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We Are Pinball #54 "The Pokemon Episode!!"

We Are Pinball (WAP)·podcast_episode·1h 21m·analyzed·Feb 24, 2026
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

Pokémon pinball generates unprecedented secondary market demand; LE scarcity and broad IP appeal signal major market expansion.

Summary

Don and Tony from We Are Pinball discuss the Pokémon pinball machine release, analyzing its art, audio, playfield layout, and market impact. They cover the scarcity of LE units on the secondary market (reaching $25,000+), design decisions across Pro/Premium/LE tiers, and the potential for Pokémon to attract mainstream audiences and new players to the hobby.

Key Claims

  • Pokémon LE units are trading for $25,000+ on the secondary market immediately after launch

    high confidence · Don describes posting LE machines for $25,000 on Pinside ads that get taken down; mentions extreme scarcity and allotment cuts across all regions

  • Global LE allocation: ~500 or fewer in US, ~200 or fewer in Europe, fewer than 50 in Australia

    high confidence · Don discusses allotments being cut across regions, explicitly stating production numbers for each market

  • Costco is ordering 5,000+ Pokémon home edition units for the 2025 season at ~$5,000 MSRP

    medium confidence · Don mentions 'Costco ordered another 5,000 games for this season' but qualifies with uncertainty ('I don't know. I have confirmation on that. Maybe it was 1,000')

  • Nintendo and Stern intend to release multiple code updates with additional Pokémon and features post-launch

    medium confidence · Don reports 'solid confirmation from FromFrom that just wait and see what more is coming. I mean, both Stern and Nintendo wants to put more into this game'

  • Pro model includes most structural toys (Meowth balloon, sculpts) but lacks magnet, toilet bowl, and locking ramp mechanism

    high confidence · Detailed technical comparison of Pro vs Premium/LE features, with explanation that Stern reuses same playfield and covers/blocks features on lower tiers

  • A single Pokémon Nintendo-oriented Facebook group (200,000 members) generated 200,000 views of the pinball game post, matching or exceeding annual viewership across all pinball media combined

    high confidence · Don describes stumbling upon Nintendo Facebook group post that received 200,000 views, and contrasts this with total pinball media output

  • Pokémon is positioned as a gateway game that will bring new players into the hobby, similar to Harry Potter's role

    medium confidence · Both hosts discuss mainstream media coverage (Gizmodo, Nintendo Life) and speculate that location play will drive adoption before home edition purchase

Notable Quotes

  • “As soon as this thing launched, man, it was drier than panties at a Gilbert Godfrey convention, man. You could not find one of these things anywhere.”

    Don @ ~11:00 — Vivid description of extreme LE scarcity and immediate sell-out across all regions

  • “I was posting pin-side ads for $25,000. They're getting taken down.”

    Don @ ~14:00 — Direct confirmation of secondary market pricing for LE units

  • “This is probably a game that's going to be earning on location, still continue to be a big seller. And part of that selling point is, you know, let's put more and more in the code.”

    Don @ ~54:00 — Analysis of long-term commercial viability and code update strategy to maintain operator interest

  • “The LE is just so freaking beautiful. Yeah, this is one of the most beautiful LEs I have ever seen.”

    Tony @ ~18:00 — High praise for art design despite restrictive IP licensing constraints

  • “If you put all pinball media, YouTube videos together, all of us, you won't get 200,000 views. Forget about it. You won't get 20,000 views.”

    Don @ ~61:00 — Stark illustration of mainstream media reach advantage for Pokémon IP vs. pinball community media

  • “I have solid confirmation from FromFrom that just wait and see what more is coming. I mean, both Stern and Nintendo wants to put more into this game. This is the biggest IP. It won't get bigger than this, right, Donnie?”

    Tony @ ~47:00 — Confirmation of planned code evolution and indication that Nintendo is actively invested in game development

  • “This is maybe the first time they do this. So, if you will look back four months to Fall of the Empire, you know, you didn't get the shampoo bottle caps... But this game, it has got everything in the pro and it costs half price.”

    Tony @ ~25:00 — Observation that Pokémon Pro includes more sculpts/toys than previous Stern games' Pro models, indicating strategy to add value at lower tier

Entities

PokémongameDonpersonTonypersonJack DangerpersonGeorge GomezpersonTanya KleisspersonChristopher Franchiperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Costco ordering 1,000-5,000 Pokémon home edition units for 2025 season at ~$5,000 MSRP with historical pattern of annual restocking, representing major distribution channel for casual player acquisition and baseline market expansion

    medium · Don: 'Costco ordered another 5,000 games for this season. I don't know. I have confirmation on that. Maybe it was 1,000.' and historical pattern of Costco sell-outs driving replenishment orders.

  • ?

    event_signal: Pokémon pinball positioned as gateway game comparable to Harry Potter in drawing non-traditional pinball audiences into hobby; secondary market LE scarcity creating FOMO-driven collector demand beyond typical pinball enthusiast base

    high · Don and Tony discuss new players coming from location play, mainstream media engagement, and first-time buyers unable to obtain LE units driving secondary market enthusiasm.

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Pro model playfield accessibility and simplified layout intentionally designed for location operator profitability through multiball excitement and entry-level skill requirements, contrasting with premium tier's technical depth

    medium · Tony: 'It's perfect for a guy like me that puts this game out on a location. It's going to earn like crazy.' and discussion of casual players double-flipping and hitting bash toy to trigger multiball satisfaction.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jack Danger layout prioritizes approachable shots and bash toy strategy (Attack from Mars model) for location operator earnings and new player engagement, with intentional left ramp skip-jump mechanic allowing soft entry or power shot progression

    high · Tony: 'It's perfect for a guy like me that puts this game out on a location. It's going to earn like crazy.' and detailed analysis of left ramp mechanics allowing both soft entry and power shots.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.246

0:00
Tony, we always start with some crazy music, right? This is true. Yeah. And now we cannot use all those awesome songs. So I have a song here. And I think this time, this one, we have to dedicate it to Team Spooky, right? Check this out. Check this out, Tony. Let's go. Yo, man. Listen. Yo, man. Do you know this?
0:55
Do you know that one? Yeah, we used to sing that in church growing up, man. So that was unexpected. I don't know if you're a sophisticated colony of cultured people or just a country full of drunks. What the hell was that?
1:19
It was a Dario remix, man. It turns out when I have enough banana daiquiris, I'm speaking Danish myself.
1:27
Ask anybody at Pinball at the Beach. How long time should you hear before you say, oh, this is from Beetlejuice?
1:35
I'm still processing, sir. You left me speechless with that one. I love that they have a little bit of music in that game. It's amazing, man. Oh, no, that was fantastic, man, like the whole time at the beach. Every time it popped off, everybody turned and watched, and they're like, oh, dude, They're doing the Deo thing. Let's watch the dancing snake. Who doesn't love that song? Who doesn't love a dancing snake in a darkened room in a tent in Florida in a parking lot? Come on. Come on now. And you can see it on the secondary market. Everybody loves the spooky people juice. Dude, we need to talk about all of that in this WAP episode. What is it? Episode 57, 62, 69. What episode are we on? I haven't even looked it up yet, but I will as soon as I start goofing around on the Internet here.

The backglass artwork on LE features mirrored black glass with lighted armor (lit inside and outside), differentiating it substantially from Pro/Premium

high confidence · Detailed discussion of LE art package premium, including comparison to previous Stern games and acknowledgment of restrictive Nintendo licensing constraints

  • “I think this game has the potential to put the pressure on them to continue to evolve and drop more code to the game.”

    Don @ ~45:00 — Strategic analysis linking location operator success to ongoing development pressure from both Stern and Nintendo

    • Stern Pinball
    company
    Nintendocompany
    Costcocompany
    Mad Pinballcompany
    Silver Gun 360person
    Tilt Amusementscompany
    Orbital Albertperson
    FromFromperson
    Retro Jingoperson
    Gizmodocompany
    Nintendo Lifecompany
    We Are Pinballorganization
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    John Wickgame
    Jawsgame
    Metallicagame
    Fall of the Empiregame
    Attack from Marsgame
  • $

    market_signal: Pokémon pinball transcending niche pinball market to become mainstream collectible/IP product, with secondary market demand dynamics driven by Pokemon fan base rather than traditional pinball collector community

    high · Don discusses 200,000-member Nintendo Facebook group discovering the game, people asking 'where can I buy it?' without pinball context, and speculation about mainstream Pokémon collector demand that hasn't yet materialized.

  • $

    market_signal: Pokémon pinball generating unprecedented mainstream media coverage (Gizmodo, Nintendo Life, 200,000-view Nintendo Facebook post) that exceeds annual aggregate pinball community media output, indicating potential for significant new player acquisition

    high · Don: 'If you put all pinball media, YouTube videos together, all of us, you won't get 200,000 views. Forget about it. You won't get 20,000 views. This was–' and discussion of major gaming outlets publishing coverage.

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market LE units selling for $25,000+, with scarcity so extreme that distributions unable to fulfill demand across all regions; Pro-to-Premium-to-LE price justification gap ($3,500 for mirrored glass + shaker) creates friction for casual buyers

    high · Don: 'I was posting pin-side ads for $25,000. They're getting taken down.' and 'It was drier than panties at a Gilbert Godfrey convention, man. You could not find one of these things anywhere.' Explicit global LE allocation: US ~500 or fewer, Europe ~200 or fewer, Australia <50.

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern deliberately uses same playfield across Pro/Premium/LE tiers, blocking features on Pro (missing magnet, toilet bowl, locking ramp mechanism) while including most sculpts, a first-time cost-reduction strategy that trades gameplay depth for accessibility

    high · Tony: 'Because Stern will use the same play field for all three trim levels. They just will cover things up.' and 'They just didn't put a vertical up kicker back there, and there's a stand-up target blocking it.' Analysis of Pro including Meowth balloon but lacking magnet activation.

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern committed to post-launch code updates from both internal team and Nintendo approval, with expansion of Pokémon roster and gameplay features planned to maintain operator interest and drive secondary sales

    high · Tony: 'I have solid confirmation from FromFrom that just wait and see what more is coming. I mean, both Stern and Nintendo wants to put more into this game.' and Don: 'this game has the potential to put the pressure on them to continue to evolve and drop more code to the game.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Pokémon's 83 custom Pikachu call-outs and audio design may create negative externality for adjacent location players, potentially making the game 'the most annoying game to even stand next to'

    medium · Don: 'imagine what Imagine like some crispy bugger sitting there playing Bond right next to someone playing Pokemon, and it's just like Pika Pika, and you can't even enjoy the Bond because there's nothing but 83 Pikachu call-outs. But I love it. I love it.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Nintendo IP licensing is highly restrictive, prohibiting custom Stern artwork and requiring use of official Nintendo Pokémon character drawings; licensing constraints are reflected in final LE art composition and layout decisions

    high · Tony: 'They're working within the confines of this very restrictive license that wouldn't let them even do their own drawings. They're like, you use our drawings. We may let you do the layout.'

    • 2:19
    It's okay. Do you know what episode this is? This is Stern Pinball Pokemon Elite Craziness 25K on the Secondary Market episode. We're going to talk about Pokemon, baby. Are you all for it, Tony? I'm in both feet, man, both my Poke feet. Episode 54. Welcome to We Are Pinball. We love pinball. Don from U.S., me from Europe, we love pinball and love to have you included in this pinball craziness. Right, Donnie? On our last show, you were like, I don't know about Pokemon, man. Maybe I will buy a premium along the way. I'm not sure. And then something happened. Something happened. Several somethings happened. Let me tell you. Tell it to the world. What happened, Donnie? Pokemon turned out to be better than my expectations coming out, especially in terms of the hype. Now, I had arbitrarily, artificially lowered my expectations. I was facetiously saying that this was going to be two ramps and a bash toy, and if it was anything more than that, then I would be impressed, right? Just because I know what we've gotten from Stern, and like the last five LEs that came out, like everything since Jaws and Metallica has just been, I guess, very paltry in price on the secondary market there. No need to rush in. And then people would tell me, Don, you don't understand, man. This is Pokemon. This is a huge license. These things are going to be $30,000 by Christmas. You need to get 10 of them and sell them every three months and then retire. And I'm like, BS.
    3:54
    I'm not falling for that crypto hype boy bullshit. Come on. There's no way. No way. And then I was like, you know what? I'm just going to hedge my bets and I'll put my name on a list. Hey, Mad Pinball, why don't you get me? If I want an LE, I just wanted to say, nah, I don't need that. And then, boom, they were, like, gone. Like, Stern Ali's used to be quite sought after in the Godzilla days and stuff when they were much cheaper. And then, you know, yeah, Metallica went off, but then you can still get one for just a couple thousand over. Everything else has been, like, I mean, Jaws is the only one that's maintained levels. Everything else has been below. But I ain't seen nothing like this, man. We're getting, like, near. As soon as this thing launched, man, it was drier than panties at a Gilbert Godfrey convention, man. You could not find one of these things anywhere. And I know because I looked. Now, I wasn't a diehard day one Pokemon mad pinball high on the list, super number one fan. So when I got on the list, it was like, yeah, we should have enough. But, yeah, we got you. I'm pretty sure we're going to get enough. And then the allotments came out, and nobody got what they wanted. Everything was being cut back. I was thinking, like, a healthy 550 of these things should be going to the U.S., maybe 150 to Europe, 50 to Australia. But I think they actually increased it for Europe. Australia only got 32. and so america may have gotten like 500 or less of these things and so it's just like a lot much just weren't there i was reaching all around i was resigned to the fact that i was not getting an le and i was like i'll just i'll start buying parts for a premium and you know what i started talking to artists i was going to make foil charizard art blades i was going to make this premium look better than any of those spoiled kids le's and then a homie a homie came through he's like listen and I was on more than one list, I only need one. You can have the spot. And I'm like, brother, are you sure? Give him a shout-out, man. Fucking Silver Gun 360.
    5:46
    Oh, it's from Silver Gun, our first people, our first patron supporter, man. What a dude, man. Look at the best people, man. Look at the best people. I love this community. I didn't know it was from Silver, man. That's so awesome. I know, man. What a dude. What a love child. Thank you, sir. Thank you. So, yeah, be sure to repay that guy in the future. And so I immediately turned around, and I'm like, okay, I'm posting pin-side ads for $25,000. They're getting taken down. I was on a list with Tilt Amusements. He found out I was going to flip it. He canceled my order. No, I'm kidding. I'm not looking at this game to flip. I legitimately want to play it. I do like the art that's on it. I guess we can go into Pokemon now. I'm sorry. You're talking about it. But, like, yeah, and plus, like, half of Benton, Wisconsin is counting on me bringing this game here because they all want to play it too.
    6:38
    Legitimately, there's some big Pokemon fans here. I'm so happy you got the LE. My issue, we're going to go into details, of course.
    6:48
    When I saw Pokemon, you know, these pictures up front so you can see the whole play field, when I looked at both pictures from Pro to an LE, I was like, you have the whole game in the Pro because you didn't have the flat plastic and the bass tray was not missing. I was looking at these two images. You have the whole game on the Pro. And it's so cool we have an early Pro on the way. That's so cool. And then the trailers came out.
    7:19
    That Ellie, you said art. Usually I don't give a rat's ass about art on a pinball machine, but they did something on the Ellie. It's something with the armor, back glass, yellow.
    7:33
    It's so freaking beautiful. There's a thing. The L is so special. It do look pretty good. Yeah, I like that you got an Eevee and Pikachu right there on the side. You got like the, I like these like sports stripes that they put on there, like the Master Ball and the Pokeball. And then once that thing's mirrored, this thing in person, it looks good in pictures. In person, this thing's going to be amazing, amazing. I think it looks absolute. I mean, this is one of the most beautiful LEs I have ever seen. I think Christopher Franchi has gone ahead and turned this episode off now because he's like, what is this bull crap? Now, you have to take into consideration they're working within the confines of this very restrictive license that wouldn't let them even do their own drawings. They're like, you use our drawings. We may let you do the layout. So it's really like composition and layout and the fact that this thing looks like a stunner, man. When you take it into that consideration, I like it. Usually when I'm total on a high on a new pinball release, some jackass will write to me, it's just another Stern. They look the same. Just removes all the gas in the balloon for me. But everybody else are just hyped just like me. But to that one person, I'm going to say, this doesn't look like another Stern. This looks so different. The LE is just so freaking beautiful. Yeah, we just got The Walking Dead, which is like the poster child for just another Stern, right? That remastered.
    9:09
    Functionally, it's a good game. It's fun to play. It looks pretty. I'm not cheesing my shorts trying to get one. I don't know if you have that expression in Denmark. I don't even know if we have it here. I know what you mean. Yeah, but, you know, it's okay, fine. You know, John Wick, okay, yeah, it's fine. I can learn to love it. You know, Jaws was a high point. Kong was a little bit of a lull. You know, Avengers Infinity Quest exists. They're out there somewhere. And TMNT, I don't want to play that game anymore. But this game looks fun, man. This game looks fun. It's amazing. Yeah, just, yeah. So the art on the Ellie, it's very special. It looks like a Pokemon pinball should look. So that's just 10 out of 10 for me. I love it. so the next part i want to talk about is the freaking music in the game oh my god this is gonna be this is gonna be polarizing okay like most of us know pokemon and most of us at least casually you know will like tolerate it right imagine if you're a person though that just just does this this turns them right off like they're not interested this at all this is going to be the most annoying game to even stand next to and play something imagine what Imagine like some crispy bugger sitting there playing Bond right next to someone playing Pokemon, and it's just like Pika Pika, and you can't even enjoy the Bond because there's nothing but 83 Pikachu call-outs. 83 custom Pikachu call-outs. But I love it. All the lady says is Pikachu in multiple different ways, and I want to hear all 83. But, God, it's going to be grating on people that aren't even into that. I love when Pikas shuck. Pika. I love it. Pikachu. Oh, God.
    10:51
    I love it. This game of the year for me just because of how annoying it's going to be to the right people. Man. Yeah. You know, they have got the music, and it sounds amazing. And when you're in different modes, this music must be made by Stern, I think. But it has got this 16-bit tunes music. Dude. Yeah. I'm loving it, man. wow absolutely wow so audio part for me again 10 out of 10 no duty period i love it so let's talk about shots on layout of this game yeah there's yeah okay so right there's not many you know there's two ramps there's the battle area in the middle bash toy there's a cool like triple ball uh triple captive ball system on the pokedex which is kind of neat you know but but there's not like a crazy side shot ramp. There's no Elton John Star Trek, you know, speed ramp coming off an upper flipper or anything. You know, there's a little sneak in there, a little shout out to Elvira. But, you know, Elvira was one of my favorite games, and there were only like five shots in that game.
    12:02
    What does that sneak in do? So what I think it is, is on the Premium LE, which is the only place that it is, there's a subway that will roll down there, and then there's probably a vertical up kicker, and a scoop that's hidden underneath there, and it'll just kick out. So if you sneak in, it probably registers with a switch hit or probably just registers in the Vuck itself, and then the ball just kicks back out exactly like James Bond, Cornerstone. It's got the same Vuck in the same spot. This just has a plastic laying over it and a little sneak in, but it communicates with the subway. The subway ends there underneath the Pokeball.
    12:37
    The thing is, on the Pro, they just have a stand-up target there so the ball cannot fell in there. Yeah.
    12:45
    So, like, so, listen, the cavity is still there. They just didn't put a vertical up kicker back there, and there's a stand-up target blocking it. Because Stern will use the same play field for all three trim levels. They just will cover things up. Like the dead post on Foo Fighters, the hole for it is there on the pro. They just put a little piece of metal over it. That's it. That's it, baby.
    13:10
    Keep the bill of material down. But I can live with that sneaky shot missing. I can also live with the toilet bowl missing. Yeah. You have seen on the Premium LE on the left side? Visually, like if you put a Premium next to a Pro, the only thing visually to tell them apart is the missing toilet bowl that's there. Because the sneak in, you're not really going to see. The magnet, you don't see. Pikachu's not going to move, but his sculpt is there. The Pokeball's not going to move. The flap doesn't come up. But all those, like, cool little gameplay tidbits are missing, but superficially most people aren't even going to notice if they're just coming up to play pinball. So I think this is a good pro. When it comes to sculpts, right, sculpts are an added cost. It's not so much an added cost of the sculpt itself to put it in. It's the tooling to create it. So I think what Stern's done is, like, look, we already spent the money for the tooling for the Premium LE. Let's throw some of these plastic toys into the pro and then elevate the pro even more. So, like, I dig that. That's cool. But, Donnie, wait. Yeah. This is maybe the first time they do this. So, if you will look back four months to Fall of the Empire, you know, you didn't get the shampoo bottle caps, the Pez heads that were put in on Fall of the Empire. They didn't do that. So, they did do the AT-AT. It was the same mechanism. It just didn't have, well, it was the same sculpt, but it didn't have the mechanistic part. Okay. Do they still have Jabba the Hutt on the Pro? No, they don't. And that's like the lowest effort. So it is kind of cool they did include him here. I like that they kept the whole Meowth balloon mech is in there too. Yes. That's cool. It has got everything in the pro and it costs half price. But that missing magnet irritates me. I love magnets in pinball machines. I wonder how often it's going to be utilized though. So is it just kind of like a gimmick or is it really like changing the gameplay? We'll have to play to find out. hit the balloon or meowth or what the heck it's named i think every time you hit the balloon or the stand-up targets that it will activate the magnum and it will just throw the ball around i know it's just just a bit uh northwest to the magnet you have the pop bomber that does you know about the same thing which direction is west on the pinball machine to left there yeah okay yeah Yeah, yeah. We have the pop bumper there. But if that was on the Pro also, it would be absolutely best bang for your buck. But still, when you look at the Pro and you jump over to the LE, that LE's look, and I don't care about art at all, but that LE, I love it so much. I checked it here in the Scandinavian area, and it was sold out in an instant. So yeah, gone over here also I do like all the upgrades that do come with it though If you were to add them all to a premium You'd be at like $12,000 US But you still don't have the mirrored black glass I'm including that too Like if you had to go and get one So you can get that? You can copy that?
    16:23
    I can get that I can get a mirrored back glass somewhere. What's the thing about the armor? It's lit on the inside and on the outside also. I love this. Okay, this is so much better than just a laser-cut hole for a sticker on the side. So this is better than Fall of the Empire's armor. This is better than Kong's upgraded. No, Kong's armor was pretty cool. What other one? Oh, Walking Dead. Oh, that had bullets. Okay, I like lighted armor. I like the lighted armor. I dig it. It was one of the best looking parts of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland that the former DPX came out with, you know, with like the RGB lights going up and down. I hope we see some of that on Sonic the Hedgehog, which I'm sure we're going to talk about here in a bit. But no, like I dig it. Like those are all the things I like. And so if I had a premium, I'd have to get new armor made. I'd have to buy outside lights, inside lights, speaker lights, upgrade the speakers and visit glass, you know, just to start with, you know, just to start with. So I like that the LE is coming, at least just if you don't even mod it or upgrade it at all, it's already got a lot in this particular one, which I dig that.
    17:33
    Shots and Layout, is this game made for you and I? Well, have you seen how terrible I play? No, not really, but you have been playing for some time, buddy. Yeah, so, I mean, this doesn't look like a tight game. This looks like the Metallica remastered. Okay, I could backhand the shots on either side.
    17:55
    You know, everything seemed reasonable to me. I like shooters like that. You know, games like, you know, Munsters where the ramps are a little bit tighter, a little bit more frustrating. So I think this is going to be an easier playing game, like once you dial the shots in there. Like the sneak in you're probably not going to be able to get every time. You know, but I don't know if the code is going to be tedium. Yeah, the shots are easy to hit, but if you have to hit each ramp three times just to do something, you know that's going to add you know where the longer play comes from so you don't get through the whole game you know initially upon receiving it the way i understand it right now it's like you shoot the whatever you have to shoot ramps or those stand up targets and then you know poke index you have found a pokemon and it jumps up on the screen and then you have like 10 seconds or something to catch it and on the premium le you have the left ramp that goes up with the flap and you shoot it there just at the entrance bam and it locks at the ball and it has got this beautiful pokeball plastic on top of the ramp that moves to the side only on the premium le donnie and then you get the same feeling like when you play pokemon go you you just catch some pokemon while you're playing right that's a cool aspect that's also missing on the pro so this is where the premium le will really shine because what i'm imagining is qualifying that pokemon my caterpie is ready to be got and then i can just trap up on the left flipper probably backhand right into that underneath the ramp it'll fall into the subway boom i caught him now am i going to be able to backhand up that ramp on the pro because it's probably got to go up and then there's probably an up post or something you know there is yeah um you know so you're gonna have to have a shot with more velocity at least get up the ramp in order to catch your pokemon it's not It's just a matter of falling into that hole under the ramp. Oh, wait. Yeah. You know, the left side of the play field, Jack Danger has done something really clever there because the left ramp, when you shoot it, you actually have air ball at the mid of the ramp. It will fly over and then turn the number eight and come back. But if you don't have enough power, it will just go up and fell down halfway and come down and be locked. So you don't need that much power. I think it's a genius move. Yeah, that's cool. And if I'm remembering right, I think Jack had originally designed the ramp a little differently, and then Gomez came up with this design here. But I like this, that it crosses over like that, and there's a little bit of a drop, so it kind of like a skip ramp a skip jump if it got a full plunge to go around But if it just eases up there it not going to then roll down the ramp and down the middle I hate that Exactly Yeah The way I understood it was George Gomez actually played with the right side of the play field Oh, okay. That's what I – but it's okay. Nobody really knows, but that's just how I understood it. But all in all, usually when we think Jack Danger, we think one of the best shots on layout in the industry, right? Yeah. And this is, as George Comer says, super approachable. I mean, this is perfect for a guy like me that puts this game out on a location. It's going to earn like crazy. That's what I think about it. Oh, yeah. You're going to walk by and see Pikachu Meowth and be like, I'm going to put some Kroner in here, man, for sure. Yes, exactly. And you know what? People that hasn't played pinball at all, they will think, I double flip, double flip, double flip, hit something in the middle, and the meowth comes down, and you start hitting that thing that moves. You just feel, I'm doing something, and all of a sudden, multiball. I mean, all these companies think multiball is the best thing in the world. It's the worst thing in the world. But these new guys, they will think this is awesome, and it will make some money. I understand this move. It's Attack from Mars. It's great. It's just with Pokemon. I love it. I've never played a game of Attack from Mars and walked away thinking that wasn't fun. I don't feel satisfied for bashing that thing up the middle. Or Star Trek. Stern Star Trek, man. That was fun. Bashing the ship. Yeah, that's good. I love a bash toy in the back. Don't put a Galactic Tank Force bash toy right up at the front. That sucks.
    22:03
    Yeah, yeah. But I just – the only thing I don't like is those black rubber bands on Meowth. They should just replace it with something yellow or something. Oh, that's going to be one of the easiest things to do. Yeah, just get some Titan bands and put them up on there because they're going to be a standard size band. It's not like they had to engineer a specific size for this or like a metric one. It looks like one-inch size. Yeah, so we'll throw some fluorescent yellow ones on there or something. Yeah, there'll be rubber ring kits for this game to make it look really cool. Yeah, I'm excited about it. Absolutely. Another question. Do you think they will make, you know, next time they're doing something, 35 years anniversary something, how about if they replace those six stand-up targets to drop-down targets? Dude. So, right.
    22:56
    I see the point was to have, you know, kind of like bank angles so you'd have a carom effect. When you shot up, the ball would hit the one set of drops, go straight across the other ones, then back down to the player, you know, or, you know, go around with magnet chaos or something. If it was drop targets, they would more absorb the hit, and then you'd have to put rubbers behind there or something to get the same back and forth. So, you know, and it's more complexity because each set of three drop-down targets needs to have a coil to fire to reset them. So, you know, yes. But you have the magnet. If this was on the Premier League, you hit a drop-down target, and the ball ricochets and hits the pop bomber, comes in and hits me off and into another drop-down target, and the magnet taps, takes the ball, and throws it to the left, to the right. Now, if it was me, I would have pushed to do drop targets within, like, stand-up paddle targets behind them, just like on Foo Fighters, you know, where you can drop the three drop targets and then shoot that paddle target behind there. That's a great idea. I would have pushed for that, and I'm sure they thought about it, and there's a reason they didn't do it. This is the product they wanted to make. Yeah, I get it. And, okay, there's less maintenance with a stand-up target than there is with a drop target for a location. I get it. But I wish the Premium LE had drop targets. I think we all do. That's the one thing we're thinking, if only we could have got this at least.
    24:14
    And it's on the left side of the play field. It's got these three dumbbells training. Yeah, and that's part of the aspect of the premium JAWS layout that I liked over the Pro was that you had those stand-up targets that were right there, or the drop targets, not stand-ups. It's fun to sweep them. So I am kind of bummed. I am kind of bummed they didn't do that. Yeah. I think they will do... It's too late now, but yeah, that could be awesome. Because I'm not angry at this, don't get me wrong, very simple layout, right? I mean, for us collectors, this is very simple. But for a geek like me that likes the theme, that loves the music, I think it will be such a fun experience. The only thing I'm a bit nervous about is, is it too simple? Will this be collect the 150 Pokemon and then what? That's where the code is going to have to really do some heavy lifting here. And I don't have any specifics, but I've heard whispers from people. There's distros that were there at the meeting and things and have heard where even Nintendo would like this game to evolve into. I don't think this is a game that's going to be like John Wick where it comes out and is just kind of forgotten.
    25:28
    This is probably a game that's going to be earning on location, still continue to be a big seller. And part of that selling point is, you know, let's put more and more in the code. Hey, there's new code updates. Hey, there's 150 more Pokemon. Operators, if you haven't got one yet or need a second one, we've got them, you know. So I think this game has the potential to put the pressure on them to continue to evolve and drop more code to the game. Make it do cool stuff, right? Oh, I have solid confirmation from FromFrom that just wait and see what more is coming. I mean, both Stern and Nintendo wants to put more into this game. This is the biggest IP. It won't get bigger than this, right, Donnie? Yeah, well, this is a game that can outsell Godzilla on the long run, you know?
    26:15
    Yeah, man, it's amazing. I do think this will put new people into the hobby. It already has, man. It already has. And part of me doing my pre-buying research, I was going around online trying to find, like, Pokemon channels that were talking about this game. and like one or two I was seeing, but not much. But now I'm seeing more things come out. Gizmodo did a write-up on it. Nintendo Life was there and they did a write-up on it. So I'm seeing more traditional electronics media outlets and game media outlets covering this than I've seen before. So that automatically has to bring in some new interest. Now most of these people are going to play on location. Some of the comments I keep seeing coming up in these forums from people that aren't pinball folks are like, yeah but this thing's seven thousand dollars so like who can afford that right but you know these are people they're going to seek out locations and play games and then by extension play other ones um for a lot of people you know either harry potter or this will be their first pinball machine and then if they like it they're going to pick up more because we know how that works so yeah i absolutely think it'll bring in more peeps i was like two days after the game launch I was just scrolling on Facebook, and, you know, I'm retro Jango. I'm more into retro gaming and all that stuff. And I stumbled about Nintendo something group. Call it whatever you want. Just Nintendo-oriented Facebook group.
    27:39
    200,000 people in there, and they put in this game. Like 200,000 views. If you put all pinball media, YouTube videos together, all of us, you won't get 200,000 views. Forget about it. You won't get 20,000 views. This was – and I was like – and people were writing, what is this? Where can you buy it? How much does it cost? And I'm like, okay, sit down. Retro Jingo's in here. Here it costs 7,000. You can order it from this dish. I put a link to distros because it's people all over the world, and people are like, what? Does a pinball machine cost $7,000? They started throwing stones at me, and I wrote there, just wait and see, because there will come a home edition you can buy from Costco. And I wrote like $4,500. I'm not sure how much they cost there, the home edition. Yeah, I know, I know. Do you know how much they cost? Yeah, so generally they'll come out at about $5,000. Okay. And then, you know, $49.99. Then they always discount them when they launch for like $4,725 or something. Okay. So just right around in there. And they've been selling out every year. Costco ordered another 5,000 games for this season. I don't know. I have confirmation on that. Maybe it was 1,000. But, you know, they've ordered some. What was really telling is in those articles where they mention $7,000 is where it starts at, and there's this initial shock. And then they mention, well, the LE edition is $13,000. I don't dare to say that to anybody. And it's completely sold out. Like, you follow it with that. Like, wait, it's how much? And they're gone? They sold it, that? Are you kidding me?
    29:27
    Do you think? I think they will go. Maybe next month we will get these games. I think the, you know, the real Pokemon audience, they don't know about this yet. Yeah, I don't think so. Because they want collectible stuff. I think when that hits, what's going to happen with the early price, right? Yeah, that's – well, according to Orbital Albert, our resident pinball and Pokemon extraordinaire, he's like this thing is going to do supreme levels of money. I don't know. But then I doubted him before, and he's been right so far. He's been right so far. He's right. I'm telling you, biggest IP. And, yes, they're going to make pros. They're going to make premiums for years and years and years and years, and Costco home editions and everything for that section of the market. But for the people that want to be at the top end, they're never going to make any more LEs. And it's not like there's 750 in the U.S. There's only like 500 or less in the U.S. There's 200 or less in Europe. There's less than 50 in Australia. Those are three biggest markets, right? The thing is, for a new guy, it's hard to explain from 7,000 to 10,000, right, from the premium to the pro to premium. And it's even harder to say from premium to LE because you say, well, it has got inviscid glass. It has got a shaker. Pay $3,500 more. It's not easy to, you know, for a non-pinball guy to – Well, or even like – you know, an early pinball guy, when I came in and I had my Stern Dark Knight, it didn't even have a shaker motor in there. And the guy that I bought the game – the dealer I bought it from was like, you can add a shaker. You can add Art Blades. I'm like, why would I waste that money on that stuff? Are you kidding me? Sticker? $200 for a sticker? How much is the shaker? No, I don't need my game shaking all over the place. And, of course, now I can't even – I won't even touch a machine unless there's a shaker and Art Blades on it. Like I'm total stomp. I've got to have it all now. Yeah, got to have it all. Part of the evolution, you know, people are going to waft at the price, and then eventually maybe they'll jump in, and then they'll get used to it, and the water's going to feel a little more warm, and they're going to go a little bit deeper, and that's just how it goes. I think when people really know about this I think there will be a I want this game because Pokemon people is a huge audience the thing that holds the value to go up to you know $100,000 or something is they can always get pros and premiums can you imagine this scenario can you imagine Spooky Pinball making Pokemon limited, thousand only, no premiums, no at least, no probes. Can you imagine the price? People would be, they would wait for the delivery truck to leave the dock and then they would hijack it and steal it.
    32:14
    When I was scrolling the same day on news channel here in Denmark, they wrote that there has been what's it called? Robbery in a house. Right. robbery at an elderly couple's house and then it says the robber stole all the pokemon cards from their home i'm like is this really happening is that the guy in the uk i saw here in denmark they got robbed and they had a huge pokemon collection and they only stole their pokemon stuff so there was there was a pokemon channel and is probably real he's in the uk and this is a guy that owns a card shop right and he like does a lot of live streaming on his youtube channel of like deals in and out of the shop and things and then he has this huge of course collection that he's built over years at home of like you know new in box i guess cases of uh you know starter decks or whatever that are out of print and are worth a lot of money and everything and he would do content from there with everything behind him and you know someone found out his address found out he was out of town and then went in and just ransacked and stole like his whole pokemon collection. Yeah, it was devastating. And it looked like this was just like an apartment. The guy just lived in a regular apartment, but probably had $300,000 worth of Pokemon gear that he's amassed over time. And that makes you a huge target, dude. What the heck? Even if you don't go in and rob him, this would be worth it to them to pay like $10,000 to just some seedy person to go in there and be like, here's what you go get. He's out of town. Do your thing. and do a dead drop and then there you go. Scariness, scariness. I thought these Charizard cards, they cost like $500 or something.
    34:00
    I mean, if we really go up 10 out of 10 rated cards, do you know how much they cost or how much they sell for on eBay? Do you know anything about it? It's unreal. I've only dabbled into it. We just saw the sell of that Artist Illustrated 1 of 50 10 out of 10 rated $16 million Pokemon on a blinged out gold chain necklace. But, you know, the real thing, I have some Pokemon cards from 98. So the best one, do they go for $500 or can you sell a Pokemon card for like $2,000 or $5,000? I mean, I guess they do sell for that. we'd have to get resident Pokemon pinball expert, Orbital Albert, the Nova Scotia king, to let us know. Dude, on our last show, you said Orbital Albert, he knows everything about Pokemon and he should be here. Where is he? I know. Where is he? I should call him right now. Call him. Call him and ask him if it cuts that cost. You know, most expensive cards. Not the 16 million, but, you know, expensive cards. I think I'm connected. Let me try.
    35:19
    Let's see if we can connect. Okay. You hear that? No. What up, Chris? How are you doing? Good. What are you doing? You are online right now. I'm recording with Donnie. I have a question. Yeah. Do you know? Pokemon cards, the most expensive cards, not the one for $16 million, but you and I selling cards, what does the most expensive cards go for? Do you know?
    35:48
    I mean, it's like anywhere from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands to a few are worth a million or so.
    36:01
    Roughly, the $16 million purchase was silly. usually it's like 2 million 2 to 4 is like what the market for a Pokemon card yeah that's crazy it all comes down to like the card usually it's like the illustrator cards I think there's only like 10 of them in the world or something and then like the grading of them because remember they were like nailing prizes like they didn't make many of them I don't know. I would go on Heritage Auctions or, like, what's that, Golden Sight, the one that the recent one just sold, and just Google, like, Pokemon sales record. I'm sure if you look at the archive news stories, you'll see, like, what they've actually traded for. Yeah, because we were like, will Pokemon collectors, when they see the price tag on a $7,000 Pro, will they just, oh, that's so much money, but if the cards are so expensive, then $7,000 is nothing, man. I think we always have this curiosity around what is the crossover threshold price for people right Star Wars individual original movie posters can go for six figures some might be even higher the most expensive Star Wars toys can get very very expensive it's just like I think the difference is that the Pokemon collectors what they value are the cards because that's got 30 years of, like, collector fan bases revolves around that. Like, that's where the social currency is if you have the rare cards. Right. They don't have that feeling with every collaboration. Like, this is a collaboration with a pinball company. But I will say this. Like, Tiffany & Co. did a jewelry line and, like, sold out instantly of, like, the $30,000 necklace, which you can't even find now. The $10,000 necklaces are selling for, like, $15,000 to $20,000. So I do think this thing is going to easily Like hold strong around like $18,000 to $20,000 for the LEs Probably forever We're going to talk about you selling games right now Thank you for the help brother, talk to you later, okay? Alright, cool Bye So yeah, I'm just trolling through eBay right now And there's a lot of these booster boxes that are for like Five figures, $28,000, $25,000, $14,000 Okay, then there is just no reason to be angry about this. We actually talked on the last show. We wanted to include Orbital Albert, right? And then, oh, I'm sorry, Albert Agar on our show because he's a Pokemon expert. I would love that. Japanese oil packs, PSA 10, 1997 Pokemon scratch card, probably $10,000 our best offer. There you go. Yeah, and there's like 49 people watching this $7,081, $7,081, 36 booster packs, sun and moon, cosmic eclipse, Pokemon cards, sealed English box. So it's like the retail box from the shelf still in wrapper from probably 10 years ago is like $10,000. God, it's incredible, man. So imagine you had a bunch of these you've collected over the years, and someone just raids your apartment and just ganks them, you know? I hope they both get their cards back because these collectors, they love Pokemon. I mean, it's so dumb that people do this.
    39:32
    I really want to find on our Patreon what Spooky Luke wrote, man. I talked to him this morning. He's very hype for a stocky, ribeye-eating, deer-slaughtering kind of country awesome superhero, local legend. He loves him some Pokemon, man. Yeah, I found it because on our last show, we were like, we want to have Albert Agar in here, and we uploaded that.
    40:03
    And Spooky Luke is on our Patreon also, and he wrote there, you know, open chat, he wrote there, guys can i be on the pokemon episode spooky luke and people just gives him hearts and fire and everything and i wrote there spooky luke you're always welcome brother are you into pokemon or pokemon go and then spooky luke writes this jeng is i have played no less than 2 000 hours of pokemon Watch the shows, etc. I have played every game from original Game Boy to all the new Nintendo stuff. Switch stuff, the cards, games, shows, movies were huge when I was a kid.
    40:49
    Oh, my God. Pokemon is the gateway drug to hunting I guess We need to have Spooky Luke Pokemon is the gateway drug to hunting I'd say it's a gateway drug to cockfighting.
    41:08
    Catch them all, baby. That's crazy. Donnie, I think on our next show, let's get Spooky Luke in here. Also, Albert in here. Get some Pokemon knowledge. Because I am genuinely, I'm so happy about this game. I hope that this will, one, open up for more people getting to pinball. Two, maybe we will get Super Mario. Because Nintendo sees this. Or Zelda, you know. Or Metroid. Oh, God. Metroid. Jesus. Jesus, give me Metroid. Oh, Lord. Metroid is on music and everything. If they got Super Metroid, like just the 16-bit Nintendo license, you play through there and you collect all the items and explore the whole map. Oh, yeah. When, you know, Rose to a pinball.
    41:58
    Metroid had a pinball game. There was a Metroid video game pinball game. I think this opens up for much more. Because what have we learned from this? 2026, theme is everything. Theme is everything. Look at these shots on layout. I'm sorry, but it's the most simple Brian Eddy, Orbit, Ram, Ram, Bash in the Middle layout. It's the most simple layout in the universe, and I have never seen Stern Games selling this like this. So theme, all the companies out there. Theme is everything. Pay the motherfucker and get the great themes in here. Yeah, I don't want to hear about this. Well, we just can't license it. It's like you didn't try hard enough, man. Just get in there. Exactly. Every six months, these companies have like a different projection they're going or a different direction they're going, a different property they want to hype. There's changeover with who you're dealing with. So just keep asking, man. Yeah. Or pay more. Yeah. Pay more. That's it. So. Yeah. The market right now, what is it today? February what? 23rd, right? Yeah. Right now, these Pokemon pinball machines, the Illies, are selling for like $20,000, $25,000, right? Right. And our dear friend Chris Colouris from Canada's Pinball Podcast, he is the most positive guy in the hobby right now. He loves pinball. He's like, Pokemon is so great. He's so happy. This is Japanese anime. He loves everything. And he is saying, cool, you know, sell these games on the secondary market for 25, and he's getting bashed for it. Right, Donnie? So I want to ask you first, because my thoughts about all of this is buy 10 games. Sell them for 25. Just wake up earlier than others and just do it. Do the hustle. Make your money. I'm okay with it. How do you feel about it? Are you bashing, Chris, or are you thinking it's a free market? Dude, dude, mind your business, man. Right? Yes! So, like, this would – people are like, this is going to destroy the hobby. This would destroy the hobby if it was the same, like, 200 people that always got the LEs. Nobody else had any access to them, and the only way that any normal person could buy one is through a scalper. But literally anybody can go to a distributor, get on a list, and then, you know, get on 10 lists. and then when your number comes up, you've got the option, do I want to get it or, you know what, give it to someone else, I don't really want to go for it. That's free to do and open to anybody. And I know Mad Pinball, info at madpinball.com, you know, they don't play favorites. Like I talk to them at the beach and I'm like, can I get on the list? They're like, yeah, we should have enough. That's fine. You know, but when they came out and they didn't have one for me, they didn't say to one of their customers, sorry, we have to skip you because, you know, Don here is a pinball celebrity is what he's acting like. We need to give him the game. They were like, dude, no, we need them for the customers. And I didn't even ask, but they made it clear that I couldn't jump the line just because I got a podcast.
    45:10
    So as long as that, everybody's still treated fairly going in, I think it's fine, man. I think it's fine because no one's crying over you when you lost money and you're walking dead and you paid full price for it or you're all the empire. They're giving them extra money. So it comes down to like I've got this thing. I had the same fair chance as anybody else. And you know what? I think because of how much it's going for, I would rather have that money than I want to have – I still like the game, but I like that money more now. Like everybody's got their price. Like if you got a Pokemon Ellie and you would never sell it and I offered you a million dollars, are you still not selling it? Yes, you would sell it. So don't stand on morals because everybody will corrupt their morals for a price. We're just talking about numbers here. And to prove your point, what you're saying right now, get on the list or multiple lists. To prove your point, what did Silver gone 360 do? He got on two lists. And he got both games offered. And he gave one of them. So it is possible. Yeah, he was on three lists. Two of them came through. And then, you know, he was able to pass one off to his good buddy. You know, it was just a gesture of good pinball will. That is great for the hobby. I'll tell you what's not good for the hobby. This is what's not good for the hobby. Let's say you've got a pre-order deposit, and then you call your distributor, and you're like, actually, my friend's going to take it over for me because whatever. And they say, well, too bad. I'm taking your spot away from you. F you, because that just happened very publicly on Facebook. No, that can't be true, Donnie. From what I'm able to understand, this is Troy. I think he's from Tilt Amusements, and he publicly posted, I had a customer that got an OE, paid his deposit, contacted me, and said, actually, my friend's going to take it over. And he said, well, your friend didn't have a deposit with me, so now you get no game. Refunded him and took it and supposedly gave it to the next person on his list, which sucks, right? But here's the thing. Here's why that sucks. Now, if you would have had a rule saying, listen, there's no transfers, okay? You can back out of a deposit, but you lose your deposit and you lose your spot. You lose your game. But that doesn't seem to be the rule. He kind of is arbitrarily changing them, and here's why it's a problem. So how am I to know that Mr. Troy here, who's probably a great guy, how am I to know that he's just going to the next person on their list and making their day? How do I know that he doesn't have, which he probably does, 60 people waiting for a spot if one opens up, and somebody said, hey, I'll give you $2,000 on top of the price if you can just find one for me. All of a sudden now he has an excuse publicly to say, this guy's trying to scalp. I'm going to take his game away. Meanwhile, he's giving it to this guy that gave him three grand. Now, he's probably not doing that, but if he was, this is what it would look like. Why would you want to even entertain that? Because there's unscrupulous people, scummy people that would do stuff like that. And now I've got to think in the back of my head, if he's offering something for sale, is he the guy that would do that? Probably not. I hope not. From what people are saying, he's a great guy. But you have to have the upfront integrity. You have to say either nobody can switch a deposit. You pay your deposit. It's nonrefundable. Or, yes, you can change them around, but you can't pick and choose when a game is hot. When we know you have people emailing you saying, dude, I'll give you like $1,000 cash over right now if you can hook me up. How about if that customer paid – was his name Troy?
    48:41
    That's apparently the distributor, and there is a Troy with Tilt Amusements it looks like. How about if that guy, the customer, paid Tilt Amusements the full $13,000?
    48:54
    Could you still do this? Right. I think the only way forward is if you're a distributor, you took their money, you could say, I'm not transferring. You take delivery of the game, and what you do is up to you. That's what Barrels of Fun does if you buy directly from them. Correct me if I'm wrong, Barrels out there. But if you do a deposit with them, like, you have to take delivery of that game before you can then go ahead and sell it. And everybody knows that going in, so fine. Like, I would prefer if deposits were refundable and I could just transfer them if I want. That would work out better for me. But I'd understand if, like, that was the rule. Everybody knew it going in, so everything's fair.
    49:33
    Maybe they should. I mean, if I bought a game for $13,000 and I sold it to you for $25,000, whatever, and I should ask the distro to, you know, change three lines with the shipping address, I would just say, dear distro friend, can you do this? I will transfer you $500 extra for doing three lines of riding. I mean, that could be a solution. It would have to be like up front and known at the time you put a deposit in that that's – because I've seen some distributors do that. We'll transfer, but there's a fee of $100 or something. Fine. Or I purchase something, and I see that if I don't want it, there's a restocking fee. That sucks, but it was in the fine print when I signed. Like it was up front. You just got to be transparent, and you got to apply the same rules to everybody here. so this game doesn't it doesn't get sent to the distro and then from the distro to some city it gets drop shipped from stern to the customer so the only thing is just going on right you know the receiving address is just there it takes them two minutes to do yeah from what i understand yeah the distributor sent a big check to stern pinball they said i want 20 games here's my check and then I think they actually, I don't know if they drop they don't drop shit from Stern because what the distributor will say correct me distributors if I'm wrong but they'll call and say, okay, your 20 games are ready, send a truck and then that distributor will send a truck and then take them over to their other distributing warehouse and that's where they get parted out this address for this person it's from there I live in Chicago and I bought a game from you in Wisconsin. Then the game won't be sent from Stern to Wisconsin and then from Wisconsin to me at Chicago. It will be from that warehouse. It will be shipped directly to me. Yeah, but I don't know because I've been to other distributors' locations. I've been out to Kingpin, and he's got a whole warehouse. So he probably sends a truck, picks up all his games, probably comes back to Wisconsin and probably ships from his location there. I don't know. I don't know all the secrets of it. If that's the case, then the distro doesn't even need to change the address and send it to Stern. Then it's just in-house and they can just tell it to the shipping guy. It's even easier for the distro then. You're allowed to have your morality in your business and conduct it how you want, but you've got to be up front with those rules. and it sounds like obviously this customer that wanted to transfer afterwards wasn't aware that he wasn't able to do that, and just the mere asking got his game pulled away from him. All this guy seemingly did was email.
    52:22
    I don't want to be in a situation where I ordered a game from a distributor and I have to be careful how I act online or my distributor might cancel my order if the game is really popular and sell it to who knows who else or keep it for themselves. How do we know that he gave it to the next person in the line? he might keep it new in box and wait until it's 50 grand or something down the road i don't know maybe maybe there's an oil chic in the middle east that he's going to contract this game too and he has a very public way of now feeling justified canceling that order you know but i just i just don't want to be like shoot i have a game i want to comment online but i'm afraid my distributor might see it and cancel my order so i got to be careful what i say like i don't want to that would ruin the hobby maybe he should just give him a warning or something just canceling the order or say or say listen i'll do it this time but just so you know don't do this in the future you know go follow through with your order or just cancel it outright you know maybe a guy like nap from jason nap from naps arcade he should be you know write an article and say we should clear out these rules if you want to transfer or this just row doesn't transfer because this is not something that happens we started the show with not i mean since godzilla how many games just spiked up to 25,000? Yeah. Not many, Donnie. I mean, on our Patreon, people, guys in there are writing, what, Venom LE for $6,800?
    53:48
    For the LE, you know? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's the other way around. It can happen. So fair needs to be fair. My dad told me from a young age, if you buy for $13 and sell for $25, If I want to make money like that, I just need to wake up earlier than you. Do you know what he means by that? Yeah. Wake up earlier, man. Don't do your stuff. Don't just cry there with jealousy. Do your stuff. And listen, this is pinball, but like in just the Disney park collectibles hobby, there will be a new merchandise drop at a Disney theme park, and people will show up at 3 in the morning waiting in line to get into the park to be one of the first people in line for when that shop opens to get that pin or plush toy or popcorn bucket. and Disney will say, okay, limit of five per person, there will be people walking out with five popcorn buckets. We'll go right to eBay and put them up there for double, triple price. And it happens every single week. And so this is not something new. So if you're operating a business, just be transparent with people when they order. If you don't want to allow transfers, don't allow them. But then if somebody has money in on a Walking Dead LE and then decides to give it to their friend, And you've got to be like, no, you can't transfer that. Because, of course, if they called and said, hey, I don't want this game anymore. My friend's going to buy it, so we're good, right? I don't think they'd have a problem with that. It's only because it's Pokemon and there's some semblance that it's immoral to sell something for more than you paid for it. What the heck is that? Free market. We either have a free market or we don't. We can't pick and choose these things because that's the price of freedom, okay? You're allowed to come on and podcast about whatever you want. It's a great thing, and that gives us people that are sometimes harsh that people don't like and don't listen to. But that's the cost of freedom. We take that away. What are we going to have, people come out and police what you can say on Pinball Podcast? Nobody wants that. No, no, no.
    55:47
    Okay, let's put a lid on this. I've been thinking about this for a while, Genghis. You know, we have the same opinion about this, and I feel bad about this guy losing. And I also believe in karma. I hope somebody like Silvergun just offers him another, I don't know, for 13 Gs or something. For most of that launch day, I wasn't getting an LE. And it's not like I was mad at everybody else that was buying them and then selling them. You know, like, oh, they just bought that to sell it for 20 grand when I could have had it. I deserved it more. I deserved that wonky golden ticket. Why is God punishing me? Like, no, it was like, all right, I'll get a premium, and we're going to make the best of it. It's still going to be great, and I'm going to make it look awesome, and then we'll see. Look, we just talked about people being angry at Chris. This is how I am as a person. Chris can call me in a crazy hour. I pick up the phone and he can say, I did this and I made this money. The first thing that, the first feeling I get is, heck yeah, baby. No one was forced. The buyer is happy. The seller is happy. There is no, everybody's happy. I'm like, more power to you. More of this. Congratulations. That's how I feel. No one pays $20,000 for a toy and then feels bad about it. If you felt bad about it, you wouldn't have bought it. That person that spent $20,000 whatever for Pokemon LE is probably tap dancing on his upholstered patio deck right now. Like, hell yeah, I got one. It's coming. It's going to be great. It's going to be here in a couple weeks. We're going to have a party. It's going to be, yeah. So the seller's happy because he wouldn't have sold it if he didn't agree with the deal. The buyer's happy.
    57:27
    What's the problem? But let's take on a Stern Distro shoes on here. It's out that people, distros are making $2,800, $2,500 on an elite. I don't want to confirm anything, but that's what people are saying. So I said to this, I make $2,500. Then you sell it and you make $10,000. Then I feel like, who the fuck are you, man? I'm the distro. I should make those money. Maybe that kind of jealousy pops out in distros' hearts. I don't know. If that's the case, I understand them. How the hell is this guy taking advantage of that buyer? I'm the one that's supposed to take advantage of the buyer. But you're saying advantage, but the buyer that pays $20, that person is just – that person has got money. That person has asked everywhere a week later, a week after the launch, and, okay, the best price I can get is $20. I'm going to pay that mother, and I'm going to just enjoy this game. I mean – Yeah, but we don't know the amount of insider trading that goes on. We never will. So I would say just be transparent and have the same rules for everybody. And then if a game pops – this is like one out of the last ten that has gone up in value at launch. So this isn't like every time this is what's happening. So can we all just – let's just enjoy some pinball here for a little bit. Texas Pinball Festival is coming up, man. Pokemon is going to be out there. Tons of other games are going to be out there. Yeah, we've had like three bangers already in the last 12 months, and there's like five more coming. This is like a great time right now. How is it with Spooky if I bought a Beetlejuice for $10 and I want to sell it for $20? How do you react to that? You're going to get a big thumbs up.
    59:14
    I've heard it from the team themselves. They're like, listen, if we can sell games every year to our customers, and our customers can have a game that they're going to enjoy and then be able to actually make a little bit of money when they sell it, And then buy the next one, that's a win for Spooky. That's a win for the customers. That's a win for the secondary buyers because then they get access to it. So everybody is having a great time that whole route. So what's the problem with that? I just want to say if I pay $13,000 for a Pokemon LE, whatever I do, I can burn that game. Nobody cares. Nobody should care about it. I can burn it. Cengiz, do you remember when the Nintendo Wii came out and the Xbox 360 came out, like that generation of consoles? There was a little crew online, and they would solicit donations, like a GoFundMe for a Nintendo Wii. And this is when it was super hot. You couldn't get one. You had to wait in line for five hours before the store opened, and they only had three of them. And so what they would do is they would collect this money, and then they would wait in line. They would get one of these games, walk out in front of them. They would be first in line. they would walk out in front of the best buyer, whatever they just bought it. They would unbox it and then smash the thing right in front of everybody. That was like desperately waiting for this thing. People like couldn't wait to get one. They were scalping them and they would, and they will raise money and go and do this. They did it with a three 60, just smashed it right in the parking lot. It was the best, like troll punk rock F you thing. And these guys made money too. Cause people were donating. They got like, you know, a thousand dollars for a $600 console, took it out just to smash it, just to create some chaos, and it was so great. It was so great. Project Pinball should do a fundraiser to get a Pokemon LE, unbox it on Top Tucky's roof, and push the thing in the parking lot.
    61:08
    Oh, man. Danny, I was there 3,000 years ago. Can we talk about gaming, you know, consoles and retro? Would our viewers or listeners would they be angry if we just jump over to that world Because that world is huge for me Yeah I will give you an example if that okay with you Let go Okay. So I'm a salesman educated.
    61:34
    And have you seen in Hollywood movies it says, yeah, okay. In Hollywood movies it says mask on the shipping containers. Mask. Yeah, mask McKinney shipping. Huge, world's huge shipping company.
    61:54
    So I'm a salesman educated there. So when I was brand new, I think this was I started at 1999 or something, and at the biggest place in Denmark selling electronics. So I knew about Pokemon back in the 90s, and what is it called when you have a company, but you have a section that only goes to China, Japan, and buys cheap things so we can sell it in the stores. Like an importer?
    62:28
    Yeah, importer or – no, it's not a – it's a group of 50 people that gets iPhones, everything very cheap around the world, and we can sell it on these big stores. Yeah, yeah.
    62:42
    In Cuba, we call them buy-in people. Yeah. Yeah, so they got the big money. They were the buy-in guys, and now you have got Revit G&G graphic cards or GeForce 2 graphic cards, whatever. So I knew about Game Boy Color and Pokemon release. Cool. So I was like, Pokemon is real big, but these buying people, they don't know anything about it. I do. So I contact my boss there, and I say, we have to do something big about this. And he's like, what's Pokemon? And I tried to tell him, and he doesn't get anything. So he says, just contact the distro. So I contact the Danish distro. They don't understand. So we have a huge Scandinavian distro, Berserle. And they are in Sweden. So I contact them. They sell Nintendo to a whole huge distro. So they love my idea, and they get me in contact with Japan and all this Pokemon stuff. So it ends up with we get two guys flown into Denmark from Japan with a big docking station. And kids can come into our huge shop in Denmark, plug in their Game Boy Colors, and you can get a very special, special Pokemon that's only in Japan into your new purchased Pokemon something, gold, red, whatever.
    64:08
    And we market it. The lines were from 9 morning to 9 afternoon. It was just a huge day. We sold everything, and then we sold, you know, Pokemon games, just gave them the receipts and said, you will get your games in 14 days, whatever. It was a mega success. And because of this, the buy-in people called me the day after, like, who the fuck are you, you little kid? I'm like, I'm Cengiz, and I'm a gamer. So I went up. I became the boss of that department too fast. And then I moved up and made a lot of money. That's awesome. It was awesome.
    64:46
    Give me one more minute. When PlayStation 2 came out, so we only got 200 PlayStation 2s. And I called these buy-in rich people and I said, this is not enough. We need 1,000 over here. And they were like, no, go away. And I said, give me 1,000. And we got 1,000.
    65:05
    Yeah. We got 1,000. And, of course, the day after launch, the store had sold out, and we had 2,000 PlayStation 2s, and it was a hell of a success, and I got the biggest bonus. Yeah.
    65:22
    Someday we can talk about gaming. I have so much. Yeah. I can tell. We have to go on. Sorry, Donnie. I have a question for you. Let's go. Yeah. Hit me. So, Pokemon Go comes out very simple approach and layout, right? Right, right. Good. And we just said themes and everything, right? Right. Good. JJP just came out with Harry Potter. Is that shots and layout easy?
    65:51
    Like Pokemon? No. Good, good. Now, there's not brick shots, but it plays super fast. Super fast. And you got to learn to get up with it. You got to get used to it. Yeah. But it's not a super approachable design, right?
    66:10
    No matter where you hit the ball, it's going to do something interesting. Yeah, but a new guy will be completely – what's going on? Yeah. How do I lock up? How does my ball get up there? Right. Yeah, I see. Yeah, right? So, good, good. So you and I, we're guessing that the next game from J.J.P., Sonic, it's probably designed by now, right? Yeah. They're printing Playfield because the Playfield clear code has to dry out and everything before you put on the stuff. So they're sitting at J.J.P. now.
    66:47
    They're like, Sonic is a huge theme. and they see the success of Pokemon and they see the layout of Pokemon, do they tell Steve Ritchie to, you need to make this super approachable because we need new people in the game? What's happening in there? What's your guess? My question is which Steve Ritchie game has not been approachable?
    67:13
    Approachable like Pokemon? I mean, Pokemon. Has he ever done Bash in the Middle, Left, Right, Right, Ram? and that's it. No fear, definitely not. Star Trek wasn't like that. Elton John wasn't. No, you still couldn't tell where the orbits were going on Elton John.
    67:30
    Black Knight, you could see everything, of course. That was an homage for the old games. Yeah. One of his awesome games, what's the Kingslayer game, what's it called? Kingslayer? Kingslayer, what's it called? I don't know. What is it with Kingslayer? Game of Thrones. Yeah, Game of Thrones, man. Have you played the Ellie? You don't see half of the play field because of the other play field.
    67:57
    I don't want an approachable Sonic. I want Harry Potter but Sonic. I want Elton John but Sonic. I want a remastering of High Speed or F-14 Tomcat or what the hell is the other one I'm thinking of? Something else cool. Dude, if it was just No Fear again but tighter and better, I'd be super happy about it. I feel exactly the same way. But being in the JJP shoes, watching what's going on, with simple, approachable layout on a game theme that everybody knows. Everybody knows about Sonic also.
    68:36
    Should they make it simple like this? Or should they make it, I mean, yeah, you just said Elton John. Oh, my God. Such a cool shot on the layout. Do you think Stern gets a pass because they're Stern? Like, if JJP did Pokemon and this is what we got from them, we would probably be tearing it apart. Like, what is this, two ramps here? That's it? Is it a plastic ramp? Come on. It's not even gold wire formed. There's no hot rails. You know, like, what are you doing? You borrowed this from Junkyard, the Meowth that comes in. You know, like a spooky pinball came out with Pokemon and this was it. I don't know. I think we'd still like it.
    69:14
    Is there a Stern Pass, though? Did they get a pass? I don't know There's no upper play field on Pokemon The Pokeball doesn't physically capture the balls And then open up and spit them on the play field That's what I would think The Multiball would be locking balls in a Pokeball And you get three in there And then it would shake three times, open up And then blah, I choose you, Doug Trio And then there you go, Doug Trio Multiball And I thought they would have Because you can buy all these small Pokemons I thought this game would have Pokemons everywhere Right Yeah. Right? Yeah. I'm sure there's reasons that they – and then I'm sure they had all these ideas too. They probably had some really cool innovative layout ideas, but there's probably reasons that once they explain them to us, we'll be like, oh, okay, I see that. There's probably a lot of counterintuitive bits to this.
    70:02
    So you think it will be an advanced layout? I think so, yeah. Now, it's not going to be Harry Potter. It's still like a Steve Ritchie game. and they'll probably still be, you know, that warp ramp will probably still be in there. But, you know, if, I mean, he designed Star Wars 2017 with the hyperspace loop, and if there was ever a game to bring the hyperspace loop back in a more accessible fashion, Sonic, man. There we go, there we go. The ball goes so fast, you can put three balls in there, they're racing around. Yeah, yeah. I love it. Cool. Tony, I want to ask one more, one more. I want a short update on the spooky build. How's it going? Oh, pretty good. This is my first day back actually home, and I should probably be there right now bolting it together. So I'm going to go walk up to the factory. Are you talking about the build in general or like my specific game?
    70:53
    Build? Okay, wait. I was talking about build in general. Are you building your own Beetlejuice? Well, yeah. They weren't watching me, so I kind of grabbed some parts and started throwing them together. So it's about halfway wired right now. I got to go back and put in the Vox and everything, get those wired up, and then it's time for mechs and then throw it in a cabinet. So, yeah, I need to go get to works. I want to get Beetlejuice done. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. I'm taking your time then, man. Exactly, Genghis. Rude of you.
    71:27
    All right. Let's wrap up 54. We can talk a little bit on Patreon. What do you think? I actually have one thing I want to share here before we go to Patreon. All right, I will give you the floor.
    71:39
    Is it Cengiz? I don't want to get your name wrong here again. Cengiz, that's it. I got it written phonetically. Okay, go ahead. The floor is yours. Oh, my God. Yeah, okay, Donnie. Yeah, okay. Guys, this has nothing to do with Donnie. I love him. So what's happened the last two weeks?
    71:58
    My dear friend Retro Ralph, he's making a show with my other dear friend, JBS, Jamie. I love those guys. I'm sitting there watching their show. I'm enjoying it because they're my boys. I love them. And then all of a sudden, to my big surprise, Retro Ralph says that the Predator pinball launch was really bad.
    72:24
    And his whole happy face expression changes when he says that it was bad. And then he mentions me. He says, Cengiz is not a marketing guy. that really hit me, and I was just sitting and waiting there for him to say,
    72:43
    but Pimble Brothers did this and this and this. I'm not going to mention what happened because everybody knows what happened, right, with the Arnold thing and all that.
    72:57
    I'm not going to go into this because he only mentioned my name as the negative stuff. And then he jumped over to, they should ship up games and blah, blah, blah, which is a great idea. I also asked them to ship a game to me. So it is what it is. I just want to say, that hurt me. Because I got in contact with Pinball Brothers and NDA three weeks before the launch. And two weeks before the launch, I started showing what I was allowed to show. Very small clips, very small teasers for 14 days. that was it and the response from from pinball brothers was dude we haven't even launched this game because of your videos people are starting to order this game thank you and i'm just so proud and happy about this i didn't you know go to the factory and had days to film this game or play this game i didn't have a camera guy with me or a video editor with me nothing like that my enthusiasm started selling these games so I'm so proud about this and a dear friend that I love saying this I was really disappointed in him so I wrote to him Ralph I'm sad about this I'm disappointed you're saying it like this and I wrote to him you know this and this and this happened and you just only mentioned me as the negative this is not cool i'm not happy about it i'm gonna unfriend you i'm not gonna follow you anymore i wish you and your family the best peace out and i wrote that and i also unentity mail um messenger message by writing and i can't even i don't even understand why you couldn't pronounce my name right right that's it so So, a short time later, I get hit up by Jamie. And he's like, bro, sorry if we did something wrong. And I'm like, no, Jamie didn't say anything wrong. Jamie, you're my bro. I love you, man. There's nothing there. Cool. So, I just unfriended Retro Ralph and I'm done. If he's like that, okay, fine. So, the day after, I'm talking with people that heard this and they're like, what the heck is going on? And Chris calls me up, Chris Koulouris from Canada's Pinball Podcast. And he says, like, man, I talked with Retro Ralph. He's not feeling great about this. Did you block him? And I said, no, no, Chris, I didn't block him. I just unfriended him. And then I just wrote what I – I read what I wrote to Retro Ralph. And Chris said, like, good, don't block him. Just have the door open. Just cool down, and then you can talk. No, no, I didn't block him, nothing like that. But, yeah, it's just not cool what he says. And I said to Chris, like, I'm not angry with Retro Ralph because, like, a few years back when I was selling Queen pinball machines from Pinball Brothers, Retro Ralph didn't know what was going on, how the community thought about it. I mean, he was playing his one-up arcade machines or whatever. So I'm not angry. He wasn't there. He didn't know. so when we made these shows Don said like they just reused the chopper from ABBA they re-skinned the game it was not only Donny, everybody was talking like that and I had I wanted people to love what Pimple Brothers were presenting because I saw the pictures of the game I was hyped man I saw the video with Arnold in it, right, that's what I saw it was amazing that's fine so we just left it a couple of days later another video comes out i got hit up people are saying to me what the heck are you doing jengis what's wrong with you i'm like what i'm eating what's going on so they're saying like how can you block a friend because he says your name wrong i'm like what who said that what the fuck so they sent me the link and it's jamie i love jamie and it's kale i love kale kill hernandez and it's retro ralph again and to be honest i love retro ralph i love him i mean he's so kind every message i'm getting videos everything i love retro ralph so he's just they're talking on a YouTube video with 2,000 people viewing this, and then they talk about me and pinball drama, whatever, and Retro Ralph is just laughing. He's just laughing about this situation because he wrote, sorry. He wrote that to me. He wrote, if you need some time out, it's okay. I'm sorry. He didn't mean that it was my fault, nothing like that. But on the second video, he says, yeah, so Genghis got angry because I said his name wrong and said he's not from Denmark but another country. So he blocked me.
    78:15
    I never blocked him, and I still don't want to block him. It never happened. I'm like, maybe he just doesn't know how to use Messenger. You can see this icon when people receive the messages. So people out there reaching out to me, it's just not true. I'm not saying he's lying. I'm not saying nothing like that. He's just, I think he doesn't know how to use Messenger or something.
    78:41
    I don't go and block friends just because they say my name wrong. So just please, if he comes out on a third show and says something more disappointing about me, just don't contact me about it. I don't want to listen more to it. Peace, love, and harmony. I want the best, as I said to Retro Ralph. I want the best for him and his family. So just leave me alone. I don't want more of this. Okay, so I just want this out there.
    79:17
    Sorry, Donnie. I had to because people are like, what the hell, Cengiz? Are you blocking people because of this? You took me on an emotional roller coaster, sir. I got to catch my breath here. I want to go check out my souvenir photo. Yeah. I mean, we made a show in between this, and I'm like, I didn't say anything. I didn't want to put this up. But when he makes a second video and says something like this about me, I have to address it. But just let's close it. I don't want more. Jamie, I love you, brother. Kale, I love you. I want to make more shows with you guys, but I haven't blocked anyone, and I'm not a weirdo like that, okay? I am a weirdo like that. I love you for it, brother. I'm a weirdo six different ways. You needed to come up with it, and that's about it. Okay, Donnie? Very good. I'm sorry, man. And you need to build your – how can you wait? Build that – how long – How can I wait? I'm recording right now with you. I can't be over there. I want to ask you, from start to finish, how long does it take to build one, in the factory, one Beetlejuice?
    80:25
    If you know that. Probably like when everything's fully cooked in a week and with them, you know, there's several in the iron at the same time. So they're cranking out multiple that are completing every day. But for me, I think if I was locked in there and someone would show me what to do, I could probably do it in a week. Just don't get home. Don't sleep. Your wife is working there. Just call her. Just put the game together. Get it home, man. It's one of the most hyped games right now. Everybody wants it. And with that, we'll come to the end of episode number 54.
    81:02
    We are pinball. We are damaged. But we strive on to play the flips game. You don't need no precision flippers when you've got fingers that are long like these. Let me let you know. We are pinball69 at gmail.com is the way that you can e-mail us. And, heck, call us and appear on the show. Chris did. We tried to get Albert Agar. We'll try again later. Retro Ralph, welcome anytime, sir.
    81:25
    buy some pinball games flip them oh this is funky dude I love it Donnie coming up as well our TPM new game predictions what we've been hearing live on Patreon coming up