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Pinball Magazine & Pinball News PINcast November 2022 recap

Pinball News & Pinball Magazine Pincast·podcast_episode·1h 36m·analyzed·Dec 2, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Nov 2022: Drained P3 module, Turner buys Deep Root IP, Mueller denies SEC claims, Stern relocates to larger facility

Summary

A November 2022 industry recap covering significant developments: a new third-party P3 module game (Drained) by Nick Baldrige, Turner Pinball's acquisition of Deep Root Pinball's IP assets through bankruptcy proceedings, Robert Mueller's SEC litigation response, Stern Pinball's 007 Anniversary Edition details and facility relocation plans, and multiple code updates across Stern's game portfolio.

Key Claims

  • Drained is the first third-party playfield module developed for the Multimorphic P3 platform

    high confidence · Jonathan Euston explicitly states this is 'the first non-multimorphic playfield module that's been announced the first third party playfield for the P3 platform'

  • Turner Pinball acquired Deep Root Pinball's IP assets including Raza, Magic Girl, Alice in Wonderland, and Space Mission X through bankruptcy court proceedings

    high confidence · Martin Eyre details the court-approved acquisition of intellectual property 'which includes uh the rights title and interest including inventions and copyright to game rule documentations, art, models, animations, design, mechanical drawings'

  • Stern Pinball is increasing factory capacity by approximately 50%, from 110,000 to 163,000-164,000 square feet

    high confidence · Martin Eyre states: 'they're increasing about 50% in size and that's the factory area' with specific facility measurements provided

  • Stern will move to a new facility at 1001 Bus Road in Elk Grove Village with a 10-year lease beginning October 2023

    high confidence · Martin Eyre provides specific address and lease details: 'they will be moving is 1001 Bus Road in Elk Grove Village' and 'the lease is set to begin in October 2023'

  • The estimated cost for Stern's factory relocation is $6.5 million

    high confidence · Martin Eyre states: 'apparently the move itself is being calculated as a cost factor of $6.5 million'

  • Robert Mueller denied all allegations in his SEC response and requested trial

    high confidence · Jonathan Euston explains: 'Basically, he just denied everything, said he didn't do anything wrong. It was lots of things he couldn't, didn't have the information about or couldn't remember and requested a trial'

  • 007 60th Anniversary Edition will be a single-level playfield designed by Keith Elwin with only 500 units planned

    high confidence · Martin Eyre cites George Gomez interview: 'It's a single level play field, contrary to the other models of the game. It's designed by Keith Elwin, as we know' and 'they're only building 500 of them'

Notable Quotes

  • “the first non-multimorphic playfield module that's been announced the first third party playfield for the P3 platform”

    Jonathan Euston @ ~5:00 — Marks a major milestone for P3 ecosystem—first third-party module expands platform beyond Multimorphic's direct control

  • “Turner Pinball, of course, are adamant that they are not Deep Root Pinball 2.0, or indeed related in any particular way to Deep Root, but they do seem to keep buying Deep Root assets of some kind or other”

    Martin Eyre @ ~12:00 — Highlights community skepticism about Turner's relationship to Deep Root despite repeated asset acquisitions

  • “Why would you start off your company with a bunch with a bunch of tainted assets from a failed company”

    Jonathan Euston @ ~22:00 — Reflects concern about reputational and design integrity issues when acquiring failed company assets

  • “I think this game is being released way before it's ready to go out into the public. But I guess there are contractual obligations”

    Jonathan Euston @ ~32:00 — Expresses concern about early 007 code release quality and licensing pressure on Stern

  • “they're increasing about 50% in size and that's the factory area”

    Martin Eyre @ ~67:00 — Quantifies Stern's major expansion, suggesting confidence in future production demand

  • “It's a Keith Elwin game. So, lots of spinners.”

    Martin Eyre @ ~45:00 — Identifies designer signature style expectations for 007 Anniversary Edition

  • “the lease for the building on Bus Road is a 10-year lease. The building is owned by Prologis, and that lease is set to begin in October 2023”

    Martin Eyre @ ~62:00 — Establishes timeline for major infrastructure change and conflicts with Pinball Expo 2023 schedule

  • “If you want either of those or you know any of those I should say the Star Wars regular or common all the Jurassic Park home games or thinking of buying them now would be the time to get in if you want them new”

Entities

Jonathan EustonpersonMartin EyrepersonNick BaldrigepersonChris TurnerpersonRobert MuellerpersonJohn PapadukepersonGeorge GomezpersonKeith Elwinperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Turner Pinball acquires Deep Root assets through bankruptcy; community skeptical of 'not Deep Root 2.0' claim despite pattern of acquisitions

    high · Martin Eyre details court-approved IP acquisition; Jonathan Euston questions motivation: 'Why would you start off your company with a bunch with a bunch of tainted assets from a failed company'

  • ?

    community_signal: Turner Pinball acquiring Deep Root assets generates skepticism about independence claims; community concerned about 'tainted assets' carrying reputational baggage

    high · Jonathan Euston explicitly challenges credibility: 'Turner Pinball, of course, are adamant that they are not Deep Root Pinball 2.0' but 'they do seem to keep buying Deep Root assets'

  • ?

    community_signal: P3 platform gaining ecosystem traction with first third-party playfield module; Nick Baldrige's active community engagement (Pinside documentation) validates demand

    high · Jonathan Euston notes Baldrige 'is quite active on Pinside and I was following his thread there where he first announced this game I think it was a year ago'

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Robert Mueller denies SEC allegations in litigation response; requests trial; claims total wrongfulness by SEC; seeks damages for interference damage to company

    high · Jonathan Euston details Mueller's filing: 'Basically, he just denied everything, said he didn't do anything wrong. It was lots of things he couldn't, didn't have the information about or couldn't remember and requested a trial'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: 007 licensing requires 'special preview model' warnings; asset approval restrictions visible in early code; licensor requested electromechanical aesthetic (score reels)

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.289

0:00
New drained game announced. Turner Pinball buys Deep Root Pinball's IP. Case against John Pappadue is resolved.
0:20
Hi, my name is Jonathan Euston. I'm the editor of Pinball Magazine. And I'm joined tonight by... Hi, I'm Martin Eyre and I'm the editor of Pinball News and I'm here with Jonathan to talk about all the exciting events that took place in the pinball world in the month of November 2022. And what an exciting month it has been.
0:42
Yes, I guess that's kind of true. Well, we had certainly been plenty happening. Yeah, well, we had the Dutch Pinball Open Expo where we both were present and did our quiz and more stuff and so on. and you wrote a great article about that, so we had an exciting month. Oh, we did indeed. Yes, it's certainly been busy for us. There's been quite a bit going on, so let's talk about what has happened in the pinball world and dive straight in, I suppose, with our very first headline. Oh, we're in a rush, I hear. Oh, well, come on. There's no point hanging about if we've got a lot of things to cover, and who knows where it will lead. So, yes, the first story, a new game announced for the Multimorphic P3 pinball platform. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what that game is, John? Well, a little bit, because I don't know that much about it. The game is called Drained, and it's developed by Nick Baldrige,
1:43
who also goes by the company name For Amusement Only Games. he did several other sort of games for the P3 but those were based on existing modules so we're talking about Ranger in the Ruins Silver Falls Flip of Foxhut, Rhythm Explosion but this drained game actually comes with a completely new playfield module yeah it's the first non-multimorphic playfield module that's been announced the first third party playfield for the P3 platform absolutely and it's a bit of electro mechanical pinball oriented it brings back some features from those days like a gobble hole, lots of targets and so on.

  • Stern will not continue production of Star Wars and Jurassic Park home edition titles

    medium confidence · Martin Eyre reports from 'Zach Manning show' (likely Flippin' Out Pinball): 'Stern sent out a note to distributors indicating that the home edition titles for Star Wars and Jurassic Park will not be continued in production'

  • George Gomez indicated Stern is unlikely to return to a three-cornerstone-per-year release model anytime soon due to order backlog

    high confidence · Martin Eyre cites George Gomez interview: 'CERN is not likely to go back to the three cornerstones per year type of model anytime soon' due to 'large backlog of orders'

  • Drained game module costs $3,500 and includes code, artwork, plastics, and decals, available directly from Nick Baldrige

    high confidence · Jonathan Euston states: 'The module including all code and upcoming updates and so on, costs $3,500. And that includes artwork and plastics as well, and even decals'

    • Jonathan Euston @ ~51:00 — Creates urgency for collectors regarding discontinued home editions

  • “the game can you can let the game pick if you want to do that. And it's got the same system updates for the icons and stuff”

    Jonathan Euston @ ~85:00 — Notes quality-of-life improvements across Stern's game code, suggesting continuous refinement culture

  • “Well, yeah, it's not the way anybody would choose to start a company is it to start off with so much so much ill will”

    Jonathan Euston @ ~20:00 — Acknowledges reputational risk of inheriting failed company's legacy and community sentiment

    • Gary Sternperson
    Ray Tenzerperson
    Drainedgame
    007 (James Bond)game
    Deep Root Pinballcompany
    Turner Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Multimorphiccompany
    Christopher Franchiperson
    Prologiscompany
    Rushgame
    Godzillagame

    high · Code v0.63 displays 'software update required' and 'assets not yet approved by licensor'; George Gomez notes licensor 'request from the the licensor to make it actually an electromechanical game'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Stern Pinball relocating to 50% larger facility (163,000+ sq ft) with 10-year lease at $26M total cost, $6.5M relocation expense

    high · Martin Eyre provides specific address (1001 Bus Road), timeline (October 2023), and financial details verified by Gary Stern

  • $

    market_signal: Stern discontinuing Star Wars and Jurassic Park home edition titles; unclear if licensing or demand-driven

    medium · Martin Eyre reports from distributor communications: 'Stern sent out a note to distributors indicating that the home edition titles for Star Wars and Jurassic Park will not be continued'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ray Tenzer assigned as project lead for Stern's major factory relocation; timeline suggests execution within 12 months

    high · Martin Eyre states: 'Ray Tenzer will be in charge of the upcoming move and looks like he has a year to prepare'

  • ?

    announcement: Drained announced as first third-party P3 playfield module; $3,500 price point; available direct from developer

    high · Jonathan Euston and Martin Eyre confirm Baldrige's game is 'the first non-multimorphic playfield module' with complete specifications

  • ?

    product_concern: 007 released early with very incomplete code (v0.70); exhibits 'special preview model' warnings and update-required messages in attract mode

    high · Jonathan Euston states 'I think this game is being released way before it's ready to go out into the public. But I guess there are contractual obligations'

  • ?

    business_signal: 007 60th Anniversary limited to 500 units; single-level playfield; pricing left to distributor discretion; suggests controlled scarcity approach

    high · George Gomez interview details: 'they're only building 500 of them and pricing is unknown at this point although there are rumors that distributors are free to set their own price'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Stern's order backlog preventing return to three-cornerstone-per-year model; specific part shortages identified as blocking production of certain games

    medium · George Gomez and Martin Eyre discuss backlog: 'they have a large backlog of orders that they need to fulfill' and 'If a certain part is missing for a specific game and you can't get it, you can't make the game'

    • 2:49
    And the artwork is by Molly, Nick's wife. The game features 54 unique songs by Chris Wolf Music. Charles. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. I wasn't confused.
    3:10
    And the module including all code and upcoming updates and so on, costs $3,500. And that includes artwork and plastics as well, and even decals, I think, to customize your stand-up targets. So it's all one bit. And I think the game is, I think it has something Dracula-type of theme to it, but I'm not exactly sure. I haven't seen it. The story is about two youngsters who go into a park and discover an abandoned castle, which turns out, as you do, you know, to be occupied or populated by various vampires.
    4:04
    And, of course, what happens when you find vampires? Well, you naturally have to go and kill them all. So that's kind of what the premise of the game is, the storyline.
    4:16
    And yeah, as you said, it's got a very much sort of old school feel to it, with the gobble hole being an important part of the game. A single pop bumper, lots of stand-up targets and some drop targets there as well. A single level, no ramps or anything like that. And a couple of reverse kick-outs from the ball trough, so it launches onto the upper playfield, which is something we've seen before. But some of the other games sort of brought the ball down on a wire form down to the flippers, so he started there. But the game starts up there. And he's got a couple of kickers as well. Ah, okay. Well, congratulations to Nicholas Baldrige for achieving this milestone, as we might say first playfield unit and I have a feeling that we might see more of Nicholas he's quite he embraced the P3 platform to develop new games so I don't think he's done yet no definitely not he's quite active on Pinside and I was following his thread there where he first announced this game I think it was a year ago and has been documenting his progress on it so if you've been following that the existence of the game is no great surprise but certainly nice to see it made public now and released for people who want to buy it and unlike the other games which you can get for the P3 pinball platform you buy this one through his website rather than through the Multimorphic store so you go to forum amusement only games or search for forum amusement only games and you can buy it from him I think he has a custom URL I think drainpinball.com is his as well yeah and the good thing about that is that since you're ordering from Nick directly if you already have a P3 and you're looking for a new game, you're not in the queue at Multimorphic for them to build your playfield module as it's coming from a third party. That's right. Yeah, Nick is actually building them all himself.
    6:48
    Oh, my God. But that means he has no time left over to develop new games. Well, I'm sure he's a multitasking guy. He can do that as well.
    7:00
    Okay. Well, congrats to Nick and Multimorphic. I don't think there was much other news from Multimorphic. They sent out an update last month, which we already discussed in our previous episode, so I need to get back to that.
    7:17
    No, I think we're right. So we can charge on and move on to our second headline, which is about Turner Pinball buying a bunch of Deep Root Pinball's intellectual property. Right. Now, Turner Pinball, of course, are adamant that they are not Deep Root Pinball 2.0, or indeed related in any particular way to Deep Root, but they do seem to keep buying Deep Root assets of some kind or other, be they physical. We all have a fascination, I suppose.
    7:49
    Well, yeah, they have to go somewhere, and maybe they're able to score a really good deal on these. it seems like they've done quite well and Chris Turner seems to have plenty of money to spend on all this stuff where it's going to lead is anyone's guess but we will find out in due course but the assets were part of the bankruptcy hearing for Deep Root Pinball or Deep Root Tech or Deep Root group of companies and Turner pinball or chris turner put in a a bid to to buy these uh these particular ip assets they were not um the the bid was accepted by the court and uh so he picked up a whole bunch of intellectual property which includes uh the rights title and interest including inventions and copyright to game rule documentations, art, models, animations, design, mechanical drawings, trademarks, licenses, and all the other stuff, as well as the highly sought-after trademarks for pin pod, pin armor, and pin bar. Ooh! In relation to pinball, one assumes. I imagine if somebody actually wanted to open a pinball bar and called it the pin bar, that would not be a breach of the trademark, I would call it a lock bar, but I don't think many people would understand what that means. No, it could have a different connotation to it if you did call it that.
    9:36
    And then there's all the sort of software stuff which was already being developed by his own company, Turner Logic.
    9:45
    So it's the pinball machines API and mobile API, iOS apps and things like that. and also the code and the rules for deep root machines.
    10:00
    Which he coded himself, by the way, but still. Yeah, indeed. And all the intellectual property, and this is where it starts to get a little more confusing, intellectual property acquired as part of the Zidware settlement from Zidware, John Popatuke, Jeremy Packer, a.k.a. Zombie Yeti, and Jim Askey of My Pinballs or Apple Juice on Pinside, including but not limited to art, design innovations, copyright and trademarks for Razza, Magic Girl, As in Wonderland and Space Mission X, more of which we will come to a little bit later in this pincast. Yeah, because that's where it gets confusing. Yes, so this is a bunch of assets which were apparently transferred to Deep Root from John Popaduke and Didware when he went to work for them.
    10:57
    So I won't go any more into that because, as I say, it will come up again later. But anyway, suffice to say it includes what Deep Root owned of that. and there are also the Rasa prototype machines as produced by Deep Root as well so but there are also those ones some of them have already been sold but there are a couple which were sent out for testing for UL testing and the exact whereabouts of one of them is not known I don't believe yet it's known where it was, it was a testing facility but that was a long time ago and these testing facilities tend not to hold on to your equipment once it's been tested if you don't come and pick it up. Particularly if you don't come and pick it up for many, many months. Right, so... Whether being trashed by now or taken off to some unknown location. I can imagine that there might be some employees figuring like, hey, if you're going to trash a pinball machine I'll load it up and I'll take it home.
    12:04
    Yeah, possible, yeah. I would well you would whether they'll admit to that when somebody comes knocking on their door saying what happened to that pinball machine is another matter it may yet turn up somewhere right oh well so that was you have to kind of wonder what's going to happen to all this stuff they've got all these rights and artwork and software and trademarks and things, but what use are they if you're not going to make those games?
    12:45
    And if you are going to make those games, then can you claim that you're not Deep Root 2.0? Well, in this case, I think, as far as I can see, Turner is currently a one-man band. and if he wants to actually make games he will probably need to if he's smart work with a party that already has figured out manufacturing for example an American pinball or a Chicago Gaming who might be open to collaborating with him and then figuring out like okay which of these games is actually worthwhile taking into production yeah oh i agree uh and i don't think any of this is particularly helpful any of the assets bought were particularly helpful as far as manufacturing goes so i don't think um although there was there was some equipment that was sold previously that didn't that would be useful but it's uh as we know as we've seen many times in the past there's a big difference between designing pinballs and manufacturing pinballs and it's only the manufacturing part where where people come and stuck. So yeah, I agree with you entirely. It makes sense to contract manufacture them somewhere else or at least work with another company.
    14:10
    Maybe as a third-party supplier of designs to that company in the same way that Riot Pinball did with American Pinball. With a game and American Pinball developed it for manufacturing and sold it. So Turner Pinball could do a similar thing. But, you know, it again it's it's not really that clean break is it from deep root if you come if you come to them with a whole bunch of deep root titles oh well you can rename them and or maybe some designs need some some some tweaking um i'm sure in the end it will be sort of like a joint effort and um I think the thing in the pinball community is, unlike other cases, it's not like many pinball companies or pinball people or enthusiasts invested in Deep Root and lost money. Other people did, and I'm not saying that was right or wrong or what happened there. I'm not going to straighten that out. But I think if a company like American Pinball would come out with a food truck game,
    15:26
    pinball enthusiasts will probably just look at that as like, okay, yeah, it's a game that was designed by or developed by Deep Root, and now it's an American Pinball game or a Turner Pinball game, whatever you want to call it.
    15:40
    And in the end, all that matters is do I like it or do I not? there's a history there I get it but in the end people are very forgiving if they like the game nobody cares well we'll see I'm not convinced it's the same thing that Robert Mueller did with when he started Deep Group why would you start off your company with a bunch of tainted assets from a failed company well you know it's it's not the way anybody would choose to start a company is it to start off with so much so much ill will no but uh the reason why deep root failed is different than why for example zitware failed yeah but uh well yes no when when when when razo was put up for sale um didn't get that many buyers because it was so there's so many so much negative feeling about the game. Right.
    16:44
    It's a different story once people get to play the game and they actually can buy it. It's boxed up and you can take it home. That's a different story than would you like to buy it and we still have to figure out how we're going to build it.
    17:00
    I agree to a large extent, but again, I get back to my original point. Why would you start from that point when you don't have to. You can start from, you know, you can start and say, you know, we've got this stuff and it comes out as a, it's not Food Truck, it's a completely different title or it's a themed game. You might use the Food Truck design if it's particularly applicable to it.
    17:26
    Oh, yeah. Maybe that's what's going to happen. I agree with that. You don't have to stick to the names, but it's a waste to basically throw those designs in the bin if they are perfectly usable and especially a beauty like the pin bar we're all waiting for that to happen yes well I think we'll see if anybody picks up that particular ball and runs with it good luck to you if you do Anyway, on the subject of Deep Root, while we were talking about that, there was a, just yesterday, or, yeah, yesterday, on the, yes, all Robert Mueller's troubles seem so far away, because they were, he filed a response to the claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC's allegations about the collapse of the company. Basically, he just denied everything, said he didn't do anything wrong.
    18:36
    It was lots of things he couldn't, didn't have the information about or couldn't remember and requested a trial. and basically his claim or they call it defendant's prayer which is where they say what they want is that the SEC take nothing from him by this action that the court enters a judgment in favor of him that he's awarded his fees, costs and expenses to the maximum extent permitted and any other relief at law or inequity to which he might be justly entitled. So, totally wronged by the SEC. He didn't do anything wrong, and he deserves suitable payment for all his time and trouble. Well, imagine if that would happen.
    19:36
    It'll take a bit of effort to imagine that, but you never know. I'm sure ideal will be struck somewhere in between what the SEC wants and what he wants but as we've seen many times these things take a long time to actually be resolved right okay but now basically Mueller can say like well you accused me of something that wasn't the case it was all going to be a happy ending for everybody but because you interfered I lost my company went bankrupt and yada yada yada, you have to pay me X amount of money. That's right, yeah. That's right, and reputational damage as well. You know, I may never be able to work again, so... In Bimble, yeah, for sure.
    20:25
    Yes, indeed. I don't think... So in the end... So in the end, the SEC might end up paying, let's say, 100 million to Robert Mueller. He might actually be able to, with that money, to pay up everybody the money that he took from them in the first place with the I forgot what they are called life insurance policy yeah exactly he doesn't need to because he's done something wrong according to him so he doesn't need to pay anybody back oh right right yeah so ok so that's the latest news from the wonderful world of Deep Root and the totally unaffiliated Turner Pinball. Yeah. So, now, there is a related story, but we'll get back to that later.
    21:17
    Okay, we will, yes. So, where should we go now? Probably, well, I'd say Stern Pinball, which still is the biggest pinball manufacturer currently on the planet, I would say. As far as we know, yes, indeed. And it's been a, well, been a relatively busy time for them with quite a lot of announcements and lots of new code as well. Yeah, okay.
    21:42
    I've seen the three pages of code that you want to discuss. May I encourage you not to discuss the entire three pages, but let's stick to the main subjects. I should be the master of brevity and keep everything to a single bullet point. So, anyway. So, the latest game, the latest new Cornerstone game by Stern Pimble is, of course, 007.
    22:12
    The news related to that game is that the company started shipping the pro model of the game, and production has since shifted to the limited edition of the game.
    22:26
    Yes, still seems to have very early code, very incomplete code. Yeah, I think they're up to, and then we get to your specialty, of course, but I think 0.70 is the current code from the top of my head. Yeah, and that was November the 22nd, and that was just an update which added the word special preview models to the attract mode and game start display effects. So we've seen this on Forrest's assets not yet approved by a licensor and that kind of stuff. Now it's become a special preview model, which I guess is there to indicate that the code is really early and far from complete. Right. So if you have a game and you don't update it, is it worth more because it's a special preview model?
    23:23
    Oh, that's a question. and assuming it doesn't update itself automatically. Well, you have to turn that off to make sure that it doesn't increase in value because before you know it, it's just a regular pro.
    23:37
    Well, one of the earlier software versions actually from this month that we're talking about, November, from version 0.63 from the 14th, actually put some text on the attract mode and each time the start button is pressed that says software update required, connect game or update via SD card or USB and demo only So they seem to be pretty worried about putting out assets which aren't licensed or may not be complete. I don't know. First, it's a very strange situation. I think this game is being released way before it's ready to go out into the public. But I guess there are contractual obligations. I mean, it has to go out. Right. So, oh well.
    24:33
    Well, getting back to production. Yes. So we've seen the Pro and Premium and the LE models. Right. What we haven't seen is the 60th anniversary. And there's been some news on that, I understand. Yeah. George Gomez did an interview with the super awesome pinball show by our good friend Christopher Frenchy and friends, I would say. And where he indicated, well, he discussed a little bit what the play field will be like. It's a single level play field, contrary to the other models of the game. It's designed by Keith Elwin, as we know.
    25:18
    And the game is likely to be revealed mid-December. and they're only building 500 of them and pricing is unknown at this point although there are rumors that distributors are free to set their own price. So, well, that depends what they pay for the game in the first place.
    25:43
    So, but, yeah, no, well, it's a Keith Elwin game. So, lots of spinners. what I remember there's something like an eight shaped shot that feeds the ball directly back to the flippers it will have all six actors that portray James Bond in it and I think in terms of assets the Elwynn game is using the same musical assets as George has access to for the pro premium and limited edition models.
    26:23
    So... Oh, and the game is going to use a screen on the playfield. The display from the home pinball games is going to be used on the game. So... I thought I heard that it was going to have score reels, or is that not the case any longer? I think there was a request from the licensor to make it actually an electromechanical game I think Stern talked him out of them but they are sort of emulating that on the display and the score wheels will actually be backlit in some way and according to George that looks awesome so I'm not sure how they are going to do that but I suppose we're going to find out in a couple of weeks. Yeah, perhaps it could be something like we saw with the top of the Mandalorian, where it's a clear display, but backlit. So, anyway, that's speculation on my part, but we'll see what they come out with. And hopefully we'll get to see that in a couple of weeks' time. Yeah, so, and according to that same George Gomez, who is vice president of game design at CERN Pinball, so not somebody who doesn't know what he's talking about.
    27:51
    CERN is not likely to go back to the three cornerstones per year type of model anytime soon, although he didn't exactly say how long that period would be. But they have a large backlog of orders that they need to fulfill. So rather ship those first and sell those before announcing another game.
    28:23
    Right, okay. It kind of implies that they still have some kind of supply chain issues. They're not able to power through that backlog of orders and get those all shipped and move on to producing new titles. Right. Well, it depends which games they...
    28:45
    where there's demand for it. If a certain part is missing for a specific game and you can't get it, you can't make the game. That's basically what it comes down to. So, of course, they have been able to build games like Deadpool and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but those are rather recent games. I have no idea what the backlog is for the games that they could not build. I mean, I don't expect them to start building Ghostbusters again, for example, just to name a title. True.
    29:22
    Unless there was a particular reason, like a new movie or something coming out, or a reissue or an anniversary edition. Yeah, oh well. So anyway, and speaking of production, apparently, and this is from a different source, this is... Oh God, I know I might have the source wrong. I think this is from the Zach Manning show, of which the name is escaping me at the moment. Yeah, I think so.
    29:56
    But I could be entirely wrong. Apologies up front. but apparently Stern sent out a note to distributors indicating that the home edition titles for Star Wars and Jurassic Park will not be continued in production that doesn't mean that Stern is done with the home edition games for future titles, but those titles apparently are not seeing any new production.
    30:37
    That's a surprise. The Jurassic Park one is the Jack Danger one, is that right? Yes, exactly. That's a relatively recent release, isn't it? Yes, and I don't know whether that says anything about how that game has been received or how the demand for that game is or for the Star Wars one, and Star Wars includes the regular one and the comic art one.
    31:01
    But I don't know. What if the licenses are running out on those? Well, even for Jurassic Park, that would seem rather quick, I would say. Well, it came out sometime after the Cornerstone version, didn't it? So maybe the licenses for the Cornerstone version and that is now expiring and with it goes the choice or the option to do the home version. Right. so oh well it is what it is I suppose if you want either of those or you know any of those I should say the Star Wars regular or common all the Jurassic Park home games or thinking of buying them now would be the time to get in if you want them new I'm not sure how big the market is for those home games and I'm sure you can find them second hand as well yes and also whether there's a back order of those as well if you order it now when will you actually get it right so now I think we were one of the first to announce that Stern Pinball would be moving their factory within Elk Grove Village to a new facility yeah I think it should be about five blocks away or something like that Yeah, well, that's what Gary Stern told me.
    32:28
    We mentioned that last month, but we also mentioned it earlier on. We've actually known for months that Stern was sort of forced to move to a different facility, and more details have come to light on that matter. It turns out the address where they will be moving is 1001 Bus Road in Elk Grove Village, which is about five blocks away, I'd say, a three-minute drive north of where they are now located. and they're moving into a 163, almost 164,000 square feet building.
    33:22
    Keep in mind that they are coming from a 110 square feet facility. 110,000? Yeah, sorry. Sorry, sorry. Yeah, it's not my native language, people, sorry.
    33:35
    So they're increasing about 50%. in size and that's the factory area. Surprisingly we could not find any info on the second building that CERN is moving into because they are actually what I understood from Gary Stern is they are moving into two new locations where the second one will be a smaller one and they will use that for their woodworking facilities but we haven't found an address for that yet. Yes, you would assume it wouldn't be that far away. Well, probably not, no.
    34:09
    And the lease for the building on Bus Road is a 10-year lease. The building is owned by Prologis, and that lease is set to begin in October 2023, which I assume will indicate that we won't get a factory tour at the Stern Pimble factory during Pimble Expo next year. Yes, indeed. That would be the time, almost exactly the same time as the show. And it's interesting that that whole area, I believe, is owned by Prologis, and the place where Stern are now is also owned by them. So they're going from one of their facilities to another one.
    35:01
    But we have spoken about this several times, as you say, in the past. We know that the prologists want to redevelop that whole side of the street where Stern currently are and redevelop the opposite side of the street a few years ago. So I think they were trying to turn that street into much more high-tech and less manufacturing, more like server farms and cloud computing areas. so that would be a good reason for stern to move to an alternative facility the place where they're moving to is uh actually looks like a very nice factory for what we've seen it's currently occupied by a logistics and distribution company so it has lots and lots of loading docks at the back far more than stern will need but it does look like a very nice you know um glass and um It looks very modern. Yeah, exactly. Very modern-looking building. And, well, it's half as big again as where they are now. And that's just for the manufacturing side, not even including the woodworking, as you mentioned earlier. Yeah, so... A big expansion for Stern. Right, okay. But also a big lease, I believe, 26 million for 10 years. So you can do the math on that. And apparently the move itself is being calculated as a cost factor of $6.5 million.
    36:37
    I'm no expert. I was kind of surprised by that number. But like I said, I'm no expert. So I'm sure they had their calculators ready when calculating this number. it doesn't just nobody came up with it you can pick it out of thin air yeah exactly and well like we mentioned already last month Ray Tenzer will be in charge of the upcoming move and looks like he has a year to prepare yes and I mean that's when the lease begins is in October 2023. Right. So whether they will be at exactly that point, we don't know. But yeah, if anything like what they did last time, it will be a very swift and impressive transfer of operations from the current building to the new one.
    37:39
    Right. So yeah, we mentioned about code. So very, very quick as we can. So new code for Rush came out on the 29th, version 102.
    37:53
    Quite a big update actually for Rush, as you might expect. It is past version 1, so it is code complete, but they are tweaking and adjusting quite a lot of the way the modes work. We won't go into too much about that. It's not another Rush update.
    38:18
    Thank you for that. One of the things which they have added to that, which they are adding to all their games slowly, certainly all the Spike 2 games, is putting icons on the display to indicate the Wi-Fi or Ethernet signal quality. so you will be able to see if there's a weak Wi-Fi signal you'll be able to see that on the attract mode for the entirely connect screen pages and the exciting part of the update is that they now blink the selected icon in the service menu that's what we've all been waiting for I was always lost in there that's worth updating just for that alone I'd say I mentioned James Bond has had a whole bunch of updates four different updates over the past month so version 0.70 is the current one none of it's been sort of dramatic which is a bit surprising because you kind of expect to be moving along in leaps and bounds but only a few features and quite a lot of fixes have taken place Godzilla I got an update a couple of days ago. Well, it's had a couple of updates, actually. Virtual 103 is the current one, which I think was a couple of days ago, and that's mainly a bug fix. A bug was introduced in 102. Oh. It came out a week before. Oh, so it comes with free bug fixing. Yeah, it might take a week or a few days to... Free bugs as well. Yeah, that's right, yeah. yeah version 102 had quite a lot of uh new things in it so i think that's definitely worth a an update if you if you're considering it and um also allows you to have random music for the godzilla multiball um let's know because it's not always blue oyster cult uh it could be something else uh the game can you can let the game pick if you want to do that And it's got the same system updates for the icons and stuff. And finally, Beatles. Yes, the Beatles. After all this time getting an update.
    40:38
    Really minor, actually. I don't hardly know what they've got. But Virtual 1.24, right at the beginning of November, which fixed an issue with the way the high screen, sorry, high score displays were shown on the screen, added tilt warnings for instant info and the ability to change songs in the classic mode of play by hitting the hidden left stand-up target. If you didn't know there was a left stand-up target, that's because it's hidden. But if you can find it, then you can change the songs during the game. And that's the code. So did they change the code as well for hitting the left and right ramp? Or are they hidden as well?
    41:21
    Oh, well, it might be hidden, but it wasn't included in the update. But it could be hidden in the update. Right. Who knows? Well, as far as I know, the ramps are hidden as well. Yeah, that would be... They are hidden ramps, indeed, yeah.
    41:39
    OK, moving on to what's been happening... Across the street, I'd say. A couple of blocks away, rather than five blocks, at Jersey Jackpin Ball. Yeah. And it's been a moderately quiet month for them. No new game announcements or anything like that just yet. Although we have an inkling there might be something coming up fairly soon. But maybe not, maybe not. We were told that they're expecting to announce two game titles this year. And we've only had Toy Story 4 so far. and there was a suggestion that it was maybe a contractual obligation to get the second title announced before the end of 2022. Whether that's the case or not, we don't know. Yeah, exactly.
    42:31
    But anyway, they were, as Stern were, Jersey Jack Pimple were IAPA, the IAPA show in Orlando. they had four Toy Story 4 machines down there and two Guns N' Roses on the booth was Jack Guarneri, Michael Fox and Ken Cromwell representing the company and also at in Florida they were at the Free Play Florida show on the stand of the little shop of games where those same machines were. Right. Those two events, obviously, well, Free Play Florida is almost co-timed with IAPA. I think it's the weekend after. Yeah, that's right. It's designed for those people who are in town for IAPA to also be able to go to Free Play Florida. It makes a fantastic week of pinball fun. Right. Now, right before that, before the IEPA show, there was actually the Dutch Pimble Open Expo in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
    43:45
    Indeed there was, held in the Dutch Pimble Museum. Exactly. And Jersey Jack Pimble were well represented there. We can talk a little bit more about the show in a moment, but both Eric Meunier and Jean-Paul De Wynne were at the DPO Expo and were holding seminars. In fact, they were holding a lot of seminars into the structure of the show. it's probably worth just mentioning that because it was held in the museum there was a limit well in most places there was a relatively low limit on the number of people who could be in the building at the same time for fire and safety regulations so it was set up so that you could come and attend the show in the morning and afternoon or the afternoon and evening on Friday was the evening, Saturday was submission to two and then Sunday was a separate session as well. So in order to for all those people to be able to enjoy Eric and John Paul's seminars, they did three of them. Yeah, the same ones, so to speak. Yeah, pretty much. Only the questions at the end were different. Mm-hmm. The presentations and the slideshow and that kind of stuff is the same, but the information in there varied a little bit. I did catch a couple of instances of their presentation and videoed them as well. More about that later. Yeah. And so, yes, they were talking about, well, obviously Eric was talking mostly about Guns N' Roses and as was Jean-Paul, but also covered the whole gamut of JJP games because he's worked on them all from the very first, The Wizard of Oz. Yeah. Very nice presentation. So thank you, Eric and Jean-Paul, for giving those. We also have to give a shout-out to Ken Cromwell,
    45:51
    who was kind enough to supply us with quite a few prizes for our So You Think You Know pinball quiz that we also did at the Dutch Pinball Open Expo. we did two of them and we were able to give some Jersey Jack Toy Story 4 translights away and Eric Meunier was kind enough to bring some promotional plastics and that kind of stuff as well that we weren't able to pick up at Expo so thank you very much Jersey Jack Pimble for your support yes it was very generous and everybody who took part in our quiz was able to at least win any other prizes. They also got a nice selection of Jersey Jack pinball keychains and promotional plastics. So, yeah, thank you from me too. Right. And I did see a rather interesting announcement on the Jersey Jack pinball Facebook page where they announced Christoph Lienhardt, who runs a company called Pinball Pleasure, as the official distributor for Belgium and the Netherlands for Jersey Jack games.
    47:08
    Now, Christophe is already the distributor for Luxembourg and France, as you may know. And there is another distributor for Belgium and the Netherlands, which is Paul Wijnands. and I looked at the distributor page on the Jersey Jack pinball website where actually Paul Winans is still mentioned as the distributor for these two territories and Pinball Pleasure only listed for Luxembourg and France. So I'm not sure whether Christophe got Netherlands and Belgium exclusively, or whether he has to share them with Paul Winans and possibly others as well. But there was an announcement. I figured I mention it and that what I noticed Do you know if Christophe has any sort of presence in Belgium No I don think so no And I think he's based in Luxembourg himself.
    48:22
    Now, if you consider that the entire country of the Netherlands is probably the size of New York City, maybe slightly larger you could probably say that Luxembourg geographically speaking is like sort of like New Jersey North New Jersey and then probably the size of I don't know pick a small it's a very small country so no physical presence but we'll see how that works out do you have to have physical presence the distance isn't that far that he couldn't deliver games himself but it's not like he has a showroom in Amsterdam or anything like that or if you need service calls and things like that I'm sure he'll be able to work with somebody to handle those. Right. So, yeah, okay. That rounds it sort of up for Jersey Jack Pinball. I think it does. So, let's head north and go to, well, north, we're talking about Belgium and the Netherlands, so north from there and go up to Pinball Brothers and see what they've been up to. In Sweden,
    49:52
    well, it's a bit of a mix-up because the Pimble Brothers shipped a large container of Alien games to the US, but of course it's Pedretti Gaming in Italy who are actually building and shipping these games as they are the contract manufacturer for Pimble Brothers, although there might be a change in that, as I understood Pedretti and Pimble Brothers are sort of intensifying their collaboration. Let's call it that. Oh, okay. Do you think there might be some kind of merger there? Yeah, something like that. Yeah. I don't have the details yet, but it appears to me that that's sort of the case. And, well, so the Pilgrim Brothers Facebook page actually shared a bunch of photos from I think it is the Pedretti facility where they are building alien games right now.
    51:08
    Still no queen. I was going to mention that next. We saw the game revealed at Expo and since then it's been very quiet. I know they were going to go away and consider some of the responses they had to it before making any further announcements. So I guess that's where we are at the moment. But no timeline or more information on when Queen will be released or made available to buy. Right. And it's interesting that of the photos shared today, actually, of the facility where Alien Games are being put together, we see three employees wearing a T-shirt that says something like, Mayland Yutani Corporation building better pinball. And it also has a Pedretti logo on them. On there. So I'm not sure what that Mayland Yutani Corporation actually is. Oh, that's from the Alien game. That's the name of the company. Ah, okay. So it's just a shirt related to the game. Yeah, it's a company they're working for. You know, the Weyland is one ramp on the left-hand side, and the Utani is the other one. You have to shoot them both in order to qualify the mode. Okay, okay. It wasn't clear to me. It could be that it was a sort of pinball-related...
    52:49
    It is in a way, but... Strictly alien. No, okay. I got it. Thank you for clarifying that to me. No problem. So that's about it for Pinball Brothers. American Pinball, anything much from them?
    53:06
    I think you found some information about a game which hasn't materialized. Yes, so technically American Pinball didn't have any news to report the past month. But again, Christopher Frenchy, who we mentioned earlier, mentioned on the Super Awesome Pinball Show, which is a super awesome pinball show.
    53:38
    He shared a piece of artwork which appeared to me as a back glass for a Prince themed pinball machine. And he shared that on the Meta Luna 5 page and also on his personal profile on Facebook, if I'm not mistaking.
    54:00
    And the story with that is what he told on his super awesome pinball show, is that he did the artwork to pitch that game to American Pinball.
    54:14
    They liked the idea. and Roger Sharp, who is working with American Pinball to secure licenses, went and discussed the possibilities with the Prince estate,
    54:30
    as Prince is no longer around, sadly. And it appeared that they were willing to license the Prince catalog and what have you to American Pinball. But they were asking one and a half million American dollars, which was apparently too steep for a company the size of American Pinball.
    54:59
    I think they made a counteroffer, but that didn't really materialize into any further collaboration.
    55:08
    And that's where the story ends so far. So at least not with American Pinball. So that doesn't mean that another company couldn't step in and get that license and go after a Prince-themed pinball machine, which could actually be very cool.
    55:24
    Yeah, well, I think we publicly announced, wasn't it, that the Beatles game was one million. Yeah, in license fees, yes. Yeah, and not many people or not many companies could stump up that kind of money for a title. So one and a half million, well, that's obviously what the estate wants.
    55:50
    Somebody came back to them and said we'll give you one million, whether they go for that or not. But it's certainly not – it's priced out of most people companies' range, I'd say. maybe one or possibly two companies I think we could guess might be able to but it will be a gamble it all comes down to how many games can you build well I think you sell well yeah in order to sell yeah but you have to build them as well else we get stories that we don't want to cover yeah well yeah we get pre-orders again and or Backlogs of Orders, which is something we were talking about earlier. But yes, it's a pricey game, and well, maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't. It's certainly a good back catalogue of music. I can see a limited edition of 1999 games. Ooh, I like it. Let's party. Yes.
    56:53
    Okay, well that was not really much in the way of news from Rogan Pinball, because it's about a game they didn't make. No. So let's look at a company with two games that they did make, and that's Spooky Pinball. Again, they've been pretty quiet getting on building games, but they did take time out to go and attend the Chicago Days of the Dead event, which I'm guessing is kind of like a Halloween-type event. and it was there that Charlie Emery took a Halloween and Ultraman machine to be part of the show there. We don't really know anything much more about it, I mean, other than that's the kind of thing. I think they've been to that event before, so I think it's a regular gig for them. But nice to turn up with Halloween for that.
    57:49
    A suitable title, shall we say. Right. So, okay. Well, not much to report on Spooky, other than they probably are building their total nuclear annihilation 2.0 right now. So, oh well.
    58:14
    I think next in line is Chicago Gaming. Yes, they are now, finally, After more than a year since it was announced, they are finally shipping the Cactus Canyon Limited Editions, the ones with the animated topper as standard. Right. And, well, to their credit, they stuck to the original price that they asked, which a year ago probably seemed quite a lot of money, but these days seems a bit of a bargain. and at the time they only took ask for deposits of $1,000 in order to secure your order. Of course, it obviously sold out very quickly, Cactus Canyons, Ellie's. So, yeah, they are now going out the door. So they shared some pictures on social media of, I think there were around about a dozen or 13 Ellie's all in final test, about to be boxed up and head off to the lucky buyers. So if you're one of those, you've been waiting all this time, congratulations. I hope you get your shipping notification and tracking number soon. Right. So, hold on. My phone's ringing. Oh, you know what that means? Well, if it's this ringtone, definitely I do what it means. Our good friend Gary Flower calling in. Oh, it could be somebody outside with your pizza. Ah, well, it's about time, but no. Yeah, okay, later. Yeah, so do we have time to talk to Gary? Yeah, absolutely. Let's see what he has to say. Yeah, usually he has some scoops and so on. Yeah, better answer it. Yeah. Hello, Gary. Hi there.
    60:00
    Oh, no. Oh, dear. You have a terrible echo. Echo? Hello. Hey. Oh, dear. It's not going to work, is it? No. I don't know where that echo is coming from, but let me see if I can figure it out. It's not our end. We'll call you back, Gary.
    60:22
    Okay, we'll see what we can do about that. And we'll move on. Sorry for that interruption. Yeah, that's a shame. We were talking about Chicago Gaming and the Cactus Canyon game, and I think there's a little more news on that. Well, it's not exactly news yet, although apparently Planetary Pinball posted on Pinside inside an image of something that people interpret as the possibility of saloon doors coming to Cactus Canyon and that's a feature that was originally intended for the game back in 1999 yes it's been mooted as something which would be added to the Chicago Gaming remake of it but we haven't seen it yet but I guess if it's coming now it will be an add-on kit rather than part of the limited edition or anything like that yeah something like that so the post by Planetary Pinball showed an image which resulted in the speculation and an image of the word Hallelujah so apparently I'm not sure whether that could be like Eureka we found a way how to do it or something like that so speculation on that and what that exactly can mean but yeah that could be Saloon Wars coming to Cactus Canyon basically the remake that is yeah okay well we'll see whether they make their way onto the playfield at some point In the meantime, we'll head over to Taiwan and see what HomePin had been up to, because not a lot, I don't think. No, actually, on that matter, it has been surprisingly quiet regarding this spinal tap. Yeah, we mentioned last month the game turned up at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, but we haven't really seen anything much more of it in the month since. No. What we have seen is the reemergence of the Porsche Taycan game, which HomePin made for Porsche cars to use at car shows. And there have been a couple of car shows which look like they were somewhere in China. The details were pretty scarce. But apparently those pinball machines have been turning up on their stand there. Yeah, which is what they are intended for. Yeah, promotional devices. but somebody did try to take some video of it and was told that that's not allowed. Porsche didn't want any video of the game. Okay. It's odd but... I have seen video of the game. For a promotional device. I have seen video of the game. Basically, it's a... Firepower, isn't it? Yeah, an updated Firepower game. Yeah. The layout of Firepower and then... So, I'm not sure whether we're missing out much on that. no but you think if it's there to promote it's not meant as a stab or anything but no it's seems to be well received by Porsche it was used a while ago and the games are now back out on their stand at the shows again so it's obviously something that they are happy with so that's about the only home pin news I think we've got yeah so let's move on to let's go to Pinball Adventures because we know that they've been working on a couple of games at least and we've been waiting for the Polly Factory to finally be available to purchase actually if I'm not mistaken that game is supposed to be officially available as of today is it? oh ok I didn't know that Okay, well, there have been lots of requests for information about when it's going to be available on Instagram, and they haven't had any reply, which is odd. But we just see more and more pictures of games being built, but no further information about how complete they are.
    64:56
    If you wanted to buy one, how would you go about doing it? Right, yeah. So I think you need to ramp up to a proper launch. and let people know what the status of the game is, because it's been in development for so long now that it's kind of one of those ones that's always in development, and we've seen that from other companies in the past. Yeah. And it really ends well.
    65:20
    Yeah, so it's time to box off a couple of games and bring them to shows, I'd say. Hmm, yeah. See what the response is, because, oh well. last month I mentioned the date of December 1st for the launch of the Pony Factory but well technically the day isn't over yet especially not in that part of Canada where they are located I haven't seen anything other than some videos and puns yeah lots of puns oh well, anyway ok, moving on then we were talking about Pedretti Gaming earlier on, yeah in relation to yeah, so now the interesting thing is they shared a photo at the beginning of the month of a couple of pallets with boxes and they said they were going to make a lot of their funhouse customers happy. Rumor quickly had it that those boxes would contain a topper for their Funhaus 2.0 kit. That wasn't confirmed, but I did manage to actually take photos of this prototype Funhaus topper which was actually displayed at the Dutch Pinball Open Expo that we also just discussed there was an area with a Funhouse 2.0 that had the topper and Janus Kiss who is the programmer of the game was present as well as Melvin Brouwer who is a project manager for Pedretti who is living in the Netherlands, which was very convenient for him.
    67:28
    And I took a picture of them both with the topper, which still at that point was a prototype, and that basically had to do that they are still working on the way certain elements in the topper are illuminated or lighting up or whatever you want to call it. but it's a sculpture with a couple of characters from the 2.0 game I would say yeah it's got Rudy in the center front and center in the back you've got a hot dog and on the right you've got a monkey with the symbols with a sort of fairground background to it and the hot dog and the monkey on a sort of white cloud type. Which apparently lights up. Yep, exactly. You can see it's got LED strips illuminating both Rudy from the front and the clouds from underneath as well. Yeah, but apparently that illumination is going to be choreographed as well, tying in with the lighting shows of the game, I suppose, and other elements of the game. Right. My initial comment was that It doesn't look much like Rudy. That was the only difference. The only thing I thought didn't look quite right. The face of Rudy didn't seem quite how you'd expect it to be.
    69:01
    Maybe that will change. Maybe that will prototype as well and become more Rudy-esque over time. I don't know. I suppose we'll find out once we see the actual clapper.
    69:14
    Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, so I saw a picture from the Pedretti Gaming Factory, which had a big, several pallets full of boxes, which turned out to be PCs for the Funhaus 2.0 Rudy's Nightmare kit.
    69:33
    So they weren't toppers, but they are the PCs that go into the machine to run the kits. so they had lots of those so they're obviously planning on building an awful lot of these one house 2.0 kits so yeah look forward to seeing more of those out in the wild as you said that was at the Dutch Pinball Open Expo where you snapped that picture of the topper very nice shall we talk about that now? well sure yeah I'll round up of companies because we could do that very quickly, I think. Well, yeah, I think so because, well, there's quite a few companies that have absolutely no news to mention, which include Dutch Pinball, Haggis Pinball, Circus Maximus, SCR Pinball, Bitronic, Quetzal Pinball, and I think that's about it. Yeah, I think that's it, yeah. Okay, so no news from those companies, so let's get back to what we were just talking about. so how would you describe this year's Dutch Pinball Open Expo and how was it received by people because you were involved in the organising of it to a degree I was only there as a reporter and co-host of our quiz and video in the seminars right, yeah I think the show went down very well people were actually surprised how many people would actually fit into this old building. I suppose. Yeah. The Dutch Pimple Museum, I think it has like five or six floors.
    71:19
    And besides over 200 games present at the event, it never seemed crowded unless you were a tournament player.
    71:35
    because the tournament area was packed. It's a good thing that COVID is no longer really a thing, apparently.
    71:45
    But in the other areas, while the place was actually packed and maxed out with the number of people that were allowed to be in the building at the same time, it didn't feel crowded at all. So that was a good thing. I hear actually I only heard very good things about the show I thought it was a very nice show and I think the team is also very enthusiastic about how it went down Of course for some people it a lot of work
    72:24
    Yes. There was an awful lot of moving machines and I think it was just that one lift or elevator, wasn't there? All the machines had to go up and down and all the vendors parts and materials had to be used as well. so it got a lot of use over the course of the week before I would say and the weekend of the show yes you would be doing a lot of walking up and down the stairs over the course of the show's three days if you were there for the whole lot yeah but I don't recall any negativity although well some people got a little bit annoyed with how some people treated games and um but i suppose that that that's with every show not everybody is uh as well behaved as one would expect no that's right um particularly when you sort of open them up to the general public to come and uh come and enjoy but uh anyway we had this in our case as well you know you see kids and uh and even adults banging on the on the machines in either in frustration or in boredom if they've been dragged there by their parents. But no, I didn't witness any of that anyway.
    73:44
    I thought the location was wonderful. It was a really good place within Rotterdam. There were lots and lots of shops and restaurants and bars and other places. The only downside for that, I would say, is there were no hotels that close to Rotterdam. I think the nearest one would have been probably about a 20-minute walk. I think I was staying at the nearest one. So I did that walk a good few times, particularly late at night, and it was about 20 minutes. It would have been nice if, as with some other shows, we could just walk out of the show hall and head up to your hotel room straight away. but that's a small price to pay for it being held in the Dutch Pinball Museum which has all credit to Gerald and everybody who's contributed to that it's got some amazing exhibits, it's obviously put a huge amount of effort into making it such an attractive and popular location, everywhere you look there are little tidbits that you hadn't noticed the first time you walked past or even the tenth time you walk past, you'll see a display case or you'll see something on the wall which sort of makes you stop and do a double taking. Is that really what I think it is? Yes, in those cases there's all kinds of amazing historically significant items. And, of course, it's got that nice set-up of the Twilight Zone back glass as well where you can make from actual physical objects that illustrate what you see in the back glass.
    75:29
    And I think the facilities in there were very good. There was catering on both the bottom and the very top of the building. You didn't have to go all the way down from one end or the other to get a drink or something to eat.
    75:45
    And as I said, easy to pop outside and no shortage of places to go if you didn't want to stay within the building. Yeah. Now, great show, and compliments to everybody involved in organizing this event. Absolutely. And so let's talk about the seminars there, because we'd already mentioned about Eric and JP. Right. But we also had three seminars from another Eric. Yeah, Eric Bartel. Yeah, exactly. Talking about his Magic Girl conversion. or finishing of the Magic Girl... Resurrection, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. So there were a couple of Magic Girl machines up on the very top floor. I want to say fifth floor, but it might have been the fourth. Yeah. The highest floor. Yes.
    76:37
    The way it's laid out in the museum, it's quite hard to work out where one floor starts and another floor ends, because... It's like a maze of floors. There is, and some floors you can go in and walk around and come out another point, and other places there's one way in and one way out. Right. But, yes, there were two magic gold machines there for people to play, which was very nice. There was, I would say, at least two Guns N' Roses there. There might have been three. There was a Pirates of the Caribbean up there, and there was Kill Bill as well up in the seminar area, which was also used for gameplay and for kids tournament finals as well and just beyond that was the top floor cafeteria so it was pretty busy up there nice to see some good vendors as well there who was there obviously Pinson was there Nicholas, very nice to see him Pimble Universe Mirko was there, Pimble Universe had a big selection of them I bought a load of stuff from PE parts. And that was you. Yeah, I think everybody was.
    77:51
    Even I did, yeah. I saw the prices of some of this stuff, and I couldn't believe some of those LEDs, so I just had to go and buy a whole bag. I couldn't bring them back, but fortunately some of the UK team were over there, and they were able to take the parts back for me, and so hopefully at some point I'll get them. and yes it was really nice PIN4LED were there as well selling LEDs I felt a bit sorry for them with PU parts selling LEDs at such discounted rates but they seem to be doing alright as well wow, ok so Ministry of Pinball also had a booth at the Grand Devil yep and of course there were plenty of souvenirs to be bought for the museum itself as well Yeah, exactly. No, it was a great event.
    78:45
    Is it going to be there again, do you think? No. Or is that kind of a one-off? This was a one-off that could only be held this year because the upper floors in the museum will have a different use in the upcoming year, so it will not be very easy to do an event this size again. Right. Well, I'm glad to have experienced it, and it's always worth coming along to the DPO Expo, because you never quite know what it's going to be like, and it might just be the one and only time. It's like when it was held at the Ebelong in Eindhoven. Eindhoven, yeah. I was going to say Eindhoven. I wonder what it really was. Just to clarify for those who don't understand, the Dutch Pinball Open Expo is sort of a travelling show. it has been held at the same location in the past multiple times but the tradition sort of is that they try to move it around so it's at a different location almost every year which makes it difficult to organize or more difficult to organize because you can't do the same thing that you did last year but that explains why this year it was at the Dutch Pinball Museum and next year it will be somewhere else and we don't know where yet so anyway enough about the yes quite I do have to say one last word of course we did two rounds of our so you think you know pinball quiz with quite a few participants, I have to say, who really appreciated the concept.
    80:37
    And we had lots of prizes to give away. We already mentioned Jersey Jack Pinball as one of the sponsors of prizes, but we also have to say a huge thank you to Dutch Pinball.
    80:51
    Yeah, Barry gave us some great prizes. Just mini playfields, but also a white Russian model car from the game. lots of keychain sets yeah which we will actually be taking to other quiz editions as well and of course the rug yeah and the translight Pedretti Gaming also donated a couple of t-shirts and caps which we appreciated very much Pimble News donated a mug Pimple Magazine a couple of books. And posters and cards. You're very generous. Oh yeah, I am so generous. You are. I always have that.
    81:42
    And so but no, a huge thanks to all the manufacturers that participated in sponsoring our quiz with goodies. Yep, indeed. And we still have a few left over which we will be taking to Texas for the Texas Gimbal Festival, where we will be running our quiz again.
    82:09
    Hopefully. We haven't had it confirmed yet, but I'm sure we will. It's always fun, I think, for us and for everybody who wins all the prizes, because we always like to give everything away, if we possibly can. Right. Then, there is, well, we talked about the Turner Pinball Deep Root saga type of thing but you actually had a story that went was published today on Pinball News about the Zitware case which has been basically going on for like 11 years. Yes indeed just to do a brief recap because it's quite a long convoluted story. Okay well we'll read everything Yes Yes, indeed. You can just go to Pimple News and read it all. But the basis of the story is that 11 years ago, John Popaduke, yeah, I got quite choked up by it as well. Sorry. That's all right. John Popaduke announced his intention to build Magic Girl and started taking pre-orders and pre-order money for the deposit and half payment up front on the $16,000 cost. and as we know if you've been following anything to do with Pimble over the past or the following 11 years, that game never got made, neither did Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland which was also offered for sale with pre-order money taken or Alice in Wonderland which went the same way there was actually a fourth game called Space Mission X which I believe was privately offered to various people though it's unclear whether anybody actually put any money up for it and if they did they weren't part of this particular chapter of the story. Anyway, eventually John ran out of money. His company who they paid the money to, Zidware, kind of collapsed and they tried to make some magic gold machines as we've seen before including the two that were at the Dutch Pinball Open Expo. now they they were delivered as uh non-functioning and unplayable and um that was kind of the end of the story until john went to work for deep root pinball to design games at that point um or in fact um slightly before that point some of the buyers who had paid money for magic girl razza and alice in wonderland got together sought legal advice as to what they could do to try and recover any of their money. There was no money because John had spent it all on developing the games and never got around to building them before the money ran out. And then basically sued him for their money back, which they won their case against him because he promised to deliver them games and he didn't. So they won their case, but there was no money left in order for any money to be paid back to the buyers. So it was rather a pyrrhic victory at that point because they couldn't, well, they were in the right, but that didn't help them get any money back. Right.
    85:31
    Then John went to work for Deep Root and then transpired that he had transferred a whole bunch of assets to Deep Root, including the rights to make Magic Girl, Razor, Alice in Wonderland, and other games which as it turned out was only signed after the judgment against him had been made but apparently he his lawyers argued that it was an oral undertaking to transfer it and of course all this time john has no money and yet he has all these lawyers representing him and defending him in court. And so all that was being paid for by Deep Root.
    86:18
    But after the buyers won their court case and were on the verge of trying to recover some of the assets and were inquiring from Deep Root what happened to all this stuff,
    86:30
    John went into bankruptcy along with Zidware. And that seemed to be the end of it. And just recently, as we were talking about, We saw some of these assets appear in the Deeproot bankruptcy auction.
    86:47
    But it seemed like there was nothing there for the buyers to get. But as their lawyer, Zane Smith, was going through John's bank accounts, he discovered that John was paying for some storage units or paying the rental on some storage units. And when we dug further into that, it turned out that nearly all the stuff from the Zidware studio, all the Magic Girl and Razza and Alice in Wonderland and Saces from X development machines and prototype machines, were still in existence along with all the parts and the mechanisms and the artwork and the drawings and the sketches. And they were in these lockups. Yeah, so basically John had cleared out his studio and stored it in these two units. Yes, although he hadn't been paying rent on them for a while, so it was in danger of the whole lot being trashed. So the buyers agreed a settlement with John that in payment for the money that he owed them, they would take ownership of all this material assets from the lockup. So that's what the story is about, what there was and where it is now, and the fact that it's now all available to buy. So if you're interested in buying all the history of Zidware, pretty much, and the development of Magic Girl, Razor, Alice in Wonderland, Space Mission X, it's pretty much all contained in this collection, along with some other stuff which I discovered, including the Houdini sketches for the Houdini game which John designed for American Pinball when they first started. in payment for them making Magic Girl. Right. So I was a little curious as to who would claim ownership of that artwork and play-filled sketches because it was done for American Pinball, but they ultimately decided not to pursue that and scrapped that whole design and got Judo Belser to redesign it with different artwork. Right. So none of that was ever used. But that stuff's in this collection as well. So, anyway, have a look at the article. There's a lot of interesting pictures of what's there. Where can people read this wonderful article? Yes, indeed. Just go to pinballnews.com. It's right there on the front page, lead story.
    89:14
    And, yes, there's a lot of pictures there and interviews with Zane, the group's lawyer, who gives a much better description of the whole process that they had to go through to get that far than I can. Right. Okay. So, now, before saying goodbye, there is one item that we forgot to discuss on our last episode, where we recapped Pinball Expo. but it's a rather interesting item although we can't say very much about it but what caused a little bit of a buzz at Pinball Expo was a flyer that was printed by Henrik Maurer of Pinball Dreams in Germany and on that flyer it showed the one-of-a-kind fiberglass KISS pinball machine produced by Belly in 1979.
    90:25
    And Henrik had come to Pinball Expo to find out more information about the game, which I was happy to help him with by connecting him to Jim Petla, the designer of the game, and also Alan Reisman was an engineer at Bally that worked on that rare prototype.
    90:49
    And I was there when Alan saw the flyer with the picture of the game and saw his response and that was really something wonderful to see because he was looking at a game that he figured was lost for 40 years and all of a sudden he's looking at it and they have it in pristine condition, working and so on.
    91:14
    So that flyer was, I was given a couple of copies and Alan Reisman, I think, was showing a couple of people that the game existed and he showed them on the show for it. Before you knew it, people were asking me for flyers, as they figured that I was behind this whole project. I'm not.
    91:40
    That is Henrik Maurer of Pinball Dreams, and he's actually working together with a partner, which I didn't write down the name. I think his name was Ingo, but don't pin me down on that. but they both were at Pinball Expo the story is they located this fiberglass belly kiss pinball machine at the home of a former employee of Bolly Wolf who briefly manufactured pinball machines in Germany as well and they were able to buy it and restore it and they immediately knew, like, they had never seen this cabinet, because it's a really different cabinet. And so they took pictures, they made this flyer, and they went to Pinball Expo to get more information, and, well, they got more info, and they hope to display the game in a yet-to-open pinball museum in Germany. at some point in the future. Right, so there was just one of these made, was there a prototype or a sample? Yes, and the game was displayed at the AMOA show in 1979,
    93:14
    and after that shipped to Germany, as the German distributor was a very big part of the market. Well, we know all about the German market and the Kiss machines. Right. And, well, they shipped the game there.
    93:35
    Eventually, they never took that fiberglass model into production. And, well, the rest is sort of history, I suppose. Nobody knows where it went, and it was considered lost or trashed. And all of a sudden it surfaced 40 years after nobody had seen it anymore. So that's sort of the story. Great. Okay. And the purpose of the flyer was to, what, to publicize the game's existence? Yeah.
    94:12
    To show to people who may have more knowledge about the game. I suppose both. I have no idea how many they made. but they wanted to let the world know that this game had surfaced. And I suppose that's the idea. There's also on the flyer, which I don't have in front of me, there's an email address where you can find more information on that game. and I plan to publish the entire story in a upcoming issue of Pinball Magazine Fantastic, ok we'll look forward to reading the whole story of how that came to be how it came to be made why it went into production and how it ended up in Germany Right I suppose that rounds it up for our recap So we hope you enjoyed listening to this special pincast covering November 2022, looking back at all the pinball events in that month. We will, of course, be back at the beginning of 2023 to cover everything pinball related of Note that happened in December. And who knows, maybe some new game releases then as well. But in the meantime, from myself, Martin of Pinball News and from Jonathan, the editor of Pinball Magazine. Yeah, we wish you a very happy holidays, Merry Christmas, a happy new year. Hope you have a lovely time. Hope you get everything that you wish for. And we certainly look forward to welcoming you to the next Pinball Magazine, Pinball News Pincast at the start of January. Okay, thank you. And that goes for me as well. so thank you for listening and until next time thank you bye bye