Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

EP22 PinTalk

The Pinball Studio Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 15m·analyzed·May 11, 2026
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Operator Eric Edwards discusses Beetlejuice tech support, hints at Spooky's next game, and market dynamics as production scales.

Summary

Eric Edwards, owner of Radioactive Arcade, joins the Pinball Studio podcast for casual discussion on recent pinball releases, arcade operations, and industry dynamics. Topics include Spooky's Beetlejuice performance and its rocky technical launch, hints about Spooky's next unannounced game (Goonies), secondary market softening as production ramps, arcade accessibility modifications, and plans for a new podcast show featuring Eric, David, and the host covering competitive play, operations, and repair expertise.

Key Claims

  • Spooky's next game after Beetlejuice is 'already pretty well sold out' and is Goonies (code/logo leaks confirmed)

    high confidence · Eric Edwards states multiple times that Goonies code has dropped and logos/artwork have been found; discusses it as unconfirmed but essentially confirmed through leaks

  • Beetlejuice had 1,000 units in initial production run, but show games (dozen at Pinball at the Beach, 19-20 at Texas Pinball Festival) added ~40+ units, bringing true production to ~1,040-1,100

    high confidence · Eric Edwards provides specific show game counts and explains that show games were part of the numbered run but required separate production

  • Beetlejuice secondary market has softened as production ramps; Eric sold his unit at $14k when asking price was $16k+ due to slow market

    high confidence · Eric Edwards explicitly states he had to keep dropping the Beetlejuice price until it sold; notes market softening as more games enter market

  • Beetlejuice experienced severe technical issues on initial delivery: code update crash, servo/imaging corruption requiring manual recalibration of all settings, and repeated boot lock-ups on different developer screens

    high confidence · Eric Edwards provides detailed account of troubleshooting; credits Spooky tech support (Mike Tori and AJ) for resolution by overnighting replacement PC

  • Jumping the Line song license for Beetlejuice was 'not cheap' and required substantial additional payment after initial game design

    medium confidence · Eric Edwards mentions hearing the licensing cost was expensive; speculates Spooky covered it by building show games to offset costs

  • Halloween (Spooky) has powder coat finish issues where surfaces tarnish black when touched; solution is clear coating after removal

    high confidence · Eric Edwards explains tarnishing is caused by metals in the powder coat reacting to hand oils; confirms he clear coated his own unit and no longer has issues after 13,000 plays

  • John Wick's underperformance was due to code quality, not theme or mechanics; lead coder Tim Sexton left for Chicago Gaming early in development

Notable Quotes

  • “Yeah, if you're not already on the list for, I'm just going to go ahead and call it Goonies, even though it's not confirmed... somebody found the Goonies logo. I saw that earlier. All of the code dropped.”

    Eric Edwards @ early in episode — First strong hint that Spooky's next game is Goonies, based on leaked code and logo evidence

  • “I mean, when there's nowhere you can get them less than 16 and you're out in 14... the market's a little slow right now. I had to keep dropping it down until I got it sold.”

    Eric Edwards @ mid-episode — Direct evidence of secondary market softening for Beetlejuice despite its popularity

  • “So really, there's probably 1,100 or 1,150? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I think there was a dozen of them at Pinball at the Beach... 20 at Texas Pinball Festival. They wanted 20, but they couldn't fit them all on the truck, so it ended up being 19 games.”

    Eric Edwards @ mid-episode — Clarifies actual production numbers vs. advertised 1,000; shows show games strategy

  • “When I turned it back on, the system crashed... we ended up re-imaging the game, which caused its own issues... every servo is just all their default settings go to mid. Oh, it screwed up everything.”

    Eric Edwards @ early-mid episode — Details Beetlejuice's severe technical launch issues and the troubleshooting nightmare

  • “Spooky was incredible. I talked with, I believe her name was Mike Tori... switching over to AJ, and AJ overnighted me a PC for it. That's awesome.”

    Eric Edwards @ mid-episode — Praise for Spooky's customer support responsiveness despite initial failures

  • “I love the game, but I love the theme. It's one that personally I can just sit there. They did such a great job with theme integration.”

    Eric Edwards @ mid-episode — Confirms Beetlejuice's strong theme execution despite technical issues

  • “That game doesn't seem to take the constant abuse that our games take as well as, say, a new Stern. So I think I'm just going to bring it back seasonally.”

Entities

Eric EdwardspersonSpooky PinballcompanyRadioactive ArcadevenueBeetlejuicegameGooniesgamePinball StudioorganizationMike ToripersonAJperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Beetlejuice experienced severe system-level technical issues on initial delivery: code update triggered system crash, imaging file corruption caused servo default position loss requiring full manual recalibration of all servo settings, and repeated boot failures with developer screen lock-ups. Required multiple troubleshooting iterations and replacement hardware (PC) from manufacturer.

    high · Eric Edwards' detailed account of re-imaging, servo reset issues, and multiple boot failures requiring manufacturer intervention

  • $

    market_signal: Beetlejuice secondary market showing price pressure and slower sales velocity as production ramps. Eric Edwards had to reduce asking price from $16k+ to $14k to achieve sale; reports another operator in Atlanta also sold Beetlejuice same morning. Concern expressed about further softening as more units enter market.

    high · Eric states 'market's a little slow right now. I had to keep dropping it down until I got it sold' and 'I wonder if it's going to get worse' as production increases

  • ?

    machine_intel: Spooky's unannounced next game confirmed via code leak and logo/artwork discovery in the wild. Multiple sources (code drop, cabinet artwork photo) independently corroborate the theme is Goonies. Game reportedly already sold out despite no official run count announcement.

    high · Eric states 'somebody found the Goonies logo... All of the code dropped' and 'their next game is already pretty well sold out' and later discusses seeing Goonies cabinet artwork on overseas posts

  • ?

    product_strategy: Spooky Pinball produced show games (19-20 at Texas Pinball Festival, dozen at Pinball at the Beach) as part of numbered production run to offset high licensing costs (particularly for Jumping the Line music). Strategy allows manufacturer to justify premium licensing fees by leveraging show exposure and demo builds into numbered unit count.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.228

0:00
Hello and welcome to episode 22 of the Pinball Studio podcast. Today I've got Eric Edwards back on, owner and operator of Radioactive Arcade. And yeah, we're just going to chat some pinball, so no journey into pinball today. But first off, let's mention the sponsors. Old Town Pinball, do you need a new or used pinball machine? Just head over to his website, oldtownpinball.com. Also, The Electric Playground, time to level up your game room with a new topper. Check out their website, teppinball.com. And last but not least, Spooky Pinball. Order your Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Scooby-Doo, or Looney Tunes today. Anyway, welcome back to the show, Eric. How's it going, my friend?
1:08
Thanks, man. I'm glad to get back here and do it again. We're doing it right this time. I see we're doing video the first time, and I see on your desk you've got an adult beverage. An adult beverage, absolutely. Yeah, man. I'm sitting here with a huge twisted tee, so I'm going to be up pissing all night, which is, you know, I'm going to pay for this. I've got to get up from 4.30 in the morning and go to work. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's no fun. I am not going to work at 4.30. I am delivering and setting up a James Bond for someone tomorrow. Premium or pro? It is a premium. Oh, nice. I don't really got so much in. That's one of the games that I figure you can have a pro in and be cool. I mean, there's some that you got, like Godzilla, you got out of their premium. I heard you mention the sponsors, Spooky. I noticed you didn't mention buys Beetlejuice or even their next game, which supposedly is already sold out. Yeah.
2:05
Yeah, if you're not already on the list for, I'm just going to go ahead and call it Goonies, even though it's not confirmed. Yeah, you're probably not going to get one, unfortunately.
2:14

medium confidence · Host speculates; Eric Edwards agrees, citing Tim Sexton departure as a significant factor in early code quality issues

Eric Edwards @ late-episode — Indicates durability/reliability concerns with Halloween (Spooky) under heavy arcade use vs. Stern games

  • “I think that really describes what we're going for in this podcast: to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, hear the lamentation of the women.”

    Host @ late-episode — Humorous mission statement for new podcast show; signals new content planned

    • Tim Sexton
    person
    Davidperson
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Pinball at the Beachevent
    Halloweengame
    Evil Deadgame
    John Wickgame
    Elliot Eisenmanperson
    Chicago Gamingcompany
    Star Wars Trilogygame
    Erinperson
    Pinball Palacevenue

    medium · Eric explains: 'they're not very far into the run... they're at like 320 because they built show games. So you know, I don't think they're going to have a problem building all of them now' and speculates licensing cost recovery via show game strategy

  • ?

    community_signal: Tension between collector demand (FOMO-driven holdouts for numbered units) and operator market (secondary market softening as production increases). Operators like Eric actively managing inventory and secondary sales; collector market showing early saturation warnings as games begin to flow to market.

    medium · Eric discusses selling Beetlejuice to pay off bills while noting market softening; speculates future softening if 200-300 units reach market; references complaint from collector (Kaneda) about show game strategy diluting exclusivity

  • ?

    product_concern: Halloween (Spooky) units experienced powder coat tarnishing issue where surfaces turn black when handled due to reactive metals in coating reacting to hand oils. Solution discovered by community: remove and clear coat affected parts. Issue confirmed resolved in later production runs; affects cosmetics but not gameplay.

    high · Eric explains: 'Some kind of metals in it... tarnishes black... the oils in your hand' and confirms his later-run unit had no issue after clear coating solution implemented by community

  • ?

    product_concern: Halloween (Spooky) shows reduced durability under heavy commercial arcade use compared to Stern games; Eric converting to seasonal-only operation (brings in for Halloween) to reduce public exposure wear; suggests quality control concerns or design robustness issues vs. newer Stern baseline.

    medium · Eric states: 'that game doesn't seem to take the constant abuse that our games take as well as, say, a new Stern... I'm just going to bring it back seasonally' and mentions earlier quality control may not have been as good as today's

  • ?

    operational_signal: Eric Edwards implementing accessibility modifications for wheelchair users and single-armed players: shortened legs for wheelchair clearance, universal design to allow one-handed play. Seeking powder coating services for custom-cut shortened legs; identified cost barrier (larger shops require batch orders).

    high · Eric describes ordering and machine-shop-cutting custom legs, seeking powder coat services for accessibility mods, and explaining motivation from observing disabled patrons struggling with standard machines

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Elliot Eisenman, mechanical engineer at Stern, elevated to designer role after successful John Wick project (first title). Positioned as rising designer within Stern organization; John Wick treated as 'wetting his feet' before full designer responsibilities.

    medium · Host describes Eisenman as 'mechanical engineer for Stern. They gave him a chance on John Wick... now it sounds like he's an actual designer'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: John Wick's early underperformance attributed primarily to code quality issues rather than theme or mechanical design. Layout and shooting mechanics praised; code updates and fixes identified as key to improving player experience and game viability.

    medium · Host and Eric agree: 'I think honestly it was just the code is why it didn't do well at first' with Tim Sexton's early departure as primary cause of code quality gaps

  • ?

    content_signal: Identified gap in pinball podcast content creation: listeners exhaust available episodes within a week, leaving gaps in content consumption. New Pinball Studio show being launched to address demand for more operators/competitive player focused content with multiple perspectives (operations, competitive play, repairs/tournament organization).

    medium · Eric states: 'there's a huge deficit in the pinball podcast space... I have these few shows that I listen to and when I've listened to all of them, it leaves me like a week of nothing'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Jumping the Line song license for Beetlejuice required substantial additional investment beyond initial game budget. Cost was 'not cheap' and required manufacturer to devise show game strategy to offset licensing expenses through extended production and demo visibility.

    medium · Eric mentions: 'I heard the number on that song and it was not cheap... if they went back and paid it, then I'm guessing they said well, you know, we'll just crank out... bring a dozen or 20 or something and that'll cover the cost'

    • Hopefully they build more this year. We'll see. Yeah, I would think they can justify bringing the count up. But, I mean, yeah, you know, somebody found the Goonies logo. I saw that earlier. All of the code dropped. Oh, yeah, that. Beetlejuice. So that probably pretty much confirms it. I saw something like two hours ago. It was like a picture of the side of the cabinet with some Goonies artwork and like a yellow powder-coated leg. Now, I don't know if that's a homebrew. I haven't looked into it. It was posted from someone from overseas, so I couldn't read what they were saying. But we never know. I need to look into that. Yeah, I've seen like captains auctions, auctions. There's auctions every now and then we'll look at them online. And I've been to two of them that have sold Goonies games. Oh, really? They're obviously knockoffs. I mean, I think they're built on whirlwind platforms or something. Okay. I don't really know exactly what it is, but I tried to buy one once, but probably better that I didn't. Because good luck if it's got code bugs, and I'm sure it does. Yeah. Yeah, you're just going to live with that. I certainly wouldn't ever buy homebrew from anyone if I didn't make the homebrew. Because if you start having issues with it, I don't know. Yeah, what are you going to call? Yeah, the person that made it, I guess. Yeah, hi, Terry. I've got a – where do I put in a support ticket? Bro, you paid me my money. That's it. Your warranty is over. Yeah. Are you a Goonies fan, though? Yeah, man. Okay, so this is a game. There's movies I would hot lap when I was younger, and it's Back to the Future. That's Beetlejuice, Goonies, pretty much whatever Spooky's going to make, probably Gremlins. I really like Goonies. It wasn't one of my top movies growing up. I was more into I really liked Back to the Future. I was super obsessed. Really liked Ghostbusters a lot. Definitely watched Goonies. I was more into like Indiana Jones, like that a lot. Yeah, great one, too.
    4:16
    What's the best ghost of Indiana Jones? For me, it's probably not everyone's favorite. If you say Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I swear to God, I'm disconnected this thing right now, and we're just going to move on with our lives. I like The Last Crusade with Sean Connery. Hell yeah, that's the best. I thought it was the best one. That one in the first one, Temple of Doom was kind of a weird, darker. See, I thought everybody loved Temple of Doom, but my wife, Erin, she doesn't like that one, which is odd. I guess it's because it's the one that hit when I was that age where I discovered Indiana Jones, and that's the one that hit me. So I like Temple of Doom. I guess Steven Spielberg put his wife in it or something. Well, that seemed like that was kind of an odd. Or they got married later, actually. I think that's how they met, actually, was on set there. I would guess. Cast and couch action, man. Yeah, I always liked that movie. I just want a massive fan. Another speaking of movies, Twister today, it's its 30 year anniversary from hitting movie theaters. And me personally, I really like the Twister Sega game. Have you ever played that one? Well, yeah. So this anniversary means a lot to me because that's 30 years of having never seen the movie or played the game. What? You've never seen freaking Twister? Man, it's a tornado, man. What? No. How do you make an hour and a half long about a tornado? Oh, man, it's so good. I'm not trying to put it down for the people that dig it. I haven't seen it, so all I can judge it on is the concept, and I just cannot bring myself to watch it. Dude. Yeah, you're missing out, man. What is it? Stuff blows around, and, like, I don't know, your car flips over. Freaking Bill Paxton in his prime. Bill Paxton, man, make me a tombstone pinball machine. What was that? True Lies. True Lies when he's in there and pees himself in the car salesman. Make me that. I'll take that. But, you know, a weather movie. I'm doing it fast. Oh, man, I really enjoyed that movie growing up for some reason. And also the game for some reason I like. It's got one of those spinning discs or whatever, kind of like Whirlwind. And it's got the fan like whirlwind. I think they may have stole some ideas from that game. What do you think? The freaking call outs and sound effects are freaking terrible, though. Isn't that Sega? Yeah, Sega. So they had one at Pinball at the Beach, but by the time I was bringing myself to play it, something was wrong with it. Well, it's Sega. You know, they're shit. Is that right? They're expensive, man. I've got a Star Wars trilogy. We just brought it home just because we were really lucky that we've got far more games that we can use. And we're kind of hoarders. We really don't sell much. We just sell stuff that I don't really want at home, and I can't imagine it going back in the arcade. So my wife, Aaron, wants to keep Star Wars Trilogy, so I've got it scheduled. We're rebuilding the game room at home. So we've got so many games, I'm finally getting to put back together a game room at home. So in the future, I mean, if anybody watches this video, you won't always just see my empty living room back here. You'll actually start seeing games in there again. Mine's boring. Back to the Future and Fishtails. Yeah, I hung up like sound panels and stuff in my little studio room. I used to do my podcast in the arcade building with all the machines behind it. The only problem with that building was it was so reflective in there. I was like talking and you get like a echo through the mic. Yeah. Wow. So I'll be getting that in here. I don't know. I don't know. No, you sound you sound wonderful. So. So how's a radio voice on?
    8:02
    How's Beetlejuice going over at the arcade? You enjoying it so far? I love the game, but I love the theme. And like I say, it's it's it's one that personally I can just sit there. They did such a great job with theme integration. Ours had a little bit of a rocky start. It doesn't seem to be indicative of anybody else's, and the support was incredible. So ours, we got it and it needed the new code update. So I installed the new code update, and when I turned it back on, the system crashed and worked with tech support. We ended up re-imaging the game, which caused its own issues. But I guess there was something wrong with the image file, so we went through and set all the settings because every servo is just all. I re-image it thinking you boot it up, set it to free play, and rolling no. The sandworms wedge all the way down into the left kind of thing. All the servos, all their default settings go to mid. Oh, okay, so it screwed all that up. Oh, it screwed up everything.
    9:04
    There's so many servos in that game and nothing worked. Yeah, it was rough, but ended up their image file they sent, I guess it still needed a couple tweaks. It actually ended up crashing the computer. And every time I turned it on and go to lock up on one particular developer screen that I'd never seen. So I'd turn it off and eventually I'd reboot it and go on a completely different one. I did that five times and I was like, you know what, I'm not turning this thing on anymore. Although I was curious how many different screens it would come up with. But I mean Spooky was incredible. I talked with, I believe her name was Tori. Tori? That's who I worked with. Okay, cool. I was hoping I didn't get her name wrong, but she was great. And then switching over to AJ, and AJ overnighted me a PC for it. That's awesome. I had a couple small things, nothing bad. Beetlejuice, like he picks up the ball with the magnet on the bottom of him and he drops it in the wire form. I had to adjust that just a hair further up. I was getting some failures to feed the wire form. It was like one in five. I just inched it up a hair and then no longer did I have any issues. I'm now a Beetlejuice servo adjusting expert because I had to do it several times. And then I had another little small problem with like a flipper doing something weird, kind of wigging out. But a bug went into the developer settings with me and we tweaked a couple things and it never came back. So, oh, yeah, man, I was so excited about ours. We got ours. Now, as I mentioned on one of your previous podcasts, we actually have two. We've got one new in box coming at some point this year. But the one we got, we got from Texas. It came from, originated at Texas Pinball Festival. And so one of the things I think you had suggested was we get some cooling fans for the flippers. So I ordered a set of pin monks and when I popped the hood on Beetlejuice to put them in, they were already there. The exact same kit was already there. Oh, wow. Oh, because it was a show game. They put pin monk fans on their show games. They want everybody to have a good experience and not be dealing with flipper aid about halfway through the day. Yeah, if you look at the apron cards a lot of times at those shows or something, it'll be like, don't worry, it's got Pinmock fans in it or some kind of funny message. I missed that part. So I've got a spare set for I guess the other Beetlejuice comes in. Perfect. I guess throw it on TNA or something. I unfortunately did sell my Beetlejuice this morning. Did you really? I couldn't imagine it lasted much longer than it did at the price you were selling it for. I was like, wow. I mean, when there's nowhere you can get them less than 16 and you're out in 14. I got another buddy in Atlanta. I believe he sold his as well this morning. He's got another one coming there like you, though. So he's like, well, I got to sell this one because I got another one coming. And one was a show game and then one is, you know, a numbered or whatever. But yeah, the market's a little slow right now. I had to keep dropping it down until I got it sold. Nothing against the game. I wonder if it's going to get worse. I mean, as they produce more, because they're not very far into the run. What I keep telling people, though, I think they're kind of forgetting that they may be on, what are they, in the 200s right now, like 220 or something like that. But really they're at like 320 because they built show games. So, you know, I don't think they're going to have a problem building all of them now. Now that that night there are still show games to be built, but the majority of them are built now. So now it can just be nothing but numbered games. And they usually ramp up production once everyone on the line is more comfortable building the game, you know. Sure. I mean, good for them for doing the show games because, I mean, everybody's like, their number count was too low and then they're spending all the money on, originally they said jumping the line was not going to be in the game because they wanted ridiculous money for it. And then they picked it up eventually. So I would assume the guy, whoever owns the rights to that came back and said, okay, how about. Dude, I heard the number on that song and it was not cheap. It was so freaking expensive. But if they went back and paid it, then I'm guessing they said, well, you know, we'll just crank out instead of bringing, you know, some of the other manufacturers bringing one or two of each game to a show. We'll bring a dozen or 20 or something and that'll cover the cost. Or, you know, I don't know. I just think it's I think it's a smart move. But for everybody that said 1,000 was too low, and it obviously was because there were people clamoring for the game there. And like I said, their next game is already pretty well sold out, and nobody even knows what the run count's going to be. Yeah, I'm wondering if they do the show games again. People like Kaneda and stuff really hated on them, but it's like, okay, we'll just make that part of the numbered games. I mean, really, so they made, how many Beetlejuices was it? A thousand?
    14:09
    So really, 99 or something like that. So really, there's probably 1,100 or 1,150? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I think there was a dozen of them at Pinball at the Beach. That's a show I went to, and I think I heard there were 20 at Texas Pinball Festival.
    14:25
    They wanted 20, but they couldn't fit them all on the truck, so it ended up being 19 games, and that was all they could fit.
    14:34
    Yeah, like I said, good for them, man. Makes more people happy. I just wonder if as these games crank out and they start getting around the market, like you said, you feel like in your selling experience felt like the market has softened a little bit on the Beetlejuice. But wait till there is if there's 200 of them in existence or 300, wait till there's another 800 of them in existence. Is that going to is I really think so? So like I said, Beetlejuice is there's nothing wrong with the game. I enjoyed it. Honestly, if I was rich, I'd keep them all. But I was trying to pay off some bills and I'm like, this is the easiest path for me doing that. So let's just sell Beetlejuice while it's hot.
    15:17
    So I did that. But at the same time, I played Evil Dead side by side with Beetlejuice the other day at the Pinball Palace before he let his go. And I really was like, damn, I miss Evil Dead. That game shoots. It shoots better. I mean, I can't lie about it. Yeah, I'm still saying I'm going to have one. But I tell you what, you got to give it to Kelly. He ought to be tried. Maybe he's trading stocks in his spare time because he pops when everything's at the top. That's when he goes for it. And I don't know if he did have a really rough experience with his Halloween. And I don't know if that drive. I haven't talked to my friend.
    16:00
    Yeah. From Kelly. Yeah. And he he was like, oh, yeah, he was like a kind of a more of a tech guy, too. Like he worked and restored a lot of games and he's like, man, I'm not worried about it, Kelly. I'll buy this this Halloween. He had it for like two months. He's like, fuck this game.
    16:19
    Bring a priest over some holy water, a match, gasoline. Do what you got to do. I've always wanted to own Halloween. That might be my favorite horror theme. And I'm like, damn it, man. I love the game. That's a game that's coming home, man. I just packed it up today to come back home because everybody at the arcade loves it. I mean, nobody comes in and is like, I hate that game. I wish you wouldn't have it here. But everybody, when I take it out, usually when I take it out with a problem that people would be like, where's that game? You're bringing it back. So what I'm going to do is I love it. I think it's fun. I love the theme integration. I love the movie clips.
    16:59
    I like the whole hedge. Heck yeah, it is. The light show is beautiful. The artwork is beautiful. So, you know, people hate if you want to hate, but I'm keeping mine. I'm going to bring back the arcade about every Halloween. That's what I've decided to do because that game doesn't seem to take the constant abuse that our games take as well as, say, a new Stern. So I think I'm just going to bring it back seasonally. And that was back in the back in the day where, you know, maybe their quality control wasn't quite what it is today. So as it gets older and gets a little more tired, I'm going to just maybe expose it to the general public a little less. OK, is yours a CE? Did it have the powder coat issues where it like turns black from you touching it? No, I took it out. So I pulled again, we bought that game new in box and ours was a later run. So by the time we got ours, I imagine we're still in that problem. But everybody had already say we're having these problems and here's what we're going to do about it. And so people the solution was that people were pulling all of their powder coated stuff off and clear coated. So I just did that when I got the game and I just pulled it all off and clear coated. And like I said, it's got 13,000 plays on it now. And no, I don't have that at all. It's funny. I actually powder coated my Iron Maiden, that same color by totally mistake. I was just like, hey, this color looks good. I've got all the little test samples for powder coating. And I'm holding them up and I'm like, I like this color, kind of with the Egyptian scene. And got it powder coated. Yeah, that'd be cool with Iron Maiden. But we were playing the game after like two weeks, and I'm like, why is everything turning black?
    18:45
    And then I reached back out to the guy, and he was like, I don't know, you know, the powder coat guy. And I went on their website and it specifically tells you on the website if it going to be handled by hands it must be clear coated Right Dang Some of that after the fact Joyful news Apparently there like some kind of metals in it and is what it does is it tarnishes black or something and like the oils in your hand Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, so I'm about to get another game powder coated and I still have that old armor. So I'm about to drop it off for what game will it be? Hmm. Shit.
    19:24
    I guess whatever my next Stern is. I thought I was going to drop it off for a game. I keep losing track. I'm getting Deadpool powder coated right now.
    19:33
    I mean, like I went to have we had some legs. So when we first I'll try to make this real quick. We had when we first opened up, we had people that came in like wheelchairs and some people that came three weeks in a row. We had somebody come in that only had one arm. And so I set out to make I felt so bad for these people. I saw them try to play either from a wheelchair and they can barely see the play field or with one arm. You've played the mode in Beetlejuice as seen on TV where you have to hold down the button or the pain box on Dune. I use my chin. Yeah, I like the beer belly thing and just plop it up there, you know. But so I see them try to play with one side and the other. So anyway, make a long story longer for the for the wheelchair folks. And it also helps really a lot with kids or anybody that's just like not quite tall. We got I took a regular I ordered some legs on on on a website and had them sent to us. And then we just took him to a machine shop, had him cut down. And the reason I'm saying is because I also wanted to get him powder coated. But the people are like, you know, we have to wait till another order comes. It's not enough. So where do you get stuff? Where can you get small stuff powder coated? Oh, man, my powder coater, he'll do one screw if that's all the job asked for.
    20:59
    Holy crap. So maybe I just don't have many options. We're in a small town, so maybe I just don't have the options. Now, or maybe I haven't looked around enough. Forever, I use these pinball people who, shit, what were they called? Anyway, they rip you the fuck off. They charge you like $500. I'm just not to throw their name out.
    21:18
    I will. Pinball refinery. Oh. And so many more. There's a bunch of them out there. But anyway, yeah, they were charging me like roughly $500. But yeah, if you go to your local powder coater, usually you're looking at $250, $300 to do everything.
    21:35
    It kind of varies depending on the colors. Like certain colors require like a different base. It may say, hey, first you must powder coat everything metallic silver, then this red over it to accomplish that color, where another powder coat might just be like, all you got to do is powder coat it red, no base color. So that's what causes the prices to vary a little bit with it. I don't really care what the color is. I think you do all mine black and then swap them from game to game. I don't care. Well, the games I got were raw steel. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Where raw steel just had them cut down. Now, there's bare steel in the arcade right now. From my understanding, like what Stern uses on their premiums and pros, from my understanding, it's not actually a powder coat. It's something else. It's some kind of like textured paint that cures. Yeah, it looks like a rhino liner. Yeah, that's kind of what it is. It looks like.
    22:30
    Yeah, my powder coat guy, he doesn't even sandblast it. He's like, I got this stuff. I just dip it in and it falls off. Oh, that's a word. He's going to die of cancer at 35.
    22:42
    His family's been like, I don't know what happened. All right. On another note, we've been kind of chatting about possibly like starting a new show on the Pinball Studio or not really. I don't even know what to call it. Bringing basically you on the show and our other friend, David.
    23:02
    Yeah, that's exciting, man. I was really happy to be back. I felt like we had more to say and I'm happy to. I feel like there's also a huge deficit in the pinball podcast space where because I can speak for myself that when I have these few shows that I listen to and when when I've listened to all of them, it leaves me like a week of nothing. So I have to listen to songs I've heard 800,000 times. I was real excited to be able to do this with you and David. As soon as David's ready, he's still finishing up his workspace and he's going to be on here. He's our resident. David's going to be our resident tournament expert. He knows the games, how to play them better than I do. I know the games from my perspective of operating an arcade and doing the repairs and stuff. I know how they work. As far as rules and strategies and techniques, I am not the guy for you. There's a few things. There's a few games where you can be like, hey, what does this shot do? And I can tell you, but we do have players that come in and they can tell you, well, when you hit this in this mode, you're going to get this amount of points. That's not me. But David might be able to do that. So we're excited. And with the with the we've talked among us and we've come up with some goals and the reasons, basically the purpose for this podcast. And so here it is. To crush your enemies, see them driven before you. They had a lamentation of the women.
    24:34
    That is good. So, you know, I think that's that really describes what we're going for in this podcast. I imagine we'll have plenty of all of that. Yeah, I think it's going to be a blast. And, yeah, I thought you would be a great person because you're, you know, you own and you run an arcade. So, you know, that side of things. And then David's a big competitive player and a state representative for the IFPA. And then I'm kind of like in the middle. I feel I run tournaments and then I do repairs and restorations and podcasts and mods and nonsense. You're a wild card. Every time, like I know you decently, but I don't think anybody really knows you because every time I talk to you, you're like, oh, and I did this for Greg Allman. And by the way, I did. You've had like you've had enough careers. Dude, I've had a lot. Like you must be a vampire or something like this is this should be at the end of interview with a vampire. You should have as many varied skill sets and experiences as you have. You've got to be 600 years old. Yeah, dude, it's crazy how many different hobbies I've jumped into and different career paths. Like I went to school for electrical, did some air conditioning work for like two weeks. I was like, not for me. Played in bands and stuff, dabbled in sound. And so then my dad knew a sound company that like put on concerts and stuff. So I went to work for those. And then my mom met Greg Allman's wife in Richmond Hill. So I started dabbling, working in his studio. And then I started my own sound company called Martin Audio Production. And then I got out of all that into Outboard Motors. And then I started Martin Marine doing that. And now I'm The Pinball Studio. Who are you? I don't know. And I do way too many things in the pinball world. I do local service work for bars and whatever, individuals. I do pinball deliveries for my distro, mod making. I've got a store on Pinside for that. I run the Pinball Studio, which is a tournament location.
    26:50
    And there's probably some other shit I'm leaving out. Podcasts. Now a multimedia empire. Right. Yeah, I'm freaking crazy. I feel like Don's similar, too. He's like a singer or a guitar. I mean, like, weren't you a musician? I was the front man. I was. Yeah. Yeah. So I sung and I played the guitar. I played rhythm. Yeah. My my my life has been pretty much a straight line. I worked for a cabinet builder who liked gambling more than he liked cabinet building. So I worked there until I decided not getting paid suck. And other than that, I've been much of a mechanic forever until I decided I'm, you know, working on pinball machines is way easier than sweating it out with heavy, broke, hot stuff, you know? Yeah, I think I think pinball really spoke to me. I always liked electrical stuff. So like in high school and science class, when we'd like dabble in electrical stuff, I always thought it was really cool. Then I didn't know what to go to school for. So I was like, oh, I'll do that. And, yeah, I don't know. Pinball, I feel like there's a lot of people that are kind of into that stuff or programming or something in that type of field that kind of hooks them more or they like to tinker or restore things. Yeah, I like figuring out how things work. That's all. Ever since I was a kid, man, I just took stuff apart. That's me. Like, how am I G.I. Joe's as a kid? I'm old enough to have had G.I. Joe's. So, yeah, don't judge. I had G.I. Joe's. All right, all right. I just bought one. I just bought a G.I. Joe on eBay to hang on the wall in the arcade. It's William the Refrigerator Perry because he lives here. He lived. I think he's died now, but he lived here in Aiken. OK. And I have to pass by his old mansion. He built a mansion just in like a crappy part of town. But he built a mansion down there and I have to pass by every day. So I figured it'd be cool. Nice. But I think it was like two dollars when when I remember getting them. And now they are quite substantially more. People are crazy about them G.I. Joes.
    28:53
    Yeah, I have not had a G.I. Joe since probably KB Toys days when I was about yay tall. Well, I'm about to have one. One G.I. Joe. So what's your thoughts on Transformers? Yeah, man, it sounds like the 20th. It's not going to do what Pokemon did, I don't believe, unless they just come. Well, it's Elliot Eisenman. Were you a big fan of John Wick? That's the only game he's ever made. He's a mechanical engineer for Stern. They gave him a chance on John Wick. That was kind of wetting his feet. And now it sounds like I guess he's a actual designer. So I like John Wick because maybe I like some dumb stuff. I don't know because like I said, I love Halloween when it gets so much hate. But I like John Wick, but John Wick is infuriating. So I can play 10 games of John Wick and one of them will be 100 and something million and the rest will be three. Three million if that. And that's just the way it is, man. That's the way John Wick's fast, but it's fun. I haven't played it in a long time. I owned a John Wick for a short period of time, had a launch party and everything. Then I sold it to my buddy Will that helps me run the group, and I haven't seen it since. So I'd like to play it with some updated code because I always really enjoyed the layout. I always liked how it shot, so I think it just needed code to really hook me, and I don't know what it really turned out to be. I want to see an LE in person, a limited edition of John Wick. I would buy an LE for the right price, honestly, because I don't own one, and I like how it shoots. I think it's pretty. It's a nice-looking game. They did the stained glass thing. But again, I've only ever seen it on the computer screen. But John Wick is another one of those games for me that the premium just didn't quite justify the additional expense. I don't think I've ever played the premium. I don't care if the car comes out and turns sideways. It's kind of neat that the weapons chest opens. But yeah, that one was definitely a failure to launch. What do you think was all theme or do you think that was... I think honestly it was just the code is why it didn't do well at first. You had, what's his name? Shit. He left the company, went to Chicago Gaming. Tim Sexton. Okay. So, I mean, the lead coder left right at the beginning of the game, really getting developed as far as code-wise. And then you're basically having other people pick up the slack. And I've always heard like coding, you know, you want the person that wrote the code to continue to write the code because people do it differently. I don't know a whole lot about coding, but that's what I've heard. Well, there's another. Is that the game? No, that's it. It's X-Men. I think that or am I thinking of John Wick? There's one game where the coder left and it might be John Wick. Yeah, that's John Wick. I swear it was X-Men, but then they're starting over like Gomez. No, they just picked a different coder for that game. I think that was, yeah, I was like, you know what? They brought someone else in. But no, Tim Sexton left, I don't know, two or three months afterwards. Raw thrills, I think. So as far as I could tell with John Wick, there was three really just kind of things that worked against him. A, the code was bare bones.
    32:15
    B, just the theme. I mean, the theme, although those movies have done a bazillion dollars in revenue, It doesn't strike that nostalgia chord, which seems to be so important. And hell, I forgot the third one.
    32:35
    Well, speaking of nostalgia, getting back on topic. It's stuck on the loading screen right now. Getting back on the topic, though, we've got a... That was my caddy shaft. Oh, okay.
    32:53
    Weezy. Anyway, let's jump back on Transformers since that's what we were talking about. But, yo, are you a buyer for that game, knowing what Elliot Eisman has made as far as John Wick? So we're definitely a buyer for it. But in all fairness, we're going to be a buyer for all of the strengths. We're really trying to venture out and make ourselves, and I say this, I'm not speaking for, I'm speaking for Radioactive Pinball Arcade. And we're trying to make ourselves kind of the hub for the state that we're in. So we're venturing out in a lot of things. We have games out on rental where we're staging up games to start going in bars and stuff like that. And we're also going to start selling pinball machines. I don't know how much I can talk about with that because some arrangements aren't quite finalized. But anyway, so you can expect going forward that we will have everything that Stern has in production. Are you always a premium buyer? Is there ever a time where you buy a pro?
    33:58
    So I, again, with this new arrangement, I don't know that may affect things. But with me, I literally just take, like, take John Wick, for example. I say, well, the premium and the pro are $2,500 difference. And the LE is $13,000 or so. And so I take, well, what do you get for that? Sometimes I write it out. I say, well, you get the chest that flips up. You get the car that flips around. Is that $2,500? And I don't see it. Oh, that's like every game for me. It really depends if I really like the game or not. Like I just upgraded my Godzilla from a pro. I love Godzilla. So I'm like, I want the best version.
    34:50
    Yeah. So, yeah, Godzilla, you have to have the premium. So, yeah, you definitely made the right. See, I grew up on it. I've had the Pro since launch. So, I mean, I love the game. I didn't feel like it was really missing anything until I had a premium.
    35:08
    Yeah, I was saying that can be the first time you were wrong. But the Pro is not bad. It's a good Pro game. So with an Elwin, that's what I figured out is you can't go wrong with a premium. We bought a Jaws Pro when Jaws came out because it was the first available and we wanted to be first to market with it. But it was our first time buying both models and I hated the Pro. A lot of people liked the Jaws Pro. Still never played it. Never played a Pro. You know what the weirdest kind of quirk to me on it is? I looked at it and the centerpiece to that is the Jaws shark. And it looked to me like this squeaky toy you see in all the Myrtle Beach oceanfront shops. They've got this one squeaky toy and it looked exactly like that to me. And it's just like floating there in midair, giving me a Sharknado vibe. And so I just I and it looked bare, which is the same thing you have with Venom with Led Zeppelin. I feel bare for me. I feel like their biggest mistake probably with Jaws Pro, they should have put the boat with the shark below it and just dropped the whole upper playfield. That's your big difference. No upper playfield, maybe lose. I don't know, a post or something like that. But I think they really screwed up without putting that mech in there. I mean, without that, that's a big part of the game to me. Yeah. Yeah. What a crazy thing, man. One of the crazy things you see in pinball is we had the guy that bought the Jaws Pro.
    36:46
    He came to us and he's like, you know, I've moved a pinball machine. Can you help me? That's absolutely I can. So I broke the game down and wrapped it. We got this stretch wrap, wrapped it, rolled it out to his truck. The truck he was there with his 18-or-so-year-old kid. The way I do it is I'll set it standing up because it's broken down, laying on its back, so it stands up on its back, right? And I set it on a piece of cardboard. I lay it into the tailgate, pick up one end by myself. I've done this 100 times. I do the same thing all the time. Doing it tomorrow. Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll get used to it.
    37:22
    So I lay it over on his tailgate. I grab the back of the game. I pick it up to push it forward. And when I do, his kid decides to help. He's standing on one side of the game. Didn't say anything about helping, but he just he comes and he grabs the left side of the game and picks up and just I don't know if he fell forward or whatever. As I'm picking the game up, I get it about a 45 degree angle and his kid grabs the middle and throws it into the street. Brand new Stern Jaws. No. Just throws it off the tailgate and it crashes down the street and I just standing at my jaw Oh and the owner of the game had just walked away So he walked to the driver's side and he's getting something like out of the. So I imagine the story on the ride home was, I don't know what that dummy from that arcade did.
    38:13
    No, I've done that. I've done that probably a hundred times now, at least where you tilt it back, lift it up, slide it on a piece of cardboard into the back and reverse order. Well, you've never had an 18-year-old throw it in the streets. No. I would recommend you try that at least once in your life. But, hey, the glass didn't break. And other than that, man, I know the games must be pretty tough. People try to help me all the time. I'm like, I've got it. I really appreciate the help, but I've done it a million times. It's like one of my buddies one time. I'm not going to call him out, but I can't remember what game. I think it was LEs. We were at the dealer, and we were unloading a semi of LEs. And he's trying to help move them around. And we're like, we got this. We got this. And you got to be careful when you lay them down like with a dolly because they want to, you know, really slap down. And he brought one and it was like, wham, when he laid it down with a dolly. And we're like, we got this, bro.
    39:08
    That's one thing, man. These are 13K a piece. Yeah. Take it easy, pal. But, yeah, it's funny. Our Beetlejuice, I don't know what happened to it. They said it came from Texas Pinball Festival. Yeah, you told me it had some damage. Did I see you the picture of that? So if you take the back glass out and fold the speaker panel down on the left side on the inside of the back box, looks like you should be able to see daylight through it. It's crunched up. The wood's all broken up. But on the outside, you don't see anything.
    39:44
    I'm never going to be able to sell that game. But that's all right. Oh, you can pick it. Is it the bottom piece of MDF or is it actually the side? I don't think it's MD. No, it's not MDF. It's plywood of some sort. Really? It's splintered out, yeah. Okay. That's not MDF for sure. Oh, it's like steal the sheet from your topper box and cut a new bottom. Yeah, yeah, no doubt. No, I'll just leave it. It's fine. It doesn't affect anything. I've got to fix another guy's game. Somebody moved it with the head up and it basically started cracking the whole base and like ripping out where the bolts go in. It's old Williams System 11 or something. I think that's what's going on here. I think somebody, when it was standing up on its back, somebody must have shoved the head. That's what I got to think of. That's what I got to think of that would do that. Did you like hire a company to ship it to you or something? We didn't, the dealer that we bought it from handled all that. So I didn't, that was just all done. It was like, hey, you know, we've got show games from TPF. If you want one, here's how much it is shipped to you. Damn, so the dealers get the show games. I was always curious about that. Was it like Spooky selling all these show games or is it like broke apart? It goes through somebody else. Like I remember at Southern Fried Gaming last year, we're idiots. So we didn't jump on a there was some Evil Dead show games there and we were tossing it back and forth like dummies. That's my biggest regret is Evil Dead. That's the one I'm really pissed I sold. I wish nothing against Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice is a good game. I know it sounds like I'm hating on it, but it's just I mean, Evil Dead was their Godzilla. That's the Godzilla game. And I feel like. I don't know. Beetlejuice isn't quite there. It's not a bad game, though. It's fun, and I can't wait to see what the code does for it because a lot of times that's really what makes these games shine, it seems like. I love Beetlejuice, but like I said, I love my Data East Back to the Future. I love my Spy Hunter. It's a shit game, but I like it. Yeah, but Beetlejuice isn't getting the critical pinball acclaim from the hardcore pinball players, and that hurts. I mean, that hurts businesses. That hurts games. I think it really hurt coming out on pin side kind of low because usually right when they hit pin side, people are giving 10s, 10s, 10s. Was it 19? 19. I don't know what it was at. Was it 26? Something like that. Oh, that's respectable, man. It is. This is the way I look at it. I don't trust any of the pin side shit. The way I look at it is if it's in the top 100, it's a decent game. That's the only way I look at it. But when Halloween came out, there was a push. I was in the – it was when I was fairly new to Pinball. And there was a push to – on Pennside. I actually followed the forums, and I don't anymore. I don't have time for that. Oh, I've been messaged to, hey, why don't you rate this game and give it a 10? I'm like, that is – That's what they wanted me to do at Halloween. They were reaching out to everybody. They were like, hey, we need to get this out. Like, who – like, I could see Spooky doing that. Like, Spooky being like, we need to get this game out. But other than that, like, what is you what do you get out of that? Oh, you're just trying to to validate your own decision to buy it. Dude, it's another the goal. Another thing like I used to another fucking crazy thing I do with pinball is run a ton of pinball groups. I probably run 20 pinball groups on Facebook. Do you sleep? No, but I used to start all the Stern groups. So like the Jaws Enthusiast Group, you know, or whatever the Jaws Owners Group or I run that one. And then this other sleazebag started jumping in there and like competing with me. But he's a jackass. But I didn't really care. I was just like, I don't care. I just won't do it anymore. I saw you on a video of Pinball Palace unboxing a game there. How many careers do you need, man? That's the deliveries. And Kelly wants me to deliver some more games. I'm like, man, man. Give me time. I'm so jealous of your time. I feel like that's what I would do if I had two concurrent lifestyles or life lives that I could just I'm going to send. There was a Michael Keaton multiplicity or something and just send my clones off to do whatever. I would love to do all these things. My problem is, is it's time to do some maintenance to the enclosed trailer. So I got to do tires at the very least. I probably need to do the hubs as well. The last thing I want to do is be hauling pinball machines and that will blow out. Yeah, that's no bueno right there. I haven't ever asked. Where do you get all your pinball machines from?
    44:28
    So we buy Marco's Pinball. Marco's Specialties is where we get our Sterns from, and they've just become a Jersey Jack dealer. Okay.
    44:42
    But we got our Spookies from – well, we got one from Jason Grindle at – Classic Game Room. Classic Game Rooms, yeah. He was the one that was talking about Southern Pride Gaming. He was the one selling the games there. Yep. He's usually the gesture of that. And we've gotten a couple games in the past from Kingpin, Chris Kingpin. Okay. I've heard of him. He was at TPF at the Spooky Table Summit. I met him for a second there. Well, so his brother is Eric Menyer. I did not know that. Yeah, that's Chris Menyer from Kingpin Games. That's hilarious. Yeah, so you would think that's the place to go for Jersey Jack games. You know, I saw somebody reported they've got a Jersey Jack or Jersey Jack Harry Potter, CE number 1725. So they're rolling along with those things.
    45:33
    Why even put a number on them when it gets that crazy? Yeah, I don't know. But if they've made 1725 of them, that's rolling, man. Hell yeah. That's respectable. But you never know. You know you got like bank checks and you want to start it at 100 because you don't want people to think it's your first check you've ever written. So I don't know if they started at one. I don't know if they build an order. I know Stern doesn't build an order at all. It's just like grabbing tags and they go wherever.
    46:04
    But I know Spooky builds an order for the most. It's like, yeah, one through 50 is on the line somewhere. Not necessarily those are going out one after another. Yeah. But they build an order for the most part. Yeah. I don't know what to do when we get our next Beetlejuice. So at some point this year, we're going to get a Beetlejuice new in box. And I guess I have so many different options when everybody was clamoring for these things. And I was like, well, maybe we'll, you know, you're going to have a home Beetlejuice. Sell it or I'm going to put one at home because, like I said, I'm rebuilding the game room or it's going to trade it for an Evil Dead. I really want an Evil Dead. Yeah, I feel like two or three weeks ago you could have probably maybe found someone to trade an Evil Dead. Anymore, it seems like Evil Dead's holding the higher number. Yeah, at this point I probably have to kick some cash in. Freaking Beetlejuice is the better theme. I have a hard time paying over MSRP, bro. I do. I have a hard time with it. Oh, I don't do it. I will not pay over MSRP unless it was like in production ten years ago. You can't find it. It's super ultra rare. Like I want a Batman. I've got to get a Batman 66. It's driving me crazy. Great game, man. I had the opportunity to pick up a Catwoman edition. Oh, I've got that. That was back in the day. You've got to translate. I didn't have the money for that. It was like, oof. That's back when it was like an $11,000 game. Oh, I don't think I can spend that. Dude, the premiums were going for like $9,000 like six months ago, and now they're trickling back up. I watch them all the time. Now it's back to like 11 for a premium. And I'm like, damn it. Why didn't I try to pick up one? There was two or three, like one in Florida, one in Atlanta. And my buddy actually picked up one of them in Atlanta. You're going to be in on what's your thoughts on Sonic?
    47:56
    Yeah, I don't know. So I've never actually purchased a Jersey Jack pinball machine. Nothing against the guys, but just never been a... I really like... I don't like the big screens on them, for one thing. I love it. I know. Wrap that screen around my face. I don't care. It's just a personal preference. 80-inch TV on the wall. I feel like I'm standing in the middle of Voldemort standing beside me when I play Harry Potter. Do you think it caters to Sonic well because it's a video game so a screen makes sense? No, I'm the one and only person. Bring back the DMD.
    48:40
    I don't think you're the one and only person. I look at Pinball more like a retro type hobby so the more futuristic it gets, the less it appeals to me. It's just a personal preference. I know tons of people love Jersey Jack games. I really do like Elton John, and I'll probably like Sonic as well. So I probably am more the opposite of you. So I love, I love, I think first and foremost on a lot of this stuff, I love the theme of origin. Same reason I go to Halloween Horror Nights every year. I want to feel like I'm in the movie. Yeah. And so to me, you give me the big ass screen. You give me all the little knickknacks that when you look at Harry Potter, you're like, they don't care about the budget at all. They're just, what's going to make this game, I mean, the game's crazy heavy. If you've had to move one of these things, that is a two-man job. I have moved some of them. I moved a lot of Godfathers one time. That was a terrible idea.
    49:39
    Yeah, I've got a Godfather. I like it, but, you know, I don't know. They lost me on theme immersion on that one. They didn't do the Harry Potter treatment on that. I mean, the whole thing's centered around some cartoon. I would like to have, I would like to get a Harry Potter eventually, though. You need a Harry Potter in your life. Harry Potter is a nice – if you like the movies, I think. See, I'm not a Harry Potter fan, but I can appreciate it. I know it's a huge thing. I know a lot of people like it, and I do like playing the game.
    50:09
    Well, if you sold Beetlejuice, which is a movie you like, then you're talking about buying a Harry Potter, which is a movie you don't. Well, I mean, I'll be honest. I've shot both of the games. I probably prefer shooting-wise. I don't know the code, really, on Harry Potter. I don't think they're code all the way complete, but 96 modes and the game is pretty well complete at launch. I really think Stern learned a lot from that. That's one thing. If I had to give Stern some advice. I think Stern does it on purpose. They want to read the community. They want to see how you react to it, what works, how the scoring works.
    50:55
    I think they really read you, read all the customers. I don't know. I don't think that's a smart business move. I think first and foremost is you want to sell games and to sell games, I think, you know, to give people the best experience of the box. And you can change it. I mean, look at Spooky. I mean, there's stuff that when you got Spooky, a lot of people weren't happy about this. It comes in our place. Scooby-Doo used to get like a I think the score was lower. Like you'd get $100 million or something and that'd be a crazy game and now you can get $100 million for like plunging the ball. That's an exaggeration, but I have people that won't play the game now. They tell me. I liked it before they changed the code. Really? So what I mean is if you were Stern and the option is to release it with bare bones code and you go back to 007 or whatever. See, that was bad. And I'm okay with him having early code, but Keith's games seem to always have decent code, I feel like. I feel like out of the gate. He runs his own team, though. I picked that up from some George Gomez interview. Some of these teams, the coders are writing the rules, where other teams, like the person designing is coming up with the rules, and that's Keith's team. Keith is like, this is the king. You think he's still the king? Is he the king? Who else would it be? And to me, I mean, everyone's got their own preferences. I enjoy shooting Keith's games the most. That's just me.
    52:22
    Jaws and Godzilla are probably still my favorite shooters. Yeah, they're good ones, man. You know, they're boring choices, but I mean, at the end of the day, I feel like those games shoot really well. Godzilla freaked me out one time. I had it in the house and I'm playing. I just got like out of the shower, put my pajamas on and I walked up to it and I hit something and it said, put your shoes back on. I've heard that one a million times. Yeah, I'll go in between the games to work on it and it'll go off. Hell, let's see my feet.
    52:53
    Yeah, I'm literally looking around the game for a camera. I mean, why the hell did they just tell me to put my shoes back on? That's awesome. Yeah, but I've always heard that about Keith. You know, he is the person that tells, you know, the coders, this is how this mode is going to work. This is what you're going to code. I think when Elizabeth Gieske came in, now I think those ideas were hers. But as far as like the main code in the games, it's pretty much just him. So I am looking forward to Fallout. What about Fallout? Do you watch that TV show or anything? Are you a fan of it? I watched the first episode. I couldn't get into it. I mean, I have a lot of free. It is something very special for me to – I have so little free time in my life that the thought of – When a show comes out and you have to watch every episode, I'll structure my life around that and I don't have it to give away. So if anybody, I'll watch episodes. So this kind of stuff I would look at would be like Seinfeld, something that ends when it started, Family Guy, South Park. It's just you only got to watch one. If you miss 20 episodes, it doesn't matter.
    54:06
    You're going to know what's happening when you pick up an episode. So I don't pick I don't watch many episodes of anything that do that. But I watched the first episode and for some reason, maybe it's because I didn't. Well, this is me. I have tried to watch Fallout probably 10 times now. And I do like shows that go on forever, like Stranger Things, huge fan.
    54:27
    And I just couldn't get into Fallout two nights ago. I finally I'm like forcing myself to watch it because I'm like the game's coming and I've got to I've got to be able to like. I relate to this somewhat. So, yeah, I'm trying to force myself to watch it. I'm on episode five and I still have mixed feelings. It's OK. It's no stranger things by any means. I only got through the first episode. I don't know if I got only through the first episode. I didn't get to the fellow with no nose yet. I don't know when he comes in. I think it was episode two. He does have a nose. Yeah. I didn't get to him yet. Walter Goggins. I thought he might be the interesting part of the show, but people are amped about it. But if that comes out from Stern, I think it's rumored to be dropping Fallout, I think, next, right? Yeah, so that should be right after Transformers. Let's see. So if this is managed. So probably like August?
    55:20
    Yeah, I don't know, man. If they're going to cram four games in this year, it's going to be tight at the end of the year. I think it'll be August when we see it. So that's something to plan for. It's only August, so they seem to be way behind where they normally do with Pokemon. So if they did Pokemon, then they still haven't dropped what's reportedly Transformers. So yeah, I mean, May, July, August, yeah, three months. I don't know, man. It'll be August or September. We'll see it. And honestly, so I'm not going to buy. I used to buy every damn Stern that came out. Stern launches. I have a launch party. Then I decide whether or not I'm going to keep it. I'm going to wait this time. I don't think I'm going to buy Transformers yet. I'm going to wait until Fallout comes out, and then I'm going to make my decision on both of them and choose one or the other. That's just my choice. Yeah, I'm excited about Transformers to a certain degree because I grew up on that show, too.
    56:19
    I'm going to buy some of them old Transformers, too. They're another thing that people are proud of. I'm a little younger than you, but at the same time, like all these shows were still coming on like every every single day. So, I mean, I watched the Transformers cartoon and I really enjoyed it. So it does speak to me theme. It speaks to me way more than Fallout. Like I had Transformer toys growing up. I've never had Fallout toys growing up. Yeah, I can't get into the movies, the Transformer movies. No, me either. I liked the first one. All right. When it first came out. But I liked it when it first came out, but I haven't seen any of the others. Me either. I don think I seen a single one of the others I do think this is my hot take as well I think they should have gave Transformers to Elwin You do 1980s cartoon Transformers with Keith Elwin That game will sell for a long time. I guess my thought was, man, if you were Stern, why wouldn't you throw the biggest designer you've got at the biggest game? Yes, they're doing the opposite. They're giving them the smaller. I wouldn't call Fallout small, but it's not as good as Transformers. Yeah, but Pokemon, man. Wouldn't you chuck him at Pokemon and just be like, you know what? We're closing the factory. We're just going to build Pokemon for five years. That could have been their Harry Potter. Well, I guess Pokemon's bigger than... Pokemon probably sold a lot more than Harry Potter. Yeah. But Keith Elwin Pokemon? Holy crap. They could just turn into the Keith Elwin Pokemon Company and just build those.
    57:47
    You're nobody if you don't have that. So I dislike Pokemon. It's just me personally. You know the game or like the theme? I just don't like the theme. I just dislike it. I don't know anything about the theme. I made a video of where I named all of the characters and it wasn't, you know, I thought I know what it is and I'm just being a clown about it. No, I have no idea. I know Pikachu. I know that one. I know the yellow. I will say that. Dog bear looking thing. So they have no chance in hell ever selling me a Pokemon game just because I dislike the theme. I don't like a theme either, but it's a fun game. I have to be honest about it. But I will say if they gave it to Keith Elwin, I would have probably bought it. Yeah, the whole theme song is just like, buy this product, gotta buy them all. But yeah, I really think Stern's thoughts are, you know, you give the smaller guys the bigger themes, That way they still sell through decent because it's a good theme, may not be the best game this year. And then they give the best designer, maybe not the biggest theme. Like I said, Fallout's pretty popular, so I wouldn't call it a small one. Do you think it's based on the game or on the show? I've heard it's the show from everybody.
    59:06
    I always thought it was kind of odd to do. I was talking to David Van S. who runs CEO and founder of Barrels of Fun Pinball. And we were talking about themes and stuff. And he mentioned like we had talked about different themes and somehow he brought up or I brought up the It movies. Dude. And he was like, what if you did Welcome to Dairy? I would lose my shit. I love it. Yeah. But he said, Welcome to Dairy. But as a manufacturer, when you do something like that, are you just narrowing your scope that you're only appealing to people that have HBO? I think it's on HBO. I think IT fans would still want to buy it. If it was me choosing, I would want the OG.
    59:59
    Hell yeah, I want the OG. The miniseries that came on TV or whatever, I would want that version. Well, nothing. I like the new one, too, the newer movie. Yeah, it's not bad. I tried to watch Welcome to Dairy, and I couldn't get into it. I don't know. My brother was telling me how great it is, but I couldn't get into it. Oh, it took me a while. I like the new movie. I like the old. I definitely got the miniseries. I got a ball on DVD. Yeah, I'm old school like that. I got DVD. I actually own a video. Dude, that's me. I am big into collecting media, so I collect all my Blu-rays and 4K discs and stuff, and got some VHSs as well. But yeah, I enjoyed the newer It movies, but I would still prefer it to be the OG just because it's OG. It's where it all started. I guess the biggest problem it seems like they have is when you start going anything where somebody has died, then you're not dealing with the guy who's like, hell yeah, I'll be on a pinball machine. You're dealing with somebody's kid who's like, ah, that's worth a billion dollars. You know what I mean? Or 800 kids that have to sign off on it. I could definitely see Spooky making that title eventually. Stern will never touch it.
    61:10
    Yeah. I mean, you think Goonies, how badass would it be? Are you a fan of Goonies 2, the new batch? There's a Goonies 2? Oh my God. I don't think I know who you are as a person. When was there a Goonies 2? From like forever, man. When did it come out? Right after the damn first one. No, fuck. Who are you? Who was in it? Where were you? No way. There's no Goonies 2. There's a Goonies 2? It's going to be so funny when people listen to this. Yes. There's a Goonies 2 with the original guy. I don't know what his name is. What the hell are you guys? Him?
    61:48
    What original guy? Oh, bro. Am I talking about Goonies? I'm sorry. Gremlins. Never mind. Oh, my God. I was like, dude, how did I miss this shit? I've been seeing Goonies this whole time. Holy crap. This segment is sponsored by Twisted Tea. Dude, you are blowing my mind. I'm like, how have I never heard of Goonies 2? Yes, I've heard of Gremlins 2. I actually prefer, I actually like Gremlins 2 better. I'm going to take a big drink on that one.
    62:18
    No, I hear this whole time. I thought you were the idiot. I'm like, this is a fucking dude. No, I am. Yeah, I'm a three quarters of this. I've got a 24 ounce twisted tea and apparently it's altering my ability to remember movies. No, I prefer the second film over the first one. I like both of the Gremlins movies. OK, so, yeah. So my original question was how bad ass would it be if they did the Evil Dead trick? And at the beginning of the game, you can choose. I almost said it again. Gremlins 1 or Gremlins 2. I like that. I like that idea. I dig it, dude. I hope they do it. Have you heard of a third Gremlins movie coming?
    63:02
    Yeah, man, every time somebody tries to go back to the well when it's not the original. It's got to be stop motion. I can't stand that. Yeah, they're going to want to CGI it and they're going to think it looks so much better and it's going to look like such hot trash. Name one they've dipped in the well recently that's anywhere in the middle. Beetlejuice attempted to try to capture that old look, but they weren't really successful with it. Yeah, it would have to be stop motion or it's just like it would go from like that look and then you watch the following film and it's like this doesn't even blend well. Yeah, when I watched Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, it looked me out, and I heard about it. I was so excited because I said, it's Tim Burton. It's the original actor, except I guess the dad who I heard ago. It's a prison. Diddling somebody or something. Dude, don't look it up online. I looked it up online. I'm not going to talk about it on the podcast, but he is. Holy crap, is it that bad?
    64:06
    He's a creepo, something with a kid in a cowboy hat or something. Yeah, I'm not going to get into details. All right. Well, now I'm going to Google it and then the FBI is going to be looking at me.
    64:17
    But yeah. But when I found out it was Tim Burton and the original cast, I was like, this is this is this. That's it, man. My dreams have come true. And I watched it. And I don't know. I felt like the characters were all they weren't the same character. To me, it was like if somebody wrote it that hadn't seen the original but just had an idea of what it was. I think they were just like 10 years too late, like 10 or 20 years too late. Like the cast had aged a lot where it felt like they were totally different people, where if it was like 10 years later. The way he acts, I mean, Beetlejuice is some kind of, you know, business guy. I don't know, man. I will say. In the first one, he just wanted to mess with people. I don't know. I like the original too much, I think. Yeah, I enjoy it. If you're a casual fan of the original, you probably like the second one. But I was a hardcore fan of the original, so I hated the second one. It's so disappointing. I saw it in the theaters and I was sad. I will say I saw it in theaters. I did not like it. It took me about three times of watching the film before I finally was like, you know what, it's all right. But it's definitely no original. No. All right, man. So I know we're probably an hour in and maybe getting close to wrapping this thing up, but I wanted to talk real quick about the new juicy gossip because, you know, gossip is shelf life. Right. What about the Team Pinball Pedretti Gaming drama, the email that was released or public statement was released or whatever it was? What are your thoughts on that? Maybe you should recap it for anybody that's not familiar. I'm probably not the best person to recap it, but yeah, they seem like they just kind of had a falling out as far as like doing code. And this was on, refresh my memory of what game it was on again. It was, yeah, Big Bang Bar, I guess they were working on. And I guess that's why we never saw it because they're not going to write the code for it. Or are they, I don't know. Yeah, so I read the, I wish you would call it a press release. And give a rough overview of what I remember. And again, I've been drinking this whole podcast. I should have read it again. Whatever. I probably should have too, but I'm not a big reader. So apparently they were working together, collaborating. Melvin Williams, who has all the, bought all the old Williams licenses, split from, pretty publicly split from Pedretti Gaming a little while back and said he's going to take his balls and go home. And so I guess Team Pinball, Pedretti Gaming and Melvin Williams were working on remaking Big Bang Bar. Team Pinball doing the code and Pedretti doing the physical game. The build, yeah. Yeah. So what I remember from the press release was that Team Pinball said they were working on the code and they'd built a prototype game and they took it to Pedretti and Pedretti like changed it. Well, then we need to change this, this and this and they did their own like modifications or made a new play field for it or something along those lines. And at the end, Team Pinball was like, okay, we're still working on the code. Can we have our prototype back? And they were like, nah, that's mine now. Yeah, from my understanding, they purchased it from Pedretti, but Planetary owns the licensing. And I guess since all this fell through, Pedretti's like, that's our game. Yeah. And and team the team Pinball is the one that released this press release.
    68:05
    And they were talking about how, you know, they were offered to pay Pedretti for whatever parts and stuff they had put on there because they said they had. Yeah. Pay them the difference or whatever. Yeah. Something something they offered to pay for. Then they were the first they agreed to it and they say, hey, we've got emails verifying this. And then they said, OK, we're going to pay. And now, you know what? We're keeping Pedretti supposedly said. Again, this is all secondhand. We only know from what Team Pinball's. Unless you've got some other inside info you want to throw out there, but it seems like it's all from Team Pinball's memo. Yeah, I heard something through the grapevine after that. At the end of the day, I don't know who's right, but I heard they were basically dropping the ball and not holding up their end of the deal. Well, that's what it seemed like. I mean, honestly, as an uninvolved party, when I read the press release, it ended with, like, we could sue, but we're not. That's typically side speak for we would sue, but we know we'd lose. That's what I would think. You know, if I had a bunch of money riding on it and I'm like, I'm not going to sue just because I don't know what I'm a nice guy or whatever. You know, if I've got a prototype game that I've got supposedly 90,000 or 900,000, I remember nines and zeros in there. I think to even post something like that is probably they're just angry. They're probably angry for losing that game. I don't know the details on that, but it does have to suck. But if nothing like build it, I kind of understand where they're coming from. It's like if you don't if you didn't pay for the license and everything, you can't, you know what I mean? You can't build this. It's our property because this is our license until you release it. I mean, you're building a homebrew. You don't you don't own a license. They shouldn't have ever owned a game. That's the way I looked at it. You know, it should have been a prototype that may have been floating around for people to develop this game. Nobody should have probably been putting money on the table and buying games until it's there's a production model. So, I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, you even look at just the choices, Big Bang Bar. That's, yes, it's a game that commands a lot of money, but to my knowledge, I've never seen one. I played it once. It sucks. It's my knowledge. Yeah, to my knowledge, it's only commanding what it does because of the limited availability. It's like, what, 100 in the world or something? Maybe I'm making that up. I don't know. But I don't think there's many of them in the world. They made some. They made some more. And, yeah, they were going to make them again. I don't know what it is, man. Well, like when I think about it in my head, I think of that. I think it's got like watermelons on it, but I think I'm getting mixed with that. Big juicy melons or something in the game. Yeah, I think you're getting a little bit confused. I don't know what it is. Yeah, it's nothing special. It's a pinball machine. It's not something I would like bend over backwards to redevelop and put out there. I really am kind of getting tired of all these companies doing these remakes, especially J-Pop. I really don't think J-Pop's the best designer in the world. I don't understand people freaking out about his designs. A lot of the designs he's known for, a lot of these pinball companies didn't have like one designer back in the day. They had multiple designers. So there'd be like three people working on layout. And a lot of those titles he's really known for, there was multiple people working on. Where later on you go to some of those titles he was only designing, they were shit.
    71:30
    Yeah, I think that's what I mean. And the guy's shady, and that makes me know. Kelvin Williams was the only, like everything he puts out is J-pop, is it not? I mean, for the most part. Maybe not. The only thing he does is, hey, we got a new J-pop. Yeah, yeah, even Alice. Alice wasn't even a real working game. It was a ramp. Foam core. Yeah, and ramps that led to nowhere. So he had to come up with his own. I mean, it was more of an idea than an actual like layout.
    71:58
    Yeah. And then they changed the artwork. I didn't know that at first. So I've always heard like Zombie Yeti artwork and someone else colored it in. And then someone informed me the other day, I think it was Kerry Hardy when we were talking. He was like, well, you know, they like they they made it sexy. Like apparently Zombie Yeti's original one did not have all the crazy clean trailer trashed up. I tell you what's really cool in that game though, man, if you've seen it, I got to play one of Marco's specialties. I don't know why they had it. I got to play it one time as well. Yeah, and the game was really, it was over really fast, but the topper made that game. I would have that game. It's a pretty game. When you walk around, and I think I had to open up making this up too, but when you walk around, the topper's eyes follow you. I think you may have had a couple beers when that happened. I'm not sure if that's real. No, I don't think so. Bro, if we look that up, I can't even claim I know what I'm talking about after I spent five minutes trying to convince you there was a Goonies 2. Yeah, I don't believe anything you say anymore.
    73:04
    What's credibility? I can't even fault you for that. You know what? The toppers don't, the eyes don't move, they don't look at you. That's just what it is. Oh, man. Well, I think that about wraps it up for this episode. Do you got any other topics you want to talk about following eyes? I probably better not. I probably better not. So next time, yeah, hopefully Dave will join us. Yep. And we'll get some more shenanigans going. Yeah, I want to have some more chat episodes where we just talk about pinball and I'm going to continue to do my interviews. Interviews can be tough to set up sometimes, I've noticed. You're probably not very regular, too, huh? Yeah. I've got a list of people and I like reach out to them. They're like, yeah, I want to do it. And then I'm like, you ready? And they're kind of like crickets. Yeah, well, that's one thing I'm hoping with this new idea you've got of dropping the new Pinball Studio show is that we can actually do it semi-regularly and maybe kind of, you know, if people are interested. I would like to do at least once a month, maybe twice a month. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Just play it by ear. The Pinball Show does really well twice a week.
    74:12
    Twice a week? See? I wish they had two shows a week. Yeah, me too. I love that show. All right, man, I'll see. Triple Drain does one like every three months. Dude, I miss Triple Drain. Those are my buddies, and I love that damn show. And one thing I remember from their show, they said somebody wrote in or described it in a YouTube comment or something and said, It's a it's to anybody who's seen the show. It's a dumb guy trying to sound smart, a smart guy trying to sound dumb and one guy that's just happy to be there. And the funny thing is that everybody knows exactly who is who in that in that dynamic.
    74:57
    Awesome, man. Well, I can't wait until next time. And it's been a blast chatting. And hopefully we got David on next time. And yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'll maybe I'll temper the twisted tea on the next one. Or maybe not. I'll just go hard. We've got to give David a twisted T as well. I might be topless on this video podcast.
    75:20
    All right, man. I'll chat with you later, buddy. Later, Sterling. You know, I realize I.