Do you have the time to listen to me whine about nothing and everything all at once? It all keeps setting up, I think I'm breaking up, and I'm just paranoid, I'm just scared. Sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up, sit up. Oh, welcome everybody to Canadian Spinball Podcast. I thought it was going to be like seven games in eight weeks, but now it's going to be eight games in eight weeks. Turner Pinball coming out of nowhere with Merlin's Arcade, a brand new game. Well, not brand new game. Developed over at Deep Root. Finesse by Mr. Turner. The Finesse Flippers. We're going to talk about this game coming out of nowhere. We're going to talk about the pinball community's response to this game. We're going to talk about Stern Pinball's accessories for Venom. We're going to talk about what I think is happening right now. We got Portal. We got Turner Pinball. If I were to tell you, is it worth traveling to Texas to go play the new game for Multimorphic and Turner Pinball? Are you buying those plane tickets? Remember when this show used to be where the big dogs released their games? But man, everybody's been gaslit in pinball. everybody guys are now saying there's a lot in a nine thousand dollar game because it's got one ramp and four pop bumpers and no ip like you didn't have to license a damn thing nine grand we're now paying for little 3d printed molded sculpts how much does that cost hey let me fly over to China and make this stuff for 30 bucks people nine grand Canada what are you doing you're supposed to cheerlead everything happening in the pinball hobby but seriously there's a lot I like about Chris Turner and I like the way he revealed this game sort of I'm going to talk about one thing I don't like but before I do that I'm going to give everybody a little bit of news I think we know now that all of our dreams around barrels of fun are about to be let down unless they're going to sandbag us. And maybe they are literally going to sandbag us. Because I heard that barrels of fun is going to hand out at TPF or another show coming up. They're going to hand out as a teaser. So I'm going to give you a teaser of their teaser. they're gonna hand out sand to people and so are they doing that to once again misdirect us or are they handing out sand because it's gonna be dune it's the title nobody wants but man once they did those teasers around labyrinth all the clues were pointing towards labyrinth. So what does that mean? I'm just here to tell you right now, if I were you and I'm looking at what's happening, I think the barrels game is going to be next. But here's my thoughts overall on what's happening. I think the JV team is on the field right now. I think this is the minor leagues. I mean that. Multimorphic, Turner pinball, even barrels of fun. David, I love you, but you're not there yet. This is the minor leagues, people. They're charging major league prices, but these are not the big dogs. This is not the majors. This is not the varsity team. These aren't the ones everybody comes to see. These aren't the games that fill the stadiums. These aren't the designers that get laid by the cheerleaders. This is the JV people. Multimorphic with Portal, JV. Chris Turner with Merlin's Arcade, JV. Barrels of Fun with Dune, JV. The majors, the varsity team is about to take the field real soon with games like Harry Potter from Jersey Jack and King Kong from Stern Pinball. I'm at the point now where I feel like how many of these games are we going to get before we get the big dogs? They're all going to come out first. And I really do think you need to have your head examined if you go in on any of these games before you see the big dogs. Are you really going to commit to one of these two games when you know that in just a couple of weeks, you're going to get Harry Potter and King Kong? I know most of you are not. I mean, it's so funny to me. You read this community and everyone's like, good job, everybody. This is amazing. I mean, look at that dude, Blueberry Johnson, for those of you out there wondering why I'm making fun of Blueberry Johnson on Pinside, because he went on a like multi-year long crusade to take down Robert Mueller, right? This guy was like obsessed. He was like following every move Robert made. He's revealing all the court documents. And now he's in the damn Turner thread, making half of the post saying another successful magical game from Chris Turner. Like, look, Everybody, here's the thing, and I've been reading a lot of people, and look, I just want to start by saying something nice. Chris Turner, I like the way you run your company. I like your level of transparency. I watched your carry hardy last night. I came home. I was busy at work all day. Brenda, myself, we watched the entire hour plus of you talking about the game. We watched you walk us through the game, and it was great. This is the nicest guy in pinball. Like there's not a nicer guy in pinball. This guy should be the sales rep for every single pinball company out there. He is so damn nice. He's also so damn adorable. I want to like bring Chris Turner home and bring him to Thanksgiving in the Caloris household and watch all my family fight. And he would be like the detente. He would like settle everybody down. He's like the millhouse of pinball. He's like, he's just so damn adorable. You want to pinch his cheeks and you kind of want to buy a game from a guy that damn nice. And I mean it, Chris. We need more nice people in the world. People that are like on an even keel level. They're not crazy like Kaneda seeking attention. Is this all one big 10 year long insecurity thing I'm doing? Or do I actually love pinball? The jury is still out But Chris Turner built a pinball company He released Ninja Eclipse He sold 100 units He brought a cabinet to like a show that everybody made fun of So he went back to a normal cabinet He listens to the feedback. He's very transparent about how much his games are going to cost. If you order one, how long is it going to take to get? It's going to take longer than you want. He's very transparent about all the innovations and technologies he's put into his games. There's nothing he's doing that is misleading anybody. And for that, I want to say, Chris, thank you. I like this approach. There's nothing to complain about. This is the game. This is what's in it. This is what it's going to cost. This is what will happen if you order it. This is how many we're going to make. this is the order we're going to make the games. He was a little bit confused. He said something like, well, Stern makes the pros first. Not anymore, Chris. They haven't made the pros first in a few titles. But here's the thing. This is a unique game. It's an original IP. It was made by Jon Norris. It was developed over at Deeproot. So most of the R&D cost happened over at Deeproot. What we don't know, did any of the coding and the software happen over there? I don't think so. I think that's what Chris does. I think Turner is all about software and the animations and all that's happening in-house. So obviously they made some design changes. They added a lot of code to the game and we got a walkthrough of the game. So I just want to say, Chris, on all those levels, thank you for doing what you do. You put a pinball machine out in the world and we should always congratulate that. But then I have to then walk over to the other side of the fence and be a customer, to be a reviewer, to be a pinball critic, if you will. Because just because you are a nice guy and just because we love Jon Norris does not mean that we should look at all of these games. And it's not just this game, it's Portal, it's every game. We need to look at these games a little bit objectively. And what I mean by that, if you're really nice and you're a movie director and I do movie reviews, does the fact that you're nice make me review your movie differently? So here's my thing. Here's my take on this game after seeing it. Well, first and foremost, I want to say something I'm not happy about. I'm not happy about a game being revealed on a Tuesday that you've been developing for a really long time and all of a sudden the order banks are open. I'm getting spammed by all of my distro friends with pictures of your game and non-refundable deposits that they will now take on a game in which I haven't seen anything other than like six photos of the game. This is not an IP or a theme where you can launch it like that. Like you're not going to see pictures of Merlin's arcade and then go buy one for $9,000. Like this isn't Harry Potter. It's not fifth element. It's not like GI Joe. Like there's no built in demand. There's zero demand in the world for Merlin's arcade. You have to grow the demand. And look, Chris's Kerry Hardy hour-long interview did a great job of growing demand for this game. It really did. Like after watching it, because here's what those things do. They get you to stare at the product and the person in a vacuum. And you can have a little bit of a state of like suspended disbelief that there's other stuff out there. Because if you look at this game in a vacuum and you hear about the passion that went into it and you hear about the freaking flipper buttons and you hear about the artwork and the journey to get it to market and you hear from chris and all of his enthusiasm all of a sudden it's like yeah like you want to support that but you have to remember for nine thousand dollars you can get some of the greatest pinball ever made that runs circles around this game that has ip that is iconic and has so much more in it. And that again is why what he did was good for his company. But when you sleep on it and you wake up and you start to ask yourself, is a $9,000 pinball machine worth it if it has one ramp, four pop bumpers, and doesn't have any IP or licensing costs whatsoever. Merlin is open IP. So I woke up. I liked what I saw yesterday, but I want to talk about the price because I don't think there is demand for a $9,000. And I don't think a few of your Ninja Eclipse customers who have asked you for sculpts warrants a $9,000 version of your product because in the pinball marketplace, I don't think you're going to sell anywhere close to 500 units. Even that alone to me is bonkers. How do you go from 100 Ninja Eclipse to 500 of these Merlins, which are now significantly more expensive than Ninja Eclipse? This is my thing with pinball. There's zero market research. He's just guessing. And look, it's no harm, no foul, Chris. Don't get me wrong. And for you out there, don't get me wrong. There's no harm, no foul. Like he can say that's how many we're going to make in total. And the market will decide. Now, I'm just here to tell you, I don't think the market is going to purchase anywhere near that many games. I would say they will struggle to sell 100 of these at $9,000, especially with all of the games coming out right now, especially with the hundreds of used games on the market. For $9,000, you can go get a Venom LE. You can go get a Foo Fighter LE. For $9,000, you can go get a John Wick LE, a Godfather CE, a Toy Story CE for nine grand. It's still Toy Story. It's got way more in it than this game So just remember that people like when a new game comes out because all pinball is similar even though it new it still competing with everything else out there And I see the community right It like we just always have these like new in box cheerleaders, right? The new in box shields, they're everywhere. Oh man, this is amazing. I can't believe what you did here. I can't believe like, what can't you believe people? Have you just woken up? Did you see no pinball machines from the nineties? Like I get it. I think these Turner games fit a spot in the pinball market? I do. I think Chris Turner's games are great games, but they have to be between six and $7,000. Once he goes north of that, I think he's playing with an empty hand. I do. I don't think these games can compete north of $7,000. You know, and I don't understand why a game like this would cost $9,000. I don't. I think what you're going to end up paying for. You're going to end up paying for the fact that that factory doesn't always have games going out the door. You're going to be paying for the years of R&D to get here. It's a very small company. I get it. But you're not getting nine grand in bomb because you took a few sculpts and molded them and had someone hand paint them. I'm sorry, people. It doesn't cost that much money because here's the hard part about all of this. You know, you really can't stay in business if you only make a hundred of a game. You can't stay in business even if you only make three to four hundred of a game. You got to think about the margins on a game. I'm not saying making pinball is cheap, but imagine if this company makes 20 games a month, right? Just imagine that. Let's just say they make $3,000 profit per game over 20 games. That's $60,000 a month. Okay. And don't you have to pay taxes on that? Then you got to pay people's salaries. Then you got to pay for insurance. Then you got to pay for rent. Then you got to pay for R and D. Then you got to pay for other stuff. You got to pay for the development of the next game. And then you got to pay yourself a salary, right? So he's not making money doing this. Like all of this is a loss leader endeavor. And so I don't know, like, I don't know, like Chris's background. I don't know who's investing in this company. I don't know what the finances are, but I know it's got to be a labor of love. There's a lot easier ways to make a lot of money than doing all this. So that's the thing about this game. When I saw it, I was like, all right. It reminded me a lot of games like Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. Like the artwork in it is very like 80s campy cartoonish, which fits the theme. The theme of the game is that you are battling Merlin and these knights in an arcade. And each knight is playing an arcade machine like pool or foosball or air hockey. And you go and you battle them. And I think there's like eight different knights and there's like a white knight and a dark knight and there's like 16 or 18 different multi balls. And then you can battle the final wizards in the game. And that is sort of like the premise of the game. So like there's nothing really new in this game other than the new flipper buttons in this game that Jon Norris developed, which I really like. It's these finesse flippers. And what happens is when you press the buttons that are in front of the normal flipper buttons, it activates the lower flippers, but they just sort of finesse flip like a little bit of a tap. And whenever you play pinball, when you do that, it allows you to sort of control the ball and pass the ball over to the other flipper. And some people think that might be cheating, but I think that's awesome. Out of all the things in this game, I love that. I think it creates a fun sort of magical new thing and way to play pinball. And I wish we saw more of that in pinball. I really do. I think it's fun. But here's my other thing. This company took orders and the deposits are $1,000 and you are promised a game, get ready for it, within 24 months, two years, your deposit is locked in. Two years, people. And guess what? Read the fine print. Your deposit is non-refundable, but also non-transferable. So you know what that means? if you buy it, you can't sell your spot to another customer. Why would anybody in March of 2025, with everything coming around the corner, why would you lock in $1,000 on a game you're being told you might not get for two years? In two years time, there will be 15 other new games you might want instead of this. I don't get it. I really don't get it. It's too long of a time frame. I wouldn't be able to even say those conditions with a straight face. And I know he doesn't want to disappoint anybody, but there does come a point where you are disappointing because the terms and conditions are such a disappointment. You know what I'm saying? Like, I can't go to my boss and be like, oh, Chris, when are you going to have this ready for me? Well, I don't want to disappoint you. so you're gonna have it sometime in the next four weeks. They'd be like, what are you talking about, bro? Like we work in a business where we need stuff within a week. Yeah, but you know what? I'm telling you honestly the timeframe. So, you know, I hope you appreciate that I'm being candid and transparent. I'm sorry, but you shouldn't take any orders on any products unless you can deliver within a year. I mean that. Don't allow people to order the game past the number you can make in a year. That should be how the pinball deposits work. But my bigger issue, and I mean this when I say this, and I told this to Kerry Hardy and Chris Turner, I'm going to tell this to you. I don't like any company that takes money on games without showing any gameplay, without streaming the game. You have the game in your factory. You know what Kerry Hardy told me? that Turner Pinball doesn't have the equipment to stream a game, to make a video of gameplay. And you know what my response to that is? You're a pinball company. You know you need this stuff. This is the basics of what you need to market your game. So don't tell me that you don't have of like a few tripods, how much is the equipment that you need to adequately show people gameplay before you want them to spend on your product How much is it in total streaming equipment rigs Heck you don even need it Just call up Don He would be on a plane in a heartbeat with all of his equipment and he would stream the damn thing for you and buy 499 versions of the LE of the game. He would do it. You know what I'm saying? That's what would happen. So I just don't like it. I don't like it. I don't like it. At least when we saw Portal, we saw the gameplay. We saw all the features. We saw how the game operates. But all of it, all of it, I wouldn't buy any of this stuff until you got time on it. And I don't think people are, gang. You go into the pin side threads. There's not a lot happening in those threads. It's not even more than two pages long. Same thing with Portal. There's just slow conversation. Everybody's waiting for the major league titles. Everybody's waiting for the varsity titles everybody so speaking of major league companies we got stern pinball releasing accessories for the game that nobody wants venom and the topper looks just like the topper from mandalorian but good news everybody the mandalorian topper which basically has the same stuff on it was $2,000. And this one is only, I think, $1,200. So Stern Pinball is paying attention. They definitely realized that they were making this topper for a game that has lost a lot of value. There is no demand. So they are adjusting what they can charge based upon the market enthusiasm and demand for the title. Even though I like those side armor rails, when you see it on a game, it just looks stupid because the artwork of the side armor is overshadowing the artwork that's underneath. You've got like Spider-Man's arm. And once you put the side armor on, it looks like Venom's face. It just doesn't make sense. And I just want to say this, Stern Pinball, out of all the companies out there, your accessory timeline is one of the biggest disappointments in all of pinball. And it makes no sense. I don't understand when I walk through your big factory and I see hundreds of people and I see all the resources and all the design teams and all the work happening, you're telling me that you can't in parallel design this stuff while the game's being developed and all of this plastic junk we're sticking on the games, you can't develop this stuff in parallel so that it's released the same time the game comes out. You're telling me you can't hand the side armor to the artist working on the cabinet and make it all at the same time so the artwork can actually work with the armor so it doesn't look like a tack-on that doesn't fit aesthetically. It's just disappointing. It's also so stupid. Like two years go by and you're waiting for a topper. They would have sold these things when Venom first came out, but what idiot out there now he's going to pour more money into their venom. I mean, talk about lighting your money on fire. Everybody look, here's the thing. You guys are smart. You guys are patient. You know what's around the corner. And the smart person, I think Stern is going to release Kong last. And I think Kong is going to be the best of the bunch. I just do. Keith Elwin, his team, They've got Pokemon Next coming from John Borg. Ray Day is on Pokemon Code. Canadian, why are you giving us all this? It's all coming, people. Stern Pinball has had a bunch of misses in a row. They're about to just drop some juggernaut stuff into the world. All of you are out of space. You're not out of money. You're out of space. You're also just seeing the reality. This market is so oversaturated. Let's keep pumping out more games. We don't even talk about it. How's Barrel's going to sell 1,000 of their game? How's Pinball Brothers going to sell 1,000 of their game? Spooky Pinball was smart. They're getting their games out the door, but they're still not sold out on Evil Dead. If that is not an indication of how soft the market is becoming, because remember, every time thousands of new games come out in the world, that's thousands of used games that are going to go up for sale. We are on the downhill slide, everybody. Five years from now, I mean this, five years from now, a lot of us are going to be owning Stern LEs that we paid $6,000 to $7,000 for. We're going to be owning Jersey Jack CEs that we paid $6,000 to $7,000 for. And five years from now, there's going to be a plethora of stuff like Stern Pros in the $3,000 range. There's just too much of all of it. The only things that are even going to remotely hold value are the masterpiece games that have some sort of rarity. I mean, they're still making Godzilla's people. They're still, I mean, again, every week, hundreds of them more in the world. These boutiques are in a better position. They are, but they're still going to struggle. If barrels makes dune right now, I'm worried about them. I think they might still be sandbagging us. I think the sand being handed out might be a sandbag tease. We're all still dreaming it's going to be Goonies, but we shall see. So look for those teasers at TPF. Everybody have fun. I love this hobby. Thank you for subscribing. I know you join here to get a little bit of a different point of view. I love doing this. It's entertaining. My money is safe it is so safe though until these major league companies give me a dream theme i'm not buying anything canada out Thank you.