinking. I know. I still think it's a good challenge for me to be able to not get surgery. I don't know why I'm so delusional. And, like, find a way.
    6:38
    Hydrate and, you know. The discs, they don't heal. The discs don't lie. The discs, like, they're the market trends of your spine. They can't repair themselves. They can't heal. They can't rebuild. And then I'm like, what if I just try to wait? We have the technology. We can make you stronger, faster, more shilly, if you would only accept it. Bionic back.
    7:02
    Are you coming out of surgery? You say hi to Nicole, but your voice is Johnny Five. That's right. What do you got going on this week? My back's great. I don't know what you're talking about. I take care of my discs. I did the hula hoop and all that. Oh, man. Oh, not a whole lot. I've been working on Sinbad, So I finally got all of my drop targets fixed up now. I still need to do the flippers, and still need to fuse that little – those old System 1s have a secondary transformer, and the first few models were not fused. So it needs a fuse block. So I've got that ordered, and I need to get that in. And I think that will be ready to possibly go into the main room, but I have to sell something off. Oh, so that's going – I thought you were going to buy a Monopoly to put in your lineup. Oh, speaking of Monopoly, I heard you got a message from the main co-host, arguably main co-host of the Slamtail podcast, Mr. Bruce Nightingale. The Nightingale himself.
    8:10
    It's always about birds. And I always use the same bird sound no matter what bird we talk about. What's a robin sound like? What does a Nightingale sound like? I don't know. I think it sounds like it went through Rintner Avenue. That's my Bruce. Sounds like, new games suck. Yeah, that's right. Come play Monopoly over on West Commercial Street, East Rochester, New York.
    8:35
    West Commercial Street, Rochester, New York. Which one? I don't know. I think I still want to say the old time. I know. Because I would say 135.
    8:42
    Rochester Pinball Collective. Oh, hey, Bruce. Yeah, Bruce emailed and said, assholes, I do have Ventnor Avenue. Oh, my God, he does? I was just throwing it out there. Oh, I feel extra bad. Because I was like, honestly, I thought Ventnor was made up. I didn't remember it was one of the yellow properties. I thought it was, I was just guessing for a good joke to throw Ventnor in there. It was the correct one. So, nice job old brain there, subconsciously. You kept that neuron in there. Very good job. But I didn't, I thought it was like a light blue one. Or like a purple. Oh, like where Oriental and Vermont are. Yeah, that's what I thought. On the first, one of the three of them. State Avenue. Right by the jail. Yep. So he did get a yellow property, so that's pretty good. Oh, yeah, it is. Are you a big Monopoly fan? Not the pinball machine, but the board game? No, no. I mean, we did play it a lot growing up, but Monopoly is not a very well-balanced game. Oh, God. Here we go. As far as board game design goes, it's actually not very good. But when you consider how old it is, we shouldn't be too surprised that game theory is fully... It's a novel concept, though. Yeah, I mean, it can be fun. I had one of those family members, might say my sibling, who would wipe the board clear in rage. Oh, the board flippers? Yeah. Damn it. My mom would always bring that one up. And it wasn't me. I was always the good loser. Yeah, because you were probably the son of a bitch who just would never trade your properties or sell them. I would. You just hold out. No, I would do a trade. actually no it was I was not like that but you had to have something I needed I mean I wouldn't sell to give you a chance but if I was getting something out of it yeah and my I remember when we would play my sister she because she kind of picked by color so she liked those sort of mid shade purples on the other side of the jail so that second track the whole St. Charles and Virginia and States Avenue sort of branch. Those were, quote, unquote, her properties. So she would pretty much trade you anything to get those if she could have the full monopoly. So I would trade her to let her because that is one of the weaker monopolies. What was your strategy? Well, my strategy very much depended on what pieces I got, what properties I was able to buy in the opening round. Sure. So I would be very flexible. My generalized goal was I wanted two monopolies. Okay. At least one with three as well. Sure. So I'd be willing to give up a boardwalk.
    11:23
    Well, I mean, those are like throwaway ones. Those would be like a loot. I'd let someone have that to maybe finish out the railroads or something.
    11:33
    But the yellow ones, I really like those. I'd say my favorite properties to get were, I mean, in a perfect world, I'd control the entire last bend. So I'd get the greens. Pacific and North Carolina and Pennsylvania I wanted those because three properties better odds and if I could I'd get Boardwalk and Park Place as well usually I could not secure both Boardwalk and Park Place unless I gave up another monopoly so I usually didn't have that whole row but that would be my goal or I'd like to get say Boardwalk Park Place or those green ones and then maybe get those orange ones just before free parking so So St. James in Tennessee or the red ones on the other side. Yeah, yeah. Well, St. Charles was, I think that was one of the. That was the states, one of the earlier ones. That's one of the ones my sister had to have. Oh, the yellow. The purple ones, right. I didn't usually try and get the utilities. For me, those were trade fodder. I would use those to try and secure something else. See, for me, my strategy was a 180 from yours. I was more like your sister. I wanted the light blue, the Oriental, Vermont, Connecticut. I wanted that corner there with the fuchsias, the Virginia States, and St. Charles. Then if I could, I'd like those light orange ones with the New York right before the free parking. I wanted that whole corner, and I would use trade fodder. I always thought the railroads are great because everybody thinks they're awesome, but they're only awesome really early on in the game. So I always tried to be like, you know, like an idiot. We'll trade a reading railroad for Vermont if you want. And they're like, hell yeah. And then I, oh, I kill people in them light blues. That is mine, right? Because you can build them hotels quick. And that is the advantage of the cheaper properties. I hated the greens, hated the yellows. The reds were just too much for what you were getting. Now, Park Place, Boardwalk, you want them? Pennies on the dollar. You can have them. Did you play with special house rules for free parking? We did. Yeah. Yes, we did as well. I was curious what yours were. Yeah, any time that you get a community chest or if you get a chance or any of the utilities, you pay, instead of paying the bank, you pay into the metal. Okay. We did that as well. We also had a modifier as well, though, that any time free parking was emptied, a $500 bill always went back in. We did the same thing. Okay. Yeah. I read that was a pretty common one for folks. Yeah, but I think the original rules is there's not much in there. typically. I don't know if there's anything in there. I think it was just a safe space, technically. But a lot of people play with a house rule where free parking gets you something. So we're like, I own the parking lot. I can just see you just holding out. I need one more freaking blue, and you're like, no, I don't care. There's not a dollar in the world. I want a monopoly as quick as possible, so, because I need something to generate the income to build the houses. So, I would do trades as soon as I could. But some of those people are just very unreasonable. They won't trade. They hold. They won't do anything. And you're like, how are you not? There's a dollar sign for everything. Like, everything's for sale. Come on. Dennis, it reminds me of when I tried to buy the Twippies a couple years ago from Jeff Patterson. Not that this is an entity that wasn't. You should have bought the other two award ceremonies, and then you could have argued to complete the set.
    14:57
    Monopoly set. Yeah, I tried to buy that from him. And not that, you know, 50% probably shouldn't already be mine anyway. But I was gracious. And he said there was no dollar amount that he would sell the entity, that's not worth any, of the Twippies. Not a dollar amount. Not $100,000 would buy the Twippies. What?
    15:17
    Well. Unreasonable. The hell. I think the important thing is that you have let this all go. I think that's the important thing. Have I?
    15:26
    The answer is no. You haven't because you brought it up again. Nobody cares. Stern Pinball's in the news. They're always in the news. Why? We always hit them up first off on our show here at the Pinball Club. They couldn't even reveal Venom at Comic-Con. They're basically dead to us. No, not yet. They're on fire. So much so that they're hoisting to the rafters yet another game title to retire. Last Call for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a John Borg-Dwight Sullivan collaboration. A game that lures you in with the fondness and memories of the Turtles, and for the youth of today, the new versions of the Turtles that they know and love, in which they insert their dollar into the machine and immediately die because it's the hardest game ever made.
    16:11
    It's not quite like that, but oh my god, Turtles is so hard. We had it at the Pizza West, and people were so happy when it finally left, because everyone was like, it's just kicking our butts in the tournament. I mean, the nice thing was those games didn't drag on, so I kind of liked having it there, but some people were just like, I don't know what I'm doing. I feel like I played five minutes and I have 200,000 points. What's going on here? This is a game that will not leave my collection. Just because it gives me... It's just mean. It's low scoring. It's pretty mean. It's mean. The rules are novel. I really like that. But this last week, Stern Pinball announced to dealers that TMNT was supposed to be run in December, as you guys have heard us talk about. That was since bumped up to mid-September following Guardians of the Galaxy Pro, which is also on its last call. And this will be the last call for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So we do have, in August-September, we have Star Wars Pro right now. Some have said that they're discontinuing or ending the license to that one, to Star Wars Pro and Premium. I have not heard that yet. So that's just some dealers are saying that. I've not been given that information. That's news to me. But this week they're making Star Wars Pros. Next week or into August we'll get the Star Wars Premium. Then September we're going to kick off with Led Zeppelin Pro and Premium for their last call, last run there, followed by Guardians Pro, last call, last run. Then Turtles Pro and Premium probably mid-month, end of the month there in September, which, again, last call. So September is where games go to die, it sounds like. Yeah, they're finally clearing out all that. They're reducing their SKUs. That's a lot of titles to be going all at once. It's almost like they're prepping up for something. Well, it could be prepping for now that there's that hole in December. Oh.
    18:03
    Maybe there's something there. Of course, we're expecting sometime relatively soon for the next reveal. Well, I don't know what that does to all this. All this movement, like I said on the last show, August 30th was my guest for reveal of game. It makes me feel better about my guest of the 30th. But now I wonder, does it get bumped into September? I don't know. I think they still might reveal in August because I don't know how big those runs are. Yeah, that's the thing. The number of these orders, I mean, we know Led Zeppelin orders are going to be small, so let's not. And Guardians has been out forever, ever in a day. I don't think they're going to have a ton of those. Turtles was the only one. I was a little surprised to hear about this, about Turtles being the last run. That was as well. But, okay, assuming then that also is just not that substantive of a run, it would be completely conceivable that they could build those on one of the sub-lines, essentially, whilst doing a reveal. Because whenever they do announce and reveal and start producing fairly quickly, it is a lot of pros. In a recent Gary Stern interview, about 800 to 1,000 pros. Then the LEs, 1,000 LEs. Then you get into the premium and pro run. That's when it starts getting heavy. So I think conceivably we could see end of August reveal, September making your prosies and starting your LEs. October. Yes, the prosies. Yeah, end those LEs and start cranking the hell out of some pros and premiums in October. That's what I think you'll see. And then you're right. It does leave a big old open window for December where they love launching games.
    19:42
    Or catching up on more Godzilla builds. I'd be okay with that, too. Premiums, premiums, premiums. Oh, yes. Wow. A lot of moving pieces here like on Monopoly. That's right. If only there was a flipper that would just occasionally, randomly fling us into a kick-out saucer. Just that motor continually running over and over and over and over. You've got to do the grind. Who would have ever thought that was a good idea?
    20:09
    Pat. Pat, yeah. I just don't understand. I don't get it. There's a lot of things I don't understand. Pinball. Market trend. But this one, this next story is not one of them. It totally makes sense to me that this last week, Spooky Pinball announces that Ben Heckendorff, Ben Heck, and Eric Pripke have rejoined the team over at Spooky, and they're going to be assisting very much so with coding and programming on the next games. Does that make sense to you? It's not illogical. I don't know why this. We knew there's been talk that Ben's going to be more involved in upcoming titles, so that part totally understood. Didn't they sell out all the Halloweens and Ultramans so people don't really care about rules? Well, but then why do they continue to work on Halloween and Ultraman code if they've already sold? I assume that they think that they have to.
    21:02
    Like, it would look bad. It would look bad as a company if they didn't continue, especially since the code wasn't done. I see. You know, they want to have a finished product. You want to be able to point back and say, oh, yeah, no, we finished that. Well, I've already. We don't want to be waiting for the final. I started to think, isn't there some game. Doesn't J.P. have some game where they put in the final wizard mode or something?
    21:22
    Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh, that's why he tells me all of the games. Pirates of the Caribbean. There we go. Thank you. I was like, you know, I think that's, you know, they don't want to be, they don't want to pirate this. And if I'm going to be honest, the GNR wizard modes. I thought, see, I was going to say GNR, but then I thought, I don't know that's true. I couldn't remember. The only game with a wizard mode that I can't allow.
    21:46
    Come on, team. So, you know, here's the thing. I'm very curious about Spooky with their next game. I want to see whether or not it day one on sale sells out. It will. That's what I wanted, because I think they're taking steps like they're worried that they damaged themselves on the Halloween game. Sure. But I'm not sure that they actually did. My take is, this is more of a market trend, but don't sleep on spooky pinball. Don't count them out yet. When I see this company, I always go back to the default that they are super passionate about making pinball machines. They love pinball, and just seeing their commitment to continuing code and, you know, they get feedback and they can overhaul code because of feedback, I know that's not ideal, but it still, for me, is a great sign. I think there's a lot more to come in Halloween and Ultraman code, honestly, and as much as everybody wants to shit on that game, I'm telling you, there's going to be stuff there that's going to make that trend back up. there will be.
    22:57
    I'm telling you. Chicken Little over here. Chicken Little. Oh, you can always save layouts. No, that's not true.
    23:06
    I'm trying to think right now of a game that doesn't matter. You could probably reprogram El Toro and you can't make that a gem. Here's a bold take from me, Dennis. I think I told Stern Pinball this in a private meeting we had last month. Yes, tell us all of their secrets. Become the coffee table that Craig Bobby once was. I was on a Zoom call so I could see their faces of the executives and their eyes got big. I can tell that some of them agree with me. I think that the pinball coder is more important and impactful in 2022 than the designer. Say what?
    23:47
    That might be true. It's bold. Well, it's kind of bold. We still have the designers as the household names. We lose Lyman Sheets, right? I think from here on out, the code is where it's at on these games because of complexity and because of all the technology they're bringing in that coders are responsible to make function and to showcase.
    24:12
    The reason why I don't know that's as bold as you're trying to claim that it is, But I don't disagree with you about the importance of the rules generation is poor rules can essentially sabotage any game to make it unfun. Yes. So you do have that going for you. Because if you have rules that don't, like, we don't shoot the left side of the play field. It's like, okay, well, then why does it exist? Like, there's nothing to do over there. So it kind of speaks for itself. But that said, you can't have something that's clunky and slow and just falling apart everywhere. And rules somehow makes all of that great. I don't think it works like that Hobbit's not clunky I didn't say clunky but you were talking about things that shoot and slow well Hobbit's not a fun game Hobbit code is five times better than the lamb that's a great code I kind of equate them basically the same but the issue is to me to bear in mind that makes it a little unfair is we have so many successful layouts that people can design crib from each other ad nauseum at this point and have layouts that we know will work because there's only so many physical things you can do with the play field. That's quite honestly what makes Halloween being such a poor shooter so shocking because it's incredibly slow because of all these decisions they made to have these slow, you know, mystery, like let's have the ball appear, but it's not fast. And once you've seen it once, you know exactly where the ball is going to appear from. And you're just sitting there waiting. Oh, I shot the hedge. Let me sit there and wait. I learned that at a show. I saw how bad that was. I think people in general that shit on that layout generalize the layout to the left side three scoops. Because I don't see any issue with the rest of the design of that game. I really don't. Just those three scoops, yes, I agree. There are a lot of complaints about making the center shot up the middle and then it rejects, even though you've clearly given it what force it should have allowed. Layout-wise, I don't think that's an issue. Design-wise, yes, that 180 is an issue. Yeah, absolutely.
    26:24
    But if it would work like a normal freaking ramp would. We all have our own taste. People are free to love Halloween. I'm not trying to convince them to change their opinion. I'm just being honest about what mine is and where I think the flaws are. and I'm not alone in it. I'm not like some weird outlier on this. What I'm saying is I think we've seen, I think we're right at the bottom of where Halloween, price-wise, will be.
    26:48
    I mean, once they stop making them, in theory, it's going to, you know. They'll stop making them. My answer is if you think maybe you want a Halloween, don't stress out about buying it now, you know. Yeah, I think it's fair. You can buy it whenever. This game is never going to be valuable. What about Rick and Morty? I don't believe it. This was not. What Rick and Morty was like when it came out. Was it? Yes. People were acknowledging that it was indeed clunkier, and it remains clunkier than TNA. But the strength with Rick and Morty as you know was how heavily they were able to lean successfully into the theme with the call Like people just have a lot of like they don feel like they just watching a PowerPoint animation of a skirt blowing in the closet for 20 minutes I saw someone showing their this was not long ago this was like less than a month ago had a clip of them doing something amazing on it And I just went through it, and it was like that same PowerPoint, I'm sorry, I'm going to call it PowerPoint animation, just kept playing. I was like, oh, my gosh, this does not look good. It does not look professional. I can't argue with that. I mean, it makes a phone game look good. Now we're stretching. A cheap free phone game. The one thing we did like about Rick and Morty, as a populace here, as everybody, was the code. And we know that Eric Pripke helped a lot on that code. So he's back. And we know also, based on that Arcade article they wrote, Ben Heck had already kind of been putting some quality time in on Spooky's next release. So I like this move. I think that Ben Heck is quirky as shit, and he can be controversial. He can be very controversial. But I think he has a brilliant mechanical and coding mind. So I think it's a good move. And Eric Pripke, for some reason, I don't think he likes me. I don't know why. He's made comments before. I'm like, damn, that guy doesn't like me. But I like his code, regardless of whether he likes me or not. So I think he's a good fit. I don't know Ben's code much. I'm not, I can't say I'm a fan of his code. Eric Pripke's code, yes. Regardless, it's a smart move for Bo to bring in both. I mean, it's not a bad move. It's a good move. It's just, setting aside, you know, anyone's particular thoughts about Halloween layout or the rules as they exist or the animations or anything else, there was a lot of, I think, confusion is a fair word. I think you'd agree it's a fair word, Zach, where people looked and are like, why is Bowen not involved? Why is there not an announced named designer on the layout? What's this, like, everything about it seemed like, let's get rid of all the experts and let's design everything by committee. And I think it just perplexed people. Like, they had a good thing. Like, I think coming out of Rick and Morty, people were like, you have a good thing going here. Rick and Morty was fun. People liked Alice Cooper's Nightmare at the Castle a lot. And then all of a sudden it's like this, where it's like, oh, well, you're going to buy it because of the theme. And they were right. But since then, there's been that steady erosion of – and we've known people, you and I have known people who have acquired these games really excited because of what they had seen in the past from Spooky, and they have sold them at very significant losses. Yes. And I think Spooky may be concerned that that might mean – this is where I don't think this is the case yet, even though pinball sales have slowed from where they were at the pandemic. But I think they're a little worried that maybe they bit the hand that fed a little too much. The reason why I don't think necessarily that, well, I think this is a good move, that they have to make this move is, to me, they did the same thing with Rob Zombie, a terrible game. And people still bought the next game, Gangbusters, you know. They did. So I don't, until people prove they won't buy it day one, I don't know why you feel you have to do this. Yeah, but that was, that was, I mean, that was a different era where people were still on the, I want to support the underdog. I don't think we're there anymore. That ship has sailed. People see Spooky as a legitimate manufacturing business, say what you want, but I think they've lost a lot of that rooting for the underdog thing. I do agree with you. That's true. But I didn't, my vibe on, I'm sure there are some people who bought Rob Zombie for that reason. My guess at the time, though, was people were buying Rob Zombie because they saw how much, after the 150 count was announced in Seoul of America's Most Haunted, that they were speculating. And because Spooky does limited runs on everything, there's always this, oh, we've got to get that. They're all LEs, right? They're all LEs. So we've got to buy them because we know there's a fixed count so that we can flip them. I mean, remember, I was able to buy TNA direct from Spooky, no preorder, no wait, because they had not committed to a hard count on that game. So they could always make more. so people then have a speculative reason to want them. The only reason the price of TNA is so high now is because they have gone for so many years without making more of them. I do agree. I think that next game comes out, people are going to be a little gun-shy on purchasing, thinking if they're going to be flipping them. We've seen that with Toy Story as well. But, you see, if I were the spooky pinball, the way I would leverage that is the Halloween Ultraman count, I would make less of my next game to help try and make up for that. I was like, we're getting a little, we're making a little too many of these things. Let's scale it back and say we're going to do 1,000 units of Scooby-Doo. And then I think it's Scooby-Doo. Yes, and I think you can milk the hype out of these cows once more. How great of a license would that be?
    32:23
    If it's Scooby-Doo, they're going to sell out day one. They just will. See, and that's my point. You don't need an Eric in a bin. I can code the rules for you. Yeah, but you need something. You might not need Eric and Ben, but you need something of substance. No, you just need Scooby-Doo. Put a big smile on my face saying Scooby-Doo. Damn, what a great license that would be. All I'm saying is don't sleep on spooky pinball quite yet, people. I don't think anyone is, though. I don't think anyone's sleeping on pinball. No, don't you. You can have all you want.
    32:58
    Spooky has released a number of games that have been seen quite bluntly as turds. This is not new for them, and they continue to be a darling. So I don't see the issue. I don't either. I think they're fine. I think in the next three years we will see two existing manufacturers go out of business, and they are not one of them. Ooh, that's a take. That's right. You want a real hard take. There you go. Yeah, I like that one. So stock up on your parts, folks. Trouble's a-brewin'. Where did American Pinball, they teased, I think, their next game is being revealed at a dealer's tailgate party? I don't know.
    33:40
    I thought the Queen Pinball was going to the tailgate. I think that is, too. Frickin' Melissa, what the hell? You're playing Monopoly yourself. Your corner in the market is on reveals now. Do you ever think Cointaker would go into the manufacturing business?
    33:54
    No, I don't see why they would. Don't take the Jack Ranieri approach, no? I think the window to have done that would have been maybe during the pandemic at the height of the desire for pinball. You know, because there have been rumors of a couple more companies possibly coming out soon. And I think the reason that we have not, if those rumors were indeed true, I haven't seen anyone do it, is the market has softened significantly since May of this year or so. Well, we know that, like, speaking of spooky and manufacturing, we know that, what was it, Nick Parks over at the pinball company made Jetsons. I wonder Yeah, how did that sell? Well, then they hired Travis Meary I wonder, you know, maybe they're building up for something big Travis, spill the beans He'll tell you nothing I don't want him to spill the beans everywhere though Because there's vomit on my sweater already From mom's spaghetti I like how you You only can reference one song One song We gotta talk about this Everybody's been talking about it, but I've been waiting No, they have not No, I've been waiting this. I don't want to talk about this. I don't care. This is so fake hype. We're the leaders of pinball podcasting. This is so fake hype. This is not fake hype. This is relevancy. And Eminem,
    35:08
    the hip-hop rap artist Eminem, in his most recent greatest hits album, Curtain Call 2, a lot of his marketing and advertisement, promotional material, and artwork on his album uses references of pinball. For example, his album cover is the back glass of a pinball machine. And then most recently, I saw on NAP Arcade, link, I gave you a link, Dennis, maybe I'll put a link in the notes, but the promo video for this release is of, like, it's within a pinball machine. And it's beautiful, by the way. Just stunning promotional video. Did you happen to see the video at all? No. Okay, you'll have to go back and watch that. A lot of people are like, oh, there's the game Fire and Police Force is in this promo video, but is overlaid with some of the subject matter of his prior albums. And I will add, nobody said this, but I noticed that the promo video also showcases the Corvette pinball machine. How about that? Much better game. Wow, you were just, you got an eagle eye there. Ta-da! And then there's Wonderful Valley Woods and My Homie Gomi's First Designed Game. So, gotta go watch that. But it brought up a good point. I didn't bite whenever I saw the back glass of Eminem on his new album art. I didn't bite. But now I'm biting. And news is a little short this week. So, Eminem. Is there enough relevancy of the artist Eminem for their own pinball machine?
    36:45
    Sure. Sure? Yeah. Okay. Do you think it would be a good seller? Are we ready for Eminem yet? I see pros and cons to each side. I think it would sell well, yeah. Just a little bit of data here for the listener about the relevance of the artist Eminem. Over 220 million records sold worldwide. Holy shit.
    37:09
    This makes him one of the best-selling musical artists of all time. And if you're counting on your fingers and toes, that is more record sales than Guns N' Roses, Metallica, Aerosmith, Iron Maiden, possibly Led Zeppelin and ACDC, depending on the source that you're using. All of those have been purposed for a pinball machine. 220 million records.
    37:38
    What's higher than that? There's not many higher than that. That's like top tenage right there. for a rap hip-hop artist. So the numbers are there, and numbers don't lie. But it's the right timing. We know that it would be a younger demographic. I think it's fair to say, right, Dennis? I mean, younger than the dad rock targeting, yes, obviously. I mean, Eminem's been around a long time, too. Yeah, we reduced the age of the demographic, and sometimes I'd worry maybe they don't sell as well as those boomers with money, Boomers with Bucks So that might be a downside But you hear very much Companies like Stern Pinball Wanting to get the youth into the hobby So maybe you get there But we, 90s Us 90s people have some money So maybe you're on the cusp of that This would also be a new music genre For pinball And while some people may argue that Weird Al is a hip hop He's not hip hopper So this would be a new genre For pinball in my opinion Guinness World Records. Eminem's in the Guinness World Records. Real quick, Dennis. Did you know that in 2000 he was given a Guinness World Record for being the fastest selling rap artist? No. I did not know that. He's big. He's big in the UK as well. He's the most successful rap artist in the UK. Well, I think he's the most successful rap artist of all time in terms of sales. In terms of sales? Yeah. I think so. I think that 227 million or 220 or whatever it's at. I mean, in my research, the next closest one I'm aware of in rap and hip-hop is Drake. Okay, that would be. And that's only like a little over $150 million. Number one albums in the U.K. for a rapper. Most successive U.S. number one albums by solo artists. He's got 21st Century's top-selling album act in the U.S.A. He has the largest vocabulary for a recording artist. This is Guinness World Records. Most consecutive number one debuts on the U.S. albums chart. most likes for a musician on Facebook as a male. Other lists include, you know, Rolling Stone, their 100 greatest artists of all time. Fucking number three. Rolling Stone. We don't think of rap and hip-hop when we think of Rolling Stone, at least I don't. Rolling Stone's, their list for 100 greatest songwriters of all time, number one. Hmm.
    40:06
    The accolades go on and on and on. He's had 22 top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. 22. With five of them reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. In total, 90 songs charted on the Billboard Hot 100. Many of which have been certified diamond or higher by the RIAA. That's a lot. Yes. The last thing I want to pitch here as I'm pitching this IP for pinball is the Billboard Top 100. It's all of those songs that have been charted. Because sometimes we're like, oh, that band is huge. But they might have like five great songs. And we've heard of Tom Sawyer, but we've not heard of other things, right? Mm-hmm. In 2002, we've got Lose Yourself, which is, you know, the biggest Eminem song of all time. Lose Yourself from the soundtrack 8 Mile. We've got Crank a Bottle in 2009. That was number one. Not Afraid. You can try and read my lyrics off of this paper before I lay them. But you won't take to sing out these words before I say them. Cause ain't no way I'm gonna let you stop me from causing mayhem When I say I'm gonna do something, I do it I don't give a damn what you think I'm doing this for me The world feed its beans It's gas up, everything keeps stopping me 2010, also in the same year, we have Love the Way You Lie with Rihanna. Just gonna stand there and hear me cry That's alright, cause I love the way you lie I can't tell you what it really is I can only tell you what it feels like And right now it's a still life In my windpipe We got the monster in 2013 Without me Smack that Berserk Killshot Godzilla Not a good song The real Slim Shady I'm like a head trip to listen to Cause I'm only giving you things you joke about with your friends Inside your living room The only difference is I got the balls to say it in front of y'all And I don't gotta be false or sugar coated at all I just get on the mic and spit it, and whether you like to admit it, I just spit better than 90% of you rappers out there. Cleaning out my closet, I need a doctor, homicide, just lose it, shake that. That's a song you'd love, Dennis. There she goes, shaking that ass on the floor, bumping and grinding that phone. The way she's grinding that phone, I think I'm losing control. Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. Lucky you. Rap God, which should be the wizard mode in this game. When I'm gone, forever, the ringer, we made you. That's 22 that hit the top 100. I think those 22 would work. And some of the ideas that I had, Dennis, what do you put in an Eminem pinball machine?
    42:53
    Banned pinball machines, sometimes tough. What do you put in a Rush pinball machine? What do you put in a Led Zeppelin? I think it would be easy for him and them. Just take dark and dinky areas of Detroit and throw in a pinball machine. Yes, because that's what a world covered in highly bright RGB lighting just longs for. Somehow you'll still feel the city is dark and creepy with all these bright, beautiful reds and yellows shining everywhere. It won't work. You got the Detroit skyline, the whole eight-mile thing, a trailer park, old cars. No, that's a new stuff from the songs. Old house. Fighter pilot thing from Kamikaze or something. No, that's what they'll do. They'll use curtains, police, drugs, guns. That brings up the issue that I can see with this IP. Is it a little too risque? Is it a little too controversial, filthy for pinball? Maybe for stern pinball, right? I mean, again, I earlier was deriding the game because I really don't like the game. Rob Zombie was a pretty filthy game when it came to Call of Duty. And Spooky's done that with Rick and Morty as well, you know, where you can like language and stuff. So, yeah, I mean, in terms of the songs, you could have like a clean mode where it would beep or something. Radio edits. I wouldn't rule it out. Guns N' Roses is rapping about heroin addiction stuff. Sure, sure, sure. It's just housed in more of an Americana classic rock form. I do wonder, even though, I mean, obviously the sales are there compared to all the rest. And I don't know, though, are you possibly touching any sort of third rail stuff by having your very first rap artist be white?
    44:41
    That's a good point. I think I've got to remember, I wasn't a big Eminem follower, but back in the day, you know, that's part of the controversy was. Eminem has himself I mean we're not going to get into politics or sociology but he said himself he very much has done a lot of what Elvis did in the past I can see the analogy because Elvis was taking a lot of songs that were not known in white communities rhythm and blues which wasn't seen back in the day as quote unquote white music and a lot of people didn't like him for it initially you know and yeah no I don't want to touch on it it's just that's a good point though yeah I'm not trying to have a political debate but it's just you know these are the questions you along with he had I know he's addressed these publicly but there were a lot of accusations of the homophobia in his songs some of his early songs and things like that if he's if he as an individual is too controversial for whatever reason that would be something worth debating but again with the sales numbers being there That's the tough part. Numbers are a lot here. That's the thing is I think people would probably go, well, but if we're talking rap and hip-hop and you're just looking at the numbers, who would you have the biggest potential audience to sell to? And it's hard to argue when you've got over 220 million record sales versus, you know, the next one is like 70 million behind. So it's interesting. It's interesting. I'm going to say it here. If I'm creating a pinball machine and I've got carte blanche on creating the first rap, just because of numbers and popularity, I would be silly to go with any other band or solo artist than Eminem. For me, there's no argument there. But I can see it being argued. But all that being said, I think you and perhaps others, perhaps the listeners, are reading way too much into what has just been driven by album art. No, what I'm saying is, if he is saying this is all cool, Not only is it cool to use pinball as the entirety of the theme of my next album, whether it's box sets, whether it's album art, but now we're going to do promo videos with animation that's within that. I don't think it's a push to say that he probably would be on board to license a product that is pinball. Yeah, no, conceptually, I don't think it's ridiculous, but I also don't think it would have been ridiculous to even if there had been nothing. We're only talking about this because he did album cover art with pinball. He's as approachable about pinball as any other artist. I mean, the guy is 50, okay? He knows what pinball is. There's no reason.
    47:25
    And it's not even good cover art, right? So let's be fair. While you've been prattling on about Guinness Records and stuff, I've been doing my research. Curtain Call 2 is a mixed-reviewed album. And the art was despised. Wrong. There is an entire article about Newsweek which says, Eminem's album cover decoded, which is going through figuring out what happens when you find all the Easter eggs and stuff, continuing the title, as fans mock design the worst album cover.
    47:58
    Yes, the worst album cover. That's what that thing is. Let me read you some tidbits.
    48:05
    Despite all the subtle references to his work, Some were unimpressed by the visuals. I can't believe he made a cover like this. This is the worst album cover I remember seeing. Come on, Eminem, WTF.
    48:18
    Eminem's album cover looks like it was made on Microsoft Paint. Oh, fuck that. It's so incredibly out of touch. That's ridiculous, Microsoft Paint. It's a wonder anyone let him release the cover in 2022. I don't get that. Marshall, it's not too late to change the cover. What, didn't they like it? Have you seen Eminem's album art? They're pretty plain and boring. There's nothing to them. That's why I don't know why people are so angry. They hate it. They hate it, Precious. And I'm going to take it even further and say the video that I've not even yet seen takes place on a pinball machine is Eminem responding to them by doubling down. He's like you. When someone says they hate something, just double down into it. I'll make them like it. And we're going to shoot this in Microsoft PowerPoint. We'll have our PowerPoint animation with our Microsoft Paint cover art. What I saw in that promo video, I'm like, oh, my gosh, Stern could work with this so well. So well. Like, oh, their animation team could nail this. And, yeah, the artwork I thought was damn good. It's very much, it feels like pinball artwork. So maybe I'm biased. I like zombie yeti stuff and franchise stuff. And maybe I'm just too close to that because it looks great to me. I'm just saying what some of his fans were claiming. You're not talking about this as a pinball. Yeah, but I'm just saying that it's like the only reason you're talking about this as a pinball is because there is a pinball back glass for a cover art. Like he's hinting that he wants to have a pinball machine all of a sudden. That probably wasn't even his pick. It was probably the artist who said, hey, what if we do this like a pinball back glass? He's like, yo, that's awesome. Do it. Let me give you my copy of Microsoft Paint so you can put it together for me. He's like, I have so many millions of dollars. I really don't care. I will say that the track list on Curtain Call 2, not my jam. Well, again, I'm not God's word. A couple good ones. Mixed reviews. Pitchwork had said, Collect some nice singles, but mostly feels like a portrait of a wayward artist who's spent the last 13 years going in every direction. Yeah, I think. Or, bolden its intention and attempt to broaden the scope of a man's career and shuffle away from the fixation on his tabloid-baiting peak. placed side by side, however, there's simply no comparison. I listed out those 22 hits. Those are freaking hits. Those were not the curtain call two sets. There's a couple of them in there, but yeah. I'll tell you what, Zach. I think this is more likely to happen than Harry Potter. Oh.
    50:50
    You just destroyed so many people's hopes and dreams. Well, is this a projection? I haven't destroyed anything. That's what I worry about. You know how many people hate Eminem? They hate him. They hate his music. but that's true for all the bands right like there are people who who went out saying i hate iron maiden music hate it hate it hate it i have to have the game but like rush does anybody like nobody's angry at rush yeah actually yeah nobody's nobody's angry at led zeppelin uh someone i someone i uh i know in pinball uh his spouse actually they have to change he has to change the station if Rush comes on. It's the one band that's the rule for. One day if I am in the back. Oh. So you never, music's controversial. Even if the person or the band itself isn't controversial. Like people's taste, like when it comes to music, there's some strong taste. You know what? There'll be people that will say there was a Dolly Parton pinball with her music that would say her music's too terrible to have in it. It'd be so cool. I'd love it. I want to hear Dolly Parton collab with Eminem. Oh, God. Give me a towel.
    52:08
    His palms are sweaty. He's weak. Palms are heavy. Oh, my God. And, look, speaking of different strokes for different folks, I was going to say different tastes, but after we were talking about that, you and I have different tastes in pinball machines. We've been talking a lot about code this episode, So I thought, why not echo the subject of the last Joel Engelberth flipping out stream on TPN where he did another. Do we not see it? I don't know what we're talking about. Okay. Well, you can watch the VOD. I'll explain it to you. He had on Don't Panic Flips George, the Pinballers Mike, and Frisco Pinballs Hottie. And they did this segment again. I think you were part of one of their segments, like the pick your favorite blah, blah, blah segment. They did that for coders. So Joel listed out Lyman Sheets and his games that he's coded, Dwight Sullivan and his games, Lonnie Robb and his long list of games, Keith Johnson, his list of games, and Larry DeMar in his list of games. And each of the hosts then went in and they gave their pick for not the best pinball machine, not the best code, not necessarily their favorite pinball machine out of the list, But their favorite rules and code won from each of those lists. I thought that would be fun for us to do here for the listener. So, Dennis, we're going to do this, but we're going to do this quite a bit quicker than Joel did. Oh, good. I imagine they took forever. They did. I enjoyed it, but we're going to go fast. But you like that sort of thing. Yeah, I do. Let's start with Larry DeMar. Now, they could have picked any. There's so many more coders that we've thrown out there. This is such a weird list, if I may say. It feels extremely modern and then Larry. And then Larry. Yeah. Well, I think Joel probably had four of them. He's like, damn, I want five. I don't know who else to pick because nobody else has enough games under their belts yet. I would argue that maybe Nagel. We're getting close at four because they are so good. But there were so many of those. That's interesting, though, because, I mean, it is called Pinball Coder Edition, but Elwin develops Nagel's rules. He implements them.
    54:18
    He's a programmer, not a rulemaker. But we don't know if that's 100%. No, it's not. I mean, Elwynn has noted, especially as it's become more and more familiar, I'm starting to give suggestions, but the lead on rules on Elwynn games are Elwynn, according to Elwynn. So I'm just saying. It's weird because Stern, it's weird to me in a way, but we've kind of gotten used to that Stern standard. But that wasn't the case with Spooky or American Pimp. There's no rule that says your rules creator has to be a programmer, but that's how Stern likes to do it. normally. So that's how we just sort of think about it. And that's kind of how it was at Williams as well. Yeah, and Williams a lot of times used there may have been a lead coder but they had a group Just I mean Well there a group involved now it a group involved now You know it getting complicated It where you go in and you talk about Rush and it like okay well which pieces are Raymond pieces and which pieces are Sexton pieces And it's like, and they know, and they'll tell you in the interviews and stuff, but it's like, oh, yeah, I came up with this, and they came up with this, or they programmed this, but it was my idea. Jersey Jack's that way, too. I think they have like one coding team, but one person takes lead. As code has become more advanced, it's no longer – you think about how many video games are designed by one person, coded by one person at this point. Very, very few. I mean, it's not that – we're past the days of EET on the 2600. But for argument's sake, we're going to categorize them as such. All right. We'll stick with this. Apologies, folks. I'm a little surly today. Brian Eddy even did a lot of code, but we'll stick with the rules of these five. Larry DeMar, I'll let you go first, and then we'll alternate. But looking at Larry DeMar's list of jackpot, Adam Sandler. So these lists are accurate? They are not. That's the other thing that Joel had a lot of money. Because I'm looking and I'm seeing Dwight has World Poker Tour under him. Yeah. And I'm like, I thought that was Keith Johnson's game. You know, he's still a little green. We got to teach him a little bit. But no, Dwight. Okay, it's listed under both of them. All right. Hang on. Larry DeMar, World Cup Soccer, Twilight Zone, Funhouse, Bonsai Run, High Speed, Space Shuttle, Black Knight, Giunga, Lord A and Scorpion. Good list. Good career there. Yeah. Larry Tamar. I guess, is Larry, I guess he's no longer in pinball. Not to my knowledge. Not to my knowledge either. Looking at those, this is not the best game. This is not the best technical code or rules. What's your favorite of the bunch? Oh, I'd probably go World Cup Soccer. Oh, okay. I like that. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, none of these rules are, you know, they're not balanced by today's standards. World Cup soccer, though, I think works pretty well. It's a little confusing to me. It is. Because it's so simple. It is a bit. But anyone walking up to it, I think, understands the concept that they can at least attack the goal. Yep. Go through the cities. Yeah. Get the goal. I do love that game. And most of my frustrations with World Cup soccer have to do with J-Pop's layout, not the rules. This isn't crap on J-Pop. I'm not. I'm just saying that there are for us. Like, these ramps are difficult. The flippers aren't perfect. They're not going to get up these ramps. And the scoop is super hard to target. And it's like, well, that was all J-Pop's fault. Wonderful designed game. I don't know what you're saying. It's his best. I knew you wouldn't go for the rinse and repeat of Adam's Family or Twilight Zone. No, I'm sorry. Two-shot game. I knew you wouldn't. And that's the rules' fault, not the layout's fault. Fun House is... It's a good layout.
    57:46
    Fun House is technically, I guess, good, but... The rules in Fun House are really clever, so I like that. Yeah, it's better than... Like, you know, progressing the clock and all of that. I'm going to go with one that none of them picked. I'm going with high speed. I think high speed is the first time probably in pinball that we started telling stories. I believe that's true. And the effect is really done so with code and programming more so than layout.
    58:15
    It's just high speed tells a story, and it never gets old, locking balls and trying to get away from the police. So I go high speed here. Okay. Moving on to Keith Johnson. Oh. Oh, Mr. Death and Stealth. Yep. Multi-ball man. Keith Johnson's codes include GNR, Wizard of Oz, Pirates of the Caribbean, Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, CSI, Underrated, Wheel of Fortune, Family Guy, World Poker Tour, Elvis, Simpsons Pinball Party, NFL, which nobody's played, Austin Powers, High Roller Casino, a Dennis favorite, Sharky Shootout, another Dennis favorite, Striker Extreme, Dennis wants one, Playboy and Revenge for Mars? Question mark there. I don't really think that's a... It must have helped with something. Revenge for Mars was what I called on the stream all hands on deck. That was Lyman, that was Dwight. Well, CSI's kind of like that too. Yes, yes, yes. At least in the sense that I know three different programmers came up with the three multiballs in CSI. And designers too. I don't know if Pat Lawler kind of dipped out halfway through on that one. So we've got a list here of Keith Johnson As I'm looking through this list A lot of really classic games here A lot of favorites by a lot of people Simpson Pinball Party is really deep Austin Powers, I love the theme But it's a spell-a-thon World Poker Tour is heralded for its depth But I don't get into it It feels kind of like Wizard of Oz to me Which rules-wise, depth-wise, it's confusing to me Pirates of the Caribbean is really well done Hobbit really well done but then there's Lord of the Rings I'm going to go right now I'm stuck between Hobbit and Lord of the Rings I'm going to go with Lord of the Rings I really there's a big gap in between there and back again in Balinor so that's the downside but the way he implements multiball was better than probably any way that he implemented multiball in anything else that he's known for and I love the task orientation of like the gifts from the elves to get as well as your main shots to get that insert towards your three multi balls represent the three films. The moments in that game are amongst the best ever created in pinball. Lord of the Rings with a runner up on Hobbit for me. It's all about the moments. Where's your where's your mind taking you, Dennis? Of this list, I would pick Lord of the Rings. Any particular reason why?
    60:49
    No, I have no reason, Dean. Okay. Just because you like... I mean, you already went into a whole thing about what he did with it. I guess if I were to distill it down into a more simple form, it does a very effective job of having you shoot the entire play field.
    61:08
    That's true. Because of that, you get to experience the full layout. It tells a good story. It goes along. As you noted, there are a lot of different things you can work on in the game. and it does have a lot of moments. There are other pieces that kind of bleed in and start to infect my opinion of Lord of the Rings because you've got such good call-outs and everything else that's sort of in play.
    61:33
    It's a terrible tournament game because of how long of a player it is, but as a game to enjoy, it's excellent. You actually go on an adventure with it. You truly do. Hard to argue that one. Lonnie Ropp Can we just give this guy an award Boy he's the workhorse Of pinball He's been there since the beginning of Stern Data East Sega he's been there I'm not even going to read off All of Lonnie Ropp's games because the list Is double that of anybody else's But some of the heavy hitters Of the contemporary Stranger Things Guardians of the Galaxy He's done Kiss, he's done Star Trek A lot of people know Star Trek X-Men, Iron Man. Wait a minute. Joel. He started Iron Man, I guess. Lyman kind of. That's a Lyman game.
    62:27
    He's got it in both. This list, it can induce rage if people were to actually see the list. He did a lot of the early string stuff with Keith Johnson, the Austin Powers, High Roller Christina kind of stuff. Nobody's going to pick. South Park, Space Jam. Here's our SEGAs. X-Files, Twister, Goldeneye, Maverick, the original GNR, Tommy?
    62:50
    Last Action Hero, Jurassic Park. I was going to say, I think Tommy was Lyman, but I think Lyman might have done the dots on Tommy. But of this list that Joel compiled. Alright, of these, the one I'm going to pick is Stern Star Trek. I think it's an excellent rule set. Some people, and Dwight's corrected this in interviews before, because some people go in and say that Dwight fixed the code on this, like came up with the metals, and he's like, no, Lonnie came up with the metal system. I think the metal system was a really cool idea. So as a game, it's set up so you don't time out the modes. Like they stop the timer on you. You know, you got all these different things. For some people, they struggle, and I understand that. Like they feel like it's a chase the blinking lights. But especially once you get past the first tier of the modes, Sure. It starts to feel like you do, like, Nero level three, and it's like math. Like, every flip moves two different lit shots, and so you have to think about your flips. It's just that it was so different in the different ways that they try and convey the shots that are trying to tell the story of the DMD. So, for me, I just think, plus it's really well balanced. I like the three tiers, too. In terms of which modes you go through. Yeah, it's like three wide and three deep. so you've got three levels of every single one of these missions, but also completing the three in a row. Yeah, you get bonuses for those. And then you start being like, okay, I'm going to get super spinners, or I'm going to have, or you set up two at once, and you activate the third one to close out both paths, and you get both of them. There's just a lot to do with it. So I'm going to say, yeah, Star Trek would be my favorite of his rule set. But I'm going to go ahead and give you an honorable mention. His first game, Laser War. Oh, okay. That is a quirky, weird, fun game. Rules depth-wise, obviously, because this is like System 11 era, but Data East. So super simple trying to go and get the shots. But it's got, like, hurry-up setups to try and make, like, jackpot shots in the multi-ball and stuff. It's a fun game. If you ever get a chance to play Laser War, it's a lot of fun. It is a fun game. It's kind of like I like Torpedo Alley in the same sense, but more so because of the design of Torpedo Alley. just a weird, odd layout that kind of works for me. We don't see that as much anymore, but I don't have enough time to say the rules. For me, I will preface my pick with a lot of these games I don't have adequate time on, so it's tough for me. So am I going to have to put on my UV glasses for your pick?
    65:22
    No. Tell me. No, you're not. Really? Oh, I'm wrong. Because with Stranger Things, Stranger Things is a good code, but it's essentially something he's done before and has replicated.
    65:35
    My argument for Lonnie Robb is this. While I've not played all of them, he was kind of a non-factor for me on most of his produced games. I think that's why Lonnie Robb kind of gets some shade at times. I think that as he continues to do code, and, you know, everybody can argue this, he continues to get better, but I think exponentially he's taken bigger steps. So for me, yeah, Stranger Things' code is phenomenal But I don't know if I would pick that as his ultimate code Iron Man and Tron are on this list But those are not Lonnie games in my opinion Maybe they are, but not in my opinion Those are Lyman games Hard not to pick Star Trek Because that's where I feel like he did start his Lonnie... The Rapa... The Rapa-sants? Yeah, the Rapa... His fingerprint was on Star Trek, and then you started seeing that type of those games following. Kiss, Aerosmith, Guardians of the Galaxy, Stranger Things. I think the one that he nailed once it was finally done was Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm going to give Guardians of the Galaxy a nod here because of the way that he utilized all the assets he got, the way that he did tier these, very much like a Star Trek kind of thing, where you can either start it or complete it. If you complete it, you go here, but if you just start it, you go here. You've got these little side quests of the multiballs that you have to factor in as a task, and he throws in a little cherry bomb multiball there to keep interest in this game. But for me, it's the balancing of the rules. all said and done, Guardians of the Galaxy may be one of the most preferred tournament competition games of Lonnie Robb's list. And that's something that you care about deeply. I'm going to give him the nod there. Because I really do like Guardians. It's still in my collection. And I still chase Xandar. Guardians is very popular, yes. We got to a really good spot. Yeah, we got two more left here. Oh, hold up. Guardians, I really like that The first time you start Multiball, it's three, but the second time, it's four. That's good. I like that. Let's go with Dwight Sullivan, and then we'll finish it out with lime and cheese. It's getting tougher for me. Oh, this is going to be hard for you because there's so many moments. That's what Dwight does, is moments. It's a moment maker blended by Dwight. All of these games are so good. We've got Mandalorian Turtles, Star Wars, Monsters, Ghostbusters, Game of Thrones, Family Guy, Pirates of the Caribbean, Stern, underrated game, World Poker Tour, I'm not counting. Sopranos, I'm not counting. Elvis, I'm not counting. T3, I'm counting. Playboy, High Roller Early Stern stuff. Junkyard, Champions Pub. Here's the Bally Williams. Dwight, whodunit. No Fear Roadshow. Star Trek Next Gen. Getaway T2. Bugs Bunny. Nice job, Dwight. And Riverboat Gambler. You're trying to remember if Bugs Bunny is your favorite. I've not got enough time on Bugs Bunny, so I can't say. I've played it one time, and one time is enough. I've played Riverboat Game Boy. It's a fun game. Yeah, no, Riverboat. Bugs Bunny, you know, I don't know. I've not played Millionaire, and I hear Millionaire's a pretty bad System 11, but out of the 30 System 11s, Bugs Bunny is the worst I've ever played. I think it looks cool. Oh, no, artistically, it looks really good. It's like the one-time Python Angela, like, tried not to get all weird and was just like, I want to draw Looney Tunes, and so he did. He didn't pop by it. Man, some games here that are just so good. T2 Getaway. Star Trek Next Gen with what he did with the crystals and getting those.
    69:27
    Roadshow I own. No Fear I own. Junkyard. Very underrated game. Champions Pub I think is gimmicky. Dwight. But it's the best personification of World Under Glass I've ever seen. It is really good. I guess that goes to the playfield designer. But I fell in love with Dwight more recently. With Sharky. No, with the Stern, Niver Stern stuff. Do I give it a Game of Thrones? I get a little bored there. A little bit too much strategy for me. Ghostbusters. That's when I was falling in love with pinball. If I pick Ghostbusters, you know how much hate mail we'll get. because of the balance and the linearity of what people say. No one respects any of your choices anyway. I don't think we'll get a single message about it. Most people in life are wrong, so I can get that. Monsters, hell no, Dwight. Sorry, buddy. Star Wars, oh, moment making. Turtles is good. Mando's damn good. I'm going to go with Ghostbusters. Give me Ghostbusters. You want to know why? Because it's not fucking linear like everybody says. You've got three different paths that you can take. Three linear paths. Okay, I'll give you that. But all at the same time, you can pick a strategy because you can chase ghosts, too. You can go through modes that all have moments. You can also chase up that ladder that you want, collecting 10, 20, 30, 40 ghosts, 50 ghosts, all with different mini modes, if you will, or a little wizard mode at the end there. And they're all fun. like looping supers we're talking about this on discord and it went over everybody's head because they're like no you're wrong it's not balanced i don't give a shit looping supers is one of the funnest modes in pinball it's not even a damn mode it's like a little side quest so why does a side quest kind of guy a little rpg kind of fella gets a little bit too deep in my opinion with the game of thrones and mando on the rpg things but ghostbusters is where it's at that's where the origin of the Dwight show kind of came from. You could argue Game of Thrones. Ghostbusters came out before Game of Thrones, didn't it?
    71:34
    Yes. I think so, yeah. Yeah, that's where you get those light shows, though. Jackpots and stuff. Give me Ghostbusters, and I think I'm right.
    71:45
    Hmm. Well, maybe. Maybe you're right. Probably not. Where are you going? well I feel like objectively the right answer is probably Game of Thrones but I don't understand it well enough to let that be my pick my throw well yeah it used to be different houses and then he did the update the code update and then like the choices changed so it was a significant update anyway I don't fully know it so I maybe say as a runner up people should give that one a chance I'm going to go way back actually And she's Getaway. Oh, that's a good one. I love Getaway. I like Getaway so much, it's shocking I've never owned one. Wow. But just so much, like, obviously, you know, there's some pieces that come back to mind from high speed. But, you know, the ability to build up the RPMs and have to remember to shift the gears for your scoring. And then going and having that cool two different shots you can do to access the ball lock, to have the physical ball lock up top. to get ready to do it. And then when you're in that mode, you know, trying to go for that super jackpot and the stress that's going on because of the way that he's got the sounds incorporated, so it's just freaking you out, and you're like, I got to go, and I got to go. And then you've drained out, and you're trying to make the stop before the time is out. And he's just like, oh, my God, what's going on? And then, of course, the supercharger and just the effect of going in there when it's ready. And then, of course, it does other things when it's not. It's a very straightforward game. You're trying to get in the multiball and do the thing, but the way it's all put together, that the game's got a ton of bugs in it. It's super fun.
    73:23
    We tend to have one on the location a lot. Even the tournament players love it. It's a... People love that game. It's my favorite of this list. I really like Getaway a lot. You know whenever a coder or programmer are so good at their job that their code creates the theme. Like Getaway, that's the theme. Like High Speed and Getaway, those are themes, I would argue, a lot in part because of the code that they're derived of. Same with, like, frickin' Junkyard and Whodunit. Like, does any coder take more risks than Dwight? Whodunit? That's kind of the onset of the RPG kind of, or we're trying to find, it's like a game within a game. We're not just playing pinball. You should probably sequel Whodunit, like do Who Did It.
    74:11
    Who did it? He who smelt it dealt it. Whodunit. I don't have enough time on that game. People told me I wouldn't like it, but I'm always intrigued by it. I played one again. I mean, I played it before, but I played one a couple months ago again. And I was like, you know what? There's a lot more to figure out here. Because, you know, you can actually try and solve it. Yeah. It probably worked better today where they could make it a little more, because there were ways to kind of quickly figure out who did it in the old code that I think you could solve today. But, yeah, it's a weird one. Man. Dwight, what a nice career he's got here. I can't wait to see what he's coming up with next.
    74:54
    Do you think it'll be Venom? We're going to end on the God of Pinball Code. Maybe one of the Mount Rushmores of pinball in general. Maybe the only coder that would appear on a pinball Mount Rushmore. Possibly. I guess it depends how many heads we get to have on a Rushmore. Is it just before? or what if we did? Because, you know, Mount Rushmore is supposed to have more faces. Yeah, who got lazy there? I think they ran out of money, but, yeah.
    75:23
    Lime and Sheets. We've got Elvira's House of Horrors. We've got Medieval Madness. AC, DC, Attack from Mars, Batman 66, Spider-Man, Walking Dead, Iron Man, Metallica, Tron, Rolling Stones, Avatar, don't forget, Big Buck Hunter, NBA, 24, CSI, Batman Dark Knight, Sopranos, Revenge from Mars, Monster Bash, Maverick, Royal Rumble, Tommy, and The Last Action Hero.
    75:50
    That's a hell of a list. A lot of favorites. Some of those older ones, I don't think he's lead on. I think he was doing some other aspect. Mixed and stuff. I think he did display work.
    75:59
    Monster Bash was the first one that I recognized as like, holy crap, that's lime and cheese. Oh, this is easy for me walking dead. Just easy, just like that. Yeah. No Medieval Madness. No. Attack from Mars may be arguably your favorite game ever. Attack from Mars is great. People say Batman 66 is kind of his masterpiece.
    76:21
    You know what? There is a lot to Batman 66, but there's something about Walking Dead. There's something about the modes. He found a way to take advantage of those far side drop targets and make them super important. Not to mention when you hit one, it locks in one of the three things like the food or the weapons or whatever. And if you complete that, it actually, they give you perks and they're different perks. And then going in and trying to complete those particular missions, you've got the multi-kills. You've got the 2x playfield multiplier you can activate. The x.x. Yeah. It's just, and that was a game that had a lot, like, I think when people saw it and the layout was weird to them and different. And initially, before the code developed, it didn't fully take advantage of the playfield. I think people were kind of like, it's a bad play field. But this was an instance where the play field was actually, I think, good and creative and different. And then when the coach showed you by having you take advantage of all of it, it's just all that. Not to mention, I mean, he put in some moments with the well walker as an obvious entry thing and the horde mode. And, of course, one of my favorite things is to get into bloodbath. Oh, yes, that's bloodbath with the multi-ball animo. It's so, there's just so much. It's one of those, to me, of all of the things that he worked on, and again, this is where I put it above Attack from Mars, was the full embrace of risk and reward. Like, do you want to play it safe? You've got moments galore no matter which way you go, but you want to play it safe on a points front and start doing certain things, or you're like, you're behind, I've got to take some risks, and he's given them to you, and you take those risks, you can pile on those points quick. so that's why all the wizard modes, there's like five wizard modes in that game and none of them are easy to get to the whole game is hard, now part of that's the layout, but the whole game is brutal, brutal game and I would argue that he really honed in his risk reward in Metallica, but what he did in Walking Dead is he actually made it fun and interesting, that risk reward yeah, and from a tournament perspective when I play in local tournaments, and we've often had Metallica and Walking Dead. The thing with Walking Dead that I love, though, is even if I get drawn up against a good player, they're afraid of Walking Dead. And I'm like, I know, I can do that. I can beat them. I can beat the top player in the state. I know I can take them on Walking Dead. I'll probably lose, but I know they're afraid of it, too.
    78:54
    Man, there's so many good, like, if we're looking at the simplicity, but how dynamic the rule set on Iron Man and Tron are. And I would argue Avatar, too, kind of lumped in there. But those codes made those games.
    79:09
    Tron, you could argue other things made it, the layout and such. But, like, Iron Man? I mean, the thing, setting aside that Lyman would almost assuredly be seen as the lead rules person on our pinball, Mount Rushmore, I don't really think it would be debated by anyone. Maybe Elwynn's rules will ultimately supplant that. I don't think. Not yet. Not even like that yet. It's just that Lyman's rules were different. The thing, saying aside just how good they all are, not to wax too poetic about all of the great things Lyman did, but he saved a lot of games. Walking Dead is one of those examples of a game that when it came out, and again, because he spent so much time developing code, games would sort of start and people would be down on them, and then later they'd be like, you know what? This became a really good game. People were down on Iron Man when it came out, It was like 2008. What the heck is this? Stern stripped everything else. They're cheaping out. Batman 66 like no other. Batman was, yeah, people were like. It was a head-scratcher. You know, obviously, again, Stern's kind of behind the eight ball. They're trying to get the Batman stuff all right, the Super LEs before Adam West dies. And then it's like, and he totally redid the code from where it initially was. He saved Spider-Man. Spider-Man was seen as a bad game. A lot of work on ACDC with all the foreign stuff. ACDC, you know, well, I won't say it was that he came in and saved ACDC. ACDC came in and, like, saved Stern. It was like that was the start of this, all this new, you know, 10 years ago. This is the start of the surge. The pinball resurgence was not when the new company or new investors came in in 2008. That's what kept Stern alive. It was ACDC in 2012 that said, you know what, pinball is a thing now. And I think also we could say that it sure as hell wasn't mechs. I think a big reason that there was a resurgence in pinball, amongst themselves and other reasons, but code was a big one. And I'd also argue theme, but code was a huge one. These are now complex game sets that you see in things like video games that people are just, it's the video game, you know, the home market video games started rapidly shooting up and surpassing that of cinema, so too pinball gets a boost because of the complexity of rules.
    81:29
    I'm with you, Dennis. Walking Dead 100%. It's not even close. I take Walking Dead code not only of all of the games we have listed here in linements, not only all the games we have listed here of the five coders, but the greatest single code set rule set programming in the history of pinball. and the sad thing is there are still glaring issues with this code rule set, but it's still far and above better than anything else. For me, it's about moments. It's about tasks and non-linearity, and it is very much about having understanding, like here's your six things that you've got to get or seven. There's like 15 ways to get them, so choose which ones you want to get. Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, of all the – and I don't have a huge collection of games, but this is the one where when it comes in, I feel like I have the most path choice. Yeah, absolutely. Compared to because of my other ones that would be the most pathy would be Star Trek which okay which of these like six different mission level ones do I want to start with which is a good variety don get me wrong or much like with and Godzilla does better than Star Trek in the sense that okay, I could start one of my four level tier one kaiju, but I also could go after tank multiball or go after bridge or go after Tesla strike or whatever. But with Walking Dead, I don't know, just the way it feels, it's like, okay, do I want to go for the drops? And then if I do that, which of these modes do I want to choose from all these main shots? Or do I want to start just trying to pick off walker kills and maybe go for my extra ball right away? Or instead, do I want to go for well walker multi-ball and maybe play it safe a little bit? Or do I want to go for prison instead and, you know, attack those barn doors and get that going because it's going to be more lucrative?
    83:18
    And then, you know, with the multi-kills and everything, like, it's got a lot of different choices. Because even though I know there's a lot of, I guess, quote-unquote depth to it, it doesn't overwhelm me with its complexity. I'm not doing like annihilation bonus math here trying to figure out like, well, if I get my destruction jackpot and then I'll be done. In Discord, us nerds were talking about like why Walking Dead code is so great. And then somebody brought up the fact that, well, like Avengers has that too in Trophy and Mania. But my argument would be it's depth-wise, it's tangible, and that's as much as we need is in Walking Dead. Otherwise, you lose. You get lost in the woods. I have. Of all of Keith Elwin's games, I have struggled the most with Avengers. And I know people who own it and love it and tell me that I just don't know the rules well enough. And I agree. But whenever I go up and I play it on location, it's very overwhelming to me. Walking Dead is the most depth that, as a player, I'll ever need. If we stay into the confines of Walking Dead, I'll never see all those wizard modes, but I'll keep chasing them because they're fun. I don't need depth outside of that. That would be my argument. I would argue that why in the hell Stern has not taken the Walking Dead, that code and rule set, and put that into another game is preposterous. It's so silly. Nobody's even replicated anything near what the Walking Dead is doing, And for me, there's no explanation as to why they haven't done that yet. I just simply don't get it. We may never know. So that's this or that pinball coder edition. That was fun. Yay! That was fun. And we did it faster than them? We went on a while. Yeah, we did. We talked a lot about Lyman. Did we do it faster? We got a little passionate there, didn't we? Okay. You know what else goes on long and I'm passionate about? Nothing, because we're done with the show. Pinball! Market trends! Oh, dear.
    85:16
    Now, really quick. Training out this week is Tactic Canyon, SE Epsilon, and LE Editions. Why, you might ask? Why? They're not even out, Zach. Yeah. Oh, I thought you were going to say they finally found that one piece from that F-250 chip that powers that topper.
    85:34
    What makes its arms spin? What is so hard? I don't understand. Why is this topper so hard? I'm a man of the people. I'm a man of the streets. and the buzz and chatter I hear around the boulevards and the avenues is tactics caning, SC plus and LA, sure the SC's are coming out in drones and people are buying them it's such a damn enjoyable game I was playing it the other day and I thought fuck, this game is just really good and I don't even know if it should be this good but I'm not going to see the end of it often it's tangible but it's like a little carrot out there I can only imagine what it's going to see whenever the additional code comes but all of this talk about the delays with the SE Plus and the LE because of the toppers just makes people want them more and I'm turning it up this week because numbers don't lie I only report the backs and if you go back and look at all of the iterations of the remakes especially the LEs with toppers they all hold and they all increase and they're still staying high So there's no reason that Cactus Canyon won't do the same, especially when you wave the magic wand of Lyman Sheets all over it. The best topper, arguably. The best coder, arguably. Something new that you haven't played for decades and you don't know much of. Buy, buy, buy! Cactus Canyon SE Plus and LE are going to be high for a long time, and they're going to continue to go up for the short term here. Also turning up this week is Jerry Thompson. The sound guy. Did you hear the Loser Kids? I did. I did hear the Loser Kids. This Loser Kid interview. I mean, nothing came out of it that I was like, oh, my God, did you hear what he talked about? Nothing. What came out of it? We're going to 7.1 surround sound. That's right.
    87:24
    With two foot. Yeah, you don't need it. Jerry Thompson is just such a generous, likable, lovable fellow that I think people forget how much he is into pinball. This is a man that has like 30 pinball machines himself.
    87:44
    What other creator in pinball can we say that about? I don't know. I guarantee you probably can't count them on one of our hands. He used to frequent the autograph lines at expos and conventions because that's how much he loved pinball, and he is so humbled by the fact that he himself is now creating it, not only creating it, but doing a damn splendid job at it as well. Jerry is one of the, maybe the most overlooked, but should be one of the most beloved people in our community, not only for what he brings to our games, but also the ambassadorship that he represents. I cannot say enough about Jerry Thompson and the love that everyone should have for that man. So I had to turn him up. I mean, it's just objective here. Do you think maybe he's too nice?
    88:35
    Is he going to surpass Steve Bowden? What if he already has? People don't know it. I don't know. I'm just saying. I know people that sometimes are too nice. Some people that are too nice or annoying, you know those types, right? You're like, I just want to smash their face. Do you? You mean bubbly people. But some people are just so nice and positive. I'm like, I hate you, but I don't know why. I'm just doing that for entertainment purposes, people. I just, people are awesome. I like them. It's just for entertainment. But I don't want to smash Jerry's face.
    89:12
    He's like a really super nice guy. I like being around him. At Ball Market, Trent, Zach does not want to smash Gary's face. Trent, congratulations. Your face is sick. You do not have a punchable face. He doesn't. Fine, I'll Trent down some. Trent down this week is Guns N' Roses. Damn it. Why? I don't know. They just made so many of them. They made a lot. They've made a lot, and people want the new and the shiny, and DNR is not it anymore. So they're starting. Yeah. And they're selling.
    89:49
    So much so that right now in the secondary market, you can find a GNR LE probably lower nines. Oh, wow. Kind of hurts when I have a painful and still left in stock.
    90:03
    Gosh, I just don't know. Guess it's time for what we like to call in the business a fire sale. And risk losing our distribution.
    90:13
    Fire sale? No, no, no. Whenever. Bunch down in the dark alleys of Bloomington, Indiana. Now, I hear, side note, I hear so many podcasters talk about, well, man, all these dealers have all this inventory of these, you know, said list of games. And at some point in time, they're just going to have to take, you know, big hits on it. They're going to have to sell them for. People, we can't do that. Believe us. There's some of us dealers that might do that. But we can't because we are contractually obligated. there is a floor to what we can sell them for. And some of you might say, well, no, there's a floor to what you can advertise them for. No, I'm telling you there is a floor for what we can sell them for. Is there no clause? Now I'm curious. So is there no clause like if you sat on one for four years? I'd have to go back and read the agreement, but to my knowledge, there is no language as such. Can you send a back? No.
    91:12
    Okay. Right now, if I wanted to, let's say just hypothetically, if I wanted to cancel some of my Cactus Canyon or Toy Story orders, I lose the money I gave them. I can't even transfer them to another product that they sell. I am just simply out that money.
    91:31
    So, yeah, it's a tough business. I might have to get out my tiny violin for you. I don't know what to do. Thank you. So there is a floor that we can't sell them. And if there is evidence that comes out, then they could potentially cut ties with us because of that. So, no, we've got to sit. We've got to sit. The good thing is GNRs will sell. And owners of GNR do not fret because, number one, the CE is going to maintain a pretty good chunk of change for long term. And the LEs will go back up. I anticipate the GNR LEs are going to take them off. I think it's going to take them by spring of 2023 to start to kind of maintain that bottom and start going up here. So they'll find a medium. I'd also like to chime in and reassure them as well that as private owners, no one with the company would ever contact them about choosing to sell their own game on below whatever floor they might choose. Is that not true, Zach?
    92:27
    The companies would never weigh in on what someone does with their personal game. You cannot confirm nor deny that. Hmm. Okay. Hey, I sold my GNR. See?
    92:39
    Yes, yes, you did. On the black market. I sold them on the end of the street, man. I had to. It's like in the alleys of Indianapolis. It's almost relevant. It's a GNR trade going down. I took an offer I couldn't refuse. It's like behind the local Taco Bell.
    93:01
    He said cash for GNR. I'll tell you what, if a GNRC popped up at like a crazy great price, I'd probably pick up one again because I do miss it a little bit. But for me, it's like Keith Johnson games anymore. When I play them, play them, there's no other experience in pinball like them. But once I get done with that high, I don't want to get back on that drug for a while because it's got a big hangover on it. Well, getting back to the game we both picked, Lord of the Rings as his, I know that's been a number, a very common issue I've seen with people who own the game, who are fans of it, is a lot of them have moved it on. The main argument I've often heard is, I just don't really have time to want to push the start button and know I'm going to play for 40 minutes.
    93:46
    And that's why they move it along. It's like it no longer becomes fast like any other pinball game because they mastered the shots and it's so long to get through that it's just, some people only want to play pinball for 10 minutes at a time. Keith Johnson is the dopamine succubus. He will take every little dopamine particle that he can from you, and there's a refractory period. Deal of the week this week can be found. You know what? Numbers don't lie. Neither do I, except for this deal of the week, because it's the pinball vault. Have you seen the pinball vault? You finally got it. Why do we have to have accounts to look at the vault? There's some steals in there, Dennis. Let me tell you. I'm exaggerating, people. There's not deals there. What the pinball vault is, the flipping out pinball vault, it's for people that got to have it. That's what that's for. If you don't know where it's at, it's somewhere, and it's got a price on it. It's basically deals of the WTF. It is. It is deals. What's Zach's version? It's the merge of that. Well, it's a deal that's a weakness in the sense that, holy shit, he's got one, but it's a what the fuck is he asking for it? I initially, I like to imagine that the vault actually started as a different concept, but it's just kind of been corrupted over time. And as you tried to implement it on your Wix website host or whatever, it's like this is what it just has to be now. This deals with the WTF. As crazy as some of the deals do sound They're the market values of where they're at I also like to imagine That you just stockpile Four years worth of toppers And that's what you're just going to drip feed them out On the vault I never considered that With some games Like right now People are going to be so mad when they hear this I've got a Godzilla premium in the box Sitting But the reason I do that is because I'm anticipating one getting jacked up in shipping, and I want to be able to send somebody else a new one instead of waiting for Stern two to six months for repair. And I just had that happen this last week. Now everyone's going to be writing in to Zach at fliptheletterinoutinball.com saying, Zach, get me to my premium. Release that premium. It's just going to sit there until I know that all of the people have been taken care of and FedEx didn't fuck up any of their games, and then I'll release it to the next person in line. But I do that a lot. I'll do that on toppers. I do that on everything. But then, yeah, if they're sitting and I'm like, oh, crap, I still got one of these. Oh, yeah, it goes in the vault.
    96:31
    Mods, there is no mod out there safe. If you guys see, I will buy and I flip mods. I'm saying it here. If somebody creates a damn good mod, I'd buy five of them. One for myself and four for the vault. Did you try and go on Consider going on like Cameo To see if Geraldo Rivera would have done a Done a little video of Bobo paying the bluff And outlaw That would be fantastic But hey look, for some people they're like Man I wish I made Beatles Hoppers again But I've got one That's all I'm saying, bluff and outlaw Pinball Bounty Somebody find me a damn Dolly Parton It's either super beat up and in plays or pristine. I don't want any in between. Nothing in between. And for God's sakes, get CPR Stew, a radical play field. Please, people. I want a radical. And as always, Dennis, I'm just here to report the facts. Don't kill me. Numbers don't lie. Neither do I. On Pinball, Market Trends, Vault Edition. Choo-choo.
    97:37
    This kind of sounds like the bird. Are you Godzilla? We're doing all the annoying voices today. We just still need a protester.
    97:53
    Man, I like talking to you this week. It was fun. Fun episode with no news. Yeah, it was pretty light. Light and fluffy. The cool whip of our cool whip.
    98:05
    The pinball networks. Speaking of, do you go Miracle Whip or do you go mayonnaise? Mayonnaise. I go Miracle Whip. Hmm. Well, it's a big thing in Indiana. What's different about it, though? It was made differently. It's got a different flavor. Mayo's real tangy, though.
    98:20
    Yeah? I don't know. It's very eggy. Marigold whip doesn't taste as eggy. It doesn't taste like eggs in it. Yeah, I know. I don't know what that is. I mean, I don't mind miracle whip. I just... I don't mind mayo. If I put something on a sandwich, I put mayo on the sandwich. I don't buy miracle whip. My wife has recently switched over, and that's why I bring it up. So I'm like, Nicole, what the hell? Where's the miracle whip? And she's like... She's trying to calm down your back and may or may help.
    98:47
    Creates bone spurs. That's the miracle in it. Where can people catch it then? Well, they can always reach out to me over at Eclectic Gamers Podcast. So they can email eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. Use the messenger tool and I am accessible. And you guys got to go check out the This or That rendition of Watches with Dennis. Oh, on the Watches with Dennis YouTube, bro. That one's picking up more in post than Livestream had. I think we had about 13 people on when we were doing it. But since then, people are going back and catching it. I wanted to try it live, and it's kind of neat because through YouTube, I can run polls through the chat. So the live viewers were able to say which option they would go. Yeah, it was fun voting in real time. Yeah, I had David Dennis from Silver Ball Chronicles here on the Pinball Network, and I also had Tony over with the Collecting Gamers podcast, and they both said they had a lot of fun doing it. They did really good, too. They did really good. Well, I know Tony. They both actually collect. Yeah, Tony is a collector. I didn't know David was, but he's a collector. Oh, David's wife. She came into the chat. By hers. And she was all like, well, I want the rose gold version of this. I'm like, well, I didn't put any $20,000-plus watches in this version. I don't know if this was the hat, but we can talk about it.
    100:08
    Sign-off to that Tron you got there, David Dennis. Yeah. See you later. You can catch me at thepinballnetwork at gmail.com or straight down the middle of the video series. We recently had a Toy Story 4 review that Dennis loved so much and Tony chuckled about it. He hadn't seen it. He told them how long it was, which I rounded it down. It was just an hour. It's like, come now. I think his comment was, well, what'd they do for the other 55 minutes? Yeah, that big Greg bone thing. And I think I said you made a bunch of mom jokes at Greg Bones' expense. Yeah, I had a really good one there that involved... I think I had a pretty good summary of the episode. I think we're recording again. The next one is going to be a This or That. Oh, on Straight Down the Middle. That's right. I linked to that even in my script or... That's right. I appreciate that. Send you those 13 people over. Get you up to 12,000 subscribers. Hey, you know what? Watch people got money. Pinball people got money. And I found out this last week I watched in Joel's stream that Magic the Gathering people have money. Oh, do they? A little night dabble in there. You can check us also out at Flippin' Out Pinball. Dealer of choice for many. Thank you guys for the support. We're not all.
    101:26
    Maybe if you had revealed tailgates, you could have them working out there. I know, shit. Call George Gomez up. what's it going to take for you to come to southern Indiana? I'll just have my barn that no one's allowed to go in.
    101:40
    Oh, you know, if you ever can at some point, that would be a great story for the podcast. Oh, I cannot wait. Oh, the side note, I'll edit all this out.
    101:51
    Oh, my God. Wow. But this is going to be a great story. What a great story that's going to be. It is. I've got so many good stories. I can't wait to write a, what's it called? I'm having a... Yeah, a Bruce-ism right now.
    102:06
    A Vintner Avenue. Yeah. My lowly Vintner. Yeah, so I cannot wait to tell some of the stories in pinball that I've experienced. Oh, it's a fascinating one, so that one deserves to be sold. Once it can be safely sold. Without fear. Sons of bitches out there. Product showcase flipping out pinball this week is the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pro and Premium. And the last run, we do still have pre-order spots available. Buy, buy, buy! So jump on that, because when they go, they go. I think that one's going to, we'll see, early 2023, we'll see a rise in people wanting that one as well. I think mainly because of Insider Connected.
    102:45
    Dwight's getting cute with Insider Connected. And he's already done some things for Turtles Code that other Insider Connected games just haven't seen yet. So I think we're going to get a boost there. You mean like being able to have a leaderboard and have you play a four-player game or co-op four-player and get the high score?
    103:02
    I guess that was Mando. Yeah, once, you know. I'm talking about like the achievements that you can gain and keep throughout play. That's really cool, throughout the different Turtles. Also a reminder to go check out that Flippin' Out Vault. As a disclaimer, we get it. It is not for everyone. It truly isn't. Probably for the majority. It is not for you. but it is for those people that want awesome-ass shit that you just cannot find elsewhere. We had a Batman 66 jacket that they never even released to the public to buy. That was a hype. We're also, as a reminder, this is a consignment-type shop as well. Like that Batman jacket was a consignment piece. So individuals, we do really low rates on consignment. We've got a way to expose these products to the world. and it offers an anonymous way for pinball creators to send some stuff to sell that they just can't sell themselves or it would look bad if they sold. You know how many coders and animators and designers have cool shit that they've accrued over the years, Dennis? But some of it, frankly, there's like, I just don't give a shit about that. It's not like I can sell it. I'll get in trouble. Well, that's what Flippin' Out is for. That's what Flippin' Out is for, is for you guys to bypass your corporate rules. Buy, buy, buy! I'll keep it quiet. I'll keep it a secret. I'll keep it safe. Keep it a secret and safe. Yes. Do you see it? So that's why we're going to get cool stuff. So if you want to sell something, contact us at Zach, Z-A-C-H, at fliptheletterinoutpinball.com, or you can text me at 812-457-9711. Other games that we have available, we still have one Avengers Pro new in the box, ready to go. We have a Mandalorian Pro and Premium, Rush Pro and Premium, Turtles Pro pre-owned. I've got that at like a, I should have done that deal for the week. Jeez, it's like $6,000. Buy, buy, buy! Guns and Roses LE, new and used. I have all the accessories for that. We've got a lot more accessories rolling in, such as the Insider Connected kits. We do have a Cactus Canyon Remake SE in stock ready to ship. Buy, buy, buy! As well as still taking Alien pre-orders, Queen pre-orders. We have an Elvira 40th anniversary. I've got my Deadpool LE up there that I've got to say, push time to shove. If I had to get rid of something right now out of my Stern lineup, it may not be Deadpool. Damn. Corvette pre-owned. Don't know how that's still there. Finally got rid of the Pinball 2000 combo. Had to get that damn thing away. I've got all kinds of shooter rods, armor, toppers, banners. I still have an Elite Pinball IJ topper that's in the vault. I need to add something to the vault. Something new that's living out Pinball we just got in stock is the Arcade Collection from Incredible Technologies. Same creators as Golden T. It's really cool. It's a three-in-one game, so it looks just like the Golden Tee, but it has cornhole on it, or bags, they probably call them in Kansas City.
    105:49
    Cornhole, you know cornhole, right? Yeah, yeah, I know. They also have bowling and putt-putt. Buy, buy, buy! What a cool game. We also have from Elite Pinball Toppers. Oh, something else might have made its way into the vault. That's the Kraken.
    106:04
    You know what the Kraken sounds like? Probably just goes splish, splash. Pirates of the Caribbean Kraken Limited Edition Elite Topper. What else do we have in the vault? Godzilla LE, Beatles Topper, R2-D2 Topper. Ooh, UV set for Stranger Things Pro. I got Stranger Things Pro in there. What should I add next, Dennis? TPN Last Week is free play pinball podcast episode 17, as well as the Aussie Pinball Podcast episode 8 with Anthony Cirillo from West Australia. And if you guys want to watch some competitive pinball, District 82 blew it up this week in a flurry of tournaments this past week, live on Fox City's pinball. Like six tournaments or something. They're killing it. TPN this week. I don't know what's coming out this week. Do we get a Silver Ball Chronicles anytime soon? I feel like it's only due. You know, it feels like it's about time, but I haven't seen Dave teething it. It might not be ready this week. I wonder what the topic's going to be. Probably history. Hopefully they do a future episode once. let's predict the future I think that's it I'm tired of talking I'm sure you're tired of listening for Dennis Greisel I'm Zach Minney as I leave you all folks today ask yourselves this if you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you wanted you ever wanted in one moment would you capture it or just let it slip don't you infect this my words of wisdom with your boom boom boom and always practice safe pinball, and I'm beginning to feel like a pin god. That is a rap god. It's a deeper cut for you. Probably won't know it, but I'll hit the music after this. I doubt no one else does either. No, though. I'll hit the music after this. Put that back in the vault where it belongs.
    107:50
    I'm beginning to feel like a rap god, rap god. All my people from the butt to the back, not back, not back. With pizza arms, I'm long enough to slap, slap, slap. They said I rap like a robot, so call me rap, rap, rap. But for me to rap like a computer, I'm watching that. What show are you watching right now?
    108:10
    Well, the Amazon Prime had the Hobbit movies back, so I went to re-watch them to see if I still think they're overly bloated, and I do. They're bloaty. They're very bloaty. They're bloaty. They're still good. And the cartoon combat in it, I forgot how annoying that was to me. The whole Goblin Kingdom stuff was just like, all these doors should be very dead. They've fallen a lot. They fall a lot. And the one where they're in the barrels, and one guy becomes a barrel warrior, and he's just like, I'm now a spinning killer barrel. I'm like, I think you'd be dead. Like, very dead. It's very cartoony. That's a good point. And so, yeah, there's all that. Yeah, like Legolas walking on water or skiing or whatever. And Legolas is all like, I'm 80, but how am I in this acting like I'm younger? and he's just oh he's just like that and the part yeah where the tower's falling away and he's jumping from block to block like he's Tubert or something you know I was just like god JJP picked the wrong set of movies the wrong set Shmaug was fun lyrics coming at you with supersonic speed JJP I'm a human what I gotta do to get it through to you I'm superhuman innovative and I'm in a rubble so that anything you say is freaking staying off of me and it'll ruin you I'm devastating more than ever demonstrating how to give a mouthful of naughty because I feel like it's devastating never fading and I know the hit So forever waiting for the day to think I say I fell off to be celebrating Cause I know the way to get him motivated, I make elevator music You make elevator music, oh he's too mainstream Well that's what they do when they get jealous, they confuse it It's not hip-hop, it's pop, cause I found a way to fuse it With rock, shockwrap, with dive, don't lose yourself, I make a music I don't know how to make songs like that, I don't know what words to use Let me know when it occurs to you, while I'm ripping any one of these verses that hurt you It's hurting, come in and hurt me, hurting you, how many verses I gotta murder to? Prove that if you have as nice a song as you just sacrificed versions to School drunky, pill junky But look at the accolades, it's still bony Full of myself, but still hungry