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Episode 14 :: The Electric Bat Cast

Electric Bat Cast·podcast_episode·56m 35s·analyzed·Apr 16, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Electric Bat Cast covers ops, He-Man rumors, podcast gear advice, and March arcade earnings.

Summary

Electric Bat Cast Episode 14 focuses on arcade operations, pinball news, and community feedback. Hosts discuss a rumored American Pinball He-Man machine (the co-host's grail game), provide microphone equipment recommendations for podcasters, address operator questions about distributor relationships and convention participation, share arcade earnings data for March 2024, and discuss their wish-list machines including rare import games.

Key Claims

  • NAP (Jason Naps) reported that American Pinball has the He-Man license and will release a He-Man machine

    medium confidence · Host read this on NAP website; not independently verified; co-host expresses skepticism about American Pinball's reliability for this project

  • Godfather and Avengers underperformed earnings expectations despite good gameplay; steep revenue drop after initial 1-1.5 month period

    high confidence · Electric Bat operators tracking their own machines' earnings data; direct operational experience

  • No ABBA pinball machine from any manufacturer (in response to operator question)

    high confidence · Host stated directly with confidence; familiar with Stern's IP portfolio

  • South Carolina has legacy laws treating pinball as gambling with $200-300 per-machine licensing fees for two years

    high confidence · David Keats email; host confirmed personal experience in South Carolina; also noted that minors under 18 are still technically banned from playing pinball in SC (not enforced)

  • Arizona pinball licensing costs $20 per machine annually

    high confidence · Host's direct operational experience running Electric Bat in Arizona

  • Inflation-adjusted pricing shows classic pinball machines (Addams Family, Medieval Madness) cost roughly equivalent in today's dollars to modern releases

    medium confidence · Host checked inflation calculator but doesn't recall exact figures; claim is general rather than specific

  • Spooky's Thunderbirds was a flop with perceived cheap construction quality

    medium confidence · Host's observation from Pinball Museum experience; subjective assessment of manufacturing quality

  • A Flagstaff Electric Bat Godzilla Pro machine ranked in top 10 earnings for first time ever in March 2024

    high confidence · Electric Bat's own earnings tracking data for their arcade locations

Notable Quotes

  • “This is my dream machine. And I can't imagine how it's going to – I need them to make like a 900% improvement in reliability so that I can purchase – this is the machine I would buy the LE of.”

    Co-host (Kale) @ ~5:00-6:00 — Expresses anxiety about American Pinball's reliability for producing his grail game (He-Man); shows emotional investment and skepticism about manufacturer capability

  • “If Jersey Jack made this, I would pay the ridiculous amount. $35,000. Yes, trade in a vehicle for the top of the line. That is how much I love He-Man.”

    Co-host (Kale) @ ~6:30 — Quantifies his passion for He-Man IP; suggests he trusts JJP quality over American Pinball

  • “This is not a disappointment in the gameplay i i enjoy playing godfather right and avengers um also not a not a comment on gameplay, just to comment on earnings.”

    Co-host @ ~17:00 — Clarifies that underperformance was operator/earnings issue, not design flaw; important distinction for game quality assessment

  • “If I was running that podcast, I would have stopped it right there and be like, guys, this is embarrassing. You just have to have the balls to do that.”

    Kale @ ~27:00 — Critiques David Fix and Stephen Bowden's appearance on Loser Kid Podcast for poor audio quality; signals standards for industry professionalism

  • “Let's do this. Let's sound good on the Internet. There you go. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.”

    Kale @ ~30:00 — Summarizes podcast equipment recommendation segment with humor; emphasizes presentation matters in industry media

  • “So there's just a lot of – all of those business relationships are very important. And it's important to be good to those people too.”

    Co-host (Jamie or other co-host) @ ~47:00 — Core operational philosophy: distributor/supplier relationships are critical to successful arcade business

  • “Every time you go into the Trader Joe's, or not every time. If you do it every time, people will go crazy. Yep. But maybe every three months.”

Entities

American PinballcompanyHe-ManproductNAP / Jason Napsperson|organizationGame Room GoodiescompanyZach Maney / Flippin' OutpersonDavid KeatspersonManny's Arcadeperson|organizationLoser Kid PodcastorganizationDavid Fixperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball leadership (David Fix, Stephen Bowden) lacks professionalism in media appearances; poor podcast audio setup signals lack of investment in recovery messaging

    high · Kale's direct observation of Loser Kid Podcast appearance; characterized as 'unlistenable,' 'embarrassing,' using low-end laptop microphone despite company backing by electronics conglomerate

  • ?

    business_signal: Distributor relationships critical to arcade operator success; Game Room Goodies provides above-market service (welding, same-day parts, setup, financing)

    high · Electric Bat operators direct experience and strong partnership; recognized as model distributor relationship

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Scooby-Doo and Monster Bash received positive reception upon floor return/update; code updates improve engagement

    high · Direct operational observation; Scooby-Doo just received code update; Monster Bash is remake LE version

  • $

    market_signal: Inventory rotation drives earnings; Godzilla Pro in Flagstaff location achieved top-10 earnings for first time ever in March 2024

    high · Electric Bat's own earnings data; previously unheard-of achievement for satellite location

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball pricing discussion; inflation-adjusted analysis suggests modern game prices comparable to classic era games in real dollars

    medium · Host performed inflation calculator check on Addams Family, Medieval Madness, etc.; results showed pricing 'pretty close, sometimes under'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.170

0:00
five four three two one lift off lift off and here and here we are all right we're back we're and we're very happy to be back we're here on the pinball couch in the occult room and you are listening to the electric bat cast a pinball podcast about operating a pinball arcade. That is correct. Do you think that's accurate? I feel like that's a good assessment of both where and what we are doing. Good deal. Right on.
0:38
You know, before we got on here, I was reading some pinball news. And I know we don't usually get into pinball news because so many other podcasts do it. Yep. And they do a great job. Yep. And we're filling the void of operating and the business side of it. That's right.
1:03
Something very interesting I read on the NAP website. he seems to think that american pinball has the he-man license and they're going to release a he-man machine seeing as that is i think your grail machine that is your your um are you serious well yeah that yeah i mean i'm serious that i read that um i don't know if it's actually going to happen but i mean he seems to uh think very strongly that american has he man are you okay i feel my heart rate right now this is this is your dream machine can i don't know if people are watching if they can see like the tears forming in my eyes that i'm really trying to not have on camera tell me what's No, I'm being very serious. What's going on in your head right now?
2:12
Devastation. So people that don't know, our bedroom is full of original He-Man cells that I have. We have now. And for those of you who don't know, the cells are the original animation art. Yeah. This is originally what was used to make the show. Right. And you own a bunch of that.

Kale @ ~68:00 — Retail operations principle applied to arcade: rotating inventory keeps players engaged

  • “The journey scarabs on the side i mean it's just a collage of theft right right right collage of fevery yeah devil king”

    Co-hosts discussing Devil King artwork @ ~62:00 — Observes that rare import game art is entirely sourced from other properties; cultural artifact of lower-regulation era

    • Stephen Bowden
    person
    Godfatherproduct
    Avengersproduct
    Queenproduct
    Alienproduct
    Godzilla Proproduct
    Scooby-Dooproduct
    Monster Bashproduct
    Stranger Thingsproduct
    Jurassic Parkproduct
    Rob Burkeperson
    Marco Specialties / Marco Pinballcompany
    Valley Vikingproduct
    Black Feverproduct
    Devil Kingproduct
    Thunderbirdsproduct
  • ?

    personnel_signal: David Fix and Stephen Bowden attempting company recovery at American Pinball; community skeptical about execution capability

    medium · Host commentary: 'they're trying to recover from so many blunders' and questioning whether investment in presentation signals actual commitment

  • ?

    product_concern: Alien pinball games experiencing unexplained malfunction issues across multiple units played by operators

    medium · Direct operator experience: 'everyone we've ever played has some kind of malfunction that the operator cannot really figure out'

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Southern US states (SC specifically mentioned) have legacy anti-gambling laws treating pinball as gambling equipment with prohibitive licensing costs

    high · David Keats email; host personal experience: $200-300 per machine per 2 years in SC; minors under 18 still technically banned from playing pinball in SC (unenforced)

  • ?

    rumor_hype: NAP (Jason Naps) reporting American Pinball has He-Man license and will release He-Man pinball machine

    medium · Host read on NAP website; co-host did not independently verify; skepticism expressed about American Pinball's capability to execute

    • 2:40
    You are one of the biggest He-Man fans I know of. When you were small, you were younger, you were little, and they canceled He-Man, the He-Man cartoon. You freaked out, and your mom wrote the... She wrote a letter. To the network. Yeah. Open letter to the network. She wrote a letter on my behalf because I was too small to write a letter at that time. Okay, so I guess you're not excited because American may be releasing this. And this was your grail. This was your dream machine. This is my dream machine. And I can't imagine how it's going to – I need them to make like a 900% improvement in reliability so that I can purchase – this is the machine I would buy the LE of. This is that machine for me. And to know that it's coming out from a manufacturer that I don't have as much faith in as the other ones is...
    3:56
    I mean, this is one, if Jersey Jack made this, I would pay the ridiculous amount. $35,000. Yes, trade in a vehicle for the top of the line. That is how much I love He-Man. Okay, well, I always like to look at the good side, and it looks like I just saved you a bunch of money. Thanks, Geico. Yeah, yeah.
    4:18
    Wow. Well, maybe let's all do what we can to help American, like, improve. Man, I don't know if... Thoughts and prayers. Wow. Thoughts and prayers. On to the back cast. This is episode 14. Yeah. Moving right along. Wow, did we get a lot of feedback from episode 13. Episode 13 was amazing, right? It was great. We got so many letters, so many emails. I had the most fun doing that one. It was a lot of fun. It was very cool to directly comment on that Reddit thread. And we got more comments on that episode than any other episode.
    5:02
    And thank you for all of your comments, whether it be in social media, Discord, email. We got the longest emails we've ever received before. Many of them. Yeah.
    5:12
    We got one from David Keats and some other folks. Very nice. Great. Yeah, we'll touch on some of that stuff. Just so people that, if this is the first episode or they missed that last episode, the brief synopsis is that it was about people wanting to open up arcades or barcades that... Pinball cafes. Excuse me. Yeah. pinball cafes that may or may not have alcohol without really any experience in that and how that seems to be such a trend. And I will also say that since that episode, we have had even more people come up to us saying virtually the same thing. Hey, I don't have any pinball machines, or I have one pinball machine, and now I'm going to start a business just like yours. And we told them, you need to go re-listen or re-watch episode 13. Yeah. We'd be glad to help anybody out as far as we could do. I mean, we're not going to invest in anybody's arcade, but any knowledge we can pass along, we're fully open. Yeah, we're excited for more arcades. This is not about suppressing people's dreams. It's about being able to do justice to such a cool thing. 100%. Kind of cycles back around to our original topic. Right, right. uh let's get on to the mailbag um but this isn't really the this is more like the irl bag because these are some questions and comments i i got at the arcade okay um this is a really interesting one i don't know the answer to it because you're the one that keeps track of numbers what machines fell short of your expectations Off the top of my head, two. Godfather and Avengers. Interesting.
    7:04
    I'm familiar with Godfather because that was the first Jersey Jack we actually purchased. We had two other ones in there. Those were other people's? That's correct. and um i was really excited we both played it at the same time at game room goodies in their show room check them out game room goodies.com uh that's where we get all our machines and you should too um and we were just blown away yeah it was it's a fun game and to be clear this is not a disappointment in the gameplay i i enjoy playing godfather right and avengers um also not a not a comment on gameplay, just to comment on earnings. Right. So they seem, when they were new, well, we didn't have Avengers when it was new, but I would imagine it would be the same kind of deal with Godfather.
    7:51
    The first month and a half killed it. Yes. And then there was a steep drop. Very steep. Yeah. Godfather's kind of one of those games, it's an acquired taste, I think. Because there are some super fans. There's a lot of depth. There's a lot of depth, yeah. Mm-hmm. Those two. Next question I got at the arcade, will we get ABBA? No. No ABBA? Nope. I have no experience with, what else do they have, Queen? They have Queen and they have Alien. Right.
    8:27
    Alien, super cool game. I like playing it, but everyone we've ever played has some kind of malfunction that the operator cannot really figure out. And we've played Queen a few times at shows, or at least I have. We played Queen when it was released. Over a year ago, like a year and a half ago. At Expo, yeah. And that was fun.
    8:51
    So no ABBA. No ABBA. Okay. This is not a – I have this in the notes because I've been watching a lot of other pinball podcasts. and this is something i want to suggest to everybody um if you're going to be on a podcast get a nice mic and you know and you you don't have to spend i mean this is this is very expensive equipment you know with this hooked up to all that you know it's probably around a thousand bucks uh but there are some incredible usb microphones they're very cheap uh and and the reason i bring this up i've i'm not gonna call anybody out um this is just this is good uh information for whoever is going to be on a podcast and and if you're going to be a guest on a podcast um look into at least a nice usb mic um and there are plenty out there i just in my notes i have one called a Fafine AM8, which... What's Fafine? That's the company. F-I-F? F-I-F-I-N-E. Okay. A great USB budget microphone. I watched two podcasts.
    10:12
    I said I wasn't going to call anybody out, but... What? Okay. No, well, I just... This one was just so horrible when David Fix and Stephen Bowden were on the Loser Kid podcast. And it was almost like comedy. It was just so horrible. I think they were using the camera and the microphone from a very low-end laptop. And especially for these guys, I mean, they're trying to recover from so many blunders. And they just like, it just shows that you just really don't care. I mean, you're a company who has the backing of a gigantic electronics company. Get $500 worth of equipment so you don't look like a couple of rubes, right? Yeah. So basically what you're saying is that if your mic and if your equipment is – don't let your equipment get in the way of your message. Because if all you're hearing is room noise and like staticky stuff, it makes it very hard for people to focus on what you're actually saying. 100%. And I tried to watch this video because I'm interested in what these guys have to say, if they're going to turn things around. And it was just like unlistenable. It was like really bad. And don't be caught up on that. And for you podcasters, educate your guests. You know, I mean, I would have stopped that. If I was running that podcast, I would have stopped it right there and be like, guys, this is embarrassing.
    11:52
    You just have to have the balls to do that. You have both more balls and more technical knowledge about gear than, like, most people combined. You talking about me? You. Oh, okay, yeah. You, Kale. So, what I'm trying to do is imagine myself as kind of the analog half of us. If I was doing like, hey, man, I really want to start a podcast, how much would I have noticed that? How long would it be before I would notice that I like, man, why don't I sound as good as everyone else? What can I do about that? Sure. You know, I have sympathy for the people that don't. So I'm glad that you're kind of showing people like here is one that you can look up on the Internet. Right, this is presentation. This is brushing your teeth, putting on some deodorant, dressing nicely before you go meet somebody. I mean, this is going out to the world. Let's act like it. And it's going to be there for a while. Right, and even if David Fix and Stephen Bowden don't care, the guys from the Loser Kid podcast have been doing this for years. Hey, let's pump the brakes and do this tomorrow. We'll mail you a microphone. I mean, it was that bad. But it's not just them. I listened to two other podcasts from different folks where they had on people from two of the biggest, well, you know, one of the biggest pinball manufacturers out there. Same deal. Like, please get a good USB microphone. They're real cheap. Just go to YouTube and listen to some reviews. The Fofine AM8 is a great one, a great budget one. And if you want to go to the next level without having to spend $1,000, you can always – this microphone has been around forever. When I was touring, this was like a standard, but the Shure SM58. Shure S-H-U-R-E, right? Yeah, SM58. It's a $99 microphone, brand new. I bet you can find it for like used Craigslist or whatever and they built like a tank I mean you could throw them in a box no protection They ready for the road That plus some kind of interface, even just a cheap interface, like a Focusrite or something like that, that's an amazing setup. And you will sound crystal clear. Your voice will have some body. Let's do this. Let's sound good on the Internet. There you go. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. let's get back to pinball but this was about pinball wasn't it yeah it was what we're doing right now um so we this gets on this goes to uh david keats email he sent us a long email like fan of the show um because i think was it on the last episode we were talking about coin drop versus cards we've talked about it so many quarters though um he brings up uh local laws not allowing coin drop or uh taxing it so hard where it just doesn't make sense um i think in his specific example and write in and correct me if i'm wrong but um there there were some areas where uh there there's uh like legacy laws that that still think of uh coin drop stuff and pinball and some amusement stuff as gambling.
    15:30
    So the licensing fees are so incredibly high, it really doesn't make sense. Was this the email where they said that you couldn't have more than two coin machines in a location? Because we did get several emails to this point. That may have been it. So the answer is FreePlay. Right. And then it's not coin drop. Right. Ha-ha. There you go, law. And certainly, like, of course, that makes a lot more sense. For a lot of the southern states, too, still have those laws that make it difficult or impossible to operate profitably. And I don't know if it's still like this, but when we were in South Carolina, I mean, it was like almost like 300 bucks for two years. I was thinking it was 200. Per machine? Yeah. So if we were doing that with 60 machines, I mean, that's just... Well, that's just some of the pinball machines. Right now, just in the Tempe location, there's 75 machines. So that would be $7,500 a year, $15,000 at a time, just to pay for... I mean, you're already starting at negative $15,000 without even any of your equipment costs. And absolutely, that makes no sense. we would 100% be a free play arcade if that were the case for us. Our laws, where we are, is it's $20 a year per machine to license. What a deal. Much better. Love and AZ. Much more reasonable. You know, in South Carolina, it's still illegal for anyone under 18 to play a pinball machine. They still haven't changed that. It's not enforced, but it's on the books. Yeah, they'll get you if they want you. Yeah, if they're looking for you, they'll find you.
    17:18
    We got a really cool question from Manny's Arcade. This was on Instagram. But he also has a cool YouTube channel. Go check him out.
    17:31
    And this goes into the price of pinball. Not like coin drop. The price to purchase. Okay. Is pinball for the 1% now? um well i would consider myself very far from the one percent especially when i started i mean like i'm not even close to one percent um beans and rice kind of stuff ramen yeah like uh but if i was going to be buying brand new machines and paying somebody else to fix them then maybe it is a 1% hobby. But if you're, you know, bring up a cargument, right? Like fix an old beater. Right. I wish I had, when I got this question, I went to an interest calculator. Not interest, I'm sorry.
    18:32
    What's the word I'm looking for? Inflation. Inflation calculator. Thank you so much. I've been on it so much you would think I would remember that. I've been remembering numbers. You've been doing great. Blowing your mind? Yeah. Excellent. Inflation calculator. And I put in – and I wish I had the details. I can't remember what they were. But it all made sense. I put in the original cost, purchase price of like an Addams Family, a Medieval Madness and all that stuff. And we were like – It was pretty close. It was pretty close, sometimes under. Yeah. So, I mean, to think, I think lots of people have the wrong idea about these. These are not NES games. Right. This is not an Xbox. You're purchasing a commercial piece of equipment. Yeah. And the price reflects that. Right. It just happens to be a toy. Right. And a lot of people like, you know, to fill their home arcade with these things. And, man, that's expensive, especially if there's no return on the investment. Right. So if this is a 1% thing now, it's always been a 1% thing, I think. I mean, I knew almost nobody. I will say I didn't know anybody that had a pinball machine or an arcade game in their home until I was in my 30s, I think. So, I mean, this is not a thing that people have ever really had in their homes because it's a commercial piece of equipment.
    20:10
    Right. That's just how it is. I think people complaining about the price of a pinball machine kind of reminds me – it's like people complaining that they can't afford a Viking range. Oh, I'd like to have one of those. Oh, yeah, I would too. But it's like there are – Yeah, expensive things cost. more right and and plus these are this is one of the rare uh industries that was never sent offshore right you know you're still talking it was oh you're talking about with the jetsons thunderbirds oh i'm sorry yeah not jetsons was uh jetsons was spooky right yeah okay yeah i was thinking of thunderbirds sorry sorry spooky you guys are doing good um but uh yeah it was and that was a big flop and people and it just felt cheap and um remember when we played at the pinball museum in banning and the ball came down the habit trail and just stopped because they the the piece of the wire form had not either been cut or formed in a circle so it was going down the sort of circular path and then hit a square yeah so um that's no good made in america let's keep it that way uh yeah and that's another thing that you know that's you're going to get a uh a well-working product. There's also not a hobbyist, like a less expensive home version. I mean, there's like the $500 Costco things and Zizzles and stuff like that, but that's really a poor reflection on the real thing. Sure. So even the home machines, which the less expensive real versions are still incredibly expensive. $4,000 to $5,000. And it's still possible to get cheaper machines, fix them up, send them on their way, upgrade to new ones. Yeah, Classic Pally. Grab one of those, old Gottlieb.
    22:01
    You know, when I was a kid, I actually do remember running into pinball machines. There was just a couple. And it was like always a situation of like a local bar closed and we ended up with it. Stuff like that. Yeah. But it was like I never hung out with people that just had pinball machines in their homes. Yeah.
    22:23
    Cool. I think that sums all that up. It's not really any more for the 1% than it used to be despite – I would say that the 12,000 and plus LEs are maybe for the 1%. But it's an even fancier version of a very fancy thing to begin with.
    22:44
    Right. uh let's move on to questions uh really really good questions from discord from gutter ghoul oh okay gutter ghoul always has these very resident questioner man he has some uh incredible uh questions uh we'll start off with the the first one are there any benefits in having a relationship with a distributor as an operator? Is it discounted pins or a rent-to-own option? Is it just first pass on machines and a familiar face to work with?
    23:20
    Depends on the distributor, right? Some of them you have great relationships with. That reminds me, happy birthday, Zach Maney. Oh, yeah. It was his birthday yesterday. Yeah, happy birthday, buddy. One great distributor. Our distributor, our main distributor, Game Room Goodies, has been fantastic to work with, and they do provide a lot of advantages. They know that we are going to order every machine, so we don't have to call. It's just already done for us. And they have given us, when we first started out, we had some financial options that were very generous that helped us out and made it. So now it's made us very reliable customers of theirs, and so that's worked out well for both of us. And I do like having that relationship. Aaron at Game Room Goodies will weld something for me. If I need some Mandalorian diverter part that day, I can take it down there. He'll weld it for me, and I'll get that machine back on the floor running right away instead of having to wait for that to become in stock somewhere or whatever else. So there's those advantages. I would imagine if we were LE people, having that relationship with the distributors is really important to get your LE allotment, to get yours out of the allotment. Can you think of any other?
    24:48
    Well, just having the relationship, using somebody local so you have some face time with them is super important. But not every distributor is going to be like Game Room Goodies is to us. These guys go above and beyond. And not just to us. Right, not just to us. We've heard them doing some going above and beyond for just regular customers, people that just buy one machine from them. Right. They really do some stuff I have never seen any distributors do. and I think that's why it just makes sense especially if you are in business you have to create a fantastic relationship and I think it's very important to get a local distributor for example with Game Room Goodies they will come and set up the machine for you and lots of times we can't wait and we want to get it so we go pick it up get it two days earlier The repairs, the support.
    25:54
    Parts. All that. But I would say in any business, it's important to have good relationships with all of the people you work with, right? Right. Like, it's not just the distributor that we have good relationships. It's also the parts suppliers. We can call them and say, hey, you don't have this. Can you get it? Right. Let me know. So there's just a lot of – all of those business relationships are very important. And it's important to be good to those people too. And not only the distributor and parts manufacturers, but the manufacturers. Right. Once you get in this business for a certain amount of time, you really get close to their customer service to where you're not having to do support tickets and everything. It's just like you send a text message and the part is in the mail. They know you need to get that machine up and running because you're trying to make money with this thing. And they know that you know a little something about what you're talking about, so they're not going to run you through the basic, did you try turning it off and on again? They're not going through the binder. Right. They're like, this is Cale. He's done this before. This is really not working. We need to do something. Right. Good deal. So this is a good question for you because I think it has to do with the convention. and which you've been on both sides of four sides yeah four conventions and just as a contributor what are the hurdles and benefits are they like merch where it's mostly a marketing investment how much is involved in attending so like if i guess if we were going to to to have like a booth or something. I think that's what he's asking.
    27:43
    Yeah, well, if you're a business, doing conventions, certainly exposure, getting to see a bunch of people, more fun times with people who like the thing you do, introducing new folks to what you're doing. Cost – I'm thinking about cost about us doing – It a mixed bag as far as is it a local convention or do you have to put ten people on an airplane That exactly what I was thinking about The conventions where we are just taking stuff down in a truck you know five miles away from the arcade versus the conventions we used to do on the Marco Specialty side Right. Where it would be us and a bunch of other people exactly on a plane doing pallets on FedEx, all the labor of the 16-hour days. Right. I mean, those were hard, hard days.
    28:43
    Fun, very fun. Sure. But, man, that's exhausting. But I think it's always about putting your face out there and just – it's a celebration, too. Right. And if you're a contributor, just – if you're not a business, if you're a person bringing games to a local convention, it's a way of just sharing, right? It's like having a dinner party where every – like a gigantic potluck with much, much heavier dishes. It's not Tupperware. It's 300-pound pinball machines. Right. You've got to do a little labor bringing the machine and sharing it with the people. But then in exchange, you usually – you get into the convention for free and you get to be a part of it. And that feeling of being a part of something can't be underestimated. It's really cool to feel like these are my people. Look, I did this too. Yeah, absolutely. You get a little badge, a little laminate. You feel good walking around. Yeah. This is something to be proud of. I mean, not the laminate itself. Right, right, right. For sure. And Gutter Ghoul's third question, are there any pins you don't have that you wish you had? Are they just hard to track down, hard to find, unusable shape, or just not a good fit for the arcade?
    30:00
    We've talked about this a little bit. Valley Viking. That's what you want. Jacks to open. Frontier. I would like a Frontier.
    30:10
    Yeah, I don't have any modern games on my wish list. I have all of those that I want. Right. Yeah. You know mine. What's yours? Well, I like the weird import games. I think my grail game is Black Fever. Yeah. I have the back glass. Yeah. I have a beautiful back glass, which you framed for me. I did. I have that in the studio. and uh i like all of those really weird uh what is it like terrific lake terrific lake yeah like rob burke has an amazing collection of these weird import games there are a bunch of cool ones at wormhole so you can see them but they they played on the stream there in texas um yeah so i like all those weird ones and and i actually have one called devil king yes that is mostly working i think the displays last time i plugged it in the displays went out it's probably just a connector um but like i like those those games like those if they were um pop if they were common do you think the rarity how much does the rarity oh it's about the it's totally about the rarity yeah because you just never see them and then when you see them on location you're like oh this is a big deal i'm you know i'm putting a couple of bucks in this one of the cool things about the devil king is how you can see that all of the art was stolen from all different stuff to the point where you see the scan lines in the back glass where somebody scanned the record the coolest thing about devil king artwork like after having the machine we started noticing the art in other places yeah like i'd be like you know some science fiction accounts i'll follow on instagram holy crap this is that art they stole it yeah the journey scarabs on the side i mean it's just a collage of theft right right right collage of fevery yeah devil king so if anybody wants to make me really happy uh let me know where a inexpensive black fever is or terrific lake yeah you know it's the only machine with an eight track that's what i think is very cool is it black fever yeah i didn't know that i know there's plenty of em shooters with eight tracks oh there are others with it um oh the the electromechanical ones yeah they're shooting Okay. But I think this might be the only pinball machine. But if not, viewers, let me know. Write in to electricbadarcade at gmail.com or join the Discord and let's argue about it.
    32:32
    Now, we haven't even mentioned this, you know, and I should have to keep people around. You know, that's what good television and radio does. But we're a little late. You have the earnings report. Yes, the earnings report. I was wondering, like, where is he going with this? Because I really don't know. You have this all kind of... I'm the producer. You're just here for the ride. I just follow along. What month is this for? This is for March of 2024.
    33:02
    Do you want to start at 10? I think you should start at 10. I'm running the show. Okay. Can you do that? I can. Okay.
    33:11
    Anything you want to preface this piece? We'll call it a segment. A segment. Do you want to preface this segment with anything?
    33:21
    Well, this has some interesting numbers, if not for the very first one, which is number 10. Now, we keep track of earnings for both the Flagstaff location and the Tempe location. The Tempe location is the flagship, not to be confused with Flagstaff.
    33:40
    It's the main location. This is where we have all the tournaments. This is where the big parties happen. This is where the earnings are made. This is where the magic happens. However, this month, a Flagstaff machine made it into the top ten. For the first time? For the first time ever. I mean, it's never even been close. Okay. I don't know why. What is it? Godzilla. Godzilla Pro. Yeah. In Flagstaff. Yeah. First time to make the list here. The top ten. Yeah. How about that? I mean, who knows?
    34:19
    Number nine, Scooby-Doo is back on the floor, and people were happy to see it. Scooby-Doo, cool machine. It's a lot of fun. Right. And it's big. It's beautiful. It's a wide body. And it just got a code update, and I know a lot of people were excited about that. Yes. I've only played it once since the code update, but I would like to sink into it. but good job, Spooky, for making the earnings report. Yeah.
    34:48
    Another game that just got put back onto the floor, Monster Bash. Okay. That's number eight? That's number eight. Yeah. So anytime a machine goes away for a minute, people are happy to see it come back. Yeah. And that's a good lesson for operators. Absolutely. If you do have inventory, switch it around. Rotate it. I mean, that's kind of like retail 101. Right. Keep things fresh. Every time you go into the Trader Joe's, or not every time. If you do it every time, people will go crazy. Yep. But maybe every three months. They'll put the bananas in a different place. Yeah. Swap it out. Make people look for it, and then they'll find some other things that they like. There you go. And this is a Monster Bash. I believe it's a remake LE. Cool. Yep. Beautiful machine. Yeah. Another great looking machine. our cash game of the month last month was stranger things it comes in at number seven anytime you can incentivize somebody to play a game they that game will make more money so um lo and behold i love that and this month's uh cash game is stern's jurassic park yes yeah yes it is yep and so head to electric bat arcade find jurassic park drop in two credits and hit that glowing tournament button for your chance to win some money. I think it's at about like $65 right now. I didn't check it yesterday, but yeah, it's getting up there. And Jurassic Park is a great game to do it on because by now everybody knows at least the basics of what you're going to do. They know the rules and there's different strategies. Yeah, and people like to get into that. Cash game, real quick. How does it work? uh so first you have to purchase a tournament button right and you can get that from marco specialties they get uh yep get uh valued uh sponsor of the show go to marco pinball.com or marcospecialties.com i think they both are wrapped to the same place somewhere around there and uh pick up square tournament yep or call their customer service and and ask them for it because i know there's a couple of different versions and there was one that worked on sam but wouldn't work on spike but would work on both and i can't has to do with the size of the spade connectors that's right that's right but call customer service just to make sure you're getting the right one get the tournament button it's very easy to install there's already a hole in the cabinet if you look below the start button there's a little like a plastic plug you just pop that out put your tournament button in connect it up it comes with uh instructions um it's very quick It takes me less than five minutes. Right. And then you go into your settings, and you find it's called... Tournament. Tournament, yeah. And then you can set it up from there. And we choose to do the high score. It defaults to something called bump and win. We never do that. High score is what makes sense. And it works for us. And people, not only do people love it, but they end up making money. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. For us, the winner averages about $50, sometimes up to $75, depending on how popular it is. And we do the top three. You can set it to whatever number of people you want. Right. And this works on Stern Machines, Spike 2, Spike 1, Sam, and I think White Star. Wow. I think. I don't know about that, but I wouldn't be surprised. It's been around for a really long time. It has. For something that you don't, I think it didn't get the promotion that it should have when it first became a feature. You remember when you buy the kit back in the day, it came with the sign, the topper. Yeah, the little topper that says tournament play. And so many people thought that that set up a button to put your game into tournament play, which would traditionally take away the randomness of a game and all this stuff. But that's not the case. This is a whole separate thing. It's a whole separate thing.
    38:59
    Number six. This one is kind of a mistake now that I'm looking at it because I didn't actually take earnings from part of the month before because the game was off the floor.
    39:11
    Ghostbusters. Oh. So really, that's probably as I adjusted my head, the numbers real quick. That was number 10. Everything else is pushed up. Oh, OK. But now, Gus.
    39:23
    Yeah. OK, I got you. I'm following you. Number five. Now we're into the traditional top five. This one blows my mind. Number five is Venom. Cool. Yeah. People came back to it. What do you think that was about? Because I've noticed more people playing that, and it's showing up on streams more in tournaments. I think that's probably your answer, right? We have a lot of people who enjoy tournaments, and that's a game that they maybe haven't spent so much time with. Right.
    39:57
    And it's popular again. Right. And it's a very cool – like, it was in the finals of our most recent tournament. Yeah. The series finale. And it was cool to see people's strategies, because you can do so many different things with this. Are you going to just go ahead and knock out the two-ball, multi-ball, and get some quick points? Are you going to build it up? Do a six-ball, yeah. Yeah, it goes all the way to like a six-ball multiball. I don't have the faith in my abilities to do that. Oh, no. If you give me a two-ball multiball, I'm going to play it.
    40:28
    I've never seen you pass up a multi. Aerosmith, all those. You don't ever delay the multiball. Yeah, so solid game. And for that tournament series, congratulations to Roland. Once again. Is that five in a row for him? Five in a row. Five, somebody come down here and give him some competition. I know we had Colin was in town recently playing some games. We need to get him to move out here because I know there's, I think, a satellite office for his job here. We need somebody to come out here and give Roland some competition.
    41:04
    He's so good. He is so good. And it wasn't a runaway win. People are giving him competition, but he's just got that special touch that's able to pull it out. um numbers three and four were virtually tied but in fourth place is elton john people are loving this machine another beautiful game still and this is is this month three for elton yes okay so it's still earning well still earning well very well um and then basically tied with that but just slightly more uh godzilla premium godzilla premium how about that godzilla is a game that it's almost hard to keep the glass clean because every time you're going around like taking care of stuff there's always somebody on it like well i'll come back to that you go and come back there's somebody else on it it would almost be worth it to buy another one And so you just like, you keep one in the back clean, you know, with a fresh flipper rebuild, new rubbers and everything. And then you pull it out. You take the old one out, put it in place and then put the other one back in the shop for an overhaul. Yeah.
    42:20
    It a spectacular game People love this game It great Number two Jaws Number two Jaws Yes Wow Not number one? Nope. Okay.
    42:35
    Really not even close to number one. Okay. I mean, still, like, huge earnings relative. So Jaws is doing it up. Jaws is doing fantastic.
    42:45
    This is no slight on Jaws. It's doing amazing. But in the number one spot. Here we go. Drum roll. Are we about to hear number one? It is a BMF. Oh. Pulp Fiction. I almost forgot about this game. Man. So Pulp Fiction is number one. It did not break the Elton John earnings, but something to note. Okay, so Elton John, for those of you who may be listening for the first time, Elton John holds the record for one month. For the highest month of all time earnings. So for its first month, it did record-breaking earnings. Still earning very well.
    43:25
    But the difference between the two is that Elton John is on straight dollar play. Pulp Fiction is on three for two.
    43:35
    So as I'm looking at the numbers, the amount of difference between Elton John's first place and Pulp Fiction's best month to date, which this is its first complete month,
    43:51
    that math accounts for that difference. So it would have been, I think, play count, it's a tie. That is fascinating. And Pulp Fiction is a fantastic machine. Yes. The applause go out to Mark Ritchie, Josh Sharp, and all the other folks that brought that thing to us. Yeah.
    44:17
    Stable machine. Yeah. I mean, we haven't had any issues with it other than, you know, just regular pinball maintenance stuff. Yeah. Which I guess I wouldn't call those issues. That's just life. Wear and tear. That's life of the silver ball. Colin showed us the flipper, the secret flipper. Yeah. Get the Ezekiel mode going. Yeah, yeah. That was cool. Display. Not really a mode. Yeah. Yeah, that was very cool.
    44:46
    Yeah. Very cool. And you mentioned something to me earlier today that this was the first time you had four machines in one month making like four digits. I don't know how you put it. I know you don't like to talk exactly about what kind of the numbers are. And we can touch on that, too, but what was the deal? You had three huge earners. Four huge earners.
    45:21
    Because usually we'll have one or two machines, and then those are the new machines, and then there's kind of the normal drop-off. Right, right.
    45:31
    We had four incredible earning machines, and then kind of the normal taper from there. Pinball's growing. Yeah. Yeah, it's insane. The only conclusion that really you can come to is that there's just more people playing. Yeah, yeah. And what I was talking about for exact numbers, we had a comment on YouTube on one of the podcasts or videos, whatever you want to call it.
    45:59
    He wanted to know why we didn't give out exact numbers because this particular episode was an earnings report from about two months ago. And I asked you, and you had a great response. I think it might be time to let this person know or anybody else know. Why don't you give out exact numbers? Was my response because that was gauche? Well, it was partially that, but it was also. It really depends on your area and what your community is. want to give people the wrong idea like and and like because if they weren't making exactly as much as we are on one machine we didn't want you to be let down because there's so many variables tons of variables and we can talk about that even right now because we had we have machine overflow right the floor is full the back room is full and we're running out of space so it just so happened that um these manufacturers need to slow down is what's going on take seriously take your time Yeah, no rush from us. No rush.
    47:06
    So a pool hall across the parking lot, we put a couple of machines in. And we haven't done any advertising. We're not having any events. There's just three machines over there. It's just essentially three machines on location. And this is great for us because it's just across the parking lot. Yeah, we can just walk over there. So the interesting parts to compare are that you have the exact same area, right? It's a few hundred feet away. different businesses, different business models, different things going on, and we have earnings numbers. This will be our first full month, so we'll know more. But we've seen in three weeks what's happened, and it's virtually nothing. So the difference between having a couple of games at a bar versus having an arcade that you put your blood, sweat, and tears into, you market, you're there every day, and that people can really get into makes a huge difference. So earnings reports are going to be just very different based on even that kind of information.
    48:16
    So, yeah, we don't want people to have either too high or too low of expectations depending on where they are and what they're doing. So I think relative earnings is a much more valuable thing. thing everything else is just kind of what's your salary right it's it's it's interesting but it's not it's not helpful right right another just a plus response from rachel best thank you very much that was very good you know when we um and we just put those three machines it's that it's not the q and brew yeah if you're in town that's how we make more money go to the q and brew put some money in our machines but uh so there's the marketing for it yeah um but it's really more like storage and it's really close by and plus what i really like is people are coming to tournaments going hey uh where did godfather go oh it's it's right across the street they're like oh cool so now they can go over there grab a beverage and which is cool because our our you know our business partners own that so everybody can uh take advantage of of this yeah and it makes It's a good spot for non-tournament games that are still fun. Like we put Whodunit over there because a lot of people love that game. Right. It's not great for tournaments. So we didn't want to have, you know, we only have room for so many non-tournament games on the floor. Yeah. So, yeah, good solution. Extra space. And that's what's up. Fantastic. Did you know that whenever we put the machines over at the QM Brew, there were some pinball machines over there. and there's an operator who's slowly getting out of the business he's been around since that's where i'm getting with this so so the machines that were over there there were some electromechanical machines um and he's just kind of winding down into jukeboxes and things that make that make more money than a pinball machine vastly more money than a pinball machine and he had been operating pinball machines in the queue in brew and this is a friend of ours this is somebody we No, so it wasn't like us pushing somebody out.
    50:25
    He's been operating there since 1967. Absolutely. Isn't that the same operator? Can you imagine what he's seen? Oh, my gosh. All the new in-box games. We talk about it. So he bought a bunch of the original Bally's and always bought a second NOS Playfield. So he has all these Bally's in his warehouse with still NOS Playfields, and I'm working on that. Yeah, we need to go check that out. I know he's getting out of the business, and I'm going to get into those. Very good. Right on. Well, I think that's all we have for today. Do you have anything else going on?
    51:03
    I don't have anything else going on. Tournaments, events? Tournaments and events. Every Tuesday, same old, and they're getting bigger and bigger. We love that. And Chewy's All Classics Bounty Knockout Tournament is the final Sunday of the month. So that's a couple of weeks away still. Good deal.
    51:24
    I think those are all going to be an absolute blast. And I will definitely show up. A real peach of a time. I'll tell you what. Right on. Well, thank you all for joining us. If you want to get in touch with us, you can hit us up on, you can DM us on Instagram. you can send us an email electricbadarcade at gmail.com and also make sure when you go to your local arcade, log in to Stern Insider Connected we're using it all the time, we're getting all these very cool badges, download the app, check out which badges are happening right now put your name on the leaderboard we have our leaderboard at the arcade and everybody always checks that out before they choose what game, because they want to knock each other off. Yes. You know, right now we have Faye at the top on Jaws. No, she got beat by Nate. Nate beat Faye. Nate came in. Nate Snake. Nate the Snake came in. Snake Faye. Beef fatality. How about that? So we have Nate, Faye, and then Colin McAlpine. That's what's up on Jaws, as far as I know. We have weeks left. Go to Electric Bat, log in to Stern Insider Connected, and beat those folks, man, because they put up over a billion. Well over a billion. Each one's over a billion. That was a lot of fun. I do have one personal plea. Like, if there's anything that I can do to help American make a better, like, just if there's... Are we still on the He-Man thing? You have no idea what this is. Like, this is all that's going through my head right now. And I truly want to be helpful in any way that I can. If there's any kind of testing that can be done, any kind of like just trying to work out code, any kind of anything. Okay, so it looks like – actually, this is good because we're not ending the podcast right now. We're trying to fix American Pinball.
    53:24
    No, and I've heard you say this before. When we got such a horrible copy of Galactic Tank Force, I mean, they're all pretty bad. But ours was just unusable. Yeah, our first one was a lemon. You were actually getting in touch with them going, let me help you make this a better game. And that's a wash. And then they came out with the barbecue game, which is horrible.
    53:49
    You want to help them with He-Man. I'll help them with any of them. I want these games. Even as a consultant? For free. Sign NDAs all day long. um the i think i think a big they're really living in a bubble and not listening to anybody else um which is really sad because i've i don't know you you remember we uh we've hung out with steve bowden good like after after hours hot tub action he understands what a good game is and i think he's been he's a nice guy he's an amazing guy which may be part of the problem right and i think he's just in this bubble of what we're doing is is fine or you know maybe just his niceness is not allowing him to say guys we need to we need to make a left turn here yeah so get in touch with rachel guys she really wants to help you out and and make all this better you could be the person that turns this company around you'd be the hero of the story i want to be the Skeletor.
    54:56
    But that is a very serious offer. If there's anything that I can do with location stuff, I mean, anything to help, let's get these mechs working. I can't recode your games for you, but I can tell you where they're messing up. Yeah, good deal. What a nice offer. I love He-Man so much.
    55:18
    I want to see you happy when you get a He-Man one way or another. Okay. Well, good deal. I think we're done here. We're done. And thank you for listening, watching, all that good stuff. We will see you guys around.
    55:36
    Check our Instagram. Yeah. Facebook. And you know how to get in touch with us. The Discord's a great place for pinball discussion. And I would say the bats are out. The bats are out.
    55:49
    What a good episode. I had a great time with you. This was good. Yeah. This was good. I like the new area. The He-Man thing really threw me for a loop. I didn't know that. I should read more news, I guess. I'll tell you what. I'll pull up the article and you can read it. Tell me what you think. I've got to help these people. We'll take it to the Discord. Oh, wow.
    56:11
    I have like a merman statue on our water bottle. You want to keep going? Oh, sorry. No, I'm down with it. No, no, no. I'm down with it. You're going to put your little toys in there. You're going to have a good time. You're going to be doing your He-Man codes, some Easter eggs. Oh, man. I hope they don't screw this one up.
    56:31
    You're going to make me cry.