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Episode 143 - E2.5 2021

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·47m 59s·analyzed·Jun 13, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

E3 2021 gaming coverage plus pinball distributor debate and Multimorphic/American Pinball news.

Summary

Episode 143 of Eclectic Gamers Podcast covers E3 2021 announcements and pinball industry news. Hosts Tony and Dennis discuss community feedback on pinball distributor models, Multimorphic's teased licensed theme with Scott Denise on music, and American Pinball shift under Aintron ownership with plans for two releases per year and abandonment of the P3 Rock system. The episode also covers video game announcements from Ubisoft, Devolver, and Gearbox presentations.

Key Claims

  • American Pinball is now directly owned by Aintron and will brand games as American Pinball

    high confidence · Dennis explains American Pinball's ownership change from sister company to direct subsidiary of Aintron, confirmed via Pinball News and Pinball Magazine Podcast interview

  • American Pinball plans to release two games per year starting this year, with non-licensed titles in 2021 and Dennis Nordman-designed licensed games starting in 2022

    high confidence · Interview with David Fix, Makesh, and Nermal from American Pinball published on Pinball News and Pinball Magazine Podcast

  • American Pinball is moving away from the P3 Rock system due to Aintron's ability to manufacture boards in-house

    high confidence · Dennis notes interview confirms Aintron manufactures PCBs and American Pinball will transition away from Multimorphic boards

  • Spooky, Haggis, and American Pinball have all dropped P3 Rock in early 2021, leaving no major manufacturer still using the platform

    high confidence · Dennis states 'Spooky's dropping it, Haggis is dropping it, and now American Pinball is dropping it. And that leaves no major name.'

  • Multimorphic is teasing a licensed theme with Scott Denise handling music composition

    high confidence · Dennis confirms Multimorphic announcement of Scott Densey on for music work on an unannounced licensed Multimorphic P3 game

  • Scott Densey is known for designing Rick and Morty and Total Nuclear Annihilation for Spooky, doing all work except art on TNA

    high confidence · Dennis provides Scott Densey's design and music credits across Spooky titles

  • Spooky's decision to leave P3 was motivated by cost savings; it's cheaper to produce their own boards than continue buying from Multimorphic

    high confidence · Dennis references Ben Heck interview where financial reasoning for board manufacturing shift was explicitly stated

  • Haggis Pinball produced approximately 18 Kelts machines before adopting new manufacturing approach

Notable Quotes

  • “the main benefit of the current model for the game purchaser is the dealer is supposed to be a mediator and advocate for the purchaser. In reality, this doesn't seem to be the case.”

    Anonymous listener email @ ~11:45 — Articulates core criticism of distributor model from collector perspective; addresses accountability gap

  • “I think it will fade with time as well... Stern already drop shipped games, they could still sell at the current MSRP and use the money to hire more staff”

    Anonymous listener email @ ~12:30 — Proposes direct-to-consumer alternative model for Stern, directly challenges distributor necessity

  • “the original thread has devolved into haikus of DR's ineptitude with the occasional Ben Heck drunk on DR and or J-POP”

    Chris C (listener email) @ ~15:20 — Characterizes Pinside Deep Root thread as descending into meme-based criticism; meta-commentary on community discourse decay

  • “my guess is it's just coincidence... In an interview where Ben Heck talked about Spooky moving away, he made it clear in that that their change was money.”

    Dennis @ ~40:15 — Attributes platform exodus to manufacturing economics rather than licensing issues or coordinated decision

  • “I really like his character in Enemy at the Gates, actually... just a Ron Perlman machine. It's just quotes from him from different movies.”

    Dennis @ ~47:50 — Humorous speculation about hypothetical Multimorphic licensed theme; reflects host's attempt to guess announcement

  • “the weaker the license, the stronger your layout and rules have to be... Harry Potter will just move. Because people have no class in this hobby when it comes to Harry Potter.”

    Tony @ ~49:20 — Articulates design philosophy inverse relationship between IP strength and mechanical design quality; critical observation about market dynamics

  • “I'll believe it when I see it. Same. It's the same thing I say with anybody who is not stern and wants to release more than one machine in a year.”

Entities

TonypersonDennispersonScott DenseypersonMultimorphiccompanyAmerican PinballcompanyAintroncompanySpooky PinballcompanyHaggis Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball's acquisition by Aintron enables vertical integration of board manufacturing, reducing dependency on third-party platforms

    high · Dennis notes Aintron manufactures PCBs and American Pinball will transition away from P3 Rock as result of ownership structure

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Deep Root pinball manufacturer thread on Pinside has deteriorated into meme-based criticism with defenders having abandoned the main discussion for separate owner/depositor threads

    medium · Chris C email: 'the original thread has devolved into haikus of DR's ineptitude... are just grinding for unique mats for dank DR-related meme sets'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Inverse relationship between IP strength and mechanical design quality in pinball; weak licenses require superior ruleset/layout, strong licenses (e.g., Harry Potter) can succeed with minimal mechanical depth

    medium · Tony: 'the weaker the license, the stronger your layout and rules have to be... Harry Potter will just move. Because people have no class in this hobby when it comes to Harry Potter'

  • ?

    leak_detection: Ubisoft experienced pre-E3 leaks of Mario and Rabbids Sparks of Hope and Far Cry DLC announcements hours before presentation

    high · Dennis reports: 'Ubisoft did, with leaks just before the stuff started... Rabbids was leaked. The Far Cry DLC was leaked... it was only a few hours before'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: American Pinball's transition to Aintron enables licensing deals through Planetary Pinball partnership; non-licensed titles in 2021 suggest licensing agreements not yet finalized

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.144

0:00
Welcome to the Collected Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, June 13th. This is episode 143. I am Tony. I'm Dennis. And we've got some stuff to cover and E3 is underway. It's weird, normally E3 is like a During the week thing But these are strange times We're not in the end times anymore We're in the post end times But because of that, we're going to knock this one out pretty quick Because we got EA, Microsoft And Bethesda coming up here And so we only have a little We have about an hour window actually So we should have plenty of time to get through it But that does not mean we skip out doing an intro So what's going on Tony, you still playing Final Fantasy? I'm playing Final Fantasy I've been joined by a few of our friends online on my server.
1:04
I have created an EGP link shell. So if anybody is on the data center's primal, the server is Lamia, let me know.
1:18
Drop your name or something in an email or on Facebook and wherever. That's eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com. There you go. And I can get you found out in a link shell sent.
1:34
But I've been still having a lot of fun with it. I'm still going to be easily distracted. I haven't tried any combat-related jobs other than I finally progressed far enough that I have the sub jobs for Arcanist. So I've got Summoner and Scholar, which is basically DPS or Healer with Pet. and I've played those and I've played no other combat jobs but I have almost every crafting job over 50. I don't even have combat over 50. I'm 42.
2:09

medium confidence · Dennis mentions 'Haggis, they did like, what, 18 Kelts machines?' in discussion of manufacturer scale

Dennis and Tony @ ~52:45 — Expresses skepticism toward American Pinball's two-releases-per-year claim; reflects industry-wide pattern of missed manufacturing promises

  • “It felt like they spent half their presentation talking about the Borderlands movie they working on and it just to me reeked of hey look I a studio owner here me because I need to be the star”

    Dennis (re: Gearbox presentation) @ ~56:30 — Criticism of Gearbox's E3 presentation priorities; reflects broader gaming industry criticism of corporate vanity over product focus

    • Dennis Nordman
    person
    Ben Heckperson
    David Fixperson
    Makeshperson
    Chris Cperson
    Pinball News and Pinball Magazine Podcastmedia
    Pinsideorganization
    P3 Rockproduct
    Final Fantasy XIVgame
    Gears 5game
    Ubisoftcompany
    Devolver Digitalcompany

    medium · Dennis: 'the licensed stuff got started too late. It's going to be with Dennis Nordman's designs, which are going to start in 2022'

  • $

    market_signal: Community skepticism toward non-Stern manufacturers' production promises; hosts express doubt about American Pinball's two-releases-per-year commitment

    high · Dennis and Tony: 'I'll believe it when I see it. Same. It's the same thing I say with anybody who is not stern and wants to release more than one machine in a year.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Scott Densey maintains relationship with Multimorphic despite prior exclusive work with Spooky on Rick and Morty and Total Nuclear Annihilation

    high · Dennis notes Densey's history: 'known for designing both for Spooky, Rick and Morty... Total Nuclear Annihilation... he did the music for that as well'

  • $

    market_signal: Cost economics driving manufacturing platform decisions; Spooky explicitly cited it cheaper to produce own boards than purchase from Multimorphic

    high · Dennis references Ben Heck interview: 'their change was money. It'll be cheaper for them to do Pen Heck 2.0 than to continue to buy boards from Multimorphic'

  • ?

    announcement: Multimorphic announcing licensed P3 game with professional composer Scott Densey; represents major shift toward brand-name IP for previously homebrew-focused manufacturer

    high · Dennis: 'Multimorphic is teasing A licensed theme. And they have announced that Scott Denisey is on for music.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Three major pinball manufacturers (Spooky, Haggis, American Pinball) independently abandoned Multimorphic's P3 Rock platform in early 2021, shifting to in-house board manufacturing or alternative systems

    high · Dennis states: 'Spooky's dropping it, Haggis is dropping it, and now American Pinball is dropping it. And that leaves no major name.'

    • But the only things I don't have over 50 is Alchemist Cooking and Fishing are all in the 20s Armorer is 48 and Leatherworker is 49.
    2:28
    So, I should have those two over 50 pretty quick. But otherwise, yeah, that's basically what I've been doing. And lots of hunting my own stuff and then selling it.
    2:45
    Otherwise, that's the joys of my life lately. What have you been up to? I have started Gears 5 Now I've actually really started it, not confused with Years 4 started it. Did you finish Years 4 first? I did. And then started Years 5, as is appropriate. It is. So I am somewhere in Act 2, pretty early in Act 2, I think Chapter 2 of it. I don't know. I played a couple days ago and died, but I'm still clearly in the chapter I got into. I know there was a somewhat five or seven minute section that I'll have to redo because I screwed up. And then other than that, I will note that I had been working on a project with a group, Literarily Wasted, is what they call it. They do a book club, online book club, and they wanted to write a book, a choose-your-own-adventure-style book. So that's actually out now in a limited edition hard copy, but July 1st is when the Kindle version is released. So I'll have a link in the show notes if anyone wants it. It's 99 cents. It's an adult-oriented, like it's got substance use and stuff in it. Choose Your Own Adventure. Choose Your Own Adventure? Well, that might be Take a Shot Stories number two. This is Take a Shot Stories number one, Beach Trip Beware. Ah, sounds like the normal theme anyway.
    4:08
    And that reminded me, so I went and checked because I thought I had an email, but I was so busy with the pandemic stuff, I didn't pay too much attention. I had a publisher or an editor contact me months ago about rerunning one of my stories that she had on her vampire website. Your sparkly vampire website. Sparkly vampire website. Yes. So she's actually pushed out, I think, three collections of stories. And one of mine that she ran years and years ago is in one of those. So that's called Fankers Inc. An Anthology of Vampire Stories. I think that's $2.99 in Kindle. So I've got a link there in the show notes as well if anyone wants to buy those. With full disclosures that there may be financial benefit to me if you buy these. I have to phrase it that hedge-like because, honestly, I don't remember what my contract said. So there might be a benefit if there are enough sales on either book. I don't recall anything that's actually going to get me paid. They go, here, we need you to sign this contract. She paid me for the story years ago. And, you know, short stories, like money was always really – you were lucky.
    5:12
    Here's $2. Yeah, you got like $10. It was like, oh, cow, rolling big. And I don't think they pay much better now than they did in the early 2000s. But anyway, those are out there because I don't really write fiction much anymore.
    5:27
    So speaking of writing, we had a couple people write in to us. And I'm going to jump us now into the pinball segment because both of the emails are related to pinball. Not too surprised. Not surprised at all. So I've got a couple pinball topics that we'll do after this. So the first email, a listener wrote in, asked to remain anonymous. but wanted to contribute some thoughts on the distributor discussion that we had two shows ago, and we also had the email from another listener that we discussed on the last episode about the value of having a distributor in pinball. So this is the relevant part of the anonymous email that came in that we're going to talk about or I'm going to read out for this episode.
    6:10
    I think it will fade with time as well. I'm only speaking from my experience, but the main benefit of the current model for the game purchaser is the dealer is supposed to be a mediator and advocate for the purchaser. In reality, this doesn't seem to be the case. I got an early JP Jurassic Park Pro and had quite a bit of issues with my clear coat. I ordered from a very popular dealer and never felt like they were in my side with the situation. They just told me to document the problem and never did anything as the problem progressed. I ended up getting a playfield from them almost a year later, and only because I was pretty public about my issues in a consistent email every two weeks. Some other reasons I believe the distributor model is unneeded are that Stern already drop shipped games, they could still sell at the current MSRP and use the money to hire more staff to handle the increased responsibilities, and more consistent brand marketing with only one source of information. I hope my points come across in a constructive criticism instead of a distributor bashing, that I believe the model needs to go away or at the very least reworked. So another perspective. So I just wanted to get that. Always acceptable. So I wanted to get that out there to all the listeners. I feel like this is becoming like the AppendPal topic where we spent like two minutes on it. It was such a tiny little throw-in, not a big deal thing that we thought at the time. It's quickly become maybe we should have done. Maybe because, you know, we had a couple. we read the one email the last time that was more on the sort of pro distributor side versus the tone of our original discussion. And I had two, we had two messages in that same time. They weren't things to read out to the audience, but that were clearly, we like what you said in the original one, like good coverage sort of thing. And then it's just been, it's apparently people find this one more interesting than we thought they would. So maybe at some point we go in deeper, But without having a distributor on, it would be, I think, challenging to really, because we don't know enough about the business. In my view, too. Of course, our angle was always just coming at it from a manufacturer perspective. But we don't work for them either, so what do we know? I don't know. We're just professional podcasters. That's what we do. Making the big bucks. We cast the pods. We see what's going on. We do. Now, we got another email, not related to distribution. Chris C emailed Regarding our deep root discussion We had on the last episode More specifically this is about Kind of where I had mentioned not seeing a lot of Defenders of deep root in the penside thread I've been reading so Chris wrote And said there's a separate Raza quote owners and then Parenthetically he says depositors Threat I would suspect any Defenders are there and have abandoned The cesspool of the original DR I wondered about that Continuing his email, the original thread has devolved into haikus of DR's ineptitude with the occasional Ben Heck drunk on DR and or J-POP. The thread is clearly in the endgame of DR hating and are just grinding for unique mats for dank DR-related meme sets at this point. I would like to invite anyone with the dankest of memes to go ahead and in our show notes, we always have a link to the EGP Discord, and we do have a section for dank memes. We do have a dank memes section. So we would welcome the rdank memes or any memes. Yeah. Really. I just recently posted that wonderful queen meme. You did? Yeah. I mean, now, to be fair, Gaming on 10's Discord has like the most active meme game of any of the Discords I am in. Yes. But we are number two. I read it. The ones I'm in were number 47. The ones I'm in were number two. Okay. The ones I'm in. How many Discords have you actively fought? I'm on like six. Yeah. I'm on about ten. I'm not super active in very many of them. And like three of them are, it's weird. The meme section of Discords that are set specifically around historical YouTubers who talk about historical stuff, The meme sections are weird You've seen some of them Because I've posted I've sent you some of them that are just like crazy It's hilarious though Back on to pinball So next topic Original topic, new topic, number one of two Just a quick one And I mistyped it in my Internal show notes Multimorphic is teasing A licensed theme And they have announced that Scott Denisey is on for music. Now, Scott Denisey is known for designing both for Spooky, Rick and Morty. And he did the music for that as well. And then Total Nuclear Annihilation, which other than art, he did basically everything for. So now he's not designing this game, but he's doing musical package work. People have been all over the place trying to guess what this licensed theme might be. I don't, it could be, it's such, it's too open. I think it's too open to make any, I mean, Multimorphic doesn't, they've never done a license before, so there's no, like, thematic direction we can really run with with them. If I were to speculate, it would be, given Scott favors electronica and EDM style music, that a video game license would give them the most options that would play to his preferred genre of music. But again, he did the sounds for Rick and Morty, I don't think he has to be confined to that kind of thumping EDM TNA style soundtrack so given that it too hard to guess This is with the screen and everything Gaming like games seems to be something I really think. It's a huge gap in the market.
    12:09
    I mean, the a-hole in me wants it to be games. But! No, the a-hole in me wants it to be Back to the Future.
    12:20
    Just so we can shut up about it. That would be so good. Oh, my gosh. That would be so good. Oh, that would be hilarious.
    12:30
    I would like a company just to put out, just start putting out just trolling meme pinball. I know it's way too expensive to ever happen. Oh, my God, it would be hilarious.
    12:43
    Somebody put out a Ghostbusters machine, but it's that crappy Ghostbusters cartoon, the one that Ghostbusters had the real Ghostbusters. Oh, that'd be so good. I mean, we want to throw out other things. Hey, you want to sell a whole bunch of units. Harry Potter. There we go. Yeah. Get Harry Potter. There you go. Just play the movies on that huge screen in the play field.
    13:09
    Use the same module as Cannon Lagoon. Who cares? It's Harry Potter. You don't need to actually be fine. It's going to happen. People are going to buy it. It's not about fun when it comes to Harry Potter. It's about being able to watch the movies sideways on the screen. I imagine they're tearing their head because they want to get that widescreen. So anyway, I think it's exciting news for P3. It is. As we commented before, I mean, Heist from a gameplay perspective got a lot of really positive buzz, but no one got to try it last year because everything got shut down before the TPF where they were going to really showcase it. Imagine how much better Heist would have done if it was the same layout and the same general idea, but it was Ocean's Alliance. Well, you know, exactly. So we have commented, I have over on the Pinball Show with Zach numerous times on that licenses sell stuff. It does. I mean, either they're just going to be short term. From a vendor perspective, who cares? As long as you've sold units, you make money. So if they're flipping them on the back end, you know, if it's not sticking and staying in the home. It doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. It may not play to your main strategy that you're writing. Because Multimorphic clearly has a very different approach to everyone else because they're really relying on people bolting those to the floor and then constantly buying modules from them. But we've always said that their thing is they need a draw, and they haven't had a good draw. But I think Scott is well-loved by pinball fans, and especially for his music. I know people that weren't super keen on the Rick and Morty layout, but I haven't heard anyone criticize the sound package for it or TNA. So, other than those that just, like, despise the sound on it. Like, they hate sound.
    14:46
    Seth, I play in total silence. That's right. I have to. That way I can hear the ball. I want to hear the clunk. I can hear the ball in the mix. I need to be able to understand. I need to hear the clunks.
    14:58
    So, good on Multimorphic. I think that's exciting news. And then other news, which is pretty interesting, maybe exciting, depending on your perspective, American Pinball. Okay, so they have an interview with, there's like three of them, like David Fix, Makesh, and Nermal, I believe, are the three who were interviewed over with Pinball News and Pinball Magazine Podcast. I have a link in the show notes to that podcast episode with the interview, and the interview is towards the front of the podcast, so I encourage people that want to know more to please go and listen to the interview. We are not going to recap the whole interview here because why would we just drop in another show's interview? Yeah, I don't know. Why would somebody do that? I don't know. That's so just lowbrow. Especially when you literally drop in the entire audio of the interview. Yeah. It's weird. It is. It seems like something, a real special piece of work. Like a bag with a D in front of it would do? Yeah, it does. Interesting. Who would have thought such things exist in pinball? I know. I mean, I am personally shocked. But what I am not shocked about is what has gone on here with American Pinball. So American Pinball was sort of seen as a sister company, child company, some other related company to Ametron. Right. Which exists and makes boards, like does electrical, like train circuit boards, yeah, PCB. So American Pinball is now owned by Ametron, is now under Ametron. They're still going to brand it as American Pinball. But now it's directly just a part of AIMTRON.
    16:37
    So that's a pretty big change-up. In the interview, there are a couple of things of note that I just want to touch on here and we can briefly discuss. One is, it was still pointed out, they are planning, starting this year, it seems, to do two game releases a year instead of this game release every 12 to 18 months. Sure, okay. But that these games coming out this year will not be licensed. The licensed stuff got started too late. It's going to be with Dennis Nordman's designs, which are going to start in 2022.
    17:10
    And then also mention, per query, though, there was no fixed date or game that I heard given in the interview, given Aintron makes boards, they indicated that they are going to move away from the P3 Rock system of Multimorphic. Which makes sense. Which does in this case. That's a lot of people who dump the P3. Yeah, I was going to say, my guess is it's just coincidence, but it's kind of weird to have. I mean, here in just all at the start of this year, we've heard Spooky's dropping it, Haggis is dropping it, and now American Pinball is dropping it. And that leaves no major name. Interesting.
    17:46
    And with Multimorphic just teasing a licensed theme, did they get found out in the licensing? Was there a licensing bedwarf or something? people get angry. But surely it wouldn't have impacted all three of them. I wouldn't have thought so. So like, I thought it's just coincidence. That's my guess. And this is why. In an interview where Ben Heck talked about Spooky moving away, he made it clear in that that their change was money. It'll be cheaper for them to do Pen Heck 2.0 than to continue to buy boards from Multimorphic. I don't know if Multimorphic did a price increase or anything along those lines. It may have just been it's cheaper to do our own boards. Right. American Pinball, with it being under Ametron, I always thought it was weird. And in this interview, they point out the reason they went with P3 Rock in the first place was just, you know, they brought in J-Pop initially and the whole fiasco with his version of Houdini, and they needed to get a game out ASAP. And so taking stuff off the shelf that was known to work made sense for them. And they just sort of stuck with that. But now, and again, we don't know when this transitions away. Right. And then with Haggis, they did like, what, 18 Kelts machines? I mean, they're not a major manufacturer. And with this decision to do these licenses under Planetary Pinball, the old Williams and Valley licenses, they're going in completely. So I don't think they went for any licensing. That could have happened maybe with American Pinball. Right. But like in the case of Haggis, I don't know why. And they're not going in-house. They're going over the fast system, I believe, which I don't think has ever been used by a manufacturer before. So maybe there is just something that they thought would make that easier to do these 2.0 versions of, like, Fathom and stuff. Again, I don't know. I've not heard them comment on that. So I think it's just a weird coincidence. But that could mean it is now extra timely that Multimorphic is putting out a licensed game because if this was helping keep all that afloat, I don't know if the homebrew is strong enough anymore. With the cost of wood and everything, as much as it is, I don't know how many people are homebrewing. Oh, man. It's so bad. But I just don't think there's a huge homebrew market. I don't think it's big enough to support a company.
    20:06
    Anyway, but I think Multimorphic's positioned itself pretty well on its P3. I mean, we'll have to see. It depends on what the license is, and depending on the strength of the license. It's a Jones's diary. Well, I was going to say, depending on the strength of the license, if it's not like a license that's a take-my-money-now sort of license, it could still help. It's the Beauty and the Beast TV show from the 80s. And they got Ron Perlman. There we go. You know what? It would be hard to resist. You'd have to buy one. You'd almost be required. Almost. But the – I really like his character in Enemy at the Gates, actually. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, that would be fun. just a Ron Perlman machine. It's just him. It's just quotes from him from different movies. I said, back off, darkness.
    20:58
    Maybe don't put that one in. But my theory with licenses is the weaker the license, the stronger your layout and rules have to be. So you've got a super awesome license. Again, if it's Harry Potter, it can be straight up fan layout, hit every shot three times to activate something. Total dog of a rule set. It doesn't matter. Harry Potter will just move. Because people have no class in this hobby when it comes to Harry Potter.
    21:27
    But if it's... You can take the heist layout rules and just plug it on top of all the imagery from the new Army of the Dead.
    21:36
    It's just all the heist... You had a great example. If you had done Ocean's Eleven instead of heist, you still would have needed a decent layout. Ocean's Love is just not strong enough to sell a lot of games by itself. People watching Julia Roberts and George Clooney and Brad Pitt getting a Hollywood-funded vacation is not that fun.
    21:56
    It's fun, it's not that fun. Gone in 60 seconds, the Pendleton machine. So any thoughts on the two releases a year part for American Pendleton? I'll believe it when I see it. Same. It's the same thing I say with anybody who is not stern and wants to release more than one machine in a year.
    22:13
    Show me. Yeah, and where's the first one? I mean, they were talking in the interview, like, one of these is in the fall, so I'm guessing like Expo. So that's October, which means, I mean, we're mid-June. We're mid-June already. It's a little late if you're planning to do another one. Unless the plan is to drop. Unless it's like a really limited run or something. Right. Or it could be one of those Christmas present drops where they drop it right at the end of the year just to slip it in. Kind of like, you know, the movies where they'll release that Oscar-bait movie. Well, the thing is, I thought one of them said something about here in the spring.
    22:51
    Here in the spring. I mean, technically, seasonally, we are still in spring, but no one thinks we're in spring. No. I don't. It's like 100 degrees outside. It ain't spring.
    23:03
    Well, that's it for Pinball. Go ahead. Now, Video Games is an exciting time, as we noted. We're recording this while E3 stuff is happening. We had E3 stuff happen yesterday, which I watched three different presentations.
    23:18
    You have a lot of summary stuff. Just summary stuff. The only one I watched not at high speed was Devolver, because, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
    23:30
    So the three that I saw yesterday were Ubisoft, which was the one with the most game content. Right. Devolver, because it's Devolver, and then Gearbox. And Gearbox had less game stuff than Devolver did. Yeah.
    23:47
    I don't have anything positive to say about Gearbox. It felt like they spent half their presentation talking about the Borderlands movie they working on and it just to me reeked of hey look I a studio owner here me because I need to be the star trying to show that I rubbing elbows with these Hollywood elites It was really tacky. Borderlands 3 is crap.
    24:09
    I've played it. It's nowhere near, it doesn't have the same charm or enjoyment of Borderlands 2. It doesn't have the same enjoyment. It hasn't been nearly as popular.
    24:21
    And they don't really have anything else. yeah the oh the other weird thing here we are talking about well i mean we don't really have it in short notes so the other weird thing was during the the presentation like they're doing a homeworld remastered they didn't just sit there and show it they kept like interspersing weird little clips of it all throughout so i was like why are you still talking about homeworld why are we back like why aren't you why don't you just sit there for five minutes and tell us about homeworld what i mean there's supposed to be a new i mean world three is being worked on supposedly, but I mean, I love the Homeworld games. I own Homeworld Remastered. I played Homeworld Remastered. I played the original Homeworld. I played Homeworld 2. But we'll see. It's one of those things that I'd like it, but we'll see what actually happens. For Devolver, it's not a long presentation. Devolver does kind of like a storyline thing with their E3 presentations. It's just cracking. And they usually are poking their finger in the eye of some bad habit that the gaming industry is doing. So I would just encourage people to just go and watch it. Yeah. I would do the same.
    25:33
    So, Ubisoft. So, we're going to open with Ubisoft. They dropped a trailer for Avatar Frontiers of Pandora announced in 2017. I know there's supposed to be more Avatar movies coming out, but If gaming has taught me anything, it's to be skeptical of all movie-based tie-in games. I was just like, it looked pretty. It looked pretty, but... It was pretty. But was it really... I mean, here's the thing. It's being developed by Massive Entertainment.
    26:06
    They did The Division. Okay. I never played it. They've got... But it's a first-person open-world action adventure game. I mean... Okay. Yeah. So basically, it's blue penis head alien Far Cry. Okay. I mean, I would really only be interested if they will, and I think I might have verbalized this when I was seeing it going on. I was like, Avatar, really? I guess I'll play it if they'll let me destroy their planet mining for Unobtainia. That's about it.
    26:43
    I want to strip mine that place. Yeah. I think it would be an interesting, different approach. Yeah. And then it's a resource gatherer, and then I could turn it into tower defense or something. I don't know. Stay away from my strip mining. Let me ruin your world. I just want to take that game and have somebody mod it and reskin it so that it's moved to the 40K universe.
    27:07
    And just watch it. We've got to save this. Okay. Duck it, duck it, duck it, duck it. Yeah. There we go. All the fun.
    27:16
    Ubisoft also had Mario and Rabbids Yeah the Sparks of Hope The Mario and Rabbids game I enjoyed Did you finish it? I did See I talked to someone else who I asked them are you getting this and they said I didn't finish the last one Yeah I didn't finish the last one It was fun while I played it I played a lot of it originally but Part of the thing is I've not touched my Switch I don't have a Switch. My wife refers to it as her Switch now. She has modded it. It is different colors. It has all these special gel cap fancy things on it. I don't have a Switch anymore, and it's cool because I wasn't playing it.
    28:02
    I got the Switch just like I got the PS4, and I haven't played the PS4 in... You got it for Spider-Man. You played Spider-Man. I did, and I played a few other games. And the thing is, the way everything's moved is pretty much all the games that I want to play on console, I can play on PC. So I'll just play them on PC. Right. I understand. That's what that is.
    28:26
    They did have a big issue, Ubisoft did, with leaks just before the stuff started. Uh-oh. Rabbids was leaked.
    28:38
    The Far Cry DLC was leaked. so that's not good. Except for it was only a few hours before, so who cares? Far Cry DLC is interesting because it's going to let you play as the villains from older Far Cry games. Yeah, yeah. They really, in the presentation, highlighted, and it was a fair thing to highlight, Far Cry at this stage, really since Far Cry 3, has been known for having these over-the-top quality villains, And so now that's what Far Cry has become Here's this action game, the mechanics are always the same In all of them basically But you're going to go To watch these villains choose scenery Yeah It's like every Far Cry villain If it was a movie is going to be played by Jeremy Irons Yeah Dungeons and Dragons, total scene chewing Like I gotta earn this paycheck I know it's schlock So yeah And I never played Far Cry 3 But I played 4 and 5 And yeah, their villains were very over the top And I enjoyed those So that's something that The new Far Cry with What's the actor's name? Darksaber dude from Mandalorian Oh, uh Giancarlo?
    29:53
    I mean, that's who it looked like to me In the video, I'm assuming that's who mo-capped it Probably It looked like his face So I'm like, they're totally Darksaber-ing it And he can shoot scenery because he does Mandalorian He does it so good So I'm like, okay. So yeah, make it all about the villain. Yeah, no, I'm fine with that. The Far Cry stuff might be something I end up getting. I usually do when they're on sale. Yeah. You get pretty much everything when they're on sale, which I understand.
    30:25
    Because my notes just jump around here a bunch. Devolver show, it's Devolver. It was just an insane show to watch. I mean, say what you will about their games. Some people love their games. Some people hate their games. I own several of their games I don't know if I've ever actually beat any of them Yeah I think they're mostly just a publisher Of the four indies So the game style varies a lot Other than maybe there's kind of a weirdness To them generally I don't really think They fit in a genre I buy their stuff mainly because I like To support them because some of the stuff they do Like their videos makes me laugh Enough that's like I can buy one of your games That makes it worthwhile I saw announcements about Elden Ring I don't know anything about that It's the new game From It's a collaboration with George R.R. Martin Because he's got to find something to do other than finishing his novels That he doesn't know how to finish And From software Hitataki Miyazaki From you know It's basically a souls game with a story written by George R.R. Martin. So, hey, people seem super excited about it. It's due out in January of next year. I mean, I don't care. The aesthetic has been awesome in those games, but I don't know if I can... I don't even know. I thought it would... I don't know why I tricked myself into thinking Sekiro would be different. And it is, but it isn't. Right. And I think it's just too hard for me, I guess. I'm just too weak at this point. It took a lot for me to finish Dark Souls And I did and I felt I proved myself with that And I don't need to prove myself anymore It very much falls into the Get good noob category of games And I'm not going to get good It's not my style And it's like I'm more tolerant of that in a platformer Than I am in a hack and slash I don't know And that's always been the case for me Okay well a lot of people will like it There's an expansion for Watch Dogs Legion coming out, which I've heard nothing but good things about Watch Dogs. Yeah, I played the first Watch Dogs and I know that one's the worst. It is. The second one was a lot better. I really enjoyed the second. But because of that, I've never had an interest in going back to that world. Right.
    32:45
    Interestingly enough, the expansion is due out in two weeks, three weeks. And it's a prequel? It follows the character from one of the previous games. They go to London before Legion's actually started. So it's interesting. Rainbow Six Siege announced they're getting cross-play.
    33:11
    It'll be on PC, Stadia, and Luna by the end of the month. What is Luna? I've never heard of it. It's Amazon's version of Stadia.
    33:19
    So Stadia, which is a perfectly valid game system, and is very enjoyable, as I've gotten multiple emails and messages about. and it's the future of gaming, allegedly.
    33:33
    But Luna is their version. Allow me. All four of you will now have the opportunity to cross-play with a large player base. Yes, yes. Basically, that's what it amounts to. And then they're supposed to be bringing in Xbox and PlayStation early next year. So I saw some other stuff about cross-play as well. So has PlayStation finally dropped all their walled garden stuff? I think they've pretty much. Because it feels like they did, but I missed the memo. That's what it feels like. I think when they were finally broken down, they didn't make a huge deal out of it. It just happened. Well, after you did it with Fortnite and stuff, who cares on Rainbow Six? I mean, Rainbow Six is a very successful game for Ubisoft, but it's not Fortnite. Right. No, I think it's just a thing that happens now. Okay.
    34:20
    For my kids, they were very excited. Among Us is getting a hide-and-seek mode and a fifth map. Okay. You know, here's the thing. I've played Among Us. It's fine. I think it's a very fun game to watch the right people streaming. But the thing is, I feel really happy for those developers who put that game out years ago and suddenly it went viral. And while it's not quite as huge as it was last fall, it's still huge for them. Good for those guys. Yeah. That's like the... It's the feel-good stories. Yeah. That warm our hearts. Two Point Studio is following up Two Point Hospital with Two Point Campus Which is just Someday they'll find a third point That's my goal I haven't played Two Point Hospital But I've watched some people play it And I've seen some of the There is some hilarious stuff in that game Did Mark Silk do voice work in Two Point Hospital? I think he did That might be the one that I've heard him mention Yeah, but I've seen some There's some hilarious stuff in those games So good for them For some reason Jurassic World Evolution Is getting a sequel I guess that game Actually sold enough to Have them put out another It's basically Zoo it's like dinosaurs Yeah yeah Zoo Tycoon for dinosaurs Yeah so But not as good as The actual Zoo Tycoon Well we know those Animal behavior better because they're real Like alive stuff You should say that dinosaurs aren't real Controversy The most interesting thing one of the more interesting announcements to me Metal Slug Tactics It is a Metal Slug game that is a grid tactical Oh, wow. I kind of love it. Well, you do like tactical games. I do. I love this style of game. You've got a soft spot for it. I do, but this turn-based tactical, kind of like Final Fantasy Tactics. Yeah And Metal Slug It's so much fun I'm into it All the big shows are starting Here in just Half an hour And running So next episode we'll have a lot of the big stuff EA outside of E3 Did announce the latest Battlefield game Yeah I saw the trailer for that I'm glad they're finally gone I'm going to air quote They've gone modern again It's actually a little bit in the future. Yeah. But I liked the one set in World War I, but the online is just, even as creative as they got, giving you all these stupid prototype weapons and stuff, it was still just, it didn't feel like Battlefield because they didn't have the vehicles. Right. And then World War II is a lot better, but it's still, you don't have RPGs and stuff. Yeah, you don't have the same level of. No, no, but I really like Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, and this is getting more into that spirit so I'm really looking forward to it. I don't know about weather-lution as I'm going to start calling it. So now instead of level-lution with the buildings being dropped now it's like, oh no, we're fighting in a tornado. Okay. Guys. There were some things. Guys. I like the fact that, liked is the wrong word. I found it interesting that the bad guys are people who no longer have countries. They're how do they put them They're not expats they're no-pats Huh you know this sounds like a plot to A falcon and a soldier from the Winter times that I saw recently Yeah it was weird but it was also humorous That throughout the entire trailer You see all these These no-pats these non-pats They're fighting But the only name you ever See clearly on a name tag Is one Of the non-pats has the name tag Espinosa that's the only name tag in the entire trailer you see it like five times just in case you didn't know and no campaign for this game no campaign, no battle royale they are doing a it's going to have a narrative that you will that will open as they put out more stuff in the seasons of the multiplayer so I'm wondering if that's kind of like how Titanfall 1 did its narrative storytelling in the multiplayer. In the multiplayer. Let me be fair. I'm a huge fan and supporter of DICE's Battlefield series. Their campaigns have been terrible since the Bad Company campaigns. So, I don't lament them dropping it because, quite frankly, it's been, like... While I'm not a Call of Duty multiplayer fan, Call of Duty's campaigns are a lot better than what Battlefield has turned out. And They're also turning Battlefield into a hero shooter.
    39:17
    They're picking out specialists named hero characters with their own traits and abilities that complement the existing class system. And my understanding is they're making tweaks to how their class system's going to work in this as well so it's no longer going in as a recon and going in as a support, but instead you more choose the specs and you can take any equipment you want in. You get perks, I guess. You choose the perks. Is it going to be more like the card system and hero system, I wonder?
    39:49
    The way it was explained to me was that it sounds like you can go in with any guns you want now, and then there will be other things that determine the benefits that you confer to the rest of your squad. So you're still doing classes, but one of the big things was always, like, if you wanted a light machine gun, you had to be the guy who carried the and threw out the ammo packs. You couldn't throw out health packs as that guy in the old games. And if you wanted a sniper rifle, that meant your kit was such that you couldn't fight tanks. Right. So it was like, okay, well, if you want to fight tanks, you need to be an assault or you need to be an engineer. But then when you're an engineer, your gun choices were like garbage. So it's all really like, people were choosing classes based off of the firearms. not the perks that would help their team. In theory, like in Battlefield 3, for example, you wanted a different class person for every single one of your squad mates because that was the best way to get a synergy for all the perks. But no one did that. Right, because nobody wanted to have the crap. No, it's like, oh, we're getting overwhelmed by tanks. Everyone switched to engineers. The only class with RPGs. Right. That's how it was.
    40:59
    The game is going to be... The multiplayer on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X slash S Gosh, I read that a lot today Will support 128 players That is a lot I almost wonder if that's going to be too overwhelming Well, I mean, there's going to be 100 snipers per team Exactly One medic And everybody else have rockets And I'll be the only person at Echo claiming it Because everyone else is in the hills trying to snipe Now, PS4 and Xbox One will only support 64 players. Understandable. They've got three game modes coming out. The standard Conquest and Breakthrough game modes are being combined into one game mode series title. There's going to be a new squad-based game mode called Hazard Zone, and a third one that will be announced at the big EA event in July.
    41:51
    Sounds like they're still not doing Rush or emphasizing it, which is too bad. I miss Rush. It used to be really well-balanced in the old days, but Conquest was always their main mode, Which was my overall favorite one So it sounds like that's what they're going to be Mainly pushing The game is due out in October Usual Battlefield time Pretty normal And the last thing we have to cover here in video games In this What's actually an amazingly short episode Considering everything we've gone through Is Sonic creator Yuji Naka Who came back And joined Square Enix and put out a new game Called Balan Wonderworld Has left Square Enix And in an interview said He's probably going to retire I haven't heard of Balan in Wonderworld That's because it was that bad Wow It sold less than 2100 copies In Japan In it's opening week It Didn't even break the top 40 games In game sales It's opening week Anywhere It flopped hard And you know Square is all about games That flop hard lately Oh no Marvel But It was real bad It launched in March And Yuji Naka Left Square at the end of April And that was the big combination We talked about this After the big Square event As a game that some people were looking forward to Because it put Yu-Gi-Bat together with the composer for the original Sonic games. All the reviews about it on Wonder World is like, it's all the terrible stuff about 90s games. Wow.
    43:40
    There's one other game that I wanted to mention that wasn't in the list. Back on Ubisoft, it was a little weird because they talked a bit about a Rainbow Six Siege and the crossplay, but they also have another Rainbow Six where you fight aliens. Did you remember seeing about that? I didn't. I didn't watch their whole presentation. It was probably their longest presentation period.
    44:07
    I forget the name of it, but there's something really like Convergence or something. Something really still like the most stereotypical alien name stuff you could think of. Is it Quarantine? Might be.
    44:25
    So the... Oh, extraction. There we go, extraction. Thank you. Rainbow Six Extraction. Yeah, so named because if the aliens take down one of your operators, you have to go in and extract them so you can play with them again. It's kind of like taking some roguelike elements in the sense that it sounds like you build up... It's got a lot of the same operators, as they call the classes in Siege, in this. You go along and you make progress in building these characters up. My understanding is that progress can be lost, so hence the roguelike elements to it. If people are defeated while you're going further and further in these towers, or however they're doing at facilities, then it gets harder and harder as you go through, but you're getting better and better loot and stuff out of it. The aliens' stuff looks... It's PvE, though. It's not like one group of people is playing as the aliens. So it's like a single player... Well, it's designed to be co-op. Right. but I don't know it looks both super generic and like it's going along it's like here's this ability I'm like that's from Halo here's this other ability that's from Battlefield here's this other ability well that's clearly from Siege here's this ability it's like oh whoa and the stuff turns into the slime it looks like it's from that new version of Prey you just like everything all blended together into this like mediocrity I don't know Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six X-Call They spent a lot of time on that And then they spent a lot of their time on I don't remember the name of it I'm going to call it SSX Jetpack It's some extreme sports thing And it was showing Dirt biking And half pipe stuff And then people in wing suits with jets It was sort of grounded And then they threw jets They threw jets on bikes too You can't just put jet engines on everything Well, apparently in Ubisoft you can. They spent a ton of time on that. And I was like, it just looked too fake. I just, I don't know. Whatever. It's like, remember a couple years ago at E3, they had the big, what was that game called? Summit? Yeah. It was like Summit, except this had both winter and summer stuff. Yeah. I actually played a demo of Summit. Or no, I didn't play a demo of it. I got it for free when I was, as part of my PlayStation account thing. It was one of the things. Oh, okay. Yeah.
    46:56
    I was hoping for, like, something more. Like SSX Tricky? Yes. And it was very much not. Yeah. This was all about, like, here, wear stupid costumes and unlock all these more stupid costumes. So it's Fortnite Extreme Sports Edition. Kinda Yeah Frickin' four Less building More like taunts Yeah Okay well that's the show We'll have more E3 news On the next show When it's real stale But it'll make that episode A lot longer Maybe I don't know We can talk really fast Yeah we can We actually push through Stuff pretty quick Those that want to Reach out to us You can always email EclecticGamersPodcast At gmail.com Or go to Facebook.com Slash EclecticGamersPodcast We're available on Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram As Eclectic underscore Gamers And we'll be talking definitely about video games Next time Until then, my name is Dennis And I'm pretty sure we'll be talking about pinball also I'm Tony Goodbye See ya