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DPP #197 "A.I. gonna get cha!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·38m 27s·analyzed·Jun 27, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

AI art debate on Harry Potter, multiple Stern code drops, Predator gameplay reveal, Alice U.S. shipping.

Summary

Don discusses the AI art controversy on Jersey Jack Pinball's Harry Potter machine, analyzing both the technical implementation and community reception. He covers recent code updates from Stern (D&D, Evil Dead, John Wick, X-Men), provides gameplay impressions of Pinball Brothers' Predator, and reports on upcoming releases including Dutch Pinball's Alice in Wonderland. The episode balances criticism with appreciation for the games while advocating for manufacturer accountability.

Key Claims

  • AI tools were used in the creation of Harry Potter playfield art, confirmed by the artist

    high confidence · Don states this 'came to be revealed as factual now, according to the artist himself' regarding AI tooling in playfield art creation

  • The four-eyed dragon (Hungarian Horned Tail) has an eye positioned incorrectly on the side of its neck due to AI artifact duplication

    high confidence · Don provides detailed visual analysis: 'it looks like the AI tool probably just took that same eye image and put it over the ear. So it looks like the dude's got an eyeball on the side of his neck'

  • Hogwarts train on playfield has multiple visual errors including mismatched colors, wrong wheel types, and malformed rails

    high confidence · Don describes multiple issues: 'window is supposed to be square, not round', 'coal tender supposed to be red but it's tan', 'front wheels look like tires' rather than train wheels

  • Harry Potter playfield art passed through multiple JJP and Warner Bros approval committees before release

    high confidence · Don states: 'This cleared the approvals committee, the licensing committee, the folks that sit on sticks. the marketing committee, like everybody had to sign off on this'

  • Predator by Pinball Brothers will ship in August 2024 at approximately $13,000 USD after tariffs and fees

    medium confidence · Don reports: 'right now i'm hearing from my distributor jeff and my pinball if you want to get yourself one about 13 000 landed in the u.s after tax tariffs and fees' and 'Predators should be on the line here, I don't know, sometime this summer'

  • Predator costs under 10,000 euros in Europe, significantly cheaper than U.S. pricing due to avoidance of tariffs and shipping

    high confidence · Don: 'I still think this game's a huge win for Europe. It's under 10,000 euros in Europe landed to get that game. You don't have to pay the expensive shipping to the U.S. You don't have to pay the U.S. tariffs'

  • Predator gameplay video released was edited montage, not full gameplay documentation

    high confidence · Don: 'what we got was a sub-two-minute video on YouTube narrated by the Pinball Brother guy... it was here's some edited footage, and here's some narration over it'

Notable Quotes

  • “The AI issue here is real, and it is kind of a bummer, but it's not because it was used. It's because it was used poorly.”

    Don @ ~4:50 — Core thesis of the Harry Potter art controversy - positions the issue as execution/quality control rather than inherent AI opposition

  • “I would at least like to hear, hey, yes, we're aware of this. We apologize that this happened. This is never going to happen again. We're going to triple check things going forward.”

    Don @ ~14:20 — Outlines minimum expectation for JJP response to address community trust issues

  • “I don't want to buy a game and then, you know, kind of find out that there's art issues that are going to be controversial, right, or whatever. So that's not me being a J.J.P. hater because I'm totally a J.J.P. dude.”

    Don @ ~16:00 — Clarifies that criticism is rooted in high expectations of JJP quality, not general antipathy

  • “If you absolutely love Predator and if you're one of the eight people that really loved ABBA, I think you probably got this game ordered, and you're going to be happy with it”

    Don @ ~37:10 — Humorous take on Pinball Brothers' limited appeal/niche positioning; implies limited addressable market for Predator

  • “It sounded like, you know, Arnold in the Studio over footage shot of Arnold in the Jungle. It was just silly.”

    Don @ ~32:50 — Technical criticism of Predator's voice/sound syncing issues with on-screen footage

  • “George Gomez... he's kind of like the wolf from Pulp Fiction like he solves problems right. Deadpool is having problems he jumps in. James Bond having problems, he jumps in.”

    Don @ ~46:00 — Acknowledges George Gomez's role in Stern crisis management and multi-project oversight

  • “I want his voice in just about everything I'm doing. Maybe every now and then he spits a ball at me. Just to keep me on my toes or something.”

    Don @ ~59:00 — Fan suggestion for D&D dragon interactive mechanics; reflects desire for more central role of signature mech in code

Entities

Jersey Jack PinballcompanyHarry PottergameDonpersonJasperpersonPinball BrotherscompanyPredatorgameEuro Pinball CorpcompanyStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Lior (topper artist) sold portion of business to Dutch Pinball; indicates consolidation/partnership in aftermarket accessory market

    medium · Don: 'Lior sold part of his business to the Dutch pinball people? I don't know, man. It's all a little bit cray-cray in that way.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Stern Pinball releasing gameplay videos documenting code updates on day of release, demonstrating commitment to transparency and community communication

    high · Don: 'Kudos to Stern for putting out gameplay videos of the new code drops on the day that they dropped. That was awesome.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community concern about future JJP releases potentially containing undisclosed AI artifacts; desire for high-resolution playfield previews before purchase commitment to enable community vetting

    high · Don: 'I don't want to jump in until I know that it's not an AI mess. Are they going to have to release high resolution files of their play field ahead of the launch... so we can all look over it to make sure there's no shenanigans going on?'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Harry Potter playfield features multiple AI-generated art artifacts: four-eyed dragon with eye misplaced on neck, Hogwarts train with incorrect color scheme, malformed wheels, and distorted architecture

    high · Don provides detailed visual analysis of specific artifacts: 'the AI tool probably just took that same eye image and put it over the ear. So it looks like the dude's got an eyeball on the side of his neck' and descriptions of train rendering errors

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Predator's voice/audio design suffers from asynchronous ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) effects; Arnold voice-over recorded separately from on-screen footage creating disconnect

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.115

0:00
Has it been long enough? Should we record another show? Ah, heck it. Hit the music. That rumble will tell you we are back here for Don's Pinball Podcast. Hello everybody. So much to cover. Been seven days. Weekend's coming up. Friday's coming in. Tornadoes tearing through the Midwest. It's bedlam. We got a bevy of code raining down on us. Let's talk about all that and some AI. Let's go.
0:30
Oh, number 197. We're getting close to 200, man. I've got to line up some special guests or something. Or, heck, maybe I'll just kick back in my stretch pants and have Bug force-feed me margaritas and banana daiquiris as we talk about all this. how is your week going are you using the new adaptive technological tools it seems the pinball industry did and boy does everybody have an opinion on it let's just start with that the lead story i don't know there's so many so many leads to talk about so many things are going on right now but i want to mull this over here with y'all right now artificial intelligence is involved in the art on harry potter's playfield at least we know that we got jasper jasper the uh the artist responsible for the play field and the cabinet art on at least the arcade and the wizard. The play field on all three versions. Collector's Edition has the MinaLima, Bad Class, and cabinet. But anyway, play field stuff. You've seen it. You've been over to the Tilt Forums. You've been over to Pennside. You've been over to Grandma's house and probably heard about this. Some guy did a whole breakdown of the ten incurable ailments of this play field, chief of which is the four-eyed dragon in profile up there in the shooter lane, and also the Hogwarts train, which looks like a lowrider. It's got truck wheels on it. Are those even rails? What's going on? Topsy-turvy. Who knows? Okay, so this broke pretty early, and I heard some rumblings about it. Now, I happen to have my, what is it, Wizard Collector's Edition Harry Potter here. Fantastic game. Having a hell of a time with it. I'm absolutely the opposite of a hater, man. And I've made it known that I wanted to be a J.J.P. guy since Guns N' Roses. It's just it was a little bit too expensive and a little bit lacking of luster for Toy Story 4. Godfather left me wanting. And I'm like, man, my dreams of being a J.J.P. guy are dashed. And then they got me back. Elton John, I was like, they made me want an Elton John machine. I didn't get one, by the way. But I considered it. And I wouldn't have just knowing what the theme was. And then Avatar got me, man. And I love me some Avatar. I love that topper. I love the whole package. It's fun. Harry Potter, even better. So, like, I'm solidly in the JJP camp.

  • Stern released code updates for D&D, Evil Dead, John Wick, and Uncanny X-Men within a single week

    high confidence · Don: 'in the span of a week I got new code for D&D new code for Evil Dead new code for John Wick and new code for Uncanny X-Men'

  • Dutch Pinball's Alice in Wonderland first 20 units are shipping to U.S. market

    medium confidence · Don: 'Speaking of Dutch pinball, sounds like the first 20 or so Alice in Wonderland are shipping to the U.S. Haven't seen any yet, so maybe they're on a slow boat'

  • Euro Pinball Corp (Milan, Italy) is manufacturing Predator and recently completed white-label games for an Italian band

    high confidence · Don: 'It'll be made by Euro Pinball Corp. They're in Milan, Italy... They did a white label for Queen recently. I think there's an Italian band that I have not heard of yet... they've been showing clips on Facebook... of about eight to ten machines'

  • “It's like you take a picture and you put that in the mural on the wall of your olive garden. That's what you got. That's northern Italy.”

    Don @ ~40:00 — Tangential but vivid description of Euro Pinball Corp's location (Milan); character-building aside

    • Uncanny X-Men
    game
    George Gomezperson
    Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant's Eyegame
    Evil Deadgame
    John Wickgame
    Dutch Pinballcompany
    Alice in Wonderlandgame
    Rob Burkeperson
    Pinball Expoevent
    Southern Fry Gaming Expoevent
    Liorperson
    Aliengame

    medium · Don: 'It sounded like, you know, Arnold in the Studio over footage shot of Arnold in the Jungle. It was just silly... It was AMR, I think is what the Red Letter Media guys call that, when you go and kind of record in sync later on and add it in.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo (41st annual) approaching; Stern conducting factory tours; industry gathering scheduled with expected Predator game availability

    high · Don: 'We're getting prepared for Pinball Expo. I think this is the 41st year or whatever... Rob Burke, National Treasure, thanks for doing this show. It's the hometown of pinball show in Chicago.'

  • $

    market_signal: Predator pricing reflects tariff and currency disparities; $13,000 USD vs. under €10,000 in Europe; European markets receiving price advantage over North American collectors

    high · Don: 'I still think this game's a huge win for Europe. It's under 10,000 euros in Europe landed... You don't have to pay the U.S. tariffs, which spin the wheel of what they're going to be at the time your game ships.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: George Gomez serving as crisis management/problem-solving lead across multiple Stern projects (X-Men code overhaul, Deadpool maintenance, James Bond fixes)

    high · Don: 'George Gomez... he's part of the team here too... Deadpool is having problems he jumps in. James Bond having problems, he jumps in. Man, if there's something to be solved, boom, guy's there working his magic.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Dutch Pinball Alice in Wonderland first batch (20 units) shipping to U.S. with slow transit timeline; indicates production phase transitioning to distribution

    medium · Don: 'sounds like the first 20 or so Alice in Wonderland are shipping to the U.S. Haven't seen any yet, so maybe they're on a slow boat. We'll see.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern implementing rapid code update cycle across portfolio (D&D, Evil Dead, John Wick, X-Men within one week) to address gameplay clarity and feature gaps

    high · Don: 'in the span of a week I got new code for D&D new code for Evil Dead new code for John Wick and new code for Uncanny X-Men thank god there's two new coding teams there at Stern'

  • ?

    product_concern: Quality control failure at Jersey Jack Pinball; AI art artifacts passed through internal approvals, licensing committee, marketing committee, and Warner Bros review before release

    high · Don: 'This cleared the approvals committee, the licensing committee, the folks that sit on sticks. the marketing committee, like everybody had to sign off on this. But it seemed like it was missed somewhere.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Debate within pinball community regarding appropriate use of AI tools in art creation; tension between anti-AI purists and pragmatists who view AI as legitimate design tool when properly implemented

    high · Don outlines two positions: 'People just hate the idea of any AI in pinball' vs. 'AI's here whether you want it or not. You need to embrace it.' He positions the issue as implementation quality rather than AI prohibition.

    • 2:58
    However, we're going to talk about this AI art. All right, so I didn't notice this at first, okay? And I'm not the most subtle guy when it comes to picking up on little details and hints. Ask my wife. She'll start talking about what she wants for her birthday six months in advance, and I get there, and it's like, I didn't see any clues or anything. I'm dense is what I'm saying. So I didn't notice the art right away. It's not quite magnifying glass, but they're there. What we're talking about and what came to be revealed as factual now, according to the artist himself, that there's some AI tooling that was used in the creation of all the art on the play field, at least.
    3:37
    But then that's kind of where the explanation stopped. So a lot of different views of this. People just hate the idea of any AI in pinball. The counter straw man argument for that is like, AI's here whether you want it or not. You need to embrace it. Quit being a little weirdo. Quit being a hater. And here's where I'm at on it, okay?
    3:55
    The AI issue here is real, and it is kind of a bummer, but it's not because it was used. It's because it was used poorly. What looks like had happened is through the course of generating this art, and again, not an artist, but going off of the long diatribe that the artist posted, It seems like along the way, you know, there's these, you know, AI-powered tools that you use with your graphic design or whatever. Maybe you hit something and it smooths out some lines for you, and then you can kind of go back over it, like lays down a template. I don't know how it's all used. I liken this akin to a spell check on my word processor back before I would turn turnpapers in. You know, I would hit the spell check, you know, and that is a form of artificial intelligence that's going through a spell checking. So I look at this kind of like through that lens. Artists correct me if I'm wrong. But, you know, if your lines are, you know, maybe you have 10,000 layers that you're working with for this digital image, and, you know, you hit some line sharpeners, you hit some faders, you kind of hit some blenders or something, and then it kind of does 90% of the work for you. It takes away the tedium so you can get in there and do your little artistic finishes. What this looks like to me as a non-industry professional, non-artist, is that Homeboy went through and used these things, and then just kind of like it was late, and he's going to miss his bus, and so he just had to hit print and turn it in without getting a final spell check. And maybe there was 35 of these egregious artifacts on the play field, and maybe he fixed all but these 10, right? But these 10 are the egregious things. So the biggest thing, there's the dragon that's in profile but halfway up the play field, whether that's the Hungarian horned tail or the Taiwanese fireball, whatever, he's seen in profile. And I saw the reference image posted too of this, like where it came from the Harry Potter lore that there's a side profile view of a dragon. And he's got his eye in his normal dragon spot. And then he has like this ear ridge, you know, kind of halfway back or something. Because he doesn't have a full like, you know, giant floppy ear or anything. But he's got a ridge there like a lizard would. And it looks like the AI tool probably just took that same eye image and put it over the ear. So it looks like the dude's got an eyeball on the side of his neck, like he just got out of prison or something. He got tattooed by his celly, right? And so I look at that, and I'm like, that, that, somebody should have caught that. I've seen the blown-up images of the Hogwarts train. Visual eye, I don't really pick up on a lot of this stuff, but it's things like, you know, this window is supposed to be square, not round or whatever. This box car or this coal tender is supposed to be red to match the rest of the train, but it's like this tan color. The front wheels don't look flanged like a train wheel does. They look like tires, apparently. The rails look kind of funky as they're kind of going off like Soul Train out in the front. You know, whatever. Like that kind of stuff, it's hard for me to pick up just casually playing this thing at home. But, you know, scanning through, I am seeing that dragon, and it is a bit of a bummer. How did this happen? How did this happen with such a high-profile theme such as this, with so many eyes that were on this? Because this cleared, you know, committee at JGP at the factory. This cleared the approvals committee, the licensing committee, the folks that sit on sticks. the marketing committee, like everybody had to sign off on this. But it seemed like it was missed somewhere. And I kind of think, again, not being an artist that works for a company, but like wouldn't this be the kind of thing that you'd say like, hey, this is just about final. Can you take a look at this and just circle anything you think is odd and we'll talk about it in a couple of days. Just kick this around for a little bit and maybe give that to five people in the office. And then just to make sure because these are kind of things like if I had a critical eye, I would pick up on. You know, as a bit of a creative, you know, I make 3D mods and crap. You know, whenever there's a little flaw, it's glaringly obvious to me as the creator of it. But like to, you know, my wife or anybody else, they're like, if you didn't tell me or point that out, I probably wouldn't have noticed. I probably would have noticed some of these things after a bit. But to be honest, a lot of them I'm not seeing. Hermione's hair being curled the wrong way. Her starched collar looking a little weird. I don't, even now, knowing what to look for, I don't even see that. so what I'm saying is this is not a game killer game is awesome I'm loving it great game Southern Fry Gaming Expo it was game of the year already they count show to show so July to June I guess I think Evil Dead should have some contention but hell of a game and I'm digging it I'm not sad with my purchase or anything but it's still a bummer I'm still bummed about that because of the idea of JJP be in this kind of high-profile company, high trim, fit and finish, like hand-drawn art, like the best you can get. And then this is kind of what we got, and it kind of – it sucks. It sucks. What can they do? All right, what can they do about this? Do they stop production, fix these glaring problems, get it out to Warner Brothers to get approval, put the play fields into immediate production, get them clear-coated, and then set them in a box for three months to off-gas before they can then get production going again? I don't think that's going to happen. Do they say, hey, this is just like that chipping issue from Guns N' Roses early play fields. Anybody that complains enough, we're going to just send you a play field of the new art that's been redone. I think that is more doable. Now, would anybody take that play field, rip their play field out that's populated, break everything down, put everything back on, and put it in their game? Absolutely not. But it would be kind of nice to know, like, hey, I know there was some art issues that escaped the QC process. I do have if I ever sell this game I can always tell the new owner here a completed perfect play field that you can have if you ever want to swap it out And I think that would be kind of cool It cost them a play field around or something Or, you know, what do you do? Like the early adopters, you say like, hey, here's a credit towards a future purchase of a couple hundred bucks. Here's a T-shirt. Or do you just kind of release this press release from the artist? Everybody else don't say nothing. And let's just put our heads down and make 5,000 more of these, and people will just kind of like learn to live with it. Now, that's probably the most appropriate or the most likely thing that's going to happen. I would love it if they'd said, hey, Don, we fixed the art. We've got a populated play field for you. We're going to ship it to you. You throw it in. Give us yours back, and we apologize for the inconvenience. That would be ideal, man, $15,000 machine to a collector's home, top-end edition, want everything perfect, whatever. But I don't see a realm where that happens because it's just going to kill. It's going to be very expensive to do is what it's going to be. So I would at least like to hear, hey, yes, we're aware of this. We apologize that this happened. This is never going to happen again. We're going to triple check things going forward. We apologize. Everybody, you know, when you come to Expo, we're going to invite you to a cocktail hour and we'll give everybody a leather jacket or something. I don't know, something like that, you know. So I feel like, all right, they've acknowledged. Because going forward, what I don't want to happen is for Matrix or Top Gun or a Kung Fu Panda to come out from JJP. and I'm sitting here with cash in hand like I want to be early on to get this game. I don't want to wait a year, but I don't want to jump in until I know that it's not an AI mess. Are they going to have to release high resolution files of their play field ahead of the launch or at the launch so we can all look over it to make sure there's no shenanigans going on? It passed the JJP quality control. It passed Warner Brothers, but did it pass Tilt Forums yet? You know, I don't want to have to do that. I don't want to have that sit in the back of my mind. Like, I don't want to buy a game and then, you know, kind of find out that there's art issues that are going to be controversial, right, or whatever. So that's not me being a J.J.P. hater because I'm totally a J.J.P. dude. I love these games. I love how they're built. I think they're overbuilt, and I love it. I like the shooter rod on this game. And, you know, the only thing was initially my reaction to some of the art, actually not A.I. related. and then the topper, I wish it was a little bit more up there. I do. But it's totally not a bummer for those reasons. But in the back of my head, I'm going to have a four-eyed dragon that I'm thinking about. That's kind of lame. Now, these also are not major motion pictures. These are not tentpole films of the summer that are going to make $1.2 billion globally over the next nine months. I mean, they're going to build 2,000 to 4,000 pinball machines, and that's it. So, like, I get that there's not always, you know, we didn't hire, like, the actual actor from the film to record dialogue for the game. You know, it's going to be voice recordings and things like that. It's going to be little nuances in the art. I get it. But I would at least like an acknowledgment that, yeah, this shouldn't have been this way. We regret it, and we're going to do better going forward. It would be nice to hear. So will we hear that? Probably not, to be honest. But that's kind of my take on it. Yes, AI is a tool. We saw the same thing in Walt Disney Feature animation in the 90s when they went to computer-generated graphics and tooling instead of strictly hand-drawn animation. And there was a bit of an uproar at the time, like, why are you giving up on hand-drawn animation? This is computers. This is cheating. But really, the animators came out and they said, listen, the computer now is a tool for us to still animate in the way that we did before. This is just a tool. It's about how we use it. And then no one's complaining that there's weird AI artifacts coming out with Disney films.
    13:25
    I'm not so upset that AI was used in the Photoshop or Canvas or whatever program he was using to sketch this up. I'm upset that it wasn't implemented appropriately. This would have been fine for even a close to final draft, but it should have been gone once over by somebody to pick these things up. That's all I'm saying. I want my ear ridge and not my eyeball on the side of the dragon's neck, I guess. Other than that, I'm having a great time with the game, guys. this game's fantastic. So it's not a total JJP fail. It's just a little bit of salt in their game. And it'd be nice if they would address it just a little bit more, at least. So we'll leave that there. We got some more information about a new game, hitherto unreleased, but now finally revealed play-wise on YouTube. I'm talking about Predator. Do I still have the sound effect? No, that's not it. Oh, there she is. I don't want to get copyright strikes. So, Martin Lewis, God, what's the guy's name from Pinball Brothers? I forgot his name. So some gameplay showed up for Predator, as it should. This is a game launch. We want to see the game launch. We want to see the graphics. We want to see the sizzle reel. And then we want to see the gameplay. And so far, it's been a week or so that we haven't really seen much. We saw a lot of close-ups of Arnold that apparently we weren't supposed to see, and then they were taken away from us suddenly. Well, now we've got some gameplay, and I want to underline some, because what we got was a sub-two-minute video on YouTube narrated by the Pinball Brother guy. Apologies. I don't want to get his name right. I'll look it up.
    15:00
    But there was some edited gameplay video, so it wasn't just push start, I'm going to play three balls and try to explain things. It was here's some edited footage, and here's some narration over it. And so what we get from that isn't like a sense of how the game is flowing overall, but it's just a sense of what the shots look like in kinetic action and what are the sounds like, what are the call-outs like, and what are some of the video assets like. So what does it look like when you smash Predator? What's a light show look like? So that's kind of what we saw now. We need some more gameplay, brother. But for now, we got this. I will say this. Looking at the pictures, the layout of the game looks fine. It looks fine. It looks fun, even. Yeah, I'm looking forward to playing this game.
    15:41
    Watching it in action, pleasantly surprised, particularly about how the ball can kind of navigate that, what I thought was just a 180 ramp to that left wire form. It looks like most of the time you can shoot through it via the pop bumpers and come out the other side. Other times it will pop up somehow into that wire form. I'm not sure exactly how that's working, but I was intrigued by that. That left me with more of an impression on ball pass and things than I had just from the trailer.
    16:06
    You know, the modes look cool. I like the light show with the Predator. I think all that's fine. Predator kind of comes up when it's ready to attack, and he kind of goes down when he's being put away. It's fine. We did hear some call-outs. The music from Predator is in there That theme song is in there So that's a win That was kind of a must They had to have that Arnold is in here And Arnold is done by a voice actor There is some footage of Arnold on screen What they showed And this was interesting This was so funny to me This was the miss for me They would show Arnold falling down And then they would play a sound That obviously a voice actor recorded Or something silly like that And then he's getting shot And he jumps behind a bush and it's like, like another one of those growls. You can tell it was just, you know, like recorded like a voiceover that was done. I don't know who the Foley artist was on this, but it looked like it was just a little bit out of sync and like didn't sound like it was coming from Arnold in the Jungle. It sounded like, you know, Arnold in the Studio over footage shot of Arnold in the Jungle. It was just silly. It was AMR, I think is what the Red Letter Media guys call that, when you go and kind of record in sync later on and add it in. And that's what that sounded like. It was just, like, it didn't fit perfectly to me. So it was just a little bit goofy because of that. And so I got a giggle out of it.
    17:25
    I don't expect them to have Arnold. He's very expensive. If you just want to use the actual voice from the movie, even, it's, like, ridiculously expensive, let alone to actually hire the guy to record stuff for the game. Forget it. You ain't getting that. Dreyfus was a win. That's hard to get, man. When they did it for Jaws, it was a super win for Evil Dead where they got just, like, hundreds of lines of dialogue. from Bruce, but yeah, you ain't getting Arnold. You're going to be paying a lot more than $13,000 US for that game if you're going to get that. And they're going to have to sell like thousands of them. So that was goofy. The game looks fun to play, though. What we need is more gameplay. There's got to be somebody out there in Swedenland, Scandinavia, somebody that's like relatively decent at pinball, knowledgeable about the community, that wouldn't mind streaming for 30, 40 minutes of just play four or five games and kind of get us to a couple of modes and a couple of multiballs so we can get a sense of this.
    18:21
    Hasn't happened yet. Now, maybe they don't have final approvals to be able to do that. Maybe they had to only show the clips that they could, and they cut out the other ones that had close-ups of Arnold that need to be taken out or something. That could be where they're at. I know the struggle of having to release a game before you'd like to because timing dictates it, the marketing contract dictates it, money's getting dry and you've got to get this product out, Fisher cut bait, you know what I mean? So I get that. I'm just kind of here waiting. Now, I still think this game's a huge win for Europe. It's under 10,000 euros in Europe landed to get that game. You don't have to pay the expensive shipping to the U.S. You don't have to pay the U.S. tariffs, which spin the wheel of what they're going to be at the time your game ships. So I think it's good to give Europe a bone here. They're paying premium prices for Stern Pros over there just because of markups value tax and all that business So you know if they can get one up on us for once heck let them have it If you absolutely love Predator and if you're one of the eight people that really loved ABBA, I think you probably got this game ordered, and you're going to be happy with it, and you're going to get it, and you're going to put it next to your alien, and life is going to be great. Two double wides sitting right next to each other, like a pinball version of a trailer park, right? You go have yourself some fun, and I think that's great. I think that's great um for me personally i like this game about 8200 that's my level of excitement for it and so right now i'm hearing from my distributor jeff and my pinball if you want to get yourself one about 13 000 landed in the u.s after tax tariffs and fees and everything um if you get a quote like that lock it in with your distributor so if something changes taxes go up tariffs go up price goes up at least you're locked in at that price you know so so so get in on it uh when's game shipping? I don't know. They said something about August. I'm sure they'll make a big deal about when they're finally getting ready to put this thing out. It'll be made by Euro Pinball Corp. They're in Milan, Italy. It's in the northern area of Italy, just south of the Alps. I was out there two summers ago. Great town. Heck of a lot of lakes. A lot of mountains in the distance. I'll tell you, you know when you go to the Olive Garden and they have the big mural on the wall of the villa and the wineries, the vineyards, and those long Roman trees, those junipers or whatever? It looks like that, but like looking around in real life. It's like you take a picture and you put that in the mural on the wall of your olive garden. That's what you got. That's northern Italy. That's Tuscany for me.
    20:45
    It's a cool place. So they're churning out games. They did a white label for Queen recently. I think there's an Italian band that I have not heard of yet, but they've been showing clips on Facebook and such of about eight to ten machines that they did for this band. I kind of want to play one of those. Can I get one of those? Or were those specific just for an event? I've got to find a way to play one. Maybe that will get me back out to a European show to go do that. I cannot even remember the name of the band. It was something kind of very much not like street-level English for me. So it's like lost something, something, something. Don't know their music. Don't know them. The game looked kind of cool. I want to go play it. Maybe I'll discover they'll be my favorite band going forward. But that's the news out of there. So Euro Pinball Corp churning games out. I think they're still putting out some. They just showed that they were shipping a whole container full of fun houses still. I don't know who's buying those, but there they go. Predators should be on the line here, I don't know, sometime this summer, and then people will get it. Have fun with it. I want to play it at Expo. It'll probably be there. I will say this. This is probably a game for me that, oh, I said it before. You know, if I saw it at a show for a good price, I'd pick one up. So maybe in a couple years down the road there'll be one, and I'll have some space, and I'll want to get my Predator on. Maybe it'll be really fun, and I'll want to jump on it right away. Still haven't seen what this topper's gonna look like I don't even know Hang on, does anybody know Did they ever ship those Lior toppers for Alien? I remember seeing one at Expo I think it's the only time I ever saw it And then, yeah, I haven't seen it on anybody's games Maybe they did, and I'm just not Like, I don't have my finger on the pulse of Alien Pinball But let me know, Don's Pinball Podcast, gmail.com Did you get one of the Alien Queen toppers? Did they ever come out? Like, what's going on? Lior sold part of his business to the Dutch pinball people? I don't know, man. It's all a little bit cray-cray in that way. Speaking of Dutch pinball, sounds like the first 20 or so Alice in Wonderland are shipping to the U.S. Haven't seen any yet, so maybe they're on a slow boat. We'll see. I'll report when I find something out about that. Let's get to some other news besides just these new games that are disappointing us.
    22:55
    Code drops. Let's talk about old games that are disappointing us. this was crazy in the span of a week I got new code for D&D new code for Evil Dead new code for John Wick and new code for Uncanny X-Men thank god there's two new coding teams there at Stern the one headed up for X-Men is being headed up by George Gomez I like that he's part of the team here too he's kind of like the wolf from Pulp Fiction like he solves problems right Deadpool is having problems he jumps in James Bond having problems, he jumps in. Man, if there's something to be solved, boom, guy's there working his magic. And they got a huge code dump out. I couldn't even get through the whole list of all the features and things that are in there, but they're at least addressing the one drawback of the game was, like, there was really no point in being in the future. What am I supposed to do? There's no point to this. Can I just get back to the regular game? I want to get through all the modes. And then when you get through all the modes, there was nothing to do. There was no wizard mode, none of that business. Nimrod would show up, and I got excited until I found out that wasn't really much to do with that. So, thankfully, I mean, X-Men is gone, and X-Men's probably not coming back. And X-Men didn't have an unfun layout. It had some launch issues. My game seemed to do pretty well when I swapped the shooter rod out. But, you know, I kind of dug the theme. I really liked the build. I thought it was going to be a surefire hit, man. I thought we had another Foo Fighters on our hands. And then all of a sudden it was getting out of people's hands. Well, now the code is getting better. Thank the maker for that. Um, also John Wick got a huge code update and now like that game, like almost didn't have any code. Like what were we doing in the moats? I had no idea. I knew that sometimes they'd be purple. Sometimes they'd be yellow. Um, I would just hit ramps until I drained. I swear I took the glass off of my John Wick one day and I'm like, I got to figure out what we're doing here. I got into a mode. I think it was purple and I kept throwing balls up the ramp with the lights on it and I counted. And after about 30 shots, the scoop started flashing. I was able to put the ball in there, and then the mode ended. And so I'm like, is that what I have to do every time, just shoot 30 balls? I don't know. Maybe I was supposed to be escorting a VIP or something. It just wasn't communicated to me. And that game very much had a cool aesthetic. It was fun to shoot. I wish it had more to do complexity-wise in it. I mean, it came out when Texas Chainsaw Massacre did, which has ball paths all over the place and flow for days. and then it seems like if you took TCM and took half the things out of it, then you'd have something kind of approaching WIC. Maybe you take 60% out of it, you know, something, and then don't put any code in it. All right, it's nothing like that game at all. But, you know, simple games can be fun too. TNA is a hell of a lot of fun in the, you know, right company. You know, so I won't hold that necessarily against it, but I just wish it was implemented in a way that was much more fun and engaging to me. So I felt like I was doing something. Anyway, John, we just got the huge new code update. Another one, again, I couldn't read through all the paragraphs. They're all in App Arcade. If you want to check them out, they're all over Facebook. Kudos to Stern for putting out gameplay videos of the new code drops on the day that they dropped. That was awesome. D&D's got some new code fixes in it. I dig it. The Dragon's easier to get again now. Thank God, because I totally miss... I've been playing D&D for weeks now, and the Dragon has not been saying anything, because it was so hard to get to the multiball again. I would like to see that code get to a place Where the dragon is interactive with most of the game And not just for that dragon multi-ball It's the biggest mech in the game Let's make it the focal point And have him be like Almost like the dungeon master I want his voice in just about everything I'm doing Maybe every now and then he spits a ball at me Just to keep me on my toes or something What if when you got a ball drain And there was a ball save flashing All of a sudden instead of just launching Another one from the trough They just shot one from the dragon. And so you drain and then, boom, your ball's right back quicker. That'd be fun, right? Hey, I'm not even a coder or nothing. And I came up with that. Let me know what you think. This is fun. We're getting ready for Pinball Expo. I think this is the 41st year or whatever. It's been going on forever. Rob Burke, National Treasure, thanks for doing this show. It's the hometown of pinball show in Chicago. It goes for like, it's probably up to four or five days by now. You get to go do factory tours. Stern, of course, is doing their tour again. Sign up for that. It's free, but it does sell out due to capacity reasons.
    27:21
    But, yeah, for sure go to that. A couple expos ago, and homebrew has been, like, surging since I've been in the hobby here for the last couple of years. Well, there was one year where they were doing a homebrew topper contest, right? It was an addition. Instead of just bringing a machine, how about somebody that just made a homebrew topper? It was a cool concept. and, you know, it's a humble brag or anything, but my gargoyle Elvira topper that I made because I could not get the stern one because they were out of production. I ended up getting one later when they re-ran them. But in lieu of that, I went ahead and put this gargoyle up there. I took the gargoyle sculpt from the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland and, you know, in the stretch room you have those gargoyles holding the candles. That's what I made two of them for on top of Elvira. fit the theme. I put UV LEDs and glow-in-the-dark candlesticks. It was great, man. I loved it. And so it just so happened to coincide with the kickoff of this topper competition at Expo. So little old me, I brought my topper there, and wouldn't you know it, I won the damn Twippy Award or Flippy Award for toppers that year. I was also the only entrant, but that notwithstanding, it was fun. It was essentially just my topper on a folding table near the bathrooms in the homebrew area. This year, we're going to turn this on its head and make it an actual event. I got word today from Tanner, the pinball scientist. You know this guy. He got that plexiglass cabinet I don know if it 8 deluxe or whatever He uses it to teach his students He a book writer He had a children book that came out last year He approached me with this idea. He's been talking to Rob Burke about getting a real homebrew topper competition going at Expo 2025. I said immediately, yes. Yes, let's do it. I want to get the word out early. You mod makers, you creatives, you people that just take stuffed animals and throw them up on top of your machine, whatever it is, if you can find a way to sneak drag ship or uh i don't know magically teleport your topper to this show we could enter it into a contest where we can have everybody's toppers on display near the homebrew area and then it's still very preliminary i mean this just happened today but in my mind i'm thinking what if we do a vote for a people's choice where everybody at the show can vote for their favorites and then we can do one of industry's choice where we can give like special raffle tickets over to industry people and have them vote for their favorite homebrew topper and then the winner of each one gets a prize and i don't know what the prizes will be but uh i've got some connections with the indian the industry and i know people that are sitting on you know maybe play fields they can't use for games wouldn't that be cool to give somebody one of them uh maybe we could twist somebody's arm to like you know get a stern topper donator or something haven't talked to him yet don't spoil it but i'll try to reach out in all my channels that i have and I'll see what kind of things we can get and make this really cool. How fun would that be for people to bring in their creative little dioramas that they make to put on top of their machines and they look at it and they love it so much and they could bring it into the show and just share it with everybody else. And heck, maybe even sell it there. I was thinking maybe we could do a silent auction or something. I've got to float all this by Rob and Tanner and see what they think. But I think this would be kind of cool. Now to date, I just had to count up. I've actually made seven different toppers for games for various reasons. Um, lately it's been because I get the game, I'm making it over anyway. I want to top her up there and, you know, Stern takes eight to nine months to bring out their official accessories. So three or four months in, I've got my own thing up there and they're getting better. They're getting better. I just added motion to my Star Wars topper. I think it's really cool. Uh, so I, I know I got people on a waiting list for a year long waiting for that thing. So I need to get caught up there. Um, but the two date I've made that Elvira topper. I made one for Jaws. I made the Metallica topper which was super awesome had like sound activated lights in there super cool currently working on one for D&D and Kong, Kong is hilarious man it's like a giant crate of bananas I'm doing this whole banana thing this is like the year of the banana for me I did a really cool one for X-Men, it was a giant sentinel head and his shoulders as if he's bursting up out of the machine that was super cool, and of course my Star Wars topper so all seven And my thoughts are, since we're kicking this thing off, what if between now and then I go ahead and make each one of the toppers that I've done, some of which I've only made one of, make another one and I could bring them all to Expo and, I don't know, auction them off or something. I thought that would be fun. And then, you know, maybe inspire some other people the way that I was inspired when I first got in the hobby. I think that's shaping up to be something that would be pretty cool in the world of pinball. What have I been doing? I've been playing a lot of Harry Potter I went and sent a coin door out to get powder coated so it'll be gold, so the whole thing will match I still think that's here's the reason they don't do this most of the time when you order these corn doors, they're standard basically between Stern, Spooky JJP, etc they already come from Japan in like giant containers they already have that black wrinkled powder coat on there, you can order than bare metal. Sometimes it's hard to get them in big quantities because these factories are used to just cranking these things out. And, you know, if you're a pinball factory and you know you're going to make thousands of games, maybe you go ahead and buy thousands of parts and then you already have them done, right? So to get a coin door powder coated, I've got to take it out of my powder coater. They have to take the thing apart because it's actually two different metals. There's like a steel for the actual door part. And then the frame is aluminum. So those bake at different temperatures. So you have to disassemble the entire thing into two pieces. It has to bake through the oven to heat up all that paint that's on there, or you have to soak it in some acid until it all comes off. Then you have to sandblast and clean it. Then you can actually put the electrostatic powder on and then bake it again, and again at two different temperatures for the aluminum and the steel, and then you've got to marry them back together, and sometimes the hinge is a little stiff because now it's got paint all in it. It's a big process to get done. My guys down the road that are pros at it by now They've done so many for me But that's the reason I think that they don't have that done So shout out to Spooky Pinball They have the same problem They get these coin doors in And then they take them over and get them stripped And chemical bleached And then powder coat and sprayed So when you get the thing It's already fully dressed I think Barrels of Fun may be doing this too My memory, she's weak And Dune is so kind of muted with earth tones I don't remember it jumping out. Not like Evil Dead's Purple Sparkle or like Looney Tunes' Fire Engine Yellow, man, or Orange. So that's going on. I'm having fun with Harry Potter. I've played the normal mode mainly, and then I did play easy a few times, you know, just because you have to check it out. And so the way the easy thing is adjusting, it's kind of already awarding you, like, not some locks, but it's making the locks ready. or it will, in the case of the Explore Hogwarts multi-ball, it will award you all the locks, so all you have to do is shoot the staircase. So it does make modes easier to get through. Fighting the Death Eaters seems to be, Death Eaters and Quidditch are like right now the two things that are holding me up to getting to wizard modes every time I play.
    34:39
    The Death Eater, you know, essentially I have to drop the drop target and then shoot the ball in there in order to start the mode. Then the ball is going to fire out at you at Mach 11, and then you have to drop the drop target again, and then the first round, you just have to put the ball back in there. It's not an easy shot, but that's about four shots you have to make just to complete the first mode. Then you have to go back to the Death Eater again. This time, when you drop the drop target, it's a hurry up to get in there, or it'll come back and reset, and you have to drop it again just to trigger it. The second battle, you have to put two balls up in there, and then it's active where if you go again, you can then start the Death Eater multi-ball, which is kind of like the coolest part of the game. I get so excited, and I've done it so seldom that I haven't even looked up to see if the dark mark projector is even going off yet. But I was watching Retro Ralph's little reel that he put up and he was showing it off. So I think that is true. I just have to get in there and do it again. Anyway, it's a lot easier to complete that mode in easy mode because you basically just have to, I think, just hit the drop target or just put the ball in there once. It's so much easier, so much easier. So when I played on easy, I finally got a billion-point game. I did the four main Hogwarts multiballs. It's Explore Hogwarts at the staircase, the Golden Trio, which is where you put the three balls up in the wands,
    35:55
    also the Death Eater multiball, and then the Quidditch. You have to play like three rounds of Quidditch normally and catch the snitch, which keeps going all over the damn play field. It is easier on easy. I did all four of those and then did the Battle of Hogwarts multiball, which was super fun. I guess this is from a later movie that I may have only watched part of once. I need to go watch that again. But by that point, doing all four of the multiballs as well as just qualifying modes and things as I'm going, I was at 400 million points, which was so far the highest I've ever gotten. At the end of the Battle of Hogwarts, I was up over 800. So there was a ton of points in that mode. I don't know if easy like awards you more points or just makes it easier to get more because, man, I was killing it. I think the longer ball save during multi balls is probably what put me over the top. And then I even got into like the owls, which is kind of like I don't like their board exams for witches and wizards or something. So I played through what is probably most of the multi balls and and many wizard modes, at least in the game. And I had a blasty blast, man. I got two extra balls. So I got 1.1 billion points, blew it up on easy. I've not been able to get to that mini wizard mode on normal yet, but I've been a shot or two away. Anyway, I'm having a lot of fun with Harry Potter. When I walk up there and play the game, the thought of the AI art is not detracting from my enjoyment of the game. But when I think about it, it's just a little bit of a bummer. And maybe they'll address it. We'll see what happens. You want to get yourself one, email jeff at madpimp.com. On the whole, Angelique Star crew over there is amazing in North Canton, Ohio. They will hook you up nationwide. Heck, they'll probably ship one to Timbuktu to Taiwan if you ask them and pay for air freight shipping. Jeffandmabpinball.com is how you get the hookup there. If you buy a game, use the code WAP. Get yourself a WAP t-shirt and a bunch of swag from me. I'll send it out to you, man. It's super fun. Other programming notes, I think that's it. More when I know about it. Email me at donspinballpodcasts at gmail.com. Let's hit that outro music.
    37:56
    shout out to electric electric eclectic gamers podcast join the patreon over there those guys are awesome i got a patreon too if you want to support here patreon.com back just on people podcast we'll get more information and fun stuff out there soon oh i gotta do a translate giveaway for this month so much going on in pinball you guys i'll talk to you later