Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

The Great British Podcast Episode 34

The Great British Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 43m·analyzed·Jun 9, 2026
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

UK pinball hosts discuss market disruption from new Stern distributor, pricing corrections, and venue challenges.

Summary

Scott Rundell and DOMINO Pinball: Neil McRae discuss their return to podcasting after a two-month hiatus, covering recent pinball events including TPF (The Pinball Factory), IFPA World Championships, and newly played games like Yukon, Pokemon, and Ghostbusters. The bulk of the episode focuses on UK market dynamics following Pinball Heaven's appointment as a direct Stern distributor, price corrections that dropped Stern machines by roughly £2,000 across all tiers, supply chain challenges, venue difficulties, and secondary market pricing behavior. They also discuss code update delays at Stern, the Walking Dead remaster's licensing challenges, and the used market for classic machines.

Key Claims

  • Stern dropped UK pricing by approximately £2,000 across all tiers (Pro ~£7,000-7,500, Premium ~£9,100, LE ~£12,500) following introduction of Pinball Heaven as direct distributor

    high confidence · Scott Rundell and DOMINO Pinball: Neil McRae, direct market observation and conversation with Stern representatives

  • Ghostbusters code update took over a year to complete and made every scoop a ball save, drastically increasing high scores from ~1 billion to 10+ billion

    high confidence · DOMINO Pinball: Neil McRae personal gameplay experience

  • Walking Dead remaster has licensing challenges preventing old DMD animations from being featured, but these issues have been resolved and the feature will be implemented

    medium confidence · Scott Rundell, citing insider information he says he can partially disclose

  • UK had only one Stern distributor (Electrocoin) for a long time, creating high margin-on-margin costs that made boutique manufacturers cheaper than Stern

    high confidence · Scott Rundell, historical market analysis

  • Stern is experiencing code backlog and has released too many games in recent years, stretching coding resources

    medium confidence · Scott Rundell opinion based on code update delays

  • UK pub venue market is in severe decline due to government policy, making it difficult to place pinball machines in traditional venues

    high confidence · DOMINO Pinball: Neil McRae, personal experience organizing Swayze events and venue outreach

  • Stern reached out to Phil (Pinball Heaven) to become a distributor to disrupt the market and improve sales in UK

    medium confidence · Scott Rundell, based on conversation with John (Stern head of sales in Europe)

  • Pokémon (Pro) machines sold in high volume on first container shipment to UK despite early code limitations

    medium confidence · Scott Rundell and DOMINO Pinball: Neil McRae

Notable Quotes

  • “They basically got... Every kind of scoop became a ball save. So if you're in multiball, you could just have a constant ball save running.”

    DOMINO Pinball: Neil McRae @ ~mid-episode — Describes major gameplay change in Ghostbusters that dramatically increased accessibility and scoring potential after lengthy code delay

  • “It's been out for at least six, seven months, maybe more... Stern is struggling with a lot of code stuff right now. I still think they should drop down the number of games they release in a year.”

    Scott Rundell @ ~mid-episode — Directly critiques Stern's product release pace as unsustainable given code quality issues

  • “The problem they have is maintenance, right? There's a bowling alley spitting distance from my house that's got a Bond in it that is still running the original code where it says pending license or approval.”

    Scott Rundell @ ~mid-episode — Identifies lack of maintenance infrastructure as major barrier to expanding venue presence

  • “So effectively, we've seen like a 2,000 pounds, which is what, an equivalent of like 2,700-ish USD, reset off of every tier. It's massive.”

    DOMINO Pinball: Neil McRae @ ~late-mid-episode — Quantifies the dramatic price correction across all Stern tiers in UK market

  • “There's two things in sales. One, you need a good product. Two, you need to price it right. But three, you need channels to market. The more people selling your product, the more you'll sell.”

    Scott Rundell @ ~late-mid-episode — Articulates market fundamentals behind Stern's distributor strategy

  • “There's people in this market that think because you've got a game up that you need cash... I'm not desperate. I'll just stick it in storage or give it to loan to friends.”

    Martin Mills (Cyber Crichton), cited by Neil McRae @ ~late-episode — Reflects seller psychology in secondary market and resistance to lowball offers

  • “You can offend a lot of people in the community by just lowballing them. And they'll just go, I'd just rather not sell to you. I'd burn it.”

Entities

Scott RundellpersonDOMINO Pinball: Neil McRaepersonGary SternpersonJohnpersonPhilpersonMartin MillspersonElectrocoincompanyPinball HeavencompanyStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • $

    market_signal: Stern UK pricing dropped approximately £2,000 across Pro/Premium/LE tiers following appointment of Pinball Heaven as direct distributor, addressing previous margin-on-margin inflation from single-distributor model

    high · Scott and Neil confirm pricing reset from £8,500-8,700 Pro to ~£7,000-7,500; £11,300-11,500 Premium to ~£9,100; £15,500 LE to ~£12,500

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern appointed Pinball Heaven (Phil) as direct distributor in UK market, breaking Electrocoin's long-standing monopoly and creating competitive pressure on pricing and delivery

    high · Scott confirms Stern 'reached out to Phil' after Electrocoin resisted RRP; similar moves in Germany with Freddy's

  • ?

    product_concern: Stern experiencing significant code update delays across multiple titles (Ghostbusters took 1+ year, Walking Dead remaster has licensing-related delays); multiple games released with incomplete code that requires months of patching

    high · Neil: Ghostbusters delayed 'over a year'; Scott: Walking Dead remaster pending DMD animation implementation; Pokemon ranked 247th due to code; John Wick comparison

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community increasingly frustrated with Stern's release pace relative to code quality; expectation setting for gradual improvement (Pokemon/Transformers model) becoming normalized

    medium · Scott criticizes Stern's annual release volume as unsustainable; Neil notes Pokemon sold heavily despite code issues; comparative acceptance of 'John Wick got to v1.0 recently' narrative

  • ?

    venue_signal: UK pub/venue sector in severe structural decline due to government policy and cost-of-living crisis; major barrier to pinball expansion despite manufacturer interest

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.310

0:00
Welcome to the Great British Pinball Podcast and here are your hosts Scott Rundell and Neil McRae. Retirement. That thing you go into, that every man and their dog pulls you out of it. So Scott and I, we thought we'd retire. Yeah, I wish. We're back by popular demand. People pinging me and Scott to say, sending us letters, postcards, emails.
0:40
Letters. There's even a balloon over walking and a sign that said, please do another episode. We miss you loads.
0:51
And even part of our hate club had nothing to talk to about you for two months. Oh, they get bored, mate. Yeah, they need something to vehemently, you know, fester on. We are arranging some Great British Pinball fidget spinners for those people. And you can buy them and they're for charity for those that can't string more than one word together that hang out on pinball info.
1:19
With that, Scott, what a couple of months it's been. Yeah, yeah, been busy. How you doing? So, yeah, it's been a hell of a week, a hell of a couple of months. Last time out was just before TPF. Yeah.
1:33
TPF was awesome. And I won a tournament there. I won the media. Sorry, I didn't win it. It felt like I won it because I came second. And I was like. I didn't win it. No, I didn't win it. I won it. You didn't win it. It was kind of basically a little bit of good fortune. I did knock out some of my media chums. I think I knocked out Retro Ralph and a couple other media folks. I knocked out TNT Amusements, Todd, my good friend. He was playing. It was one of those.

Pokemon ranked 247th on Pinside due to code issues, with comparison to John Wick's early version struggles

high confidence · DOMINO Pinball: Neil McRae citing Pinside rankings

  • Germany also introduced a second distributor (Freddy's) alongside Electrocoin to address pricing and distribution issues

    medium confidence · Scott Rundell, market intelligence

    • DOMINO Pinball: Neil McRae @ ~late-episode — Describes tight-knit community dynamics and relationship damage from aggressive negotiation

  • “So they'll get there, it'll be a great game. I think the Walking Dead remaster is getting the same grief.”

    Scott Rundell @ ~mid-episode — Contextualizes early code struggles as temporary and normal for complex titles

  • “I'm worried about the space thing, right? The only way you can release new games in my book is if you've got new people coming into the hobby who then can buy older games from everyone else.”

    Scott Rundell @ ~mid-episode — Identifies circular dependency problem in hobby growth and market saturation concerns

  • “If I didn't have one, I would probably bite his hand off for it, frankly, because I think it's a reasonable price. 10 grand for that game with wallets on it isn't unreasonable.”

    Scott Rundell @ ~late-episode — Validates secondary market pricing for heavily modded classic machines

    • Pinball Republic
    company|venue
    TPFevent
    IFPA World Championshipsevent
    District 82 Pinballvenue
    Pokemongame
    Yukongame
    Ghostbusters (LE)game
    The Walking Dead Remastered (Premium/LE)game
    Transformersgame
    Winchestergame
    Stranger Things (Premium/LE)game
    Metallica (LE)game
    Dungeons and Dragonsgame
    Deadpoolgame
    Yenperson
    Andy Fosterperson

    high · Neil organized Swayze event; pub 'gone bust'; phoned 20+ venues, many rejected due to weekend food sales priority; Gary Stern visited specifically to address venue shortage

  • ?

    operational_signal: Insufficient pinball maintenance technicians and support infrastructure to scale venue presence; specific example of Bond at bowling alley stuck on original code with broken upper flipper despite user outreach

    high · Scott: 'isn't enough pinball maintenance people'; offered to maintain Bond himself; Electrocoin setup created dependency on distributor-level support

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market showing mixed signals: premium modded classics (Stranger Things LE with topper/UV, Metallica LE) holding value or appreciating; newer releases (Deadpool) severely discounted; community sentiment against lowball offers

    high · Stranger Things LE reselling at near new LE price despite original £9,200 cost; Deadpool at $4,600 considered cheap enough to re-theme; Martin Mills refusing lowball offers for D&D

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: UK distributor supply chain lacks transparency on delivery timing; games ordered months apart arriving simultaneously; no visibility into stock levels from retailers

    high · Neil: 'day I paid for Transformers is day Pokemon arrived'; paid for Pokemon 'months ago'; Scott notes should be better visibility for £12,500 purchases vs £800 PlayStation

  • ?

    business_signal: New distributor (Pinball Heaven) facing thin margins after price reset; must commit to minimum orders to maintain distributor status while competing on lower margins requires higher volume to achieve profitability

    medium · Scott: 'margins are a lot thinner' requiring more unit sales; Phil expected to commit to fixed order lines; concerns about sustainability vs. Electrocoin's historical model

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: UK parts sourcing extremely delayed and inefficient; 4-6 week waits common; UK suppliers (David Retro and others) have poor inventory visibility and website functionality

    high · Scott: 'month and a half wait' for parts; Neil: 'chasing, waiting, chasing, waiting'; David Retro website criticism for showing 'almost gone' without exact stock levels

  • ?

    community_signal: Secondary market transaction culture values respectful negotiation; aggressive lowballing seen as offensive and can result in seller refusal even at loss; tight community where reputation matters

    high · Martin Mills: 'I'm not desperate... I'd burn it' rather than accept lowballs; Neil: 'offend a lot of people in community'; understood buyer's acceptable range before offering

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Ghostbusters code update fundamentally altered game difficulty by making every scoop a ball save, enabling continuous multiball and dramatically increasing accessible scoring from ~1B to 10B+

    high · Neil: 'Every kind of scoop became a ball save... constant ball save running'; score jump from personal 1B pre-fix to 10B post-fix; impact on casual accessibility

    • 2:18
    Do you know what? I've never asked you, actually. Is Todd actually really good? At pinball? Yeah. No one in media is good at pinball. That's why they're in media, mate. So you are good at pinball and you're at the World Championships. Actually, I've got this somewhere ahead of me. The IFPA World Championships are on right now.
    2:39
    British contenders are Yen from Pinball Republic. Go on, Yen. And UK number one, Andy Foster, both doing okay, not great, but okay right now. It's on Fox City Pinball if you want to watch it. I've got it on ahead of me. It's in District 82, great pinball location in Wisconsin. And my good friend Tom Graff and team are streaming it.
    3:06
    Yeah, and then TPF, I got to play Pokemon. I got to play Beetlejuice X, I got to play the new, some people are calling it Whitewater 2. Oh, Yukon Getty, yeah.
    3:26
    Yukon, I was going to be unkind there, but I resisted it. Yukon, I've fallen asleep. I just, first of all, I didn't play a lot because it was busy, but three games and I was, it was not. I think for me, I was just a little bit surprised that the call-outs were a little bit bland from that game, but I heard they're addressing that now. And on top of that, apparently, I forget the name of the original composer for the first Whitewater, but they've got him. Yeah, so that's, I think that, to be honest with you, I think that will help with it. 100%. I didn't realize, like, I was listening to Walt do, like, a breakdown of, like, how Whitewater, like, changes the tempo and increases, like, the number of, kind of, beats and instruments added to this music as you progress up the rafts. Yeah. So I didn't even realize it. And then when I actually had a Whitewater in, I was like, oh, yeah, it's pretty cool. As you progress in the game, the music gets more, basically, upbeat, faster, tempo, stuff like that. That's why you do a podcast, because you can't get to the top rafts and Whitewater. Yeah.
    4:32
    Hey, I got two billion on Ghostbusters. I'm pretty happy with that. That was not bad for me. And that's a pretty difficult game, I think. On the game where you can always be in a ball save.
    4:45
    So Ghostbusters used to be a really hard game. Brutally hard, right? And it still is a really hard game, except in the last code update, which we waited for like eight months. Or even if I was longer than that, over a year for them to finish the code.
    5:04
    They basically got... Every kind of scoop became a ball save. So if you're in multiball, you could just have a constant ball save running. I had noticed that, yeah. My top score before they fixed the code I think was about a billion. And then my top score after that code, I think I hit 10 billion on it. I was going to say, when I got this game, I can't remember if I picked it up from this, one of your pals from Pimple Republic, you had 8 billion on it as Grand Champion. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    5:44
    Everything's great about that game except the layout. And unfortunately, Neil McZR, there's going to be a Ghostbusters remake. There's not. I can guarantee it. I don't think there will be. No. I don't think there'll be a Lord of the Rings remake either, despite everyone saying there will be. Or Tron. I'm pretty confident Tron won't get done.
    6:03
    If it does, will Europe even get it? Yes, indeed. Well, you can blame Disney for that stupidity, unfortunately. Yeah.
    6:12
    Anyway, back on TPF then. So yeah, you tried Yukon, yeah, you went fan. What else was there? I can't remember. I think that was it, new games wise, was it? Oh, Winchester, but I suppose you already tried that previously. Winchester, I played that. I mean, let me give a Pokemon. So, I think it's a fun game, and actually, I ended up buying one that got delivered yesterday. Why do you think, by the way, in Pinside, it's literally like 247th? It's not even registering the top 100. It's got a decent number of reviews on it, but everyone's panning it. It's code. It's code. It's basically where, well, it's getting the John Wick treatment, except for the fact it's got guns in it. I mean, if basically the code was a bit better, I think it would be higher. And I think there's a couple of things. There was a lot of noise about how Insider Connected would be doing stuff and other stuff. And it will. They just haven't got there yet, right? And you think, so John Wick literally just went version one like last week. Oh yeah, yeah. So they'll get there, it'll be a great game. I think the Walking Dead remaster is getting the same grief. Oh, I saw on Pinside, there's people livid about it. They've had a recent update a few days ago, right? Yeah, but all I can say is, because I can't say very much, is hold on. Okay. All I can say is something amazing. Without giving away too much, because you might not be able to say it, I do remember they obviously did that very tight aspect ratio that matched that of a DMD animation, which I think the idea was then you could then flip between the old DMD animations and the modern animations. Is that ever going to come into play? It is going to come into play. It is. They had a challenge. So I think I can talk about this because I think someone else said it. They had a challenge with the licensor who didn't want to do the old DMD graphics.
    8:32
    I think they've convinced that licensor and I think you'll see it. But actually, one other thing. So I had a few people around to play mine. A few people have played it. And I have yet to get a bit of bad feedback about how that game is now. Is it good enough to warrant the money versus the old one? Not yet, but I think it will be.
    9:01
    And I kind of reflect... It's a shame, isn't it? Because it's like, how old is it now? It's been out for at least six, seven months, maybe more? Six months, yeah. And they're basically, you know, I think Stern is struggling with a lot of code stuff right now. I still think they should drop down the number of games they release in a year.
    9:17
    The coders must be working overtime to try and get all this stuff done. Yeah, but I look at Winchester, it's still got codes to come.
    9:27
    There's other folks that... Oh, I'm not saying that it's a reflection on just Stern. I'm just saying from Stern's point of view, they have the manpower. I just feel like it's being stretched. Yeah, I mean, they need to make money. That's the problem. Yeah. And the stark reality of it is, you know, that means they need new games. And frankly, their customers need new games to keep people interested.
    9:56
    I'm worried about, I mean, this is going off on a bit of a tangent here, but I'm just worried about the space thing, right? The only way you can release new games in my book is if you've got new people coming into the hobby who then can buy older games from everyone else. So you can then buy newer games and the cycle continues. But I don't know. It feels like even in the US, I'm seeing a lot of games on the market there. Like just stuff isn't shifting like it used to. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the world and the cost of living is a problem, no question about it. Yeah. Less money, but I mean, the big issue here is there's just not enough locations. So last night Gary Stern was actually at Pinball Republic with John, who's the head of sales in Europe, came to visit. They were asking us how do we get more venues in the UK.
    10:51
    And it's a difficult question to answer, but we were talking about why do you go to the microbreweries because they were very successful in the US. Some people think that's a no-go area, but I'm like, well, why don't you try it? Why don't you loan them a game for a month, see what happens?
    11:09
    I mean, we had BrewDog, didn't we? But they've gone. Yeah, I mean, Pubs are examples. I mean, the Pubs, basically, this current government, I mean, previous governments weren't great, but this government has nailed Pubs. They're finished. They're done. In fact, as we've mentioned it, we were trying to organise a Swayze event and the pub that normally hosts it has gone bust.
    11:37
    So I literally phoned about 20 plus venues, other pubs and other kind of things around that area. Some of them weren't suitable, okay, that's cool. Some of them were like, nah, weekend food's too important. We're not, you know, all we care about is selling loads of burgers on the weekend. And if we don't sell it, we're out of business.
    12:01
    And, you know, again, it's, you know, the fact we have an unfriendly to business government that's killing us all, basically.
    12:12
    So what did you suggest to him that he could do? Yeah, so, I mean, I said, you know, I definitely said go talk to some of the microbreweries, Not the big guys because they don't give a shit. I said, you know, there's other places like Gravity and some of these big kind of arcade places. But I said to them was, you know, look, some of these guys have had Pinball before. The problem they have is maintenance, right? So there's a bowling alley spitting distance from my house that's got a Bond in it that is still running the original code where it says pending license or approval. I forget, does the Bond have that inside of Kinect at that point or was it one of those games that was early on in the cycle? It didn't have it at the time. Okay. Or wait a minute, no, sorry. It had it, but... Or did it have one of those weak Wi-Fi dongles in it? If they set it up in the bowling alley, it would update itself. But again, the upper flipper's always got a problem. I even emailed them and said, look, I'll look after this for you. Give me the key, I'll update it, I'll make it look nice.
    13:34
    Because we go over there with the kids and try and... You know, I was trying to have a game of it, but it just plays awful. So, I mean, so fixing the maintenance thing, I think, is a key thing. And there isn't enough Pimball maintenance people, in my view. I mean, there probably is for the home markets, but if you wanted to, you know, if you wanted to suddenly turn on, let's say, 50 locations,
    14:01
    then you're in kind of, you're in, you're kind of in trouble for it, basically. So from that perspective, you really need to think about how do you build the ecosystem, not just venues. Because if you don't build the rest of the ecosystem, just get in certain parts.
    14:25
    I've given up with most of the UK providers. Don't get me started on parts, honest to God. I could tear what's left of my hair out trying to get parts of it. It is. I've literally sometimes I've had to wait like a month and a half to get some parts I'm after. Yeah, it's just like from the UK. No, just getting them imported. And then and it's like, you know, sometimes you have to wait because they want to put a bigger order together to get it, then make it worthwhile to get it across. So, you know, it's done in a bigger consignment order. And it's just too much hassle. If you do it directly yourself, yeah, it'd be quicker. Don't get me wrong. To make it viable, it's just a pain in the arse. You like David Retro or something? Yeah, yeah, and others, to be honest with you, but the delays are the same. It's always chasing, waiting, chasing, waiting. I mean, I love Dave, he's a great guy, but his website's fucking awful. He's aware of that, I have told him.
    15:23
    There's some big kind of like, how can I put it, focus happening in the next week or so, where he's going to be making some, how can I put it, large, much needed input, I should say, improvements. Just basic stuff. And I know it sounds basic to us, you and I, but it's going through with his web poster and getting things sorted. Simple things like when stock items are low, don't just say almost gone, show the exact same level of stock item that's in your warehouse. What one are you fucking doing, right? It's not low. That's bullshit, man. And I know there's a few folks online that are frustrated because the order of stuff, I've done it the same, and it's like, well, wait a minute, I've got three of what I needed, but I need four. It's happened wherever I used to order from the UK. I mean, the amount of times I've ordered stuff, and then I'll get a slip note that says backordered. And you're like, oh, I needed this now, not four weeks from now. I would rather, I mean, they want the money, obviously, but I would rather you told me you didn't have installed it because I'm just going to order it from Pimball Life. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the thing. The Americans have definitely got way better ordering systems. Marco's made some huge improvements. I love their new website now. It's so much easier to use. Pimball Life, Marco, they're really great. I think, like, yeah, it's just a shame. It obviously costs a lot to maintain those websites, I imagine, so it does make it difficult. For me, it's kind of a cost of being in business. You've lost talk and you know what's going on. But anyway, I mean, look, if it was easy, they would have sorted it. But it's hurting them, in my view.
    17:05
    I mean, whilst we're talking about dealers and distributors, obviously the big news is that... The elephant in the room.
    17:16
    Is Pinball Heaven on our direct stern dealer. Yeah. Which is, you know. They send shockwaves in the UK market. That's definitely for certain. It was kind of funny that, you know, some of the noise around it was kind of a bit ridiculous. We should probably give some clarification to anybody in the US listening on this. But just so you guys understand, in the UK, it's been a very different model for Stern games, especially. Really? We've always had to have Electrocoin who are the main distribu or the only distributor at the time in the UK. And then everybody else was effectively was a reseller. And it has been that way since year dot as far as I'm concerned. Like it's always been that way as a longstanding relationship between Electrocoin and Gary Stern specifically, as well as Stern, obviously, as a business. And then as a result, there was always this middleman in the equation, which meant there was effectively a sliver given to the resellers for profit and then obviously a larger proportion given to the distributor. But as a result of that margin on margin, just like any other company, you know, when you're trying to do margin on margin, it increases the cost to a point where you haven't got parity between other manufacturers. So boutiques in this country were effectively seen as a cheaper option, which is absolutely nuts when you think about it. You know, it was more viable to buy something like a JJP or a CGC or a Barrels of Fun than it was to buy a Stern, which is nuts because Stern is always, I don't want to sound dismissive to Stern, but they are seen as a cheaper product. They always have been. They're more mass-produced. They can make them at a cheaper price. And as a result, you get more bang for buck in that respect when you buy like a pro model. But we were entering levels of 8,500, 8,700 for a pro and 11, I think it was 11.3 or 11.5 for a premium and then 15.5 for an LE, which was just nuts. Yeah, I mean, there's a big kind of sandwich here. I mean, I do challenge what you're putting about cheap. Stern outperform all the other manufacturers for our ability by millions. No, don't mix cheap in terms of, like, quality, but I mean in terms of price, because they were the cheapest on the market, and they are now. Oh, yeah, they do. I mean, Stern Pro always has been usually the best way into the market. Yeah. And now it definitely is at seven grand. Well, this is the thing. So as a result of all these changes, we basically had now a price correction, if you will. Yeah, so there's two things that happened. Stern issued an RRP, which Electroin resisted like the plague, because their take, and I spoke to John, he was like, I can't sell it at that price because my costs are too high. But that kind of started a ball rolling that was really hard not to keep rolling, basically. So ultimately, where we ended up with was, you know, this starting a bit of a set of rumbles because what, and it wasn't just in the UK, I think this happened in some other European locations and I think also maybe further afield, but I think what this basically meant was, okay, you know, Luke, we need, you know, we probably need some distributors that are going to disrupt the market. And basically, you know, I think Stern reached out to Phil and said, you know, hey, are you up for being a distributor? And Phil was like, yeah, hell yeah. So, I mean, there's some people that won't deal with Phil for whatever reason. And I've never had an issue with him personally speaking, but in fact, on a couple of occasions, he's, you know, he's reacted to issues I've had. But I think it's great news we've got a bit of competition. I think what I think we're going to find is we'll get much better visibility on when games are going to arrive, which literally the day I had to pay for my Transformers is the day my Pokemon arrived. I mean, that's just ridiculous, right? Yeah. I paid for that Pokemon months ago, literally arrived yesterday. And we go back to the delay on getting pinballs and parts, right? That in itself. Exactly. You know, if this was, you know, like, I don't know, an 800-pound PlayStation, different story, but, you know, 12.5 grand for a pinball machine, come on, right? That should be, there should be more knowledge in the supply chain about when that's going to arrive. It just should be the case, right?
    22:00
    Anyway, the good news is we've got more, you know, well. Well, I say we've had the price reset, haven't we? So we've got pros now at, what is it, 7,000? I want to say 7,100, is that right? Something around that, around that. Maybe 7.5, maybe. It's around that number. And then we've got like 9,100 for a premium. And I think it's like 12.5, as you just said, for the LE. So effectively, we've seen like a 2,000 pounds, which is what, an equivalent of like 2,700-ish USD, reset off of every tier. It's massive. And exactly, the reason Stern have done it is they're looking at the numbers and thinking, why the hell aren't we selling more here? Yeah. And, you know, I think I mentioned this on a previous podcast, I had a long conversation with the Stern team about, you know, the UK market.
    22:51
    And I think, you know, there's two things in sales. One, you need a good product. Two, you need to price it right. But three, you need channels to market. The more people selling your product, the more you'll sell. It's a simple rule of sales.
    23:07
    And only having one distributor in some big countries, I think Germany is the other place where I think they've introduced another distributor. Freddy's signed up to be a distributor. I mean, hopefully there's the demand for it, right? Because my worry is for someone like Phil, right, is my understanding, at least with most distributors, you have to commit to a line of orders on your games, right? So there'll be a new title that's released and they'll be expected to order a fixed amount to maintain, I imagine, their distributor contract. So given the fact that margins, my understanding, obviously, now that they've dropped quite a lot and the margins are a lot thinner, there's more pressure to then sell more units in order to make a profit. So it's a bit of a knife edge on that for me. It's like, I think, you know, you have to think about why electric coin, OK, people could call it greed. And maybe, you know, they're right. In some instances, there was there was an element of price margin, especially at the LE level where I think it was too high. But then you just think, is there really enough demand to be lowering the price to the margins thinner? So therefore you have to sell more volume to make up for it. It's like I think time will tell. Right. We'll have to see how everything pans out in the market and whether or not what they've done is actually a good thing. And we see a much bigger amount of orders coming through because I would love to see Pimball grow in this country. At the moment, it is is difficult. I mean, we can go on about like the used market and what's happened with the venues, but it's. Just not looking rosy at the moment. No, well, I mean, the good news is because of the reduction in the price of Pokemon, they've sold gazillions of them.
    24:51
    True. In America, yes, but I don't know how many they've sold in the UK. Yeah, they've sold a good, good, so basically the first container that came over was just pros. Okay, cool. So they've sold a lot, and candidly right now the code's not where it needs to be on that game. You know, they'll solve that over time. From what I hear, the sales on Transformers are pretty decent. It's a great game.
    25:17
    And the layout's fun, the code's great. And actually, the code's probably one of the most further on coded games than what Stern have released recently. So that'll be a pleasant surprise in nine months when mine's arriving. I'm just kidding. Phil promises it'll arrive. Phil's promising me it'll arrive early. I tell you one thing I would do though with your Ellie I have never been a fan of that kind of dual colour down the middle thing that they done where it Decepticons and Autobots It like I don know personally I would just go with like even if you had like a powder coat where if you caught it in one light a bit like it had a chroma thing I know they copied the original We probably had some stock kicking in the back. I remember when Guardians of the Galaxy came around and used this wacky gold colour that was the same gold colour as WWE and everyone just assumed it was the... It was a spare leftover powder. And the reason you knew it wasn't because they changed the lockdown bar to the new mods. I think they used the old model, I think, or at least on the LE, they used the slider thing rather than the latches. So they kind of got away with it. But I think it's hard to be, I think Stern have reacted to them to not understand them. Don't get me wrong. I think they've done a correct thing. I just feel, people aren't going to be popular in my opinion on this, but I'm worried that the price is just too thin now and that the margin is too tight. But that's just me. We'll see. But I mean, this is the thing that kind of made me chuckle. So during COVID, actually it was after COVID. So let me, I'll just tell one quick story.
    27:27
    Stranger Things, right? Yeah. Stranger Things came out, I think my LE was 9.2, and like new, 9.2, new, right? Of course, the price went up, and then they did a rerun at the end of COVID of Stranger Things with a new price. So everyone with an old Stranger Things suddenly thought, whoa, I can sell it, Deadpool, I can sell it for more money. And everyone's like, yay, I can sell it for more money, right? Now, oh wait a minute, does that mean I have to sell my game a bit cheaper? Well you say that, what is interesting right, there is a Stranger Things on the forum, but it's priced the same as I would say what modern LEs, i.e. that were much more expensive at the 15k mark and now being priced at. And I just think, there's some people like out there beating down the price of people that paid this 15 and a half going it should be cheaper, and I'm like, but meanwhile you've got LEs that were as you say a lot cheaper at 9k being put up. For a Stranger Things, Ellie, because they were sold out long before that price came out. It was a nine and a half grand game, I think. I got mine. I got a couple hundred quid off of it. It arrived literally the week after COVID started.
    28:49
    And if you can watch my unboxing of it on YouTube. And so, you know, here's what happened. The price of that, so that game's quite, at one point was quite a rare game. People didn't like it and then suddenly people liked it. It went up in price and then people put loads of mods on it like Toppers, they put all that art of pinball. The UV kit, wasn't it? That added quite a bit. The UV kit, I mean that was only a couple hundred bucks, wasn't it? Well the Topper was a grand, more than a grand I think and I actually quite like the Topper on that game. Yeah, I had a strange thing to remember, I literally went to town on it. A lot of people put these pinball mods on them, which are serious wedge, and people say, no, I want to get the money back. Actually, Scott, who's selling that game, we got a TPF and Expo together, really good guy, his games are beautiful, he looks after them. I don't think it's a ridiculous price for that game.
    29:56
    10 grand, I think he's at 10 grand now, I can't remember. Yeah, it's around that, 10, 10, 5 maybe. 10 grand for that game with wallets on it isn't unreasonable.
    30:06
    You know, if I didn't have one, I would probably bite his hand off for it, frankly, because I think it's a reasonable price. But there's been other games, I mean, you were trying to sell Metallica. Well, my wife is, yeah. My wife is, and, you know, that's easily, you know, even people are thinking, ah, well, the new LE price is 12.5. Not for a Metallica LE, it's not. That hasn't changed, and it's a super rare game, but also it's a freaking unbelievably great game.
    30:41
    I did say to her, I said to her, I'm not putting it up. I said, if you want to put it up, you can put it up, Because I knew the market was going to be dipping it hard. And I just said to her, like, you know, personally I said to a certain number, and if you're not willing to go beyond that, just tell people and say, it's either that or we're going to yank it. You know, this is the thing, Luke. The gamesmanship on here is ridiculous, right? And I've seen, you know, people, it doesn't matter where you post it. In fact, I've done it myself. Like, hey, you wouldn't take a cheeky five grand and they want ten. You know what the answer to that is right away, right? It's funny you bring that up because obviously I bought myself, I just picked it up today, Dungeons and Dragons, and I spoke to the guy, Martin, his name was, in fact you probably know him anyway, Cyber Crichton. Oh yeah, Martin, Martin Mills, good go, good go. Yeah, so beautiful house by the way, absolutely amazing house, he's got a great view. But basically I was speaking to him about like, you know, because he's got a couple of games up, and he said to me, I said to him like, you know, what kind of offers have you had? He's had people just low-balling, like really like to the bottom. And he's just like, I'm not desperate. He goes like, I'll just stick it in storage or give it to loan to friends. I'm not, I'm not. He goes, you know, there's people in this market that think because you've got a game up that you need cash. There probably is people in the market that do need cash. And that's true. But he's not one of them. And he just said like to me, because when I made an offer to him, I thought I could gauge already by his original response. He was not going to take anything below a certain number. So I was like, well, I'll do 100 under the offer that he's asking if it's reasonable.
    32:19
    He even said to me, if I'd have gone lower, he'd just basically not bother with me. And I just thought, you know, that's the thing you've got to play. It's like people don't realize it. You can offend a lot of people in the community by just lowballing them. And they'll just go, I'd just rather not sell to you. I'd burn it.
    32:34
    Do you know what I mean? And I just think like they don't realize that. I've seen it. I mean, I'll definitely call out people I think that have got games too high. But also, there's been some people that have been trying to sell stuff. I'm like, mate, I don't know, a grand to that. It's definitely worth it. Oh, look at that Deadpool, right? And there's a guy out there saying, oh, yeah, would you accept offers on it? And it's at $4,600. And I'm like, no. I know this isn't. People are going to hate me right now. I'm just going to say, anyway, personally, I just think, right, if he's going to be willing to sell it at that price, I'll just re-theme it. Screw it. There's so many damn Deadpools out there. And it's cheaper to have a complete unit at that, like, with all the components, the screen, all the coils, the cabinet. I just go, screw it, that's cheaper than me having to import all of that from the US. I could just re-theme it and it's good to go. I feel that that's, for that game, I don't know what condition it is and how many plays, etc. I think it was in good condition, Ducky. I mean, don't get me wrong, I won't do, by the way, before I get lynch mob, I won't re-theme it, but I'm just making a point. The price is so cheap. I'm going to re-theme it. I'm going to call it, I was threatened by a fool on Pinside, the game. I'll have a bit of fun with it. I mean, it's kind of... Well, that's what I mean. This sounds ridiculous, maybe, to some people, but I see that as fun money at this point, because it becomes like, spike to it, four grand? This is nuts. It's two toppers, right? It's two toppers. I mean, that's the ridiculous thing. That's true. That's true. Yeah, when you think about it. But my take on that is, I picked up a Deadpool premium and Iron Maiden premium for around about, I think they were both 4,700 that were imported from France years ago. This was way before COVID. They were in the club. In fact, Deadpool's still in the club.
    34:35
    And at the time, that wasn't a lot off what the retail was then. But they were cheaper. And I'm talking about the French retail because here they were more expensive, right? So I got a really good price on two great games. Deadpool's still one of our top games played. And that price feels to me to be kind of rock bottom. In fact, I'd almost call it a bargain.
    35:06
    So, you know, snap it up. This is the thing, going back to what you said about Stern, you know, we've got this corrected pricing. And then the shockwave in the UK markets being that obviously people had their games at a higher price, now taking a bit of a bath, let's face it. It peaks and troughs just such as Pimball. But the part I'm a bit worried about. I suppose it's the buyer confidence because the people I've been buying from and I've just been asking for their input as I've been going around because by this market I'm going to take advantage of it, sorry.
    35:37
    Is that there seems to be a lack of confidence now. People are worried that this isn't the fraud. Sorry?
    35:47
    People think they're going to overpay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, wait a minute. I've just bought Deadpool for five grand and there's one that's 4,700. You haven't overpaid that 300 quid. Come on, right? Yeah, but it has that mental part in your head that you go... Oh, 100%. The thing is, this is affecting everything. Right now, there are three Ninja Eclipses for sale, right? That's true, yeah. There's one on the forum, and there's another one, I think, is on Facebook.
    36:17
    And then there's another one. Actually, there's four, because David's trying to sell his new inbox. David's trying to get six grand. He's got no fucking chance of selling that game for six grand. Good luck, David. But, David, if you sell it, I will buy you a steak dinner, mate. Right? Six grand, no fucking chance, right? Because there's one that's almost mint, gone for $4,950, and there's another one that's also mint, gone for $4,500.
    36:45
    The third one, I can't remember what the price was, I think it was $4,500. I mean, you could say that, but I mean, like, given an example, if you were to buy a Stern, right, at the moment, and let's say Pokemon went up for sale because the code's terrible, and someone did say six grand for a Pokemon or seven grand new, you're still going to get people out there going, I probably want it new because I want the warranty. There are people out there that will buy because of warranty. Yeah, I mean, I am, maybe, I mean, look. I'm not saying that's for UI, because it's like, you know, if a note board fails, it's not going to be the equivalent of a grand. Yeah, I mean unless you're super, super, super unlucky, right? The worst thing that can happen on warranty is a node board or the NPU board. It's a couple of hundred quits, right? Yeah, true. If you're very unlucky, maybe a mech goes on fire or something. What, you mean like Dungeons and Dragons?
    37:36
    And, you know, although actually mine's fine, I've got some parts. Have you not done the loom? You must have done the loom extension, right? No. I put a pause for it, but it's been fine. I mean, and it's the same bug as they had in, the thing that's annoying about that, it's exactly the same bug they had in Rush for the cable being too tight.
    37:56
    But, I mean, it's hard to see the, you know, it's like insurance or it's like people who buy used car warranties, right? Yeah. You're mental. Put the money, just save the money in the bank, right? As I say, it's different levels of people, right? You've got people who are new to the market or people don't. I mean, I sold my scared stiff to someone that's literally, he's only ever played Pinball, he's never bought one. So it was like, you know, I had to literally talk him through that everything. Like, here's how you take the glass off, here's how you take the lock off, here's how you lift the play field, be careful of this, that and the other. It was like, I spent a good, I'll be honest with you, probably 30 minutes with him just giving him a good understanding of what to look for, even just for, you know, post transport, checking the back. Making sure nothing comes out. This is the thing, you're going to get people who are just new to Pimball. And he's obviously decided that he wants Classic, so you're obviously not going to get New in Box on that anyway. But I imagine there are definitely still people out there that will go, I just want New in Box because I get a service with it. Because they don't want to do maintenance on it. They don't want to lift the hood, so to speak. I mean, it's a bit nuts. Someone's selling a Metallica Pro for five grand. He's got no chance. And unfortunately, I wish I wish that was it. This is the thing. It's like I looked at the price I bought Ghostbusters and then there's one that went out cheaper a few days later. And I was just like, it is what it is. But I feel like there are some titles that it doesn't matter what you buy right now. Within a month, you will see that game cheaper. I think so. In this market, we will. Absolutely. There's no question. I mean, there are some folks I feel really sorry for, like, you know, Jib's trying to sell that Dune and she's taking up. It's weird, isn't it? Because in the U.S., they're up in money in Dune. But that's the thing, right? In the U.S., they're above ticket value, that people are selling them on for profit. And the irony is, because it's in the UK, just like everything else, it's not. The days are gone of, how can I put it, not taking a bath on something at the moment. I think we're used to having games go for like, what, £500 less than what you paid for it, like the pros back in the day. Those days are gone. They're gone. I just think you're lucky to get. This is why, you know, people were saying to me, oh, you're not going to find a Jaws at six grand. And I'm like, why not? If the Deadpool's going for $46.50, which was bought last year, it's in the same production line. Do you know what I mean? It's like, okay, the game is newer, maybe when the shine wears off, but I just feel like, you know, it should be reasonable to see a game around that price. If I can get a D&D for less than six, I should be going to a Jaws for less than six. Yeah, you're never going to get a Jaws for less than six. I mean, anyway. You're like part of that same crowd. I just, I genuinely think he will eventually, because you can get Jurassic Park 2 for less than five. Maybe, yeah, but no. I mean, anyone, I mean, this is the other issue is either people have got too many games out of space but have got money. That's probably me.
    41:12
    But, you know, you sell a Jaws for less than six grand, you know, you're literally giving it away. That's an insane bargain for such a good game. I mean, you say all that, right, but we're seeing games across the board at the moment at literally all-time lows. I don't know. I mean, like, so far you're right, but you look at Uncanny X-Men, okay, okay, terrible example. Game, let's face it, flopped hard. I know it's, I'll be lucky if that game, to be honest with you, that game should be cheaper than Deadpool to me right now. Deadpool is a better value proposition than Uncanny X-Men. Sorry for anybody who's trying to sell that X-Men right now, but like, it's like, to me. I don't agree with you there. I know you don't, but Pinside would agree with me and probably 80% of the people out there would. I guess if you look at the games side by side and you hadn't played either of them and you were new, I could get what you're saying, right?
    42:03
    X-Men is something to an amazing game. Maybe, maybe. I don't know. Jaws is definitely a good game, right? So it will command more money. I just don't, I don't know. I used to think I had a good understanding of pricing in this market. I don't anymore. The pricing is changing all the time. I mean, this is the thing. It's getting to a point where it's more about what you want to pay versus what it's worth to some extent. And so, you know, I would and actually I got an uncanny X-Men premium at a ridiculously low price in the US. But now, I actually think I would make money on my X-Men Premium because the game is just on a different level now. Same with Wick. I mean, you see people buying it again because the code's got so much better, basically.
    43:05
    I don't know if that's enough to save it, though. I really don't. Save what? Well, I'll give an example, right? People I've been speaking to have had Uncanny X-Men. They've spent like seven hours fettling with it, just trying to get the damn shooter lane to, you know, shoot the ball up so it wouldn't 90% of the time ricochet back into the shooter lane. You want to fix the shooter lane thing, right? Stop fucking about with the playfield. All you're doing is making it worse. You go at Bumble Life, you buy a bigger coil, right? You get it sent down to you, you solder it in, life is good. Same on Seek and Iron Maiden, same on Avengers, right? Just put a bigger fucking coil in the start-up thing and a stronger spring on the thing and it's fixed, right? Actually, on my two X-Men, one in the club one here, I've had to do neither of those things. Mine's worked great out of the box, but if you want to fix that, that's what you do. And if you ping me, if you want the coil, I'll give you the details for the coil. Put it in Iron Maiden, life is good. Put it in Avengers, life is good. Any game where you've got a plunge that doesn't make it all the way around, just bump the coil. Life is good. You don't need to like, eh, eh, eh. All these people take their games apart. All they're doing is make it. They put me off it, man. Because there are people that tell me, like, I guess they go, don't buy it. And I'm like, okay. Because my wife's like, I wanted to, I was between that and a dungeon. Dungeons and Dragons and X-Men that Holly was like, if you buy X-Men, I'm going to divorce you. I was like, all right. Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeons and Dragons, didn't you?
    44:41
    We bailed on it. We switched it for Metallica. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Luke. I'll be honest with you. I'm glad we did. I mean, Metallica is a way better game. Yeah, it is a way better game. But it's, you know, I like Uncutting X-Men. And Wick, man, what a job. All these people are, Wick's this, Wick's that. They're all buying it again. It's fucking hilarious, man. It's making me piss myself laughing.
    45:13
    I think it's because, as you say, the code finally got there. Like, it was bad code, let's face it, when it first came out. Yeah, I mean, it was, I mean, well, I mean, the issue was is the developer that was working on it left the company. Yeah, yeah. It kind of sat idle for a bit. But let me, I just wonder, actually, before we go, Jaws, right? Yeah. I think it's really important on this, right?
    45:41
    There's like a, when we die, right? And we're walking through the- We're getting really philosophical now, go on.
    45:50
    We're walking through the great pinball hall that we all go to, right? Right. Most of us, a couple of us won't make it. You know who I'm talking about, right?
    46:03
    There's a special hall, right? It's got some very special games in it, right? Jaws is one of them. Jaws is just so much of a great game.
    46:20
    I'm close to feeling that it's Keith's best game now. It's so well integrated. It's so much fun. The integration is one of the best integrations of all time now.
    46:32
    Go by your argument though, this is an interesting one, right? I'll pause you there for one moment, because this brings up a very good point. We discussed how some games are more desirable due to their rare nature, that they weren't bought in many supply, or if they had the fortune of being cheaper before the prices were increased, but then they have a lot of mods on, or rare mods, blah blah blah blah. Blah. We then get into that situation where you've just said, if a game is better, it should be worth more.
    47:03
    That does not equate in the UK market to me. If that was true, we would see games command a better price, but they don't. They equate it to price is now lower, therefore it's now X. And that's it. It actually doesn't in the US either. Let me give you an example of this. Yeah, go on. I'm glad you're sitting down.
    47:24
    Do you know what one of the most average games is right now? What do you mean by average, sorry? In terms of play.
    47:36
    Do you mean like it's a mid-game? It's okay. It's a mid-game, it's okay. Pokemon? No, actually, Pokemon beats us. Alright, okay. Piojuice. Do you know what? A lot of people have been saying that to me recently. It is a super average game. I've heard people have literally just dropped off the hype train on it and just gone... I bought one and actually I got a tremendous deal on it, even though I bought it way after release. And there's someone who's helped me out on this. I got an outstanding deal on it, right? Which means I'll probably get it cheaper than most people who bought it in the UK.
    48:21
    And I should get it in time for Pinfest as well, by the way, folks that want to play it. That's my goal is to bring it to Pinfest. I have played it, I don't know, a hundred times now. Okay, so you've got to do some out of play on it. There's still more they can do in code, but... They've released some new code, aren't they, with call-outs recently, which I thought... But the problem with it is, and it's a bit like, what does it remind me of? It reminds me of something. It's a bit like Venom, right? Oh dear.
    48:59
    They've done a lot of cool stuff in the code of Venom, and I might argue Ghostbusters sits in this place, but not to that kind of extent. If the layout doesn't give you that kinetic satisfaction, then no code's going to save it. And I'm calling out because from my perspective, when I played B.O.J. for the first time, I was a bit excited about it. Something that's okay, and I kept playing it. And the fan, you know, people say, I'm going to tell you, it's a fan layout. I don't, like, everyone's saying, no, it's not. It is absolutely 100% a fan layout. And in my view, that most of the shots are not that exciting. There's one orbit shot that I think's got, you know, that's got definite potential. The upper flipper, I mean, it literally, I don't know what they were thinking. There's too many scoops in the game.
    50:07
    You're waiting for a stick to fire. What I will tell you, though, is theme integration, artwork, music, graphics. Lighting. Very good. But it doesn't make the game any better. And they've got some funny modes. I think that's mode where everything moves. I forget the name of the modes. I know what you're on about. It starts playing Deo, yeah? Yeah, Deo, that's a Deo. And that doesn't work because there's like a lock that if you haven't set your game up at a low pitch, the ball falls off the lock.
    50:46
    Oh. Yeah, I mean, and I have all my games steep, right? So it's kind of, you know, I think I kind of, look, is it a terrible game? No. It's just not as hyped as it is. It hasn't left up to the hype. It's just nowhere near as good as Evil Dead. I mean, that's the thing. You know as well as I do, I've had that game on pre-order now while I imagine I'll be getting mine similar time frame to yours.
    51:14
    I don't know. Part of me was like, do I just sell it? And I was like, part of me just thinks I'll just keep it in the box and then see if someone wants it when I get it. Because I like the FOMO on it is kind of worn off on me and I just a bit like I think this is the problem with UK Pinball as a whole I hate it the most when you get excited about a title and then it nearly a year before you receive it Yeah Yeah This is why I lucky enough that I been able to pick these games up quite early in the process right Yeah. I feel exactly the same way about Winchester.
    51:52
    Have you really? You've gone a bit cold on it. Mate, the game came out at the beginning of October. I know, it's so slow. Do you know what? People are very polite around barrels with this, but I'm just a bit like, guys, come on. It was 500 titles. Why is it taking you this long to make it? I get the fact you're doing Dune at the same time, but maybe you shouldn't have done two production lines at once because you can't do it. Dune's been a disaster for barrels of fun, is my take. I think it definitely has been a bigger success now back off of Winchester because people were like, I can't get a Winchester, so I'll now buy Dune. And it is a game. I do like my Dune. I think it's their best game. There wasn't any of them to get, though. Yeah, I know. Well, the problem is, even now I saw a factory tour video, not video, but picture. They're still making the Dunes, even now. Why, though? They had some part shortage that held up everything. That's what I mean. I mean, I talked to Dave, and I love David. David Vaness, he's an amazing guy. I've got nothing but respect for him. But, you know, there's a kind of a... Because where are we? I think we're on 150 Winchesters, but we're on 500 Beetlejuces. Yeah, exactly. Do you know what I mean? I mean, that is it, right? And I would argue Beetlejuice is a way more complicated game than... I don't know, it's hard to say. I haven't seen games in... Well, I've seen both sides of the playfields. I'd argue Beetlejuice is more complex. But even in saying that, right, Luke, the other thing that David shared with me is one of his big issues that he's getting, and actually, Jersey Jack, someone told me Jersey Jack had the same problem in the early days, which is they are struggling to keep people interested in making games because it's such a kind of a monotonous job. Monotonous task, yeah. Yeah, you're like, oh, screw, screw, screw. You know, it is a bit kind of, you know, it's not the most highbrow of things that you could do. Do you know what I mean? I've done so many playfield swaps and I've done like 30 of them, so I know how monotonous it is. And it is gruelling.
    54:12
    Well, the thing about it is Jersey, I was told that when Jersey Jack used to be in New Jersey, As opposed to Illinois Jack.
    54:23
    They struggle to keep people in the same way. And the reason they moved to Chicago was because there's a workforce there that has the momentum that you can replace people. You can keep cycling through people and keep even the most monotonous. They make everything in Elk Grove Village. Pimball machines is one thing.
    54:51
    And that is what's driving, that's one of the issues that Pimball Manufacturers of Hardware is. They'll have a really great set of people for a month or six months and then two of them want to move on to the next thing because they've kind of done enough of it. Yeah. Bring people in and train them. And look, again, it's not hard to train on this stuff, but it's hard to perfect the speed of it. You know, you want to go fast, but maintain that. Oh, absolutely. You've nailed it, yeah. The more practice you'll get, the more efficient you'll be, 100%. So, look, I mean, I'm hoping that Winchester arrives in time for Pinfest, Because I'm bringing that, I'm bringing Star Wars, which Ray Day's put out some new code updates, this game just gets better and better. I might bring Walking Dead Remastered just so people can see it, we'll see.
    55:46
    And it's going to be, you know, if these games arrive, if all these new games arrive, I'm going to bring them to Pinfest and I'm going to put them in my secret room where only people I like can play them. I remember when you threatened to do that last year. I did do it last year, but actually what people don't realise is the whole thing last year was a gag, which played out because with some friends I had a bet that I would get a load of shit about it, and I did, and it made me chuckle.
    56:23
    I mean it was good playing Evil Dead though, I really did enjoy that. I think, as you say, though, part of me is like, you know, I would have preferred to have an Evil Dead over Beetlejuice, but my wife just wasn't a fan of the theme. I love Evil Dead. But it's weird. She likes the newer stuff of Evil Dead. You know, Evil Dead Rise? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she doesn't like the old Bruce Campbell stuff, which is weird because I like the humour. I love the dark humour. I think the, you know, I just think it's a great game of play. And it's one of the most played games at the club by a mile. I bet. But, I mean, what's going to be interesting, though, is there's a lot of people who've bought Beetlejuice to flip it in the UK. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they're going to be in for a bit of a shock, I think. I think, yeah, I think they're in trouble, and they don't believe me. And I'm almost, because I could sell my game at retail and still make a couple of quid on it. And I'm tempted to do that just to start the ball rolling, set the price, piss everybody off. The thing is, as you say though, I think a lot of these higher tier games, you don't see them on the forum. I think they just change hands in the WhatsApp groups. Yeah, they do. No question about it. But there's also a lot of people that are buying these gold-plated Indiana Jones that someone bought for £15,000. They're like, no one will want to buy them for that anymore. It's kind of, that whole bit's gone a bit strange.
    57:59
    Quickly mentioned Transformers. I played it, I think Elliot smashed it. He's the same guy that did Wick.
    58:10
    I'm going to say this right now. It's getting really close to you then, Neil. Really close. Why is a fucking Transformer game not having a robot that transforms? Yeah, it's really easy. Why is that? It's really easy. It's because it's the same reason why, it's the same reason why Nifn, they tried to make something work and it just was too hard to make it work in a way that we... It's a crying shame, man. It really is. I mean, I'm a big Autobot fan, so to have no Autobots on the playfield do anything, I'm like, I immediately started messaging Davey as in Sumbler saying, you're going to fix this, right?
    58:50
    I am the biggest Autobot fan. I know you are. I've seen the toys, man. I've seen you have the Autobot Prime. Yeah, absolutely. I have all of them. Well, yeah. Right? These are, if you go on my YouTube channel, you'll find this. I've seen it. I've seen it. Trust me. They are amazing toys. I mean, I hope for the sake of the modders like Davey and that, that he does implement, even like Grimlock, because that's quite easy. He's out of the way, right? I have to say, Grimlock looks pretty rubbish. Yeah. So I'm hoping Davey or someone fixes that. I hope they will, yeah. I'm, you know, everyone will say, oh, Niel, you're such a Stan fanboy. Let me tell you, having had the Jersey Jack trapdoor, right, and the Jersey Jack diverter, I would much rather have something that's maybe not as cool, but it works, as opposed to constantly having to fuck about with something that doesn't work. What's the name of that new coder? Stephanie, is it?
    60:01
    Elizabeth. Elizabeth, sorry. I mean, apparently she's the first female lead in any pinball machine, which I thought was pretty cool.
    60:13
    Yeah, she's definitely been co-programming before that. There's loads of pinball coders that were women in the past. Yeah. I don't know if... My understanding is she's the first lead, but we can check. I think that's true, but is there not?
    60:33
    I don't know. I heard it. Bear in mind, right? I've listened to some of the podcasts. It could be true. I mean, to be honest with you, I don't really give a shit what you are, As long as you're doing good stuff. No, I just think it's just nice to see, you know. Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah, I just think like, you know, and also from the looks of it, she seems to be pretty talented. So the code looked just, I'll be honest with you, way better than some other releases we've had recently from Stern. Oh, no, absolutely. I mean, and I don't think that's ever the coder's fault. I think it's the way that things come together. I mean, look, I'm super excited about that game. I can't wait to get it.
    61:12
    You've got an L.E. Did you buy a premium as well for the club? I haven't yet. Actually, at the moment, buying games for the club, I've kind of parked it because there's nowhere to put them. The club's full. Oh, right. Okay. And I've got the games set that I want to have there. So if I'm putting in, you know, if I put Transformers in, then I'm taking out Pulp Fiction. There's so many good games. We've got such an epic collection of games at the club now. It's so difficult to decide what we want to go on. And also, not all the games are mine, so the other guys have got to decide what they want to do as well. But, you know, I've got about 40 games in the club now and that'll be it. And, you know, I don't want to, right now I'm happy with what's in the club.
    62:06
    And, you know, I'll probably put Pokemon in, I think, because it's going to be a game everyone wants to play.
    62:13
    But I'm deciding on anything else, really. We'll see what happens. I mean, I got kind of four big halls full of games that are tombstones.
    62:27
    Wow. What can I tell you? I mean, I have a similar challenge for me. I'm not insured for 192 games. Yeah, I don't have that problem, but I definitely decided to, because the games I've been changing out have been creeping up in value. Because I got rid of what I consider my B-grade games. But it's now getting to a point where I'm like, what do I want to get rid of next? It is getting harder. I think Ghostbusters eventually I will... I wanted a game that I was like, I'll play it for a decent bit and I'll trade it out. I just wanted a game I could swap around. There's a few people that do that. They have games that they like and they've got one space that they just rotate games and I'll borrow games. Yeah, it's a rotator. There you go. I've got plenty of games in my sheds if you want to borrow one, mate. So, you know, just pay for money. Yeah, no, I always appreciate that, Neil. I think, like, for me, it's just, yeah, I think, like, I tried my best, right, because I sold two games, as you know, recently, and then that, what was I supposed to do with the money? I was supposed to invest it. What did I go and do? Buy two new games.
    63:30
    Pinball's the worst thing for that. I swear to God. I hope you saved some money for Star X, for SpaceX, IPO, mate. Oh, look, I've had some great investment advice from some of my colleagues at work, actually. My wife has been using Trading 212 and then basically putting up some fractional shares and investments in different areas. She's already got better money than I would, having my money sat in pinball machines at the moment.
    64:00
    Just a reminder, stocks can go down as well as up. That is true. Yeah, we are not endorsing. Our low-key investors here on the Great British Investor Podcast. Yeah, exactly. Some gambling more. Your investment is at risk.
    64:18
    I only put my money into stuff that's definitely… I've always said to Holly, and to be honest with you, she's following a lot of different curators and reading up a lot of articles. To be honest with you, I always said to her, if you're going to do an investment, it's money you're prepared to lose. Yeah, exactly. That's the easiest motto you can have with everything. I don't know if it's investments. But I think SpaceX is going to blast off. Maybe. I keep hearing people saying to me as soon as it hits that, all the original investors want their money back and it'll be a bit like a Ponzi scheme and it'll just tank. I mean, I have to say there is a bit of a danger of that. There's some really great stuff like SpaceX and then there's X itself, which is, I mean, that's a shit show, I think. But then there's XAI, which is, let me tell you, there's no better platform than that right now.
    65:12
    And it's selling like hotcakes. So we'll see, we'll see, we'll see, we'll come back to it. So a couple of, just moving on. And so I just want to talk about, you know, some of the amusing things that we see in our community.
    65:38
    Okay. And it's kind of hilarious that, you know, so let's talk pinball info for a minute. I'm banned, right? And many people have tried to get me reincarnated. You'll never be unbanned, Neil. I just don't see it happening. I'm super cool with that because I broke the rules, right? Yeah.
    66:04
    Actually, let me rephrase that. Twice I broke the rules in Gale is charged. Once, I think it's both bollocks, frankly, but it doesn't really matter. I don't really care. But what I find incredible, so I still can read it, right, is there are people on the forum that behave in a way that if it was me, I would be banned about eight times over.
    66:33
    Yeah. There's one post where I'm personally being threatened with violence. Yeah, I've seen it. And they haven't done anything about it. And what's kind of funny about it is... Although, was that post... I thought that post was on Facebook, though, no? There's been... I think there was one on... Or was it on Pinside? There was one on Pinside, and they booted them out, which was kind of funny. There was one on... There was one on Facebook as well, wasn't there? Facebook, I did wind up by, I posted my favourite Ron Seal pinball advert.
    67:17
    I mean, oh my god, I tell you what, I am shit at DIY, but that was on a level of shitness. I was like, the funny thing is, it came up on one of the WhatsApp channels that I'm on, but of course I don't have any friends, everybody hates me. And we were all just pissing our pants laughing, it was so fucking bad.
    67:47
    And anyway, I just couldn't resist it, so I burned some AI tokens on an advert. And it's such a shame that a good game that whatever it is it used to be has been ruined. But, you know, just the behavior there where, you know, I'm getting threatened and friends of mine are getting threatened.
    68:14
    And people think that's OK. I mean, you know, I just I kind of feel like, OK. I mean, the other thing is, is I would love, I would love for that person to start something.
    68:29
    The thing is, right, on a more serious note, I remember seeing that individual's post and how he threatened, not just you, but people who were your acolytes or your fanboys. And part of me is like, as you know, I've got like a nine month old, right? He's barely a year old. And we're talking about whether or not we go to pin the vest because it's not really an environment for an infant, right? And we thought, OK, well, we can try and make it work by basically him not being in the rooms. We can basically, you know, spend time with him and one of us can take care of him, one of us can go in and bring a game. But then I see that post and he's like, you know, threatening to punch people's face in and stuff like that. And I'm like, I just I don't want that. I don't want that around my child. As much as I don't feel threatened by that individual, it's my child I have to think about. And when I showed that to the organizer at Pinfest, the attitude was, well, he's not coming to the show. He's just bringing a game. I was like, regardless of whether or not that individual is going to the show, to have him bring a game when he's made such threats just tells me if this was reversed, as you called it, like, you know, you were doing it, you wouldn't be allowed to the show. Yeah, I know. Neither would your games. I mean, I'm causing some shit here by saying stuff like that, but I personally think it's not the right attitude to have. If someone threatens someone else, whether it's a joke or not, it should be seen as serious. We banned Cole for saying something that he was seen in jest, and they all rinsed him as some racist. And it was ridiculous. I'm sorry, it was absolutely ridiculous. And yet you have someone threatening someone with death threats and nothing happens. Great, great, great moderation there, guys. 10 thumbs up. On Pinside, they basically acted, and I shout out to the mods of Pinside, they got a tough job on a super amazing forum.
    70:36
    People don't have to agree with each other, people don't have to like each other. But in a civilized society, you know, to threaten violence. Yeah, it's not needed. It's just unnecessary. And it goes to the, for me, it goes to the, what's the word I'm looking for? You know, I call it kind of moments of truth, right? Right. If you're willing. I mean, I mean, literally one of the things that some of the I think the things that are posted, you could argue are potentially illegal. Right.
    71:15
    Honestly, if you went to the police with it, they would act on it because they put people literally up for worse. You know, I mean, like for less.
    71:23
    If I went and made a complaint to the police, the person who made that would be arrested. But it's the same thing that happened to me. Right. Because whatever happens, right. I mean, you've always been friends and I get labelled and tarred in the same way you do because I'm seen as, and I quote, your bum boy. So a homophobic slur, again, is allowed on the forum. It's kind of funny, but there's another moment of truth, which is, you know, how people, you know, between buddies, you know, you can use language like that, maybe, maybe not, I don't know. But kind of calling that out, it's like, really?
    72:04
    It goes back to the whole coal thing. I know I'm getting stuck on this, but it does wind me up. If someone isn't taking offence to something, but then someone who isn't even in that demographic or race takes offence to it, and suddenly they go, well, that's racist, and you're lucky we didn't report you to the police for it. And yet, at the same hand, you can call someone a homophobic slur, or you can give them a death threat. Yeah, okay guys, great, awesome, good argument to stand on. And look, I was also threatened, there's a league meet where I was threatened if I turned up I'd have my teeth punched and I'm going to be a league meet and I'm going to be there with fucking bells on that, right? Bring it on is what I'm telling you.
    72:50
    Of course, I shouldn't get wound up about it but it does wind me up thinking about it. I think it's just the hypocrisy that annoys me. That's really interesting. That is it. That's about the insults, the hypocrisy. Actually, the organisers have intervened because I said, look, you know, this is a bit ridiculous.
    73:09
    Anyway, the good news is that, I mean, what I basically get is, you know, you have to be, you know, when you put the evidence together, Scott, But, you know, and you get the history of the individual, I actually feel pity.
    73:34
    Oh, yeah. I tell you what, we shouldn't even talk about that part because there's so much ammunition there that you could just be seen as slanderous. But to me, it's like you realise that that individual is unhinged and that that individual has problems. But it's not necessary, as I say, to vent out your frustrations and your issues on someone else because people don't like them. But here's the second point of this, Scott, right? The people who are his friend, they should be calling that behavior out to help him. Absolutely. You know what I mean? I'm not encouraging it. I'm not showing a blind eye to it. You've pinged me on Facebook or on Messenger or WhatsApp and said, fucking hell, Neil, man, you're being a dick, right? And that's what buddies do, right? Right. You know, and, you know, you got each other's backs. But yeah, and the other thing is, is it's kind of this like this kind of pinged into Swayze where everyone's having to go at me for trying to run something. I can see their attitude towards it. Right. And this is just, again, me talking to you and everyone can see this from transparency wise. They see it as you taking over someone else's cherished kind of event. Right. And for whatever reason, even though you had good intentions, they see it as you taking control of something away that was someone else's dream, someone else's idea. And I think it all boils down to communication. That's all that is. Do you know what I mean? I think maybe, and I'm not saying you did or you didn't, but I'm just saying if you'd have gone to that individual and asked for permission, then they said, yes, it's fine. I did. That's the thing. I did. But they act like you didn't. That's the part. This is the problem. I was guilty, judged and executed without anyone actually hearing a second word of what I said, right? I spoke to Mark. It's kind of funny. I spoke to him at the last event and said, mate, well, some of us want to keep running this on. Are you all right with that? And he said to me, you know, that's cool, but I just don't want to be involved. And, you know, that's the hilarious part of that. I mean, it's a shame because the pub's gone bankrupt. Yeah, it goes back to what we said before, right? I mean, the government's doing its damnedest to kill the hospitality sector, without a doubt. But I think there is definitely bias in this community, and that's just what it boils down to. And I don't think we're ever going to change that. I think the part of me that just goes, do you know what? I just can't be bothered with it anymore, which is part of the reason why, I'll be honest with you, why we took a break from the podcast, because I was just like, I don't need it in my life anymore. I've stopped going on the forum, I've stopped caring, because if you're not willing to listen to someone when they say, well, I take offence to that, and they just go, well, it's just a joke, I'm just like, well, then you shouldn't have done what you did to Cole. And it's as simple as that. Yeah, I mean, it has to be consistent. Yeah, it can't be, I mean it's not, God this sounds really political now but honestly it's like two tier, it's two tier like moderation. Two tier Kier. Actually I was watching actually last night, I just came up on my Facebook feed, it was a Harry Enfield pitch about Question Time and it was just hilarious. Harry Enfield saw the future. The guy's a comic genius and he goes, Ed Sillyman and he's then doing an impression of Ed Millie, but it's fucking hilarious. And just seeing that bit of comedy around the kind of mad politics and crazy world that we live in right now. Didn't like they do a new spitting image and they got in trouble for like doing a spitting image of Pannington Bear or something like that. I heard about that. Oh, OK. No, I didn't. There was something like where they did I don watch a ton of TV No I don anymore But it just I do find it a bit like you know if something is done as a parody or something as you say is done in jest of a political figure because they done something stupid or because there some scandal going on you shouldn be silenced on it based on some serious copyright
    77:49
    I do have to give a shout out. Golden Gun. Check that out. This is a new Bond. Oh, is that the game that got released? I didn't realise it came with all this shit, but it's the new James Bond first light game. It is epic. I heard about this. Do you know what? I was surprised. Isn't there an Amazon studio that did it and everyone was worried it was going to be rubbish? But it actually turns out it's really good. No, so it's by the same guys that did Hitman.
    78:19
    Ah, okay, yeah. So they were acquired by Square Enix and then they basically bought themselves out of it because Square Enix kind of derailed itself or something. And they basically bet the farm on this game. 2020, I heard about it in 2021.
    78:36
    I actually expect, so the last Good Bond game before this is Goldeneye. And there's been some real shitters over the last 20 years since Goldeneye came out on Nintendo 64, right? So I'm a huge Bond fan, as many of you know.
    78:55
    So this game came out, I bought the limited edition because you got it a day earlier, that's how stupid I am.
    79:02
    But literally it came out and downloaded on my laptop whilst I was in... Does it run alright on your ROG Alley? It runs... So I've upgraded my ROG Alley. I'm now running a One X Player Apex, which is the most amazing device that I've ever had in my life. It is outstanding. It has an AMD Strict Halo. Okay. It's an 8.5 inch, but the same size as the Xbox Rog or the same size as the Steam Deck. Steam Deck, yeah. But about the same size as the... Has the price on that gone up? Yeah, they've all gone nuts, man. I got very lucky because I got in on this in the IG, did a Indiegogo. So I got in right early and they honoured the price, which I was surprised at actually. I was going to say, given the price of memory and flash, it's a... This laptop is... Sorry, it's a handheld. It's not a laptop. It's a handheld.
    80:42
    It is the... I mean, it pisses on a lot of high-end stuff. And it comes with this thing, which is kind of nuts, actually. I don't know.
    80:57
    Let me do a little bit. It comes with, ah, it's here. This will shock you, mate. It comes with this thing called a Frost Bay.
    81:12
    It comes in this box, right? Right. And it comes with a cable that comes out of the back of it that you can plug it in. You don't have to use this, but if you plug it in and it's water-cooled.
    81:25
    They liquid-cooled it? Okay. Hold on a minute, so has it got radiators on the back then to exhaust it? No, you plug the cable in and there's this little docking bay that's got all the water and radiator in it, right? It's cool as fuck. And I tell you what, right, when you plug the frostb in and you turn it up to max TDP, holy moly, man, this thing blows the doors off everything. I mean, I have owned practically every handheld there is. Has it got like SteamOS on it or has it still got Windows? You can run SteamOS on it if you want to. I don't, I run Windows, it runs Windows in tablet mode, it's a touchscreen, works great, it's got fingerprint, login. That's what I like about my wife's Steam Deck, because I was going to get one and then the price is like trebled or whatever and I was just like I can't be bothered. I just like, you know. If you want a Steam Deck, I've got one that you can, I'll do a good deal on it, because I've bought one, I've never used it. Have you got an OLED or an LCD version? I've got an LCD version. Okay, yeah, well we can talk about this. I've got the top end LCD one, and I've used it like five times.
    82:39
    Well yeah, you wouldn't need to with the other devices you've got. It's great for some things, but the kind of games I play, I kind of need a bit more power. We find it a godsend by the way with a little one because it's like you can't just sit down on a desk and play a game anymore. It's more like you're sat in bed and you're asleep. This is it. That's the way to go.
    83:01
    This was, I'll see if I've still got the photo. I'm liking Sofather by the way. It was slowly but surely getting him used to loud noises and stuff. So now he starts to see the games. And before he used to cry if he could hear the coils fart. He did not like that. It was too loud. Now he's got used to it and now he just looks at the lights and stuff and I'm like, yep, but surely he's indoctrinated into the world of pinball. I'll tell you, that was a quick one though. The reason why I got D&D, mainly because of the co-op and the ability of being able to play with my wife. Because she plays pinball, everyone always says it's a bit weird, right? Not weird, but uncommon I suppose. Because everyone I speak to that goes, oh, your wife plays pinball? I'm like, yeah, yeah, she does. I like it though, I genuinely do like it and that's why I wanted a game that we could just genuinely play together. There's a few games I think that have co-op but not many if I'm honest with you. I would like it to be a more common feature.
    83:59
    TMNT was one, hasn't it? TMNT's got it, most Dwight games have got it. Dwight is a great coder by the way.
    84:09
    I know you give the Ghostbusters crap and that with the whole thing. But honestly, I do like it. It's good apart from the layout. I mean, it's kind of unfortunate.
    84:21
    Yeah, I think maybe I've got less problems with it because I've got the Pro. Because I've noticed with the Premium, you've obviously got the Ghost Slings, which I've seen them. They're like demons. Like you could be playing, suddenly it just grabs the ball and throws it. Yeah, no, the issue is basically the ball coming out of the pops. You could never save it. That's true. Yeah, it's hard. So this is me. I don't know if this will translate, but this is me. Oh yeah, I see it. I've got those glasses that are like a screen.
    84:58
    Oh, right. So you don't have to use them, but in the Sunshine they work amazingly well. Beasts, they're called the Beasts, they're freaking amazing. That must give you quite a large viewing screen because it's ironic. It's a bit like a VR headset, right? Yeah, it's like watching a 200-metre screen. It's massive. And you can move it back and make it bigger.
    85:25
    So this is the great thing about it. I can be sitting like this, right, just looking. I can have my head any way I want and the screen just follows where my head is. If you're on a lounger or you're in a reclining chair or you're just like on the train and the screen level, it kind of just follows you. It's stunning. And the bits here, they've got tiny little speakers in it and they just play the audio. I had noticed that with the, because I was speaking to Cole about that, with the Ray-Ban Metas. Yeah, they're more kind of VR than XR. Yeah. This is like a screen. It's just incredible to see the fact that across the stem of the... Oh, absolutely. You can go that haptic control. It's just nuts that you can fit that all in there. Yeah, it's absolutely one of the... And in my car, I had particles by, and I've got a Starlink Mini.
    86:23
    So I was able to play Fortnite online because I basically gave... I saw that video, that picture, yeah. I put Wi-Fi across the beach, and I'm playing Fortnite. I've got other people go to the beach to relax. What do you do? Play games. I've got to the beach to relax. I mean, I'll be honest with you, I hate the beach because I hate it for two reasons. I fucking hate sand. You sound like Anakin Skywalker. Yeah, I absolutely hate suntan lotion because I'm like the whitest of whites. I am the gamut. It could be worse. You could be like me. We're putting suntan lotion on a hairy arm like that. It's like literally like trying to laver a gorilla. I can't eat this stuff. I can't avoid the beach.
    87:08
    I'll tell you what, on a quick note on that though, Martin's has got like an amazing house next to the beach in Bournemouth. I was so jealous. That vista view he had today, it was breathtaking. Like honestly, he's hit the like gold mine there. I was so envious, honestly. I was kind of going because I wanted to take my little one to the beach because we were going to go, make a day of it sort of thing. I'd pick the pinball machine up in the afternoon, go to the beach in the morning. And then we got the weather reports. You know what it's like in England. One minute it's blazing hot, the next minute it's bloody freezing and raining constantly. So ironically, the weather was all right when I got there, but you just don't know how quickly that was going to last. I mean, the weather's been awful this week here, but the, what was I going to say? Rock Alloy, Beach. Yeah, so actually, one other thing I want to mention is, so we're doing UK Open and the European Pinball Championships here in London, new venue near Wimbledon. I'm going to release a bunch of info tomorrow on the UK Open website. Well, tomorrow, Saturday, I'll probably be... Is the plan still to do that post-Pinfest, I imagine?
    88:27
    Sorry? When do you plan to do the date for that event? It's September. It's the last week of September. So it's always the UK Open. Tickets will go on sale 1st of July.
    88:41
    I think we'll have about 350 players, hopefully. To be honest, yeah, if we get 300, I'm happy. 300 is kind of the bottom end of the limit. We've got some big sponsors sponsoring us. There's one manufacturer working on helping us with a few things. And I think we've got a beer sponsor, not fully pinned down yet. The big issue I'm having is I can't get anyone to do me any special race on hotels, unfortunately.
    89:18
    London in September, you know, forget it. So that's going to be a challenge. Hindsight, I think if I was asked to do it again, I might not do it in London. I might, you know, go. But the problem is, is getting the games there. And actually, a shout out for help. If anyone knows of a logistics company with lorries that can help us move the games from the club to the venue, we'll pay for it, of course.
    89:48
    But if anyone knows anybody that might be interested in that, please get in touch. Email me, neil.domino.org. That is actually one of our biggest challenges. The other challenge we've got is if anyone is in the kind of electricity space, they've got one of these big kind of huge plugs. What's the company we use for new inboxes that we use for H, I forget what they're called. Hadfields, yeah. Hadfields, you tried Hadfields? No, they're not. They're in the wrong place for it. They're in Manchester. I need someone kind of London-ish or Surrey area. They're just far away.
    90:28
    But look, definitely, you know, we want, we've got, so at the club we've got a docking bay, so, you know, with the right, if it's got a loader, we just got to roll the games on from the club, that would be the easy part, the hard part would be at the venue. Also, if you want to volunteer to help, we're going to need some volunteers, we get access to the place on the Tuesday, or is it the Monday, I think the Monday, Monday or Tuesday, I can't remember, and we've got to get it up and running. You know, by Thursday and then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, we do all the work and then Monday we also need help to take all the games back because what usually happens is everyone's like, Neil, brilliant gig, Sunday night and then everyone disappears and there's like four of us to move 100 games.
    91:15
    That can't happen. If that happens, if we end up in that scenario, I probably won't run another event because it's just, it's asking the same bunch of people just too much. So hopefully we're going to see a lot of Brits come out to help us because we want to do a great job for the EPC. UK Open will be amazing.
    91:43
    Did you ask Gary Sten to do any involvement with UK Open as he was visiting? Yep, so Stern are involved, it's a Stern Pro Circuit event, so they're going to lean in with some help.
    91:57
    And yeah, I mean Gary actually, it was great, Gary was talking at the club, we didn't spend a lot of time on that, but we walked around all the classic Sterns, he was amazed by the collection that we have there. Yeah, it's a big collection now. And of the classic terms and the modern ones, when he saw Star Wars, it was a bit of a moment. He was like, how the hell did you get that? And I was like, Gary, you don't want to know.
    92:27
    That's quite funny, actually. I didn't think about that. Yeah, it was very funny. So actually, I'm just watching on the big screen, Keech Elwin's playing. And Keith Elwin and Escher and a couple of other players are about to play the Star Wars Fall of the Empire, which I actually think is a great game.
    92:52
    Anyway, so Luke, and also we've got a critical hit tournament in the club, middle of June. Critical Hit is we use these cards as part of the tournament and the cards do make people do dumb things. So this one says if someone plays a spell on you, you can use this to block it. So someone might play a spell that says swap the scores from player one to player two. You can stop. It's a bit of D&D mixed in with pinball. Great. If you've never been in a tournament before, this is when it comes. It's a lot of fun. And then Matt's running a tournament beginning in July in the club.
    93:34
    Then in August, we've got warm-up for the EPC. Obviously, we've got Pinfest at the end of August. Looking forward to that.
    93:42
    But yeah, a lot going on and looking forward to that. So, Scott, we're at an hour and a half. I think people will be sticking. I haven't had none of our voices for long enough. They've had enough of it by now.
    93:58
    I think it's been great to catch up, mate. I'm glad to hear that the little one and the family are all doing well.
    94:07
    My life is just getting crazier and crazier with working and other stuff, which is good. I've actually kind of taken a bit of a break from Pimball over the last month.
    94:22
    And partly because I was on the holiday and partly there's a lot going on at work. But, you know, I'm getting excited about the EPC. There's so many cool things we're going to do. It's going to be a blast. So on that note, I think all that remains to do is to thank the maker And wish our four listeners, because that's all we've got apparently.
    94:57
    They made me chuckle. And a couple of big shout outs. First off, a shout out actually to Pimball Office, which is closing this weekend. Yeah, not good. Very sad. And I can understand why they are... I was honestly shocked when I read that because I hadn't been on the forum in ages. I was now recently just looking for games that I bothered to go back on it. And it's like, it was a bit like, oh, that's closing? I thought it was doing all right. It was like, bloody hell. So that's not good. Is it just gone, gone? Are they going to relocate? Yeah, no, they're gone. I think it's just got expensive to run. Power. Yeah. We have the same challenge in the club. Shout out to the Pimble Factory in Birmingham. They've got, they're open every weekend, but a good bunch, I think they've got about 30 games there now, Kirk and a good bunch of guys up there running it. Shout out to the Blackpool Pinball Club. You know, they're starting to get momentum looking the guys there. I think they've got about 25 games there. Obviously, we've got the special one lit down in Salisbury, Pete and the guys.
    96:13
    He's got about 30 games down there now. And obviously, Pimball Republic, we're up to 80 games at the moment. And actually, we've got great news. We've got the Fiberlink going in. So you're going to see us stream a lot more from Pimball Republic. Watch this space. We've got a couple of big kind of events. I was going to ask you that quickly, actually. There was a streaming rig for sale on the forum. What was your views on that? Is that a good deal?
    96:43
    Yeah, it was a very good deal. That's the rig that Carl and the Coder. I always try and do it on my phone, but it's just terrible.
    96:54
    I've got my rig. It's actually done because I brought it back from the club. But yeah, that is the rig that everybody uses. It's a decent deal on it because to employ it will cost you more.
    97:06
    But it's solid. I think the only thing I'd have to figure out is collecting it or shipping it. It's going to be a pain, but yeah.
    97:14
    Anyway, Scott, great to catch up. Oh, we should do a shout-out for Medway Pinball Club as well. Oh, sorry, Medway, of course, because they'll just complain at me. Tony and the gang.
    97:25
    They won't let it live if you don't mention it. I know, you're right. I had it on my list and then you distracted me with that.
    97:33
    Blame me, sure. Yeah, look, shout out to Medway. I think they got about 25 games down in Kent, Medway. Cool place and some cool people and Paul. So, yeah, I mean, lots of great clubs. And also there's a couple of commercial places, Retroids, shout out to them, they're good guys.
    97:59
    Funland Avenue as well in Brunswick. Funland, yeah, I think they've got rid of all the pinball though. Have they? Oh. Last I heard there was like two games there and it looked like they were heading towards Kitty Gambling Land.
    98:14
    But yeah, it's not, I think they might have, or they probably picked some... Picking Retention Systems also knows Kitty Gambling Land. Kitty Gambling, yeah.
    98:21
    Get them hooked early, mate. That's the... Yeah. Whereas a other bigger... There's a place in the north, but I forget what it's called.
    98:32
    And, oh, there's also the... There's a club near Bristol, Slapshot. I think it's Bristol or South Wales.
    98:45
    They've got a big... They've got a decent amount of games. They've also got, for some mad reason, Predator. Hey, look, I still think it's an okay game. From what everyone tells me, it's an okay game. It's not terrible. It's terrible, man. Absolutely terrible. It's two rungs of the ladder above Blues Brothers. Wow, okay, copy that pad. It made me laugh, a quick one on that. The one said to me, there is no such thing as a bad pinball machine. I'd be like Harry Potter without Harry Potter.
    99:22
    Yeah, I'll give you that. No, I'm sorry. Apparently they've got, oh, but have you heard what the Pimble Brothers have got? Oh, we didn't cover that. We didn't cover rumours. We'll spend five minutes discussing this only because my wife will be like, how the hell did you not bring this up? Fifth element is with Pimble Brothers. Her number one theme. She will literally buy it even if it's from that. I think it's upsetting. I pissed myself laughing because I thought, Cactus sold on that and it'll be funny. I'm so distraught. I'm hoping Kaneda is full of it and it's wrong because I was thinking about Holly. I didn't hear it from Kaneda, so I think this has got legs. Kaneda knows nothing. I remember when she asked David Van Ness on a live stream from Barrels of Fun and she asked about, you know, do you have Fifth Element? He goes, I can neither confirm nor deny, which led me to believe at least that he might have it. My worry is that it's like most licenses, like He-Man. Do you remember that transferred ownership so many damn times? I just wonder if they did have it and then it's transferred over to Pimple Brothers. No one ever had He-Man.
    100:36
    Oh, really? Yeah. For two reasons. One, it's a more expensive license than people realize. And two, the new movie was coming out.
    100:47
    And because they don't want anything fucking up that movie. Will it become available after? The movie will do that on its own. But this is the thing. So I was at an industry event this week, Ender's TMT event, where the CEOs of all the big studios were there. And this is how bad they've had. Like people think, oh, you know, blah, blah, blah. They are still not back at the revenue that they were making before COVID.
    101:21
    Sorry, who isn't? The movie companies. Oh, yeah, no. But that's because, let's face it, people have moved on. Like audiences don't really go out to watch movies anymore. They want to watch it on stream. But that's the fact that they put some stats up. People are now returning to the cinema. We'll see. And they've all pretty much announced that the cinema kind of exclusive is extending to 40 days. And the reason they're doing it, two reasons. One is people are starting to go back to cinemas, first of all, obviously. Two, the whole supply chain makes more money when there's a longer cinema run. Okay.
    102:08
    Well, we've dived on too long, but yeah, we'll see what happens. I think the number one movie to watch will be like... I would have seen Goku this weekend, so... Well, that's tanking already on projection. Yeah, I mean, I knew they'd suck it up, but anyway, I'm going to go see it. I was going to say, the only one I think will be a good telling whether audiences are going back will be the new Marvel Doom movie, right? Doctor Doom, where it is.
    102:32
    I don't know. I think Marvel might have overdone it, basically. But we'll see. I'm out of the cinema. And Scott, have a great one. We'll be back next month, I hope.
    102:46
    Yeah, close to Pinfest, right? We'll do like a pre-Pinfest podcast. We'll do a Who Can We Wind Up? A Head of Pinsvest special. Who else can we wind up?
    102:58
    Great. Yeah, look, use your venues. If you don't use them, they will disappear. Use them or lose them. They're doing amazing, but we will do it. On that bombshell, it's goodbye from me and... Goodbye from me. Goodbye.