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Episode 62 - Bruce Almighty

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 53m·held·May 21, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Bruce Nightingale discusses Highway collapse, Pinball Brothers prospects, and industry news on Eclectic Gamers.

Summary

Bruce Nightingale, co-host of Slam Tilt Podcast and owner of Silver Ball Saloon, discusses pinball industry news including Highway Pinball's liquidation and Pinball Brothers' acquisition of assets, John Trudeau arrest on sexual abuse charges, Deep Root's proposed pricing model ($3,500–$50,000), and the inaugural Women's International Pinball Tournament at ReplayFX. The hosts debate whether Pinball Brothers can succeed post-Highway, whether $3,500 pinball machines are feasible, and the merits of gender-separated tournaments.

Key Claims

  • Highway Pinball filed liquidation documents showing nearly £2 million in debt at filing

    high confidence · Dennis cites Pinball News published liquidation documentation over 30 pages long

  • Pinball Brothers acquired Highway's assets for minimal cost, potentially undervalued in documentation as 'furniture' rather than production equipment

    high confidence · Bruce and Dennis discuss liquidation documents showing assets transferred to Pinball Brothers at low valuation

  • Highway Pinball had secured creditor liability around £30,000 (employee pay/benefits) but majority of debt is unsecured

    high confidence · Dennis states 'Highway Pinball...has way more secured creditor liability than they do assets. It's almost 30,000 pounds in security'

  • Queen license was not listed in Highway Pinball's assets, suggesting Pinball Brothers obtained it

    medium confidence · Bruce notes Queen license was not in Highway's asset list, implying Pinball Brothers has it

  • Bruce Nightingale has owned approximately 275 pinball machines and 55–70 arcade games over 35 years

    high confidence · Bruce states 'I've been doing pinball for 35 years...owned almost 275 pinball machines...including probably about 55 to 70 arcade games'

  • John Trudeau arrested for sexual abuse of a minor family member aged under 13 across 1993–2000 period

    high confidence · Dennis reports new arrest is 'for sexual abuse of a young girl under the age of 13...for a 7 year period running from 1993 until the year 2000'

  • Deep Root Pinball announced pricing range of approximately $3,500–$50,000 across models

    high confidence · Dennis states 'there's roughly a range of $3,500 to $50,000 per model plan' confirmed by This Week in Pinball inquiry

  • Deep Root noted lower end pricing is not finalized; upper end price point was designed to appeal to one specific podcaster

    medium confidence · Dennis notes 'the upper hand number was devised to appeal to one podcaster out there that wants to buy a very, very expensive pinball machine'

Notable Quotes

  • “I've been doing pinball for 35 years. I bought my first pinball machine when I was 12. I bought a Kiss pinball machine.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ early segment — Establishes Bruce's long history and credibility in the pinball hobby

  • “It appears everything is in place for pinball brothers to start to manufacture pins...given what pieces of equipment they were getting...or if they were to turn to a contract manufacturer.”

    Dennis @ Highway Pinball discussion — Analysis of Pinball Brothers' acquisition of Highway assets and manufacturing capability

  • “If they don't do that, forget about it. People are not going to give money. if they do they're really they're even stupider than people giving money to highway that was like a used car salesman giving to that guy”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Queen license discussion — Critical stance on Pinball Brothers' credibility and likelihood of pre-order success

  • “I don't see $3,500 being feasible. You can kind of figure out what Stern's cost is. And they've been doing it for a lot longer than Deep Root. With a lot more secrets and labor and infrastructure to keep the cost down.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Deep Root pricing discussion — Industry insight on manufacturing cost realities and pricing feasibility

  • “It seems like they invested just to strip everything and start their own thing.”

    Dennis @ Highway/Pinball Brothers analysis — Summarizes suspicion that Pinball Brothers may have used Highway as acquisition vehicle

  • “There's no upside other than if he's guilty, him getting finally punished for the crime.”

    Dennis @ John Trudeau arrest discussion — Commentary on Trudeau situation and minimal hobby impact

  • “I've always been a little negative of separating groups for tournaments aka women's tournaments and juniors tournaments and seniors tournaments because...when I become a senior he's right behind me I'm screwed right now”

    Bruce Nightingale @ WIPT discussion — Bruce's perspective on gender/age-separated tournaments and aging in competitive pinball

Entities

Bruce NightingalepersonDennispersonTonypersonRon HallettpersonJohn TrudeaupersonAndrew HighwaypersonKate MartinpersonZachperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Highway Pinball liquidation with £2M debt; Pinball Brothers acquisition of assets at minimal valuation raises fraud/asset stripping concerns

    high · Dennis and Bruce detail liquidation documents showing assets transferred at undervalued 'furniture' classification; £30k secured vs. total ~£2M debt; liquidator has power to levy fines

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Brothers appears to have secured Queen license; not listed in Highway assets, suggesting negotiated transfer or pre-existing arrangement

    medium · Bruce notes Queen license absent from Highway liquidation asset list; assumes Pinball Brothers has it; Deep Root reportedly unable to obtain Queen from Highway/Pinball Brothers

  • ?

    community_signal: Debate over gender-separated tournament formats; Bruce skeptical of demographic brackets; Tony counters with inclusivity argument

    medium · Bruce: 'always been a little negative of separating groups'; Tony: 'no age or gender advantage' in pinball mechanics; philosophical disagreement on tournament structure

  • ?

    event_signal: Women's International Pinball Tournament launched at ReplayFX with $5,000+ prize pool; largest women-only tournament organized by Kate Martin

    high · Dennis confirms WIPT details; Kate Martin organizer; >$5,000 prize pool; positioned as record women's tournament at major event venue

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong community skepticism about Pinball Brothers' credibility; expectation of continued pre-order failures if pattern repeats

    high · Bruce: 'people are not going to give money' unless 50 units available immediately; Dennis: 'shady as all get out'; comparison to Highway as 'used car salesman'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.340

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. This is episode 62. It is Sunday, May 20th. I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis. And we have a guest. Once again. A pinball guest this time for a very pinball-centric episode.
0:30
This is the unpredictable co-host of the Slam Tilt podcast. He is also the owner and operator of the famed Silver Ball Saloon. Please welcome to the Eclectic Gamers podcast, the punisher of Premiere, the saint of Stern Electronics, and the ace of the Arkansas auction, Mr. Bruce Nightingale. Bruce, welcome to the show. Well, thank you guys. I love your show. It's actually one of my top five now. So what does that tell you? Oh, well, it tells me that you like us more than the Pinball Players podcast.
1:00
No, I like the Pinball Players podcast. No, no, I mean, you guys got to be on his list at number one. We weren't on his top five list. I know. You might have to make a comment about that right now then, I guess. No, no, no, no. See, here's what I do. Here's how I can hide any insecurity about any flaws in our format. I always just tell myself we are a mixed gaming podcast because we also cover video games quite a bit. So we don't really belong on those pinball-only evaluations. We shouldn't get a Twippy. We shouldn't be in the top five of a pinball podcast because we're a mixed game. It's like broken token. We're mixed game. I like the mixed gaming, though. I really do. I'm glad you enjoy it. I listened all the way through. I'm actually listening right now to your last one, and I'm listening to how much you guys like 41 hours of freaking gaming in one week. Oh, my God. I don't know how you guys do that.
1:56
I'm up over 90 hours now. Oh, my gosh. I've added another. He can walk you through his secrets. I think it all just comes down to one core thing, IV drip. Yes, I bow to you. That's why you're hydrated. Well, the secret is insurers because they're liquid, so you don't have to go to the bathroom a lot, and they're filling, so you don't have to eat a lot. So you just sit there, and if you get hungry, you drink one and you're okay for a while and you stay away from everything else. You can just stay at the chair. Oh, and sure, on one end depends on the other. Exactly. I was just going to say the same thing. Oh, yeah. All of our minds are in the same place. Well, I really, I've liked, I don't know if I got in on episode one of Slam Tilt, but I think I was in as of episode three. I actually lived in Syracuse for a year. So when I heard you guys out in central New York, it's like, oh, yeah, I remember all that. I did my grad workout at Syracuse University. so great area great area but oh the weather stinks up here yeah yeah the the joke that program was structured so you get your get through the the master's program in 12 months you actually went summer to summer and the the running joke was no one would put up with more than one central new york winter from out of town so they had to restructure that that program so you do with the summers rather than doing it two years with the normal semester structure yeah you guys had better weather down there in kansas city definitely well in the winters but once we get in the summer Or, you know, as the late Bill Paxton would say, it's not the humidity, it's the humidity, man. I know. It's brutal. Well, we're in the intro section. And I've got a link in the show notes for folks who possibly, they've strangely never heard Slam Tilt Podcast to go and be able to listen to your show. And also a link to your new venture, the Silver Ball Saloon. Thank you. So I didn't know if you wanted to tell us a little bit about, you know, what's going on with that. I've got a segment here later where we're going to talk more in depth about it, because you're the first person I've had on who's not just a pinball operator, but also owns the venue that deals in more than just pinball. Oh, yes. My name is Bruce Nightingale. I am co-host of the Slamtail Podcast with Ron Hallett, who is actually one of my really good friends. We've been friends for 15 years. So you feel the camaraderie when you're listening to us, which is a great thing.

  • Bruce believes $3,500 pinball machines are not feasible given manufacturing costs comparable to or higher than Stern's

    medium confidence · Bruce states 'I don't see them selling at $3,500. I don't see it's even possible...Stern's...cost...With a lot more secrets and labor and infrastructure'

  • Women's International Pinball Tournament (WIPT) at ReplayFX has prize pool exceeding $5,000

    high confidence · Dennis states 'the prize pool is in excess of $5,000' and mentions Kate Martin as organizer

  • “What I really like about pinball, and that is outside of, you know, when you're like a little toddler with your little T-Rex arms, essentially there is no age or gender advantage to be had.”

    Tony @ WIPT discussion — Counter-perspective emphasizing pinball's inherent inclusivity regardless of demographics

  • “Well, don't forget. People do forget. Look at American Pinball with the beginning with J-Pop and everything like that...people now really don't associate too much”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Pinball Brothers reputation discussion — Historical example of how community can move past founder/leadership controversies

  • “my rule is for my podcast is don't give anybody your money unless you can get the product within two weeks”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Pinball Brothers credibility discussion — Bruce's stated principle for recommending pre-orders in pinball

    • Cointaker
    person
    Highway Pinballcompany
    Pinball Brotherscompany
    Deep Root Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Slam Tilt Podcastproduct
    Silver Ball Saloonproduct
    Eclectic Gamers Podcastproduct
    Gamitrongame
    Women's International Pinball Tournamentevent
    ReplayFXevent
    This Week in Pinballproduct
    Pinball Newsproduct
    Pinsideproduct
  • $

    market_signal: Deep Root's $50,000 upper price point acknowledged as jab at unnamed podcaster with extreme budget

    medium · Dennis: 'the upper hand number was devised to appeal to one podcaster...sounds like a jab'; Tony/Dennis humorously reference 'gold standard' podcaster pricing absurdity

  • ?

    community_signal: Bruce Nightingale's 35-year pinball veteran status and acquisition expertise positions him as credible industry analyst on business viability

    high · Bruce: 275 machines owned, 35 years in hobby; known for 'art of the pinball deal'; demonstrates industry cost/infrastructure knowledge in pricing debate

  • ?

    personnel_signal: John Trudeau arrest on sexual abuse charges; prior child pornography possession arrest; raises community questions about warning signs and designer accountability

    high · Dennis documents arrest for 1993–2000 abuse of family member <13 years old; notes prior CP arrest; mentions community speculation about warning signs and accountability

  • $

    market_signal: Deep Root's proposed $3,500 entry price point considered unrealistic by operators due to manufacturing cost parity with Stern

    high · Bruce: 'I don't see them selling at $3,500. I don't see it's even possible'; cites Stern's cost infrastructure and HomePen competitive pricing unable to hit this mark

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community willingness to move past leadership controversies (e.g., American Pinball/Papaduke) suggests Pinball Brothers recovery possible if product succeeds

    medium · Bruce cites American Pinball example: 'People do forget...people now really don't associate too much'; suggests time heals reputation wounds if company delivers

    • 4:15
    I've been doing pinball for 35 years. I bought my first pinball machine when I was 12. I bought a Kiss pinball machine. And I've owned almost 275 pinball machines in my life, including probably about 55 to 70 arcade games, right around there. Wow. So you're hardcore in this hobby. Oh, yeah. The games are mostly gone now. Luckily, when I met my wife, I had a mix. And then when we bought our first townhouse, I had about 20 video games, including Diskatron, Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, all the video games. And my wife came down one day, and she's like, I really don't like playing this. And I had only a couple of pinball machines. I had a Black Knight 2000 and a Whirlwind. She goes, I love playing the pinball machines. Can you get more pinball machines and less video games? Oh, that's the wrong thing to say to me. Needless to say, last year before we opened the business, I had 38 pinball machines in my basement alone.
    5:15
    Oh, wow. Yeah. And as you know, you've gone through quite a volume. So I was interested in hearing. And you somehow, you like have the art of the pinball deal going on. I've learned some of the best people I really have. I've been lucky, very lucky. But it seems like you guys should know this too, actually. Hopefully when you have a podcast and people listen, you can see people will send, feed you information, give you information. And when it comes to games, I put out a wish list and 99 times out of 100, I'll get messages all throughout the week saying, hey, I found this or hey, I see this. And hey, I want I think you should buy this. And unfortunately, I'm gullible. I'll buy anything.
    6:02
    Yeah, that is a good point. Yeah. So, folks, if you're thinking about starting a pinball podcast, and, hey, now is the time because they seem to start coming waves. And I remember, well, when we both started the same year, we all started in 2016, and that was sort of a wave then where there were a lot of podcasts that seemed to crop up. Some of those didn't last, and some of them were very intermittent. There were only a few of us that really stick to fairly rigid schedules, and everyone needs to do what works for them. But, yeah, I've noticed that when I've started bringing up games, especially things I thought were really obscure, I'll get messages about, oh, well, it may be too far for you, but here's one I saw in an auction somewhere you might want to think about. Or, oh, I've played that game. Dennis, you're making a huge mistake. You don't want to get it. Oh, yes. Sort of things like that. Well, I just got one of my new Grails, which was the Gamitron, which they only made, I think, 125 kits of from Pinstar. So that's another Grail I just got with my buddy Zach, who joins us on the show once in a while. So now I've got to find a new Grail.
    7:06
    Yeah, Gamatron was one Tony and I actually got an opportunity to play at TPF. They had, like, one was, like, I don't know if it was a prototype or what, and it, like, didn't have any art. But then there was another one that did, and that's the one that's basically a standard Body Flight 2000. Yep, yep. It's a great game. We're almost got it fully running now. So we're getting somewhere. Yeah, I saw the video clip of the attempt to turn it on. Yeah, that was a bad driver board and a bad connection on the CPU. We got that fixed, me and Zach. And now we just got mechanicals and lights and sockets, but it flips now. Awesome. So the PBM board, which is the sound and CPU partial board for the game, actually is working. So, yeah, it's actually a good thing. We're getting it working. All right. Tony, what's been going on with you? I have been doing lots of Battletech.
    8:04
    Are you still under 100 hours? Barely. Okay. If I hadn't been on call for some of these days and had to work early. Don't explain that. I'm 100 makes you sound stange still. Yeah, I'm fairly under 100 hours. So I did play Overwatch the other day. Okay, plays a strong term. I turned Overwatch on to buy the Mercy breast cancer skin, and then I turned Overwatch off. But that counts as playing a game that's not Battletech, right? I've heard they've raised almost $10 million now. Yeah, that's what I heard. Breast Cancer Research Foundation. And that's literally it when it comes to gaming, other than attending the tournament at Pizza West yesterday. Yeah, we had one of our monthly, we have two monthly tournaments in the Kansas City area. and so one of them was yesterday and we latched it a while so that was good. I wasn't to and out so that's, I'm happy. Anytime I'm not just to and out it's latching a while, that's the descriptor. So yeah, I won my money back so that was good. And then the weekend before in terms of my introduction, I did go to the Iron Maiden launch party out at the 403 Club in Kansas City, Kansas.
    9:21
    Did, I guess okay. Not great. not as well as I've done at other launches, actually didn't get to play Iron Maiden during the launch. They do the final rounds on it. Otherwise, you just sort of have to get assigned it. And I was. But when they configured the software, the settings didn't get saved. And so it was supposed to be a four-strike tournament, but it was put on three-strike. And so a bunch of people had just then been dropped off, and the rest of us were ready to play. And then they realized, oh, wait, we've eliminated people. And mathematically, no one should be out of the tournament yet. So we had to go in and rebuild the entire tournament and get us back to our proper strikes. And then, of course, the games got reassigned and I lost my opportunity to play. And I got stuck on Guardians again.
    10:08
    You played Guardians a lot last time. I did. I did. I have a mixed record on Guardians. I mean, I know the new software is a little more balanced. I still mostly just go for multi-ball because I feel, I actually find the shot relatively safe and it's decent points. Much better than, in my you've been going for Groot. So that's what I try, but my results are mixed.
    10:29
    And the only other thing I wanted to note is I finally got an opportunity to hear a couple more of the recent Upstart Pinball podcasts. One is called Riptide Pinball Podcast, and Ron and Bruce on Slam Tilt had an interview with the two hosts of that, Steph and Crystal. Yep. And so I would describe it. There will be a link in the show notes to both of these podcasts instantly for people to be able to find them. I describe it as what you think of as the two-host commentary format, very driven by current pinball events. Obviously, the uniqueness is, to my knowledge, is the only two-host women pinball podcast out there. Yes. So that will give that perspective. And then the other podcast is the Meltdown Pinball Podcast with a former guest host of ours, Steve Bowden. He's doing that along with Nikki DeLasagna as she goes by. Yes. And I don't know what the format is. I'm going to call it experimental.
    11:22
    The first episode was an Allentown recap with a lot of alcohol involved. And the second was, I don't know what it was. It was interesting. It reminded me of almost like Doctor Strange love meets a book, which I'm sure that was a book, but I never read the book because I'm sad. but anyway enough with these ventures we got news and I know you've already talked about some of these items because we're on a fortnightly schedule so some of this stuff is older and some of this stuff is newer so I want to kick this off with highway pinball which we talked about at great length in the last episode and I know Bruce you've got very strong feelings about highway and what their chances ever were going to be Yep.
    12:17
    And so, anyway, Pinball News has published the liquidation documentation. And I have a link in the show notes if anyone wants to read it. It's a little over 30 pages worth of content. The summation, though, is simply that the company is almost 2 million pounds in debt at the time of the filing. And the document list of assets seems to suggest that a lot of stuff looks like was already transferred over to Pinball Brothers. Yeah, which, if you read the documents correctly, they paid barely anything for those. Uh-huh. So that's going to be the biggest problem. Yeah, and I noticed that, well, they claimed that there was documentation demonstrating that they paid enough money for some of those.
    13:04
    It was all under, like, furniture, but that's really not a good description. It was more like production equipment. And the liquidator actually in England has the power to levy fines and charges against the other company. Unfortunately, since they're based out of Sweden, I think it is, or one of the Scandinavian countries, I don't know how that goes now since I know Britain's still in the European Union for a little bit longer. Who knows how that's going to work out, but yeah, it's very shady. Yeah, I don't like the way this looks. I think that, to me, it appears everything is in place for pinball brothers to start to manufacture pins, be that they actually build them directly, which is what I'm thinking, given what pieces of equipment they were getting, or if they were to turn to a contract manufacturer. Here's the part I wanted to – that's all really well established, and there's not much else to say on it. But what I want to talk about is do we think that Pinball Brothers would be successful given what happened with Highway? Is this a good idea? Will people buy these games? Let's say they make Queen. Because we saw that Deep Root said that they were in talks about getting Queen, and they weren't able to get Queen from Pinball Brothers or from Highway. Excuse me. It sounds like Pinball Brothers thus has it, though, because I didn't see Queen's license in the list of assets for Highway. No, it was not. I didn't see any licenses in there. So, Bruce, what do you think? If the brothers comes out with a queen pin, are people going to buy it? Possibly. It all depends. I think people have stated in the past, like, it has to be done. It has to be not teased. It has to do the anti-Jersey Jack thing and just have it. You have to have 50 made, ready to go. If they don't do that, forget about it. People are not going to give money. if they do they're really they're even stupider than people giving money to highway that was like a used car salesman giving to that guy but I digress I cannot see me giving one cent to this company as our number one rule is for my podcast is don't give anybody your money unless you can get the product within two weeks but No, it's a good rule. It's a great rule, but I can't see them.
    15:38
    Honestly, I love the license. If they actually did make it, I'd be very interested because I'm a big Queen fan. I'm a big 70s, 80s music guy. So for me, if it's a good game, knock it out of the park. First two games, honestly, Aliens I hate. I'll be the first to say it. I dislike the game. I actually like Full Throttle better. I agree with you. I think Full Throttle shoots quite a bit better than... There's just something about that alien layout. I just don't think it... Geometrically, it doesn't feel good to me. Yep. Even though I thought the code was interesting. I liked the rules behind it. But those shots, they just... I hate to say clunk fest because I feel like I say it all the time on things. But it's like they took... They have all these ramps and stuff at the game. It's all designed to slow that ball down versus Full Throttle, which, outside of Demolition Man, is probably the fastest playing Y-Body I'd ever experienced. Totally agree. But, yeah, I couldn't really get in on Alien. Tony, what are your thoughts on Pinball Brothers and buying the Queen? I agree that I think the Queen would make a great name for a pinball player. No, no, no. I think it's probably the best music license for a music pin that's out there,
    16:51
    based just on the history of what has been going and the whole dab rock way. of music pins anymore. But I think everything they've done was just shady as all get out. And it just seems like, I don't think we'll see it. I don't think it'll happen.
    17:12
    I do think if it does happen, somebody's going to buy one. Somebody will preorder something. And it'll be like, well, how did, I didn't know. I got screwed. It's like, really? No kidding. And the thing is, more likely than not, it's going to be somebody who's gotten rolled over by a highway or Zidware or something else in the past because it seems like that's the common. Everyone's like, I have this issue and I have this issue. So why are you still pre-ordering machines?
    17:43
    It's a good point. I agree that in terms of would people buy them, some people will. What I'm wondering is if how bad the – there's going to be a toxicity, I feel, that will be associated with Pinball Brothers. What I can't tell is how much based off of what's happened with Highway. Well, don't forget. People do forget. Look at American Pinball with the beginning with J-Pop and everything like that. Sure, sure. People now really don't associate too much, even though he was in there in the beginning and made the Zidwares for American Pinball. people now just like whatever you know I can live with that now as long as I get my Houdini you got a good point there Bruce I think in the case and it may pan out that way for pinball brothers what I think worked to American pinball's advantage were two things one they after they realized that the being associated with John Papaduke was giving them so much blowback they disassociated from him but for they also did go ahead and give him all the things to make the number of magic girls that he planned to hammer together himself. Which he needed to for his trust against him. Yes. So in a way, people get to walk away from American Pinball and go, well, the Houdini that came out wasn't the Papaduke Houdini. They're not employing him anymore. So that concern got resolved. And then they also kind of helped. They threw a bone, granted it's just a box of lights, but he threw a bone to the Magic Girl buyers. I mean, they did put the, at least get all the parts together for him. So, they did something for him that wouldn't have otherwise happened. So, some people I think kind of thought that is their quote-unquote good deed. Yeah. Because they just basically donated, because they didn't use his Houdini design. So, they basically just donated him all the Magic Girls. Yeah. So, you know, given all that, that's why I think that ended up going that way. But time does. heal all wounds in a way as well. With Pinball Brothers, I mean, so far, what I think will break their way is the fact that almost all of the blame that I'm seeing online in the realms of the pin side and the Facebook is that everyone's blaming Andrew Highway for everything. So whether he is a scapegoat or is fully responsible, and it's probably somewhere in between, he's definitely getting the brunt of the hate right now. So there is that. But on the flip side, Highway Pinball, which was under the stewardship of the same investors as in Pinball Brothers for many months, has way more secured creditor liability than they do assets. It's almost 30,000 pounds in security. That's like employee pay and benefits. Yeah. So all these unsecured creditors, not just the preorderers, but the parts suppliers and everything else, they ain't getting anything. Yeah. Yeah, so how do you get parts now? You have to find different people to get parts from, and board manufacturers, and everything else.
    20:46
    And when you have a scenario where a distributor like Cointaker is out, I think, six figures in U.S. dollars, do they deal with that? I don't know. Are they going to say, yeah, we'll give you a chance now, even though you're the exact same people? I don't know. There are a lot of people who aren't just the buyers of the games. who might make it difficult for Pinball Brothers to be able to sell based off of the fact that they're getting screwed. They ain't getting anything. They lose. Yeah. It seems like they invested just to strip everything and start their own thing. Yeah. If that's the case, then the signs to me are there.
    21:28
    Ouch. I just, you know, this is a small hobby and people with power can squeeze you. Pinball Brothers does not have power. and they burn like every bridge.
    21:40
    Well, that was fun to talk about. Let's shift to another news topic that's just as fun. Actually, it's not as fun. There's no way to spin it. In any way, sort of positive. John Trudeau was arrested again. This is fairly breaking news. For those that don't know who John Trudeau is, he was a pinball designer. He worked with Game Plan, Gottlieb, including the, was it called Milestar? Is that the iteration under? Yes. Milestar and Premier Bally Williams he was with and then most recently with Stern Pinball for those that don't know he was arrested a few months ago allegedly for possessing child pornography this new arrest is for sexual abuse of a young girl under the age of 13 at least at the start of the abuse for a 7 year period running from 1993 until the year 2000 and so she was a family member yes which is really yeah I mean there's really not I don't really think there's a lot to say from a hobby perspective Trudeau is already out at Stern he was out after the child pornography allegations came to light there had been talk in the past about things going on in his history in this realm that of course people are now bringing back up because they're like what were the warning signs why didn't anyone do anything why is this particular allegation coming out now? The person is probably an adult. Maybe they feel strong enough to be able to do the confrontation at this point. Who knows? It doesn't matter.
    23:13
    There's no upside other than if he's guilty, him getting finally punished for the crime. The one thing I still noticed was weird. If you really piece the pieces together, he's living in Iowa now. Yeah, yeah. I did see someone ask about why was he able to legally move when he was already under a felony criminal arrest, even though he was obviously out on bail. Yeah, I bet you he had a place to live.
    23:41
    So a family member then sponsored him to live somewhere else. I bet you that was the case. Interesting.
    23:49
    Well, I mean, on the hobby side, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few more of his games up for sale. just because there will be some people that they'll have that emotional association with it and they won't want to play the game. But there are enough people that don't focus on that sort of thing. I don't think you see any price movement or anything. I just think you'll see people probably sell some more of his games. There'll be more creatures on the market, and they'll go for market value. And they'll just shift around. However, those that can look past or don't know the designers versus those that just can't. Yeah, there's a fair enough chunk of the people who want games who don't know anything about the designers. They don't know the background, and they don't care. I mean, that's not. Right. Well, all pins are a team effort to build. Right. Do you disassociate from? Those are interesting emotional questions, but those are questions that only people individually can answer for themselves. There's no right or wrong answer. Yeah. Whatever the answer is, it just depends who you are. Whatever feels right to you. Yeah. If you're okay having it in your basement, okay. Yeah. Totally agree. All right. Another item, Deep Root, pricing. Yeah, this is a more fun topic, a very brief one, though. So there was a Pennside post that indicated that there was a wide price range planned from Deep Root. They kind of hinted at that back when Robert was on with us in February, actually.
    25:14
    And so this week in pinball reached out, and I have a link in the show notes so people can go read that, read exactly what they got back from Deep Root. But basically they reached out and it was confirmed that there's roughly a range of $3,500 to $50,000 per model plan. It appears they noted the numbers aren't finalized, especially on the lower end. It sounds like the upper hand number was devised to appeal to one podcaster out there that wants to buy a very, very expensive pinball machine. I can tell you that the one podcaster is not me. I am not. I would never pay $50,000. I wouldn't pay $50,000 for a car. What if the pinball machine was a car?
    25:58
    I don't know. It sounds like a high tilt risk. I don't think so. I still think no. Ned's lane changing. But I just think, what do we think about if there were what I'll call commercial grade, because that's generally what people are thinking of when they're talking about collecting pinball machines, commercial grade machines at around $3,500? And what would that do? Is it viable to manufacture and sell at that rate? And what would the response be, I guess, from not just home collectors, but those that are operating at this stage? Huh, I wonder if we know anyone who's operating any pins, Bruce. Yeah. I don't see them selling at $3,500. I don't see it's even possible. You can kind of figure out what Stern's cost is.
    26:44
    And they've been doing it for a lot longer than Deep Root. With a lot more secrets and labor and infrastructure to keep the cost down.
    26:55
    I don't see... Guess what? We have people who are now in China with HomePen using the cheapest labor and everything possible. And he can't beat that price point. I can't see that happening in the U.S. That's an interesting point, but as Tony was pointing out, have you factored in the power of quad assembly? Quad assembly is the way to go for everything, including building homes, building buildings, building everything, cars. Why do you think he's got the market now? He's going to be building Teslas soon.
    27:28
    Well, Tesla's not, so it would be nice. Sorry. But, yeah, I don't see $3,500 being feasible. If not, it's going to be maybe a box. Maybe he's doing a Zidware way of just making a box of lights, and then you get to program it. Like he said in the past, you know, we're going to have more input in the programming. Maybe he'll just give you a box of lights, and you go to town. You know, one of the things that kind of crossed my mind at the lower price point would be what if it were alphanumeric? that'd be actually the slays are actually more expensive you know you'd have to do it like an alphanumeric like but the code but the coding wouldn't require any animation work so that's where i wondering the savings comes in yeah well here even a more funny thing is when you look at the pin 2 from stern pinball which was the newer Spider you know in the smaller version it was
    28:27
    Yeah, but that did have the license of Spider-Man. I know, but it had the license, but it was smaller and more compact, and they're still using the board sets. They're selling for $37,000, and it wasn't fun. It was okay. Don't get me wrong. It's okay, unless you get one of those. What's the other one they made for it? The Transformers, right? No, no, the $80,000 one. Oh, oh, oh, Supreme. Supreme, yeah. Then maybe, hey, you're making a good profit margin. Well, they kicked that up to having a DMD. Yes, true. See? Very true. It got animation costs. Yeah, exactly. You have to have two whole colors. You have to have white and red. That's expensive. It is. It's dating, so you maybe get a couple more, you know. And you have to put a lot of clear on that. Those reds will fade. You don't want to look in like a Brom Stoker's cabinet. Oh. But yeah, I don't see $3,500 being reasonable. And of course, then I think the $50,000 for some podcaster out there was just a jab at him. Oh, you don't? Oh, yeah. Poor gold standard.
    29:30
    I love that you're on this one. This is great. We keep it relative. I try and follow the franchise rules of how to do a podcast.
    29:40
    I'm good with that. Even though one was directed at me and I loved it still. Okay. Next news item was WIPT. I love it when we get to say acronyms out. So WIPT, which is the new tournament that is taking place at ReplayFX, which as most pinball listeners know is what hosts the famed Pinberg tournament. This is the Women's International Pinball Tournament. It's designed to be the largest women's tournament ever. And at least at present, the prize pool is in excess of $5,000. Yep. We do have a link in the show notes where Kate Martin was on episode 121B of the Pinball Podcast. Jessica speaks with her, and I think Jessica helped out with this, but Kate is sort of the mastermind behind organizing this tournament. So what are our thoughts about having whipped at replay effects in particular? It's just laugh at the echo. It's awesome.
    30:38
    I want them to do the rawhide crack with it. Rawhide! I'd actually have the whip beside the T and the logo for the shirts that they should be selling. You guys should be selling shirts, by the way. I guarantee they will. Kate is very smart. She's very driven, which I love about Kate. I've known her for a couple years. She's a staple down in New York City. And, of course, she is the one's girlfriend, which is another. Oh, okay.
    31:07
    But, yes, she will get things going. I like awesome so I am all for it uh I do have I I've always been and I'm going to state this you know I've always been a little negative of separating groups for tournaments aka you know uh women's tournaments and juniors tournaments and seniors tournaments because guess what when I become a senior he's right behind me I'm I'm screwed right now I'm gonna be sitting there Right, right. I get to lose them in two tournaments.
    31:41
    Right. I get where, I'm assuming where you're coming from is what I really like about pinball, and that is outside of, you know, when you're like a little toddler with your little T-Rex arms, essentially there is no age or gender advantage to be had. Yep. My ass gets kicked by girls and by younger guys, and guess what? That's what's going to happen. so if you're strong enough to move the machine then you have in theory all the physical capabilities to compete with the best players in the world there's a lot of great women players out there that are, I know by most people are underrated but I know when I play them forget about it, they are kicking my ass yeah we have one of our area players is Carrie Wing I think she was the only female winner ever of a Papa Circuit event, actually.
    32:38
    When I draw her name on these, it's just like, well, okay. I guess I've got to go home early. What can you do? We have others. We have other really great players. I like the idea, though, of this. The reason why I really like women's tournaments is because it encourages an underrepresented demographic to actually get out and play. I'm hoping that if people go to these sort of things and see them, or even if they just see them, they'll go, oh, okay, it's not just for boys. Or it's not just for adults. It's not just for young people. And then they go and they say, hey, I like this. Maybe they attend one and it makes them feel comfortable. Like, I want to play more of this stuff. And then you go to the more broad-based, sort of general, open-to-all tournaments.
    33:25
    I'm hoping for a long tail based off of just getting more interest in a hobby, which is very male-dominated. Anything that brings more interest is a good thing. Yes. And anything that makes people feel more comfortable and safe is a good thing. Yes. And with bells and chimes all over the world, because we also have one now in New Zealand, that's a great thing for everyone to learn and to feel comfortable about playing pinball. And even if you're not in bells and chimes, other groups have their own variations of bells and chimes. Like up by us, we have the Buffalo Pinball. They have a women's league, which is great to see. And Summer and Gretchen and those girls up there do a great job with it also. So it's growing, and it's growing in the positive way.
    34:09
    Hopefully, eventually, where it does grow so much, they reintegrate back in. Yeah, but then they have to give up the cool acronyms and the cool names. That's true. Shadows and Chimes is just an amazing play, and I love it. I just love it. Just the name works so well. It's just perfect. I'm thrilled to have one virgin in our area. Actually, we have the Western Europe Pinball League, and we have three women in our league out of 29 players.
    34:42
    So it's impressive, but not impressive enough in my book. Yeah. One thing on WIPT that I noticed is that I thought this might be a complication for them is ReplayFX is getting a little crowded with all of these tournaments going on at the same event. Obviously, you've got that huge audience that's there, but I know the Intergalactic tournament, which is for charity, is running at the same time that WIP has to run. It is humongous, the Intergalactic. Yeah. So I think given how popular and the number of people, because I think a lot of people who don't get into finals for Pinnberg do the Intergalactic. So I don't think it's going to really jeopardize the Intergalactic tournaments having a solid turnout and generating a lot of charity money. I think they just had to work around what the schedules are. there's only so many days the replay effects can go on. We would probably all wish that it was a week-long thing, but it's not. I have a hard enough time trying to get off to go. That's part of the reason I haven't gone so far is a combination of how far it is and getting that much vacation time. That's why we had to turn down the trash talker. What's going on, Bruce? Why are you and Ron not locked in with the trash talker? Why does the committee work against you? Because New Englanders hate New Yorkers. Enough said. done because the Yankees are better than the Red Sox. Enough said. Okay, so it's basically the sports ball rage that's undermined all this. I was going to suggest maybe what you and Ron needed to do was go on your Facebook page and just list and trash talk all the other podcasts that were listed, kind of like what Tony and I did. That's how we locked our spot up next year. But that's how it weighs. Then I'd be cheating against Christopher Franchi's rules. Oh. So I can't do that. All right. Now, I would disagree. And here's why. One, because I did it and I can't be a hypocrite because I would be hypocritical. So there's that. Second, Christopher Franchi's statement only applies to the actual recording of podcasts, which you do in the written social media realms. That's a separate enterprise. It's a separate enterprise entirely. I might get kicked out of Facebook. can't win because there are just people that see that and maybe it was a little too close to home for some. The worst part was that you did not keep a copy of the profane version for me. I wrote on top. I just used the same Word file. I wrote, I did three drafts and then it's like, okay, we'll go with draft three. So that's how I work. There you go. That's how I work.
    37:44
    All right. Another really recent item that just came up a few days ago in terms of pinball news is Dutch pinball. Now, Bruce, you have for a very long time had a fairly negative outlook on Dutch Pinball. Do you feel that I'm being fair with that statement? Oh, totally fair. I've met the guys many times. If anything, they were more used car salesmen than Highway was, which I didn't think was possible until you actually meet them.
    38:14
    I remember when I was at Expo when they were handing out the flyers, you know, newest thing coming out for when the Big Lebowski was going to be announced. And they had the girls walking around in Expo back in 2011 or 2012, handing out the flyers and everything like that. And the push and then saying they were going to be better and arrogance and just, oh, yeah. But it worked. Remember, John Papaduke, then at that time, he needed to have a presentation literally on a rug. He thought that the rug thing was, I don't think he understood what the point of the rug was. Yeah, I don't think so either. Actually, two years ago, or a year ago, I went to, no, is it? It was 2016, November. I went to the Dutch pinball tournament out there.
    39:01
    And they had the Big Lebowski, and they had people from Dutch pinball there, including, I think it was a couple of the guys. And talking to them about it, oh, yes, we're starting production. It's going full. And you can tell when talking to somebody, a line of BS. and my BS detector was on 10+. It really was. Then you were in no way surprised by this news.
    39:26
    There was an email that was shared on Pinside. I believe you can find it on Pinball Supernova at this point as well. I don't have a link to this one, however. That indicates that Aura, which was the contract manufacturer originally being used to build the Big Lebowskis, which has built all the models that have been released. They are all Aura-built. They're supposed to have 40 in storage. Right. Somewhere in that area is what's believed, about 40. And they have subpoenaed Dutch regarding their contract. And Dutch, Pinball, said in this announcement that they have been subpoenaed, they filed a counterclaim against the subpoena, and that because of the legal happenings that will now be moving forward, that they cannot continue to work with Zytec, which is the contract manufacturer known for making postal machines, and new Big Lebowski production is on hold until further notice. And the way the email, the newsletters came from the newsletter, was phrased was more like, it's on hold until forever, is the tone. So, I mean, Tony, you also, much like Bruce, have been very negative on Dutch Pinball ever since they suspended production back at the end of 2016. No, this seems like, I don't know. I mean, is there a legal requirement that makes them stop? It's possible. But, man, it sounds like a really good excuse to try and cover themselves. It's not our fault that we're not doing what we've said we were doing, even though we've not been doing. I mean, even if it's not legally required, it gives them the perfect cover to do what. They have no money. There is no machines. There's nothing coming. Yeah. I don't interpret this as that being sued meant you couldn't build things anymore. Unless there's an injunction, there's no reason to expect that. But you would expect if there was something like that, it would have been filed and we would know about it. And people are starting to try and dig on this to see exactly what the legal, because the legal documents will be public. So to try and, of course, you have to find somebody who's willing to translate them. Of course, Pennside's blowing up on this. Pennside has always been a weird place for me to try and monitor big Lebowski news because it seems like most of the people on Pennside who list their location as being from the Netherlands defend them. Of course. Yeah, they know them. They know them or, you know, it's, hey, we're finally, we, the Netherlands are building. I get it. But it makes it an unhelpful source sometimes. Yeah. Because there are still some that are taking Dutchess side on this. Bruce, who do you think is at fault? I'm assuming you think it's Dutch and not Aura. I think it's both. I think it's both a mismanagement of a bad contract originally stated, where the price was set for one. There was nothing, I think, as going by Dutch's and maybe even Aura saying they could increase the pricing, and Aura did it, I think, two to three times. Yeah, at least twice. Yeah. So, if they do have a contract, this actually might be a good thing for Dutch. Right. I'm assuming that's what the counterclaim is trying to argue. And actually, that could be the best thing since Aura started it.
    42:43
    And if Dutch counterclaims and proves that, hey, they are in breach of contract, Aura, saying they were going to be able to build these machines at this cost and they cannot, But they need to either, A, sell us these machines at this cost, at the number they've put in the contract, or, B, the countersuit can say, guess what, we can go with anybody else, but you need to pay us for lost time, lost stuff, or something like this. Guess what? In Europe, whoever loses the case pays for it. Yep. So guess what? It might be a win for Dutch in some ways. They might have been waiting for this the whole time. yeah i i i i considered it i i guess i lean well the whole thing with the with the contract amounts changing it sounds weird it's always sounded like i don't understand what what our had no pinball experience i could kind of see where they were making the mistakes on it the the red flag i guess for me where i've always been more suspicious on the dutch side of it well i guess it was sort of twofold one and i know this is one that you've harped on a lot tony was how they lied about it being a board issue for so long. Rather than just saying, we're having issues with the contract manufacturer, the machines are on hold while we negotiate through this.
    43:57
    Then I guess sort of a, then the second thing has been that they did not, they being Dutch, did not go to the lawsuit themselves directly from the get-go when they couldn't hammer a deal out. And they thought, hey, we know ours is in breach of our contract. We're going to get our legal fees paid for because we're going to win because the contract is in black and white. Let's sue them and get the games that they've built for the amount that we agreed to, and then we find another contract manufacturer. Instead, they start saying this whole song and dance about how, well, you know, we're trying to be really good stewards of the money that we have. We don't want to spend money and time on the lawsuit. We really need to move forward and try and get everyone their games. But if you've been wrong, you need to break these people. You need to break them for the financial benefit of everyone who is a quote-unquote early achiever. And that they didn't sue to me was a red flag that they didn't think they had the case. Now, coupled with the fact that it's ARA who initiated suit, Dutch is just counter-suing.
    45:00
    I think ARA thinks they have a case here. Now, maybe that's not true. It could be ARA sees that this is an ideal time to try and strike because they don't think Dutch can survive this whole legal process at this particular junction because they have no money coming in. And it was before the Zytec models were ready to come out. Some people have speculated this. I could see that angle. The way all the pieces are, I don't know. I mean, the biggest negative I know of with the ARA thing is ARA claimed that a certain date when the games weren't being built anymore and people know that the games were still being built back then. So some people cite that as that Aura lied. I don't know if Aura quote-unquote lied or the person they spoke to was just confused.
    45:43
    But we know Dutch lied. They've admitted they lied. It doesn't help the trust thing. And they've been so quiet on the community. A lot of people think that the only reason we know about this right now is because of the highway thing. And people were saying, where's the new newsletter from Dutch? They haven't said anything in over a month. Yep. So.
    46:04
    I still wonder where whatever money that they have left has come from. Well, I've assumed it's just the account that they've been sitting on. Whatever left out of that. Well, see, part of the thing is no one's really entirely sure what Aura was and was not paid for. Obviously not the machines that they're still sitting on. Right. Some people think Aura wasn't paid for the first batch they sent out. I think that's true, too. and that could be the angle here was even setting aside that we tried to raise the price on you two times, you didn't even pay us the original price so all the money they got it's just been going down as they drew a salary they may not still be drawing salary, I don't know no one knows what's going on with the money, but Dutch has been and we'll assume they were honest on this they have claimed they do not have the money available to build out all the games for all the early achievers. Their entire solution is modeled on the idea that they will be able to sell like how Pinball Brothers' Controlling Highway was. We will sell new units and then, I guess, mix in old units while they go along and do it like that. Because, you know, that worked so well for Alien.
    47:18
    Except Big Lebowski's a $10,000 game now, which it's not worth. I don't see how you even think that that is how you could possibly make that work. I mean, there's just, well, we need to sell more to get the money to make coins. We already owe you guys. Why would anybody give you money? Why would anybody give somebody money? Oh, if I give you money, you'll give me my stuff, and eventually you'll have enough extra money that you can give stuff to the people who've already given you a whole bunch of money and gotten nothing? Wow, this sounds like a really good idea. this stuff always gets really interesting because you see the rationalization process that happens especially with people who already have money in so if you look on the threads you look in the discussion groups and you have people going well if Dutch had just come forward and said and I've seen it up to $2,000 now and said we need another $2,000 from all of you and then we'd be able to give everyone your games I'm sure we could get all 300 people to agree why? why would you do that? Dude, are these the same type of people who go out and pull a Russian roulette with a semi-automatic? $2,000 more is better than losing $8,500 for nothing. Yeah, it's much better to lose $10,500 for nothing. They're optimists, Tony. They're like Bruce. They're optimists. No, the best thing is when they came out and said, oh, we don't have enough money to pay everyone back, so we will pay nobody back. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was my favorite line of the whole first video chat. And I just sat there like, I have to rewind this and listen again. And I had to rewind this again and go, what? Oh, my gosh. Because when it fell apart with Aura and everything like that, instead of doing this because, you know what, they're building a little pyramid. Everyone's favorite shape in business. We'll build a pyramid. We're going to build a little pyramid and get new buyers to be the top, and they'll get their games first. Because that went over really well with the Alien purchasers as people are just like, oh, I've just all of a sudden decided I wanted an alien machine. Oh, look, I got it within a month. And then these other people have been in for years.
    49:27
    Plus, you get these situations where you divide the community, you divide the hobbyists, because there are some that end up having to just, because they don't have what they want, they have, almost they're obligated to root for Dutch Pinballs every decision. Well, we have to try, when are they going to start marketing in Europe? We have to help them. We have to help them sell more of these games so that we can get our game. So you end up trying to support a model which, if you didn't have money in on it, you'd never have supported this idea. Right. But you're so desperate to get yours that you're willing to encourage bad practices. Now, I don't think that's just listening to anyone, so it doesn't really matter whether you encourage it or not. Well, when the U.S. guy backed out a year and a half ago and started, yeah, that was the true blue, red flag, stop, everyone, don't do this. And I knew people afterwards that gave him money. Some people stayed out after that. Yep. A lot of people.
    50:19
    But some people went in afterwards. People just spend their money with their hearts and then they get heartbroken.
    50:28
    I don't know. And then they try to get other people to bail them out. Yes. It's very sad. Yeah. Well, last news item I had for us to go ahead and move into is on the growth of pinball. Why is that a news item? It's not. No, it is because I had to do with it. We have to talk about it at least a little bit. All right, so this week in pinball, they ran an article this last week that I wrote, which explored the evidence available to see if pinball hobby has indeed been growing,
    51:00
    which I guess in some ways people are like, that's sort of an odd question. Isn't it obvious? Well, I suppose we all think it is, but Jeff actually asked me if I would do something that would be evidence-based to sort of prove it. So I tried to do that. It's so hard now because none of the big manufacturers let us know their numbers anymore.
    51:20
    It's very frustrating. What I did is, and I have a link in the show notes if anyone wants to read it. It's not nearly as dry as most of what I, it's not as dry as the stuff I post on Pins. I promise, there are only like four graphs and two tables.
    51:36
    But I examined competitive pinball play, which Josh Sharp at IFPA got me. That's really useful data because the measurements are very consistent. And then multi-year data that I pulled off of Pennside regarding self-declared ownership.
    51:52
    So my results say, yes, the hobby has been growing. There are more games from modern years, and by modern I mean in the last five years, owned versus the last six to ten years, which I think sounds, well, we'll talk about that. And then the other thing on the competitive side was competitive pinball growth, at least amongst IFPA-sanctioned events, is massive. It's like double-digit. Other than one number on one year, which is still almost a 5% growth, it has been double-digit growth for, like, the last eight years. It's just less. And percentage double-digit. So, I mean, you guys agree? Is pinball a hobby? I couldn't measure other things like number of – I didn't have a good way to be able to figure out, like, the number of shows and the number of tendies at shows. because that would have been a good way to measure, obviously, the number of locations. I reached out to Pinball Map and such, but they don't really keep multi-year data. Pinside, I asked for that, but I don't think they keep track of it in terms of how much was in there in 2008 versus now. But what are your overall thoughts? Are we all in agreement that pinball has been growing, especially over the last five years?
    53:00
    Yes. Yes, easily. with the shows that we have local to us, which is Allentown, the York Show, and Pintastic, the three bigger shows in the Northeast. Each one has grown exponentially. Boy, Allentown's filled up. Originally, it was in the small side of Allentown's event center, and now we're on both sides, and we are actually busting at the seams this year. So it's growing. A lot more people are going to it. I know Ivan, who runs the Allentown show, and he says every year numbers are up. And he wouldn't be doing it if numbers were going down.
    53:40
    Nice. Okay, good. It's good to have some anecdotal examples on the show. We've seen from Texas, which Tony and I have gone to for the last three years, that growth. The interest in that. Everyone says now, everyone except maybe the people competing to do Pinball Expo, that TPF is the new Expo at this stage. It is. And I see why, just given the number of industry folks that they get and the number of announcements that, if not done at TPF, seem to be revolving around that springtime period, that kind of late winter, February through April. People try and push out their announcement, either do so or try to until something made them back out, Chicago Gaming.
    54:24
    Yeah, who knows on that? Yeah, it's interesting. So it's obviously the manufacturer thing. I didn't want to measure the number of manufacturers involved because game quantity is far more useful, I figure, of a metric. Because if you start measuring quote-unquote manufacturers, you end up counting things like, all right, well, Deep Root Pinball is in existence, but they haven't released anything, so you shouldn't count them. You end up counting Big Lebowski, and they pushed out, what, 50 units? I mean, the fact that it's only 50 units over a multi-year company is the interesting thing, not that it's a one-hole company. that came on the board in 2012, 2013.
    55:05
    Another metric you can use is actually the cost of used machinery. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, that trend line. That's why we have to rely on would you buy that or won't you?
    55:19
    It's just getting ridiculous. It really is. I'll make everyone feel a little weird, but back in the early 2000s, I was picking up, you know, World Cup soccers for $300 to $400. This is the billion World Cup soccers, you know. I bought three for $900.
    55:36
    Wow. So, you know, and, you know, No Fears for $800 and $700 and Doctor Who's for $700 or $800. And people didn't want these games.
    55:46
    These were the piece. They were bad. Yes. That's like Shadow. Exactly. Nobody wanted the Shadow. I remember when I paid for my first Shadow. I paid $1,100 for my first Shadow.
    56:00
    Now, think about it. You can't get one for $2,500. You can't get a ready-to-play System 11 for $1,100. Got it. Well, maybe Millionaire, but... Maybe, but who wants that? I don't know. Someone trying to finally get the 30th game to compete with New Zealand. I've got to have a whole set. Mr. Peck is a hard person to compete against. I do have a question I want to pose. I was going to do this in the intro, but I'm going to actually ask it now. And I was just thinking, especially given your long history with the hobby, and you've done so many different things, Bruce, in it, is there any sort of common pinball thing that you actually never done Hmm If you want I give you an example for me Okay Here a really common thing I have never ever played a dollar game Oh, my God. I'm trying to think. I've played all sorts of competitive pinball. I've played just pickup games with people. Never actually bet a dollar on a game result, ever. Oh, God. I don't even know what I can say to that. I know. You need to say something that scrubby. I've driven halfway across the country for a pinball machine I have a pinball machine shipped to me God Have you ever said five minutes did you ever have an instance where it was like well that game is five minutes away and free and I'm not going to get it That would be a good example You're not making this easy for me Honestly, my wife will tell you when it comes to pinball I built an elevator in my own house to move pinball machines up and down that sounds like perfection to me as poor Tony there doing almost 100 hours on his games to me you know pinball is truly everything for me and as we'll prove in a few minutes hopefully my addiction goes a little farther than most people's yes okay well so you've done everything common Tony yeah anything Two machines at one time.
    58:06
    Actually, though, I know the one for Tony, especially my pinball podcasting people, is you might be one of the, you might be the only person who does a pinball-oriented podcast that has never owned a single pin correctly. Yep, I've never owned a single pin. Yeah. I will someday. I know a few people that just have one that do this stuff. You know, and they mostly talk location. Because you don't need to own to do it. It's just most people end up with one somewhere. Yeah. No, if I got a chance, I'd own one. I'm not against owning one. But if Nick from the Roanoke Pinball Museum would quit coming down here and stealing out on auction those campus queens from you, we probably already have it. No, we're blaming Nick. Yeah, I don't think that works. Oh, Nick, why'd you do it to him? His heart has been in a million pieces, and I don't have enough super glue to fix it.
    58:51
    Wow. Nice. So, Bruce, let's move into your insanity. I'm going to go to a new segment. For this episode, I'm calling it the Silver Ball Stats Loon. Mm-hmm. And I want to, so, as you mentioned in the intro, you've kicked off this new venture where you're not just operating pins. I know. I don't just mean a few. Yeah. You're offering a number of pins at your own venue, which is a bar. But, I mean, to me, I almost use the term pub because you also serve quite a bit of food. Yes. We do. It's a 3,700-square-foot building. It is a multi-layer building, so it's almost like a bi-level house. So downstairs is our storage, office, and cooler. And then you go up four stairs out of the basement, and you go into the pool table area, bowling. We have a 1962 ball bowler from Chicago Coin. Dart room and foosball with our bathrooms. Then you go up four more stairs, and you have the bar area. and adjacent to the bar area is our restaurant and kitchen. And behind the restaurant area where you'd see, we also have an outdoor patio area. And then up four more stairs is the pinball area where originally when we first moved in, I thought I was going to have 13 pinball machines and now I'm at 25.
    60:17
    Okay. So my first question is, have you installed an elevator here? No. So it's all manual. Well, the ADA code will probably want to have a word with you. Yeah, but I do have ramps. I do have ramps going for the building. And that's making it much easier for you to get the pins around. Yes. How often do you change up the lineup?
    60:43
    I've actually taken out three pins, and since we've opened, I've brought in nine. so yeah and a lot of that was that that growth from the target 13 sort of thing so yes just yes as you've just shuffled things around more and more and i have a couple people's pins who are not my own but they have their own businesses so they actually are legit too and we have uh one of our local operators uh has four pins in here plus he also he does the jukebox the ATM, a couple of video games, which we have also in the building, and he does our dart machine and our pool table. So I give him a taste to keep, of course, keep him happy because he's a great supplier for my other stuff, which I don't have. Yeah. You know, I'd hate for something to happen to your ramps. I want you to just give me a taste. I just want to wet my beak. Yeah, he's really, honestly, I've known him for four. I went into this venture, so it was only logical to go with him. We're family. It's only logical. We're family, man. We're brothers, man.
    61:51
    Yeah, my wife always wanted to own a bar. So we were looking for that originally. And then I said, well, I can put the pinball machines in there. And we almost bought a place about a year and a half ago, and it fell through. So then we started looking in another area. And the good thing about where we're located now is right across the street is free municipal parking. There's 110 spots right across the street. Okay. Wow. Nice. That is a big plus because you don't have to park at a parking garage in the town or anything like that or limited parking. Right across the street, it's a town. So that was one of the biggest perks for us.
    62:30
    We're on the east side of Rochester with our name, East Rochester. the municipality has about 16,000 people living in it but we are in access of 100,000 people within 15 miles so okay so quite a sizable population to pull from yes plus we also have the Museum of Play which is in Rochester which I didn't know if you guys even know about you guys should know about it because it has everything including gaming and pinball and video games Is that the location that houses the historical records from, was it Atari? They have a lot of stuff. They have stuff from Williams, Atari. I've never been. It was actually Videotopia. They actually got all the video games from Videotopia back in the 90s. Oh, okay. Yeah, I've definitely heard of it. I've never been myself. But I was doing another research project once, and I needed the historical business records. wherever it was, I was like, I'm not flying out there for this. No one's paying me for this article. We have to have some limit. Well, luckily I know the person that's one of the people inside internally, so if you ever need anything, I can hook you up with that person. Okay, awesome. Yes. So what's your pricing range on your games? From 50 cents to a dollar. Okay. 50 cents is for all of our solid state, which is 79 through 85. $0.75 is most of our DMDs from, like, you know, 90 to 2007, 2009. And then the higher prices are, I have an LE Star Trek up here. I have a premium ACDC. I have a premium Metallica. I have a brand-new Pro Iron Maiden here. So those are the dollars, you know. We're trying to recoup some of the money from them. The bowling's $0.50. The dart machine is $1.25 or $1. and the pool table is $1.25, which is average in this area. Now, why is the Iron Maiden a pro? Because Ryan from Head to Head Pinball told me that those are called peasant models. Because they are the least amount to break.
    64:45
    And it's the first one you can get out, so you want to get one when the metal's hot. It's a great game. I love the game. We've got one up at the KCK location We have 403 Club And the reviews from the And that's where most of the hardcore players go to play That's like their home base And the reviews are all very positive for Iron Maiden Yes As you would expect for it being designed by The One As exactly The One So my wife wanted a bar I wanted a pinball We merged it together In the beginning my wife was running the bar and I was working and doing the pinball on the side.
    65:29
    And then about three months ago, I snapped at my work. I actually snap-snapped. I said, F this, I quit. So my wife got her old job back. She actually is now working back at her old company, and I am now taking care of the bar and everything else. Oh, it's a topsy-turvy, flipsy world here. Yes. So unfortunately, I get to the bar like today. I got to the bar at 1. We open at 3 today, and my bartender will be in another. He actually should be here in the next five minutes, and he'll start setting up everything. And we'll go until 12 o'clock tonight, midnight, and on weekdays. Last night, I didn't get out of here until 3 o'clock in the morning. And I got here at 1 o'clock. Gosh. So it's a full-time gig and keeping the machines. Now, I don't know if you've heard from me. I'm pretty anal when it comes to my machines. You seem to have a fairly high standard. I do. And, unfortunately, I probably keep other people's machines. I want that same high standard, and it's probably bad on my case to keep people at that standard. But for me, I want people, when they come to my place and play pinball, I want them to say three things. I want to go back, number one. That's the biggest thing. You want people to come back, and you want to have a good bar so people will come back. You know, pinball is just a part of it. You want people to enjoy themselves, have a good time with food, and then with the bar or anything else. Two, when they play my pinball machines, I want them to say, wow, these are some of the best maintained and best, you know. And if they do have an issue for number three, I want them to come to me, and I will, A, try to fix it right then and there, and, B, make sure they are happy.
    67:14
    That is my three goals when it comes to pinball. And do you think that's been working so far? I think so. We do have another barcade in the area, and they are big. They actually have less pinballs, but they have a ton more video games.
    67:30
    And I think the players, the pinball players are coming here, I think, because they know me. I've been doing this so long and been entrenched in the area so long it helps. But I think even regular players and people come here just to have fun. That's the biggest goal. Anyone can drink anywhere. I want them to drink and have fun.
    67:53
    Yeah. So given you've been at it for a while now, for a few months, what would you say, just roughly speaking, let's talk some percent. Let's talk numbers. You know, I'm sort of a numbers person. I know you are, and so am I. It's my only passion is numbers. It's the only way I can feel anything. So what would you say in terms of just gross revenue or income, what's the sort of split? Like how much is coming from the pinball side or maybe just the entire gaming side versus the food and the drinks? Oh, it's 20%. Oh, wow. Yeah.
    68:29
    That is an easy number to put because I know I'm like you with numbers. If I look at my computer right now, between me and my wife, my wife is an accountant. So what does that say about that? I have to live with an accountant.
    68:42
    So when it comes to that kind of stuff, there's spreadsheets all throughout my computer, and then we have a great POS system that shoots out so much data that sometimes I even get a little like, whoa, wait a sec, hold on, and we can actually break it down how much drinks we sell in the night and what we're doing. So we really want to make sure we're keeping track of our inventory. I am the inventory guru when it comes to this place. My wife says she's good with numbers. I get actually, she even says, like, you can do the inventory so much better. I'm glad you can do it. I'm glad you took over. This is perfect.
    69:17
    Thank you very much. I love my wife. She's like, you know. But with our numbers, it is a small, the percentage does help. It does. The pinball machine. And I do make more because I own more of the games. So there is no split. Right. I don't know if people know that there is a split when you usually have another person involved with your games. Usually it's a 50-50. Sometimes it's 60-40. I've even heard some that are 75-25.
    69:49
    But, you know, with me, since I'm getting truly 100% of the intake on certain ones of my machines, yeah, I have to pay for all of my repairs, but I can do most of my repairs. So it's not a hard thing.
    70:08
    So in terms of the pinball games, what type of games seem to perform the best? New. Totally new. Williams are even, honestly, Stern, new, are killing it. Then older Sterns are better. And then you get to Williams are second. They really are. Well, we'll see next week. Next week I'm going to be having an Addams Family coming in. So we'll go up to number 26 upstairs.
    70:37
    So we'll see how that goes. People have been asking for Addams Family, and one of my buddies finally got one, so I'll bring that in.
    70:45
    But the older ones, it all depends on the clientele coming in. Some people come in and see a 50-cent game, and they'd rather play two 50-cent games than one dollar game because I feel like they have more time and they can play more.
    71:01
    But certain players, of course, are coming in going, I want to play the newest game or I want to play the flashiest game or I want to play the game that the title interests me, like Metallica. My Monopoly is my number five game here.
    71:14
    Really? The reason why? Everyone knows Monopoly. That's true. They don't care what the game play or anything like that. They see Monopoly. So the vast volume of people dropping quarters into your games are what we would describe as casual players.
    71:35
    It's about a good – it's actually a 60-40 split between my regulars, and then the casual is 40% easily. Okay. After weekends, more casual players come out during the week. My regulars are my rock and my bread and butter. so basically modern sterns are sort of at the top and then the the stern electronics and then the williams uh no the stern electronics are the lowest okay i was i was i wanted to explore that a little bit because i know uh when i saw your your list of what games you have on location that's sort of the uh well you probably got a number of stuff that's unique for your area but just in terms of what i'm used to seeing versus what i'm not used to seeing i don't tend to see a lot of locations that are willing to operate Stern Electronics? They are so easy, it's not even funny.
    72:23
    They are actually the easiest games to work on. Stern Early and Bally Early, the board sets are almost all, they're all interchangeable except for the sound boards. So, if I have an all-tech board, I can, you know, if I have a problem, I can pull out a new all-tech board, flip the dip switches, put it on the CPU, and see if I can get it back up and running ASAP. Can't do that with the newer Sterns. Can't do that, you know, some of the valleys I can. It depends on what, you know, version you have, you know, with the Williams Valley, you know, from the 90s.
    72:54
    With the old valleys, I'd rather have, if I knew they could make more money, I'd have more of them in here. Hmm. Yeah, in our case, I think it's been more that they're just not possessed, that they just don't have any Sternwanderer. Yeah. We did, one of our operators did actually for a while at least, he had a Stargazer, so he did put it out on location, and he did that for the tournament hardcore fans. Afterwards, it went and he warned everyone that once it was gone, it wasn't going to go back out on location again. I asked him afterwards and he goes, yeah, it just did not make money. It makes okay. Honestly, if I can get four more newer ones, I would slowly wean them out. In his experience, Adam's family, I think tends to be his, on average, most consistent earner. where when he's put it at the – he services a couple locations. And Adams is back, and it's currently at a pizza place, which has tournaments at it. But I know he'll get it moved back over to a pub where they don't do the regular competitive tournaments, but everyone knows Adams. And so with that adult clientele, it just – it consistently just tends to be his highest performing game from week to week, number one or number two, depending if you've got a new game in or not. so alright so yeah my top five are very easy to go over what are they? number one right now this month is Iron Maiden crushing it number two Star Trek LE number three Metallica Premium number four Medieval Madness number five Monopoly top five other than the Monopoly it all makes sense I get it but it's still it's weird to me it is and my Monopoly one of the rare ones. Everyone laughs at me like, you got LEs in here? And I'm like, they're meant to be played.
    74:49
    That's right. You don't. It's not. But what about the wild under glass? Uh, burning. It's making me laugh. It's not wild, it's on Fox. Rosebud!
    75:03
    I'm mixing all my movie metaphors. Yeah, I know. We're here to make money. And guess what? That's what they were originally meant for. And they still are. every game is meant here to make money awesome alright well let's go ahead and hop over to our game now that we've been playing our tournament of champions here Tony's brainchild of negativity the worst of the fall you and everyone else when we did that vote figure out go negative or not I don't think I've ever lost any polls so bad on this podcast no Dennis We don't want to hear nice. People don't want your happy and your light.
    75:44
    They want the darkness. They want to know who to blame. Well, I understand because pinball is at least 50% hate. Yes, it is. It's probably more than that. Glass is half full of hate and half full of air.
    75:59
    Light, fluffy air. So what were the results from round four, Tony? All right. Round four's results. And a reminder that whatever has won was seen as the worst game. Anyone who doesn't know how this works, it's very simple.
    76:12
    Popeye Saves the Earth beat Freddy in Nightmare on Elm Street. Not really surprised. It's close. These are all pretty close. Do you agree with that, Bruce? Do you think Popeye's worse than Freddy? Yes, totally. Okay. I agree as well. Yeah, this was 54%. This was pretty close. Shaq Attack beat Barbed Wire barely. It was 51%. I agree with that one.
    76:33
    Lost in Space beat Space Jam, 54%. Totally agree with that one. I agree with that. Yeah, definitely. And Viper Knight driving beat World Challenge Shocker. That was the biggest gap, and that was still only 66%, almost 67%. Yeah, that one I don't agree with.
    76:50
    I've not played World Challenge, so. It's that bad. I was surprised. Even with Viper, you can actually hit shots.
    76:59
    World Cup is bad. World Challenge, you mean World Challenge, it's bad. No, that's on my wish list. People out there, help me. I want to actually try this game. I want to see how bad it is. We'll find an NFL. Any NFL one, you'll get the full feeling of it, too. I thought NFL, that's, no, that's Striker Extreme. NFL and Striker Extreme. Oh, that's right, yes, that's right. World Challenge Soccer is the car hop layout with a ramp. Yeah, terrible. Terrible, too. No, no, no, you changed your mind now because you were thinking of the wrong game. It was, it's still terrible. Okay.
    77:32
    They're all, I'm just making, I'm writing on my notepad here, all bad. Yes. Sinist, dumb. Turd. Turd with a capital D for its grade. All right, so we're down to the final four. We're down to the final four. All right, what do we got? We got Popeye Saves the Earth is going up against Shack Attack. Okay, Bruce, which one of these is worse? Shack Attack.
    78:00
    That's where I've been leaning as well. I can't remember ever playing one. I've gone and I've watched some footage now, so I'm not total ignoramus on this. I'm like, the basket looks kind of neat, but that's about all. But I hate Popeye so much. It has deeper rules than Popeye. But the one saving grace for Popeye, if I ever got a Popeye and a Shaq attack, I can take the boards out of Popeye and use them in something else. Oh. I cannot do that with a Shaq attack. I just had to burn the cabinet and just let it melt.
    78:37
    Can't you use your Shack Attack boards to fix up your Mario Andretti? Oh, God, I wouldn't want to do that in anybody's case.
    78:45
    Okay. Tony, what's your thought? I'm probably going to agree. On Shack Attack? On Shack Attack. Just basically. Because like you, I haven't played it, but I've watched some video and this and that. And while I don't have your deep-set hatred of Popeye. Popeye helped ruin Williams. My hate is well-founded. It's based on science My hate is not This is not irrational This is truth backed by knowledge Popeye did so much damage I don't think it sunk Williams It did them no favors It only made them look bad It shut down a couple punks It was like That was a time probably when they did that They were probably thinking maybe we should acquire Premier and rename ourselves Premier They probably were thinking the same thing and instead decides just to put out Popeye.
    79:35
    I think Popeye killed the wide body, too. I don't regret that byproduct. I know. I know you don't like the wide bodies. It's just geometrically inferior, but you understand. You understand. You don't want to admit it, but you understand. No, a lot of wide body. That's why you like Gametron more than Flight 2000. That wide body just makes it. What's the worst thing about Flight 2000? That wide body.
    79:59
    Terrible. No, because actually you have sounds in Flight 2000, the speech. Instead of Gametron, you don't. So there is a give and take on each side. That's true. But nothing about the body size means that Gametron couldn't have had speech. They just chose to laze out on that. Yeah, cheapness. But I still like wide bodies. Wide bodies are very much fun. That's okay. We all make mistakes, Bruce.
    80:24
    What's our second matchup? The second matchup is Lost in Space and Viper Knight Driving. I know mine.
    80:37
    Okay, well, I'll lead off here. I hate them both. I do. I really don't enjoy playing either of them.
    80:47
    Lost in Space is so... They're both boring. I mean, that's the thing. I think they're both boring. and I think they both play really easy. They're both Segas.
    81:02
    I'll vote Viper. It's more offensive. That's going to be mine. What's your stance, Tony? I'm going with Lost in Space. Okay. And I agree with Tony. Okay. Lost in Space is terrible.
    81:17
    I've only played it once or twice, though, and I had to play Viper Night Driving quite a bit. We had it on location for a while, and it was in tournament.
    81:25
    And I just... The thing is that makes me hesitate is, you know, they didn't have the stupid glow balls. The layout of Viper, it's not a terrible layout. But Lost in Space layout, I don't think it's terrible. Both of them have not good rules. No, they follow the Premier. At least I have a few kind of good-ish memories of Viper Night Driving because I was playing with friends and having a good time. You didn't play Lost in Space with any friends? Yeah, but not enough to have good memories of it.
    81:59
    Well, I can't say I disagree with the pick of Lost in Space because the impression it left was not good.
    82:07
    But the one saving grace for Lost in Space is because they made a relatively few quantity of them. If you had both, you would be able to sell it for more than Viper. Yeah, true. Was it 300, I think? I think it's 300 to count. three or four, I think. Yes, it's sparse. Well, alright. Link in the show notes, folks, so go vote which turd reigns supreme.
    82:31
    Yeah. That's a common slam-tilt expression, turd. It is. It totally is. But since you're here, we're going to poach a little bit. Poach a little bit from the platinum standard. Yes. No, no, no. We are the brown standard. what can Brown do for you apparently lost in space alright final pinball segment that I had outlined here was a discussion on the value of code as I internally subtitled it can the past be reforged so my idea for this was since you're on here Bruce you have a well known and established dislike of Gottlieb at least as of the solid state era. Oh, yeah. So not even just Premier or Milestar. Just basically it's like they put in boards and – honestly, I can't say you've said all that many positive things about EMs from Gottlieb either. No, actually, some EMs are good. I like some of the EMs. I know you like a few, but you're not like they were the king of EMs. No, no, no, no, no. What EM company do you favor, broadly speaking?
    83:45
    I actually like the Williams four players the best. Like Argosy, Grand Prix. Grand Prix is great. Space Mission. Do you like Space Mission? I actually do like Space Mission. Even though it's a bad game, it's still fun. It is a fun game. There can be things that are fun that aren't good. Yes. Sure. Like we'll challenge soccer, which is not Striker Extreme. They're both bad. Terrible. I have only heard terrible things. I've never played Strikeout Stream or NFL. I've only heard terrible things.
    84:22
    So, now, when we're talking about Gottlieb in the solid state era, it sounds like most of the time the issue that you've pointed out, Bruce, is that it fundamentally comes down to bad rules. Yes. And also mechanics. Okay. So some of the mechs you don't like, the drop targets, for example, you don't like. No, no, I actually don't like the flippers. any ball I can trap on easily is a bad game for me now wouldn't then that just basically be system three then because they didn't go pointy flipper till then yes pointy flipper with the throw of the shaft being so long that I can trap anything I can trap four balls at once and not have any problems That a bad design I don mind the slingshots actually The slingshots are good. The drop targets are pretty good. What about the spinner? The spinners are fine. I have no problem because you can go always to TX Sector. It's one of the best spinner games out there. TX, TX, TX, TX. Going that way, they did have a lot of good things. Wiring, terrible. Using color codes for wiring, I know every other company does that, but it was not known for pinball companies doing that. So, oh, terrible.
    85:38
    So that's going behind the scenes deeper into it. Okay, well, it's good. We need a good foundation so that we can build our house of code discussion. But the rules are terrible. Yes, and that's broadly speaking. Just terrible. Broadly speaking, that's what I hear the most gripe about. And anyone who's ever done any sort of preliminary research on Gottlieb understands what their corporate decisions regarding parallel development and how they weren't allowed. There are a lot of reasons why the code sucks. I mean, it doesn't make it good. It is what it is. You had a few that came out okay and a lot that did not. The reason I wanted to bring that up is, as we've also noted in this show before, and as you have stressed quite a bit on your show, you are obviously a big fan of Stern Electronics. Yes. Older Surge, yes. Which ones do you not own?
    86:28
    It's probably easier to say than all the ones you have. Because you've got all the obscure stuff, it seems. Yeah, all the two-level games I do not have. So, Split Second, Iron Maiden, the original.
    86:40
    What else do you have? I don't have Catacomb. Hey, there you go. I have a new goal. I want a Catacomb, guys. See? Listeners, Bruce, because I don't want it. Bruce needs a Catacomb. There you go. I have the new Braille. Reach out to Slamto Podcast. He needs a catacomb. If you know of an auction in Arkansas that has a catacomb nailed to a wall somewhere, Bruce is your guy. He'll do that road trip. He'll do it.
    87:08
    People think I'm freaking nuts going 2,300 miles for a $23 game. No, I'm fine with that. I don't have a problem with that. I like road trips. Just make sure you keep the price you spent on gas off that spreadsheet so it doesn't look like you paid more for that game. True, true, true. But I have most of the Sterns. I have a Meteor.
    87:32
    Some I don't have, like Galaxy. But most of the games, as Ron always has said, Ron Hallin from the podcast, Stern made everything so cheap that you made the spinners so much lighter so they spin better, so it's more fun.
    87:51
    And, you know, it was a great company until mismanagement got in the way and they started getting cheaper and cheaper. They had a lot of great designers. They had a lot of good engineers that moved on to other companies afterwards. They had the right tools, but unfortunately the 1983 arcade slash, you know, drop-off and buying Seaberg really killed that company. Oh, yeah. Yeah, actually, it's interesting how many pinball companies have in their history a purchase of another company that ended up causing it. I mean, actually, that was what happened with Premier. Their decision to try and get into the slot machine gambling business, except they couldn't get any licenses, and it sunk them. Their pinball division was profitable to the end, even with their turd flippers.
    88:40
    Last year, even with Brooks and Nunn, they made money on barbed wire. They made money on everything. They shouldn't have made money on Barbaric. Well, you know, it was the 90s. We were more carefree then. Yes. Now, of the Stern Electronics games that you have, which ones do you run custom ROMs on?
    89:02
    Oh, boy. Sea Witch does not. Stars does not. My Flight 2000. I'm sorry, not my Flight 2000. My Nineball. Ron's testing one right now. Quicksilver, we have one that's custom.
    89:22
    Stargazer, we have a custom. Big Game, we do not. And Meteor, we do not. So three or four. And luckily we have the access of Scott Charles. That's the best thing of all. Scott C., as we like to call him. Yes.
    89:41
    Shout out to Scott C. Yes. The C is for code because he's the code master. Yes, he is the code master. The reason why I'm bringing it all up is we have games from Stern Electronics that had issues in code, issues mostly with rules that Scott is able to go in and using his C power kind of fix, make them better, make them even better than they were. All but one. Which one? Nineball.
    90:07
    Nineball has had, from Stern, they had 50 revisions of code. Oh wow So what did that tell you? It tells me they probably revised it 48 too many times Yeah and now he's trying a different revision To help with the It gets confused during multi-wall Oh yeah Vaughn's actually trying a new ROM version We'll see what happens So what made me wonder is What do you think of Are there Gottlieb games that if someone would code them Give them new code that could actually be turd from turd to triumph, that there are some with some good layouts. And I thought maybe we should talk, you know, just because we've all played a number of these games. You know, like, let's throw some out there. What's one, Bruce, that you think is a... I don't care what, we have a System 3 or ADB or 1 or whatever, that you think that if it just had new rules, it actually could be an awesome game? Surf and Safari. It's a staple. It is truly a staple of Papa. and during, you know, a lot of the tournaments for Pimberg or anything like that. And I think they do have a little revision of it, but the Mystery Award kills that game.
    91:18
    Where, you know, it's a low-scoring game and, oh, wait a sec, one of the Mystery Awards is 20 million points. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's the problem with Gottlieb scoring and Gottlieb rules. They give away too much free.
    91:32
    It's almost like what Sega did back in the, and even Williams did. And, you know, oh, third ball, multi-ball, third ball, multi-ball. If you haven't gotten a multi-ball by now, we're going to get that shot lined up, and you can get that third ball and get that multi-ball started.
    91:47
    Williams fell into that also. Yeah, that's why I own one Premier. I have a silver slugger. And when I get asked about it, it's like, well, the one thing that I liked about it is I love the geometry. What I don't like about it is the multi-ball comes from a mystery award. Yes. Now, to me, it's more tolerable than a lot of their other games because the multi-ball scoring doesn't seem – all the modes come out of Mystery Hole, and it doesn't seem lopsided like some of their other games were. But it's still frustrating. So that would be one I would nominate that I think that game could be to the next level if you just made it so that the Mystery Holes were ball locks. You do something to activate them, and then you just lock the ball, and that alone would be better. It's not like the modes are really special. It's just like Grand Slam or Home Runs or whatnot. The rest of it, though, it's really, really good flow game. Well, if you go to street level, like you love the street levels and talked about them many times. I just think their history is really, oh, yeah, hoops. Hoops is the best rules. They didn't bias it towards the mystery. They biased it towards shots and actually making the locks and the spinners. Right. That ain't rocks. And my understanding is the worst one of the street levels on the rules perspective, I think, is Deadly Weapon, which, just like Surf and Safari, has a mystery award, which you can't turn off, and it's just a massive amount of points. Yep. It's just an island button. Right. Well, I mean, like, you compare it with Silver Slugger, the most the mystery point award will ever give you is a million points, which is decent points, but it's not like game-breaking, you're all of a sudden going to win. Right. Whereas this, yeah, it's like Surf and Safari, maybe the same amount, maybe 20 million, which is like a ridiculous amount, and you can't, even on novelty play, it doesn't go away. Yeah. If Popolak has it on the list, even if it's a casual tournament, do not play this game. Yeah, totally agree. Whereas half the street levels are in that list. Like the three that are not in the list of don't play because their scores are too lopsided and the mystery are Silver Slugger, Hoops, and I think Carhop, I think, are the three that aren't okay enough. Vegas is pretty bad. Yeah, Vegas was on the no-no list. and so was the obviously Deadly Web. Deadly Web was on the worst of the don't do it list, don't do it at all. And I can't remember what the, whatever the one that we didn't name is, that was on their list too. Oh, Tidal Fight. Too easy to exploit that loop shot's too valuable. Totally right.
    94:18
    Tony, you have a game. Let's broaden it too. You don't have to name a Gottlieb. You can pick another more obscure company. You want to say a Capcom game or Alvin G or Atari even. They're all white bodies, so they'll never be great.
    94:34
    I'm kind of torn on this one, mainly because I'm not a good enough player. We're anything short of a major rules problem. Like, say, like we were talking about at the next year awards, we're like Bugs Bunny's the end of the game. We're just going to flip everybody's scores type stuff. But that's the stuff I really, stuff like that's what really gives me the most. But I think that almost any of the games, especially the early solid state games, don't even need major revisions, but minor enough tweaks to make them a bit more matching to the current kind of play style and feel for a bunch of games would make them way, way more interesting to play on a repeated basis. I mean, just the weird Scorings and the this and that Or even going so far as to allow Within whatever the machine Will let you allow, obviously Changes to just the general Targeting and goals of the game I think would help But I don't have a specific thing Because I'm just not I'm not hardcore enough into the rules Half the games, the rules for me Is that a flashing shot? I'll shoot that one Yeah.
    95:53
    Jokers, another bad one. Oh, yeah, poor Jokers. There's an auction going on today in Wichita, Kansas, and I saw they had a couple Jokers, and I was like, well, I guess if someone wants one, they'll be able to get one. Yeah.
    96:06
    Gladiators, that would be one I'd name some Gottlieb, which just got that terrible scoring exploit. Oh, yeah. I think the layout's pretty cool. I enjoyed that. But it's way too easy to trap up top, and that would be fine if the rules were changed so that you didn't have an incentive to just stay and live up there. You got it. But you don't. I mean, I did enjoy playing that game, but, yeah, no, that one could use a little bit of fine-tuning. TLC. Yeah. Bruce, could Black Hole be saved with new rules? Yes, easily.
    96:40
    Just the lower play field punishment? Yeah, the lower play field punishment. Honestly, that would actually make it, as Zach would say, that would make the game worse. I would say it would make the game better. Does it matter right now for that game? Who knows?
    96:56
    So when is Black Hole going to the Silver Ball Saloon? Never, because it will be a Gottlieb 80 system. Oh, never in my place, no. Are you sure people are going to drop in the 50 cents and it will be over in 30 seconds? Yeah. You'll be rolling in it. Do you pour out all the quarters on the floor and just roll in it? I do. So you've been watching the cameras at the bar, haven't you? Yeah. I love your security cams. I love your default IP addresses you stuck with. I swim in them. I do the old, like, Scrooge McDuck. Yeah. That's right. Then you have to go to the hospital and say, just give me all of the shots. I need all of the antibiotics. Well, he's got the quarters to pay for it.
    97:41
    You've got to take some hepatitis risk for some. You've got it. For some monetary reward. I got the BBs now. Where's the GVs?
    97:54
    Well, I thought the last thing to hit on would be actually in the video game section. So we will transition for all the people who need to turn us off now. But it's about the pinball arcade. So if you do like pinball but don't normally listen to the video game segment, you can hold. They might. But some people hate virtual pinball and they turn us off for that as well, which is fine, which is why we structure it this way. But I know Bruce and Ron talked about this. So Bruce at least knows what I'm going to say. And that is, this came out a little bit after our last episode, actually. And that is Farsight came out and announced that they are losing the license to the Bally Williams table titles. Yes. Now, this is massive for them because it's over 60, a lineup of 90-some games. So that's, I mean, so they're losing roughly two-thirds of their entire portfolio. The special one that they just made Yeah, they just got done with Bonsai Run for example And Sorcerer Now, Scientific Games is the company that they used to be Williams So Scientific Games controls the license They indicated they wanted to go in a different direction Last I heard, and I have a link in the show notes to the Blockade podcast where they have an interview with the vice president of Farsight at that time said they have no idea what that means So Scientific Games has not explained, but it wasn't an issue of Scientific Games saying, we want more money from you. It was, we're not letting you have the license anymore.
    99:25
    So... Which that sounds kind of like, you pissed us off. And so that's some of the speculation. So I wonder, Tony, is that what you're... I mean, one of the things I want to note is that when the... And this was covered in the interview. When they did the release of the Pinball Arcade on Switch, there was a disagreement between Scientific Games and Farsight about whether the contract actually allowed for the Bally Williams tables to be on Switch. So the game came offline, and Farsight yielded to Scientific Games. And so now that it's back on Switch, Bally Williams is not in the Switch version. So, Tony, do you think that's what this is? that they, that scientific is like, you guys were in breach of contract, we don't trust you anymore, and we're done with you. It could be. It could be that they were looking to line something else up for Switch, and then when they kicked out on the Switch, it became an issue, possibly. But, no, it seems like this was a, I don't want to say a fit of pique, but definitely seems a retaliatory type. Somebody was unhappy with somebody issue. you. It doesn't sound like a, oh, just give us more money, or we want more. It definitely sounds like a, no, we don't like you anymore. Bruce, what do you think's going on here? I think it's the total opposite. I think they want a piece of the pie more. They want the sales. So do you think that they're planning to make their own game then, rather than trying to up the license value? They see Stern making money off of it.
    100:59
    They gave away the license cheap. now they want the bigger piece of the pie. Guess what? You want the whole 100% instead of the 80% or 70% or whatever percentage they were getting, you know, maybe 20% or 30%. Who knows? But they want the whole pie. It makes sense.
    101:16
    They have so many people. And plus, they want to protect their licenses also. They use a lot of their licensing for the slot machines and everything else, as we've all seen, if you ever go to any one of these slot machine places. Oh, yeah. I went to Scientific Games' website. They have the Bally and Williams logos prominently when you go to the gaming section. Yep. So they want the money. I think it's all about money. And not getting it from somebody else, they want the full piece.
    101:46
    I think it's... I kind of agree with both of you. I think it's fundamentally about money that they're not willing to... Now, that Farsight annoyed them, I think, is definitely true with the Switch thing. Because Farsight ultimately having to cave because Switch clearly was not spelled out in the contract. They just thought however the language was was inclusive of it. That that was still going on under this contract. At the very least, I think it was telling that Scientific was in no way concerned with preserving a relationship with Farsight. So that writing was on the wall there. And we're going to touch on that, too. what I'm not sure of is whether Scientific Games is planning to I believe they've done some stuff in mobile gaming so whether they're actually planning to, which would give them 100% of the money, make their own pinball game or if they're in talks with someone else that they think maybe has a better physics model and are actually just going to enter into a new contract which is probably more generous to them than the contract with Farsight was, like going to Zen Studios or, I mean, the physics on, it seemed like every time with, I'm not going to comment specifically on the physics, actually, but it seemed to me that Farsight was running into a lot of problems and they kept adding more tables, like Banzai Run in particular, where it would break older tables. That's a really weird problem to have. It makes you look kind of amateurish. And I think the, which it may still be in Project Greenlight or whatever it's called, Early Access on Steam, but the Zacharia game, I think, plays and runs better than Farsight's game does. And Zen just put out Pinball FX3. I don't know, though, whether – I guess I kind of lean towards Bruce's thought that they probably just do it on their own rather than contract with another company, but there are some other pinball, virtual pinball players that have engines that might be better than sticking with Farsight. Let me bring up another point. Back in the late 90s, Williams and Microsoft put together a four-game package, which was Tales of Arabian Nights, Black Rose, Creature from Black Loon, and I forget what the fourth one was. And the physics on that were incredible. I've never played that. It's very rare, but if you go on eBay, you can find it once in a while. Unfortunately, you need, you know, it's really old software to run on. but the physics were almost perfect. And that's why when I go to play these newer ones, I still go back to the 90s and say, 90s had better physics, and now they don't. And it really confuses me. It really just makes my mind boggle.
    104:34
    The only thing I use Pinball Arcade for is just looking at rules real fast. I don't play it. I own maybe seven or eight titles.
    104:41
    To me, it's not an oh-my-God loss. It's just a, okay, whatever. Yeah, and I only ever bought, I had it on Xbox. I had the first two seasons on Xbox when they were on sale. And then since then, I've been only buying on Steam for my PC. And I only buy one half off. And Farsight's announced that their contract does not allow them to put these on sale at this point. So I guess I won't be getting the last two season packs because I only buy packs on sale because I don't like it enough to win a pay-full price. I've got the tables I want. Yeah, yeah. Well, the first few seasons had all the great tables. Yeah. That's part of the issue. Now, you, Tony, mentioned about how this is going to break Farsight. Go ahead and elaborate on that. What do you think is happening? Because Farsight's official position is, oh, well, we have a great relationship with a Gottlieb license. We're going to keep doing that. And we're going to move over all the Stern pinball things from the Stern pinball arcade. They're all going to be in pinball arcade as well. And we might even go and do something like Capcom. Yeah. And nobody will care. because all the games people want to play are going away. And if Scientific Games comes back or somebody else comes back with all of these games, even if it's an almost identical physics engine, even if it's not something better,
    106:04
    that's not what anybody's going to want to play. Those aren't the games that we want. it wants. I have not played the new Stern Pinball, but from everything I've heard, it's not very great.
    106:15
    There's been some issues with it. But, I just, you have 90 games-ish, and you're losing 60 of them. And they're the ones everyone wants to play, and they're the games that are the only reason anybody wanted your system, wanted your game in the first place. They wanted your emulator in the first place, was to play these games, because those are the ones that are fun and hard to find in the wild, I don't see how it doesn't just tank their sales. They might get a sales spike here at the end as everybody who hasn't gotten around to it are all like, oh, I have to get all the tables, I have to get all the tables, I have to get all the tables. But their sales after this are going to go through the floor. And they're never... They can release the season all they want, but it's not going to have the kind of sales the older seasons did because it's like, oh, oh no, I get to have never mind. I mean, no one cares. Bruce, do you agree with Tony or do you think that Airborne and Barb Wire are going to come out and they're going to save this? Yeah. No, no, no. The only thing that could save them is if they actually get a little smarter and get the older sterns. And the older Gottliebs and that kind of stuff also.
    107:29
    That would actually help them a little bit because then no one's thought going that old. Yeah, I agree with Overall I agree with Tony I think that this, just because so much Will be out of the app They're indicating they're going to reshuffle What season packs will have, what games and stuff For selling things going forward I don't, I mean the one thing for them Is I don't know how many New buyers are coming out And getting a game that came out in 2012 Or so, at this point anyway It's The issue is they already dropped doing a table a month. That used to be their thing. They always put out a table a month. And now they're past that. They'd already announced that that was phasing out. I don't know how long this was in discussion about losing the license. The Blockade podcast people indicated that they're under NDA with Farsight, and they knew about it before they did that interview. So it's been known for a while. Oh, yeah. So it's like, okay, well, I don't know how much longer Farsight. I agree. I just don't see the app being really viable to develop for when you've lost the king of the 90s for any new people coming in. It's not – Teed Off and Cuba Wizard are just not going to seduce enough people. I'm sorry. Rowdy Ramp Run.
    108:48
    Rowdy Ramp Run. Quit talking and start talking. I guess you could still have that one. But it's like – yeah, I just – I don't know. They've indicated they're working on some other stuff. I don't know if it's pinball stuff or not, but long-term viability, unless they get creative and, yeah, if they go real old, I mean, I guess they could do a couple packs of Stern Electronics games. You could do the Atari pack to have just seven terrible playing games.
    109:23
    There's stuff they could do in that realm. $50, you can get seven Atari games. Yeah. And the pricing. I don't know how much the, you know, but the pricing, as you stated, you only bought it on sale. That's why I only bought it on sale. They were.
    109:40
    It's like over $300 to buy all eight packs at full price. Yeah. That's just ridiculous. Yeah. And they didn't play right. No. If they played perfect, I didn't think about it. No. It was very. Yeah. So, you know, I think Farsight is going to be in a lot of trouble here. The whole thing with the table pass, they've always been pretty shoestring. Look at how many Kickstarters they had to run. Yeah. Which every single Kickstarter game is in this list that they work on. Yeah, I know. Which really, yeah. Adam's Family, T2. Yep. TV. Yeah. It's like, okay, well, thanks a lot. Yeah, another reason why I don't do Kickstarters. Here you go. take it all away. Ta-da. Yay. No, but then the people argue, well, no, you're still going to be able to keep them. You just can't buy them new.
    110:33
    Right. But the one thing I really, what I really liked about Farsight was that some people would find that app, you know, get the free Tales from the Arabian Nights or whatever, it doesn't really matter what game, and then maybe get a few more, and they're like, oh, wait, they find out, oh, these are real machines? I can try and find, I can go online and look on the pinball map or whatever and say, oh, wow, holy crap, there's an Addams Family nearby. I can actually play a real one and go out and actually get people into playing pinball. That's what I heard. It might even hurt pinball a little bit.
    111:04
    I haven't thought about that. So, you know, that's the stuff that I kind of worry about. But long term, if Scientific Games does put out a different product directly or under contract or whatnot, that concern gets alleviated, especially if it's a better playing product. Exactly. Well, that's everything I have for the entire show. Wow. Yeah, we made it. Woo-hoo! Bruce, I want to thank you for slumming it. We're the hashtag pewter standard.
    111:37
    We might have a little bit of lead in us, so don't put us in your mouth. No, I'm looking forward to next year playing you guys, if we ever get nominated in the Twippies and everything like that, you know, against this and the trash talker. I can't wait to play you guys. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Do you handle losing well?
    111:59
    I don't, but maybe you do. Oh! Oh, yeah. Well, if you've looked at my rank, you probably are feeling pretty confident. But I make up for it with this filthy mouth. In person. All the time. Highly professional. You'll hear about us with the Mrs. Pen. Ah, yes. Mrs. Pin, that's a fun podcast. She's got a lot of energy.
    112:23
    But she won't be able to keep being the newcomer deer in the headlights. I don't know anything about this pinball stuff that she keeps doing in these episodes. She's going to learn everything. She's going to just become one of us. Filthy and false and fallen. One of us.
    112:38
    I want to extend our congratulations for you on the Silver Ball Saloon and wish you all the best of luck with that venture continuing forward. It sounds like things are going well. good. Yeah. Oh, damn, I am.
    112:56
    And I guess we'll do our closing out here, and I'll just say anyone who wants to reach out to the show, you can email us, eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. We're also available on various social media platforms, namely facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast.
    113:12
    And we're all on Twitter and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And until next time, I'll just say, I'm Dennis. I'm Tony. And that was Bruce. So long, everyone.