2:35CL call triple triple trip Tri trip trip triple triple dra triple dra oh man I'm I'm debating how much of that I'm going to edit out you know should I just leave it in and R song none of it this is the 50th episode It's A Reason celebrate 50 episodes roughly Travis has balloons roughly I didn't think I'd be Joel's friend for that long well you know neither did anybody else hasn't started yet Travis so you know that's um no so uh 50 episodes roughly two hours an episode that's 100 hours of us talking and um to anybody that's listening thank you I'm I'm sorry that this is how you're spending your time but we do appreciate it um we have a lot of fun with this and uh you know hopefully we can have another 50 more because this is uh it's just fun it's just fun to come together and talk um but yeah we got a we got a decent amount to cover um we uh we the last thing that we recorded was the the the intro or like the prep episode for Texas not Texas Texas pinball Festival I keep mixing Texas pinball festival and Texas Chainsaw Massacre which we're gonna talk about I mean they're kind of the same thing I yes clearly the exact same thing but we went to um we went to tpf I say we as in Travis and I were both there and then I know Tom went to uh mgc so he was at he was at a show recently so just quick blank and statement to anybody and everybody that came up to us and said hey you know thank you thank you for saying hi it was awesome meeting so many cool fans um to see Triple drain merch to you know to hear people that like the podcast that listen to the podcast um it's incredibly humbling that that that people enjoy this conversation and um we really really appreciate it and um yeah thanks for all the support all the support on patreon all the support of just yeah people saying hi shook our hand gave us hug all that stuff really really appreciate it um also um multiple multiple people reminded Travis that Barry aler did not design taxi and I am so grateful for that uh Travis Travis got there a day before I did and he just started texting us every time he's like eight people eight people have said this in within you know it's so great um and I definitely heard the the drop dropping the uh dropping the groundhog you know it's just uh it it brought me pure joy that um we recorded that episode when we did because it basically guaranteed Travis getting heckled for like the next it was great didn't you love it Travis 72 hours straight I mean it's nothing new it's true it's it's nothing new and it's deserved that's really what you a double zero in a finals of a major championship I mean you stream to thousands of people no hey gone over this we' we've gone over yeah yeah I felt bad forer felt bad for Jason Ellen obviously needs all the help he can get so yeah I just figured just let the ball drain just establish dominance yeah you only need two balls apparently yeah it didn't work I lost Joel so yeah you guys did you guys did a great job announcing on the uh the Wormhole pinball oh yeah yeah we became a mini meme thanks to that as well y that was uh that was was a good time uh entertaining Jamie I think is his name Jamie at Wormhole he had reached out and said hey would you guys be interested in in commentating and we yeah we were like yeah let's give it a shot like I love to talk yeah it was great well I was in the middle of doing uh what was it the trivia so naturally I was roughly like I don't know three or four whiskies into the night and Joel's like hey do you want to do pinball commentary and I was like why not do it yeah Joel was all in because he Tri at the very beginning somehow you want ban or something yeah so at tpf yeah I'm real smart um no I'm smart because I made he followed Ron howlet the whole entire time and then he broke away at the end he's like I'm going to take a chance yep so at tpf they do this trivia night where they get a whole bunch of stuff so t-shirts banners everything all the different manufacturers give away a bunch of stuff and um they have these trivia questions and the way that they do it is there's always there's it's either going to be one of two answers and so there's a whole crowd if you want answer a you go to this side answer B to that side and I told I told Ron howlet I told everybody I was like I am following Ron howlet this guy knows his stuff he's the only smart part of pinball Chronicles he actually knows history so if you're gonna follow somebody follow Ron howlet and so I was I was following Ron howlet and we got down to I think we got down to like six people and they were about to just give out prizes to the six people but they're like n i do one more question and so I don't remember the exact question I think it was something like what was Barry Al's last commercially released game does that ring a bell it was and it was between junkyard and not taxi I'll tell you that right now not taxi I forget what the other one was but all six people including myself picked question a so the problem what happened was answer a answer a yes what had happened the round before was it got down to the same thing it was like six or five or six people everybody picked one answer and they were all wrong they were all wrong and I remembered that so I was like we're all on this Ron seems skeptical we're all kind of talking amongst ourselves you know is it this or this well it depends on if they're gonna go with this or that so we're all standing there and last minute I jumped over to the other side so I was the one person that picked the other answer and guess what I was the only one that was right so I was pumped I won a banner and if you win a banner you're not allowed to play anymore so I was done so I won a banner and and and walked away uh felt real real good but good good news is Ron howlet won multiple prizes throughout the night so if you go to tpf find Ron howlet and just follow him that guy knows his stuff but um yeah it was great it was great it was great doing commentary um for um the tournament Travis didn't play in the tournament this year so tpf for you was a a completely different experience right than previous tournament oh yeah no it was it was fun I got to get heckled I got to walk around talk to people got to actually eat barbecue which was nice down there Texas barbecue is fantastic oh yeah we went to this one place what was it hard eight Hard Eight that's the one I said you got to go to that's the one Brian Shephard took Neil and I to yeah hard yeah it was fantastic I definitely recomend that was awesome what' you say Travis sorry no I was saying I I would definitely go to that that was aw it was excellent yeah yeah don't even go for the pinball anymore just go for the barbecue when you go to a Barb barbecue place in Texas you have to go you have to wait in the line you have to go up to the counter and say I want a half pound of that I want that I want that it's not like a sit down no you know and they bring it to you no all all the meats out on display yeah all the meats out on display and you're just give me a little bit of this and that and they weigh it and then they pay you um my only complaint is pay you too pay them I got to go to this place my only complaint is you know while I'm waiting for my food I was looking around and I'm like man if I had a pinball machine to play right now that's really what I just feel like the barbecue restaurant needed needs a pinball machine um I don't know what theme necessarily that's what Joel did Joel was getting his meat and everything he's like do you guys have any barbecue challenge here that I could play and that yeah that's that's how Joel sounds in Texas legi exactly ches accent it was a whole deal like Neil McCrae was there I think Bob was there like it was a whole deal it great time just throwing us off no it was a great place like it's if you get a chance to go to tpf just in general just the atmosphere is awesome because of that because you get to see a lot of friends you get to play a lot of pinball if you if you're into tournaments you get to play tournaments if you're not into that there's all this other stuff to do yeah like what is it like a a big smoke for cigars you got arcade games that are there you got vendors that are there you got plenty of food to go eat and this year I act I enjoyed this year so much more than previous years for a variety of reasons not just like not playing the tournament like I wasn't stuck there the whole time but I don't know just the vibe at tpf was just completely different than previous years I I don't know why that is exactly it's cuz people aren't fighting over tppy ORS yeah it's well it it could have been that I don't know it was just it was like everywhere you went people were happy to be there there wasn't any grumpy people there there weren't people complaining at all besides I don't know maybe maybe my son's because I wasn't playing cuphead well enough with them but outside of that it's yeah they had a cuphead arcade there I kept dying it's like yeah it's a video game that's very hard to play0 yeah exactly yeah my hand eye coordination does not apply to that pinball yes but but no everything else it was just I don't know it was fun and I tried to make it a point to go to different seminars to talk to as many people as I could I know I didn't get to talk to everybody but I I don't know it was just a different vibe and the lines weren't super long either no so it felt like that there was less people there but more pinball machines were there so they had pinball machines even out in the hall this time and that just made it just so much better even though Joel and I got kicked off a machine day one still after that I got over that and it was just so much better well there was Mach did they know who you were no no we to them Travis was a person without a wristband that's all that's all he was to them um no it was awesome uh you know some of the other podcasters have talked about this they changed the layout of the room and um I think I don't know I haven't seen official numbers but it definitely felt like there was less people there than last year and so just overall it felt less crowded so um you know I remember two years ago two years ago when Pulp Fiction was released that was the thing it was like um the the line for that you would wait in that forever or that's when Godfather was released so it's like a lot of people waiting in line for Godfather a lot of people they had like one weird owl one or two so a lot of people waiting in line for Weird Al and then a lot of people waiting in line for p fiction and pul fiction is a rather brutal game so you get up there and play and it's just like I just remember that it felt crowded it felt tight not this it's felt just the layout it seemed like there were more games there all the games that you want to play were there um and maybe it was a combination of more games less people better layout but it was just really awesome it was really relaxed really nice I would say this I've said this before if if you love this Hobby and you if there's any chance you can go to a pinball show I would prioritize either Chicago pinball festival or Texas pinball Festival Chicago pinball Expo or Texas pinball Festival those I've been to both they are both fantastic um and it's the best way to meet people there's a lot of people from the industry there um so you know a bunch of people from jjp as well as Stern all the spooky guys were there all the barrels with fun guys were there multimorphic team was there um it was great it was great but now which one do you like better what between the two shows yeah let's get you off the fence I'm I'll say tpf I've been to both I thoroughly enjoy tpf much better than Expo not that EXP it's just the of tpf I just like it a lot better tpf it's warm it's warm except for it rain the whole time we're there but it's warmer down there there's really good places to walk and eat food um so it's just the location is better I am I do like Chicago though because I can drive I can drive there I'm there um and there's more industry people at Chicago because it's Chicago but um no it was great it was really really good didn't you just name off Everybody though pretty much that was there at TP but like Stern brings like every Stern employee to Chicago it's you know there was a handful of them there at um was was Keith there Keith was not because it was Keith's birthday so happy birthday Keith was Raymond there Ray was not because he's a bum you just said everybody was there no I said a handful of people were at Texas no he's talking about Chicago talking about Expo oh Chicago yes everyone was there everybody was there yes Texas I ran into um was therewi was there this isn't even about tpf and Expo anymore this is about you sucking up to stern that's that's why I feel like we kind of beard off anybody can look and see oh these people are there Tom where do we exit off here to the aing portion that's not what I said I I wasn't like hey I got to hang out with my friends oh by their name by the way their names are George G no that's not what I was doing that I did not what George dropping it all gotcha I Tom said who was there so I was listing the names of who was there that's not name dropping that's answering a question um so let's actually go through the games we we did this last time but it's like let's actually give our first impressions here um and we'll start with uh Elton John why not I I know I've streamed Elton John I've played the heck out of it um Travis actually had a chance to put some time on Elton John typically when I looked for where's Travis I found you a lot on Elton John um if you guys want to share that Tom why have you not bought an Elon John yet you you you like buying games um it's just mainly the theme like I like Elton John music don't get me wrong yeah um but it theme and price I mean they their price kind of High um you know don't look at the L's behind me uh I but I can also go down the street and play one because there's one at Lumberjack Johnny's in Appleton okay so and he uh Dave oepi the owner uh he put his uh collector's edition there too oh wow so uh really nice really nice game uh I think the game is amazing like it shoots well it's great it's probably the best Jersey Jack pinball game in my opinion uh but uh yeah I it's just the theme it the theme doesn't like totally grab me but if I was a huge Elton John fan I would have one in my house right now all yep that makes a lot of sense um Travis why'd you keep playing it all the time at tpf it was just it was fun to play when it comes to the theme I'll be honest I don't care for the theme at all I I know some Elton John songs but seeing how I'm a young 40 a very young 40 I I don't know too many I I didn't grow up on Elton John basically so you know but the pen shot great yeah I I thoroughly enjoyed that and I think I was just surprised that it and so here's the thing and we've talked about this back and forth and this is either going to sound like a disc or it's going to sound like a great thing I don't know but it didn't feel like a jjp that makes sense oh wow sick burn bro right well I'm you know there's somebody out there like oh but what what I'm getting at ISE with that you're like the flippers didn't feel spongy it it felt like it had solid flow it felt more towards where Stern is right and it matched what Stern does in a lot of spots and that's not to say like Godfather or Wonka or something like that didn't it just had the snappy feel to the flippers and the shots felt felt solid there was a couple of really cool shots there too especially whenever the ball got launched and you saw it go around I guess the Habit Trail or whatever you want to call it just yeah there's some just some cool shots there so you know those parts were cool to me the sound package it sounded a lot better in person than what I was expecting cuz it's just like with Toy Story right just kind of sound like a slot machine with Toy Story 4 I didn't really get that feeling as much with this and I don't know why that is maybe because it just doesn't have those types of sounds I don't know but either way the game was just fun to shoot uh I didn't really know the rules or anything I wasn't really paying attention to the rules I just knew well if I put the ball here enough multiball start there hit this enough something will happen there but I was just completely focused on just the experience the shots and watching other people and asking other people hey what do you think because there's I mean overwhelmingly people were really enjoying playing the game but the key part was is I would ask them well are you going to are you looking at getting one and it was just instantly no no no so it's like it's kind of weird and I don't know if that's I didn't dig any further I don't know if that's pricing I don't know if it's theme but but it's just one of those weird penss to where people are really enjoying it but they don't seem like they're wanting to adopt it yeah I I I don't know I don't know why that is I I think it's price I honestly do well Price Plus you look at pretty much the last the last few jjp games you buy them you buy them at that high price but they don't stay at that price I mean if you go to resell that game it's just I feel like it's just like a industry supply and demand too if not a lot of people are buying look at Pirates I mean Pirates goes for crazy money yeah it's it's so pinball yeah the pinball enthusiasts there everybody's just in this weird spot and I've been noticing this a lot in the past several months and we've talked about this too off the podcast and everything that there's just a lot of people are basing their decision-making over whether they want to get a game today based off how much money they think they're going to lose yeah right and so it's kind of like it's this weird spot because there's a lot of people out there that don't consume pinball content that don't do that at all they just want to buy a game because they're like oh Pinball's fun I have disposable income I want to play the game I'm G to get the game I'm going to play it whereas I've noticed it's just it's exclusively the pinball Enthusiast who consumes content that all of a sudden the fun equation is secondary to am I going to lose money on this or not it's almost like that's the game they're playing instead of the actual game of just playing pinball you know and I get it if that's how somebody wants to approach it right and that's all they know it is what it is but at the same time I feel like there's a lot of people out there that are missing out on unique opportunities to play a game over the fear of dropping what two three four $5,000 which is a lot of money don't get me wrong that's a valid fear yeah don't get me wrong but yeah that's if you plan on selling it mhm right so it's just kind of like I don't know if you budget correctly and you're approaching it well what's my fun Factor going to be like why not go for I just feel like there's so many people get Frozen right they they freeze themselves out from even buying a game from playing a game from even thinking about the game and then they want to wait several months down the road but you know what happens they're waiting for some magical game to come out and then when it does or doesn't come out they're still frozen and then they're still not buying a used game anyways that's the weirdest part because otherwise we'd be seeing these games just going through the paces and being sold left and right and we're not really seeing that and that's the Curious part about Elton John I'm sure it'll happen eventually but from the people that I am aware of that have bought the game they're all extremely happy oh yeah with their purchase you know it's the same way with jaws everybody's extremely happy with purchase and the funny part is it's the same thing with Venom obviously Sals weren't quite where Stern or anybody else wanted them but the people that are buying it are happy with their purchase overall it's pretty rare that somebody buys a game that decides to take that leap of faith and they're just like crushed by it they're just so pissed off that they bought that game and they want nothing to do with it not saying it doesn't happen yeah but it's rare I think it's I think it's clear that if you are uh if you're an Elton John fan and you're a pinball fan like especially if you're a DieHard Elton John fan you bought the game you're you love the game but it's I think for many years people were willing to just I'll buy a game worst case I sell it and I get my money back or I lose a little bit of money I mean there was a lot of people especially when demand or the supply was down they would buy almost every new release every Stern game just like whatever I'll buy it I'll put some games on it and I'll sell it it's there was no it it wasn't a worry but um Elton John I think it's there's a lot of people in this hobby that are like I'm not an Elton John fan but boy does that game look fun but not fun enough for me to risk losing a $2,000 like investment because they've already made it out in their head where it's a theme that I don't want to own so it's not going to be a keeper I'm not going to be tempted to keep it so if I buy it it's just going to be for a period of time before I want to sell it and that's not no they're just not taking that chance but honestly I've said it before Elton John is one of the games that I genuinely miss I miss having my kids miss me having it um my brother asked about the game like it's it's really really good and I and I bet there are people that bought the game with the intent of yeah I'll own it six months maybe and then turn on to the next one and I don't know if they're selling I haven't really seen him on the used Market it just seems like a lot of people are you never know and what you just said is completely valid if you are not a huge fan of a theme yeah it's probably not the smartest thing to be plopping down thousands of dollars for a product unless you absolutely know what type of layouts you like and what type of gameplay you like and that's how I I'm able to judge a lot of games that I bring in is it's not just the theme but if I feel like I'm going to have fun to a certain extent with what the layout is how the rules are so on and so forth then yeah I'm going to think about getting that game and everybody's going to buy for different reasons I I just think if you are exclusively in this hobby because you want to be able to buy a game not lose any money or buy a game just to flip it make a profit in the future you're going to be in for a rough time because that's not where the industry is at and that's not where it's going to be for a very very very long time because there's so many companies coming out games yeah Supply right has met demand for the most part Stern is cranking out games so like you're going to just you're basically just making yourself set on the sideline true so I what what I would encourage people is if you have a theme that you want like get the game yeah enjoy the game like why not Tom let me ask you this cuz you you buy a lot of Le's but like when you bought Foo Fighters like Foo Fighters is a big band like you're a big fan of that so when you bought the Le it was a I I have full intention of owning this game for a long time same thing with jaws bought Jaws Le I I have plans on owning this for a long time but you bought a originally you bought a bond Pro so like clearly when you bought the bond Pro it wasn't it wasn't with the mentality of I'm going to own this a long time you bought it for what reasons yeah I well mainly just to play it you know being a pinball fan I was like well you know I'm going to give this game a chance but I immediately put it on Route too so it's not like I had it in my house where I could you know play it every night if I wanted to you know I had to I'd have to drive to a location to play it but uh the bond and it was mainly because of the Bond theme it just not a uh you know it I I wasn't into watching Bond movies growing up you know uh I watched a few of them but it just wasn't something that like really grabbed me uh but now I own a bond premium because I like I like the game playay and stuff so you know yeah but I think it's interesting you had him in ality buying that Pro of like I'm going to basically take a chance I'm going to take a chance on this um but yet it's easy to do that with a pro or Pro pricing but you're saying it's you can't just you're not going to take a chance on a $112,000 Elton John that's what I'm hearing yeah pretty much yeah well I'm I'm hearing it from a lot of people is really what it comes down to I mean I have a local collector friend who he flips games all the time but it's just like there's something about that that threshold of like a $112,000 investment but what's interesting is you know I'll see him he'll buy two Pros you know without second guessing it and that's the same amount of money but yet like and it's just a mental thing of like two games is a lot easier to digest to flip those than one game that's I don't know it's just it it just comes down to threshold is all it is it comes down to threshold and it comes down to you as the end consumer like whether it's you Joel you Tom or you The Listener or you the viewer out there it just comes down to what do you value and if you value playing pinball you value fun if you value bringing something in for your family to play for you to play you'll figure out how to make it work if it fits within your budget now if you value money more than that like that's your priority and yeah of course you're going to view it through that prism that I don't want to lose x amount of money right you know and it's a unique thing there's not too many other things in life outside of I don't know maybe our mortgage or something that we will spend an obscene amount of money on something with hopes that we're going to get a return back on it is something that we will actively use in our daily life and for whatever re like pinball has been just brought into that and that's fine it's just there's a lot of people out there though that are out there that enjoy pinball for what it is it's a game that's meant to be played and it's meant to be enjoyed and that's where their priority and their focus is like neither one's wrong it's just people just view it through different ways that's perfectly valid from both sides yeah well we've got a lot yeah we got a lot more games to go through um but I know I agree like it's weird Elton John I just feel like that that game has done has genuinely done everything right everything right except for it's just a very polarizing theme and not that people love or hate the theme it's just I think people love the theme or they like it but not enough and it's just it's just tough let's face facts if that layout was Led Zeppelin oh yeah or yeah that's fair I mean we'll just say the quiet part out loud that's what everybody's thinking that layout was lead Zeppelin it would be a much different story but there is no staircase to in the game Travis you know yeah of course you need that yeah they they replace piano just a guy walking upstairs that's all that's just like I said it go it's different companies it's different bombs it's different strategies it's different lens or like allowing stuff approving stuff so yeah this is just like a pie a sky thing of saying oh yeah if it would have been this like of course yeah if they would have put $50,000 worth of R&D into just one machine and sold it for 5,000 they would probably sell like a million of them but they wouldn't make anything back so yeah it's just it's a unique industry but yeah so um what is what is it like Jersey Jack are we giving two thumbs up I think they're doing I I like I I don't know a single person that has played I don't know any other podcast I don't know anybody that's played the game and had anything negative to say the Art's great the sounds great the I don't there's nothing negative about the game it's just at the end of the day zelton johnice yeah price and yep that's that's fair that's valid think game if it was priced at a Stern premium yeah we we wouldn't be having this conversation right that's true if it was would that game be able to be piced at that that's the question like would it still look like it does great question not well what was what was a um what was a guns and& roses not standard but the nor Le what was that think it was about 8 Grand when it first came out and then they was a lot of inflation too though that was a lot of inflation too that was a whole other lifetime I just think I'm pretty confident if somebody sold a used Elton John for under 10 grand it would on pinside for one minute it'd be gone no doubt because the demand is there I actually think people want the game but people just are frozen at $112,000 new in box they're just Frozen they're waiting they're waiting for used and this may be one of those games in five years that are CL people are clamoring for them because not a ton of you know I don't know so here's a great question first world problem yeah exactly Tom what would a standard I know we got to get to other games but what would a standard look like for Elton John cuz we know that a standard was out for guns and roses and there's a reason why they don't do standards anymore yeah I think he would I think you'd have to take all the toys out like yeah you You' not have no moving Elton it would be just the LEDs on the piano would the side just be a Target you think I think you could leave the the layout I think you could leave the layout I think just like the crocodile Bops up and down that could be a static thing there's a rock I'm going to lean into this joke Joel just totally no sold it it's an awesome joke Tom got it try try it again maybe the second attempt will be better okay I'll try sorry I I probably studied stuttered over my one second hang on yeah this is let me edit just find the script that you wrote for the jokes because I didn't write this one yeah okay try it again they should probably just take the side ramp and just put a Target there instead oh yeah like what they did in lead