California, here we come, right back where we started from. Welcome to Gannata's Pinball Podcast, everybody. What themes may come? Would you be shocked to know that over the last few years, there have been 20, yes, 20 pinball machines that have come out. I'm going to tell you what themes they were based on, and you tell me how many of these games are a take my money now theme. Now, there are a lot of really exciting themes in the rumor mill, and it's about freaking time. How hard is it for these pinball companies to understand what we want? We want a theme based upon something we love. Something we think about. Something we engage with frequently. Not a movie we saw once just because it had cool 3D special effects. Not an obscure thing that like was here today, gone tomorrow. Not a musical act that's only popular in Australia. No, we want stuff that has universal, long-lasting appeal. All right, you start there. Then we want three mechs in the game that are fun. Three, not one, not two, but three main mechs in the game. Heck, I would just take one major toy and I would be happy. If you look at most modern pinball machines for this much money and you say, what's the one major mechanism that creates a moment of wow when you play this game, you would come up short on so many of these games I'm about to list. And then you want theme integration, right? Is it fun to shoot? have they made it perfect? I mean, I guess that's two things. You want the game to have good gameplay. Absolutely. Look, there's no excuse. There is no excuse in 2024 that a pinball machine should ever like make its way to customers and it doesn't shoot well. I mean, how hard is it to make a whitewood, call up a few buddies, you know, have some people sign some NDAs, get some of the best tournament players in the world. Look, everybody remember this, a professional pinball player, They don't exist, by the way, but you get some of the top 10 pinball players in the world. They probably make about $13,000 a year in pinball earnings. If you offer them a few thousand dollars to play your game and help you design it, it would be a great game. There is a reason why Keith Elwin games play so well because he's one of the best players in the world. There's a reason why Jack Danger's games shoot so well, because he's an amazing pinball player. So there's no excuse. Like, it's almost like criminal that we have to like say a game should shoot well for this much money. And then you want theme integration. And I think anyone who saw my live last night, and if you haven't, go watch the video where I had a showcase how Jersey Jack games have simply like nerfed theme integration because they've got whatever theme it is, they show you the movie clips with these like muted scenes and it's removing all of the excitement. It's removing all of the moments that made those movies magical and they're replacing it with just like call outs that are telling you what to shoot. So you've got these epic battles in Avatar and you don't hear any of the battle. You just hear a monotone voice saying, shoot the right ramp, shoot the spinner. the multi balls arrive like the wizard modes arrive in this like monotone voice and I'm not saying it to be a jerk but it's over this way of coding a game is over it's not exciting and if that excites you and you want to invest in games that come at you like that I don't know what to tell you and I showed in that stream last night stern pinball gives you all the synced up video you want. JAWS is one of the greatest theme integrated machines of all time. Even if it doesn't have a wow mechanism, it definitely gives you everything else you want. Spooky Pinball is able to sync up voices with clips. So many other companies are able to do it. So it's really just no excuse anymore. And especially if you're Jersey Jack, you've got all the resources, you have all the potential there. And every time they do a media day, and I loved going over there, They told us Lightstorm gave us access to everything. And it's not a licensing reason why they're not doing it. It is a Keith P. Johnson, Jersey Jack code decision not to have the sound effects and the actor call outs in those moments when they're showing them on the screen. And I think it's a huge mistake. And I wish more pinball content creators would actually like call it out and bring some attention to this. Because if more of us did, they would change this because it's just software. I mean, look at all of the feedback Stern got about the X-Men music. Guess what they're doing? They're changing the music in X-Men because of the feedback. If you act like a newbie, like some other pinball content creators, and just rush at every single new game and fork over $15,000 acting like you've seen enough in the game, All that does is reinforce that these companies don't need to get better. They don't need to make the right changes. And we're going to continue to get an aim towards mediocrity versus an aim towards a masterpiece. And I mean that. All right. So 20 titles in the pinball world. 20. Are you ready for these titles, people? Get ready. You're telling me when you have a captive audience of 40 to 60 year old men who want to buy pinball machines this is the best the industry can do Scooby Looney Tunes Texas Chainsaw Massacre Venom Jaws John Wick. X-Men. ABBA. Queen. Funhouse Remake. Toy Story 4. The Godfather. Elton John. Avatar. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The Princess Bride. Weird Al. Pulp Fiction, Barbecue Challenge, and Ninja Eclipse. Take a gun to my head as a marketer and pull the trigger, people, because we have so many companies making pinball. How did we end up here? Now, here's the good news. And here's the bad news. I mean, let's start with the bad news. The bad news is coming out of COVID, you had the most captive buying audience in the history of pinball. People wanted to buy everything and you dropped these themes as a way to capture that money. What a colossal marketing mistake by everybody. I mean it. There's only a handful in here that are really good choices and I'm going to call them out right now. I think the good choices and I mean is based upon the audience, how many games you need to sell. The good choices in here are Jaws and Pulp Fiction. I think that's it. I think just Jaws and Pulp Fiction are the two that are like, all right, those make sense. Everything else, I think there's more going against it than for it. And if I had to pick a third one, it would be Scooby-Doo. I mean it. If I had to pick a third one, it would be Scooby-Doo because spooky pinball making Scooby-Doo. You know, if they only made a thousand, that game would still be in the man. But 1964, get out of town with that many games. It's too many games. Too many games for Scooby-Doo. And so now we're on the precipice of what we're hearing is going to be a period in pinball in which all of these kind of B and C themes, they're going to go away. And we're going to get Harry Potter from Jersey Jack pinball in February. I know this. And it's crazy that they kind of told us this. Because if there's anything that's not going to help avatar sales, it's knowing that the new Jersey Jack game is right around the corner. And yet it is done like it is ready to come out. And it is a game where if they don't sync up the video with the voices, I'm just going to be done with JJP. I'm just going to be done because it just shows me they're not listening to any of the feedback. I don't think Joe Katz is going to do it that way. I'm praying they don't do it that way. But man, oh, man, oh, man, when you look at all their games, they continue to use the video assets like it's a slot machine and not a pinball machine. So we've got that from Jersey Jack. I also know that Jersey Jack has, 100% has, the Matrix license. I think that's Steve Ritchie's next. I think Steve Ritchie is going to make the Matrix. I know it's going to be a challenging game to make because I heard if you get the Matrix license, it comes with nothing from the movies. So it might be more of like a Pirates of the Caribbean situation again. But as long as they do it right, Steve Ritchie with the Matrix, get voice actors that sound like the movie actors and just make that game rain down black and green and you will get customers. It needs to have mechanisms. It needs to have a phone booth. It needs to have bullet time and magnets and all that stuff. So we're going to get Harry Potter and then I think the Matrix. Awesome. We know Spooky Pinball most likely has what? Beetlejuice? We know that. We know they have most likely the Goonies and they have most likely Gremlins. I forgot a title, ladies and gentlemen. I was thinking about which company did I miss? 21 Games, people, because I forgot Labyrinth from Barrels of Fun. How could I possibly forget? My friends over there at Barrels of Fun, Labyrinth, talk about not a theme I would have picked, and they did not sell out. Again, my point, that game actually makes my point perfectly. This company's next theme is going to be so much better than the Labyrinth. We all know it. So what is Barrels of Fun going to have next? Let's go back to Spooky, then we'll go to Barrels. So they have Goonies, Beetlejuice, maybe Gremlins. We know they do not have Sonic the Hedgehog, but somebody does. all right, I'll take Sonic over like 15 of those themes I just rattled off. And then who's got Sonic? Oh, we'll talk about that. All right, so Spooky Pinball. At least we know their next like three or four games they are really excited about. I know they also have Evil Dead. That is coming out, and I hope they don't make that Motorhead game. Trust me, guys, if you want to stay in business. Don't make Motorhead pinball in the mix of everything coming out. All right, barrels of fun. What are they going to make? Now, maybe they have gremlins, but I do know that whatever they're going to do next, it's going to be based on something exciting and something nostalgic. And I think they're going to get something right this time. I'm not saying Labyrinth was wrong, but let's face it, people, it's not exactly a loaded game. It's not. There's a lot of sculpts and Pez dispenser heads popping up all over the game. But there's really not a major toy in the game. What I'm looking for from Barrels of Fun on their next game is a better theme and more mechanical magic. You're not going to hide it with sculpts, people. I don't want sculpts everywhere. I don't mind them. But do the sculpts after you've got three major toys designed in the game. Let's go over to Stern next. Stern Pinball, right? This company passed on back to the future. could be the biggest regret of George Gomez life. How do you pass on Back to the Future? We could spend many, many nights and many, many glasses of whiskey trying to figure out that decision How did Seth Davis let that decision happen I mean if I CEO of Stern Pinball I don even care if nobody wants to make it You making the freaking game So we know that they have Dungeons and Dragons Really? That feels like another miss. And we're most likely going to get King Kong from Keith Elwin. Now that's going to work because Keith is the king of the monsters. And I would love to see a Keith Elwin King Kong machine. and after that right stern pinball what they have in the mix metallica remastered we've already seen metallica we know what the game is going to be it's going to have nicer artwork pokemon maybe maybe pokemon and that could be the game that bridges the divide right between millennials and gen xers are we going to see pokemon i don't know maybe maybe i still think that's like a 30 percent chance based upon how big that property is. Even if Pokemon did come out, I still don't think the majority of people who buy pinball machines are really into Pokemon. Like Back to the Future would sell you more pinball machines than Pokemon based on who buys pinball machines. I'm serious. Like people who play Pokemon video games or Pokemon on the go or collect the cards are not going to be dropping like $8,000 to $12,000 to $13,000 on a pinball machine. Stern's had rumors like Journey. We heard Motley Crue for a while. I'm trying to think if there's anything else major. No, I mean, Stern to me really feels like a lot of these other boutique companies have swooped in and taken some of the dream themes. Let's just say it, Dutch Pinball, back to the future. It's coming. It's coming out in October of 2025, which makes total sense because that's Back to the Future month and there's that Back to the Future day. So a year from next month, we will see Back to the Future. A lot's going to happen in pinball up between now and then, but we know it's coming 100%. Joe Kamnikow is making it with the executive producer, Bob Gale. Will Christopher Franchi be on the art package? I do not think so. So that's Dutch Pinball. Dutch Pinball X has Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. That game is coming out in just a few weeks. We shall see that. That's going to be an interesting market to see if Melvin nailed it and there's enough people to buy 500. If it were up to me, I would have cut that number in half just to have a sellout and make DPX a brand that's not for everybody. But you know what? He got talked into 500. Melvin, sometimes you just got to tell the boss man no and say, look, we're going to make this scarce. We're going to make this limited and we're going to come out of the gate with something that not everybody can have. Now, look, 500 seemingly is not a lot, but then again, it seems like a lot. I don't know. There's something weird about 500 and Alice that seems like more than enough because we all got so used to J-pop's numbers and it was like, I'm going to make 16 Magic Girls. I'm going to make 200 Razzas. And all of a sudden, when someone says they're going to make 500 of a J-pop inspired game, it feels like so many. But in the world of Stern and Jersey Jack and Spooky, that's nothing. Oh, I forgot to tell you guys. First of all, thank you for being a subscriber to Canada's Pinball Podcast. We broke a new record, 741 at one point yesterday. Then somebody left. We're back to 740. We have well over more subscribers to this show than every other pinball content creator combined on Patreon. So thank you so much. And as a thank you, and I'm going to remind you why you subscribe, and I'm also going to remind you that I'm taking the first two weeks in October off. I have to have a little surgery and a recovery. So I just want to focus on that and getting back to 100%. So I do ask each and every one of you, please just stick it out. Just stick it out with me. You don't have to unsubscribe. I think I've given you way more content over the last few months that you can just give me a two-week break to come back better than ever. And as a thank you for not leaving, because I want to get to 800 by Christmas. That's my other point. If just 60 of you invites a friend to a show, gives the gift of Canada to a wife for her birthday or Christmas, if just 60 of you brings in another one of your pinball friends, we're going to hit that milestone of 800. My overall goal is 1,000 subscribers. We'll see. If I keep doing interviews like I did with George Gomez, we're going to get there. And everyone on Facebook complaining that I'm not giving everything for free on Facebook will eventually migrate over because you know there's no substitute. You can put on fake Versace glasses and put on a fake show when the camera's on, but you know Kaneda is the real deal, both on and off the screen. All right, so here's the deal. As a thank you, I'm going to give you an exclusive on today's show. I'm going to end this show by telling you exclusively, 100% confirmed, what the next title is going to be from Play Mechanics. Play Mechanics is the partnership with CGC, which is Mr. Sharp and Mr. Richie, Mark Ritchie, who made Pulp Fiction. I'm going to tell you what their next title is. I'm going to end the show with it. You can take it to Jason Knapp. You can take it to freaking Pinside. And you can't remove this watermark baby boy over there with my fake glasses on because you don't have any scoops ever. Oh, he said it. OK, so let's keep going, though, on what's coming out in the pinball world. So we talked about Jersey Jack, talked about Stern. We talked about Dutch. We talked about Spooky. A lot of interesting titles coming out from those people. The companies to me that are going to struggle, and I mean this, they're going to struggle and walking the halls at Stern and seeing the halls at Jersey Jack, there's just not going to be, I think, like much viability anymore if you don't have a great theme. There's also not going to be much viability anymore if your strategy is solely to remake old games. The new games are so good They so deep They have so much replay value I really confused why so many of you just keep buying more new in box because once you buy a modern game like Jaws, it's so satisfying, so deep, so rewarding. There's so much in one single game. It almost makes it ridiculous and redundant to own like eight games when you have a game like that. All right. So we look at companies like CGC. they've got Pulp Fiction. I don't even know where the LEs are. Like we're almost at the end of September. No LEs are shipping. And then their next game is going to be Medieval Madness. And they've already made Medieval Madness two times before. Sure, you're always going to sell them. It's kind of an evergreen game, but it's boring. Just more Medieval Madness games. And then after that, they're going to remake Twilight Zone. Now what's crazy about when they do that, Twilight Zone is arguably the most loaded game of all time. And if they come out with Twilight Zone and it's less than 13 and less than 15, it's really going to be hard for Jersey Jack and Stern to sell games that are going to be seemingly very barren next to a game like Twilight Zone. So I'm excited. I'm excited to see Twilight Zone come back. I'm also excited because it's going to be a CGC remake and not a Pedretti remake. Funhaus and Pedretti just don't have the same quality as CGC. So more Twilight Zones in the world. Crazy because there's already thousands of them. So if you own a Twilight Zone and you love the game and you want the best, most modern version of it or with all the new bells and whistles because it's going to have better lighting. it's gonna have a better screen it's gonna have better sound it's gonna have better everything and I think the mechs will be like Bally Williams mechs so it's happening people it'll have a better clear coat everything about it will be sexier so that's what's coming from CGC I'm trying to think who else I'm missing on this list so I don't know what Jerry's got coming after the Princess Bride I think those games should be trickling out but again it's like when you're one of these companies where you're making like four games a week, four games a week. Stern Pinball is making like 800 games a week. Again, like I just don't get how you survive anymore when you can barely trickle the games out. Jerry has more licensed themes coming and you know, we'll see, we'll see. Every time I see that platform up for sale, it's like people are trying to like bail for like 20 grand. Then they slash the price to 19. I'll take 18. I'll take 17.5. I mean, these people are like 25,000 in on all these modular kits. And then if you try to sell it, like good luck. I mean, now the big Lebowskis are selling used for like 11, 11.5. Like it just happens. There's just too many of them out there. So I think that's where we're at, everybody. That's where we're at. So let's do this right now. Let's end this podcast with a Canada exclusive. This is the next game from Play Mechanics and Mark Ritchie. I knew that it was a science fiction theme. I'd heard that many, many times. I was hoping it was going to be Blade Runner. I was hoping it would be something like The Fifth Element. I was hoping it might be something like Space Odyssey 2001. There's a lot of really amazing science fiction movies. Total Recall. But now knowing what it is and knowing that they've been working on it, it makes total sense. It's a license that Raw Thrills also has. So here you go. And I don't think this is going to work in pinball. I don't think the pinball buying demographic wants this theme. And I don't think the fans of this theme are into pinball really. So I think this is a little bit of a misstep. And I think they should have done more market research. And I think they should have called up Kaneda. Because I'm telling you right now, as big as this property is, you'd sell more gremlins. You'd sell more Goonies. You'd sell more Big Trouble in Little China. You'd sell more of Akira than you would of this title in pinball form. Everybody, thank you for being a club member. It's always a fun ride. And enjoy a Kaneda exclusive. Just make sure you give Kaneda credit when you say Kaneda is confirming that the next game from Play Mechanics and Mark Ritchie is the following. Have a great Friday. Kaneda out. And join me tomorrow. maybe for the spectacular Brenda is in Miami I am working on both kids all day long tomorrow so we'll see if I can get it done if anyone can't it's Kaneda everybody the next game from play mechanics peace out A man walks down the street, he says, why am I soft in the middle now? Why am I soft in the middle? The rest of my life is so hard. I need a photo opportunity. I want a shot of redemption. Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard. Bone liver, bone liver, dogs in the moonlight Far away in my well of gold This is a beer, man, a beer, man And it gets much the way from you I don't find this stuff on YouTube anymore And if you'd be my bodyguard I can be your long lost pal I can call you Betty And Betty, when you call me, you can call me out California will come.