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2025 State of Zen Studios with Mel Kirk

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·47m 37s·analyzed·Dec 10, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Zen Studios marks 25 years with VR growth, THQ Nordic partnership, and ambitious 2026 roadmap.

Summary

Mel Kirk discusses Zen Studios' 25-year anniversary, organizational restructuring under THQ Nordic, and ambitious VR expansion. The studio released 10 Pinball FX tables in 2025 (8 Williams), expanded Zen Pinball World to 60+ mobile titles, and launched Pinball FX VR with 33 tables. Mel reveals they're behind their 10-year plan due to post-COVID scaling and industry contraction, but remain committed to the vision. Major 2026 priorities include feature development over maintenance, potential VR social multiplayer (requiring massive backend work), and expanding controller support.

Key Claims

  • Zen Studios has been operating for 25 years and switched offices 4-5 times during that period

    high confidence · Mel Kirk confirmed anniversary and office relocations in Budapest

  • 2025 released 10 Pinball FX tables (8 Williams), 60+ Zen Pinball World mobile titles, 33 Pinball FX VR tables, and 25 AtGames Legends releases

    high confidence · Mel Kirk enumerated specific release numbers for each platform

  • Zen Studios is now under THQ Nordic after period of limbo under Embracer Group's Sabre Interactive

    high confidence · Mel Kirk confirmed THQ Nordic transition and described previous organizational uncertainty

  • Pinball FX VR social multiplayer feature would roughly double current development scope (equivalent to 'PFX VR 2.0')

    high confidence · Mel Kirk stated social layer would require massive backend rework, not simple feature addition

  • Zen Studios is behind schedule on its 10-year plan due to post-COVID scaling/restructuring and industry contraction

    high confidence · Mel Kirk directly stated 'We're behind in the 10 year plan' and explained scaling/restructuring context

  • Jurassic Park Pinball FX table now includes the actual John Williams score

    high confidence · Mel Kirk mentioned this licensing achievement during content summary

  • VR table development adds approximately 1/3 to 2/3 additional time compared to flat-screen Pinball FX development

    high confidence · Mel Kirk provided development timeline estimate based on content type and licensing complexity

  • Pinball FX VR has day-and-date simultaneous releases across 9 platforms (PS5, Switch, VR, mobile, cabinets, etc.)

    high confidence · Mel Kirk highlighted day-and-date release strategy as major 2025 achievement

Notable Quotes

  • “Not a lot of studios will get a 25-year run. So we feel extremely privileged, somewhat lucky, or a combination of factors and emotions all go through.”

    Mel Kirk @ ~2:30 — Reflects on studio longevity and survival challenges in game industry

  • “We're behind in the 10 year plan. You know, coming out of COVID, the whole industry was experiencing certain success and metrics... and then things kind of came back down to earth.”

    Mel Kirk @ ~15:00 — Candid admission of strategic delays due to post-pandemic market correction

  • “It's literally sometimes we feel like a pinball ourselves, you know, like bouncing around the landscape of video games and digital entertainment.”

    Mel Kirk @ ~8:30 — Describes managing simultaneous platform development challenges with industry metaphor

  • “I would almost say it'd be like PFX VR 2.0... it's not like we would launch another game but it is... almost doubling what we've done already.”

    Mel Kirk @ ~22:00 — Explains scope of VR social multiplayer as equivalent to complete game redesign

  • “Being now part of THQ Nordic is really, really great. They have a fantastic team. They really care about what's going on in our studio... I'm really pumped going into 2026.”

    Mel Kirk @ ~16:00 — Positive sentiment on new parent company and strategic direction

  • “There's no, oh, which platform am I going to buy it on do I really want to wait instead it's just like I don't have to wait I can just buy it on the platform I really wanted it on to begin with.”

    Mel Kirk @ ~11:00 — Highlights community reception to simultaneous cross-platform releases

  • “Features and innovation have been you know severely lacking and we'd like to spend more time there.”

    Mel Kirk @ ~28:00 — Acknowledges feature drought and commits to rebalancing development priorities

  • “The last thing we want to do is try to do something good. And then we make people mad. And we seem to be really good at this.”

Entities

Mel KirkpersonChris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonZen StudioscompanyTHQ NordiccompanyEmbracer GroupcompanySabre InteractivecompanyPinball FXproductPinball FX VRproductZen Pinball WorldproductAtGames Legends Pinball 4Kproduct

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Zen Studios organizational restructuring: moved from Sabre Interactive (limbo period) to THQ Nordic with positive outlook

    high · Mel Kirk: 'being now part of THQ Nordic is really, really great... I couldn't be happier, to be honest'

  • ?

    community_signal: VR tournament support being actively considered; community organizing weekly tournament structure in Discord as proof of concept

    medium · Mel Kirk: 'I'm aware of your tournament play... there's resources available and yes we want to... turn that kind of stuff on'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Jurassic Park Pinball FX table now features authentic John Williams film score as major licensing achievement

    high · Mel Kirk: 'Jurassic Park got the actual John Williams score into it now'

  • $

    market_signal: Day-and-date simultaneous release strategy across 9 platforms (PS5, Switch, VR, mobile, cabinets) improved community sentiment and reduced platform fragmentation complaints

    high · Mel Kirk: 'It's been fantastic... release day is more of a celebration everybody gets to participate'

  • ?

    community_signal: X-Arcade partnership expanding with in-game presence and potential additional announcements for 2026; controller integration improving VR gameplay experience

    high · Mel Kirk: 'There's now posters in the game, so they have an in-game presence. There may be more in-game presence coming as well... fantastic announcements coming in 2026'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.143

0:00
This is the Blockade Pinball Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Frebus, aka Shut Your Trap. Joining me as always, halfway across the world, is Jared Morgan. Hey, everyone. How are you going? And also joining us just north of my world, it's Mel Kirk.
0:35
Hey, guys. Good to be back here again. Right. Probably means another year has gone by. It does mean another year has gone by. I'm starting to think of how many of these we've done. I realized we first started connecting probably close to eight years ago. I want to say we've done at least five of these.
0:55
I think so. Yeah. Well, so, yeah. It feels like only yesterday. It does, though. It's how we know the year is ending. That's right. So, yeah, let's just dive right in here.
1:11
Our first thing is we kind of just wanted to touch upon that I wasn't even aware of it until Zen announced it, but 25 years, Zen Studios.
1:20
That's quite the journey for a studio, I would think. Yeah, it is. I mean, to be honest, not a lot of studios will get a 25-year run. So we feel extremely privileged, somewhat lucky, or a combination of factors and emotions all go through. I've been around at Zen for quite a while, started working in some capacity with the founder back in 2007, 2008, and then ended up joining formally, I don't know, early 2010, I guess. So I've been here for about 15 of those years and 17 officially.

Mel Kirk @ ~35:00 — Self-aware commentary on past community backlash to announcements

X-Arcade
company
Mattperson
Victorperson
Cassandra Petersonperson
Clemensperson
Magic Pixelcompany
Godzilla vs. Konggame
Blockade Pinball Podcastorganization
?

announcement: Godzilla vs. Kong room confirmed for Pinball FX VR release within next few days (airing weekend of recording)

high · Mel Kirk: 'Godzilla vs. Kong, right, is going to release. And like there's a room dedicated to that.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Zen acknowledges past missteps in feature announcements causing community backlash; cautious approach to future VR platform expansion (PSVR2/SteamVR) to avoid similar issues

    high · Mel Kirk: 'We seem to be really good at this... we think we're going to do something great... announced it and they're like, what the hell is wrong with you guys?'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball FX VR social multiplayer features on roadmap but requires massive backend infrastructure investment; positioned as conditional on reaching player base thresholds

    high · Mel Kirk: 'it would almost be like PFX VR 2.0... it's almost doubling what we've done already... we need to cross a couple other thresholds before we can consider'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Zen's 10-year strategic plan is 5 years in but behind schedule due to post-COVID scaling and industry contraction

    high · Mel Kirk: 'We're behind in the 10 year plan... coming out of COVID... we scaled the studio up... then things kind of came back down to earth'

  • ?

    business_signal: Development prioritization shift: Zen planning to reduce maintenance burden and increase feature/innovation development for 2026 after two years of heavy content maintenance

    high · Mel Kirk: 'features and innovation have been you know severely lacking... we'd like to spend more time there... especially [for] these last three months'

  • ?

    technology_signal: VR platform expansion (PSVR2/SteamVR) faces technical and strategic challenges; Zen prefers native optimization over ports to avoid poor reception

    medium · Mel Kirk: 'we tried to just optimize it and release a version, and it wasn't right... we probably won't just do a port and release'

  • ?

    technology_signal: VR platform expansion: Pinball FX VR designed for long-term expandability (room system) rather than requiring new app releases like Classic/Star Wars VR

    high · Mel Kirk on expandability: 'we wanted this to really expand... we don't have to start over again, releasing a new app'

    • 1:54
    And just, you know, so much goes on. And sometimes you're fighting for survival. Other times you've got great times. So we've experienced it all here. But to, yeah, still be kicking 25 years later, man, it's really cool. Have the offices changed?
    2:10
    Yeah. So it's funny because I go to Budapest quite often these days. I think I've been there nine or ten times already this year, and I'm going again next week for the end of the year. but uh every time i go uh the city's not too big and i'm always you know i'll be driving around with jolt and we'll go by and he goes there's the originals in office you know and it's like i was never actually in that one but it's close by to the other ones we've had but i think we switched offices four or five times oh man oh wow yeah how's your check these days or is it is that is that what they speak no no no it's hungarian oh hungarian excuse me hungarian yeah you're in and I still know like the five or 10 words that I learned.
    2:53
    Very English has improved a lot. This is typical, like, uh, you know, American, I guess, uh, I've, it's actually very difficult language and they don't fault me for not speaking it. And, uh, I've tried to pick up some more. I can actually, uh, understand it pretty good. If I've been there for a day or two, I was speaking Hungarian. I can understand it, but I, there's no way I can speak it. Ah, right, okay.
    3:17
    Some of the things that I wanted to just, during this anniversary year, that I don't think people are necessarily aware of, the numbers of things that you guys have done. So, I mean, if you're primarily just looking at pinball effects, yeah, we had 10 table drops. But other things that happened this year. So we had 10 tables, 8 Williams, which you met that number that you promised last year um and then i know right plus the uh plus the two tomb raider tables then you you had introduced uh zen pinball world just at the end of i think 2023 um i don't know exactly uh what i don't know exactly what tables dropped this year but you guys are up to over i think 60 tables now in Zen Pinball World for mobile. For Pinball FX VR, that just dropped this year. We've got 33 tables of that now, of which 21 of them are Williams. And then with the AtGames Legends Pinball 4K, this year alone, 25 releases.
    4:32
    And that's on top of, I don't even know what else is going on. So, I mean, you guys have been exceedingly busy this past year in the summation of all that?
    4:40
    Yeah, it's incredibly busy. We kind of have three development buckets for pinball, and they're all a challenge to manage simultaneously. We have platform development and maintenance. You know, if we launch a new platform like PinballFX VR or Zen Pinball World, that's its own development, and then it gets pushed into the maintenance category because then you've got to keep it up. You've got to update SDKs, or every time we're going to ship a new pinball table, There's going to be a big update. So, you know, you've got platform development, maintenance, and then new content. And trying to manage all three of those for all the channels that were on like nine platforms simultaneously sometimes, it keeps our heads spinning. It's literally sometimes we feel like a pinball ourselves, you know, like bouncing around the landscape of video games and digital entertainment. But somehow it's managing to work. we're trying to pull together more time and resources to focus on innovation and like development of new features and not just maintenance it's easy to get so bogged down in that world and that is not terribly fun yeah we have much it's much more enjoyable to be working on new tables and new features and innovation for pinball effects itself so hopefully going to 2026 uh we're going to find a little more balance uh there because the last two years have just been really crazy trying to make sure all of our new tables are everywhere that people are playing. And I'm not even, I didn't even bring up the fact that Jurassic Park got the actual John Williams score into it now. There's all the Switch updates that have been going on. And then the thing that I absolutely love, which is the day and date release of all the new stuff. It's been fantastic. And I think that has impacted the community too, because there's no, oh, which platform am i going to buy it on do i really want to wait instead it's just like i don't have to wait i can just buy it on the platform i really wanted it on to begin with so that's been phenomenal it makes our lives better too because release day is more of a celebration everybody gets to participate instead of you know there's times when certain players were just waiting and they felt kind of you know like we weren't like we didn't care about them and that's not the truth it just it is difficult to launch a piece of content simultaneously across nine digital stores when you have a diversity of devices, you know, ranging from PS5 to Nintendo Switch, and then you've got cabinets, you got VR, and you got mobile. I mean, it's just like, it's pretty incredible what the team pulls off. I can't take a lot of credit for it. They do an amazing job. One of the other things that switched up this year, so, and I'm, at this point, I'm muddled up, but still part of Embracer group, I believe, but now you're under THQ Nordic. Is that correct how that was? That's correct. And you previously were with, well, I don't know, were you guys kind of in limbo with where you were? Because you were with Sabre for a little while.
    7:37
    Well, it's been an interesting few years. When we were acquired by Embracer Group, we were put under Sabre Interactive, and that was kind of like who we were reporting to, and they were working with us to drive the business forward. And then Sabre left, and they became independent again they actually had an option to buy us and a studio called 4a they make metro exodus it's a great first person shooter and um so during that period that they had the opportunity to bring us with them we were in limbo and we kind of were just i don't know a little red-headed stepchild within the embracer group i guess everybody knew us and loved us but there was this like pending thing what's gonna happen is it not so we're operating this really nebulous space. I don't know that there's been two studios operating in an environment like that before. It's pretty novel.
    8:24
    And then Sabre did not manage to take us with them. So then there was a period of time where they were trying to figure out what to do with us. I say, I think luckily, and I'm very, very happy with all the recent developments, but being now part of THQ Nordic is really, really great. They have a fantastic team. They really care about what's going on in our studio. They fully believe in our, like, in the pinball space and are helping us navigate some things and put us on a good trajectory. So I couldn't be happier, to be honest. Clemens, CEO at THQ Nordic, unbelievable leader, like, fantastic guy and all the team around him. So I'm really pumped going into 2026. Sounds like you really found your tribe, so to speak. Yes. That's great. So when all of these mergers were happening and everything, this happened to – before we heard about any of them, you had mentioned that you had this whole 10-year plan. We are now in year five of that 10-year plan. I'm curious to know, how do you see yourself within that? Or has there been just a completely wild different branch? You're like, never thought that we'd be going that, but this is the direction we're now going, playing it fast and loose there. Yeah, good. Great question. We're behind in the 10 year plan. You know, coming out of COVID, the whole industry was experiencing certain success and metrics and things that were like blowing everyone's minds and everyone was scaling up. We also saw that, right? We scaled the studio up. You guys know this. It's been publicly documented. We talked about it. We increased our pipeline. We started making tons of content, signed lots of deals. And then things kind of, you know, came back down to earth and people started going outside again. and the industry's been struggling. So we had to reconfigure, we had to restructure a bit.
    10:18
    So while we were doing all that, I'd say is really where things kind of slowed down a bit. The ideas we have and the executions that we have to do still, like the projects that are in the pipeline and everything, are still there and super valid. They might just look a little different or technology has changed or circumstances, licensures, you know, things like that. But I still think that the vision and where we want to take things is still completely valid. And, you know, there's great alignment with THQ on that because we've talked through it, especially this year. We had a number of meetings and just figuring out what the next steps are. So while we might be a little bit behind overall, I still believe in the 10-year plan. It's just going to take a little bit longer than when we started out to make it happen. Fair enough. We're patient. um one of those things that we had hoped for initially uh i'm gonna let jared take over here uh all revolves around vr uh which like i said this year has been spectacular for it so uh jared why don't you uh take it away from here yeah thanks heaps chris i've actually mailed these a lot of these questions we actually receive from the community um so the questions i'm asking you here actually on behalf of the community and folks might know that we were trying to line up mel a little bit early in the year but well you know just the swapping of studios and where you're aligning sort of takes a bit of time you know we had sort of roll it into this one so it'll be a bit of a rapid-fire round but the first question really it speaking of vision and ten plan and stuff we we both know that pinball is best played together right So VR seems to offer particularly in the meta universe like these horizon spaces and stuff like that, where people could come around together and actually have a shared experience with pinball together.
    12:11
    This sort of fundamental human interaction with pinball, How do you think that shapes the vision for FX VR over the next couple of years?
    12:21
    Well, it's interesting that your community brought this question because it's something that we also get. People would love for us to enable more social experience, so you could see other people's setups or play pinball, somewhat feeling like you're together. I think in VR, it's a heavy lift on the dev side. but what we see is really good results right now for pinball effects vr uh for a number of reasons it's an easy to pick up and play game it's a really attractive point into vr uh and we're seeing um great retention of the player base and so it's growing and growing and growing we need to cross a couple other thresholds before we can consider saying we're going to invest in that feature because it is almost uh i would almost say it'd be like pfx vr 2.0 um that's it's not like we would it's not like we would launch another game but it is i would say it's that big of a development based on what we've already done uh for the structure of pinball fx vr the environments the way that it's expanding if we're going to add the social layer to it it's almost doubling what we've done already that's wild okay it's not just putting something on not just tacking something onto the end it's like essentially a complete rethinking of how it We feel like we've set the foundation for if, cause we had this in mind, but we feel we have the foundation to do it. It's just a, it's a massive backend development for us. And I think we're getting close to the point where we can, we would say, yes, let's go, go for it because the audience is there. We know it can sustain the game. We can't turn on something that we feel like might fail, especially spending that much on, on dev. So, but we're getting there.
    14:06
    That's awesome. That's great to hear. The other sort of thing about Vision as well is, you know, we've got the other two titles, Pinball Classic VR and Star Wars VR. What did the studio want to do differently with Pinball FX VR compared with those other two titles? What sort of lessons have you learned along the way there?
    14:26
    Expandability was really at the forefront. We wanted to make sure that everybody, if they invested into the game, that they weren't, you know, a couple years later asked to go to yet another game. So we wanted this to really expand, and you can see that there'll be more rooms.
    14:43
    When is this going to air? Oh, that's a good question. Probably within the next couple of days, like this weekend. So tomorrow, and we're recording right now, what day is it, Wednesday? Yes, Wednesday.
    14:58
    And I think we announced it, actually. The Pinball Bites announced it last week. Yes, yes. So, you know.
    15:04
    So like Godzilla vs. Kong, right, is going to release. And like there's a room dedicated to that. Previously with Star Wars, Pinball VR or Classic, it was actually a technology limitation with the rendering and the way that things would happen. It would have taken like minutes or you'd have to exit and crash or something to just go from room to room and it would have to be a seamless expansion. So we want this to be a game that lasts years and years, that we don't have to start over again, releasing a new app and then we can just expand with content. So it feels like you've got this huge world to explore. And every time you go into a new room, you're immersed in the thing that you're a fan of and what you purchased before. We just couldn't do that. It's mostly technological limitations,
    15:46
    but you know, meta continues to make awesome gains in their hardware so we can do great things now. What else? Yeah. And licensing was a challenge to figure out with that too, but because some licensors, you know, like it has to be segmented. so we can't just mix and match everybody into the same space star wars is a really cool execution though because that was just it's like the star wars fan cave and then you happen to be playing a pinball game right so some of those cues into fxvr because that's what people really they voice that they really love that um just taking that to a whole new level and then uh mr i really like mixed reality uh our data shows that most people like it's crazy actually not a lot of people play an MR, so they're all in full immersion. But I think it's really cool. I think the only reason, I mean, I enjoy playing it in mixed reality, literally where my ex-arcade is, I open my closet door and it makes it look like the table is going into my closet, which is kind of fun, but it's the ability to switch to another table, that's the hindrance. Because I want to be able to just push a button and then it changes, whereas I have to delete the table, bring in another table, line it back up in the same spot. So I think that's honestly where my hindrance of playing in MR is, but oh, it's fantastic because literally I don't feel like I'm in the glasses anymore. So if somebody comes into the room and wants to talk to me, I just turn my head and there they are. And so it puts me in the real world with this table in front of me. So, um, you know, it's one of those things that, uh, hopefully, uh, the team can, can address, uh, eventually without it being too much of a leap in bound. yeah we'll talk about like on the subject of of you know classic and those different vr brands that are out there at the moment i think we did talk about this maybe last time um about subsuming those titles into fxvr eventually and i think last time we spoke it was like we wouldn't do that because they've already got their apps out there have you sort of have it's changed your position on that uh is it still like no we'll do them maybe last if at all or do you think that no there's actually a good idea to bring them into the the mothership so to speak well we kind of honestly we go with where we see the most requests from players and we're trying to bring over the the library um as quickly as possible i would say like one exception this holiday season is we want to do Charlie Brown Christmas because it makes sense and we're going to release it December 4th otherwise Universal Monsters and GBK were actually uh from our community what we saw the two most requested titles to come over uh I think that it would make sense at some point to do a VR classic I don't know that it makes sense for Star Wars pinball VR because it's really its own dedicated game I don't know if it makes sense to replicate like another space within FXVR.
    18:41
    If we ever do it, though, I know for Pinball VR Classic, those games, whichever it is, there's Universal Classics, Walking Dead, some Zen originals are in there. What else is in there? Jaws.
    18:54
    Yeah, Back to the Future. Paranormal. Yeah, Paranormal, Wild West, Rampage, all that. Yeah, the other thing that we need to make sure is we want to do backwards compatibility.
    19:05
    So we wouldn't ask people to purchase those again. So with regards to Star Wars then, if you didn't want to bring it over into this app, would there then be, but we will bring in the remaining tables into the Star Wars app?
    19:19
    That's a good question. Because I know that's kind of... It's possible, yeah. We would not go and probably fill Star Wars Primal VR with the remaining games. The new ones would probably go into FXVR. It doesn't make sense for us to go back narrow track to start Primal VR. I think that title is shipped. I think it's final. We did the two add-ons, which are free, I believe.
    19:44
    Yeah, okay. So the other really engaging thing, which we've sort of been doing ad hoc at the moment over in the Discord, is running tournaments. And they've just been so much fun, a little bit on the heavy maintenance side from the people who are organizing at the moment. But just the alignment of one focus table per week has just bought a us all together and had us feeling almost like we are gathering around a table to play together even if even though we're in different places i'm just wondering how are you feeling about tournament support in the game do you think it's going to be coming in 2026 sometime it's a good question i am going back to what we talked about a few minutes ago about how we spend our time and the amount of maintenance new content and then features and it's like features and innovation have been you know severely lacking and we'd like to spend more time there and so we're trying to rearrange things especially that's what the focus of these last three months in my time and Victor who's our head of studio what we've been trying to do is to make sure that we're supporting the game with new features because yes we actually I'm aware of your tournament play I'm not I meet with our community manager frequently we're getting those direct feedback to try to understand what to make we have the resources available and yes we want to we want to turn that kind of stuff on um i think walk about mini golf i don't know if you guys have ever played that yes yeah they to me that's like the benchmark like i really feel i'm connected with people when we go we play mini golf and we're talking about any number of things and we're playing together right so like we see how cool that is i would love to get something like that put together have the leaderboards have tournaments uh i agree that it's lacking we know it uh so hopefully our attention is going to turn to features yeah that's great yeah excellent the other one that i think i get questions about this constantly you probably see it as well it's um the uh the current exclusivity um with meta headsets for fxvr is there a glimmer of hope in the future that perhaps we might be seeing FXVR launch on other VR platforms?
    21:57
    Yeah, I think it's definitely possible. It's funny, when we make an announcement now, I swear the first 10 comments I see are about PSVR 2. Yeah.
    22:07
    Or SteamVR. SteamVR as well. There's been challenges in the past. I think we did a Star Wars Pinball VR. We were under some tight circumstances, and we tried to just optimize it and release a version, and it wasn't right like we really need dedicated we have to think about it natively so unless we can do that we we probably won't just do a port and release um i think that it would it would make sense i know also what's touchy for us on steam is people or you know i don't we have to evaluate is it part of pinball effects and we just turn on vr you know like a vr mode in the game or a little bit like magic pixel has is yeah you know these are big decisions for us and we don't want to, I mean, the last thing we want to do is try to do something good. And then we make people mad. And we seem to be really good at this. We think we're going to do something great, right? Oh, I think we're going to love this. And this is so community focused and minded. And we announced it and they're like, what the hell is wrong with you guys? You guys, this is the, you know, like, that's not what they wanted or they perceived it the wrong way. I guess that's our, it's our fault, but those kinds of decisions are monumental for us. So unless we have a super supportive development effort that can take place and really do it right. Man, I think we're past the state, like past the point where you can just do something half-assed.
    23:26
    Yeah, I think you're pretty much on the money there. You might as well do it right rather than doing it quickly and then iterating on it because I think people just are getting tired of being beta testers out in the wild, I think. I was going to say, me and Jared have really come across that with just our devices in the background with X-Arcade. and maybe you want to comment about what has been going on with them because I know that our interaction with them has been phenomenal The way they been communicating to the people out there has been really forthright And we've been kind of advising them in terms of things of going, hey, maybe you want to do this so you don't tick off people, you know, and everything. But I don't know, maybe I noticed, yeah, we have a little sneak peek of the VR that's coming out tomorrow. and I noticed in there, all of a sudden there's posters up for X-Arcade. So maybe you can talk a little bit about that partnership. Yeah.
    24:22
    I think X-Arcade are fantastic partners. Again, this is something that kind of like came up out of nowhere.
    24:30
    I actually was aware, I had one of their joystick controllers. I figured it out and that was like 10 years ago when I was playing a bunch of Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Could have even been longer than that, I forgot. But awesome game, and I had an X-Arcade joystick and high quality, and I knew it. But it was cool because we got something going just in time for GDC last year, I think. And we just kind of, yeah, it works. Ship it. Put it on the floor. And then, like, you know, when we were talking about it, everybody loved it. And since that time, we've gotten closer and closer. And there'll be some, I think, fantastic announcements coming in 2026. Yeah, there's now posters in the game, so they have an in-game presence. There may be more in-game presence coming as well.
    25:18
    But Matt over there, their engineer and kind of like the lead on the product side is responsive, great to work with. Yeah. He loves working with Matt. He's a legend. Yeah. So, you know, I have nothing but good things to say, and I'm really excited about where this is taking us into 2026. Well, especially with everybody about to get their hands on the pinball haptic kit that ordered it. Because that, we said when we first got this, we were like, oh, it's so close to being the perfect pinball controller. And then once we got the haptics in, we were like, it's the perfect pinball controller. So, it's, I think people are going to be so excited to play the game with the feel and everything that's going on with that. So we'll just – we'll throw it to a little – hey, if you want to get one of these, link down below. That gives us a little credit for recommending people over to X-Arcade.
    26:14
    I highly recommend it. If you've been on the fence, if you've got a headset and you want to – this is the best way to play. It really is. I mean the tables come to amazing life. I was so blown away by Scared Stiff and the Bat Glass. It just looked phenomenal, and I forgot that that's what it actually looks like. It's been so long since I've seen one in person.
    26:42
    I mean, just the look of it and looking at the Kong tables, it's like, oh, now I understand the layout completely because there's so much going on in those with the ramps and the creatures and everything else like that. It really is. It's completely the way to play.
    26:59
    Hey, Mel, I wanted to ask a few more, but potentially probing questions about the whole controller support thing. Because I've seen, I know certainly at the launch of FXVR, we had a fair few folks going, oh, Bluetooth controller support. What's going on with that? And I think it was someone on the Discord was saying there was actually a technical limitation to actually adding supporting because there was an MR library or something. Mumbo-jumbo technical stuff. which we won't go into, but has the studio worked out what's going on there? And are there going to be like different accessibility options like third-party control or support for folks who actually can't really play with the triggers? Yeah, I'm not up to date on the latest, but I do know I'm on threads. I'm copied and I read and like not all the stuff on it, but yes, this is in consideration. There's an active thread on it. I think it's something that the dev team has taken seriously enough that there's a long thread. So I would expect that you would see something on that. That's great. I'm sure the community is going to be really excited to hear that.
    28:05
    The other question was, and this is because once you've played with one of these controllers like X-Arcade, you want it everywhere. So I'm wondering, would the studio, with the infinite time that they have on their hands, think about adding dedicated XRK support to the existing properties like Star Wars and FX Classic to give that same level of integration that we have with the FX Core experience, the FXVR Core? Yeah, absolutely. Right. Yes, I'll say it that much. we see uh pinball as a genre uh in vr in the vr space we are clearly the leaders um and we would love to turn on those other two games to work with this device and it would just add a lot more value to to people who invested in this hardware now they've got other games that are you know working well so yeah yeah it adds an exceptional amount of content that you have access to as soon as you turn that on for people so yeah 100 agree it would be amazing um all right so that was all the i guess there's a few other mild i'll say mild developer questions i know we're not developers we just play them on tv yeah uh so um uh i'm actually kind of curious to see from a pipeline perspective how long does it actually take to actually do a pinball fx table for vr compared to like pinball fx flat you know like on flat screens is it one month two months like what's the sort of pipeline you need to add on to the normal development cycle for that a good question uh it depends if it's an original zen table if it's a licensed uh or if it's another those are just kind of you know things that uh will will weigh a development down uh it's i would say it's about like a it's like it's most limited probably a third of the normal development time like an additional third time all the way up to two thirds you know it's not quite full a double like qxing but depending on uh what property we're working with and depending on how many revisions and because 3d models are uh brought to life like that are are that's where most of the time is spent his environment in full immersion um so uh it's not a low lift interesting and kudos on uh whoever motion capped elvira yeah i actually i don't know who did it um but i know i know deep has done a lot of them and i can just imagine him trying to pull those moves off yeah that's it was very good i think everyone loves to actually see the full rendered elvira just like and you know we've talked in the past of cassandra being so great to work with as a licensee licensee license all um she's i'd imagine that relationship continues um with her engagement with pinball yeah wonderful team she's got a good team around her uh it was a very successful uh release so i was really happy with the results that's great um so you know with content in vr what's the the clear winner with um the popularity in the packs that you're selling is it are we talking williams being number one still or has there been a surprise outrunner or outlier there that's come up and going oh i wasn't expecting that To be honest, the great thing that's happened with VR is we're building a community kind of almost release by release. Wow. And we have a very high attach rate. So people who buy the game, they end up buying all the content. And we're seeing so everything is within a small margin of itself. I'd say the top to the bottom is less than 10% in units. That's not a widespread at all. I was expecting it to be much wider than that. That's really interesting. Everything is doing really well. And we've really focused on Williams because those had never been done in, you know, any type of VR and everybody was asking us for it. But Universal Classics, the TV, we did the launch content was TV, Universal TV.
    32:29
    And then we're going to have GBK and Charlie Brown releasing on the 4th. So that'll be our next opportunity to see, you know, what happens at Stomp Williams. but everything is within range of each other. There's no loser.
    32:44
    There's not been a game where we're like, oh, that was a dud. That happens every once in a while, but so far not in VR. That's really bright. I'm going to swoop in here, Jared, with a VR question that kind of merges also into AtGames talk. Me and Jared have a – we've had this discussion with eventually when Banzai Run comes into VR, will it be just like it is real game which is you just continue playing on the back glass or does it do what it does in flat ball where it you know the screen basically slides up but it still you know stays on that that lower portion so i imagine in vr is going to play just the same thing with like what elvira scared stiff in the spinning wheel where it was up there where it should be um are we in the ballpark of where that would kind of go idea wise yeah i i think so um i don't have the design in front of me uh but i i think that you know those are and those are sometimes what makes a table be a higher lift and we end up spending more time in development okay We need to figure out the mini-games and back glass games like that. I don't know what the answer is, honestly. And where that slides into at-games, I know everybody was anticipating with Scared Stiff, okay, is this going to be the first time Zen puts up an animated thing on the back glass with the spinner, and instead it just still stayed down low, much like it would be if you were just playing cabinet mode in Pinball FX. is there still too many limitations with the app games hardware in terms of how much bandwidth that would use to do that? Or is it just there's not really seeing a desire to make that back glass functional?
    34:40
    That's a big question. Fair enough. The hardware spec is public. Everybody knows what kind of hardware is in AtGames 4KP.
    34:54
    It's underpowered, in my opinion. Okay. In our opinion. I would say, we're not even running 4K games. I was like, and they knew this when we started making the machine. We told them what kind of performance we were going to get and what the limitations would be.
    35:11
    So, I would say that is the number, that's the holdup. Okay. another aspect that you had mentioned last time we had talked to you you had said that there was potential for uh interactivity that you guys were pushing for with ad games uh for the year of 2025 um other than product releases i don't really think any of that happened uh is there still uh the desire is there still some things you guys are thinking thinking that can potentially be added into the platform on Zen end Potentially The potential is there.
    35:52
    I think, you know, they've recently released this new HTTP. Yes. And I think they're interested in having us support that. um yeah i don't know uh we're gonna figure out what 2026 will look like with that games and uh i don't have a lot to say right now though okay no worries um less than uh slide on over to a couple of other things that were mentioned last year uh well the big one i know that is in everybody's mind pinball m um we were really high on it uh ready to go into 2025 and then we didn't see any releases for pinball m um and yet you mentioned something in the pinball bites uh we got some big things coming for it in 2026 we do uh we have something really big coming in 2020 in the first part of 2026 and i'm really really excited about this one we we were meant to have a release in 25 something happened with the licensor and uh we just yeah it's unfortunate thing happened uh i'm really bummed about it but we might be able to save that and but also put that out in 2026 pinball m is a game that we would love to be supporting and again i go back to sometimes we buy it off more than we can chew trying to do a good thing and then we get caught up in the weight of it all uh so we want to support m um it's crazy how well the games that are there do uh with that does for us we need more content there and uh the fun that we could have there with all the different licenses we could work with is still like just open opportunity everywhere so uh pinball m yes there'll be more coming and i wish i wish really really wish we could have done more with it in 2025 uh you had told us your uh wish list your your dream machines last year and i'll just remind you what they would have been titles uh fifth element starship troopers Congo, Game of Thrones, and Lord of the Rings. Would your list change at all now, or do you think those are still your Holy Grails?
    38:01
    Yeah, I would still love to do all those. Some of them might be happening, which is cool. Whoa. Okay.
    38:12
    Let's see. There's probably more, because things are trending, and new things pop up through the year and like you have a new favorite show or a new favorite game and like oh we can totally we can make a pinball game and the only way we could do that is with this ip or you know with that set of characters in that world and so you always have ideas and you know you get together in a room with creative people and pretty soon it's like what you realize is you can make a pinball game out of anything uh good and but does it offer us an opportunity to do something we've never done before that's the question uh okay does it feel brand new and not like oh this game reminds me of that game it's just a skin of that one you know i mean like can we really do a game mechanic that we've never done before it's only possible in this world and therefore we should go get that license to make this game so does that kind of fall into the innovation that you guys are looking to do it's part of it it's definitely part of it that's the question that we must ask ourselves from the very first moment now anytime we're going to make a game because we've made so many and we've done a lot of cool things uh we must stay in the realm of this has never been done. It can only be done here. Let's do that. And if that is answering the question, if it's not a physical machine that we're digitizing, if it's a brand new development from scratch, that is the most important question. I know that we've asked you this before and you'd kind of gone into, it's really hard to line up shows with licenses and that you guys can kind of like, we can't do that anymore. It's too much pressure. But within that time, and I know that we mentioned this last year without having the Bethesda pack and Fallout, and yet Fallout Season 2 is about to come. The Predator, we've had two Predator movies this year, still no AVP pack, and I know that that was also just dealing with trying to even plain get a hold of the licensors themselves.
    40:01
    But, do you think that there is, like, if you're able to get those licensors back on the phone, does it also go, and since you're still making content of that, we'd like to even do more tables involving that kind stuff yeah it's no question uh that helps definitely it's hard to sync up the launch day and date yeah on television but being a part of that period of time or announcing a game while it's trending and then it comes shortly thereafter is absolutely a perfect alignment for us and we we try to hit that we saw a huge lift uh for bethesda pinball and it's only it's in FX3 with the launch of Fallout. It was meaningful.
    40:43
    And Bethesda 3, we're like, oh, you guys think what's happening with Bethesda Pinball? And they're like, yeah, it's fantastic.
    40:52
    Excellent. You had teased a couple of other titles. One of them was a mean tease, and everybody was mad that I didn't follow up on it, that you had been talking about NBA Fast Break. So it wouldn't be one of these things unless I mentioned that in Roller Games.
    41:06
    Uh, we're going to try to get NBA fast break. Um, it's not, it's not a 2026. Okay. But I think, I think it could happen in 2027. Yeah. Very good. There's a lot of being in the tunnel.
    41:19
    There's an NBA players association and you've got players who are retired. Right. Um, and you've got, you've got a lot going on to me. Uh, it's not quite as hard as Indiana Jones, uh, to get done, but it's in that realm. Wow. Okay. um where was i gonna go with this oh sourcing of machines i know this has been uh somewhat of a difficulty for you guys um you're gonna say about the machine you received no no no there will have that conversation later that's a whole nother ball of wax um but uh hence why i'm wearing the t-shirt um but uh no just the sourcing of the machines Because I know that, like you said last time, you're like, anybody in Europe with a Cactus Canyon, let us know. Have there been a few other machines that have been just elusive to get? Yeah, in our part of the world where we need the machine to be on location in Hungary, there are some challenges that we've seen.
    42:20
    We actually are in the process of purchasing one right now, which we found in Europe, which is coming to the studio. A very good one that we've been trying to get a long time. So, I think we're getting that done. We now have approval to go buy these machines if we can't source them locally. Oh, wow. Okay. Right? Like, just getting the range to do stuff like that. That's excellent. That's actually a huge difference. Looking into 2026, what are some teases, some hints, directions that we might be expecting?
    43:00
    Okay. Well, we have a plan. We always have a plan for what the next year is going to bring, and then we try to stick to that. But things, I mean, if we've done this talk for five years, I would say probably, hopefully 75% of what we thought was going to happen. I would say that. I'd say you're a little bit more than that, but yeah. I'd say so. there's some really big big hitters on the williams side um that are coming together uh that we're going to get released next year and our new approach is going to be like once we get them and all the business is done we're going to move to uh announce them as quickly as possible even if the release date isn't like we might not know exactly the release date but we just feel like it's important to communicate to everybody the magnitude of what we're trying to work and you know we'll announce it if it's going to launch in that calendar year so you can probably see us change a little bit you know especially some of these games we uh with the way marketing works and everything now these days like you want to have a the coming soon page or the wish list up and it just helps you like so it's it's for us but there's a couple i'm hoping that we can announce in early 2026 that'll really set the stage for a fantastic year um but we're working on i would say like we're going for it on the william games everyone would expect for us to release some games that have never been launched. That was going to be my next question.
    44:19
    In 2026, you will see games that have never been in digital before. And we can still expect some, I mean, beyond the Pinball M side of things for regular pinball effects, some Zen originals also coming that direction? You will see Pinball M releases that were Zen originals next year for Pinball M. It depends because some of these deals are pending, and we're and we now and it's like we do this thing uh which you've seen where you can have the fx version and the m version m is you know the fully the full-blown content and those are just cross by so you can buy one you get them both um we've got a couple opportunities uh that would be those as well uh for for pinball m and uh yeah so it's it's focused on williams but there will be um some zen originals and then there's there's a wild card thing that we're working on right now that's coming together and if that happens then oh my god uh it'll be something amazing so uh fingers crossed that we can make all the the big ideas uh come together at some point whether it's 26 or 27 i think there's going to be monumental moments uh as i look at marvel pinball in 2010 star wars in 2013 williams announcement what was that 2018 we announced yes i think in 2026 and 27 could be uh something as big as this no wow okay actually one aside question it does m have a place in fxvr somehow not right now we don't have any of those uh tables released and i don't know i have to go and review um meta's policy i think if it's I don't know that we can do that.
    46:05
    Right, right. Yep, fair enough. Yeah, because a couple of those have shown up on App Games' platform. So I think that's where people started getting a little bit confused. It's like a little age rating moniker thing on it. Yeah. All right.
    46:23
    Jared, you got anything else that we want to throw Mel's way before we let him go? Look, I do, but we're out of time. So, yeah.
    46:35
    Fair enough. We might have to – we're going to put on our speculation hats, I feel, in the future, and we'll play in that arena. All right. Mel, as usual, thank you so much for taking the time to join us. I know it's insanely busy for you. It only gets harder every year for us to lock you in. But in our opinion, that's a good thing because it just means the studio is doing fantastic things. Yep. Always enjoy it, guys. Whenever we talk, the time flies by. I know we should probably do it more often. But, you know, and always appreciate the way you guys cover the industry and everything. So thank you. All right. Thank you so much. And, folks, that's all we got for you this time around. So until next time, that's us signing out. And, Jared, always wanting to do what comes next.
    47:22
    Stuff and things for everybody. There you go. Stuff and things for everybody. All right. Until then, bye now, folks. See you.
    47:31
    Thank you.