You Might Want to WAIT on John Wick Pinball...

Cary Hardy·video·12m 50s·analyzed·May 6, 2024

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

Wait on John Wick pinball; Elliot Eisman's first design role presents uncertainty despite strong theme appeal.

Summary

Cary Hardy expresses cautious interest in the newly announced John Wick pinball game, noting that while the theme appeals to him, several unknowns warrant a 'wait and see' approach. He speculates that Elliot Eisman, a mechanical engineer with no prior design credits, may play it safe with a fan layout and standard mech design. Hardy emphasizes the need for strong theme implementation, Keanu Reeves inclusion, hand-drawn art, and quality code before recommending purchase.

Key Claims

Elliot Eisman is the designer for John Wick pinball, confirmed on good authority by Canada's Pinball Podcast
high confidence · Hardy cites Canada's Pinball Podcast as the source for this unofficial confirmation before official announcement
Elliot Eisman has been with Stern for approximately a decade, working exclusively on mechanical engineering for WWE, Ghostbusters, Star Wars, TMNT, Rush, and James Bond
high confidence · Hardy provides detailed career history based on his knowledge of Stern's project roster
John Wick is less than a decade old as an IP and lacks the nostalgia factor that drives pinball purchases
high confidence · Hardy makes this observation directly, similar to his critique of Stranger Things
The game will likely feature movie clips on screen based on the teaser imagery released
medium confidence · Hardy infers from teaser content: 'it looks like we may be getting movie clips on the screen because they typically do on teasers like this show us things that are on the display'
Sexton is handling code for John Wick pinball
medium confidence · Hardy states 'Sexton is said to be on the code for this' without citing a specific source

Notable Quotes

“I'm not excited. I'm mainly just curious at this point. The theme does interest me, so I am giving the thumbs up on the theme. It's just mainly for me, I want to see how well they implement the assets underneath the glass.”
Cary Hardy@ 10:06 — Captures Hardy's measured, conditional approach to the game—theme approval contingent on execution
“You have to have Keanu Reeves in here. So if Keanu is not in this game, it will be a drastic fail.”
Cary Hardy@ 10:17 — Hardy establishes a hard requirement for theme authenticity, directly tying IP representation to game success
“Just because he's a mechanical engineer doesn't mean he's going to be like putting like, okay, I've been saving this one for my game kind of thing. No, it's not the way it's going to work. Chances are we're probably going to get the usual Stern—you're going to have one cool somewhat cool mech that does a lot of things and a couple of other minor ones and you're not going to get the big one in the pro model.”
Cary Hardy@ 4:50 — Articulates Hardy's realistic expectation for mechanical design given Stern's typical design philosophy and budget constraints
“This is the first Stern theme that's been released in a while that has actually interested me on just theme alone.”
Cary Hardy@ 5:09 — Indicates a notable gap in recent Stern releases that resonated with Hardy, establishing John Wick as a rare exception
“I was completely wrong, and I am so glad that I was, because I have a great playing Foo Fighters behind me.”
Cary Hardy@ 4:01 — References his incorrect prediction about Jack Danger's first design (expected safe fan layout; got Foo Fighters instead), tempering his current speculation about Eisman

Entities

Elliot EismanpersonJohn Wick PinballgameStern PinballcompanyCary HardypersonCanada's Pinball PodcastorganizationJack DangerpersonSextonpersonKeanu Reevesperson

Signals

?
community_signal: Hardy plans live-stream coverage of John Wick official reveal (scheduled 2 days out); frames it as community event with speculation and discussion.
high · 'hopefully i should be off work and be free to do a live stream and go back and forth with you guys then'
?
community_signal: Hardy expresses frustration with clip art in pinball games; cites Game of Thrones as last offender; advocates for hand-drawn art style (Christopher Franchi model).
medium · 'do not be clip art i think they've learned their lesson... I want to say one of the last games to implement that type of art was game of thrones... I'm hoping that this is obviously going to be hand-drawn let's do a christopher franchi type of art package'
?
design_philosophy: Hardy criticizes lack of nostalgia in John Wick IP as market handicap, drawing parallel to Stranger Things underperformance.
medium · 'it's the same thing that stranger things didn't have going for it. And that's nostalgia. A very strong motivator in getting people to make particular purchases'
?
design_philosophy: Hardy articulates Stern's conservative mechanical design approach driven by cost/budget constraints rather than creative risk-taking.
medium · 'because in the end, it's all about the bottom line, guys. Just because he's a mechanical engineer doesn't mean he's going to be like putting like, okay, I've been saving this one for my game'
?
licensing_signal: Hardy establishes Keanu Reeves appearance as mandatory licensing/authenticity requirement, warning that omission would be 'a drastic fail.'

Topics

Designer Inexperience and First-Time RiskprimaryTheme Appeal vs. Implementation ExecutionprimaryMechanical Design Philosophy at SternprimaryIP Authenticity Requirements (Keanu Reeves presence)primaryNostalgia as Market DriversecondaryArt Style and Movie Clip IntegrationsecondaryCode Quality and Feature ImplementationsecondaryFOMO and Limited Edition Pricingmentioned

Sentiment

mixed(0.55)— Hardy approves of the theme but expresses caution about execution. He tempers excitement with explicit calls to 'wait and see.' Tone is curious rather than hyped. He acknowledges past incorrect predictions, showing intellectual humility. Positive about potential (movie integration, code possibilities) but skeptical about Stern's typical design conservatism and Eisman's unproven design credentials.

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.038

So Stern Pinball has officially revealed the title of their next game, John Wick, and that will be completely revealed here in two days, so we will have more information obviously at that point, but I'm mainly just excited that they have a theme that I'm interested in. But I feel like there's definitely at least one thing that is going to hold this game back. What's up guys and welcome back to the channel and a special thank you to the over 9600 of you down there that have hit the subscribe button. So look, there's one thing that this game does not have going for it and it's the same thing that Stranger Things didn't have going for it. And that's nostalgia. A very strong motivator in getting people to make particular purchases, especially in something like pinball. John Wick is pretty modern I want to say it's less than a decade old and I'd say a majority of the people that have seen the movies maybe one out of the four would say that they are entertaining is it going to be for everybody? No but I think if you like movies that have guns fast driving, killing interesting ways of killing pretty much that i mean that is the main things that are in this these types of movies then more than likely you're going to enjoy the movies and hopefully they can put that into the pinball machine but i'm kind of definitely curious to see how i mean due to the fast-paced nature of john wick movies in general they're almost non-stop so the chances are this is me guessing and i hope i'm wrong it's probably going to be a fan layout so and there's other reasons behind why i think that but typically for a fast-paced game that you want non-stop then chances are you're probably going to have a fan layout so the ball goes back and comes right back to you fast not a guarantee but maybe because as of this morning we did not know who the designer was and technically we still don't know but it's on good authority and information that was let out by canada's pinball podcast that the designer for john wick pinball is elliot Elliot Eismin now who is elliot Elliot Eismin he's been with stern for going on a decade and uh thing is he's been on he's a mechanical engineer so everything that he's done has been in regards to mechanics and the games that he has worked on so let's do it in order uh wwe let's not talk about that ghostbusters star wars monsters teenage mutant turtles rush and latest was james bond and it always been mechanical engineering side of the development for these games So, stepping into a designer role, there's a lot of we don't know yet. Elliot doesn't have the pedigree that we know of yet. So there is the whole, hmm, we don't know what you can do. Now, on a mechanical level, okay, we have a pretty good idea. from a design standpoint we don't know yet and i and this is the same thing whenever jack danger was stepping into the design portion of stern pinball is that and trust me i was wrong then and i hope i'm wrong now my thoughts on it was that more than likely jack's first cornerstone game was going to be a safe fan layout and that's what i originally suspected it was going to be And I was completely wrong, and I am so glad that I was, because I have a great playing Foo Fighters behind me. So chances are, and I hope I am, once again I've got to stress that, this might be a safe fan layout game. Due to the fact we don't know the pedigree of Elliot and what he can do. We do know that, yes, he is in the mechanical engineer and will more than likely incorporate some cool stuff into the game. But it doesn't necessarily mean, since he's a mechanical engineer, that he's going to have some awesome mechs in his game. Because in the end, it's all about the bottom line, guys. Just because he's a mechanical engineer doesn't mean he's going to be like putting like, okay, I've been saving this one for my game kind of thing. No, it's not the way it's going to work. chances are we're probably going to get the usual stern you're going to have one cool somewhat cool mech that does a lot of things and a couple of other minor ones and you're not going to get the big one in the pro model john wick as a theme does interest me this is the first stern theme that's been released in a while that has actually interested me on just theme alone this is definitely something that catches my interest and i'm just waiting to see how everything else plays out on it what are we going to get on the art what are we going to get asset wise and it's it's questions like this that i'm just like i'm not getting hyped up for it and i don't recommend that you do either i recommend that we wait and see to see what they're going to be putting into this game if it is in fact going to be worth the money is it going to be worth the FOMO. I don't think any game really is at this point in time when it comes to FOMO. You're going to be able to get any game that comes out unless you really just want to get the LE and stuff like that, but to each their own. And since all we have to go on is the little teaser that they released a few days ago, then it looks like we may be getting movie clips on the screen because they typically do on teasers like this show us things that are on the display. And it looks like that is scenes taken from the movies, except for the spinning wheel portion for the car. I don know if that was in a movie or not There four movies to go on guys and i don remember them all verbatim but something i do remember is that the first movie was almost a standalone movie is it didn't they didn't let a lot of information out or talk about as much as they did in john wick 2 for instance you know nothing about the high table and markers and a whole bunch of other things and the rules and the other continentals that are out there and stuff none of that is talked about in the first movie the second movie they pretty much tell you how deep the rabbit hole can go and it actually in part three in part four it gets even deeper than that so that's why i kind of wonder on the john wick theme alone what movie or movies are we going to be getting in this machine it can't be just the first movie by itself going strictly on what they've shown us in the teaser because the teaser consists of a marker coin thing or whatever you want to call it but it consists of the marker and they did not show us the markers and what they are and do and stuff like that until part two so could it be only part two maybe but due to this on-screen display of the car wheel spinning i do not recall that scene being in part two so it may be i don't really know how they're gonna do this is this is the speculation aspect guys this is where we just kind of get to just go back and forth only it's just me so i'm basically just going back and forth in my head so it kind of sucks but luckily we get the game reveal here in two days hopefully i should be off work and be free to do a live stream and go back and forth with you guys then I do not know what time that's going to be because it all depends on when they officially release all the information. They kind of do it, you know, not all in one big old load. It's usually kind of spaced out over some time. So, but just by all means, if you haven't already, subscribe down below. Ding the dong. That way you will be notified of whenever I do go live on Tuesday. I mean, there's so many cool things that I can think about that would be interesting for them to implement into this game. And it's like, I wonder what all they are going to do when it comes to putting on a playfield versus mechs versus just things that are within the movie quadrilogy at this point. I mean, is there going to be a pencil somewhere on there? And if there isn't, I'm pretty sure someone's working on a mod right now. The gold coin aspect, how is that going to play into the game? when it comes to the Continental. At some point, I would assume that that's a place that you visit and basically where you would get bullets or ammunition or weapons or something like that. And I'm curious as hell when it comes to what they're going to do with code. Sexton is said to be on the code for this. So I'm wondering if they're going to be able to implement things like excommunicado. basically will they do something that makes the game tremendously hard for the player due to you possibly hitting a wrong shot like or if you visiting the Continental and you end up making a particular shot that makes it to where you are now excommunicado Like, so everything is against you at that point. I'm curious. I'm excited to a point to where I want to know what all they're going to do underneath the glass as well as I'm sure a lot of you are as well. At this point, am I excited? No, I'm going to take back if I did use the word excited. I'm not excited. I'm mainly just curious at this point. The theme does interest me, so I am giving the thumbs up on the theme. It's just mainly for me, I want to see how well they implement the assets underneath the glass. You have to have Keanu Reeves in here. So if Keanu is not in this game, it will be a drastic fail. fail but i just don't see them not having him i mean it's he is john wick unless they do the whole thing where it's like oh you play as john wick you are him so there's no need to put him on the game like no no no no no no you can't do that nope not falling for that one not doing it guys that would be an instant oh just bad decision if they decided to go that method by all means i do hope this game is good. I never hope a game release to be bad for any company. I want every game to be awesome. Sadly, they just aren't. And due to the nature of it being a theme that I'm interested in, then yes, I do have a little more oomph behind it and hoping that it's good. But if it is good, and if it does play good, then I may have to get it. And I don't know what I'm going to do at that point because i've got games here that will have to be sold i just don't know which ones they'll be at this point when it comes to art do not be clip art i think they've learned their lesson i think a lot of the manufacturers have learned that that's just not a it's not it's not appreciated by us pinball enthusiasts by doing clip art i want to say one of the last games to implement that type of art was game of thrones so i'm hoping that this is obviously going to be hand-drawn let's do a christopher franchi type of art package for this particular one and when it comes to music i would love for scott denisi to be involved on this one due to the nature at certain scenes of the movies uh the club scenes and stuff like that you gotta you gotta have that a little bit of techno-esque going on in there i could see him tearing it up i'm not saying no one else could but at least if i knew that denisi was behind it for music then i'm like okay, yeah, we should be good kind of thing. So there you have it, guys. In a nutshell, Elliot Iseman is said to be the designer for the game. He's only been doing the mechanic sides of the game, so it's going to be interesting to see what he does on the design aspect. Could be good, could play it safe. We're just going to have to wait and see. Give me your John Wick speculations down below, and until next time, guys, peace out.