DPP #66 "Pinball bargains! Spooky streams! New games at expo hype!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·28m 17s·analyzed·Sep 1, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Spooky streams, Stern production updates, market saturation, and Expo speculation.

Summary

Don Garrison discusses Spooky Pinball's weekly Twitch streams featuring Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle and upcoming Rick and Morty content, reports on Stern's Venom Pro production launch and a production gap in November-December, analyzes secondary market saturation for Foo Fighters and Bond 60th depreciation, and speculates on potential game announcements at the upcoming Pinball Expo in October.

Key Claims

Spooky Pinball has three games in production right now
high confidence · Don Garrison citing information from factory visit and Spooky Luke's stream comments
Spooky's next unreleased game has a production run size that 'may surprise us'
high confidence · Spooky Luke's direct statement in stream comments, reported by Don
Scooby-Doo is planned for 1,969 collector's edition units
high confidence · Don Garrison citing Spooky Pinball statements on stream
Spooky is currently building at 28 games per week, over 100 per month
high confidence · Don Garrison reporting production capacity metrics
Stern Venom Pros were entering production on September 1st, 2023
high confidence · Don Garrison citing production schedule information
There are 26 Foo Fighters premiums currently listed for sale on Pinside Marketplace
high confidence · Don Garrison checking Pinside marketplace the night before recording
Bond 60th was a limited edition of 500 machines sold for $15,000-$20,000 MSRP
high confidence · Don Garrison analyzing secondary market data
Spooky Pinball is streaming Rick and Morty at Don Garrison's Game Dungeon on Saturday at 5 p.m. Central Time
high confidence · Don Garrison announcing upcoming stream event

Notable Quotes

“they're going to stream Rick and Morty here on Saturday at 5 p.m. Central Time. Holy garbage, man. I better let my wife know. We've got to get things spiffed up around here.”
Don Garrison @ mid-episode — Excitement about hosting Spooky Pinball's stream at his home venue
“the edition size of this next game...may surprise us”
Spooky Luke (via Don Garrison) @ early-mid episode — Hints at unusual production strategy for unreleased Spooky title
“Somebody pulled the topper off, was planning on selling that for $2,000 or something, and then a $14,000 game”
Don Garrison @ market analysis section — Illustrates secondary market fragmentation and topper value separation
“I wouldn't be surprised to see something revealed from Stern at Expo in October next month”
Don Garrison @ Expo speculation section — Speculation about Stern filling November-December production gap with new game announcement
“What I am excited about, though, is this guy is doing some outside-of-the-box thinking here. There's going to be a topper with elements, and it's going to be an LCD screen”
Don Garrison @ Pinball Adventures section — Enthusiasm for innovative topper technology in Elements game

Entities

Don Garrisonperson Bugperson Spooky LukepersonSpooky PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyPinball Brotherscompany Chicago Gaming Companycompany

Signals

?
content_signal: Spooky Pinball establishing weekly Twitch streaming presence with Bug; expanding to new venues (Don's Game Dungeon); combining gameplay demonstration with production storytelling and Q&A
high · Bug streaming Alice Cooper weekly; Rick and Morty stream announced for Saturday at Don's venue; giveaways and community engagement integrated
$
market_signal: Significant inventory glut of recent releases on Pinside Marketplace; Foo Fighters (26 premiums listed), Bond 60th ($5,000-$6,000 depreciation); new releases cannibalizing older game demand
high · 26 Foo Fighters premiums on Pinside; Bond 60th dropped from $20k MSRP to $12,999; marketplace showing steep discounts vs. launch pricing
?
product_strategy: Spooky Pinball teasing unusual production sizing for next unreleased game; speculation on whether pullback (niche theme) or expansion (open run) is planned
medium · Spooky Luke: edition size 'may surprise us'; Don's analysis of two scenarios: smaller run (1,500) vs. open production vs. 5,000+ run
?
manufacturing_signal: Stern's new factory enabling increased capacity; Venom Pros entering full production run (not just initial burst); Spooky scaling to 28 games/week (100+/month)
high · Venom Pros in production Sept 1; initial run expanded due to factory capacity; Spooky at 28 games/week vs. prior slower pace
?
announcement: Pinball Expo (October, Schaumburg) anticipated to host multiple manufacturer game announcements; Stern, Pinball Brothers, Jersey Jack, Pinball Adventures, Chicago Gaming all rumored for reveals

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.085

0:00

Oh man, it's time again. Can you feel it? It's time for Don's Pinball Podcast. We've got episode number 66 here. We've got Stern Production updates. We've got news and rumors that I'm going to cover. We've got some information from Spooky Pinball from the stream last night. I've got all of that information and more. Let's get hyped.

0:30

The time has come. Execute order 66. Yes, my lord. Hey, what's going on, everybody? My name is Don Garrison. I have a pinball podcast, and I thought, you know what? Today, I wanted to do an episode, so that's what I'm going to do, because that's what I do here for you. When I have information that I want to share, when I want to hear the sound of my own voice, when I want to record, I do a show, and I put it out for y'all. So what's up, listeners? Thank you. I'm here only due to your efforts, and I have some information to get through today here. So did anybody catch the spooky pinball stream from last night? Bug is doing a weekly stream on Twitch, and it's fantastic. He can do giveaways. He plays through the spooky games. And what I like about his streaming is that he's actually able to share tales from the production of the game. And then at the end, he also does a Q&A session, which is fantastic. And we did get some interesting little tidbits out of that last night. So they were streaming Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle, the spiritual successor to the cool layout that Scooby-Doo has. The upper play field, the castle sculpts, all that business. A little bit of a brutal game, but, like, what a great theme integration for Alice Cooper. If you're at least a tangential fan of that game or that artist, I mean, what a fun thing it is. I did a little history with Alice Cooper. I went to one of his haunted houses back in Phoenix back in the day. And St. Clown Posse was inside the haunted house, and you got to meet and greet them. It was a fantastic thing. So thanks for throwing that together, Alice. Anyway, a game that's been on my radar, a fun game to play, a great stream to watch, man. He was doing his best at blowing this game up way better than I ever had. Heck, I didn't even know they had that little magnet between the flippers there that throws the ball upfield. So in the process, though, of watching the stream, Spooky Luke was in the comments as well. And, you know, I've alluded to it before. I was just at the factory talking to these guys. You know, they've got three games or so in production right now. They've been able to cop to that. People have been drilling me for information and rumors regarding their next title, and they are tight-lipped. And I'm not pressing them too hard about it. When they get ready for it, they'll get ready for it. I don't have any insider information on their next game, other than the fact that these guys are very excited about revealing it, which makes me excited to have it revealed to me so I can see what the heck it is. But what he did allude to there is that the game is finished as far as, you know, the layout shots, probably code is well along. It's probably ready to be released once they are ready to release it. So that is one thing that's exciting for us. The other thing he did mention, this was new, was that I did ask them, like, you know, have you already decided on the production numbers of this next game, that's still in flux. I figured they'd feel comfortable releasing that, and they did. Well, they said that, yes, they do know the edition size of this next game, and it may surprise us. So let's extrapolate on that a little bit. That can mean one of really two things. Either they're going to pull back the numbers that they're going to release, maybe do a run of another 500 games or 750 instead of just continue to expand on their numbers, or they're going to go the opposite direction, and this is going to be much larger. You know, a 5,000 run or something would seem a little out of character for Spooky. But maybe instead of just saying it's going to be like a huge edition number, what if this is the first Spooky title, other than Total Nuclear Annihilation, that has an open run, open production run, where it's not capped? You know, how about that? Are they going to do anything changing the breakdown of the collector's edition versus Bloodsuckers versus standard edition? You know, I've kind of asked them that before recently. They said, no, they do like having their kind of, you know, open edition selections and you choose within, you know, that build, you know, how many of whatever they'll be will be based on demand, which is nice. But, yeah, so it could be one of those things. So would they come out with a game that's maybe a little more niche, you know, maybe something that they don't expect to do gangbusters and do over 2,000 machines, you know, whether that be something like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre or a horror film, you know, or an Evil Dead or a Toxic Avenger or something like that, where, you know, yeah, it'll have its fans, but they're not expecting to sell 2,000 of them, and maybe that's why they'll pull back for this one. Maybe because they have three games in development, they kind of want to get to those other games, and they're like, hey, this is a great theme. We really want to make it. We're really passionate about it. We think it'll be a fun game. It may not be the commercial smash of a Scooby-Doo would be. So let's release this one now, and then let's go into, you know, a nine-month build cycle and then go to our next one. You know, so that would favor, you know, the smaller production size, if that's kind of what he was alluding to there. Otherwise, if they're going to go for bigger or for open, maybe that will be the surprise. So we'll see. I think I'm leaning towards maybe this one being less than the 1969 edition of Scooby-Doo's, the 1,969 that they're planning on having for that edition size. Speaking to that, they were also saying that they're going to go ahead and build Scooby-Doos until they meet the demand, plus some, and then they'll go on to their next game. So I'm taking it from that to mean that they're not necessarily planning on building all 1,969. Now, they haven't released how many they've sold, but I've got to imagine with how quickly they're building, they're 28 games a week, over 100 a month now, and they're in the 900 range, they probably have another four or five months of build. That would put them at around 1,500 to 1,600 games sold, which for them, that would be kind of the largest edition size that they've done so far. And they have said that they are happy with the numbers of where they're at. You know, so maybe they don't have to build all 1,969 to be successful for this project. And that may leave them some room in the licensing for a future run down the road, which would give them some flexibility, some ability to pivot. If, you know, they were ready to build their next game and their next game wasn't quite ready to come out, they could pivot and run another 100 or so, you know, Scooby-Doos, or build them in parallel like they've been doing with Total Nuclear Annihilation. So that was interesting. Back to the stream itself, they were giving away Alice Cooper translights and T-shirts.

6:37

Squirrel Morgan was there in the chat, too, helping coordinate all that. So, you know, what a fun stream. You know, watching Bug play for 90 minutes Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle and getting to modes that I've never seen just because of his familiarity and just all-around general better pinball skill than I have. But also people were, you know, guessing what his score would be. And then whoever got closest without going over, Bob Barker rules, got themselves a Translight. So that was fun So check it They going to do a weekly stream of this All right Also they announced something interesting They announced that they going to stream their next game Rick and Morty this Saturday So sooner than a week So there's another cool stream coming up. Also, they're having a change of venue. They're actually coming to my house, Don Garrison's Game Dungeon, to stream Rick and Morty. They're going to stream my Rick and Morty here on Saturday at 5 p.m. Central Time. Holy garbage, man. I better let my wife know. We've got to get things spiffed up around here. But yes, the Spooky Pinball folks are now coming to the Don Garrison Memorial Worldwide Broadcasting Headquarters of Don's Pinball Podcast to the game Dungeon to stream Rick and Morty. That's going to be fantastic. So look for that on Twitch. Look for that at 5 p.m. Central Time this Saturday, Memorial Day weekend. It's a blowout, everybody. So I'm excited to have the house guests come by and we'll have everything spoofed up and working in good condition. And also, may I remind you, gentle listener, that I do have one of those rumored fabled Jerry ramps installed on my Rick and Morty. So if you want to get some live stream action of what it's like playing Rick and Morty with that special access tunnel built in through the Jerry target up to the portal, come check it out. I think it's awesome and adds a lot of fun gameplay. I can't wait to get their take on it. Apparently, they haven't been able to play one yet. So we're all very excited for that. So yay, Spooky. There's some more information for you. Okay. So what else has been going on? I was scrolling the interwebs last night through the socials, and Pinball Brothers made a post where they're celebrating their new release queen, trying to drum up some support and keep it relevant. And so they posted a picture of somebody's machine where they had taken some little queen action figures and put them up on the top of the back box, like some people do. It's fun to decorate our games. And then that led to a discussion on people saying, oh, good, maybe this is a rumor that the queen topper is coming. And somebody else was like, oh, yeah. hey, by the way, I wouldn't mind an alternative Translate because the one that shipped with it is kind of plain to me. And then there was just all these, like, you know, comments and suggestions from Queen owners and other, you know, pinball fans and things. And then finally Pinball Brothers was like, all right, we're taking all this into consideration. We're writing it all down. So, you know, maybe they'll get going on some accessories for Queen. I mean, who doesn't love a good topper? Hopefully they have one that's already been in development and they're not scrambling to throw one together. But are we going to see a Queen topper come from the Pinball Brothers? would be interesting, of course. Who doesn't like an alternative Translight? You know, that does go back to, you know, licensing, I think, hampers that a bit because anything you decide to do, however cool it is, has to be approved by the license holder. And, you know, what they have now is art that's already been known to be approved, so that's probably why they went with it. So it's kind of fun seeing, you know, Pinball Brothers say, like, okay, we're writing all this down, you know, we want to get to this. So it would be nice to see them to, you know, persist and bring out accessories and things that are interesting and relevant for the people that have the Queen Pinball machine. I'm going to get more to Pinball Brothers here in a bit when we get to the Expo Talk. Now, what else? Let's go with Stern. Everybody loves a Stern Production Update. So what's going on today, September 1st, 2023? Well, at the new Stern Factory, Venom Pros are supposed to be being put together today. Today is the day, unless something changed or I misheard, that the Venom Pros are in production for locations right now. So we also heard it rumored that instead of just doing these short little burst runs that they do initially with a cornerstone release and then going on for, you know, a more robust run later, they're going to go ahead and beef up this run now. So they might run all of the initial pros right now, not just the ones for locations. And that may be due to the increased capacity they have at this new factory and maybe due to the simplicity of the Venom design. But we will be seeing pros go out soon. So if you've got a pro on order, if you've got a location, there's probably going to be a Venom showing up, like, maybe this week. Like Tuesday, you might have a machine to go play at your local location. So that is exciting. New pinball is always fun. So there will be Venom pros out on location with seven days or less, man. If they're running off the line today, they're going into boxes. And, you know, Kingpin's probably already got their U-Haul backed up to the loading dock waiting to take one of these first builds out to location in Madison. So we will look for that this weekend. so that'll be exciting Memorial Day release how fun new pinball following that in well it is September the next few weeks once they're finished with the initial runner pros they're going to run all their LEs and get those out are they going to run all 1,000 do they sell all 1,000 I've seen some available from distributors a couple of those you know one left but you know I will see the LEs run out and then the premium buyers which I include myself in I can't wait to get this game with this new approach to the code where you can build up your experience levels, play through the game, unlock a character, play through the game again, unlock a character, do it a third time, and then say, okay, now it's time to offer this one up for sale because it'll be time for the next game. So there's our production updates for what's going on with Stern Pinball. Still to be questioned, however, is the opening in November and December. Now, initially, it must have been just only three months ago, the production schedule was calling for a run of Deadpools, a run of Star Wars prior to Christmas, some Godzilla premiums and then i think some bonds as well for that november december region then a lot of that got booted over to january in q1 2023 or 2024 opening up a big hole for november and most of december where i think the only thing remaining now is the godzilla premium run in december so uh there's going to be another game from stern and they haven't announced yet what it is when will they announce what it is well probably at expo i'll get to that in a moment um but uh that looks like what we can expect from star i think we're going to see another new game from Stern. I don't think it would be a cornerstone. It may be another boutique title. But let's get to talking about the pinball market in general. That's a good segue for that. So I was playing around on pin side and looking at the market. And you know, there's a lot of new games coming out, which is a great thing for the hobby. But you know, you reach a point where you need to sell one to get one. And that's kind of where I'm at. I'm looking over there at Foo Fighters down the line. A fun game. It's modded pretty well. I like it. I'm still waiting on some lights and things, but it may become time to flip this game. And I'm not the only one thinking that. I was on the Pinside Marketplace last night, and I was pretty shocked that there are currently 26 Foo Fighter premiums listed for sale on Pinside right now. Now, over the last year, you know, for new Cornerstone releases like this, you would see some pop up from distributors, you know, New in Box, MSRP, and then a couple here and there, you know, hey, I modded this out. Here it is for 500 bucks more if you don't want to wait. but now like people are dumping these things the the market is fairly saturated with foo fighter premiums if you want to get one so if you didn't get one at launch and you're looking for a deal um right now rather than msrp i mean you could slide in and get one for a slight discount maybe even with a couple of modifications to it and i think that speaks to the fact that this game came out we've all played it and we're looking at these new games that are coming um you know pulp fiction will be coming soon um scooby's out right now at a deal uh you know there's a lot of other new game releases right around the corner that we're anticipating. So, yeah, the market has definitely changed from where it was even three months ago. And just for funsies I went over and looked at the Bond 60th edition Now that was a limited edition of 500 machines that were made They were sold for MSRP on Stern site with tax and shipping And then it was called for price for distributors. I think they were paying around $15,000 is a rumor I heard. And then it was just kind of get what you can get for it. Initially, when it was announced, I was getting offers on the sly for about $17,500 from distributors that would pocket them about $2,500 cash just for doing the drop shipping.

17:11

You know, but Bond 60th is a fun game. If you missed it the first time around because the price was absurd, you can now pick one up for a song. you know we used to joke back in the day about the 10k by Christmas right you know the idea there being that games were selling for much less than that and it would be ridiculous to see a pinball machine go for $10,000 or more but now I think you know are we going to see Bond 60th 10,000 by Christmas you know well there'll be a liquidation sale at the end of the year where people are selling these things for sub $10,000 where is this game going to end up and I think we're going to get an idea of that in the next six to nine months of where this game's going to do long term are these going to be trading for 85 8900 just like a certain premium like foo fighters is right now is that the value of the game that's what we'll have to wait and see but yeah it was interesting seeing that if you want this game and you miss it the first time around you can go and pick one up it's still a cool game to play and at that price you know i mean i wouldn't be bad at you right 12 999 or best offer for this game complete with the topper. I mean, you got to think, uh, you know, that may be worth going on, um, for certain folks. Okay. Let's get the fun stuff. Now we are in the Eve now that is September of fall of spooky season of pinball expert expo Schaumburg, Illinois. I was trying to spit out too many words at once there. Um, so, uh, well I'm getting hype for expo, man. Um, there's a ton of events that are going to be going on a panel discussion that I'm involved in. Um, I'm in a wildly different position than I was just a year ago at this time, and I went to my first Expo. So very excited for that. What games are we going to see released at Expo? Are we going to see games released at Expo? Yes, dear listener, I'm here to confirm the rumors and say that, yeah, we're going to see something. What exactly isn't quite clear yet, but let's do the speculation game because that is what we do around here. So running down the list, we've got one month. Yeah, next month. Expo's next month, middle to end of the next month. We will probably see, according to the rumors, Pinball Brothers may have their next game, their follow-up to Queen. I remember a year ago, Queen was just released. They had it set on only two balls to try to get through as many people as possible to play the game. That's the only place I've been able to play it so far. But are they going to be ready to release their next game? And what is it? Now they partnered with Pedretti Gaming. Are we going to see the remakes now from them? Are we going to see a brand new IP? Are we going to see them do something classic? I haven't heard rumors of what quite they have coming out yet, but there is some rumors gaining traction that Pinball Brothers may be ready for their follow-up to Queen to release at Expo. They've got the new production facilities. They've done a lot over the last year as far as, you know, the outlook and the change in the makeup of the company, you know, where they've partnered, their production facilities and everything. So, yeah, that would be very interesting to see which game they're going to put Chrome Ramps in next, right, dear listener? So we got Pinball Brothers up. Stern has that big production hole in November December and you know if you were Going to throw a game into production in November Put them in boxes and get them out into arcades I kind of think that late October Would be a great time to release it So you know classically we haven't seen Stern Really stick to conventions At least not in the last two or three years I've been paying attention As far as releasing Games you know having them ready to go right For an expo but we did see it with Comic Con they struck where the iron was hot With Venom so they may go ahead And I wouldn't be surprised to see something revealed from Stern at Expo in October next month, about five, six weeks from now. So that is super exciting. What would we see? I think it's a little too early for another Cornerstone release, having Venom just released. But, you know, Kapow title, Boutique title, another run of Supreme. Who knows? You know, something. But, you know, something's got to go and fill in that production schedule. I haven't known Stern to have their production line quiet. So something is going to be run in November, December, and I think we're going to see it at Expo. And I'm hype and excited for that. As I hear rumors as they come in you know I go ahead and let you guys know But I mean so far what I heard from supposedly credible sources everything kind of all over the place I mean think of any rumor that you heard and I heard it too everything from Pokemon to Top Gun to any other recent movies. So it's hard to even speculate since you've heard everything. Any theme you can imagine has been rumored, it seems like, for sure at this point. I'll let you know if something solidifies up or if I get permission from some insider to talk about. But I'm excited to see what we'll find there. It's fun to be surprised, too, I think. Jersey Jack. So I've been speculating kind of on that. I've been following the Godfather sales and everything. I need to jump on Pinside and see what the used market on the LEs is. So the collector's edition for Godfather, I still think it's pretty early to see them start to flood the secondary market because the primary buyers haven't got them yet. But I think by the time Expo comes around, a lot, if not all of them, will have received their orders of the collector's edition. And if the market still has a lot of supply of the limited edition for Godfather, we're going to see another situation where the production line is slowing down and something needs to go on there. And so if something's going to go on there, you know, Q4, Q1 of 2024, we may see an announcement also from Jersey Jack at Expo. How awesome would that be? Stern with an announcement. Pinball Brothers with an announcement. JJP with an announcement. I think that's actually plausible. Like that's thickening up like some pudding that's been sitting in the fridge, dear listener. We know for sure that Pinball Adventures is going to have their follow-up to Punny Factory out. Elements, I'm excited about this game. It's a game where you're battling different elements. I think you pick a character that's represented by an element and fight them or something. I haven't had all the rules explained to me just yet by a friend of the show, Andrew McBain, but that should be coming. What I am excited about, though, is this guy is doing some outside-of-the-box thinking here. There's going to be a topper with elements, and it's going to be an LCD screen, and it's going to have two extra speakers up there for a total of, like, five speakers, right, two back box, two topper speakers, and one in the cabinet. I'm excited to see exactly what's going on with theirs. So we will see some activity at the Pinball Adventures booth at Expo. So that's four companies now. CGC, right, Pulp Fiction's coming. Now, we knew that. We knew that they had to release the information for Pulp Fiction back in March due to contractual obligations. Really the way it works with the licensing is there's a hard date that this game has to be publicly available by or kind of everything in the contract goes back into negotiation, right? So they were kind of, you know, forced to go ahead and release the information in March. They had that great video, the Straight Down the Middle did. You're just covering, you know, like the best kind of launch you could have. But then, you know, crickets, the game wasn't quite ready for production yet. But it will be. So Josh Sharp recently announced a podcast live stream somewhere along the line that last he had heard games were due to be going into boxes as soon as October. So that's a big update from what I was planning on, you know, Pulp Fiction going into development like March next year. Right. So I don't know where we are with that. You know, a lot of things change as the weeks go by, but we may see Pulp Fiction's going out around October. Now, they may be trickling at first. I don't know if they're going to do a run of machines for operators first, demo machines, working through the kinks in the line before they get to their limited editions with that stellar topper. Where are we at with topper parts? Is everything in stock ready to be put together? Have they already been assembled, or are they still on a slow boat from some far east Asian country waiting for components or something? That I don't know. I haven't heard anything about that. Chicago Gaming seems to be pretty tight-lipped about their factory. I haven't heard any leaks or any information on where they are there.