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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 20: Elgato No Signal

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 26m·analyzed·Jul 21, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Triple Drain Ep 20: Quality standards, manufacturer double standards, and moment vs. score design.

Summary

Triple Drain Podcast Episode 20 features Joel, Tom, and Travis discussing how to attract new players to pinball, quality standards across manufacturers of different sizes, and game design balancing moments vs. competitive scoring. The hosts debate whether boutique manufacturers receive preferential treatment on forums and media, discuss quality control issues across companies, and explore which games best balance spectacle with competitive depth.

Key Claims

  • Stern receives more critique than smaller manufacturers for the same issues, but both should be held to identical quality standards

    high confidence · Tom and Joel discuss how Stern games missing small parts receive more defense ('they pump out so many games') while Spooky/boutique QA issues get amplified

  • Toy Story 4 (by Jersey Jack Pinball) is designed to be easier and more forgiving for new/home players, not competitive depth

    high confidence · Joel and Tom discuss JJP's strategy to appeal to homeowners with approachable machines

  • Jersey Jack Pinball forgot to include power cables with Toy Story 4 units at launch; Guns N' Roses was missing protectors

    high confidence · Travis states: 'There was no power cord with my Toy Story the day after it came out. And the Guns N' Roses that Travis had bought before that actually was missing the protector.'

  • Software/asset quality expectations differ: Stern and JJP get held to full movie/music asset standards; smaller manufacturers get more leniency on animations

    high confidence · Tom discusses how Halloween (boutique) has lower asset quality expectations than what would be accepted from Stern or JJP

  • Godzilla is cited as a game that successfully balances both moments and competitive scoring

    medium confidence · Joel praises Godzilla for having accessible moment (building falling) and deeper mini wizard modes; Travis calls it 'the most fun game' from competitive level

  • P3 (Multimorphic) includes one-handed play accessibility built into the operating system with three buttons per side

    medium confidence · Joel mentions email from P3 owner explaining the feature exists in their OS, though acknowledges it's more complicated for Stern to implement due to flipper switch architecture

  • Spooky has sold out their past three games; this sales success means they should be held to manufacturing standards equivalent to Stern

    high confidence · Tom: 'Spooky has sold out their past three games, and that's nothing to sneeze at... I don't think that you have to consider them on the same level as Stern. I think you've got to consider everybody on the same level as Stern when it comes to just expecting a good product.'

Notable Quotes

  • “We have to edit out about 90% of the stuff Tom says. It would be so controversial... edit a lot of Tom out, edit a little of me, and then we got to do our best to leave as much Travis in there as possible, just to give you a chance, Travis.”

    Joel @ early in episode — Meta-commentary on show dynamic and editing; Tom is positioned as the 'glue' but most controversial

  • “I'd like to take this question, Joel... Absolutely. I mean, Stern's the number one dog. So anything they do is going to be absolutely critiqued to the T. Whereas a smaller company, that's okay.”

    Tom @ mid-episode — Direct acknowledgment that Stern receives disproportionate scrutiny vs. boutique manufacturers

  • “I think if you are taking money from customers and you're taking a lot of money and you're producing machines that you need to be held to the same standard across the board... if I see somebody buying a $9,000 or $10,000 game from... anybody... it needs to still be a solid product because people are paying for that.”

    Joel @ mid-episode — Core argument for unified quality standards regardless of manufacturer size

  • “There was no power cord with my Toy Story the day after it came out. And the Guns N' Roses that Travis had bought before that actually was missing the protector.”

    Travis @ mid-episode — Specific QA failures at Jersey Jack Pinball on major releases

  • “The only thing that I see slightly different is there are some manufacturers that some of the like sculpts that they have in their game are 3d printed... Stern if there was ever a 3d printed part in their game they would get they would get destroyed.”

    Tom @ late-mid episode — Acknowledgment of acceptable manufacturing trade-offs for boutique vs. large manufacturers

  • “Godzilla... does an extremely good job at that because I want to have a moment... And that building falling down is a moment that I think most people could achieve. But then Godzilla also has these mini wizard modes that actually take skill to get to.”

    Joel @ late episode — Example of ideal game design balancing accessibility and depth

Entities

JoelpersonTompersonTravispersonStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyMultimorphiccompanyHaggis Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball has shipped Toy Story 4 units without power cables and Guns N' Roses units without protectors; indicates QA process failures on major releases

    high · Travis: 'There was no power cord with my Toy Story the day after it came out. And the Guns N' Roses that Travis had bought before that actually was missing the protector.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Double standard exists where boutique manufacturers receive forum/media leniency for QA/design failures compared to Stern; 'we want to root for the little guy' bias affects criticism quality

    high · Dennis Creasel's question about preferential treatment; Tom acknowledges Stern gets 'absolutely critiqued to the T' while smaller companies get 'that's okay, you know, this and that'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Dwight Sullivan's code style prioritizes moment/spectacle over competitive balance; polarizes player base between 'moment makers' and 'score chasers'

    medium · Joel: 'there's people that love Dwight Code and there's people that don't like Dwight Code... from a competitive standpoint there's certain games that dwight's coded that you've had issues with because the code balancing is not where you want it'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jersey Jack explicitly targeting home/casual players with Toy Story 4's easier accessibility design, not competitive market; contrasts with Stern's broader positioning

    medium · Joel: 'it is clear that what Jersey Jack is doing... is trying to appeal to the homeowner of games and trying to appeal to people... it's not going to get outsiders into the hobby'

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.439

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. All right, Tom, you ready? Si. Is Travis here? I don't see a video of Travis. Si. Travis is here.
0:23
Si. This is a Spanish podcast. Yeah, Tom's fine. I took Spanish for 12 years in school. 12 years well I was in high school for 6 of those you probably should have spent a little more time on English man I'm just saying damn just like that huh play the music Joel don't tell me what to do we we're Triple train, triple train, triple train, triple, triple train.
1:07
All right. Well, hello, hello, everyone. This is a, it's kind of a big episode. You know, this is episode 20. First and foremost, thank you, Tom, for being on this podcast, being a true professional. You look great. You sound great. I appreciate that. But, Travis, you've had 20 episodes to find a way to find a working camera, to find a working mic, to remember to charge your headset. And apparently 20 episodes was not enough.
1:39
One, my headset works fine. This is what he was hired for. My mic is just fine. Three, I can speak English just fine, Joel.
1:50
Kind of. But that video, I'm telling you, we stared more at El Gato No Signal than we actually have Travis. All right.
1:59

  • “There's people that love Dwight Code and there's people that don't like Dwight Code because he does such an amazing job with the way that he codes his moments... but from a competitive standpoint there's certain games that dwight's coded that you've had issues with because the code balancing is not where you want it.”

    Joel @ late episode — Identifies coder-specific design philosophy (moments vs. competition) affecting player satisfaction

    • George Gomezperson
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    Zach Minneyperson
    Dennis Creaselperson
    George Fisherperson
    Chris Calorisperson
    Godzillagame
    Toy Story 4game
    Stranger Thingsgame
    Halloweengame
    Guns N' Rosesgame
    Weird Algame
    Oktoberfestgame
    Triple Drain Pinball Podcastorganization

    market_signal: Godzilla positioned as successful game balancing accessible moments with competitive depth; indicates market preference for hybrid design approach

    medium · Joel: 'Godzilla... does an extremely good job at that' with accessible building collapse moment and deeper mini wizard modes for skill players

  • ?

    product_concern: Smaller manufacturers use 3D-printed parts that larger manufacturers would be criticized for; accepted as manufacturing trade-off but creates unequal standards

    medium · Tom: 'some of these smaller manufacturers they can afford [molding]... 3d printed part like i do see that's the only thing that i kind of see there are like i know in p3s there are 3d printed parts'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community leniency toward boutique manufacturers softening over time; larger companies (Spooky sold out 3 games) now positioned as equivalent to Stern for standards purposes

    medium · Joel: 'Spooky has sold out their past three games... I don't think that you have to consider them on the same level as Stern. I think you've got to consider everybody on the same level as Stern'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Stern's flipper control architecture using end-of-stroke switches makes one-handed play accessibility harder to implement vs. P3's button-based system; technical debt in hardware design

    medium · Joel discusses P3 owner email explaining Stern would have signal delay if flipper control went through software; P3 has three buttons per side allowing remapping

    • All of our listeners out there, how many of our video podcasts have you guys seen? Yeah, okay. All right. I've seen them all. Thank you. Well, yeah. Well, Tom, you've seen them all except for one because we did a show without you. It was all Joel, though. That wasn't me. I was like, Joel, we can't do this. And Joel was like, no, yes, Tom, we're going. No, we've got it. We got to give the people. Yeah, that was me. All right. Well, thank you. How'd that work out for you, Joel? I felt terrible, and it wasn't right. No.
    2:31
    No, so everybody that is listening, I don't know. If anybody's listened to all 20 episodes, thank you. Tom, I'll tell you. I've got to interrupt Joel. Tom, I will tell you. I will tell you what it was. After we got done recording, Joel, like, it was dead silence for about 10 seconds, and he just goes, man, that was weird without Tom. Yeah. It was like his teddy bear was just gone. Like we took it away from him. I didn't know what to do with him. I'm a good listener. Tom is the glue that holds this thing together. He really is. Let's face facts. We've talked about this before. We have to edit out about 90% of the stuff Tom says. It would be so controversial. The problem is the more he talks, the dumber we sound because he's just such a bright guy. So we really try to even the playing field. So, Travis, I can't. You can only edit down to the lowest denominator. So really, edit a lot of Tom out, edit a little of me, and then we got to do our best to leave as much Travis in there as possible, just to give you a chance, Travis. I just can't get you to shut the fuck up.
    3:34
    All right, all right, all right. Well, so this is what's great. We did, before we started recording, we actually made a list. And, of course, we get all the way to the end of the list, and Travis says, you know what, that thing you put on at the end, Let's go ahead and do that at the beginning. So we're just going to mix this all up. And we're going to actually start with the Facebook questions. So once again, today's the day we're going to record. I messaged Tom. I was like, tonight's the night, boys. Can you post on our Facebook, you know, what do you guys want us to talk about? And, you know, I appreciate all the listeners out there. So, yes, all the people that have listened, if you're new to this, welcome. If you've listened to all 20 episodes, thank you for the support. Really, it's just the three of us joking around and having a good time. But, yeah, for the people that do follow us on Facebook, normally the day of or the day before we record, we post, like, hey, do you guys have anything particular you guys want to talk about? So I'm pulling those up, and we're going to work our way through a few of those now. Let's go ahead and cut out a few of these that we're not going to address, starting with Michael Hamilton. Can we discuss Joel's mom? No, we're not going to do that. I'm saving that for Tom Talks. Oh, okay. Okay. Wonderful. All right. What do we have? Oh, perfect. Yeah. Albert here. Try to get Tom to say more than a single sentence during Tom Talks. Well, apparently if he's talking about my mom, we'll have to shut him up. Joel, let's just start with the very first question. Which one? The very first one. What do you mean which one? No, depending on how you sort your Facebook stuff, you can have all comments, most relevant, newest. I have mine. Okay. I have mine sorted as most relevant. Do you need me to read it to you? Are you struggling to read it? Oh, hell yeah. You read it out loud. I don't know which one's most relevant. Put it in your feed on most relevant, Joel. Okay, is it Tom George?
    5:24
    No, not on mine. Damn it. See, mine's Scott Hintz. Yeah, see? Okay, Travis. What did Scott say that's so relevant to you, Tom? What did he say? He just said, just going to say it, you're like three Tom Talks behind. Would be nice if you start and end the podcast with the Tom Talks. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, so the YouTube algorithm, or not YouTube. It's Facebook. The Facebook algorithm realizes that the most relevant thing for Tom to read on that thread is something about Tom Talks. This is hilarious because the second thing is Bruce Nightingale, how sexy is a new star's play field? Well, that's because, Tom, when you typically browse websites, you just search the page for either Tom or sexy, and that's how you browse the Internet. This is blowing my mind because the very first question that pops up for me that's most relevant is, why does Joel suck?
    6:24
    I swear it is. Okay, so I'm happy for you. I've got to give you credit there, Travis. Man, Mark Zuckerberg knows what he's doing. Holy shit, that's amazing. Travis, you played in a tournament recently, and you actually put up a high score on Godzilla, on a brutal Godzilla, apparently. and when you had a chance to enter in your initials, you entered in Joel Sucks. And I don't know. There was a good amount of people watching the stream at that point. That's how you spell Travis. I don't know what to tell you. So thank you for the shout-out there. I'm glad that apparently my name can finally get on a high score or a leader table. And then Travis was trying to have Neil do it yesterday on stream.
    7:08
    Oh, yeah? Nice. Well, I'm glad I can. Well, Tom let him know he forgot, too. I'm going to be bored with that.
    7:15
    All right. Well, my question number one is how do we get more outsiders into pinball? And I think the answer is more Tom. That's right. I mean, that's the – no. I mean, okay. Some of these questions, we're just going to knock them out real quick. How do we get them more? All I can think of, in my opinion, is if you're at an arcade and you see anybody playing pinball and they're struggling, like maybe there's a better – like maybe there's a way it's worth approaching them. I'm like, hey, I see you're trying to do this. Tom's saying, no, don't talk to people. Don't talk to strangers.
    7:49
    But I don't know. No, that's not why, because some people can get really offended by that. They get salty, Joel. Like salty. Hey, I see you're trying to play this game. I don't want to play that game. Like imagine if you were at Pemburg and some old lady came up to you and was like, is this your first time here? Is this your first time? travis how humiliating would that be like for real no comment no well done tom i don't know do either of you it's kind of true i mean i well i go ahead tom no i was just going to say in that in that situation i would let somebody come up to me and if somebody came up to me and was like hey you know how do you do this or do that then i'd show them but But I wouldn't necessarily just walk up to somebody and be like, hey, I see you suck at pinball. Let me give you a few points. Well, there's something called tact. Yeah. So the reason I bring this up is George Fisher. Don't panic flip. He streams on Twitch. He's part of TPN. That's like George's like origin story. He says that like he was thinking about like getting a pinball machine for their house. His ex-wife wanted one. And he was like he just was playing one. And he had somebody. he's like, hey, I see you're trying to play this. There's his organ story right there. Yeah. You picked up on that, Tom, didn't you? Yeah.
    9:14
    Is that the – should I not have said that? Got rid of the wife, got into pinball. But that was – what he mentioned was that guy who ends up becoming, like, a really good friend of his. He started getting into leagues and now George Streams. Like, that guy spending a little bit of time with him, a complete stranger, to, like, show him, you know, a little more control in the rules was huge. That was the turning point in his pinball career. So are we meaning like just this question is like if you just see some poor soul at the arcade just wandering about, and you're just like, hey, come over here and look at pinball? I think it's just a general question. Let me break down this very simple sentence for you, Travis. I mean, I think we just look it down. If your wife isn't in the way, guess what? You can play as much pinball as you want. Ideas on how to get more outsiders into pinball. I mean, Joel figured it out with his mom, and look, he plays pinball and has his own podcast. It's great.
    10:11
    Outsiders, Travis, outsiders. Okay, I would say, honestly, I think the best way to get outsiders into pinball is themes. I honestly think that's what it is. It's excellent art. It's on the side cabinets, and it's the locations putting these pins in a spot to where it's in high-foot traffic areas in the arcade, and people can see it because people have curiosity. They want to come see it. But the flip side of that is if the game just beats them down and they put in like a dollar coin drop and they lose it pretty quick, they're gone. They're gone very quickly. So it's kind of one of those things where you have to balance that and figure that out. But I would say if you're wanting to get somebody into it that's at your house, it's more or less just make the game a little bit easier, maybe a ball save a little bit longer if you know you have friends coming over to play, and just point out the easy things to hit. Like have them play something like a Stranger Things or a Godzilla, where there is a major mech in it that's easily identifiable, and you can just hit it over and over and over again. I mean, that might be the way to go, too.
    11:19
    Well, so two parts. So are you saying one is Toy Story 4, based on everything you just said, going to be kind of a pivotal machine in getting more people in the hobby? Because it's a, I said hobby, weird, hobby, but it's too, because it's a theme that's super attractive. And I can't talk English. I, okay, so it's a hobby, wow, wow. It's a theme. It's a what? What is it? The words, just give me one second. Ob, ob, theme. I'm not, a past hobby, it's a theme. Toy Story 4 is a theme that a lot of people identify with, so it's going to draw them in. And then it is set up. I mean, they said that the game is more designed for it to be a little easier, a little more forgiving. So do you feel like that pinball machine is actually a step in the right direction for bringing more people in this hobby? They already lost everybody when they picked Toy Story 4 instead of regular Toy Story.
    12:16
    Oh, Tom. I mean, I think. I'm just being honest come on that's a fair assessment but yeah I mean it's clear that what Jersey Jack is doing and we can talk about this a little bit later but it is clear that what they're doing is trying to appeal to the homeowner of games and trying to appeal to people that appeal it's not going to get outsiders into the hobby it's appeal to me Joel No, a pill is something you take for medicine. The parents are about to get into an argument here. I'm going to go to my room and close the door. A pill. You peel an apple. It's a pill, not a pill you take.
    13:01
    One more time, Travis. You got it. Nope. I'm done. And that's how you get people into pinball, everybody. Drink your beer, Travis. It's cream tea, but still, man, this is lit right now. Joel threw me off my game when he burned me before our promo even started. Now you wonder, the previous 19 episodes, everybody, this is why I've been trying to get traded this whole time. Yeah, yeah. Well, what I love is – Nobody will take me, though. Travis, you admitted a while ago that somebody came up to you and says, I love your podcast. Who writes all your jokes? That was like the most flattering thing I've ever heard because it's like, man, these jokes write themselves. You know, Travis just talks and you just have to react. He's going to keep setting that softball up on the tee. and Tom and I are just cracking dingers all night. I thought you played baseball, Travis.
    13:49
    I did, Tom. There's a reason why I play baseball. The softball is a lot bigger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is true. It moves a lot slower as well. All right. So here, now we actually have like – How many questions have we gotten through so far? Two. We've talked about – Half. We've talked about – We haven't answered half. So, hey, I said we should throw these on the end so it's a better gauge of how long we want to go. Next one. We answered, Joel. We've got to keep this going. We're good. So we have a great guy in this hobby called Dennis Creasel. He's probably one of my favorite people. Dennis here comes in with a brilliant question. I would like to see you all explore intellectually. That means like in a smart manner, Travis. Intellectually, the smaller boutique pinball manufacturers are – he feels that the smaller boutique pinball manufacturers are given more of a pass on their decisions on forums, on pinball media, et cetera, than larger manufacturers. and what impact do you think this has on both the company's machines as machines and on the company's customers as owners of said machines? So do we feel that, let's say, a stern is treated differently than a, I don't know, a haggis or a spooky? Absolutely. Tom, you got it. Let's hear it. I'd like to take this question, Joel. Oh, it's all you. Oh, absolutely. I mean, Stern's the number one dog. So anything they do is going to be absolutely critiqued to the T. Whereas a smaller company, that's okay. You know, this and that. Yeah, it's just it's just not the same. It's not the same playing field. Okay, so like Stern, there are times where, I mean, you see it all the time. People are getting their new games, and it's like, my game doesn't have a coin box in it, or my game doesn't have, like, they missed this screw or that. And there's a lot of people that are quick to defend. It's like, well, man, they're pumping them out so much, you know, like, give them a break. It's like they're pumping out so many games to miss something small here or there. Like, the excuse is they're pumping out so many games. It happens. but yet if the opposite like if a spooky forgets to point put a lock on the back remember that drama like there was a spooky pinball machine where apparently the latch on the back of a lock was left off the game and the dude flipped out and like wanted a refund for a tiny like that's a little extreme but yeah but everybody comes to their defense and it's like well what which makes more sense should we is it okay because stern produces so many games that we're going to let a missed park go while spooky if you're not going to produce that many games and those games better come out flawless because you clearly have the time to give them attention or is it the opposite like should they both be punished for that kind of stuff joel let me interrupt you for a second that hand went up yep travis yes how did you power your your toy story floor when you got it when you didn't have a power cable i had to pull the cable off of my beetles Oh, okay. Put it on the Toy Story. All right. Just wanted to know.
    17:02
    But, Travis, do you think – so, yes, what he's hinting at is J.J.P. forgot to actually put a power cable in his most recent game. No, there's no hinting. They did.
    17:12
    There was no power cord with my Toy Story the day after it came out. And the Guns N' Roses that Travis had bought before that actually was missing the protector. So are we – do you feel like you are – I don't know. Do you view that any different because it's JJP versus Stern would have done that? Or if you would have gotten something from a smaller company, like if you've waited on your Agus Mermaid edition for a year and a half and it shows up without a power cable? I think that at least on this podcast with us, we've been pretty much treating every single pinball company the same. I mean, everybody remembers all the hate mail Tom got for P3. We all remember that. and we all remember, I mean, we talked about Halloween. We gave our honest thoughts on it. And I mean, we've been pretty upfront about things with Stern that we like and that we don't like. I mean, to me, the way that I look at it, even if you're a boutique pinball company, I think if you are taking money from customers and you're taking a lot of money and you're producing machines that you need to be held to the same standard across the board. I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. Now, we all understand that that doesn't necessarily mean that somebody is going to come out with the same volume as another company. I mean, obviously, there's certain restrictions and certain things that prevent that from happening. But I don't think that there's anything wrong with holding every single company to a standard that they're producing a product to give to a customer. And so I think if I see somebody buying a $9,000 or $10,000 game from, it could be Spooky, it could be American Pinball, it could be Jersey Jack, it could be Stern, it could be Haggis, it could be anybody out there, Dutch Pinball, whoever it is, Pinball Adventures, like whoever. You know, it needs to still be a solid product because people are paying for that. So, you know, I do think in the past we've seen that happen before to where people just, you know, they're kind of like, well, we want to root for the little guy. But you know what? At the same time, the little guy has pulled their seat up to the table, too. I mean, let's face facts. Spooky has sold out their past three games, and that's nothing to sneeze at. You know, we can't say. I mean, to me, Jersey Jack, they sold a lot of Guns N' Roses, and they've had a lot of success with Wizard of Oz, with Wonka, and now with Toy Story. So I don't think that you have to consider them on the same level as Stern. I think you've got to consider everybody on the same level as Stern when it comes to just expecting a good product. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with that. But we do understand that there are different levels to this in terms of who has what designer with their company, who has what coder or what mechanical engineer or software engineer, whatever you want to call it. You know, not everybody has a George Gomez. So obviously some companies are going to have a distinct advantage with manufacturing, with talent and they're stable. but I still think everybody needs to be held to a high standard. I think that's the very least common denominator across the board. I agree that all machines should be held to the same standards from a mechanical level. Like mechanically, they should all, like we should expect, regardless of how big your company is, your game should come with a power cord. Your game, like if there's a part missing on your play field, how did that get through testing? Like I don't care how big you are or how small you are. mechanically they should we would hope that all games appear on your doorstep in working order or have all their parts like i don't think that's too much to ask the only the only thing that i see slightly different is there are some manufacturers that some of the like sculpts that they have in their game are 3d printed they're 3d printed parts that are painted and while like stern if there was ever a 3d printed part in their game they would get they would get destroyed now stern is obviously producing at such a volume that it's probably cheaper for them to actually pay for a mold and get some injected molded plastic like actually get a custom sculpt made but some of these smaller manufacturers they can afford that so 3d printed part like i do see that's the only thing that i kind of see there are like i know in p3s there are 3d printed parts in p3s like that's they're just they manufacture at a smaller scale but i think that is somewhat of an accepted like okay that makes sense because they're making less games. But one thing that is very clear to me is there is a difference in software expectations. Like when you look at assets that are involved in games or animations or art style, like people expect really high quality art and assets out of Stern and JJP. They expect full assets. They expect whatever movie clips or they expect songs. But, like, that is an expectation. But I feel like some of these smaller manufacturers, there are a lot more people that are willing to just, like, oh, they're fine. Like, the animations are fine. Like, they're good enough for that manufacturer. Like, you know what I'm saying? I mean, I don't know. Like, to call them out. Like, Halloween, I know I've already pissed off a whole lot of Halloween, you know, manufacturers. But there's been plenty of Halloween owners that feel like the assets or the graphics that are involved in Halloween are good enough. but like that would have never flown if JJP released that type of asset or, or even like P3. Some people say the P3 is like a cell phone level of animation. I think they've gotten a whole lot better. Like Weird Al is really good, but it's still, do I feel like those assets are at the same level as JJP or CERN? No, but I think there, there are some acceptable differences. I mean, I don't know. I can't see Travis. it would be great to see Travis's face, but no, I mean, I agree with you to an extent. I think at the end of the day, the customer is always going to speak with their wallet. And obviously if, I mean, let's face facts too. I mean, Spooky isn't going to sell as many or neither is Multimorphic with the P3. They're not going to sell as many units as what a Stern or Jersey Jack would sell. So it probably is acceptable just based on a lower tier or not a lower tier, but a lower number of people buying said product. So it's obvious if they had to sell, say, 5,000 Halloweens at that price, might be a little bit more difficult to do.
    23:33
    So yeah, that makes sense. But to me, it's like the customer is going to speak with their wallet regardless. They're going to speak by buying the product or not buying the product. And I think as long as each company is meeting the standard of their customer base, that's probably going to be good enough. Me personally, the way that I like to react to pinball is I like to hold everybody to a higher standard just because I want to see everybody just exceed what they're able to do and get better and better. But I say that with the knowledge of knowing that, hey, some people may not be able to do what other companies are able to do. I mean, that much is obvious just because of resources, so on and so forth. Yeah. And I do think absolutely the overall scope of pinball is improving. Like everybody, even big, small, everything is getting better. Like the bar is continuing to be raised, which is really good. And random side tangent, because I did say P3, I forgot. I did get an email that this was like a podcast or two ago. So we were talking about one of the questions was talking about accessibility, having having machines that are accessible to like more people, whether it's a handicap or something like that. And we were talking about whether or not you can play a game. Like, what if you could only play a game with one hand? And we actually had a P3 owner that reached out to me and said, you can on a P3 that's built into the operating system where you can because there's three buttons on each side. You can just go in and set the game to have the buttons control. So, like, that's already built in. It was one of those like, oh, okay, that's actually pretty cool. And then he did mention there's actually a lot of logic behind that. Like it's not an easy, like it wouldn't be just an easy thing for Stern to just enable because there is actually an end-of-stroke switch that the flippers use. So it's not, apparently when you hit a flipper button, it's not, there's no like computing of that. Otherwise there'd be a delay. It's just a straight signal to the driver or whatever that runs that coil. So if you had to go through the software to tell, do this, there would actually be a deal. I don't know. They got really involved. So it was like, okay, maybe it's not as easy as I thought it was. So you don't think Stern could do flipper code to, like, make changes to the flipper buttons and the flippers?
    25:55
    Is that what I'm hearing? No. Could they do it? Yes. But what I'm reading here is Travis is a dick. He just wrote in chat, great story, Joel. That's all he wrote. No, it's a follow-up. I thought of that. I wanted to give the guy who took his time to write me an email props. But, yes, do I think that, I mean, obviously American Pinball did that, but with Oktoberfest, yes, I absolutely think these manufacturers are capable of doing it. I'm just giving a shout-out to B3 or Multimorphic for already doing it or already having it in their game. And it is actually more complicated than, I don't know, we were describing it. So, thank you, Travis. continuing on here yeah so Chris, Chris Caloris with Canada's Pinball Podcast, he actually commented on Dennis' thing and I don't think he meant to reply to it but it was probably more to the post but it was just, he just said I'd love a discussion about moments versus score and how the best machines give you both at the right time, which games do it best that's a good question Travis, go ahead and go first so I can just, you know, give you a hard time well I got an easy answer for that. It's upside down during Stranger Things. I mean, because you got the UV kit, so whenever, you know, it comes up, if you do have the UV kit, if you don't, then yeah, you're SOL. But with the UV kit, it makes just the play field look completely different, and it's actually worth some points. I mean, the first time it happens, it's a little bit dangerous, because you've got to hit the drop targets right in front of you. But the second time it happens, it lights both orbits and both ramps. Of course, some pretty good points. And so that in itself, I think that that's put in very well together, that it just changes the scope of the game and adds value into scoring as well. So those two things, they mesh well together, in my opinion.
    27:44
    Look at that, thoughtful answer. Joel has no idea what to say. Well done. No, this is what I think is actually a big difference. I mean, Zach has this whole, Zach Minney has this whole, like, are you a moment maker or a score chaser? You know, like he's, that's his thing. And I understand, like, between the three of us, you two are much more focused on score because you're competitive players. That's what you care about. And I'm much more about, like, progression, wanting to get through the game and see and be rewarded with getting further in the game. So that's why I get really excited about mini wizard modes or getting to wizard modes because it's a unique experience for me. It's not, you know, the norm for you two. And so, like, the moments really mean a lot to me. And that's why I think you have coders like Dwight, Dwight Sullivan, who's kind of, there are people that love Dwight Code and there's people that don't like Dwight Code because he does such an amazing job with the way that he codes his moments in the light show and experiences that there's a lot of players like Zach Minney who love, like I really enjoyed Dwight Code. but then the two of you guys from a competitive standpoint there's certain games that dwight's coded that you've had issues with because the code balancing is not where you want it and the fact that you know you see those moments all the time it just that doesn't excite you like a like somebody that codes a game that's more focused on all the different competitive avenues that you can go so in a perfect world yes the games would have both you know a perfectly balanced rule set with with rewarding competitive options, but then also really fun moments for everybody else to enjoy. So Joel, which game does it best? I mean, you've said like, we're going to talk about it, but like freaking Godzilla. Godzilla, in my mind, does an extremely good job at that because I want to have a moment. So friends and family come over to my house, like I want to give them a moment. And that building falling down is a moment that I think most people could achieve. But then Godzilla also has these mini wizard modes that actually take skill to get to that are extremely fun. What is it, like Terror of Mechagodzilla and stuff? There's some stuff in there that you have to work to get to, but that would be extremely rewarding to me to achieve because it's a unique experience that a regular novice isn't going to get. But then on top of that, Travis, maybe you can talk about it more.
    30:11
    But like you've said, Godzilla is the most fun game. I can't talk? I'm still not hiding in my bedroom well okay so the statement that Travis made was that he feels like Godzilla he said that Godzilla is the most fun game that he's played from a competitive level so Tom do you want to comment on that do you agree no I don't anymore I agree there's just so many ways to play Godzilla What do you think about score and moments combined, though? Because, Tom, you've owned a ton of games over the years. You've seen everything, right? I didn't really do this podcast. I mean, I'm sure that there's some, like, in the past. I mean, obviously the low-hanging fruit is Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars whenever you destroy a castle or a saucer. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. But are there any other games that we might be missing that may not necessarily be a stern. That's something like a Bally Williams that you could think of off the top of your head that mixes those two things in.
    31:24
    There's a lot of good moments in Bally Williams games. Sure. one of my favorites I was thinking Joel I was trying to make it funny you succeeded our joke writers are on fire tonight I love the jackpots in Whitewater when you hit multiple ones like jackpot. Oh, the three up top? Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty legit. Yeah, that's a good one. So Joel has no idea what that's like. No, I don't. His brain is trying to process this right now. You can hit three of them in a row? Wait, you can score points? There's a multi-bowl in life? There's even 5X scoring in that game. Wait, do the lights go off when you do that? No. Oh, they flash. Well, I know. What I was trying to think of, though, Travis White. What do you want, Travis? How do you start multiball in Whitewater?
    32:38
    You hit the blinky light, clearly. Done. I don't know. I played Whitewater, but I don't own the game.
    32:44
    That's why his brain was locked up right there, Tom. No, I know what you're doing here. We're teaching him. Yes, you're teaching me.
    32:54
    We're helping you get more involved in pinball. See, 30 minutes into this, we've already brought it back to the very first question of the whole podcast. How do we get outsiders so I'm still an outsider because I'm not educated about exactly how to start multiball in whitewater? Have you passed five years being in the industry? I have, but apparently I'm pretty slow. I just haven't put enough change.
    33:15
    Some of the best moments in pinball are just freaking hitting the spinner. I agree on that. There's some real good feeling moments on that. Stars. But the question of a moment combined with scoring. Aztec. I was thinking, so I'm curious your thoughts on GNR, because GNR, you don't get any points unless you cash out.
    33:38
    I've been streaming this a bunch over the last two months, and I will tell you, when I actually cashed out a big jackpot for me, it was close to $30 million. It was an amazing feeling, extremely exhilarating. exhilarating the flippers die i give me all those points like an incredible feeling and the encore it was it was awesome but yet at the same time you know the songs really do a good job like the whole song is a moment so it's because it's so much so like because it's so much all the time it's it's all good but it doesn't nothing really stands out until you finally cash out that and There's a lot of great moments in that game. I mean, you got the little stage lights in the back and, you know, locking balls, trying to get your jackpot up there is super awesome when you do that. Yeah, it's been a mixed bag. Like, I've had some days where I'm like, this game's incredible, and then others where it's just like, okay, I need Zach to come pick it up. Because I am grinding away and getting nothing. Like I am getting nothing from this because I double drain or triple drain, and it's all gone. And that's one of the things. You've got to have a game that has those moments but also is not so wood choppy. And that's where, you know, the game right behind you, Deadpool, you know, it's got a lot of things going for it, but it doesn't necessarily feel like you're chopping wood when you're playing it, At least when I play it, it doesn't feel like that.
    35:18
    I'll give it to you. Good question. I mean, I now realize I said my side. I went to hand it off to Travis. We instead stopped, handed it off to Tom. Then I just said my comment. Travis has said nothing.
    35:31
    I think we're good. Are you good with moving on? I'm kind of like the fallback that comes in at the goal line. Joel, I led off this question with Stranger Things. Did you already forget that? He did. Yes, yes, I did. Yep, you are 100% right. Sorry, Travis. Oh, my gosh. You are 100% right. It's because you're off camera. We just need a black box. Any other podcast out there needs a new co-host. I made it 20 episodes. It's been a great run. You don't want them. There are a bunch of questions on here that are very much tournament related. And we actually are planning on doing that. Joel doesn't want to talk about it, everybody. No, we have some tournament talk here. Joel hates tournaments. No, I don't know enough about them. What can I say? Yeah. Try playing in one. I know, I know, I know. Anyways, yes, we will address some of those questions soon.
    36:24
    What do we have? So last question here. I be interested in hearing your thoughts on the new Stern limited time leaderboards Godzilla done Maybe Rush has done too How did you guys do and did it motivate you to play more Yes I know Rush is done and now Mando So Tom I know you have Insider Connected Games Are you motivated at all to try to get a big score up on that leaderboard? Me, not so much. Neil, yes.
    36:48
    Okay. Very much so. So we actually did rush, and Neil did very well. He got third on the leaderboard. Nice.
    37:03
    Obviously, it's not a verified location, though, because it's in my house. Which reminds me, if you stream the damn game, shouldn't that be verified?
    37:15
    Yeah, well, we've talked about that before. I know Travis wants his double points. Yeah. I'm with you. So you said Neil was all about it, but, Tom, you just didn't care?
    37:26
    Not necessarily. I mean, because I knew once I saw Laser Loss' score, I'm like, I'm done. Yeah, 18 billion or something. I'm conceding. There's something to pick this, yeah.
    37:38
    I mean, Travis, have you participated? I mean, I know you have Godzilla. Have you participated at all in any of that? I mean, I put in scores, but then something weird happened, and my scores got erased. So that was a whole thing off Godzilla. Sounds like bullshit to me.
    37:53
    Put in scores that were going to be good. Well, I will just say this. It's leaderboards from the house don't really interest me as much as the achievements itself. But I don't know. It just doesn't do anything for me from my home. Maybe on a location it would. If I'm actually competing for a prize or something like that, it would. But if I'm just competing just to, like, see my name on top of a board, I mean, I don't know. It just doesn't motivate me too much.
    38:25
    Yeah, it would make sense. I mean, now that they're allowing locations through their own leaderboards, if they were to do – like, I think Nick with Buffalo Pinball, he actually does a location. I think he did something like that. Like, hey, we're going to do a leaderboard, and if you're at the top of the leaderboard, you know, you win. Joel, Tom has something to say. I thought it was appropriate for me to finish my thought, but Tom, go ahead. Tom Graff, go ahead. Tom, I recognize if you have a thought, you supersede.
    38:52
    Travis, would it motivate you more if there was some kind of prize that was, like, rewarded? I was literally talking about how – Joe, I don't listen. I want to go to Travis's test today. Joe, we're talking competitive pinball here. You can take a break. I was going to say that Travis would be, if it was at a tournament, you know he'd be gunning for that. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'd be gunning for number one. That's right. In his company.
    39:24
    Yes, in my company. Now, I will say, Mando, I'm pretty sure, actually, no, I take that back. I'm 100% sure because I think I saw this somewhere. You guys can correct me if I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure there's an obvious exploit. to getting the Mando high score. But I don't want to say it on here because we would end up just breaking the whole thing. Yeah. It would totally be Joel's fault and not my fault. Oh, yeah. But I'm pretty sure.
    39:49
    So there is an obvious X point to it. Am I thinking the correct thing here? You are. I would just say just to dangle the carrot. No, no, no. Don't say it. I'm not saying explicitly what it is. If you say, if you even hint at it, you're going to really well win it. You've already hinted at it.
    40:07
    Oh, shit. You're right. Okay. We'll leave it at that. No, it's Travis. Okay, you're right. Travis. I'm going to talk about it. We're going to talk about it. Oh, boy. Don't hit it. I'll just tell Neil, and then he'll do it. Oh, gosh. That score, that top score seems real high. We're about to see. Be verified.
    40:21
    We're about to see 100 billion point scores now. Yeah. Oh, boy. So, getting back to the prizes thing, though, one of the funnest things is when you go to a show, and they have the leaderboards up there, and you can play the games for prizes. So I know you can win translates and banners and things like that, and that motivates me to go and try and get the high score on the game. Well, I mean, there's a lot of breweries and stuff that have had selfie leagues, and this is basically a selfie league. But I am curious, though, if without taking the selfie. Exactly. But if you had access, if you were at work and you pulled out your phone, you're like, hey, I got the high score last night. I put it in like, I'm curious if you have access to that, like a brewery's like, let me check that I still have it. And then the day you realize, oh, crap, somebody beat me. Then you're motivated to go back in and do it again. Like, I think I think I don't know, from a location standpoint, I think it's very cool. I think it is cool that Stern got it. Of course, the first one was was like Carl. He pinball, of course, like he got the highest score on Godzilla because he's freaking Carl. He's incredible. so so what you're saying is if if say like a location like lumberjack johnny's and i put up the high score and then all of a sudden i get a message that says drew geigel got the high score then i could go run over there and play the game yeah it would be it would be cool if you had the ability to like favorite a location or something so that you could check in to see what the high scores were okay apparently there's an inside joke here i'm missing there's no inside Jokes? Well, Travis is writing something. I'm just laughing at Joel.
    42:10
    I don't like this no camera thing. I don't like it. Hey, if you give me $20, my only fans, I'll turn on the camera, Joel.
    42:21
    All right. Well, I think that's about it for Facebook questions. So thank you. Thank you for people that did it. We killed it. We will definitely. From handshakes all around. We did a great job. We definitely appreciate those. And sorry if we didn't read yours explicitly. Andy Dalton wants us to talk about tap passes. Well done, Andy. Or Dalton. Well, not Andy Dalton. You're a quarterback? No, I know. I messed up. Okay, Dalton, thank you. Tap pass. We're a quarterback? Dalton, Travis, and I apologize. I got you. And Tom and I can actually tap pass. That's true. Oh, you're so cool.
    42:57
    Oh, man. It is pretty cool. I know. It is cool. Believe it or not. I've done it a few times. Can I do it just on call? It doesn't count when you accidentally do it on your GNR, Joel. I'm not. We're talking about real tap passes here. All right. Time for a new topic.
    43:17
    We're moving right along. And you know what? I just. So now we're to the top of the list. Okay. So top of the list. Okay.
    43:26
    No, because Travis, you just want to stir it all up. Let's just mix the pot. Yeah. Hey, I'm sorry to all the listeners that I value your questions more than Joel. I'm sorry. Joel didn't want to lead off. Joel just, like, threw up a double-barreled middle finger at all you guys. I was like, Joel, the people matter. Let's do their questions first. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're welcome, America. And some of Australia. And some of Europe. Thank you. And the three Canadians that listened to you. Call out every country there.
    44:04
    Company or country? Country guy and the guy in Budapest. Competitive talk. Joe is so flustered right now. No, I just, you know. What's going on, Joe? Joe, I feel like you've had a long week this week, and it's only Monday. It's Monday. Exactly. What's going on, Joe? You know. Speak to Big Papa. Well, right now, you can see my face, and you're like, oh, look, Joe's flustered. I see El Gato no signal, okay? last time it's fine this is your conscience last time we recorded you look like garbage there's not 3 000 people listening right now you look like garbage and it was just so easy to look at that and be like i don't want to make fun of the guy i mean look at him you know do you know what it's like to have four kids in the house joel i have twins six-year-old twins my god yeah you will age up 25 years in one afternoon Got it. Wait a second. Why is this about me all of a sudden? I want to hear about your problems. I'm not. I'm saying, what's Tom's got to flush with me? Tell me about your mother. Yeah, Tom and I have. No, Tom. Tom also had crystal light before we started. So he didn't have his two Pepsis. Otherwise, he would have been fucking lit. He would have been lit. So this is you and me right now, Joel. It's fine. I got nothing for you, man. It's a safe space right now. I'm trying. This is me just trying to move it along. I think the listeners are getting real close to hitting that skip ahead 30 seconds, waiting for some content here. So let's see if we can get to it.
    45:39
    So topic. This is a topic I'm going to shut up because I don't know what. You guys, competitive talk. Competitive talk. Apparently there's a lot going on in the competitive world. There's some stuff that you guys did. There's some stuff coming up. There were some competitive changes. You didn't even know what we did? I know what you did. I'm giving you the floor. last thing, Joel? No, we weren't going to take the list. We weren't taking the list and completely inverting it. You just said, let's do Facebook questions first. And then competitive talk last. Fine. You want to do a last? No, no, no. We're already there. We're going to do it now. We're going to do this quick. Please. Thank you. Go for it, Tom.
    46:18
    So, competitive talk. So, I just did a stream at Lumberjack Johnny's. You can check it out on Twitch. I'm going to have it up on YouTube. It was the first tournament stream there is very, very well done.
    46:34
    And I think people should check it out. I took second to my son, Neil. So now you don't even have to watch because I just told you the results. But we did have quite a battle. But, yeah, I took second all week this week. So what's the drive home like after that? Oh, with Neil in the car? He's just sitting there with his big trophy. I still talk to him. Truth be told, we forgot our trophies when we left.
    47:11
    So they're really cool trophies. I contacted, we had a bunch of streaming shit, okay? I had a bring it all there. I had to drag it all out it's a lot of work nobody realizes that oh I got you I bet Carl knows about that oh Carl knows let me tell you Travis did you do anything worthwhile I mean I didn't stream anything that's what you're asking no we don't based on what we've seen of Travis you were on a stream what are you talking about he doesn't need to be anywhere near a stream Oh yeah, we're on competitive talk right now This is your domain So I played in a tournament in Tulsa, Oklahoma Called the Route 66 I believe it was Route 66 Pinball Championship Kind of forgetting exactly I think that's what it was, but it was by Hanger Pinball in Tulsa, Oklahoma And yeah, it was a lot of fun Ended up playing halfway decent Won some games of Godzilla Which was nice, I got to pick that a lot Got to put it in the old stuff You played huge games against Zillow, didn't you?
    48:23
    Yeah, a little bit. I mean, it was competitively. Yeah, it was playing pretty difficult because it had a lean to the right, and then the ball saves were turned down, no rubbers. And it was one of those things that I had to kind of adjust what my overall strategy was. There was such a lean that during the destruction jackpot phase, I had to forego the upper flipper and just let it come down to my left flipper and then hit it through the center spinner and then back around on the loop. So I kind of figured out where all the shots were, but there was even one point where in the finals they were doing a reverse order finish. And, Tom, you know how much we love doing reverse order finish. Yeah, it's not fun. Joel, do you know what that means?
    49:10
    No. I'm assuming you go in reverse order, but I don't. I'm assuming it's something like. That's a pretty good guess. I'm going to go get Joel's award for tonight.
    49:20
    I was doing, what is it, if you're in fourth, like, do you pick the game? Right, yeah. Is it going to work that the first person doesn't? Yeah, so last place gets to pick the game instead of the bus driver staying the bus driver. So I was actually faced with a decision in my first round, so I had to buy into the second round. And I won my first game on Godzilla. And then the last place of that game took us to Six Million Dollar Man, which is a solid-state game. and I had a house ball after my ball won and I ended up getting a little bit behind. And then I started realizing, I'm like, is it really worth taking a chance of getting second or third in this? Because if I got first, right, I would automatically have enough points to get through to the next round. So I actually ended up having to take last on that game pretty much on purpose. I'm just like, okay, I'm done with this game because I want to keep my same game pick or another game pick and then just take the whole party over to Simpsons after that. Because I just, I knew I could control that game. I knew where the shots were. I felt very confident to be able to get 40, 50 million on that and to pull out a win on that. So I had to make a strategic decision there. Yeah, you clearly never, I mean, I'm not, I'm not the tournament player, but I just, it seems like that's a weird or potentially not the best format if you're actually having players question on whether or not they actually want to compete on a certain game to like, I'm going to purposely lose this so that I have an advantage. It makes it a little bit different. It brings up a good point. Yeah, it makes it a little bit different. I learned my lesson down at Freeplay Florida when I ended up being taken to Cosmos by some a-hole that's on this podcast. Well done, Tom. Well done. Thank you. It got me to the next round. But it was fun overall, though, and the trophy, too, is pretty dope. I wish I could show you guys if I had my camera on. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know.
    51:15
    Oh, that's beautiful. I'll just take a picture of it and send it to you guys. And we can put it on the Triple Drain Facebook page or Instagram or whatever it is we have. That's a pretty cool sculpture. I've just learned to stop accepting photos that you send. So, yeah.
    51:31
    Hey, as long as you keep paying my monthly fee, it's fine. You'll keep getting them. He shows us his big trophies all the time.
    51:41
    Anyways, where were we? Oh, shout out to Hottie with Frisco Pinball because he got, what, first or second in the B division. So I know he's a TPN streamer, and Hottie, he was jazzed. He was, like, high on life because he did so well in the tournament. Yeah, no, he's an awesome guy, too. I really enjoyed getting to meet him. We had a beer together. We got to hang out. And I think he's going to be up at Super Series also in Wisconsin. Yep, that's right. So that's what's happened. So I know there was some tournament stuff that's coming next year that's been alluded to. Did you want to talk about any of that, or we're going to save that for the night? We can save that for another time. You're talking about the Whopper changes and all that. Yeah, we can save that for some podcast. There's some time to talk about all that stuff. We don't want to go way over your head on this, Joel. It's a lot of numbers. It's just a lot of formats. I'm just thinking, you know, when you guys line up that guest, maybe I'll just take that week off. It'll be great, you know. Sounds good. Okay. All right.
    52:45
    Oh, boy. All right. Well, thank you. Is that good? Can we have a talk? Is there anything else? Sure. I don't want to. I mean, you only have two players in the top 25. No, I'm not in the top 25 anymore. Are you not? Where'd you go? I don't know. I'm like 26, 27. Because Neil keeps winning. No, there's other good players out there, Joel. It's just not all about Travis and Tom. I'm 26. Okay, you're right there. You can do it. Who's in front of you? Andrew Foster from the UK. Oh, yeah. In the UK. Oh, that guy. Nice fellow. There's a lot of people below me that are eventually going to pass me.
    53:27
    Like who? Who's below you? Colin Urban? Colin Urban. Oh, yeah, you're screwed. He'll pass you. But who else is there? Derek Price. Okay, yeah, he'll pass you, too. But who else besides us? Zach McCarthy. Well, shit, there's three.
    53:43
    Alexander Camarcha. Okay, yeah, there's a lot of people that's going to pass us. I'm screwed. Hey, Tom, I won't think any less of you. It's okay. We all love Tom. I just play pinball, Joel. All right. Well, speaking of – okay, so I was like, well, I want to bring this up, but I really have no idea how to bring this up. So I was going to say that my playing ability here at home, at my house, has actually improved a little bit. And I wanted to bring up – this is going to sound very shilly, but I will tell you – How are you cheating, Joel? Tell us. No, that glass is on. He's like, wow, I don't know how to bring up that I've gotten better at pinball, everybody. Well, you know, I just want you guys to be proud of me, and it clearly isn't happening. Just say, look, just say, everybody, I'm going to do a humble brag right now. That's all you've got to say. But the reality is it's not actually me at all. So what I want to talk about is on my Turtles, I have always had issues with backhanding the left ramp. My Turtles, I've actually had two. My original one, I could backhand it all day long. That had our issues. Zach and Nicole flipping out, they hooked me up, and we actually swapped the games for a new game. So I got a game with a good play field. I mean, Zach was awesome. He treated me right. It was great.
    55:01
    So this one, I've never been able to backhand the left ramp, and it's just been really interesting watching forums of, like, should you be able to do that? What's going on? I have checked pitch. I have checked angle. I have increased the power of the left flipper all the way up. I've replaced the coil sleeve. I've replaced the coil stop. I've done, like, everything I could possibly do to see if it was something wrong with this game. I've never been able to backhand the left ram. And it just got to the point where I was like, okay, I'm just not going to do it. I'm just going to, it just, my game just can't do it. It is what it is. Well, I was browsing the good old pin side and I came across, um, Joel took pinball steroids, I think. You're not supposed to read it. I'm going to read everyone. He knows I'm going to read everyone. I was browsing pinball and pin side and I found this medicine that you can take and it'll make you big and strong. No, it's, uh, I saw these things and the reason they stood out, what I'm talking about is the precision flip flipper system. They are metal flippers. So when I originally saw them, I was like, oh, it's a metal flipper bat. That looks cool. That's all I thought. I was like, that looks really neat. Well, the guy actually has a really unique system here where the shaft of the, I'm going to say shaft, and there's no, I'm not even going to look at Travis, whatever he's going to write, but the shaft of the flipper is separate from the flipper bat itself. And so it allows you to adjust the flipper super easily from the top. And I was like, oh, that's really cool. That's really smart. So I was reading up on this system. And Joel was dumb. God, okay. All right.
    56:34
    Travis is being Travis. Let your mind wander, guys. I had to mute myself. I'm laughing at Tom. But Joel, I'm with you. You're talking about a new product that you got to try out. This is good. Let Joel talk. This is big. This is big for Joel. Go ahead, Joel. It's not as big as your trophy. Let me tell you. So anyway, so this guy also makes this precision flipper, the shaft bushing. So the bushing that's normally made of nylon, that's actually like the tube that goes through the play field, and that's what the flipper shaft is going through. What he was saying on the forum, I know, you guys can get through it. We got this. I'm not even on camera. I'm just drinking my green tea. Just nodding. Yeah, yeah. I'm agreeing with you. The amount of play that's normally in one of these nylon bushings is actually a decent amount. Like if you take the flipper bat and you kind of move it or jiggle it in that bushing, you'll see there's some decent play in there. Well, this guy has machined a more accurate bushing. So I just – I'm not even going to read it, man. You guys, they're – I'm working with professionals. Anyways, so this system, I reached out to the dude and I said, here, I think what you have here is pretty cool. I've always had trouble backhanding my left flipper. I stream games. If there's any – Tom has turned off his video. Tom has turned off his video because he's muted himself and turned off his video. We're an hour into it. You've got to pay us some more money if you want to see the camera. Oh, yeah, my hour time is up. Okay. So this – I reached out to the guy and I said, I've had issues with this. do you think your system would potentially increase the power or the stability of the flipper? And the guy's like, he was like, yeah, I think you would see an improvement here. So he actually sent me a set, and I've put him in my Turtles. I will tell you, the install, super easy. What I did, as soon as I installed that set, I had the glass off. I lifted the flipper up. Tom's going to spit out his drink. He had to shut it off again.
    58:39
    There's going to be crystal light all over his headset, all over his keyboard. I've never seen Tom laughing this much. He's laughing at his own joke. The one in Tappan. He's having a giggle fit. That's what it is. I'm proud of you, Tom. So what's this product called? It's called, okay, the original product is the Precision Flip Flipper System, and then he also makes the Precision Flipper Shaft Bushing. So what I will say is I put it in my game. I lifted the left flipper up. I placed the ball on it, and I tried a shot at the left flipper. The very first shot I did, right up the ramp. I mean, it was perfect. So I caught it, did it again, and did it again. So what I will say is I've only had this product like a week. Did it fix my problem? Yes. Do I think the flipper bats look cool? Yes. Do I think adjusting the flipper bats was super easy? Yes. So like everything right now, all positives. But when I brought this up on my stream last Wednesday, people are like, why did you replace a nylon part with a metal part? Now you have metal on metal. Is that going to create problems? You know, there is some questions here. So long term, I'm very curious to see how these flippers work. But I will say my initial impression with this system is it fixed my problem. I'm impressed, and I'm excited to continue to use this system. So I will be streaming Wednesday night. I'll be streaming Turtles. You'll see the flippers in action. And obviously I'll update you guys if I have any issues with them. But to me, it's like we all spend money on mods that make our games look cooler. but when was the last time that we actually put money into the thing we're actually using to interact with the play field? Never. Yeah. And I think like pin monk makes flipper fans, which do an amazing job of keeping your fans cool. So you can play consistently for long periods of time. Like that to me was, is worth it. It's awesome when I stream. So this is like, if this is a game changer, truly a game changer, we're now going to be able to hit shots more consistently, or I will say because they're metal, like the dead bounces are very consistent. I don't know. I'm excited. It's a product I'm excited about. What you're saying is your balls are going where you intend on them to go.
    60:44
    Sure. I'm saying I will tell you I was able to hit a shot I wasn't able to hit before, and the little bit that I've used it so far, yes, things feel consistent. The way the balls bounce off of it seem consistent. I'm excited. I know Jordan and Becca with Fliptronic, they put it on their game, and they're like the first night they had it on their games, they both set high scores for themselves. So I don't know. It's, it may be just, it may be mental, but I like cosmetic thing. It's, it is cosmetic, but I will say I have never been able to backhand the left ramp. I did this switch. Now I can, that's all I'm saying. So I'm excited. Does that mean you're going to get a rush again? Flippers on a rush? There's nothing, there's nothing I can do to improve the, so this is, I know what you're trying to do with bringing up Rush, and I've got to give credit to Dennis Creasel, he said, Rush to Joel is like a pinata. He knows there's candy in there. He knows there's toys in there. No matter how hard he hits it, he never gets to experience the fun. So I'm at a party with everybody else. They're breaking pinatas left and right. And mine, I'm just banging away at it. And I don't get it. I get nothing. I get no candy out of it. I get nothing. So anyway, That was probably the best pinball analogy I've ever heard in my life. Dennis Creasel's the man. So if you want to look at it as a plug or shill, whatever, feel free to reach out to me. But I'll just say check out the Precision Flipper Kit. You can reach out to the guy that sells them. He's super responsive, very nice. And I don't know. I just – I'm excited. I'm excited about this. I think what was cool about it is, you know, they have the normal length flipper bat, and then they have a shorter one and a longer one. and as a tournament player that has some appeal to it. Yeah, and once you put the new shaft into the game, replacing the flipper bat is, I mean, it would take like two minutes, if that. So that could be a fun way to mix up your game.
    62:48
    Like even just you had people over, it's like, hey, you want to play Godzilla with lightning flippers? Boom, five minutes later you have lightning flippers in it and play again. You know, I think it's pretty cool. Cool. Yeah. That's all I got. Travis, what, I mean, do you have any, I don't know, I feel like you've been.
    63:05
    I'm just listening. I've never used. He's never been this quiet. Yeah, I've never used flippers like that before so I can make a ramp. I don't know. I'm just listening. Yeah, you're just used to making the ramp. I was just trying not to laugh when Tom was laughing. I was just sitting here. I was just imagining Joel as a sex ed teacher explaining, putting things in. he's talking about chefs. What made it so funny is that his face was obviously turning red. He was just trying to get through it. Because you're laughing. And I apologize.
    63:38
    I apologize. No, no. Don't apologize for that. That was funny, Tom. Tom made it funny. No, I get it. I know what I was saying. I was just trying to be serious talking about somebody's product. Thank God Joel's mom wasn't listening. We'd be in trouble.
    63:53
    Alright. So once again, next topic. Next topic on the list. I'm tired now. Next topic. Yeah, your abs are going to hurt tomorrow.
    64:02
    All right. Tom needs a cigarette after this. So next topic here. So Toy Story 4 follow-up. So, Travis, well, really to lay this out for you. What do you want to know? Well, you've had a Toy Story, and then what's crazy is after we finished recording last episode, like a day later, your Godzilla Premium showed up. So you've had two brand-new games to kind of explore over the last two, three weeks. so yeah toy story follow-up and i don't know if you want to talk about godzilla a little bit go for it i mean what what are you wanting me to follow up on the toy story exactly do you enjoy the game more or less has your opinion of it changed at all um honestly i i got through it so quickly that i haven't really played it too much since then i mean ever since godzilla showed up. I've just been playing that just non-stop.
    64:53
    My kids still play Toy Story off and on. It just depends. But I mean, realistically, it's just... The best way I could put this is I accept that Toy Story was not made for high-end competitive play. That's crystal clear, and that's fine. I mean, people have different experiences on pinball machines, and that's the way it should be. Every experience somebody has to be relative to what they enjoy, what they want out of pinball. And, you know, just for me, I think Toy Story is fine just to play every now and again. But as long as my kids are happy, I'm happy with that. But I mean, it's not going to be something that I'm going to come back and keep playing over and over and over again, just because it's just, I don't know, from the standpoint that I'm trying to play from, there's just very much a linear path to go through to play the game. And it's very easy to see everything up front pretty early. I mean, that's like the best way I can say it. And I've seen everything there is to see in it. And I mean, yeah, it was good for what it was. But like I said, as long as my kids are having fun with it, that's really all that matters to me. I think, you know, when it comes to what Jersey Jack put out, there was they were very clear up front that this was geared more towards families towards casuals towards just people that they want they want to be able to reach kids you know they want they they were very clear on that about a generational thing about creating new people or new fans in the hobby that that was their aim and so on that part it it spoke to me as a parent to get this type of game because my kids were like, oh, Toy Story, we want to get Toy Story. You've been talking about this. We want to get it. So, I mean, it's like one of the few times that I let my kids kind of drive a decision that's very much issue in the bank account because it's not a cheap game. I think it was like $12,000 for the LE. So, it's definitely not cheap by any means. But, I mean, overall, as long as they're having fun, cool. But, I mean, just to be flat out honest with Godzilla right next to it, I mean, Godzilla is going to be getting 95% plus of my gameplay. Plus, Avengers is on the other side of it. So, I mean, it's kind of not fair in that instance. But, yeah, it's just, it is what it is. What about Monica? Like, Monica is a competitive player. She travels. She competes. I mean, with her skill level, what are her views on Toy Story? She actually, she really enjoys it because it's right along with what her skill level is. She feels like that she can actually see different parts of the game and get far into the game. So, I mean, from that standpoint, happy wife, happy life. You know, I mean, honestly, I'm outvoted on it. I mean, it's going to be clear that Godzilla and Avengers would get most of my attention with those three games together. But that being said, Toy Story is a little bit more accessible for kids. I mean, it's just the jump ramp is an easy thing to access, and it's something that they can tell, and they can see the ball flying through the air. They recognize the characters a lot better than what they recognize comic book characters or what they recognize Godzilla. You know, it's not like my 12- and 11-year-old and my 6-year-old just sat in front of the TV and watched 1970s and 1960s Godzilla movies. So, you know, that much is apparent. But, you know, I think overall it has its place, and I think that I can see it in real time that it's actively reaching the demographic that they intended on it reaching.
    68:42
    You know, but now I can say from the standpoint of owning the game for a few weeks how it's holding up, the play field's holding up really well.
    68:51
    Up front, there were some screws loose falling off the play field, but after tightening that up, I mean, it was fine. And I think that was mostly just in shipping.
    69:01
    The other thing, though, I've noticed that the flippers are starting to lose a little bit of their power and the plungers losing its power as well. Like somehow I can do a full plunge now and that sucker barely gets around. And I don't quite know why that is. I might have to just check up on it. I'm not quite sure yet, but I have noticed the flippers don't feel quite as snappy or as powerful as they did out of the box. So I'm kind of curious about that. I'm keeping an eye on that. Joel knows a guy who can get you some flippers. Flipper mats.
    69:37
    Yeah. Oh, it's just the flipper bats. Yeah. Oh, the bats. Go with the bats too, yeah. I need that to get up that left ramp. There you go. Well, so it's not leaving anytime. Like I know Carl, i.e. Pinball, he was streaming it, and he looped the game I don't know how many times, one night, like 500-something million. I mean, he just destroyed it. It was like a two-hour long game. And, I mean, Carl being Carl just dominated the game in every way. Carl, if you're listening, you're not from the Zers.
    70:07
    And I know Carl sold it because he's like, all right, I'm done. Yeah. Well, it's one of those things, too, that once you get through to the end, you're legitimately through to the end. It's not that you get there and you didn't see something else. I mean, you literally have to do all the things to get to the end. And then the only nuances from there just come with how you want to play your multi balls, because the problem is, and unless it's changed already, whenever you do collect the characters and you kind of get your carnival locks going and your characters have different little power ups that you can bring in to the carnival, I guess, for lack of a better term, it'd be called power ups. I don't know what else you would really call them. But the problem that I have is that it it's very randomized. So a character doesn't seem to be necessarily attached to said power-up.
    71:00
    And that's my thing. So that kind of takes out... Even in competition mode? Even in competition, from what I've seen. But again, maybe I haven't paid that close attention, so if I got this wrong, please somebody let me know. But that might be a nuance that is either completely missing, that I'm just missing it, or maybe it is there and I'm just missing it completely, and I'm just playing through the game just to play through it. But, I mean, right now, that's the one thing. It doesn't really seem that you have to overthink it that much. Like, I want this character to bring into this. Whereas with other stuff like the game right behind you, Deadpool, you actively want to think about which power-ups or which character team-ups that you want to bring into modes. And so there's really not that type of decision-making to be had in Toy Story. It's just more or less you can just, if you're above average player, you can just basically brute force your way through this game. I mean, in due time, you will. And I think that's kind of what they wanted anyways, because they've been pretty upfront that they want people to be able to see the end of the game and not necessarily create something to where it's only like one person out of every few thousand players gets to see the end of it. So in that regard, they've done exactly what they wanted to do. It's just the only problem is, is that if you're able to brute force your way through the game every single time you play it, how rewarding does that feel over time? Well, here's a random thought, but do you think the game would be more enjoyable if the second time you got through it, the game actually ended? Like, Flipper's dead, game's over? Like, with TNA, you destroy Reactor 9, it's done. So, if you're one of those people that's so good that can go through all nine reactors, now all of a sudden you have kind of a different, like, if you want to set the high score, you have to actually plan for that. You have to be, how far do I want to, you know, do I want to maximize your actor and build it and build it and build it before I destroy it instead of trying to speed race through it? Like do you think Toy Story would be at all more entertaining for you if the game would actually end and you didn loop it again And that way it kind of pushed you to really plan out your strategy for a high score I would say not really in this instance I would say, and spoilers coming up, so if you guys don't want to hear this, just speed up 30 seconds. I'll give it like three seconds before I say it.
    73:22
    It totally counted in my head. But anyway, so, yeah, the very end of it, when you get to fireworks, The most frustrating part for it is I was expecting something just extraordinary and something totally different, and it ended up just being just ramp out over and over and over again on the Kaboom ramp. Oh, like a victory lapse almost? You just keep doing it? That's all it is. And so that, for me, isn't very fun. To get all the way through the game and then just get to that part, it got to where now I just totally skip it. If I play it and I get through to that part, I just skip it and I just restart over the game. So the final wizard mode, you're just – because I saw when I watched Carl stream it and just, like, looped it so many times, he was in that wizard mode for, like, just a long time. Oh, yeah. I played it at one point, and after I got about 80, 90-plus ramps, I just finally said this, like, why am I doing this anymore? Yeah. Because it wasn't like it was worth a million points per ramp or anything like that. It just got to where, okay, I'm doing the thing that's really close to the start button, and yet I'm at the very end of the game. So I've just gotten to where I just drain out of it every single time now. Keep it going. Well, Tom, have you played it yet? I have.
    74:39
    My first thoughts, I didn't really like the game. But when I played it at Lumberjack Johnny's, the flippers felt stronger to me and the shots were more makeable. And I enjoyed it. I mean, I don't have anything really negative to say about it. I didn't get deep into the game like Travis or Carl. But, yeah, I mean, it was fine. I didn't, I, am I going to go spend $12,000 to go, to go buy one? No, I'm going to play it on location, but you know, if I saw it on location, I'd certainly play it. That's for sure.
    75:22
    Yeah. And I actually talked to Zach today. And so the plan is, um, he's going to try to get me one between now and next Thursday. So hopefully within the next, I don't know, week and a half, I'll have a chance to stream one then. So I'm really excited for it. I'm excited to play it. I do think it's more aligned with my skill set, and we'll see how it goes. Here's the challenge, Joel. I'm ready. Yes. We want to see you finish the game.
    75:48
    Wizard mode, Joel. Wizard mode. Just the first time through, right? Yeah, you don't have to do it. We're not crazy, Joel.
    75:59
    I'll do my best. Okay. So the other part of that, Travis, was you've had Godzilla. You've played Godzilla plenty before now owning your premium. Now that it's in your house, has your perception of the game changed? Or like it more or less? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it has actually. I knew it was an excellent game. And like I've told you before, I thought that this is quite possibly the best game that's ever been made when everything's said and done. But after getting to spend time playing it, really looking into how the rules are, seeing it fleshed out, seeing how things go together, it's just a flat out amazing experience.
    76:41
    I mean, it really is. And I love my Avengers game. I'm a huge Marvel fan. I mean, that before was one of my main favorite games, along with Walking Dead. And I can honestly say Godzilla has just surpassed Avengers big time. I mean, it's just everything about Godzilla. It's very difficult to find something wrong with the game. And I'm sure if we really just dug into it, we could find a critique with it. But it's just like, holy cow, everything in there is just so damn good. And most of the modes in there are balanced.
    77:13
    I've been trying to find anything in there that's an exploit for points and everything. But yet, it's almost like the way that this game is coded, the things that you can do and the decisions that you can make that lead to other decisions later in the game, it's so amazing how it goes together. You know, and it could be little things, like if you're on a premium and you're in Gigan, you could get it to where the building's set up to accept the first lock, and that'll move the building for you, so now you can just loop out the right ramp over and over and over again. And that's such a tiny nuance that people may not really think about, But yet you have to work to set it up and do all the right things to get to that point. Yet it's very close to the start button. So that's what I love about pinball is getting to make certain decisions to take my game on a certain path. And what feels great about Godzilla, it never feels like you're in jail. So if one thing doesn't work, you just shift and you just do the next thing that doesn't work. You just shift and go to the next thing. I mean, at one point, to put this in perspective, Joel, at one point when I was playing it at the tournament a couple weeks ago at the Route 66, at one point I was literally shatzing from left to right just to hit the saucer, just to build up my saucer collects there to get the 50 million points from an extra ball. So that little nuance right there, it's like what other games really put that on you, that that's a realistic strategy that you can use? And all of a sudden, you just forego everything else, and you just decide randomly on a modern game that you're going to start shatting. I mean, that just doesn't happen too often. And so that really got me to thinking that there's just so much that you could do on this game, so many different shots, I mean, from left to right to where you're using the whole entire play field. And for me, that's what makes the game very much enjoyable. You know, none of the shots are just – well, I put it to you this way. all the shots are very accessible, but that doesn't mean that they're all super easy either. They can still be challenging, which is nice. Yeah. Tom, you've had your LE for quite a while. I mean, there's been a lot of updates. The game's not over, so you're still loving it. Yeah. That's good. I like it. Yeah. I'm on a list for a premium. I'm waiting, but I think they're backordered for freaking ever. But I'm looking forward to getting mine, and it's definitely, I mean, of the games that I borrowed from Zach and Nicole at Flippin' Out, I miss it. I miss it, and I'm looking forward to getting one back. Have you ever played a premium before, Joel? I have not played a premium, but I played an LE. I played Zach's LE. That was at Expo, and, yeah, it's awesome. I'm very excited about that and just watching streams. And the truth is, though, the pros are still – that's an amazing game. even though the pro, especially with some of the mods that people put in it. I mean, you can really ramp up the cosmetics of a pro, but the code and the layout, it's insane. It's awesome.
    80:19
    All right. Well, the last thing I wanted to say about Toy Story was super awesome pinball show. Christopher Franchi and his crew, they have a really interesting podcast, And they've recently had some good interviews with Dave Fix, the, I think, president or something of American Pinball, or one of the higher-ups in American Pinball, and then just recently, Jack, Jersey Jack, with Jersey Jack Pinball. So there was some stuff that came out. Does Dave Fix have a tank?
    80:50
    A what? A tank. No, that picture was pretty great. Yeah. So what I want to say is listen to both. Listen to both the interviews. There was a ton of really good information in there. But Jack, with Jersey Jack, he was talking about Toy Story. And basically the long and short of it is they got the Toy Story license before or while Pat Lawler was working on Dialed In. So Toy Story was supposed to be the game that he did after Dialed In. Dialed In ended up taking longer than expected. So by the time he finished Dialed In, that's when they learned that there was going to be a Toy Story 4 movie, and they had already acquired the license for Wonka. So because the Toy Story 4 movie was coming out and the Toy Story 4 movie had been pushed back a year and a half, the license was extended. So they're like, well, we have more time left on Toy Story than we do on Wonka, so let's do Wonka first. So they pivoted to Wonka. But the original license was just for all of Toy Story 1, 2, and 3. They had it. They had the license for all of 1, 2, and 3. by the time Wonka's done and Lawler has a chance to start Toy Story, Disney is now saying, hey, we have Toy Story 4 we want you to include Toy Story 4 so the truth is they have assets in the license for Toy Story 1, 2, 3, and 4. They have assets for everything but yet they honed in and focused entirely on Toy Story 4 and now there are video clips and stuff from the other movies, but clearly the game is the carnival. It's focused on Toy Story 4. It's focused on the characters of Toy Story 4.
    82:26
    I don't know, Travis, now that that's all come out, I mean, I know you were a little upset when you learned it was originally Toy Story 4. I don't know. What are your feelings as a Toy Story owner now hearing that information?
    82:39
    Well, Joel, let me tell you, I'm a little salty about it. Okay. Well, so here's the thing. Here's why I'm salty about it. I'm 38 years old. I only got to the point in my life where my wife and I have disposable income. Otherwise, we wouldn't be in the pinball hobby, obviously. But it's one of those things where I grew up with Toy Story. I remember going to watch it back in 1995 at the theater when I was 11 years old. I remember that experience. And I remember how big of a deal that theme was then. and it's almost like I grew up with it, you know, because they came out with several other movies. It's something that I ended up being able to share with my kids. It's something that we've seen whenever we've gone to Disney World on vacation. And I mean, it's been a big part of everything. And that was the one theme that when I'd heard that this was coming out a few years ago, I, you know, I was just like, this is the one thing that I think would be really cool. and I know my wife really wanted it. And we, the three of us had talked about this leading up to it, that, you know, if they had this, if they had that, it'd be really cool. And then when we realized it was Toy Story 4, we were just kind of like, okay, you know, it's the one that we personally didn't really care too much for compared to the others. So now hearing that there's assets and that that's something that they could have done, I'm just sitting here like, damn, you know? It just kind of feels like a gut punch nearly. I don't really know how to describe it because this is a theme that I love, and there's several themes out there that I do thoroughly enjoy. I mean, just like we talked about earlier, Avengers and Godzilla, I grew up on both of those. And so it's great. I'm extremely lucky that those two games ended up being fantastic. And so when I see Toy Story and I'm like, I wish it could be something even bigger than what it is now just because of all the assets that could have been used in it. And just hearing that the decision was made to not use those based off, I guess, what Disney wanted Jersey Jack to do, it's just kind of like, man, I just, I don't know. I wish we could have seen that pinball machine, and I would have loved to have seen something like that made by Pat Walton. Like, I just wonder what could have been if that machine was made, if Toy Story 1, just that one was made. I mean, it's, I just wonder what could have been. Yeah. And it was, it was either Chris or Christian. One of them asked, like, did, was there a Toy Story 1 play field that was like started and then pivoted later? And, and Jack was like, no, I mean, maybe Pat was kind of already thinking about it in his head or had an idea in his head. Because obviously like the, the, the jump ramp is Duke Kaboom. Like that's only in Toy Story 4. I mean, it probably would have been very different if they went a different way. But I don't know. I just thought it was interesting coming out with that. Like, I'm surprised he shared that information, to be honest.
    85:50
    But I don't know. We also we weren't involved in those those licensing meetings. And he said, you know, there's certain things even like Gabby Gabby, the sculpt of her face. there were so many iterations on that because they are so meticulous about exactly the way she looks on the on screen that the sculpt had to be perfect even the coloring of her eyes apparently they went into it was a big deal and that's you know we're not involved in those like and the same thing with like the cake topper they were talking about the sculpts that are on that like basically why were cake toppers used and the truth is because those sculpts were already approved by disney like the The amount of energy and effort they would have had to go through to make custom sculpts, it's just these are things that are already approved by. So it sounds kind of crazy, but that was a big, like, whoa, like kind of a big surprise to me to hear that. And I don't know. There's been a lot. So Super Awesome Pinball Show has really had a lot of those moments over the last few weeks. Another one that was kind of a big whoa that wasn't actually said, like, directly. Are we going to talk about the big whoa? The big whoa.
    86:57
    There was a huge whoa, actually. So Jack from Jersey Jack made a comment about they had a license that he apparently pursued for years, got the license, and then realized that there wasn't much to it. He said, if I had that license, apparently the only thing I was getting from it was a movie poster. Now, did he actually get the license, or did he pass on it? It was one or the other, but it was like he basically was like, I pursued it for two years, and I learned that all I was going to get was a movie poster. So he's like, so we didn't do it. And then next thing we know, somebody snatched it up. That's basically what he said, and he didn't say what it was. He said Stern, didn't he? I think he did. I either said Stern or strongly implied that it was Stern. Okay. But he didn't say what it was, and he goes, Chris, I know you know what it is. And Christopher Franchi does all of the editing of that podcast. So what did he do? He edited in the Jaws, like, it's very clear. So nobody said Jaws, but Chris added in the song of Jaws to that conversation. So basically, in a very direct way, stating that Jersey Jack was pursuing Jaws stopped because they couldn't get all the assets, and now Stern has Jaws. now whether or not Stern just picked it up to make sure somebody else doesn't make it or Stern actually picked it up to date for them to make it I don't know but I thought that was kind of a big deal for that to kind of for one pinball manufacturer to kind of out another pinball manufacturer on what licenses they have so I don't know I see you're barely like I know you are so surprised right now what time is it I gotta make sure he's still awake yeah oh yeah Yeah, it's a little goofy to do that on a podcast with, you know, the head of another manufacturer. It's a little odd. Yeah. I don't know. It's almost like you're spilling the beans of a potential theme of another manufacturer. Yeah, and I was very surprised by it because, obviously, this has been a rumored title for some time, and I think it started with Kaneda. I think he was one of the first ones, if not the first one, to drop the rumor. And this is the first time that it's like, whoa, this seems like as close to a confirmation as we're going to get outside of Stern themselves.
    89:33
    And so that's why I don't want to put words in anybody's mouth because I need to go back and listen. I just remember hearing that part when I was trying to listen in about the Toy Story stuff. And then all of a sudden it's like I heard Jack talk about, you know, the movie poster thing. And then I just heard the Jaws music play. And I'm just like, this is basically just throwing it out there without actually saying the name of it. So I was just I was very surprised that that was kind of the way that they were kind of just putting it out there like that. But I mean, now it's it's out there. We've all heard it. And it's kind of like you can't ignore that that happened. So it just it just feels like at this point that there's just a lot of a lot of smoke to this potential fire. well yeah and and i jack wasn't he didn't say it he didn't know he did not like that and so it's just interesting that so that's been said that somebody has jaws pretty much and then you know uh we like american pinball has said very clearly they don't have the license for sonic anymore but somebody has it so it's just like this is kind of a weird thing where now all of a sudden we're talking about licenses that people have. I don't know. It's just a weird thing to know, and I don't know if there are Jaws fans out there that are pumped, like, yes, it's happening, or if they're disappointed that maybe Jersey Jack doesn't have it. Or what's interesting is Jersey Jack is saying they passed on it because the only thing they'd have access to is the poster. So, well, if Stern has that, do they have access to anything more? Or, no, are we about to have a Jaws game made with nothing from the movie? It's just the concept of a shark. In all reality, though, the movie is the shark. You know, what all do you really need on there? Is anybody really craving for a mode in which everybody's just comparing the scars that they have like they did in the first movie? You know what I mean? Yeah, it's not a theme I care about at all. Yeah, I care nothing about the theme in general. People like sharks.
    91:38
    They get their own week. It's called Shark Week. Yeah, Shark Week. They get their own week. Of course people like it. Well, it's an interesting thing. And, yeah, there's been a lot of – I mean, I would just tell, if you're in the hobby, those two podcasts, there's been a lot of interesting stuff spilled or talked about in those two episodes. So give them a listen.
    91:57
    But, yeah, it's kind of moving on then to our next topic, which is really game reveals. I mean, we're like revealing themes or revealing licenses that people have. there's a lot of rumors that go around in this hobby. And to be honest, I mean, I know we have heard, I mean, like Travis works directly for a pinball distributor now. Like I know he knows things that Tom and I don't know. Like there's a lot of knowledge out there. There's so much secrecy going on out there. Do you know stuff, Trevor? He says he does. Oh, my gosh. He says he does. But here's the thing. So when I was doing my other podcast, A Pinball Podcast, by the way, if you guys want to hear it, I haven't done an episode in several months, but it's out there. I always try to take the stance that if I knew something, I didn't want to be the one to leak it out. Yeah. So I would constantly hear rumors or hear other people say stuff. And even if I knew that it was wrong, I didn't necessarily want to get into it. The only time I talked about anything is just basically when it was so loud. There's so many people talking about it, like Toy Story, for instance. So many people talking about it. It's like you can't ignore it. And that's kind of the way we take this now, that if so many people are talking about it and it's plainly obvious that that's what it is, then it's time to kind of discuss and just speculate because that's part of the fun. But, no, it's hard being on this side because one of the weird parts is we still find out what the themes are, like confirmation, basically right before you guys find out. And I think that's well-versed. You as a distributor, yeah. Yeah, I mean, nothing gets told to us ahead of time. I mean, I wish it would. I mean, I wish Stern would do the way that they do a reveal a lot different than they do it now, because it would make life a lot easier for us. And I think every pinball company out there is actually really lucky that they don't do it in the way that you see, like a Disney or a Marvel kind of do their schedule to where they reveal everything. But, I mean, it is what it is. Do you think there would be less excitement if people knew the titles?
    94:07
    No. I don't necessarily think so. Because if I would have heard, even though, I mean, I heard rumors they were doing Rush, and I was kind of like, oh, that would be awesome. But, you know, I kind of had doubts in my head because I'm like, Rush isn't this, they're a cult band, but they're not like this epic, you know, band like Led Zeppelin. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
    94:34
    But if you knew the theme of Jaws was coming out in two years, you know, would everybody be excited about that? I mean, I know from experience when I heard, the truth is I think people are already doing it, but they're doing it based on rumors. Right. When I heard that the rumors of Turtles was going to happen, I started saving money. I prepared myself to, like, I was looking at, at the time, the games that I owned. I was like, I think, according to rumors, it's going to be at least six months before Turtles comes out. So I'm just going to buy these games and play them. But I have full intention of selling these games once Turtles reveals because I'll need the money for Turtles. Like, I think there are people already, like, there are already people that are waiting or saving money for Venom. Like, Venom is something we're going to talk about here. Venom is the next rumored theme. There are people that I bet are saving money because, like, James Bond is being rumored. Holding on to that. Think how weird that is, though. You know what I mean? Like, it's just odd that that's the way that we have to make buying decisions now. Well, and we had this conversation off the podcast, and I said, you know, what if the movies did this? and all of a sudden, you know, you couldn't go to the movies anymore or you wouldn't see any trailers. And then all of a sudden, boom, you know, Avengers is coming out. And you've got to go line up to get your ticket. You know, you'll be the first one to see it. I will say this, and this is one of my main gripes with how Pinball does this, and I think Stern is in the best position to do something about this. I don't think they ever will just because, you know, they're leading the pack, obviously. So why change it if it's not broken? But I would say that I think that if – and obviously they had to have thought about this because I refuse to believe that a large company like that hasn't looked at this from 360 degrees and tried to figure out what's the best way to go about this. But to me, it's like, if I'm the other companies, I'm happy that they don't do this, which is basically having like a quote-unquote Stern day to where, imagine this, that Stern says, okay, we're going to have this live event at Expo to where everybody can come out and we're going to announce our next slate of games, like our next cornerstones that are coming up. And we're going to show you the title. We're going to show you here's the designer. Here's this. And basically, I really do believe if they did something like that, it would get so much attention. And it's not like everybody having a theme confirmed that it would just lose its hype. Because guess what? The game still has to come out. And then you could still ramp up marketing leading up to that game release. But at least then it makes it to where the customer base doesn't necessarily have to make decisions based off rumors. You know, I mean, a large part of pinball right now, a lot of money gets frozen up based off rumors that people hear on podcasts or read on forums. I mean, that's just the reality of it. A large portion of money just gets completely tied up. And then it becomes one of those things where it's a juggling act. Like, do I sell this pin? Do I hold on to this pin? Do you know what happens with the LEs out there? What happens with all the lists out there? I mean, I'm sure that there's a lot of dealers out there that have LD lists, right, that it's just based on saying, hey, this is the official theme. Do you want it or not? And then they just go on to the next one. You know, so it's like for me, if I knew that, for instance, if I would have known for sure that Avengers was coming in a year or in the next six months, I would have been able to save up money for that a lot easier. You know, and I'm sure that there's other people out there that feel the same way that if they knew a certain thing was out there. But I do understand that one of the reasons why you don't necessarily want to do that is because then you don't want to have somebody not buying your current product now. True. To where if they know a different theme is coming out in six months, then they just won't buy something right then and there. Like, I get that part. I just feel like if Stern had their own Stern Day and they did it at Expo and they just put it all out there, you would just create a big-time hype. It's not like you've got to actually show the game. You know, if you just simply show the title of the game with the designer or something like that, I mean, that creates hype right then and there. And it's just kind of weird because it's like any of us that listen to podcasts or read forums, it's almost like we all kind of know what's coming. And we all are like, okay, here's the rumor. Let's kind of sit on this. Let's see if it gains steam. And then we all kind of base some of our behavior and some of our decisions off of that rumor. I mean, that's really what this hobby's been for the past few years at this point. Yeah. I mean, there's plenty of people out there that are going to buy every game regardless. They want to give it a shot or they're just Uber collectors. Jeez, Joel, I'm in the freaking room. But I know, I mean, but you've made comments, Tom, of like you don't necessarily know if you're going to continue doing that. Right. You know, and there's so many people that are like, I'm L-1 or bust. You know, like they just whatever. Like, I'm in. I don't care what the team is. I'm L-1 or bust. I mean, I think the two of you guys are definitely in that category. But I feel bad. Where I feel bad, though, is for people that they do have a huge, you know, dream theme. And if they knew, okay, if I knew, let's say, James Bond was going to happen next year, well, an LE, I better start being prepared to drop whatever, $12,000. I don't know, but it's like I need to prepare for that financially. I need to make sure I get on an LE list early. And there's some of this stuff that they just can't because they're too late to the party. That's the only thing about movies. You know, there's no limit to the number of people that can go watch a movie, but there's only so many of these machines that are sold. So I don't, I mean, we can play that game of do we think Stern or other distributors could do this better? Sure, but at the same time, do they need to? not, or like, I don't think Stern does. Like, Stern, until Stern stops selling out of all their stuff, like, it's fine. Like, their method, maybe it could be better, but this method is clearly working. Yeah, I think the only company that could kind of put a dent in this right now would be Jersey Jack, just because they have the ability to get certain themes. They've shown that, and they're trying to actively be able to produce more than one title per year. And so to me, it's like Stern really doesn't need to change what they're doing. I just wish that they would be able to do that, but I understand why they don't need to. And I mean, unless American Pinball has a bunch of dynamite themes, I don't I mean, they've stated pretty much that they just want to focus on unlicensed themes for a little while. I think that they've pretty much all but said that publicly. Spooky, it's kind of hard for Spooky to do it just because it takes them, what, like 12 to 18 months every time to get it all out? So it doesn't make much sense for them to do it. It doesn't make any sense for Haggis to do it. Well, here's the weird thing. We actually know what the Pinball Brothers' next title is going to be.
    102:03
    Yeah. It's Queen, right? Yeah. I mean, they had it in the U.K. Yeah. And they're going to have one. But it's funny, though, because I think we've had the same argument, though, that, like, if you're a pinball manufacturer, don't announce your game unless you're ready to ship. Like, because there are people that the buzz happens, or maybe it's because they show too much. They show the game or they show the artwork. But that's a singular game, though. That's the issue. I mean, if you have a full catalog, right, and you know that you're going to have a certain cadence coming out of your product, then to me that's different. But if you only have one product and you're not even guaranteed to get it out at a certain time frame, you know, if you're relying on certain raw materials to come in, so on and so forth, then, yeah, it becomes a unique situation. But you're saying you think they should reveal the title but not necessarily, like, show pictures of the game or, you know, whatnot. So you're saying if last year or two years ago at TPF, if they just would have shown, all right, and here we go, the lineup, our next lineup is, and they showed, what would it be? it would be, what was the game before? If they would have said Godzilla, Elwynn, Rush, Borg, I don't know, Venom.
    103:24
    Mando. Or Mando, Mando. If they would have done that, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You think that would have been beneficial to them as a company to say all that earlier? I think it would have been huge. Now, I don't think you necessarily have to say who the designer is, although that's something that you could do. I mean, it's kind of like you look at it. If you're into movies, you kind of know what movies are coming out, right? You know way ahead of time. You know who the director is. So that's kind of the way I look at it. But, I mean, just imagine a situation, like an alternate reality in which Stern does a presentation.
    104:00
    And, like, Gary Stern or George Gomez is out on the stage. And then they're just like, and here's this theme revealed or whatever. You know, lights go out, and then you just hear the Godzilla theme start up. and then you just see, you know, the theme, like the name of it just flash on the back screen or whatever. I mean, to me, that'd be pretty cool. And then they follow that up with like Mandalorian or something like that. I think it's just something that would get a lot of attention. I think if Stern did that, it would basically make it to where, like, if people know that those themes are coming, then what's going to happen with other companies? Like, how do they respond to that? Well, yeah. If Elwin's in eight months, maybe we should delay our game reveal or speed it up to try to get before or after that money. Well, even then, you don't even have to say who the designer is. It's just seeing what the themes are, you know, and you let a large part of the pinball buying community know that these are the themes that are coming and they're massive themes. I mean, that's what I'm saying. Every pinball company, to me, is very lucky that Stern does not do this. well I think it's could Stern do this yes could Jersey Jack do this yes because they have had big themes but like American Pinball they're already talking the next theme is unlicensed so they reveal that it wouldn't work for that you have to have themes it's already come out though that American Pinball has the license or has trademarked what is it like Galactic Tank Force or something so you read that like people aren't saving up money. Oh, yeah, I love tanks. You know, like, nobody's like time to, I don't know. Maybe Tom, I don't know. Everybody loves tanks. His eyes lit up there. The game could be awesome, but, well, what I'll say is, this is very interesting. So, if you're listening to this, if you're in marketing, or if you're in sales, or product development, and you have actual thoughts on product reveals, like, I'm curious. Email us, tripledrain at gmail.com. Curious to see, or write, you know, post on our Facebook or something like I'm curious to hear what other people's thoughts are. Well, think about this, Joel, you play video games, right? I do. Like how often does a video game just get dropped out of thin air? It doesn't. But at the same time, I don't have, like, if I buy a switch game, it's 60 bucks. I don't have to save for six months straight to be able to buy a switch game. So if a switch game is dropped today and I want that game, I can buy the game.
    106:29
    I, I, but do you get hyped up for that game? That's the thing. But we're all – we get – all of us get – we're addicted to this hobby. We truly get hyped up for every game. We want the next game to be amazing. Right, but we have to get hyped up based off rumors. That's the big difference. It could be – it could – I get it. I'm going to go score some Novus. I'll be right back. Well, just like Tom was talking about too. I mean, imagine if movies did it like that. But I do think, though, that sometimes the hype of our – the made-up hype in our head actually sometimes is better than if it was realistic. Like, I don't know. I think some of us, we let our minds wander so much, our expectations always go further than what you – Oh, that absolutely happens. Yeah. There's no question about it. Point story, Woody is going to be in the game. He's going to be moving around, kicking the ball. I don't know it's an interesting I mean I totally get what you're saying Travis I get it but it is I don't know I don't have a good answer for it do I see that changing anytime soon no but yes for the sake of all of our like I know Hottie I mentioned Hottie earlier Frisco Pinball he apparently is a huge Venom fan like huge Venom fan so when he heard Venom was rumored like a while like that the rumor of Venom has actually impacted his purchasing decisions over the last year. And that's based on a rumor. And if he would have had that confirmed, would that have changed his decisions even more? I don't necessarily think so because he's treating it as truth. He's absolutely treating it as truth.
    108:10
    But for his peace of mind, he'd probably be able to sleep better if he knew that that was, like, if he knew it's actually going to happen and he knew he was locked in on some distributors' LE list a year ago, yes, he would be able to sleep better than his current state where he's thinking it's true. But, yeah, so to transition, once again, if you guys have thoughts on this, email us. Definitely curious to hear what you have to say. But, Venom, let's have a real quick – What's our email, Joel?
    108:37
    Tripledrain.gmail.com, right? Thank you. Yeah, tripledrain.gmail.com. We have to keep Joel in line. I know. We give him a little bit of line, and he's just like, just message us, guys. Yeah, they should know it, right? It's Raven Mill. I watched Thor yesterday. Yeah, do that. So Venom. So to talk about reveals, right? So Stern, how does Stern reveal a game? The only thing they actually do is they usually do a teaser, and then a few days later they do the actual game reveal videos and then normally have a stream within a few days after that. Well, and they have a lot of press releases, too, that go out to everything. But, like, right now, what's going on? Why is everybody so confident about Venom? Well, Stern is going to be at Comic-Con, and Stern registered a booth. And if you look at the registration online, like the official registration of who's going to be in what booth, it says Stern is in the booth with Todd McFarlane who the creator of Venom and Ozzy Osbourne is going to do a signing So here we are like does that confirm Venom Not necessarily but why in the world would Todd McFarlane be in like Stern booth There's no reason unless Todd McFarlane and Stern are clearly doing something. Maybe he likes Rush and he wants to check out the game. Yeah, okay, so why, I don't, because Stern, does Stern do Comic-Con every year? Yeah, I think they do. But they haven't had a comic book theme in a little while. You know what I mean? So it's like, you know what I mean? Like, why would they be at Comic-Con? We're trying to get outsiders into pinball. This is the way to do it, yeah. Well, and this is the perfect way right here. I got an idea right now for how we could do that, but I want to hear what Joel is saying first, and then I'll follow up. I'm just saying it's clear they have to be doing something. So is this either a Cornerstone title and this is Venom? That would be incredible. Or is this potentially a boutique title, kind of like a re-theme of the Spider-Man home pin? Like heavy metal? Heavy metal or supreme. Is this just kind of a boutique pinball with Todd McFarlane or potentially a boutique pinball with Ozzy Osbourne and Todd McFarlane's Evolved? I don't know. Or is this potentially the next home pin?
    110:54
    I mean, obviously I'm hoping more for a cornerstone. And Todd McFarlane is either going to be Venom or it would be Spawn. So I don't know. But either way, there's got to be something here. So we will see. And if we're going to play the game of who's the next designer, I'm guessing it's Brian Eddy. Brian Eddy's the next up in line. So we're putting a lot of stuff in place, but it's all just educated guesses. That's my current thing.
    111:26
    I'm excited. I think it will be a fun theme. I'm excited. I hope Brian Eddy just, if he could do something besides a fan layout, that would be awesome because I had a shadow and his shadow layout was incredible. So, like, I want to see more of that Brian Eddy than Medieval Madness, Attack from Mars, Stranger Things, Brian Eddy. Not saying those are bad. I'm just, I want to see something new. That's it for me. There's the fence setter we've all come to love.
    111:54
    I can like things. I don't have to. I can like a lot of things. I don't have to have it. It doesn't have to be so high culture. I was just enjoying how you were saying, I would like to see more of this, but I still like this. I'm not saying that's bad. I would really like to see more of this. I'm not saying that's bad, but I want that. That's why I like you, Joel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like Joel. You see the positive in everything. It makes me feel good about myself. I appreciate it. I'm not complimenting you right now.
    112:24
    Thanks, Tom, for being here. I really, we need you, man. That's why it doesn't feel right. It's just Travis. It just. Are you saying that I'm the fan layout of this podcast? I'm not kidding. You know what you're trying to say right now? Because people like fan layouts. You're just. Damn. Here. Joel, just with the burn. I'm just like the listener who gets to interact.
    112:45
    What is Tom? Let me think of, well, Travis, while you talk. I like, yeah, Tom is a pinball machine that everybody loves and it just enjoys and it's just a good time. Yeah. I'm trying to – I got to think of that. But go ahead, Travis. What's your thoughts? With what? Well, you said you had a thought on CERN and their booth. Oh, yeah. You got my mind thinking, like, what type of pinball machine Tom is now since we're calling each other different pinball machines. I mean, if I'm a fan layout, what's Joel, Tom? What do you think Joel is? I never said you're a fan layout. I never said that. No, I said that. I don't know. Because you're taking digs on fan layout. So we're comparing you to the host of this podcast. Travis, you are a fan layout because I've had enough of fan layouts. Joel is a something new. I got it, Tom. Joel is the middle scoop on the left-hand side of Halloween.
    113:42
    That's not nice. I said you were the middle scoop. Take it back. That's not nice. Nobody says that that's a good shot in pinball. Oh, the middle scoop of Halloween. Yeah, let me tell you. No. I mean, it's the best scoop shot on that game. We are like the three scoops of Halloween. That is the best scoop shot on that entire game, that middle scoop, because it's not too far down to the left, and it's not so high up there that you're, like, just luck boxing your way into it. It's right there. It's a nice, easy shot. We wanted to hear what you were going to say before. I'm just going to say thank you to hope you move forward. do you remember what you were going to say Travis?
    114:26
    we're talking about Venom right? Comic Con so what I was saying what I was thinking in my head before I got to say it because I let Joel talk for a little while I was just thinking to myself that if you're trying to draw in new people and you're trying to get people hyped up to me that would be the perfect place to go ahead and do your big reveal of a new pinball machine that's based off Venom. Try to get on center stage. Yeah. If that's what it is, like put it there, let people play it. I mean, you'll draw in a lot of comic book nerds. I mean, just like myself, I love comic books. So seeing something like that, that's my favorite character or, you know, or whatever character it could be. I want to interact with that. You know, I'm in the mood. I'm at a comic con. I'm in the mood to interact with something like that. And if you're sharing a booth with Todd McFarlane, he's already going to get a ton of attention, a ton of attention. You put that game right next to him, all of a sudden, that becomes one of the most relevant games in the entire industry, more than any other game pretty much that's come before it. And that's how powerful that is, putting it in front of that type of fandom. I'm not saying that all these people are just going to go out and just drop loads of cash and buy it. I mean, who knows what they're going to do. But we all do know, both of us know, or the three of us know, that people that aren't necessarily pinball fans will still shell out money for an LE of a theme that they just love. I mean, I can confirm that. I know of people that have bought LE or an LE version of a game. They don't even play pinball. It just sits there in their game room. It's just like the biggest flex because they love the theme. They love what it represents. It's a modern piece of artwork. I mean, something like that, you put that at Comic-Con, holy cow. I mean, to me, that would get a lot of attention. Anybody that's going to stand in line and pay money to meet or get a signature from Todd McFarlane is probably the same person that would want to spend money on a pinball machine that is his creation or his theme. I mean, it makes total sense. It is the demographic of I mean, sure. In a perfect world, GNR would have been revealed in Chicago at a GNR concert or something, you know, like that would be. Why would you not do that to the exact demographic that you you were trying to sell to? So I get it. It just seems so lined up. And I'm not sure when when is this supposed to go down at Comic-Con, because we're recording this on Monday, the 18th. So just in case something like this actually does happen. I don't know. Yeah, whatever the first day of Comic-Con is, or I don't know if they've announced. It might be, like, Wednesday or Thursday. Yeah, who even knows? But, yeah, I just feel like that's just such low-hanging fruit at this point that I don't know. I would just be – I won't say I'd be surprised if they did that because it's just like – it just looks like the obvious play. Comic-Con is July 21st through 24th, so it's coming right up. So in three days from now. So that'd be amazing if that actually happened before this podcast actually got out. That would be cool. That would be pretty dope. It is. I mean, Stern does a really good job that when they release a band pin, they're on Rollingstone.com. There's a news article on Rollingstone.com. When they release something movie-related or comic book, it's on IGN. They are very good at getting their media presence out there, Gizmodo, on big websites to bring in the right audience. And that's their key is they want to make sure that the media reveal is on these big sites, not necessarily on, you know, inside. Well, not only that, think of the evergreen content that would be immediately created by having this at Comic-Con. Because you have people walking around live streaming. You have people filming stuff for their YouTube. You have people posting pictures all over social media. and if they see something like this, that's exactly what will happen. That's so powerful, that free advertising that would go out. And I think that's good. Maybe this comes back to our original, the beginning of the podcast. How do we bring outsiders in? Well, these are the outsiders, right? But I think a lot of pinball people get upset because they're like, you don't want your game reveal to be crappy cell phone footage. You want a highly produced, straight down the middle, 20-minute video on the creators and better close-up shots of Toy Story. Because that's the thing. If this is one of those cases where you have a chance that the initial view – I mean, in a perfect world, it would all be released at once. That guy has something to say. Yeah. And you know what? I'm ignoring it. I'm going to let you talk, but I want to ignore that. Joel. Go ahead. I would argue that this is different because this isn't in some arcade. This isn't just like a random show. You're putting this pen in front of people that are fanatics. I can put his hand down. Did you see that, Trav? You didn't know that. I can turn his hand down. I can put his hand down. Nice. What is this sorcery?
    119:52
    You put your hand up. I'm going to put your hand up. I get what you're saying. You can't raise my hand. Okay. So I get what you're saying because that's what I'm saying. And in this latest interview, right, what's interesting is we have a Stern reveal kind of happening, kind of already started, and we know that Stern reveals are very formulaic. Like, it's very clear what they do. Well, Jersey Jack just had this crazy reveal with Toy Story. They do a teaser photo. What was it, on like a Friday? And then, boom, Monday, all the assets, all the video, all that comes out at once. They kind of did a staggered reveal through the day. We actually had a lot, like a stream, a recorded stream of the game all in one day. That was kind of their media blitz. Boom. Then David Fix with American Pinball is kind of bragging about how their reveal is they get a magazine that's sent out, has this huge Legend of Valhalla thing. They have all these games secretly shipped to different locations. So, boom, the day it's released, the games are there. They're on location. They can be able to play, be played. And what's interesting is I think all three owners feel like they're revealing it the best way. and I don't know as a pinball fan Travis like do you like people like American Pinball great well unless you live near one of those games that happens to be dropped like that's cool that somebody gets to play it and then they can post on pin side their experience but that's not everybody but yet a similar thing happened with Toy Story the very next day there were distributors that had the games and were sending like you Travis you got your game within what like 48 hours of the reveal No, I had the game the day after, like the evening after. So 24 hours after the reveal. Right. So I would say straight up, I like how Jersey Jack does it the best, just because it's everything that I love about putting out a product, that it's in a controlled setting, which is great.
    121:43
    They explain out the rules. They show behind the scenes up front. They talk to the creators of the pen, and it feels like you can get an emotional connection that way. And I think Zach Minney and Greg Bone do that very great or very excellent. But putting that out, like, I love that. I'm not a big fan on just showing a live stream of the game just because it's not very controlled. If something could go wrong, it just causes some questions to have. I mean, not saying that it can't be positive. But like I was saying earlier, there's always exceptions to different rules, you know. And so seeing Venom, I just, or hearing that it could possibly be Venom, and we're just putting all these pieces to the puzzle together, it just feels right that why would you not show this off at Comic-Con of all places? Because you're in a booth with Todd McFarlane. I mean, why would you be in a booth with him just to show off Godzilla or just to show off Deadpool or just to show off Mandalorian? You know, I mean, those pins are great and all, but it just it doesn't make any sense just to do that to where you could fully leverage the power of this potential theme that they're coming out with, along with the artists that's right there and along with a bunch of fans that have paid a lot of money to travel there. I mean, let's face facts. It's difficult getting into Comic-Con. It's not an easy thing. These badges and tickets sell out instantaneously. and these fans come from all over the world. And I think this is the first one that they've had since COVID, at least in person, I think it is. I don't remember them having one last year. Maybe I'm wrong. But either way, I think it's just the perfect storm to be able to put this game out in front of people. And that would make the most sense. It just feels like it's lining up to go that direction. And I don't know. Me, just as a pinball fan, I would actually be kind of disappointed for it not to be out there just because I feel like in my head, I want more people to experience pinball. And I think putting something in front of a bunch of rabid fans of that theme and of the creator and of the artists, I think that there's more good than bad that would come out of that. I mean, sure, you would have people, you know, some people complaining, you know, that it's just bad video coming out of it. You know, why is this the way that we're seeing it? But regardless, Stern could still do their normal thing afterwards. And guess what? We'd all still watch. Yeah, but we've had this argument. What's interesting is with that same thought, why would you not reveal to a bunch of fans that are dying for this content? Well, with that same logic, why is everything not revealed at TPF or Chicago Pinball Expo? Why not reveal this initially to all the pinball fans that are dying to touch it and let us play all the games right there?
    124:40
    Yeah, that would be great. That would be awesome. or if everything was coordinated well, like, I think it would be awesome if Stern revealed a game the week before Expo and then we knew things were going to be at Expo. I mean, I don't know. I mean, true, I get it. I don't know necessarily who does it right or what the perfect, absolute perfect scenario is. I agree. I think I like the way Jersey Jack does it best currently. I mean, the fact that they had so many games to ship and there were people that got the game within 24 hours or 48 hours and there was already games on location. I mean, all that's awesome. That is, I think they did a lot right there.
    125:19
    Well, you did touch base, though, Joel, on something that would be very unique and would go over very well with a lot of people, that if a pinball company did go to a show, right, and they did decide to reveal a game at the show, what if then after revealing the game at the end of it, they're like, oh, by the way, we've got 20 of these new in box for sale right now. Well, if they were smart, they would auction them. They would auction the 20 that were in the box right there. Yeah, they would sell out instantly. I mean, I think I'm very surprised that Spooky or American Pinball hasn't done this before. Maybe they have, and I'm just missing it. I don't know. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong. But to me, I think something like that would go over huge with the pinball community. I mean, I'm not big on necessarily, you know, showing off a game under those conditions. But if you are going to show it off under those conditions, I think having them for sell right there, I mean, that would get a lot of people curious about it. And the whole pinball industry would hear about that. I think with an American pinball, like a non-licensed theme or something, I agree. I think that's the demographic you want to commit to right then and there. But for like Venom, right? Like I think Venom makes sense. Why would you not show – we know pinball people are going to buy it, so why not let's bring outsiders in into a theme that people are going nuts over.
    126:55
    And I just think – I don't know. I think there's a time and place where you need to go to the pinball people because that's who you're pursuing, and then there's others. I think IGN probably has a relationship with Stern that they're like, okay, we will put this out on that day, but we need exclusive rights to be the reveal website, right? So they can't reveal it on Pinside because they probably made a deal with Rolling Stone that, okay, yeah, we will do this. We will put this on our site for X amount of money as long as we're the only music website that's doing this reveal. I would assume there's probably something associated with that from a legality standpoint. But I don't know. I'm no marketing guy. I don't know this. I don't know how these product reveals work. We can sit here all day and tell us. Hey, we know. The reality is what we want. We want to know what it is. We want to know as soon as possible. We want detailed pictures. We want detailed video. We want everything. We want it explained. We want all of our questions answered all the time. We want it all. And we want it now. We want it now. Tom wants – he's on a list. He wants to know. Yeah. Where's my game? Where's my toppers? Every episode. Where are the toppers? Isn't that Godzilla topper, Mando topper, Russian topper? I get it. I'm sure you'll be getting some topper news pretty soon, Tom Graff.
    128:22
    Pretty sure. Is that an exclusive, the triple drain exclusive? Hell no. I'm just playing the law of averages. There's no news yet, so I'm pretty sure. Let's just lean right into that before we let Tom say too much here. So here we go.
    128:39
    Tom, Tom. You got nothing to say, Tom, Tom. I got nothing to say, Tom, Tom.
    128:53
    Wow, no prompt. This is exciting. Okay, yeah. So, no, no, we normally, this is the time to do the prompt. I just wasn't expecting you just to go straight into it. Speaking of this. Yeah, well, I know that Tom is passionate about his toppers, and I know there are three games that he currently owns, Mando, Rush, and Godzilla. Rush and Godzilla I don't see ever leaving, and you've just been sitting here day after day after day waiting for these toppers. I would love to hear, one, what's your overall thoughts on that, and then, two, do you have any ideas on what these toppers will be? Have you let your mind wander about that? I want to hear about Tom's topper talk.
    129:32
    Okay. What was the first question? That was a lot. What are your overall thoughts on the fact that you're still waiting on these toppers? I don't like waiting.
    129:45
    Okay. We need the toppers now. Yeah, Veruca Salt, I want it now. Where the hell's our toppers, Stern? As you're laying awake at night, how are you visually picturing the Rush Topper? What do you think it's going to be? What do you want it to be?
    130:07
    That's a tough question for me to answer. I think an owl would be cool, or I don't know. You don't care. You're going to buy it regardless, and it's going to be glorious. Do you want an owl? An owl topper? That would be kind of cool. Does the head move? Yeah. The wings are flapping.
    130:31
    That's pretty good. Does it do like a squaw or whatever? Or squat? I'm just thinking of a crow. Like, I don't know. Well, I mean, the Led Zeppelin topper was pretty sick with the lights. I don't know. I mean. Yeah, it's a pretty cool topper. I'm hoping the Rush one is more mechanical and stuff so you want mechanical for sure I want mechanical do you want your Rush topper to be more like Led Zeppelin and less like Avengers yes for sure the Avengers one sucks there's already rumors right for the Mando topper that the fact that there are video assets we've talked about this that kind of show kind of like a holograph so there's definitely it looks like... Wait, wait, wait. There's a holograph for the... We've told you. We've said that on Mando, on the CPU board in the back box, there's an HDMI out. Somebody plugged an HDMI cord into it thinking it would just duplicate their screen. No. Instead what they saw on the monitor was they saw new video and it looks like the bounty pucks that are in Mando. It's like a blue a holograph and what they saw is as they're changing modes the video was changing to like showing a spider if you're in spider multiball or and they also saw on the monitor it like looked like it showed um what perks you had like now i'm not gonna sell my mando what that's the thing is the topper people are looking at that and they're like this has to be for the topper so is there a video screen built into this topper in some way, or are they going to create some sort of projection infinity mirror kind of thing that makes it look holographic? I don't know, but people are getting real excited about the potential of this Mando topper. And it's surprising me right now that Tom, you don't know this. I don't. You're dying for that. I figure since it's a Star Wars theme, the topper should be done in about three years. So.
    132:38
    And then Godzilla topper. Any thoughts on Godzilla Top or what it would be or how you want to do it? Oh, man.
    132:46
    I don't know. I mean, you already got the building and the game, so it's not going to be that. Maybe just a mechanical Godzilla would be cool.
    132:57
    Mothra. Travis is typing. He's not trying to interrupt you by talking, but he will type in chat. Yeah. I mean, what if it was a combination of all the monsters?
    133:10
    But my picture, my thought was there's four cities in the game, so what if you had kind of a skyline of the four different cities, and depending on where you're at, there were different lights to show, hey, I'm in this city now. And then if it was RGB, like once it's destroyed, then it looks like that city's on fire. Joe, come into my office. Come into my office because you're fired. That's a terrible idea.
    133:37
    Wow. Any other harsh criticisms that you have for Travis and I about our lifestyle choices? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah. What do you mean, Travis and I? You said Joel. This is Tom Talks, okay? I just want you to feel included, Travis. Exactly. Tom is Tom. Actually, you know what would be cool is like a mechanical head on Godzilla that breathes fire. Not like actual fire, but kind of moves around like, I don't know. Okay. I'll just tell you, if it ends up being a skyline, I'm just going to sit here with a... There's already a skyline in the game, isn't there? There's already a Godzilla in the game, too. Yeah, but that toy sucks. I would say, even though you want to fire Joel right now, I would say if I was a betting man, I'd have to say his idea is probably pretty close to reality. Like, I have no idea, but it would not shock me at all if the stern topper for Godzilla ended up being a skyline that maybe just looks like it's set on fire in the background or something like that? Probably right. I could see something like that. That's the only thing that makes sense for Godzilla. I mean, I was trying to say just put, like, the mothra caterpillar thing, whatever that is. The larva? What is the thing that just crawls around? I don't want that. That's not the point of a topper.
    134:56
    The point of the topper is to bring people in and a freaking larva. I'm looking at the back glass and Godzilla's breathing the laser fire or whatever the hell comes out of his mouth. Maybe it would be the miniature twins.
    135:12
    You remember those? Those two characters? You mean that had, like, the Mothra egg? Yeah, wasn't there, for Mothra, there was, like, two itty-bitty, like, Ant-Man-type characters. Like, they were twin women. They could just get your kids to do it Oh my gosh It looks like the shining We don't want to do that Well I feel like We are definitely interrupting you too much Tom So is there anything else that you have That you want to get off your chest I'm good this was great Wonderful Proud of you Tom Thank you
    135:56
    Tom Talks. I got nothing. Joel didn't even talk about my stars play field. I know. What an a-hole. How many things about him? Do you ever notice that? Do we need to go back into Tom Talks? No. Give us a real quick. I'm telling you all, the moth or larva being a topper would be legit. No, it'll be a skyline. Hey, if you have thoughts on the Godzilla topper, post it on our Facebook or email us at tripledrain.gmail.com. Look at this thing. Hang on. I don't know. Except pictures from you. Why is this not letting me put a picture on there on the chat? Because nobody needs Joel.
    136:43
    Wow. Hey, you can turn your camera on and just show. Oh, no, you can't do that. I don't know. I think that's it. We're at two hours and 15 minutes. I think that's all we got. my list is all screwed up because, you know, Travis.
    136:57
    So, yeah, let's do some quick plugs. I'm actually going to go first, and it's because I want to do a plug for just us as general. What I'm saying is our music, we just heard some, our beautiful Tom Talks music. That was made by a guy, Jason Leibel. Jason Leibel made us that music. Well, he's in a band. He's in a band called Neon Dale, D-A-L-E, Neon Dale. and they just released an album called Cosmic and so all that that's on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon it's all over there. If you like our music or have enjoyed that, feel free to just give his music a stream or if you want to buy it, go for it. At the end of this podcast, I'm actually going to include one of his songs, a song called Highway from that album. Feel free to listen all the way through and if you like his music, give it a stream. Jason, I appreciate you. I appreciate the tunes. Even though Dennis Creasel thinks we have way too many, I definitely have enjoyed having your music on our show so I definitely wanted to give Jason a plug and thank you for that and yeah he wrote the songs songwriting, guitar and vocals on all the Neon Dale stuff so yeah give Jason a listen and yeah other plugs for me I stream for Flippin' Out and the Pinball Network every Wednesday night and then every other Thursday on the Flippin' Out streaming channel and then I do this silly podcast I did have a I will have a just another pinball interview soon. I had reached out to a Stern designer about doing one. Everything was moving forward. And then he kind of pumped the brakes and he said, Hey, just actually, let's just wait until the next reveal. That way we can talk about the game. I said, okay. So hopefully, hopefully that'll happen sooner than later.
    138:41
    Travis, you have anything to plug? Nope. I think you did pretty well, Joel. You did a great job. Guys, you can catch me on the Triple Drain Pinball Podcast, which you just listened to, so I appreciate it, guys. And, yeah, thumbs up all around. Tom, you did a great job. Thank you. Joel? I'm here. Yep. You are here. That is correct. Okay. Tom, plug away, man.
    139:10
    I stream pinball stuff on Fox Cities Pinball on Twitch and on YouTube. we're going to be having a tournament coming up on July 30th. I'll be in Chicago at Entrum for the Silver Ball Super Social 2X. So if you're going to the tournament and you're going to be there, say hi. And if you're not, feel free to watch it on Twitch.
    139:39
    Awesome. And, yeah, we've talked about some guests. We need to plan that. It's hard enough for the three of us to coordinate to get on the same night to record. But we have some interviews or some guests that we'd like to have coming up. So we're excited. I mean, hey, 20 episodes in. I appreciate you two. It's been a good time. I've definitely enjoyed all 20 of these episodes, and I'm looking forward to seeing, you know, what we record.
    140:04
    Say what now, Joel? What did you say? I'm looking forward. Oh, the other part. You what these podcasts? I've regretted every moment. I thought you said you enjoyed I was so fired up Ah Tom coming in here with a smile So with that Tom you're going to have the last word But Jason is actually going to have the last Bit of this podcast because he's going to have a song But please Tom Close us out Stay classy everybody
    140:44
    Highway, drive me For me, guide me Follow I've got a bitter pill for you Follow You've got a voice inside of you
    141:32
    So watch the earth and take me Hindsight, take me down low I never had to work for you To follow You got a voice inside of you It's not all about falling over I'm feeling stronger Time well spent there with him It's not all about getting over Seeking over Finding life there again It's not all about falling over Feeling over Time well spent there with him
    142:37
    My way to the crazy Time makes me straight blue Hello I never made a space for you Follow Got a voice inside of you You're not all about falling over Feeling older Time well spent there with him Now I'm forgetting all that Seeing all that I'm finding right there again
    143:57
    Well, I find closure in my exposure And can I admit that I was wrong If I lean over your bitter shoulder And just thought we'd whisper That I was wrong Just to say anything It's not all about falling over Feeling so good Time will spend there with me It's not all about getting over Seeking over My day right there again It's not all about falling over Feeling strong Time will take it over again Highway, drive me Four leaf, guide me Swallow I've got a bitter feel for you Swallow I've got a bitter feel for you Swallow I've got a bitter feeling for you