DPP #90 "Good Times, Good People, Good Fun!"

Don's Pinball Podcast (regular feed)·podcast_episode·28m 24s·analyzed·Dec 25, 2023

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.039

TL;DR

Spooky hits 4-game production milestone; Stern pivots to 2024 roadmap; Pedretti partners with Planetary for remakes.

Summary

Don Garrison discusses Spooky Pinball's manufacturing milestone of running four games concurrently, Stern's factory hiatus and 2024 roadmap, Pedretti Gaming's partnership with Planetary Pinball for Bally/Williams remakes, and his own podcast expansion with tiered Patreon levels and Texas Pinball Festival booth plans. He shares observations on his new Stranger Things and Elvira games, speculates on Jaws reveal timing and features, and discusses upcoming Stern titles including potential Metallica with Spike 3 technology.

Key Claims

Spooky Pinball is currently running four games concurrently in production for the first time (TNA rerun finale, Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
high confidence · Don cites this as posted by Spooky and parroted on Naps Arcade, describes production station approach
Stern has completed Stranger Things Premium run and is in temporary factory mothballing/hiatus for inventory and retooling
high confidence · Don states Stern 'just finally completed' the run and is in 'hiatus' and 'temporary mothballing of the factory'
Pedretti Gaming has partnered with Planetary Pinball (Bally Williams license holder) to produce remakes, alongside CGC's continued arrangement
high confidence · Don confirms partnership, mentions Planetary Pinball owner Rick, discusses Euro Pinball Corp/Pinball Brothers involvement
Stranger Things and Venom Premium share approximately 50% of playfield layout, including identical sling geometry and outlane/inlane dividers
medium confidence · Don compares games side-by-side in same location, notes identical plastic shapes, mounting screws, and ball guide geometry
Venom Premium appears to have leftover Stranger Things-era mounting points for a spinner that was never programmed or installed
medium confidence · Don observes identical bolts and plastic geometry between games, speculates spinner was template carryover rather than engineered removal
Stern Limited Edition games are experiencing secondary market price collapse (Venom LE selling under $10,000 despite $12,999 MSRP)
high confidence · Don cites seeing Venom LE at $9,800 resale 'barely played,' contrasts with Elvira/Jaws both priced at $12,999
Metallica is likely next Stern game and may be first Spike 3 system implementation with LCD screen upgrade
medium confidence · Don cites rumor of Metallica 'seen in factory' discussing Jersey Jack's Guns N Roses LCD, speculates 50/50 on redo vs. ground-up build
Dungeons & Dragons and Pokemon are rumored upcoming Stern games planned for late 2024

Notable Quotes

“Spooky Luke and Bug and the whole team they are right now uh processing four different games on their line for the first time.”
Don Garrison @ ~2:00 — Confirms Spooky's manufacturing milestone and concurrent production capability
“They're not somebody that's got a, you know, one game per line and has to shut that line down to pivot to turn somewhere else. And, you know, they don't have the three-quarter-mile-long concurrent lines that Stern is currently cracking out.”
Don Garrison @ ~3:30 — Compares Spooky's flexible node-board approach to Stern's massive production scale
“So Stern Pinball has just finally completed the run of Stranger Things Premium that they were planning on doing, and now they are in a hiatus, a temporary mothballing of the factory, probably for inventory and such, and also to give everybody a break.”
Don Garrison @ ~4:45 — Confirms Stern factory shutdown and hints at 2024 preparation
“The whole bottom and the shape of the slings and the shape of the plastics and all of that is exactly the freaking same. This was copy. This was paste.”
Don Garrison @ ~27:00 — Describes evidence of Venom reusing Stranger Things playfield template
“I think Jaws is coming for sure, for sure. It's been confirmed from so many different sources. It's happening. When is it happening? I'm going to say it's going to happen the first week of January.”
Don Garrison @ ~42:00 — Speculates on Jaws reveal timing and reasons (holiday seasonality, factory reopening)
“That game all day, I've seen it under $10,000 on resale, barely played. I'm talking like 30 plays, 100 plays, limited edition, $12,999, marked down to $9,800 or something crazy like that.”
Don Garrison @ ~46:00 — Documents secondary market collapse of premium Stern LEs, raises pricing consistency questions
“I think the first Spike 3 system will be Metallica. It'll be a redo of some kind.”
Don Garrison @ ~51:00 — Speculates on next major Stern hardware platform debut

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanySpooky Lukeperson BugpersonStern PinballcompanyPedretti Gamingcompany Planetary Pinballcompany Don Garrisonperson

Signals

?
business_signal: Stern factory hiatus post-Stranger Things indicates preparation for major 2024 product refresh with Jaws, Metallica, and multiple new titles
high · Don confirms Stern 'just finally completed' Stranger Things and is in 'temporary mothballing' for 'retool, get ready for what's going to be an absolute banger year'
~
sentiment_shift: Don's podcast reaching inflection point with 90 episodes and growing Patreon support requesting higher tiers and production input; establishing industry presence at major events
high · Don describes 'feedback miraculous,' adding Prestige Partner ($10) and Producers Council ($20) tiers; plans Texas Pinball Festival booth and bi-monthly giveaways
?
event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival March 2025 attracting industry participation; Don establishing booth presence signals growing podcast influence and community engagement
high · Don confirms TPF in March, announces booth plan with Sterling, describes VIP wristband offerings to Producers Council tier members
?
licensing_signal: Pedretti Gaming partnership with Planetary Pinball accelerates Bally/Williams remake production pipeline; CGC arrangement remains intact but slow
high · Don describes Planetary's decision to partner with Pedretti to avoid indefinite delays from CGC; notes Pedretti producing Queen, Aliens with 'Euro Pinball Corp' umbrella
?
manufacturing_signal: Spooky Pinball achieving concurrent 4-game production represents significant manufacturing maturity and flexibility, enabling dynamic volume adjustment without line shutdown

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.085

0:00

and just like that don's pinball podcast is coming back at you for episode number 90 we're nonagenarian up in this business we've got some news to talk about a little bit of views and some fun developments that i'm very much looking forward to that are about to kick off in just the next few weeks let's get it Oh, give me one more of them drops. Thank you. Can you believe it? Here we are. I hope everybody's warm. at home with their fam and friends or even living up that love vita bachelor life loco uh we're don garrison's pinball podcast we started here almost a year ago and here we are 90 episodes later 90 steps down the cobble cobble stone path to freedom is where we're at um and we got some things i want to talk to and some real exciting developments too that i can't wait to share more broadly with everything those of you on the patreon you've already seen what's coming but i've got even things that you haven't seen yet because these developments have just started let's start our journey our time together our 30 minutes or less or it's free uh visit we down in benton wisconsin with those folks at spooky pinball and the milestone that they have been able to make uh per their post which was parroted on nap arcade as well these guys down there your friends and mine uh spooky luke and bug and the whole team they are right now uh processing four different games on their line for the first time. Let's hear it for them.

1:50

That's amazing. So these guys are making not only the last of the sold-out TNA rerun, right? Probably these are the butter cabinets that people have been waiting on, but they're also running their Scooby-Doos concurrently with their two brand-new titles, Looney Tunes and TCM, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Please help me make TCM a thing just like GTF was, because that was silly and that was fun. So there's cabinets that are already graphiced up and sitting there waiting. I'm sure somewhere in that warehouse there are populated play fields, or play fields being populated, wire harnesses being run for both Looney Tunes and TCM concurrently with Scooby and the final finale of the TNA rerun. So that was huge news for them, so well done. Talking to these guys, this is kind of where their goal is going to be long term. Not so much to sell out each run and then get to the next run, but to have multiple titles in various stages of being produced. And, you know, these guys use almost like a node board production approach where they have people at stations. This is Wire Harness Dude. This is Populated Playfield Bro. This is the lady back over here who makes the boards. Forgive me for forgetting everybody's names, but I'm absolutely rubbish at that. But they're able to, you know, pivot and turn from, you know, you're making Scoobies. Hey, guess what? We've got a run of now 10 TCMs. So let's switch gears here and let's start making these. And their team is cross-trained into how to make all these things. So that would be awesome, right? So they don't have to try to budget for, like, you know, should we do a 500-unit run? Should we do a 750-unit run? They could say, let's do 1,200, and then let's sell 800 now, and then we can always make more later. There's room in the license for that, for them to pivot. You know, as code updates change, as tastes in the industry change, they can do that. And so that's kind of awesome. Super excited for them. You know, they're not somebody that's got a, you know, one game per line and has to shut that line down to pivot to turn somewhere else. And, you know, they don't have the three-quarter-mile-long concurrent lines that Stern is currently cracking out. Let's talk about them a little bit here. So Stern Pinball has just finally completed the run of Stranger Things Premium that they were planning on doing, and now they are in a hiatus, a temporary mothballing of the factory, probably for inventory and such, and also to give everybody a break, you know, cut the labor force loose for a few weeks, retool, get ready for what's going to be an absolute banger year for Stern Pinball in 2024. And we're going to get to more of that. Also, we're getting some confirmation shaping up. You know, the news is like a custard, and it has set up like a flan in the fridge. I don't know why I'm talking flan. That's Spanish, and we're talking about, of course, Italian manufacturer, Pedretti Gaming. So they have partnered with Planetary Pinball. Well, the cat has been out of the bag, as they say. So the remake association that Planetary Pinball, owner of the Bally Williams licenses, has with CGC, it turns out it was intact, and they are working with Pedretti. And so here's what I think happened. There was rumors that Pedretti was getting the license, CGC was losing it. Of course, the popular conjecture, without really knowing much official, is that they're just slow to put games out, put high-quality games out, mind you, but slow to put games out from CDC. So Planetary Pinball is sitting there thinking, like, at this rate, it's going to take forever to run through these licenses that we want to rerun and collect those sweet, sweet licensing fees. So they've partnered with a factory in Europe from Euro Pinball Corp. I'm still not sure about the hierarchy there. Pinball Brothers is involved. Pedretti is involved. Euro Pinball Corp is like the umbrella corporation. What's even going on out there? Well, they've got a factory that's going to be moving because I don't think they're going to be moving a whole lot of queens because the supply is out there. If you want to get a Queen Pinball, go ahead and get one. Email jeffatmadpinball.com. I think he's got one kicking around there. But also the Aliens are being rerun. And then something new is coming, but I don't think they're quite ready to announce that dancing queen of a pinball machine just yet. But that's okay because Pedretti is partnered now with Bally Williams License Holder Planetary Pinball, so I think we may see the other games that have been rumored, right? I don't know if they're going to jump to an Addams Family rerun, although how sweet would that be? I mean, give me that greed bookcase, right? Is this the rumored confirmation that Twilight Zone is being remade and this time it's going to be coming out of Italy instead of Chicago?

6:10

Or are they running the Big Bang Bars? I mean, the speculation is all over the place. But I think what's going to happen is that the prior arrangements that Planetary Pinball had with CGC will still be honored, and that's what they meant when they came out ahead of this story, saying that they're very happy for the relationship with CGC, because they weren't ready to announce that others are forthcoming. But I think we'll still look forward to the slow, slow trickle, much like a swollen prostate of cactus canyons trickling out at some point, Pulp Fiction's, and then that rerun of Medieval Madness that we've been waiting on for a year and a half now. When is Pulp Fiction coming out at this rate? I mean, honestly, I've got an SE, a standard edition of Pulp Fiction reserved, and I didn't buy it at launch, so my number's not super low, but I kind of got to figure it may be 2025 before my game is finally on the line at this point I mean if you were to tell me now March 2025 is when Don you going to have to pay that final balance and get your game I would not be shocked at this point. I'd be happy if it came, you know, within the next few months. But honestly, I think I may be way down the line there. Who knows? But we've got something new coming. Progetti's going to be building some games. That's great. They've got a factory out there. Keep it moving. And, you know, so far, quality-wise, I don't think the recent builds of Queen, recent builds of Alien have had any issues that I have been aware of or heard back here. So I'm cautiously optimistic. And maybe we will see that Twilight Zone or someone. Dude, if they rerun Diner, if they rerun Diner, I need to get me one. I need to get me a new Diner. I've been on the hunt for that game for a long time. Would love to get one. My boy Jeff's got a sweet fishtails that he's restored. So I think I'm good there. I can pry that out of his hands. at some point. But diner, diner, Pedretti, I want me a diner. Get the license. It can't be that expensive. Let's move forward. What else do we got here to talk about? Oh, yes, let's talk about a little bit of podcast information now. Now, I've been bringing you this news and information and views from my brain for 90 episodes now, and the feedback I've gotten has been nothing short of absolutely miraculous. I started this, as I said, 11.5 months ago with no expectations that anybody was ever going to listen to it, let alone enjoy it. let alone join a $5 Patreon to show support and then also have access to more kind of nuanced behind-the-scenes content that I make and those other things. But I've heard a lot of feedback from the Patreon folks. They were looking for higher tiers. They're looking for more engagement and more involvement. And, you know, that took me a little bit to staple my wig back down. The people are actually asking for that. But I went ahead and delivered. And I feel like I've made an honest delivery effort in spades. Let me talk about it. I'm going to keep the baller level at $5 a month. That gets you access to the posts, the pictures, the videos, the extra little things, the snippets, whatever comes into my brain that I want to put out there behind that paywall. I do talk a little bit more off topic. I talk a little bit more personal information. So if you want to get more of that sense of that background, which people seem to dig, that's where you can find it, right? $5, hop over the hedge. We're all having a party over there. Come hang out on the Patreon. that also gets you an entry into the bi-monthly giveaways that I've been doing. We just did the first one back on the 15th and I sent a Godzilla Stern banner out to a lucky recipient. We just did a drawing out of names that I've had. If you were a paid Patreon member at that point, you got your name in there, we drew one and we got it out. So I've got a stack of Translites to give away and I'm going to dig up some more banners. Who knows what else I can find. I've got t-shirts, maybe I'll make a gift basket, maybe I'll get something from Hickory Farms. but you will get an entry in that bi-monthly giveaway. If we get up to over $100, maybe I'll even make it a monthly giveaway. That's in the future, but $5 gets you in the door, gets you across the hedge, gets you into the garden party that we call the baller level of Don's Pinball Podcast. Now, say Don, that's great, but I want even more engagement. I want more perks. What else you got for me? Well, I have a prestige partner level I've created. This was inspired by Prestige Worldwide, but for $10 one month, you will get access to the Prestige Partner level, which we are building out. And that comes with not only everything that you get from the Baller level, but also an extra entry into the bi-monthly giveaways. Hopefully down the road become monthly giveaways. Double your chances to get that banner, get that Translight, get that bucket of t-shirts or whatever else I'm throwing together for you as a Prestige Partner. Plus, you're totally supporting the Donster, man. Not only are you buying me a couple of games of Godfather, you'll buy me a pint as well, man so if you enjoy the content you want to buy this dude a beer or a root beer or a pitcher of diet pepsi or extra bacon on a sandwich from firehouse subs that's how you can do that as a prestige partner and you also earn my undying gratitude but that wasn't all i didn't want to stop just there because we've got don super fans out there we've got people that want even more involvement they want a direct role in how the show is produced how the show is made so i have created out of my brain waves the producers council level this is a $20 level this is this is for the premium this is for the exceptional this is for those people that want to make a dang statement this is for people that aren't good with just the street you know the Gucci that you can buy a battery park no no these are the people that want to shop at the Macy's these are people that want to go on the good rides these are people want to skip the line and get a direct line into the private producers council discord at this level $20 a month while you're active you are, in fact, a de facto producer in Dotspinball Podcast. I've got a cadre of people all together already that are in this, and we are making those decisions like, you know, which t-shirts should be produced next? Which interviews should we do? How should we respond to this internet drama? What's the real, real behind-the-scenes stuff that's going on? I want you to talk frankly with me and uncensored. That's all going on at the Producers Council level. Also, there's opportunities that are involved in this level. I'll get to them in a moment, but for instance, A booth is coming together for TPF that I'm going to talk about in a bit. And you can get yourself a regular armband. You can buy a daily armband. You can buy an armband good for the entire week of the show with access to the show floor during show floor hours. Or for a producer, you will have the opportunity to purchase one of our extra wristbands that we're going to have that will get you on the show floor before it opens to the general public. Because that's what I'm doing. I'm about access. I'm about empowering the producers of the show. So if you weren't crazy enough about pinball as I am and you want a way to participate at that level, there it is. There's a producer's council for you. Let's get out there and join. If you want. The show is still free for everybody. I want to be inclusive as I can, but I also want to make opportunities available for those of us that want a little fast pass, want a little quick trip, want a little skip the line, want a little get in on the back door end and talk about what's going on. And that's a way that you can do it. Much like my other good sponsor of the show, Mad Pinball. I'm talking about my boy, Jeff Cernava, out there in the greater lands of eastern Ohio, who will ship you a pinball machine to your door, to your curb. He'll drop it off, but you're going to drag it in the house. Or he also offers white glove service if you want it. That can be arranged through Mad Pinball. If you're just curious, if you just want to be on a list with no commitments to purchase, but you want that opportunity when Jaws is released, when Metallica is released, when Pokemon is released, when Barry Osler's dang food truck is ready to pull up to your house, email jeff at madpinball.com. Tell him Don sent you, and then we'll keep this whole thing rolling. He's a cool dude. His profile is blowing up, too, by the way. I'm seeing people unboxing Mad Pinballs all over the dang place.

13:52

We're getting to the robots. Gotta love them dang robots. I unboxed two games, and there is a live stream of this up on Facebook, because your boy, I went down to Chicago. I went to a warehouse in Chicago a pinball warehouse and waiting among the stacks of the Cactus Canyons with the toppers sitting there new in box That like eight of them That was nuts I think I saw Fathom Mermaid Edition I think I saw some other Coin Redemption games, Coin Pushers, Alley Rollers, everything in there. I picked up not only a Elvira, House of Horrors, Blood Red Kiss, NIB, new in box, palletized, but also a Stranger Things Premium. Give me a beep on that. I put them both in my truck and I drove them home. Before I did that, though, I went over to Stern Headquarters. So I took my two new in-box games, and I was at the Stern warehouse. That did happen. Now, maybe I just pulled my truck up out front, and I shot a picture, and I put it up on the Facebook. But I was there. The warehouse that I went to was just down the street. So I got two new games, and I did the best unboxing I have ever done. I took them over to the gym. I turned on the smoke machine. I inflated the Halloween inflatables. I put some spooky music on. I put some lights on. And we did a double unboxing. Stranger Things Premium and Elvira's House of Horrors Blood Red Kiss Edition. So check that out on Facebook if you like to watch long-form, immaculately filmed unboxing videos. That is on the Facebook page. Be sure to give me a follow. That was awesome. My boy Russ came by. We did a double unboxing. I've since set both games up, and they are playing relatively well. Stranger Things really didn't have many issues. I've got to adjust the ball guide on the left orbit there, so it throws straight at the flipper. That's not a big deal. That's a screw to unscrew. And then I did have to adjust the projector a little bit. That was all done in the menu and adjustments, and that couldn't be easier to do. You can go to each actual projection individually and move them around and fine-tune them and get them working in good order. I've got the Dark Star material upgrade that I'm waiting until I have some time off to go and do that. That will be happening this week. But, man, I am digging this game. As I dug into Stranger Things Premium, let me tell you, this Brian Eddy game, I saw some familiarities with it and I don't think I ever really noticed this before but now that I have the game in the exact same spot that Venom Premium recently inhabited I was able to look and see that they actually used I would say about 50% of Stranger Things layout to make Venom and I'll qualify that here the bottom is the dang same look at the slings and those metal posts that come up there on the outlanes dividing the outlanes and inlanes in-lane, out-lane dividers, whatever they're called. Those are exactly the same on Venom. This was copy. This was paste. The whole bottom and the shape of the slings and the shape of the plastics and all of that is exactly the freaking same. Let's go over to the left out-lane there. Because if you remember, I got myself one of those single post spinners from Pinball Life for $15, I think it was. And I put it in Venom and I put my own stickers on it and I played the heck out of it. and it was super fun having an outlaned left orbit spinner on my Venom. The Venom Premium, the Venom Pro, the Venom LE, in that plastic, in that space on the left guide rail for the orbit, there is a spot for a spinner. There are mounting screws right underneath that hole in that plastic for that spinner. I think that spinner, initially, I thought it was originally engineered for Venom and then removed due to gameplayability, code integration, whatever it was. but now after looking at Stranger Things that plastic is the same size the same shape and the ball guide on the orbit is the same on Venom as it is in Stranger Things and Stranger Things has a spinner that cool one with the projector where there's a little swirly swirly on it little high anxiety swirly guy projected right on there the same exact spot I think what they did was they took the same template from that plastic on Stranger Things and just put Venom graphics on it and put the same geometry and everything because admittedly it works really well. I think they put that in there and just left it. And they didn't bother to even engineer or put in a spinner or program it or whatever, but they left the space in the plastic. It's still there. The bolts underneath are in the same exact place. I could pull the spinner off of Stranger Things and drop it in exactly the same position in Venom. So maybe it wasn't that originally Venom had a spinner that was engineered to go into it, but rather it was just a leftover remnant from its ancestor, Stranger Things. Now, the whole back of the game is different, right? You know, the choose your shot, change the game, the fast locks, and all that was new. That, you know, back third of the game, that was redone for Venom. That's unique to that. But the rest of it, man, you're playing Stranger Things, and that was crazy. Imagine if Stranger Things had a Demogorgon doppelganger that could flip out with little demon dog's dangly bits. How awesome would that be with projection effects and things on it? I wonder if there's a way to reverse engineer the mechanism of the doppelganger from Venom back into Stranger Things. That would be something amazing. That would be something questionable in intelligence and the kind of thing that I would probably do. So I'm going to take a half second to look at that and see if that would be something possible. Because how ridiculous would that be to have a doppelganger in Stranger Things? He already looks like a Demogorgon dog, right? Right? Anybody there with me? Let's move on to other stern news. Jaws, what's going on? So this isn't news. This is purely speculation based on my intuition that I have. I think Jaws is coming for sure, for sure. It's been confirmed from so many different sources. It's happening. When is it happening? I'm going to say it's going to happen the first week of January. We're not going to get a reveal this month in December. I'll put five bucks on it. If I'm wrong, I'll pick a random person. I'll send you five bucks or five dollars worth of stickers or some damn thing. but I don't think it's going to come out for the rest of the year because there's really no reason to do that. Jaws is going to sell like hotcakes dipped in butter and slathered with $5 bills. This is going to be the game that everybody wants. It's the game that everybody's waiting on their money to buy, so it's going to sell great. There's no point in revealing it now when you're not going to get it until the factory is even open in January. So I think January 2, January 3, I still have to look at what days those are. I think that's when we're probably going to get a reveal either on a Tuesday or a Friday and then the game will be fully unveiled the next day, maybe we'll get a little sizzle reel and a little background information on what the game is we'll get some gameplay streams but I think the pros aren't going to be leaving until probably the end of the month they'll hit the ground running in January, they'll get retooled they'll get some games out, they'll get through QC and then probably late second week or third or fourth week is when I think pros will start going out for location operators and that'll be our first time to really be able to play it. Unless you happen to be at the Consumer Electronics Show, which is happening towards the end of that first week of January. That may be where the game is actually fully like, here it is, public, people, this is your first chance to play this thing. Check it out. Are there spinning mechs in it? Are there orca boats that flip over and sink? Is it one barrel? Is it three barrels? Did the barrels blow up? What's going on? Is there going to be that dream mechanism lifted straight from Totan, Tales of the Arabian Nights, where your ball gets captured by Jaws and is slowly pulled underneath the playfield I think it should happen Red inserts would light up the GI would go down The moon would be lit in the back glass I think it a perfect moment and probably we not going to see it but it what I would make if I was making a Jaws machine. We'll see what happens. Speculation has it that we'll see a white powder coat on the LE, but also they're going to do a black powder coat on the premium and then the regular wrinkle coat for the pro. I would totally dig that. Any more inclusion of something as a point of differentiation in the premium i'm all for so would you get the black jaws premium or would you go for the white jaws le can we talk about le prices for a second i'm all over the place here but i've been working non-stop listen uh the the the le price for stern 12,999 that would get you an elvira blood red kiss that would get you an elvira blood red kiss today you could still get one for 12,999 the problem with that standard pricing though is that a game like venom le was also $12,999. That's the price if you get it from a distributor. But that game all day, I've seen it under $10,000 on resale, barely played. I'm talking like 30 plays, 100 plays, limited edition, $12,999, marked down to $9,800 or something crazy like that. I think I sold my premium for near that price. So it's hard to say this is the one standard price for all of our limited editions when Venom is going to be worth less than 10 Gs. That's four figures, man. And then, you know, Jaws and Elvira Blood Red Kiss are the same price. Like, how do you reconcile that, Stern? I can't wait to see what goes on in the future for that. But for sure, Jaws Elite is going to come at that $12,999. I don't think we're going to see an SLE. We'll maybe see one down the road. But that's my thoughts on that. What about the next game from Stern? The most I'm hearing is Metallica. but is this just a vault with the the uh the dmd version of the game i don't think so i don't see stern rerunning the same game they've already done the rumor is metallica was seen in the factory walking around talking about like did you see how great uh jersey jack's guns and roses look with that big lcd screen we want a game with an lcd screen and maybe not a spike two screen maybe a spike three screen maybe screen's a little bigger a little better definition a little better viewing angle or something like that. So I think we may see that. That's the rumor I'm hearing. The first Spike 3 system will be Metallica. It'll be a redo of some kind. Now, if they're taking the bones of the old game and just redressing it with new art and putting it out, maybe a black and white Metallica, maybe that can happen. I'll put 50% of that. 50% it's just a new, brand new game from the ground up. I would love that option. I like the original Metallica okay-ish. I like it about as much as I like Ghostbusters. It's okay. It's a little flawed for me. I don't dig the art and stuff. Spooky. Sparky's kind of weird. I want more thrash metal metallic of the game, a little higher energy, a little faster paced. I would like to see a new ground-up game with a lot of black tones and then some blood put in there and really make it a more mature and less kind of hot topic-y game. So, we'll see. I don't know. But I think that may be the next game coming out. The other rumors with Dungeons & Dragons, Pokemon, we've been hearing those. Those are probably down the road late in the year. I think they're going to happen. And I'd love Pokemon to come out with some of the code that's in Venom. I think we could see something really, really special. Also, if that comes out when there's more upgrades with Insider Connected where you can go head-to-head with other players, man, I'm salivating now thinking about taking my Charizard versus your Bulbasaur while we Vine Whip each other, man. Across the state, across the country, across the world, across the time zones, across the Great Atlantic. Just think about it. I think that would be cool. I think I spent just about enough time on Stern. What else should we talk about? Let's talk about Texas Pinball Festival, the next major festival to come up, CES, notwithstanding in Vegas. It's happening in March. I'm going to be there. I may be flying solo there, just because I don't know if I want to drag my family through the potential for a pinball drama, but TBF, I'll be there for sure. It's going to be fun. I'll be staying at a hotel in the neighborhood. I'm not staying at the actual one, but there's so many in the area. There's rooms available. Get down to TPF. I went before. It was awesome. Food in Texas just tastes better than anywhere else in the country, I think. So I'll be at TPF. Now, I was planning on being in there as a regular Joe Public, but I think I'm actually going to get together with my buddy Sterling over at Balls of Steel Pinball, and we may actually be getting a booth at TPF. This has been kind of a stretch goal for me, a little thing that's made my heart go tither, right, to have myself my own space on the show floor, a place to put my purse, a place to set my lunch, a place to kick back with everybody, instead of just hanging out in the hallway or leaning up against a door or just bugging the spooky guys. My own space would be fantastic, and my mind is percolating with all the options and things that I could do. I could make some mods and bring them down to sell. I could have T-shirts. We could do giveaways from our own booth. We could do meet and greets, VIP stuff. How about this? What if we got 20 people together, and I had you all make believe that I was some kind of celebrity or something and just all line up in a queue and get real hype and draw a lot of attention. Like, oh, who's coming over there? And then I come walking out like a gangster rap star, right, with a couple of big dudes next to me in an entourage. And people are like, dude, who is that guy? And they're like, oh, I think he was like a background extra in Gremlins or something back in the day. Or was that the guy that was in Last Action Hero or something crap like that? It would just be funny to spoof that and then I'm out there signing stuff. I'll even sign somebody's other name on stuff. I'll sign people's foreheads let's get crazy with it this is the way that my brain works regardless I'm going to do the same thing the giveaways and things have been super popular the whirlwind, the whitewater giveaways that we did, they were too popular though I was quickly tapped out from my prize packs so I have to find a new way to distribute love back into the community and I think a booth may be the way to do it and I think I may have an extra VIP join the show floor quicker than the general public wristband available for somebody in the producers council so I'm going to offer it there first that's where it's going to go so be sure to check all that out the game room is filling back up here at District on Arcade I've sold some games and I'm building back up so we just got the double unboxing right Blood Red Kiss oh my god and Stranger Things Premium and we got two spookies coming in hopefully in the next two months and then Labyrinth is out there and then sometime in the next six months or six years I'll be getting a Pulp Fiction. Maybe, I think. I don't know. It should be coming. You'll hear about all that and more on the number one place to listen to your independent voice in Pinball News. That's Don's Pinball Podcast.