Episode 1244: "Gerry Plans a Weird Way To Reveal & Why Waiting is the Smart Move"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·20m 40s·analyzed·Jul 27, 2026

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.021

TL;DR

Kaneda urges patience on Multimorphic's dual reveal, critiques platform pricing and marketing control, warns of long ship times.

Summary

Kaneda criticizes Multimorphic's marketing strategy for the simultaneous Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's Game reveal, arguing the Comic-Con exclusivity and content approval process undermined impact. He advises listeners to wait before purchasing, highlighting early code concerns, high modular unit costs approaching Stern Pro pricing, and poor secondary market liquidity. He also expresses skepticism about Multimorphic's platform strategy versus traditional pinball and warns that P3 games have very long lead times.

Key Claims

Multimorphic needs to price the platform at $3-4K without a game to build a larger installed base that would guarantee game sales
medium confidence · Kaneda suggests this as a business model correction; opinion-based strategic analysis
Ender's Game and Dungeon Crawler Carl share the same mechanics and the software should be transferable between them despite Multimorphic's claim otherwise
medium confidence · Kaneda argues this based on how P3 platform architecture works and Stern precedent (PBR/Primus)
Jerry (Jerry Koci) is outsourcing code development to a third-party vendor
medium confidence · Kaneda states this directly; makes him 'nervous' about code maturity
Mechanical issues and finicky ball tracking were observed at VIP events but will not appear in released content due to Jerry's control over approvals
medium confidence · Kaneda reports second-hand from VIP attendees; unconfirmed
The code for both games is very early and may not be ready for market at reveal time
medium confidence · Kaneda heard this from people at VIP event; pattern observation across Barrels and Stern
P3 games will ship much later than major Stern releases, probably after Fallout, Goonies, and Back to the Future
medium confidence · Kaneda prediction based on Multimorphic's historical manufacturing pace
Stern has failed to match Godzilla's quality for four years and Harry Potter is extremely hard to follow up
high confidence · Kaneda's observation of market and critical reception
Sonic the Hedgehog sales are slow, possibly due to ambitious upper playfield design or incomplete software showcase
medium confidence · Kaneda's analysis of Sonic underperformance relative to expectations

Notable Quotes

“That is a marketing blunder if there ever was one. You get one chance to make a first impression. And here we go again. Crappy cell phone footage of your game.”
Kaneda @ ~0:30-0:45 — Critique of Multimorphic's Comic-Con exclusivity preventing coordinated creator content release
“Jerry's biggest mistake in this entire endeavor, he needed to give away the platform at a much more attractive price. He would have so much more success if the multimorphic platform without a game in it... the platform itself should be like three to four thousand dollars.”
Kaneda @ ~5:00-5:30 — Strategic criticism of P3 pricing model; compares to video game console subsidy model
“My PSA for everybody is this... Wait and see. You are going to be bombarded today by content... to buy the game. It going to happen. We know it going to happen. And I would just say look wait to play the game is first and foremost.”
Kaneda @ ~6:30-7:00 — Core messaging advising listeners to resist FOMO and wait before pre-ordering
“This isn't Stern. This isn't Jersey Jack. You are not going to see your game for a very, very long time.”
Kaneda @ ~7:15-7:25 — Warning about P3 manufacturing lead times vs. major manufacturers
“Why would they do it now when they have a few hundred Winchesters to build? It's cash flow. It just doesn't make much sense. These companies are really struggling to get that monthly cash flow in.”
Kaneda @ ~8:45-9:00 — Signals cash flow pressures driving early game reveals before completion of prior titles
“Stern Pinball hasn't been able to match the greatness that is Godzilla. It's really, really hard. Jersey Jack Pinball, because it's only one game a year and the last game was Potter. You know what I'm saying? Like if Sonic came after Godfather or Avatar, I think the enthusiasm would be higher.”
Kaneda @ ~12:30-12:50 — Analysis of why Sonic underperformed: impossible to follow Harry Potter; Stern's post-Godzilla drought
“It's almost like they're trying to cover up more and more of the screen with traditional pinball mechs and experiences, which does question then why even do it?”

Entities

Kanedaperson Jerryperson Zach Sharpeperson Keith Elwinperson Multimorphiccompany Barrels of FuncompanyStern Pinballcompany

Signals

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product_strategy: Multimorphic's Comic-Con exclusive reveal strategy prevented coordinated content creator releases, resulting in uncontrolled cell phone footage instead of professional simultaneous coverage
high · Kaneda's direct criticism: 'Jerry gave the game to Comic-Con audiences and didn't allow any of the pinball content creators to share their content simultaneously with the Comic-Con reveal. That is a marketing blunder if there ever was one.'
?
business_signal: Multiple manufacturers (Multimorphic, Barrels of Fun) revealing new games while still in production of prior titles, suggesting cash flow constraints driving early announcements
high · Kaneda: 'Why would they do it now when they have a few hundred Winchesters to build? It's cash flow. It just doesn't make much sense. These companies are really struggling to get that monthly cash flow in.'
?
product_concern: Ball tracking issues and mechanical finickiness reported at VIP events; content approval process suggests problems are being concealed from public footage
medium · Kaneda: 'I heard from people that were there that, you know, the mechs themselves had a little bit of issues, sort of like tracking the ball. And, you know, they were a little finicky' and 'Jerry is very, very controlling over the content'
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product_concern: Code for Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's Game is reported as very early stage, pattern observed across industry (Barrels, Stern) of revealing games before software maturity
medium · Kaneda: 'The other thing I heard is that the code is very, very early on. And this is going to be another game where the code is not, you know, maybe even ready for the game to be revealed.'
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Transcript

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0:00

Carl's playing games and I'm asleep upon his lap. Then I'm back inside this dungeon to this elaborate death trap. All right, everybody. Happy Monday morning. Are you ready for the double release of Dungeon Crawler Carl and Ender's Game by Multimorphic today in just a little over three hours? We are going to see both games. We've already seen what the mechs are in Dungeon Crawler Carl. For some strange reason, Jerry gave the game to Comic-Con audiences and didn't allow any of the pinball content creators to share their content simultaneously with the Comic-Con reveal. That is a marketing blunder if there ever was one. You get one chance to make a first impression. And here we go again. Crappy cell phone footage of your game. This happens like every single time. And what Jerry should have done if he wanted to introduce the game to the Comic-Con audience, he should have simply had all the pinball content creators that came down there release the footage at the same time. Let me tell you something about pinball, people. It doesn't matter. In this little, little hobby of ours in which a company like Multimorphic would be happy to sell 300 games total in a year, it doesn't matter if you launch this game on Friday at 3 o'clock, Saturday at 11 a.m., Sunday at midnight. It doesn't matter. There is almost nobody out there in the world on the receiving end of any of this that's other than the people that are plugged in like you and I. And you and I will easily find this content no matter what day it goes up, no matter what hour it goes up, it will reach its intended audience. It's not like this game is getting major media coverage come today. It's not like it's going to be front page of some major geek website. It's just going to be out on Pinside, on Facebook, and we know we're going to get spammed by all the dealers that have to sell the inventory that they purchased already. Now, my PSA for everybody is this. Look, we already know that it is Ender's Game and Dungeon Crawler Carl. We've seen a lot of the mechs in the game. It is amazing the engineering feat that these engineers have to do to put shots closer to the flipper. But man, it does look like a lot is going on mechanically in this game. The real question mark, and I've talked to people that went to the VIP event. Two things. I heard from people that were there that, you know, the mechs themselves had a little bit of issues, sort of like tracking the ball. And, you know, they were a little finicky, if you will. And Jerry is very, very controlling over the content that's going to go out today. So everybody who went there, they were filming the game and the game was having some issues and they had to submit all of their content to Jerry for approval. So I don't think you're going to see any of the issues in any of the content. But, you know, look, we will see if this week Jerry is comfortable giving a game to pinball content creators just to play and bang on if it's in a state where that can happen. The other thing I heard is that the code is very, very early on. And this is going to be another game where the code is not, you know, maybe even ready for the game to be revealed. And we've seen that a lot. We've seen Barrels of Fun struggle with that. We've seen Stern struggle with that lately. And I do think everyone's at a point now where we're kind of over getting asked to spend this much money on things that aren't really ready yet for the market and for consumers to make up their minds on the game. The other thing that is a real head scratcher, and I just keep thinking about this, why is he doing two games at once? Why not just do Dungeon Crawler Carl? Like I don't hear anybody being like, I'm going to get Ender's Game. Ender's Game feels like a weird, insecure thing to do. It almost like Jerry like all right the new hotness within this geek novel world is Dungeon Crawler Carl And I don know maybe we also do something that a geek novel from 20 30 years ago which is Ender Game But the problem I see with a tiny company like Jerry's, now you have to develop twice the software. You have to develop twice the sculpts, twice the art packages. Why would you do that on a game in which you're barely going to sell any Ender's Games? And adding even more sort of like ludicrousness to this whole thing is his wife came out with an email saying that the software will not be transferable. So you will not be able to play Ender's Game on your dungeon crawler car modular game. And that even makes it more like why would you even do it then? Now, look, the game itself, I think they're just going to like eventually let people buy the other code because the game itself, if it's using all of the exact same mechanics, it's not going to be able to tell when the modular is plugged into the platform. If that's an Ender's Game modular unit or a Dungeon Crawler Carl, it's like when Stern did PBR and what was the other game? Like what was the Primus on that? You know, once the platform is the same, the game doesn't know which mechanical game it's in. The software will run on it the same exact way. So you could extensively put the Dungeon Crawler Carl software into the Ender's Game and vice versa, and it should work. They have to say that they're not transferable for licensing reasons because that would only make sense, and that is one of the inaccuracies that they want to clear up. Now, here's my thing, everybody. Look, we know, we know, we know, we know that this is a platform that is not like a take my money now platform. There definitely is a lot in this game, and I definitely think if you love Dungeon Crawler Carl, you're going to have sort of an itch to consider getting this game. I think if you already own a P3, it's a no-brainer. You're going to get this game. I mean, the whole point of buying this platform is that when new games come out, you want to buy them. There would be no other point in buying a P3 game if you did not, every new launch, consider getting the game. Jerry's biggest mistake in this entire endeavor, he needed to give away the platform at a much more attractive price. He would have so much more success if the multimorphic platform without a game in it. I mean, just the platform, right? Think about it because he's selling this thing more like it's a video game console. You need to give the console away almost and almost lose money on every console to make money on every game. And he never did that. You know, the platform itself should be like three to four thousand dollars. And that gets you the cabinet, the screen, those drop banks that are in the middle of the game. And then there is an empty spot there for your game. So you spend three to four thousand dollars on the platform. He would sell so many of them because what you want to do is you want to get like 2,000 people or more owning the platform. Then every time you have a new launch, you can almost guarantee that 2,000 people are going to plunk down or plunk down. I'm not going to edit this show, plunk down like a three to four to $5,000 for the game. Now he has to be careful. The modular units have become much more expensive. I know there's much more in them, but they're much more expensive. Once your modular game approaches the price of a Stern Pro, it brings the entire sort of equation into question and the entire value proposition into question. Is it now worth it? Because it's a lot easier. Here's the challenging thing. If you buy, let's just say you buy a modular dungeon crawler car or you bought a modular weird owl and you want to sell your weird owl because you want to get dungeon crawler car. It is almost impossible to just sell the modular game to somebody else out there because not enough people have it. And that's been the issue. So today is going to be a day in which he is going to serve up the most enticing game he's had in a long time on this platform. Will it make you feel compelled enough to order the platform? Because I know most of you don't have it. So I would also encourage each and every one of you to remember what my mantra is Wait and see You are going to be bombarded today by content by the flipping out army to buy the game It going to happen We know it going to happen And I would just say look wait to play the game is first and foremost Second Jerry has said he going to make as many as people want and there no FOMO and nothing is truly limited So remember that Also remember this, on Friday you're going to see the new game from Barrels of Fun. So all you need to do, I'm not saying you don't get this game, I'm not saying you can't order this game, but I would wait a week, wait a week. You are not going to have a hard time getting one today. What's going to happen today is the dealers that ordered a certain number from Jerry are going to hit you hard to remove their inventory from their books. They want to get rid of the games and lock you in on a non-refundable deposit and just be careful because the other thing is this. This isn't Stern. This isn't Jersey Jack. You are not going to see your game for a very, very long time. In fact, by the time that the first games will ship, I guarantee you probably won't even have it before Fallout, maybe before Goonies and Back to the Future. These things don't just fly out the door. These games, and this is the other thing, there's a reason why all these games, I mean this, the games from Multimorphic, even the new game from Barrels this Friday, think about it, why would Barrels reveal a new game now in July? And maybe it's going to be August by the time it's Friday, but why would they do it now when they have a few hundred Winchesters to build? It's cash flow. It just doesn't make much sense. These companies are really struggling to get that monthly cash flow in. Now, will this game take off? Will it be huge? I don't know. I don't know. I've never heard of this theme before I heard of it in pinball. It's not a take my money now thing. Multimorphic is definitely different. It doesn't feel like normal pinball. When you jump on it, it's unique. Some people like it. Some people don't. Some of the elements of it are cool. Some of it are questionable. It's really like a game where I've always felt it's a little bit of a solution in search of a problem because, you know, again, they haven't sold many over a decade. Meanwhile, normal pinball games are selling by the tens of thousands. So did pinball need to evolve? Has this brought pinball evolution to life? You know, the more I see the way they're engineering it, it's like they're just trying to use engineering solves to put more normal pinball elements lower into the game, like lower onto the play field. It's almost like they're trying to cover up more and more of the screen with traditional pinball mechs and experiences, which does question then why even do it? Because I think the coolest thing about this game isn't even the screen. I think the coolest thing was that row of drop bank targets. Those are cool that each go to a subway and can lock balls and turn colors like those are cool. But you could have those built into a normal wooden play field. You could like there's nothing stopping them from doing that. So today, join me live at 1145 a.m. And we will all huddle on YouTube and then let's watch the reveal of these two games together. I'm excited. Whenever there's a new pin, I'm excited. I'm really curious to see what the mechs do in the game. I'm curious what the code is going to be in the game. We know that Jerry is outsourcing the code on these games. He's using like a third party vendor. That makes me a little bit nervous as well. How far along will it be? I do know this. Just trust me. I do know this. At the beginning of this year, nobody was like, all right, with everything happening this year, you're going to throw $10,000 to $14,000 to $15,000 towards a P3. Maybe you will. Maybe you won't. I wake up. My money's safe. I know where my money is allocated this year. It's going to be the following. I am super curious about fallout. I keep hearing fallout is insane and might be Keith Elwin's best. But I also know that Stern is cheap. And I know that Stern has under-delivered on our expectations more than they've over-delivered. And even Keith Elwin has had major misses at Stern Pinball. Hello, King Kong. Hello, Avengers. Like, so I'm a little nervous. And Fallout to me isn't a theme that everyone is dying to have. I think Keith Elwin should have made Star Wars. I think he should have made Pokemon. I think Stern decision making is all over the place So Sonic the Hedgehog didn get my money Sales of Sonic seem to be slow Ironic because the theme is all about speed and being fast Did they take too much of a creative sort of ambitious leap with that huge upper play field I don't know. Are Sonics just going out too slow? Is that the issue? Is the software not far enough along to really showcase moments of wow? I think it's a little bit of all of those things happening at once. I also think the major thing that is hurting Sonic is just Harry Potter was so good. It's hard to follow up what might be one of the best pinball machines of all time, right? Think about it. How often has Stern followed up Godzilla with something that has been as equal or as good as Godzilla? I don't think they've ever made a game as good as Godzilla since Godzilla. You see how hard it is. We're talking four years later. Stern Pinball hasn't been able to match the greatness that is Godzilla. It's really, really hard. And Jersey Jack, because it's only one game a year and the last game was Potter. You know what I'm saying? Like if Sonic came after Godfather or Avatar, I think the enthusiasm would be higher. But it's hard to follow up and act as great as Harry Potter. I mean, that is a once in a lifetime sort of theme to put into a pinball game. And also where my money is going. So maybe Fallout. But I need to put aside money for Goonies SLE. 100% getting that. Also need to put aside money for Back to the Future SLE. Not sure what's happening with that game. I'm really feeling like, you know, Dutch is waiting to make these 300 Jesus additions. I don't think that's going to make sense if they need to get back to the future on the line by the end of the year. And it takes them a year to make 300 Alice games. None of it is really adding up. I'm a little worried. You know me. I'm rooting for them to figure it out. But Barry's track record here and people leaving Dutch Pinball, Melvin leaving Dutch Pinball, I mean, I'm nervous. Like nothing they've done has made me feel confident that all of a sudden now they're going to figure this thing out. So I'm hoping they do, because Back to the Future is a very, very special theme for pinball. So and then barrels of fun, you know, the speculation continues around whether it's Bon Jovi, whether it's a legendary picture film, who knows, right? It's all over the place. I even heard a weird rumor today from someone in the industry that they heard a long time ago that it was Home Alone. See how easy it is for me to just say, OK, Home Alone. And is that something that everyone has a connection to? Yeah. Problem is there's too many things that all of us have a connection to. And you could work that sort of strategy into so many mass market major pop culture themes and be like, yep, it's got to be it's Rainbow Connection. It's the Muppets. It's Home Alone. We all have a connection to that movie. It's Bon Jovi. We all have a connection to living on a prayer. You know, it's all silly. We almost all have a connection to everything that's mainstream and pop culture. So everybody, I will see you in two hours and 45 minutes. Happy Monday. Hopefully everybody's waking up in a good mood. I would just be patient. Remember, on these revealed days, it is the manufacturer and the dealers who are nervous. They need you to order and put in non-refundable deposits today. They also are saying that there's no FOMO because they'll make as many. Remember, take advantage of that. Be smart. Don't rush in like Ozzy. He buys everything. We love you, Ozzy. But no, we need to be smart. And by Friday, you'll be able to decide on three games. You know, you'll be able to decide maybe you want one of these multimorphics. Maybe you want the barrels of fun. And or maybe you're good and you're just going to wait a month and a half until fallout. That's the way this goes. All you need to do is stay strong for one week. And trust me, that FOMO feeling and the urgency to get it will dissipate. And if you wait until November, it's been my my sort of calling card for the last like few weeks. Wait until November and let them stock these games up. Buy Dungeon Crawler Carl when it's sitting in Zach's warehouse. Buy it then. Then you'll know if the code is any good. Why would you buy it now? Let them all order it. If everyone just didn't buy, they would have to stock these games and then go buy it when it's in stock. Why is that so hard for people to do? And it will be in stock, everybody. All right, everybody, happy Monday. Canada out.