Kaneda Pinball Podcast Interviews deeproot's Robert Mueller

Cary Hardy·video·13m 22s·analyzed·Nov 21, 2019

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.024

TL;DR

Cary Hardy reviews Mueller's rare interview revealing Deep Root's value-focused pricing, 21-game pipeline, and durability claims while questioning execution viability.

Summary

Cary Hardy analyzes a Kaneda Pinball Podcast interview with Deep Root Pinball founder Robert Mueller, discussing Raza's precision-based design philosophy, the company's 21-title pipeline with varying completion percentages, Deep Root's emphasis on 'value' pricing and customizable 'packages,' wooden playfields with durability claims, and Mueller's criticism of Stern as 'weak.' Hardy expresses cautious skepticism about Deep Root's made-to-order model, potential manufacturing risks, and unmet promises while acknowledging the value of competition in the industry.

Key Claims

Raza is a precision game designed for intermediate to pro players, not a flow game for casual players
high confidence · Robert Mueller stated in the Kaneda Pinball Podcast interview; Hardy confirms this is a design philosophy distinction
Raza is approximately 95% complete, including playfield art
high confidence · Mueller stated completion status in interview; Hardy cites this as recent information
Deep Root has 21 titles lined up, with 13 of those at least 50% finished
high confidence · Mueller disclosed pipeline status; Hardy notes 13 games means 13 different whitewoods, mechs, and designers
Mueller prioritizes 'value' over pricing and believes games should not cost more than a Stern Pro
high confidence · Mueller explicitly stated value philosophy in interview; Hardy paraphrases his concern about overpricing
Deep Root plans to implement an in-game lighting system similar to Penn Stadium's
high confidence · Mueller mentioned this feature in interview; Hardy lists it among Deep Root package offerings
Playfields will be wooden and reportedly extremely durable, with Mueller claiming hammer tests show no damage vs. competitor dimpling from 3-inch drops
high confidence · Mueller made durability claims in interview; Hardy cites specific testing comparisons Mueller described
Mueller called Stern 'weak' because size makes them easier to fall
high confidence · Direct statement from Mueller in interview; Hardy explicitly notes this criticism
Games will be offered in one to three different versions, each treated differently
high confidence · Mueller stated versioning strategy in interview; Hardy includes this in her summary of pricing approach

Notable Quotes

“Raza is a precision game it's not a flow game so it's actually meant for those intermediate to pro players because it requires precision on your shots”
Robert Mueller (via Cary Hardy's summary)@ 1:28 — Defines Deep Root's design philosophy for Raza; explains why casual players may find it unforgiving
“If he believes that you think that this game should be priced at or lower a Stern Pro, then that's a problem.”
Robert Mueller (via Cary Hardy's paraphrase)@ 3:49 — Core statement of Mueller's value-pricing philosophy and pricing ceiling relative to competitors
“Robert is hammering this down that he is more interested in value more than anything else.”
Cary Hardy@ 3:34 — Establishes Mueller's repeated emphasis on value as central messaging in interview
“He still does plan to take a hammer to the play fields to prove a point he stands by the fact that his play fields will be so strong and so much more durable that it's going to make the other manufacturers play field look far inferior”
Cary Hardy (summarizing Mueller)@ 7:07 — Mueller's durability claims and willingness to demonstrate with hammer tests; competitive positioning against industry
“He calls stern out for being weak that's right he says that essentially stern is weak because they are so large he says that the bigger you are the easier you are to fall”
Cary Hardy (quoting Mueller)@ 8:50 — Mueller's direct criticism of Stern's competitive vulnerability; frames size as weakness rather than advantage
“You spend $7,000 on a pinball machine and then you get it and it's got the complete wrong art package on it or the complete opposite of what the hell you wanted. You talk about how hard it is to take back a burger. How hard is it going to be to return a pinball machine?”

Entities

Robert Muellerperson Cary Hardyperson Deep Root PinballcompanyKaneda Pinball PodcastorganizationStern PinballcompanyRazagame Magic Girlgame

Signals

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business_signal: Made-to-order 'package' customization manufacturing model introduces significant risk for customization errors, quality control, and reverse logistics; Cary Hardy raises concern about complexity vs. Stern's rapid turnaround capability
medium · Hardy speculates on package model based on Mueller's repeated mentions; analogizes to hamburger order errors; notes Stern can ship within weeks vs. Deep Root's custom build approach
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competitive_signal: Mueller calls Stern 'weak' due to size, arguing larger companies are easier targets to fall; frames Deep Root as nimble competitor challenging industry leader
high · Mueller stated directly in interview; Hardy notes this is significant criticism of market leader
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design_philosophy: Raza designed as precision-focused skill shot game for intermediate/pro players, not casual flow game; deliberate design choice to exclude casual audience
high · Mueller stated design philosophy; Hardy explains why casual players found it unflowy
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market_signal: Industry competition intensifying with Deep Root challenging Stern's market dominance; Hardy frames this as positive for consumers driving innovation and value improvements across manufacturers
medium · Hardy concludes by emphasizing value of competition, hoping Stern and others will increase features/value in response to Deep Root's challenge
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community_signal: Mueller emphasizes 'value' as central philosophy repeatedly throughout interview; expresses confidence in product but Hardy notes this is 'a lot of talk' with incomplete follow-through on past promises

Topics

Deep Root Pinball's game pipeline and production statusprimaryValue-based pricing philosophy vs. competitor pricing modelsprimaryMade-to-order customizable 'packages' manufacturing modelprimaryWooden playfield durability claims and testingprimaryCompetitive positioning: Deep Root vs. SternprimaryPrecision vs. flow game design philosophysecondaryManufacturer competition and innovation incentivessecondary

Sentiment

mixed(0.42)— Hardy expresses cautious skepticism tempered by acknowledgment of Deep Root's potential and competitive benefits. She appreciates Mueller's confidence in durability and value philosophy but harbors significant doubts about made-to-order execution, delivery risks, and Mueller's track record of unmet promises. Concludes optimistically about industry competition but remains personally unconvinced until hands-on play testing.

Transcript

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You know, eventually, Robert, you and I will meet. And I will question this friend request that has yet to be answered. And chances are it's going to get real awkward between me and you. what's up guys and welcome back to my channel where i talk into everything pinball so that sounds interesting to you then hit that subscribe button down below so today canada's pinball podcast put out an episode with an interview with Robert Mueller from Deep Root Pinball. And for those of you that do not know, that is a very rare thing is to get Robert into a conversation talking about what is going on with the company. Now, I'm not going to be playing any of the actual audio or going over everything bit by bit. I have essentially got a list of just bullet points that I want to discuss and mention. If you care to hear this interview yourself, then by all means check it out it's available on probably every podcast platform i'll leave a link in the description down below so that way you can find it faster i highly recommend it so we're going to go down my list here um so first up one of the things that's discussed is that raza is a precision game it's not a flow game so it's actually meant for those intermediate to pro players because it requires precision on your shots do not expect you to just be able to just hit a ball and it go flying around and just doing really cool stuff it's going to require some skill behind it and that may be a good reason why it didn't look very flowy and didn't look like it shot very well to the beginners or the ones that weren't familiar with the game so hopefully that holds true and we get a game that is pretty fun to shoot once you learn how to shoot it Raza the game itself is only about 95% done. That includes the playfield art which I thought actually the playfield art was pretty decent. I actually like the colors. I mean everything looks pretty good. They would say that this is the playfield art final. I'm content with it actually. These colors at least in the pictures that we get from this week in pinball. Now the video footage that we saw with the lighting above. No that didn't make it look good at all. but the pictures, the colors look very saturated and it looks great. And they have 21 titles lined up ready to go. And a lot of those titles are anywhere between 10 to even 50% complete. So I look at 50% being at least the first Whitewood. And I want to say, man, I wish I would have wrote that down, but I want to say 13 of those games they said that they were at least 50% finished on so you gotta imagine you got 13 different games with 13 different white woods and mechs and designers and everything that man that a lot going on the cabinet that we saw during the Houston Expo was not a deep root cabinet they wanted to make it more familiar and not too new and different So they put it in a familiar cabinet for those of us to get accustomed to it easier. How different is the deep root cabinet going to be? We don't know yet. Robert is hammering this down that he is more interested in value more than anything else. So value is definitely overpriced to him. And what was it that he said? If he believes that you think that this game should be priced at or lower a Stern Pro, then that's a problem. And as far as what the prices are going to be, he himself will be making that decision down the road. Each title will be priced differently and marketed differently. And essentially what he's also kind of stated is that J-Pop means that this game is going to be priced higher. And the price could change depending on how well or how not well the game sells. As far as when Magic Girl is going to be released, they have special plans for that game. And that includes also Alice in Wonderland that J-Pop will also be doing. So it's a couple of games when I think about what Magic Girl already was. let alone being put into production again and making improvements on it then you gotta throw in an alice in wonderland game and i feel like there's so much potential for alice in wonderland and i'm pretty sure that magic girl and alice in wonderland are going to be like an sle very expensive game because in order for these games to satisfy us they're going to have to be fully loaded and when you've got an ip like alice in wonderland with all kinds of crazy things that can be done then they better go full on everything all games will have one to three different versions and they will all be treated differently supposedly and a more value approach however you want to take that rosa may have a tier that includes a topper there is a topper that it's actually been made that Robert is very fond of and excited about. Something else that's supposed to be included in the Deep Root package, and that's something else that I'm going to talk about, is that there may be an in-game lighting system similar to the Penn Stadium's included. And there's going to be lots of customer options for the Deep Root packages. And that brings me to a question here, is that this is something that he's mentioned so many times, and I don't know why at least I can't think of a time where I've seen it mentioned before, why is no one questioning what the hell these packages are? Typically, when a manufacturer is talking about releases, they're always talking about a game launch or launching a new machine, a new game, not a package. So it's one of those where we're like, what do you mean when you say package? I mean, what does that all entail? Is that, I don't understand. The way I kind of wondering is that is each game going to be like made to order like a la carte kind of thing you know like hey do you want this game but you want to upgrade this to this and you may not want to have these sort of cosmetics and it's going to be one of those things where that's good but also bad at the same time and i'll discuss the reasons behind that at a later point uh robert also states that they are still working on getting the manufacturing process figured out and he expects that there will be issues their playfields will be made of wood he still does plan to take a hammer to the playfields to prove a point he stands by the fact that his playfields will be so strong and so much more durable that it's going to make the other manufacturers play field look far inferior He goes into talking about how they made all these kinds of tests and how you take any current game now and drop a ball from like three inches or maybe a little bit higher than that, then you're guaranteed to get a dimple on the other manufacturer's plate fields. Whereas he can take a hammer to his and there's not a scratch or a dimple or anything. He gets asked about where he sees Deep Root in a year. And what he says about that is that he hopes that a year from now that people can look back and realize and accept that he's basically lived by the promises that he's made. That he's followed through with what he said he would be doing. And that he stands behind value. There's also questions about the reasons why people would buy the games. Like, you know, how does he feel about someone buying one of his games just because of the art package? And he, you know, said that he's highly against buying a game just for how it looks. He cares more about how it plays, which I back him up on that. You know, art is only a portion of it, but if the game is really fun and has a lot of, I'm going to say it, value in it, then that's where, basically, that's where it's pertinent. towards the end of the interview it gets a little interesting because he calls stern out for being weak that's right he says that essentially stern is weak because they are so large he says that the bigger you are the easier you are to fall and here's where i've got to start talking about my feelings on this is that i feel like that you know as per usual with robert's talking is that as of right now it's a lot of talk and he has shown us a little bit of the walk but he's still making a lot of promises that have yet to be seen and it's one of those things where now he's calling out the biggest pinball manufacturer that we have stern and calling them weak and i mean i don't see stern shaking in their boots or anything i mean there's a reason why Stern is where they are at And the reason why they are doing What they're doing And the reason behind that is because They've been around so long They've made all kinds of decisions In the past And they made all kinds of mistakes in the past And the thing is that they have people in place on the payroll that have all the research all this knowledge on the do and don and what they can and can do and if there's anything that stern knows how to do is manufacture and i say that because they can announce a game and have that sucker out there to the public within a couple of weeks and a lot of them. Whereas what it looks like Deep Root's going to be having is a made-to-order pinball machine of your choosing, like you're ordering a hamburger or something. Just check off the list what kind of features you want in their package, and they will assemble your game and ship it directly to you. That's going to be a little bit more difficult to do, guys. That leaves a lot more room for errors, especially in the manufacturing line. You ever ordered a cheeseburger with mayonnaise and all of a sudden you get it with mustard when you get to the house? Imagine how pissed off you'd be. You spend $7,000 on a pinball machine and then you get it and it's got the complete wrong art package on it or the complete opposite of what the hell you wanted. You talk about how hard it is to take back a burger. How hard is it going to be to return a pinball machine? But yeah, this is all just speculation. I could be completely wrong on how they're going to be doing their pinball machines, but that's just kind of what was going through my mind as he was talking about it. But with the way he's talking towards Stern and what basically the amount of confidence that he has in his product. The only thing that I really care about is the fact that we hopefully will have a good competition going and competition between manufacturers and companies in general is always good for the consumer. because this is when the manufacturers are going to be forcing their designers to innovate, and you're going to start seeing Stern going, hey, you know what, let's splurge a little bit more on this. Let's go ahead and throw that extra mech in there. We've got to really pump up our value because Deep Root's doing that, and they're starting to sell a lot more games than we anticipated them to be doing. So that is my main thing is that I'm just looking forward to hopefully there being a battle for our money, guys. that's essentially what we want this to be we want the manufacturers to be battling over who's going to get our money is deep root going to get my money that is yet to be seen and from what i'm seeing i see the potential but i don't know if i'm sold i need to flip this game to make that decision so that decision is up to you now is deep root going to get your money what are your thoughts on this interview please make sure you go check it out yourself these are just some highlights by all means if you like this video please give me that thumbs up and if you haven't already do not forget to hit that subscribe button that way you can be notified of whenever i upload something for your viewing pleasure until next time guys peace out Thank you.