Josh Sharp defends new IFPA efficiency-based ranking changes addressing play volume disparity.
Summary
Triple Drain Podcast Episode 36 features Josh Sharp, IFPA rankings co-creator and Stern staff member, defending proposed changes to the Whopper ranking system against criticism from co-host Tom. The discussion covers the rationale behind efficiency-based metrics to address regional disparity in tournament access and prevent over-weighting of high-volume play, while acknowledging limitations in accounting for opponent strength. The episode highlights tensions between accessibility (location-based advantage) and meritocracy in competitive pinball rankings.
Key Claims
Josh Sharp founded/restarted the IFPA rankings in 2006 as a spreadsheet project, negotiating rights to the dormant IFPA name with his father Roger Sharp
high confidence · Josh Sharp directly explaining the history of IFPA and Whopper system creation
The proposed 6.0 ranking system change introduces an efficiency percentage metric to reduce advantages from high-volume tournament play and geographic clustering
high confidence · Josh Sharp explaining the efficiency metric and how it caps value from excess play beyond a 'reasonableness level'
Josh Sharp's inability to qualify for Germany World Championship during COVID led to motivation for the ranking system changes
high confidence · Josh Sharp stating 'coming out of covid the rankings all look crazy and I find myself not qualified for Germany that's three weeks away'
Tom (co-host) is significantly affected by the proposed changes due to his high volume of play at District 82 tournaments
high confidence · Joel noting Tom 'drops down' in the rankings visualization after the proposed changes take effect
District 82 (Fox Cities, Wisconsin area) is described as the highest-tier tournament venue in North America with world-class competition
high confidence · Multiple speakers describing District 82 as a tournament 'mecca' with frequent high-level events and strong players concentrated in a 3-hour radius from Chicago
Efficiency percentage is calculated as placement points earned divided by total event points available (e.g., 10 Whoppers from 100-Whopper event = 10% efficiency)
high confidence · Josh Sharp directly explaining the metric: 'if an event is worth 100 Whoppers and you get 10 you're batting 10 percent'
A new rule was implemented in 2024 requiring top-250 ranked players to complete all games in a tournament once they start (cannot drop out mid-event)
high confidence · Josh Sharp discussing Travis's TPF (Texas Pinball Festival) Classics experience: 'if you're inside the top 250 right you cannot drop out of a tournament'
Notable Quotes
“it's a way for people to show how good they are among us see a very good players”
Josh Sharp@ 11:15 — Explains the core purpose of the Whopper ranking system as a comparative metric for elite player skill
“it would be like you challenging Travis to Godzilla he gets to play it once and you get to play it four thousand times who's gonna win I'd probably pick you Joel”
Tom (co-host)@ 19:31 — Illustrates the problem with raw volume-based ranking systems using a clear analogy Josh then applies to the proposed solution
“the current system goes 20 good events Joel you're great congratulations that that the system however doesn't look at the 180 events that you played as a way to generate those 20 good events”
Josh Sharp@ 29:33 — Core explanation of why the old system was flawed and how the new efficiency metric corrects it
“Americans do not understand how good we have it you know I mean even even if you're within a stone's throw of District 82 you're on like another universe”
Josh Sharp@ 18:58 — Highlights the regional inequality in tournament access that motivated the ranking system changes
“I went from when I first heard it announced to not agreeing with it to see and Josh explain it the further not agreeing with it and then being like okay I'm starting to understand what he's meaning here”
Travis Murie@ 34:00 — Shows the community skepticism about the changes and how explanation gradually shifts perception
“I've been playing competitively since I was 13 years old so my first event ever was 1993”
competitive_signal: IFPA proposing major overhaul of Whopper ranking system (version 6.0) shifting from raw event wins to efficiency percentage metric to address geographic/volume disparity in tournament access
high · Josh Sharp explaining efficiency metric, showing rankings before/after visualization, detailing cap on value from excess play beyond 'reasonableness level'
?
competitive_signal: New rule implemented requiring top-250 ranked players to complete all games in tournaments once started (no drop-out option), preventing exploits from partial play
high · Josh Sharp: 'if you're inside the top 250 right you cannot drop out of a tournament you just gotta as soon as you start you're all in'
?
industry_signal: High-tier competitive play concentrated geographically at District 82 (Fox Cities, WI) with 3-hour radius from Chicago containing disproportionate number of world-class players and frequent high-value tournaments
high · Multiple speakers describing District 82 as tournament 'mecca', noting concentration of Raymond Davidson, Keith Elwin, Tim Sexton, Stern/American Pinball staff, and frequent tournaments
?
community_signal: Community pushback against efficiency-based ranking changes due to concerns about opponent strength weighting and fairness implications for high-volume players
high · Tom expressing skepticism, Travis initial disagreement, both noting concern that efficiency metric doesn't account for quality of opponents faced
?
competitive_signal: Stark disparity between US and international tournament access, with UK having only ~2-3 major annual tournaments vs. US having multiple high-value events per month in key regions
Topics
IFPA Whopper Ranking System DesignprimaryProposed Version 6.0 Ranking System ChangesprimaryEfficiency Percentage Metric ImplementationprimaryRegional Tournament Access DisparityprimaryCompetitive Pinball Tournament SceneprimaryHigh-Volume Play and Ranking InflationsecondaryInternational vs. US Competitive OpportunitiessecondaryPodcast Production and Formatmentioned
Sentiment
mixed(0.55)— Largely technical/defensive discussion. Josh Sharp presents the system changes with detailed reasoning and generally positive framing, but Tom's skepticism and the acknowledgment of limitations (opponent strength weighting not implemented) create tension. Travis initially disagrees but gradually becomes neutral-to-supportive as explanations clarify. The tone is collegial but contains underlying disagreement about fairness and implementation.
Transcript
youtube_auto_sub · $0.000
network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast Tom are you ready yes wonderful Travis you look great are you feeling good you ready you ready to go yep feeling pretty good thank you and Josh welcome are you ready for this thanks man I'm always ready for this [ __ ] all right here we go that's kind of awesome you're clearly not doing in post is working well for us so here we go with this that's not it either no it's gone I told you it was all your [ __ ] pictures this is this is so embarrassing Josh I am okay so apparently we don't have our theme song No it sure wouldn't they don't somehow you guys are making less progress than I am on Cactus oh wow do we don't have I don't know what happened to the trip uh whatever okay I'm playing Rush I think I have it here I think I have it here and yeah yeah oh God [Music] okay I apparently wasn't ready no it wasn't bad no [ __ ] Sherlock that was clear that was by what are we episode 36 that's that shows 35 episodes of experience at least I mean we were all waiting for Joel that was the freaking problem I so you know no everybody nobody wants to hear about Zen Caster at the beginning of the episode but zencaster here you put your soundboard at the top and I start on the left and click to the right and uh triple drain intro was not there but tpn triple drain intro well whatever nobody cares uh good story bro yeah yeah yeah yeah so apparently the listeners want us to put in timestamps of when our pinball conversation starts no so that'd be nice that'd be nice honestly that'd be pretty nice Josh you want to skip forward through you know this the the the whatever you call this it's nice watching each of your guys faces when you're listening to your own intro song there's like a version of like love it like I've heard it a lot embarrassment there's all all your guys faces there's so many emotions well it's a good song and somebody made a video for us so I just I feel like we can't cut it out it's too good but it is it's solid it's really nice all right well um this is this has started off so well this has started off so well um we have a guest tonight we have a guest tonight Josh Sharpe the one the only he is here um I'm glad you're here um and you're here because uh Tom is mad at you and you need to defend some of the decisions that you've made Single tear coming down my eye right yes so we're not going to put time stamps on pinball talk but maybe I'll put a time stamp on tournament talk because we're diving right we're gonna Dive Right into some tournament talk um and I know some people genuinely don't care but what I will say is I used to be one of those people I used to not care but obviously doing the podcast doing the podcast with these two guys but is a big part of it but also I I didn't realize actually how important like the tournament scene is and I just and what I mean by that is um like a lot of the rules a lot of the rules in modern code are as good as they are because of the tournament scene we have amazing players that have stepped into different roles in pool in pinball companies like yourself Josh that are bringing experience and and they want to make the code AS polished and as great as it possibly can be and obviously you see that with like Tim Sexton Ray day you see that with Keith I know jjp has their Keith and their Joe cat like tournament players that are very good I probably forgot somebody and I'm sorry Martin Roberts Roberts he's a tournament player like people that are that that are really experienced in that and understand we need to account for this in modern code and we need to make sure that that modern code is fun for me the novice and also fun for the u3 for the tournament player so um yes tournament talk is important that's what I'm saying is um if you're not even though you don't play tournaments I still think it's important to like I don't know respect them I I don't I I'm pretty sure you're making it sound more important than I think I even think I don't know I got sucked into it and I've played in one tournament I've played in one tournament but that 89th Place Joel that got you hooked in it yeah it was hiring Monica remember that is true you are all over there I remember I had one goal I had one goal I think she had stopped playing like I think she had stopped it was a pump and dumping okay well um what are we talking about so Josh apparently in the in the world of in in the world of tournaments and pinball tournaments you're kind of a big deal right I mean you're uh at the top you are the top of the food chain is that right is that how would you describe yourself yeah that is incorrect that's like Tom explain it no no I'm not explaining it these are if I started or I I've been playing competitively since I was 13 years old so my first event ever was 1993. so I've been in this scene a long time for two-thirds of my life more than two a long time holy moly and even before that with the stuff that my dad and Steve Epstein were doing with Papa in the early 80s for league play before they kind of moved on to International level tournaments it's a off side of pinball that I have always been extremely passionate about and as I've gotten older and more in the scene like it's doing starting the rankings back in 2006 was just a way for me to express my love for the game and something that I felt could add to the entertainment value for at least back then trying to indirectly compare players to one another who never got to play against each other I mean back then it was like Expo Papa see you next Expo it was kind of the whole tournament calendar besides local leagues and stuff but I mean outside of the few Europeans that would come over for Papa or for Expo I you'd never see any of those people and that's changed now you know 30 years later but in the 90s and 2000s it was there was no real good way of comparing yourself to your peers outside of like the people I played in Chicago or the you know the random people that showed up to the two tournaments a year that I went to yeah so you um you created or founded the ifpa I did not no so the ifpa was CR it was an industry Association in the 90s my dad actually helped found it back then and your dad is Roger sharp he is Roger yes big deal yeah the mustache the dude in all due respect I actually respect that kind of the guy but everybody yeah Roger yeah yeah okay sorry go ahead so he uh ifpa went defunct in when pinball was crashing 95 96 as stuff started to to Peter out and I started the rankings as its own separate fun spreadsheet while I was out of college not working in a cube staring at the same spreadsheet for days on end okay and my dad had reached out to the association that owned the ifpa that was just sitting dormant for a decade and we negotiated the rights for us to take it over nice nice so when did maybe explain it but what is a Whopper and when did the Whopper enter into the scene February 2006 was the first Whopper standings that were created so it's uh it's a ranking point it's a point of currency with respect to uh the more events you play in the more Whoppers you earn and it's world world pinball player rankings Whopper got it I got all the Whoppers okay almost one almost a full Whopper right yeah it sucks suck that traffic yeah I think 1.6 oh there you go crushing it there we go so okay Whoppers got it so um it entered you said 2006 and explain explain the significance of it or why why is it that Ray day lays awake at night just dreaming of the Whoppers all the Whoppers because of his ego I mean that's really it he'll tell you that like it's the reason why I mean 2006 I wanted to find a way to declare that I was better than Jorgen schmorgan from Sweden who I never that guy that guy so developing a point structure where I can play what I play in and Jorgen schmorgan can play what he plays in and Morgan he won't be playing in Germany or else I probably would have now called him jorgeous Morgan all weekend he'd have no idea why uh Jorgen Schwartz okay you know I mean it all stems from my ego back in the mid-2000s of feeling like I was pretty good not Keith Ellen good back then but like I'd be willing to fight anyone on a game a pinball anytime anywhere like let's go so you know it was a vanity project for me it continues to be for me I mean there's a there's a really large selfish nature to this whole thing because the number of hours that I've put in certainly back when it started and without the volunteers that I have now too many life hours to uh not be getting something out of this for myself okay so it really is a way for people to show how good they are among us see a very good players so okay so I'm gonna do something that that's that's probably dumb but this is after so listening to all the podcasts and participating in this I've never I've never read and there goes Travis first of many I tried fixing it I swear go ahead Joel Okay so in my this is this is what I've um learned or I think I know so a Whopper is gained at a tournament so you're you're playing a tournament and a Whopper is all about um it like if I if I went to my local tournament and I'm the best guy there and I win that that doesn't mean nearly as much as Tom going to District 82 and winning his Tuesday night League because the competitiveness or the the quality of players at a place like District 82 is higher than potentially the quality of players at my local tournament so there's like a waiting system of you like a a first place at at one person's Tuesday night League may be worth way more Whoppers than a first place at somebody else's league so it's so but there's math behind all that there's a lot there's a lot of math and a lot of trying to figure out well how is it how do you how do you value one person's or what you and it all it all depends on well how many how many um high-ranking players are playing in that same tournament as you are um because sure if I host a tournament with 20 of my family members I don't know there's probably a limited number of people that participate a limited number of games but if nobody there plays pinball and I win I can't just be like boom I just want 100 Whoppers you know praise me because the other 19 people suck but if you do a tournament with 20 top ranked players then yeah winning that tournament's a big deal that actually deserves Whoppers is that a is that is that at all accurate like does that make it is okay yeah so quality of players and quantity of players both feed the value of the event along with like the quality of the tournament with respect to are we playing one ball on your Godzilla and that's deciding the winner or are we playing a best of 100 on Godzilla okay so there's there's a lot of math there's a lot of math here and I I we don't have to dive into too much of the specifics but it seems like the something and this came up in in jest when we were talking about tpf because Travis participated in Classics and he bombed is that the right word just just sucked was that apparently somebody's reached out to Travis and says what's up with this Joel guy he keeps picking Andreas so I just you know we're just gonna lay into it I have white Knights out there I'm fine with that so send all the spam to Joel please Travis did not Travis did not do particularly well but my question at the time was does that matter like why would you not just play like it doesn't matter if you're first or last like I assumed there was no negative like you earn Whoppers you're not losing Whoppers like is there a negative uh there is not a negative side to this yes so but what I'm hearing is that may be changing and that's why Josh I think you're here to explain that defend that I don't know what's the thought behind that I think for me so the changes that are still proposed we don't know if we're gonna actually make Tom unhappy or not we're still waiting to decide if we're gonna do it coming out of covid the rankings all look crazy and I find myself not qualified for Germany that's three weeks away it's always about Josh it it is I mean really really it is that qualify did your brother qualify yeah we were we were okay yeah now we were both locked in our houses for far too long so and we are both extremely competitive people and the idea of flying to Germany and hosting a world championship that I have to sit in a freaking chair and watch 80 other people play in this high level event like I'd rather get some cavities filled because that would just kill me yeah so I was able to and and upon now reflection of how my 2022 went the the opportunities that I had to compete through my ability to take time off my ability to live pretty close to District 82 my ability to have the means to you know stay at a hotel travel do whatever like I was able to go from 200th in the world back to the top 25 relatively easily and I saw some of my peers like Adam Becker who's on our staff that didn't have the same opportunities that I had and he will be going to Germany and not playing and I feel really bad for him and I know that he tried to scrap together what he could in 2022 but there was just no way when compared to someone like myself who was able to play at an unreasonable level that there was action that we are looking to take that allows someone like Adam to still be able to compete and prove that he is just as good as I am at playing pinball without needing to take 35 days off away from his family to go compete at an insane level okay so yes what the what I've learned once again by doing this podcast with these guys they're traveling all the time they're traveling all the time they're traveling all over the US and they're playing in some amazing tournaments and not only that they're doing well at it they're doing well at it not only that but Travis when he was in Oklahoma it looked like there was a pretty good Oklahoma scene so he was in a pretty competitive league night there and then Tom is in he's in tournaments all the time at a very well known I'm in the Utopia of pinball yes District 82 which has like awesome tournaments rather frequently in Fox Cities pinball streams almost every one of them if not every one of them and most some people may not know this but but District 80s 2 is a whopping what three hours from Chicago like it's not 2 40 for me yeah so all the people in Chicago you know you and your brother you got Raymond Davidson you got Keith Owen you got other Stern staff Tim Sexton he's Steven Bowden at American pinball you got these people that's a quick and easy Drive live up from Chicago to play at these high-end tournaments so yes if Tom is in the mecca of pinball he's in a location where once again the Whopper is all valued about how good your competition is well if there happens to be a whole lot of really good competitors all in one place that can participate in a lot of pinball tournaments yeah I could understand how those people have an opportunity to get a lot of Whoppers that other people what smorgasbordin or whatever his name was out in the middle of nowhere he may not he may he may only be able to participate in five or six tournaments a year so and for Mo like we have that data and for most of the world and I I feel bad because like Americans do not understand how good we have it you know I mean even even if you're within a stone's thorough of District 82 you're on like another universe but like there's pockets in America that countries dream of having you know a fraction of the events per year that they can plan and what happens is you end up with a ranking system that doesn't really do an accurate job because the inputs are so variable from player to player it would be like you challenging Travis to Godzilla he gets to play it once and you get to play it four thousand times who's gonna win I'd probably pick you Joel like like fourth giving giving you 4 000 attempts yeah to beat Travis's one attempt and if if our system is saying well Joel's better than Travis I mean Matt doesn't lie right wow that's a shitty system you put it that way so obviously that's an extreme uh that's an extreme take on it but it really is kind of how we're looking to possibly balance the system for next year which is Hey Joe we're gonna give you those 4 000 attempts that's still cool man you go nuts but we're gonna start to like maybe after 1500 attempts anything after that you might get to keep 80 of your score okay you might still beat Travis yeah and you still have a ton of plays that you can do but at some point you're overplaying your excess playing against Travis won't be as advantageous as it is just taken that in the raw form so you can't you can't limit like what I what I'm thinking here is um if if that guy in the middle of nowhere can only play five tournaments you can't just limit everybody to five entries because you can't you can't limit the number of of plays that would be silly um so what you're saying is we're taking we're setting a reasonableness level so there's plenty of people that are playing not enough and at some point we're saying sorry dude I know you only play three tournaments a year it's not enough you need to play more because in order to be you to fairly compare yourself to your peers there is some amount of data you have to put in you can't play once and then expect everyone else to be compared to your one attempt yeah that's fair I know when we had Neil McRae on he was that was something that he was talking about just over there like the amount of tournaments are so cute and we don't they don't get this and that's why you see Neil get on a plane and fly over here or with a deal running stuff now over there is helping the scene a ton yeah I mean without without Neil it's like they have the UK open and the pinball league and that was like it and the UK is huge yeah they get like nothing so I know this was something that kind of boggled my mind but it's like like Escher right so escher's out there in Colorado I thought I heard that he doesn't play in league and the reason he like and my thought was like why would you not because he'd get he'd get first every time and basically what they said is because because it's not worth it like it's not worth his time because his skill level compared to his peers or something it's like he doesn't get many Whoppers from it is is that was something that I heard so at some point and this is the change for was 5.8 this year I can't even remember anymore yes come on competitive pinball people Travis is saying yes which change are you talking about I'm talking about the Whopper inflation oh yeah that was so that is five eight that was certified was that okay so right we're in the process of trying to separate out with respect to Value really big events from really small events okay the older versions of the system and we change every year so there's there's been a new system pretty much every year since 2006. that it didn't do a great job of separating out that local League win from a Texas pinball Festival win yeah and now you know to have Asher saying something like that it means the system's working because he has so many events that are large victories that him having a small victory is meaningless for his card it won't it won't raise him in the rankings at all okay so I mean I I would assume your goal like you want you don't want people to play less pinball like that's I mean we don't want people to play less pinball but is there now going to be a potential like fear of like I don't know I don't know if I want to play in this tournament because if I do bad I think that's my big question like you know you know we see we've seen some people on the Discord and like tele forums and they're just like oh now it's like you don't want to play and you were you were telling me privately gosh and and you were like no actually you want to play because your rank would have dropped significantly more at a plate so Joe the metric that we're using to sort of equalize people with high variable amounts of play is a stat that we call efficiency percentage which is if an event is worth 100 Whoppers and you get 10 you're you're batting 10 percent Okay so if you are getting better at pinball the more you play regardless of whether an event is is worth enough to hit your card or not or whatever the more you play well you can raise that percentage and it will impact you in a positive way so you know offline and share you know running through Tom's model of like what if I never played at District 82 and it's like well you'd be worse okay well what if I only played at District 82 well you'd be worse then it's still an additive thing if you are playing well and I mean ultimately it comes down to well what if I remove all the events I played poorly in that it's like well then you're Keith Ellen and there's only one yeah and playing poorly is a part of you know someone's whole journey as a pinball player and it's representative of their true skill so what about okay so back to Travis's tpf experience in Classics he's he's got what is it you had like eight games you had to play to get your positioning if you got seven games in you realize this isn't looking good if you would have just stopped or no as soon as you start you're just as soon as I played you're starting yeah I played ball one game one I'm in because they call that an exploit Joel well there was a new rule that was put in place this year that I think it's if you're inside the top 250. right you cannot drop out of a tournament you just gotta as soon as you start you're you're all in which I like that role personally okay so what I will say is when I I heard a I heard this Buzz right and and it was in one of our Facebook chats and I don't I don't remember who it was but um the misinformation yeah it's like it's like oh we got it we got something stirring the pot here in the tournament Road let me let me try to look at this and and I know this isn't isn't my place but let me see what's going on here and I ended up looking at an Excel sheet and it showed current rankings versus proposed change and it was interesting to see because like I the top few positions didn't change escher's still Usher like raid a was still ready they're still there um but and they play a lot they do and they're very good and then I know what is it is Johannes is that his name yeah is is that the guy that's like unbelievable overseas I think when Avengers came out he like beat it the very first time he touched the game he's in my EPC group I'm looking forward to kicking his ass yeah so he's I've heard that he's like really really really good but yet I've never seen him over here really really really good as an understatement yeah okay but that's but you hear that right that it's like it's this he's this mythical creature across the land and overseas overseas yeah or pinball that's that's the way I think of him but he doesn't play that like he doesn't play in all the tournaments over here so all of a sudden boom he's up in the top ten I'm like well I've heard about that guy but he wasn't he wasn't there before he's still but like boom in the top 10 from what is he's like top 25 now but still but yeah but I'm like okay now for this guy to be what you're describing him as is really really really good like well where is he then like okay so I see some adjustments here and then I'm looking at names I saw there was some slight change with Travis Neil Graff Tom's son's still there and but unfortunately I had to scroll down a decent bit and then I see Tom and I'm like oh Tom what's going on what's going on and this is why because no this is why but this is like interesting okay so this is actually affecting somebody somebody that I know so what what's the what's the so the thought here is it's it all comes down the efficiency rate so because Tom plays so much he has to be that's so much okay so explain this to me please because he so Tom has his top 20 events and then he has this other 870 events okay he's played the closer that your top 20 is representative of your overall play you will not change and I think the best example that people have told me to use when explaining this is if Joel you go to 10 events and you get lucky in one of them yeah and you're like yeah I'm okay I can play and sometimes you know things work out for me balls bounce the right way I I played well I had a good good tournament sweet good job man you go to 10 more you have another good one you go to 10 more you have another good one you go to 200 events you will find your way to having 20 good ones good job man and the current system goes 20 good events Joel you're [ __ ] great congratulations that that the system however doesn't look at the 180 events that you played as a way to generate those 20 good events right okay so this new system is doing exactly that interesting we're going to look at your 180 and for a lot of people you know 30 of if if first if someone is truly like not a good player that is lucky in their way one out of ten you're 180 will not be anywhere near representative of your good 20. so the reality is 200. [ __ ] you up if that's your situation so for someone like Raymond though or Usher or good P like like Travis Neil they have 200 events they have their best 20 their next 50 are still really good their next 50 after that are pretty good at some point they're like 20 of them are bad their adjustment isn't as much what about I'm headed to Joel division dude there's a lot of fun going on in this division let me tell you a lot less stress a lot less stress but so Travis's tpf here's one thing though yeah but like so here's one thing I see like I and I I agree with that but the system's also not seeing people I'm playing so like in a lot of those events I'm playing Usher and Jason zoller and Raymond Davidson and sharp Zach sharp yeah graph Keith elwin you know so how do you I guess rate that is that just I mean that's that's the the and I think well Shepherd until forums today kind of put things into perspective which is you know we do the best we can with the time we have to do it and the data we have available sure the the next level of this if Brian doesn't kill me and this 6.0 doesn't do a good enough job I think it will do a good enough job to not have to worry about it but it's really nobody's efficiency percentage is the same for exactly the reason you mentioned Tom right like like having an efficiency percentage of 20 when you're playing great people is different than 20 when you're playing a bunch of average casual people and we are not judging that yet yeah because we we there probably is a way for us to be able to do that but it is not in the cards yet so which that a lot and maybe I'm not grasping it but it's um so if Tom got 28 20 per if 20 if Tom got 20th Place at indisk would that 20th Place be considered the same as 20th Place at I don't know so like at a uh at a at a small tournament that's not nearly like no our opportunities are higher at indisk right yes but he's saying just the love and he'll earn more Whoppers for 20th at index than he would for 20th or somewhere else and so I mean there's a benefit to if Tom plays well at events where I'm there raised there Asher's there everybody's there there's so many more points available in those evenings or weekends than a Tilton Tuesday or whatever okay and then the other thing is because now negative games come to a into play my my like what's interesting is listening to these guys when they go to a tournament as soon as the tournament's over they're like well what did that do to my ranking so my thought here is if Travis wants to get a tpf and I'm sorry if I'm just bringing this up over and over again but because Classics wasn't great for him but yet the mains he got fourth place is there any way that he would come out of that weekend like a wash like is there any way that that would just that seems like just a bad eight games of pinball versus like a really impressive feat of what he did in Maine yeah I think the main event is worth far more Whoppers so if you do your Blended efficiency for that weekend if I I mean [ __ ] man we have computers let's see oh dude I don't Travis you've been quiet is this what are your thoughts I do do you agree with this or do you wonder I'm taking it all in I I went from when I first heard it announced to not agreeing with it to see and Josh explain it the further not agreeing with it and then being like okay I'm starting to understand what he's meaning here so I'm like I'm just I'm indifferent to it because I think it's it's an evolving process that I think it's it's one of those things that it's hard to judge something until you see an actual sample size come out of it because otherwise it's like we talked about before it's all in theory right now like what will the rankings look like next year what will it look like two years from now and I I do hope that something is addressed with in terms of I guess the the strength of opponent because obviously like to me personally I think going up to District A2 and people talk about this all the time like oh somebody just travels for their Whoppers or they do this to do that and like I tell those people it's like well we're not just traveling to play nobodies it's literally world-class players everywhere like in every single group so I remember there was one tournament in which one of my last groups I had like Kaylee George and Zach Sharpe and guess what I still took like 21st in that tournament so the competition is just so high level that honestly I think or people that haven't been there I can say that if I finish in the top 20 there like I I feel like I did pretty good and I value that more than even finishing at like a huge event here in the St Louis area and finishing first but that's just something obviously that I think it'll have to be judged later on or adjust it later on if we come to that because my only concern is it's not for the top tier players and it's not for the players that are like ranked 10 000 or switching from 800 to 500 right those are just the rankings are what they are but it's seeing how the people that are on the cusp of IFA that are going for that that want to qualify for something like that that might be that's what I'm interested in seeing how that affects something like that so I don't know I I'm just I'm indifferent for those that know ahead of time that they're gonna play poorly and can stop themselves they're they're going to be great because they'll know when to not play because they know they're going to play Bad I always think I'm gonna win so my mental state is never it's never great I'm never gonna stop because I think I'm gonna win everything I play I think judging it I I think personally because we've seen people talk about well I'm not going to play in this event I'm not going to play in that event and I feel the same way but not because I'm worried about it necessarily hurting my efficiency or anything like that I've just decided that I only want to play in events that in formats that I think is going to be fun like that's one of the main reasons why I set out State this year because heads up I just don't have fun with it but of course now I'm traveling across the world to potentially play in so it is the the positive possible consequence here too is if if there are enough people that don't want to play and let's call them high variants events that seem more coin flippy does that motivate tournament directors to run better events where skill is more fairly judged and if that happens that's great because there is right now you know a trend of getting stuff to be worth as much as it can regard as quickly as you can that's the the number one question I get into the ifpa's inbox is I'm running an event for three hours on Tuesday I want the most Whoppers I can in three hours what do I do Josh and my answer to them is always if there was an answer to that we'd change it so it was no longer the answer yeah because that's not what it's supposed to be about and that's when you get into people that are like you know playing on all classics playing uh you know tight to like setting games up so hard that it's not fun because they want to overvalue their tournament and this brings a balance to that because if you're going to make something that is not fun and seems very luck boxy you there's now a reason for players to not support that behavior from a tournament director it's a good point yeah this is I don't know this is this is uh the more like I said earlier the more that I learn about tournaments the more I there's just so much to this there's so much to this and and I this is an interesting question I don't know maybe it's an unfair question but like Travis when I look at your screen you know you got a bunch of trophies behind you so at the end of the day like and maybe like I said this may be unfair but it's getting like one big trophy do you value that more or do you devalue your top 20 positioning in Worlds like which one are you more proud of so honestly I'm I'm a weird player because I come from Oklahoma in which there there was like at that time when I started there was no Whopper points there right okay so basically in Oklahoma Kansas Missouri and some of the players in Texas the main thing that everybody talked about was well you have to go to stern pro circuit events and you have to go to those places to to find the points and that was true because that's where all the best players were there was no way I was going to get to top 100 playing my weeklies in Oklahoma City it just was not going to happen so the way that I look at it is I just like playing pinball because it's fun I like finding formats that are fun and I'm probably one of those that when I go to District 82 I honestly don't take every tournament dead serious otherwise you would not see me with a spotted cow at the time or hanging out in the parking lot right yeah but the main events I do take series The Stern pro circuit events I do take serious and hopefully my results in that for the past couple of years kind of sure sure off the charts but the thing is is that that may not be the experience for somebody else like I think everybody plays competitive pinball for whatever reason they want to and that's completely valid right so when it comes to my ranking I just wanted to qualify for ifpa if I won some tournaments along the way awesome I had fun along the way even more awesome and then the next step was as well I wanted to try to be top 10 because I didn't realize I would get close to it right so you know it's one of those things and I've told Tom this that with the new system in place I honestly I don't think I have a chance at top 10 anytime soon it would be a massive grind and I'm okay with that like I'm okay with still going to tournaments and just playing to have fun in certain spots and then other other spots I'll still play to have fun but I might take it a little bit more serious you won't find me with a the Spotted Cow waiting to play my next turn or something like that you know so I mean people play it for different reasons and people value you know different things and right now I I will say the most number one thing I value right now currently is my children that are they're starting to want to play in tournaments so that's something that I'm trying to Foster for them and trying to encourage them to do to learn rule sets and stuff like you have a wife too just yeah but but that's that's my motivation so people are going to have different motivations for why they do what they do and I I personally I don't get anything out of going to like a weekly tournament and just going hard in the paint the entire time like I don't get anything out of that but I'm not gonna fault somebody if they do get something out of it because everybody plays for their reasons and they have fun for the reasons that they have fun and just to clarify the trophy you are most proud of in behind you is the pinball degenerates Award right for the no no no that is cool no no no Josh knows this one Oklahoma well I don't know I mean boom there's 42 minutes of uh wait hold on yeah so Travis's efficiency percentage overall is 36. his Texas main event was 72 his Texas Classics event was shitty three percent he's overall when you mix when you mix the two from that weekend 49 so he raised his also okay it helped himself he helped himself look at that so lesson learned do not play Classics tournaments in which you only have eight plays and you've had three beers lessons everybody just do all final fours and you'll be fine yeah yeah it's super easy apparently an inconvenience right well Tom was there anything else I mean any other questions or comments or feelings that you have in in regards it was just it was just more do you think this is gonna affect I guess um how how tournament directors are gonna run things and how uh do you do you think we're gonna see a a shift towards maybe people not running events or smaller events or I think it really depends on I mean every event that gets organized is through the love of volunteer work to get that done and and that tournament director's own motivations right like right I use I used to run my monthly out here and thank God for Andy Bagwell I've been like had him run it a couple of times and then slowly just kept moving away and now he's done I think it was right wed Evan was being born so four years ago it was like oh man my wife's due can you run it this month and it's like oh she's you know we're we have a baby at home can you run it like the next three months and now it's four years later and he's still doing it but like it's gonna be Andy which is doing what I've oh my God from what I've seen he's taken it to level I mean I was joking with him the other day back years and years ago we would uh that monthly have like nine people four of them were members of my family and one of them was my old boss from work who I dragged along so that was like five out of the nine so now he gets yeah 70 60 70 80 players it's kind of like you're tilting Tuesdays District 82. yeah like player counts that blow my mind that's awesome it's awesome and that'll continue because of the reasons why Andy enjoys running it so I think it all comes down to the person that's willing to put the time in to do it yeah clearly there are people that that are in Rage mode that are now no longer running anything ever and that's a response that is a response yeah yeah and I I would be like Marty and Jeff that is a pinball game that exists yeah so is there anything uh yeah anything else you want to clarify or just I don't know any other thoughts Josh because I'm assuming this comes out and some people were elated to see like awesome yes they're taking like boom they're thinking and then other people are like you're saying in Rage mode but I obviously you can only type so much is there anything else you want to clarify or say about this I think I mean most nobody thinks about this [ __ ] more than I do and the private feedback I've gotten has been that this proposed list looks way more accurate than the current list and a lot of the things that we do you know have to we're not just math people we're we're math and reasoning people it's really easy to be like well that's what the formula says so [ __ ] off like if something doesn't pass our smell test and it we used to call like we've run so many simulations over the last 15 years and back in the day you know we called it the Keith test you know we we make some changes that we thought in theory were good changes you run it and Keith is ranked 13th yeah that that does not work so that those theoretical great decisions go in the garbage because the the list has to reflect reality and for me reality is is discussing with my peers who are the best in the world at this based on what they've seen from people and the who they've played against it's sort of just a a rational test of of people that I've seen play people that I've played against people that I think I'm better than people that I think might be better than me at this point in my life and uh yeah I do think it's it's a better move for accuracy and uh I apologize to people like Tom who yeah take it on the channel a little harder than others but I always have state oh yeah that's right that's right man that's what that was going to be my last question can you confirm or deny that the proposed plan when you're writing this that it was not saved as screw you tomograph because that's that's what I thought the document I thought there was a leaked document at some point that yeah that was the title well I mean I feel bad for Todd because most of the because we get a lot of a not not Anonymous to me but a lot of people that complain about things anonymously and the number of times that Neil's name was used was far more than than I would care to admit and it's been great to see Neil like earn and earn where he is yeah they're just gonna say it's he has that died down a little bit yeah of course because he's I mean he's showing like besides you're obviously you know the stuff that you're streaming at District 82 he's now no longer just playing that local crowd right we're having you know major events up there and he's swinging man he's Swinging with the rest of us and you go from a random name on a spreadsheet that doesn't belong to a bunch of people that don't know [ __ ] they don't know anybody that you know they just see a name and I've never played against that person I've never seen them play they suck that's everyone's like default mechanism like prove to me that you're good because I've never heard of you and uh he has proved to a lot of people that he's good well I I just remember before I got into this and I would watch you know you guys at Papa which I thought was amazing um you know I'd see people on the forums like well they're only getting 200 million on a Twilight Zone and that's like well yeah you're not playing in your basement where the you know you have you have your uh posts all the way down and you know the game's set up easy hardest balls you know it's a different it's a different Universe it's a different Universe out there well cool well good I know that was um I I knew we wanted to talk about this and kind of try to clarify all that so I I feel like I understand it a little bit and I I don't know any I don't know what I'm talking about at all so I think that was like Josh has me kind of seeing it from his point of view now I don't know what it is he's always he's good at doing that he's good at a lot of things there's your transition he's going to keep on trying to keep my wife to stick around here yeah just I just keep talking until she's like [ __ ] fine whatever [Laughter] so transition here what are we at we're at 49 minutes so here's your here's your number why do you keep saying that I'm saying that because if we were talking about talk happens we were talking about Toppers you'd be all [ __ ] excited Joe that was actually probably the most exciting segment we've had since the freaking Magic Stick stuff so I enjoyed that good I could agree with that well okay so another thing we both we all enjoy here which is sitting right behind Josh sitting right behind Josh and no it's not avengers I see Avengers behind him Pulp Fiction Pulp Fiction Josh you've been all over I know you've been on multiple other podcasts about this and and you are lead rules designer correct is that is that an appropriate term for yeah yeah cool yeah so first here's a here's a question you said and I don't know if you can answer this or not but you said you have been essentially um providing rules or feedback on anything and everything that you can apparently your your email killing people and bothering people with all your rules thoughts for years and years since I was a kid is there any particular rule in a game that you feel that somebody implemented because of you like that you're like yeah I did that was my idea is there anything like that sure sure and Zach too over the years I know like my favorite that Zach came up with was uh Avatar sucks during during final battle during the wizard mode yeah um I think live like me Zach and Lima were talking and there was some you know you build up your switches or whatever then the jackpot is lit and Zach was like I think it'd be cool the outlines say unobtainium which is like the currency and the Avatar universe that is worth more than anything and Zach's like if you could intentionally drain out the outlands it ended up like increasing the shut the kill shot for your jackpot when it was ready to be lit so you had to like sacrifice your ball and play and then hope to hit it quick enough to be able to like re-trigger launching the balls back into play but like that was really cool interesting yeah Uma didn't you oh yeah I think I threw some I threw some yet multiball rules that Scott that he thought was pretty cool I think with the uh I think it was like the timing of the targets before they reset so you could go like single double triple but if you didn't do it fast enough they'd come back up so is that actually you that came up with that or yes concept of that yeah that's like literally my favorite part to that game good wow okay Iron Man do do or die time yeah that was you and that was because there was nothing there and back back and those are some not great Stern days those were like they needed a game on the line and in six weeks and Lyman and Lonnie were throwing anything they could into a game to get it shippable and I remember you know I think I was hanging out in Lonnie's office and they had the instruction cards printed and it said something about like Do or Die time and they had plans for Do or Die multiball which is like the ultimate wizard mode that wasn't wasn't in yet and they knew they had to get it done but they were like [ __ ] this like we can't ship a game with an the instruction card has a rule that's and the instruction cards back then have like six things on it yeah we can't ship a game that doesn't have one of these six major things on the card and I said guys it doesn't say Do or Die multiple it says Do or Die time and I came up with this like one one shot idea to do everything on one ball and then it it lit lights this thing for like it's Do or Die time man do it or you get nothing and they threw that in there and it worked nice nice yeah I made my comment about Avatar that was actually the first pinball game I owned and uh it pissed me off because you've upgraded it it kicked my butt and the fact that you would lose progress on everything after all one I was like well I suck at pinball come on like this I won a three ball game not a one ball game but I did the uh KISS Army her the hurry ups for the Lonnie Lonnie was struggling to to find out what to do with the target Banks because he but he had a dedicated insert that was already in the play field and that's what I mean I feel so bad for those guys because we're pretty at least through the Pulp Fiction design process we had more than enough time to figure out what we wanted to do before like playfields were printed so you know the playfields get printed a lot he's like I have an army insert on the center ramp that's just there and I have the kiss insert that's on the left orbit that's just there it's like any ideas and I wrote up some long email about like you know what if you do a hurry up between the two that you can keep building throughout the the game blah blah blah it's like and sounds great that's it that's great it's past review yeah that's that's awesome um how many ideas have you thrown at Keith elwin that he has completely ignored man I I just sit back and enjoy his stuff there's not much to throw at him yeah no that's awesome well that's really cool I think it's uh you know a lot of people have known your name from a tournament standpoint but I think that's that was something you'd mentioned before and I was like I wonder if he has examples and yes you've you've got a lot of examples here I have more email I mean I have emails to Lonnie that I'm sure at some point get gets mostly I had a bunch of Aerosmith stuff because I was a huge fan of the band that I'm sure he was like [ __ ] off that all got ignored but uh yeah man it's it's it's my uh it's my hobby it's my creative Outlet so what about this so Pulp Fiction Pulp Fiction well uh first off awesome game I I played it at tpf I had a blast on it and that's coming from the guy that's not that great at pinball uh decent maybe but um still I really enjoyed the game and I I will give you credit that um it is one thing that I I find incredibly challenging the more that I get into these modern games is it doesn't like communicating what you need to do to the player is very challenging and you have things all the way from a jjp game that has literally a thousand lights and a 27 inch screen or whatever all the way to your game which has four alpha alpha numeric displays in just lit inserts and yet they both need to communicate what to do and and there's challenges there and and I will tell you I just watching we couldn't hear the audio we could not hear the audio but yet still through your displays in the colored inserts the choreography was good enough to kind of carry the player through and kind of show you what to do so I don't know I I give you credit for that is that something that I mean it's one thing to establish a rule but is that other is that something you're getting into as well or is that more of the coder to have to take that responsibility of colors and choreography and all that no I mean I think at least for the Pulp Fiction team you know we all worked together because because we're all pinball players yeah various levels of skill and whatnot but I mean Mark and George have have done this before right yeah so I think and believe me there's plenty of rules vomit that I sent to them as I was getting involved in this stuff that was way too complicated and you know their question to me if just like how how do you plan on explaining this to the pla you know this is the medium we have and then it's like oh yeah I have no idea you know I would know what to do so like isn't that good enough well there there aren't custom call outs right like there are what I mean like nobody's saying like shoot the left you know inline drops is there's no there's not and I think at least from a Creator like I find and this has nothing to do with with like tournament play this has to do with like World under glass pinball experience for me as a person is I don't like breaking the fourth wall that you're playing a pinball machine so I think if you you know play Adam's Family it doesn't like Seance doesn't tell you to shoot the ramp there's no instructional speech that talks about hitting pinball things and I think that that charm of that Williams era like hits me really in a great place and it's it's a place that now you know having some influence at least on the stuff that on Pulp Fiction like I fought pretty hardly for like I don't need someone to tell me to shoot the left orbit we're not shooting a left orbit we're driving a car Mr Wolf is driving a car yeah we're not we're not shooting a spinner so uh hearing somebody say shoot the lamps in Godzilla doesn't give you the charm but I Works in that game to work or it has to not work and I find there are plenty of examples of games where like I don't think it works well at all it just immediately takes me out interesting is it uh like when you hear in stranger things uh freaking Hopper he feels like he's half asleep and he's like out lane ball safe it's like so I'm guessing that doesn't work that's the that's what it's like it's like Whirlwind when Whirlwind yells at you to head for the seller it doesn't go head for the seller that's the scoop on the left side of the Plainfield yeah yeah I've been on a stranger things kick lately and I cannot get over the call outs like everything else in the game is fine like I like the UV kit and all that and just the way the game progresses but yeah the uh the call outs I I don't know like what did he do with those calls because obviously he read them that's all he did was just just read them you know it's okay yeah extra like yeah well if you're looking for voice actors I don't know if you heard but on her last episode we all learned that Tom has a soundboard now so I heard if you need some voices yeah he's ready to go does it do a Sam Jackson you know what I thought about putting some stuff in here knowing what I didn't have time oh man if Tom I don't want to hear I don't I don't there's so many Samuel L Jackson lines I would love to hear Tom but for the sake of arch podcast not getting canceled in some form you probably shouldn't say I'm Dominic so I got a question though because I didn't watch the uh Pulp Fiction game reveal on uh dead flip just because I'm kind of wanting to be able to experience as many I guess movie quotes that are in the game but how many movie quotes are in the game I think is it like 300 400 there was 250 by the time we had to like print the flyer but we're I mean it's it's well north of 300 now and we're I think today uh feel packaged a bunch of like alternate out lane ball save quotes that are really good and I uh sort of those frustrating it's sort of what what I always found that Lyman did really well is is very specific game situations holding back a specific call out for like training with a wizard modeled on your last ball or you know draining draining when something that was available that's worth a lot is going away at end of ball like having the situations where the game recognizes like you're probably pretty pissed off right now if you were one shot away from X and now it's gone this drain is way more significant than all your others so we're kind of we're we're sprinkling in that stuff now what about um and this is yeah so I realized I thought about this a while ago but the uh now that the this game has been played at all these different shows and and I know you've you've had people there and you've probably been able to look at Audits and stuff like that are there any particular rule changes that you you guys are playing like is there anything you're seeing where oh it looks like nobody this mode is rarely done so maybe we should do nothing like that or you're pretty pretty happy with what you're seeing on point it's um I mean I have played a [ __ ] ton of Pulp Fiction over the last four years yeah so many games and I feel like I'm pretty good at recognizing it and like my four-year-old plays it a lot my other kids play like people of various skill level have played it for the design team I mean having someone like me play it someone like Mark who is like a B level solid player and someone like George who's a c-level player like it's important that all three of us have fun while we're experiencing the game and all three of us are game guys that that's all we represented the groups that we knew were gonna play it and we played it a lot well and that was something like like Lyman played it a lot well we had it in development and you know for him he was always just like you gotta play it you gotta and I think and Keith talks about it too you know that once his game ships he's like he doesn't want to play it because he's just been playing it so much that like there is a lot of Truth to that you in order to gain the confidence that what you're putting out there is good you gotta eat your cooking so um I I just I think you've done an exceptional job talking about this game on a lot of other podcasts that I would assume a lot of our listeners listeners have listened to um is there any particular thing that you haven't talked about or haven't had a chance to talk about and if not is there any do you have any particular updates I know I know Q3 is still what we're hearing but I know cgc is not particularly known for like speed so I think most people have a realistic expectation of like hopefully by the end of the year I don't know is there anything yeah is there anything you haven't talked about yet about Pulp Fiction that you wanna not really I mean we we have weekly meetings with cgc and and I'm with you I wish that they built a thousand games a day but yeah they don't they focus on you know sort of that three-legged stool of good fast and cheap they focus on good to the point of painfully excruciating great and they focus on cheat yeah because they you know they're very bomb conscientious at Raw Thrills we can respect that we're very you know fiscally responsible as a company of not wanting to waste dollars in a game if there's a way to do something like we redesigned our spinner mix that we think are higher quality and lower cost so you find ways to solve problems that work better for the product and better for the bill of materials so it's a it's a painstaking process but as and we've been through very I mean this game was supposed to be out I don't know probably Texas the year before who knows certainly like we were playing we were trying for Expo of last year and just be no not not being able to to get things where we wanted it the attention to detail is something I can respect because at the end of the day whether someone gets it 2023 2024 2025 if they're gonna own it for the next 20 years they will have it for either 18 19 or 20 years it's like like long term I'd much rather have a quality product that took an extra year to come out yeah and I I respect that um one thing that I think I think we actually discussed this before it happened but so Bond 60th came out and it's single level Playfield and people are like what single level Playfield and then shortly thereafter boom Pulp Fiction comes out single level Playfield people I and now punny Factory I know it's kind of weird to put that in the same group like Joel yes Travis stop [Music] but is this when because your game has been done for so long when you saw that the bond 60th came out did you feel like did you feel like that was good or bad like okay let's see how this single level playfield's received by the community because that's what's coming with our game or did you feel like you're they stole your thunder because that's unique to you or or not like this is good overall I don't know any any thoughts good pinball is good pinball I think I mean I knew what the selling price was gonna be so we weren't worried about much of anything and the fact that it's a limited run like it is what it is and I mean Keith joked with me because I have all of Keith's games and you know a while ago it's like you have all of them until the next one it just sort of poking me of like I'm not I'm not you guys I don't have one on order yeah there's me this all of us guys you know that just have them in their basement yeah things but I think you're flipping out the the single level coincidence I think like you know the bond licensors had that option for them to pursue and for us that wasn't the game we wanted to make right I think Mark has talked about that that like circumstance for us turned this into this and for us it was like well this is what we're faced to do and this was all before I was involved you know for Mark and George it was like well these are our options we can tell them to go pound sand and have a nice day or we can take this on and see if we can spend a couple of million bucks to make a couple million bucks and have some fun along the way and and for them it was like yeah let's do it look let's let's see what we can do here and uh I'm glad we did no that's awesome I know uh Tom has one on order unless you canceled it because Josh changed all the rules all right I'll bring it back Tom I'll freeze you no I still have it on order yeah no I it's an it's an awesome game I just I think it's funny coming away to be honest uh coming off of tpf I think that was the one that kind of surprised me the most almost it may have won the show in my mind it surprised me a lot as well for sure I was yeah I've I've probably been the most pessimistic person on the team I think everyone sort of guessed how many we would sell and I think I had the lowest number by a lot I was like if we could do like 50 more than TNA which I think is a great game like I feel like we did a good job guys that's cool and the you had mentioned the fact that cgc their quality like I to be honest the the lines were constant on those four games and I I never once saw the glass off like the games just worked so really impressive stuff I don't know the two of you I I feel like I'm I'm probably answering asking too many questions is there anything you guys want to talk about with with Pulp Fiction or uh you know I mean pretty much yeah let me take the glass off it hasn't been offered I mean Pulp Fiction to me is the perfect storm because I mean Joel Tom we talk about this a lot off podcasts that I think that pinball the pinball industry in general has just criminally underrated the value of 90s themes I think at this point and kind of just because I I see what the demographic has become just from where I work right now and everything and I see what people that are casuals very much casual to pinball that's getting into pinball starting to buy pinball what they value and what they like and Pulp Fiction is one of those that hits like a lot of marks for around with it it's the same thing I've told you guys before like if somebody redid South Park my God it would just absolutely Crush so there's just there's certain themes I think that there's a lot of the buyer base right now that's 35 and above that are very familiar with late 80s mid 90s themes and that's like the Wheelhouse right now and that's why I think that's why we're seeing Foo Fighters do pretty well too I mean obviously it is an excellent design excellent artwork but at the same time too it's like yeah you look online you see people say no another dad Rock theme or something like that but there's certain themes that they just hit right with the current demographic and I think I I would like to see more companies go toward towards something like Pulp Fiction or towards something that's just kind of off the beaten path a little bit and I think that that to me is exciting about pinball is seeing stuff like that and hopefully this starts a trend of that because I I because I think it'll benefit pinball and I do love the fact that single level games are coming back and they're kind of they're they obviously have staying power and Pulp Fiction is a very good example of this the fact that you can do something that is very much the quote unquote World under glass and I love the idea that Josh alluded to earlier that there's call outs in the game that are very much associated with the theme and it's not making you think oh I'm playing a pinball machine so that to me is more of the experience like I know I want to have as a player and I love single level games so seeing a modern single level game with a modern theme that's as close to being modern as possible but I think that themes like those would do like gangbusters they really would and I think Pulp Fiction is just that should be a lead indicator for a lot of people of what's possible and at the same time this is going to sound like I'm just like kissing Josh's ass right right now but the fact is is that is that I I really do enjoy playing the games too that have high level players behind the rule sets because for me personally the rule sets make sense and I feel like I'm encouraged to explore the whole entire Playfield and I feel like there's a lot more points in the game that matter so hopefully a lot of people will kind of see this and kind of realize okay this is what the perfect storm in pinball looks like and maybe we need to kind of aim towards that that doesn't mean we have to direct copy it but that gives you the framework that works that hits with the consumer base and I think that's the most important takeaway from what Pulp Fiction is doing right now so uh one thing that I have learned first off Travis that was very well said that was well said nice job um but what I've learned is apparently the pin the pinball demographic is Tom Graf because he's bought every new you've bought every new release from every company in the last year so it's like they're hitting you apparently from all angles Tom and a lot of cavities you are well he's selling games he's flipping stuff but it's apparently right now it seems I this is my first uh cgc bot made yeah but you got this you got Godfather you got Foo Fighters Le money doesn't grow on trees I don't have [ __ ] money tree it has an obsession Joel and I know he does but I'm saying like clearly they're doing something right A lot of these companies are doing something right with picking good relevant licenses and good relevant themes and then on top of that actually making really good games out there it's it's a pretty good time to be in the hobby so certainly if you've been around as long as I've had and experienced some of the darker years it's like don't don't take this era for granted because it takes a lot of good people to make a lot of good games so fantastic transition because um one one era that I take forget like I when I got I've been in the hobby I don't know six years at this point and like I am all in on Modern games and let's bring it back to the 90s Joe let's do it yes I was all in on Modern games and uh most people know but Zack of Flipping Out lets me borrow games to stream I did not I don't own this game right there I don't own that yeah um or this um but Zach let me borrow uh Zach let me borrow Cactus Canyon and I will tell you when I put in the back of the car I I was just like whatever this will fill the gap for the next month or two like I just I was I wasn't expecting much because it's it's a in my mind it's a rather simple basic game and I have people telling me it's too easy it's too easy so I will tell you I and most people know this they've heard me gush on it for the last I don't know however many months I loved it I absolutely loved the game had a blast with the game and just to clarify that game was unfinished when it was originally made cgc has remade the game and they did finish the code as in there is a wizard mode in the game there are a few other little things like they've completed the code technically but Josh you and Lyman were put in a position where you've had the opportunity to go farther is there I mean is there a particular reason that they picked Cactus Canyon to do this or have they thought about doing this with other games in the past or is it just I mean I think Doug sorted I mean what he did is he did he did the big three remakes first which was which was yeah you know hey just make lineman games you'll be fine and then he ran out of that and I think he sorted his spreadsheet by market value rather than by quality of game okay and quickly realized that and I told them I'm like yeah Cactus goes for way too much money because it's rare not because it's good and you know an opportunity came along for even before Lyman and I were involved the cgtc team was did a whole lot of due diligence to try to finish the game because I think everyone quickly realized like it was not a shippable product yeah and they were they were too far into it before they realized it wasn't a a really great game and they I mean they still would have done fine selling 90s Cactus to enough people probably but you know that same thing focusing on quality product and trying to sell a lot of units of one investment in the development of a game is uh you know they've they've taken the time and resources to try and finish that and and the ability for Lyman to become available after Elvira was wrapping up over on the stern side and uh the ability for me to be around and help whether whether I'm asked to help or not I just help that hasn't changed in 30 years I keep doing it the uh yeah man I mean they they took the task of of trying to finish the game and Lyman and I had a an even more entertaining task of of trying to make the best version of cactus that could ever be made if you had yeah all the time and resources to do it yeah which is really interesting because it's kind of what you were saying before you've been in a situation where a designer had an insert on a play field that was empty and they're looking at you I was going oh yeah well technically the number of inserts we wanted to change on this thing holy moly technically Cactus every insert does something I mean it it technically it's done but you you guys have sat down and brainstormed how much further you want to take it and and I know you've said before like you have beta code on your game so you already have stuff on yours that's different than others yeah I think that was probably the biggest like the misinformation that that I've been hearing is you know nothing's done and obviously like that yes there were words that I said about stuff not being done but like if any of you guys came over and played this right now I have no doubt you'd love it already the the things that I mean the the core at least for for Travis and Tom where the points come from in the game are radically different than the game that is available to play right now and a lot of that came from you know Lyman and I wanting to you know since the 90s I I mean I kind of pin it at AC DC Lyman kind of revolutionized pinball software into risk and reward being the primary focus of of playing a ball and you know it's something as simple as song jackpot and AC DC where everything you did you know there weren't modes in the game the way that you if you grew up in the 90s there was a there was a known understanding of what modes were in pinball and AC DC it's like well yeah there's there's songs that it's like well are they modes yeah really like what they're shots and it's like it all feeds this one thing and it's like you know when that thing came out and you're just like well what you build it as long as you want man go crazy if you drain it's gone but yeah you know build a design it's like oh my God this is awesome you know the intensity as you keep going the intensity ratchets up things get more exciting because the numbers are getting bigger and the pain of failure increases when things don't go your way and Cactus had none of that and the cactus that exists right now has none of that my Cactus has all of that well that's that's something that I think people have always said the game's easy I know it's they say it's easy from a shallow standpoint like the modes you start a mode it's like two shots you're done with mode but I also know it is a very forgiving layout I I mean what what can you is there anything you can do about the the layout besides you just jack up the back more and and open up your outlines I mean that's is there anything that that's all you can make it physically more difficult like turn off the ball save raise your outline I mean mine plays like a [ __ ] sensitive sensitive slings if you okay take those needle nose pliers and get them so they're just like like that far apart and they're that's if you do that Joel that will rock your world like my world is already being rocked Travis okay sensitive slings are the worst out of everything I I would deal with open outlanes I don't mind like a high pitch but if you have sensitive slings and you're expecting the balds and not like Zing this way that's like yeah it's a mine though it's Zang it's Zing dancing no it does a lot of stuff doesn't it um what else so with this code that you are so first off you had made a pinside post saying um unfortunately after lineman's passing there really hasn't been any progress but cgc is still like I know you are absolutely planning on pushing for this to to happen you are still reassuring that yeah this is now old news because we've had some progress this week so oh that's awesome stuff's happening stuff's happening okay that's really exciting uh is the plan when that when it when that's released is the plan gonna be like uh when you push the start button you get a pick or is it something you do in the settings of the game yeah so I think right now everyone has two settings which is OG 90s Cactus and whatever I mean what is what is that the actor like completed Cactus and then I think ours is called extended Cactus or something that my game has three settings everyone your game has two yeah fancy you um yeah um uh last question maybe you can or cannot answer this but rumors are that there's a hardware component there's a new hardware component in this game how if there is hypothetically how would that impact the current version of the code or does it or I mean like if I want to switch between current and you're extended am I going to have to physically remove something from the game or is it it doesn't really interfere I think and I have not actually seen any Hardware yet myself I've seen drawings of stuff but I haven't seen nothing's in my game and uh I know that in code for at least whatever the completed and the extended versions will both be able to handle this Hardware okay the OG that's a great question Joel I have to email uh nobody wants to play that anymore the OG one yeah and so I have a feeling I'm feeling it would freak out at having additional components on it trying to win that code and just to confirm the additional Hardware is a third flipper right we just we're just I don't know where you put it Precision flipper there you go that's right that's right well cool I know um I am in on a on an sc plus uh I I'm very much looking forward to it and I know there was a time where Tom was in on one and I know at the time Tom you said your biggest push for that was this extended code okay I'll get you back Tom yeah I have no doubt that when this code comes out um and that'll be an interesting thing to see how cgc handles that because if now all of a sudden this code comes out and only the current owners have a chance to experience it and then all these other people experience it and go holy crap this game's incredible but CJ isn't making them anymore like I hope I'll be curious to see how they handle that um which is actually build more man they're good because so that's it's an interesting transition because and this is this is the boy in the podcast where Josh feel free to contribute as much or as little as you want because I don't want you to be in any sort of uncomfortable situation um with the words that you say but you seem like you're one of those guys that you're gonna say it regardless oh yeah there's nothing I'll say it to whoever yes so and that doesn't bother me yeah so what what I'm transitioning to is haggis haggis pinball haggis had um they were at tpf and there was a chance that people played fathom people played fathom and this is a game that very few people had played over here in the US and TPS all of a sudden um people loved it tpf tpf I was like I'm saying that wrong um people loved it people had a really really good um they really enjoyed it myself included well Damien actually put out a video uh early this week where he basically said hey guess what all the mermaid editions are sold out but now that people have had a chance to try the 2.0 code Marty's code they've gotten a lot of feedback of people being upset that they can't buy it like and and some people would say snooze you lose but what's interesting is haggis is saying okay we're going to open it up we're going to open up the books again and we're going to allow people to buy a classic version with the 2.0 code and when I read that or when I saw the video I was like that's cool like I to me I actually thought of Cactus Canyon the SC plus to me the topper is incredible it it's an added mode to the game like it's a unique experience I missed out on the Le but you know what I'm happy to pay more for that and that's what I'm seeing in haggis so people are buying the Classic Plus which has the 2.0 code but to my surprise like everything else in pinball there are people that are upset about this about this idea so the three of you any thoughts when you read that were you upset were you oh boy you got the lawn chair out you're ready to see how this is gonna unfold I don't know what were your thoughts when you saw that announcement I I knew people were gonna be upset but I didn't really give a [ __ ] there you go Travis is shaking his head good night everybody yeah yeah I don't know thoughts on that I just I thought it was ballsy I mean at the end of the day it's like I kind of forget how they initially said what the mermaid Edition was going to be whether or not this rule set was supposed to be exclusive well okay so you had to go mermaid if you wanted to right right so judging by that I mean honestly if if it was my decision I would be like no don't do it we don't need to piss off like our most valued customers because let's face facts like of course every customer you know is valued you know but the reality is if somebody's willing to buy your top tier machine or your top tier product they're showing that they're basically like the super fan of that particular product so I I would think the last thing you want to do especially if your intentions is to have additional games coming out in the future you don't want to necessarily anger those people because at the same time that you're doing that you might be accidentally devaluing the I guess the the Allure or the I I guess just making somebody want to have that machine like you have to have a big difference in it and you'll have certain people that the big differences that they see might be cosmetic but you do have a lot of people that the big differences that they see is software so when you remove that exclusiveness to it you're basically indicating to your customer base like hey this is what we're going to do now which means we're probably going to do that in the future too so if I'm in on a fathom right like a main Le why do I want to turn around if I'm motivated by additional code and I'm motivated by those things why would I want to spend money again in the future so that's my biggest concern with it I don't know if that juice was worth the squeeze but they've decided to do that but I think didn't they decide that it was only going to be available for like two or three weeks or two weeks yeah and the other side is still limited it is in a way yeah but you're also paying more like at least so Me Maybe it doesn't matter like it doesn't the people they buy they don't buy off the math they don't think of it that way it's emotion like any time that you're you're buying pinball right yeah it's or any high value product that's a luxury item you're buying it off emotion you're buying it off the flex you're not thinking oh I'm saving 200 here oh I'm saving 300 here oh I I have two thousand dollars more value than this person you might be thinking that if you're trying to resell it or if you plan on selling it but you know overall I think a lot of people the buyer base they buy luxury items based off the emotion of it not necessarily like how much money they might be saving like there's just a lot of people not motivated by that so of course when you have a product like this that only has so many units available that's the way that they're going to be looking at it like the vast majority are going to be looking at that plus two consider this Joel there's a lot of people that bought this game day one and they had to wait long yeah they they've had to wait a long time now all of a sudden they see wait the one thing the number one thing I valued the most out of this product I could have got it anyways for less and I could have had that money doing something else with it so I mean yeah it's just a risk it's a massive risk and I don't know if that's necessarily worth it and I don't know what the what the motivation is but let's face facts when you're running a business your motivation isn't just always well I just want to please the customer like you have to hit bottom lines you have to build revenue you have to hit margins that's just the reality of it because you have to have healthy cash flow if you don't have that but you don't have a business right that's just business 101 so I mean it's I I don't know I it's not something that I would have recommended them doing just knowing just the emotional part of it but if they find that it's successful for them then I don't know maybe they're on to something but at least now moving forward people know that hey this could potentially happen that you could get a top-tier version that has something that's exclusive but that exclusive is actually a window like it's not going to be exclusive in perpetuity it's going to be exclusive up to a certain time time frame and then something's released everybody else I think if they show that their rule sets that they're going to do something like that in the future that might be how they get some people back but it's just it's it's dangerous you got to be careful angering your super fans I mean and people that buy your top tier product that is your super fan yeah it's a risk it's a risk and you don't know if the risk was worth it until it's later uh right and I I think we dealt with that you know how many people want an SE Plus for Pulp Fiction so they can get the topper that's like the most popular email that we get and there was this expectation of like this is gonna happen right because it just happened with Cactus and you know I have been a very strong proponent of like we at least in discussing with the team before we launched I mean I was of the fear of like we're not gonna even sell out of Ellie's this thing's gonna be a [ __ ] disaster that was where my headspace was and if we can use that exclusivity that Travis was talking about when it comes to the features that the Le has to create that fomo to be able to tell me that we sold out of our lease I'm good and and telling the rest of the team like that's good enough for me could we have done 2 000 allies probably but like for me it needed to be a number that was enough to get people to act because that's the only way that for us the Project's profitable so it's finding that balance of you know if you you have 10 000 Les it's not an Le and and people will not worry about getting their order in right away so it's like where is that line to make sure that there's a run on the bank in that moment because you're able through your marketing materials or whatever generate that excitement for someone to make an emotional purchase in a moment in time and that's just how the market is now like I don't outside of Keith Elwin games I don't buy anything unless I've played it I am like old school I need to know that I like the game before I'm willing to invest my dollars in it and like for me that means I never get an Le because you know those are sold on fomo you know instantly and I'm that's something that I am okay with based on my buying personality but recognizing that that there's a large enough market that doesn't have my buying personality you got to take advantage of that and how far can you push that without alienating that group I think Travis kind of nailed it like clearly Chicago gaming did it with cactus took some [ __ ] took some people that were happy it didn't affect Paul and whether that happened to be because of our involvement on the rothro's play mechanic side I don't know but for I mean Chicago Gaming's building and selling the game to their customers their dealers it's all going through them that they're they're kind of coming out of the cactus situation with maybe some pissed off people but unscathed so you know it's maybe hopefully for the Haggis guys you know I like what those guys are doing I've not played fathom yet I look forward to doing it but hopefully it's a lot of chirping of people that wanted to be the coolest person and nobody else could be cool and for them those people will get over it and move on or they won't do you think though that it like like when I so I when I think about Stern I think of the difference between an Ellie and a premium and the truth is the difference between an Ellie and a premium is cosmetic it's just cosmetic and that and as of right now the difference between uh a Cactus Canyon Le or a standard edition is cosmetic it's just kind of so that's not exactly true which is was actually the decision point that okay Doug at Chicago gaming and he believe me it was pain it was painful for him to have to decide what to do and because of the way that the topper is integrated into game play not the way that like Pulpit like hey the the things interact as you do things on the play field like no there is a mode in the game that is directly linked to that experience that crossed the line for him in terms of wanting to make sure that someone that they did have a version that was only cosmetically different yeah that's where he drew the line I completely agree with it that's the thing after borrowing the Le and seeing how involved that topper is in the game to me it's like if I'm gonna own the game I have to I have to have that topper and and that's that's the thing though that I think is interesting is is with fathom though this is this is a drastically different game the 2.0 to the classic I mean it has displays that are in the apron that have to be there it's a completely different rule set so to me I don't like I feel like this is different though because yeah it's it's a completely different game that people missed out on the opportunity to buy I don't I'm just saying should this be looked at differently because it's it's code it's actually a game that people but if you're saying Travis that there's a whole lot of people that bought the mermaid dish and not because of the the shiny uh print on the side and the Chrome metal they bought it purely because of the 2.0 code and now you're gonna let anybody buy it I mean it's just one of those things if you make decisions in business you're going to make some people happy you're going to piss some people off you just try to find that equilibrium that it doesn't hurt Business ranking systems every decision in life everything everything but I will say this and this is almost this will be a case study when you look at fathom and we can compare it to Pulp Fiction right I can almost guarantee like I'm pretty close to guaranteeing that if cgc and Josh teamed up for a game again right they would probably sell out the Le at a higher price point at this point and why is that is because consumer Behavior right they hit all the emotional parts that they needed to right now like they hit a home run with that and people responded to that in droves and as long as they maintain that trust guess what that's like a rocket ship for your next product we saw the same thing happen with spooky yeah right I mean dealing with uh coming out Rick and Morty and then going into Halloween and Ultraman and then we saw what happened consumers kind of lost that trust with Scooby-Doo so it's just it's Ebbs and flows and you just got to be careful with that and there's a lot of decisions that goes into that but I think this is this will be an interesting case study that I think the next game that cgc puts out if they go that route again with Pulp Fiction along with Josh and everybody else I think that the price point for that would be would command much higher and I think it would still sell out now you compare that now with what haggis is doing let's say that they come out I don't know what the next game is let's say it's centaur do they end up selling out of their like main Le of that now or do people kind of take a step back and they're like well wait you know is this just cosmetic because you're not you're not going to have that trust anymore with saying I have this extra thing right here for you to buy day one because you don't know if that extra thing is going to be exclusive you just you don't know yet until they come out and they say hey this is exclusive no matter what we're not going back but you shouldn't have to put your company in that spot to have to explain that to people like people should be able to have that trust on day one because we saw what happened with the whole exclusive thing with the topper that's right behind you one Bond right inclusive to this yeah and other bonds yeah yeah yeah it's just uh people when you're spending this type of money it is an emotional purchase a lot of the time so people just got to realize that they got to be careful with that Tom you are the most experienced Le buyer in this group do you feel I don't know is this when is the exclusivity part of the Le like really important to you or is it just you just want to have the the best version of the game you don't really care like what's I don't know if you were in on a fathom right now would this upset you uh yeah maybe a little bit uh yeah I mean if I spent all that money thinking that it was going to be exclusive to the Le and then now now everybody gets it you know it yeah I I guess I would be kind of upset about that even though even though the everyone else getting it is actually paying more money than you paid so what it's just the fact that yeah you thought it was yeah I mean yeah I mean that's the whole point of it being a limited edition right yeah good point yeah and you know I was just looking at their flyer and it it advertises uh it has you know that mermaid Edition is the only one that has that version so yeah I mean I see why they're doing it yeah but in the same token it's kind of like well we're gonna go back on what we said and now we're gonna do this and like Travis was alluding to well are they gonna do that with the next title they're gonna release yeah you know and then the title after that it's just I would have gone all in I would have gone all in with the uh we fired the guy that made the flyer because they messed up he just caught it now this was always the plan always the plan I mean that that would have been smart right yeah it'll be interesting just careful you got you got to be very careful because here's here's the other thing guys and we've talked about this because this is like a mini golden age of pinball we're going back through there's tons of other options out there yeah and people can very quickly remove their dollars from this company and apply it to this company and that's why you gotta be and you got to be even more careful if you don't have a great Cadence of getting out tons of games yeah I mean if you're putting out one game every three or four years and meanwhile Stern has put out 12 at that time jjp's put out like another four or five spookies put out several more you got to be careful with that yeah well talk yeah so fantastic layup here of uh moving your money from one to another clearly everybody's ready to buy a 2.0 kit for their Whirlwind right I mean that's that's where I'm assuming people are are canceling orders right now on whatever they have and they're prepared to buy the newly announced pedretti gaming 2.0 kit for Whirlwind um I I watched the video today I actually had to go into work I I drove into Ohio I had just a second to watch it and my I I don't think I've really been able to digest it yet because I it it is insanity like that video were you on Penn start looking for I was not that's the problem I I just I watched the video and I was like what what just happened like what happened like what like rude like fun house went okay fun house was fun house but then it went dark and it's like Rudy's nightmare Castle okay that's they're they're trying something that's a unique thing it's just like what is I don't I don't know I mean you guys have seen it I hope you guys have seen it this project and don't tell me now Josh that you're somehow involved in this and I don't want to insult you read the rules was the first game I ever purchased and uh I did I did I still have it it's here so if you bought did you put in an order for your 2.0 code I did not I sort of I look at at what those guys are doing and it it actually reminds me a lot of you know the discussions that Lyman and I had trying to tackle sort of our version of cactus 2.0 sorry Travis Jesus he's had enough he's offended and yeah you know for us for for Lyman and I you know there's a a great thing that comes to mind is all the people and and we had talked to Eric Kripke who did Cactus Canyon continued yeah about like using some of his content and he he allowed we've talked with him and we had his Blessing we could use all of his content and for Lyman and I there was something about wanting to stay true to the theme of the game that the inserts the artwork the universe that it creates under glass trying to squeeze more stuff out of the game but making sure we were always going back to like the no matter what new rooms we built out of this house the foundation of the house was there and yeah I mean the Whirlwind just struck me as like whoa like there's a lot of stuff and you know it looks like it's fun but it like it wouldn't be a direction that I would go because it there's so much stuff that has nothing to do with the universe the cat the house that is built it's like having a house and building another house it's over there but it's on the same lot that's sort of like how I I took it and has gotten more emails over the years of of people that were like you know what you should do for Batman you should do this and and a lot of those emails came from me over the last 30 minutes and the joke he always said to me is is uh if you want to do something like that go be a programmer or a rules designer and you can do whatever you want because you're the man I mean the game is called Whirlwind total chaos so it's it it's fitting but I I mean the trailer starts out and it's like look at this dude he really likes donuts and coffee and I'm like what are we doing what is going on here you know and then we land on like what Grandma's fighting like an actual piece of crap then there's like slime guy and there's it's just like I don't know I just it it'll happen so fast I don't really win I was just like but my my takeaway coming away from it was like what like what like who so many people have so much love and respect for Whirlwind and it seems like such a traditional classic game that that people I mean Josh you say you still have yours this is just like it's one thing to like bring new life into a game like oh let's like but this is this isn't new life this is like kill the old game and here's something brand new that happens to be the same it just seems so drastic to me um I don't know Tom do you have a whirlwind are you gonna go buy one are you ready to buy one I had a whirlwind um I if I still had it I don't think I would buy it and I mean to me Whirlwind just as classic game that yeah pretty much does almost everything right yeah and it's like why are we changing this but let's make money Tom well of course of course but I could see like you know brand new Tom and that a hobby gone well this is cool it's got modes it's got a wizard mode now like Whirlwind doesn't have a wizard mode you know and it doesn't have really modes in it um so I mean so I think like 10 years ago 10 years ago Tom 15 years ago Tom might have been like oh wow this is cool I gotta get this because it's like every other game that I own yeah whereas you know it just to me it's like not necessary I guess so so Josh your Cactus Canyon extended code you you are introducing some sort of trying time traveling element and there will be donuts and probably a van aliens and some sort of alien involved and I'm assuming I don't know we'll get some nights you know maybe it'll be a medieval one of the most popular questions we got is like is cowboys versus aliens gonna be in it from Cactus can you continue yeah yeah and I mean live and I we're both like no like show me show me in this game like where these aliens exist and it's just like it's like it's a cool mode I've played it on you know Eric's version of the game and for what that is it's great and it's just not a creative thing that we wanted to execute on but I do think as Tom mentioned like it's it is this current golden age of pinball that pay for a couple thousand bucks I can just give myself a new experience it's it's almost like a P3 Lite version of like it's a kit well and if I'm paying four grand for a whirlwind or whatever they cost these days and for two grand I can have a completely different experience [ __ ] it sure why not this game room has 300 000 worth of [ __ ] in it anyway what's two grand I I I just can't justify like the art the art is the thing though that it's one thing to have some game mode that you can enable but it's like I don't want to change out the the translate I don't want to change out our play I mean maybe somebody does but it's like so we got nuke Nick which looks like he's some goo the piggies is a mode the scare scary boy that's a that's a scarecrow uh run run chicken chicken mode some sort of crab mode acid plant I mean Area 51 we gotta go aliens we got some sort of oh the donut Donald what I don't I mean I don't know I just it seems so absurd and I will say my other takeaway is uh one game that I absolutely do truly love from that era is taxi and I told myself when they first started making these remakes I was like if they actually did a remake of Taxi that like I'm already tempted to buy one but if you're telling me now I have a chance to take a taxi and make it like with deeper code or more modern like that sounds pretty cool but now seeing that direction I've always worried like what in the world how what are they gonna do the taxi are you gonna be picking up I don't know you're gonna go to Mars and pick up a Martian and then uh dig down and pick up some mole person I don't know I mean it's just I I I don't I just I feel like you're describing gtf now you're gonna go save the cows to save the ice cream what's funny is is um hottie he's Frisco pinball um he's on a bunch of the tpn chats and whatnot but um we're always his favorite one's his favorite game and his view is like more Whirlwind why would this be a bad like he's he's all in so when you're releasing a kit you don't have to please everybody you just gotta please a few hundred people it comes with the original game on it anyway right so it's like you don't like it play the old game still it's fine well the displays are totally so I'm curious like I wanna it would probably benefit them to show what the like what what the new code looks like or sorry what the original like game it just it emulates the alpha new America in America okay yeah I don't know I just that was it for current news I I that just took me by complete surprise it sounds like you're [ __ ] all over the game I I just uh my initial impression was what what the heck is like this it was too much it was total chaos I just feel like it just seems so out there does that Excel this kit does Zach sell this kit you're gonna be out of the kick here soon I don't think he does but I know like Zach has a is a super nice condition Whirlwind in his pin Barn so I don't for these people that are all in our world like hottie if hottie owns a whirlwind he's getting it but for other people I don't I mean it doesn't matter if you love the game that just seems so I don't know maybe I'm I if you disagree with us write in email us at triple drain gmail.com or Facebook us or whatever but I I am I don't know how to I I just don't know how to take that it just seems so you're crazy just crazy but I mean Josh you're the only one here that owns one and you're saying you're not nah I'm good [Laughter] but I can respect I can respect the effort I can respect the effort uh the last thing that I did want to talk about or hint at uh not in that but what Foo Fighters um I have a Foo Fighters um that I'm borrowing currently Tom now has his Le Travis has put a lot of time on one Josh have you played Foo have you had time on a firefighter played it a very long time ago before it had stuff in it and I played a game on a show floor I have not had a chance to dig into it yet and I nice live in fear of my first like real game on it being at some tournament that I have no idea what to do it's gonna it's gonna be in Germany well is it is it it's it's not in the EPC list right no it's on like the other thing you're probably not playing in those uh I'm playing in some before I have to go set up for worlds but yeah I'll uh I'll figure it out just what stack a mode and a multiball and go to town well actually it's in German one thing that I will say because I wanna I Really Wanna I want Tom to go into I want him to go hard in the paint on his thoughts on on Foo but um I actually streamed it last night with my brother on um on on The Flipping Out YouTube channel and Rey was actually on stream with me so I had Ray on with video and was able to ask him a bunch of questions and I was blown away this is the third time I've had Ray essentially do this with me watch me play and answer questions he did it with Russ he did it with Led Zeppelin but this game the amount of scoring potential that he's put in this game with multipliers and different things that you can attack and Bot frenzy do you want to focus on that do you want to focus on the Sonic radio mode do you want to focus on these modes or or maxing out your van I was just I'm super impressed I'm super impressed by um the the code in this game and even though I'm not a Points Guy I'm having a blast I'm having a blast a blast playing this game and this is on the pro so I don't have the the expression lighting that Tom has I don't have the upper Playfield I'm just really enjoying the heck out of this game um so Tom you have your Le and I think you posted it was either on Fox Cities or on Triple drain you posted on Facebooks you said I I think you said this game has the most flow of any game could I said it could have the best flow of you know any game and I do I do think that I mean it's got some awesome like I you know I I think of like Andre masonkoff he just kind of goes goes to town and uh that's how I feel on that game like all the shots are accessible um you know there's not a there's there's a little bit of stop and go but it's it's like hit this ramp hit this ramp hit that spinner go to the side you know it just it just uh the ball seems to be constantly moving yeah and uh yeah I mean I you know for Jack dangers like I guess technically like second design yeah uh it's really good I mean I'm I you know the word that I that I use and I like Zach and I my brother does ACT not flipping out Zach you hear the word thrown around over the years of like designs being uninspired and like the one word that I would say for Foo Fighters is that it's extremely inspired and and fresh and and it's just it's cool it's it's it's like it's just it's a very inspiring thing to look at of that world that's created that like is super unique and fresh you know in a world where you know 10 years ago there was a lot of like oh it's a Steve Ritchie game oh it's this it's like you sort of get used to it even like Pulp it's like it's a Mark Ritchie game it's pretty symmetrical it is what it is it's certainly it's it's not super inspired the way that Foo Fighters is it does its job for what it has to do but you know Foo is just yeah I'm blown away at what Mr danger was able to do yeah and I I particularly you know I've said this before I particularly don't like mini playfields but this game like it does not kill the flow on it um I I I like it I I can't say like a negative word about it I I think it's that good that's awesome that's yeah and and you've got something that nobody else has which is the expression light kit and that's that's something I know how big of an impact that made when I had a Led Zeppelin Pro putting that in the game and the fact that you have that in your rush they they're selling that now I don't know how many have got out if any for the premium owners that are right there in my uh yeah Led Zeppelin too yeah but now the fact that you have it in Foo Fighters I mean I can only imagine that taking it to the next level so uh the the hype on Foo Fighters in my opinion it's real and that and that's real what I'm hearing is it's real from All Play Levels I Know I Know Travis has really enjoyed it Tom obviously has it and he just said he can't say a negative word about it and here I am at the other end of the split the play Spectrum I might have a blast on it I'm having an absolute blast on it um and that's I'm not necessarily A Foo Fighters fan of it's not bad music but it's not my choice of music but yet I'm I'm still really enjoying the game um as the code flushes out are you um like Travis I I know you you're all about those points are you seeing different strategies now that that really get you excited or um but just just real quick Travis uh Neil Neil found a bug in it today and uh it's like a huge bug that I'll tell you later I can't I can't say what it is because people would just exploit the [ __ ] out of it tell him what it is either no no he told Ray right away because it is it is it's yeah it's big it happens good on your son that always used to bug lime at the most does he hear about something and it's like these bastards just aren't like why wouldn't you tell me so I could fix that instead of yeah trying to go in a tournament somewhere all right so I think Raymond's response was oh [ __ ] keep that on the down low well so we'll just throw it on the podcast if we are talking about bugs though I'll just put it out there I think the wizard mode on Stranger Things is bugged because I keep getting stopped at the tar unless I'm doing something wrong as everybody here been to the wizard mode on stranger things except for Joel Johnson's pre-covered man not to worry you're supposed to hit like I guess all the demo dog targets right and then the two that are left on the right ramp I hit them in perpetuity and nothing happens like you sure the switch Works no it works the whole entire game up until that point I've done this three times now and I'm just like I don't know what to do it's really weird because in the past I've gotten through that and gotten to the end because obviously you know what everybody knows you beat that wizard mode there's a secret wizard behind it but now it's just like bricked I don't know if anybody realizes that so just in case Stern please check that out but uh what was your question earlier Joel Lonnie made that game right you think Lonnie listens to this no probably not no no uh Josh emails all of them just yeah sorry uh what were you saying Foo Fighter yeah it's really good like how to how to get points out of it or whatever oh yeah that's what I'm saying has it like as it looks like Rey is continuing to put in more stuff and um and just to clarify we all know that huge bug is clearly Ray's fault I mean it's not Tanya like Tanya doesn't make mistakes but Rey probably you know left out a semicolon right I mean that's just but anyway so the with the stuff that he's continuing to put in this game are you um I don't I just think some of these really cool games that you can just attack them so many different ways um not only from an enjoyability sample but for us from a tournament standpoint so you're not locked out of anything um I don't know are you getting more excited uh with some of these modes that he's putting in or some of these different things that he's sprinkling on top to uh well yeah it it goes back to what I was talking about earlier that the mark of a fun game is a rule set that guides you throughout the whole entire Playfield it gives you a reason to go for every shot at some point in the game because the last thing you want is just a wood Chopper where you're just repeating the same thing over and over and over again and you're not going to explore anything so yeah the the great thing about this layout is one it's a dynamic layout but along with Dynamic layouts you want to have a rule set that encourages you to explore the entire layout like that's why L when pins crush and so it's kind of like when I look at Foo Fighters I think of it this way that Stern Pinball is very much in the Elwyn era in which he has multiple games that are put out right and the entire pinball industry they might be inspired by something that he's doing with his layouts with his rule sets or what have you it's the same way Lyman inspired a lot of people with how they do their rule sets based off him breaking new ground with stuff so that's kind of the way that I view Foo Fighters that it's it's going more towards that direction which is a great thing like we need more Dynamic layouts like that and we need more rule sets that encourages you to basically explore the entire game and not just be like I'm just gonna hit the left ramp a thousand times and that's it you know or I'm just going to zero in on Area 51 multiball like all day long and nothing else you know I mean from a tournament standpoint some games you have to do that but if you're at home like you don't necessarily want to do that and then that's when you get stuck in this I guess it's just like this death spiral that you want to try to put up a GC and all that so if you find the way to do it it's like well you're going to be guided that way because you know obviously that's where all the points are but you know in terms of Foo Fighters in terms of like deciding okay what's the right way to attack it it's always hard to say early because with early code it changes yeah right you're going to have your one road map your one way to attack a game throw an opener in mid game but then if something changes up in future code like another multiball might be easier to get to or score might be rebalanced or something like that then you might approach it a little bit differently so the thing with Raymond codes is it's very multiplier heavy like we saw what happened with rush and I'm kind of I'm not seeing the same thing with Foo Fighters but I see things that are interesting when you look at the targets on you know in the inlanes you look at the possibilities of kind of piecing together things and that's what I enjoy about a rule set if you have one thing that leads to another and you get rewarded for putting those pieces to the puzzle together in the correct order I mean that's that's what I enjoy about pinball games at the house so hopefully they keep doing that I assume they will I have no reason to think otherwise that they wouldn't but you know I think that that's that's the fun that's the fun games to play I think those are the ones that are long lasting for a lot of people because even if you're a casual and you don't realize that's happening you're still going to enjoy the journey either way you know if it's guiding you to hit this shot because it's on this side you're not going to care what the score is but you're still gonna you know go for that shot whereas if you're a tournament player you might think well maybe I might hit this unlit shot here because I'm going to go through an in Lane that gives me an X you know you might do something like that kind of like what happens on Walking Dead at times you know so there's just there's definitely different ways to approach it I think there's a way to do a rule set that allows that to where you just kind of maybe expand what a player does a little bit more according to their uh skill skill level but overall I think it's it's going to sell a lot of units yeah for a long time and I think if if Jack can keep putting out games like that if the artwork keeps being what it's being if the stern coders like keep doing what they're doing it's I mean they're gonna keep exploding the popularity of pinball hang it out because I mean it's it's big and the pro is cheaper than a Puny Factory it's still huge yeah and Josh keeps suggesting you know all the rules to him then they're gonna keep working out really well no uh that was one thing that that Ray was talking about a lot on my stream last night I didn't realize it but the right orbit the way it figurates back and then fills up the Rocco meter that's how you can get your two and three times play like I had no idea yeah I did but I don't care like short plunge too Joel I know I learned that too but it's like it was it's just different though when you're playing and and you have somebody watching you that knows that stuff because Ray's like hey you got your this going right now so go ahead and you know try to hit the shot now and all you know he gets all excited because it's like well that was big points it's like I here I am just everything it does yeah more more coach Ray sign me up but no it's a it's a really enjoyable game I'm really enjoying it a lot so if there are people that have uh Foo Fighters on order uh and you don't have it yet be patient it's it's going to be great it's it's you're really going to enjoy it a lot um I'm having a lot of fun with mine but but I think that's it I think that's roughly it Tom was there anything else you wanted to talk about or any other you know words of disgust you wanted to direct towards Josh sure Travis I have no further questions your honor perfect perfect uh well good I think we're good I think we're good I think we can uh plug it up so first I mean uh Josh go for it is there anything you want to plug mention anything anything you you got the floor nah I'm good playing Pulp Fiction if you can nah I hope you like it we've already sold way more than I thought we were gonna sell so up guys I got nothing else to say about it we're we're good we're happy that's awesome that's awesome Travis plug away man uh yeah you guys can find me here at the uh triple drain pinball podcast and you can see me on Tom stream Fox Cities pinball whenever he's hosting a tournament and then hopefully you guys will see me in a couple of weeks when we're all over in Germany all jet lag that's crazy yeah good we're gonna have to see how the podcast works over the next uh yeah a month or two we got we all have stuff coming up but we'll we'll make it happen we'll figure it out all right we'll do a live podcast and Joel you better get your ass up at two in the morning and do it with us sure why not why not I appreciate the show boys you guys do you guys do a good job I appreciate that I appreciate that um plug away Tom uh Fox Cities pinball wonderful um real quick update lunch boxes lunch boxes oh boy triple drain lunchbox I actually did we we got some uh Josh has kids yeah I know we got uh the quick update is she do the artwork for you no he did actually reach out to me though and asked me who's doing your lunchbox which I think is hilarious um I did reach out to a few companies and uh we I have a sample I have a sample lunchbox coming on order uh and we found one that you can actually in order order one at a time and we'll ship directly to you so as soon as the sample gets in if it's good quality boom we'll share that link and we'll go down that route uh but there were people that were like I'd buy a coffee mug hey lucky you it's on silverball swag now I buy poster lucky you it's on silverball swag now um so any other suggestions stickers I added those silver ball swag anything like that if you really actually want anything triple drain let me know I'll try to make it happen we'll see we'll see what I can do but uh all right we love it we love it that there are people that care enough about this to want to buy our merch I think that's awesome um and yeah last plug for me would be the The Flipping Out YouTube stream uh do it every Wednesday night from 10 to midnight Eastern Standard Time uh flip it out with friends and then streaming games and whatnot so uh it's a blast every night every Wednesday night oh every Wednesday I'm like oh my goodness no everyone's dinner but that's uh that would be close yeah I've got a two and a or a three and a four and a half year old now and I I I would oh yeah no God bless you all right well like always Tom you get the last words I'm gonna let Josh have the last word here what okay all right safe travels to Germany two out of the three of you guys and Joel next year California rfpa 19. maybe you got seven months to rack up some Whoppers man you can get there our rules have no coaching I will make an exception for you you can bring rainbow along and I will allow him to stand next to you in every event and Coach me yeah uh it'll take me seven months of permission for my wife oh I know trip out to California all of all of the body points I've earned in our 21 years together are about to be spent here in three weeks awesome oh my God I would go to Expo to watch that Raymond could actually stand right next to you we try to coach you through those games uh Raymond help me please all right uh we need a last word anybody bye foreign
The system is designed to prevent international/regional players with limited access to tournaments from being unfairly ranked against high-volume competitors
high confidence · Josh Sharp discussing Neil McRae example and UK scene limitations compared to US tournament accessibility
Josh Sharp@ 5:59 — Establishes Josh Sharp's 30+ year track record in competitive pinball, grounding his authority on ranking system design
“we are not judging that yet yeah because we we there probably is a way for us to be able to do that but it is not in the cards yet”
Josh Sharp@ 31:58 — Acknowledges a known limitation in the system: inability to weight opponent strength into efficiency calculations
high · Josh Sharp discussing Neil McRae and UK pinball scene: 'the UK is huge yeah they get like nothing... UK open and pinball league and that was like it'
?
competitive_signal: IFPA acknowledges inability to weight opponent strength into efficiency calculations, treating 10% efficiency from facing world-class players same as 10% from casual players
high · Josh Sharp: 'nobody's efficiency percentage is the same... 20 when you're playing great people is different than 20 when you're playing a bunch of average casual people... not in the cards yet'
high · Josh Sharp discussing his 30+ year competitive history since 1993, founding of Whopper system in 2006, staff positions at Stern and Raw Thrills
?
content_signal: Triple Drain Podcast episode 36 addresses listener feedback requesting pinball discussion timestamps and improved production workflow (Zencastr/soundboard issues documented)
high · Opening segments showing production technical issues, hosts discussing listener requests for timestamps separating pinball talk from tournament discussion
?
competitive_signal: Johannes (overseas player) rapidly rising in rankings following proposed system changes, now in top-10 despite limited prior visibility on US tournament circuit
medium · Josh Sharp noting Johannes recently entered top-10 rankings, speculation that efficiency metric may be elevating previously under-ranked international players
~
sentiment_shift: Travis Murie's initial disagreement with ranking changes gradually shifting toward acceptance/indifference as Josh Sharp provides detailed explanations, suggesting community education effect
medium · Travis: 'I went from when I first heard it announced to not agreeing with it to... further not agreeing with it and then being like okay I'm starting to understand'
?
competitive_signal: COVID lockdowns created ranking anomalies (Josh Sharp unable to qualify for Germany championship despite historical elite status), motivating systematic overhaul of ranking calculation method
high · Josh Sharp: 'coming out of covid the rankings all look crazy and I find myself not qualified for Germany that's three weeks away'
?
industry_signal: IFPA Whopper ranking system has undergone annual updates since 2006, with version 6.0 representing major methodological shift rather than incremental refinement
high · Josh Sharp: 'we change every year so there's there's been a new system pretty much every year since 2006'