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Episode 71 - TelltaleFest

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 39m·held·Sep 24, 2018
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers discuss American Pinball's Oktoberfest reveal, new manufacturers, and Penn Stadium accessories.

Summary

Tony and Dennis discuss recent pinball news on the Eclectic Gamers Podcast, covering American Pinball upcoming Oktoberfest machine with family-friendly theme and three-flipper design, new startup manufacturers (Suncoast Pinball, Great Lakes Pinball), and Penn Stadium's new Orion's Belt flasher light system. They debate the viability of Oktoberfest as a theme choice for casual/operator markets and critique the marketing approach for Penn Stadium's new product.

Key Claims

  • Oktoberfest will sell worse than Houdini by a lot

    medium confidence · Dennis's opinion comparing Oktoberfest's commercial viability to American Pinball's previous title

  • 36% of Americans totally abstain from alcohol; only about 40% regularly drink

    high confidence · Tony cites Gallup survey data from 2014 to counter Josh Kugler's claim about alcohol being broadly appealing

  • Oktoberfest is a family-friendly theme with planned adult mode for humor variation

    high confidence · Josh Kugler's official clarification via Josh's posts on Pinside forums about theme approach

  • Oktoberfest will have three flippers and mostly open playfield with no tight shots

    high confidence · Joe Balser's formal announcement at Vancouver pinball show; also confirmed in Head to Head Pinball interview with Josh Kugler

  • Oktoberfest reveal is planned for October at Pinball Expo

    high confidence · Direct announcement from Joe Balser at Vancouver show and previous Head to Head Pinball interview

  • Penn Stadium Light is incredibly popular for home streaming and even playfield lighting

    high confidence · Tony and Dennis's direct experience/knowledge of the product's adoption in the community

  • American Pinball doesn't have a meaningful operator market

    medium confidence · Dennis's assessment that American Pinball targets primarily American home collectors, not commercial operators

  • Dialed In is Jersey Jack's worst-selling game but best player

    medium confidence · Dennis's opinion on JJP's sales/gameplay balance across their lineup

  • Pirates of the Caribbean theme is a terrible theme

    low confidence · Dennis's subjective opinion about JJP's Pirates theme quality

Notable Quotes

  • “Because that's basically what the argument was. Boring is a strong word. They use the word flat.”

    Tony @ ~03:00 — Meta-commentary on critical feedback to his board sets article; establishes tone for writing style discussion

  • “Family friendly titties and beer. We're going to talk about that, Tony.”

    Dennis @ ~10:45 — Sets up the central tension in Oktoberfest theme discussion—family-friendly positioning vs. adult-oriented cultural associations

  • “I just don't see any advantage to this theme. It's because I don't see how it helps them sell the game.”

    Dennis @ ~25:30 — Core criticism of Oktoberfest: not inherently bad, but commercially weak as a differentiator

  • “This will sell worse than Houdini by a lot.”

    Dennis @ ~26:15 — Quantified prediction of Oktoberfest's commercial underperformance relative to American Pinball's previous title

  • “Only about four in 10 Americans regularly drink. I know pinball is full of alcoholics, but that does not reflect overall reality.”

    Tony @ ~22:45 — Data-driven rebuttal to Josh Kugler's assertion about alcohol theme broad appeal; self-aware about community skew

  • “Let's look over at Jersey Jack. Everyone says that Dialed In is their worst-selling game, but it's their best player.”

    Dennis @ ~27:00 — Example of how non-licensed themes underperform commercially despite strong gameplay—cautionary parallel for Oktoberfest

  • “I never thought I would hear a theme worse than October. I mean, come on.”

    Dennis @ ~32:45 — Humorous exaggeration of hypothetical Suncoast/Great Lakes game concepts; suggests Oktoberfest theme criticism is significant

  • “It provides uniform lighting. It lets you control the intensity and the color.”

    Tony @ ~37:30 — Explanation of Penn Stadium Light's appeal; context for understanding Orion's Belt as accessory product

Entities

American PinballcompanyJosh KuglerpersonJoe BalserpersonOktoberfestgameSuncoast PinballcompanyGreat Lakes PinballcompanyCosmic CarnivalgameOrion's Beltproduct

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Dennis predicts Oktoberfest will sell significantly worse than Houdini; argues non-licensed theme positioning is inherent commercial disadvantage illustrated by Dialed In case study

    medium · Dennis's comparative analysis: 'This will sell worse than Houdini by a lot' and reference to Dialed In as Jersey Jack's 'worst-selling' despite 'best player' status

  • ?

    community_signal: Josh Kugler actively defending Oktoberfest theme selection on Pinside forums; American Pinball being responsive to community feedback and criticism

    high · Dennis noting Josh's 'defensive posting' on forums and that 'they being American Pinball have been very active on the forums especially pinside and willing to communicate with the community'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Discussion of Gordon Lightfoot licensing as potentially affordable option for hypothetical Edmund Fitzgerald machine, suggesting licensing considerations are part of startup planning

    low · Tony's remark about licensing Gordon Lightfoot music: 'They could license the music from the song. It shouldn't be too expensive. Gordon Lightfoot, come on.'

  • $

    market_signal: Oktoberfest positioned as target for casual operator/bar market rather than enthusiast home collectors; strategy to differentiate from licensed IP games

    medium · Dennis analysis of three-flipper design, open playfield, family-friendly approach as deliberate operator-market targeting; American Pinball's stated avoidance of big licensed themes

  • $

    market_signal: Penn Stadium's Orion's Belt marketing video prioritizes anime robot/Genji mascot aesthetic over product visibility; product only visible ~1:50 into ~2:40 video in small picture-within-picture format

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.298

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, September 23rd. This is Episode 71. I am Tony. And I'm Dennis. We're back. We don't have a guest this time. No guest. No, it's just you and me. Yeah, but we have some things to talk about, though. It's funny that this year has been so heavy in pinball news, and lately it's been kind of light. Yeah, it's been a little light. But that's okay. That's fine. But what's been going on since our last episode? It's the story of my life. I work. That's what I do. But no, actually, I recently, you know, I've been going through that whole mystery book kick and this and that. I finished everything. I finished all my audio books, and I finished everything, and I just needed something, so I re-listened to The Martian. Then after re-listening to The Martian, of course, I felt the need to watch the movie. Okay. And then after doing that, I felt the need to go online and hunt down a Martian Translight poster to go with my Godzilla Translight poster. So now I've got a Martian Translight poster going with my Godzilla and my Skull Island, King Kong Skull Island Translight posters. Okay. Do you have them backlit? No, I haven't done that yet. It'll be a while. I'm looking at different ideas because I'm going to have to build that myself because an actual buying one pre-made is like $250. Okay. And I'm pretty sure that I can build them for much, much cheaper than that. I think you could. It's just a matter of I haven't done it. I need to get parts and time and space. You know how it is. It'll happen eventually, someday.
2:04
Someday, just like everything else. well uh in terms of me let's see uh last almost a week ago now there was i guess monday the head to head pinball uh australian-based pinball podcast had me on as a guest episode 60 so i have a link in the show notes if anyone wants to hear that we didn't have much news to talk about either so it was just a series of mostly fun discussion segments but that was that was fun for me to do. And then you've been really busy with just everything between articles and co-hosting other podcasts. It's just hosting. Yeah. It's just been a weird sort of confluence of timing, I guess. I mean, I don't have, I have no, I'm not currently working on any article other than preliminary research. So I'm not actually writing anything and I'm not set to be a guest host on anything to my knowledge right now. So I think, I think I finally have a lull. But yeah, it's been fun to do Because I like talking about pinball And all the different people Have a different angle And then when I do the articles I get to have a different style It's probably closest to what we do here But I can just kind of go down a rabbit hole As much as I want And if anyone doesn't like it Then just quit reading Or skip some paragraphs Or go to the new section Or my favorite, go online and complain We'll bring that up That is life, exactly You just have to accept that. And then the other thing was last night we had at the Area 403 Club our Deadpool launch party. I did not attend. You were not able to attend. I was able to attend. And I don't know exactly where in the end I placed. I top 10 somewhere, I guess, in that realm. I wasn't really paying attention to that. I thought I did pretty well. I felt it's not the best I've done at a launch party, but I thought it went really good for me. There were some – obviously, I got eliminated, so there were some problem games. Two of my – we did a four-strike setup, so the way that works for anyone – I mean, it could always work any way you wanted, but we normally were in four-people groups. Bottom two people would take a strike. As of your fourth strike, you're out of the tournament. If you were in a three-player group, and I was in a three-player group two times, it's only the bottom person who took a strike. We varied that. Sometimes it's the bottom two, but this time it was just the bottom one. Two of my four strikes came on ACDC, where I just could not get all the way up and around that right ramp, and you need that to start all the multiballs. So that was obviously a problem that I need to work on because there are ACDCs all over the place, and they all play differently. They're all tuned differently So there's that My very first round was a strike on Guardians of the Galaxy Where I didn't even get into a multi Well, the Quill's Quest freebie multi-ball But I was close to my multi-balls It was weird The way I was having Everything just kind of felt wrong Well, it was more like a rocket kickback Went straight down the middle And normally that's not a problem There's a ball save that it activates But it didn't activate the ball save The second time it happened So I don't know. The orb shot, the drop target popped up when the ball was over the drop. So it gave me an air ball up over, flew over the sling. And I saved that one, but it was just like, oh, this is going real weird. And I don't remember what my my one other my one other strike was. I normally the way I do these match play style strategies is I go for second. Right. As long as I can. I just think you don't have to win. Just go for second. Go for second. But I did get a few firsts. I got first place on Creature from the Black Lagoon, where I think I was the only one who – I think two of us got multiball, and neither of us did anything really with it. But I think I hit a few more regular shots looking for the creature or something. So that was nice. I took a first on Attack from Mars, which I know is your favorite game. Yep. That one at 403, I don't know if it was adjusted. It was brutal.

St. Patrick's Day is the biggest beer-drinking holiday in America by popular consensus

medium confidence · Tony's informal polling at Deadpool launch party; survey-based conclusion

  • “Most of the video isn't showing the product. It's mostly like an anime robot or that football robot that Fox always does.”

    Dennis @ ~40:00 — Critique of Penn Stadium's Orion's Belt marketing video—too much mascot branding, insufficient product focus

  • “I don't understand what this is doing.”

    Dennis @ ~42:15 — Summary of confusion about Orion's Belt product positioning and functionality from marketing materials alone

    • Penn Stadiumcompany
    Penn Stadium Lightproduct
    Houdinigame
    Dialed Ingame
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    This Week in Pinballmedia
    Pinsidecommunity
    Deadpoolgame
    Area 403 Clubvenue
    Pinball Expoevent
    Tonyperson
    Dennisperson

    high · Dennis's detailed critique: 'Most of the video isn't showing the product. It's mostly like an anime robot' and mascot takes most of screen real estate

  • ?

    announcement: Penn Stadium revealed new Orion's Belt flasher light system via sponsored post on This Week in Pinball; designed to complement or work alongside Penn Stadium Light

    high · Sponsored reveal on This Week in Pinball; video posted with product details; Dennis watched full video and described mascot/presentation style

  • ?

    announcement: American Pinball formally announced Oktoberfest as next game at Vancouver pinball show; family-friendly theme with three flippers, open playfield, October Pinball Expo reveal planned

    high · Joe Balser formal announcement; Josh Kugler clarification on Pinside; Head to Head Pinball interview details

  • ?

    product_strategy: American Pinball distinguishing Oktoberfest through family-friendly positioning with optional adult mode for humor, not cosmetics—default mode comes as family-friendly version

    high · Josh Kugler's clarification that adult mode changes humor tone but alcohol remains present in all modes due to theme

  • ?

    product_strategy: Penn Stadium Light established as de facto standard for home pinball streaming and lighting uniformity; Orion's Belt presented as complementary product to existing ecosystem

    high · Tony/Dennis assessment: 'Penn Stadium Light provides uniform lighting' and 'lets people stream games in much easier way to see the ball for viewing audience'

  • ?

    product_concern: Dennis expresses confusion about Orion's Belt functionality and positioning from marketing materials alone; unclear what product actually does or how it integrates with existing Penn Stadium ecosystem

    high · Dennis: 'I read the write-up on this week at Pinball, and I'm still thinking, I don't understand what this is doing' and 'I don't understand what this is doing'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Great Lakes Pinball startup with potential for Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald-themed machine; speculation based on company name and regional reference

    low · Dennis/Tony joking speculation: 'I will personally be deeply disappointed if their first game isn't the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' and 'I bet you that's at least in the top three considerations'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Online community discussion of Oktoberfest moving from skepticism to acceptance on theme, though debate persists on family-friendly positioning and commercial viability

    medium · Dennis noting forum participation shows 'most interested people continue to participate' and are 'coming around on the theme'

    • 6:20
    Brutal. My winning score was about I didn't even need to play my third ball And even after playing it I only had about 600 million I could not destroy the saucer I was close But the scoop with the stroke of luck Was shooting into the sling Or at least it did on one instance for me So it was like nothing was safe Everything was forbidden So that was pretty brutal And then my favorite matchup Was when I was fighting for my life The round before I was eliminated, I was on Mustang, and I'm only noting it because I was in fourth place up until ball three where I took first by finally going into a more valuable mode and hitting some shots and actually having a decent multi-ball. So that was nice because I was like – because normally Mustang is a death sentence for me. And I've watched other people starting with one of the more challenging modes. I started with a very easy mode and then didn't even execute it right. so in the end yeah it was a lot of fun uh because we're getting near the end of the season here and i need me points but i i don't think i'm going to finish top 16 i think i'm too far away on my point i know i'm too far i think last i looked i'm around 18th in the state but i'm just that gap to get into 16 from 18 now i i would basically need a win which i've never been able to deliver i've gotten second but i've never been able to win and i don't even know if a win at this point would be enough. You might need two. I probably would need two. Two would be enough, but that's a tall order. That's a tall order in this market. Yeah. So that's my intro. So let's go ahead and hop on over into pinball news. And the first thing I'll go ahead and mention is we talked a little bit. You brought up that I've been writing some articles lately. I did have an article that came out this last week on Thursday with This Week in Pinball, link in the show notes to it and it's about pinball board sets it's specifically about the major three manufacturers and their very first solid state board sets and it just sort of rocks through the technical specifications from a player perspective so not talking about like how the circuit boards are laid out but a little bit of information about like how many controllable lamps could these boards handle how many switches could you install maximum to so you'd have a sense of just how many features you could pack into these things right and a list of what games had those board sets and stuff so uh overall i thought i jeff had asked for this jeff with this week in pinball had said that there was a desire for board sets and i'm like why i don't get i i didn't get it i mean some people will talk about board sets like talk about system 3 games from gottlieb or system 11 games from bally williams but they're not really thinking about the board set they're thinking about games of that because they all have a similar feel there's a sameness to them right The board set is more of a generational type thing. Yeah, exactly. Or at least that's how I always thought of it. I mean, to me, the only people who really care about the board sets are the people who are going to pin wiki to load up the repair guides. Right.
    9:21
    And so, but there was a number of comments. So I guess Jeff was right. There was a demand for it. I guess overall it went fairly well. I've always had, he and I actually talked about one in particular, because there were some criticisms that got posted. And one of them was just the one we were discussing. Fundamentally, it was someone who doesn't like my writing style, which I'm glad there was finally someone who was willing to go out and say I was boring. Because that's basically what the argument was. Boring is a strong word. They use the word flat. Oh, I like dry. I like boring. I would have said boring. But yeah, dry. that it wasn't enough drama. He wanted drama. He wanted to know, like, why did they go with solid state board sets, for example. Like, he wants to know the reasoning and the challenges they faced, not as he inaccurately described it as a pin wiki dump. First of all, pin wiki is a nightmare to read. So that would have been a lot of work if I could have gotten away with just using pin wiki. I did actually have to use multiple sources, though. But that said, his ideas for an article would be interesting, but probably not the type I would ever write. But he referenced the other ones, the other documentary style. So I'm assuming he means like the guides, the designer guide and the manufacturer's guide, and not really liking that flat approach to just saying this is what they did. Instead, he wants to know like the drama behind it. But, you know, I don't write scripts for lifetime and I don't write drama. So if you want drama, you got to hear me guest host on some stuff. Then I'll talk to him whenever I go on to another podcast. That's what I open with is I say, what tone do you want from me? So I know what you want me to, what do you want me to be? But on writing, you just get how I normally write. And that is flat. So anyway, but for those that want a flat article, there is a link in the show notes so people can read about it. So now let's move on to some real news because there is not much here. We're going to burn through this real fast. Well, you would think. But you and I, we have a way of stretching this out. So let's talk about Oktoberfest, because while we were recording with Jason two weeks ago, Joe Balser was at a pinball show, I believe out in Vancouver, Canada, and formally announced what everyone already knew, that Oktoberfest is their next game. There had already been some information indicated on some other interviews. I think Head to Head Pinball had Josh Kugler, I believe, on at one point. So I think that most of this comes from there, but some of this could come from various sources. And that is we already knew that the theme is going to be family friendly. Yes, family friendly titties and beer. We're going to talk about that, Tony. We're going to talk about that.
    11:58
    Three flipper design, mostly open play field, no tight shots at all. And that the plan is to reveal it here in October at Pinball Expo. so you opened with the titty and beer thing so let's let's focus on that because i think that's the issue that remains and there's been a lot of online discussion about this including some defensive uh posting from josh for example which is totally to be expected i think because they're very active uh they being american pinball have been very active on the forums especially pinside and willing to communicate with the community and that is because we haven't he had some photos i'm not linking to any of them because they're super close up. They're black and white. You can't really tell much of anything. And there are other groups that are doing guessing games, like This Week in Pinball. They're doing guessing games about... I will tell you the most important thing that was learned from the photos. It's a pinball machine. Because that's honestly about all you can tell from those photos. Yeah, there was like one shot of a German guy with a cool mustache for the art. So you have a sense of the whimsicalness of the art, maybe. I don't know because I can't see the coloring. So all the talk's about the theme.
    13:10
    And I'd say the online direction in the thread, though this is probably like most threads where it's the most interested people that continue to participate, is that they're coming around on the theme, but then there's the issue on the family friendliness. Now, Josh Kugler has clarified that family friendly means about the humor.
    13:33
    There will be a mode. They'll be like an adult mode, but it's not going to be like Rob Zombie's adult mode that will allow you to make a difference between how family-friendly the jokes are. But the default mode and the first set of software to come out will be the family-friendly version. They're not guaranteeing that the more risque humor be embedded initially and that alcohol will be involved no matter what mode you're in because it's Oktoberfest. Right, exactly. So now when I hear Oktoberfest, the very first thing I think of is beer.
    14:11
    Beer and sausage. Okay. Sausage is a second for me. For me, it's the first thing that comes up to me is the beer. And then there are the busty maiden winches serving beer winches. I don't know what that is. I'm sure there's a German term. So the women, the boobies. And then the sausages are third. And then the Lederhosen is fourth. And then after that, I quit thinking about anything. When I hear the word Oktoberfest. Just sort of, you know, we're doing like word association. If someone would say, what's the first thing that comes to your mind is when you hear Oktoberfest? I'll go beer. That's the first thing. I'll be honest. I'll be 100% honest. Okay. I would have said boobies. Okay. Then beer. Okay. Different people have different tastes. And that's fine. So if they're not, but they're saying family friendly here. So they can't, in my mind, they can't be like putting on that mousing around femme fatale breasted mouse style. I don't think pinball's in that place anymore. So do you think Oktoberfest is a good theme? That's what I want to talk about is Oktoberfest is a theme pick, especially if it's going to be a family friendly theme pick. It's, in all honesty, I don't have a huge up or a huge down on it. I think that it is a safe pick.
    15:34
    But that said, if you wanted to go for something like this, I would have gone for a St. Patrick's Day or a Cinco de Mayo before an Oktoberfest. Okay. If you want to go for the kind of beerish yada, yada, yada, that's the type of thing I would have aimed for from an American perspective. Wow. Yeah. I mean, from an American perspective, if I wanted to make a game about a drinking holiday, I would have gone for the actual biggest drinking holiday in the U.S., which would be St. Patrick's Day. I agree. I think it's the big – when I ask people, and I did this at the Deadpool launch yesterday. I asked them, what do you think of is – when I say name the biggest beer-drinking holiday in the U.S., what holidays come to mind? And St. Patrick's Day was the number one for everyone. The number two varied. I'm with you. I think Cinco de Mayo, which is an American holiday. Oh, very much an American holiday. People seem to – Cinco de Mayo is not Mexican independent. No. And it's not nearly as big of a deal in Mexico. It was an important battle, but it's not. It is important in a single section of Mexico where it happened, and they don't even care about it as much as Americans. No. We've embraced it as an excuse to drink beers and have tacos. To drink Mexican beers and eat tacos. Yes, yes. As if we need an excuse to eat tacos. No, exactly. But if I hear Cinco de Mayo, the first thing I'll say, again, with the word association is beer. Beer. Tacos is number two. Right. and yes it would be Dos Equis and Coronas but you know and I have partaken in the past on Cinco de Mayo other people I asked though their second picks were often 4th of July oh yeah that's a good one the problem with 4th of July is let's face it most American beers are really bad but I'd like to think that on the 4th of July you could just make it about beer and not have to say It can be this craft beer. You can make it be anything. You can make all of y'all who homebrew and you put way too much hops in your beer, you can pretend it's your crappy beer. That's what you can do. Because my thing, when I think 4th of July, I think more cookouts. Me too.
    17:59
    If I were to say, I mean, word association again, first thing if you say, what do I think of with 4th of July? First thing is fireworks. Right. And then the second thing is cookout. because I don't drink. I mean, I drank, but I don't drink a lot on the 4th of July typically, but it's typically I'm also driving, so I don't drink at all. Right. So getting back to all of this and the theme, as I've said before, and I've not changed my mind on it, so I'm going to reiterate it again, but try not to be too repetitive, and that is I just don't see any advantage to this theme. And I need to clarify. So when I say it's a bad theme, it's because I don't see how it helps them sell the game. It's not that it can't be a good game. It's not that it's an inappropriate theme. And it's not that the theme won't sell. I don't see how it really, in a compelling way, helps move units. There's some people that think otherwise. I'll disagree with that. Okay. I don't think it's a great theme. I don't even necessarily... To me, it's a very neutral theme. It is, as I said earlier, I feel it is a safe theme. It is a theme that will work very well in bars. And I think that's what it's designed for. I think that this game is something that's designed to help out. because not only will this be something that will appeal to your normal operator who operates in a 403 club or a Logan's Arcade or any of those big new arcade-y bar thing, the barcades that have become so popular. This is a machine that will also appeal to your more standard bars who might have a pen or two pens and an arcade machine and a golden tea and a couple other things, your bar and grill type thing. I think it will have some apply there because it will fit into their overall feeling pretty well. I think it's something that we're very likely to see pushed that way. But I don't think it hurts them in any way, shape, or form. I don't think the theme itself is going to be a detriment. I don't think it's going to be, you know, something that's really going to drag them down anything more than a normal, non-big, fancy licensed theme. And they've said they don't want to do licensed themes. They're staying away from the big licensed themes. So having grabs like this is the kind of stuff they're going to go for.
    20:31
    Yeah, I see the point. I just, I don't think American Pinball has an operator market that's worth talking about. So I don't understand why there would be a strategy to target the bars. Do they think they're going to grow it? This is a company that mostly sells pens to America. Spooky Pinball went on social media a few weeks ago, very proudly proclaiming how they allowed Houdini's to piggyback on one of their containers, like two of them. So they're not going to sell these things in Germany. Now, maybe the strategy is, like you say, to target the pub and bar market. But I don't know how many pubs and bars really think that, well, October Festival fit perfectly comfortably in the lineup at 403 Club, for example.
    21:14
    Everything else there is like a licensed theme. It's not more worthy than Star Trek or Star Wars or anything else. Right. I can see where it's not more worthy, but it can fit in. And you have to realize is that pinball machines are something that are becoming more common in places you wouldn't expect them to be. I mean, like little bars that don't have anything will still have a pinball machine. I know I've seen pictures from several places where there's a random bar that has a PBR machine. And it's simply, it's a PBR machine and it's a PBR bar. Because there's a fair number of bars where if you ask them what they sell the most of, it's going to be PBR. and for what it was when I was younger and first started drinking to how popular PBR has kind of become, it's a whole thing. So that's where I could see this as being the type of thing they're aimed for.
    22:13
    I think that's part of having the shots not as tight, part of having a more open play field. And none of this we're going to know for sure until we actually get our chance to lay hands on it and see how it plays and this and that. But I think this is a game that's designed more for the masses than for the general pinball audience. Okay. That's a decent point. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about the nature of the theme and that challenge as well. Now, I get the idea. And when Josh went on to Pinside, he's really emphasized this aspect about the family friendliness of it. And overall, I think that's all fine. He did make a point of stressing that Because some people had brought up the notion of Well, it's a holiday that's associated with drinking So that cannot by definition be family friendly And he disagreed And I agree with that as well But I didn't I agreed with his disagreement Yeah However, he's not It's not that you can't have alcohol involved And still call something family friendly However, he kind of went to the In my view, the other extreme And started arguing that well, most households, drinking is very, very common, and this is how that is with the culture, and that's how it is with America. He did not research that, because that is not true at all. 36% of Americans totally abstain from alcohol. Totally abstain. So his notion that it's super common for everyone to drink is challenged by the data that I've seen, which was from Gallup as of 2014 when they last did a significant alcohol consumption survey. So that means 64% of people drink, but a lot of them are people like me. I don't drink very much. Only about four in 10 Americans regularly drink. So my sense was he was implying that alcohol is a broadly appealing theme. No, it's most people don't drink that much. I know pinball is full of alcoholics, but that does not reflect overall reality. Now, America has a stereotype of being a very puritanical society on a lot of stuff like this. And that's where I think you got to where some people were like, you can't reference beer or it's not family friendly. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Beer is incorporated in all sorts of American life. It's perfectly family friendly to allow alcohol to be in the theme, in my view. But you do have to understand that a certain percentage of people are going to be offended by alcohol. A certain percentage of people are going to be offended by anything Exactly Exactly And that 36 of totally abstaining people are not all doing it because of morality They may just not like the taste of it They may not be able to drink because of medication. But because of the nature of that theme, it's, I mean, I just, I don't see it driving home sales. Going back to just it being called Oktoberfest, a not important, not popular American holiday. This is not a big holiday. It's not Christmas. It's not Fourth of July. It's not even St. Patrick's Day. It is a third-tier holiday. And you could have picked any holiday you wanted. So if you wanted to do something, I just don't, I just, here, let me give it to you in a nutshell, Tony. This will sell worse than Houdini by a lot. I agree. By a lot. I agree. So that's why I think it's a mistake. It's just a bad theme. The only saving grace will be that the game plays better than Houdini. I have no doubt that they could execute a better playing game than Houdini. And I think Houdini was fun when I played it. I don't have a ton of time on it, but what I played, I liked. But here's the thing. Let's look over at Jersey Jack.
    25:58
    Everyone says that Dialed In is their worst-selling game, but it's their best player. And that's a problem. And what holds it back, Tony? It's not a licensed theme. There we go. It's not a licensed theme. It is, without a doubt, the Jersey Jack game I enjoy the most. I agree as well. Again, I've not played a finalized Pirates. Well, yeah. So we can't really weigh in on that. But I'm not super holding my breath on Pirates even. No, actually, there's a pin's-eye thread where people who have been finding it on location and the preliminary results of reviews are surprisingly mixed. Right. I don't know. And I don't know how much of that's related to theme because, you know, Pirates is not a good theme. No, it's a terrible theme. There's a better theme than Oktoberfest, though. It's a terrible theme. Yeah. All right, well, that's all I really wanted to say about the Oktoberfest thing. We'll learn more as it moves along. Last bit of pinball news. There are two quote-unquote new pinball companies that we haven't discussed. Now, one of them I've known about for a while. We've got Suncoast Pinball, which is making a game called Cosmic Carnival. And I believe that's the one I was aware of. You've seen a photo of it before. The layout is the white wood. It looks very symmetrical with the two ramps. Oh, yeah.
    27:12
    I mean, it looks really boring. Yeah. So I'm hoping that, I mean, you know what I think about symmetry. Other than when I have to defend Mata Hari on Head to Head Pinball, you know what I think about symmetry. And then the other one is a company called Great Lakes Pinball. And we don't really know much about them yet, but. That's true. But Great Lakes Pinball is a very good name for a company. And I will personally be deeply disappointed if their first game isn't the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. I bet you that's at least in the top three considerations. I mean, that would just be perfect.
    27:51
    One might almost say that it would be superior. I never thought I would hear a theme worse than October.
    27:59
    I mean, come on. They could license the music from the song. It shouldn't be too expensive. It was Gordon Lightfoot. Gordon Lightfoot, come on. Okay, that's going to be affordable, but still. No. Oh, you take these poor startups and you just kill them in utero. This is terrible.
    28:24
    Okay. So speaking of terrible, let's talk a little bit about Orion's Belt. Have you seen the video for Orion's Belt?
    28:33
    No. Okay. I didn't. I did not. We didn't discuss this. I saw the note in here about it. I remember hearing the little teaser stuff about it. And then I realized that I just don't care. Well, yeah, you don't have a pinball machine you'd put it in. So, all right, here's the thing. I didn't know anything about this until this week. That's how unattuned I am to the hobby in terms of mods. So, Penn Stadium, which has a very popular product, Penn Stadium Light. It's incredibly popular. It is.
    29:06
    For those that don't know, it provides uniform lighting. It lets you control the intensity and the color. so a lot of people really like it because it's an easy way to give even lighting to a game and allows them to have the lights off in their room yeah and that it also gets a lot of props because it lets people stream games in a much easier way to see the ball for the viewing audience the home audience yeah so it's yeah it's kind of it's earned its chops it's not you know i have issues with i mean you can do solutions that are cheaper that get you the lighting effect right but that i But the problem is it's an ease thing. It is. It's a situation where you're paying so you don't have to do the work. Sure, and with the ability to modify the colors easily, if you were to want to move them around from game to game or whatever, you know, there are things. It's convenient. It's perfectly fine. It's awesome. There was a sponsored post on This Week in Pinball this last week that kind of was the reveal for this new product called Orion's Belt. What I want to talk about, though, is really the video because it was really weird. It's like about two minutes, 40 seconds long.
    30:17
    It's about two minutes, 40 seconds and 3.48 milliseconds long. No, Tony. I don't remember to the second. It's within five seconds of two minutes and 40 seconds, though. So I'm being accurate. I don't need your sass. You didn't even see it. So I don't need your sass about how I'm describing the video. The video's there. It's weird. I've linked it in the show notes. Around, around, Tony, so within two seconds, plus or minus, of one minute, 50 seconds, is when you actually see the product. But the way they do it, it's like emulating a cell phone screen, I think. And so it's like a picture within a picture. It's not taking up the full real estate of the screen at YouTube. When you go take a look at it, you'll see what I mean. So most of the video isn't showing the product. It's mostly like an anime robot or that football robot that Fox always does. Oh, yeah. It kind of looks like that's the mascot for it.
    31:13
    It's like Genji in his anime costume from Overwatch. And I'm looking at it. I'm watching that. I read the write-up on this week at Pinball, and I'm still thinking, I don't understand what this is doing.
    31:26
    Apparently, it mounts near or next to pin stadiums, if you already have pin stadiums in. But what this fundamentally is, it's a flasher light system. So you install it kind of like Penn Stadium. You get to choose the colors and all of that. But it's for flashers. So it integrates in some way into the flasher system. So you can just have purple flashing brightly all over the place.
    31:54
    So weird video aside, because there's really nothing to talk about on the video. Do you think there's demand for something like this? It's priced at $259, and I can't figure out what it solves. I understand what Penn Stadium fixes. I don't see what this does other than allows you to perp things up. I see it's one of a couple of possible things. Thing one, Penn Stadium's initial idea and what they initially put out was awesome, but they really needed another product to solidify their line, So they just went with something that could possibly make sense and hope that it finds a audience.
    32:36
    Number two is there could be seen as when you're going to the point where you've got all the lights out in your room, you've got your Penn Stadium lights lighting everything up. Those lights are bright enough that you could be seeing a doling out of the standard in-game flashers. So using this flash or add-on will bring them back up to what they were based under the original GI level of flashing and blinding and this and that. Or they could just hate people with epilepsy. Hmm. Well, that is possible. And even I have worked against the epileptics and those with migraines by my flasher choices. Yes. There's a reason my wife won't come into the game room. Yes. Well, you know, there's side effects. I apologize. but I'm keeping my flashers. I like them. Okay, so that's the issue. Now with Penn Stadium, see, there's no other real in-game... I mean, you can do what I do and put in a lot of LEDs on a lot of games and that'll give you better lighting. That doesn't give you uniform lighting because you're confined to where the spotlights are, where the GI is and all that. That's why the centers of some of the play fields are so dark because there's no real easy way to put GI there because if you're going to have a wide open play field, you have to protect the lamp in some way. And if it's underneath, then it's not really GI light. It's usually a controlled lamp that's used to control the light and insert. It can't throw because it can't throw around. You know how light works.
    34:08
    You understand light, right? Tony, you know light. You know what light is. But here's the thing with the flashers. You can always change them. So why do you need more flashers in a system? I've never heard anyone complain that flashers were too difficult to notice. Or if you don't like the color of a flasher, you can go to Comet Pinball. You can buy, like what I had, you can buy like a seven surface mounted diode or more flasher bulb. And they come in different colors. I chose a shade of white, but they come in colors. And they're cheap. We're talking like at most a buck fifty a bulb. I understand. But also what you're looking at is one of the things with Penn Stadium is it's not exactly the hardest thing in the world to move to a separate machine.
    34:55
    So if you've got 12 machines in your game room and you like to stream, you can move from machine to machine without changing every machine. You could put this add-on. You could do the same thing. You can move it from machine to machine to machine without having to go through and relight all of your machines. Yes, except we're talking about Orion's Belt, and it's just flashers. It's not helping the stream. But we don't know yet. Well, from what I saw in the video, it looked obnoxiously annoying.
    35:26
    Based on what I've seen with most streamers anymore, that's good. But again, at $259, unless you've got... Even if you had a collection the size of Todd with Big Daddy Enterprises, you've got 90 plus games in your game room, you could buy color LED flashers for all of them, customized the color schemes, and it's still cheaper than buying one set. I'm not going to disagree. I'm going to wipe the drool off from the thought of owning 90-some-odd machines. Because here's the thing, and maybe I'm wrong on this, but here's my thinking. The whole app control, changing the colors and intensity, that people probably don't change that. They find what setting works for a given game, and then that's the setting for the game. So once you know what you want, I mean, you just order a bunch of colored flashers. That's what people do right now. You order a bunch of colored flashers or whatever, or different color of LEDs in general. And people figure out what color scheme they like, and then the rest of the bulbs can go to a different game. And you get it just perfect, and then you know what you want. I just don't see this product being good. We'll see. I mean, good isn't popular. I'm sure it holds up fine. I mean, there's nothing technologically that makes it a bad product, but I don't think this is the next step. I don't think this sells well. Maybe that's what I'm saying. Could be. I'm not sure. I really don't know. The video did not do him any favors. It's just confusing. And I was that way on Penn Stadium when I first started hearing about Penn Stadium. But after seeing what it did for streaming, it makes sense to me for those specific situations. I think Penn Stadium is a very elegant lighting solution. My only issue, and this is just me personally, issue with Penn Stadium is the, what, if you want to, you have to mess around with it if you want to take the play fields up. And I'm in the games a lot. Even when you're over, you see, if something's wrong with a game, I just pop it open and fix it. But the more compelling issue is that I understand the technology that's being used to provide the even lighting, and it's not at that price point. They can make money how they want. That's fine. People are willing to avoid work that much. It seems like they are. Okay. That's fine. But this, I don't think this improves. This is like if you wanted more flashes than the game came with. So I'm sure there's an audience for that. I just don't think it's a big audience. I don't think it's nearly as big as the original product. And I don't know how many people of that audience are willing to drop $260 a game. I don't know. Because I don't think the audience for this is nearly as big as the original product. Because I don't think this gets moved from game to game to game with people. You get it in there and it's there all the time because it's not going to help with streaming. It's not a constantly on lighting solution. It's a mod. It's a neat visual mod for those that want lots and lots of flashers.
    38:20
    And if it's not just about flashers, their video failed because that's all I could tell. I still don't know. We'll see. But it's a slow news week, so here we are. We'll talk about it for a while. We're giving it a lot of free press. We'll see how it ends up being. Okay. Let's go to our fun topic, Tony. Our fun pinball topic. All right. So we have a Discord channel, and this time I have the link in the show notes. Yes, Nick. I just assumed everyone would go to the website to access the Discord. I don't like to link. Some podcasts, some of the pinball podcasts, link every way to subscribe to them in the show notes. I mostly have always just focused on. Well, the thing is, is once you set it all up right one time, it's just a copy and paste. It's easy just to throw it in. Sure. I mean, I'm sure it probably even... Do you not think that makes the show notes obnoxiously long, to have like 20 different ways to listen to us? I think that's how... It's how I see most stuff. I see almost every time I check show notes for something, they always have links to, you know, Instagrams, emails. Everything's in there. Okay. If somebody's working on something, it's the same way with like YouTube videos. when you look in the description of YouTube videos. I mean, like people that I watch every single day when they put out daily videos, and I watch them every day. And every time you look at their drop-down information, it always has every link to everything you need. Okay. Well, I'll try it out because I actually just copy my note draft over anyway. So, yeah, it's not going to be hard for me. Yeah. I'll try it out. Anyway, but the Discord's definitely, no matter what, the Discord's definitely in there this time. So we had a discussion during the middle of last week about, well, it was about a lot of stuff, actually. It was kind of going all over the place. But the big thing that I wanted to focus in on was about pop bumpers. Because we had a fairly robust debate about the value of pop bumpers in the modern pinball world. and so the way the discussion sort of went was that pop bumpers are very very common in pinball games they always have been but modern pop bumper layouts are designed to be very safe as in they rarely put the ball at risk of draining from being when they exit the pop bumper area but the original purpose especially back in the em era was that pop bumpers were to randomize the ball and throw it away and cost you your turn. So let's have a discussion on this, given all that. Everyone agreed in the Discord that those statements were true, that pop bumpers used to be about getting rid of your ball, and pop bumpers are now safe, mostly. So what do you think? Should we still have pop bumpers? Are they needed? Should pop bumpers go back to their original purpose? Are pop bumpers good the way they are now? I fundamentally like pop bumpers.
    41:19
    I like the aesthetic they add. I like the sounds that tend to be tied with them. I just like the way they work. What I don't like is what you see in the modern where pop bumpers are. I have a trio of pop bumpers that are rotated to some orientation up here and lets the ball just bounce between them for a while and score some points because they never score a lot of points. I don't like that. I like singleton pop bumpers. I like it when there is a pop bumper on one side of the field, and when you hit it, it's going to throw that ball somewhere. It doesn't necessarily have to be placed in such a way that it's going to be throwing a lot of drains, but I like the singleton pop bumper. When you're playing and you've got good flow going, and all of a sudden you miss a shot and she slides into the pop bumpers, and suddenly it's like you can take your hands off the game and walk away for a little while because it's going to hover in the pop bumpers for 30 or 40 seconds.
    42:19
    It's annoying. As case in point, I've had multiple times where I've activated a timed mode. I've burned half the time mode because the ball won't come out of the pops.
    42:32
    And yeah, you can shake it, but that's more likely to keep it in the pops than it is to throw it out of the pops. So you just watch your time mode count down while you're bouncing around in the little trio of pop somewhere, and it's just annoying. So I think fundamentally I like the pop bumper. That said, I am one of those people. I love a center pop game. I mean, the Freedom Prototype, Spanish Eyes, that style of game, like the article you wrote, I really like that. I like what that does to it. TNA has that singleton pop bumper. I like that. I like some of the older games where you'll see they'll have pop bumpers, but they're spread all over the field instead of being that tight triangle. That's my preference for pop bumpers. But I do think they still bring something that's very essentially pinball to pinball. It's something that is very the type of thing you see in pinball. And when you think pinball, you think ball, you think flippers, you think pop bumpers. I mean, before I think spinners, which are my favorite thing in pinball, before you think about stand-ups or drop targets, you still think about pop bumpers first. Yeah, I agree with you that it is iconic. It's as iconic as the flipper. It is older, even. Yeah.
    43:54
    As I thought about it, though, you know, it's a lot of real estate that could be better used at this point if we're not willing to make the pop bumpers meaningful. and we had a bit of that discussion in the discord about what about things like game of thrones where they've gone they've experimented with this idea like the pop bumpers giving an award almost like a mystery of where they would hit in all the line like a slot reel slot machine playing slots yeah and i mean i think that's okay it's it's better than nothing than just being points up there uh because it's so safe. But yeah, I would say, I agree with you. I would rather see some more unconventional pop layouts, not necessarily always just having to be a cluster of three, which is just the go-to now. And while not, I mean, I was trying to come up with games that did have dangerous pops. Total Nuclear Annihilation has the one pop bumper. It's a dangerous pop bumper. Before that The last one that I can think of with Stern That I felt exiting the Pops actually was fairly risky In a way that I believed Was on purpose Because for example I don't think Walking Dead was supposed to drain you I think that's a bad setup But I think Avatar may have been Designed to cause a lot of straight down the middle Results where it feeds out I think everything Games like ACDC can do it But the way that's oriented I think that's a setup issue and it was designed to always feed safe And yeah I mean, that wasn't the, I mean, they're supposed to be, slings still drain people. Slings are still dangerous and that's why they're there. So yeah, I guess I could see it one of two ways. Either make the pops a meaningful thing to shoot for because they like aren't ever. No, no. At this point, you probably want to avoid the pops as much as possible. Which was almost always generally true because there's just no points to be had. Right. Even on older games in the 80s where pops were starting to get safe. It just wasn't a place you usually wanted to be because there's nothing. Some games have tried. Like Star Trek has super pops, for example, if you get a three in a row. Right. To try and go and say, hey, now we've got enough compelling points. You might actually want to be up there. But by and large, doesn't seem to be. I mean, I like your idea more about having a pop bumper and having it be meaningfully placed. But I'm totally okay with making pinball machines without pop bumpers. I think that that has a bit of a bad rep because we got games like Junkyard that weren't particularly fun but I don't blame the pop bumper missing. No Fear didn't have pop bumpers you can replace some with something else maybe something else that's iconic like why can't we have the swinging target back? Where's my swinging target?
    46:42
    Very targets or what about roto targets? There are all sorts of classic things that we could do instead of. Pops take a lot of space. They do. I don't hate having them unless, like, Stern Star Wars. It's like you're never in them.
    47:00
    It's a weird shot. The orbit, you only go into it if you don't cleanly feed out of the orbit. So to me, it's like I usually only touch the pop bumpers like one out of four games on Star Wars. I'm like, why did you even put this in here? We could have stuck something else in. Right. And Keith's pointing that on for something very modern and feedable is Deadpool. I don't think Deadpool really needed the pops. Yeah, no. I mean, at least on the Pro, they've got it so that if you're ever doing the left orbit, you do feed into them. So you use them a lot, but they're very safe. They're very safe. You fall into them if you don't complete your inner right orbit to the upper left ramp shot. It falls right into the pop. But again, all that does is get it back safely out into the lower play field. Now, because one thing I could see, and again, I'm not sold. I haven't sat down and done the math, done the homework to make sure that this will work. But there are situations where I think if you removed the standard pop bumper trio completely, and you could lay out and you could still just have just even like TNA with just a single pop bumper. It would give you some threat. It would give you some interest. It would take up a lot less real estate. And there's some very interesting thoughts I've had just with short brainstorming to do it.
    48:27
    Case in point, if you get a, like Star Wars has and several games lately have the very hard little U-turn feed where you feed through. Horseshoe shots. Little horseshoe shots. I could see having a shot like that where instead of having the normal drop target set up or drop or a stand-up target forms the center, having a single pop there, a singleton pop there, but still have the smooth feed around instead of slings around the edge. So if you hit it cleanly, it feeds around exactly where you want it. I see. But if you don't hit it cleanly, you'll ricochet off. You'll catch the pop. It'll throw you around. your ball is going to be really heavily randomized. At the same time, I could see going also with a couple, like throw a ramp in an orbit. You get them fairly close together, but not right on top of each other. And instead of having just the post between them and have them separate, spread them out just a little bit more and drop a pop right there. Like some games will have a captive ball between the ramp and the orbit. Very similar to that, except for drop the pop there, as long as you got it set so it not a guaranteed insta every time you nail that shot but have it there as just something so that instead of getting the oh I missed the shot it glanced off and it fed straight back to my flipper and I can go for my shot again You don't know where that ball is going to go. That ball could be going straight across the play field. Something like that would be a lot more interesting to me. And I think it would let you free up more real estate, like you said, to put more things in. Even if you don't pull up old things, it just lets you do more and open up more shots because you don't have some 15% of the play field eaten up by this trio of pops and slings around them if you've got one pop or no pops even. I like pops. I like how they feel. I like how they sound. I like what they do.
    50:28
    So I can see having them. That's why one of the things I loved about the TNA Whitewood when we originally played it was that single pop over there because it was just one pop. And it was really dangerous. But it was really satisfying if you caught it just right. And I enjoyed it. So I think I would like to see more of that in pinball going forward. Okay. Well, we've given our thoughts on Pop Bumper. So if anyone, feel free to comment on our social media or join the Discord and join in that. It's not very far up from the last conversation. Kind of pittered out after we hashed out our pop bumper thoughts. After that went nuts for life. Yeah, it was a strange day. Yeah. It was mostly all one day. So it was very strange. All right. We're ready for our last pinball part, Tony. Pinball part. It's time for 20 questions. So for those that somehow miraculously are new to the show, welcome, first of all. And second, this is a game we have started playing. And what I'm going to do here is Tony will get to ask me a series of 20 yes or no questions about a pinball machine. I have picked a pinball machine that I know he has played before. And he will have to do guesses without the aid of any searching tools up through the 15th question. But as of questions 16 through 20, it's open book. You can use IPDB or Pinsight or any other resource to try and search it out and find the answer. Make sense? Yes. It makes sense, Dan. It makes so much sense. Thank you for telling us. Yes. Thank you, audience. I never knew how this game worked. Okay, Tony. So you can ask your first question whenever you're set. Is it a Stern? No. Is it a Gottlieb? No. Is it a Williams? No. Is it a Bally? Yes. That's four.
    52:22
    Is it solid state? No. Is it from the 70s? No. 60s? Yes. Is it from 60 to 65? No. Is it a chainsaw running in the background that's definitely going to be picked up by the plane?
    52:40
    I don't want to burn that one. It just keeps getting louder and louder and louder. Naver, I think, is finally the other one. They dropped a tree back in the spring, and they're finally chopping it up to haul off.
    52:55
    It's only been there for half a year. You got to let it season. Now it's good. Yeah. You can do smokers with it. Okay. Let's see. It's a bally from 66 to 69. Let's see. How do I want to cut this down more? Cut. Yeah.
    53:13
    Cut wood. Mahogany. Let's see. It's one, two, three, four. You've asked eight questions. Okay. So I've got lots of questions to go. You do. Okay. Well, let's just cut it out. Is it from 66? Yes. Well, that makes things easier. Is it sci-fi themed? No. That was question 10.
    53:38
    Is it sports themed? No. Is it card themed? No. Wow. 66. Man, that's something sticking. I've got like something that's right there I just don't It seems real familiar for some reason Like I should have figured this already Does it have more than two flippers? No Does it have more than two players? Yes I'm just going to have to sit down and go through And just memorize every pinball machine ever made That's only what everyone says that you need to do, Tony Just memorize them all Simple It's easy I'm not doing anything else besides working I know is it Campus Queen? yes, 15th question that crossed my mind earlier and I was like no, no way because that crossed my mind because that's the game I always think of when I think you know late 60s because it's kind of become one of my grails and I was like because that's why when I was sitting here I'm like 66, that sounds so familiar for some reason. I know there's something there. Yeah, it's super familiar. So, yeah. Alley, 1966. And you got it. Question 15. So, before our open book, it's your best answer ever. It's my best answer ever. That's right. Four-player game. It was manufactured in August of 66. The project started in March. It had a couple other versions, including there was a two-player version, but that one was the four-player version. Right, because the two-player version was Egypt Sheba. Yeah, Sheba. And then the zip-flipper version is Crocodile. Gator. Or Gator. Not to be confused with the other zipper-flipper one, Nip It. Right.
    55:30
    Anyway, good job. Alright, 15 questions. It's my turn. I'll keep count. We know this. We went through everything. So let's go ahead and you can start. Is it an electromechanical? Yes. Is it from the 1970s? No. 1960s? Yes. Is it a Gottlieb? No. Is it a Bally? No. Is it Williams? Yes. Is it three coins? Yes, it is.
    56:00
    I think that was question seven. Yes, it was. All right. I figured it'd either be one of those ones you'd ignore because you'd owned it or it would have been at the top of your list. I don't know very many people who have Williams games from the 60s that I would have played. So, unfortunately, once I got the dates out of the way, I was like, what ones would Tony know I've played from that manufacturer, the least popular manufacturer of the 60s? So I thought, I almost started to narrow it down. I almost asked you if it was a Steve Kordek design, and then I thought. That wouldn't narrow anything down. No, it wouldn't have. So I was like, that's not going to help. I mean I'm trying to remember when I guess Norm Clark did have a number of games in the 60s as well with Williams but it wasn't and then I'm trying to remember but which ones have I played like I couldn't think of because I haven't played Spanish Eyes so that's the only one I thought I almost maybe played I thought I almost maybe I know people with it but I haven't had a chance to play it okay well I'm afraid that's a new record for me also that's a new record for everybody This was a very productive time where we're picking games that people should know. That we should know. Yeah. Because obviously having owned three coins meant I should know it. And you've probably talked about Campus Queen more than any other EM on this show. It's either that or Grand Prix. Maybe. And you mentioned Freedom Prototype a lot as well. Right. So let's say more than maybe any other valley. Yeah. I mean, freedom is a valley as well. Yeah. That's probably lies. Lies, hacks. I think it comes up more often just because it is, like I said, it has become a grail pen. So it's something that is, but it's not, you know, I call it a grail pen, but it's not like it's, you know, it's not like somebody wanting a Big Bang Bar. It's like a crappy grail pen. Yeah. It's hard to have you chosen poorly when you're looking after that.
    58:04
    Right, right. Well, a lot of people have grails that are common. Yeah. They either are looking for the right price or right condition or they don't come up for sale enough. It just depends.
    58:16
    So let's go ahead and move on over to video games. Bye, all pinball people. We love you. Bye, pinball people. So I just thought at the start we should go ahead and mention, because we didn't talk about video games in the intro, any video games you're currently playing or working on? I've actually been playing pretty hardcore a couple of things. Well, I say that. I've been playing one game really hardcore and a couple of other games somewhat. The game I've been playing hardcore is a game we've already talked about. Well, you've specifically talked about, and that is Everspace that you'd received. Don had told you about. Yeah, Don bought me it. Yeah.
    59:02
    That game's amazing. It's definitely your type. It is exactly my type of game. I have, I bought that. That game went on sale, and it was on sale through September 11th. And I bought it like the, I don't know, 7th or 8th. and since I've purchased it, I've put 38 hours into it, I think.
    59:27
    It's been the primary game I've been playing. I like the roguelike ability. I like games that, you know, it's like this game is hard, but as you play, you unlock things that stay unlocked forever, and the game gets easier except for we throw stuff to make it harder. I like that type of gameplay. and I like space combat games like this and I've been really enjoying it and at this point I've successfully completed my first run through of the game which is interesting because this isn't like a game where it's a roguelike but all you do is the first time you successfully run through all of the stages and finish everything you're supposed to do it unlocks a new thing. So you go back to the beginning and you just play through and you're playing to stage 7. You just have different goals this time than you did the original time. Your first playthrough, you have one goal. You have to get to stage 7 and successfully complete it. On your follow-up playthroughs, after you've completed that goal, your goal is to get to stage 7, but you have to collect things in the prior stages to take with you to stage 7. and so far I have not successfully gotten to stage seven after collecting those things yet. But I'm having a great time. I've been concentrating everything on just upgrading one of the three possible ships you can play, the one you start with. I have pretty much perfected at this point all of the unlocks on that specific ship, and I've been starting to do a lot of the unlocks for the stuff that carries over to everything. Okay. So instead of being the ship-specific unlocks, I've been doing a lot of the pilot unlocks. And I'm going to start doing some more playthroughs in the other ships before too long. But I've been enjoying it. It's been a ton of fun. Okay, good. And in addition to that, something that will come up in some of our discussion later, is I have Nintendo launch their Switch online, so I obviously had to buy into it because otherwise my daughter could no longer play Splatoon. I didn't want to listen to that. No, no, no. But the nice thing is what they've got going with it is they've got a deal.
    62:08
    Okay, I say deal. It's not an actual deal. It's just what it is. The individual membership, so if I was to buy a membership for myself, is going to cost me $20 a year. Not bad.
    62:22
    But I can buy a family membership for $35 a year that will let me have up to eight people in my family group.
    62:31
    And since I've got an account, my wife has a Nintendo account, and we have two supervised child accounts, one for each of our children, I was able to buy a family account and pull all four of us into it so we all have access and play so the punk can play her splatoon all she wants and not be angry at me and the rest of us can play whatever we want to play the main reason we have them is because all of the girls play pocket camp and they needed Nintendo accounts to be able to play pocket camp but the nice thing is it also now gives us access on Switch to Nintendo's NES, certain NES games. Currently there's 20 of them.
    63:23
    I've been playing Super Mario Brothers, the original Super Mario Brothers, and Super Mario Brothers 3, and I've played some Gradius and some Excitebike, which I remember that game being a lot more fun. Yeah. And, yeah.
    63:41
    And, and Gradius, still fun, still hard. The original Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 3, still awesome.
    63:50
    Um, I've also played some River City Ransom and I don't remember that game being that hard. Yeah. But, uh, so that's all part of what you get is doing the Switch online. So, I mean, if you've got a family or you don't have, they don't have any family. You just invite people in. So honestly, if you've just got a tight friend group, you can get eight people in for, for $35 just a year. And it's just, it's, it's the way I would recommend going. Okay. Because the other thing is they've added, besides just having your normal couch play with these games, a lot of them have online play too. So I can play on my switch and, and Dennis could be on his non-existent switch and be playing. And we could play Super Mario Brothers 3 together. I don't know why we'd ever want to do that, but it's something that we could do. Okay. So it's just interesting. And like I said, they've got 20 games out right now. I was originally going to cover this in topic later. I'm just going to cover it now and get it out of the way.
    64:50
    Ghost and Goblins, which I've played a little bit of. Excite Bike, as I mentioned. Tecmo Bowl. Yoshi. Double Dragon.
    64:59
    Gradius. Ice Hockey. River City Ransom. Pro Wrestling. Baseball. as in pro-wrestling than baseball. Not pro-wrestling baseball. That would be kind of cool, actually, now that I think about it. Balloon Fight, Donkey Kong, the ever-popular Dr. Mario,
    65:19
    Ice Climbers, the original Legend of Zelda, which I haven't played yet. Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 3, so no Mario Brothers 2 for you. Sorry.
    65:33
    Tennis, and soccer. They've also announced nine more games. They're putting out three games a month for the rest of the year, at least, is what's been announced so far. So in October, we're getting Solomon's Key. I've never played it. I've heard good things about it, but I've never played it.
    65:50
    NES Open Tournament Golf, which was, if I remember right, the golf game that I had on the NES, and we played a lot of that. I think that was one of the few NES games my dad would play. and Super Dodgeball.
    66:03
    November is getting Twinbee. I have no idea. I don't recall it at all. I don't know it. Mighty Bomb Jack? No idea. And Metroid? No clue. Never heard of that. Mystery.
    66:18
    Total mystery. And then in December, we're getting Wario's Woods, which is... I didn't realize there was a Wario game on NES. I didn't either. I thought it was newer than that. so did I. So obviously,
    66:33
    and, uh, adventures of Lolo and Ninja Gaiden, which I recall playing tons and tons and tons of. And that game was hard. That game was like XCOM hard. That game was just insane.
    66:50
    So we'll see. Uh, I'm, I'm interested to see what else they add in the coming year or so, but I, yeah, I've been playing a lot of super Mario brothers, like the old 2D Super Mario Bros. Well, it was always a very well-balanced platformer, so it should hold up. Yeah. Especially 3. Yes. 3 is solid. 3 was one of the best, if not the best game to come out on the Nintendo if you were to do broad polling of people. I think it would win. I would say that. And it's fun when the punk is watching and I'm doing stuff and she's like, how did you know that was theirs? Because I've always known. Yes. I've always known there was a warp whistle hidden there.
    67:35
    Nintendo Power. I've only been playing a couple things besides the latest competitive season of Overwatch, which I've talked about before, so I'm not going to go into that. Then I've also started Assassin's Creed Chronicles Russia. And that's like a 2.5D stealth game. I played the China one a few years ago. And they've all been available for free So I have India, which I haven't started yet And I have Russia, which You just started I did, but I'm trying to think when I got it Maybe over a year ago, I don't remember One of them was free recently But I've just downloaded them and I didn't want to play Other than finishing Dragon Ball FighterZ's Story mode, I'm all caught up On my disc-based games Just in time for your birthday Pretty much So I haven't wanted to put back in the disc because it's like I'm lazy. Overwatch is in the tray. And I thought, oh, am I going to try this? It's hard.
    68:35
    Harder than I remember China being at the start. But, I mean, you can do things a little bit easier and get a lower ranking. And I may do that. I may also just not finish it. I don't know yet. I'm not feeling it. Is it hard or are you just not as good? I might not be as good. But, I mean, you'd think. You're not as good as you once were. I'm like on Chapter 2. But you're as good once as you ever were. Well, you'd think I would always be at least good enough to do Chapter 2, but I don't know. Maybe not. It's weird. So anyway, so I've been playing that. Now, you touched on the Nintendo changes because Nintendo had a Nintendo Direct. They did. Which I believe had been pushed back because of the earthquake that they had. Yeah. But it's happened now. Yes. So was there anything else that caught your eye from it that you have not yet mentioned? Yes. There were several things. I think the biggest thing, besides the fact that Nintendo Switch has obviously become the port-all-the-things machine, because it's just like 90% of everything on Nintendo Switch at this point are ports from something else.
    69:41
    Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because the portability lends itself to certain games works pretty well. Right. So I'm going to open with a game we've talked about. I know we have talked about it. I think we talked about it on the podcast. I don't remember. And this was actually announced before the Direct, is Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. Yeah, the basket game. The basket game is going to be on Switch. I have no idea how they're going to handle it all. I have no clue. I'm excited, though, because I enjoyed that game, and I have a lot of good memories of us sitting here in your house playing Busket. Yeah. Because that was where Thug was truly born. Yeah, it was. It was.
    70:29
    You were dead a lot. I don't need no Busket. Kill it all. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I don't think we had touched on that really on the podcast. I've heard on some others. Yeah, I've heard on others. And I've had like 12 conversations about this. Apparently it's fondly remembered by a lot of people. It was fun. I enjoyed it. And tied into that whole porting thing is what makes me really what I'm looking forward to the most.
    71:00
    Yeah, I'll say it. I'm most looking forward to it out of pretty much everything that's been announced, was announced in this direct. is they are getting Final Fantasy VII, IX, X, Meikou Meikou Dress-Up, X-2, and XII all ported to the Switch,
    71:20
    and most of the ports are coming in 2019. Right. So you want to revisit those? I want to revisit those. Okay.
    71:30
    I would like to replay VII and IX specifically, I never played Make a Maker Dress Up I played the demo of Make a Maker Dress Up but I never actually played it itself because I'm one of the people who didn't like 10 actually a lot of people did not but I was talking with someone and I was trying to rank Final Fantasies and I ranked 10 somewhere and then as I thought about it I think I realized I didn't actually play it I think I saw you playing it and I saw enough of it to form a rank it should be low And I know I never played 9. Now, see, 9, a lot of people don't like 9. I love 9. Why isn't 8 in this list? I don't know why 8's not in this list. And I looked to see why 8's not on the list. But I couldn't find anything more than speculation.
    72:22
    And I hope 8 is added to this list because I really, really liked 8 as well. Yeah, I don't know. It's what I'm looking forward to probably the most, though, because I would like to revisit some of those. Am I going to play all the way through and knock out the 60 to 100 plus hours per game? Sure. Probably not. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things. I mean, there are Final Fantasies. 6 and 6's job system is amazing. I really enjoyed the Materia system in 7. I think it's one of my favorite magic systems. I did not like the draw system in 8. Okay. I did like the way they rebuilt and the way they I just like 9's story and I liked the summons in 9 10 we've talked about I never got into 10 I never completed 10 I got most of the way through it and it was just like I'm not having fun with this game so I never completed it 10-2 I never played I've heard actually better things about it than you can. I have too. I have as well. But I've never played it. And XII, I've never played XII. No. I don't have anything in my mind with XII. Because I played XIII. Because when XII came out, I think was when we were still doing a lot of XI. Yeah. That's probably true. But I never played XII. Also, while I have no interest in it They are getting The Mobile Version of Final Fantasy 15 Because the Switch can't handle the full up game Okay Yeah, I've seen shots of the Mobile version It's supposed to follow the same story It's the same story, it's just It's designed for mobile stuff I'm not going to play it I'm not going to get it. I have no interest. I have my interest in playing Final Fantasy 15 after having watched the whole first chapter played on Twitch is if I ended up with a system that would have the full game I would probably eventually get it on sale. But an Xbox One or a PlayStation 4 both have games that I'm much more interested in than Final Fantasy XV. I mean, reactions on that were... I played in 1.15. I didn't like the combat system. And that's why I can't recommend the game to anyone. I found the combat boring. Very boring, actually. See, the combat kind of reminded me of being the more like the Tales games. They went action with it. The way it works, I just don't like the way it works. It feels in some ways simplified and in some ways confused in how you're supposed to combo your maneuvers and what weapons to equip it. In a way, it's both obtuse and simplistic at the same time. I just, I never found it enjoyable to do the combat. I would have rather had a turn-based than attempt to do an action RPG like that. Have you played any of the Tales games?
    75:41
    Not any of the, no. We'll just say no. Okay. I played a mobile one. I was just wondering if it was better or worse than any of the Tales games. I've seen things from the Tales games. It looks worse to me. I think the Tales games made more sense. How you could control the AI is made more sense. I don't know for sure, but I've played other action RPGs. Yeah. They were all better than this. Okay. But others disagree and really, really like it. I think that Final Fantasy XV has carried on its story, and that they resolved that issue that a lot of people complained about XIII, that it was too linear. Yes. So there's very much more open world. So it's got a lot going for it, and it looks great.
    76:25
    XIII's not linear. Once you get to the main open world, I mean, it's just, you know. There's one open area with all the in-game optional fights. That's it. I know. And it was fun. It was fun. Yeah, yeah. It was really hard. I enjoyed 13. I really did. 13 was a joke in terms of, I mean, the art in the background almost made no sense. You're just running from hallway to hallway to hallway. Right. That's all it is. It wasn't, I mean, it didn't bring the same grandeur that a lot of the other games, but I actually enjoyed the gameplay of 13. Yeah, I thought I liked the combat. Even the storytelling was fine. Final Hallway 13 was great.
    77:04
    That's the truth right there. Also in the Final Fantasy vein, they're doing a port of Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon. I've heard of it. I've never played it. My wife and my oldest daughter, the punk, has played some of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeons. The Mystery Dungeon-style games are very popular-style games, so I'm sure there's a solid chance one of them might play it. I don't have a huge interest in it. We'll see. Maybe if it's cheap and nothing else is out there that I want.
    77:41
    And probably what I, from reading online, is one of the more happier things, the things that makes people happiest. They are doing A new version of the original Katamari game It is The first Katamari Damacy game So I've heard a lot of people who are pretty Happy about that I have as well, I've not played any Katamari It doesn't seem like the type of game I'd like I've played games like Katamari But I haven't played the actual Katamari games So We'll see I might grab it and they're porting over the new Super Mario Brothers U which was the Wii U version of Super Mario where they went back to the 2D so we'll see how that is I haven't played any of the new 2D stuff they've done like that because they did one on 3DS also and I never played it either but I honestly haven't I haven't played a 3D Mario game in a while either. I mean, I've got a Switch, and I haven't played the new one, Odyssey, at all. We have it in the house. My daughter owns it, and it's one of her favorite games, but I don't have any real interest in it.
    79:07
    The last 3D Mario game I played, I think, would have been Sunshine, and I didn't really care about that one either. So I don't know Mario might just be dead to me They're getting a bunch of board games Are getting Switch Versions, Settlers of Catan Carsacon, Munchkin The Lord of the Rings Living Card Game Which I have played One time And it's a fun game From the time I played it I'm interested to see how they handle it Being a living card game Yeah that one's in I'm going to have to see how that one plays Before I make a decision And of course your favorite board game of all time Pandemic is coming to the Switch That's too damaging to children And shouldn't be available At least parental lock should be enabled by default So those are the things that interested me the most There were a lot of other stuff There was some teasers For a few other games Including like Oh, why can't I? I didn't have it written down. I can't remember the name of the company that put it out. But it's called Town. It's an RPG, except for you're just going to stay in town. Oh, yeah. I heard something about that. Yeah. It focuses on the town side of all those RPGs where you go and eventually visit towns, but center it all around a town. Right. I don't know yet. I have not. I don't know if it can work or not. I don't know. Until I see a bunch more of it, before I make a decision on that. They added yet another character To Super Smash Because I'm pretty sure That at the rate they're adding characters to Super Smash You and me are going to be characters In Super Smash by the end of the year So that'll be fine Because you know I hate that game And I mean They're fine I play them I think they're good party games The fact that there's a competitive Version of Smash Makes no sense to me because it's literally dumb. Let's get rid of everything that makes this game interesting and play it. They just want it to be skill-based. Yeah. They just want a skill version. They want it to be a respectable fighter like all the other fighters. Except for it'll never be that. Well.
    81:26
    Now, probably the biggest, happiest moment, the most popular thing, at least in my household, though, was the fact that they finally confirmed something we've known they would have to do unless they were complete idiots. There's an Animal Crossing game coming to Switch in 2019. My ears bled from the squeal when the oldest watched the trailer. And the trailer showed nothing. It was that evil monster Tom Nook basically talking about how he's going to have to sell everybody into wage slavery again because that's what Tom Nook does. He gives very affordable loans. He's a loan shark. It's terrible. It's a terrible thing. But, yeah, no, it's... Well, that'll do very well for them. Oh, it's going to do so well. Even if it's a bad game, it'll do well.
    82:19
    And there will be people who love it. Okay. I've never gotten into any of those games. I played one. It's not my type. Right. But I know a lot of people who really do like it. So it's a smart move. I have no intention of ever playing another one again, though. No, I don't either. I'm good. I'm good on it. But that's everything from the direct.
    82:42
    That's quite a bit. Yeah, I mean, that's not everything from the direct. It sounded like everything. There was more, but that's the stuff that was interesting enough to me that I thought I would mention. Okay. It's mainly I want to play Final Fantasy. Sure. Well, you have another option, you know, and that's called the PlayStation Classic. A mini PS1 is coming out. It'll be $100. And it'll come with 20 games And my understanding is Final Fantasy 7 Is one of those 20 If it wasn't they would be morons Yes Anyway I didn't want to spend a lot of time on this In a way this is obvious That Sony would jump on the bandwagon Everyone's seen the success Of the NES Classic and the Super NES Classic This is A pretty high price point For an unimpressive Quantity of games From my perspective What do you think the overall reaction will be? I mean, the PS2 was kind of the generation that Sony really owned. I did have a PS1. It was important to me in my console life cycle. I did as well. Mostly because of Final Fantasy VII. But as you've noted, Final Fantasy VII is kind of, you know, it's like the village bicycle of video games. It's on everything. It is. So I don't think that that will be enough. and since they've only announced a couple of the 20 games, we don't even know what most of them are. Yeah, I didn't bother trying to mention much of anything.
    84:14
    How do you think it'll do? I think it'll do terrible. No, I think it should do terribly. It's going to be sold out because people are stupid. I'm going to kind of split the difference. I think it will be a moderately successful seller, but I don't think that they're going to be setting any records here, at least until there's a price cut. I don't think it, yeah, I mean, I don't think, I don't see how it could possibly be as big of a deal as the NAS or the Super NAS were.
    84:43
    So, and the price point's just so insane. Yeah, I mean, I know they're probably thinking, well, we're only asking for $5 a game, but the bottom line is most of the games probably aren't really going to be, quote unquote, worth $5. Because there's no, it's not like they're being upscaled or anything. And see, and my thing is, I try and think of, I try and think of original PlayStation games that I would really want to play again. And the problem is, is almost every game I come up with is a PlayStation 2 game. Yeah, PlayStation 1, the only things that readily... A lot of the classic Final Fantasy games I played that were ports to the PS1. Like, that's how I played 6 and 5 and got most of the way through 4, which originally sold this to in the US. So, I mean, the only two kind of PlayStation 1 originals that come to my mind are Final Fantasy 7 and Bushido Blade. Right. And that's it. and I would never buy something like this for two games. No. And I don't think there are going to be enough other games in that listing because you know that game is going to include a lot of the stuff that will tag the nostalgia buttons for certain people. But the thing is, is for most of those games that people really, really like, I'm not part of the nostalgia button for those games. I don't really – I never played them. And when I did play them, I didn't enjoy them. Yeah. So, who knows? But you may be right. I mean, it may fail. It may be a failure. It could be. Speaking of failure, let's talk about the last topic that you wanted to bring up on this. And I write up on this today, in fact, because it has been big news in the video game industry. And that is the collapse of Telltale Game Studio. Yeah, and collapse, I think, is the only word you can really use for it. yeah the story has if anything only gotten worse the more I've learned about what's going on what I'm going to say is I haven't read an update today if something's changed I know over the last since it started yesterday I've already heard like three changes and updates to it but I know that Telltale laid off yesterday all but 25 employees.
    86:58
    And they did release a tweet. I'm not going to get into it exactly. I'm just going to paraphrase it. It basically amounts to we let go everybody but these 25 people who are required to finish stuff that for basically contract reasons is how it sounded.
    87:18
    Now the rumors I've seen online is what they're going to be finishing is their little animated Minecraft thing with, they've been working on with Netflix. And I'm sure that's got to be a contract thing where they would be in massive penalties if they didn't. Okay. Because I've also, from what I've heard, they're not finishing The Walking Dead, the final chapter. Okay. Whereas the last thing that I had read was, and again, without any knowledge, the speculation was the 25 people were to finish Walking Dead's final season and that was the only thing they were working on anymore. Well, I hope that's true because they... The Walking Dead... Telltale's engine is crap. Yeah. It was fine when it started. It's antiquated. But it just doesn't cut it. They've made modifications. They've made bonuses. They are not bonuses, but they've made improvements, but it's not great.
    88:20
    And they kind of killed themselves because they were putting out like three games a year and nobody else put out games in their genre really at all and the thing is their games are they're visual novels but I never some of them were fun and some of them weren't I mean and their release schedule was terrible I think they would say that they brought back the classic adventure game. That they're more than a visual novel. They make you do quick time events. They make you do certain, you have to move the characters around. It's really not just sitting and reading. Right. But, and Telltale was founded by people who had a background with LucasArts, doing like Secret of Monkey Island. Yeah. Amazing games. Right, right. But, you know, all those games, that genre fell by the wayside after as of the late 90s. Do you remember? LucasArts and Sierra owned the 80s and 90s. And then they went away because shooters technology was finally there to have really good shooting experience. And you could tell a story while doing the shooter.
    89:34
    So I read an article today. It's an older article because Telltale signs were there. Telltale did a big layoff back in November where they got rid of about 25% of their workforce at the time. It was like 70 to 90 people, I think, employees.
    89:55
    And, yeah, that's been really interesting because they had noticed. They had severance. They got paid through the end of the year. There were recruiters. I don't know exactly what's gone on with this current set other than everything is said that it was brutal. So I don't know. They're not even getting their paychecks. I don't know. Now, this is from unconfirmed Twitter sources. Tweets.
    90:25
    But all the tweets I've seen is no severance. Just buy. And they just cut it off. I don't know about anything else. I mean, I've seen, I've been lucky enough, knock on wood, to not have worked for one of the places where checks would bounce and you wouldn't know if your check was actually going to work or not. But I've known people who've worked in situations like that. I don't know if that's where Telltale was. But I do know that from everything I've heard, no severances, no nothing. just everybody came in on Friday and they're like, you're all fired and we're keeping enough people to finish certain things up and then we're gone. Okay. Yeah. Now I hope for, as a gamer, I hope the gamers points that they will finish the final season of the walking dead. I know there are a lot of people who are very invested in that storyline.
    91:28
    I've played the first one. I've not played the second one. The first one was very enjoyable, but I think one of the things that hurt them was their episodic release format for these style of games. Because I know I never got one until it was completely out. I was the same way. And, I mean, it's probably a mix of things. I don't have a link to it because I caught it in a discussion on Reddit from back when they did that last release of Employees late last year. And I think it was with The Verge. It was a very long piece because it did a lot of interviews with ex-employees. That sounds like The Verge. Yeah. And so they're talking about what was going on with Telltale. It's fascinating. And the perspective in the article from the former employees was that Telltale was in trouble at that time for a mix of reasons. So Telltale had been around since 2004, not a particularly successful company. I knew they did games like the Jurassic Park game, for example, which reviewed very, very poorly. Right. The worst adventure games ever made, according to some people in terms of how it played. But then Walking Dead came. Walking Dead was incredible. Walking Dead won a ton of awards The two lead creative content people behind it Got a lot of recognition for it And as we know, they went off Made an indie company, made Firewatch Yeah, which was amazing And won a lot of awards as well And some of the discussion with the employees was After that happened As part of what was necessary And maybe I think before even The Walking Dead came out I mean, they were really hurting for money when they were doing The Walking Dead. So there wasn't much creative interference on that team because they just had to hit the deadlines. So management couldn't say, we want you to change anything. They just needed the episodes to come out. They had shareholders. They brought in venture capitalists, I should say, came in. And then there was an expectation of certain performances. Then when Walking Dead did so well, the response was, there's your formula. you will do Walking Dead over and over and over. You'll call it Minecraft, you'll call it Borderlands, and you'll call it Game of Thrones, but you will do this structure.
    93:55
    And the CEO, I believe it was the CEO when Walking Dead came, stepped down and his founding partner took over and micromanaged. By all accounts, a very skilled programmer. by all accounts had a lot of decent ideas but he liked to have his hand in everything there were a lot of accusations from former employees that he never got over that the creative leads got all the credit for walking dead and that he didn't get any recognition for his part in it and that he made sure that no one on the teams ever got credit anymore he handled all the interviews for all the future games and that they would do these management sessions where they would bring in the creative team to go over what's been developed for the game and that it was a very brutal bullying process where you would be told it was wrong you're stupid your ideas don't work here's what you need to change and you need to accommodate him above all else to get the green light on anything and that one of the managers with him loved the process because they could go and drop a turret on anything they wanted and it was just so much fun to go and do that but that wasn't what the creative teams felt is a massive screed against that management style and what was going on with telltale and just picking up all these big expensive licenses but then you also have to run all the stuff by the license holder to make sure like when you play if you play great game of thrones i very much got a that's one of my least favorite ones and i just got a vibe that they just had to square so much away with what hbo was doing that it just kind of stifled it a little bit it's still fun but it just wasn't all that great and that ceo stepped down and the old one came back in because there was a sense of directions and change they were already hurting at that point so but their critical reviews just they never matched walking dead season one part of it was they lost that talent they formed their own studio they had another person who wasn't part of that talent but was one of their other sort of talented individuals i believe he went off and did made the studio that then did oxen free so just like all the really good talented people that people knew the names of went off and that made that more aggressive ceo very bitter that if his talented people got known they would just get stolen and so that was also part of the purported strategy was. We just can't let them know which of our people are good. Their graphics design people were all straight out of college. Some of the other elements of the article that feed into this, they pay below industry average on the wages, but they're in the Bay Area, so it's a very expensive place to live. That was very challenging. They'd get a lot of recent college grads, put them on junior status on these projects, and work them to death. That's where the thing that you mentioned about the episodic issue. From the gamer perspective, constantly being asked to buy something can be very, very frustrating. From the worker's perspective, the problem was it was a never-ending crunch.
    97:04
    And anyone who's ever studied video game programming, not programming in general, but video game programming, knows the challenges of the crunch, crunch time, where it's defined essentially as being expected to work over 14 hours a day, often at least six days a week until the project is finished. With Telltale, the project is never finished because as soon as you're done with one episode, the next episode has to be done and then it's the next game. There were no breaks. And normal crunches can destroy programmers. And Telltale has a policy apparently of unlimited time off, but you just pile all your other co-workers your workload. So everyone felt too guilted to do it because you would just feel like you were letting your whole team down if you took any vacation. So everyone worked all the time. And the reviews just got worse and the sales just got worse. I haven't bought one since Borderlands. What I hadn't realized is they were huge. I mean, all right, they're not a large studio, but they were over 300 employees. And part of that was really, again, after Walking Dead, they were flush with money all of a sudden. And they just started acquiring people and thinking they were going to have this massive. Apparently they gave out t-shirts to the employees With all the planned releases Of all the episodes It was like a rock tour Because it was so intensive Here's when episode 3 of Batman will come out And here's when episode 2 of Walking Dead season 2 will come out And here's when Michonne's adventure will come out Just all of that It was constant Apparently morale was crap Pay was crap It's unfortunate But honestly from after seeing everything I've seen, Telltale clearly has not run well enough to deserve to exist. No, it definitely seems like a cautionary tale on how not to capitalize on success. A cautionary telltale. Yes.
    99:03
    All right. Well, with that said, we made it to the end of the show. We might have a guest in two weeks. We're trying to work out the details. We were kind of planning on that this weekend. It wasn't able to work out. and we had a lot of timing issues, which was fine because there's not much news to talk about anyway. But until two weeks, I'm Dennis. And I'm Tony. See ya. Bye.