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Episode 135 - Hires and Cons

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 27s·held·Feb 22, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

JJP pricing strategy and American Pinball restructuring dominate sparse pinball discussion.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers hosts Dennis and Tony discuss sparse pinball news, focusing on Jersey Jack Pinball $1,000 price increase on Guns N' Roses (with speculation about future Toy Story pricing strategy) and American Pinball personnel moves (hiring Jack Hager as art director and Dennis Nordman as lead designer). The hosts debate whether these changes will improve American Pinball fortunes, concluding that theme selection and game quality matter more than roster changes, while American Pinball remains on life support despite organizational restructuring.

Key Claims

  • Jersey Jack Pinball increased Guns N' Roses price by $1,000 across all models

    high confidence · Dennis references this from their previous episode; Andrew's email confirms the price increase happened

  • Bill of material costs have increased, particularly for wood, due to post-COVID supply chain issues and increased home projects demand

    high confidence · Andrew's email theory, corroborated by Dennis mentioning hearing this on other podcasts and from woodworking friends/coworkers

  • Deep Root Pinball experienced supply chain struggles obtaining parts for Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland

    high confidence · Dennis states Deep Root announced delays and noted struggles getting parts they ordered

  • American Pinball's three previous titles (Houdini, Oktoberfest, Hot Wheels) did not perform well in sales

    medium confidence · Dennis states 'from all reports I have received, has not done very well on any of their three title sales'

  • American Pinball is planning to release two to three games per year under David Fixes' leadership

    medium confidence · Dennis references David Fixes talking about this output goal

  • Jack Hager previously worked on Sinistar arcade game and Ultimate Spider-Man video game artwork

    medium confidence · Dennis cites Loser Kid Pinball podcast interview (still in progress when recorded); some details acknowledged as potentially misremembered

  • American Pinball is on life support but attempting necessary changes to survive

    medium confidence · Both hosts agree on this assessment; Tony states 'They're on life support. Period.'

Notable Quotes

  • “Jersey Jack Pinball is about flexing. Rich people only... You want to show people how much better you are than them? You prove that with your bank account... Ferrari doesn't make a cheap model. Why should we? We're the Ferrari of pinball.”

    Tony @ ~18:30 — Articulates a potential strategic positioning for JJP as luxury-only brand; suggests market segmentation toward status-conscious collectors rather than accessibility

  • “Some of you in pinball are not that smart... you can trick some people by just pointing at a thing and saying, look at this thing. And if the thing looks fancy enough, people will accept the price increase, even though whatever you added was super cheap.”

    Tony @ ~11:00 — Expresses skepticism about consumer perception of value in pinball pricing; suggests manufacturers exploit optics over substance

  • “The problem is that Hot Wheels is a C-tier license... if you're going for a license, why would you go for Hot Wheels?”

    Dennis @ ~28:00 — Core criticism of American Pinball's theme selection strategy; highlights importance of licensing quality to commercial success

  • “Hot Wheels doesn't have personality... G.I. Joe had personality. They were fighting Cobra. There was a story to it... A Mustang doesn't have personality.”

    Dennis @ ~30:15 — Explains why IP with narrative/character-driven appeal performs better than vehicle-based licenses; relevant to pinball theme selection

  • “I think their problem is more of a theme problem than anything else... ultimately I think if they get an actual good license... they're setting themselves to be in a really good position.”

    Dennis @ ~35:00 — Concludes that American Pinball's personnel changes are necessary but insufficient without strong IP; theme is determinative factor

  • “I think that the decision to basically replace Joe Balser with Dennis Nordman should, in theory, even if they change nothing else, I think his designs will be better received.”

    Tony @ ~33:30 — Acknowledges personnel change as positive signal; Nordman's reputation suggests improved game quality outcomes

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyDavid FixespersonJack HagerpersonDennis NordmanpersonGuns N' RosesgameToy Storygame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball remains on life support despite organizational restructuring; personnel changes necessary but potentially insufficient without strong IP selection

    high · Tony: 'They're on life support. Period.' Both hosts agree theme selection is determinative factor for survival; previous three games underperformed commercially

  • ?

    design_philosophy: American Pinball's theme selection strategy fundamentally flawed; Hot Wheels criticized as C-tier license lacking narrative/personality compared to character-driven 80s IP

    high · Extended discussion comparing Hot Wheels unfavorably to TMNT, He-Man, G.I. Joe; Dennis emphasizes personality and nostalgia appeal as missing from vehicle-only licenses

  • $

    market_signal: Post-COVID supply chain constraints and material cost increases (particularly wood) continuing to drive pinball manufacturing costs upward

    high · Andrew's email and Dennis's corroboration via other podcasts and construction/woodworking reports; Deep Root announced parts sourcing struggles

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Dennis Nordman hired as lead designer at American Pinball, replacing Joe Balser; expected to improve game design quality and market reception

    high · Dennis states this replacement should improve designs even without other changes; Tony calls it 'a smart play'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Jack Hager (veteran arcade/video game artist) hired as art director at American Pinball; expected to improve visual/aesthetic execution of game packages

    medium · Dennis notes Hager's extensive background (Sinistar, Spider-Man, video games, Amiga) via Loser Kid Pinball interview; acknowledges American Pinball art not previously a core problem

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.151

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, February 21st. This is episode 135. I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis. And I don't think we have a whole lot, well, at least not in pinball, to talk about today. But I know we have a little bit in video games. Kind of becoming a refrain lately. We had all that surprise stuff in December, and it just, it like killed everything else. Now, normally the winter months are slower, at least on the video game front. So, in a way, I don't think this is all that atypical. But what is typical is we have two weeks between our various recordings, and sometimes stuff happens during those two weeks. So, Tony, has anything happened in the last two weeks?
1:01
There was a massive cold snap that had me spending a huge chunk of last weekend at work helping out, deal with issues. Because, well, I work with water and outside, and being well below zero, it doesn't like it. So we had all sorts of equipment freezing and breaking, and it was a long, long weekend.
1:27
Yeah, mine was not driven by cold, but we are, because the Kansas legislative session is going on right now, that we're in the period of time where they're trying to push through, get their bill, they were trying to get through their bill introductions over the last two weeks, because most of those, all of those deadlines actually, other than exempt committees, have passed at this stage. And now we're at the point where they're trying to get all the hearings done because, again, outside of what we consider exempt committee work, there is turnaround, which has to happen like at the first week of March. So all these committees are trying to do all their bills. And so I've just had a ton of tracking and testimony writing. I had to do two presentations to two committees. I've got testimony this week. So and like I don't do a lot of testimony. So like lobbying is a really small part of my job, but it is an important part. So it's just it's just been lately just inundated with this political legislative stuff, which is not my favorite part of the job. But it is critical. And it's all kind of crushed together because Kansas's legislature only sits for like five months. Yeah, on paper. But they take most of April off. So it's like they come in mid-January and then not a lot tends to happen in January. Then February is really busy for stuff that has to get through one chamber. And then March is when it's mostly getting through the other chamber. And then usually by early April, that's when they're supposed to wrap up. That's when what we have what's called drop dead day is in early April. Then they take like all of April and most of May off and they come back technically just for the veto session. The only purpose of that comeback in theory is to override any vetoes that they want to from the governor. Now, sometimes they take that period and they actually do legislative work or work on the budget. But in an ideal world, they're actually pretty much done. And they were a lot. I mean, the pandemic rushed everything last year, but I haven't heard if anything's really going to drag things out this year and make them work the veto session. I'm hoping not. At least I'm hoping that the budget's not. I would like that all known in April. So we'll see. But yeah, so we're in that busy period because, yeah, it's just really compressed. It's five months on paper, and then in reality, they actually only work about something on the order of like 85 or 90 days.
Hot Wheels
game
Oktoberfestgame
Houdinigame
Retro Atomic Zombie Adventurelandgame
Deep Root Pinballcompany
Dennisperson
Tonyperson
Andrewperson
Joe Balserperson
Loser Kid Pinball Podcastorganization
Sinistargame
Ultimate Spider-Mangame
  • $

    market_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball's mid-run $1,000 price increase on Guns N' Roses may be strategic incremental pricing ahead of Toy Story launch to soften sticker shock of larger cumulative increase

    medium · Tony's 'evil theory' suggests JJP may be splitting a needed $2,000 increase across two releases; Dennis agrees this makes strategic sense if pattern repeats with Toy Story

  • ?

    product_concern: Consumer perception vulnerabilities in pinball pricing: manufacturers can exploit optics (LEDs, toys, fancy elements) to justify price increases despite low actual material costs

    medium · Tony criticizes some pinball consumers for not understanding cost-value equations; cites color-changing LED misconception as example of low-cost features perceived as expensive

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball potentially pivoting toward luxury-only brand positioning ('Ferrari of pinball') targeting wealthy collectors/status-conscious buyers rather than operator/casual player accessibility

    medium · Tony articulates this positioning explicitly; notes it could work but represents departure from earlier stated goal of expanding operator access

    • 3:43
    Yeah, which is very limited. Especially when you think about like Fridays. Most of the time, they don't have committee work on Fridays. They can. They will if they absolutely have to, but most of them don't because they don't want to have a committee on Friday. They want to drive home.
    3:59
    Yeah, Kansas' legislature is a very weird animal to me. I don't know. maybe most states operate in such a limited time span. I mean, most have part-time legislators and don't, don't have year round sessions. So yeah, it's not, I think most are probably like that. I don't know. They all arrange it the same way we do like the worst weather months or when they meet and things like that. But thanks to the pandemic, they've actually done a bunch of upgrades to their systems and they are for first time ever. They're allowing people to testify virtually. So I last week was the first time I ever did that. I went in and in person did testimony for the first one I had to do. But then I thought, let's try this WebEx thing. And it worked out OK for me. But the chair of the committee, she lost power. I got through my presentation and then she asked me a question and then I answered it. And then there was this dead silence. And I thought I had lost connection. I saw a notice about low bandwidth and it turned out the chair had lost her connection. And without the chair, the committee didn't know who – like the chair runs the committee, so no one was saying anything. And I finally just said, did I drop out? And someone said, no, no, we all can hear you. It's just the chair. We're trying to figure out if she can come back on or what. And she could not. So I was like, oh, well, I hope she heard most of the – I just thought maybe my answer was really bad. She didn't know what to say after that. She's just like, I'm out. This is like, oh, that was not the right thing to say, Dennis. I was like, oops, I thought it was good. It's like that first date where you say just the absolute wrong thing, and you're just like, oh, I'm going to just go ahead and take the check and leave now.
    5:40
    Just another blunder in the world of Dennis. Well, I have, outside of work, just last night, I stayed up later than I normally would, and I finished control. So you stayed up until 7.30. Hey, I got my supper in at four and then I got my game done. Why am I making it sound kind of like Bill Cosby? Sorry.
    6:03
    And my jello pudding pop. I don't know. I make the joke, but I go to bed before my kids half the time because I get up at four. So, no, I'm usually not playing games past nine. Just even on the weekends, I just usually, after that point, I'll switch over and watch TV or something. them. So I think I was, I mean, it wasn't super late. I think I finished a little before 11. So anyway, I haven't started a new game yet though. I haven't popped one in because I haven't done anything since that, but yeah, I finished it up. Fun game. That makes sense. Yeah. I know you were talking about it last episode. It has Alan Wake references in it. And I really liked Alan Wake. Alan Wake was a fun game. I was surprised. I was really, I remember when Alan Wake was coming out and I heard about that. Oh, are these bad guys? And you have to shine on them with a flashlight before you can shoot them. I thought, that sounds so stupid. I'm not sure I'm going to like that mechanic. It turned out to be really fun. It was a very enjoyable game. I wish they'd sequel it.
    7:03
    For me, I've been playing more Battletoads. You don't even want to know my hour count. No, I don't. It's bad. It was bad last time. It's worse.
    7:19
    At least I know you have a problem. I have a problem. It seems to be that I get 40 to 50 hours in a two-week period added to that game, is what I'm doing right now. It's kind of sick.
    7:32
    Nice. No, not really. It's kind of depressing, actually. But that's just, and the thing is, that's not continuous play, because I'll stop in the middle of a thing since it's turn-based and go grab dinner and do stuff like that. But, yeah, I basically log it on and then play it off and on through the night and then go to bed.
    7:56
    Well, at least it's keeping you entertained. It's definitely doing something. Well, we'll do something then, and let's go ahead and move into the first of our two topics, which is pinball. I do have a couple of subjects, not a whole lot of meat on the bone here, but we're going to pick off what we can. First is I do want to reference an email that someone sent to us at eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. This one's from Andrew. He wrote in and he said the following. Just listen to the latest podcast. So here is my theory. Number one, bill of material costs up from COVID. Number two, increased labor costs, including COVID prevention and safety costs. And number three, Jersey Jack Pinball realizing they need to up their game on Toy Story following Guns N' Roses. Increased costs for additional Toy Story assets and bill of materials to make that happen, necessitating a price increase. Better to do that now versus at Toy Story release. So for those that don't know, on the last episode, we talked about the $1,000 price increase on all models of Guns N' Roses. And Andrew is supplying his theory as to why they did that, being Jersey Jack Pinball's latest game. so Tony what are your thoughts about Andrew's theory about the the bill of material costs going up I think we touched on that a bit during our episode about maybe we didn't I've heard it since then though at least on other podcasts or his second point the labor costs and the third point about them needing to quote-unquote up their game uh I agree with the first two uh the third one, I can see an argument for it. The question there is just, is it better to increase the cost halfway through running this one out, or does that actually add anything more compared to just waiting and having Toy Story come out with a higher cost?
    9:51
    Right. And, yeah, I'm in alignment, as I often am, in alignment with you. I do agree with Andrew about the bill of material costs being up. I've heard on other podcasts, Again, I thought we touched on it. Maybe we had not. I thought we did, too. But I've at least since then heard more information about people talking about prices on wood in particular. I don't know what the current markets are on things like copper and such. I know wood has gone up because so many people are doing at-home projects and stuff. I've heard from a bunch of my friends and coworkers who do woodworking and construction that cost has gone through the roof. And I've also, I believe in regards to when Deep Root announced delays on shipping out Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland to the buyers of that, they had noted some struggles with getting some of the parts in that they were trying to order just because of supply chain issues. So again, that could tie into bill of material costs as well. So I definitely agree with number one. Number two, I could envision the increased labor cost thing. The thing is about COVID prevention and safety is before Guns N' Roses was released, we were already in the middle of the pandemic. So all of that should have already been embedded.
    11:03
    So I'm not sure that one's in play. I should say I think that one's in play, but I'm not sure it's in play with the current $1,000 price increase because there's nothing that would that came out since then is there that would explain on the labor front.
    11:17
    Here is an evil theory. my evil theory is that what happened is they realized they needed to do a $2,000 price increase but they figured people would balk at it so they forced the first half of it to the latter production models of Guns N' Roses so that when Toy Story comes out it's just a $1,000 jump not a $2,000 jump hmm Now, that's an interesting idea that I hadn't thought about. Yeah, that's a good evil theory. Because, yeah, I was getting to number three where I disagree with Andrew about the notion that it – that was better to do the price increase now than at Toy Story. People are used to seeing price increases when a new model comes out. so I don't I think that would have been less alienating than what they did with increasing the price by so much mid-run on a game but but if your evil theory is correct and they're going to increase the price again on Toy Story that makes more sense I could definitely see that because I agree with you I think it would have I mean people seeing no matter what was going to give them sticker shock But I think that I could definitely with a definitely with I could definitely see them going oh but it a completely new game And maybe there's something they can point to saying, hey, look at this thing. People in pinball, I don't mean – this is going to sound mean. I don't mean it to be super mean, but maybe a little mean. Some of – let me generalize. Let me lower my generalization a little bit so we don't get too much love. Some of you in pinball are not that smart. So you see something and you think it's worth a lot of money and it's just really not. Like you have no concept of cost value. Like the value equation doesn't factor in because it's pinball. And you just see like there's a toy on there and it's a cheap toy. But to some of you, you see LEDs on it and all of a sudden you think it's $500. Like LEDs are expensive or something. So you can trick some people in pinball. Others know better. But you can trick some people by just pointing at a thing and saying, look at this thing. And if the thing looks fancy enough, people will accept the price increase, even though whatever you added was super cheap. Does that make sense? Am I being fair? No, no, it makes complete sense.
    13:42
    People can get caught by the, ooh, shiny. Right. Some things manufacturers add are really actually expensive. You'll hear about like George Gomez talking about how much an actual mech to do drop targets really does run on the bill of materials. But then the other thing, the one I always like to point to is it seems like if you stick color-changing LEDs, like people still think it's like 2005 or something. Color-changing LED technology is expensive and difficult, and it's neither.
    14:09
    I mean, you can buy a strip. My daughter has a loft bed, and we've got color-changing LEDs that run all around her bed that control, and they'll respond to music and do all this stuff, and it costs us like 15 bucks. Right, but when it comes to pinball, it's some. Some people, they're just like, whoa, color changing LEDs. I guess that's 500 more dollars.
    14:32
    It's like, why? Why is it that? They don't ask why. Maybe they don't care. That's fine. But so, yeah, I could see that idea. So that's an interesting blend, like you taking Andrew's concept here and saying that, well, OK, they needed to up the bill of materials for Toy Story. And there are these additional costs. Let's up it incrementally. Let's do a thousand now on GNR and let's do another thousand. We'll have to see. If they jump that price, I'm going to have to say, you heard it here first, folks. Tony was right. If they do that, if Toy Story's another thousand on top of this, holy crap, though. I mean... Man, I hate the very concept of it, but I can see it. I can see it so easily. Well, with the continued delays of the pandemic, I really wonder, as a strategy, I don't think it's a terrible idea if Jersey Jack Pinball is going to say, you know what? We toyed with the idea of doing standard editions and trying to bring more operators in and stuff. Let's go the complete opposite way. This pinball company is about flexing. Rich people only. Come here. You have to be able to pay five figures. All of our games are five figures. You want to show people how much better you are than them? You prove that with your bank account and you prove that thus by buying our games. People would do it. Without a doubt, people would do it. And people might say, why are you doing this? Pinball was about egalitarianism and being accessible to the masses. And the response can be, Ferrari doesn't make a cheap model. Why should we?
    16:05
    We're the Ferrari of pinball. Vroom. And there are people who would eat it up. They'd be all about it. They might not verbalize it in the same way I am. But there are people that I get the impression they do this as a status thing so um a company orienting itself i mean they already are the seen as the premier when you're talking like collector's edition they're the premier lineup i mean they're not always the most expensive pin we've seen stern try and do this with some of the things like batman super limited edition and stuff but right it's i still really feel this is jersey jack's domain you know when you compare a high-end stern to a high-end jjp i think most people would agree that the high-end JJP looks like has got more invested in it.
    16:53
    Yeah, it does. Under the hood and above. I mean, they've always been that way. That's always been their zone.
    17:01
    Yep. But it seemed like they were trying to put their foot in the pond of let's also have something so people can experience our games. And there's good reason for that, too, because if they want to have increased sales, they need to get more exposure to their games. But again, the pandemic has just thrown a monkey wrench in that whole thing.
    17:22
    So anyway, interesting email. So thank you for that, Andrew. My second pinball topic, Tony, is about American pinball.
    17:29
    So they have hired, I'm going to maybe missay his name, Jack Hager. I'm hoping I'm pronouncing it right. I should have re-listened again to his interview. But he's been hired as art director for American pinball. I have a link in the show notes to a Loser Kid Pinball podcast episode where they're interviewing him. I'm actually partway through that interview. I haven't listened to all of it yet. But Jack has – he helped design a whole lot of stuff, especially on the video game side. I believe he did work on final artwork with Ultimate Spider-Man in one of the Star Wars games. But he – like from my arcade experience, he helped design Sinistar, that old arcade game. Oh, I remember Sinistar. Yeah. On the Loser Kid podcast, they were talking to him, and he mentioned how a lot of kids back in the day found that game chilling. I did not find Sinistar chilling I found it terrifying I just remember when the Sinistar thing when Sinistar came after you after he got built and came after you it was a jump scare for me and so I would keep playing the game because I was kind of dumb but I always knew he was eventually going to come and it would scare me so I played in a terrified state of mind and then basically once he appeared I was like petrified. I couldn't do anything. I was too scared.
    18:48
    And I dropped another quarter in anyway. I don't know. I watched a lot of horror movies then too, so maybe something was wrong with me. But regardless, I do remember Sinistar. He worked on the Amiga computer, a number of video games in the 90s. I think he was with Midway. So he's done a lot of artwork in gaming.
    19:06
    But I think the interesting thing is where I wanted to have a brief discussion with you, Tony, is so American Pinball, they've been making some moves. So here they are. They've hired Jack as art director. They've got Dennis Nordman now as their lead senior designer. They've got David Fixes, who's making all of these moves, talking about American Pinball, putting out two to three games a year. They seem to really be trying to turn the pinball fortunes around at American Pinball, which, from all reports I have received, has not done very well on any of their three title sales, which, for those that aren't familiar, were In Order, Houdini, Oktoberfest, and most recently, Hot Wheels. Do you think these moves are going to better position American fans? Is it going to make a difference? Do you think that they're actually going to be able to increase their sales with these steps that they're taking?
    19:54
    You know, it's going to depend upon the theme of the game and how much fun it is to play. Because that's everything.
    20:05
    Oktoberfest wasn't fun, and the theme wasn't great. Houdini has an interesting theme and I actually enjoyed Houdini but it had a difficulty ramp that was hard enough that I could see it pushing the casual players away and I don't know I've never even played Hot Wheels and I don't really care about it I'm not one of those people who has a giant Hot Wheels memory thing I mean I had Hot Wheels but it's not like it's some core center of my childhood. So for, to me, it, it doesn't have that kind of draw that I believe it was targeted at bringing people in with. So it's just a racing game.
    20:56
    Yeah. I agree with you that ultimately it's really going to come down to theme. And David has mentioned he gets that. So obviously we need to see what their, what their theme approach is. I liked the idea. Looking at Hot Wheels, it looks fun to me. I like the layout of it. I yet have not played it, so I'm looking forward to finally getting some time with it. I did think Houdini was fun with what limited time I had on it. I was not impressed by Oktoberfest. I thought the theme was awful. But the problem with Hot Wheels to me wasn't the game. The game of the three looks like the most entertaining game for my gameplay style to want to shoot. But the problem is that Hot Wheels is a C-tier license. And I was just like, if you're going for a license, why would you go for Hot Wheels? I just like how many Hot Wheels people are you going to are going to love Hot Wheels as adults enough that they're buying that game? It's better than Houdini and Oktoberfest. But is it that much better? Like if you had if you told me I got I saw on paper why they thought it made sense because like Hot Wheels are in all these stores. They're still relevant. They have a YouTube show. It's like, like, if you didn't really dive into it, I could see why people would think this is a good idea. But it's just like, I think it's just scratching the surface. You're like, this doesn't carry over in the same way, I think, to most people. Whereas if you were to ask me, Dennis, which would you rather pick Hot Wheels or some now has been off the air TV show license that had a big following? I'd probably say the TV show. I mean, we'd have to guess what, you know, it depends on what TV show it would be. But, like, if you were to ask me which would be smarter to make, base something off of Hot Wheels or HBO's Deadwood, I would have said Deadwood. Right. Well, and if you're looking at the nostalgia draw, even looking at the nostalgia draw from when you were a kid, is Hot Wheels necessarily the toys that you would have been thinking of? I think Stern hit that nostalgia draw right with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I mean, because if I was looking for something when I was younger, especially if you're looking for something from a toy level, it'd be something along the lines of like G.I. Joe or Transformers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Or if you want to go for something that's less of a high pull, I was a big He-Man fan back when I was a kid. Stuff like that has a higher draw than Hot Wheels because it's just toy cars. Right. Right, and that's where that, when I mentioned that, scratching the surface of the concept and the popularity and how many Hot Wheels are sold. I think when Hot Wheels was announced, we discussed this then, but yeah, the point still stands, and you hit on it with pointing out all those other 80s shows that you have more nostalgia for than Hot Wheels. They all had storylines and personality. Hot Wheels doesn't, except through their YouTube show. But the problem is, the YouTube show didn't exist when we were kids. And kids today don't have money to buy Hot Wheels, the pinball machine. So that's where the theme collapses. You picked a theme that didn't have any personality to it, except in the modern era. But adults of the modern era don't have any nostalgia associated with that story and the monsters and the city and all of that. I hear it's cool. I hear it's fun on the screen and that it's a good show, that people like that show. But again, there's just no nostalgia for it. G.I. Joe wasn't just the figurines. We saw the cartoon. They were fighting Cobra. There was a story to it. Same for Thundercats. Same for He-Man. Same for Snorks and Smurfs. They had stories. So you can have nostalgia and there's personality there. A Mustang doesn't have personality.
    24:44
    Yeah. Except an actual horse Mustang. It might have personality. It'd probably bite you. They seem vicious.
    24:51
    It's a vicious killer. But yeah, no. it seems like something that might have worked as an idea for operators because it would have a draw for kids, but it just didn't do anything for me. I know online I saw lots of people who were super excited and thought it was a great theme But the truth of the matter is I gotten to the point where a pinball group could put out Cow Patty the Pinball Machine And there's somebody who's going to be so hot on that theme and think it's the greatest theme ever. Well, we saw the same with Oktoberfest. There were people arguing, arguing that it was a good theme pick. It wasn't. And the sales prove it wasn't. Right. I mean, there's no way that you could even consider it a good pick, let alone a great pick. I can understand people saying it's a fun, like they love the game. I can understand that. I can't understand people thinking that it was, from a market consideration, a smart theme. It might be a theme that you as an Oktoberfest connoisseur might like, but I could also, like, I enjoy watching my niece open Christmas presents. I would never suggest Christmas as a pinball theme. Even though I might like the holiday, it doesn't mean it's a good pick.
    26:13
    Oktoberfest isn't even the first holiday that I would choose of the co-opted drunken holiday. That was what was the most shocking thing to me. How do you – like what would you have picked? Like alcohol fiend. Exactly. And for me, Oktoberfest wouldn't even be second. It would be Cinco de Mayo. I would have gone Oktoberfest third. Sorry, Germany, but I mean welcome to America. These are the two, St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo. Those are the big holidays that are celebrated involving alcohol. There are areas with large German populations, ancestral populations, where Oktoberfest is a lot bigger. But here's the thing. Kansas has a really large German ancestral population, and you never hear about Oktoberfest stuff. Or if you do, it's like some little thing that doesn't touch St. Patrick's Day or Cinco de Mayo. Right. There are some small towns that do their own things is what all I'm aware of. Whereas, I mean, if you try and go to a Mexican restaurant on Cinco de Mayo, we did that once. Do you remember? Once? Yeah. We learned our lesson three hours later. It was so bad.
    27:25
    And then, of course, St. Patrick's Day. I mean, all sorts of cities have the parades. The bars are packed. It's hard to park then anywhere. We used to have problems at the office with people parking in our reserved lot because it was women walking distance to the downtown bars. I mean, it was just it's just how it is. And so, yeah, I mean, anyway, we're we're going off on a tangents. But a long story short, I think you and I are in complete alignment that the these moves that David Fix is making with American Pinball on paper, they sound good. But if his license picks, if they're really going to actually do some real licenses, that ultimately is the most important decision. I think that, like, Jack coming on board could be good. I didn't think they had a bad artist. I think they've had some hit or miss art packages, but I don't think that's the skill of the artist that was the problem. Right. Yeah. No, I can see that. I mean, Oktoberfest looked terrible, but everything about it was bad. But I think that they are setting themselves to be in a really good position, provided that they get an actual good license. I mean, I'll say that. They're putting themselves in a good position to try and jumpstart their line and try and jumpstart their brand. But they're on life support. Period. Yeah, well, we have both predicted their imminent demise before. And I am impressed that they're doubling down and they're doing changes. I think this is necessary. If they really want to try and be pinball manufacturers, something had to change. David's clearly trying to do changes. I do think that the decision to basically replace Joe Balser with Dennis Nordman should, in theory, even if they change nothing else, I think his designs will be better received. So that should get them more sales. So I think that's a smart play. but ultimately I think their problem is more of a theme problem than anything else Agreed So we'll see how it goes Good luck to them though Yeah, good luck. It's always interesting to see what pinball manufacturers are doing Actually at the start of video games I'm going to mention another email we got from Chris Chandler who wrote in to us. This is sort of related to video games It's really about DMCA I have a link in the show notes to an article he sent in, but apparently some police officers in Beverly Hills have found that they have started to play licensed music really loudly when people are coming in and live streaming them so that the bots will flag a DMCA notice and get an auto takedown through Instagram or whatnot that people are coming in and trying to film them live. Yeah. I guess my comment on this is that's really not what DMCA is supposed to be used for? Yeah, it's not. And I have ethics problems with it that probably lead towards getting more political than we ever get on this show. So I'll leave it at that. But I heard about this before I saw the notes, and I saw it the other day. I was like, hmm.
    30:51
    Yeah, I mean, being someone who worked for a quasi-public organization for years and still works a lot with government, there is an expectation of transparency. And I understand that a lot of employees, especially employees that are subject to a lot of criticism, like police officers, get very sensitive to being under that microscope. But, I mean, I guess all I would say is that's the job. And that's what you sign up for when you work for government in any capacity. Yeah, I have to deal with it because my job is a governmental job. Yeah, I had open records requests in the past. That's quasi-public. We were subject to the same rule. we were treated as a public agency. So, uh, you know, people wanted access to my emails. They could get them. It was just how, it's just how it was. Yep. That's exactly how it is. It's what, it's, it's what you learn to live with.
    31:42
    Well, you know what else we had to learn to live with Tony? We had to learn to live with, uh, BlizzCon as a virtual, what, what they called it something. They tried to call it something clever, like BlizzCon virtual or something. Yeah. If, they shouldn't have done it period like they tried to make it like a clever name for it uh why shouldn't they have done it tony you didn't love blizzcon's virtual presentation they didn't do it last year they were making up for lost time with all this new information well that's the thing is oh if this is what it was after having an extra what six months four months. It should have been in October.
    32:27
    Four months. And this is all that they've been able to add to what it would have been in October. This should never have happened. Because I'll be 100% honest, there was nothing here. The A number one thing that came out of this is that they're doing Diablo 2 Resurrected, which is Diablo 2 that they're going to sell again with a graphics upgrade. Penny Arcade predicted this.
    32:57
    Well, it's no surprise. It's the absolute best of the Diablo games. It's the best of the games in that kind of genre, period. My question is, are they going to trash it as bad as what happened when they trashed Warcraft 3 Reforged? I doubt it. Because even Activision Blizzard has to learn a lesson somewhere from that. I don't think so. You don't? No, I don't think they have to learn a lesson. All they look at is, wow, people paid a lot of money for this, and then we don't have to upkeep it because everyone hated it so much that we don't have to do anything with it, so we can just let it die. So I don't think they learned anything.
    33:44
    Well, it will probably make them money regardless, though. Oh, it will. It was inevitable. Other than that, they announced the new Hearthstone expansion.
    33:57
    They announced one of the new, they showed off one of the new classes in Diablo 4, which isn't going to be out this year. They dropped a bunch of tiny bits of information on Overwatch 2, but nothing important. that there's a character and there will be new maps?
    34:19
    Okay. Oh, and the art's changed. But there's also no date, no time. This is all stuff that was announced two years ago at this point, and there's still no information about it, no dates, no times, no releases. It's just dangling on the vine, as it were. I think the most interesting thing to come out of the BlizzCon virtual was when Metallica did their concert on the official Twitch gaming channel which was streaming BlizzCon they started playing 8-bit music to automatically avoid a DMCA takedown so There's Metallica rocking out on screen and royalty-free 8-bit music. Yeah. It wasn't like that on the main Blizzard channel, apparently, but if people were watching on the Twitch gaming channel, or the one that throws up whatever's the big hotness right now, then they got to watch that joy. I guess they did announce the WoW classic Burning Crusade. Which, for me, is... I'm not going to play it, but it's interesting to me because I played a lot of WoW, and I consider WoW Burning Crusade expansion kind of my high point of WoW. I feel like it just went downhill after that. I agree. I bailed when Wrath of the Lich King was coming out, I guess, if I remember correctly. Maybe it was... It had been out for a while because I bailed before you did and I played Wrath of the Lich King. It was – okay, no, I left after when the next expansion was getting ready to start from Wrath of the Lich King. I forget what the name – the one where they introduced the pandas. Yeah, it was like the Mists of Pandara or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, because I bailed before that was announced but not long before. Right, because the issue – what I liked with Burning Crusade is that was the one where they took the raid size down to 25. yes and i thought that was the that was the the perfect bet for when it came to end game is you know my opinion before that for those that don't know and wow in the wow original vanilla uh the high-end raids at the end were 40 people that is an incredibly difficult organizational effort to do i mean yes so and i was involved in guild administration in world of warcraft when i was playing. I got in, actually, it wasn't all that long after I joined an in-game guild that they put me in to a capacity where I was involved in leadership decisions. And just the organizational effort for 40 people was a nightmare. And the problem was when Wrath of the Lich King came out, then they kicked everything down to like 10 person raids. And I felt like that was the crossing point where in my view, a desperate attempt to keep WoW as large a subscription base as possible, They went full lull casual and just not to sound totally pretentious, but they went full casual accommodation and there was no longer it didn't feel the same. And our guild basically was collapsing at that stage because it's like you have a player base designed to try and run 25 person raids. So you running a guild that usually has like 30 to 35 active people and then you having to do 10 person raids so logically you like well let run two teams but there was always the a team and the b team and of course the b team was the crap that wasn't good enough and the a team was making more progress and so you try and mix them i just like logistically it took all the fun away because it's like it became like with it was so easy to organize 10 people right i always felt like the 25 i always felt that the 25 man was the sweet spot. The 40 was too big because if anything happened the reset time on a 40 man was just... It was a constant churn of players who consistency and schedules and new players leaving and old players coming back and with 25 you still had strategy. There was still actual planning you needed to do outside of the raid. When it was down to 10 it was all pretty straightforward stuff. That's when it got to the point where you could pretty much do pickups for almost everything at that point. You don't need a guild to get ten people together to do a raid. You just don't.
    38:49
    You just need nine decently competent people. Right. But going back to the vanilla, the 40 was a nightmare. Just one idiot could ruin everything. And there were a lot of idiots in WoW, just like there are in everything. So many idiots. Yeah. I mean, even in the 25s, I remember we used to have to have training sessions. Don't stand in the fire. It's bad. don't go AFK when we're fighting a boss don't you, don't all sorts of stuff, I remember when Burning Crusade was around and we were doing a 10 man little mini raid for the bear mounts, I mean I was able to take in, we would have a core group of people and that was one of my early I did not run raids, but I ran those and I put together a crew of like 7 or 8 main people and we just rotate in 2 kind of newbies over and over and get them bear mounts. And it was all really rigid. And with 10, that's all I needed. I just needed most of the team to be competent. And all you had to do, I mean, it always got to the point where it was like, here, we're going to do this run. To get a mount, you had to get it done in 45 minutes, the whole thing. So it was pretty fast. And it was just like, I'd go in, we'd start, I'd explain, all right, here's your character class. So here's what you're going to do during this. You will follow all of my instructions. I will give them all verbally. Do not deviate from my instructions in any way. I will script you through this. And after we got our first bear mount, I think we only ever didn't get the bear mount once or twice. And we just followed the formula. I actually had a video out on Warcraft videos that showed people how to do that run. We were the first hordes. I'm going to brag a little bit. We were the first horde guild on our server to have bear mounts. You're welcome.
    40:34
    So, but, and that's what I saw with Wrath of the Lich King. It was just like, well, I don't need a guild. I can do this. I can organize this. It just didn't feel epic anymore. Right. It didn't have that same level of... But Burning Crusade was awesome. I loved Burning Crusade. It was fun.
    40:50
    I felt like even the world events were the most fun. And just the world, the normal kind of fetch and leveling stuff I thought was a lot more fun than a lot of the stuff that, like Lich King wasn't nearly as good.
    41:06
    Yeah. For me, that was the high point. That's also when they introduced the flying mounts. Yes. Yeah, I could see why that'd be. Which were a ton of fun. I really only watched much of the, actually, I didn't watch anything outside of the Overwatch 2 content that they were doing.
    41:25
    But again, no date, no, I mean, it's like, okay, they showed a few costume changes, which were just tweaks. Fine. They showed a few maps. Okay, cool. they've suggested that 2CP 2 Control Point might not be in Overwatch 2 because it's an unpopular mode okay whatever I mean I like 2CP okay but I wouldn't care if it went away but there's just like it's hard to get excited when you know it's not coming out this year right and they talked about it in 2019 yeah and some of the stuff that they talked about like some of the PvP changes they talked about they made sure to stress this might not happen this is just something we're looking at right now yeah but and and here here are the current leveling trees which seem to be straight out of you know like three tiers straight out of world warcraft and yeah but it might all change it's like it's it's real disappointing um it's like yes i love the idea of reinhardt being able to like double flame strike and then while everyone's trapped into a junk rat trap that's spreading electricity among people but um is that real Or is that just like, hey, look, look at how we broke the game for pretend. I don't know. The other big question is going to be how long are they going to keep interest in Overwatch until 2 comes out? Because they've said in the past that there's nothing new coming to 1 until 2 comes out. Yeah, I just don't know. I mean, it has felt like they have been more aggressive on doing the balancing lately. So they have been doing a lot of balance adjustments, which I do appreciate. Right, but there hasn't been a new character. We're used to seeing new characters in maps. And the only thing they've done since Echo is they recently added a deathmatch map. Okay, so anyone who plays real Overwatch doesn't even see that map. Right. And that's it. And Echo was added in 19? I think so. And the previous new map was, what, Paris that was also added in very early 19, as I recall? Yeah, I think Paris was the last real map, yeah.
    43:37
    I don't know. I don't know what's... Unless it was the Busan. Was Busan after Paris? I don't remember. It was one of the two. Yeah. I mean, it's been a long time. That's why we can't remember. Yeah, it's been a while because they were both added real close together.
    43:57
    Yeah, I agree. It probably would have been better for them just to have done nothing. I think, especially given how bad BlizzCon 19 went for them,
    44:08
    that they would have been better off just skipping it entirely until they had a big, big announcement to do. Well, with no release dates, it's like, that's my sound of confusion. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing is there was nothing. Oh, I guess they did the Blizzard Arcade. So some of the classic Blizzard games will be playable. Nobody cares. Yeah. I mean, there'll be a bunch of people that will buy it for nostalgia, but then it'll be forgotten just as quick, just like all these other arcade rehashes we constantly see from publishers. Right. And that's the thing is there are things that they can put out and knock out pretty quick and easily and make some money off of, and it's no big deal.
    44:55
    So any other gaming news going on, Tony? The only other thing that really jumped out at me, interesting-wise, was CD Projekt Red. Oh, the makers of Cyberpunk. The makers of Cyberpunk. You know, the game that's all about hacking and all that fun stuff. Yeah, they got hacked. Uh-oh.
    45:14
    And it wasn't, like, a minor hack. I mean, it was a full-on ransomware hack that got a lot of information out, specifically copies of a lot of their internal documentation from legal and HR and tons of other internal documentation, plus full game source code for Thornbreaker, The Witcher Tales, Witcher 3, the unreleased ray-traced version of Witcher 3, and Cyberpunk 2077 was stolen by these hackers. Do you think they'll patch it for us? Maybe they will. Well, hopefully whoever bought it at auction, and the hackers put it up on auction because CD Projekt Red said that they wouldn't pay the ransom, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So the hackers created an auction for it, and they auctioned all of the source code for those games off to the highest bidder. which they got a high enough bidder that they closed the auction. They put it up there as a starting bid of like $2 million with a buy it now price of $7 million, and they closed the auction early. So somebody paid them $7 million for all that source code. Do you think Blizzard bought it?
    46:33
    Wouldn't that be hilarious? They could put out, man, this new, this Overwatch 2 sure feels a lot like Cyberpunk 2077, but with even more bugs because it's Blizzard.
    46:48
    Zerg 2077. Your characters are just reskinned as Zergs. Yeah, it's just the new StarCraft. That's what it is.
    47:00
    Witcher 3 becomes StarCraft 3. It's in the past now. StarCraft in the past. Space Marine right now.
    47:12
    so yeah no I just I find it interesting that you hear about these ransomware hacks all the time they tend to catch major companies and governments but rarely when they're hit are they such a large technology based company that you would think would have really good cybersecurity. But I guess Sony got hit a few years ago, as I recall, too. Yeah, I don't remember if they lost a lot of game code. I remember motion picture stuff was accessed. Right. They lost movies, like whole movies that hadn't even been released yet were appearing in perfect form on torrents and stuff because they had the whole thing, all the movies got hacked out.
    48:09
    But this is, it's a surprise to me that a company that should have be so concentrated on, uh, internal security and cybersecurity, considering that's literally their bread and butter got hit in this way. Um, it's shocking. And I kind of wonder what's is going to come out. Cause you know, there's tons of documentation that they flat out admitted internal documentation got picked up. And I'm waiting to see if those emails start hitting, talking about the, you know, the crunch that wasn't going to happen that happened and all the cyberpunk issues and the delays and everything. Cause that's all part of the stuff that was stolen, not to mention, you know, employee personal employee information so all those employees have to worry about that this is not going to do them very much good and it's definitely going to hurt their already hurting stock prices from cyberpunk so cd project red has just had a uh a bad couple of months Yep Things are not looking so good They don't understand They're not rock star They can't do literally Nothing and still be the greatest company Ever and make millions of dollars Yep Feels bad man Feels bad So That was all the interesting stuff we had In this fairly short episode But full of passion Lots so much passion And if you're passionate about what you heard on the episode, you can always reach out to us at eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com or over on facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We're available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks. There might be more hacks to report. There might be more virtual conferences to degrade. There might be more hires by American Pinball. We don't know yet. But we'll find out. In two weeks. And we'll let you all know. Yes, in two weeks. Until then, I'm Dennis. I'm Tony Goodbye everybody See ya