Well, look what the stork run, little baby devil with the forked tongue, and it's sticking out, yeah, like a sore thumb, with a forehead that it grew horns from, still a white jerk, pulling up in a Chrysler to the Cypher, with the flex perks and a Bud Light shirt, physical technician, an electrician, y'all like one? Ah, happy Monday everybody. Welcome to Canada's Pinball Podcast. I am at the end of a very long road waiting to move to this new house. And if you've ever moved, you know how like those last few days are so freaking exhausting. I'm like staring at all these boxes. I'm wondering where did we get all of this stuff? I mean, there's so much stuff we accumulate in our lives. And I'm here to tell you right now, like maybe pinball is not that bad to accumulate because it's really big and you can see it and there's nothing hiding around the corner. I feel like I've been boxing up stuff for two weeks. And the more boxes we make, the more stuff there is to box up further. And we move on Thursday. I'm super excited. I'm super exhausted. it. The house is amazing. And I think I've just hit this like rock bottom of exhaustion that I'm like, you know, what's the most exhausting thing? All the pinball content drama. So we're burying a lot of those hatchets, which feels good. I know other people are sleeping good because of it. And I do want to turn over a new leaf and I do want to start a new chapter in my life, especially moving this family to Connecticut and so if you're listening to this show don't worry that doesn't mean Canada is going to hold punches because as I've been saying to everybody we should be hard on these games hard on these companies but not hard on the people unless said person is named David Fix then you get it if your name is Damien then you're going to get it like if there are specific pinball people that deserve to be read the riot act by canada of course i'm going to do that and so i also am here to tell you that i finally after four freaking years i have a date in which i will get my guns and roses collector's edition so don't say i didn't wait long enough for that damn clear coat to cure because when derrick musket drives this game from coin taker he's going to unbox it there. He's then going to drive it to my house and then we are going to set it up on June 19th. So get ready and you best believe I am going to go over this game with a fine tooth comb and we're going to film what all the posts look like after sitting in a box for four years. Now my guess is this, there's going to be a lot of really bad pooling around some of those posts in the game. I'm going to install the IO board. I'm going to install new rubbers in the game. I'm going to install pin woofer into the game because this is going to be like the one game in my home for a while. I'm excited to see what comes out in the pinball world this year. But man, oh man, oh man, I am extra excited to finally get Guns N' Roses unboxed. It's also funny and sort of weird that they finally are finishing the code. Like if I had this game unboxed three years ago, I would have been like everybody else, tired of the mushy flippers, tired of the crazy multi-balls, tired of the overly complex code, tired of the imbalanced scoring, tired of not being able to hit the ramps consistently after playing for 20 minutes. And I get to unbox it brand new and experience it the way this game should have been most likely on day one. Now look, here's what I want to talk about on this episode of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast because there's not a ton happening in the pinball world, but a lot of stuff was happening to me personally in the pinball world, one of which was a little bit of a convalescence between the Jersey Jack folks and myself, Kaneda. I heard from Brett Abbas. I heard from Ken Cromwell. We had really good conversations, very, very good conversations. And I want to touch on something that Brett said. And I want to pose a question to each and every one of you. And that question, based on what Brett said to me, and he said the following to me, he said, Chris, I think when John Youssi our next titles, you are really going to see this company hit its stride. And it's like, okay, wow. Okay. It has been 10 years. So it's taken a while for this racehorse to hit its stride. But I want to ask each and every one of you, what would it take for Jersey Jack Pinball to really hit its stride in pinball? And what do we mean by that? Like, how would we define that? And I've been thinking a lot about this over the last few days. The two real companies, I mean, let's face it, there's a lot of pinball companies out there. There's Spooky, you know, they're doing the boutique thing right. They're doing it right. Family Company, Bunch of Goodwill. You know, Kaneda can't seem to guess a spooky rumor if it fell on top of his head. My Beetlejuice rumor was wrong. That teed up a lot of people making fun of me. It's cool, man. I'm still me. Nothing's really changed. You know, I got the rumor wrong. I checked my checking account. The same amount of money was in it. I got the rumor wrong or I confirmed it all wrong. I checked my Patreon subscribers and the numbers went up So maybe I should be doing incorrect confirmations all the time So I got that wrong And I also heard from Spooky Luke He like look it not Beetlejuice but you going to be excited by what we have coming And that's awesome. We're excited that Dutch Pinball has Back to the Future. Alice in Wonderland. We'll see how they execute that game. For the most part, right, if you think about it, like CGC, I don't know what's next from them. And I don't really care because they make you wait, right? Whatever CGC reveals next, you almost have to be a fool to order it on day one because you're going to wait three years. Like, that's just the way it goes. Like, oh, I could order it today or wait three years. You'll easily be able to get Pulp Fiction LDs when they actually start making them. Trust me, it's not going to be impossible to get any game where they make a thousand of them. So we've got Spooky doing the boutique thing. We got CGC taking forever, testing our patience. We got Haggis Pinball that's like in a forever flat line. I don't know what's happening over there. I think some ninja eclipses are trickling out, but that's a company that's gonna make just a few a week. We've got Dutch Pinball that's about to be inundated with orders for Back to the Future. Who knows how they're gonna make those games? And the two real companies, though, that can consistently make hundreds of games a week are Stern and Jersey Jack. They're the two big players in pinball. They're the two companies that I think have the most excitement and attention surrounding every move they make. Now, over the last few years, Jersey Jack has destroyed all of its swagger that it had coming out of Guns N' Roses. I mean, think about it. GNR hit like an atom bomb. Then the playfields fell apart as if an atom bomb hit the playfields. And then they didn't really address the code on the game, but they still sold like 5,000, 6,000 Guns N' Roses machines. there's a reason why guns and roses prices are so low because everybody who wanted one has one they made hundreds more than there was even demand like distros are still sitting on gnr le's in boxes there are still ces in boxes out there in the world i know because i got one and then the wheels fell off we got toy story 4 we got the godfather arguably the weirdest game ever made. Jack Guarnari taking a huge risk. It did not work out. And then we get Elton John, arguably their best shooting game ever, but not the kind of theme that's take my money now for so many of you. So it's been a little bit of a weird few years for Jersey Jack. I would also argue it's been somewhat of a weird few years for Stern Pinball. They've never really recaptured the magic they had since Godzilla. And I would argue Godzilla was the last time Stern Pinball really knocked it out of the park. I would say the second big hit is probably Foo Fighters. But again, that's a theme like Elton John that most of you don't really want. You have Godzilla and Guns and Roses, games that came out, what, like three years ago, four years ago. And we've all been waiting. We've been waiting and we've been watching and all the prices have gone through the roof and we haven't had another game come out from either company that has captivated the imagination of the community like both of those games. So when Brett Abbott says we're about to hit our stride, what do they mean by that? Let's deconstruct that for a little bit. What does Jersey Jack need to do to hit its stride? And if you think about it, they clearly have the sexier platform. I mean, a Jersey Jack game next to a Stern always, before you play it, if you just look at it, it always, just from appearance sake, it always embarrasses a Stern machine. It looks twice as expensive. It just does. There's no denying it. People put Elton John CE next to Jaws LE, and it looks twice as expensive. So they've got the platform. They've got the nice big screen. They've got the modern lighting system, and it's not just full RGB LEDs, which Stern does not have. And hello, Stern Pinball, you better, when Spike 3 comes out, you better have a lighting package that makes your games look much more modern, like these JJP games. And it's not just about full RGB LEDs. It's also about innovating other areas of lighting in a machine. Jersey Jack's got those hot rails. They've also got those tiny little lights that allow you to do so much cool stuff on the playfield. Stern doesn't do any of that. It's just like their games still look like they come from like 1998. They really do with just a new screen and some insider connected. So JJP's got the far superior platform. Okay, so their games look better, but their games have never played better than Stern machines ever. Like none of them, none of their older games could even hold a candle in the wind, no pun intended, to a stern machine. Woz was clunky. Hobbit was like wide open and boring. It felt like chopping wood. Dialed In shot better, but it was still like there were some shots in that game that just felt really clunky, like the SIM card shot, which is almost impossible to shoot with skill. You need luck. And then after Dialed In, what do we get? Pirates of the Caribbean. An okay shooting game, but not great. Like there's not tons of flow in these games There a lot of stuff in Pirates but it still felt like a little clunky and like everything just thrown in It not very cohesive After Pirates of the Caribbean what did we get Willy Wonka another good shooting game right The Pat Lawler games usually were the ones that shot the best. We had his Willy Wonka and his Toy Story are games that are a lot more fun to shoot than some of the other Jersey Jack games. Guns and Roses, I'm not even going to defend it. Nobody really likes the way it shoots. Nobody, nobody. I mean, you kind of just got to like the jukebox and all the assets in the game, but nobody ever. You're never going to see anybody like marching at a pinball show, right? And all these dudes are having a good time talking about great shooting pins. And no dude's ever going to be like, yeah, guys, those are all good. But you know what shoots great? Guns and roses. Like if anyone ever says that, they will clear the bar out. Nobody, nobody likes the way the game shoots. and so then we got Toy Story 4 which arguably why do I keep saying arguably like someone's arguing with me Toy Story 4 was just too easy so if you play Toy Story it's so easy that it's boring and then we get Godfather which I think was Eric Minier's response to all the feedback that his games don't have speed and flow I don't even know man I haven't really played Godfather very much I know that most people haven't either, and it's just not a game that won people over. Then we get to Elton John, which is easily Jersey Jack's best shooting game. And Steve Ritchie has shown us that it's not impossible to make a Jersey Jack game shoot as good, if not better than a Stern machine. OK, so that brings us to today, where we've got all of these rumors about Mark Mark Seiden's game. We got another game from Eric Minier, because remember, we're not going to get Steve Ritchie's next game for probably like two and a half years. So do we think Steve Ritchie has been standing over some of these newer games and has helped them when it comes to layout? I think he has. I think he has. I don't think that's something that Pat Lawler would have done, but I do think it's something that Steve Ritchie would do because what I think Steve Ritchie's trying to do is make Jersey Jack Pinball the best pinball company on the planet and I think he knows how to make games that are very satisfying. Having talked very slightly to Brett Abbas this week, I know that's his goal as well. But for this company to hit its stride and do it right, I think we finally need to see a Jersey Jack game that checks every single box. And let's go down what those boxes are and where they've fallen short in the past and what they need to do to make sure that they really do hit their stride. So first and foremost, the first stride they need to hit is they need to make the right theme. They need to make a theme that everybody wants or mostly everybody wants. The best theme this company has ever made is guns and roses. And then when you say, what's the second best they've ever made. It shouldn't be a hard thing to answer, but it is. Is it Wizard of Oz? Eh. Is it Hobbit? Eh. Is it Dialed In? Hell no. Is it Toy Story 4? Definitely not. Is it The Godfather? Eh. Is it Willy Wonka? Eh. Could have been. It could have been, but the Wonka magic was not under the glass. So, you know, maybe it was Pirates of the Caribbean, but even then, They didn't really have the assets to pirates. And so that's the thing with Jersey Jack is the marketing and licensing department has let this company down time and time again. And so the first box they need to check is the right theme with all the assets. It's just that simple. And if you can't get all the assets and use them the right way, then don't make that game. So that's the first box is get the theme right. The second box is get the design right. And I mean this. They need a game that's as fun to shoot as Elton John. Elton John is amazing. I just maybe don't want Elton John. I love the way the game shoots. But who out there wouldn't rather have that shooting game be Top Gun, be The Matrix, be something else that you'd rather have versus like just six energetic Elton John songs and the other six you really don't want to hear. So if they get the theme right and design it as well as Elton John is and it plays as fun as that game, I think it showed everybody too. When you make a game that plays this much fun, you almost don't need a ton of toys in the game. Okay, but now stride number three is they need to load these games up. What separates Jersey Jack from everybody else at this premium price point is they need to have more mechanical magic in their games than everybody else in pinball, more than Dutch pinball, more than Stern, more than Multimorphic, more than Spooky, more than CGC. I want to look down at a Jersey Jack game, and I want to have both the speed and flow of an Elton John, but also some of the mechanical wow that's in games like Wizard of Oz. I just think we can get both. They're capable of it. So let's see if they do it. And with themes like the matrix and Harry Potter, it's just begging for both of those things to happen. All right. The next thing they need to do when it comes to hitting their stride it all about the software department For some reason the software department at Jersey Jack just doesn seem to be like active once a game comes out It like they pre this meal and then they don listen to any feedback and then they don't continue to polish the game after the game is out. And I think they need to stop that. I think they need to, when they make a game that they know their owners want to own for a very long time, they have to continue to improve it. And again, if you think about the order of things, if you get the theme right and you designed it right and you've got the right toys, these owners never want to let it go. And the easy thing to change over time is the software. So don't make the software the last thing you're going to address. Software should be like a cathedral. It's never done. It could always be improved. And I think Jersey Jack needs to hire enough software people and get new software blood in-house so that these games are always being looked at and improved. They've got such a beautiful game. They've got the nicest platform in all of pinball, but man, they really have fallen down on two of the most important things in all of pinball, which is the layout of the game and how fun they are to shoot. and then the software, which drives all the moments of the pinball game, because they do have the moments. And mark my words, like Jersey Jack, I think when you get around all of its complexities and all the weird things in the Achilles heels of their games, I think they've coded some of the most magical pinball moments that are out there. It's just getting to them is so damn confusing. So they've got to find a way to understand like why we love pinball. Games that are approachable. You can walk up to them and enjoy them. There's something to strive for, but it's not overly confusing how to get there. You know, these aren't role-playing games. They're pinball machines. I would say after that, there's not too much else they need to do. Some of you might be saying lower the price. I don't think that's going to happen. And I think we would pay these prices. We would pay these prices happily if all of those boxes I just mentioned were checked and they were really hitting their stride. I don't think they have a problem with artwork. I think the artwork has been great on the games over the last like few titles, you know, so it's all about those other things. And this is why I'm excited because when I talk to people who know what's happening over at Jersey Jack and I talk to people who know what's happening over at Stern, I feel the enthusiasm way more from the people who are over at Jersey Jack. They're less anxious people. I mean, the Abbott's family backing them in this kind of like privately owned venture, I think has a lot less stress than what's going on over at Stern. I think Stern is in trouble. I think Seth Davis got that company ready for sale and they didn't get sold or maybe they did get sold. But I just get this sense that with 500 people working at Stern, they really don't have a long-term sustainable strategy. to keep this company that big, cranking out that many games. And I think Jersey Jack, at the size they're at and where the price of their games are and what themes they're going to make, I think they're going to be in a very good position to bring out two games a year that a lot of us are going to want. And I don't really feel that way from Stern lately. Think about it. After Pokemon, what Stern rumor has you excited? I just don't feel it. And John Wick, the fact that they made John Whiff, we should just call it John Whiff because nobody's buying it. The fact that all of Stern's market research led them to that game and we know they wanted to make Hunger Games. It just shows me they're out of touch. They're out of time. Maybe Hall and Oates don't even get along. Now, Kanaid is getting along with the other pinball content creators who we've been feuding with all these years. And I'm happy to say that it's going to be much better moving forward because I know when you love someone else's content and you also love Kaneda's content, you don't want to have to choose between the two content creators. So I want to say thank you to Zach for reaching out and burying the hatchet. Also, Colin reached out to me. Sure. Cool. Like we can bury the hatchet. Like everybody make your content and everybody will go where they get excited. If you make great content, you're going to get a following, you know, and that's just that. Life is way too short to hold on to anger and to hold on to grudges for far too long. And my door is always open. If anybody wants to apologize, we could shake hands and get going. And everybody's welcome here. Everyone can hang out. And what I think is like the most fun community in all of pinball, and that's Canada's Pinball Podcast. It's a great group. And the Patreon chat we have going, I think is the best conversation happening in all of pinball. Let's be hard on the games. Let's be hard on the companies. but let's not be too hard on each other. Everybody have a great Monday. I am moving Thursday. So this is gonna be a little bit of a crazy week. If you don't get as much content this week, please cut me some slack. I'm staring at cardboard boxes. It's hard to get motivated when you're exhausted by the cardboard. We'll talk to you soon. Later.