Hey! I'm in your tummy, it's back to me! Take your mouth out and keep them separated! I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say, I say! Ah, welcome everybody! Welcome to Canada's Pinball Podcast, the world's most popular pinball podcast based on your twippy votes. What are we going to talk about? Happy Wednesday, it is hump day. Every day that goes closer to December. Every day we wake up, we are getting one day closer to Keith Elwin's jaws. and that's what everybody's waiting for. Nobody's really that concerned about when Elton John is going to be on the line. Yeah, we're all waiting for Pulp Fiction, but we all know it's going to be a lot longer than we thought, and it's already been almost a year. We might get that game by the end of the year, but most people are really waiting for the LE, which is not going to happen until like maybe March of next year. We're all waiting to see if Stern Pinball is going to raise prices. We're going to talk about that. nobody's waiting to get their Galactic Tank Force because nobody ordered any more Galactic Tank Forces. We're going to talk about what American Pinball has to do now. Like, where do they go from here? They're not going to get new orders for this game. So what's next from American Pinball? We're going to talk about how Stern has some code update with Batman. Does that mean Batman's going to be remade? I'm seeing people say like, oh yeah, now that there's a new code update, that's 100% guarantee there's going to be a 60th anniversary of Batman. But let's start out this episode of Canada's Pinball Podcast talking about this great video that was put together by Barrels of Fun with Adam Savage over at Mythbusters. In just one day, this video about the making of Labyrinth has 60,000 views alone. Now just think about that for a minute. That's not a lot of views when it comes to YouTube videos. It's not a lot of downloads or views when it comes to internet content. But if you think about a company that needs to sell 1100 games, I think more than half of them are spoken for. So let's just say they have to sell 450 more labyrinth pinball machines. Having a video like this go up to 60,000 nerds and geeks out there in the world is a great way to secure the remainder of sales in this game. And I will say this, I watched this video, I watched all of this video, and I felt envy. I don't normally feel envy. And the envy I felt was this. I was envious that these nerds geeked out so much over Labyrinth. And hearing from the art director, Johnny Fraser-Allen, this guy is like the biggest Labyrinth nerd ever. He's like making Labyrinth board games and figures and they brought them on to this project, which is awesome. And you could tell it was like a dream theme for these guys and they made it into pinball form. The guy was going to make his own pinball machine before Barrels of Fun even reached out to him. And after watching this video, I was just envious that I don't have the love affair and the passion for Labyrinth, but I'm super happy that the people that made this theme love this property so much. And we need more of this passion in pinball. See, when people say positivity and passion in pinball, this is what we need more of. Not handing Eric Minier, the godfather, and he's never really seen the movie and is not a huge fan of the property. It's not just handing Steve Ritchie, Elton John, and say, here's your assignment. These guys made the theme they really wanted to make. I feel like the last time we saw something like this, where from the ground up, this is what they really wanted to make was a game called the Big Lebowski. And we all saw how Dutch pinball really put the world of the Big Lebowski under glass. So after watching this video, if you were like on the fence about Labyrinth and maybe you like the movie and you're not sure yet whether or not you're going to go in on a game, this was one of the greatest sales materials I've ever seen for a pinball machine. And this is how you do it, right? This is really how you do it. And look, Adam is a professional and this video was really well done. And I want to say hats off to the people at Barrels of Fun because I think this is what we need more of. We need this kind of passion. We need this kind of content. And I would have launched this game with this content. Like how much more exciting was that content than watching Bo and Karen's put us to sleep for 20 minutes in the dark wormhole arcade? No offense, JB, I'm still going to rag on you because it was too dark. This was a great piece of content that would help both this company as a brand. You notice I'm not making fun of barrels as much anymore because they're doing stuff right. And now all I can hope from a company with this much passion that they make a theme next that speaks to me. I hope they make The Fifth Element. If they make The Fifth Element, I will buy probably Sight Unseen. I love that movie so much. If they make Akira, if they make Big Trouble in Little China, if they make Goonies, I could go down a list. if they make Karate Kid. And there are so many themes at their disposal that I think Stern Pinball will sleep on. So good job, Barrels of Fun, on that video. All right, I watched a little bit more of Pinball Brothers and their Ripley Code, right? Now that Ripley's on the game and is in the game itself in the code, I wanted to just watch like a few minutes to see what it's like. Are we gonna get Sigourney Weaver and Ripley into this game? And yeah, she's in there. She's in the clips. She's on the artwork. The one thing that's really disappointing, and I think this is with all of Alien, is you still don't get synced up video from the movie. So when the actors are talking, you don't see their audio synced up with their video. And so all of these Ripley clips are just like clips of her looking at stuff, clips of her like making facial reactions or running down the hallway. But you never see Sigourney Weaver looking at the screen and actually saying something iconic or memorable from the movie. And look, everybody, we all know why, because that's a more expensive thing to grab. And because Pinball Brothers Alien is not that expensive I can kind of excuse it But in a Stern or a Jersey Jack every time you have an asset from a movie it better be from that movie, it better be synced up properly. I still don't like to this day the way Willy Wonka, a musical, does not have any synchronization between the video and the audio. And again, at this much money, people, there should be no compromises. But at least they got Ripley into the game and that's the important part. What else is happening in the world of pinball? Another topper has come out. An unofficial topper has come out by Electric Playground for the Big Lebowski. Only 100 are going to be made. Super limited. $1,179. If you just want the wall art version that doesn't go on top of the game, Well, you can have that for $779. I'm looking at this topper, people. I'm looking at the layers of flat plastic that they keep stacking on top of each other to make it seem like it's 3D sculpted, but it's not. I mean, go look at the making of this topper. You're telling me for like $1,200, basically, you can't sculpt a bowling pin? You can go buy used authentic bowling pins for like $5. And the thing about this topper, and I'm just gonna say this right now, these guys also did that monstrosity that went on top of Godzilla. And I think they need to learn a lesson here. And I'm gonna tell them what the lesson is. I think the lesson they need to learn is common sense. So you're gonna stick this massive bowling topper on top of a big Lebowski, where the colors on the bowling topper don't match at all the colors on the Translite. So when you stand back and just look at the game, you've got this beautiful artwork on the Translight. It's got a color palette that matches all the rest of the artwork on the game. And then you're going to stick on top of that, right, where it's mostly browns and bronzes and a more like brown hue kind of art palette. You're going to stick this purple and violet and like colorful bowling topper on top of that game. It just doesn't work. Let me give an analogy, people. A topper on a pinball machine should be the cherry on top of the sundae, all right? The ice cream sundae is the pinball machine. The topper is the cherry on top. It should not look like another freaking scoop of ice cream. And when you put these massive toppers on top of these pinball machines, I didn't like their Godzilla topper. I didn't like that other monstrosity that went on top of Pirates of the Caribbean. It wasn't by this company. It was by that other pinball topper company. The fact that they're trying to make these toppers like so significant defeats the purpose. Again, it should be more subtle. It should blend in with the game. It shouldn't be the focal point of the game. The Black Knight topper blends in with the Black Knight game. Stern's Batman topper, it blends in with Batman 66 perfectly, perfectly. If you look at the topper for Pulp Fiction, it's perfect. It blends in perfect with that game. It's not doing too much. Basically this topper it just looks like you're sticking this huge sign on top of your game and the irony in calling it that is They're selling it separately as a sign. I know they're almost sold out. So congratulations to them They found enough people who think this thing looks good. And here's the other part why I wouldn't buy this stuff This is not the official topper from dutch pinball And we know that leor who's an amazing sculptor is going to be making the official topper for the big lebowski Now he's probably busy because he's sculpting a game called Back to the Future. So eventually it will come out. In the end, the only real toppers people are ever going to want are the toppers that are officially released by the companies. It's like a spoiler on a car. You're not going to put a spoiler on a Porsche that's not an OEM Porsche spoiler. You know, and that's just how it is. Like it all needs to come from OEM. You know, I think there was a period where like we were all pissed off that companies weren't remaking toppers and we wanted some options. You know, I think people are starting to calm down on the topper craze and I think it's kind of stupid. I mean, look at the Elton John CE topper, for example. I see they put up a video of what that topper can do. And I'm watching this video of a guy with his head down playing Elton John collector's edition. And all of a sudden, like 10 feet above him, there's this explosion of lights and lasers and the JJP logo. All of it is happening over the player's head. And that guy can't see anything. So then what is the point of sticking that like at most $50 laser light show thing on top of the topper and then having two screens that have Elton John playing in concert, all of which none of the player can even see? And this is the point, people, where it's like pinball has jumped the shark a little bit. Like we're just making stupid decisions that have no common sense. A topper should just be a beautiful cherry on top of the game. It shouldn't be trying to do all this stuff. When you see like the Elton John topper, all that screams to me is this like desperate attempt to convey some value to the customer. None of that's going to be enjoyed by the owner of the machine when they're playing their game. And it's not like this thing is out on location. We're like, oh, my God, what's that over there, honey? I don't know. Let's go walk over towards that light and see what's underneath it. Oh, look, it's an Elton John CE pinball machine. Let's spend $15,000 and get it into our home, even though the average American is like $15,000 in credit card debt. It's just not going to happen. It's like this weird thing to like attract people over that makes no sense because anyone who owns this thing is going to be in their home. And who's got a 20 foot ceiling to let that thing operate properly. Oh man, toppers. Can you tell I'm not a fan of toppers? Like there was a period for you newbies in the hobby during the height of COVID. People were spending like almost $4,000 on the Black Knight topper. Some people were spending that much on the Ghostbusters topper and it just got really stupid. And it just goes to show you collectors were just desperate to have something unique and something collectible And because the games were everywhere or they weren remaking games we started to put an inordinate amount of value on something as stupid as a topper Now that being said if Stern ever does remake Batman and they remake the topper, which is really the only thing that holds the value for the LEs and SLEs, I'm absolutely gonna come at Stern with pitchforks, okay? All right, so that's the electric playground topper, everybody, layers and layers of flat plastic bolted together. All right, what else is going on in the world of pinball? Let's talk about this new Batman code. So it just dropped Batman code 1.11. Apparently it was meant to fix a bug in the game that caused the game to crash. And that's it, there's nothing else in the game, right? They're not adding more seasons. They're not adding more villains. They're not adding anything else. And because Stern dropped this, everybody is like, well, that's them telegraphing that they're gonna make another Batman run. Why would they fix this game if they're not going to make another run? And I'm like, well, maybe they just fixed it because something was broken and thousands of people own the game already. And that's what you're supposed to do as a pinball company. You're not supposed to be like Jersey Jack and never fix your code and never finish the code after six years. Hello, Pirates of the Caribbean. Hello, Guns N' Roses. Now it's going to go on four years with no Guns N' Roses final code. You know, you're just supposed to do this stuff. What I think Stern needs to stop doing, if what you're doing is just releasing a patch that just fixes a single bug in the game, I think you need to stop marketing it as like brand new code Batman, you know, with the flyer and the big letters and all this stuff. Like you're celebrating it and screaming from the rooftops like something new is for the game that's going to make the game amazing. Then you read the readme file and it's like nothing. It's like wah wah. I think they need to just release this stuff as patches. So like maybe just stop at code 1.09 and then make version one or version two and those numbers just indicate what patch number it is of that version. A code update should always signify a major update in the game. Now look, do I think they're gonna bring back Batman 60th? Do I think Stern Pinball is gonna remake a game like that? You know, I've heard two things that make me feel like they might not. One is that this was a Joe Kamnikow thing. And now that it seems like Joe Kamnikow might be working on that game where there are no roads needed, he might be busy with another pinball company and not focused over at Stern Pinball. We haven't seen much from Joe Kamnikow over at Stern because remember, he brought that license to Stern Pinball. So maybe he's done with that. I heard that the Adam West estate is much more difficult to deal with than Adam West himself. Remember, when they made this game, Adam West was still alive. I met him at Texas Pinball Festival. I have a signed Batman flyer with his name on it. So he was heavily involved in this game. But if you were to ask me, looking at what Stern's been doing recently, there is absolutely a really good chance they will make another Batman. They will burn me as an SLE owner that spent $25,000. In fact, they might just make it just to burn Kaneda alone. You know, I saw yesterday someone put up for sale an Elvira 40th. This is the cheapest I've ever seen it recently. For $14,900 or best offer. $14,900 or best offer. Those games sold for $25,000 when they came out. Oh man, it's just crazy. I still think the 40th with all of the color is more interesting to look at than the Blood Kiss Edition. But I also think the Blood Kiss Edition looks amazing. I mean, they're both really nice. It just sucks, though, if you bought a 40th for $25 and you're seeing this blood kiss for $13. I mean, Stern screwed you over. There's no other way to skin it. They screwed you over. It's not just because they made another. It's because they priced it at $13 and they priced yours at $25. That's how they screwed you over. All right, what else is going on in pinball? Let's talk about whether or not we think Jaws is going to see a price increase. So the rumors, let's just tally what we know about Jaws so far, most of which has come from Kaneda. There's going to be three barrels in the game, yellow barrels that drop down and open up your shot to the shark. There's going to be a mechanical shark in the game that you shoot at and most likely bash. There's going to be a shark fin that pops up from underneath the playfield and moves around the playfield. Super cool. There might be an upper playfield. So will it be a four or five flipper game if there's an upper playfield? will the upper playfield have one flipper? Will it even have a flipper? You could do something else with an upper playfield. Maybe it's got magna flips up there. I don't really see Keith Elwin as a magna flip guy though. You know, he's a player. He wants control. I don't think he wants like chaotic magna flipping going on. Now I do think it would be awesome if the upper playfield was the orca and it sank. Like that would be super cool. Like it starts up high and then it sinks down. Imagine that. Like an upper playfield, as you go through the game, it starts to take on water and then it sinks throughout the game and Jaws jumps up on it. I'm getting too excited because I have to keep reminding myself this is still a Stern. I mean, most of this game is going to be flat plastic. Like this is not going to be a highly stylized, sculpted world under glass. Stern doesn't do that. Stern has never done that. We are going to get so much flat plastic in this game. It's not even going to be funny. So that's what's going to be in this game. The other thing I heard on the Ellie artwork, it features the woman swimming in the ocean, and that is going to be predominantly what is the Ellie art package. We also think it's going to be Randy Martinez on artwork. He did Mandalorian artwork, and that's what we know about Jaws so far. The last thing is they don't have all the assets from the movie. In this pinball marketplace, where prices are at, do you think Stern can raise prices? Well, if there ever was a game to raise prices on, it would be Jaws. But I think there's no way. Looking at where this market's at, Stern has to be seeing people losing $3,000 on all of their Foo Fighters and Venoms. I think it really difficult for Stern to raise prices right now I think there will be mutiny on that ship if they do it I also think Stern was laughing all the way to the bank that they got people to buy Foo Fighters for $13,000 when you look at what's in that game. I mean, there's not that much mechanical engineering stuff in that game. So I think they've been making bank off of Foo Fighters. You know, I think they took a real big hit on Venom, right? Venom didn't have much in it either, and they know they're going to have a juggernaut hit with this game. And I think if Stern were smart, keep the prices where they are at. Trust me when I say this, if you listen, Stern marketing team, these prices are already too high. If you try to get more blood from this stone, people are going to stop buying your games for good. Speaking of stop buying games for good, let's end this episode with our poor friends over at American Pinball, seemingly trying to sell more Galactic Tank Force games. Their next three titles are original IPs. Is there any future left for American Pinball? I am going to go out on a limb and say the following. I don't think American Pinball survives to the end of 2024. I think the sales are not there. I think Mukesh will grow tired of David Fix. I think his promises to Mukesh have not panned out. I don't think he has a hit game waiting in the wings. I don't think he knows what a hit game is. I think he's made a lot of bad decisions. He's a nice guy. He runs a good pinball expo. But when it comes to making decisions to run a pinball company, he's made terrible decisions. And eventually those decisions will catch up with him because Mukesh makes a lot of money in his other business and he doesn't want to lose. And he's losing time and time again by banking on someone who is basically his version of George Gomez who doesn't know how to do anything right. And I don't understand how many chances you get. When you're a small boutique company like American Pinball, like Dutch Pinball, like Barrels of Fun, like Spooky Pinball, you can't come out with games after you know what you're doing. And it's like game number five and six. You can't come out with duds that nobody wants. You need to keep making every game better than the previous game. And they have not done that. It has always been just a series of mistakes after mistakes after mistakes. And now that Barrels of Fun is here and showed them up and Spooky is running circles around American Pinball, it really begs the question, is there still a need for American Pinball? Until they can show us they can make something competitive with what's in the marketplace, you really have to be waking up after a crazy bender or be hanging out with Hunter Biden to think that buying an American pinball galactic tank force is a good idea. And if you own one, and I know some of my listeners do, and you're like, Chris, the game is fun. Saying the game is fun is the biggest cop out in this industry. It's like when you walk up to someone's baby, you're just going to say it's cute because all babies are cute. But deep down inside, you know there are beautiful babies like Killian and there's ugly babies. So just saying a baby's cute is par for the course. When you say a pinball machine is fun, yeah, whatever. What next? Is it worth it? What do you love about it? What are the moments that are amazing? Where are the mechs that are amazing? Where is the world under glass? Where? Where is the stuff? You know, and watch how fast nobody has anything to say. It's not well executed. All right, everybody, what else is going on in pinball? Just going to let everybody know because they're not going to promote this. But I will be going Saturday to Automated Pinball to be joining Mike at Automated. He's having a party there and a tournament. And Jack Guarnari is going to be there with Elton John. I'm super excited to finally jump on this game. Before even jumping on it, I know I'm going to like the way it shoots. The feedback has been phenomenal on the layout of the game. But I hope to do my 10 o'clock Saturday morning live from Automated. I also hope to hopefully get Jack on camera. Todd Tuckey's going to be there. Mike's going to be there. If you're thinking of going, now you know Kanaid is going to be there. I've already spoken to Mike, so he's not going to ban me from showing up. Mike's an amazing guy. And so this is going to be a really awesome Saturday morning spectacular. The door is open at Automated at 9 a.m. I'm going to get there pretty early, set up shop, go live at 10 o'clock. I want to get there early too and hop on Elton John for a while so that when I go live, I'll have a good amount of games on it before I can give you some impressions. So that's going to happen. I'm super excited. Just a few days away from that. And then Friday, my five-year wedding anniversary with my beautiful Brenda. So I can't wait for that. A lot of good days coming up. And then we're into December. And then like the holidays really begin. I know Mariah Carey says it's November 1st, but come December 1st, people, everyone should to just get into that holiday spirit. I'm not buying any pinball machines this winter. I'm just waiting. I'm still going to wait and see. I have high hopes for Jaws, but I still am a little bit nervous. I'm just a little bit nervous that if it has no assets, it's not going to hit the same way Godzilla did. Everybody, thank you so much for the support. We're only 31 people away from 700 legitimate subscribers to canada's pinball podcast more than every single pinball podcast combined so what i would like for 31 of you to do is just get a friend of yours to sign up that is all i want for christmas to hit 700 legit subscribers and the second thing i want for christmas is all of your twippy votes. After they tried to cancel me, everybody, let's show them what real positivity looks like and get every one of you and your wives and your kids and your cleaning ladies and your dog walkers to vote Canada's Pinball Podcast. Everybody, have a great day. We'll talk to you soon.