Kaneda Live PODCAST Take 4

Kaneda Pinball Podcasts YouTube Lives·video·24m 44s·analyzed·Jun 19, 2025

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.038

TL;DR

Kaneda critiques Dune sales strategy, Harry Potter art quality, manufacturer independence, and industry pricing dynamics.

Summary

Kaneda discusses Dune Pinball's slow sales (estimated 200-300 of 1,000 units sold), arguing that streaming gameplay damages FOMO and that consumers must play machines in person before committing to $13k+ purchases. He criticizes Jersey Jack Pinball shills defending Harry Potter despite AI artwork artifacts, praises Stern's X-Men while noting deleted 'soon' code update messaging, questions Predator's viability despite Arnold's absence, expresses concern about Dutch Pinball's manufacturing capacity for Back to the Future, and defends his editorial independence from manufacturer influence.

Key Claims

Dune Pinball has sold approximately 200-300 units out of 1,000 total planned production
medium confidence · Kaneda's estimate based on lack of unboxing content and competitive releases; stated as personal opinion rather than confirmed data
Pinball streaming is the worst sales tactic and removes FOMO from purchasing decisions
medium confidence · Kaneda's opinion: 'pinball streaming is so lackluster...watching someone play pinball is not exciting' and 'streaming the game always takes some of the FOMO out of wanting to own it'
Harry Potter artwork contains AI-generated or computer-manipulated elements visible in castle, train, and hand details
medium confidence · Community has noticed 'weird stuff going on' with filters; dragon eye correction example mentioned; not confirmed by Jersey Jack
Stern posted then deleted a Jack Danger message about X-Men code updates 'coming soon' due to expectation management concerns
medium confidence · Kaneda speculating on reasoning: 'I think it's because of the word soon. What does soon mean in the world of pinball?'
Predator will outsell Dune despite Arnold Schwarzenegger's absence due to nostalgic appeal of the property
medium confidence · Kaneda prediction: 'Even without Arnold, Pinball Brothers will sell more Predator machines than Barrels of Fun will sell of Dune Pinball simply because of nostalgic love affair'
Dutch Pinball has manufactured only one game in 12 years and produces 10-20 games weekly at best
high confidence · Kaneda: 'Dutch one game, one game in 12 years' and 'I think it's like 10 games a week. I don't think they can make even 500 games a year'
Back to the Future licensing deal with Dutch Pinball is problematic due to manufacturing capacity constraints
medium confidence · Kaneda questioning viability: 'What happens when they get 5,000 orders and they're making 20 games a week?'
95% of pinball content creators engage in dishonest promotion, buying games cheap then reselling within weeks

Notable Quotes

“The only thing you need before you order a game is you yourself have to walk in front of the machine and fall in love with it to pay these kinds of prices.”
Kaneda @ ~8:30 — Core thesis on purchasing decision-making for $13k+ machines; implies end of pre-order culture
“I believe pinball streaming is so lackluster just to begin with—it's literally not exciting. Like, I don't know any other way to say it. Like, watching someone play pinball is not exciting. I think it's one of the worst sales tactics there can be.”
Kaneda @ ~9:15 — Fundamental criticism of streaming as marketing tool; challenges industry strategy
“The people that annoy me the most are the Jersey Jack Pinball shills that have been saying this game is perfect out of the box...to those people, if the world operated on feedback from people like that, nothing would ever get better.”
Kaneda @ ~21:00 — Direct criticism of uncritical fanbase; defends constructive feedback culture
“What Barry should have done—he should have inked the deal with either Stern or like Jersey Jack Pinball...I would have said, 'Look, we'll do the deal. I want $500 per game sold'...he could have made himself set.”
Kaneda @ ~33:45 — Commentary on Back to the Future licensing deal strategy and Dutch Pinball opportunity cost
“You are not a manufacturing company. You've made one game in 12 years.”
Kaneda @ ~34:15 — Harsh assessment of Dutch Pinball's production capacity relative to Back to the Future demand expectations
“I don't want to be in the manufacturers' back pockets...giving up the freedom to speak freely on my show, nothing would be worth it. Like a $15,000 pinball machine would not be worth it.”
Kaneda @ ~39:30 — Statement of editorial independence philosophy; critiques content creator culture of accepting manufacturer perks
“Even without Arnold, Pinball Brothers will sell more Predator machines than Barrels of Fun will sell of Dune Pinball simply because of nostalgic love affair for the property.”

Entities

Kanedaperson Barrels of FuncompanyDune PinballgameJersey Jack PinballcompanyHarry Potter PinballgameStern PinballcompanyX-Men PinballgameKing Kong Pinball

Signals

?
business_signal: Dutch Pinball manufacturing capacity (10-20 games/week, 500 annually) insufficient for Back to the Future licensing demand; licensing deal questionable
high · Kaneda: 'You've made one game in 12 years...What happens when they get 5,000 orders and they're making 20 games a week?' and 'I don't think they can make even 500 games a year'
?
community_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball actively listening to community feedback on Harry Potter; confirmed working on improvements over next year
high · Kaneda: 'I was talking to Brett yesterday, Brett Abbis, and they know what people are saying...they know that there's work to be done...and they are working on it'
~
sentiment_shift: Uncritical 'shill' culture defending Jersey Jack products against constructive criticism undermines game improvement feedback
medium · Kaneda: 'The people that annoy me the most are the Jersey Jack Pinball shills that have been saying this game is perfect out of the box...if the world operated on feedback from people like that, nothing would ever get better'
?
competitive_signal: Predator expected to outsell Dune due to IP nostalgia despite Arnold Schwarzenegger's absence from game
medium · Kaneda: 'Even without Arnold, Pinball Brothers will sell more Predator machines than Barrels of Fun will sell of Dune Pinball simply because of nostalgic love affair for the property'
?
design_philosophy: Harry Potter pinball artwork contains suspected AI-generated or computer-filtered elements visible in castle, train, and hand details

Transcript

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0:09

So weird. All right. I'm not going to touch anything. Just going to let people come in. We're going to go back to where we were. It's always hard when I'm when I'm firing to remember where we were. Some I must have hit something with the computer. It started lagging. inside of CL. It might be because I'm because I'm recording with Audacity and I'm here. That could be the issue. We have one person. No one's going to join. No one's going to join. Brenda, it's over. Cancel the show.

0:51

All right. Are you guys back? I don't know. I must have hid something on the mic and you know so we're going to we're going to get I I remember where I was so I saved that part of the show. We're going to splice it together but you guys will get a sense of like how we do this. I'm just going to run with it. Okay. Now, can you guys hear me? Okay. Now, I just want to make sure because people said it was lagging. People said um it wasn't it was was it was clipping or whatever. Is it working?

1:26

Does it sound good? All right, let's do this. Carl is streaming. All right. All right. So, I want to ask everybody here because we're in front of a live audience, ladies and gentlemen. How many examples of Dune Pinball do you think Barrels of Fun has sold? I think they said they're going to make a thousand in total. Wasn't that the number? because it wasn't,00 I think it's 1,000 examples of Dune Pinball. And so how many do you think were sold since the day the game was revealed? Because I've got a number in my head. I don't know. I could probably just ask David. I'm not sure anybody will tell the truth. But since the game's been revealed, there's been a lot of other games, right? It revealed right on top of King Kong. You've got Predator coming out today. You've got Harry Potter, which is going to take the majority of pinball sales. You've had Portal that nobody really bought. So, all right. Owen thinks they sold 500 Dunes already. Owen, that's a very optimistic number. I don't think they sold out of half of them already. I would say Dune is probably sold between two to 300 out of a thousand. Have you seen anybody unbox the game? That's the big issue. And so now the strategy, the only strategy left to move these games because, you know, you only get one chance to make a first impression. The only strategy left now is to stream the game. And I just feel like streaming the game always, and I mean is always, takes some of the FOMO out of wanting to own it. It's kind of like you see everything and if Carl's going to go through all the modes of the game and you see it, is it going to make you want one? And again, because pinball streaming is so lackluster just to begin with, it's literally not exciting. Like, I don't know any other way to say it. Like, watching someone play pinball is not exciting. I think it's one of the worst sales tactics there can be. Now look, you always want a little bit of gameplay before you order a game, but I I believe one thing now with where we're at in Pinball. I believe in one thing now is the only thing you need before you order a game. You yourself have to walk in front of the machine and fall in love with it to pay these kinds of prices. Cuz remember, Dune fully loaded is somewhere around like 13 plus,000. with the topper, it's going to be like 14 grand. And so, yeah, you got to play it yourself. The days of needing to order these games right away on week one in the first month are over. So, everyone needs to go find a Dune and play it. Now, that's problematic because most people don't have access to a Dune machine. I don't even have one over at Automate It and he carries Barrels of Fun machines. I should ask Mike when he's going to get it, but I think it's going to be a very, very slow burn for this game. And the big issue surrounding Dune, right, just hovering over it is this. You don't care about the theme. And because you don't care about the theme, you seeing more moments from the movie make their way into the game isn't going to do anything for you. Whereas, when you see clips from the Predator movie you love, that's going to do something to you. When you see more Harry Potter movie scenes coming to life, that's going to do something for you. And I think that's the big difference. I just worry that this theme, much like Labyrinth, I think even more so than Labyrinth because people had nostalgic love for Labyrinth, nobody in this demographic has a nostalgic love affair with this theme. And so I'm hoping that David understands that now and the next titles coming out from him uh connect more with the pinball buying demographic. And I think that's going to be important. I'm going to say this right now. Even without Arnold, Pinball Brothers will sell more Predator Machines than Barrels of Fun will sell of Dune Pinball simply because of nostalgic love affair for the property. Okay, I mean that. All right. What did someone say like that Predator is $19,500 in Australia? Look, if you're in Australia and you're buying pinball machines in 2025, you just have to be loaded. Like loaded. Like, how can you guys drop this much on these games? I've always said this, it's cheaper to simply buy an airplane ticket and go to these pinball shows and get your fill versus 20 grand for one game. I mean, at least in your market though, the games kind of hold value because you're always going to have more demand than supply in Australia. All right, let's talk about Harry Potter. And let me get a cup of coffee here. See, this is like I have some pauses every once in a while.

7:03

Let's talk about Harry Potter and the sorcerers artificial intelligence artistic layout mode of the game. No. So, everyone is now seeing what seems to be some clear evidence that the artwork on Harry Potter was using some sort of filter. Whether it was an AI filter or some other filter, there's some weird stuff going on. There's weird stuff going on on the castle, on the train, on the hands. Like throughout this game, you can notice some things that look like they were manipulated by some computer program. And so, I don't think the folks at Jersey Jack knew this happened or was happening. I think they just saw it at face value. It looks really good when you first glance at art like this. And that's the thing with AI art. It always looks really good, but then when you sort of look closer at it, a lot of weird stuff is happening. And I think this is uh I I feel bad for Jersey Jack if that is the case. Do they need to redo the artwork? Will this create a delay for them? I don't think they're really going to change it at this point, but who knows, right? If Warner Brothers catches wind of this and someone flags it for them, they might be forced to go back and fix some of this stuff. But also remember, Warner Brothers approved all of this. It's not like they didn't see it. It's not like they didn't go over it with a magnifying glass. Like they had every opportunity to make changes. Someone pointed out that the dragon with like two eyes on its left side, they filled in one of the eyes. So that's like maybe people are like, "Oh, they must have caught this and and made a slight correction to it." But I just want to say this. I was talking to Brett yesterday, Brett Abbis, and they know what people are saying about the game. And not just the artwork. I didn't ask about the artwork, but they know that there's work to be done, that they need to wake up the connection between the movies people love and the pinball experience, and they are working on it. And I just want to say to everybody out there, let's let them bake on it, right? Let's let them fix the things they know need to be fixed on the game. They're going to focus on this game for the next year. And I do think they're going to fix the problems. And I feel good that they know and are listening to the feedback. But I just want to say this, the people that annoy me the most are not the so-called stern army that's being blamed for pointing out the AI artwork. I don't believe in that. The people that annoy me the most are the JJP shills that have been saying this game is perfect out of the box. You know who they are and you know what they've been saying. And to those people, if the world operated on feedback from people like that, nothing would ever get better, ever. And I'm just tired of when people are trying to give constructive feedback, myself included. We get attacked by these like happy golucky shills who are telling us to shut up, that we're ragging on the game. And I'm like, you haven't even listened to my shows. I'm not ragging on Harry Potter. I'm giving a balanced feedback on the game and the things that I want to see improved I think will make this game maybe a masterpiece. So should I bury my feedback and just to and just tow the sorry and just tow I just you know sometimes I get a pop so I redo it. Should I just tow the company line order two for one order two one for each of my houses and say that everybody else has no taste? Like I just don't think that's a very constructive way to look at this game. So look, they know what needs to happen. Stern Pinball knows what needs to happen with X-Men. Now, Jack Danger put up a post that said they're working on new X-Men code coming soon and then he took the post down. Now people are speculating why is it removed? And I think it's because of the word soon. What does soon mean in the world of pinball? Does that mean in July? Does it mean by the fall? Is it sometime this year? And I think that's why they took it down because now you're going to have all these people expecting something soon. And is soon two weeks? Who knows in the world of pinball? Now, I really hope this game gets fixed as well. It's a great shooting game. It's a beautiful game. I think it's one of nicest I think it's one of Stern's nicest games they've ever launched. I think it looks much nicer than King Kong. I actually find it to be a more interesting game to shoot than King Kong. And so I hope the code on X-Men gets to a good place. That's what we all should want. We all should be rooting for these companies every time they release a game to make a great game. Now, what we shouldn't do, which is what 95% of pinball content creators are today, we shouldn't just say, "Everything that comes out is awesome. Everything that comes out, I'm going to buy it. Everything that comes out is great. I'm going to review it. It's awesome. They did a great job." And then I sell it like a week later. Like that. That literally is the vibe of so many pinball content creators. It's the greatest game ever. I just ordered an LE and it's never leaving my home. A week later, it's up for sale for $3,000 less because they probably put they probably paid the wholesale price on the game. I love it. Now we've got we've I love it. We've got now the content creators now are letting us know if they paid in full for the product or they paid out of their own money for the Look, I get it, gang. Just look, take the perks if you get them. If you get the perks, just let us know you got the hookup. Okay? If I treat people like I did last night, if I treat people to dinner, I you know, I I don't mind it if they say, "Hey, Chris took me out to dinner, doesn't make them love me any less or anymore." It probably makes them love me a little bit more, right? Because I got a guy like Canada, right? I got to buy my friends. You know how I roll through this world. I'm just joking. Am I? Maybe not. Brenda, what do you think? She's upstairs. She can confirm yes or no. Have I had have I had to use the almighty dollar to make people like me? I don't think so. I think if I was broke and I was on an island and all I had was a mic, I'd be dropping this heat every week for you guys and you'd still subscribe to Canadas Binball podcast. Everybody comes back. We lose people every month. You know, the same people that cancel always come back because where are they going to go? Where are they going to go? All right. So, is King Kong dead? Is there like a second life for King Kong or is it over? My thing on Kong is this. It's just not enough. It's just not enough to excite people. I get it shoots great. There's just something about the unlicensed Kong. There's something about the art all looking the same. There's just something about this game. The quality is not great. Kong's arms are falling off. You've got to buy some dude's mod so the vuck doesn't shake. Wait, re really for $13,000 I have to know I have to now go I have to now go buy a bracket from a dude who's making them. Really? For $13,000? Stern hasn't fixed it yet. And I'm just saying I'm just saying. I don't know. I just feel like Kong isn't enough to want it right now because I also think everyone's just so much smarter now is you know if you really want a Kong the code's not done you wait six months Kong le is 10 Kong Premium 7500 and a Kong Pro is five like that's the way it's all going. Uh, if Jaws 50th comes out in two days, I don't know. I haven't heard anything like I haven't heard a scheduled meeting with Dros. I kind of feel like it's not happening. But if it does happen and Jaws 50th comes out, then what's going to happen to all those Jaws? They're going to go down. Everything's going down. Everything's headed south. It's fine. That's why you should just buy games you love. You should buy games you love. Brenda's trying to give me coffee right now. We're live, baby. 60 people. 60 people. I hope you're all subscribers. If you're a subscriber, you get to see now how Canada does the show live. All right, so we've got Kong. The next game might be Jaws 50th. Then we've got John Borg Star Wars episode one, two, and three. Darth Maul baby, Pod Racing Baby, Guad. Is it Guad? Wad? Who's What's his name? The blue dude with the wings. Wad, I don't know. I forget his name. Ah, Annie. Somehow you know. Somehow you know. Annie. Metaclorious Edition. What is going to happen? Are we going to go back? Are we going to go back to episode 1 through three? And the main guy, baby, Jar Jar Banks. They need to make a Jar Jar Banks super limited edition. Misa want that version. St. Misa want that version. Stern using a bigger doodoo. Ja. Look, I think these movies, since Star Wars has had so many bad TV shows, I think everyone's looking back on episode 1 through three with a lot more fondness than they used to. I mean, Hayden Christensen now goes to the Star Wars conventions and he's like treated like a celebrity. Like they go nuts when they see him. And so, look, it's Star Wars. When that theme song hits, if John Borg makes a great game, it's going to sell. If you want to go up against Harry Potter, it's a good onetwo punch to hit back with Star Wars and Pokemon and maybe Tron. The one game they better not make, and you know what it is, they better not make a remastered like comic version of The Walking Dead. Nobody wants another run of Walking Dead. That's not the game. It's Tron and then it's Lord of the Rings. Those are the two games everybody wants another run of. It's not Walking Dead Stern. And then Stern, you really need to get more great themes going. You don't have enough of the nostalgic stuff we want. I still can't believe we're not going to get Back to the Future from Stern. By the way, everybody, if you're following how slow Dutch Pinball is making Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, how the heck is this company going to make Back to the Future? How? Like, what happens when they get 5,000 orders and they're making 20 games a week? What happens? How are they ever going to fulfill orders? 20 games a week at best. I think it's like 10 games a week. I don't think they can make even 500 games a year. And so what's going to happen when they try to manufacture Back to the Future? What Barry should have done, he should have inked the deal with either Stern or like JJP, they both wanted it. The thing is is like I know Barry wanted like a lot upfront. He didn't want to wait for the money. If I were Barry, I would have taken the long payout. I would have said, "Look, we'll do the deal. I want 500 bucks per game sold." And I would have taken a plane to the Caribbean and sat on a beach and collect checks for the next five years. And I'm talking people millions of dollars. We're not talking a few hundred,000 here. I'm talking millions of dollars he would have made over the duration of that game's manufacturing. And I also would have said part of the deal is don't cap this game. Make 88 SLEs, make another LE, but then the premium unlimited runs. They would never stop selling it. And it was going to be made by Keith Elwin. And if it was over at Jersey Jack, it would have been like Richie and Eric or somebody and they would have done it justice. And they've got Joe Kay getting all the assets, Bob Gale, like he could have like just made himself set. And also, we know this Dutch one game, one game in 12 years. So, I'm worried. I'm worried because again, I just don't feel like they're going to be able to handle the demand. And you know, sometimes in life, you got to know your limitations. We all h we all have to. That's what guides us in our professional careers. Like, you just got to know what you're good at and what you need help with. And they're not good at manufacturing. It's just not their strong suit. They this one game in 12 years. You are not a manufacturing company. You've made one game in 12 years. And so, we'll see what happens there. I mean, that's not happening anytime soon. We really can use Alice as a marker to see how they're doing and it's not flying out the door. It It really isn't. So, um, today Predator, it's coming. It's coming. It's going to be out in like what, like, uh, 3 hours, 6 hours. We will see Predator. All the teases are over. I'm going to get this show up. Everybody, thank you for hanging out and watching a live recording of how Canada does Canada's Pinball Podcast. You can see how I have to edit a little bit here and there, but I love doing this show. And if you're not a member of Canadas Pinball Podcast, please join the show. It's only $5 a month. And if you join today, it unlocks for you. I think something like 500 episodes are now on Patreon that you can go back and listen to. So, you get a lot. You also get access to the chat on Patreon, which is so much fun. every hour of every day. Those who are members can contest to this. Every hour of every day, if you ever just want to hang out and chat pinball, people are there. It's a lot of fun. All right, so I hope you guys join and you become and you become a member of Canadas Pinball Podcast. Everybody get to the Chapa today. We'll be back here at 2:50 p.m. to see what this game is all about. Going to have a lot of feelings on it. We know Arnold's not in it and that's going to manage our expectations, right? Because we know we not in it now. So, I'm not going to like get like devastated by it because I know it. I wish they would have said it. Maybe he's got call outs. We shall see. Everybody have a great Wednesday and we'll be back later today. Canada out. All right. So, you see how it's done. You see how it's done. It's It's not It's not scripted. I don't always know what I'm going to say next, which you've probably get by now. Um, but it's fun. I love doing that. It's It's like my my creative outlet. Um, that is This is This is why I don't want uh to be in the manufacturers's back pockets. I don't unless I took a job in the marketing department at a pinball company, which if you know, if if it was like the right job and the money was right, I'd consider it. I'm not going to lie to you. Of course, I would consider it. But unless it was something worth it like that, giving up the freedom to speak freely on my show, nothing would be worth it. Like a $15,000 pinball machine would not be worth it. Getting trips to shows or trips to see, you know, manufacturing behind the scenes. I It is not worth it to me to then not be able to speak freely. Th this is this is creativity and freedom um are worth way more to me than you know discounts or free free stuff. It's just the way I've always rolled. And in the end it all worked out for me because where other people have to give so much free stuff away to sort of entice their community to join. I just do this. That's it. You don't get I'm not giving you anything. There's no there's no extra perks. You just get the most uh entertaining pinball podcast I believe on the planet. And the numbers don't lie. Like the numbers don't lie. We have more subscribers. There's more subscribers to Canadas Pinball Podcast than every single other pinball content creator combined when it comes to subscriptions. I'm proud of that. It's also a pathetically low number. Like 600. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like if I was doing video games or cars, like Yeah. Like literally, it would be my job. Like to be a nano nano nano influencer in pinball doesn't pay out for anybody. Okay, remember I always remember that like one dro is going to make more money selling Harry Potters in one day than I'll make all year doing this show. Um who's doing more work? Think about it. Okay, everybody. Love you. Bye.