Pump up the jam, pump it up, while your feet are stumping, and the jam is pumping, look ahead, the crowd is jumping. Pump it up a little more, get the party going on the dance floor, see, cause that's where the party's at, and you'll find out if you do that. Welcome everybody to Canadian Pinball Podcast, my first show after Pinball Expo 2025, and it is no mystery. The Winchester Mystery House was the talk of the show. I want to talk about what we're going through right now. We are post-expo. We have 525 spots for this game that have been sold to customers. You cannot find one. It is the hot game in town. There are thousands of Star Wars games that will be made. Thousands of Harry Potters. Thousands upon thousands. and yet a 525 unit game has everybody on pin side talking. It's got the pinball community talking and it had the longest lines at the show. Now, I've covered this hobby for a really long time and I've seen the different stages that people go through whenever a game comes out that has FOMO and this definitely is one of those games. I've been thinking a lot about this over the last like 48 hours, how I want to talk about this game right now. In a way that's using a little bit of common sense, because I'm in the hype thread, and for some weird reason, it's like that thread should not be called the hype thread. It should just be called like the Winchester Mystery House discussion thread. Because, you know, your job going into that thread isn't to hype the game. They don't need any hype. They've sold every one. And when you try to have a little bit of a discussion, you are sometimes kicked out of the room. And then what happens is, is the naysayers love to go into those hype threads and troll the thread. And then, you know, you'll get the owner's thread eventually when someone gets a game. And we've seen this time and time again. There's always a lot of excitement. And then there's also like a small group of people that always tries to ruin everybody's excitement and goes into these threads and starts to talk smack about a game that they've never played. But here's the truth. The truth is this. The majority of people who have put down a deposit to buy this game have never played a single game on it. The other truth is this. The people who have played this game, the majority of them played the game at Pinball Expo, maybe, maybe three to five times max. That's how long it took to wait online to get on it. So everybody giving their opinions about this game right now, everybody's proclamations of whether it's great, whether it's brutal, if the animations are better than Stern animations, if the call-outs are good or bad, if the music is good or bad, if the lights are atmospheric or could use some work. Everybody's observations of what it's like to play this game are very, very premature. Nobody's had this game in a home environment, in an intimate setting. Nobody's put an hour uninterrupted on this game. Nobody can give you a real opinion about whether or not it has that one more game feel. We're just excited that there's a new game in the pinball world that's not astern. I mean, if you have to really distill it down to why there's so much excitement for this game, it is a combination of a few simple things. We are finally getting a limited game that feeds the exact thing that collectors are starving for. And when you're starving for something, you will eat something that is off the ground. I'm not saying this game is food off the ground, but you know what I'm saying? It's like all these collectors out there that have been burned by all of these stern lees, all these collectors out there that don't have anything special if you bought a Harry Potter CE because everybody has one all of these collectors that would never buy a pinball brothers game or a pedretti game all of these collectors that don't want Alice's Adventures in Wonderland what are your options and all of these collectors who might not like the Evil Dead movies you know what I'm saying? It's like this game was just something different, something unique, something we didn't see coming. It caught lightning in a bottle. And so you serve it up to a pinball collector community that's been starving for anything different, anything to make them feel like they got something that other people didn't get. They're in on something unique. They're excited to get it in the crazy pinball pricing world The price is kind of right in a world in which you can go spend left and right on more mass produced machines. And so it hit. It hit. And that is absolutely what has happened in the pinball world. Now here's the other part. Nobody knows if the game is great or not. This game is not a jump on it and you're going to have a kinetic connection with it the way you might have with a Keith Elwin game. You are not going to hop on this game and have a kinetic connection the way you felt when you played Elton John or Harry Potter. Trust me, it doesn't shoot that well. Now, my observation from my own gameplay and watching other people play it is a little interesting. Two things are happening at once. my ball times were not short okay so it's not brutal in the sense of when I first hopped on Ghostbusters and it's like drain when I first hopped on Ninja Turtles it's like drain it's not like that you're not just going to get served up a whole bunch of unfair drains and it's going to frustrate you like that what's going to happen when you first play this game is the shots are just hard to find. So it's kind of like long ball times, but you might not be hitting much that frequently when you play the game. And when a game's like that, when there are tight shots that are not like instantly gratifying, it comes down to like two camps will form. Those who say, well, you just got to find the shots. And once you find the shots, the game is amazing. Like there's going to be that camp. And then there might be a camp of people that just say, hey, I don't find the design that rewarding. I would much rather jump on a game that has a lot more immediate kinetic satisfaction and gameplay. Look, I've played a lot of pinball machines. I remember playing Foo Fighters for the first time and it shot like butter. I remember playing X-Men for the first time and the shots were incredible. I remember playing Godzilla, even playing games like Venom, games like Star Trek. I mean, there's certain games when you jump on it for the first time, you just feel this connection with it. You know, there's always going to be a little bit of a learning curve on something that's not as stern as well, because we are, for the most part, so used to the stern flipper feel, the stern flipper angle, the stern flipper power. And when you jump on this game, the Mystery House, it's not the same. The geometry is not the same. The flipper feels not the same. So there's going to be a learning curve. And nobody who's giving any impressions right now really knows how they're even going to feel after they put like two hours onto this game. So two things are occurring right now in our community. There are 525 people who are very excited and in on a game that is absolutely sold out. Now, that is awesome. That is awesome for those people that are excited. It is awesome for Barrels of Fun to have brought this game out of nowhere and got that kind of response from the community. If you don't think that's awesome and you want to march in and slam these people and make fun of these people and say it's this or that, I think something's wrong with you. You need to remember we're in this hobby because we want to be excited. We're in this hobby because we want to see our friends in this hobby excited. We're not in this hobby to root against these companies. And when a company comes out with something that hits like this, we all should be excited. I want more stuff like this in pinball. Now, the other side of the coin is this. It's way too early. It's way too early to know if this is going to be a great game. game is going to have replay value. If this game can hold its own against other machines in your lineup. And what's going to happen next is this. Once this game gets made and gets sent out to customers, then we enter the next chapter of this game's history or lifespan, if you will. Then it's going to come down to the game. Then the game is going to have to deliver on the tremendous hype and excitement that it generated in the community. Because we know that 90% of our enthusiasm in pinball, 90% of the conversation and the energy is all about the chase to find the next great thing. We're like kids on Christmas morning. We just can't wait to unbox the new game. But once you unbox it and once you set it up, then it's all about the game. Because what's going to happen next is streamers are going to get it. And we're going to see way more of this game than we even can handle. And that's the thing. It's like at the show, you're just getting little bits. Little morsels are getting served up to people. Again, a starving pinball collecting community is getting served up just tiny morsels of the game. And watching Carl stream it will not change anybody mind because he so good It not Carl playing the game that going to win people over I want to see how Retro Ralph plays the game or someone like me or someone like Kerry Hardy. Like how is an average pinball player? How are they going to feel after banging on this game for an hour or two or for a week or two. And so we're going to find all that out. None of it matters to barrels. They're sold out. They've done their job. Once a manufacturer hits the right chord with the community, their job is done. They now have to make the game. They now have to finish the code, but that's all they need to worry about now. Because you got to remember, whether or not the code becomes amazing or not, does not put one more dollar now into the pocket of barrels of fun. And you know, the game's 11-6. I also think they're going to reveal an amazing topper for the game that's got like holographic spirits and they're going to sell every one of those because anyone who buys this game will topper it up. So now we're at October 21st. And so when will the first games make it out? I heard it was end of this month, which means we're only going to have to wait another week or so. And then we're going to start to see more about this game. I do think, and again, it's almost November. I do think they're not going to be able to make like 200 of these by January. The moment we see Beetlejuice, everybody knows the hype will shift to that game. There won't even be two times as many Beetlejuice games available for a starving pinball community. And there is at least 10 times the demand for Beetlejuice as a theme as there is for Winchester. And that's my only question about this game is after you own it and after you've gone down those hallways and explored those rooms and heard the call outs and the jokes many, many times, will you still want to keep jumping in? There's something about truly licensed themes where it's like based on movies you love, you're not going to get tired of it because you love it so much. And these are movies like Beetlejuice that have lasted like almost four decades of fandom. and so you know this winchester it's brand new it hasn't even lasted four weeks of excitement or hype so there is still a lot of mystery surrounding this mystery game on how us as a community will respond to this game over time i hope it delivers on the hype i hope the code and everything in the game is satisfying. My one big worry about the game is the gameplay. That is my one big worry about the game itself. I'm worried about the upper right flipper shot the most. I do think when you have places on the play field that you want to get to, like that upper left ramp looks super fun, the staircase to nowhere. If you make it really, really too challenging to hit, that is a design mistake. There should not be a ramp in a game, and I mean this, there should not be any ramp in any pinball machine ever made that is difficult to hit. I don't like that. What should make a pinball machine difficult is the code, not the layout. A pinball machine's layout should be buttery smooth and the shots that you need to hit and want to hit should not be too difficult to find. I think that's always been a little bit of an apologist position when people say you have to find the shot. It's such BS. You know what I'm saying? It's like a pinball machine should be designed in a way where the difficulty is in comboing the shots. Because here's the thing, when shots are really hard and really difficult, like they were telling me you got to hit it way on the tip of the upper right flipper. It's like, why? Like, why would you design it to be such a difficult way to get the ball from A to B? Imagine if it's like easy to hit those shots and combo it into something. That's what brings real satisfaction in pinball. Being able to combo up, enjoy the flow, like rip shot after shot after shot. And the real challenge comes from getting through the modes and the code in a way that lets you unlock a lot of magical moments in the game. If you're struggling to find shots and things are bricking left and right, nobody likes a brick fest. I think it's too early to tell whether or not this game is going to have that kinetic satisfaction or not. Because if you read people's feedback, everybody's saying the same thing. There's a lot to shoot at in the game. There's a lot you want to shoot at in the game. but will it be satisfying to shoot at all those things in the game or will it be frustrating and I think that's going to be determined over the next few weeks as more and more people and normal people get on the game all right so Winchester Mystery House sold out I just leaked an image of the cuphead game from American Pinball A lot of yellow in there It does look like an interesting pin It also feels like if American Pinball surprised everybody and showed this game at Expo and just gauged people's interest in it, I think they would have got a lot of orders for it. And I think it would have maybe convinced them to turn back on their pinball division, but I don't think we're ever going to see it. But I do know this, there is video floating around of gameplay of this game. I don't have it. Someone else who I know has it. I'm not going to mention his name, but it's out there and it's going to leak someday soon. All right. We also heard this week that Stern Pinball is planning to reveal The Walking Dead. This is so silly. The Walking Dead before Halloween. So great job, Stern. You had everybody at Pinball Expo. You had thousands of people at Pinball Expo and your plan was to shove a mediocre Star Wars game down everybody's throat instead of getting orders for The Walking Dead. Your strategy is not going to work. Star Wars is terrible. I don't frequently say a Stern machine is terrible, but Star Wars is absolutely terrible. And I don't think this Walking Dead remaster now where you're going to reveal it over the internet. It's not going to be at any show. And people are just tired of Stern's antics. And here we go again. And I think there is a large growing part of this community that just doesn't care anymore to support Stern and its same old strategy and tactics. I think a lot of us want to send Stern a message by not buying their games. by not rewarding their lazy strategy? Where's their mystery game? Where's their surprise and delight? Where's their game we didn't see coming? Where's their game with a lot of magic? Where's their game with a new artist that's exciting us? Where's their game with mechanisms we haven't seen before? Where's their game with a really cool ghost pepper effect that's happening in that Winchester game? Where's their game with sculpts, not flat plastics? It's over, Stern. We see right through you. You made great games for so many years, but they look damn cheap. And it's not going to work anymore. And they've got to step up. And everybody feels that way. I mean that. Everybody feels that way. I just saw a Star Wars Premium. Game is brand new, like $1,000 off. More than that, like $8,400 right away in unboxed game, losing $1,000. So for all you guys who just bought Star Wars Premium, congratulations. Congratulations, in less than two weeks, you lost $1,000. This is how it is now. These games are just rolling out and they're already hugely depreciating. I think the community is over it. I think Stern needs a wake-up call and I think it's gonna get a lot worse before it gets better. I think the pressure on them is insane and I think they bit off more than they can chew and I don't know how they start to behave again like a boutique company that's hungry because they really are acting like the humongous company that just wants to make volume product, get it into Costco and turn its back on collectors. And this is where we're at. This is where we're at. Who over there at Stern do you think is giving them ideas about how to win back collectors? You think the new CMO is still hasn't said hi. He was at Expo. Was he even part of the panel discussion? You know what I'm saying? Like all these people, they don't have anyone listening to them. They're not even trying to get our attention. They simply think they can make stuff like Star Wars and we're going to buy it. It's over. It's absolutely over. And I love it. I love that each and every one of you is over it. I can see it in everyone's responses. Nobody is excited to run anymore and buy a Stern new in box. You're excited for Winchester. You're excited for your Harry Potter. You're excited for Beetlejuice. Everything else has got you way more excited and it's awesome. And it's only going to force Stern to get better. This is why competition is a good thing. And I'm rooting for everybody to step up because when you step up, everything's going to get better. Every product will get better if we stop buying the mediocre crap. Everyone's going to have to get better. Everyone's going to have to improve what they put into the market. Everybody, happy Tuesday. More to come. I can't wait to see more gameplay on Winchester. I can't wait to see if the game delivers on the extraordinary hype it has coming out of Pinball Expo. We shall see. And you know, Kaneda, I'm always going to call it as I see it. I think this game is still very much a mystery. I think nobody knows now if it's going to go down as a great game, a decent game, or a masterpiece. So we shall see. Everybody be good. We'll talk to you soon. I got a New York Dgeh is Drake. Get your booty on the put tonight and make my day.