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DPP #57 "Year in review (so far)!!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·29m 38s·analyzed·Jul 25, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

DPP mid-2023 year-in-review covering releases, announcements, rumors, and industry speculation.

Summary

Don Garrison reviews the pinball industry through mid-2023, covering major game releases (Foo Fighters, James Bond 60th, Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Scooby-Doo), manufacturer announcements, and industry developments month-by-month. The episode includes speculation on future releases including rumors of Harry Potter at Jersey Jack and a potential Stranger Things vault edition from Stern, while discussing market dynamics, pricing, and community sentiment around emerging games.

Key Claims

  • James Bond 60th Anniversary Edition: 500 units made at $20,000 launch price, now available around $15,000+ on secondary market

    high confidence · Don Garrison describing January 2023 release pricing and current dealer quotes

  • Foo Fighters released in February 2023 as Jack Danger's first game and is 'on track for Game of the Year'

    high confidence · Don Garrison discussing February release and early reception

  • Texas Pinball Festival in March 2023 saw release announcements for approximately 5-6 new games including Galactic Tank Force, Pulp Fiction, and Godfather

    high confidence · Don Garrison describing March release deluge at TPF

  • Jersey Jack paid north of $4 million for Harry Potter pinball license rights, outbidding Joe Kaminkow's $4 million offer

    medium confidence · Don Garrison citing Jason Knapper's revelation about negotiations with Warner Brothers

  • Harry Potter at Jersey Jack may follow Disney Star Wars model: licensed universe without specific character assets due to licensing cost constraints

    medium confidence · Don Garrison's speculation on licensing structure, later revised when other sources suggested they did acquire full assets

  • Spooky Pinball has produced approximately 750 Scooby-Doo units with ~1,400-1,500 total sold, leaving production into next year

    medium confidence · Don Garrison citing conservative sales estimates and production pipeline status

  • Brian Eddy (Stranger Things designer) indicated at Comic-Con that a Stranger Things vault/re-release 'could happen this year'

    medium confidence · Don Garrison reporting on Comic-Con interview where Brian Eddy responded affirmatively to direct question about Stranger Things re-release

  • Multimorphic P3 systems have 6-8 to 12-month wait times and limited location availability (Don mentioned only one P3 on location at ASKogi in Van Nuys, California)

    high confidence · Don Garrison discussing P3 platform constraints and market availability

Notable Quotes

  • “It was the rumored game that nobody thought was actually going to happen. What's Stern doing? They just released a Cornerstone. You mean to tell me there's going to be one other game done by a different designer? There's no way that can happen. Well, my friends, it did come to pass.”

    Don Garrison @ Early content, discussing James Bond 60th Anniversary Edition — Reflects community surprise at dual Bond releases from Stern in same season

  • “Jack Danger's first game, and what did he do but blow us out of the gate with a flow monster of a design, cross field ramps, all kinds of loops that could be hit from either direction. We were introduced to the Overlord and graced with the Foo Fighters, which I think since that day has been on track for Game of the Year.”

    Don Garrison @ February discussion — Early enthusiasm for Foo Fighters and early GOTY positioning

  • “I look at P3 Multimorphic Platform as kind of the same thing [as Neo Geo]. You know, we know some people kind of in our states that might have them, and occasionally you might go and see it... but it's just not in wide release.”

    Don Garrison @ March discussion of Final Resistance — Analyzes P3 market accessibility and niche positioning

  • “Please do what Jersey Jack did, what Raw Thrills did with Pulp Fiction. Like, release a featurette now that just releases everything and takes us through the process... when you stumble, you end up with something like Galactic Tank Force where it's revealed, but nobody knows what the heck the story even is.”

    Don Garrison @ March retrospective — Criticism of game reveal communication strategy, contrasting Raw Thrills/Jersey Jack approach with American Pinball's unclear Galactic Tank Force narrative

  • “Here is a man with a dream and a plan, and he brought it to completion, something that Deep Root couldn't do, something that Andrew Highway had difficulty with... And then here's little pinball adventures up there in British Columbia just slowly releasing their games out into the public, man.”

    Don Garrison @ April discussion of Putty Factory — Acknowledges Pinball Adventures' operational success vs. other boutique manufacturers' struggles

  • “Apparently the rumor is that it must have gone for north of $4 million, and Jersey Jack was the ones that went in there and scooped it up.”

Entities

Don GarrisonpersonJack DangerpersonJoe KaminkowpersonBrian EddypersonChristopher FrenchypersonScott DenisepersonGeorge Gomez

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: James Bond 60th Anniversary Edition launched at $20k, now trading at $15k+ secondary market after dealer quotes of $17.5k at initial release

    high · Don Garrison: '$20,000 was the price... I was hearing quotes of $17,500 from distributors, and then now that the game has been in wide release... available around $15,000 plus change'

  • $

    market_signal: Stern accessory pricing ($1k+ for toppers) shows market acceptance despite being described as overpriced; Godzilla topper sold out despite $1k price tag

    high · Don Garrison: 'Godzilla topper... $1,000... the thing is sold out. Is it overpriced? Absolutely. Is it fun? Absolutely.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Effective game announcements require detailed featurettes explaining creative process; Galactic Tank Force suffered from unclear narrative, while Pulp Fiction and Godfather benefited from detailed developer interviews

    high · Don Garrison: 'Please do what Jersey Jack did, what Raw Thrills did... when you stumble, you end up with something like Galactic Tank Force where it's revealed, but nobody knows what the heck the story even is'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Harry Potter license negotiations with Warner Brothers show licensing costs exceeding $4 million; Jersey Jack reportedly outbid Joe Kaminkow's $4m offer by paying 'north of $4 million'

    medium · Don Garrison citing Jason Knapper: 'he had offered $4 million to Warner Brothers for the pinball graphic rights... they noped right out of that... apparently... it must have gone for north of $4 million, and Jersey Jack was the ones that went in there'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.089

0:00
happy monday everybody monday morning time for some don pinball podcast goodness for your ears i always bring the love to my biggest fans and that's everybody listening here it's episode number 57 we're gonna do something fun for this episode a bit of a themed episode a bit of a retrospective episode that's right we're gonna cover the year up until now what's happened what's going to happen there'll be some speculation and some new rumor drops at the end of this episode So listen up, get your coffee ready, throw some cubes in there, it's summertime.
0:38
Iced coffee season is well upon us. We are heading into the latter half of July, man. This year has flown by, and it has flown by with so much news that I think, you know, it came and went so quickly. So I thought, what better to do in July than a year in review? Well, a year up until now in review. Let's get started with that. I'll just go month by month. Let's cover the pinball news and events that happened in our lives starting in January and going forward. And then we'll look from that precipice that we will be on and we'll gaze out into the foggy future and see what is out there on the hills and landscapes. This is going to be fun. Let's get to it. Give me some air horns. All right. We are gassed up. So January, what happened in January? Well, your boy and mine, me, launched a pinball podcast. Hooray! and has been growing beyond my wildest expectations at the time. I was a man with a dream and not much planning, and I jumped into this and created a pinball podcast for everybody to cover the news that we have. In the pinball realm, however, we had a game release. That was great. So my first episode, I think I was covering the release and my views of Mr. James Bond 60th Anniversary Edition. Now, the Cornerstone Edition had come out to the tail end of last year, fumbling out of the gate with the shackles and tethers and ankle bracelets of the licensor restrictions. And it's just now starting to get its gate. And now it's clearing some hurdles, right? So we're watching the race there. But we covered the Bond 60th. This was the rumored game that nobody thought was actually going to happen. What's Stern doing? They just released a Cornerstone. You mean to tell me there's going to be one other game done by a different designer? There's no way that can happen. Well, my friends, it did come to pass. 500 of these games were made. $20,000 was the price, and they were released to people who have bought them. They're still available now. Now, Stern kind of set the price when they sold these on their website, and then other than that, it was dealer's choice, right? So that first day, I was hearing quotes of $17,500 from distributors, and then now that the game has been in wide release, we've been able to play it. It is now available around $15,000 plus change. and those are the public sales on Pinside. So that's what happened in January. You got Don's Pinball Podcast and you got about six feet of snow if you live in Wisconsin where I'm at. So let's move on to February. As we went in, we got another cornerstone release from Stern, right? Foo Fighters was actually released and revealed in February. Blowing our minds, right? Around the end of the last year, we heard the rumors. Foo Fighters is coming. Venom is coming. Indiana Jones maybe. The Gulls Boaster's Vault was the rumor floating around. It's still a perennial rumor now. And then Jaws has also been the perennial rumor. But Foo Fighters, that one came first. We didn't expect that. We all thought it would be Venom, but here we are in February with Foo Fighters. Jack Danger's first game, and what did he do but blow us out of the gate with a flow monster of a design, cross field ramps, all kinds of loops that could be hit from either direction. We were introduced to the Overlord and graced with the Foo Fighters, which I think since that day has been on track for Game of the Year. We'll get to that when we get to the end of the review. But that happened. What else did that harbinger? There was a teaser that came out just after that. If you remember, it was for American Pinball's next game. Game number six, GTF, Galactic Tank Force. The reveal didn't quite happen yet, but we got confirmation that this other rumored, otherworldly, Christopher Frenchy artist penned game was coming out from American Pinball. We got that little bit of a tease. And then that was pretty much our February. But the news was not going to hold on for long because there was a big, widespread, atomic bomb of pinball content about to blast our wigs straight through the back of our skulls. And that happened in pin March. Do you remember? How can you forget? We got a deluge of like five or six game announcements all coming at once on the precipice of the Texas Pinball Festival, which happened in March. It happens in March every year. down there in Frisco, Texas. We kicked it off, well, earlier in March, I kicked it off with myself going to the Louisville Arcade Game Expo, and I was able to do some live giveaways, meet some fans, had a great time, met some other pinball personalities, was able to play Spooky Pinball Scooby-Doo, which also released kind of around the same area. They were the kind of earliest into the February-March release schedule following Foo Fighters. The first one's going to get there out of the gate ahead of all this stuff. So got to meet those guys. This is where I first got to play up on 60th and give my reviews of that. But in anticipation of TPF, we got the full dump of pinball machines. Starting with Galactic Tank Force was fully revealed. And a curious hush fell across the gaming community once this game was released. Now, what wasn't released was actually the story of this wacky space ice cream space lunar cow games. Sonya Blade from Mortal Kombat 3 made an appearance. What the heck is going on with this game? It wasn't until months later during the Pinball News podcast on the Poor Man's Network with my boy Orville Al, where he actually got Christopher Franchi corralled in his final podcast appearance, apparently,

  • Pulp Fiction from Chicago Gaming/Raw Thrills was available to play on location in Chicago (Logan's Arcade and Interium) before general release in 2024

    high confidence · Don Garrison discussing 2023 location play availability prior to full 2024 release

  • Godzilla topper sold out despite $1,000 price tag

    high confidence · Don Garrison reporting on May/June 2023 Godzilla accessory release and sellout status

    • Don Garrison @ Late content, Harry Potter speculation — Reports on licensing negotiation rumors between Jersey Jack and Warner Brothers

  • “This is your adventure in the universe... you're the Harry Wizard now kind of sort of approach. So this would be like maybe they licensed Hogwarts itself... You're lucky if you get a vibrating broom toy, right?”

    Don Garrison @ Late content, Harry Potter speculation — Speculates on asset licensing constraints in potential Jersey Jack Harry Potter title

  • “Is it overpriced? Absolutely. Is it fun? Absolutely. Is it pinball? Oh, absolutely, sir. This is exactly what pinball is. Overpriced, plastic, and so, so fun to play and even better to complain about, right?”

    Don Garrison @ Godzilla topper discussion — Characterizes pinball community culture and aesthetic around accessories

  • “He was being interviewed by somebody at the Comic-Con... The person that was interviewing said, hey, man, what is the likelihood? I just straight up asked the dude. Like, no lie. I was just like, yo, no cap. Are we getting another Stranger Things version, a vault version or something? And he's like, well, things can happen this year.”

    Don Garrison @ Late content, Stranger Things vault speculation — Reports on Brian Eddy's non-committal but suggestive response to Stranger Things re-release question

  • “I am now a freaking pinball operator. I've got a pinball podcast that made it back past the first two weeks, which I had no intention that would have actually happened.”

    Don Garrison @ Mid-to-late content — Reflects on personal growth and unexpected success of Don's Pinball Podcast within a year

    • person
    Jason Knapperperson
    Zach Sharpeperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Raw Thrillscompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Multimorphiccompany
    Pinball Adventurescompany
    Deep Root Pinballcompany
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    San Diego Comic-Conevent
    Flip N Out Pinballcompany
    Foo Fightersgame
    James Bond 60th Anniversary Editiongame
    Galactic Tank Forcegame
    Pulp Fictiongame

    product_concern: Halloween pinball drop target failure (split in half) after brief location deployment; part sourcing available through Pinball Life at $4.95

    high · Don Garrison: 'There for about 22 hours before one of the play field drop targets split in half and broke... I was able to find out Pinball Life sells the Frosted Rollover Drop Targets... $4.95'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Multimorphic P3 platform has 6-8 to 12-month wait times; limited field availability (one known location: ASKogi in Van Nuys, CA); constrains game exposure and adoption

    high · Don Garrison: 'I've only seen one of these actually on location available to play down in Van Nuys, California at ASKogi... it's still a six to eight to 12 month wait to get in on these things'

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Adventures successfully executing delivery schedule for Putty Factory (April 2023), contrasting with operational failures of Deep Root Pinball and Andrew Highway

    high · Don Garrison: 'Here is a man with a dream and a plan, and he brought it to completion, something that Deep Root couldn't do, something that Andrew Highway had difficulty with'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Jersey Jack Harry Potter may use Disney Star Wars 'character-less universe' model due to licensing costs, OR may have acquired full assets for $5m+; two competing speculative models emerged

    medium · Don Garrison speculating: 'they licensed Hogwarts itself... You can have that Harry Potter stuff. Maybe you get some music, but you ain't getting no Daniel Radcliffe' vs later: 'maybe they did go on the assets, and like Mad Men, they put down $5 million plus'

  • ?

    community_signal: 2023 GOTY vote likely split between Foo Fighters (innovative modern design) and Pulp Fiction (classic design with modern execution), with Scooby-Doo and Godfather as secondary contenders

    medium · Don Garrison: 'what a great split... do you go for the classic gameplay done in a modern way? Or do you go for the ultimate, like, bleeding edge of brand-new game release... Is the voting public going to be completely split between Foo Fighters and Pulp Fiction?'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Multiple unconfirmed franchise licenses circulating: Indiana Jones, Looney Tunes, Monty Python, Princess Bride; attributed primarily to Spooky Pinball pipeline but confidence in specifics is low

    low · Don Garrison: 'The rumors are all over the place. Indiana Jones is still out there... People are dropping Looney Tunes as a license for Spooky... Princess Bride, right? All of those are on the frosty frontier.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Spooky Pinball expanding production capacity; question whether company will move to two games per year output; current run-rate of ~750 shipped by mid-2023 with 1,400-1,500 pre-orders suggests multi-year production window

    high · Don Garrison: 'Spooky Pinball is right at around 750 as far as the games... conservatively estimating they've sold at least 1,400 or 1,500 of these Scooby-Doo games... they do have a new production facility coming on'

    • 5:59
    until his next one, and actually explained this wacky, wacky game, which we still don't know the end story of this game, but that was one of the first ones to drop. The other thing that happened was confirmation of the rumor that Pulp Fiction was being worked on, and it was going to be a single-level game. And it was coming from the guys that make those Jurassic Park and zombie shooter games at the arcades, Raw Thrills. But they weren't going to be making the game, but Chicago Gaming Company was going to be making the game. The guys with the warehouse full of cactus canyons in various stages of production. I hope. Do you know? We don't know for sure. I reached out to them for comment to see just where we are with the cactus canyons. I'll get to that at the end. But Pulp Fiction was revealed. What else did we get? We got, oh, can't forget, the big daddy of them all. The long-rumored and hopefully, was strongly hoped to not be the case, but Godfather was released. Now, this game has gotten, you know, I think appropriate reviews. It's got its ardent supporters, though. It's not a terrible game from Jersey Jack. This is, what, their fifth, sixth game. The follow-up to Toy Story, the prices didn't change. They're still outrageous. And here we go with Godfather, a game that I don't know that anybody was really asking for. And I think as far as making a game from this theme, which I don't think really conveys itself to pinball well, I think it was a very admirable effort. You know I like some things they were doing in that game It was the second game to release in two months with in targets Super fun right This one was more directly activated by that long ramp Comes in two versions, bronze and silver. I love the gold edition, man. But I don't like the $15,000 price. But that game was dropped upon us and revealed and had a great, you know, what felt like a 90-minute expose on the development of the thoughts behind it. What a way to release a game. Anybody that puts a game out, please do what Jersey Jack did, what Raw Thrills did with Pulp Fiction. Like, release a featurette now that just releases everything and takes us through the process. You know, these pinball companies, you know, they're working on these games for two years or more. They understand the game, and then they're coming from their perspective of understanding already the whole process and everything that's in it and trying to convey it to us. and when you stumble, you end up with something like Galactic Tank Force where it's revealed, but nobody knows what the heck the story even is going on with this game. But with Pulp Fiction, it was just a nice long featurette. Talking to the creators, we could understand the creative process behind the decisions that they were making. There was a great one with Godfather 2 just kind of taking us through the whole thing so we could understand the game from their perspective, really speak to us, especially for those of us that are a little bit, how do you say, visual learners. Right. We want to see stuff, not just hear it or read it. Right. So so we saw it demonstrated kind of how you shouldn't launch a game and how you really should launch a game and then how you should make a game and then make some of the people actually are interested in. So the final words are not written about that. Speaking of final, remember this. oh man the scott deniski is dripping off of this this was project carbon final resistance the module released for the p3 multimorphic intermodular pinball experience system right this also dropped among one of the other six games we all got in march um revealed and in and able to play at the Texas Pinball Festival. I feel that this game's kind of slipped under the radar, and I think the reason for that is basically the P3 system. Now, I look at this game. This game looks great. I mean, I've seen the gameplay videos of this. You know, I get the concept. You know, we all know the guy behind it, Scott Denise, the solid dude. We know this is going to be a good shooting game with awesome thumping music, and I think it might be a sleeper hit for Mechanism of the Year with that super-fast ball eject, the multi-ball launcher that's up there, just attacks your flippers without just getting yeeted over them like a galactic tank would. I look at Final Resistance, though, kind of like a Neo Geo game from back in the day. Now, everybody had either a Sega Genesis or a Super Nintendo, right, a PlayStation or an Xbox. But just, you know, some of the kooky weirdos out there actually had a Neo Geo system, right? And so there was all these games, and sure, the games were amazing for their time with incredible graphics and design and games you just wanted to play, but ain't nobody had the machine in the home, right? I see P3 Multimorphic Platform as kind of the same thing. You know, we know some people kind of in our states that might have them, and occasionally you might go and see it. Or maybe you are one of those lucky people that actually were able to get a build of this thing in your house and have all the modules and things and have fun with it, but it's just not in wide release. I've only seen one of these actually on location available to play down in Van Nuys, California at ASKogi. So shout out to them for putting one of these dang things on location so you can go drop some quarters and play Weird Al, right? So that's kind of what I see this. This is a game that I don't think has gotten a fair shot as far as enough people to be able to play it. And I think it's because of its limited availability due to its tie to that platform. But I've heard nothing but good things from people that have played this game, especially with the integration of the LCD screen where they kind of took more of like a less is more design and just, you know, instead of throwing all kinds of video clips on that video play field, they just kind of put a pinball play field on it and it's all digital. And then you can add effects in there and supplement what's there. But the sweet, nutritious nectar of pinball is kind of left to speak for itself. So what a great series of design choices. I would love to see more of a featurette on this game. I'd like to see more gameplay. I'd like to play this thing thing. But it's just it's hamstrung because it's tied to this, you know, kind of niche within a niche product of the P3 multimorphic cabinet. So shout out to Scott Denise and the design team there. It looks like a great game. I can't wait to play it. I would buy one if I had a P3, but I still think even with their updated progress that they're making at the factory there in Texas, it's still a six to eight to 12 month wait to get in on these things. And then you got to deal with the cost. And then what's a resale going to be like? Are you going to be able to resale seven of these modules all at once? What else did we have in March? Isn't that enough?
    12:29
    Neil Peart is the greatest drummer ever. I just want to vibe with Rush all day now. crawling back from its release we got the accessories released for rush right the rush topper and mercifully daddy stern decided to bless us with a topper that was not quite two thousand dollars but just about i mean 17.99 16.99 with tax and shipping gee bus and did we buy this thing with the moving gears the crown for rush game of the year last year 2022 we also got the uh official thankfully light up shooter rod. It looks much better than what I'm seeing for things like Iron Maiden and Bond 60th, where it's just a plastic housing with a sticker on it. Come on, give me something that lights up, man. So I, of course, am a giant sucker, especially for Rush. So I bought these little bows and whistles for my pinball machine, and oh, it's just glorious. I ended up with two of the Rush shooters somehow because of nonrefundable deposits I had put in. I went ahead and just committed. So, you know what, sometimes Foo Fighters even has a Rush light-up rod. It doesn't quite light up yet. I think that may be because of code waiting to be finished. But, yeah, man, we got our Rush on, and we got the perfect crown to that game of the year from last year. Then we had the Texas Pinball Festival where everybody could go and play everything, including potential contender Pulp Fiction. Let me take an aside right now as we build up to what's going to be game of the year. I think it's going to be Foo Fighters, but my flag down. but that's not based on anything other than just what we've seen so far. Pulp Fiction. Did Pulp Fiction release in 2023? Because it's not being made until 2024. But then again, it is available on location in Chicago at two spots, Logan's Arcade and Interium. So it's technically available to play. It was announced. It was available at the conferences to play, and there are locations to play it. I guess we have to consider it a 2023 release. That will be really the dichotomy. Man, what a great choice here. You know, Rush kind of got it by default last year, but now we've got Foo Fighters, a great modern game with all kinds of different pathways and things. It's innovative. It uses magnets in creative ways. It a great platform to build on It not just a band out of box I mean you on an adventure We got Scooby as a contender And we got Pulp Fiction which is like this incredibly popular lightning game Harkens back to old design with new sensibilities, I guess. And, yeah, what a great split. Like, do you go for the classic gameplay done in a modern way? Or do you go for the ultimate, like, bleeding edge of brand-new game release? I can't wait to see how this vote's going to end up coming out. Is the voting public going to be completely split between Foo Fighters and Pulp Fiction and then something like Scooby-Doo can just zip right up there in the middle where we see Godfather whack all the competition? Who knows, man? But that was our march. What a crazy march. And we thought this is going to be, for sure, the peak of the year, and then it'll just kind of be downhill and we'll finally sort out the dust and everything. But it didn't slow down, man. April started with Pin Brew. More people were able to play these games on location. We finally got the long-awaited release of Pinball Adventures' Putty Factory. And they are still churning these games out to buyers. So there's a success story to be said. Here is a man with a dream and a plan, and he brought it to completion, something that Deep Root couldn't do, something that Andrew Highway had difficulty with, something that some of the pillars of the pinball community for their time, or at least on appearances until the court dockets were released, seemed to have everything all together. And then here's little pinball adventures up there in British Columbia just slowly releasing their games out into the public, man. And I can't wait to play one of these somewhere either. Probably it'll be at a convention. Maybe it's Southern Fright Gaming Expo. I don't want to cut into that drama butter bar. But Pony Factory came out in April is the take-home point there. What else did we have?
    16:32
    Was that all we had with April? That's all I have on my list here. March was huge. I think we were still feeling the blowback from all that in April. We floated right into May, and we were greeted with the reveal of Final Resistance. We also got bombarded by a brand-new company that we didn't really see coming, Hexa Pinball out of France from Lexagon, right, with their Space Hunt. And that great earworm of a song, which I think I deleted from my sound pad, so I will save you that, but Space Hunt was revealed. It was revealed in Pontiac in the south of France in June is where it was first available to be played, but it was released, or revealed at least, in May. Also coming up with May was something else that was strange. Whirlwind Total Chaos. Remember that? It was only two months ago. How could you forget? This created 2.0 system for the Whirlwind machine, a game that came out sometime in the 90s, has a fan on top for some reason, blows your hair back as you're playing, a very, by all accounts, lovely game. Got a total remake of 2.0 code, a new LCD monitor, and all these strange, strange modes, one which involves the Golden Girls versus a sewer monster. Well, the public domain available non-licensed version of Golden Girls. Suey and the Grannies, man. Say what you will, but who here does not just want to at least curiously like Rage Play, Sui, and the Grannies. I mean, I'm looking to do that at some point. What I'm not doing is rushing out. And can't we just talk about these 2.0 kits for these older, older games, right? I mean, you know, why not, right? If you come up with new code and some new equipment and you make it available, somebody that has this game maybe doesn't play it a whole lot, it gives them something to do to breathe new life in their old game, kind of like the Game Genie for your NES back in the day, only it's like $3,000. but why not take it a step further and get the license and recreate the actual machine with this 2.0 kit integrated into it and then you can buy a Whirlwind that still has the classic gameplay plus the 2.0 gameplay kind of in the Haggis model but maybe do it in a way that's I don't know like real and going to come out man Haggis is getting torn up but Haggis prove me wrong prove me wrong ship your games but you know I wouldn't mind buying you know I'm not before I would buy a Centaur, before I would buy a Fathom, no matter who was making it, I would definitely be considered buying a Whirlwind if it was remade. So do the full poll here. You can have the kits, but consider remaking the actual game with the kit integrated into it. Do them at scale. And I think this is something that people would be interested in. Movement aside, I'm going to move aside. I'm going to move along. That's what we got in May. Oh, we also got blessed with a Godzilla topper. And thankfully, Daddy Stern blessed us with another $1,000. So that was revealed May going into June. In June, I heard that it was, no, no, no, it was May. It was right at the end of May. It was right before my Europe trip. During the trip is when it was available to send. But, yeah, we got blessed with that Godzilla topper and that miserable Godzilla topper release video, which really didn't show us anything except it covered the accessories, which had already been out for over a year and aren't so great to begin with. But fortunately, Flippin' Out Pinball jumped up Straight down the middle, guys Your friends and mine Greg the Bone Jackson And I was going to say Keith No, it's Zach They did a great video I don't know if Greg Bo was involved He was there in spirit But revealed this topper And showed it kind of actually what it can do Showed more of the light shows Showed the Godzilla kind of shadow projection on the wall Still, it's a bunch of acrylic With some LEDs Synced into the game It comes with that great new mode. Is all of that worth $1,000? Enough people thought so because the thing is sold out. Is it overpriced? Absolutely. Is it fun? Absolutely. Is it pinball? Oh, absolutely, sir. This is exactly what pinball is. Overpriced, plastic, and so, so fun to play and even better to complain about, right? I mean, don't take that away from us, guys. Moving into June, that was kind of all I got there. You know, the Godzilla toppers were going out. It was June. we were kind of all enjoying our Foo Fighters on location at home they were getting delivered and then that was followed up in July that's where we are now we're coming full circle here July has already shown us the reveal of Centaur from Haggis Pinball it's not going to be made until next year this is for sure can't be considered game of the year right because it's not releasing until next year or even getting made we also got a reveal video for the Bond accessories and gosh darn it did that give us more things to complain about especially the lackluster shooter rod the formerly what was thought to be exclusive armor to that twenty thousand dollars 60th edition version is now available to everybody as was the topper which promptly sold out or did it is it really limited they're not saying who the heck knows that's pinball where we're at now so that brings us to uh july here where we are so going forward i mean what else can happen this year quite a bit there's still a big gap in the stern uh production schedule in November, December. Are they going to vault something? Is it for Venom? Oh, Venom got released. Yeah, don't forget that. I don't think many people did. We just had the San Diego Comic Convention. Mr. Jack Danger was there raging wild and showing us pictures and things of themes that probably aren't coming to Stern Pinball, otherwise he wouldn't be showing them off unless he snuck something in there. But yeah, I think Venom's been revealed and it's been accepted well. I think the people that end up buying Venom will be able to tell you 10 reasons why they bought it, and people that are not buying it can tell you 20 reasons why they not buying it I think it a very serviceable game I think it not terrible It not stellar It Venom and that what we have right now So the next Cornerstone probably if I forecasting won't come until, you know, quarter one next year, but there is a gap in the schedule. So are we going to see a vault, or is that when Venom's going to be run? Let's go down the rumors where they're at here. Now that we've caught up and we've reflected on this year of our Lord, 2023, Harry Potter is in the news. Mr. Jason Knapper revealed this earlier today. I guess Joe Kamikawa is still making comments. I don't know where he does this. I need to follow this guy online somewhere. But apparently he revealed that he had offered $4 million to Warner Brothers for the pinball graphic rights to the Harry Potter license franchise, and they noped right out of that. They're like, $4 million? Get out of here with that peasant. We need more. And, you know, the thing is, you know, if you're making a thousand games at $10,000, do some math and then subtract $4 million plus for licensing fees, you know, are you left with enough skin in the game to actually turn a profit on these things? So apparently the rumor is that it must have gone for north of $4 million, and Jersey Jack was the ones that went in there and scooped it up. But earlier in, what was it, the day, I think, it was revealed, kind of like in line with some of my speculation I had before, that this is going to be a Harry Potter pinball machine, but not with the full complement of assets due to licensing costs and things. They were going to go more the Disney Star Wars land route, where it's like we decided not to put your favorite characters in the game because we want you to be the character in the game. We want you to have your own Harry Potter adventure in the Hogwarts universe, but without anything licensed like Hogwarts or Nocturne Alley or a giant Hagrid. You don't need those things because this is your adventure in the universe. this you're the Harry Wizard now kind of sort of approach. So this would be like maybe they licensed Hogwarts itself, like the Hogwarts Legacy video game that came out, and then it's a pinball machine in Hogwarts. You can have that Harry Potter stuff. Maybe you get some music, but you ain't getting no Daniel Radcliffe in this. You're lucky if you get a vibrating broom toy, right? So that was a speculation, and then it was later revealed that, no, maybe they did go on the assets, and like Mad Men, they put down $5 million plus for licensing costs. We're going to have to wait and see. None of this may actually be true. None of this may actually happen. But gosh, darn it, isn't this fun to talk about and speculate what a Harry Potter pinball machine would look like. What else is going on? I've got my Halloween out there on location. I think it was there for about 22 hours before one of the play field drop targets split in half and broke. What the heck? I get a picture sent to me. I'm like, hey, how's the game holding up? And they're like, oh, yeah, this broke.
    24:52
    What the heck? This isn't a drop target that typically breaks. it's been doing nothing but great things for me at home. So I fished around. I was able to find out Pinball Life sells the Frosted Rollover Drop Targets, if anybody's looking for those. I was emailing Spooky. I was emailing Marco. Shoot, Scott Denise, he shoot me an email back, and he's like, hey, man, Pinball Life, got the hookup. So I got them ordered. They're $4.95, so it's not an expensive fix. I don't know how it happened because these things are engineered pretty robustly, you know, but that has happened. I am now a freaking pinball operator. I've got a pinball podcast. that made it back past the first two weeks, which I had no intention that would have actually happened. So this year has untold stories and things still in store for us. And just before it went up onto air, we got probably the most solid confirmation since George Gomez let it slip that a Stranger Things rerun, vault edition, or whatever you want to call it, may be actually in the works. So my boy and yours, Brian Eddy, the designer of Stranger Things, that weird castle game back in the 90s, some kind of space game, and then Venom, right? The ball chucker. He was being interviewed by somebody at the Comic-Con. I didn't have all the details soak into my brain cortex just yet. But the person that was interviewing said, hey, man, what is the likelihood? I just straight up asked the dude. Like, no lie. I was just like, yo, no cap. Are we getting another Stranger Things version, a vault version or something? And he's like, well, things can happen this year. Like that specific thing of Stranger Things being made is something that could happen this year. Like, say what, right? You know?
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    So I guess that, along with, since George Gomez is, you know, kind of flippant response that, oh, yeah, it's something we could probably do. I'm going to go that that's, like, super confirmed now. Super official. We're getting a Stranger Things vault. Are we? Are they going to do the pro and the premium? Is it going to be a revamped game? Is it going to have any updated code? Is it going to include other seasons? Well, none of that we know. But it will be here. to speculate. What else do we have on the frosty frontier? The rumors are all over the place. Indiana Jones is still out there, maybe as a license. Who knows? People are dropping Looney Tunes as a license for Spooky on top of I was going to say Harry Potter.
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    Money Python and the Peanut Movie. Come on, think, Don, think. Princess Bride, right? All of those are on the frosty frontier. I know that Spooky Pinball is right at around 750 as far as the games that are going on the line soon, since that's kind of where I'll be, which leaves them about 1,200 games left if they sold out.
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    Conservatively estimating they've sold at least 1,400 or 1,500 of these Scooby-Doo games. They still have well into next year, even with production kicking up, but they do have a new production facility coming on. So will we see another release from Spooky? Is Spooky going to be a company that ends up dumping out two games per year? What are we going to see next from American Pinball? There's rumors and speculation all over there. I'm hearing licenses all over the place. Video game licenses, other crazy things from American Pinball. I don't know what to trust. I don't think there's enough there there to really put anything on. But who knows? We may find out a nice juicy, juicy rumor here in the next 24 hours or so. But are we going to see another game from them? I don't think so. I'm just going to say that. I don't think so. I think Galactic Tank Force is still waiting to get out. People are only now starting to unbox it. You know, what are we going to see from Jersey Jack for the rest of the year? Godfathers are sitting in boxes. That kind of tells me that, like, the supply has been or the demand has been satiated for now because if there was still demand out there, we wouldn't see stocks sitting. The CEs are rolling out. Did they make all the CEs? We don't know. They don't reveal the numbers. I know they say that they're sold out currently, but maybe they could have sold 562 of them and they didn't really get any other orders. And so they're just like, you know, we're just going to kind of cut it off here. And we're saying they're sold out for now. You know, maybe this is going to be like the Buffalo Pinball guys said today that this is going to be another Pirates of the Caribbean scenario where they, you know, in a few months, they just cut off after they make all the CEs and they don't make any more. And then when they sell out, they sell out and they don't make any more. And then maybe it becomes a darling of a game with code later in the time. We don't know. We don't know. But what we do know is that Don's Pinball Podcast will be here for you. Bringing you up to the minute news, rumors, speculation, and views from my brain, my cortex. I squeeze it, and it comes down my earlobes and out through my vocal capabilities into your ear. Drop me some comments. Don't forget, podcast.gmail.com is a great place to go. Go on to wherever you're listening to this and drop a review. Let's do a review drive, okay? One out of five people listening to this, throw a review down there. I'm going to build them up. Later.