Episode 667: "The Spooky & Haggis Dilemma"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·26m 11s·analyzed·Apr 11, 2022

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Spooky and Haggis face confidence crises: one via FOMO collapse, one via production silence.

Summary

Kaneda criticizes both Spooky Pinball and Haggis Pinball for different but serious challenges: Haggis has missed production deadlines with no updates one year after announcing Fathom, while Spooky has destroyed pre-order FOMO by releasing games that are losing value so rapidly that collectors cannot resell deposits and the secondary market is flooded with discounted inventory. Kaneda argues both companies have eroded consumer confidence through poor communication and non-refundable deposit structures.

Key Claims

Haggis Pinball announced Fathom would ship in July 2023 (one year before mid-April 2024), but no games are yet in production or testing.
high confidence · Kaneda directly states it's been one year since Haggis took money and promised July shipping; mid-April status shows zero progress.
Spooky sold 1,750 Halloween games in two hours using FOMO tactics, and secondary market prices have collapsed so severely that a $2,000 deposit on Ultraman CE cannot be resold even at $440.
high confidence · Kaneda describes the marketplace observation and cites a specific example of an Ultraman CE listing declining daily by $20.
Haggis Pinball is flying in help from Argentina, suggesting they lack sufficient staff in Australia to build games at scale.
medium confidence · Kaneda observes an Instagram post about someone being flown in from Argentina and interprets this as a staffing signal.
Non-refundable deposits remove manufacturer incentive to ship on time or produce quality games.
high confidence · Kaneda explicitly argues this business model is harmful and cites it as a structural problem enabling both Spooky and Haggis mismanagement.
Haggis has not provided daily, weekly, or even monthly updates to customers despite promising transparency.
high confidence · Kaneda references Damian's past statement about daily updates and notes zero updates in the past year.
Spooky may not have ordered all parts for all pre-ordered games, leaving hypothetical room for refunds.
medium confidence · Kaneda speculates: 'they haven't ordered all of the parts for all of the games' in a hypothetical refund scenario.
The broader pinball market is slowing down due to inflation, high secondary market prices, and buyer fatigue.
medium confidence · Kaneda observes slowdown in secondhand game sales and notes collectors are pausing purchases and doing 'reality checks.'
Only one fully built Fathom prototype likely exists on Earth, despite claims from others.

Notable Quotes

“One company has absolute confidence that they will get you a game and that is Spooky Pinball. Now, there's a lack of confidence in whether or not they'll get you a great game.”
Kaneda @ ~3:30 — Core thesis: Spooky has delivery confidence but quality confidence is eroding.
“If all of us would stop turning off our common sense and just look at this situation... We are mid-April, we have not seen any games on the line, we have not seen any production whatsoever. We haven't. This is a year after this game was supposed to be in production.”
Kaneda @ ~6:00 — Damning summary of Haggis delay and lack of evidence of progress.
“This is why Kaneda hates non-refundable deposits because when you do this and you run into these situations with FOMO and you can't get your money back, you know what you can't do? You can't send that pinball company a lesson if the final product isn't up to your standards.”
Kaneda @ ~22:45 — Articulates structural critique of non-refundable deposit model and loss of consumer leverage.
“They have single-handedly destroyed FOMO Pinball forever. They used FOMO Pinball to sell 1750 games in like two hours, people.”
Kaneda @ ~19:00 — Claims Spooky's mismanagement has permanently damaged FOMO-driven sales model.
“His 2000 dollar deposit, he can't even sell it for 440 dollars. Like this is crazy. This guy just lost over 1500 bucks and it's still not selling.”
Kaneda @ ~26:45 — Concrete example of secondary market collapse and pre-order financial loss.
“Every week and every month that they go silent, the narrative will be filled in by people like me, by people in the community, by the community at large.”
Kaneda @ ~9:00 — Frames podcast criticism as natural consequence of company silence; shifts responsibility to Haggis.
“You got a deposit on this game. Are you really going to cut them a check for seven or eight thousand more to get it? Like really, how do you do that? How do you willingly, knowingly send more money in on a game you know has lost a lot of value?”

Entities

KanedapersonSpooky PinballcompanyHaggis PinballcompanyDamianpersonFathomgame Halloweengame Ultraman

Signals

~
sentiment_shift: Kaneda identifies a critical shift in consumer confidence regarding Spooky Pinball: delivery confidence is high but quality confidence is collapsing rapidly.
high · Direct statement: 'One company has absolute confidence that they will get you a game and that is Spooky Pinball. Now, there's a lack of confidence in whether or not they'll get you a great game.'
$
market_signal: Secondary market for Spooky pre-orders is experiencing severe devaluation, with Ultraman CE deposits failing to resell and widespread discounting observed across marketplace listings.
high · Kaneda cites specific example of $2,000 deposit unable to sell at $440 and notes 'sheer number of Ultraman games for sale and all of them are at a discount.'
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supply_chain_signal: Haggis Pinball appears to be experiencing staffing shortages in Australia, leading to recruitment of international help from Argentina.
medium · Kaneda observes: 'I think that is what that signifies. Is that Damian does not have the staff in Australia to build these games that he needs to fly someone over from Argentina.'
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product_concern: Haggis Fathom is one year behind promised shipping date with zero visible production or testing progress as of mid-April 2024.
high · Kaneda directly compares April 2023 announcement date to April 2024 status: 'It's going to be one year in May in which they took people's money and said your games will be shipping starting in July. So if you apply any sort of common sense to the situation now, we are mid-April, we have not seen any games on the line.'
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Topics

Haggis Pinball production delays and lack of communicationprimarySpooky Pinball FOMO collapse and secondary market devaluationprimaryNon-refundable deposit structure and consumer leverageprimaryBoutique pinball manufacturer business model viabilityprimarySecondary market pricing and speculationsecondaryConsumer confidence erosion in boutique manufacturersprimaryPinball market slowdown and inflation impactsecondaryPinball podcast commentary ethics and industry accountabilitysecondary

Sentiment

negative(-0.82)— Kaneda is deeply critical of both Spooky and Haggis, but frustration is directed at business practices and lack of transparency rather than malice. He expresses disappointment in consumer behavior (FOMO, non-refundable deposits) and community enablers. Tone is stern and analytical rather than hostile. Positive elements: optimism about Kaneda Club growth, appreciation for Todd Tuckey, and interest in Elite Toppers innovation.

Transcript

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We can go on together with suspicious minds. And we can build our dreams on suspicious minds. Suspicious minds. Welcome everybody to Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. I'm your host Kaneda. This is episode 667 of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast and I want to talk about two things on this episode. I want to talk about the dilemma for Spooky Pinball and for Haggis Pinball. Both of these companies I think are in a quagmire. We have no Stern news. There's no Toy Story news. And I want to talk about both of these companies and how both of these boutiques are sort of struggling right now and they're both facing different challenges that I think are eating away at people's confidence in both institutions. Before I do that, I want to thank all of our new club members. We are now at 464 club members and I want to welcome our latest club members Todd Tuckey, Gavin, Charles, Drew, Dave, Tony, Robert, PJ, Jennifer, Matthew and Shack Attack. If I've missed you and you're a new club member and you want a shoutout, please hit me up and I will give you a shoutout. Alright, so I want to talk about both Spooky and Haggis Pinball right now and the challenges that are facing both of these companies. I want to start out by saying that these two boutique companies are in radically different positions right now in the pinball landscape, right? One company has absolute confidence that they will get you a game and that is Spooky Pinball. Now, there's a lack of confidence in whether or not they'll get you a great game. We're going to talk about that. And then you've got Haggis Pinball. Where are they in the production of Fathom? Why aren't we seeing more news and information and behind the scenes on where these games are and the status of production? So what I'm going to talk about on this episode of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, I'm going to talk about what does Spooky do now that consumer confidence in these games being good is eroding super quickly, that people can't even sell a $2,000 deposit Poker而 and how you doesn't ksi that aimed I think it's a four-day work week right now in Australia. So, what does Damian do if he does not successfully get fathoms on the line sometime in April, which is what he has promised people recently? I want to start with Haggis because I was reading the thread this morning. And I think there's two words that just always sort of evade us when it comes to the pinball community looking at a company like Haggis. In the two words I think everyone is forgetting about is this, common sense. If all of us would stop turning off our common sense and just look at this situation, look at what's happened in the history of pinball manufacturing, look at all of the boutique companies that have come and gone, look at all the boutique companies that have succeeded and then just apply common sense. When a company announces a game, it's going to be On April 23rd, one year since Haggis Pinball put out their Coming Soon Fathom teaser video. It's going to be one year in May in which they took people's money and said your games will be shipping starting in July. So if you apply any sort of common sense to the situation now, we are mid-April, we have not seen any games on the line, we have not seen any production whatsoever, we haven't This is a year after this game was supposed to be in production. And only now are we getting a realization, right, that he needs help building these games. Because I think that is what that signifies. Is that Damian does not have the staff in Australia to build these games that he needs to fly someone over from Argentina. Okay? Do I think he's happy that that person posted on Instagram all of that stuff? I'm not sure. But here's what I would like to see from Damian. A man who has said in the past that he looks forward to taking the pinball community on daily updates of what's happening at Haggis. Just go to Haggis' Facebook and YouTube channel. Read what Damien said that every day you can follow Haggis for daily updates. People, we're not getting updates on a daily basis. We're not getting updates on a weekly basis. We're not even getting updates on a monthly basis a year after this game was announced. Common sense. Is that a good sign? What is happening? And then the other part is this. People suspend their common sense and then they want to blame somebody, right? They want to blame Kaneda. They want to blame the podcaster in New York City who has no control over any I have no control over his communication, over his promises, over his parts supplies. I have no control. All I'm doing is calling it as I see it. And so now people are starting to say, well, it's Knaeda's fault why we're not getting updates. And I beg to differ because he took your money. He took people's money. He doesn't owe me an answer. He owes you an answer. I am not in on fathom. I have no skin in the game. I have a pinball podcast that covers the industry And so I cover every company I cover every company equally when they doing things I give companies a hard time when they stonewall and they go silent and customers don know the status of their order and so here we are mid where are the games where the production where the update where is anything and the other part about this community that never ceases to amaze me is not only do we turn off common sense We then act like everything's just going to work out. Like it's just going to be okay. Like they're going to figure out a way to get these games made. What could possibly go wrong? Well, all we need to do is look at pinball history to know what goes wrong. You end up spending more money trying to get the company set up to make the games than the money you took in for the games. If you just do the math, how do you make up for a year of no fathoms on the line? There's no way they made enough money from Kelts to fund all of this. And I think what happened over at Haggis, and again, I would not be speculating about any of this if they would come out and just talk to us. So you can't shoot the messenger Kaneda for speculating on what's going on over there. The ball is always in their court. They have the ability to control the narrative. Every week and every month that they go silent, the narrative will be filled in by people like me, by people in the community, by Great WitchJohn, by Rick over at PPS who claims he has like one of the built fathoms where Rick showed the game. He still hasn't showed the game. I think right now on planet Earth, there probably is only one fully built fathom prototype. If there were more, I would love to see them. This isn't like a Kaneda vs. Haggis like I'm rooting for them to fail. What I am simply doing is pointing out how many weeks and how many months are we going to go by without seeing the progress. I told Andrew Highway once. He once grabbed me by the collar and said I was ruining his company and I was convincing people that things weren't going great over at Highway and I was convincing people to get refunds.เ�ąd SMITHでしょう ͡ For today's video, don't forget to give us a like and subscribe as we soon get potentially behind every video we post in our midst and share with other people in our community. The other thing that's going to happen with Haggis Pinball is this, and this is what's happened with Highway Pinball and every other pinball boutique that bit off a little bit of their time. Sunny speaking «Пр퍼 computationaledingtiestesis founders trying to find out what is ahead in the until年 on the tornado pandemics» I've been hearing that Damien really wants to make sure these games are built to the highest caliber, but he kind of wants to build these games himself. I really think his strategy is to assemble a skeleton crew and try to grind it out. Now look, you could do that if you're in your garage. You could grind out like a few games a week and you could get people their fathoms in a slow trickle. The problem is he didn't set himself up for a slow skeleton crew grinding out a fathom. He got the big factory. He got all the machinery. He has a place that requires him to build a line that's much bigger than just a skeleton crew grinding it out. And so I think that's the quagmire he's in right now. He's like, look, I scaled up. I don't have the staff. This is super expensive. This is costing me a lot more money to get these fathoms made than I realized. And then the real question mark is this. Look, do I think he's going to grind out these fathoms? I do. Do I think they're going to have enough money to go on to the next game and the next game and the next game? I don't know. That's where I'm like, if I look at history and I apply common sense, I don't know. Sometimes the money just runs out. I look at the world right now and the pinball marketplace is slowing down. Like people are slowing down their purchases of these games. There is inflation sweeping throughout the country. Everything is getting more expensive. Damien's parts are getting more expensive. I think he said there was like free shipping. You know how expensive it is to ship stuff right now? So all of the world is getting more expensive. I think every one of us is doing a reality check and realizing, well, maybe I should just wait and pause and not run at every single new game. Maybe I should be more patient or maybe I should just be happy with the games I have and I shouldn't feel this obligation to support every single pinball venture that pops up in the world. I think we're seeing a big slowdown in the sales of secondhand titles. Everybody got carried away. They did. They got carried away and they started charging like 30, 40, 50, 100% more than games were going for just two years ago. So we'll see what happens in this world of Haggis Pinball. He has promised people that their games would go into testing in April. All I want to see from Haggis, and you can say all the negative stuff you want about Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, the five-time Twippy Award-winning Pinball Podcast for a reason, you can say everything you want about me. But please do me a favor, go on Pinside and just ask on my behalf. All I would like to see are the games that are being tested this month. I a fan of the game but I not going to shut up about it because this is what I do Alright well that the quagmire over at Haggis Pinball let talk about Spooky Pinball This company has done something nobody thought they would do. They have single-handedly destroyed FOMO Pinball forever. They have. It's absolutely gone. They used FOMO Pinball to sell 1750 games in like two hours, people. Nobody saw Halloween or Ultraman before they ordered it. And every single person who ordered it, ordered it with a non-refundable deposit. Same was true with Fathom. This is why Kaneda hates non-refundable deposits because when you do this and you run into these situations with FOMO and you can't get your money back, You know what you can't do? You can't send that pinball company a lesson if the final product isn't up to your standards. You've given them all the power, all the leverage in the world, and you've also taken away their incentive to make the games great. You've taken away their incentive to get the games out on time. We are the ones to blame. It's not Damien, it's not Chuck, it's not Bug, it's us. We are fools. Only a fool would rush in and buy pinball machines they've never seen before from a brand new design team that has never made a pinball machine before from a design standpoint. And now people are wondering a few questions. How much money am I going to lose on my spooky pinball game, right? There is no chance you're going to make money on either of these games, but it's not even about making money. Boy correctly is can wear it fit On the amp 님 Attacks all the way I'm proposals Now, there is a gentleman trying to sell his Ultraman collector's Edition spot. He is lowering the price everyday by 20 bucks, which I think is stupid if you do it that way because then people are just going to wait. If you say everyday I'm going to lower the price by 20 dollars, then why would I go in? I'll just wait till you get down to 40 bucks and then I'll buy it. But right now, his 2000 dollar deposit, he can't even sell it for 440 dollars. Like this is crazy. This guy just lost over 1500 bucks and it's still not selling. And when you go on to the marketplace and you see the sheer number of Ultraman games for sale and all of them are at a discount, everyone you pre-ordered is like, damn, I just lost money. If I were patient and didn't pre-order, I would have been able to get this game on sale, which is unheard of in 2021, 2022, that you could actually get a Fast-forward Eso.1 What are the eventual commissions of $30,000 and $61,000 per WWE Union? The games are becoming total misses. It doesn't matter what Rododave says or the apologists say, these games aren't clicking. Now I want to put out a hypothetical question. Can you imagine if Spooky Tomorrow said, we will give people refunds on their orders? Because they haven't ordered all of the parts for all of the games. Imagine if they said, we will give you a refund if you want one. I bet hundreds of people would want their money back, which would force them to limit the amount of each game they're making. I don't think they would keep the build number at 1250 Halloweens and 500 Ultramans. Now, hypothetically, wouldn't that be a good thing? I know it's not great for them, but wouldn't it be good for pinball in general if a company puts out a game that's not the best for them to own up to it and to move on to the next game? I think it's going to be pointless. I really do. I think it's going to be a futile effort for them to continue to try to make these games better at this point. I just don't see these games turning around. I just don't. And look, I see some Ultraman owners being like it's fun and Halloween owners being like it's fun. And I just have a question to all of you who are saying that. How come nobody else is seeing this? See, I think Spooky's at a point now where I think the smart thing might be to do to say, hey, look, we're just going to make 300 Ultramans. I'm a little bit of a fan of the TNA, but I don't think they're going to make it. I mean, they're going to make it. I think the game is going to be a little bit more than that, because obviously the demand is not really there for 500. There's not, right? I mean, what if they did that? What if they said we're going to make 300 Ultramans and we're going to stop the Halloween production at 750, and then we're going to move on to making TNA 2.0, because that's the next game they're going to make. Can't they just do that and then move on to the next title? I think they're going to learn a real lesson on these two games right now. I think they're seeing the lack of enthusiasm, the lack of excitement, and not only that, Spooky Pinball, because you had faith in them, have now lost you money. Can you ever say that about Stern or JJP or what other company out there? This quickly, right before you even got your game, you lost money on it. This hasn't happened since like WWE, since like Mustang, right? This doesn't happen and I think 1750 people out there, I think the majority of them are feeling just bummed out. Can Spooky turn these games around? I don't know. I don't think these games are ever going to get to the point where you're even going to break even on it. So here the ultimate question I want to ask and I asking this of myself every day You got deposit on this game Are you really going to cut them a check for or more to get it Like really how do you do that? How do you willingly, knowingly send more money in on a game you know has lost a lot of value? You're just throwing more money in the fire. And once all of these games are out there, think about what's going to happen. The supply of them The question is, will you walk away from your deposit and just say, I'm fine losing $2,000. I'm not spending another seven or eight on these collectors additions. I think we're going to see people do that. And then what happens, right? What happens then? What happens if people start to say, I'm refusing to send my money and will Spooky limit the number host On another topic,kineverybody's just been eating pinball vaccin últ maybe Drone bros прошлg expands online you gotta wear a face mask you have no Twentyistent Nick boots 하고 Doort They cutter Also need his help at st tympan with out my name, oh shit. Things are too presto, I really need your help, just ask me from my shoulders if you haven't got one for wassup ED excellence, offend車 돼요 Makoste, Click to make sure it's ав scanner huur trackpad and walk to my HOPE Jan 10, 2019 Me, Camille grenadesco.com DavidVenue.com Lesley Kupra, EXPC Bright, MakesMind calls for 10 Minutes. Login this Tweet of Luci Tomboy12. обратicaconomics, BorgzanovJ reps tone o Out hurdle 10 minutes 7.11 8.22 5.23 7.33 1.37 07.43 07.ARY 9.07 8.lait We'll never ever do it again. Now here's the part. I know Jersey Jack is gonna say there's like a nonrefundable deposit with Toy Story, but it's a little apples to oranges. We know it. So this might make me a hypocrite when Toy Story gets revealed, but I think the Jersey Jack nonrefundable was like a thousand dollars. If there is gonna be a nonrefundable deposit, I think it needs to be a thousand dollars or less. I think this $2,000 stuff is BS. I think Haggis selling those nonrefundable like series ticket holders for like four to five thousand dollars is BS. You're going to give a company five thousand dollars on their next three titles when they can't even get the next title out in a full year. I mean, it's BS. People who are doing this are really being cavalier with their money. I'm not doing it. And that's just me. Like each of you has control over your own finances, but I just would not do it. All right. Let's end this show real quick. Speaking of Finances, today you're going to see something pretty unique, pretty special, pretty expensive. You're going to see the new Pinball Topper from Elite Pinball Toppers. Now if you know these guys, they're the ones who made the sort of gold plated Indiana Jones topper. The stuff they make is really, really cool. And look, toppers are popular. If you want a topper, you are going to spend a lot of money. And a lot of these like Stern toppers now are going for like two, three thousand dollars after the fact. So I'll tell you this right now. You're going to I see today a teaser video from Elite Toppers. When you see it, you will know what game they chose to make the topper for. I have been asked not to reveal it. What I will say is this. They are just making a hundred of these and the game that they decided to make it for is pretty rare. It's very collectible. It's very expensive and I think it's smart what they're doing because I think the audience for something this expensive are the people that own this game. So you're gonna find out more about that today. I got to look at it. Jordan showed me a video of the topper in action and man, it's cool. Like it's really cool. It makes the one that comes with the game currently look like a tinker toy. So I think a hundred people are probably gonna jump in and buy it. And if we know anything about this pinball market, some of these like exclusive mods, they like double, triple in value. So I think he's gonna have no problem selling these things. I asked him to hold one for a Kaneda club member. http://www.bournepflicht correctlyeds.com I'm David David Van Es and I'm here with the best pinball fans on the planet and I want to make sure that we continue to just ask questions, keep these companies honest and it's not Kaneda's fault, I'm just covering what's happening in this hobby. It's really the shills and the apologists that are hurting pinball more than anything. They're the ones who have made people lose money. They've done it and they continue to do it and we're still seeing that kind of behavior where like, All right, it's everything's going great. They're not sharing any updates. What could possibly go wrong? Well, a lot could go wrong people. It's pinball. But what's not going wrong is the Kaneda Club. We keep getting new members every week and it's going to keep growing. Todd Tucky, thank you so much for being on the show last time. We're going to get Todd on pretty frequently because I think people love to hear Todd's take on the titles. So every time there's a new game, I'm going to have Todd come back on the show and let's talk about it. I love hearing from you. Todd Tucky, Todd thank you for joining the Kaneda Club everybody have a great Monday we'll talk to you soon.