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Your Wish is Granted! | Tales of the Arabian Nights by Pedretti Reveal Podcast

LoserKid Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·50m 2s·analyzed·Jul 8, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.020

TL;DR

Pedretti Gaming reveals Tales of Arabian Nights remake strategy, partnerships, and pricing rationale.

Summary

Andrea Pedretti and Aaron Davis from Fast Pinball discuss the development of Tales of the Arabian Nights remake, a new pinball machine by Pedretti Gaming. They detail the design philosophy balancing nostalgia with modernization, the decision to hire Chicago Pedretti Gaming software team, gameplay enhancements including deeper rules and bug fixes, manufacturing challenges from Italy to the US, and the justification for premium pricing. Two editions are available: Legacy (original artwork) and 30th Anniversary (modernized art by Brian Allen), with the Anniversary edition sold out.

Key Claims

  • Tales of the Arabian Nights original production was approximately 3,000 units and was one of the lower production runs for Williams

    high confidence · Josh Roop / Scott Larson discussion citing historical production data

  • The 30th Anniversary edition of Tales of the Arabian Nights is sold out; Legacy Edition remains available

    high confidence · Josh Roop opening remarks directing customers to Flip N Out Pinball

  • Pedretti Gaming hired the software team from Chicago Pedretti Gaming (CGC) to develop the code for Tales of the Arabian Nights

    high confidence · Andrea Pedretti and Aaron Davis discussing decision-making process

  • The game will ship with two selectable rule sets: extended modern rules and original classic rules accessible via service menu

    high confidence · Andrea Pedretti confirming players can toggle between versions

  • The original Tales of the Arabian Nights had shallow gameplay with some modes completable with single actions (e.g., one pop bumper hit)

    high confidence · Josh Roop observing shallow design; Andrea Pedretti confirming and addressing with rule extensions

  • Pedretti Gaming operates two US warehouses for rapid parts replacement and customer support

    high confidence · Andrea Pedretti detailing customer service infrastructure

  • Lloyd Olson, a prominent industry technician, has been hired by Pedretti Gaming for US-based customer support

    high confidence · Andrea Pedretti naming Lloyd Olson as new US support staff

  • Remaking a game is harder than creating an original game despite common industry perception

    medium confidence · Andrea Pedretti discussing 10 years of industry experience, contrasting remake difficulty with original design

  • Funhouse had approximately 5 times as many units produced as Tales of the Arabian Nights

Notable Quotes

  • “Tales of the Arabian Nights is one of my favorite games. I really love the theme, the atmosphere, and I'm a huge fan of the layout. And I said, okay, I think we can go all in with this amazing game.”

    Andrea Pedretti @ early in interview — Establishes personal motivation and design vision for the remake project

  • “I think it's more easier to do a remake. It's absolutely more easier. But in real life, it's harder.”

    Andrea Pedretti @ manufacturing discussion — Challenges industry assumption about remake complexity vs original design

  • “The feeling is the really, really most important word when it comes to Remake. The game needs to play great, yes. That is important. But you need to feel like the original.”

    Andrea Pedretti @ design philosophy section — Core philosophy: tactile authenticity matters more than perfect gameplay mechanics in remakes

  • “He already had a very high bar of how this game needed to feel... he can just control exactly the way that he wants. So he's not going to have to make excuses for or compensate for.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ software discussion — Highlights importance of responsive electronics for programmer control and game feel

  • “We are not going to do a 2.0 stuff like that. We are going to extend existing game rules because we really think that they are already amazing, but a little bit too short.”

    Andrea Pedretti @ rules expansion discussion — Strategy for deepening gameplay without alienating purists or rewriting core game

  • “It's like you want that experience to be great. But again, like in these games that have smaller runs, it's like you look at Funhouse versus Totan. It was like five times as many Funhouses made.”

    Aaron Davis @ rarity discussion — Contextualizes why original Arabian Nights is hard to find and why remake matters to most collectors

  • “We have two warehouses in the U.S. and we ship past actually to them... they can ship back the game to us. We can refurbish and send them back or we can ship the part that they need to refurbish their game more or less the day after.”

Entities

Andrea PedrettipersonAaron DavispersonJosh RooppersonScott LarsonpersonSampersonLloyd OlsonpersonBrian AllenpersonTodd McCulloughperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Official reveal of Tales of the Arabian Nights remake by Pedretti Games with two edition tiers; 30th Anniversary edition sold out, Legacy edition available

    high · Josh Roop opening remarks confirming availability status through Flip N Out Pinball distributor

  • ?

    design_innovation: Fast Pinball developed custom circuit board platform for Tales of the Arabian Nights with transparent PCB options and responsive latency-free control for software developers

    high · Aaron Davis discussing 'transparent PCBs underneath' and 'new tech things' integrated into game; emphasis on latency control

  • ?

    code_update: Tales of the Arabian Nights shipping with extended rules that deepen shallow original gameplay while preserving classic mode via service menu; possible mini wizard mode addition

    high · Andrea Pedretti detailing rule extension strategy: 'extend existing game rules... extend the game code in a way where do not change the game experience'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Lloyd Olson, prominent industry technician, hired by Pedretti Games for US-based customer support infrastructure

    high · Andrea Pedretti: 'We have hired more people in Dutch, in the U.S., on their territory... Lloyd Olson, a really, really famous kind of people tech'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Core philosophy for Tales of the Arabian Nights remake prioritizes 'feel' and tactile authenticity over mechanical perfection; dual edition strategy (original vs modernized artwork) addresses nostalgia vs innovation tension

    high · Andrea Pedretti: 'The feeling is the really, really most important word when it comes to Remake... you need to feel like the original'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.033

0:00
Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. I am Josh Roop. With me, my co-captain, Scott Larson. Scott, it's new pinball. New pinball is always good, right? New pinball is always good, and especially when you're getting something with a legacy connection with people. And it probably harkens back to what people really liked about pinball when they were younger and got into it. That's why these remakes are awesome. So excited to talk about Tales of the Arabian Nights today. And if you're going to get a Tales of the Arabian Nights, where are you getting it from? So reach out to Zach and Nicole Minney at Flippin' Out Pinball. They've always been helpful with us. Now, there are two versions right now, but right now the 30th anniversary is sold out, but the Legacy Edition is still available. And so go ahead and reach out to them for all your pinball needs. And we are excited to see this game. So it is sold out through Flippin' Out for the, we're going to call it the LE edition because that's kind of typically what it was, right? But if, like you were saying, the legacy edition or the classic edition is, still want one? You can't get one. And speaking of getting one of these, we have two wonderful guests on today. We have the man himself, Andrea Pendretti joining us to talk about not only this, but everything they've been doing and the mastermind behind the circuit boards and whatnot, Aaron Davis from Fast Pinball. Thanks for coming on, you two. Hi.
1:34
Hello. We talk pinball? Yeah, let's talk pinball. We're excited to have you both on. All right. You went with Funhaus originally. That's one of my personal favorites. That's what I grew up on. I love, I just love this game. Obviously, I have one. It's fantastic. I've really enjoyed this. So I heard Tales of the Arabian Nights was coming because I'm a huge J-pop fan. I love World Cup soccer. So it felt like a no-brainer to me to do Tales of the Arabian Nights. What made you guys decide to pick this as your next theme to move on from Funhaus? After Funhouse, we just wanted to make something that is really a kind of iconic game. And we had some other titles to pick and choose, but Tales of the Arabian Night is one of my favorite games. And I really love the theme, the atmosphere, and I'm a huge fan of the layout. And I said, okay, I think we can go all in with this amazing game. And try to make it in the best way as possible and try to make everyone in this community have one taste of the Arabian Night in their collection in a super modern and innovative way. And with a new platform made by our friend in the U.S. at the past Pinball. I mean, it's also the kind of thing that like, you know, your vision for how you wanted to do this game. I think that's the part that, you know, we as Fast always like to support the people building and designing and creating games. So like when you've got a very specific vision of how that should come across, we'll throw out little ideas and stuff like that that might extend that idea. Or how do you make it stable and reliable and make it so that the guys writing the code can like write the kind of game that they like and have the kind of control that they need. So I think that this project, definitely more than Funhouse, was like, there's Tales of Arabian Nights, but then it's like, how would we bring Tales of Arabian Nights together in this day and age? And I think that's what the vision that Andrea had with this stuff really comes through. And we just kind of said, how far can we push it? We had some crazy ideas we wanted to add in, like the transparent PCBs underneath, just new tech things we wanted to drop into the game. And it's not always going to fit, but maybe it does. And I think there were some fun ways to put that in the game. But no, I think your vision for how this game came together was head and shoulders above previous games. This is the kind of game that you walk up to and you're like, this is pretty. You can stand and look at it and it's just beautiful. So that's one of the questions when you're trying to deal with people's nostalgia factor. So anything, you know, we're looking at close to 30 years ago when this game came out. It was made by Williams. Production was around 3000. So it was one of the lower ones. And it was when pinball was probably declining a little bit. So I don't think too many people have the opportunity to play this game in a pristine form. So that's one thing that's great about having an opportunity to buy a newly minted classic game. Now, here's the question. When you're approaching these type of nostalgia things, there are ways of making it modern versus ways that people may feel that it's not exactly how they remember it. So how do you walk that line to say we want to bring the technology, we want to bring the game up to the current technology, but also remain consistent with the gameplay that people remember 30 years ago? And you can even talk about having the two options there and the two different R packages. So take it however you want. First of all I think is the artwork part because obviously what we have done on this game with the legacy edition we just wanted to keep the original artwork exactly the same as it was in the original game because we know that a lot of people are kind of nostalgic and they want to see exactly the game as it was made by Williams with the same artworks with everything in the same way. And what we have done with Tales of the Riven Knight, we have just chosen to do an anniversary edition with a super modernized look made by Brian Allen.

medium confidence · Aaron Davis comparing production volumes to illustrate rarity of original Arabian Nights

  • The game features mirror blades on the sides rather than traditional artwork to maintain clean aesthetics and improve lighting effects

    high confidence · Andrea Pedretti and Aaron Davis discussing design and lighting integration

    • Andrea Pedretti @ customer support section — Demonstrates commitment to rapid support infrastructure, differentiation from other manufacturers

  • “I think from my point of view, Tales of the Arabian Nights just needs mirror blades and no other artwork or stuff like that. It's already so great, the game and the atmosphere.”

    Andrea Pedretti @ design aesthetics discussion — Aesthetic philosophy: restraint and enhancement of existing visual strengths rather than addition

  • “For the community, a remake needs to cost less as a new kind of game... But in real life, if we go and look into Tales of the Arabian Nights in terms of parts and mechanical parts, it's a lot of parts and a really expensive part.”

    Andrea Pedretti @ pricing justification — Addresses key community friction point: price parity between remakes and originals despite different perceived complexity

  • “I'm like, you've never had a pinball machine damaged before? He's like, this is going to be your first and it will happen again. And I was like, that hurts my heart.”

    Josh Roop @ shipping discussion — Acknowledges industry-wide shipping damage as normalized problem, validates customer service emphasis

    • Pedretti Gaming
    company
    Fast Pinballcompany
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Flip N Out Pinballcompany
    Williamscompany
    Tales of the Arabian Nightsgame
    Funhousegame
    Attack from Marsgame
    Medieval Madnessgame
    Loser Kid Pinball Podcastorganization
  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Pedretti Games (Italy-based) leverages strong Italy-US shipping relationships for rapid transatlantic logistics; operates two US warehouses for rapid parts replacement and support

    high · Andrea Pedretti: 'The connection between U and Italy is pretty strong... we have really an amazing kind of distributor network in the U.S.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Shipping damage acknowledged as industry-normalized problem; Pedretti Games addresses via rapid parts replacement protocol (parts shipped 'more or less the day after' ticket submission)

    medium · Josh Roop anecdote about first shipping damage received; Pedretti response protocol via FreshDesk system and US warehouses

  • $

    market_signal: 30th Anniversary Edition sold out rapidly; Legacy Edition availability suggests tiered pricing/scarcity strategy; FOMO dynamics evident in limited edition structure

    high · Josh Roop: '30th anniversary is sold out, but the Legacy Edition is still available'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Two edition strategy addresses competing customer segments: purists wanting original aesthetic (Legacy) vs modernization seekers (Anniversary with Brian Allen art); both share mechanical/electronic upgrades

    high · Andrea Pedretti explaining split: 'Legacy Edition with the original artwork' vs 'Anniversary edition with a super modernized look made by Brian Allen'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Pedretti Games positions Tales of the Arabian Nights remake as cohesive with CGC remake standards (Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness) by hiring CGC's software team

    high · Josh Roop: 'you went out and get the crew that did the CGC remakes that people revere... Totan just slides right in next to Attack for Mars, Medieval Madness, and it feels cohesive'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Industry perception holds remakes are easier than originals; Pedretti Games' experience contradicts this, citing 10+ years proving remakes harder due to nostalgia variability and legacy expectations

    medium · Andrea Pedretti: 'I think it's more easier to do a remake... But in real life, it's harder' due to customer memory variability

  • ?

    design_innovation: Tales of the Arabian Nights integrates side LED lighting synchronized with DMD animations and backbox lighting to create immersive full-cabinet lighting experience; mirror blades replace traditional side artwork

    high · Aaron Davis: lighting 'coming up the sides in sync with what's on the display and the backbox... creates this whole full lighting experience'

    • 6:09
    But we keep it in a little bit separate things. Okay, if you want to have something super modern made by an amazing artist like Brian Allen, you can buy the anniversary. But if you want to be like more or less a normal kind of lover of the original Tales of the Arabian Nights, you can pick the Legacy Edition with the original artwork. I think it's something that we have to take always in consideration when you do a remake. There is always a part of your potential customers who want to have a lookalike original game with more modernized stuff, with something more light show, something like that, that makes the game more pretty. But they want to make their game feel and look exactly as the original one because they love Tales of the Baby Knight as it was. And another part is about how the game works. And that is something that we have to talk with Aaron about, the electronics part. Because it's really, really important. And we have spent a huge amount of hours, days and nights to make the game worse and plays. 99.9% as an original brand new case of the Arabian Nights. This is really, really important for us. And that's where we have spent a huge amount of hours.
    7:42
    Another part is about the software. Software is another really, really important part because a lot of people know exactly how Arabian Nights works and all the game rules and stuff like that. But with a new game, you can have a little bit more extension and you can go a little bit in the direction of the tournament players or customers who are really great on playing Pinball at their house and they want to have a game that is more deep in rules. And Tales of the Arabian Nights was not super deep, we can say in that way. And we worked a lot on that side too.
    8:29
    I was going to say too, even just Sam working on it, Sam's the lead programmer on the game, it was fantastic having his experience come in so that we're not having to say, make this feel right. It's like he already had a very high bar of how this game needed to feel. And in fact, this was the first project he'd worked on with Fast Electronics in it. And I loved our first initial interactions where it was like, yeah, so, but I mean, is there going to be latency? Do I need to deal with that? And I'm like, no, it's fine. It's fine. And he's like, well, yeah, but I mean, it can't be too slow with lag. I'm like, no, it's fine. And I kept kind of, when I looked back over the messages, I'm like, I kind of sound like a jerk here. Like, and we got on a call with Dave and with Eli, Dave, my partner with Fast and Eli who works with us on the daily basis. And we get on a call and in like two minutes, he asked a few key questions, got some very specific answers that talk about like the kind of control that he has from the software side. So he's not going to have to make excuses for or compensate for. He can just control exactly the way that he wants. So I think that was like a big thing for him to be able to say, like, I know what I need to do here from a pinball expectation side. And him having worked on the software for other remakes in the past, he already knows what that acceptable threshold is. And it's like, it's got to feel like it has to feel. So I think it was very cool to be able to support him and not have to teach him what was important and what mattered. So all of that stuff under the hood made the vision and the play experience of Totan just, you're in the world now. You're not like you're not judging every input and output and how everything feels. But I think that's a pretty important part. So once people are able to kind of suspend the critique of it's not as good as it was before, they don't need to do that. So they can just get in and enjoy the game right away. Well, and let's be honest, too. I mean, there's been a handful of remakes made from a handful of companies and CGC has been considered one of the upper echelons of that. And so for you guys, I got to applaud you to go out and get the crew that did the CGC remakes that people revere as some of the best remakes that have been made and to bring that in to Pedretti and to utilize that.
    10:47
    Now Totan just slides right in next to your Attack for Mars, your Medieval Madness, and it feels cohesive. This game looks fantastic. The lighting looks great. Just tell me a little bit more about what did make you decide, you know, we're bringing on CGC. How does that even happen, you know?
    11:08
    Well, after we have finalized all the production for Funhaus, we just wanted to see what was all the feedback and direction from the Pinball community, all of our customers. We read a lot and we have spent a lot of time reviewing all the feedback from all of our customers and players and people who have played the fan house more or less everywhere in the world. And we just choose to give to our customers the best experience as possible in our next game.
    11:51
    And, you know, we have to be honest here and we already know that Games From CGC was amazing on the software side. And as you can easily understand, the season was not so hard for us. We just go and we pick the best person as possible that can work with us cooperate and make the game that I really love the best game as possible for our customers and for the Pinball community Because I think it really important to take into consideration that a huge amount of Pinball people didn have played Arabian Nights at all because it a kind of hard to find game and you can find in really good collection but it really hard to find for example on a public location or something like that and normal Pinball people cannot easily find one to play And we try to find the best way as possible to produce obviously the best game in the quality for the parts standpoint and for the software. And that is really, really important to us as Pinduetti that our game is on the software side, I think on the same level as other remakes that was made in the past.
    13:25
    From CGC, we can say their name. But yeah, it was kind of easy to choose, to be honest. It took one minute to be taken by me. I love that decision. It's like we can get everything all tuned up just right, and then you want someone to just push it to the limits. Like, you know, on the software side, at the same time as like on the aesthetic overall of the game. Like, you know, you don't want any one of them to have to be like, hey, it's beautiful, but it's kind of not fun to play or it's it's kind of inconsistent. And I think that, you know, again, that's that's one of the best parts about, I think, the experience of everybody kind of involved is like everybody's standards are real high. And I think that like, you know, Andrea's decision on like, you know, getting the new programmers and stuff involved was really about like, let's make no excuses here. Let's raise the bar all around because that's going to encourage and motivate everybody else to like do their part even better. One complaint about Tales of the Arabian Nights is it is super shallow. Like one of the modes, you start and you have to get like one paw bumper and that completes the mode. So is there going to be more software to help deepen that code a little bit?
    14:33
    Yeah, it looks like that you want to have some insider news and some news. Some really. Yeah, well, what we are doing and what we are working right now is to extend the rules on the game. And it's completely different from what we have done in the past. We are not going to do a 2.0 stuff like that game. We are going to extend existing game rules because we really think that they are already amazing, but a little bit too short, as you say. And extend the game code in the way where do not change the game experience. What I'm saying, if you are not an amazing player, maybe like me, you can do one pop bumper and just go straight to collect the jewel. But if you are a great player, you can enhance the jewel and get more points. And when you collect the jewel, you have a huge amount of more points and that generates more... I don't know if I can say everything, but you can get a little bit more extension on the rules and maybe another mini wizard mode. I don't know if I can say so, but we are going to see it pretty soon, I think. But yeah, that is the idea, to extend the rules and the code in a way where the players, the two potential players, the really beginner or not so great like me that I like to shop in general everywhere, And a good player can have a really different or extended game experience. That's the absolute idea. Yeah. I guess I want to add, too, that you're not a terrible player. I mean, I've been over to your facilities two different times now, and one of my favorite things is I'll be out milling around on the floor bugging people about something, and I hear games getting played, and it'll be like you and Gabrielle up there playing. And it's not just like, look at this game. It's like they're trying to beat each other. But I mean, it's great to see that like people building and manufacturing pinball also playing these games and playing them hard and being able to like have that experience, not just standing back from your offices and watching boxes ship out. I mean, these guys like play pinball. And I think that's something I think that like any of these things that people build and design and create, if the people building and creating them and taking them to market are actually like players. That just kind of seeps out into it. And I think that's something that I always loved seeing was like, I'm out here trying to be productive on their floor and they're up there playing and now I want to go and play more pinball. It's a good vibe over there for sure. Now, there are a lot of rumors regarding what limitations you have. So, for example, if there are software, if there are known software bugs in a classic version, are you able to actually fix those when you're actually making the making remaking the game? That's one question. And two, are you going to be able to, hey, say you want to just play the classic version, even with a single pop bumper target, are you able to swap back and forth between the extended code and the classic code? Yes, we can absolutely do that. In the service menu, you can just go and choose the version that you want to play. If you want to play the original game rules, you can just go there and say active the original game rules and you can play the game as it is in the original. And with the orange display, Dottomatics style too. And on the bugs, we have worked quite a lot to get all the feedback online about the well-known bugs about Arabia Night, and we have fixed them more or less all. And some of the bug in the game was kind of hard to fix because you risk to change a little bit the game structure, we can call it that way, the game experience.
    19:03
    But some of the bugs that are kind of, we have just removed it quite easily. It's like exploits in the game. People know the game, they can just fast track their way through it and stuff. And that's not fun for anybody. So those kind of changes, it's less of a bug fix, more of just to make the game play better. I know that there was some hurdles with Funhouse. What did you learn from Funhouse going into Tales of the Raving Nights to help with production and the physical build of the game? Well, I think it's kind of a lot because for many people, I think if you go outside and ask about in the pinball world, it's easier for you to make a remake game or a completely brand new game. I think that 99% of the people are going to reply. It's more easier to do a remake. It's absolutely more easier. But in real life, it's harder. We have produced original games and remakes and after, I think, 10 years that I work in this industry, I can easily tell you that it's more harder to produce a remake because you have a huge amount of people that in their mind, the game is supposed to play differently in the remake, in the remake world. Because maybe they have played Arabia Night 10 years ago or 20 years ago or a brand new Arabia Night or a not so great Arabia Night or they played one time at a show or one time at a location or blah, blah, blah. It's always kind of hard to make all of these people happy.
    20:51
    And to try to make everyone happy, we have to spend a huge amount of time on fan house first, but after fan house, we have to sit down and take all the stuff that we have done in a great way on fan house and try to make greater for our Arabian night. And for example, we have spent a huge amount on the flipper filling, for example. It seems kind of easy stuff, but it's really, really hard stuff to reproduce the same flipper filling on a new remake compared to an old one, Arabian Nights, that is driven by a different system and with a different software architecture and blah, blah, blah. We have spent a huge amount of time there, and we have spent a huge amount of time on making all the mechs works better, not compared to the original game, but works great in the new modern world, because a lot of mechs did not exist anymore, and we have to produce from more or less. With all the drawings that was from original Williams CAD. And it was a lot of work, but what we have learned is to try to make the best game in the quality side and spend a huge amount of time on feeling. I think the feeling is the really, really most important word when it comes to Remake. I think on the remake side, the game needs to play, yes, great. That is important. But you need to feel like the regional. That is really, really important for more than 99% of our customers. Well, and with the remakes being harder, it's like imagine putting a game out and you have an instant critical assessment of the game. Not just like, oh, I think it looks pretty or it seems fun. It's like this part is slightly different than the one I knew. And it's not necessarily like it may have been a game that was altered, but it's the only one they ever knew. To them, it's wrong. And they may be wrong. So I think that like that's something that is difficult about the remakes is kind of resetting people's first experience with it. You know, it's like you want that experience to be great. But again, like in these games that have smaller runs, I mean, like you look at Funhouse versus Totan. I mean, it was like five times as many Funhouses made. So a lot more people got to experience a fun house like in a reasonable state where Toadans are either like pristine and hidden away at people's houses. Or, you know, the one we had here that we got from Todd McCullough to use as a dev game had been on location and beat to hell. Like it's like every post is bent, pieces are broken. So when I asked if we could acquire that and then put it into a dev process over here, he was all thumbs up. He's like, that game has seen a rough life. You know, so the idea of like being able to get one of these that had lived a rough life and then replace it with one that's better. Again, like this is something that like, you know, people who experienced that totem on location experienced a rough totem, you know. So are we going to have to undo their opinion of this or are they going to be so excited about how pretty the new one is that they just dive right in and never think again? And I think that's that's what you can try to do with the remake is make the experience, you know, fresh and new so that you kind of suspend all that nitpicky little stuff. Now, let's also talk about the challenges that you have with manufacturing. So you're an Italian company, so you're actually manufacturing in the northern part of Italy. Now, the market for pinball, I know, is worldwide, but a high percentage of your sales will be in the United States. So can you address the challenges it is about manufacturing outside of the U.S. and bringing to the U.S. market or even to the international market? And what are some ways you able to overcome that I think the connection between the U and Italy is pretty strong And it pretty easy for us to ship stuff in the US at a good price And it's really fast. And to be honest, I think it's more harder sometimes to have a better kind of shipping and relation inside of Europe or with some of Australia, for example, on the price standpoint. And I think we are really in a kind of lucky spot of the world here in Italy if we want to do business with the US, to be honest, because the business partnership between Italy and the US are so strong that we didn't have any kind of problem to ship our games or get any problems during, I don't know, international shipping or transport or stuff. And we are super lucky that we have really an amazing kind of distributor network in the U.S. that are helping us a lot on get games out to our customers and get our game to customers' house in a really safe way. That's just really, really important. The worst feeling is when you open a new Pimball machine and you are super happy and excited to play it and it's maybe destroyed by transport. That can happen, unfortunately, to everyone in the world. But we didn't have any of this kind of issue. And that's just really, really great from my point of view. That's just really important, I think. Pimball is never destroyed by shipping. I don't know what you're talking about. That never happens. I had a bunch of cabinets shipped up here that we buy second cabinets from the homebrewers and stuff. And the guy brings a truck and he's like, oh, I got some damage on this one. I'm like, I've never had damage here before. He's like, you've never had a pinball machine damaged before? He's like, this is going to be your first and it will happen again. And I was like, that hurts my heart because I don't want to have broken stuff show up. But now I'm just like everybody else. I've got broken pinball parts arriving at my house. So if you're shipping from Italy and then you're bringing it over, do you have enough supply that if there's an issue with people, are they able to get a quick replacement? Because I know some of the challenges with other manufacturers is they actually want you to ship it back to them to have it fixed and then send it back to you, which seems like a crazy amount of turnaround. So what is your remedy on the horrible situation where someone gets a damaged product? Yeah, on this kind of really horrible kind of situation, we have two warehouses in the U.S. and we ship past actually to them. We have this kind of situation really nailed down in a fast way where they can ship back the game to us. We can refurbish and send them back or we can ship the part that they need to refurbish their game more or less the day after when they open up a ticket to our FreshDesk system. And that is really, really important, I think, because for the customer support and customer standpoint, we have worked a lot on that side. And we have hired more people in Dutch, in the U.S., on their territory. And one is Lloyd Olson, a really, really famous kind of people tech in the industry and in the world, I think, in the galaxy, we can go in that way. And he's super happy to reply on direct phone calls for customers who have problems or who want to have some information or who want to have someone who reply to their question about the game. Because, you know, sometimes some customers don't know the behavior of the game and want to have someone who reply to their potential question about how the game plays or it's normal. And sometimes the reply is easy, it's yes. But if you have a person who replies in five minutes, you feel safe and you feel in a great kind of spot. And that's your decision to buy one of our games. It was a great decision. We have worked on that way too. And we have hired more people who have more parts starting in the US and Piav Lloyd. He's great. I would say the looks of this game are amazing. The lighting on this, between the lighting and the mirror blades, it just looks more modernized. What made you guys decide to head in this direction with the lighting and whatnot? Yeah, we have a choice to use the, well, I think just to be clear that from my point of view, Thales of the Revanite just needs mirror blades and no other artwork or stuff like that. It's already so great, the game and the atmosphere in the game that needs other stuff included in the artwork standpoint. And we added the new side lights because we have seen that it's something that can generate a lot of great momentum and a new atmosphere and can give to our game a huge benefit because you know that on the Caribbean there are some really cool kind of momentum and there are some really cool kind of new... Lights and atmosphere that can be generated during every kind of tales. And this is something that we have worked a lot on. Generate the animation on the display that are kind of in the same atmosphere and colors pattern as the light show on the play field. This is really, really important to get the final drape-looking kind of our game. This is really, really something that we have worked a lot on. And the mirror blades are like the way to go for this game because it's got a lot of high stuff along the sides. So the idea of packing a lot along the sides with artwork would kind of clutter it up, in my opinion. So the mirror blades kind of give you this landscape you're looking into. And I think that the way that Andrea set up the back wall with the LED light in it, so it looks like the sky in the background behind the buildings is like, you know, the lighting is changing there. But it looks like it's kind of moving beyond the edges so that the skyline carries on as you look back into the game.
    32:04
    But the way you're describing like that lighting that kind of goes everywhere, it really is something that like as you're playing it, it feels so full and complete. And it's only like when I'm watching like a video I took later on to see what it is I was feeling because it's like the light coming up the sides in sync with what's on the display and the back box, even like what's behind the back box, like off the wall there. It creates this whole full lighting. So it's not even just like you're standing. If you're standing back watching somebody else play, you're looking at this whole big experience happening over there. And it's not just watching somebody's score go up. It's like they're having an experience that you're going to be up next to go and play. So I think that that experience going out beyond just the playfield itself, it's really immersive. It's really complete. And I think that's one of the coolest parts about the enhancements that were added to this game. And you did the same treatment for the DMD, the classic DMD. So you mentioned before that the historical one is kind of that yellow-orange color, but you did the same treatment with the dots that other remakes have done, where you made it a little more detailed but still kept that dot matrix feeling with the colorized. Is that fair to say how you've done that? Yeah, we can say it that way. And obviously on that we can have style to have an animation guy who made the display. But yes, we cannot give too much of his secrets away. But yeah, he did an amazing work on the display to try to generate more detailed kind of animation. That is really, really important. But yeah. Now, in addition to this, there is one. The challenge with making a remake is because when you look at modern games, there are more bells and whistles that typically come with the games, whether or not it's a mechanism, whether or not it's light show, whether or not it's anything going on. And the challenge is when people see a classic game, the knee-jerk reaction is, hey, why is it priced this level when it's a classic game? So let's talk a little bit about the pricing.
    34:28
    I know there's a lot that goes into just even the hardware and making it. So tell us how we came to this price and why does it still cost as much as a modern game that has more bells and whistles? Yeah, I think on the pricing, I think there is a kind of, it's really not so easy to explain because there is a kind of misunderstanding between houses, Pimball Manufacturing and the community. For the community, a remake needs to cost less as a new kind of game, you know, an original kind of new design. But in real life, if we go and look into Tales of the Ribbonite in terms of parts and mechanical parts, it's a kind of, I can tell you, it's a lot of parts and a really expensive part. And we have to redo a huge amount of impossible to find parts. For example, I think another huge benefit for the community is that all the parts that we have developed are more or less all made from original drawings by Polly Williams. And if one of our, of your, or the people who is watching this interview need a part for refurbish their game that they need, I don't know, they have lost one of the cages, you know, and they don't know how to find, it's impossible to find kind of parts. If they just send us an email, we can ship one to them. This is a really kind of great new opportunity for the Pinball world. And we did the same on the LAMP and on the Gini because we have found out that on the market, the 90% of the parts, because we have quite a huge, like more than 20 LAMPs and Gini from different webshops and parts suppliers. And we have found out that all of these parts was made with, I cannot say, we can just say it that way, not from the original Bally Williams.
    36:50
    Most variations. Yeah. And what we have done there is just we choose to, okay, we use the original Bally Williams CAD, the original design, and we go and reproduce the original Gini measurement and everything as it was the original one and the lamp. And we have done more or less the same for a huge amount of other parts. And that kind of stuff is expensive, you know. And on the same side a lot of people say okay but you have already the software That is something that more or less a lot of people say but the software is already there No we have spent I think more than 10 months to redo the software and to make it work in a modern way to just have the possibility to fix the bug that you were talking about We are not talking about something that is emulated. It's something that was completely redone with a new kind of machine and it's another part that is kind of expensive. And it's the same for the animation. All the animation was redone. And we are talking about, I think, more than 25,000 PNG completely redone by hand. Pixel by pixel, you know, we are talking about a lot of work. Plus, obviously, I think the game, we did have saved, we can call it a cent on the quality and on the stuff included in the game. And that ends up in a price that is, from my point of view, is the correct price for a brand new Arabian Night with all the stuff that we are including and all the amazing work that, from my point of view, we have done. Because, I mean, you're really using, like, the original Totan as, like, this is the game we want to go and make and then extend. It wasn't like you're copying and pasting and then adding a few little things. It really is like, I mean, Andre mentioned like the mechanisms. I mean, it's like, look under a Totan. It's like there's a lot of unique mechs in there that it takes to do those things, like the cages that come up there to grab the balls and stuff like that. I mean, there were some things that even in that regard, like because, you know, Sam has rewritten the code for this, there were things that like if you look in an original Totan, they have like dual wound coils on those cages coming up. But due to the number of drivers they had to use to control them in the end, that's why when they come up, they sit there and buzz super loud because they pop up and then they're holding them and pulsing them a different way. And we looked at that and said, well, if we're going to use these, we have the available drivers. Let's use like the hold coil. So when they pop up, we can hold them once they're up. And that makes for a more stable electronics foundation. So it's not like just buzzing really loud, which is strange for someone who doesn't know pinball to know like, is this wrong? Is it jammed up? It can be a shocking sound. But some of those areas are places that we can make it actually physically feel better. So when Sam knows now that he has two drivers to work with and so he can go into his original code, change that so when it pops it up and then switches to a hold coil, now it's holding those cages up. Those are the kind of enhancements that are much more straightforward to do when you have a fresh code base. So while the existing game was there, it was almost like an inspiration point to go and say, recreate this thing that existed. And I think that now being able to change that stuff into having, you know, RGB LEDs or RGBW LEDs all throughout the game, you're having to change what used to be a light going on off into when this signal would have happened. I want to play this lighting effect instead. And again, like the way that that code base is set up, it makes it more straightforward to integrate that kind of thing. And I mean, and it just looks super pretty. So the idea of like now, if we think an effect that translated from an incandescent bulb is too obnoxious in LEDs, You know, it might just be too jarring. Those things can be adjusted. And I think that's one of the things I love most about seeing the videos of the game being played is like it really is really pretty. And I see some of those things knowing how the code works behind the scenes and how LEDs and stuff are controlled where it's not just turn that light on and off. It might be a shading show pattern that gives it a twinkle. And it may be, you know, something that you almost don't even notice. It doesn't stand out as this shockingly cool lighting thing, but being able to appreciate how good lighting design affects the game, the attention to that detail through this game is super, super cool.
    41:38
    I think there's a lot of people excited to get their hands on this game. You've talked about all $3.99 has sold out from Pedretti to dealers, and you're focusing now on the Legacy Edition. When can we start seeing these being shipped? When can we start getting them in homes to start enjoying these wonderful games? Yep, the games are already right now on the assembly lines and we are going to post some pictures and show something pretty soon. And the first games are going to be sent out in the mid of this month to some to US, some to Australia and some here in Europe. But we are going to shift the, I think it's something like the 60% anniversary edition, 30% legacy edition.
    42:33
    And I think that people can enjoy and play the game pretty soon. That is really, really important for us to get this very first feedback and have people that start playing and love the game like we are loving here. In our factory and assembly that we play nonstop already at night, to be honest. And I'm practicing, yeah.
    42:59
    I'm excited to get a full-dressed one here. Like, people have started to see, like, you know, we as fast, like, from the supporting standpoint, we're more excited about the engineering side. We, you know, we want to see a game get played to death, like, just beat up, you know. And it's not like, you know, not the judgment of, like, what do you think of the game, whatever. It's like, we're, like, touching coils. We want to see, are things heating up? Is the code driving all the stuff correctly? So when this game was announced, I'm getting messages going, when can I come over and beat up on a Totan game? I'm sorry, I mean, play it very aggressively, you know? So a lot of these tournament players and stuff like that, they really know this game super well, and they're excited about the idea of it potentially being in tournament play because, you know, as more and more tournament players are becoming aware that some of these titles that have just never been included, A new title is fun. So as soon as they hear that option exists, they want to play it as soon as possible, you know, so they can get their hands on it. They can learn those subtle code changes so that when it does show up someplace, they've got some inside advantage. So, yeah, getting those over here and getting people playing them will be fantastic for sure. What do you gauge your success by to make this a successful adventure to say, OK, so we were able to do Funhouse. We were able to do Tales of the Arabian Nights and exploring possibilities of doing future games. So for you, what is the success with this release?
    44:25
    My personal, I think, success is when the first customers receive the game and they feel the difference or they feel how the games play and they feel how much love and passion we put in producing this game. You know, it's something that I think some customers are going to really feel it. On the sales, obviously, if you have a huge amount of sales, we are going to be super happy and we go and have some good kind of time in the company. But obviously from my point of view right now, this game is successful when people see the passion, the quality, and they start feeling how much we have put in this game and get excited to get our next remake. And that's the real success. It's building our community. And we already have one. I receive a lot of emails and texts on my phone and some messages to Facebook, obviously, from our guys and customers and people in our community. But it's growing, and I think with this game it's growing more, and the more people we have in our community and we have in our kind of potential by at least for our next remake, it's our main success here. I think it's really cool, too, you brought up the idea of the people that feel compelled to message, even just right now. Like, you know, the people that have had their hands on it and like, you know, some of the showrooms and things like that are getting prepared to stream it and things.
    46:21
    You know, I'll get messages like about it, like, hey, I finally got to play it. Like, this feels great. You know, and again, it's like they don't have to do that. You know, I mean, it'll come out in their streams and things like that. But I think it's kind of special when people make a personal reach out just to say like, hey, I understand how much freaking work it is to make a pinball machine. And I'm standing here in front of it right now, and I think this is cool, and I just wanted to make sure you knew how cool I thought this was. And those little reach-outs, they mean a lot. I think that in pinball in general, the critical things that get spread out all the time all over the Internet, it's not hard to find a critical comment about a pinball machine. They're everywhere. But I think it's one of those things that it puts a smile on your face. It makes working the late hours not feel so bad when somebody sends you a message and says, dude, keep doing this. You're doing a good job. So to everybody that's sent messages to Andrea and their crew and even to us over here, it's well received. And it's not to say don't send the critical things, but if you've got a critical case that you can say, hey, if you do this, this, and this, I see this happen, the problem solver in me goes, let's dive in and fix that. But I think the interest in people who are in the community and have spent time with games, feeling compelled to engage directly, that is what pinball is all about. In the end, we're all building and making and creating things, but the time spent with people who are enjoying them, like Andrea was saying, that's the part that really matters. All the money and selling stuff aside, it's like, what a cool place to be in when you make a product that's intended to be enjoyed by a group of people or even you by yourself. That is a fun thing to be able to stand back and watch and see people enjoying it. Well, we appreciate having you guys on. It has been very insightful. I'm so excited for this. You guys have went leaps and bounds with this next remake. I can't wait to get my hands on and play one of these games. If you do want someone reaching out to you, give you feedback, whatever it may be, what is the best way to get a hold of you two? Well, we are not a huge company here in Piretti and more or less all the feedback through social media are pretty straightforward actually to me more or less. And we have our Facebook, our Instagram or just send us an email. It's pretty easy to find out our direct contact. And well, you can come here and visit us. Yeah, go to Italy. Yeah, if you want to take a flight here in Italy and you can visit the company like many others.
    48:59
    During the summit it's pretty common here. We have some from the U.S. and visit our company. But yeah, you just can send us an email or a text or a comment in social media and then reach to us.
    49:14
    Spend out the work. You can email Aaron at fastpinball.com if you need to send a message, but otherwise we're all around. And if you need to get a hold of us, we are LoserkidPinballPodcast at gmail.com on all the socials at LoserkidPinball. If you like the swag, if you want a fun house, Loserkid shirt at SilverBallSwag.com slash Loserkid.
    49:35
    What else am I missing, Scott? Why don't you give us our final thoughts? You know, just as they say in Toten, your wish is granted.
    49:50
    Thank you.