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Episode 267 - Twisted Metal & Downsized Battlefield

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·58m 13s·analyzed·Mar 15, 2026
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TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers EP267: Light pinball chat (leaks, TMNT, Pokemon Pro issues) amid heavy video game discussion.

Summary

This Eclectic Gamers Podcast episode (267, March 15) covers primarily video game topics with minimal pinball content. Listeners submitted pinball-related questions about Stern's leak management, TMNT's difficulty, Pokemon pinball issues, and potential pinball themes (Buffy, Twisted Metal). The hosts also discuss virtual pinball updates from Zachariah and Zen, Pokemon Pocopia's massive success, and a five-hour Jeff Kaplan podcast about Overwatch League's financial failures.

Key Claims

  • Stern's ability to keep upcoming titles secret is comparable to using '12345' as a password; leaks about Pokemon occurred months in advance

    medium confidence · Doug (listener), discussing Stern's NDA policy and consistent pre-announcement leaks

  • Stern's leaks may be 'official unofficial leaks' intended as part of advertising strategy to generate interest before formal announcements

    medium confidence · Dennis (host), speculating on Stern's leak management approach

  • Pokemon Pro version has a reported left-side metal piece issue that may affect casual players; similar component exists on Premium Elvira; tech hopes for a fix kit

    medium confidence · Brent R. (listener), reporting venue technician feedback

  • TMNT pinball is too difficult and fast for casual/younger players; code updates with wizard mode improvements helped retain interest

    medium confidence · Tom H. (listener), sharing personal experience with 5-year-old son's reaction to TMNT

  • Pokemon Pocopia sold 2.2 million copies in four days with massive physical scarcity and secondary market resale

    high confidence · Tony (host), citing sales and inventory data

  • New York State is suing Valve over loot boxes being classified as illegal gambling; Valve argues mystery boxes are equivalent to trading card packs

    high confidence · Dennis and Tony (hosts), discussing current legal action

  • Jeff Kaplan (former Overwatch lead) released a 5-hour podcast interview discussing Blizzard's League of Legends investment failures and personal career impact

    high confidence · Tony (host), referencing Kaplan interview segments

  • Overwatch League's global team structure was financially unsustainable; basing operations in California would have been more viable than worldwide travel

    medium confidence · Dennis and Tony (hosts), analyzing OWL's strategic failures based on Kaplan interview

Notable Quotes

  • “I find it hilarious that Stern issued NDAs at all given the fact that their ability to keep any upcoming title a secret is about as secure as using 12345 as their password.”

    Doug (listener) @ early in pinball segment — Directly critiques Stern's security practices regarding game announcements and leaks

  • “Dad, get rid of it and walks away.”

    Tom H.'s 5-year-old son (recounted) @ during TMNT discussion — Illustrates TMNT's difficulty barrier for casual/younger players; became iconic exchange in listener feedback

  • “I've always felt it was very much the kind of unofficial, as the newspaper used to put it, anonymous senior advisor type stuff that you'd see back in the day.”

    Dennis (host) @ Stern leak strategy discussion — Proposes theory that Stern deliberately leaks information as soft marketing tactic

  • “I think Cliffy B kind of taking that third person over the shoulder shooter style and trying to make something of it in the pinball space. I think it could work.”

    Tony (host) @ video game designer pinball discussion — Suggests Cliff Bleszinski (Gears of War) as hypothetical pinball designer; proposes cover-based mechanics integration

  • “It's the battle of the champions here of over promising and never delivering.”

    Dennis (host) @ Peter Molyneux pinball designer discussion — Draws parallel between Molyneux's legendary overpromising and unnamed pinball figure with same trait

Entities

Stern PinballcompanyPokemon (Stern pinball game)gameTMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles pinball)gameBuffy the Vampire Slayerintellectual_propertyTwisted Metalintellectual_propertyZachariah (virtual pinball developer)companyZen Pinball / Zen StudioscompanyPokemon PocopiagameValvecompanyJeff Kaplanperson

Signals

  • ?

    leak_detection: Consistent, predictable leaks of Stern game announcements (Pokemon cited as example) occurring months before official reveals; listener questions Stern's NDA effectiveness

    high · Doug's listener comment: 'We knew about Pokemon how many months ago?' and Dennis's theory about 'official unofficial leaks' as marketing strategy

  • ?

    product_concern: Pokemon Pro version has reported left-side metal piece issue that cannot be moved; piece may be related to Premium version design (similar to Elvira trunk component); affects casual play; venue technician hoping for fix kit

    medium · Brent R. reporting: 'metal piece can't be moved...related to premium version...hoping for a kit that fixes the problem'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: TMNT pinball widely acknowledged as too fast and difficult for casual/younger players; code updates with wizard mode improvements helped retention but initial launch was barrier

    high · Tom H.: 'I thought it would have played like Tron, but it's just too fast...after a few games of plunge-drain [child says] Dad, get rid of it'; Dennis confirms wizard mode update helped

  • $

    market_signal: Pokemon Pocopia exceptional commercial success: 2.2M copies in 4 days, physical shortage, secondary market resale at premium, Nintendo stock increase, Switch 2 sales boost

    high · Tony: '2.2 million copies in four days...physical copies are nonexistent...They sold so well...massive stock price increase...Switch 2 sales have also seen a bounce'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Community submits hypothetical pinball themes: Buffy (with season-based big bads, vampire staking video mode), Twisted Metal, Mega Man, Mortal Kombat, God of War, Metal Gear; some have existing TV/film adaptations

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.175

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, March 15th, episode 267. I got the date right. Go me. You did. Good job. It's a beautiful morning. It's very nice. The Willy Wonka Show, Knapp Arcade, Bally Williams, Straight Down the Middle, Bally Williams,
0:59
The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Barry Oursler. PlantF parchiner, Mat識 on stimulostatruth открыtebyrotand Lesson questions are always todas las de dedicas Seminoles no nosaci per cada seis A mais a cada semana. Op cylinder usos nos Såv cuta Toyota preferida Probably... La mas slices Frustración Así que pollo wie Io Luol upcoming hmm the will speaking final Now, and I get my turn, I do it. And then while be playing Slay the Spire in between finishing those turns. And then in addition to all that, I also picked up Icarus, which is a survival, a first person survival building game thing where you're on a, where you're on an alien planet that was being terraformed, but everything went wrong. So there's all sorts of issues. So you have to find, you know, Today, in our Pr amongィN. P Atlantis. At friends. Thank the for this opportunity to talk to Daniel Tejano and Steve are dating. frighteningly. Still working on Jedi. Yep. I'm going around. I'm trying to find grappling hook, an advanced grappling hook. I think I now know where I need to go to try and get that. So I've been adventuring in the world of the Sith or at least the world of the Jedi. And we have a new Patreon member whose handle is TheRealVelvetSteve. So Steve, we are glad that you are TheRealVelvetSteve and we are glad that you are supporting us over on Patreon, which people can do at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers should they so choose. Let's go ahead and jump into pinball, Tony. I looked, I didn't feel like there was really any pinball news. I know. I'm pretty excited because we're going to finally have a chance to play a lot of the stuff that we haven't had a chance. There's been a lot of stuff that just hasn't been around here to play. There has. So I am looking forward to that. However, as is often the case, our dear faithful listeners have supplied us with a host of discussion items, queries, questions, and statements to be able to go through most of what we've been talking about. All of which were pinball related and thus most of which are in this section. So allow me to go ahead and begin. Doug wrote in the following, Tony, Dennis, I have to add one more thing here. I find it hilarious that Stern issued NDAs at all given the fact that their ability to keep any upcoming title a secret is about as secure as using 12345 as their password. Stern, Doug here. If you truly want to keep an upcoming title a secret, before you start handing out NDAs, you probably should have your crew patch the massive links in your own ship first. We knew about Pokemon how many months ago? Doug. Well, thanks, Doug. I tried to say that like the Liberty Mutual. And Doug. That's why I said it that way. I will say, I've always been of the opinion that the Stern leaks are official unofficial leaks. I know a lot of people agree with you. I don't, but I'm curious, why? Why does your tummy tell you this? Because of the way their overall advertising strategy is and how strong they're not making official announcements until everything is there and done. The leaks allow enough information to get out there to start kind of tickling the fancy. And we've even heard of sellers having people buying in off just off of spots just off of rumor before spots even officially exist or a game is officially acknowledged. So for in my mind, I've always felt that and because how consistent their leaks are about the amount of time they tend to appear beforehand and and the kind of information that makes it out is always around the same. I've always felt it was very much the kind of unofficial, as the newspaper used to put it, anonymous senior advisor type stuff that you'd see back in the day. Or anonymous senior policy maker when it was like some straight up cabinet secretary telling them something. Okay. I mean, I could see that. I just, I don't know, so many times it feels like whatever's been happening, the launch gets kind of bungled. And so I, you know, I just didn't know. I, I'm, I just remain skeptical that they're pulling it off the right way if that's the case. But, but I don't really know. So interesting to hear another take on it. Speaking of other takes, we also had Tom H write in and Tom wrote, Dennis, you are right about TMNT. Should have been an easier shooter. I got it when it came out just from seeing pics. I couldn't find a local place to try it out first. I grew up watching the shows and movies. Also, my son was five at the time and had been watching all of the old and new stuff non-stop, so pretty big theme for both of us. I thought it would have played like Tron, but it's just too fast. Anyways, after the first weekend we're playing and after a few games of plunge-drain, he's standing on the stool playing, turns to me and says with tears in his eyes, Dad, get Get rid of it and walks away. I want to pause. I want to pause right here because in my mind, the kid just pivots, puts his hands behind his back and casually strolls away, still in the air from the stool, just walking on air. Get rid of it. Do it. Do it, father. Do it. Ha ha. I was trying to hold my laugh in. It didn't stay for very long. The update with the wizard mode play made it last a bit longer. Here's a better player. He's a better player now and it's usually one he asks to find when we go places. Just saw a trailer for, he says, Pikmon in the thing. I don't know if they meant Pokemon or Pikmon. I guess it doesn't mean Pikmon. What's Pikmon? Well, Pikmon's a Nintendo game. Right. Probably means Pokemon. Okay. Okay. Guessing it's just a middle finger to Pal World. Oh no, Pikmin. Oh, Pikmon. That is, yes, I didn't include that. That is, a game came out, they're called Pikmon. They're literally in the course of being sued currently, or there's lawsuit talk coming around from Nintendo and Pal World. Oh my. And, um... Magic the Gathering. No. Valorant. I'll just start randomly saying stuff. Icarus. Right. No. There was one other because one of the characters is just a straight up rip of their character, like not even hidden. And a lot of their other stuff is just straight up, I mean it is straight up Pokemon and Power World stuff just ripped, just straight ripped assets. Kind of like the one where they ripped that Hide in the Tall Grass game. Right. Except for even worse than. Okay, alright, so that's what it is. Alright, I'll go back to that part. Just saw a trailer for Pikmon. Guessing that's just a middle finger to Pal World, or maybe Nintendo plans on suing themselves. Also, I remember playing Unreal Tournament long ago and loved the kill callout. Double kill, multi kill, ultra kill, mon mon monster kill. I think that's right up Dennis's alley with obnoxious callouts and would think it could be a great in a pinball machine for combo replacing kill. Enjoy the show, Tom. Well, thank you, Tom. And yes, it is right up my alley. In fact, I wasn't a big player of multiplayer in Halo. However, Halo's got that like double kill, triple kill. My favorite one was Kilimanjaro. Alright, so that Pikmon, because I didn't include it in the thing, it rips off Power World, Pokemon, and Breath of the Wild from the gameplay and the looks and has directly ripped off assets from all of the various things. But it is also straight up ripped fan made Pokemon and just put them unedited into the game. Just straight up fan made Pokemon. What have we become? Yeah. There's a...
Cliff Bleszinski (Cliffy B)
person
Tetsuya Mizuguchiperson
Peter Molyneuxperson
Dennisperson
Tonyperson
Dougperson
Tom H.person
Brent R.person
Buttsperson
Richard A.person

medium · Butts and Brent R. listener submissions proposing themes with reasoning about mechanics and IP readiness

  • ?

    content_signal: Zen Studios major rebranding/consolidation: consolidating Pinball FX variants into unified ecosystem (Midnight, Go, Classic, Classic VR); restricting DLC availability on console platforms; forcing in-game purchases; Xbox content discontinuation in May

    high · Richard A. reporting: Zen Pinball rebranding to Pinball FX (multiple tiers), DLC not visible in eShop/PSN but purchasable in-game, Xbox content no longer purchasable May onwards

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: New York State suing Valve over loot box classification as illegal gambling; Valve defending mystery boxes as equivalent to trading card packs with no play requirement; raises state-by-state gambling definition questions

    high · Dennis: 'New York State has decided to sue Valve because loot boxes are illegal gambling...Valve has responded saying...they don't believe their mystery boxes violate...gambling laws...point out no difference between mystery boxes and Magic the Gathering, Pokemon or baseball cards'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Jeff Kaplan 5-hour podcast reveals Overwatch League's business model failure: massive investment in global team structure proved unsustainable; worldwide travel costs, COVID virtualization killed in-person event revenue model; Kaplan personally affected (planned retirement derailed)

    high · Tony: 'Jeff Kaplan...did a five hour podcast interview...broke him and his career at Blizzard...huge amount of investment money put into League...investors wanted their money back...plan was to do big live in-person events...Guess what? It didn't work'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Community discussion of hypothetical pinball designers: Tetsuya Mizuguchi (audio-visual integration), Cliff Bleszinski (cover mechanics via physical playfield elements), Peter Molyneux (ironic due to overpromising trait); suggests gameplay mechanics transferability from video games to pinball

    medium · Butts proposing Mizuguchi; Tony proposing Cliffy B with cover-based ramp mechanics; Dennis jokingly suggesting Molyneux as parallel to pinball industry figure

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Zen Studios' aggressive rebranding and platform consolidation (multiple Pinball FX tiers, DLC restrictions, forced in-game purchases) may signal optimization for recurring revenue and ecosystem lock-in rather than player accessibility

    medium · Richard A. documenting multiple platform-specific restrictions: DLC not visible on console storefronts, Xbox content discontinuation, forced in-game purchase routing

    • 10:56
    It is one of those... It's really weird. It's... the devs like have two different names, the developer has two different names in their trailer that they talk about. And like one is PokeGame and the other is Pocket Game.
    11:16
    And the publisher's name is Network Go. There's a lot of people thinks it's just like trying to get a lawsuit. It's a lawsuit bait type thing. Okay. But yeah, it is extremely, terribly, terribly like screaming, please sue us. Interesting. Butts commented on Patreon. He actually provided several comments. So I'll start with, I tried to put them in a logical order. I think the order of which they were provided, but I get them via email. So that's, you know, it starts to thread it. So it gets a little weird. Anyway, so Butts said, it'll be great when pinball companies start to mine nostalgic video games. A lot of them would probably sell well just off the iconic music from games like Mega Man, Castlevania, Doom, Zelda, Mario, etc. It'd also be fun to see them tackle some franchises like Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider, God of War, Twisted Metal or Metal Gear, a game that would do wonders with the crowd that hates a game holding the ball for a cutscene. A lot of those properties already have TV show movies and the works are already on air. Also, my accent is Minnesotan. There. I'm sorry. I'm trying to pull that off. Great. And butts followed up though, Tony. That wasn't it. Followed up. Oh, and Taco Bell is a great theme. Tex-Mex food is just the same handful of ingredients rearranged, tortilla, meat, cheese, veggies. It's all, it inherently lends itself to a combo system. Throw in the ACDC bell and get Carlos Alsrique for callouts as the dog. Oh, I forgot about the dog. No quiero Taco Bell. I mean, they were the only company to survive the fast food wars. Oh, no, it was Yo Quiero. He didn't say, no, I don't want Taco Bell. He said, I want Taco Bell. Yo quiero Taco Bell. They were the only one to survive the fast food wars. Yes, now every restaurant is Taco Bell. Oh, what a fun movie. So, but then also asked us a question over on Patreon. Dennis slash Tony, if you could have a video game designer make a pin, who would you choose and why? Personally, I'd love to see something by Tetsuya Mizuguchi. He's famous for games that combine audio visuals to the gameplay such as Rez, Space Channel 5, oh that's a good game, Mateos, Loomis, and Tetris Effect. Those are all good games. Honorable mention to the llama-fueled sensory overload that Jeff Minter could provide. Hmm. What do you think about that? I'll give you one. This is not my favorite video game designer. However, a video game designer I think who could do very well with pinball would be Cliffy B. Straight up Gears of War and have him do it. Like, here's an idea. Could you somehow integrate a cover-based system in a pinball machine in some way? I'm thinking like a wall. Think like on the P3 how you have that scoop, the scoop wall that raises. What if you had situations where you could trigger things and raise stuff and it provides cover? Like let say there a ramp but if the ball is rolling on the ramp and the ramp is exposed the shot doesn count You have to hit something and the actual physical wall raises up and blocks part of the ramp reflecting the idea that you behind cover Then you shoot the shot and the ball rolls along and it provides like – I don't know if that's going to work or not, but I'm just saying like I think Cliffy B kind of taking that third person over the shoulder shooter style and trying to make something of it in the pinball space. I think it could work. Maybe not my idea for it, but I think he could probably make something work. And I think it would be, I think people would like it. I think it'd be a good, his gameplay, I think would lend itself to pinball. So that's who I'd go with. And for those that don't know, Cliff, Cliffy B is Cliff Bolinski, I believe is his actual last name. Yeah. Gears of War creator. What do you got?
    15:21
    This is just pure trolling. Why do you troll them, Precious? Because I find it humorous. But, Peter Molyneux... Oh my God. Oh my gosh. You want to talk about... That game ain't ever getting out of development. You're right. The game is never getting out of development. But here's the thing. It's going to be talked up and it is going to be the most beautiful, like handed down on pillars of golden light directly from Angel's Hands game. This is the creator of Fable for those. Yeah, Fable, Black and White, Populous back in the, I mean, lots of things. Very, very major designer. Yes. Who has a problem delivering on what he. Over promises. He very over promises. But his games do look good. Yeah. Doesn't that sound familiar? Yeah. Doesn't that sound like somebody who's already in the pinball? The theater awaits. So that was... I'm trying to remember. I think it was... It's the battle of the champions here of over promising and never delivering. I've played a couple of the Fable games. I didn't play the first one. I think I played two and three. There was one, I just remember, because they have all these game dynamics and all this, because a lot of Fable is a very role playing style game. And I had one instance where it was like, I was in combat a lot and like in many role playing games you eat food to heal. We are the Best Podcasters of the World. We are the most devoted I'm a fan of the old-timey-ass-X-Men. That's what I end up looking like. Except I'm in fancy pants like pantaloons and stuff and a frilly shirt. I had to put him on a carrot diet to get him back down to his old size. It's not like Elder Scrolls where you just eat a wheel of cheese and you eat like 100 wheels of cheese and nothing happens. I do want to say Lumenios and Lumenios is our great games. Those games were amazing. Brent R. also wrote in and Brent said, Hey Tony and Dennis, I have both a pinball and video game thing to talk about. That's why I put this one last because it's gun crossover. For pinball, I have been rewatching Angel, which is a spinoff of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and got to thinking that Buffy would be a great theme for a pinball game. With each season of Buffy, you got a big bad and would be perfect for modes multiball, wizard. Also, it seems perfect to have some type of video mode where you just stake vampires. Also, I got to play Pokemon Pro version and currently there's a problem with the left I talked with the tech at the location and he told me that metal piece can't be moved. They believe that the metal piece is related to the premium version since that area has a thing similar to the trunk on Elvira. So they are hoping for a kit that fixes the problem. I imagine tournament directors love this, but hurts the casual person who Pokemon is meant to be for. The code was at 0.75 and had no insider connected stuff, but you could log in and catch Pokemon. All right, so let me go ahead and pause on the pinball part. I haven't heard yet whether this issue he's just reported with the pro is widespread or not. I don't know. I haven't. This is the first I'd heard. What do you think of the idea of Buffy as a pinball fan? I've played the... somebody did a re-theme. They had two of them at TPF a few years ago. Yes. I don't remember what they were re-themed, what it was a re-theme off of, but I was a big fan of Buffy back in the day.
    19:56
    Literally, it's humorous that this came up because I just found out yesterday that they were trying to We have a question for you. How did you decide to do a continuation of Buffy and it got canceled at the same day? I found out about it at the same time because the post went out that the attempt had been shut down. The pilot wasn't picked up. Oh, okay. But yeah, no. I think it would be ripe for that kind of, for a machine. Yeah, I agree. I didn't watch Angel. I probably saw a couple episodes of it. I did watch Buffy. I think I've seen all of Buffy. It's been a long time. I never rewatched it. I will say if you want, yeah, I think the vampire theme obviously can work. Tony mentioned the homebrew Buffy's. Also, if you get to a show and you get a chance if there's a P3, see if they've got drained. You could try drained out. Yeah. Because that's really all about trying to stake a vampire. It's fun. So yeah, it's got, it's a very Yim style approach, gobble hole and everything. So that's an opportunity for you also to show, but I think it shows that, yeah, there's a That's a way to integrate the vampire theme, I think, pretty cleanly into the world of pinball. Continuing his email. Now for the video game part. Tony mentioned he played a demo of the new Battlestar Galactica game. The game reminded me of the newly released Star Trek Voyager game. That's a resource management game with ship combat. The game has you go through the TV series, but with the ability to make different decisions than Janeway didn't do, like equipping Borg tech. I've also, I've been playing Dragon Quest VII Reimagined since I had played the original PS1 version and failed to beat the game twice. With the quality of life improvements, I managed to beat the main story along with the post-game content. As I was playing it, I felt something was missing, which I was right. They ended up cutting a bunch of content, which I can see why, to lower the overall playing time and tighten the story a bit. My question is, are you guys fine with cutting content even with quality of life improvements? Because I'm fine with cutting unnecessary mini games or game mechanics that I would prefer keeping story stuff in. They made some stuff optional already, but I don't know if they could make the other story elements optional as post-game content. Sorry for the long email. Continue with the great work, Brent." Thanks, Brent. All right, Tony, do you know anything about the Star Trek Voyager game? I played the demo. It's when it had originally came out. And yeah, it's very much the same type of resource management. And it's also, I enjoyed it just as much as the Battlestar Galactica game. I think the Star Trek Voyager game feels a little more in depth than the Battlestar Galactica game did. Though I'm not, I think the Battlestar Galactica combat might be better than Voyager's combat was. But overall, they're, yeah, they're both a very similar type of resource management game. The question is just which one ends up being bigger and I don't know. I haven't picked up Voyager yet because it's not been on sale and I've been buying and playing cheap stuff. Right. Well, that makes sense. What do you think about his question about the idea of dropping content? There's a time and a place for it. When stuff feels like useless filler that is just time pads that doesn't necessarily have any direct impact, I think it's okay. Okay. Yeah, I guess for me it comes down to what it was built at. So he mentioned Dragon Quest VII Reimagined. If it's a reimagining, I think it's fine to dramatically make alterations because it is a re-envisioning of the work. Right. If it's a remaster, I expect all the content just remastered. I think that's a good one. So that would be where I would draw the line. Yeah, that seems like a good one. Like these new Final Fantasy VII's that people are playing. They do different stuff. The story is going differently. That's fine. It's not a re- it's not a remaster. Yeah, it's a reimagining. Right. Now, how creative can you get with a remaster? I'm actually pretty tolerant as long as the main beats are there.
    23:59
    So I think you have a better claim on a remaster. Just expect everything to be in there. But for example, I'm not wholly familiar with the original approaches of the early Resident Evil games, but I played some of the remasters and they're pretty good. So I'm like, I like what they've done with those. And maybe if I had played the originals, I would feel a little bit differently. All these new modern remasters do not do the whole top-down fixed-camera stuff. They all go with the Resident Evil 4 style. Actually, I think they go with an even more… where you're not a walking tank turret. You could shoot and walk at the same time, even. I think five was the last one where you were, I called it turret mode because you had to hold still the fire you run, which I mean is a smart way to shoot, but it's like that's not what people want. It's not always the best choice. Yeah, it's like there's zombies coming at me. I need a run and gun. Let me run. Surrendering accuracy for safety. So let's go ahead and jump into the video game section. We did actually have some virtual pinball updates from Richard A. So I did put those in at the start here. So I'll go ahead and run through those real quick. So he wrote in a couple of updates related to Zachariah and Zinn. So Zachariah was the shorter update. They've announced that they have another video game license. It's called Chernobylite, The Net Which he says is a is a 2021 FPS. I believe you also know it didn't review very well or at least the the the feedback rating I guess on Steam is not all that high. Zachariah also said or excuse me also re-released five more tables but they're all based on existing tables so they're either remakes or reimaginings of stuff that they've already done which is pretty common for Zachariah. And then Zen Pinball actually had a number of updates. Outback of State Port Mixed Sports, F fluid, Anything You Want Right Away! Pinball FX Branding Pinball M is called Pinball FX Midnight, Zen Pinball World becomes Pinball FX Go, Pinball FX 2 VR becomes Pinball FX Classic VR, and Pinball FX 3 becomes Pinball FX Classic. DLC is not going to be visible in the Nintendo Switch or yeah, it's not gonna be available I guess or visible to purchase in the Nintendo Switch eShop or the PlayStation Store. You will be able to log into the game though and then buy the DLC through the game. And for technical reasons, Xbox content will no longer be purchasable as of May or sometime in May. And all DLC though is still going to be remaining available I guess as it currently is available on Steam in terms of how they list it. So, those are those updates. And then I think you've got some pokes to- Some pokes! What's going on with the pokes? The Pokemon had their big Pocopia release which is- I forgot what, I was like, what is Pocopia? That's Pokemon's animal crossing Stardew Valley Minecraft thing where you play a ditto that takes- First we poke and then we mon. Yes. And that's exactly what it is. I'm a fan of the game. I've played it. I've not. My daughter has. Does she like it? I don't have a Switch 2. She loves it. It's reviewed insanely well. Its sales were so high that physical copies are nonexistent. People are buying them and instantly eBaying them for huge monies to get the physical editions. They sold 2.2 million copies in four days. It has sold so well that they had a massive stock price increase after release. Nintendo did. So it's going very, very well. There's been an incredibly large number of people out there that have apparently decided that this is the game that they have been waiting for and Switch 2 sales have also seen a bounce. So we'll see where that goes for them. It's interesting because I've not played it, but I've seen just enough of it that its lore is interesting because it's very post-apocalyptic where you're like putting stuff back together. But it's still weird to me because of the Pokemon talk. Right. Because you're a Pokemon, so you understand them. That's just standard Poke science. Yeah, that's how it is. Pokemons can understand each other. That just normal stuff New York State has decided to sue Valve because loot boxes are illegal gambling for some reason Well I mean those arguments were made years ago about loot boxes Well, they're making those again and they've actually brought the suit this time. Valve has responded saying obviously that they are disappointed and that they don't believe that their mystery boxes violate the state's gambling laws. They also point out that there is no difference between the mystery boxes and Magic the Gathering, Pokemon or baseball cards because they're all sealed packs of stuff that you don't have to have to play the game or to do whatever. Yeah, I don't know if New York's going to win this but I'd have to see what they do. It's in there's the part of the thing that they pointed was that there are there has been some stuff seen online where like people have been trading and selling stuff out of the mystery boxes or something and they point to that as oh that's different that's illegal gambling somehow but it's it is a weird tact to take because The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Barry Oursler. I'm not a fan, but at the same time, I don't think it's illegal gambling. I don't necessarily disagree with it being predatory. I just don't know that it would count as illegal gambling. I think it needs to have its own thing applied to it. I think if you're going to apply something to it, it needs to be applied across the board. Well, I mean, that's up to New York if they were to try and enforce it in other ways. But one of the things I do have to bear in mind is I don't know how their state defines a game. Yeah, and I don't either. So, you know, it used to be, especially when I was more active with pinball events, you know, I'd talk with a lot of people who would be planning them because they'd want to do like a drawing for, you know, all that sort of stuff. Oh, yeah. And it, every, like, every state's a little bit different, it seems, in terms of what they consider a lottery, what they consider, you know, a drawing, what they consider a S naming, The Wally Winka Show, Knapp Arcade, Bally Williams, Straight Down the Middle, Bally Williams,
    32:16
    220. Jin Wangay, I'm just waiting for it to be like, we're going to put the, but that's just the project name. When we launch, it'll be Xbox Zero. Oh my God. It'll, it'll, yeah, it'll be some form of Xbox 180. It'll be Xbox Series X 1360. That's what it'll be. Just, just to make everything more difficult. Why can't they just be like, Sony knows how to number, just number. Just number. Nintendo runs into this too. Like they learned like Switch 2. Yeah. Don't be all like Wii U. Right. Wii U. Yeah, no. It made it sound like it was an add-on. They should have kept it with the original. Project Dolphin. Echo! It's the Nintendo Dolphin. Yes. Woohoo. But dev kits are expected to start heading out in 27. The plan is that it will play Xbox and PC games. They put out some initial hardware stuff, but it's all just basically saying, oh, we're We're working with blank company to make a proprietary blank chip to do this magic blank stuff. Which means, it all means nothing. There's no hard numbers, none of it. It's all, it's all very early stuff. Next, in what is very interesting and so long that I have not actually listened to all of it yet. You've listened to some of it. I've listened to some of it. I've only read summaries of elements of this. I read, I started by reading summaries and then I went ahead and I found a place that had just like the snippets and I watched a couple of the snippets. But Jeff Kaplan, former lead of Overwatch. Papa Jeff? Yes, Papa Jeff. He did a five hour podcast interview. That's a congressional hearing, not a podcast. Right? It is next level high. Nikol
    35:32
    Todd Pyliff too... Off straw... Shields & The Balduffs If you know I'm boilin' I ain't got murder in the punishment room I'm not sure if you're familiar with the name of the guy who was the CEO of the company, but he's still under an NDA over it. So, he says that this is what broke him and his career at Blizzard, because he planned on retiring from Blizzard. He didn't want to work anywhere else except for Blizzard until all of this happened. He says that there was a huge amount of investment money put into League. And that was pretty obvious at the time, if you remember. You know, yeah, because they were selling the teams for big money. Oh, yeah. The investors wanted their money back and everything. Buyers were like people that own sports teams. Yeah, and that was the plan was to do big live in-person events and that's where the money was going to come through. Guess what? It didn't work. It especially didn't work because the teams were all over the world. Yes. It would have had a better chance to work if it had only been teams from the United States. Yes. That's my opinion. I agree with you. That's not what you said. That's my personal opinion. I want to think, you know, I don't know, we've been at this for 10 years. We talked about this back because we watched the league. Oh, I watched the league all the time. And it was really entertaining. But one of the things that never made sense, like at the time, I think what everyone was going to tell you, and I don't want to shortchange it, was, well, COVID screwed up all their plans because they could not do, like, everything had to become virtual and it just sucked the life out of it. And I do think that that virtualness definitely took away a lot of the excitement, like even just watching remotely, watching the audience with the signs and the excitement like there was this this fandom. But the thing was, it worked best when they had the Blizzard Arena and everyone was in California playing at the Blizzard Arena. And I want to think back even before COVID hit. We were like, how is this really going to work around the world? No sports team is constantly going around the world. Like we're talking like the London team needs to go and play in Seoul. Right. Then they need to go go and play in L.A. And then they go to play in Guangzhou. And that's each week. Yes. It was like, this is not they're going to be on planes all that. Like, this is expensive nonsense. I think the best strategy would have been, because I agreed with them that the idea was you needed, especially given the popularity of the game and where the popularity was, you needed worldwide teams. Yes. But I think they all during the season, like the Overwatch season, the league season, needed to be based, just do what you were doing, just base it in California, host all of the teams there. And I get where they thought, well, no, but we want the local team, you know, fans to go and attend. It's like people are going to latch onto them based off of their name of the city proximity wise. That's their team. And maybe that team could then in the off season practice in those, but again, just like in real sports, like these people weren't all from wherever it was. Like, yeah, the South Korean teams tended to only have South Korean players, but the London team had Americans on it. Like, you know, it's like hockey. Like, it's there are a bunch of Russians and Canadians on American teams, too. Like, well, yeah, they want to make money. It's just so this being what it was, had they just kept the Blizzard arena, I navigate COVID. And then after that, I think that could have been functional. But that wasn't what people were sold. That was a bill of gold. They were sold that this would be like NFL size. Yes. Which I mean, it was exciting. I mean, there was a lot of excitement, but I mean, come on guys. NFL, that's a little. Especially like, one of the things that we realized in our short time watching the Overwatch League was,
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    you thought sports were a younger person's game. Oh, video games, holy cow. I mean, like, there are a ton, like the churn is massive. There are a lot of people that don't get through two seasons. There are plenty that didn't get through one. Oh yeah, plenty. It was huge. And it was one of those things that very much, I don't think they could have ever, I mean, maybe, maybe you could see them as a not as big low level sport, but not NFL numbers. No. Plus, I mean, other things that I, as a person who watches a lot of football, didn't really consider at the time regarding Overwatch, the stars. 05.
    40:58
    But when Zenyatta was no longer mainstream, he had to start playing other characters that he wasn't as good with. And it's like that sort of stuff happened all the time. Sableby, Tracer player, ends up becoming a Sombra player and he was the worst Sombra player in the league. He plays Sombra like me. And it's just like all that sort of stuff would happen. Plus, separate from COVID, goats. When Brig came out and the goats became the meta for like an entire season and it just killed. It was boring Tim I am in no way surprised that he's like, yeah, Overwatch League became a lodestone around Blizzard and they needed to, or they demanded that Jeff start having the game generate more money to make up for those losses. And that's exactly what it was. They expected, all the expectations they had on the league, they started expecting to come from the game. That's why they started pushing, increasing the speed of the development of Overwatch 2. That's why all of the time and resources were taken away from new events, heroes, maps, and all of that, Because it had to be moved to try and get Overwatch 2 to push out because that was going to be the new big thing that was going to save everything.
    42:33
    Oh, and that sucked. Like I yeah, I quit playing, you know, like many I at some point was just like, I'm done playing over. I'll wait till two comes out. But it's like, this is no longer like nothing. I've never played since. There's nothing coming out for it. And so it was frustrating because again, it was a it needs to be if you want the attention to stay there, as all these other companies have learned, it must be a living game. But that's not just living in a time capsule of this is what it always has. Yeah, like if I wanted to go back and play an old game, I'll go back and play an old game, but I won't play them all the time. Right. There's not a new cast of characters. This is why fighting games try and launch new characters and stuff constantly until they're ready to launch their new game. Yeah, you got to keep you have to keep something that keeps bringing people in. Yeah. I like said, I've honestly ever since I've not played Overwatch two ever. I know it's Overwatch now again, but I've never. I stopped Overwatch when this whole thing started falling apart and I haven't played since. And that's also, a lot of people will say that's what helped create the space for Marvel Rivals for example to get attention. I think a lot of that also helped with the fact that it was Marvel Yeah And things like that They had a built in audience and a and a built There was a time it was like Warcraft where it like why would you ever launch an MMO Nothing will kill Warcraft Everything was, is this a potential Warcraft killer? Is it called Warcraft 2? No. Then no. It's not going to kill Warcraft. But Overwatch decided it wanted to try and kill itself. I'm amazed that it survived. Honestly, I am too. But it's still there. It's because the only thing that ever really stepped up and has been again like solidly against it has been Marble Rivals. Valorant never made it. None of the other ones ever made it as big. Yeah, yeah, there are a few. They've covered up some space though where they can survive as things. I still play Marble Rivals usually at least once a week. I mean they all survived better than High Guard that shut down already. Yeah, more on that later. But what else from Papa Jeff? Last one from Papa Jeff is he's currently working for an independent studio. They're the studio making The Legend of California, which is an open world survival game set in Gold Rush era or Gold Rush era. Like late 1800s. Yeah. So it's like a Gold Rush era thing except for it's like
    44:50
    just straight up open. So basically from the sounds of it, it feels like an open world survival version of like Red Dead. Oh, okay. It could be interesting. Yeah, I'm interested. I went ahead I wishlisted it on Steam and that way I get updates when they release some new trailers and do some new stuff about it. So I did include a link in the link section to all five hours of the interview on YouTube. Like I said, I've only watched sections of it. So, okay. Like we'd said, High Guard is gone. They're shut down. They shut down on the 12th. Not the shortest lifespan of a live service game, but definitely pretty short. They crunched voluntarily. The skeleton remaining crew did a voluntary crunch because they wanted to get their final update out before the game shut down to show what they've been working on. Okay. Basically. I'm like, sure. That's like... Okay. I don't get it. I mean, the writing's been on the wall since January. I can't imagine, especially if it was voluntary, were they paid overtime for the crunch? Or were they doing unpaid overtime to kick this thing out of this dead thing that has like 300 concurrent players at the end? If people can't go back and then look at it, I don't understand what good it... Anyway, I don't get it. I'm not a coder, though. I don't know. I think I thought the same thing when I read it because I saw the thing crunched like oh my god they made these people crunch with what they made these people crunch to do a release after the announcement of the shutdown date and and and the thing they're like well it was a voluntary crunch the developers wanted to do it to just to put out what they've been working on and I'm like why I just don't get it no this might fall into the whole love of the game thing or whatever but I don't know yeah or pride in your work but at the same time it's like you're you know I know you're about to be fired. You're out of a job. You're the few survivors on the decimated development team for this game that is being shut down as being considered one of the most colossal failures of the last five years. What are you wanting? I don't know. I have plenty of projects. Maybe not. Maybe they put more time in than my example. But I've worked on plenty of projects and then it's not – it's like whatever I was working on, it's not going to work or it's not going to go anywhere. так waste no time
    47:52
    And bring stuff in and get estimates on projects and stuff. And then it's like, oh, there's no budget. We'll put it on the back burner and look at it again in five or six years. It's like, oh, okay. No, I still somewhere on my computer should have that. One of the articles I wrote about early pinball board sets, I had Tony proof it. I said, what do you think? And he goes, it's really boring. And I didn't. Did I try and make it unboring? No, it was never going to be exciting. Hey, baby, don't burn me like somebody, baby, bear and burn like somebody, baby, bomb me like somebody, baby, blieve on my dick like somebody who burns money like somebody born to Gould, All right, what else is going on? All right, so, that's something we rarely talk about. We've been to it though, the National Video Game Museum in Frisco, Texas, normally does big collaboration work and big stuff with TPF, which is, like we've said, coming up. They have managed to acquire one of the absolute rarest bits of video game hardware in existence. They captured one of the early Nintendo PlayStation hybrids. Oh, okay. Not even the, like there's one of the early, like first generation PlayStation like developer kit test things when they were doing development that was sold at auction a few years ago. This is actually earlier than that. This is from during the Super NES days, Nintendo was initially talking about getting a CD-ROM And so he's like, I want me some of that. And they developed a CD-ROM drive add-on to work with the Super NES. And then Nintendo went, you know what? We're just going to stay with cartridges. Right. The thing that had sold at auction previously was one of what Sony had developed from that to become eventually the PlayStation 1. The This is one of the items developed for the Nintendo project. Okay. I have no idea when it'll go on display. Oh, so probably not when we're going in. Right. Yeah, I have no idea. The announcement literally came like Wednesday. Like last Wednesday. So it has been, I don't know when it'll actually go on display, but it was a big announcement that had been made. So I just think that's really interesting because that is a neat little bit of history to add to their honestly quite impressive collection. If you're down there with extra time and you've not been to it, that museum before, I highly recommend it. They've got some really neat stuff down there. PlayStation has decided to go the opposite direction of Xbox. Xbox is embracing the PC. Their new hardware is going to run PC games. They like to release stuff simultaneously on console and PC. PlayStation has decided they're going to go ahead and drop PC sales, at least with their first party games, and they're going to become console exclusives. They have concerns about the PC sales damaging the brand, and because of their specific release schedule where Xbox likes to release the PC version and the console version at the same Many of the organizations involved in the venture go after the game, which they believe develops and grows finally in the same time. Tim Kitzrow, Barry Oursler, The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Barry Oursler. Big thought. Valve, as we talked about New York City suing them, they also have been tempering their plans for those three new sets of hardware, their Steam Cube thing and their new controller and their VR set. All of that, they've pulled the hardware release states to this year. Nothing more specific than this year is their plan and still no price estimates with the way prices and everything are going. They're going to be expensive and I honestly don't think we'll see them before next year. And with a lot of the initial spec releases and information about it, I don't know why you'd want one. A lot of stuff is looking at 30 FPS lock. Oh really? Wow. A lot of PC people aren't going to want a 30 FPS lock. No, PC people are very, very arrogant about that. I know PC people who don't like 60 FPS lock. No, 120 or die. Yeah. Heck, my machine used to run 240. Mm-hmm. Can't no more because my... Because of AI. Well, yeah, because my system's old, my video card's old. I remember back in the day when I could run everything on max specs, but I can't do that anymore.
    53:40
    I think I've got a... My newest... my video card is like a twenty-something. Like they're talking about re-rolling out, it's like, oh, We're going to start rolling out these old trash, not been top of the line for five years, 30, 40 cards, or 30, 405 cards and all this other stuff because, you know, they use an older generation chip so we can roll them out without the price being insane. Right. And I'm sitting here going, that would still be a major upgrade off of my system. Because it's been so, my system's so old at this point. So, we'll see. We'll see how that actually ends up rolling, but I don't have high hopes for that. I'm afraid that that's going to end up being a $1,000 30 FPS locked box, and that seems insane to me. And the last thing, because we had so many good, so many highs, and so many interesting things today, is to end with what has become very common in the developer universe. E.A. has decided to realign their Battlefield stuff and has begun doing mass layoffs across all of their Battlefield studios after Battlefield 6 set records on launch and was the best Battlefield launch in years. Everything's huge and it's been great. So they're going to go ahead and fire everybody. Why? Money. CinemCC in Tacoma,betterworld.com Josh
    56:14
    If you have something ready that they need new people, they'll hire a few new people in. We'll see you next week. Okay. Well, if you want to reach out to us about the core of the reality, you can always email eclecticgamerspodcasts at gmail.com or go to facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcasts. If you want to stop the score, well, not stop the score, I should, or score. We need to start the core. I'm trying to remember the movie, The Core. We need to start the core spinning. The only way to do that is patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. Your support is the only way we can. There are geos the size of Dallas down here. We need to get the core to spin or else the earth will lose its magnetic field. And Patreon will allow us to save it. I need a lot of Pop-Tarts. Yes. Here's the thing. I honestly really enjoy that movie. It's fun. It is such a fun, stupid popcorn movie that has just got some incredibly good amount of like massive ham eating lines and stuff in it. Yeah. It is. It's just enjoyable. Mm hmm. If you've not seen the core, I highly recommend you sit down and watch the core and prepare to be wowed by the horribleness, but still fun. It's fun. Lots of fun. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. Our Instagram, because of TPF, will probably start going live this week and doing some stuff. I normally do a few things. That's when I'm more consistent about it. About it. Yep. And we'll be back in a couple of weeks to debrief about TPF as we do. So until then, my name is Dennis. I'm Tony. Goodbye. See you.