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Coe - Quarter Drop Arcade - Episode 35

JBS Show·podcast_episode·1h 6m·analyzed·Jul 8, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Coe discusses launching Quarter Drop Arcade with authentic 80s-90s arcade experience using real quarters, driven by childhood nostalgia and community focus rather than profit.

Summary

Jamie Burchill interviews Coe (Corey), the creator/owner of Quarter Drop Arcade in Cottage Grove, Oregon. The conversation covers their shared childhood arcade and gaming experiences, Coe's vision for an authentic 1980s-90s arcade experience using real quarters instead of cards/tokens, and his content creation journey on Instagram/YouTube documenting arcade restoration and collection building. Coe plans to open Quarter Drop Arcade with approximately 50 machines (mix of classic arcade games and pinball) focused on affordable family entertainment and nostalgia-driven atmosphere.

Key Claims

  • Coe currently has 37 coin-operated machines with plans to reach 50 machines at Quarter Drop Arcade

    high confidence · Coe states: 'I currently have 37 coin operated machines. I'm planning to have about 50... I think 50 Is probably the sweet spot where there's enough variety for people to play and have fun.'

  • Quarter Drop Arcade will use real quarters instead of cards or tokens

    high confidence · Coe: 'I'm using quarters... It would be ridiculous if you used tokens... I'm using quarters. And again, that's like more hassle, more work. You know, it's all kinds of like negatives, except it's recreating the authentic arcade experience. And that's the whole reason I'm doing it.'

  • Coe's most popular Instagram video is about carpet, with 317,000 views

    high confidence · Coe: 'that's my most watched video funny enough a video about carpet it's weird yeah it's got like 317 000 views on instagram'

  • The arcade will focus on games from the 1980s to late 1990s era

    high confidence · Coe: 'so it's gonna be kind of that sweet spot of 80s to late 90s is kind of like my favorite because that's when i was playing games... that kind of 20-year span is, like, I think the best span of arcade games, period.'

  • Wormhole (existing venue) has 23 machines on the floor and 200+ in their collection

    high confidence · Jamie: 'We have 23 on the floor, a collection of 200 plus.'

  • Coe is knee-deep in negotiations for a location but hasn't officially announced it

    high confidence · Coe: 'Maybe I haven't quite officially announced anything, but I am knee deep in negotiations.'

  • Pinball Brothers fixed the Aliens Pinball machine design issues that plagued Heighway versions

    medium confidence · Coe mentions Pinball Brothers 'took over the design of it' and 'fixed all that crap' regarding Aliens machine problems.

  • Coe's motivation for Quarter Drop Arcade is not about making money

    high confidence · Coe: 'honestly it's not about money and i mean that with 100% sincerity. I have no interest in making money off of this. I want the arcade to make money because I want the arcade to be the best arcade possible.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I want the arcade to be the best arcade possible because more money means better machines, better maintained machines, better experience overall.”

    Coe — Encapsulates Coe's non-profit motivation and reinvestment philosophy for Quarter Drop Arcade

  • “that was part of the experience using actual quarters, not the card. I was going to ask, are you going to use tokens? I'm using quarters. It would be ridiculous if you used tokens.”

    Coe — Demonstrates commitment to authentic 1980s-90s arcade experience authenticity over operational convenience

  • “I'm trying to really emulate what that experience was like back in the day... I want the machines to be affordable because that's another motivator for me. It's like you can't take a family. If you have a family of four, you can't go anywhere without spending one hundred, two hundred dollars.”

    Coe — Reveals core mission of Quarter Drop Arcade: accessible family entertainment and recreation of golden era arcade culture

  • “Pinball in particular... The whole package is an art form.”

    Coe — Reflects broader pinball community perspective on machines as artistic creations

  • “It's about recreating that authentic arcade experience that I felt like I watched die off and kind of like tragically in the 90s and late 90s... and then like the avalanche of just every one of your favorite arcades one after another dying going away.”

    Coe — Articulates nostalgia-driven mission and reflects on arcade industry decline of 1990s-2000s era

Entities

CoepersonJamie BurchillpersonQuarter Drop ArcadebusinessWormhole PinballbusinessMoonpersonPinball BrotherscompanyHeighway PinballcompanyCottage GrovelocationAliens (pinball)product

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Coe deliberately using real quarters instead of modern card/token systems to recreate authentic 1980s-90s arcade experience, despite operational inefficiency

    high · Coe: 'I'm using quarters... It would be ridiculous if you used tokens... that's like more hassle, more work... except it's recreating the authentic arcade experience. And that's the whole reason I'm doing it. So it's like a non-negotiable for me.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong nostalgia-driven demand for recreation of golden-age arcade experience; recognition that traditional arcades died in late 1990s-early 2000s before barcade revival

    high · Coe: 'I watched die off and kind of like tragically in the 90s and late 90s... every one of your favorite arcades one after another dying... and then barcades opened up that's right yeah and it's like that was a that's like 10 years... Like no arcades.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Coe's Instagram content about arcade topics achieving significant viral reach (317,000 views on carpet video); social media content strategy driving awareness for Quarter Drop Arcade launch

    high · Coe: 'that's my most watched video funny enough a video about carpet it's weird yeah it's got like 317 000 views on instagram it's like it's carpet carpet yeah that's hilarious'

  • $

    market_signal: Identified gap in affordable family entertainment; pricing accessibility positioned as key differentiator for Quarter Drop Arcade vs. modern barcades and entertainment venues

    high · Coe: 'I want the machines to be affordable... you can't take a family. If you have a family of four, you can't go anywhere without spending one hundred, two hundred dollars... people could come and have a couple hours of fun and not have to spend 200 bucks'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.200

0:00
Hello, my name is Jamie Burchill, and you are listening to and or watching our podcast called Wormhole Pinball Presents.
0:10
Today, I'm very, very excited to be joined by two great individuals. Today, I'm really excited to be joined by a very special guest. And today, I'm very excited to be joined by two awesome guests all the way from Ireland. Hello and welcome to the Wormhole and our podcast we call Wormhole Pinball Presents. An interview series we started to highlight those in pinball and arcades. And today I am excited to meet and speak to someone that is really putting out some unbelievable content on Instagram and now YouTube. Of course, I'm talking about the creator and soon to be owner of Quarter Drop Arcade, Ko. Ko, thank you so much for joining the podcast. I am pumped to talk to you. Jamie, it's a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on the wormhole. I've been looking forward to this. I have, too. So I'm a little nervous. So bear with me. OK, don't be nervous. I was really excited to talk to you. Oh, my gosh. Before we talk about the great videos that you've done and and the content you're putting out for quarter drop arcade. Me and you need to do some reminiscing. OK, delve into our childhood. okay did you go to arcades growing up oh yeah i went to arcades all the time from the so what really got me into it was one day i was out and about i was really young maybe five six something like that and my dad took me to a diner this would have been southern california and i saw my first video game that i ever had any recollection of seeing and it was a cocktail cabinet for frogger and I played that and that was the first video game I ever played and honestly it was kind of one of those transformative experiences to where like it changed everything and I immediately was hooked on video games and I wanted an NES after that and that's kind of what segued into the lifelong passion for like going to arcades and home console gaming and everything like that kind of all stem from that Frogger cocktail arcade cabinet. So you grew up in California north? Lake Forest Do you know where that's at? No It's in between LA and San Diego Southern California, Orange County I was there until I was about 16 Then I moved to Oregon I grew up in the Northeast So it was pizza joints That I played most of my video games Right I've got a good story for you It's going to take a little long But I want to geek out about arcades in my childhood I usually get emails Well, Jamie, you talk too much, so this will definitely be one. It's all part of the wormhole experience. So I moved to Orlando, Florida when I was 16 years old from up north. And my younger brother and I knew no one because we moved in the middle of summer before my junior year. So my parents feeling bad about uprooting our lives in the middle of summer. They bought us annual passes to Disney World. At the time, it was really expensive. I don't even know what it costs now, but it was one ninety five a year per Florida resident. Right. So but with this annual pass, we could park at any of the Disney hotels and jump on the monorail and jump on the buses for free. So we literally did every ride, every park, saw every show, anything we wanted to do. The issue we had was cash. Parents didn't give us really any money. So we had to let that money. We had to learn how to eat, where to eat. We had to learn to stretch our dollars. There was a hotel and it still is a hotel attached to Disney World called the Contemporary Hotel. I've stayed there. OK, I know. So I grew up. That's the one the monorail goes through, right? Absolutely. OK, yeah. I in the Contemporary Hotel at the time was one of the largest arcades in the United States of America. And in the summer of 1989, my brother and I lived at that arcade. oh my gosh what a cool place it was massive and and they had everything you wanted right yeah they even had one of those shooting galleries that would shoot the puffs of air or whatever i love those yeah you know and my brother uh used all his money on that shooting gallery but i bet yeah they had a ton of pinball i sucked at pinball so i put my quarters to work elsewhere and initially i grew up playing games on long island like tempest joust spy hunter yeah but then they this the contemporary had all the newer like late 80s games final fight yeah exactly yeah so that i just wanted to geek on my story because oh i love it i lived at that arcade it's interesting because let's see it was probably 1992 to 1994 when we went to the contemporary hotel and i don't remember that arcade oh you blew it because it's down it's downstairs it's like hidden okay and then it was this huge hall that they turned into an arcade dang i totally missed out oh you did i remember going to disneyland a lot and they had in um in uh what's it called the space you know next to the oh gosh um what's the space age land called Tomorrowland. Thank you. I'm blanking. In Tomorrowland, they had a wonderful arcade that I used to love to go to. And they had all the latest and greatest arcade machines. So I remember any time we'd go to Disneyland, I would hit up that arcade, go see Captain EO, and then go to the arcade.
Scott Denise
person
?

product_concern: Aliens Pinball (Heighway Rickley edition) had persistent mechanical issues requiring extended troubleshooting; Pinball Brothers' acquisition and redesign improved reliability

medium · Coe discusses Aliens machine with 'map doesn't grab the ball yet,' took 'two days trying to get that to work right out of the box,' contrast with Pinball Brothers' fixed version

  • ?

    venue_signal: Wormhole Pinball rebranding existing location and planning downtown expansion (Wormhole East) while maintaining museum narrative for entire operation

    high · Jamie: 'we're kind of calling the whole thing a museum now... we're going to call the big place downtown Wormhole East... to me, they're all museum. These are just pieces of art'

    • 5:49
    The line was always long for Captain EO. And Captain EO was in Epcot in Orlando. We would just take the monorail from the Contemporary to Epcot and we can go see it. But after 10 times seeing the 3D, it wasn't that fun. Yeah. But it was a pretty epic show. They still watch it on YouTube. It's actually pretty fun to watch. Really? Yeah. I tried to find a good 3D one because I have one of those VR headsets. I have the Quest 3. And I was like, I wonder if I could watch Captain EO in 3D on that. And they have the side-by-side, but it wasn't working right, so it didn't look good. right i couldn't find a real good 3d captain captain you i haven't thought about that show in a long long time right that's awesome anyway that place was home to us i mean first it was air conditioned right because i just moved the equator from new york and second we didn't know anyone so it's a really great opportunity to meet kids from all over the world and that video games yeah that's what the arcade is all about back in the day it's like going there and you have your own world as a kid that's kind of your domain where you meet friends and you put down the quarters and fight each other in a game or like co-op or whatever it is and just try to go for that high score it was kind of a magical time to go to arcades it really was just any other particular games that you remember playing oh gosh a whole bunch i mean like i said final fight earlier was always one of my favorites i mean even to this day if i see a final fight i'm playing it because i love it and like double dragon i have a double dragon i love it i love it it's so good yeah it's one of the great i mean it's kind of like the yeah it inspired all the beat-em-ups that came after it it was it yeah yeah i fell in love with popeye that's a good game i actually heard you talk to Scott about that. Yeah, I put a lot of quarters in the Popeye. I don't know why. It just wanted to save olive oil. Yeah, it's underrated. It really is. Yeah. Did you migrate to video game consoles in the 80s and 90s? Yes. So after I played for Augur, I remember seeing that commercial for the NES. I was probably at my grandmother's house or something because we didn't have TV. That's one of the interesting things about growing up is my dad was totally anti-technology so there was no tv we didn't go to movies video games were like oh hell no so i remember being at my grandmother's house and seeing this nes commercial and this is like right after i played that frogger and i was like oh my god i have to have this and my dad to his credit was like you can have it but you have to pay for it yeah so i saved up change for literally over a year in one of those giant plastic water jugs. And then finally it was like one year, a little more than a year later, I had enough and we went to Toys R Us and I got that NES and he actually bought me a couple of games. What games? Do you remember what game it came? Oh yeah, definitely. So it came with Mario Duck Hunt. It was like the action set. Okay. So you had the first one with the guns. Yep. I had the gun that I still have it. I can see it right here. It's right next to me.
    9:11
    You had Duck Hunt. Not a lot of people had Duck Hunt in the beginning. Yep, Duck Hunt and Mario. And then I picked up Top Gun.
    9:21
    And I picked up Kung Fu. And those were really the only games I had for quite a while. Okay. And probably it wasn't until Super Mario Brothers 3 came out and The Wizard, that movie. I don't know if you remember the movie The Wizard. Yeah, I'm sure. with the uh what was what was the nintendo power glove yeah i've got one hanging up on my wall upstairs i love it mighty yeah it's so cool and um although it's a terrible peripheral it's really hard to play the games but it's cool so that's okay that's all that matters and uh so i played super mario brothers 3 and then my good friend who lived down the street had a nes hooked up to like a little black and white, like 12 inch TV. And he had Contra. And I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah. Because I had never played that until, you know, I'd have to go over to his house to play Contra. All right, let's do it. Okay. I'm going to finish. You finish the sentence. Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right. Hold down A, press start. Hold down A. Yeah, that's it. I think it's A, B, B. Is it? Dang it. I hope I didn't. Oh, I got it in my nose. Up, up, left, right. Hold down A. It's up, up, left, right. Hold down A, press start. It's up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, start. Oh, dang it. Okay, well, I was close. My brother and I got into the biggest fight. I remember, yeah. Because of Contra, because we were right at the end, and he was fooling around with the up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, and I lost him as a player. And then, you know, if your partner died and didn't get up, get the code in in time, you would ruin your progress if you died the same time. Right. I don't know how I discovered that back in the day because, of course, this is before Internet. So I know I was aware of this code back in the 80s. But it's like, how did I know it? Did I discover it by accident or was it like a Nintendo Power or something? I honestly don't know. It would have been Nintendo Power magazine. It might have been. It seems the most likely source. Where it spread, right? Yeah. It's probably the only place. And I read a bunch of video game magazines. Oh, yeah. When we would go to the Five and Dimes we had, I would just sit there and read video game magazines. Oh, it's the best. So they kicked me out. Those magazines, I mean, they're such time capsules. They have a website that's scanned all those magazines. Really? And I was working on a project, this was years ago, for a book. And I was going through and looking at old video game magazines. And it was pretty cool. It was really neat. The advertising is so good. in the late 80s and early 90s. It's kind of a lost art, these really good print ads. Yeah. I love them. Big, full page. Oh, yes. Some of them pulled out three pages. They're huge. Yeah. I love it.
    12:10
    All right, let's play a yes-no game. Did you ever play on this console? Okay. Either have played it or owned it. I'm just going to go kind of a sequential order, but it's not a perfect list, okay? Okay.
    12:22
    Atari 2600. Yes. Own it still. I was gifted a Atari 2600 by my cousin. This was after I owned a Sega Genesis. So it was later. It was already kind of antiquated. But he gave me his Atari 2600. And I loved it even back then. I played Barnstorming. That was a game I really liked. And like Pac-Man. It's a cow, right? Barnstorming, a cow? You're in a plane and you go through the barns and over the windmills. Yes, yes. And for whatever reason, that game always hit a chord.
    12:56
    Okay, I had an Atari 2600 as well. Atari 5200. Nope, never had it. Intellivision. Nope, never had it. You neither. ColecoVision. Nope. My cousins had it, though. Okay, that's cool. I went, and they were really close. Everything's close. There's a lot of passion for the ColecoVision. There is. You know, it had the best Donkey Kong. Okay. Okay, because the Donkey Kong on the 2600 was dog crap, and so it had a really good Donkey Kong. It had good games. Did you ever play a game called Beam Rider? No. Okay. It was on Atari 2600 and ColecoVision. It's one of the most underrated games on that system, on the Atari 2600. It's so good. And I always try to recommend it to people that like the Atari 2600 because I never hear people talking about it. And it might be my favorite game on the console.
    13:50
    I will have to look that up. Yeah, Beam Rider. Okay. Yeah, it's so good. Commodore 64. No, I didn't have any of those. Did you? That's cool. I learned to code in basic. I was going to say, if you like, you were geeking out on computers back in the day, that's the thing to have. I, my father wanted me in the computers and a guy shows an affinity towards the electronics and such. So he got me the Commodore 64, sorry. And I learned how to code in basic and we made a States game for my sixth grade class or some shit. And, uh, you would go sub and go to all basic code. Yeah, sure. It was pretty good. Yeah, I remember doing something like that in homeroom in middle school where we had to do some basic coding and create like a little, like real stupid program where like, hey, the little person's moving across the screen or whatever. Just if then statements go to. Yeah, yeah. It's not complicated. I can probably write it to this day. Yeah. All right. The original Sega Master System, yes or no? No. I have one now, though.
    14:55
    I never played it. Yeah, it was totally like I was NES. Yeah, so NES. Yeah. I don't think a lot of people had the Master System in the States. No, but they were not really. In, what is it, Brazil? It's like huge. Even to this day, people like adore the Master System in South America. We're going to go to some obscure ones as we move to the 90s. Okay. Sega CD. Yes, I had one, and I loved it. I was like the only kid in my friend group that was like die hard Sega. So Sega City was after the Genesis. I had my Genesis. So I had my Genesis as well. Nice. It's still my favorite console.
    15:35
    Yeah. And then they tried that. Remember they tried Sega 32? Yeah. The thing on top? Yeah. The 32X. Yeah. That did work. No, I didn't. And I didn't have a 32X at the time. but as I started collecting later on I actually had a complete in box uh 32x set in my collection I ended up selling it a while back because it was worth so much money and I didn't really play it um but yeah it's cool what about an Atari Lynx no never had the Lynx it's one of those things I remember seeing like at KB Toys like yeah yeah and I was like whoa what is that what the hell was that yeah it's like super obscure all right I gotta bet on Donovan that you had this one Donovan's my co-host. Okay. Neo Geo. Okay. So Neo Geo was the system I wanted the most. But my parents were like, hell no. Because it was expensive. It was very expensive. I didn know anyone had the Neo Geo Yeah But there was a store My mom would go called like Tuesday morning or something It was like a kitchen home Yeah they still have them around Oh, do they have those? Yeah. And next to it was a place that rented a time on a Neo Geo. So you could hook it up to their TV and for an hour you could play Neo Geo. So when she would go to the Tuesday morning, I would go play the Neo Geo over there. So I did play it, but they would not buy me one.
    17:05
    Okay, a couple more. Super NES? No, my best friend Brad, growing up, had the Super Nintendo. I had the Sega Genesis. My fraternity brother had the Super Nintendo. Nice. It's the best of both worlds. It was the best of both worlds because Mortal Kombat here, Street Fighter there. You nailed it. Yep.
    17:26
    Sega Saturn? no and that's a console that I've probably for whatever reason played the least and I'm a huge Sega fan so I was a big Sega fan too and we're going to get to one uh in a second but okay but yeah I've never owned a Saturn and I've gosh played only on emulation I've played it PS1 yeah love PS1 okay I did not because I was a Sega Dreamcast not oh well I was too I mean Dreamcast is the goat. I have a story by Sega Dreamcast. I do too. Oh, yeah. I'm married with kids, and I go to Kmart and open it up because I knew no one would go to Kmart. They were all going to go to Best Buy, Walmart, or whatever the crap it was. So I just opened, and I got the first Sega Dreamcast in Houston. 99, 1999. Yes, sir. and I wound up getting a modem for it. But my first games were Royal Rumble.
    18:29
    No, what was it? What was the boxing game? Yeah, Ready to Rumble. Yep. Ready to Rumble, and they had Taxi. Yeah, Crazy Taxi. Yep. Oh, it's like my favorite gaming memory is waiting in a massive line on 9-9, 1999, with my own money because now I'm old enough to buy my own consoles and pick up a Dreamcast and play Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi. I had Soul Calibur. Soul Calibur is so good.
    19:00
    And your NFL 2K was better than Madden. NFL 2K, that 2K sports line at the time was way better than any sports game that had ever come out, in my opinion at least. I mean, it was so good. I totally agree. But unfortunately for both of us That console died It was tragic It really was I never understood it I didn't get it either I was like this is the best console ever And how can people not be Disenjoying it But no DVD player No DVD player There were some problems Now I still have my original Dreamcast That I picked up on 9.9.1999 And up in my game room I have a display because like an idiot as a teenager, I took all my games and chucked the packaging and put the discs into like a binder. And I've got games like Power Stone 2 and Skies of Arcadia and all these games that are now worth hundreds of dollars, but they're all loose. So I made this display on the wall where I display all the loose CDs and clear jewel cases. It actually looks pretty cool.
    20:11
    All right. A few more. Nintendo 64? No, not a fan. I played the hell out of it. Did you? Yeah, I don't like that controller. Because I was resent. I did not want to go PlayStation. That's fair. Okay. And so, but the graphics between the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 were just terrible. And it's such a big difference. And I was a Mario dude. I love Mario. I do too, but I can't do that controller. It drives me. No, it's a terrible controller. It's one of the worst ever made. Yeah. And it's economic bull crap. It was terrible.
    20:40
    Okay, PS2? very briefly this is like I didn't have hardly any money at the time and I was able to get one second hand towards the end of its life cycle kind of thing and I played Final Fantasy X I was never a Final Fantasy guy that's about the extent of my PlayStation 2 history Nintendo Gamecube? nope I got it for the kids but I really secretly wanted to play Luigi's Mansion I had the OG Xbox at that time. And that was my last one. Okay. I don't know if you can see on the wall here. OG Xbox. I see it. Yeah. I love it. Once I went Xbox, I never went back. Yeah. I'm a big Xbox fan. And so for the kids, I got the Wii as, you know, and that sort of thing. But none of that was for me. It was Xbox. It's the family console. Yeah. It was, what was it? Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One. 360, yeah.
    21:42
    Xbox Series. Yeah. The 360. I've got the Star Wars one, and if I push the button, let's see. Probably can't hear it, but R2-D2. That's the 360.
    21:55
    I knew we were going to be in trouble talking. Okay, did you ever read the book Console Wars by Blake Harris? I have not. Okay, that's an excellent read. I need to read that? Absolutely. Because what it will do is it will transport you back into the beginning and end of Sega. Oh.
    22:15
    And the mistakes that they made. Okay. As a businessman, it's a good business book on mistakes. Sure. But they explain, do you know why video games are released on Tuesday?
    22:26
    Oh, interesting. I don't know. Okay. Well, it was Sonic 2 for Tuesday. It was Sonic Tuesday, and it was the release of Sonic. We're going to be in the first Sonic or second, but Sega, and they talk about how they needed to go up against Mario. How do we beat Mario? Well, we're going to beat him with this badass guy that spins. This mascot. Yeah, this mascot. It's an outstanding read by Blake Harris. Okay. I'll put it on the to-read list. I love reading about video game, coin-op, pinball history, and stuff like that. Yeah, it's really good. It talks about how Sony came in and how I don't want to ruin it because it's an excellent, excellent read. OK, back to video games. Let's go back to the arcade games. OK, can you describe your collection to me for me, if you don't mind? Like what what's in your collection? OK, it's or how many machines you have. OK, I currently have 37 coin operated machines. I'm planning to have about 50 I think the arcade, because I live in a small town It's Cottage Grove, Oregon And it's not a big place There's 10,000 people that live here So I'm trying to find, like I was really thinking about What is the size of arcade that a town like this Will support And that one person can run And fix machines for Because it's just going to be me Oh okay, because I had a bunch of questions about that later So I was like, I think 50 Is probably the sweet spot where there's enough variety for people to play and have fun. And then I can hopefully take care of them all and fix them all and keep them running good. So I've got a mix of everything from classics like Ms. Pac-Man up to some of the 90s, the really good 90s stuff, like Area 51 and Cruisin' Exotica.
    24:12
    I've got Aliens Extermination from 2006. That's pretty sweet. It's got the two dual-mounted machine guns, and it's pretty awesome. pulse rifles actually and um i've got some pins of course which you know i love pinball kind of pinball obsessed which i'm sure you can relate to oh my gosh yeah i see an alien behind you is that highway or is that no this is the rickley edition oh okay yeah yeah and it's kind of everything i thought it would be it's wonderful theme integration and sound design but quirky and you know it's not without its issues but we have a highway yeah i knew that going into it though and we went and picked up a highway and it's the mouth it's got problems oh it's got problems yeah we're gonna put it in the museum because the map doesn't grab the ball yet and so we've got a lot of we got years to fix it but does it not grab the ball at all no oh see mine does grab the ball so they fix that at least not oh that's pinball brothers so they took over the design of it yeah and then yeah they fixed a lot of stuff they fixed all that crap okay because it still has some courts yeah the hyper sleep chambers yeah yeah is i mean i spent two days trying to get that to work right out of the box uh but you know it more or less works now but it's it's great i love it uh dream theme aliens alien and aliens are like some of my favorite movies of all time so you take like my favorite movie franchise and put it with pinball and like you get a lot of machine for the money too with the ripley edition you know it's eight thousand something bucks but it's fully loaded yeah it is loaded i haven't played the ripley they had them at uh expo uh tpf and i never got a chance to go into it it's good it's fun so let's talk about your vision for to the quarter drop arcade okay okay yeah you talked about carpet costs itself and yeah putting the player back to the 80s is that what you're you're looking for vision wise yeah and that's my most watched video funny enough a video about carpet it's weird yeah it's got like 317 000 views on instagram it's like it's carpet carpet yeah that's hilarious i love it um so it is very much my vision and the whole reason i'm doing this because it like honestly it's not about money and i mean that with 100% sincerity. I have no interest in making money off of this. I want the arcade to make money because I want the arcade to be the best arcade possible because more money means better machines, better maintained machines, better experience overall. So that's definitely something that's important. But for me, that's not a motivator. And it's about recreating that authentic arcade experience that I felt like I watched die off and kind of like tragically in the 90s and late 90s you started to see it and then early 2000s comes and then like the avalanche of just every one of your favorite arcades one after another dying going away and never opening again and for a while there there were no arcades anywhere wasn't until barcades opened up that's right yeah and it's like that was a that's like 10 years Yeah. Yeah. Like no arcades. And so for me, it's like trying to really emulate what that experience was like back in the day. And to the point of like I'm using real tickets for some of the redemption machines, because that was part of the experience back in the day. So it cost me more money. It's more hassle. But that was part of the experience using actual quarters, not the card. I was going to ask, are you going to use tokens? I'm using quarters. It would be ridiculous if you used tokens. Yeah, I know. People ask me that a lot. They're like, you should use tokens. I'm like, well, the arcade is called the quarter drop.
    28:13
    So I'm using quarters. And again, that's like more hassle, more work. You know, it's all kinds of like negatives, except it's recreating the authentic arcade experience. And that's the whole reason I'm doing it. So it's like a non-negotiable for me. No cards, no sliding, nothing, none of that. I want the machines to be affordable because that's another motivator for me. It's like you can't take a family. If you have a family of four, you can't go anywhere without spending one hundred, two hundred dollars. I mean, it's it doesn't matter where you go. It's just everything is wildly expensive. So I would like it if people could come and have a couple hours of fun and not have to spend 200 bucks and just have a good time. what is there an era of video games themselves that you want to showcase maybe a little more than others or is it you know i'm trying to kind of cater to a lot of different sensibilities well staying true to that authentic experience so it's gonna be kind of that sweet spot of 80s to late 90s is kind of like my favorite because that's when i was playing games it's my absolute Yeah, so that kind of 20-year span is, like, I think the best span of arcade games, period. So that's where I'm really focusing. I have a few that are from, like, I've got, like, the Aliens Extermination. That's 2006.
    29:40
    I've got an Afterburner Climax. It's also 2006. So very kind of late CRT arcade machines. So that's kind of, like, the span. Do you have a location already picked out? Well, maybe. Maybe. Maybe I haven't quite officially announced anything, but I am knee deep in negotiations. And you do all the tech work yourself. I do. Yeah. Oh, and I do have a friend that helps me, Moon. I contract him on occasion and he comes and helps me because he's a his dad was an electric electronic engineer and he's really savvy with that stuff. So when it's something that's like a little above my pay grade, I have him come help me and he's great. That's awesome. We have tech night at the Wormhole today. And we're going to probably at the end of this interview, there'll be techs all over the place because we're going to be coming up. So it takes a village. It takes a village. Yeah, I bet you guys have what, 23 machines on the floor. We have 23 on the floor, a collection of 200 plus. I'll send you a super secret list of all the pins. Is this for the museum? For everything. So it's interesting. I'll talk about the museum in a minute, but we're kind of calling the whole thing a museum now. Oh, good. Because if you look at it, this place is kind of a museum. It's a total museum. So we're just calling this Wormhole, and we're going to call the big place downtown Wormhole East. Perfect. Yeah. That makes perfect sense. Yeah, because to me, they're all museum. These are just pieces of art, and with the way this place looks, it's really cool. I was listening to your interview with Scott, and I was listening to you talk about them being works of art. I was like, yeah, they are absolutely works of art. Pinball in particular. Yes. The whole package is an art form. We're talking about my interview with Scott Denise. You could check it out at Wormhole Pinball Presents on all the major. Well, you're listening, so of course you found us. Great interview.
    31:54
    Thanks. It was really good. He couldn't be easier to talk to, and he's just super brilliant. Yeah, I was going to say, he comes off as being brilliant. Yeah. And he is. So let's talk about your popular Instagram and the video themselves. Okay. I'm going to ask some technical questions in a bit, but when did you decide to take your journey to the arcade and publish it? Okay. So I made the decision that because I've always kind of had this idea, you know, grow up, but it was never a feasible thing because I didn't have the money.
    32:29
    I knew that it probably wouldn't be financially like a good business plan to make lots of money. So I never pursued it. even though I wanted to, it just wasn't something I could do. And then when I was finally to a place where I'm like, you know what? I can actually, I'm at a place in my life where I could do this. And so about a year, it's been a year and a month now ago that I'm like, I'm doing it. So I sat down and I wrote the business plan and kind of just step by step, everything that I would need to do to make this happen. And of course, marketing the arcade is like, I look at that as almost my number one job I mean that like probably the most important thing I can do because I need people to come that don live in Cottage Grove to want to come to the arcade Yeah And because it only 10,000 people here and I want people from all over the place and content creators to come and make videos and enjoy the quarter drop. So I was like, well, I'm going to have to really like figure out how am I going to do that? How am I going to market it? So I spent a lot of time really like researching and thinking about what kind of content I wanted to make that was authentic to me, but still was like discovered, like the algorithm would like it. So that's kind of like, that's the hard part is being authentic to yourself and making content that is geared towards an algorithm. And that was what I really like kind of dialed in. What was your, yeah. What, Was there any inspiration for your video style or just. Yeah. The inspiration is very much so old TV shows from like the late 80s and early 90s of like the unsolved mysteries and stuff like that. I totally get that vibe when I watch. Do you? Okay. Absolutely. Okay. Because if you go through your beginning videos, you didn't do the walk up. I did it. And I love the walk up. Yeah. I changed. When I first started making the content, I was like, it's not working what I'm doing. It was okay. I mean, it was, you know, fine, but I don't want it to be okay. I want it to kick ass. And so I'm like, I got to do something different. So I was like, I scrapped that and changed the whole formula. And that worked. And as soon as I started doing the walk up, the structure, which is the walk up, hook, foreshadow, body, and the last line. That's the structure. And within that structure, I always create a narrative because you can't you don't want to say, hey, look at this. I got an alien Ripley edition or, you know, you want there's got to be some kind of story like with the carpet. You know, the carpet video starts out. There's an item on my must have wish list that will cost over ten thousand dollars, require constant maintenance and never make a dime. But it's a must have item for the quarter drop arcade. That tells you right there. yeah that's the it's the hook the foreshadow and it's like what is this what is he talking about right and so it's everything and but i'm not doing it in a way where i'm like being bombastic or not true to myself you know i because i see some people that they're like hey everyone and they're like you know like the energy and i just that would be exhausting to me i i couldn't like putting on a persona yeah different yeah that is exhausted i just especially with daily videos like that. I just, there's no way I'd be able to maintain that. So I was like, it's, I was thinking, well, it's going to be kind of hard because my energy is not super high on the videos. And I was like, okay, well, we'll see how this goes, but people have responded to it really well. Do you keep them in a certain, and we're talking about the reels that you put on Instagram. Do you keep them in a certain timeframe? Is there like a, a sweet spot for you under 40 seconds or? it's the best time that i've seen is 58 seconds okay so i always try to keep them between around 45 to 58 seconds yeah i post them to insta i post the same video to instagram tiktok and youtube so what are you getting the most traction on of those three instagram it started out being tiktok right off the bat the tiktok videos started doing good but then i made the mistake of making a video about light guns and i actually got um soft like shadow band for quite a while on tiktok after i made a light gun video which is you know because i was talking about light guns you know the peripheral yeah and apparently that the you know ai or whatever was not happy with me well yeah so yeah from that point it was like boom videos went from thousands of views to like they weren't shown it to anyone about a month about a month and then it's been slowly building up from there getting back to where it was but in that time instagram took off so instagram's passed all tiktok and youtube by quite a large margin yeah in regards to documenting your journey to the arcade we are trying to do something similar here with the with the museums of the og sure and and because we're building not only Wormhole East, but there's another location that we have called the Vault. And so a lot of those details we're not really disclosing, and we're just trying to figure out how we're going to disclose them. And I kind of like the walkthrough video of 58 to 45 seconds. Here's a quick walkthrough of progress. And we're doing that mostly for ourselves so that we can document the progress of Wormhole East and the Vault. But, you know, I just a little taste of what we're doing in Houston. And I love I love your videos. I love what you're doing. Thank you. Oh, and I love what you're doing with the wormhole. I mean, talk about a cool space. Talk about two people kissing each other's ass. That's OK.
    38:31
    Hey, you know what? Why not? Well, you know, everyone I interview, I always say I'm wind up going there. But there's no I know I've got that. There's no joke about that. I'm going to the quarter drive. There's no question. And there's no question you're coming to. Is this before or after Germany?
    38:49
    I don't know. That's a tough one, too. I can't wait to go over there. Those are great people. And I'm talking about J.D.L. Pinball, my early podcast. I like some of the rare games that you covered in Reels. Give me some that stood out that you filmed.
    39:05
    Oh, you know, I like the really unusual stuff. like on computer space, 1971, first mass produced coin operated video game. It's a wild looking cabinet.
    39:18
    I think it's somewhat well known, but everyone knows what a computer space is. So covering stuff like that is cool. I just did a video on Humpty Dumpty, first pinball machine with flippers, stuff like that. That's kind of historically significant. It's fun to talk about. Cause you know, we all like in the pinball sphere, we geek out on these details but i think the majority of the people that probably follow my instagram my social media accounts may not even know what humpty dumpty is or a computer space right um i think the casual arcade fan you know they know the street fighters and the mortal combats and stuff and they love it but i think highlighting some of those kind of rare games a lot of fun death race was a cool one that there's a big yeah that was fun now i kind of want a death race but they never come up i i saw that and i went did i ever play death race and i wasn't at disney probably so no i doubt it i doubt it too disney had some cool stuff though i remember going to disney world and they had um that the hologram the sega hologram game yes they did and you're talking about epcot the entire section they had there rolled up for that's like 1991 92 that's about when I was there yep I remember seeing that and Sega trying to you know keep going we could have been in the arcade at the same time I guarantee we were it was by the land I think I remember seeing like okay Sega and holograms together oh my god I know blew my mind time traveler that is time traveler Yeah. So we live stream most of most of our tournaments here on Wormhole on Twitch and our night streams where we're just kind of goofing around. I never considered a constant live stream for Wormhole East.
    41:19
    We just never thought about it. But your video that it was a very interesting topic that you raised about the privacy issues of streaming 24-7 from the quarter drop. Yeah. Let's talk about that for a minute. OK, that's a great topic. Yeah. So I would love like my ideal would be literally put cameras all over the arcade. And when I open up, I'm streaming on Twitch and I just whether it's just me talking at the desk and chatting during slow times or if there's a pinball tournament streaming that or even if it's just a normal day and I have an overview shot throughout the arcade, I would love to do that. but there are like quite a few like unknown variables there. One, I wrote them down. Okay. So I wanted to talk to you about it. Cause I'm fascinated. Cause we've, we've been tinkering with this for wormhole East as well. Okay. Cause that will be open to the public where, as we are more tournaments and rentals. Yeah. There's gotta be, first of all, there's gotta be a software plugin that someone can create an OBS to blur out phases. I can't believe there isn't one. It's 2024. Yeah, that would solve all the problems, all the problems, all the problems, because then I would just do it. I'd have cameras everywhere and it would automatically blur faces and then all my concerns go away. Yes. And then your camera would you could take that blur, you know, from OBS. You could use those filters and boom, boom, boom, blur filter. Yeah.
    42:47
    And then I could still have my desk cam and the pinball rig without blur. Right. Yes. And like on the rig, it's going to say, hey, you can play this game for free. but you're on Twitch. Try to use good language or something like that. I like that. That's smart. And consent forms suck, right? I'm not doing that. You don't want to have, a lot of people mention that, and I'm thinking you never want to increase, there never needs to be a barrier, a friction, a level of entry. If there's friction for the person to come to your establishment, you want to reduce all that. You want to make it as easy as possible for someone to come in and play video games at your arcade. Because you're transporting them into a time that was really pretty cool in their lives, right? And then what you've got to do is sign something? It's BS. Yeah. So I'm not going to do that. So if I, you know, if at the very least I'll have my desk area and I'll have like I have here right now. Okay. A setup like this at the arcade. And then I'll have the pinball rig and I'll have that set up. So that's happening no matter what. Okay. You need any help setting up pinball rigs? I'm pretty good at it. Thank you. I know. I see right behind you. You're a pro.
    44:05
    And whether or not I'll have overview shots, my concern is like minors coming in. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, people, privacy issues. Some people want to come in and just play arcade games and not be live streamed, even though I will have security cameras, but that's not being live streamed to the world. Yeah, because when we announce, we have an announcement before each tournament that we stream at the Wormhole. John Spates gets up on the mic, he goes, we stream at the Wormhole. By coming to the Wormhole, you agree to be streamed. If anyone has any concerns about that, please let us know.
    44:40
    And JDL has like a filter that he puts on his player cam and it shocks the face. Oh, interesting. And we can hook you up with him. He's great, dude. And he built it for his camera. So is it always blocking their face or do you do it just if they don't want if they don't want it? He says, you know, a person comes up, I don't want to be streamed. They just flip this little filter on top of it and it blocks out like half their face. See, that's the kind of stuff I love hearing, because I was thinking when the pinball tournaments happen, I'm going to have to make some kind of announcement. It's like, hey, we're streaming this on Twitch, everyone. So see this camera here? This is the one that gets you. And this is the play field. And the reasons that they don't want to stream are always good reasons, right? And they don't need to tell me. It's their personal business. But if someone's in the enforcement, they don't want to be streamed. Okay. Exactly. Yeah. We're going to make an accommodation for you as best as we can. All right. If you can't do it, then unfortunately, this might not be the place for you at this moment in time. I think it might be pretty easy for me because I actually have my face cam is a Razer Kio Ultra and you can turn it to close the shutter. OK, so I might be able to just turn it if someone doesn't want to be on there and close that. Just that one camera would be off. But yeah, it's it's too bad that, you know, I would be so fun just to like open up and have the whole place live. You can do it. You can do it. There's just going to be some, you know, they're not, they're just little obstacles that will get through to, because people are going to want to be streamed. Hey, I'm going to quarter drop. Check me out on stream. And then you could have QR codes. When you walk in, you're going to be on stream here. Sign up for sure.
    46:32
    Yeah. Why Twitch over YouTube? um well i was streaming on twitch before i made the decision to do cord drop i was doing retro stuff i have a crt next to me and i had this really convoluted setup where i was actually streaming from the crt television and i did that for quite a while and really liked it and then when i decided to do the arcade i'm like okay well i'm gonna have to start transitioning because i want to stream on twitch from the arcade that's like i don't want to stop streaming but i want to put all my focus on the arcade because it's important and that's where my passion's at right now and it's so i want to make it happen so i was like okay well i just need to transition what i've already kind of built more towards pinball and arcade okay so i already kind of had that infrastructure set up and i just built myself a screaming rig that well i should say just that was actually a huge project it was monumental task that i didn't realize was going be so expensive and time-consuming to get it just the way I wanted you know very well but I think you're winning every day on that that that streaming rig must cost like three grand or something I don't know it was expensive I think we're going to talk about it my wife yeah what was your profession before going in going deep into quarter drop I've done a bunch of stuff for a long big chunk of my professional life I was a professional glassblower and that's actually where COE comes from COE 33 is the coefficient of expansion for borosilicate glass and that's the type of glass that I worked with for years and whenever I would go to an arcade I would always put in COE that was my initials for high scores so when I started making content on YouTube this is like 11 years ago I went by COE 33 and everyone just started calling me COE So that's kind of where that came from. And then I was in the newspaper industry for a long time. I was the creative director in the newspaper industry doing graphic design. And I had my own publishing company for a while. But you can see the I knew you were an artist, though. I'm a lifelong artist. Yeah. I mean, that was apparent to me pretty early on in your video. Oh, nice. Oh, cool. And because you could see the art in what you're putting out. And and again, I geek on art and I love it. And I can see the people that have this artistic ability and they put it out in their craft. It's really pretty. Yeah, I appreciate it so much. I'm like Rachel from Electric Bat. Have you seen her artwork? Yeah, I didn't get stunning. It is stunning. Yeah, she's amazing. I never got to see the dick pics, the penis things that she built.
    49:27
    I saw the Instagram post. I never saw it. I keep looking for it, and I keep missing it. That was high art. Yeah, that's what I heard. And no one has it because they're afraid to save it on their phone, which is a good call. But what's your timeframe from planning to opening? Do you have an opening date Yeah Yeah July 26 2025 is the plan So theoretically let say I get into a building a month from now which is what I hoping
    50:04
    Theoretically, this building that I may be getting into is going to require a lot of TLC. Okay. So it's going to be a good chunk of time remodeling, getting it to look like I want getting that carpet down because I got to do the carpet.
    50:23
    Yeah, I know. Yeah. Doing the black lights and all that stuff. Getting that already. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Lots of black lights, RGB lighting, the whole thing. It's going to be a nice, cool space. Once I have that dialed in and I have, you know, I'll have to have an electrician come out and get 50 amp breakers and all that stuff and the internet and everything, all the things that go into a building. Right. Then I'm going to start moving my machines over and getting it all set up. And then I'm going to start streaming from the arcade even before I'm open. Okay. And I think that's going to probably more or less take about a year.
    51:01
    Fair enough. Yeah. And document every piece of it. Every single piece. It's every little one of you. Some of it's for you, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because we didn't do that well enough. Right. Like this building got stripped. Here's a quick story for those that don't listen. OK. Sorry. This building was a thirty nine dollar insurance building. OK. Oh, wow. And if you come to the side, you'll still see painted over a thousand times. Thirty nine dollar insurance because the street that we're on was full of old used car lots. Co. So it makes total sense. You buy your used car for cash and then you come and you get quick insurance towards the end of this main street. So Tim and Christine, they bought the building and for thirty nine dollars. No, they did very good. And they had a tenant and then the tenant decides to leave because he's not selling insurance anymore because they're re-gentrifying the area and there's no more car lots as many. So Tim says with John Spates and Christine, we're going to build a pinball bar. And this is in 2020, January. Well, bad timing, right? You're not going to start a pinball bar right before COVID. And they couldn't get permits. They couldn't get everything. And thank God they couldn't get it because we have a parking issue here. Our parking sucks. Oh, okay. So they couldn't get the liquor license because of the parking. And it turned into an absolute blessing. So we just started moving machines in here and made it our private pinball club. And then we opened the Republic and the rest is history. Right. The rest is history. We did not document it properly. Oh, that would have been, see, that's such a cool experience too. No. And I think a lot of people were really intrigued by it. Just the, what goes into, I get messages all the time saying, hey, this is my dream. And I've always thought about doing this and like seeing every step like this has been really eye opening. I'm like, yeah, that's that's kind of main motivator in doing this. I want it like I'm documenting it. I'm sharing that information for people to learn from. I mean, it's just a win, win, win the whole process. It is awesome. More ask us and for you. Well, you can have a bar inside or BYOB. um well we don't have byob really yeah well i well let me preface that i actually still need to make sure but my understanding is we don't have byob if we do then it'll definitely be that um theoretically i'm being so cagey this building that i may be getting into is next to a bar and so it's literally two steps away perfect yeah there we go any more info you want to drop about quarter drop arcade before we get into the rapid fire hurry up uh no uh july cottage grove website and all that stuff check it out we'll we'll get to that but now ladies and gentlemen the exciting oh boy okay my rapid fire hot seat whatever the hell the game is called it's called the hurry up all right hurry up hot seat right i don't like adding music in my interviews as you see just I don't, but if I was going to add music, it would be to the hurry up. Yes. It's very dramatic. It is. Okay. Better run and gun game.
    54:31
    Contra or Commando? Contra. I love Commando, and a lot of people would probably say that. Better run and fight game. Final fight or Double Dragon?
    54:44
    Oh, well, I mean, Double Dragon has my heart, but Final Fight is the better game. Which pinball machine I agree by the way I'm not supposed to be agreeing with my guests I know It's okay Which pinball machine should be made From one of these video games Sonic the Hedgehog Legend of Zelda Or completely redo Super Mario Brothers Okay well all three of those The fact that they haven't been done is criminal But the one that really Surprised me the most is Sonic the Hedgehog Because Sonic the Hedgehog about first of all sonic spin ball is already a thing on the genesis yeah it lends itself to pinball perfectly from like there's levels in sonic the hedgehog where you're like in vegas and there's pinball machines um in the level where you're actually you're shooting sonics and you're hitting the pop bumpers and there's it's already like the work's already been done so just just make it happen well i don't understand i don't think i did a homebrew and i think he's now working for somebody. Yeah. It blows my mind that those, all three of those would like sell better than any. Like, why are you making Led Zeppelin when you could be making Legend of Zelda? I mean, it's just, it's insane. I have a Led Zeppelin in my house right now. I'm borrowing Tems. He's real kind to let me borrow his. Yeah. Tems. It's an alley. It's beautiful. Oh, and it's not just a Led Zeppelin. They're a great band. I know. I had to disable the damn thing that comes up. Yeah. That machine's a disaster. It's got to go back to the vault because it's just what it's just not the perfect thing either. I just I think there's like so many themes that are like perfect for pinball. Yeah. Where's Mad Max? Why don't we have a Mad Max pinball machine? I mean, you talked about Top Gun as being such an unbelievable video game back in the day. How could that has Top Gun? Insane pinball machine. I know. It would sell. Yeah, because we're the buying demographic. Our age. We want to see Top Gun. We don't care. We want Top Gun. No. A Pokemon probably would sell. Just for the kids. You're going to stick it in there. I just missed the Pokemon. I'm just old enough where I missed Pokemon Wave. Here they go. They're turning the machines on. Did you see that? Nice. I saw that, yeah. Okay, sorry. Best video game that did not have a joystick. Out of these three. Track and Field,
    57:15
    Paperboy, or Tempest. Ooh. Okay, I think Tempest may be the best out of those three, but I like Paperboy. I love Paperboy. I love all three of those. Yeah, I do too. I really want a Paperboy in the arcade. I keep looking for one. I just haven't found one.
    57:38
    I put a lot of quarters in it. You know, it was a hard game. It was really one of the hardest games that you've played. It's super hard, but it's one of those games that translates best in the arcade. It doesn't, like, you have to have the handle. It didn't work on the consoles. Not nearly as well. Not nearly as well, because you needed the. Not nearly as well. You need the, yeah. So that's like, I like games like that where it's like, hey, this is by far, you have to play this in the arcade. That's why I picked up the Afterburner Climax. You can't even play that anywhere. You've got to have the arcade cabinet. and it got delisted from all the digital stores and stuff. And so games like that where you really want to have that arcade experience, I always gravitate towards.
    58:19
    Best fighting video game on a console, Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter? I mean, I was Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis with the blood. You gotta have the blood. Best console hockey game? Ooh. Did you play hockey? I did. All right. NHL 94 or Blades of Steel? Blades of Steel.
    58:42
    My brother and I got in the biggest fight over Blades of Steel because I would just put the dude right in the middle and then you could, as the goalie was going back and forth, you could pass. Oh, okay. You cheat and use the pass. I just like the fighting. Oh, I love Blades of Steel.
    58:57
    This is from Donovan Wade, my co-host. He sent in two questions. Better Oregon movie, Goonies or Stand By Me? Stand By Me. I like Goonies a lot. Stand By Me, though, for me is one of those movies that I saw at the right time in my life. And it's always been like with me. And it was filmed literally. So Stand By Me was filmed in Cottage Grove. Oh, really? Yeah. There's two movies that were filmed here. And Animal House was filmed right in front of a building that I'm potentially getting for the quarter drop. It was literally filmed. The parade scene was right. The parade scene at the end? Yeah. So I'm going to try to incorporate Stand By Me and Animal House somehow into the arcade with some memorabilia or something. Super cool. Okay. A couple more left. Alien or Predator?
    59:48
    Oh, both are like my all-time favorites. Alien. But Predator is like the perfect action movie. Yeah. It's the most machismo, badass, kick-butt movie I think ever put to film. I think it's one of Arnold's best, right? Oh, I do too. I think, yeah. It's because he's not the only star. He's not the only, like, it's a whole cast that makes that movie work. And I was a big wrestling fan, so he had Jesse Dabati in there. I was like, oh. Who crushes it in that movie? He does. He's so good. But, of course, Alien, Ridley Scott, all that. It just was the anniversary, and they re-released it into theaters, and I went to the movie theater and saw Alien. How did it sound? It was great. Yeah. Yeah, it was a pack theater and it was great. And it should be. And one of the first female action heroes, you know, Ripley. She's my favorite. I've got an autographed movie poster from Sigourney.
    60:48
    That's pretty cool. Better game on Windows 95, Minesweeper or Space Cadet 3D Pinball? Oh, well, I played more Minesweeper. I like both. And most people, I think, would expect me to say Space Cadet. But I'm going to say Minesweeper. I played so much of it. How pissed would you be at the end when you could have done and you got a guess? Oh, my God. It's amazing that games that simple could hold our attention so long. I know. Did you play Baseball Stars on NES? Because that's a baseball. I have a Baseball Stars question on NES. I played it later in life. OK, so pick one of these teams to choose from. American Dreams, World Powers or the Lovely Ladies? Oh gosh, I don't think I have a good answer for that Lovely ladies, I'll just go off I played American Dreams That was one of the games That for the NES That you could save with a code And I had a book And I played 162 game season With a custom And it would keep your stats And at the end of it You would write down this code And then you put the code in And it would bring up your wow cool it was really cool but you know it took a lot of dedication to play 162 games on this hell yeah it does for baseball stars all right uh last one dragon's lair okay 50 cents or not was it 50 cents or not yeah no it was worth 50 cents yeah oh was it worth 50 cents because i say that's the first 50 cent video i know was it worth it okay yes or no um yes don bluth artwork laser disc technology in the arcade incredible artwork it's hard as can be like the thing is it worth it i don't know you stay you go when you put your 50 cents in and you play for 10 seconds so i don't know if that game pissed me off oh yeah definitely but they had to right i mean those laser disc players were expensive they broke down all the time from an operator standpoint that was the right price. You can't find them with the original LaserDisc anymore. No, they're all converted to what is it? Daphne. Yeah, that's sad actually. Yeah. It's pretty cool because it did have like a second delay when you made the move across the sea. Yeah, I've always really liked Dragon's Lair. Actually, that's the name of my Discord, Dragon's Lair. Just because I thought, oh, it's arcade related and everyone hanging out and I was like that's perfect well co that was it that was the hurry up thank you so much I love it this was absolutely amazing I'm so happy to have met you a special shout out likewise uh from Cole from Electric Bat Cat and the Electric Bat Cat podcast he sent me an IM and he said Jamie get co on I heard at the end of your last episode and I messaged um Kale and said yeah Yeah. No, I know what you did. And I said, how nice of that. You know, thank you so much. That was really nice of you. So thank you, Cale. Cale is so nice. I saw you wearing one of their shirts the other day. Yeah, I got one of their shirts and I can't wait to make it down there because that's like when I think of cool arcades, Electrobat is like right there top. I want to go on a Tuesday, don't you? and yeah a hundred and something people playing pinball amazing we not do that i know it'd be fun um seriously so if you're not following co on a quarter drop uh arcade on instagram you're making a complete mistake all right the the reels are absolutely fantastic we've heard him talk about it anything else we didn't cover no i think we covered it that was so much fun thank you oh my gosh and i expect an invite for july 25th yeah july 26 2025 which is my birthday oh there you go yeah um that's the idea open on my birthday hey come on again before we're closer to that date i would love to anytime there's no reason we can't have you on again that would be fantastic and that we we didn't even scratch the surface because i could have talked to you for three hours today absolutely it's so much we have in common it's so funny yeah i see that i love it And I know I'm going to get a bunch of crap that I had all these video game consoles. Let me just tell people I worked, OK, from 12 years old to 16. I worked at a golf course and I printed money as a bag boy. Yeah. And yeah, but it all in the video games. Nice. Yeah. Money well spent. It really was. All right. Thank you so much. Appreciate you. Thank you, Jamie. I literally could have talked to him for two hours and there's no question in my mind that I'm going to have him on again. Co is awesome. Thank you for all the recommendations that have been coming in through IM and email to Wormhole Pinball at gmail.com. I'm booked solid to mid-August. And so next week I'm talking to another cool dude that I recently met at the Wormhole a couple of months ago. He's one of the largest European distributors of pinball and arcade games and growing social media presence, Stefan Riedler. So that's going to be really cool. We put out a lot of content recently. So check us out on all the socials and Twitch and all that stuff.
    66:15
    That's it. I've kept you long enough. Remember our number one rule here at the wormhole. I'm not going to swear because Ko is so nice. Don't be an a-hole.