Episode 831: "A Case For Jaws"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·28m 1s·analyzed·Aug 8, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Kaneda advocates Jaws as Stern's potential flagship game but warns Stern must deliver assets and magic or risk losing collectors at current $10k-$13k price points.

Summary

Host Kaneda makes a comprehensive case for Jaws Pinball as a strong theme despite lukewarm community polling (65% said 'No' to 'Take My Money Now'), arguing it has everything needed for a masterpiece: Keith Elwin design, iconic IP, narrative simplicity, and mechanical potential (shark fin, barrel bumpers, mouth mechanism). He expresses concern about Stern's recent price increases and corner-cutting, predicts Jaws will outsell Godzilla, and analyzes secondary market pricing trends showing softening demand for expensive recent releases like Venom, Foo Fighters, and Godfather.

Key Claims

Jaws poll showed only 22% said 'Take My Money Now', 65% said 'No', 13% said 'Yes because Stern'
high confidence · Kaneda, citing his own community poll with ~200 respondents
Keith Elwin is the only designer at Stern currently able to get 'actual stuff' (magical mechanics) into his games
medium confidence · Kaneda's opinion based on observation of recent Stern releases
Jaws should be revealed in February and released before summer to avoid wait times
medium confidence · Kaneda's prediction/expectation
Jaws will outsell Godzilla and be the only pin Stern really needs to release next year
low confidence · Kaneda's prediction
Sonic license was taken from American Pinball; likely stolen by Stern rather than going to other manufacturers
low confidence · Kaneda speculating, admits uncertainty and distrust of David Fix's denials
American Pinball has not made a successful game in 6-7 years; recommends company rebrand with new personnel
medium confidence · Kaneda's editorial opinion from Saturday show
Secondary market for premium pinballs will soften; only handful of games will sustain $15k+ values
medium confidence · Kaneda's market analysis and prediction
Galactic Tank Force did not sell 500 units and has dead hype
low confidence · Kaneda's observation, unverified claim
Medieval Madness Royal Edition price may drop due to rumors of new nicer version coming from CGC
medium confidence · Kaneda citing rumor about future Medieval Madness production
Stern increased LE prices to $13k and produces 1000 units per LE, diluting collectibility vs. historical scarcity
high confidence · Kaneda analyzing current Stern product strategy

Notable Quotes

“If you're going to spend this much money on a modern pinball machine...I think Jaws is going to be the game...I think Jaws is a home run theme for pinball.”
Kaneda @ ~15:00 mark — Core thesis of the episode; main argument for Jaws as a masterpiece candidate
“If those barrels don't end up becoming the bumpers in this game, we might as well just cancel all of pinball. We might as well just say pinball has no imagination, has no creativity.”
Kaneda @ ~10:00 mark — Highlights mechanical design expectations for Jaws; sets high bar for authenticity
“At these prices I'm not gonna go in on a game unless it checks all of the boxes...they need to flex their muscle in Hollywood and go get the assets for this game.”
Kaneda @ ~25:00 mark — Articulates collector concern: premium pricing demands premium assets (film clips, voice)
“The days of dabbling in pinball are over. These games need to be masterpieces or I'm keeping my money in my wallet.”
Kaneda @ ~30:00 mark — Reflects broader market sentiment shift toward selective buying at high price points
“I'm seeing more and more games go up for sale. I'm seeing people put their Foo Fighters up for sale quickly now...they spent so much money on the game.”
Kaneda @ ~32:00 mark — Early signal of secondary market saturation and buyer's remorse on recent Stern releases
“Keith Elwin makes a game that you want to play, not a game that you just want to stare at.”
Kaneda @ ~55:00 mark — Distinguishes Keith Elwin's design philosophy; explains Godzilla's staying power vs. theme-only games
“Now someone buys a Stranger Things LE and they wanna sell it to you for ten thousand dollars more...the joy of buying pinball machines secondhand is gone.”
Kaneda @ ~70:00 mark — Expresses market fatigue and loss of hobbyist camaraderie; secondary market greed observation
“Every single thing they come out with is just mediocre...Galactic Tank Force is not. The game is just another mediocre game.”

Entities

Kanedaperson Keith ElwinpersonMichael BernardpersonSteven SpielbergpersonDavid Fixperson Ryan McQuaidperson John Borgperson

Signals

?
product_strategy: Kaneda argues that Stern's price increases to $10k-$13k require commensurate quality (assets, mechanics, art direction) or buyers will wait for dream themes rather than impulse-buy; expresses skepticism that Stern will deliver
high · At these prices I'm not gonna go in on a game unless it checks all of the boxes...The days of dabbling in pinball are over.
?
design_philosophy: Kaneda advocates for period-piece aesthetic in Jaws (1970s Marina feel, iconic poster, weathered look) rather than cartoony modern Stern style; wants visceral connection to source material
high · Michael Bernard is going to do the artwork...I really think they should try to go in a little bit of a different art direction...Stern doesn't do a good job at this.
?
design_innovation: Kaneda sets high expectations for Jaws mechanics: motorized shark fin popping from playfield, barrel-themed bumpers, shark mouth mechanism, lower playfield (underwater section), shaker motor integration with iconic music
high · If those barrels don't end up becoming the bumpers in this game, we might as well just cancel all of pinball...Do we not going to have a lower playfield where the shark appears?
?
licensing_signal: Kaneda emphasizes critical importance of securing original 1975 Jaws film assets (footage, Richard Dreyfuss voice work) vs. new animation; predicts game will fail without them; cites Jurassic Park as cautionary tale of asset-light design
high · I don't think this game is going to really work unless we have callouts from the original...they need to flex their muscle in Hollywood and go get the assets for this game.
~

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.084

0:00

You're gonna need a bigger pouch. Happy Monday everybody. Welcome to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. It's a new week. I always feel like with a new week comes new optimism in the world of pinball. Are we excited about where pinball is going? Are we excited about these and I'm going to ask on this episode of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, All right. Let's talk about Jaws. I'm surprised by the reaction from a lot of people because it is not an overwhelmingly take my money now theme for a lot of people. I'm a little bit shocked by this because Jaws is a very, very popular movie. It came out in 1975. Steven Spielberg, do you know it is in the Guinness World Record? I think it's in there for something like the first movie to make $100 million at the box You'll see a lot of Les Miller in romn aspects for some reason not always appearing. They fill the form if you think you can even manage them. If you sign it up, you win a poné to the 우리�ταν687anti Hartt дальше��니집 했는데uary 걸� Mail.com open ezpnaianybigger 43َ az tulee3 clarified게� Inner Meta towards transaction from Kaytee Calling ceiling foreigners and waitво summit에서를 잃은다 w weights'nvbaseidüte'nRx 칠을때는 few What's up, guys? I'm so excited for Jaws Pinball and I'm shocked by the results. Is Jaws a Take My MoneyNow theme? Yes said 22% of people. No said 65% of people. And 13% said yes because it's an Elwynn and Elwynn gets my money regardless. And we had almost 200 people vote on that poll. Now look, if I were to poll, is Godzilla a Take My MoneyNow theme for you, you would have said no. If I were to pull people and say is Foo Fighters a take my money now theme most of you would have said no. So here we have Jaws. Now I want to make a case for Jaws. I think Jaws is a terrific theme for pinball. It has everything you want to make a pinball machine great. I mean let's go down a list of why I think Jaws is going to be amazing. First and foremost it's Keith Elwin and he doesn't do anything wrong in the world of pinball and he's had a lot of time to work on this game. The COVID delay is going to make this game even more special in my honest opinion. So you've got Keith Elwin. Okay, so then you hand him Jaws and you say hey make a Jaws game. That's going to get the pinball community excited and we need to get excited. I mean at these prices and I keep hearing this from more and more people. You need something that's going to blow you away. If you're going to spend this much money on a modern pinball machine, and I think Jaws is going to be the game and I'll tell you why because look think about what makes a pinball machine. This is a pinball machine special. You got design, you got layout, you got art, you got code, you've got theme. So let's look at the theme. How is this not a good theme in pinball that the entire storyline is around surviving, capturing, and killing a great white shark called Jaws that is a man-eater? I mean, right there, that is an incredible storyline. People love sharks. They love Jaws. They love the beach. They love the summer. I'm David Van Es, Shit 92. I'll talk to you tomorrow, baby! bye youtube.com facebook.com youtube.com facebook.com Youtube.com facebook.com The game is a game of the shark that is gonna open up its mouth because it has to open up its mouth because you have to see its freaking jaws with all those shark teeth. I think this game begs to have Stern Pinball design one of the coolest mechanisms it's ever put into a pinball machine. And I was also thinking about, alright, so what's the other part that's awesome in the Jaws movies? So the real suspense comes when that big fin comes up from underneath the water. You're gonna have to have that. Do you think Stern's going to be able to engineer a shark fin that actually pops up from underneath the playfield and maybe moves around the playfield? I mean, it's doable. Imagine like they cut a thin little track that goes throughout the game that the ball can roll over and a shark fin pops up. And then you've got those yellow barrels that they're firing from their ship. You know, they're harpooning those barrels onto jaws to track them. I mean, if those barrels don't end up becoming the pop bumpers in this game, we might as well just cancel all of pinball. We might as well just say pinball has no imagination, has no creativity. It is right there waiting for them. Those better be the pop bumpers in this game. You've got the iconic boat, right? You're going to need a bigger boat. The iconic lines in the movie, it's all right there. The big challenge with this game is not going to be whether or not there's going to be a mechanical shark. The big challenge in this game is not I'm not going to be getting awareness for this theme because people are aware of the theme. The big challenge in this game is how much of the movie assets are they going to get. What we love about Jaws is the Jaws that Steven Spielberg made. Now there have been a lot of other Jaws movies that have come out and none of them have even come close to the success of the original Jaws movie. So I think they're going to need to get film assets if they really want to make this game the right way. Now they didn't get film assets with Jurassic Park so that leads a lot of people to speculate will this be another Jurassic Park where they're just going to animate iconic scenes from the movie and do a new original Jaws narrative or storyline in which the story is kind of the same. You're trying to find, capture and kill the shark. It's always the same narrative in every single Jaws movie. I don't think this game is going to really work unless we have callouts from the original I'm going to get voice actors to try to recreate those lines. I don't think it's going to work. I want to see the movie itself up on that LCD I want to see the shark from the movie I don want to see animated versions of a shark If they go in that direction I don think it It gonna work the way Jurassic Park works and look because we know someone just gonna mob the game to put all the Movie clips back into the game if they don't have them but at these prices see this is the thing The number one reason people are saying they don't want to go in on this game. It's not just the theme I think the number one reason I'm reading as people are commenting about this is just at these prices I'm not gonna go in on a game unless it checks all of the boxes and if Stern wants to charge us 40% more for these games and they've significantly increased the prices of these games since games like Jurassic Park then yes they better go get the assets then yes Joe Kamnikow better flex his muscle in Hollywood and go get the assets for this game because I don't think people are gonna spend this kind of money unless you put the assets into the game. The assets from James Bond and so if you're making a movie from 1975 you better do something to go get those assets from the Steven Spielberg movie and I do feel like that could make or break This game and also like when I think about the artwork with jaws it can't look too cartoony Randy Martinez is going to do the artwork on this game But I really think they should try to go in a little bit of a different art direction The Iconic Jaws poster. I mean it is one of the most iconic movie posters of all time That needs to come through in the game Jaws also has this very like this East Coast Marina feel to it like it's a little weathered right and I really think they need to bring Some of those elements into the game itself with sculpts and other things happening in the game I want it to feel like when you look at Jaws like it's a period piece and Stern doesn't do a good job at this They really don't imagine their games as period pieces. They made Godzilla look like every other modern Stern. They didn't make it look like a classical Godzilla period piece. And for Jaws, I really hope they try to emulate more of the look and the feel of the movie. You know, I want to see that iconic billboard with the girl swimming and someone draws the shark fin and she's like, help me. I think when you look down at Jaws, it should just scream Jaws World UnderGlass. And that's another reason why I love this theme. It's all right there. I also love this theme because it's a storyline everybody knows. Like you know what you're doing in this game. I don't have to hand you a 32-page booklet on what the rules are for Venom. Nobody's down with that. Nobody wants to learn that. the story really wakes up and wants to understand the nuances of a symbiote world or universe or narrative, none of you know the Venom narrative really, you really don't, and now you got to try and get emotionally connected to it, but with Jaws it's right there staring at you from a code standpoint, and that's another reason why I like it, I think story-driven games do very well and especially if you know the story and the story doesn't get any simpler than Jaws. Let's talk about the music. It's iconic. Like it's so iconic. Let's talk about that music that dun dun dun dun. Now imagine incorporating a shaker motor into that. So you almost feel right. You feel the shark getting closer to you before you see it. Imagine what they can do with like vibrating the cabinet and the shaker motor and the shark and the music all going at the same time. And you're telling me that's not going to be an iconic memory. I think Jaws is a home run theme for pinball. It's not going to be for everybody. I get that. I really do think when we see this game, it has all of the elements you need to make something For the Paul Green shirt and the Re tendon Pitié低 biri penny at n insulted earlier Partner

11:19

eric vedGive Greek The Man That Scenes' I'm also very nervous because it's Stern and Stern has been pretty greedy lately and Stern has been cutting corners on putting magical mechs into games and Keith Elwin seems to be the only one over there that can get actual stuff into his games and that is why if it is Jaws being made by Keith Elwin, my excitement level on this game is like an 8 out of 10 and I think he's going to blow it away. I think Stern really needs this game to be a hit. They need to start winning people over at these prices. It's not happening with venom. I'm seeing more and more games go up for sale. I'm seeing people put their Foo Fighters up for sale pretty quickly now. And the whole reason is people need to put these games up for sale pretty quickly because they got to cash out because they spent so much money on the game. I'm sorry, but for $10,000 to $13,000, it really does need to be a game that you want to bolt to the floor and really The game is a game that I've been really holding onto for a really long time. The days of dabbling in pinball are over. These games need to be masterpieces or I'm keeping my money in my wallet. I think Keith Elwin and Jaws has the potential to be a real masterpiece if they do it right and do all of those things I mentioned. We will see what happens. I think a lot of you are going to change your mind when you see the game. Now when do we expect to see Jaws Pinball? I expect to see this game revealed in February. I think they want to have this game on the line before summer because I think they want to just fulfill orders all summer long. I don't think they want to release it in the summer and then have people wait. There's like a month or two after the reveal to get all the Ellie's made, then all the premiums. And I think this thing is going to be a bigger hit than Godzilla. I'm calling it right now. Jaws is going to be a bigger hit than Godzilla, and it is going to be the only pin Stern really needs to release next year MK actionablethon Flip Taxi Tyr no That they not gonna have to release two or three other games because everybody gonna want this And then we also got Keith Elwin John Wick and we got I don know John Borg might be working on Indiana Jones You know what title we stopped talking about? Sonic the Hedgehog. Somebody stole the license from American Pinball. We haven't really talked about who has it. Like who has the Sonic the Hedgehog license? Could we see a John Borg doing a Sonic? I don't know. It was probably Stern that got the license because Sonic is a Sega property and Sega and Data East were in bed with each other and Stern is basically the offspring of like Data East and Sega. So I don't know like who could have made that phone call and robbed that game from Ryan McQuaid. I think it was Stern. But then I think David Fix said it wasn't Stern, but I don't believe anything David Fix says. So by the way, I know I got really harsh on American Pinball during my Saturday I recommend it that they change the name of the company and start over with new personnel, new talent and a new direction. I firmly believe that. If anyone thinks that's being too harsh, point to me a game that they've made over the last like six or seven years that has been successful. Every single thing they come out with is just mediocre. And so you can keep making mediocre pinballs, but at this stage in the company's history, they should be making great games and they're not. And Galactic Tank Force is not. The game is just another mediocre game. It's not horrible. It's not great. It's a theme nobody wants and it's not worth that much money and it's not me saying it. It's everybody else because the game is not even close to selling out. They didn't sell 500 of them, you know, and the hype is dead and they're never going to get the hype back. Now, luckily for them, Venom is not really winning people over. Neither is Godfather. So they really had a window. If they had a hit game, they would have been so much more successful, but they just gave you something. Subtitles by the Amara.org community Which machines do people want $15,000 or more? The Kill Bill has now decreased in price to $58,000. That's a crack pipe price. Pirates of the Caribbean LE, there's a bunch of them up here. One for 21.5, one for 19.5. A CE of Pirates just sold apparently $32,000. Another Pirates LE for 22.9, seems to be a decent amount of them. Now remember, anyone who's selling a Pirates LE, I think they paid $8,500 or $9,500 originally for Pirates LE. So all of these people are doubling up their money. It's one of these weird games because if I was going to buy one, I would still want the CE. Even though the CE is $10,000 more than the LE, it's just such a nicer looking game overall. I don't think Jersey Jack is ever going to remake Pirates, so it is a collectible game, but it's also not a game that I think tons of people envy. I think the people that look to this game might be people that want to have a complete Jersey Jack collection. I don't really know who those people are anymore because who wants to shove a Toy Story 4 and a Godfather into that collection? But there was a time where people were going to collect every single Jersey Jack game. But that's a really expensive thing to do, like collect every game from a company whose games are now this expensive. Let's see what else we got. We've got this new in box Guardians of the GalaxyLE. He first won at $21,900, now $20,900. It's not even close people. A Guardians opened up is a $10,000 game at GuardiansLE at best. I would not in a million years pay $10,000 for a cardboard box because the moment you open this game at most maybe $12,000 but Guardians was never a game that really won people over. oschailver KeyOσι 외형문 strengthенной-ru conecthtäl신 신장공장개사, Guns N' Roses, new in box, CE. Yeah, I'm not selling it. GNR is my favorite band. I am never selling that game. Speaking of Guns N' Roses, CE, a new in box one for $18,500. I don't know. Again, I think the days of that game getting $18,500 new in box are over. I wouldn't go anywhere near it for that much money. We got an Elvira 40th for $20,500. I think the market on Elvira 40th now is not $20,000. I think if you offered like $18,500, you could probably get one. Man, that's a long time ago. It's just crazy we're saying these numbers, right? 18, 5, maybe to get a pinball machine. But now that LEs are like 13,000 and they make 1000 of them, that's the issue. Did you see how many James Bond LEs are for sale? And because they're making a thousand LEs of everything, it doesn't feel like out of bounds for an LE like the 40th where there's only 199. At least you're going to be a member of a much more exclusive club. Alright, so like there's a Godzilla LE for $15.6. Is that a good buy? Here's the thing about Godzilla, I would just wait. I think once Jaws comes out, I think even though people have enjoyed Godzilla for all these years, I think you're gonna see more people sell their Godzillas to get Keith Elwin's new game. Now there are some people that might just collect everything Keith Elwin because they are all great games, but $15.6 for a Godzilla LE, I wouldn't spend it. I think you're going to start to see Godzilla LEs go for more like 14,000, 14,500 soon, especially opened up, especially now that the game is a few years old. Most of these games are going to have a lot of gameplay on it because who's not playing Godzilla? I mean Keith Owen makes a game that you want to play, not a game that you just want to stare at. It's such a good gameplay game that you're going to want to play it. Here's an interesting one. Stranger Things LE for 19,250 bucks. I mean these Stranger Things these games are crazy You couldn give this game away when it came out and it was nine grand Now we talking 19 in LE I hear great stuff about the game I know it immerses you in the Stranger Things world That UV kit is a pinball moment unlike any other game The projector is a pinball moment unlike any other game The toys are pretty cool The thing is this with Stranger Things the LE is always going to be the LE They didn make that many of them I think it was 500 or 600 There is a very high likelihood that Stern is going to make more premiums but it still never going to be an LE. So I think Stranger Things LE prices are going to remain strong. I think 19,250 is still too high. I think 16,000, 17,000 at most is what I would go for on that game. Medieval Madness Royal Edition for sale. The game is coming back down to earth $17,500. This game was $10,000 when it came out. There is a rumor that they are making more Medieval Madnesses sometime in the future and I think we are going to see more Royal Edition owners try to cash out as that rumor is indicating that they are going to make a version even nicer in details with the final run of Medieval Madness. More to come on that so buyer beware. I just wouldn't move on this game just yet. I would wait to see what CGC does next year unless you absolutely need one this year. Here's an interesting one, Tron LE for $19,950. A lot of money, right? Now look, I'd rather have a Tron LE over a Stranger Things LE. It's more rare. There are no premiums of Tron. The big fear is this. If they vault edition Tron and you spend $19,950 on this game and the vault edition is nicer, You're going to take a huge hit. I mean like a huge hit. Like you might lose like $8,000. And that's another reason why with the possibilities of a Stern vault sometime at the end of this year, I wouldn't go anywhere near a Tron LE right now. There's so many more Pirates up for sale. And again, I think this indicates what I've been saying all along is Pirates is a good game, but it's not a game that people want to keep in their collection forever. Here's a crazy one. Are you ready for this crazy one? Tales of the Arabian Nights. High-end restoration. $25,000. Stupid. Stupid. I had a Tales of the Arabian Nights. I bought it for $7,000. I had it all brass-plated. I had it completely shopped out by Eddie who's one of the greatest technicians in pinball and I sold it for like $8,000. You're never going to get $25,000 in enjoyment out of a game like Totem. It's a very, very beautiful The Toys are amazing, but you can beat the game easily and there's not a lot of depth to the game and the 2.0 kit is terrible. So yeah, if you want to spend $25,000 just for the glitz and glamour of the game, but it's not going to be a rewarding pinball machine at that much money. It should never be that much money. And the other thing is this and you got to remember this. This is another title that is very likely going to be remade. And when it is remade, they will make it even better. Here's a game you don't see very often, a Batman 66LE. Now look, they only made 240 BatmanLEs. It comes with the great topper and they're selling this one for $18,500. These games don't come up for sale very often. And so do I think Batman LE at 18.5 or best offer is a decent asking price for this game? I think this is somewhere in line with where the market's at. I think you could get this game for probably 17 if you worked it out. I don't know 18.5 but again you know what's weird is like all of this feels weird now because of the new current pricing model for the LEs. With a thousand LEs at 13,000 Are you going to tell me that $5,000 more gets you a game where there's only 240 in the world and maybe half of those are in Europe? This is about which machines are worth collecting and Batman 66LE is definitely more collectible than any single new SternLE that comes out. And so yeah, like this is not a crazy price for that game. You know what's interesting? I'm seeing the same games over and over again when you go above $15,000. It's Godzilla, it's GhostbustersLE, it's James Bond 60th, it's Medieval Madness, it's Tron LE, a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean. You know, I'll tell you right now that Batman Super LE sold for over $32,000. That sold. Look, even as I go down this list, it's kind of exhausting. I don't think most pinball should cost this much. I think what we're going to see in this pinball market coming up real soon is a real softening of the secondhand market. I think only a handful of games are ever going to be worth more than $15,000. It's just too much money. It's just too much money for what pinball is. It's exciting to watch this stuff. You know, I love seeing what people want for their games. I love going into the marketplace. There's just no more deals to be had anywhere. And that's the real shame about the hobby. Four or five years ago, there was much more deals. People weren't greedy. Stern wasn't asking us $1,000 for flat plastic toppers. Like everyone was kinda in it together. Nowadays everyone's just trying to rip everybody off. I feel like we were just happy to get back what we had in on a game, maybe a little bit more if we modified it a little bit and maybe a little bit more if the market value went up on the game. But we were happy getting a thousand or three thousand dollars profit on a game. Now someone buys a Stranger Things LE and they wanna sell it to you for ten thousand dollars more. People wanna sell you Pirate Sea for twenty thousand more than they bought it for. I just feel like as the rest of the world is getting inflated with the cost of everything, the joy is gone. The joy of buying pinball machines secondhand is gone. And that's why I think a lot of us are just going to wait until our dream theme comes out and we can get it new in box. It's just not fun. It's just not fun buying and trading these games anymore at these prices. It's only fun if you bought these games years ago and every time you sell a game now, you're doubling up your profit. But for the rest The end of the show. Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll see you next time. Bye. I hope Stern really puts effort into bringing that Jaws world under glass. I mean, maybe even a lower playfield, right? You're in the ocean. You go under the water. Are we not going to have a lower playfield where the shark appears? I mean, come on Stern. It's all right there. Later.