Episode 1155: "The Instant Gratification of Waiting"

Kaneda's Pinball Podcast (Patreon feed)·podcast_episode·21m 2s·analyzed·Nov 3, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

Kaneda predicts Walking Dead LE instant sellout despite mixed reception; warns boutique buyers about patience vs. impatience dynamics.

Summary

Kaneda discusses community backlash over his Beetlejuice allocation, predicts Walking Dead Remastered will sell out instantly due to 500-unit LE cap and Lyman Sheets' coding, and analyzes the pinball market's impatience paradox: boutiques suffer long waits while Stern's rapid delivery creates FOMO. He advises against overpaying for Winchester spots and warns that upcoming product glut (Transformers, Pokemon, Back to the Future) will cannibalize demand.

Key Claims

Walking Dead Remastered will sell out instantly because there are only 500 LEs produced
high confidence · Kaneda directly states 'There's only 500. And that's it. Plain and simple' and later 'I still think even with all that, I still think sells out simply because there's only going to be 500 LEs.'
Stern promised no Premium Walking Dead would be made, then made one anyway
high confidence · Kaneda: 'When you bought Walking Dead LE, if you have one right now, remember this game? Remember when Stern lied to everybody when The Walking Dead came out? There was only an LE and a Pro. And they said they were never going to make any Premiums. And that's one of the things they did to sell all of those LE machines. And then what did Stern do? They made a Premium.'
Winchester sold 525 units in two days
high confidence · Kaneda: 'Winchester came out of nowhere and sold 525 in two days.'
Walking Dead Remastered is priced at $13,000 for LE, double the original LE price
high confidence · Kaneda: 'look, $13,000 is no chump change' and 'It's twice the price the game used to be.'
Lyman Sheets' coded games are 'maybe the best coded games in the history of pinball'
medium confidence · Kaneda opinion: 'It is Lyman Sheets on the code. And his coded games are still maybe the best coded games in the history of pinball.'
Barrels of Fun produces approximately 10-20 games per week (80+ per month)
medium confidence · Kaneda: 'How many games a week does Barrels of Fun make? I need to go look, but I think it's somewhere around like 10 to 20 games a week. So that's potentially 80 games a month.'
Walking Dead Remastered code is at version 0.25, meaning it won't be complete for over a year
medium confidence · Kaneda: 'I always think with a lot of these boutique games, especially when the code is not far along, I think this code was like 0.25, gang, which means the code is not even going to be done a year from now.'
People are offering over $3,000 above MSRP for Winchester spots

Notable Quotes

“There's only 500. And that's it. Plain and simple. Stern is making 500 LEs. That equals a sellout, especially in the market today.”
Kaneda @ Early in episode — Core prediction about Walking Dead Remastered selling out instantly based on scarcity alone
“Remember when Stern lied to everybody when The Walking Dead came out? They said they were never going to make any Premiums. And then what did Stern do? They made a Premium.”
Kaneda @ Early section — Criticism of Stern's past deceptive practices to drive LE sales
“I am not scalping these machines. I did not do some insidious thing to acquire these five machines. I simply asked them if they would be game to give some of you a chance to get a machine that is already sold out.”
Kaneda @ Opening monologue — Defense against Pinside accusations of improper Beetlejuice acquisition
“I think the whole pinball market is changing. I do think that boutiques are really in the driver's seat now, but I do think it's going to be hard for a lot of people to be patient, to wait a year, to wait six months, to wait eight months to get a game that you bought today.”
Kaneda @ Mid-episode — Key market analysis about boutique rise and consumer patience challenge
“Just think about it, in an eight month period, not everybody will have their Beetlejuice eight months from now. But eight months from now, we will see Transformers. We will see Pokemon. We will see Raza. We will see Totem Remastered. We will see maybe Sonic the Hedgehog.”
Kaneda @ Mid-to-late episode — Prediction of product glut cannibalization effect on boutique demand
“sell the damn spot, put the $3,000 in your pocket and just sell the spot because you will be able to get this game in four months for less than 11.6.”
Kaneda @ Winchester discussion section — Specific financial advice against FOMO-driven Winchester pre-order retention
“Winchester's not going to have like a cataclysmic drop in price by any means. But I just don't think it's going to go up. It might even just stay where it's at.”

Entities

KanedapersonWalking Dead RemasteredgameBeetlejuicegame Winchester Mystery HousegameLyman SheetspersonStern PinballcompanySpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

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business_signal: Stern's global manufacturing and distribution reach (Brazil facility, worldwide dealer network) enables rapid low-run game sellouts of 500 units
medium · Kaneda: 'They've got a manufacturing facility in Brazil...There's a Stern Army down in Latin America. So they've got to sell 500 of these to a global market. It's so easy.'
?
community_signal: Significant Pinside backlash against Kaneda acquiring Beetlejuice machines for Canada Club members, with community arguing he shouldn't be 'allowed' to get MSRP allocation
high · Kaneda opening: 'I am reading on Pinside now that people think that Spooky is going to lose a lot of fans and respect if they give Canada Club members a chance to get one of five Beetlejuice machines.'
?
competitive_signal: Spooky scheduling Barrels factory tour day after Beetlejuice launch interpreted as deliberate competitive messaging; broader context of 'pettiness' between boutique manufacturers
medium · Kaneda: 'Is Beetlejuice is going to launch on the Friday the 14th and then the Barrels tour is on the Saturday. I love watching the pettiness between these two companies.'
?
product_concern: Economic uncertainty (AI job displacement, corporate layoffs, wealth concentration) creating broader financial anxiety affecting discretionary luxury pinball spending decisions
medium · Kaneda extended segment: 'I'm worried about the future of the world, people...a lot of people are going to be forced out of their jobs with the advent of AI...maybe just maybe some of us are going to be like, buying these expensive pinball machines might not be the smartest move to do financially in 2026.'
?

Topics

Walking Dead Remastered market dynamics and sellout predictionprimaryBoutique vs. Stern distribution speed and consumer impatienceprimaryBeetlejuice pre-order allocation and community backlash against KanedaprimaryWinchester Mystery House secondary market speculation and production uncertaintyprimaryCompetitive tension between Spooky and Barrels of Fun manufacturerssecondaryUpcoming pinball product pipeline (Transformers, Pokemon, Back to the Future, etc.)secondaryStern's deceptive sales practices history (Premium LE reversal)secondaryBroader economic uncertainty affecting luxury pinball spendingmentioned

Sentiment

mixed(0.35)— Kaneda is defensive about Beetlejuice allocation criticism and frustrated with community gatekeeping, but optimistic about market dynamics and boutique growth. However, pessimistic economic commentary and concerns about sustainability of high pricing dampen overall tone. Critical of Stern's past practices and current Star Wars execution, but acknowledges rapid delivery advantage.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.063

How much does it cost? I'll buy it. The time is all we've lost. I'll try it. Welcome everybody. Happy Monday. Welcome to the world's pinball podcaster that will be getting five Beetlejuice machines. And I am reading on Pinside now that people think that Spooky is going to lose a lot of fans and respect if they give Canada Club members a chance to get one of five Beetlejuice machines. Okay, so we've got thousands of people that follow my stuff on Facebook. We've got around 670 subscribers here. And there are people on Pinside that think that you should not be allowed to get a chance to buy a Beetlejuice machine at MSRP. I am not scalping these machines. I did not do some insidious thing to acquire these five machines. I simply asked them if they would be game to give some of you a chance to get a machine that is already sold out. I don't understand sometimes when I read these babies on Pinside why these people are even in the hobby. These are the guys in the corner at the show that are like, I saw Kaneda. He's a Kevin Loza. Meanwhile, the rest of us are just having fun. We're talking about pinball and what's going on in the pinball world. Now, what is going on this week? Obviously, tomorrow's the big day. The Walking Dead Remastered. As I said on Facebook, this game is going to be an instant sellout. And here's why. There's only 500. And that's it. Plain and simple. Stern is making 500 LEs. that equals a sellout, especially in the market today. There are so many more people in the pinball buying market today than there was 10 years ago when 500 units also pretty much sold out immediately, unless it was a total dog like a Mustang or a WWE, which, by the way, those games still eventually sold out. They're going to bring back the Walking Dead remaster. Now, look, it's twice the price the game used to be. When you bought Walking Dead LE, if you have one right now, remember this game? Remember when Stern lied to everybody when The Walking Dead came out? Remember what they said? There was only an LE and a pro. And they said they were never going to make any premiums. And that's one of the things they did to sell all of those LE machines. And then what did Stern do? They made a premium. See, this company has a long history of doing things they say they're not going to do because they want the almighty dollar. But look, $13,000 is no chump change. It's a lot of money. And it's also coming out where it feels like they just released Star Wars. A lot of their buyers have been getting burned on the other LE games. And we've got Beetlejuice coming out like 10 days from tomorrow. And you start to wonder, you know, Winchester just sold 525 units. And you realize a lot of like the collectors have been placing their bets on other products. But even so, the real reason why this game is going to sell out is a few things. It is Lyman Sheets on the code. And his coded games are still maybe the best coded games in the history of pinball. So it's got that going for it. They're going to obviously redo the art. It's going to have the Spike 3 platform, the bigger screen. It's going to sound better than it's ever sounded before. It's going to look better than it's ever looked before. And this was a very atmospheric game. But The Walking Dead isn't universally loved as much as Metallica, as much as ACDC, even as much as Tron. This game does have a very love-hate relationship with the community. Some people find it to be brutally hard. Some people find the gameplay to be like you're holding on. It's kind of got that difficulty, like survival horror vibe going on with the game. Some people absolutely hate where the Whale Walker is placed in the game. He's really close to the flippers. A lot of brick shots coming off of him. It's not a very satisfying shot to make. You know, and then you've got the main mech up the middle, the barn that opens up and has the zombie head inside. That mech's a little weird. The scale is kind of strange. When John Borg designed the game originally, there were supposed to be four rotating heads inside that barn. Obviously, they cut that out. It's not going to be put into the game. I think we will see nicer sculpts in this game. and people are hoping that Stern doesn't make this game easier. That's another real concern, that what makes this game great is some of that difficulty level. So is Stern going to make the game more inviting for casual people We will see But I think people are just starving for 500 Stern LEs again So if they do do that I do think this game is going to be a day one sellout I don't think the prices are going to go through the roof the way Metallica remastered LE prices skyrocketed right away. Because remember, Metallica LE came out at Expo. It was like the bell of the ball. People were kind of down and out on X-Men and they wheeled out this Metallica game and it was sexy and it was beautiful. It was at the Stern Army party. This game's not going to have that type of arrival. Also, the Metallica band was involved with the remastered. So the stuff they added to the game was pretty significant. Will this game, if they're just taking the Lyman code and turning those DMD dots into animations on the screen, if there's nothing additionally added to the game, will that be enough to justify the price tomorrow when we finally see the game? A lot of questions, as you can tell, right? I still think even with all that, I still think it sells out simply because there's only going to be 500 LEs. And also the main factor, the reason why I think it's really going to sell out is you're not going to have to wait to get it. And that is the theme of this podcast, the impatience by the pinball community. Almost want to call this podcast the instant gratification of waiting, because that is the dichotomy that is happening right now. I am seeing it in the Winchester thread. We're going to see it in the spooky thread. I think a lot of people who are even new to the hobby, they've been very spoiled by the way Stern Pinball gets you your game pretty immediately. Like, you know your window of when the game's going to go on the line, and you're probably, regardless of what trim you order, whether it's LE or premium or pro, within two months, every single person that orders a new Stern machine will be satiated. You can't say the same about the boutique companies. And I'm in the Winchester thread, and it's interesting because people have ordered this game and they don't know where they are on the build list. So 525 by a company that can make how many games a week? How many games a week does Barrels of Fun make? I need to go look, but I think it's somewhere around like 10 to 20 games a week. So that's potentially 80 games a month. It might be a little bit more than that. But what I do know is this. When is production going to begin? I don't know. They said originally they were going to get some games out before Halloween. That has not happened. those four show games might have gone somewhere. But for the most part, I'm curious when we do the factory tour, which by the way, is funny that they scheduled it the day after the Beetlejuice launch. Did you notice that? I love watching the pettiness between these two companies. And just for the record, people, for people that think like barrels and spooky, like all get along and they're all rooting for each other. That is not the case. And when one company does something that's successful, it kind of irks the other company. and so are you really going to do a barrels factory tour the day after beetlejuice launches uh beetlejuice is going to launch on the friday the 14th and then the barrels tour is on the saturday it is what it is it doesn't matter again both of these companies have had very successful new game launches spooky's already sold out and they haven't even revealed the game and winchester came out of nowhere and sold 525 in two days so both companies have done a great job moving their new games. But here's the thing. If you order the barrels, your wait might be a few weeks. Your wait might be six months. And this is the part that, you know, a lot of people are not happy with not knowing. It's really easy to write a check for $2,000. It's real easy to get into the FOMO and have that instant gratification of securing a spot. But it's really hard for a lot of people to be patient and wait for that game to arrive. Because what's going to happen now, if you're at the back of that list, is you're going to see the game a lot. A lot of other people are going to unbox it. There's going to be streams of the game for a really long time. Now, you know me. I always think with a lot of these boutique games, especially when the code is not far along, I think this code was like 0.25, gang, which means the code is not even going to be done a year from now. And so being at the back of the list, I actually think is beneficial. The build quality will be better. These companies absolutely make manufacturing adjustments based on early feedback. So the early guys are the guinea pigs on the quality. And then the early guys are also going to have a game that's not going to be fully coded. Now, some of you out there like seeing how the sausage is made. You like doing those code updates every few months to see the game getting better and more stuff being put in I like to be on the other side of turning a game on and having an experience that has everything in it the designer wants in the game. So it's not a bad thing to get a later build for Winchester. Here's the thing I've been telling my friends, because right now people are offering over MSRP for a Winchester spot. People are trying to sell the spot for 5,000. I think that's too much. but I've heard from a few of my friends that they could easily today get $3,000 over for their Winchester spot and you know what my advice is to all of them and none of them are taking my advice sell the damn spot put the $3,000 in your pocket and just sell the spot because you will be able to get this game in four months for less than 11.6 if people think this game is not going to show up for sale down the road, you're wrong. If people think this game is going to go up in value, I think you're wrong. There's just too much coming out in pinball. There's just too many other big themes and big IPs hitting in pinball. I know right now you're really excited. It's a brand new pin. We did not expect it coming, but it's also $11,600 and 525 doesn't sound like a lot. And it is not a lot, especially because there's no other trims, but there's just a lot of other machines that are going to win over the conversation and get more hype and get more FOMO going again. Games like Beetlejuice, games like Transformers. Come on. How many of you out there are bigger fans of Winchester Mystery House versus Transformers? Now, yes, Stern has done Transformers in the past, and they don't have a good track record of making any of these big IPs we love into great machines. Hello, Star Wars. They destroyed our childhood with this new Star Wars game. So Winchester's not going to have like a cataclysmic drop in price by any means. But I just don't think it's going to go up. It might even just stay where it's at. But you might as well take the $3,000 because if you buy it now for $11,600 and you go all in on it, if you made $3,000 now, if you go buy it for $11,600 down the road, then your game's only $8,600 because you got paid just to give up your spot. And we know that things will happen. Life happens. People see other games, they want more. I think, again, it's really easy for people to commit to buying all of these machines. But when the rubber meets the road, you've got a lot of people that are probably still owe money on Harry Potter. These are also people that are going to run the Beetlejuice. They also might have had a spot for Winchester. So I don't know how much money everybody has out there. But if you add up all these games, I don't think people really want to be writing checks this Q4 for $30,000 plus if all of those games become available at the end of the year. Now, look, Beetlejuice is not going on the line until January. And so you've got some time. I think we're going to see Winchester production ramping up more so in December than even November. But I am curious when they do the factory tour on the 15th, are we going to see Winchester's lined up about to make their way to customers? We shall see. It's only like two weeks from now. So I'm really curious to see if the game is on the line and how many are going out. I said early on, I think it's going to be a lot like Dune, where we're going to get a few games at first, and then there's going to be a pause and a delay a little bit. They said with Dune that they wanted to see where the quality was at and are really going to take the early builds a lot slower. But, you know, Dune never had the demand that Winchester has. Dune has not even sold 525 units, right? And it's like Dune's a game that's not going to hold value. We're going to start to see Dune machines trading hands for less money. And it's not to say that people that have Dune are not enjoying it. It definitely is another game where, you know, when is the code going to be complete? Because I know they're going to keep adding more stuff to that game. It takes a while for these boutiques when it comes to the software, people. It really does. It's another thing we're spoiled by with Stern. Stern releases a lot more code updates a lot more frequently and has a much bigger team putting stuff into the games. So where will Beetlejuice be code-wise when the game is revealed in just a few days? I don't know. It's not gonna be complete. Now we know Spooky's gonna do it right. When it comes to code, Spooky Games recently have been doing a really great job. They really do put a lot of personality and quirkiness into their machines. And I think that's why people love their machines. I've seen this like Beetlejuice teaser 20 times with the brightness increased and the saturation levels. And you can really start to see now the purple armor and like the Beetlejuice black and white suit design happening on the front of the cabinet. It really going to just be colorful and scream Beetlejuice baby Say it three times You know I can believe the game is going to have the voice interactivity that we see with spooky speak so this is happening in just 11 days all hell is going to break loose when beetlejuice is revealed and money is taken on this game now i going tomorrow to atlanta for a work trip i'm going to bring my microphone and i'm going to hopefully be able to go live so we can talk about the walking dead remastered when we see it tomorrow will i be right will it sell out? Are people going to want to get one for more than 13? Oh, it just doesn't feel right, right? It just doesn't feel like any Stern LE is worth anywhere near 13, let alone more than that. I think the whole pinball market is changing. I do think that boutiques are really in the driver's seat now, but I do think it's going to be hard for a lot of people to be patient, to wait a year, to wait six months, to wait eight months to get a game that you bought today. Do you have that level of patience. And that is where Stern is going to win. Because just think about it, in an eight month period, not everybody will have their Beetlejuice eight months from now. I think everybody should have their Winchesters by eight months from now. But eight months from now, we will see Transformers. We will see Pokemon. We will see Raza. We will see Totem Remastered. We will see maybe Sonic the Hedgehog. We will see maybe the next game from Pinball Brothers. We will see maybe a new game from CGC. We don't talk about them much. In eight months, they're going to be done making all these Medieval Madness Merlin editions. You know, we're going to see a lot of product. And then we might see an anniversary edition from something like Batman 66. A lot can happen in eight months. And we are very fickle in this hobby. Like we move on to the next. We think the greatest game is always the next game. So it's going to be a very interesting year. A lot of stuff is happening. Back to the future is coming. Are you going to save up and try to get one of those SLEs? Because they're going to be expensive. They're going to be way more than $15,000. And guess what? They're going to sell out instantly. Instantly. And I think a lot of people are used to being able to just go at everything. I'm worried about the future of the world, people. I am. I'm worried about a lot of people's jobs that have corporate jobs. If you have a desk job and I have one of them, a lot of people are going to be forced out of their jobs with the advent of AI and all these companies trying to have like staff reductions while their stock goes through the roof. The modern world is broken. It used to be trickled down. Now we're dominated by these billionaires who fire people and then they make themselves closer to trillionaires as everybody else is suffering. I don't like it. I don't like it at all. And I'm a capitalist and I was raised a capitalist and I'm all about the free market. But this is ridiculous now. There's no reason why a single man needs to be worth like $400 billion and then fires like 60,000 people from his company, pregnant women, families, people that rely on an income. And so what we're just going to like make it so your profit margins are big enough to get you to a trillionaire and have millions of people out of work. That's not going to go over very well. So I hope all of us in the pinball hobby can avoid any such issues with our income and our livelihoods. But it's coming. It's coming for a lot of people. And I think the world's in a very shaky place. And maybe just maybe some of us are going to be like, I don't know, buying these expensive pinball machines might not be the smartest move to do financially in 2026. Everybody, it's going to get crazy. Be patient. Wait and see. But on some of these low run games like The Beetlejuice, 1,000 units globally, and the show games, they're going to go instantly. They're going to go instantly. These Winchesters went instantly. The Walking Deads are going to go quickly. The low-run stuff is going to get gobbled up. Remember, it's a global market. They've only got to sell 500. You know how many dealers, you know how many Stern dealers there are around the world? Now, we didn't even talk about the fact that they've got a manufacturing facility in Brazil. How many times do we talk about that? There's a Stern Army down in Latin America. America. So they've got to sell 500 of these to a global market. It's so easy. There's more than 500 people in my town that would probably buy one if they even knew pinball was still being made. Everybody, happy Monday. More to come. Obviously, a show tomorrow when we see The Walking Dead. Kaneda out. If you run mine Sunshine, sunshine Come on back another day You son of a bitch! I promise you I'll be singing This old world she's gonna turn around Brand new bells will be ringing Why can't you change your thinking? Everybody else does! Because I'm a fighter That's the way I'm made, Adrian that's what you marry we can't change what we are