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Episode 200 - The End

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 49m·analyzed·Aug 20, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Eclectic Gamers celebrates 200 episodes with behind-the-scenes history and merchandise announcement.

Summary

Eclectic Gamers marks episode 200 with a retrospective on the podcast's 7.5-year history since January 2016, discussing early discoverability challenges, growth milestones through guest appearances on TWIP, consistent episode releases, technical evolution from Google Drive/FeedBurner to SoundCloud hosting, and the introduction of fursona-themed merchandise featuring walrus and crab mascots designed by the host's daughter.

Key Claims

  • Eclectic Gamers is probably the most consistent pinball podcast in the history of the hobby, having never missed an episode in 200 releases over 7.5 years

    high confidence · Host states: 'I feel very, very confident. We are, at least in the world of, you know, video games are so many podcasts. But in the world of pinball, we are probably, I'm going to say, we are the most consistent pinball podcast in the history of this hobby.'

  • First episode was recorded January 31st, 2016, posted February 1st, 2016

    medium confidence · Host explains: 'I believe it was January 31st, 2016. The reason I think that is, the episode posting on our WordPress page is February 1st.'

  • Original podcast hosting used Google Drive with FeedBurner RSS feed for first six months before switching to SoundCloud

    high confidence · Host detailed: 'We did that for about half a year, and then Google was changing how Google Drive would share. So we went ahead and we figured, okay, we're going to stick with this. So we picked up a subscription to SoundCloud.'

  • First significant listener surge came from Don (co-host of Pinball Podcast) plugging the show, resulting in approximately 50 listeners

    high confidence · Host: 'Our first big jump actually came when Don, who was one of the co-hosts of the Pinball podcast, plugged us as a podcast that he liked. And we saw what was for us at the time a big – like we got to 50 listeners.'

  • Second major growth wave occurred from recurring guest appearances on TWIP podcast hosted by Zach Minney and Jeff Patterson

    high confidence · Host explains: 'Our second big wave of subscribers, I believe, really happened when I started to appear as a guest on the Twip podcast, which Zach Minney was hosting.'

Notable Quotes

  • “We are the fiber of pinball podcasting. Very regular. Yes. Always there.”

    Tony (co-host) @ N/A — Humorous self-description of podcast consistency, playing on the Metamucil reference

  • “I feel very, very confident. We are, at least in the world of, you know, video games are so many podcasts. But in the world of pinball, we are probably, I'm going to say, we are the most consistent pinball podcast in the history of this hobby.”

    Dennis (host) @ N/A — Core claim about podcast's industry standing and reliability

  • “It's Episode 200. We're allowed. The end. Ego trip.”

    Dennis (host) @ N/A — Self-aware reference to episode title and justification for retrospective focus

  • “I was so angry. we got that episode out because we don't miss episodes but that was that was bad”

    Dennis (host) @ N/A — Demonstrates commitment to episode consistency despite technical challenges

  • “You guys really got along well with that. But anyway those are all asides”

    Tony (co-host) @ N/A — Reference to Jack Danger as favorite guest

Entities

Eclectic Gamers PodcastorganizationDennispersonTonypersonDonpersonZach MinneypersonJack DangerpersonRyan C.personJesse J.personJeff Pattersonperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Episode 200 milestone celebration with retrospective format and custom fursona artwork/merchandise

    high · Entire episode dedicated to 200-episode anniversary with custom cover art and merchandise launch

  • $

    market_signal: Eclectic Gamers positioning itself as most consistent pinball podcast in industry history

    high · Host claim: 'I feel very, very confident. We are probably the most consistent pinball podcast in the history of this hobby.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Podcast infrastructure evolution from Google Drive/FeedBurner to SoundCloud hosting platform

    high · Host detailed complete technical migration: 'We did that for about half a year, and then Google was changing how Google Drive would share. So we picked up a subscription to SoundCloud.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.328

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, August 20th, and this is episode 200. Wow. You know what the hard part of episode 200 is? No. fitting the 200 random guests into your house. So we didn't do it. We didn't. There are no guests. Just like there haven't been for a long time. It has been a long, long time. We used to do a lot of guests. We did. In fact, this little Zoom device that we used to record on has a neat little ability where I can just sort of microphone jack in a Skype call or whatever, and it'll come in as its own track so we can fix the audio on it just like how I'm able to adjust the audio of our individual tracks, which has given us a lot better flexibility, a lot less echo.
0:58
And it also gives us the ability to record on the road. That's true. Which we did, what, once? No, that was with the old Microsoft. That was before I owned the stuff. That was at Expo. Yes, it was. Yeah, so that might be something. When we get closer to TPF, I'll have to take a look at it. Yeah, we could do some in-house. It's like the size between a cell phone and a tablet. It's pretty small. Yeah, we could probably do some, like, at-the-moment impressions and then just flop them into the episode later. That's true. That could be. On the fly. Could be. Could be true. Could be possible. Or get the hammer out the episode before they open the place up on Sunday. Very true. They open relatively early. They're not like Expo. They aren't trash. I'm not actually sure where TPF falls this year. If it's on our normal week. My TPS week. I don't look that far ahead. It varies. The only thing I know for sure is that for the first time in four years, it doesn't directly interfere with my wife's birthday. Oh, that's true, because it has interfered quite often. Because normally it's either I'm gone on her birthday or, like, it's her birthday and then we leave type thing. Or I get back the day before. Yeah. Now it's fallen. For me, the issue, much less controversial, but I have a work-related conference that has always been the week. Like, I take the Monday off getting back, and then that starts Tuesday. Yeah. But they changed hotels for that event. So now they're, for at least the next couple of years, they're in early March instead of that week. So I actually don't have that same issue where it's like, here, go on vacation, and then come back in. Oh, wait, you're not actually catching back up on anything because you're at a conference. Right. So that's nice for me. I mean, will you even still be at that conference? Most likely, yeah. Because I'm not changing fields when I'm changing jobs. So you'll still be at the conference. You just won't be running the conference. I'm on the planning team on it. I don't do work for it. Whether or not I have to be on the pre-conference. The Tuesday is like a pre-conference day, though. So maybe I won't have to attend that, which would give me another, like maybe I could take a second day off. Because it's kind of funny going to TPF because you almost need a vacation from the vacation. You do. Because I don't think it's so much the event itself, it's the drive. Because we have to, for those that are new to the show, it's an eight-hour trip for Tony and I. And so while we have, last year we went ahead and left, and we did that, I think, before also. Yeah, we are not staying until the very end of TPF anymore, which has made it a lot easier because it's just we're getting so tired by the time, I mean, getting back at midnight. Yeah, because it used to be that we wouldn't leave until... After the awards. After the awards, and then we'd have to grab lunch and something, and then we'd head out. So normally we weren't getting on the road back home until like 3. Yeah, 3-ish was about when we'd be done with In-N-Out. Yeah, and then lately we've been starting and getting on the road at like 11. Yeah. And it's great. Yeah, we get back when there's still light up. Yes. And then we're not tired, and it's safer to drive in the light and all of that. And we're not running into, hey, it's 11 o'clock, 1030 or 11 o'clock at night, and we're driving through severe thunderstorms with a visibility of five feet. Yes. And people stopped with their expensive cars on all lanes and both shoulders of the highway directly underneath a bridge. That's right. Like their motorcycle. Yeah, except for they don't park in the middle of the road as well. At least they're on the shoulder. I'm fine with them being on the shoulder. That scared the crud out of me that one time. They just stop wherever they look. You don't understand. my Beamer. There was hail. I had to park my Beamer. It's like you almost got taken out by a semi-truck at 80 miles an hour, and you were doing zero. Let me tell you, your Beamer's damage is going to be the least of your concerns if that had happened. Maybe don't take a lease payment that's so high you can't afford comprehensive. Maybe. Well, it's probably not leased if they don't have their comprehensive coverage. But anyway, on to brighter news. What's been going on? So, intros.
Texas Pinball Festival
event
Chicago Pinball Expoevent
FeedBurnerproduct
SoundCloudproduct
Zencasterproduct
TWIPorganization
Cactus Canyon Remakegame
Slam Tiltorganization
Pinball Podcastorganization
5:10
I'm getting ready for a work conference. Actually, I am on an awards group. Are you going to give yourself an award? No, I actually, my boss wanted to put our plants in, and I directly said no. It's like, don't. I'm literally the head of the committee for the awards. Don't put us in because I will not allow us to win even if we win. because it's just always going to have an ethical concern. So we just, as long as I'm on the committee, I won't let her put us in for awards, which is annoying to her, but at the same time, she doesn't have to fill out the awards paperwork. Yeah, see? Bright side. I mean, bright side. Bright side. Always look on the bright side. But that conference alternates between Topeka and Wichita, and this is a Wichita year. So I'm going to do that, but I don't need to be at the conference except for one day for the awards. I don't need to be there the rest of the week, and I don't need the hours that you earn from going to the conference, your, like, continuing education credits. I don't need those because I have more than enough to re-up all my certifications. So I'm going to do a day trip to Wichita, which means I'm going to have to be on the road at, like, 5 in the morning, get to Wichita by 8, go through the entire day, and then drive home. On the other hand, that is going to time me just about right to stop at Brahms and then pour you on the way home and get a shake. So, hey. All the reason to prefer the Wichita route because there's no Brahms on the way to Topeka. That's right.
6:57
Topeka is much closer. It is. That's true. Yes. So, I've got that coming up. before our next episode. It's not this upcoming Tuesday. It'll be the Tuesday after.
7:10
And otherwise, the only thing is I have had almost zero sleep in the last three days. Very little sleep to the point where I actually did, like, melatonin sleeping aids to try and force the sleep because I was doing some weed eating at work and I went through a patch of something. and my ankles, there was a point where you couldn't even tell where the skin was because everything was just raised red welts where some sort of insect got onto me and like ate the crap out of my ankles and lower legs. You don't think you got an allergic reaction? No. No, because I thought it was at first, but after using some hydrocortisone and stuff, it's calmed down. It's just super itchy, but it doesn't look anything like poison ivy or any of that stuff. Yeah, because we've all been into that stuff. Yeah, no, this is like individual bites. I don't know what it was. I don't know if some sort of mite or what, but something tore my legs up. So I'll, like, fall asleep for, like, 45 minutes, and then I'll shift around enough that the blankets, like, scratch my ankles, and then I'll wake up and my legs will be itching so much. Oh, it's been terrible. It's been just a horrible two or three days since it happened. I'm just driving me nuts. It's finally getting better. So, yeah, that's been great. well I should note since you referenced the discussion on the next episode since this title of the episode is The End episode 200 it's because it's the end of the 100s that's why we titled it that so we thought it was the most logical title to go with I'm sure everyone understood that going in however well I don't have a lot in terms of intro so in terms of I mean I've been playing a little bit of pinball I got some Deadpool and Godzilla time in yesterday, in fact. Back to working more on Phoenix Wright for video games. Resumed that a couple days ago. I hadn't played that since the end of July. I found out I was only done with the first game. It's just they had a whole extra episode that was as long as the first game portion combined. And so... It was like DLC or something like that. I don't know how they originally did it, but it was... Because they ran the credits, and then I had this super long, like, fifth case, and then they ran the credits again. But now I went in and loaded my save to continue, and I was like, no, no, no. you need to start a new game. And I was like, oh, okay. So I'm now really actually done with game one. And so I'm on game two, still doing Puzzle Quest 3. So that's it in terms of my gaming updates. But so some stuff, because since it's episode 200 and people make a big deal about these nice round numbers, I figured we should go ahead and talk a little bit about some of the stuff that we've done. Now, one of the things that people might have been very confused by when they came in is they did not hear our usual intro music. I actually dropped in the original intro music that we had. Now, when we first started the show, we didn't have intro music. Right. The current song and the original song are actually both Fiverr things. I just paid someone on Fiverr. And the reason why we have the current one is we had so many complaints about the original one. I call it the squeaky song. Oh, it hurts. The squeaky song. It kind of hurts. And so here you go. You get to enjoy the old squeaky song. I've wondered, and I almost just did it because it's so cheap, but I thought, eh, that's something I really need to consult with Tony on, or maybe we should consult with the listeners on. Should we go ahead and change intro music to something new now? Because we have used the ongoing non-original song now for well over 100 episodes. I don't remember when we switched, but we've done it for a long time. I think it's been over 100. So anyway, maybe it's time for a new piece. I don't know. If you guys have suggestions, again, Fiverr is always out there. I can always go and get something commissioned pretty cheap.
10:55
Yeah, both of those songs I believe were $5. Don't you worry. You say Fiverr, and then you can find out it's like a $50 project. I'm like, no, no, no, no. This is a dentist-oriented project. It's going to be like $5 to $10. That's how much we're going to do. So I thought about that as an idea. So maybe write in, click to gamerspodcast.gmail.com and give us some thoughts on that. Because, Tony, I haven't talked about it. Yeah, I can definitely see it. It's been its time. It's time to segue all those shows that change up their intros every so many episodes or so often.
11:30
Now, those who actually look when they download the podcast into the podcatchers probably notice that the episode cover is different. Now, I used to, on occasion, do a specialized episode cover once in a while. We have, like, maybe 15 in our catalog. Right. Because I do it, like, on some of our interviews, our guest hosting, when we have guest hosts, a lot of times I do something like that. But we hadn't, I mean, it had been, like, dozens of episodes since I last bothered with one. I normally just use our regular EGP, the standard EGP logo with the controllers and all that stuff. However, for this episode, we have a different piece of cover art, and I'd like you to explain it, because this is not something Dennis has to explain. No. But, yeah, this started out as kind of a joke with Dennis. I joked about us creating, like, these fursona versions of us for the podcast.
12:26
And maybe explain what a fursona is. It's like an anthropomorphic animal version. It's basically like a furry thing. But I said it as a joke, and it kind of grew and grew. And I had a conversation with my daughter. and she found it hilarious and she ended up actually drawing not an actual fursona because they're not like anthropomorphic but just animal versions of us that I basically commissioned her for after she showed me her original sketched out idea.
13:01
So I went ahead and commissioned her since art's her thing and let her go to town and have fun and she created these little animal versions of Dennis and myself that started out as, as I recall, I just asked Dennis, what kind of animal do you want to be? Okay, yes, all right. I do vaguely remember that. And Dennis is like, I want to be a crab. I think the listeners would agree it's a proper fursona.
13:29
Despite the lack of fur. So we did that, and my daughter knocked together a little demo version of Crab Dennis, And it was so cute that we just went ahead and I had them. Because originally I was going with the, you know, completely not original, very not unexpected. I just wanted to be like a bear, a big bear. The bears.
13:58
But with the crab, we made the decision to kind of match the area. So instead I'm a walrus, and they already have the mustache. Oh, yes, that makes sense. So we did that. She put all that together and this little fursona logo, and then we've got, like, some directed art of each character as well that she put together. Yeah, I'm going to think about ways to exploit this. I think there could be some fun. But for listeners, you don't have to just look at the cover art. You can own this art on your body and not as a tattoo. But that's a shirt. But if you do want to do it as a tattoo, let us know. Let us know. Totally. If you want to get us tattooed on you in that way, more power to you. That's like stalker-level creep. I mean, that is stalker-level creep. I don't really want to encourage it. So, like, you might want to seek some consultation or something to figure out why you want to go down these routes, because I'm a little, I would be a little worried. But free will is a thing. It's true. It is. So, but for now, the EGP Fursona merchandise. I have a link in the, it's in the episode link. Is that our regular sort of, we have a Teespring shop where we have stuff. I've actually gone through and cleaned that up quite a bit. So the original with our standard EGP logo is there, but just in the blue now. It's still got a variety of shirts and stuff, but I took out a lot of the other merch. Most of it wasn't moving. But there's a special link that would take you directly to the fursona. And now currently there's only one thing in there. It's a shirt. You can have any shirt style you want as long as it's tri-blend, and you can have any color you want as long as it's blue. That's what you get. Beautiful. But it does get you kind of the cover image, which is the walrus holding the crab with a pinball machine and a microphone attached. And it's a little more simplified than the actual episode cover because, again, for the shirt, I've written and stripped out some elements. Some more of the shirt color showed through. But anyway, that's ready to go. And we can do some other things. Like one of the things I don't have it live right now but I toyed around with was taking that image and, like, doing, like, a beer glass. Because I could do, like, that image on one end and then the EGP logo just, like, in black on the other so that the cup's completely wrapped around with imagery. I almost put that in there, but I've held off for the time being. I've just figured, let's see if there's any interest in it. But anyway, so there are shirts available for those that are interested. So thank you to your eldest for constructing that. We are honored by her presence. I mean, she's not actually present, but by her presence. S-E-N-T. Well, no, I guess he conditioned herself.
16:54
All right. So before we move on, a little more Episode 200 stuff, I guess, because people might want to know. So, you know, here you go. Fast forward X number of minutes if you need to because we're too much talking about ourselves. Why are we having such an ego trip? It's Episode 200. We're allowed. It's Episode 200. Are we allowed? The end. Ego trip.
17:12
Ego trip. The end. It's a name for the episode. So just some background. Regarding all that, we have been doing this now for over seven and a half years. That's why we're at 200 episodes.
17:27
According to what I can tell, I think we actually recorded our very first episode, recorded it. This is a guess, but I believe it was January 31st, 2016. The reason I think that is, the episode posting on our WordPress page is February 1st. I think we recorded earlier than that, because I thought. Maybe the 30th? It wasn't much earlier, was it? I thought we'd recorded two episodes before we put the first one live.
17:55
Or we talked about it. We talked about that because that was a common start. Right. I think what we may have done is we didn't list it with iTunes until we were two or three episodes in. But I was actually putting them online for us. They were ongoing online. Yeah, we did an iTunes list. Yeah, because I think you had told me you're supposed to have like three episodes out before you post the iTunes. In fact, Apple back then, I don't know if they still do, but they did recommend that. Right. But I think I had them up on WordPress already because I was building the RSS. iTunes won't crawl the web to make an RSS thing. You have to submit to them. Correct. Because they're so big, they don't need to find them. So anyway, we recorded in January. We recorded in January, which makes us at this point one of the oldest podcasts still around that does pinball. Not the oldest, I don't believe. I don't think so, but we're definitely up there. All right. Slam Tilt started a little bit later in the year. They're one of the other really long ones. I think Chris's Kaneda podcast started about a month before we did. I know that's not, at least last I heard, that's not freely available anymore. But that was about that era is when we came off.
19:04
So anyway, what we did back, I look back at that. Actually, I started to play that first episode. It was so painful that I stopped. Incidentally, I'll get to it. But that episode is still available. I don't recommend it. It's terrible. Yeah. But we talked about upcoming pinball machines from Stern, Highway Pinball, Jersey Jack, Dutch Pinball, and Spooky. We also gave our top 2015 video games, and we covered some Kickstarter stuff that was going on in the world of tabletop gaming. Because back then, we had a recurring tabletop segment, just like we always talk about video games and pinball every episode. We always talked about tabletop for like the first year plus of the show. Basically until I got to the point where I had too much stuff going on in life to play tabletop as much as I was at the time originally. Because it's hard to talk about tabletop when you only play like once a year. Yes. Now, our podcast growth was incredibly slow initially. We started very, very small. I found out years later that we were having some discoverability issues. So even though I got us listed with iTunes really quickly, because of the way we were hosting and doing the feed, we would not show up if you did a search for like pinball. We wouldn't show up. So and part of that was when we launched the show, we did it totally free software wise. So what we would do is Tony and I would record and then we would upload the audio file to Google Drive. We would make a shareable Google Drive of our MP3 file, and then we used FeedBurner, which is a free feed-burning service, which still exists that Google owns, and that is how we made the RSS feed to the file. We did that for about half a year, and then Google was changing how Google Drive would share. So there was an announcement that basically you could no longer RSS feed Google Drive files because they were changing the share mechanic. So we went ahead and we figured, okay, we're going to stick with this. So we picked up a subscription to SoundCloud to be our podcast hosting software provider. And we just redirected our feed burner to point to SoundCloud. We still actually advertise the feed burner feed. But the feed burner feed isn't as flexible, especially nowadays, as what you'll normally get directly with podcasting hosting site like Podbean or SoundCloud or whatever. So it just points to that RSS now. But that's why I had to add pinball and video games to our title, because even just putting pinball and video games in the description and feed burner didn't, quote unquote, work right. We just I I didn't catch that when I was doing my searches. But we had people tell us, you know, this doesn't show up. And so then I was like, OK, let's make some more changes. But our very first big wave of listeners because of that issue, we weren't getting discovered very easily, but people were finding us. Our first big jump actually came when Don, who was one of the co-hosts of the Pinball podcast, plugged us as a podcast that he liked. And we saw what was for us at the time a big – like we got to 50 listeners. We were really excited. We got to like 50 listeners with that. Our second big wave of subscribers, I believe, really happened when I started to appear as a guest on the Twip podcast, which Zach Minney was hosting. and he and Jeff Patterson had put together this podcast to be tied to TWIP or This Week in Pinball. And they had a rotating guest seat that would participate with Zach. And I was one of the first ten.
22:35
But the feedback on that was really good. So I started a guest as more recurring and then like probably once every other month or so. And then eventually where we got our last, when I was trying to detect in the analytics at the time, And Big Surge was when I was just the regular co-host there. Then I think a lot of people were just like, oh, okay. I kind of like what this show does. Maybe they want to hear more, even though our show is very different than how Zach and I do the show. Oh, yeah. So whether they stick with it or not, we kind of had another show. Basically, I got to promote the Eclectic Gamers podcast a lot more because I was on this other show. So that seemed to steer a lot of traffic to us. And then they stick around because of you. But that's just how it is. Believe what you will. So another thing I thought I would point out is we, as a collective, we have never missed an episode.
23:27
We've moved them on occasion by a few days. Like we've had times where we will be like, okay, we're going to Texas Panhandle Festival. We're going to record on Tuesday. Right. Instead of our Sunday release. So the episode might be out on Wednesday sort of thing. I think we did at least one or two where we've recorded early due to something going on. Yeah, and we've recorded a little early. So we're not always exactly 14 days apart, but we've always announced when it was going to be different. As near as I can tell across these 200 episodes, you have missed two and I have missed one. But there have been an episode out when that has happened. We still put the episodes out. It's just been a solo host episode. So I think, you know, I can't promise this. However, I feel very, very confident. We are, at least in the world of, you know, video games are so many podcasts. But in the world of pinball, we are probably, I'm going to say, we are the most consistent pinball podcast in the history of this hobby.
24:23
I'm willing to accept that. We are extremely consistent. We are very consistent. Well, and a lot of things, like, lead to that consistency. But, yes, we are very consistent. Yes. So. We are the fiber of pinball podcasting. Very regular. Yes. Always there. We almost named ourselves Eclectic Metamucil. But we didn't because we didn't know it was true.
24:50
So I mentioned that you can go back and listen to Episode 1. When we switched over to SoundCloud, I did upload our entire back catalog in order. So everything should appear in order. It does appear in order. I don't need to say it should. It will. It does. I confirm that.
25:05
So we have our entire back catalog. We have never deleted an episode. Like, you won't go and, like, find episode 47 is no longer available. All of our episodes to date are available. I will say you probably don't want to listen to episode two.
25:21
Episode two was the one where my audio degraded at the end? No, I thought, well, I think episode two was the one where we played with deleting empty space too much, and it became very clipped. Could be. When we first started recording, I was using an older desktop computer, and I was having a problem. At the time, we were using Zencaster, and sometimes if we didn't stop the recording after 30 minutes, we started to have sync issues and stuff. And it would impact, because I was doing the editing and hosting the Zencaster, I thought it was on your end, but it was actually my system that was causing the problem. We eventually figured it out as we started to eliminate other, trying to figure out what things are. We have a whole history of sound issues throughout this podcast. But, yeah, a lot of those had issues until we ultimately swore off Zencaster because that was after we did the guest host with Ryan C. from Head to Head Pinball and later on Jesse J.'s Pinball podcast where his audio got so desynced that I had to manually glue his speech back together. It took twice as long as the episode was, and that was like a two-hour episode. I was so angry. we got that episode out because we don't miss episodes but that was that was bad i mean we had another episode where uh the zen caster was going so bad it was the one we had jack danger on my audio dropped out at one point i had to re-edit uh the first half where i just took out my like i'm not there at all because i had to cut myself out because it was like it was either that or i'd have to sit there try and remember what i said and re-record my audio and insert it because you and Jack were fine. But yours was. Mine was a mess. Thankfully, you two were talking about Overwatch. I had never played that game. So, it was easy for you guys to have this conversation. He was your favorite guest for a very long time, because you guys really got along well with that.
27:16
But anyway those are all asides So anyway we do have issued corrections and edits So I have replaced episodes before where oh we had one once where I made my edits and then I balanced the sound afterwards. I didn't play it back, and I didn't realize that you had recorded from home, and the dishwasher was running. Oh, I remember that. And I boosted the audio. You couldn't hear it without the boost, but when I normalized the dynamics, I didn't play it back until I was out walking. Because I almost always will play the episode after, because I'm paranoid. I play the episode after I've edited it when it's actually live, which is like the worst time to do it. And I'll like go for a walk or whatever and I'll listen to the episode. And then if I still hear stuff and it's extra annoying, I will or I think I can fix it. If I can't fix it, I can't fix it. But I'll try and like go like I a few episodes ago, I went out and I was like, oh, I can now I didn't hear it in my editing, but I can hear my the fan of my laptop whining. So I went in and I stripped that out. So there have been those sort of fixes that sometimes get pushed out, hot fixes. And we've done some edits where one or two instances where someone has said, I wish you hadn't said that or talked about that. And I was like, all right, you have a fair point. I'll go in. I'll strip that sentence out or whatever. Yeah. So we've done a few corrections like that.
28:29
So analytics, kind of like we usually do annual analytics. But here's some overall. Now, again, bear in mind, though, this didn't really we were so small, it really won't change anything. But while all our episodes are now available via SoundCloud, originally the first half year we don't have analytics for it because that was all hosted through Google Drive. And that was a frustration. We had no – even back then. There were no analytics. Like we couldn't tell you how many times someone downloaded the episode. I think it was a million. Yeah, it might have been. And then we just lost everyone when we went to SoundCloud, which, you know, SoundCloud has had its issues. So I don't really blame them. But so our top five episodes of all time.
29:06
I don't know if we've ever done an all-time list. No, we have not. We have not. Unless we did one back at episode 100, and I don't think we did. But number five is, I should have probably written, it doesn't matter what the number of plays were, but number five was episode 154 called EGP Plus. This was the episode we did for our Expo follow-up in 2021.
29:29
We also talked about the Cactus Canyon return, or CCR, the Cactus Canyon remake, because that was unveiled at that Expo. This wasn't the one we recorded at Expo. No, this was a follow-up. This was a follow-up because our focus on the Cactus Canyon was because after that is when they revealed they were going to do the SE Plus version, which is the same price as the LE but just had the topper and none of the other LE stuff, which people still bought despite our warnings. Because people don't listen to us. Whatever. Whatever, you guys. Do what you want. Video games, we talked about Blizzard had delayed Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4. and you also gave a Star Citizen update, a big one. And you also talked about some of those Marvel's Avengers issues that were going on.
30:19
You might remember that. I do. Yes. Our number four episode of all time is actually the most recent episode of all of these. It's episode 170, which I cleverly named Kojima's Story 4. I should note, most of the time, Tony doesn't know what the episode titles will be. I just make those up as I go along. And most of the time, if people haven't detected the pattern, it's usually I take something from the pinball section and something from the video game section, and I glue them together. I don't ever see the titles. Well, they're all terrible. Yeah, I throw drops on the face. Like, listen to it. Kojima Story 4. It doesn't make any sense, except in the context of we talked about the reveal of Toy Story 4. That was our big pinball topic. We did a big analysis of the video game review scores. We had a listener request that. And there was some information about some Kojima stuff working with Xbox that you covered. That's why I called it Kojima Story 4.
31:14
Our third episode of all time is episode 158, Rush Those Stats, which is where we did our annual podcast statistics for the 2021 calendar year. We also talked about the launch of Rush Pinball, hence Russian stats.
31:30
You also brought up E3 was not going to be in person. They were going to do it virtually. That was a big announcement there. And there was some Xbox nail polish.
31:41
There are a few other things. I don't list them all out here in the summary, but there was a special Xbox nail polish that you wanted to talk about, so we talked about it. Our second episode, our penultimate episode of all time on listens is episode 164, 2022 TPF debrief. These debrief episodes typically do pretty well for us. And so as the title suggests, that's where we gave our experience summary of the 2022 Texas Pinball Festival. You covered how E3 had been canceled for 2022. And you also went in a lot about Twitch. This is where they had to pause their boost train because people were using it to push porn to the front page. I remember that. That's one of those things. It's like, okay, we're covering video games. And then our best episode ever in terms of performance was episode 163, the year of the 2.0. And that episode, we covered a variety of 2.0 kits, hence the title. However, we also talked about the gameplay reveals for Multimorphic's Weird Al and also Haggis' Fathom Revisited. They both finally had gameplay reveals, so we talked about that. And then video games, you covered the high-performance success of Elden Ring. Overwatch 2's beta had been launched and then there was some of that you had a series where you were covering Dr. Disrespect all that weird twitch drama where they signed a big deal and then they just kicked him off this was one of those pieces in that Dr. Disrespect saga that we covered those are our top 5 episodes in the history of the show in terms of top countries, bear in mind some of these may be skewed because of VPNs are in order USA, followed by Australia, followed by Canada, followed by the United Kingdom, followed by Sweden in fifth place. That's actually a pretty consistent year on year from what I remember.
33:35
Combining our plays and downloads, most of our stats come in as plays. Most people probably subscribe to us in a podcatcher, so that's where that gets tracked. However, you can download directly from SoundCloud. I always enable direct download. We've had 175,000 listens, over 175,000 listens since moving to SoundCloud. So that doesn't count our old Google Drive downloads.
33:57
I did ask our Patreon members if they wanted us to cover anything special for this episode 200, because that's all I really had pre-planned.
34:09
And so some of it's going to happen in some relevant sections later on. But we did get a question here from Chris G., who asked us, Meta, as you continue, what are your goals for the podcast? Do you have any goals for the podcast? What do you enjoy about it, and why do you continue on past the 100-episode death knell? So thank you, Chris, for the question. Tony, I'll let you answer it first.
34:36
We don't have goals that I know of other than to continue making people happy and making people want to listen to us as we just talk. As for how do we go past the 100-episode death knell, I think in this case it's really easy because, in all honesty, the recording of the podcast gives an excuse and a reason for me and Dennis to get together every couple weeks and go over stuff. Like, we were over here just BSing about life in general for over an hour before we started actually recording this episode. And if it's anything like a normal episode, we'll sit down and BS for another half hour or hour afterwards. so basically what it amounts to is and like we've always talked about from episode one we would get together and we would talk about pinball and video games and stuff so we just started doing it while recording as a podcast so now what happens is we get together and we talk about movies or TV what's going on at work and life in general and then we record while we talk about pinball and video games and then afterwards we talk about other stuff that doesn't fall into the podcast. We talk about other hobbies and other drama and other things going on. So it's just kind of, in my mind, an excuse that's more for us to get together and hang out that would a lot of times be harder to do as we get older and have more responsibilities. by making this a hobby and a responsibility, it makes it a lot easier to write it into the time as something to do instead of being something that's more easily gone. Not today. Because the most that can happen is if something's going on, we might do, you know, we've got some big special thing going on. It's a birthday on Sunday, so we'll record on Saturday. Or maybe we'll do it virtually instead of being in person on some days. because, I don't know, somebody's getting over being sick or something. Or, you know, there's always some reason.
36:45
But by making it a responsibility, it kind of locks in and allows us to have that time to get together and talk that's normally missed and is different than just chatting over IMs and sending memes back and forth and all of that. Because talking face-to-face is always better. yeah actually uh when i because i saw this question ahead of time because i i'm the one who edits the patreon yeah that's i mean that's really it it's just it's selfish mostly uh tony's been a friend of mine since gosh like kindergarten yeah we were in the same kindergarten class same first grade class yeah so tony's my best friend i um you know i've known him forever and this gives us an excuse to hang out yeah but we have a formal structure to it so it's like hey oh no We've got to do the podcast. Yeah. We've got to do the podcast so we get to hang out and talk, and that's what makes it fun. So, yeah, that's why – I mean, there's no goal to the podcast. Its purpose is to provide structure for us to continue to have these conversations in a way that maybe other people enjoy, and if they don't, they don't listen. No problem. I mean, like I said, we've joked on multiple occasions about putting together other variants of the podcast. Yeah. Yeah, week. You know, like eclectic pop culture, eclectic movies, whatever. But, I mean, it's not uncommon because that's what we talk about. We'll talk about the latest episodes of Strange New Worlds or whatever show we happen to be watching, the giant steaming pile that was Secret Wars and stuff like that. And then we record while we talk about pinball and video games. Then we shut off the recording and then we talk about other stuff. And that's literally everything that we pour into it is what we would talk about anyway. Yeah. Now, in terms of the framework, I guess, the structure behind the podcast. There is more structure. There is. Obviously. There's editing and there's stuff. Tony and I, and we've said it before, but we use a lot more profanity in the real world than we do on the show because we keep the show clean. And again, if you were to listen to episode one, we're so cautious. Oh, my gosh. I remember how nervous I was just because I was afraid about getting hate mail. I've gotten so much at this point. Oh, yeah. You learn to get over it. But, I mean, when you're not a public person, and I'm pretty introverted by default. I've learned how to, well, like anyone can. You're putting on a performance when you're in front of a microphone or anything else, and you learn how to function in those social situations. Well, or you don't, but it's helpful to learn. So, I mean, that's separate from some of these other aspects. So as we got more comfortable, we found our voice better, I think. And the way I would describe it, if people ask, because we have different shows, I've used different approaches. Like my strategy and how I engage with Zach Minney on the pinball show is different than how I engage here with Eclectic Gamers. But part of that is because Tony and I have known each other forever, basically. that, and we see a lot of things very eye-to-eye, because Tony is, if you haven't been able to tell, Tony's kind of smart.
39:54
And so, I mean, you're, you know, you're up there. You're pretty up there. You're gifted. Put it that way. No. You're gifted. And so, like, you know a lot about, because you do a lot of reading, a lot of research, a lot of background. You understand the way I think people should think about things. Maybe we just see things idiosyncratically. It could be, yeah. It's part of it. And Tony also likes off the air. If I say something, Tony disagrees with me. Like, he doesn't, like, hide it. Like, he'll be like, Dennis, that's no. You're wrong. You know, in the past, if we had arguments over it, like, Tony has no problem saying, no, you know, this doesn't work for me or I don't like this sort of thing. So we know where each of us are coming from on it. Whereas, like, when I do the podcast with Zach as a counterpoint, like, part of that is we have a deliberate friction there on purpose. Now, some of that is Zach and I just see things differently. Right. So that's how we approach that. But we know that that's that odd couple approach. Right. Whereas here we don't do that same strategy because, honestly, we just see the hobbies pretty similarly. And that's just – I don't know. Our personalities are different. But I just think that when it comes to, like, gaming, that's just sort of how we see it. But when we approach the podcast, I think the main thing that we do is we've tried very hard to be genuine with the opinions without going so far as to just be mean for means sake. Right. We keep that for after the podcast. Right. Now, we'll still use, you know, hyperbole is used. Yeah. And we use more of it off air. But one of the big things is, like, if we think a manufacturer has made a mistake or we think pricing is stupid, we say that. What we try not to do is say, you know, John Doe, who works at Haggis, is a problem and needs to be fired or he's a loser. Like, we don't try and make it personal. And we try and be fair, even on the, like, I've, you know, how I've said, I'm not buying a Pinball Brothers product because I don't agree with how they acquired financially out of the liquidation of Highway. Right. That I thought they played a shell game to advantage themselves, in my opinion. I don't like how they did this illegal, but I don't like how they did it. Right. I'll still try and be absolutely fair when I play queen and say this is my honest assessment of this game. That stands separate from the fact that I would never buy it. Right. Well, and just like you said, we've had multiple, some of them quite extended discussions of ethics just period on the podcast and the way companies represent themselves and the kind of things they do because those are things that are important to us. to be honest and truthful with it all.
42:37
And I see it in the same way. It's like I'll say, give my honest opinion. Right. And just because I don't like a game doesn't mean I don't like the guy who designed the game or the artist who did the art for the game or whoever did the music. That doesn't mean I don't like them. Some of them I actually like quite a lot. But that doesn't mean that they can't put out a bad game. I've put out all sorts of bad stuff in my life. Sure. And I've made all sorts of mistakes. And the opposite's true as well, where there are people in this industry, especially because I cover pinball so much, there are people in pinball I do not like. But if they have a good product, I try and be fair about that and say, this is a good game or this is a good topper or good whatever. I mean, there's probably not any really good topper. Is there a good topper? No, let me rephrase. Is there a good topper other than Whirlwind? Let's be honest. I like most beacons. I like TNA's beacon. Pretty good. Beacons are cool. Getaway, high speed. Nice, simple. Pretty good beacon. I like a simple beacon. Alien? I like those beacons. Yellow, very alien-y. I like the simple. Maybe toppers are getting too complicated. I know we're kind of digressing, but whatever. It's up to 200. People can turn it off whenever they want.
43:40
But related, I think related to Chris's question, like in goals and stuff, you brought up the one about, you know, like, you know, I don't want to make it sound like we're not journalists. I'm not trying to. I want to use the phrase speaking truth to power, but I don't actually assume that the power listens. We don't come at it from that. They might. Well, because I think it's important because especially in pinball, this isn't as much in video games, but especially in pinball, there is no mainstream, like, hobby media that exists of any size. Like, video games actually has a professional media. Correct. Now, we can talk about and criticize how close they are in order to get, you know, not have embargoes on doing game reviews and stuff and what they might do. Nothing gets under a 70%. Right. Or how they need to get ad money from the gaming companies that they are reviewing. And the same thing happens in wristwatches, too. There's a watch media. There's a professional watch media. But how many of them are doing collaborations and selling their own watches or selling straps or whatever?
44:39
So there are issues. But in pinball, we don't even have that. I mean, we got shows like this. You have sites like Pinball News and TWIP, This Week in Pinball. But This Week in Pinball mostly just aggregates other people's work. and launches it. Pinball News doesn't cover every single thing. It mostly covers releases.
45:00
So, you know, we just don't have, and that's just like a hobby. I don't think Martin makes, I don't think he makes his living off of Pinball News. He's like a professional journalist who has a real job. And so most people actually end up turning to things like podcasts. And that's where you, we're in an environment where, you know, my co-host on the Pinball Show is a professional distributor. So when people, it's right of them to want to question, what does that mean when the person relies on selling new games, how they will view everything through their lens of survival? It's a fair question. We don't have that because we don't, outside of like what Patreon dollars we get for our podcast, we don't have any pinball money coming in or video game money. We've occasionally had free games for review come in. But what is it? I mean, we didn't. Yeah. It's whatever. We're not really a game. Right, right. And we announce it if we get the game. Oh, definitely. It gets announced, as it should. It gets announced. But no one's giving us pinball machines to review. I've had offers for mods. I've turned them all down to, like, hey, will you review this mod if I send it to you and you get to keep it and put it in your Godzilla? I'm like, no, not interested. Just not my approach.
46:13
But because of that, the opposite ends up happening sometimes, too. I remember someone contacted us once because you had criticized a company. It was on the issue. It was an ethical issue about something, and that company made an adjustment to what was listed to address your concern.
46:32
And someone else had contacted – I don't remember who they contacted. It may have actually been directly to me. And they kind of – they had mentioned that the change had happened, but they had volunteered that, oh, well, you know, Tony could have reached out to the company and told them about this to get it fixed. the the the you know the in my view the the hidden between the lines of you shouldn't have done it publicly you shouldn't have criticized but i think this was a case where you did one of your videos it did on instagram i should get back to them i should get back to doing those but those were a lot of fun but and that's fair enough like i i totally understand that perspective because for example let me let me give you listeners a little secret here a little secret If you go on Facebook comments or you go on Pennside and you criticize the episode, we don't take the criticism as seriously as if you actually emailed it to us because you're posturing for social media karma if you're posting it publicly. You're not actually trying to fix it. You're trying to showboat. That's the initial interpretation that we would have because why are you doing it publicly? If you have a problem with a restaurant, you call the restaurant or talk to the manager. You don't get up and scream. But some people go and do that and put it like a one-star Yelper do and become known as the evil Yelper. I'm just saying, are you actually after reforms or you just want to posture and whine and talk about how much better of you you would run the podcast, which maybe your podcast would be better. Yeah, totally possible. Totally possible. Absolutely.
48:01
It isn't your job as an entertainer, because that's what we are, entertainers, of doing Instagram or saying something on the podcast. We are not in this to fix the pinball companies. That's not, it is not our goal. If you have an ethical issue because you're misadvertising what your product is, the reason why Tony doesn't contact the company directly is that is not his area of interest. It is exposing this issue publicly. That is the goal. That is the sole goal. The goal is not to make the pinball company better. It's just not. Yeah. I've said a few times, so repeatedly, but not all that often, that surprises some people because I'll see others sometimes, other podcasters in particular, they'll talk about it, especially if they've been a little critical on a game they didn't like, and they'll go, but we wish the company all the best. I don't. I don't care. Yeah, it doesn't matter. I mean it in a totally neutral way. I do not care if the company succeeds or fails. It's not. The hobby will exist regardless. So if I start, if my agenda, if I come in with an agenda, because it is an agenda, of wanting a company to succeed, I'm already coming at it from a biased perspective. And we could do that as an entertainment podcast. that's just not the strategy that we choose to employ. Yeah, no. I feel if I think something, I say it. I, in 100% honesty, clean it up when I say it on the podcast. People who've talked to me in person definitely would know that. People who know me outside of the podcast and, like, meeting up at TPF, 100% know that I am nowhere near as clean or as nice as I come off on a lot of the stuff. but that does not stop me from putting my opinion out there. If I don't like something, I don't like it. It doesn't matter. You can be my best friend in the world, like Dennis is, and if he does something I don't like, I am going to tell him. If a pinball company, it could be my favorite pinball company in the world, puts out a game that I think is just complete garbage, I'm going to say that game is complete garbage because that's how I feel. That's my opinion of it. and just because they should not require someone to stroke their egos and tell them that everything is okay and have just yes-men fans who say, yes, this is great, you did great, you're a good boy. That's not necessary because that is where you will start to have the serious issues. If a game is a dud, it's a dud. It happens. And then they'll put out another game. and it could be another dud, or it could be amazing. But if people start telling them that the duds are great games, and they just keep turning out duds, and nobody tells them they're turning out duds, and then their sales start falling, and nobody knows why, that does nobody any good.
50:49
Yeah. If a game isn't bad, and just because I think a game's bad doesn't mean that other people will think a game's bad. If I don't have fun with it, I don't like the theme, I think it shoots poorly, none of that means that other people won't have the exact opposite effect. at the same time, how many people love games that are universally considered terrible games just because they like the designer. They like the company that put it out. They like the artist. It's like, oh, no, this is the greatest game I've ever played. It's not, man. You don't have to pretend. You can love something and not say it's the greatest thing ever. It's okay to say, yeah, this game has issues, but I still love it. There are also some people that, this is going to sound kind of mean, but I don't mean it to be, but they don't really have any taste. So in the sense that you, here's how you can identify if you're one of those people. Do you like all pinball? Then you don't have taste. You just like everything. And maybe that would be a great state to be in, but that is not the state that I live in. So, uh, yeah, if you actually like all pinball is if you're an all pinball is good pinball, that's fine. But just bear in mind, like you're expressing that you basically have no critical evaluation capabilities whatsoever, at least in the hobby of pinball. Oh, it's all good. Like, I'm sure. If you're out there going, well, would I rather have no pinball or El Toro? I mean, I would say none. No, we don't need pinball. Just no. I mean, kind of like someone's like, oh, I've never had a bad slice of pizza. You're lying. Yeah, you haven't had Gumby's pizza. You haven't had Gumby's pizza. I would rather pizza not exist than have Gumby's ever again. Oh, it was the absolute worst thing. I've had dollar store frozen pizzas that were better than Gumby's pizza. Gumby's didn't get finished, and I had no money. It didn't matter. starvation was better. Yes, it was. Dirt would have been better. At least dirt would have tasted like what I expected it to taste like. Dirt. Yes.
52:41
Anyway, I hope that answers your question, Chris. We went very well in depth. We explored our emotions on covering the hobby.
52:49
And separate from that, Wayne S. wrote in, in defiance of our explicit instructions and sent an audio clip. So I'll go ahead and drop it in here now. your rewarding defiance. Break world! Break world! Party time! That's the way!
53:11
What's up, Eclectic Gamers Podcast? This is Wayne Sager from Tucson Pinball and the Tucson Pinball Podcast. Just wanted to say congratulations on your upcoming 200th episode. Thanks for all the thoughtful conversations on pinball and video games. I'm going to miss being room-retained, but I am looking forward to the next Activision Blizzard Snafu update. Dennis, may all your weekday tournaments be three hours or less, and guys, if you want to get some burritos at TPF, let me know. Until then, party on. Party on, Wayne! Party on, Garth! It's Wayne's World! Party fast! Ask for this!
53:51
And we're clear. Thank you, Wayne, for not listening to us and obeying you in the simplest list of instructions.
54:00
We appreciate it. So let's go to pinball, Tony. Finally. We've been talking about it. We've been talking about it for the 50 plus minutes of our intro. This is an episode 200. This is going to be about us. The emails coming in. You know what? I didn't like the pinball shows. 20 minute intros with Zach and Dennis talk about demolition derby and Dennis's stupid job and how they don't ever go to Expo or whatever. But this is episode 200. To be fair, this episode could be just... They're talking about pizza and how it tastes like crap. This episode could just be about us and it okay No terrible We get to make those decisions It too late It too late I can edit all that out I can only cut so much So pinball Pinball news Let go ahead and do that really quick because we actually have some more Patreon stuff related to pinball that I've tossed into this section. I don't know if you've heard, Tony. You probably have heard. You get around. You've been around the block when it comes to news. I mean, I mean it. I'm a town bicycle, baby. I'm a town bicycle. Everyone gets a ride. It's too early. It's like 11 a.m. right now. Too early! I'm like one of those fighting game gamers. I can't get up before three, man. Come on.
55:17
Stern Pinball. Biggest, most powerfulest. I'm the most powerful Jedi ever. Sorry. Most powerful pinball manufacturer. My new empire!
55:27
We're going to get to that. That's the horse that we call it. But they released a new limited edition of Jurassic Park, Keith Elwin's Jurassic Park game, the new Jurassic Park.
55:41
Also, incidentally, code update for all the Jurassic Parks has also been pushed out with some new features and stuff. But in terms of the new version they launched, it's just cosmetic. So there's new Translight. There's new cab art. I think they did a new powder coat. It's 500 units. The first run of LEs is 500 units as well. But these LEs are at the current or new LE price, like the Foo Fighters LE price of essentially $13,000. LEs just don't mean nothing. LE means nothing. That's what I wanted to ask you. What are your thoughts on – I mean, we've talked about pricing on LEs and stuff before. That's not particularly interesting to me. I think what I'm interested to know is what is your stance on them going back to the well and kind of pulling a JJP with Waz and saying, oh, well, here's a new LE, but it does look different. Like, the art's significantly different. Well, it's not the play field art because they didn't change that. But the actual, you know, the cosmetics on the exterior look different. So that's the argument is, well, it's a different type of LE, so it's okay.
56:51
Is it really an LE? Yes, because it was doing a limited thing. Calling it LE is, the way pinball treats LE, it's not as bad as watches create limited editions. Okay.
57:05
Because, you know, your limited edition runs of 125,000 watches is insane. Sure. But, you know, like JJP does like 5,000 LE Godmothers. Right. And I don't see how anything that can be considered, it's insane. Putting out another 500, it's a special edition.
57:23
Okay, that's fine. whatever. I just think LEs are not LEs anymore. They are getting to the point where it's just the addition. Not even necessarily the addition you want, unless you're specifically an LE hunter, because I think in a lot of cases the pros and or premiums are better than the LEs. And we've seen that time and time again where the art is, in my opinion, better on the premiums than a lot of cases. and you get all the important gameplay features with the premiums. So I don't think it's a big deal. But, yeah, no, they diluted the LEs again, but they're completely different art, so I guess it's a different special. What? They're going to sell them. They're going to sell out. And I've heard sales. I don't know if they've sold all out yet, but the sales have been good. It's outperforming Venom LE. Well, that's not a surprise at all. Here's the thing. A, Jurassic Park is a better license by far, and B, Jurassic Park is a really good game. I really quite enjoy it. So Venom, I don't know. I haven't played it yet. We'll see. But for me, the license doesn't do anything at all.
58:41
Yeah, and in this case, I think the issue was the, you know, So it's like celebrating, what is it, the 30th anniversary or 35th or something of Jurassic Park? Yeah. That's the theme to this LE.
58:54
So do you think we're going to see more of these? Like LEs, redos? Maybe on big enough. Because this is the first for Stern that I can think of. I can't think of a time where they went. Like we've seen where they've done, I'll say, shadier things, like when they upped the LE count on Batman 66. The SLE count got bumped up to 80, and they bumped up the LE count on Monsters when there was initial demand because of the art. Right. They bumped it up a few hundred.
59:21
I have more of a problem with those than this because this feels like a completely new addition. We might, with a good-selling game that has been popular and is well-liked with a well-liked license that has a big anniversary, I could see them doing more like this. I mean, Jurassic Park is one of those. I can tell you exactly, I remember exactly where I was when I first saw Jurassic Park in theaters. I saw Jurassic Park in theaters in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Oh, you were on vacation? We were on vacation. This was before we got our camper, so we were tent camping, and it was storming cats and dogs all day. So we got out of the tent, ran to the van, and went to a theater at a mall in Colorado Springs to grab some lunch and just be out of the rain and be out of the tent because we'd been trapped in there for like a day and a half because it had been raining for two days. And that movie was amazing. I loved it. I did not know that. I knew you liked the movie. Yeah, my story, not nearly as interesting. But similarly, I was on vacation also because it was summer. I saw it in Orlando. That was my trip to Disney World. And that was the first, what I think of as the first real vacation I remember ever having as a kid. Because when we would say vacation, it was always visit family. Right. So, you know, go down and see the grandparents in Arkansas or see the grandpa in Colorado or whatever. So that was like always our vacations. So that was like a few years before we were told like in whatever year we were going to go to Disney World. And my parents did that. We actually executed on that. But I got done with the book before going and seeing the movie because I was making sure I finished the book before the movie came out. And then, yeah, I loved the movie. It was awesome. Yeah. My father and I had both read the book. And we were like all of our family is in this area. So our vacations were vacations, but they were literally throw a stove, a camp stove, a tent, and we would just have like a six-man tent, and we'd go to a campground, and we'd go camping. And that's what our vacations were up until the last few vacations before, like, I moved out of the house, where they bought a little pop-up camper to tow behind the van to have that instead of setting up a tent all the time. But, yeah, no, it was just one of those things that it's always stuck with me. Like I said, we both read the book. We both loved the movie, and the whole thing was a great time. I don't have anything really negative around it, and it's part of the reasons why that license grabs me, because that license is exciting. it has this personal grab for me in addition to just being a fun license alright, well thank you for your thoughts on that, and if those want to hear even more thoughts of mine, the last episode of the Pinball Show, I talk about that release with Zach so you can hear that over there, I won't be overly repetitive alright, speaking of Patreon requests, here's another request we got Tony, Johnny Pinball he asked us to play a game suggested that we play something. Now, he advocated for a couple of things. He advocated for us to either rank the top 200 pinball machines, which sounds like it would take way too long, so sorry, Johnny. I don't think – we did a 50-minute intro. We don't have time to rank all 200 games.
63:03
Or he also thought about maybe we should do a classic Build-A-Bank. We haven't done a Build-A-Bank in a long time. For those that don't remember, I dropped putting together the Build-A-Banks because we would have the people vote on Pennside, and then they took the poll feature away from, like, I think community group pages can still do polls, but quote-unquote business pages can't, which is how Collective Gamers Podcast is set up. And so I couldn't do the poll anymore. Now, we could do it and poll just our Patreon members. I mean, we have, like, I don't know, like 50 Patreon members, around 50. I think it's 48 right now. You can join at patreon.com slash collective underscore gamers. But because of that count and feeling like it doesn't involve everyone who's listening, I wasn't keen on it. So here's what I thought. I wonder if there's a poll system bot thing that we can put together for the Discord. I'll look into it. Yeah, I do know there is polling stuff because the Kansas City TryHard Discord has used that before, something like that, at one point at least to when they were playing. This was years ago, but they were playing around with some. I think it was them. One of the discords I've been on has played around with poll software. So, yeah, that would be an option. There's another option we've done before. Before we did Build-A-Bank, we did other votes. We used to just put together like a Google poll and get the link out, and people could go and vote through Google. We used to do that a lot. But for today, here's what I decided we would do. I'm going to take the idea of that top 200 and the idea of Build-A-Bank and kind of mix them together. It's not going to be a votey thing, though.
64:35
We can ask people. They could just comment. Comment on the Facebook post or on the Discord, wherever you want. if you want to say whose rank is better. But here's what I've done. What I did is I went ahead and I loaded up the list of Pennside ranked solid state games. They're like 200 and some now. They've scaled them down because someone had told me they – now it takes like, I don't know, 40 or 50 reviews before a game can be ranked on Pennside. They raised the number. So it used to be like 300-some games on the list, and now it's like 234 or 250. I don't remember. 200. Those are rookie numbers. We can bump those numbers up. So here's what I did. I just took the numbers, went to random.org, and said, give me 10 numbers out of this range. And I'm going to now hand you a physical sheet of paper. A physical sheet of paper.
65:23
And a physical pen so you can make notes because I'm ready. I'm prepared. There you go. Fancy. You're so fancy. So, listeners, I did all this on Friday. So these numbers may – I don't know when Pinside recalculates. So the numbers may be different by the time you hear this. But here's what they were in order. Now, we're actually going to have 11 games because one of the ranks had games, two games were tied. So I included both. So we're actually going to what we're going to do is we're going to rank 11 games that were randomly chosen out of the list. That's what that's what this all my wordiness is a setup for. So here are the games listeners that you can play along at home if you wish to. Per random.org, we are going to cover game number 214, which is CSI Crime Scene Investigation. That's a Stern 2008 title. We're going to cover game number 62, The Getaway, High Speed 2. We're going to cover game 176, that's Nineball, a Stern Electronics game from 1980. We're going to cover game 247, that's Space Invaders, Bally 1980. Game 220, that was a tie. So we're going to cover the X-Files, Sega 1997, and Stern's Indiana Jones, the 2008 title. We're going to cover game rank number 50, that's The Shadow, Bally 1994. We're going to cover game 105. That's Firepower, Williams 1980. Game 207 is Devil's Dare, Gottlieb 1982. Game 171, which is F-14 Tomcat, the System 11 game, Williams 1987. And game number three, Foo Fighters, Stern 2023.
66:57
So we're going to take a little bit of time here. And Tony and I are going through the magic of editing. You won't have to sit through all of this. But we are going to rank our games. and then we're going to discuss how we rank them. I made both columns on our sheet, Tony, so that I could write down your ranks. Right, yeah. Don't feel like you need to make up my ranks. I'll come up with them myself. Okay, we are back. We have our rankings done. So I thought the way we could do it is we'll start with our number ones and we'll just kind of go and explain our thoughts on the game. Okay. Just back and forth. And so, like, you'll say you're number one and I won't really comment on it. I'll let you say why you put it at number one and I'll say my number one. So go ahead. What is the best game of these 11 that we randomly drew? The Getaway High Speed 2. Okay. Why?
67:43
It is one of those games that always draws me back. It's not the most complicated game, but it has a high fun factor. And when you can get everything set up just right, it's one of those games where you walk away feeling good just from having pulled off some of the stuff that might not necessarily be the easiest to do on a normal basis. And it's just, the accelerator is just so much fun. You put something in there, you might not have mistimed it and not got the kind of points off of it you wanted to, but man, it is so much fun watching that ball zip around there. It's just bliss and joy. Okay. My number one is the Getaway High Speed 2. Bruh. Okay Yeah It's, oh it's so flowy It's not Steve Ritchie's flowiest game But on this list This was a pretty easy pick for me I've really thought about Getting one multiple times Again, I mentioned the beacon earlier When I was talking about good toppers That beacon, the integration when you were in the multiball Which is your goal in that game To try and get the multiball and get the jackpots And the audio that it works on The ball locks really cool. As long as the game's tuned well, so like the left kickback can actually go and hit the saucer and do that. Yeah, the video mode's kind of goofy. But, you know, shift gears. Oh, by the way, don't put a pin gulp over on the side with the shift. Yeah. You want to shift that with your knee. Yes, you do. That's when you feel like you're in full-on control mode where you're like, bam, whatever. That's how you tell. When you see someone pop it with their knee, that's how you know. That's how you know a getaway lover. Yeah. So, absolutely, this was easy number one for me. Easily. What's your number two? You tell me your number two. Okay, well, my number two is The Shadow. Oh.
69:34
So, why The Shadow? Okay, I actually, like, when it comes to Brian Eddy, Attack from Mars is my favorite game. I think you would agree with that. It's the best game in the 90s. But The Shadow is really cool. I mean, the modes are actually a lot of fun. I know a lot of people don't necessarily think about it, and that shot's kind of tight to hit to start the modes, but it's got a good mode diversity. It's just fun to be able to control the user-controlled diverters. I mean, there's that. The Sanctum Ball Lock is a nice little gimmick. It's not over the top. It looks cool. It plays really well. Plus, I got to admit, as far as upper play fields go, that, like, pong thing is probably the best upper play field I've ever played. So, for those reasons, I have to say, this isn't really a game I've looked at owning because they go for so much at this point. But it's one of the, like, top, quote, unquote, B-tier Williams games. I prefer Bram Stoker's Dracula over Shadow. That's the other big B tier I think of. But I like Shadow a lot. So for me, that's why it's number two. That works. I am actually Firepower. And my reason I'm Firepower, it's a fast, flowy game. Once again, everything, the shots feel good. and I consider it one of those kind of classic of its generation games that have a just certain feel about it.
71:01
I always love playing Firepower. If I'd had room for a second pinball machine when you sold your Firepower, I would have bought it, but I don't have anywhere to go. But you're out of room. I've only got room for one machine. It doesn't really even fit that great where it's at, but I definitely don't have room for a second machine. But if I did, I would have totally picked it up then because that game just does it for me. It's just a lot of fun. What's your number three?
71:28
I put Foo Fighters. The Foo. This one was tough for me. I actually almost put this a little lower than this because I don't have a lot of play time on Foo so far. But it's just like the other games. It flows well. It's fun. When you do complete stuff and when you successfully make the shots, you feel good about it. And quite frankly, that little save flip-up post on the outlane when you get all the timing and stuff just right on it, it's great. It feels so great. You feel so accomplished when you do it, or at least I do, when you get everything set up and it works and it bounces out. It's so much fun. That's a good point. My number three actually was Firepower. So I owned Firepower for a number of years.
72:21
You know, I've done everything you could do on it. It's a fairly simple game, so I did let it go. Yeah, it's really fast, and that's what I like about it. Part of the reason I went ahead and put it under Shadow is, unfortunately, while it's fun to be in multiball, you get no points for going into multiball, and you get no multiplier. And I understand the system couldn't handle it, and so people have done updates for it. But you have to upgrade the board set to even do that. So I never went that route, but for me, it's just a classic game of brutality. A little more fair, though, than, say, a Flash Gordon in the sense of the brutality. It's a little more controllable than that because you can rely on exploiting the orbits and stuff and have relative control. So that's why it was my number three. And moving to my number four, that's where I put Foo Fighters.
73:04
Yeah, Jack Danger and his integration of a lot of concepts that I feel we've seen in a number of pinball machines but hadn't seen them in a while, like he has that kicking rubber,
73:14
using the post for the save on the premium LE is a lot of fun. And the big thing I think that's nice about Foo Fighters, and again, I don't have a lot of time on it either, is I think why it did so well, besides kind of bringing back a lot of things we haven't seen in a while, is its rule set seems pretty approachable. And the ball times seem relatively long. And that's something that I think some, like, Elwin's more popular games. Anything that's really brutal, people don't score very well anymore. Right. That's why fan layouts often score so high, because you can actually keep the ball alive. Now, you can tune these all to be as brutal as you want, but I think that the ability to walk up to it at a show, like how we did at Texas, and be able to spend some time on it and feel like, oh, wait, we're actually making progress. You know, it's neat. It's controllable. I don't have enough time to necessarily move it up higher where maybe it should be plus well there's some aspects like the flick move on the premium that I really like I didn't care for the upper play field so there's some other things like add-ons on it that I don't love don't really detract overall I understand why this is the top 10 game but why it wouldn't be my number one game on this list is for reasons like that maybe with more time it would move up But I really haven't played it except maybe one time since Texas. All right, so that's my number four. What's your number four? The Shadow. For all the reasons you stated, the Diverter and the Sanctuary, Ball Lock and everything, it's just that game is one of those that is just there. And I think its high going price makes sense because of what that game is and how enjoyable it is. Okay. What's your five?
75:08
What did I put as five? I don't know. A game that I know you didn't, F-14 Tomcat. Once again, high speed. Wow, I just realized I have a pattern. High speed, high brutality. lots of fun game that just really jumps out at me. I don't like it more than a lot of those other games in this list but it is definitely a game that I would not say no to having in a personal collection.
75:39
My number five is F-14. Oh, really? I figured it would be a lot lower because I know how much you don't really like that game. I don't like playing the game competitively because it's too fast for me. But I like to believe that one day I could just memorize where the ball is going to be, and it would be okay, and I'll be all right. So, yeah, my problem with F-14 is it's the only game that I've ever played that, while sober, I feel like the ball moves too quick for my reaction time. Like, I just feel like it's too fast for me. That said, like, going for the jag off target and doing all of that and the multi-ball, it's all really, really fun, and it is nice and immersive for the era. So, plus, some of these other games on this list are kind of crap. So because of that, I'm kind of like, it has to be kind of near the middle. It's basically middle of the pack. Because my number six game is CSI.
76:32
Now, I don't have a lot of time on CSI. CSI, I remember watching one of the old Puppet tutorials, and they showed how, like, you could exploit the, I want to call it the Mixmaster. The centrifuge. Yeah, the centrifuge target. There's, like, a big exploit. And when I played it, I was like, okay, I'll try and do the exploit. Of course, I'm not good enough to do the exploit. But, I mean, this was like peak Bad Stern, right, 2008. So the recession's hitting. We've got a theme that, like, 60-plus-year-old people loved at the time. We were watching all these crime scenes. We got Caruso glasses, the memes getting ready to be made. And this was a hard – it's got three different multi-balls, and the three different coders all came up with their own. So the game is such a – some of the shots are cool, but like everything from it's Photoshop art to it's design by committee rule set just it's this is not peak pinball but there are some cool toys on it so I mean in the same way that you could say 24 is kind of cool because it's got the little sniper shot and the briefcase and whatever but it's like I have like zero interest in this game some people go after it because they didn't make all that many but I mean see I'd rather have a 14 yeah so that's kind of like where I'm going okay well Yeah, all right. So anyway, so CSI is my number six. All right. My number six is Space Invaders. It's 100% the art package. That art package is beautiful. Well, yeah, but the game is wide and not terribly fun, but the art package is just so there. It is so on par, and I just really like it that way.
78:20
Okay. What is your number seven? Stern-Indiana Jones. Okay. We're starting to see more divergence between the two of us at this point, I'll note. So why Dr. Jones?
78:39
It is the worst of the Indiana Jones games, in my opinion. Out of all two of them, yeah. Correct. I think the world agrees with you. Continue. But it's still Indiana Jones, and there's still a couple of redeeming features in it.
78:59
But no, for the most part, the whole bottom of my list is stuff that's just like, meh. So it's there. I would never have it in a collection. I would have zero interest in it. but there's worse games to come.
79:17
Okay. My number seven is Nineball, Stern Electronics. I'm trying to remember if I've ever played Nineball. I think I have. I think at TPF one year there was one, and I got some time on it. Nineball's often broken. I know it's often a broken game. There's like a light board thing or something. I don't know. Listen to the Slamshell podcast, and I know they talk about Nineball and the issues with fixing them up and stuff. Conceptually, in general, I found these pool-themed games pretty fun. Yeah. But in the world of Stern Electronics, this is way down on a list of, like, anything I would own. Like, I would much rather have a Stars, Meteor.
79:55
You know, I'm not even a wide-body person, but Flight 2000. I'd want, like, all of that stuff before Nineball. It's kind of cool. It's got an interesting art package. I think the gameplay is approachable. So I went ahead and stuck it in as my number seven, but I don't feel strongly on it because I don't have much time on it. But the reason, again, is I'm kind of thinking about it and what little I know about it versus some of these other games on the list. So jumping to my number eight is where I put the X-Files.
80:27
So I have played X-Files before. I didn't care for it. It felt super woodchoppy. I remember shooting a filing cabinet a bunch. But, again, it looked kind of X-Files in an office setting sort of thing. Like, it was like, okay, this is all right.
80:47
I, again, I'm not a huge X-Files fan. So, but, and Tony is, so it's interesting he hasn't picked it yet. But it was okay. like conceptually I kind of got the idea of, you know, how you go about and try and get the multiball and all of that. And this was like, but of that era, those data used to have that era, excuse me, those Segas of that era were all kind of like these woodchoppy and a multiball. I mean, like if I had to rank X-Files versus Lost in Space, X-Files was better. I played them both the same year, same show. I was like, wow, both of these aren't great. Right. But Lost in Space was bad. This was more like meh. but on this list, we're getting in the lower end of this. We're getting pretty. Yeah, we are. So it's eighth for me. It's in no way, like in no way it's a winner. It just didn't resonate with me. I didn't like the rules. I didn't like the layout. The toys were kind of cool. That's about it. So eight for me. What's your eight?
81:46
CSI. Okay. Same general stuff you put in. I've only played it like once or twice. It doesn't have any great draw to me. and it doesn have the license helping or hurting it It a license that there I watched like all the CSIs Oh okay That more than me Not like every episode but I seen some of all of the variants of CSI at one time or another and some of them are good, some of them are bad. I don't know. But the game is very meh.
82:20
What's your number nine? The X-Files. Okay. Because it hurt me. I love the X-Files and the X-Files game hurts me. I feel like it is a license that had a lot of potential that was definitely not seen in the game and it felt kind of like some of the later seasons of the show and those new seasons, special seasons that came out later and some of the movies that just took the thing that I loved and destroyed it.
82:58
Wow. But not dead last. No. Complete. Okay. Well, my number nine is Devil's Dare. I cannot remember this game. I remember the art. It gets to be nine because of the art, and that's the only reason I have it this high, which is not high at all. But I cannot remember. Honestly, I can't remember if I've played it or not. But it's that, outside the art, nothing memorable about that game. Early 80s Gottlieb actually had some pretty interesting games. I think this one has its fans.
83:35
I've never had any interest in it whatsoever. So I went ahead and stuck that as my number nine, but I don't have a lot to say on it. The main thing, all I can say is that because of that enigma of me not knowing about it, I still favor that over two more games. because my number 10 is Stern, Indiana Jones. That game is an abomination. Stern actually, as a company, should be issuing an apology for what they put out on the public then. Again, 2008, same year as CSI. Things are hurting. Oh, my God, that game, that game is not good. That game, it's not good rules. It's not a good layout. The only reason it's not number 11 is when the arc releases the balls, it looks cool. That's why it's 10th. Cool ball release. That's it.
84:26
They have no need to apologize. They owe the world an apology. Until we get an apology for Crystal Skull.
84:35
Part time. I've not even seen the new one. I have zero interest. Crystal Skull killed Indiana Jones for me. Well, Crystal Skull, yeah, I mean, I did see the new Indiana Jones, and I did see Crystal Skull, and Crystal Skull had a number of issues.
84:56
I mean, a few months ago, there was like a rumor going around about like Indiana Jones being released, redone in honor of the new movie. I'm like, no way. Not with that layout. I don't even think they reused the layout. I think you need to start over from scratch if you're doing a new Indiana Jones. Yeah, the rules are the biggest problem, but no. That rumor is so bad. We didn't even report on it. Yeah, that couldn't even be rumor cornered. Because it's bad. That rumor is somebody snorted way too much meth or coke or something. I vaguely remember when we had this Indiana Jones at Pizza West in the tournaments. Oh. I was still pretty new to the tournament scene then, but oh, the complaints. No, that game never came back. I know. That's right up there when Mario was in the. Yes.
85:48
Mario was there as an experiment to see about kids in quarters was why Mario was there. In the tournament, people were a sad byproduct. But at least that game had been modified because the problem with Mario is it's too easy. Right. So they added a second flipper rubber onto the one flipper so you could just repeat the shot over and over. And that seemed to work. It really did ruin the game because then it just wasn't fun at all. But whereas Indiana Jones ruined itself, and I don't think any flipper rubbers are going to fix that. So anyway, that's why it's my number 10 What's your number 10? Nine ball, because I don't recall ever seeing one working I remember seeing the machine But every time I've seen it, it's been off Because there was something wrong with it So, by the process of elimination This seems to mean that Your 11th would be Devil's Dare Why do you hate Devil's Dare?
86:41
I don't think I've ever seen it So this is kind of by default By default? Okay. Well, by default, my 11 has to be Space Invaders. That you put this at sixth is beyond... I mean, I understand that you did it because of the art. I did it 100% because of the art. And yeah, the art's cool. You got Geiger's stolen art on the back glass, and then you've got the fun video game Space Invaders on the play field. Oh, yeah. This is perhaps, perhaps, Bally's worst game prior to 1982. and I'm including the EMs. Wow. And I think they did El Toro. There was like a Williams El Toro and a Bally El Toro. I'm going to tell you the truth. I don't remember which El Toro is the bad one. Let's just say both of them are bad. But this game, oh, my God. It's like taking the worst of, what is it? What's the guy, the silver ball mania, the silver one where you just repeat the horseshoe? Yeah. It's like, but all the, because it's a wide. All the geometry is off. None of the shots feel good. You have plenty of time, as slow as this game is, to admire the art. Right. I heard one. I think there was. I think it might have been on Slamtail Podcast. Someone. They had a guest on who actually, like, defended this game and said it was good. He was wrong. Yeah. No. He was wrong. You're totally wrong. Bally got absorbed by Williams years and years later, which, of course, then it's not Williams anymore. I think it became Scientific Games. I don't know who owns the rights to Bally up the stage. They owe us an apology. They owe Geiger's estate an apology, first, for thieving. True. But second, they owe the public an apology for making a video game theme into a pinball machine and making it this bad. This game is worse than Spy Hunter Pinball. And Spy Hunter Pinball is garbage. Wow. But at least Spy Hunter Pinball was like, let's do something weird and offset the flippers all the way off to the right. Was it a good idea? Absolutely not. Was it creative? Yes. nothing about Space Invaders is a creative everything was stolen everything was bad everything about it was bad it is I'm going to say it's the worst yeah I'm going to stick with my statement worst game prior to 1982 Bally ever did I would love to have that back mass on my wall though yes just steal it I mean they stole it I mean I just I don't know like take it from like scan it or stone it I don't know All right, so those are our ranks. So here's what I'll do. I'll make an image because I have this in Excel. I'll make an image file with our ranks added in, and I think I'll do a post on Facebook, a post on our Patreon, and a post on our Discord.
89:25
And then people can comment, like, did they like your ranking better or my ranking better? And, of course, feel free to rank them. We don't really care, but feel free to rank them yourself. I'm not going to read them on air because I don't care what you guys rank them as. But I'll read them personally. Yeah, Tony might read them personally. I'm not even committing to that, honestly, because I'm tired. But all right. So anyway, Johnny, I hope you enjoyed the game. If you didn't, we're sorry. We just subjected you to – I just threw my sheet away. And I'm like – that's where I'm waiting, writing all my timestamps down on the – for those who don't know behind the scenes, I actually write timestamps down. That's why my edit time is so much faster than so many other podcasts is I actually make marks where all the errors are while we go live. So, and by errors, I also mean like, this is where the dead air is, where Tony and I need to go and sit here and rank 11 things. Right. So, things like that. This is where Tony cussed. Right. This is where I cussed. This is where the dogs outside started barking. Sure. Things like that. This is where the cobs broke through the windows and said, oops, we're sorry, wrong house. Yeah. That one hasn't actually happened yet. Yet. Yeah. Yet.
90:26
Last part of the pinball segment, and then we can go to video games. Kaz wrote in on our Patreon, and Kaz asked us to bring back Rumor Corner for episode 200. Okay, Kaz, here it is.
90:39
Room and corner. Dennis Christmas got the news before Napa Cade.
90:54
They're right, Tony. Yeah. All right. Earlier in this episode, Tony, we were sitting here talking about the Jurassic Park, the anniversary, the 500 new LEs that are different than the old LEs because they have different art package.
91:10
Here's the rumor. As I noted during that part, I said I've been hearing reports from a variety of distributors that the Jurassic Park sales were going good. I didn't know by the time of this airing if they had actually sold them all out. Some of them had. I don't know of everyone. I don't know if all 500 are now unobtainium or not, but it was selling well. given the success there is already a lot of reports that Stern is looking at exploring doing this because this has been in the works for a while but exploring doing this model elsewhere and more specifically next year 2024 is the 70th anniversary of Godzilla oh that'd be so good so for 2024 I'm hearing reports, rumors that They are going to do the same basic concept as Jurassic Park. It's going to be the same play field, same layout, same rules. Whether or not they're, the rumor doesn't include if they're going to do some sort of special code update thing like they did alongside this or not. I don't know about that. But new Translight, new cab art, special powder coating. The rumor also says that the count will be 1,000 LEs, making the total 2,000 a doubling. Because Godzilla came out at 1,000 LEs. I hate that. So, and that, the rumor is the pricing will be 2024 LE pricing. I've not heard yet whether or not Stern is raising. Normally, they raise their price every January. So, the assumption will be it would be higher than $13,000. I have this not rumor, but I have speculated that given the downturn in the economy and the slowing, the cooling of consumer spending, Stern might not be raising prices in January because they're kind of high already. I think they'd be smart to evolve. But I don't know one way or the other. It's not going to be like a SLE price. It will be a regular LE pricing, whatever regular LE pricing is, at the time of the release. Sometime, I don't know a month, but sometime in 2024.
93:10
What do you think? Because I know you love Godzilla. I love Godzilla. Like as a theme, you love it. I love the theme. I love the license. I love the game. I think that it would be a really good move on their part if they want to continue to do something like this. 70th is a great anniversary. especially if they did the whole theming around the original Godzilla. What do you think about the 1,000, though? The rumor that it would be another 1,000. I think that's just that it would be because that's what they kicked out the first time. I think 500 would be better from a standpoint of just what is actually limited.
93:48
But I think 1,000 is high. I think if they kick out specials like these on big special anniversaries for certain high-playing things and keep it at just 500 like they did with Jurassic Park, I think it would make sense.
94:00
But 1,000, I can see them doing it. I have no problem seeing them doing it. I just think 1,000 is too many. I would normally agree. Like, on principle, I agree with you that there should – I don't think there should be 1,000 at least, period. I think when they moved to 1,000, it was too much. I think it defeats the purpose. Again, we've seen this in other hobbies where it's like, once you start getting that high, it's like, is it really limited? that's where you get into the whole debate about are you whale hunting or what are you doing here because part of the desire of the LE because the LE is mostly just profit to the company it's where they make their most money the highest delta versus bill of material however, Godzilla is the best game they've ever made it has continued to do very well you can now start finding premiums but of all the mainline games they're still making Deadpool but they only make one runner a year But of all the mainline games, it's still the one that most of the orders come in on. So, that's my understanding. So, given all of that, I do think that in this one instance, if they want to do 1,000, they could. And sell them all out relatively quickly. Especially if the new art package is not Jeremy Packer. They bring in an established Godzilla artist who does it in the style, the less saturated, darker, scarier style that a lot of Godzilla fans kind of wish are. I mean, Jeremy did a good job on Godzilla's art, but it's definitely not the art approach I wanted with Godzilla. You do 1,000 units with someone who's like, I did Godzilla comics and made my name on this stuff. Oh, yeah. That would be amazing. And so, again, that's not part of the rumor, but I could understand this rumor coming to fruition easily for Stern if they're willing to contract with an artist who's established in the Godzilla space and does it in a very different aesthetic style. Yeah, that would definitely be amazing. That would look great. Are you not rumored to completely theme it as Godzilla Final Wars and then get Don Fry to redo all of the voices?
96:07
I'm kidding. there's two things you don't know about earth one's me and the other's godzilla also i appreciate that the rumor was not that there is going to be a rumor corner for the 200th episode no no no no we we have to retain the audience there there's there's your rumor. I thought I was saying, you know, like, he's not the first person to bring up us. There have been some complaints, Tony, incidentally, about us getting rid of Rumor Corner. I've heard someone ask if TPS, the pinball show, could have Rumor Corner. Wow. And I did tell that person no. Like, just because EGP's not using Rumor Corner does not mean you give the seconds to Zach to exploit. He's already got Market Trends and And the production updates. He's already got two recurring segments which take up like half the show. So he doesn't need a rumor corner section. Plus, Zach hates rumors. Like, he's getting really tired of them. Oh, I bet. So, anyway, how about that? I mean, I've thought one of two things. One, Tony, is we could start doing the rumor corner just for the Patreon members would be one idea that I've entertained. Okay. The other idea would be if the Patreon gets to 60 people, we could go ahead and just bring it back for everyone. But I just don't know if these listeners have the strength to do that.
97:37
I don't know. We'll think about it. We'll have to see. But video games. Let's think about something different. Video games. We're talking a lot of pinball. Don't have a lot because I knew this was going to be a full episode, so I kept things kind of lightish this time around. But Alan Wake we talked about last episode. Oh, I'm so looking forward to Alan Wake. Alan Wake 2 is coming out. We had so much fun with the first one. Like, as I recall you saying, and I agree, that flashlight mechanic in that first one was something that you thought would be stupid until you did it, and it was enjoyable. That game was great, but they pushed the release date back ten days.
98:12
Only ten days, why? Because they realized all of the game killers that were setting around them. because they were split in half that leading up to them, there was a bunch of games coming out. But then coming out starting three days after them was Spider-Man 2 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder on the same day. Oh, okay. That makes more sense. And then like two days after that, it was Cities Skylines 2, and then the Metal Gear Solid remaster, and then Alone in the Dark.
98:48
Okay. All right. It's the not die. I understand. I understand now. Somebody looked at the release schedule for October and was just like, uh-oh. Yeah, no. This is smart. As fun as Alan Wake is, it's not a heavy hitter like this. Yeah, yeah. Dumping Alan Wake three days before Super Mario Brothers is, considering I think them dropping Spider-Man 2 against a Super Mario game is asking for trouble. That's interesting. I bet they think Spider-Man's strong enough to hold up against it. I'm sure they think that, but I think they might be hurting themselves. They might make it out in the long run, but I think they could have a stronger launch if they weren't fighting Super Mario directly.
99:32
So we'll see about that. We're quickly coming up on the Starfield release date, September 6th, because we're at the end of August. Somehow, I'll be 100% honest, This year has screamed by for me. I don't know. Maybe not for you or the listeners, but for me it feels like it should still be like May or June, and it's like the end of August.
99:57
I just can't wrap my mind around it some days. But they have released the install size of the game. It's going to be 140 gig on PC.
100:08
I mean, that is hefty. It's only going to be 100 gig for the standard edition on Xbox and 117 gig for the premium edition on Xbox. Yeah, we need less drivers. That'll save us some space. I don't know.
100:22
I'm super excited for this game. But much like Baldur's Gate 3, I don't know that I'm going to buy it immediately. I still haven't bought Baldur's Gate 3. Baldur's Gate's reviews are great. Its reviews are... See, and that's the problem. I got people on the Discord saying it's awesome. I know. It's like if Diablo 4 was Diablo 2. I bought Diablo 4 and I should have. Diablo 4 was great until they patched it. Well, that's true. It was a lot more fun before the patch.
100:45
I don't know. I haven't gone to Baldur's Gate 3 yet, and part of the reason I haven't picked up Baldur's Gate 3 yet is because I know it's going to be a long-form game for me, and with Starfield so close. Yeah, no, at this stage, I don't blame you for hesitating, because Starfield is very much in your, because you're such a sci-fi person, it's so much, I think, more in your alley. Right. Your space lane, so to speak.
101:11
A few episodes ago, I don't think it was last episode, I think it was a couple episodes before that, We talked about the Embracer Group in May had that whole verbal agreement for a $2 billion deal that just fell through all of a sudden. That was what led to them shuttering several studios, doing a big round of layoffs, and just basically wreaking havoc across them and deciding to lean into their owning of the Lord of the Rings franchises and stuff because they had this sudden loss of capital that they had planned on having. It is coming out that it sounds like, allegedly, the group that backed out on the deal was the Savvy Games Group, which is a Saudi government-funded group. They are part of the Saudi Investment Fund.
102:00
So that's like a partially government-owned video game creation. I'm not really familiar with it. Not either. I don't really recognize any of it, but I know there's been several talks lately in this last year about the Saudi investment group, and as they've been buying their way into the video gaming area. Specifically, they bought 5-plus percent of Embracer in the last year. So that's kind of spreading out. But that's got a lot of background because of who was in charge of that gaming group. It was one of the Saudi princes that has a lot of bad news reports on them and such. So I thought it was interesting. It explains the $2 billion. It doesn't explain why it backed off.
102:56
And then they did it like we talked about last episode. Overwatch 2 appeared on Steam. And to the surprise of absolutely nobody, it has been review-bombed. As of this morning, before I came over here, it was overwhelmingly negative.
103:17
One of the lowest-rated games ever, according to someone on the Discord. Yeah, it is bad. The reports are that a huge portion of it is the Chinese fan base. but it is definitely, it's got like 159,000 reviews and it's overwhelmingly negative. I heard an analysis, I read, I should say, an analysis. I can't remember the exact number, somewhere in the order of 60 to 66% were supposedly from China. Yeah. So, yeah, and I guess I heard this morning had to do with what the, like the carryover progress,
103:53
they don't get to have the carryover progress because they couldn't have Overwatch 2, I guess, prior to Steam. Like they lost it. Right. And their character progress isn't carrying over, and so they're taking it out on the game's reviews. Which is understandable. I get it. I mean, I would be annoyed, too, if you worked on all that progress, especially if you'd worked on Overwatch 2 progress, and then all of a sudden you're starting over again. Because the way the game is, you can't play competitively, for example, if you're not in Overwatch 1 carryover, unless you put in a certain amount. You have to get a certain number of wins and quickly, like, I don't remember, 50 or 75. I mean, it's hours of work.
104:29
Well, and I thought that it was interesting because Blizzard has come out and said that even with all the reviews, they're not worried about it. And that Overwatch 2 is in the best place it's ever been. Yeah, I don't know about that. I did buy the expansion. I debated it, and I thought, whatever, it's $15. I'm sure that's what Blizzard relied on. That's exactly what they relied on. To do the PvE content, which I've only played through. They don't have it all released yet, but what I've played through so far. But having story elements again was fun because normally you only kind of got like weird one-off stuff with like Junkin Steins where it's all like a joke. And this is actually telling the story of this Omnic NullSec invasion.
105:07
The main thing is I just don't know about the replayability on a lot of it. I mean, you can go, like they have some Easter eggs to find and stuff, but I just don't, you know, I mostly play Overwatch and get the battle passes just to do the recurring whatever. get the new characters and stuff and that sort of thing.
105:29
So, I don't know yet if it's going to be worth continuing or not. I mean, whatever. It depends what all it comes with as more stuff comes out for it without having to pay more. Unless they'll find a reason to make you pay. Oh, no. They always try. They have a new skin for D.Va that's $26. My gosh. $26. And it's just a recoloring of one of her other skins. Oh, no. Oh, that's even worse. And in two games yesterday, I saw people with it.
105:57
Love, Diva. Man, I just, I don't understand. I have thoughts, but. We need to release EGP skins for people. Apparently. For their Baldur's Gate characters. And then we can sell them. That's how we'll retire. We'll retire. We'll give them for some. Oh, having the ability to retire. What would that be like? I don't know. I started watching this YouTube channel, like Caleb Hammer's Financial Audit. I watched him. I saw a Reddit pop up where he was making fun of this person.
106:32
He's got all sorts on there with all sorts of different situations. So many of them are like the 20-something who's totally oblivious on how debt works. Yes. And it usually involves multiple credit cards, multiple minimum payments, and some car that's less than two years old with a 72-month lease and a double-digit percentage on the loan.
106:55
That's most of the time what seems to end up happening. And then he tells them basically they have to give up eating out for two years, and they're like, no. Yeah. I saw one of his videos once where there was a guy who his car broke down, or his car was wrecked. They got rid of his car. He didn't replace the car because he didn't need the car because he worked from home. And he would Uber every day from home to Starbucks and then Uber from Starbucks back home because he worked from home. Wow. Didn't even Uber Eats it. He Ubered to the Starbucks. Ubered to Starbucks. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I'm not a financial advisor. I ain't going to give financial advice. I'll give you my mantra that I believe in living by for people. Very important, especially in hobbies like pinball. Don't finance fun. Because financing is not fun. No, exactly. So it's much better to get yourself in a place where you can purchase your fun and not have to stress about paying the bill afterwards. Because that's going to live with you a lot longer than, in theory, like if you bought a pinball machine, it could live with you forever. But I always just personally get nervous when I see, because sometimes I post, like, on Pinsign and stuff, and people are like, is there, like, a place where they will let me, like, pay them monthly payments? They're like, do you want to rent one? It's like, no, no, no, no, like, pay to own. I'm like, so you want to pay interest on a toy? Yeah. I wouldn't. I mean, that's just my, but that's just my personal opinion.
108:25
Anything else? You know, I think I'll hold it for the next episode. because this episode has been very long and very fun. Yes, it has been long. Okay. So, well, folks, you can reach out to us, eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. You can also visit us at facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast. We also can be supported at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers. We're available on Twitch and Instagram as eclectic underscore gamers. And we will be back in a couple weeks with episode 201. I know you have a planned discussion for us on video games that we're pushing to that. Yep. And there'll probably be some news by then. I don't know if there'll be more pinball news, but there'll be something. There'll be something. Anyway, thanks for listening, especially those of you who have stuck with us for 200 episodes. Holy cow, that's a long time. Most of you probably haven't, though, so most of you haven't really done that much. So these thanks are only for those really long-term people. And for the rest of you, we give you thanks for being here with us today. Yep. And so long, everybody. See you next time.