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Episode 54 - The King of Cashing

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 9m·held·Jan 29, 2018
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

IFPA top-20 player Steve Bowden discusses Stern vaults, Deep Root Pinball design team, and community game rankings.

Summary

Steve Bowden (ranked 17th globally by IFPA) joins the Eclectic Gamers Podcast to discuss recent tournament play, pinball news including Stern's Lucy AC/DC Vault announcement and Deep Root Pinball emerging role as a new manufacturer with contracted designers. The hosts debate vault game priorities (Tron vs. AC/DC vs. Walking Dead), discuss Deep Root's software approach and customization model, and run through the third round of their "Shame Round" bracket tournament featuring under-ranked pinball machines.

Key Claims

  • Stern Pinball formally announced a Lucy iteration vault edition of AC/DC

    high confidence · Stern Pinball did formally announce that the Lucy iteration of ACDC will be getting a vault edition.

  • Steve Bowden is ranked 17th in the world by IFPA as of the morning of the episode

    high confidence · He is the 17th ranked in the world by the International Flipper Pinball Association as of this morning.

  • Deep Root Pinball has contracted J-Pop (John Papaduke) as a designer

    high confidence · John Papaduke, more commonly known as J-Pop, was the designer that they had contracted with.

  • Deep Root Pinball announced additional exclusive designers: Barry Osler (in-house), Dennis Nordman, and John Norris

    high confidence · They have now announced additional exclusive designers. Barry Osler, who is indicated to be an in-house designer for them, and then also Dennis Nordman and John Norris.

  • Deep Root Pinball will use quad assembly instead of an assembly line

    high confidence · It was indicated that they are not going to be using an assembling line, but instead something that they refer to as quad assembly.

  • Deep Root Pinball's machines will use Williams/Bally-era (WMS) dimensions, not Zizzle-sized machines

    high confidence · They indicated that the dimensions would be the WMS era Bally Williams size. So I guess that indicates not Zizzle machines.

  • Deep Root Pinball announced a fire-and-brimstone Christian-themed game designed to appeal beyond that specific religious demographic

    high confidence · One theme was announced, a fire and brimstone, a Christian-themed pinball designed to appeal beyond that specific religious demographic.

  • Deep Root Pinball has contracted David Thiel for sound design

    high confidence · They gave a basic summary of what the five days of Deep Root will be... They announced that they got David Thiel to do the sounds for them.

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm very glad to be here, and I'm glad to see the number of topics we've got coming up. This is going to be a very good show, I think.”

    Steve Bowden @ early in episode — Guest acknowledges the show's lineup and expresses enthusiasm

  • “Flash Gordon's the equalizer. I mean, it doesn't matter how good you are. Flash Gordon will wipe you out if he gets a chance.”

    Steve Bowden @ tournament discussion section — Characterizes Flash Gordon as a game that levels competitive play regardless of skill

  • “What shot is safe on flash court? There isn't any.”

    Tony (host) @ Flash Gordon discussion — Describes the punishing design philosophy of Flash Gordon

  • “I remain surprised about Tron. I mean, are we all in agreement that Tron is the most logical vault to be vaulted?”

    Dennis (host) @ Vault discussion — Expresses community expectation that Tron should have been vaulted before AC/DC

  • “The only thing I can figure out is it's got to be a license issue. It's got to be.”

    Steve Bowden @ Tron vault speculation — Theorizes licensing constraints as reason for lack of Tron Vault despite high secondary market demand

  • “I read this sea of marketing...And then I look and I see Well, congratulations, Eclectic Gamers Has picked up the interview”

    Steve Bowden @ Deep Root discussion — Acknowledges the show has secured upcoming Deep Root interview and frames current episode as pre-interview

  • “So that's kind of, I guess it's different. They're trying to be different. And so I'm allowing myself to remain skeptical but optimistic, I guess.”

    Steve Bowden @ Deep Root software discussion — Characterizes cautious approach to Deep Root's novel development model

  • “BS and speculation is what podcasts are built on.”

    Dennis (host) @ AC/DC vault speculation — Meta-commentary on podcast discussion format

Entities

Steve BowdenpersonTonypersonDennispersonStern PinballcompanyDeep Root PinballcompanyJohn PapadukepersonBarry OslerpersonDennis NordmanpersonJohn NorrispersonDavid Thielperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Deep Root Pinball webinar planned to address Zidware customer transition with credit toward Deep Root machines as resolution to legal claims

    high · It was indicated that there will be an upcoming webinar to reach out with information to the Zidware customers... you drop any legal claim action, and they'll give you credit towards getting deep root machines.

  • ?

    community_signal: AC/DC Lucy Vault announcement generates mixed community reaction with debate regarding sexism, art appropriateness to band theme, and questioning of Lucy as marketing choice over other ACDC iterations

    high · the reaction is mixed. There are some people that were excited about that because most of the ACDCs are broadly viewed as fairly ugly looking. but on the flip side there also has been a lot of discussion on social media about sexism and pinball

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community consensus indicates strong preference for Tron Vault over AC/DC Lucy, with Lord of the Rings as secondary vault priority; Walking Dead vault rumor viewed with skepticism given recent production

    high · Tron is the obvious one, looking at what the used market is commanding. And demand-wise, from what I've seen on forums, it's the obvious one, probably followed not by ACDC, but rather by Lord of the Rings.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Deep Root Pinball software model aims to move beyond traditional 'complete code' concept, raising community concerns about perpetual DLC-style updates vs. finished product approach

    medium · I got very concerned with the expression in the interview that they wanted to move this to a point where you would no longer be able to say the code is complete or incomplete. And that, I don't get it... I start thinking about in the gaming world about constant DLC

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.388

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, January 28th. This is episode 54. I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis. And this time, we're joined by a super special guest. He is the 17th ranked in the world by the International Flipper Pinball Association as of this morning. He runs the hit pinball website, Fun With Bonus. He is known as the Marquise of Multiball, the Duke of Dead Flipping, the Prince of the Pops, and, of course, the King of Cashing, Mr. Steve Bowden. Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. I feel welcome and super special. Thank you. Good. I work really hard to come up with all those acronyms for you. So if you ever take up boxing, if you take up boxing, I've got almost a half dozen for you ready to go. Exactly. I'm ready to go into the ring now. Yeah, let's go.
1:05
Pinball podcast blood sport. Yeah, let's talk about some topics. Well, you know, with our theme of gamers, it could really be any sort of game, including a bloody sport game or the passionate game of the silver ball. And so since we're in our introduction segment, Steve, go ahead and lead us off. I imagine a lot of our pinball fans know you because you do appear on a number of pinball podcasts. But what's been going on recently or anything you want to mention or shout out about before we actually start diving into all these topics? Oh, sure. I'm Steve Bowden of FunWithBonus.com, and I am a very prolific pinball tournament player. I love playing in tournaments all the time And talking about them and competing And meeting people and talking about Strategies and other things that are Happening in each of the games that I'm playing Like I said, I'm funwithboats.com I do the new pinball dictionary Which I get requests to get New words from every time something strange happens Yeah, that was a lot of fun Right What else? I just came from a tournament yesterday In Maryland I'm straight off of that So, you know, I'm very glad to be here, and I'm glad to see the number of topics we've got coming up. This is going to be a very good show, I think. I hope so, and we really appreciate you coming on, especially on your recovery day post-event.
2:29
Jeffperson
Ryan C.person
Chad H.person
This Week in Pinballorganization
Eclectic Gamers Podcastorganization
Pinsideorganization
IFPAorganization
Pizza West tournamentevent
Flash Gordongame
AC/DC (Lucy)game
Trongame
?

licensing_signal: Potential licensing constraints delaying Tron Vault despite high secondary market demand; community expects Tron before AC/DC vault but unclear licensing issues with Disney persist

medium · The only thing I can figure out is it's got to be a license issue. It's got to be... how hard could it be? I mean, they already have an established relationship with Disney

  • $

    market_signal: Stern's AC/DC Lucy Vault announcement appears to be market-responsive decision based on renewed license availability and opportunity for cash flow rather than detected consumer demand

    medium · Do we need to get some cash flow because of Guardians? I mean, this is total BS I'm speaking... that is total speculation... I don't, I mean, ACDC, very, I don't know where they detected whether or not there was the demand.

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Deep Root Pinball announces contracted designer team including J-Pop, Barry Osler, Dennis Nordman, and John Norris, establishing new manufacturing entity in market

    high · They have now announced additional exclusive designers. Barry Osler, who is indicated to be an in-house designer for them, and then also Dennis Nordman and John Norris.

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market pricing for Tron (Pro and LE editions) demonstrates strong collector demand with used Pros commanding original LE retail prices and LEs selling above original MSRP

    high · Tron Pros, because everyone's modded them all out, are going for what the premium – or excuse me, the LEs originally sold for, and the LEs are up in that stratosphere of ridiculous pricing.

  • ?

    announcement: Deep Root Pinball announces fire-and-brimstone Christian-themed pinball machine designed for broader appeal beyond religious demographic

    high · One theme was announced, a fire and brimstone, a Christian-themed pinball designed to appeal beyond that specific religious demographic.

  • ?

    technology_signal: Deep Root Pinball implementing quad assembly process instead of traditional assembly line manufacturing, using WMS-era dimensions

    high · It was indicated that they are not going to be using an assembling line, but instead something that they refer to as quad assembly... They indicated that the dimensions would be the WMS era Bally Williams size.

    • We've got to get them while they're weak. I know, yeah. Mind-malleable. Cut me, Lou. Cut me. I've been driving for a few hours. I'm struggling. Although what that does It's kind of good to have that drive On the way back because you know Win or lose you have that time to decompress And so I have that time to decompress On the road so I can like Analyze what I did wrong and then Clear that out or if I won just say Okay cool so I know what I did wrong I know the mistakes I made and I can clear that out And move on to the next thing So you get to let the frustration out You know on the steering wheel and stuff When you think of that one time you messed something up Right, that's what it is. It's like when you leave, it's like you think about that last ball or that last whatever got you out of the tournament. And then that period after that is post-pinball depression where you clear out, you know, what did you do wrong? Okay, how can you learn about that? Okay, and then when that's done, okay, now we can move on because luckily for us, there's usually another tournament coming up pretty soon. I mean, it's not like back in the day a few years ago. And we've got some tournaments coming up just about everywhere. So, you know, get back up, get back on that horse, and get playing still. Inspiration to us all. Speaking of inspiration, Tony, intro, what's been going on since our last show for you? Well, since our last show, we had the first tournament that we attended this year, actually. That's right. The Pizza West tournament. And the showing was a little light because it happened at the exact same time as the IFPA state championship. So none of the bigwigs were there, which means I did good. Yeah.
    4:11
    You got to get it. You got to get paid when the opportunity is there. The door is open. That's right. That was my chance, and every time I came up against somebody who I actually thought I would have problems with, I was like, let's play Flash Gordon. Yeah, nice. Nice. I like it. Flash Gordon's the equalizer. I mean, it doesn't matter how good you are. Flash Gordon will wipe you out if he gets a chance. Exactly right, because it punishes made shots. What shot is safe on flash court? There isn't any. Even things on the upper play field. Because if you're in the upper play field and you're too early, you'll shoot the upper loop the wrong way and come back down. So it's everywhere. That's what makes that game so exciting. And not random, but kind of.
    4:56
    You got a massive tap passing on that in order to just keep control, really, if you can. Because even if you make targets, you're in trouble. Oh, yeah. I mean, you hit the drop downs on the right side at just the wrong angle and it goes straight down the out lane. It's like, well, that was great. Right. Oh, that's great. But I have to hit these. Yeah. They're too important not to go for. I got to get it because I can't get the 4X without getting the 3 and the 2. So what do I do? And so it's just, well, I'm going to go for it anyway. And then the really bad thing is when you see your opponent do the same thing and not die.
    5:31
    And then you have to think about that. It's like, wait a minute. My opponent just cleared the entire rack of targets on the right That's not cool That's not Gordon Yeah, that's exactly that So, we did that That was a lot of fun We had one of the rarities where we actually met in tournament play Okay Yeah, we don't face each other much Yeah, very rarely Oh yeah, it was grudge match It was full on grudge match It went to three games It pushed hard Do you have any strategies against each other That you know each other's strengths, weaknesses Styles, you know, modern versus Classics games, things like that Strategies I ask the eternal reminder to Go home and get Batman And bring it Yeah, Tony's stronger on Certain games, so he'll know on that He sent me to the, generally speaking He took me to the hardest games that were available So, he took me to Flash Gordon first, and I did win that one. But then he took me to Iron Man, which actually is one of my preferred games, but I did lose on it. And then he finished me on Monster Bash, which I don't enjoy competitively. I blew that game up, though. I had a really, really good game that. I mean, I blew that thing up. Yeah.
    6:51
    So it was like I saw that score, and I just couldn't get anything going on Monster Bash. And I was just sitting there thinking, well, I can't attack from Mars, be back in this lineup. Wow, right. That is a serious set of three you just named there. I mean, Iron Man, yeah, that's a punisher. Unless you have one real – Iron Man is really a one good ball sort of game. You can take one ball and rule the entire world, get do or die and everything, and you've kind of locked it up. But, yeah, and Monster Bash, another one where if you don't get a roll, you kind of get nothing. You can almost start everything and have Jack, you know, and then maybe start a couple things and then do pretty well, and then you have to start thinking about what kind of risks am I going to be taking on this game? How many monsters do I want to try to bring into this multiball? Hmm, what's my opponent going to do? And that little internal chess match that happens there. Yeah, I managed to trigger Mummy Mayhem and complete it.
    7:45
    Okay, all right, nice. You get that hidden bonus that you don't really see. In a multiball, you get like a 10 million bonus because of the timer, but you don't see it. It just happens. It just happens, and then you wake up like, oh, I have that now. Yes, all right, thank you. Okay, that's cool. He didn't need it. Ball three was my only good ball, and I was so far from anything. I probably got close to just starting the basic Frankenstein multiball, but I just kept losing it down one of the outlanes, and the tilt's fairly tight on that one, so I couldn't risk much. I mean, one nudge was usually a double danger. Ooh. Oh, yeah. That's tight, too. Yeah, they keep that one tight. We don't like those games to go long. Okay. I definitely see, yeah, if you're a monster basher and you really get that center spinner going and you can loop that around, that games can take a while. You'll start seeing tournament players just shooting the center loop all the time, center spinner, just doing mosh pit until they die. He says, whatever, because it works. Yeah. I understand. So he sent me home. Tony, I believe, ended fifth for that tournament, and I took seventh. Okay. Which means I went out the very next round is what happened. Mm-hmm. that's the spirit for me so yeah that went well for you I haven't really had much outside of that and you've already highlighted my defeat so only thing I thought I'd go ahead and plug in here is we were doing a podcast t-shirt giveaway so I did draw the winners on Friday as the instructions indicated so the four winners were Jeff C, Andreas Nervin Jason Knapp and Nathan Whitaker so I've sent emails to all of them to figure out what addressing and such I need to do to take care of that. And so thank you, anyone who was interested, because it shows us that some people care, at least a little bit, for free stuff.
    9:42
    So let's get out of this intro section, because I'm getting depressed thinking back about Monster Bash. And let's move into our pinball stuff. And we'll go ahead, before we get into the news, and go ahead and kick off our shame round number three. And, Steve, what this is is we're running – Save. Save. That's exactly what it's stolen from because I can't create anything myself. I just steal. And we had a show listener actually suggest doing sort of a bracket tournament for people to submit in and vote on which games are games that might be considered shameful for a person to own or admit liking, but they actually think are a good game. Okay. So we had a preliminary list of 16, and we just wrapped up the second round.
    10:29
    And real quickly, those were, so eight games faced off in the second round. The Valley Game Show beat Stern's WWE with 62.5% support. I figured that. No, not really. I figured that would happen.
    10:46
    That was not the widest margin of victory. This is the widest margin. and it was Genie beat South Park 73.9% of the vote. Wow!
    10:57
    It's the call-outs. It's the terrible call-outs. Nobody likes those call-outs. I guess, but I still was surprised it was this wide of a margin. That's huge! Because the game's a complete idea, but it's a weak idea. Yeah. I mean, I get that shooting toilet all day is really boring, but so is the entire left half of Genie, so I don't know. It is what it is.
    11:22
    Big Buck Hunter beat Gottlieb's Genesis with 68.2%. And our closest match was Sharky's Shootout did take out Dolly Parton, but only with 52.2% of the vote. I'm surprised it's that close. That's really close for Sharky's there. I mean, I like Sharky's, and I'm not ashamed of it. Yeah. I don't hate Sharky's. I don't know if it's an exposure thing or what. I actually haven't played Dolly Parton, so I can't. Me neither. I can't really compare.
    11:53
    Me neither. I can't offer any opinion on that. But Sharky's, yeah, that's pretty decent. Like what, 8-Ball Deluxe on steroids? Yeah. Reversed? Yeah. With a ramp? Cool. Yeah. Okay. And Magic 8-Ball? Yeah, and a little bit of deepness and strategy. Make sure you have text or multi-ball and all that. Yeah, it's got some stuff in it. Yeah. They were trying there in 2000 when they didn't have to try anymore, kind of. Right. Somebody was driving there. Yeah. So the round three matchups are just two matches, four games. Game show is going to go up against Jeannie now. Steve, which one's better? Game show versus Jeannie. Jeannie with that whole left side of nothing versus game show with let me shoot the center ramp until I'm tired of it. But you know what? I like game show because I just want a new trip. And a fabulous truck. And a new car. I like hearing them say that. Yeah. I lean your way in there. You just won this and that and all right and showcase Bonanza. Yeah, that wins for me. Yeah, I agree. I think it gets it on theme integration alone. Tony, what's your thought? Anything is better than WWE. Really? We're past WWE now. Are you past WWE? What happened to me? What did I do? I heard game show and that was the last thing I heard. Oh, you must have cut out on our Skype. Game Show did beat WWE So the new round matchup is Game Show vs. Genie Oh okay I think it was cutting out a little bit I think it was because my headphones were being weird Game Show vs. Genie I haven't played either Well I've played Genie But I haven't played Game Show Oh yeah that's right You still haven't gotten up to 403 Club They still have it on location Waiting for you So I don't know That's okay You don't have to know We'll know for you You'll know for me Alright and the second matchup for this round three Is Big Buck Hunter Pro versus Sharky Shootout I gave it to Sharky I'm sorry but that deer I like Sharky's a lot That deer I mean I can see the power of Big Buck Hunter Again I'm looking at Strategically and the Deepness of it and parts of it Are too deep like open season Who's In order to get open season You basically have to have the perfect game on it But I just have more fun with Sharkies Really Part of it is mechanical I guess Because a lot of times when I play Big Buck Hunter That deer just doesn't work And you hit it and it's just like so And then sometimes you don't hit it at all And it counts twice So I don't know So yeah I gotta give it to Sharkies on that It's deep enough for me It's fine Okay. I actually have not had a chance to ever play a big buck hunter pro, so I can't say much. I've heard about the issue with the near impossible to get wizard mode. The game would probably have benefited from a mini wizard just to give people something a little flashy that was attainable. I mean, I guess you can call it the monster buck mode, which is basically if you get all the classic jackpots and then get all the doubles and then hit the deer enough, you'll start Monster Buck, which is basically all the balls come back, and you have a pretty good ball saver time. So it feels pretty wizardy there. So you could sort of count that as a sub-wizard, maybe, even though it doesn't count at that. So I'll give it that little bit of credit for it. That's a pretty exciting mode. But as far as comparing it to Sharkies, nope. Sharkies wins. Okay.
    15:40
    I'm biased on Sharkies, because it's one of the few games I own. So so okay yeah it's got enough fun that I didn't think originally that it should even be in this whole shame listing I was amazed its rankings were as low as it was oh it's easily out of the top 200 our threshold was on solid state era and beyond was you had to not be in the top 200 of pin side at the time I so a few games got through like someone has submitted avatar is too well liked yeah that's avatar All right, that's, yeah. Okay, yeah, okay, so that's how Sharky's made it in the shameless, because, like I said, I don't feel shameful at all. Yeah, everything that was submitted was outside of the top 200. Wow. Although, if it was an EM game, it only had to be outside of the EM top 100, and that's how Valley's El Toro made it in, which was a round one. Oh, God. A round one. Who could like it? I don't know. So, anyway, it did not survive at all, obviously. Like, yeah, El Toro's in Pembroke and everybody hated it.
    16:43
    I would go past El Toro and people would be talking about it. Like, that's how bad. The only good thing I have ever heard about El Toro is I have heard people say there are worse EM machines. There are. It's just the most famous bad one. Could be worse. What a glowing endorsement. So, yeah, Avatar got thrown out for being too well-liked. There was another one that got submitted that was too highly ranked. I don't remember which one it was. Another solid state. And then we did have one game, one of the street-level Gottliebs, Vegas, which wasn't ranked at all. There aren't enough people who voted on it. So it was allowed in, but it did not survive well. I just enjoy a good game of Hoops, and that's it on that one. Hoops was not submitted as a shameful game because it's not shameful. It's not the only street-fellows game that everybody knows. It's unranked on Pennside. Oh, really? Okay. The only street level that had any votes for ranking is the one they made the most of, Silver Slugger. Okay, right.
    17:50
    Understandable. Okay, so let's move on to news. News! All right, we got three kind of big news, well, big-ish news topics. The first one is probably the smallest one, actually, and that was Stern Pinball did formally announce that the Lucy iteration of ACDC will be getting a vault edition. It took a lot of people by surprise. I mean, the reaction is mixed. There are some people that were excited about that because most of the ACDCs are broadly viewed as fairly ugly looking. but on the flip side there also has been a lot of discussion on social media about sexism and pinball and that this style of art really isn't appropriate for the band for it not being an actual mascot or anything that's associated with acdc so that's sort of been the fallout on the other side where but i have seen people say now they're buying a game that weren't going to buy one before so i suppose for stern's bottom line it's probably a smart move well i see well When I first saw Lucy out there, I was like, okay, so you mean not Tron Vault?
    18:58
    I totally saw it from there. I remain surprised about Tron. I mean, are we all in agreement that Tron is the most logical vault to be vaulted? Oh, yeah. I have no idea why there hasn't been a Tron Vault yet. It makes the most sense. Okay. See, I didn't know if it was a general consensus that that was it, you know, Because I'm thinking, okay, then I started searching online. I said, okay, my thought is not original. Everybody wants John. Why is it not coming out? So then my thoughts moved to, okay, so is everybody just telling Stern that they wanted this back? How are they telling them? Is it on a forum, a Facebook post? Where are they getting these numbers that say we need to make this many? Why are we making this many? Do we need to get some cash flow because of Guardians? I mean, this is total BS I'm speaking. that is total speculation. It's totally irresponsible. That's what we do. That's right. It's totally irresponsible. As you know, BS and speculation is what podcasts are built on. So, yeah, no, I don't, I mean, ACDC, very, I don't know where they detected whether or not there was the demand. In the Lucy iteration, they never made very many of them. So I'm not surprised since that was Stern-developed art that once they renewed the license to vault ACDC that they'd start doing the various flavors. I don't think that's particularly surprising. I was surprised when they decided that ACDC is what needed to be vaulted. I'm more concerned, thinking past that, that Tron might not be the next one. The rumor mill is saying that it's going to be Walking Dead, and that was just in production last year, so I really don't get that. Do you count that as a vault? I mean, we just did that. The only thing I can figure out is it's got to be a license issue. It's got to be. it's the only thing that makes sense why they haven't vaulted Tron as of yet is because they've got a license in the issue. But how hard could it be? I mean, they already have an established relationship with Disney, and this is not a top-tier franchise for Disney, so I can't even imagine they'd, you know, what everyone's assuming, Star Wars it and, you know, make it ultra-expensive and ultra-controlling on the art design. Yeah, I don't know. It's just the only thing that makes sense to me why they wouldn't have done it by now. Because, like you guys said, I did not see a giant clamoring for ACDC out there. Are we talking about people who are holding $10,000, Lucy? I mean, have the prices gone up so much that it's become – No, no, no. Is that what it is? Not the S and 9 levels. And that's where I agree with you, Steve, because if you look at the used market, Tron – I mean, like the Tron Pros, because everyone's modded them all out, are going for what the premium – or excuse me, the LEs originally sold for, and the LEs are up in that stratosphere of ridiculous pricing. and so it just seems like it would be an easy idea to implement that, hey, let's do that, let's make a quote-unquote premium version. Maybe you change the art package back to the 82 art package or something kind of like how they did with Spider-Man. Yeah, do that. Let's come up with Tron 82. Let's see what will happen. Although, I mean, you can't have Tron 82 and put Daft Punk music in it. I mean... Well, my solution... You have to have the old soundtrack, which could be a problem. Well, I think the old soundtrack has some journey in it, but outside of that, it's kind of weak. So here's my solution. You give it an 82 paint job, and then you just put Daft Punk in anyway. You don't even try and correspond the DMD. You just be like, no, you guys don't care. Don't ask any questions. Don't look too closely. That's all right. We don't need the save Mary Jane versus tell Mary Jane mode change, you know. Exactly. It's pinball. People will move on. No. Oh, yeah. No. What? Okay, that's a mode. Okay. But, yeah, but from a pricing perspective, Tron is the obvious one, looking at what the used market is commanding. And demand-wise, from what I've seen on forums, it's the obvious one, probably followed not by ACDC, but rather by Lord of the Rings. Right. Yeah, where is that? I mean, my goodness. I mean, I'm sure everybody would be clamoring for some Lord of the Rings right now. I know I would if I were in the market to buy a game.
    23:12
    I've wondered on Lord of the Rings if maybe part of the issue is because they don't change the board sets when they do a vault. Everything they've vaulted so far has been Sam's system, and they would have to go back to White Star. That might be too much reinvestment, I guess. Right. I've wondered. I don't know. Just a thought. Okay. So that's Lucy. I hate that it makes sense. It makes sense. I hate that it makes sense. This Week in Pinball, a major conglomerating source of news now for the hobby. Makes it very convenient to know what's going on without having to dive into the toxicity of forums. Oh, it's beautiful. It's podcast show prep. I love it. Yeah. A number of podcasts rely on it to build their entire news segment. I still tend to go through a lot of the forum stuff. I should probably just release myself. I don't allow myself to drift down the calm waters of this weekend. But I do love it. That's all I use anymore. Every week I check this weekend. I've actually got it set up on my thing, so every time I get a new post, it automatically pops up in my list as something to go look at. It's like, what did I miss this week? Okay, ah, all right. Here's something else I didn't have to go to Penn State for. Sweet, all right. So Jeff is a major asset to the community, and he had a follow-up interview this last week with Deep Root Pinball, the new entity on the scene that sent ripples across the waters of manufacturing with the announcement that John Papaduke, more commonly known as J-Pop, was the designer that they had contracted with. And we do have a link to the interview in the show notes, so people can just click on that if they want to go and read it. And if you're interested in this, you should read it, because we're not going to read it aloud to you. But as a quick sort of bullet point summary about what was new from what we learned from the last interview that This Week in Pinwall had conducted,
    25:08
    they have now announced additional exclusive designers. Barry Osler, who is indicated to be an in-house designer for them, and then also Dennis Nordman and John Norris. They indicated that they got David Thiel to do the sounds for them. They gave a basic summary of what the five days of Deep Root will be. in terms of what sort of broad topic would be on each day. They announced that there would be an upcoming webinar to reach out with information to the Zidware customers.
    25:39
    It was indicated that there will also be an upcoming interview on this podcast. It was indicated that they are not going to be using an assembling line, but instead something that they refer to as quad assembly.
    25:52
    Indicated that the dimensions would be the WMS era Bally Williams size. So I guess that indicates not Zizzle machines.
    26:01
    They indicated no plans to prototype with public test machines, at least. And one theme was announced, a fire and brimstone, a Christian-themed pinball designed to appeal beyond that specific religious demographic. So that's it in a nutshell. There's a lot, though, to unpack. Steve, you're our guest. I'll let you open it. Am I? Open the ribbon on the box. Oh, wow, yeah, let's investigate this thing Okay So, yeah, so I open it up I read this week in Femoral And I read this sea of marketing That I read Of marketing language And what's going on here And then I look and I see Well, congratulations, Eclectic Gamers Has picked up the interview Like, that's awesome So then I realize, okay, this show is basically The show before the Deep Root show This is the show before the Mueller investigation So we're going to be kind of waiting For the next show So I have no delusions of grandeur On the popularity Of this show Because of me being on it or anything But congratulations on that There's a lot of questions Which I'd like to ask Which I probably won't even make sense of asking I mean I know in the middle of it It talked about It seemed like code was going to be customizable Maybe, how customizable Are we talking about P-Rock customizable Can we write our own code Who's coding it Who's Lyman, who's Keith Johnson Who's Joe Katz Who are they going to be at this place Who's going to be the master That we can put our trust in That's going to come out with good code Because I'm a tournament player So I'm interested in code And how games play well So that was one of the questions I was thinking of before I got lost in the sea of marketing at the end. So, like, my mind gets sort of twisted and knots as I try to break through the CEO speak and everything. So that's why I listen to shows like yours, you know, not trying to kiss up or anything, because you tend to kind of break through that stuff in a good, concise way. So I'm looking forward to the next episode of this show as much as everyone else. That's going to be pretty good. Well, we'll see what he... I mean, I should go ahead and clarify, we didn't reach out to Deep Root to secure the interview. When they first announced, I sent an email offering, you know, if they wanted to have an interview. And at the time, they did not. And then we were in discussions regarding some other stuff later on, which I wasn't interested in. But I said, you know, if you do want to use a podcast platform to do an interview, I'm always open to having a discussion. And so they ended up being interested. So that's sort of how that came about. and I've been in the process of trying to construct a list of questions and you're not the only one who has contacted me regarding the software specifically.
    28:57
    So, in fact, I was chatting with Ryan C. who was one of the hosts of the Head to Head Pinball podcast. And while his software concerns aren't exactly the same as yours because you're coming at it from a very tournament perspective, he focused more in on this sort of open source idea. Is that the idea? Is it going to be fully open source, or is anyone going to be able to do like Chad H. does with the dad-based games and fully rewrite the rule set if he so desires? Is it going to have tools? Is there going to be a GUI, and we're going to be able to go in and Minecraft our way into new rules? Exactly, because that could be great, but I mean, we're... Right, but on the flip side, I got very concerned with the expression in the interview that they wanted to move this to a point where you would no longer be able to say the code is complete or incomplete. And that, I don't get it. I don't like that. I don't get it. I get scared of that because, you know, just the way my crazy mind works is I hear that and then I start thinking about in the gaming world about constant DLC and all that. I mean, I don't know. I mean, could it be something like that where all of a sudden we're on this version and this version and this version and it's never really complete. You don't have a complete idea. I mean, usually at some point an artist has to be like, this is done. Yeah, except for George Lucas. Oh, okay. Whoa. I'm sorry. Sorry, prequel Aaron. I apologize, George. I'm sure he's a big fan. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure he's wiping his tears with the billions of dollars Disney paid him.
    30:36
    Exactly. But, yeah, that's kind of, I guess it's different. They're trying to be different. And so I'm allowing myself to remain skeptical but optimistic, I guess. Yeah, well, the software stuff obviously is a big question. I assume some of the questions that are going to be gathered up by them and by This Week in Pinball, more oriented around the webinar they announced, that's going to be very focused on the Zidware stuff because it seems like that's the current priority is to try and resolve the issue with the Zidware customers. Right. And I looked at it back when I had that first interview with Jeff in This Week in Pinball about the buyout. It's probably not the right word, but it's sort of like you drop any legal claim action, and they'll give you credit towards getting deep root machines.
    31:29
    And it seems pretty obvious that he's trying to take the Zidware ideas and then implement them as deep root games, the ones at least that weren't built. So we'll see what sort of comes out of all of that That's its own sort of can of worms What do you guys think about the designer announcements? I mean, Osler, Nordman, and Norris, these are well-established names From anyone who's familiar with pinball in the 80s and 90s I mean, yeah, that's what got me, I hesitate to say excited But yeah, I mean, I'm like, wait a minute, these are names So we're in right where this is this is a good leadoff hitter. You've let off strong you've hit a signal So let see I mean so that what got my attention and then we saw that David feels on music So I like okay We Wow All right This is Good good backup You started strong and you came in stronger I mean David Thiel done music from now until what for 10 years I mean, every day since Pirates? Everyone loves David's music. Every day since Pirates. All right. So now I'm in. I'm in, right? So then after, okay, you have to calm down. Don't get excited. All right. Stay skeptical. And then that's when the marketing started. Right. And the no program. That's what brought me back down. That's what brought me back down to reality. So that's kind of where I am in my limited experience in this sort of thing. I'm not a collector. I'm an owner. I own games. I would not call myself a collector because I don't hang out in the new in-box pinball drama part of the hobby at all. So I bought low and I kept my games. You know, Demolition Man working for $1,200. So that's kind of where I was. $1,200 American. So that's kind of where I am. I'm kind of not getting rid of it. So I'm sort of looking at this new inbox scene from afar and hoping things go well, because if they go well, that means that increases my opportunity to maybe play these games in a tournament or at someone's house or at a show or something like that. Because, you know, even though my wallet isn't out, we need wallets to be out to buy these games. Right, and that's a really good point. I mean, the motto of Deep Root Pinball, and I'll probably butcher it. I should have written it out ahead of time. I think it's something along the lines of a home for every pinball, a pinball for every home, or something along those lines. Close enough. I think it's right. Which, okay, so marketing speak aside, if that's actually the driving vision, then it, I mean, what's the big hurdle? Why do not all pinballs have homes, or not all homes more specifically have pinballs? And the answer is because they're super expensive. That's a ton of films, everybody. Yeah. So, I mean, they take up a ton of space and they cost a lot of money. And they take maintenance. Can't forget all the maintenance. That's true. You can't. So I'm curious whether or not that's just a catchy sort of line for them or if they're actually planning to target the lower end of the spectrum, whereas currently every single company that has come about since Stern Pinball being the only game in town has been we're going to target the high-dollar collector. I mean, everyone sells for more than Stern Pro. Right. The only closest exception, and it's not an exception yet, would be HomePen. They're the only ones that seem to be trying to price around the pro price, maybe if they end up shipping to the U.S., which I'm not getting into HomePen because I don't know enough about them right now. And the reactions to Thunderbirds wasn't the most positive from the people that played it that I last saw. So that may be more of a game number two evaluation. But regardless, I'm really curious about what they're doing. I mean, I don't expect a lot here. I don't expect to learn all these innovations and such that are discussed. I'm trying to figure out, though, if they're doing things that are going to reduce the price of the machine. Otherwise, the slogan doesn't seem accurate, if that makes sense. It doesn't seem like it. I totally agree with you, Dennis. Once I heard that slogan, I'm thinking, okay, are they going to release games for a sick price that doesn't even make sense? It's like, are we going to see like a $3,995 game somehow in some fantasy land that might be affordable? I'm like, and how can you do that and still pay everybody? Right, right, right. And there's other things that crop up. I mean, I think in the first interview with This Week in Pinball, the principal behind Deep Root, which is Robert Mueller, not the Robert Mueller, but the Robert Mueller. So, both attorneys, incidentally, very confusing. And so, I believe he indicated that they were looking at wanting to penetrate a new demographic for pinball, which makes a lot of sense, I think, from a strategic and entrepreneurial perspective. But then, you know, it starts to raise a lot of the other questions because it's like, well, you bring in J-Pop, now you bring in Osler, Nordman, and Norris. These names only mean things to pinheads. if you're trying to make pinball a popular game room item for people who aren't really into pinball they don't care that you got the guy who did rescue 911 they don't know that I know plenty of people in our local competitive scene that don't know the designers oh I like this and this and this yeah that was me that's still me I feel confused who designs it I just know the gameplay is great and I'll really I know Monster Bash as a Lyman game Yeah Some of Lyman's best work So I know that That game for it Same thing with Spider-Man I know Spider-Man because Lyman saved Spider-Man was dead and Lyman decided You know what, no, we're gonna bring him back to life So I know Steve Ritchie designed it But when I see Spider-Man I think Lyman game And he saved Walking Dead He reanimated it It was really good for the zombie theme So extra props in there. And that amount of power really makes you wonder about the whole coding thing that's coming up, because there are no names. There is nothing like that. I mean, with how important that is. It's huge. That was the gap. I was waiting for it and coded by. Oh, okay. And that's the big, and is it as coded by the community? That's sort of the question that was being answered, that was answered there. That's what it seemed like. Yeah. Yeah, that whole thing.
    37:54
    So anyway, because of feedback like what you have just provided and what I've heard from others, I do want to explore, I am planning to explore that if they're willing to give us a bit more detail on the software side of things. And people can always email in if you have questions that you want us to consider asking, eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. I'm open to suggestions. I'm not going to promise I'll ask them if I don't like the question, it's off. I mean, it's just how it is. I'm not, you know, I'm not, you know, we're not endorsing this company. We don't endorse manufacturers on this show. We don't have relationships with manufacturers on this show. It's just how we've approached it. We are more outside as part of the, I guess, a benefit of being one of the smaller podcasts. But, you know, we want to be respectful, of course, of everyone's time. And there's probably a lot that just they're not going to be ready to discuss yet because they clearly have a marketing plan in mind. but I'm hoping we can get a little more footing here, especially, I think, given the issue with all the Zidware customers and trying to win them over. It's very hard to win people over when they don't know what they're getting in exchange for giving up their rights to do something. Right, because it's called sort of a trade-in, but it seems like a trade-in. You're trading in rights for credits. Right, exactly. Yeah, which is not even rights for dollars. It's rights for credits. So it's not even rights for dollars so I can spend it on anything I want. It's rights for a giant gift card. Yes.
    39:25
    Right. It may or may not turn out to be anything that you want. It's a gift card to a store that isn't open yet. Right.
    39:33
    For a pinball machine you might not want, maybe. Yeah, and that's the thing. I mean, we don't, well, now other than Fire and Brimstone, we don't even know the broad themes. And for me, the themes aren't even, I'm not interested in the themes. I need to see what the game plays like. Exactly. That game, like their first game Has to come out well It has to You can't have people with credits And then people looking at the game that's available For said credit and saying Okay I don't want this game and now I have this huge credit That I can't do anything with So they're kind of putting a whole lot of More pressure on themselves which I'm guessing They either have They have this confidence They've come out with a lot of dessert For pinheads like myself The Osler, the Nordman you know, the teal, Norris, there's a whole lot of good tasting things that I'm seeing, but, yeah, like I said, I agree with you, we've got to come up with discussions, like, how do we make people whole with the zip wear and do that, so, yeah, that's going to be very interesting, oh my goodness, that's deep, that's very deep, it's something I've had to reread multiple times, just to get it in my head of what's happening from afar as I'm looking at it, knowing that whatever comes out, I know I'm not buying it, but it's just... Right, right, well, it's the same thing. I mean, I'm always excited to learn about the New Jersey Jack game, even though those are out of my price point. So it's just that's not, it's never in the cards. But, you know, I see them on location. So it matters to me because I will put money in it and make an operator some cash if I like it. That's still important. Like I said about Dialed In.
    41:07
    Dialed In is a Lawler game. Lawler is a name only known to pinheads. So it took that amount of time for Dialed In to become multiple Twippy award winning game of the year, but it didn't start out that way. Of course not. It started out as what is this game with a phone in it? And we had to tell people, wait, you didn't play the game yet. I know you haven't played the game yet because I'm here at Expo and you're not. So I played it. It's not bad. Okay, give it a shot. So that's how that started out with it. So that's going to happen here with this company and they have people with credits that they need. See, that's the thing. Oh my goodness, this is even uncomfortable to talk about. We're going to have people with credits that need to spend credit on this thing that they need to get now and that game that they need to get now better be good. It's a lot of pressure. Yeah. I still don't really understand the business decision from a strategy standpoint to take on the Zidware problem. It just seemed like a burden that wasn't necessary, especially now that I see these new names. Yeah, they start off new. Start off brand new. We are a new company. You're going to take You have Osler, Norris, and Nordman at your disposal. You've got them contracted in, ready to come up with all sorts of games. They have all had varying degrees of success. Some very, very highly ranked games, looking back in the realm of history and the hindsight being 2020 and all of that. You don't need J-Pop. And if you don't need J-Pop, then you don't need the Zidware headache. And if you don't have the Zidware headache, then you just face the usual hurdles of being a startup in a crowded pinball hobby, which is challenging enough. But, you know, I'm not an entrepreneur. I'm a bureaucrat by training. What do I know? I guess I know taxes. So, you know, maybe I'm off. I'm just trying to figure out. And, you know, in part of the marketing, making pinball is easy, is it? Okay. I thought it was hard. It seems hard. You're going to make it easy. All right. Let's see it. I was, you're right. Let's see this royal flesh you got. Let's see it. Let's see this full house you have.
    43:21
    Deep Root took a lot of, Robert with Deep Root, took a lot of heat for that statement. I actually, I remember when Tony and I covered the first interview, I actually was somewhat sympathetic to that claim. And I know most people weren't. But I'm coming at it from, I suppose, a more historical perspective. I remember reading an interview with Harry Williams. And I remember him saying why he got into pinball, because he was trying to find and do and build mechanical games that you could put on location to make money. And he ended up going all in on pinball because it was so easy compared to everything else. Mechanically, it's not a complicated idea. Now, they're more complicated now than they were in the Harry Williams era. But I do think that that has become a bit of a crutch for companies when they don't do well. And it's just like, oh, well, it's just really complicated. I think that's more manufacturing is complicated, but I don't think there's anything inherently more complicated about pinball than building any other device that's got a few hundred components in it. All right, boy. Like sort of a crutch. I see what you're saying. Like sort of using that general mentality as a fallback in case delays happen and more delays happen. Well, exactly. I mean, to say, well, we couldn't figure out how long it would take for us to get our vacuum-formed ramps. Why is that any more or less challenging to predict than having your transistors put on any electronic board that exists, be it a pinball board or what goes into those little super NES classics that no one can find because they didn't make enough of them? Oh, we didn't know. Making Nintendos is hard, I guess. I mean, it is, but it isn't. It's not.
    45:01
    Artificially limiting quantity is hard. Right, right, right. Well, that's important. It's real hard. I'll never understand Nintendo's business decisions. But anyway, so, yeah, no, there are challenges, manufacturing challenges. But I don't think there's anything inherently more challenging about pinball than anything else that has that amount of sophistication in it. And there's a lot of things that are sophisticated and built now in competitive. So in that regard, I'm always a little, like, yeah, a bit of a crutch, a bit of, it's just too easy to roll off the tongue. And that would be okay, except a lot of the community just kind of accepts it now. I mean, people who are willing to wait three years to get games, that's not healthy. It's not healthy for the community. Once you've waited that long, you're kind of pot committed at that point. Right, and that's where you'll see these discussions regarding Dutch pinball or highway pinball. It's like you can't really get your money back, so you have to cheer for them to succeed. Right. But from a survival of the business fittest perspective, these businesses should not be around anymore. They've already failed. They've taken money out of their scene that could have gone somewhere else. Exactly. Now everybody has this sunk cost. I guess that's what it is. I think it's sunk cost that they've already invested. They have these years of this money that they could have invested in a 401k. I don't know. I don't know anything. In an IRA. Just put it in a savings account. You'd have gotten something. You'd have gotten 0.58% interest. Right. And let's take Zidware here, because that's the one that's relevant to Deep Root. In my view, and obviously I'm speculating quite a bit, but if J-Pop had just recognized at whatever point it was recognizable that this is not working, I've spent too much money and accomplished too little with it. Had Zidware declared bankruptcy, paid back all of these creditors pennies on the dollar, it, I feel, would have been done. He could have gone to another company if they were willing to hire him, and people would have let that go because he would have failed in the right way. It would have been clean. Right, right. It would have been cleaner.
    47:08
    Yeah, I mean, people would have been bitter. People would have been mad. I gave you $15,000 for Magic Girl, and I only ended up getting back $7,000 or whatever, however it would work out. But the point being that there would have been that whole legal redress done instead of this kind of, oh, I'm still making it. I mean, that, I guess, was the official stance. The company is, it's a dissolved corporation, last I looked, in Illinois. But in theory, it's like, well, we're still trying to accomplish the gains. And then you have American Pinball come in. And then you have people being, well, we really need American Pinball to succeed so that we can get our Magic Girls. And then people got the Magic Girls. And it was just a box of lights in almost crude, literal fashion. Man, as soon as I heard that pattern, I was like, okay, pyramid scheme. We need this to do this. and noticing that this can do this to pay back to people from this, Rob, Peter, to pay Paul. I'm like, no, we're not. No, no. Wait, wait, wait. That's what that sounds like. It sounds like a multilevel marketing thing. Like I got to get three people to buy my Avon so that I can promote myself to the higher level of the company. And they can get seven people to buy so they can get me. Yeah. So you can get that pink Cadillac. Yeah, so anyway, I mean, that's my – so yeah, there's a right way to fail and there's a wrong way to fail. And I think if the right way to fail had been done, this wouldn't be nearly as controversial. But because the way it ended up, yeah, you get these weird divisions where there are still people that they're holding out hope because they have no other hope in their view of getting any money or anything. And so there will be some that are – and I've even seen it on Pennside. We see every opinion on Pennside, but where there are people that are cheering on, they want Deep Root to be successful because they see it as the only way. I mean, credit in Deep Root is better than nothing from Zidware. I totally understand the perspective, but they should never have been in this boat.
    49:08
    But here we are in the boat. The boat has the holes in it. The boat's here. There it is. The boat has the holes. Are we going to patch it up? What are we going to do? I know. And every time you think the boat's going to sink, someone else comes with a new patch kit, and you think, oh, maybe now it's okay. Might be good. And I'm not saying it won't be okay this time. It might be, but the boat should have just sank a long time ago. That's what it looks like. It looks like it might be okay every time. That's right. Come on. It might be okay this time. Pentasia, Pentasia, and then American Pinball, and now Deeper. And, you know, I don't know.
    49:42
    It's possible. I see the path to it being okay. It's just, I think it would have taken a lot of heartache and a lot of money that got tied up that shouldn't have been tied up had it just been, had the boat been allowed to sink and everyone just used their life vests, it would have been better, I think. That's true. Yeah. It's sort of like, it's kind of like that failure you get on the midterm as opposed to that failure you get at the end of the school year that sort of languishes through the summer and then you have to go to summer school because you failed. Meanwhile the failure in the middle of the school year You can recover from by that time And you know get past it This is It could work out this time Come on 7 come on 11 Come on That's what it feels like to me Looking from afar And being I guess Not glad but Satisfied to not have any money invested Oh yeah You know I hate to even say that but that's what it feels like. I think at this point that's the biggest rule in pinball is don't invest any money unless you're getting something right bloody now. Right. Well, and that's where Deep Root is playing it smart. And they've always been very clear that they're not interested in pre-order money. Which is the safest thing for anybody trying to get into the system now after so many burns has to do. It's the only way because nobody's going to take them seriously otherwise. Yeah, you can ask for peer-to-peer money now and be taking at least not a huge amount. I mean, there better be a deposit. You can't have the whole thing. Deposits and stuff. I mean, there are things that make sense for companies to do. And people aren't going around faulting Spooky Pinball for asking for a non-refundable deposit at this stage. Yeah, because they've produced. Yes, it helps a lot when you've made something. I mean, and that's part of the reason why the difficulties of highway are more difficult for people to accept, I think, is because they put out full throttle first. So you thought you had an established manufacturer.
    51:45
    And then Alien has struggled to ship units. And now that they're shipping, they're struggling on quality.
    51:54
    It's an interesting thing. It seems like we had it. It seems like this is good. This is good. And all of a sudden, this is not quite as good. But it's looking good. The software is good. The code is good. looks great, looks fun, sounds great. And, yeah, I can see, like, they're not quite there. I can hear you. It's sort of a different, not a bait and switch, but a different sort of switch there. It's like we had it and then we sort of didn't, but we kind of do. Come on seven, come on 11, you know. Right, right. That's what it is. Right. And the issue, in part, besides the difficulties for those that are funding tied up that they can't get back, which is the case for both Dutch and highway for some people involved, the strength there is people have played those games and there are people who like how both of those games play.
    52:41
    You've got a product that a lot of people view as acceptable to good to great, depending on their opinion.
    52:49
    That helps in the sense that if it had been Predator still at this stage which I never could play well by anyone who ever got to try it, the song might be a little different. It stings more when you actually think the game is good. Yeah, especially, yeah, people just want their stuff. Just give people their stuff. Can we start fresh somehow? We can't, but, you know, it just feels so uncomfortable. The amount of money influx. It's just this influx and so much empathy for these people who, you know, saw a product that they really liked, especially Alien. I mean, Alien's like a dream theme for some people. Oh, yeah, I love that theme. I love that game. Yeah, it's a great game. But, yeah, as soon as that came out, it was like, what, no Ripley?
    53:37
    Yeah. That was like the what, no gravy of that game. It's like, wait, there's Alien, but there's no... Yeah, I already eat plain mashed potatoes. Nice. But the gravy, oh, come on. Next time, remember the gravy. I mean, come on. I'll wait.
    53:54
    All right. Well, did we have anything else we wanted to touch on on Deep Root? No, other than good interview, I think. You know, have a good luck and good interview. You know, I wish you that. Yeah, well, Jeff's was great. I'm hoping it goes well. Yeah. And we'll probably get that recorded. It might just be me with him, depending on the schedule. But because we're not going to record it the day of the podcast, it'll probably be a day or two ahead of time, and I'll drop it in the next episode. But since they've – he picked the date that worked for him based around our schedule, because we don't really do special episodes very often unless I have to do something in person, from like when Nick was in town for the EM talk. We make exceptions for fun things like that. All of a sudden you break in in the middle of the week, like, this is an Eclectic Gamers special report.
    54:40
    Robert Muller from Feetroot said this thing. Okay, well, my last news item in pinball is also regarding this week in pinball. We have to do what all the other podcasts have done. We have to talk about the Twippy Award results because we mentioned the Twippies. So now, you know, we have to close that loop or else it doesn't make any sense.
    55:01
    Link to the results are in the show notes if people want to see, like, the breakouts and everything.
    55:05
    But first, in terms of the non-game categories, these are the write-in categories. Just run through those real quick. The favorite new mod was the Penn Stadium lighting.
    55:15
    The favorite YouTube channel was straight down the middle of Pinball Show. Favorite Twitch streamer was Dead Flip. And the favorite podcast was Kaneda's Pinball Podcast. So congratulations to all those people.
    55:28
    Yeah, no real surprises there. No, I don't think so. There are a lot of submissions. Like, if you look at the mod stuff, I mean, it makes sense to me that Penn Stadium would win. It probably won pretty handily, would be my guess, because it works for pretty much everything, whereas a lot of mods are game-specific, for example. So podcast-wise, this whole – yeah, it's like almost every pinball podcast is in there. This whole pinball podcast even was nominated, and that hasn't been on the air since 2010.
    56:02
    So incidentally, I do want to highly – if you like pinball interviews, it is worth – if you want to hear historic ones, because they have a number of really good interviews with a lot of people who are dead now. So if you're interested in classic pinball, there is a lot of information to be had in the top cast. So I just wanted to – I guess they don't care anymore because they've been off the air almost a decade. But it does have some – I've relied on it for some of those articles I've written for Pinball News. It's like if I can't find something in writing, it might be in audio under the auspices of their recordings because they really went into a lot of stuff. So it was a really good show.
    56:38
    But I want to talk about game categories because it's far more. Right. It's far more in our wheelhouse than the write-in stuff. So here were the winners. I guess I'll just hit each category and we can talk about it. Right. Best Animations and Display went to Dialed In. Steve, did you agree with that? I did vote for Dialed In. I'm trying to remember my votes. Oh, yeah, I can barely remember yesterday. I did vote for Dialed In basically because of the SimCity format appealed to me. And when I'm not playing the game I get to enjoy how every piece of the city Sort of interacts with where you are So if you're in the bumpers It goes to the bumpers If you're getting attacked by the theater It shows a theater attack coming at you Like the EMP, it shows that It shows the aliens attacking you In certain areas of the world So yeah, that's what got my votes You know, SimCity's Cities Excel format Got me on that So, that's... Yeah, I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets a Sin City vibe out of that.
    57:44
    Yeah, it does have it. Oh, I'm fine with Dialed In. I don't even remember who I voted for on this one. I think I either voted Dialed In or Aerosmith on this one. I think I voted Batman 66, actually. I really liked the clip integration. But Dialed In, I totally get. Yeah, and it's fine. It was good. It was solid. Yeah. Okay. So we all think that is a worthy winner. Yep. All right. Best light show. Total Nuclear Annihilation. Got that. In a blowout. Yeah. And I did vote for it for the show. I did as well. Yeah. I did as well. And just seeing it on screen, just to see, and that's the best place to see it, the light show, is really when you have that top-down view and you can see the attract mode with the different patterns and the way the lights come in in that Tetris format. That's a cute one And then you have the reactor that spins The lights that are around it when it's active And It really draws you in Even more than Doubt and disrespect Because more of the light show Is functional There's a color For every mode and it tells you where to go And the colors are pretty clear And it's great But total nuclear annihilation the way it did the light show it won me over and any opportunity I get to play it just to even look at it I'll just spend a couple of seconds to look at it before I can play it before I get hurried up to replay it because there's a line 8 miles deep to play the game anywhere you're at that's how it was at Texas last year when it was there we only got to play it a couple of times because it was just such a line for it that was still the white wood manufacturing had been announced best theme this is not theme integration but just the best theme Star Wars won that and Batman 66 did not come second because I figured maybe the best theme question was confused by people I don't know I think it was Star Wars is the correct it's almost the correct answer isn't it I mean it's not even a well now I feel a little bad because I obviously chose the wrong answer under your radar.
    60:04
    I agree with you that Star Wars is the correct answer. For me, it was a little too correct because it's such a timeless theme and it's been done so many times. So I did actually say Guardians because I thought it was more timely. It was a surprise major movie hit. So I did cast my vote to Guardians because I thought it was a little more clever. Like, Star Wars is the obvious best theme. But the question wasn't, what is the best theme that isn't too clever? So I guess I did sort of fail. Oh, well, as I shrug here.
    60:35
    Tony, what was your, did you vote Star Wars? I actually think I went with Guardians as well. I've corrected you. But I can't remember if that was theme or maybe it was theme integration. And that was part of it, because it was like you see theme and then at the bottom you see theme integration, and then I bet some people went back up to theme again and re-answered that question. Yeah, I just can't remember for sure. I mean, I've got no problem with Star Wars. Star Wars is an obvious answer because that's a theme that everybody loves. It's huge right now. It's been huge since the 70s, and I don't think it's going away anytime soon.
    61:14
    The best toys and gimmicks. That one went to Dialed In. Steve, what are your thoughts? I guess because Dialed In has everything in it and lots of hidden things in it. And you know, how many, take every Lawler toy ever and mix it together and put it in a game and make it work. You've got multiple magnets. You've got a diverter. You've got the quantum mechanic in the upper right who's sort of acting like, I'm not thing from the Addis family. You know, but I am. You know, I'm better. Okay. And then you have the multiple magnets under the play field. I'm not the power. I'm not.
    61:56
    But it worked better. Then you have the drones on the right side saying, I'm not the idol from Ripley's. I'm not. But it worked. So you mix it all together, and it works great. So, yeah, I understand that win. I mean, you have Aerosmith with Jackie's Toy Box. It's awesome. It's the mix of the NBA free throw into an Indiana Jones arc that works 98% of the time. It's great. Right? It's fantastic. But I can see why Dilden win, and I think I did vote for Dilden.
    62:30
    Yeah, I think I voted Aerosmith on this, but, yeah, the toys on Dilden are obvious, so it made sense to me that it got the win. Tony, do you remember what you voted? I remember right, I went with dialed in because between, like Saravan said, you know, the drones and the phone and all the little call outs and this and that and stuff and like the selfie mode gimmick, which in tournament play when you watch is the most boring gimmick ever because you just see a person staring and every selfie is identical because they don't move because that would be wasted energy. Angry. There he is. But when you watch people who are just casually playing it, especially, you know, when you're at the bar and they've had three or four drinks and it pops up and they're laughing and their friends are jumping in to photobomb it and it's flashing around, it's good. I think it definitely works, especially for a game en route type thing.
    63:30
    Okay, next one is best game integration. The winner was dialed in. Of course it is. I mean, just going back, just going for a quick moment back to the toys and gimmicks, the phone is the big, that's, I mean, and that's what integrates you into the theme. You have the phone. Yes. Is it a game about a phone? No, it's a game about disasters. But that phone, right, the way you have the multiple screens, the phone is your iPhone slash your droid phone. And the way it integrated, how it's giving you text messages, showing you the time that's left and how many shots you need. And that's just part of it. The way it's all put together, Dialed In is, I mean, it's not an obvious winner, but it's pretty close. I mean, that was an easy vote for me. That was really easy. Okay.
    64:16
    No, I did not vote for Dialed In. I believe I voted for Batman 66. Understandable. And my issue was, and this is so unfair to Dialed In, it's unfair to Total Nuclear Annihilation as well, but it's not right to do theme integration on an original theme because it's whatever they say. I created this theme I am Waller and I know what I doing so shut up Dennis you wrong I won stand for it Pat Lawler That the Dalton theme is Pat Lawler Yes It not even the best of It Pat Lawler Okay. Pat Lawler. The game. That was the theme. Sure.
    64:51
    They would have moved more units if they called it that. But for me, I interpreted it a little bit differently, and to me, I had to take it as a question of working within the confines, to the constraints of a license. That's how I chose to interpret it, and so that meant I had to roll out the original themes, and I thought Batman best executed on what would have been conditions placed upon the artist. So that's how I did it. So maybe that question will be reformatted next year, on next year's Twippy Round 2, because there is a confusion between those two. So like the one we're going to go up with next, not to really blow the lead here, but the next one is going to be the sound and call-outs, There's a little bit of confusion there. But it seems like there may be a little bit of reformatting next year, maybe, to clear some of this confusion. I wonder if they shifted best theme to best license and best theme integration to best license integration, just to make it very clear. Yeah, but they may not. Jeff may not have meant for best license integration. That may just be. I mean, that would have been one. So, obviously, most people didn't see it the way I saw it. I may just have seen it wrong. That's. It is. No way. No, no. This is a poll. It's an opinion. It's not wrong. Yeah. Yeah, it's just my opinion. Well, except for, Steve, back where you said where Star Wars was the objectively right answer. That is correct. That is exactly right.
    66:14
    That is exactly right. All right, so I definitely can see the bit of confusion here. I mean, because what theme is total nuclear annihilation? What Scott said it was. It's the outrunners. Is that what it is? Yeah, but it works enough. because the game was so good, it won votes it wasn't even supposed to get. Yeah, exactly.
    66:39
    So let's do sound and call-outs. Total Nuclear Annihilation did win that. The controversy, as much controversy as there can be with a fun awards ceremony, is that sound and call-outs was combined. But I guess so we can talk about that. But, Tony, what did you think of this category going, as defined, going to TNA? I'm pretty certain that's who I voted for originally And as it's put together I went with Total Nuclear Annihilation So did I It was that or Aerosmith But I'm pretty certain it was TNA Because I went with the combined I think if it was split It was Best Sound and Best Callouts I would have probably for Best Sound Gone for like Aerosmith But no, I think I went with TNA overall Because it just works It works as a package Steve what are your thoughts on this Now I have to inject a bit of poison In here cause see now Thinking best sound in call outs Total nuclear annihilation is best music Ever I bought that Sound track today I bought the flack version and I listened to it On the way down to Penn Hall external yesterday It's awesome But that's not even up here So you're talking about best music or best sound It's sound Sound effects Because Tony Music is awesome The sound is amazingly You know Powerful the call outs are Standard but they get the job done And then you have dialed in Which you know the music is catchy That's the I hum that music all the time I got a new phone and I don't know what to do with it That's the song But I hear you have some of the call-outs are lackluster, but why are they lackluster? Because it's a news show! You're listening to Fox News, CNN. You know, this just in. Jackpot just happened. And that's what it sounds like. Yeah, yeah. I'm Mike Banting, and this is a jackpot. I mean, that's... Yeah, so that makes sense. That didn't really take it away. That didn't lose Dalvin's vote for me, even though I did vote for total nuclear annihilation. That was, you know, because when I saw best-selling call-outs, total nuclear annihilation's music won it for me. Yeah, it was the same for me. I interpreted it as best music and I chose to go with it. Because it's not just the music, it's okay, it's the way the music is integrated into the game. Like that bass drop as soon as you plunge. Yeah, and the multi-ball soundtrack is different from the single ball. The multi-ball is the full version and then when you go back to single ball and you're trying to take out the reactor, you go to this more muted version of it. So you can tell you're doing something not as good as you could be doing. So you go back into Multicore and everything's back powerful again. You're ready to score huge. You get supers. And when you come back out, it's a little bit more passive. Still powerful. I mean, as passive as a powerful trance-based soundtrack can be. But it's different. And with a track for each reactor, and now that I've heard each of the reactor sounds, it's like a half-spoiler. With as much music as important to me to play a game. Hearing the soundtrack of a game before I get to it It's sort of a spoiler for me, but not really, because I still don't know what's kind of going to happen. But, yeah, the best sound integrated best music for me, and that's what marked the pole for total nuclear annihilation for me. And got it. Mm-hmm. All right, next one up was best code and rules. Dialed in one that. That was my vote.
    70:15
    That's mine. Yeah, it's a runaway. It's got to be. Yeah. It's a runaway. Best play field, geometry and layout. Dialed in one that. I don't believe that was my vote, but I understand that one winning. I think I actually went with Guardians for this. I actually went with TNA for this one. I think I chose Dialed In. I think I was lured in by the flow of the combos.
    70:45
    You know, you can get the left and right ramp theater, up the left ramp, come back down, hit the theater again. into the city. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, I think that's what swayed me.
    70:58
    Uh, yeah. I think I did a little bit of a dive in on that. Okay. Best artwork. I went to Aerosmith. I believe that was my vote. It was between that and Guardians for me, and I think I liked the stylized version that Dirty Donnie did with Aerosmith the most.
    71:13
    Well, best artwork was my hardest vote because when I play pinball, the artwork fades away. I have to get to level zero Where I care about the art on the game And there are things that I miss on games Because I miss A bit of playfield blindness Before I know a feature is there I won't even see it Because I really don't see it If I'm getting really into the game So I had to fall back on Which artwork really got my attention More often than not And it went to Aerosmith I remember voting for Aerosmith With Guardians it's only like a second So I can understand the closest vote there And now that Guardians is more local to me I can see that yeah the Guardians art Is very good but I can see That you know the Aerosmith The Aerosmith artwork Did win it as much as I cared about it I mean the only thing about The only thing about the Aerosmith I guess artwork which I guess would be An incorrect Well not an incorrect path on my part Was that what dinged me for Aerosmith and hesitated me is the fact that I sometimes can't read the scores on the display because the font's so strange. Right, right. So that falls under best animations in the display. Best animations. So then I had to be like, no, that's animations. Okay, don't separate that. Okay, separate that out. We're talking about just artwork on the play field itself. Okay, so that's what got it for me. Tony, what was your pick? Aerosmith. Okay.
    72:44
    And the big finale was Game of the Year. In no way shocking at all, dialed in. I don't think it was shocking at all. That's what I went with, was dialed in.
    72:56
    Yep, dialed in total destruction. I mean, and the total nuclear annihilation definitely showing up. You know. That was Tony's pick, wasn't it, Tony? Yeah, I picked total nuclear annihilation. But, I mean, here's the amazing thing for the whole thing to me and for all of this is one and two, not all of it, but for the vast majority of it, one and two throughout have been dialed in made by J.J.P., Lawler, huge, huge well-known, and the number two or number one that's been fighting it the whole way is a homebrew. That's just amazing to me. Huge. Yeah. Huge. I mean, huge respect to Scott Denise.
    73:36
    Huge. I mean, I've said it so many times, I'm sure people are tired of hearing it, but I fell in love with TNA back when it was just total annihilation at Texas last year. It was my favorite game of the show It's the game I've been most interested in And following since the show It's just amazing I looked at the white wood And said are you selling this Are you making this white wood Just send it out like this Was back when you had the numbers written in marker On the reactors Are you selling this How much is it Because I might want it I would have been perfectly happy if they put no art on that game and they just sent out what to that game. I'd have been happy. I could have played that game that whole weekend. I could have just played that game. I mean, everything else there I would have been happy just playing that game over and over again. And that was on the Whitewood. I mean, just the way it plays just it's amazing. Alright, well, those are the Twippy Awards. And as I noted, show notes have a link so people can go and read and see the breakouts of all those games and how they did on each category. But now we're going to transition into competitive pinball talk.
    74:51
    Skeez, Forte, you have carte blanche, Steve, to go into anything you want. But what I wanted to open with is an expression I see you share on Fun With Bonus a lot, which is no one wants to talk about competitive pinball, followed by a link to something talking greatly about competitive pinball. So it's clearly a running joke, but grounded, I'm sure, in some form of reality, so I just wanted to get your thoughts about people and the talking of competitive pinball, just in a broad sense. Alright, well, it is based on a little bit of reality, and it's kind of a meme I was attempting to force as much as I could. Really, I was just trying to, I was noticing that I mean, well, really, to tell you where the, I guess the origin of this where my thoughts are coming from, is a recent Twippy Award winning podcast, Canadian Pinball Podcast mentioned that no one wants to talk about competitive pinball. And so I listen to a show and I think, oh, really? I talk about competitive pinball a lot. So, and the people I hang out with like to talk about it, but maybe that's why, it's just because that's the people I hang out with are tournament players. But, you know, then it got deeper, like okay, tournament players are going to complain about the randomness in this and the randomness in that. And so then it just became, oh, Well I'm going to notice I'm really going to start noticing When people talk about competitive pinball And I'm just going to repost it with the phrase No one wants to talk about competitive pinball And so it becomes that thing where Once you look for something you start noticing it more And all of a sudden it's like Well wait a minute now Forbes has a link To competitive pinball And now NBC News has done a Feature on competitive pinball And now wait a minute We people are really talking about competitive pinball So now it just became You know a running joke As far as I could run with it So no one wants to talk about competitive pinball Except State championships by every Article writer who wants a quick feature And I realize you know yeah sometimes Sometimes some of these features are Like the article must be written That day if you understand Everybody has to write So you have to write the article to get the clicks To get the favorites and the likes and the social currency To keep your Ranking up and whatever that is Over there That they do so part of it is that But it's still being written So that doesn't change the fact that People are talking about A whole bunch of state championship links That I'm just linking on my site Because I just do Because I want to keep a record of Every time I see one that happens And so that's kind of where it comes from And so I just like noticing I like noticing who's covering it What radio station Slash TV station slash newspaper Is covering it which ones don't Fall for the lazy trap of using The who's pinball wizard And the music bed underneath it You know extra points if they don't do that You know if they do that That's one cinema sin for doing that Yeah To track the point but if they don't If they can get past it without falling into that Trope you know extra points for that good extra journalism points for you so that's kind of where that comes from so it's basically a fun thing that I've tried to develop and I've heard you know other people other podcasts use it like Slam Tilt just picked it up Slam Tilt podcast you know noticed that I was doing that and so they start doing that too when they talk about the band up and ball and you know head to head talks about it sometimes and just want to make it clear like I don't mind that people don't talk about it. It's just the denigration of competitive pinball and that was that part that got me.
    78:39
    It's like, wait a minute. It's not. It's interesting. I mean, I don't denigrate people who talk about play field art as the most important thing ever and people buying things based on the art and not caring about how it plays and things like that which is especially a thing in the new inbox pinball drama section of the homie. I'm more interested in the code You weren't caught up in Gradient Gate With Game of Thrones I mean I'd heard of that And then I cleared that right from my mind I'm like okay fine The art is bad on Game of Thrones Okay I was more concerned with the random numbers That were happening when you cashed in The super jackpot on Hand of the King I was more concerned with that Than the fact that Oh, apparently Star Wars art is bad because it's cookie-cutter Photoshop, apparently? Because, you know, for me, Star Wars LE is less fun to play because of that huge supercharger ramp that's in the way. I'd rather play the Pro because it's out of my way. Things like that. So that was where this sort of came from, you know. I'll just – it's not as bad as it was now, but just sort of the shadow denigration of the opinions of tournament players, I guess, is a way I could sum it up in an elevator pitch. Okay. And so that's where the meme came from, and then I just decided to have as much fun with it as I could. All right. Well, it makes sense now. It makes sense to me now.
    80:12
    And, yeah, we do hear on a lot of podcasts now tournament play getting discussed. I think to mixed effect. You're seeing a lot more discussion in mainstream media, which is great.
    80:25
    You know, I think the key thing, especially in an audio format, since that's what Tony and I do, and we don't tend to talk as much about our tournament stuff as I hear on other podcasts, part of that is we're not as good of players. And part of it is I always think it's important to remember to try and that your goal in the audio format is to tell a good story. So if your tournament thing is told in a compelling way, it's fun to listen to, and if it's told in a terrible way, it is boring to listen to. There are definitely bad ways to tell a story.
    80:57
    Telling a bad beat story is definitely – there are bad beat stories in poker and the same sort of ways in pinball. So there's different ways. There's some good bad beat storytellers and not. I mean, you've been to Pinburg. The Pinberg tournament That Saturday is the bad beat capital of the world Because everybody's thinking Oh man If I had made this shot In round 7 I'd have had enough points to advance To the final or whatever If the ball didn't crawl over Three different out lanes on Ghostbusters Then I would have had Enough points to make it Into the beat of it So it's kind of like that And everybody, you know, with their sob stories and how they could have made it and things. But, yeah, everybody has a bad beat story except the winner. So that's the understanding. Only the winner has the not bad beat story. They have them, but it's not because they won. So that's the part. So I definitely understand that. But, again, it's not necessary for a show to concentrate on competitive pinball. Just I'd appreciate the lack of denigration of it. That's all. Or not mentioning it at all is fine. That's why I listen to all sorts of shows when I can catch them.
    82:13
    And not all of them are competitive based. And some of them just talk about drama. I mean, you know, I don't play a lot of video games often, but I like listening to Giant Bomb.
    82:26
    Right? So it's that way. It's the way they tell stories. So that's part of it. So I can definitely understand. Well, it could just be the whole way. Some people When How the stories are told When you get the people Who are just reciting Straight facts I had this score And I did this And I hit that ramp And then I got this score So I won that game Now I get to Yeah That's that I want to know Why you made this decision Versus this How did you feel about it Were you nervous Were somebody breathing Down your neck Was somebody hovering Behind you Was somebody trying To distract you How did you block them out Things like that Now, it does impress me that those people can remember that, because sometimes I don't remember the game I played four games ago. I said, I don't even remember the machine. It's like, I think I played X-Men. Was it X-Men? Let's see. We played Funhaus, and then, yeah, and then X-Men, and then. So unless something really jumps out and makes it stick out, that stuff just vanishes. So people who can, well, I hit this, and this was what I was thinking. This was the shot I was aiming. And that was the first game I played of the day. Wasn't this a four-day tournament? Yeah, that was the first game the first day. Wow. Like, how did you remember that? Yeah, I guess it's just different sides of the brain working. Like, for example, like I just told you, I don't even know what some play field art looks like right now, and I play the game constantly. Because the play field art just literally vanishes. It's like when I'm doing well in a game, I'm getting into the world of the game, the art fades away, and I'm sort of inside the game. You know, like if I'm playing Daldain really well and I'm feeling the flow of it, If you can imagine, I don't even know how I can explain this You know how Cities Excel, you can put in a Mod that gives you that 3D mode That you get into the city I did not know that, but now I've got to look it up Yeah, something like that It becomes like I get Drawn in to where I'm kind of Everything's sort of magnified and I'm not even Looking at the flippers or anything I know where the shots are, I'm in the city I'm hitting the quantum electric dude, I'm being attacked I know I'm attacking the corporation They're attacking me and it just takes a bunch of misses by me to get out of it but it's sort of like that and so that's why the art fades away and so I guess it's just different sides of the brain working for different people Speaking of podcasts that are focused on competitive pinball, you host one with Nate Shivers and Josh Shopcar called Wide World of Pinball but according to my calculations, which are impeccable, it's been over a year since there's been an episode Yeah we have a Scheduling I guess it would be a scheduling problem I mean I'd be willing to do it but I need like a bunch of 5 hour energies In order for me to fit the correct time That we'd need to fit Nate in Because Nate's in Amsterdam When Nate was in America it was fine I could be the late guy You know get my 5 hour energy done Get started at 9.30 or 10 o'clock And PM and go Now that he's over there It doesn't quite work out As well And the instant that I have any sort of Inkling of trying to start something up Myself I start thinking No you're crazy You'd have to be the one that's entertaining all the time And then you'd have to do the editing No stop it And then hopefully some nice people such as yourself Will invite me on a show And then that's good And I don't have to do any editing I have no editing You just come in and talk and have fun And then wait for the show to come out And then it's awesome and then I don't have the nice feeling of wanting to have a show, so it goes away for a bit. That makes sense. And editing is indeed the suckiest part. Mm-hmm. Yep.
    86:15
    So let's move on to one of our competitive topics. IFPA, International Flipper Pinball Association, they score through what's commonly referred to as the Whopper system. Implementation of the $1 fee went into effect at the start of this year. What are your thoughts on it, especially now that it's been in play? Granted, it's not been in play for a month yet, so we don't have a lot to go off of. Yeah, we don't have a lot to go on. But, I mean, as far as the dollar, I wasn't minding the dollar, even as prolific as I am with playing in tournaments. You know, I was fine with saying, okay, I might contribute $100 to this thing with as many tournaments. I have $50, $100 I may contribute to this. So I was fine with it But I was interested to see what other people Were thinking about it And it was definitely I mean mixed isn't even the word for it But it seems like that Mixedness has calmed down a bit On that I mean as far as I mean the termers I've been in Have integrated the dollar into the fee Or you know say Okay we have this The fee was this It was 25 Now it's 25 But a dollar of it is going into the IPA And the rest is going into the percentage or however we were doing it. So it seems like it's being integrated well and seamlessly enough as far as what I've experienced. And I figure since I was coming on Eclectic Gamers, and Eclectic Gamers is a very, you know, I would say data-driven and exacting and a podcast, I wanted to do some journalism. So I did some journalism, and I asked Josh Sharp that, you know, I was going to be on Eclectic Gamers. We might talk about the dollar fee. Do you have any info you might want to share about positive or negative effects the fee has had on the number of tournaments compared to this January last year or something like that? And what was the general tone about it? And I'm paraphrasing what he said, but I have the communication in front of me saying that he said that he hasn't seen the huge drop-off that he was expecting to see that has been consistent there. And he said that he's already heard of the weekly events that started off the year as not IFPA dollar, already jumping back in with the dollar. And so he says it sounds like the attendance drop put them back into the dollar. I mean, again, we only have less than a month to go by this. And part of this is the fact that the state tournaments were this month, so that may skew the numbers a bit. But it seems like That it's not really affecting them so far We'll see once we get to June As the tournaments Start rearing up what happens But so far So far it doesn't seem Like it's really affecting them as much I mean he's Just saying that He heard from tournament directors that the tournament manager System that they're using to To integrate You know the new system with the dollars And the how to put in information is really working well. Shout out to Brian Shepard, an unsung hero of the WAPA system, programming it and everything.
    89:30
    He's saying that so far it's a good idea. Okay. That's from him. We only have hit one tournament so far this year, but we already knew what the plan was in the Kansas City area. It was to integrate into the existing fees, which essentially made it seamless. The winners, people like you are always cashing, have noticed a slight drop-off on the totals of their accumulation, but the overall impact is not visible to most of the players. So that's gone fine. I was going to pull numbers, and when I saw that the SES was in January instead of February, I was like, okay, well, I'm not going to know anything until March. Right. Yeah, because that boosted by like 40 events for this month, right? Because there's like 40-some-odd. Right. states and provinces involved, but then that would take away 40-some-odd from February. Right, so we really need to combine the two to have any sort of parity, so we're going to have to wait a little bit. I thought I'd bring it up since I had you on at the time.
    90:34
    I'm fine with it, just personally. Again, just speaking for myself, because that's all I can speak for.
    90:42
    I'm fine with it. It seems to be working okay, And hopefully we'll see what the prize pools end up being I'm sure places like New York is going to be ridiculous And ridiculous amount And the Portland area, Portlandia is going to be a huge area As far as the prize pool And maybe we'll get up to a point where I agree with what Josh also said to me Is that we're trying to get to a point Where to get some outside sponsorship income so that we're not playing for our own money. We're playing for someone else's money.
    91:19
    Right. That's the ultimate goal. And so I can see that long-term path down the road of what that could be. And so this is just the first step, step 0.5, on the way of maybe getting to that point where there's a sponsorship that removes the dollar out or something. But we need something to go by to get attention because, yeah, A lot of those articles that are written and those news stories that are made are based on the fact that such and such is for such and such a money. I mean, you know, I watched $100,000 darts because it was $100,000.
    91:56
    And darts was like, why am I watching darts? Oh, $400,000. And it's on ESPN. Now, why is it on ESPN? Is it on ESPN because it's $100,000? Or is it the $100,000 came first? And then the ESPN, like where was the catch-22 that broke through that to get it on, you know? So how do we get on the Ocho? How do we? The Ocho. How do we get on the Ocho? I don't know.
    92:22
    Thus ends the journalism. Okay, well then, let's go ahead and we'll move into a topic that is obviously near and dear to you, and I can say that because I saw one whole article about it. Yeah, this is an article that I started writing and it just kept going. And it was really good. I like this. I want this topic because it's something that Tony and I have not ever spent any time on this podcast talking about, and that is fatal rule set flaws and how to fix them. And so for those that don't know, and we have a link to Fun With Bonus in the show notes, so people go check it out if you have not, but surely you all have. and Steve has a piece up about Theater of Magic specifically and it's talking about the problem with that game when it comes to a high level competitive standpoint and what could be done to improve upon that and it's something that's applicable to a lot of different games and depending when it needs to apply I mean some of these exploits are easier than others to take advantage of or they're not even exploits at all it's just weird rule features but do you want to go ahead and start with just sort of summarizing the issue with Theater of Magic because it's probably as good of a game to start with as any. It really is. Theater of Magic is one of those games that I really like to play as long as I totally ignore the way I'm supposed to play it. Okay?
    93:48
    You know, when you're playing Theater of Magic, you want to do all the illusions and start multi-ball and get all the jackpots and get to the grand finale and get your new score. But what ends up happening during tournaments Is you shoot the left orbit all the time I mean And why? Well because A is an easy shot to hit Also you get a theater letter If you get a theater letter That helps you get to the hurry up Which goes a lot of points And it also gets you to the buffer areas Where you can get more points Or a bonus multiplier which gives you guess what? More points And so if you shoot it It could come all the way around to your right flipper, which you can guess what? Shoot the same shot over again, because why wouldn't you? Because you just did it, and it was so easy. And if it lands in the bumper area, it will come down to the right flipper where you can catch it if you're skilled enough, and do what? Shoot the left orbit again. So what ends up happening is every tournament player knows this, and if you're not a tournament player and you join a tournament which has Theater of Magic in it, you will know it because you'll see someone who knows it doing this thing. So that becomes the thing to do. And so what you have is a whole lot of skilled players doing the thing to do, and then Theater of Magic games take an hour. And you can't have that during a tournament. So what we saw during Indus, it never drains us from the California event, a great event run by Claudio Angelo over in California in Banning. as what they did is they took, they made theater a tournament game. I mean, they take some games that we see as not tournament games and somehow make them tournament games. And what they did was they made the tilt really tight, and they also made it so that when you shoot the left over, it comes out in a strange way at a very dangerous angle, so you don't want to shoot it. And then they took the trunk and they made it active with one hit. All you have to do is hit the trunk one time to start a mode. So all sorts of things to discourage people from shooting, from trying to do the thing. So I was hoping, I was trying to come up with an idea that would, you know, help to not have to do that because we can't clone Carl D'Angelo and Jim Belsito everywhere, you know, although we'd like to because they're so awesome. So that's where this sort of idea came from that I'm hoping could help. And it was just an article that I kept writing and kept going and it kept making sense. And I'm like, okay, this is turning into a thing. I wonder if this could be implemented into a new ROM, which they had a new ROM there too. They also had a ROM there with Theatr of Magic that decreased the combo value. So you could just shoot the center ramp over and over and over. And it also decreased the bonus X potential where normally if you shoot the bonus X, you go 2X, 4X, 6X, 8X, and you're done. You're ready for your huge bonus. Now it's 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X. So it changes it from 2x to 1x each So it's just Everything that I'm describing is trying to discourage the player From shooting that left orbit So then that where this idea came in And so I feel like I been talking much so I want to Well no that was a good summary And so in the case of the in game they both modified it in software and they modified it in hardware because of that feed kick out from the right orbit. Yeah, and it turned out awesome. I mean, you know, they said the high score was 1.6 billion, so, I mean, that's pretty good management there. So that's pretty good. Okay, so let's come up with another game. Tony, do you have a game in mind? I'll be honest. I don't know enough of the rule sets More beyond the basic to have really Good Or really notice any big Flaws in them other than I'm Not that great Once you see A couple like now that you know Did you know the theater flaw before No I didn't but I know What I'm doing next time I play it Watch your score will jump Amazingly I bet you Tony this is That's why I should have taken you to theater because it is what I try and do. You will now get billions. Like all of a sudden you'll do that and you'll not have played many modes at all and it'll start counting your bonus and it'll be like, okay, you did this and you did this and you got this many theater letters and you have 8X and your bonus is $352 million. What? Meanwhile, you scored $400 million, right? And now you're adding $300 million to your bonus. Wait, what? Hello? So that one explains several of the games I've played on it where the other guy is like, this is a pretty close. What? What is it?
    98:30
    I've had that a bunch of times. That's it. We've revealed secrets to the magic. Tony's going to become a dangerous player now. Don't take him to theater anymore, everybody. It's over. We'll have to get you to that left orbit. It's over. Well, yeah, that's good. Oh, I was going to say, well, in terms of, I thought some, that would be obvious. Obvious in terms of software alone would be things like Back to the Future or Bugs Bunny, where you've got the score stealing, and you just can't, you just can't. We, well, we are, I'd never played Bugs Bunny's birthday ball until Texas Pinball Festival last year. Someone had a, one of the vendors had a restored one, and all I knew was it was awful. I was with a group of three other people and I said oh we need to play Bugs Bunny because it's terrible and we start playing it and no one's really loving the shots or anything but everyone's like you said it was really terrible and I was like just wait because I knew why we get to the end and the last place person opens his birthday present and gets the spot scores and everyone just walked away in disgust and it was truly precious to me and I cherish this memory. But you got to show them the poison. You know, you got to show them. But, you know, I mean, it doesn't have to be a great shooting game. If we could go in and put in a new ROM and take away score stealing, it would at least be viable. Even if you didn't like the mystery awards, it would at least be viable. I mean, we could throw a lot of Gottliebs under the bus for just saying, let's take out the mystery or make it not as extreme of a range. Right. All of a sudden, you work, You grind, you grind, and all of a sudden you get, oh, this super is now worth $300 million, which, meanwhile, you scored $15 million during the whole game. You know, those trades got leave in balance scoring. Or, you know, just swap. Take high score. Which one? Take high score. Like police force, I think. You know, all of a sudden, just take high score. Yep. Okay.
    100:34
    Yeah. Shoot this easy ramp twice and take the score. Let's not do that. Let's not. Okay, how do we prevent that? Let's take that and make it shoot it nine times. Take the highest score. Okay. Right, right. I don't think that. How about, unfortunately, it's another Gottlieb one, but it was one that immediately popped to mind when I read your article, Gladiators and the Calm Before the Storm Explosion. Right. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, let's just build up the entire world so that I can, yeah, just build up this huge jackpot. Yeah, that's pretty, that's very egregious there. But if you could do something like limit the use to the Abyss Hole, Like make them shoot something else or something. Anything. That's right. Another thing is I think the common strategy is to time out all the modes to get to Calm Before the Storm. Right. So you can't time them out. That would actually benefit almost any game would be to get rid of time out. That's the perfect segue. Roller Coaster Tycoon. Roller Coaster Time Out. That's what it is. You time out most of the modes on it. And so you get to Park Tycoon, which is the wizard mode, with like no guests. So it was worth no points. But you don't really care because you got guaranteed points Where you can't drain And so then you do it again And so that's why that game takes four years to play If you have a whole bunch of people Who know how to do that And if the game is playing easy enough You can't have it in a tournament Because the worst thing to have in a tournament Is you have this one game that's taking up too much time Because it can hold people back And waiting is bad Yeah, oh yeah So that would be Yeah, and that would, in theory, it sounds like it would be a pretty easy software fix. You'd want to disable the troll at the same time. Oh, yeah. For sanity reasons. Oh, yeah, that troll. Oh, no. He wants to be Rudy so bad. He just isn't. He's trying. He even steals Rudy's thing. I'm just not happy with you now. That's all he says.
    102:26
    It's like, no, you did not say that. You are not Rudy. It's so annoying. Yeah, there's a few other ones that sort of came to mind. See, some of them wouldn't be too bad, like Premier's title fight. Maybe it wouldn't have been too bad if that loop wasn't so easy to shoot. Right. But it's just right there. Yeah. It's like, here, you must shoot me. I am a loop, and I'm an easy loop. I'm loop. Get it. Yeah, get it. Just why not? You don't have anything to do? Shoot it. It's fine. You're going to get points for it, and do it again. I mean, I guess one that's less obvious, I guess, is Toten, where you just shoot the lamp a lot. I really told her to shoot the lamp. That's it. Shoot the lamp, lamp, lamp, lamp, lamp, make a wish, triple lamp scoring, lamp, lamp, lamp, lamp, lamp, till you die. That's it. Right. Yeah, that one probably is just modifying the wish. People shouldn't get to... You could take out the ability to wish for the stars or whatever they are. The triple. That alone would probably... Yeah, because actually I really like a lot about how that game feels, but competitively, you know, well, I don't really like any J-pop game competitively other than World Cup Soccer. World Cup, right. Yeah, World Cup is, again, with opinions, right? World Cup is objectively. Yeah, objectively, it is the right answer. It's not an opinion, but it's as close to objective as you can get. It's science. It is. It's science.
    103:54
    But, yeah, I mean, there's definitely, there's some posts on Tilt Forums with, I think, software being in the works that are, you know, So you've seen, so definitely if you go to Tilt Forms, you'll see some of that there. I mean, I see, just, oh, here's another one that came to mind that's totally unrelated. Firepower. Oh, that's better. Right, the spinner. A, the spinner, right? But B, on the other end, is like, I want to get rewarded for a two ball or three ball. Otherwise, I don't care. So there's a ROM that gives you double or triple scoring for getting two ball and three ball. So, you know, or Barracora. It's missing from Barracora. You don't get it. Oh, yeah. I want my three ball to have, it doesn't have to be triple. Give me double scoring for three ball and then give me one and a half scoring for two ball so it doesn't get too crazy, you know. But just something like that. I think that would make Barracora the complete game. I love Barracora. Yeah. Except for that. Right. Except for that part. Yeah, I like the whole, the integration of the double lights at the top. The lanes are, it's so clever. Yeah. It's so confusing. It's so clever. I really enjoyed watching Bowen's tutorial where he kept accidentally clearing them out because you've got to do it wrong. It's like math on the fly. I don't know. I'm trying to talk here.
    105:07
    Actually, I do have a Firepower, and I was always really tempted in that ROM. The only problem is you have to change the board set. You have to upgrade the board set for Firepower. The system, what is it? What's its default system? Six. It can't handle the multipliers. It's all right. But cram that chip as full as it can get. You need like the seventh digit, too. Yeah. If you really get the triple and you get that spinner, oh. Yeah. It's a little too easy. It's already relatively easy to roll firepower. Right. But at least it'll make it worth going for the three ball. Right. Otherwise, I won't even look at it. No. At home, I'll do it because it's the hardest thing to go for. But I always have to pause them and be like, all right, well, I might see this in tournaments. So now it's time for me to practice my spinner shots and just do spinner shots, which is frustrating. So, yeah, there we go. We fixed them all. It'd be nice if there was a repository or something where we could download the ROMs easier. Because I've seen, like, on TiltForums, people ask, oh, can I get the Papa ROM for this or that? And it's like, it'd be nice if we could just, I mean, if it's okay and they're freely available to have a, you know, community sort of site, like Papa hosting a site where here you can download the Papa-approved tournament-ready ROMs. Right. Maybe that exists, and I just don't know that. It's secret, then. They kept it secret. It's a secret. They don't want us to know. Look at the page.
    106:31
    Yeah. Papa official ROMs. You know, these are the officially approved. You know, we have that ROM that fixes the Dracula glitches. and then you have, you know, they're all in one place. And maybe it does exist.
    106:48
    Okay. Well, the final topic in competitive pinball that I think I'll go ahead and segue us into now is one that I've had come up locally here recently, and I wanted to get your thoughts on this because you're such a prolific tournament player.
    107:04
    And that's on ideas on what people can do to help grow their local scene to get new competitive pinball players into tournaments. And I'm specifying tournaments rather than leagues. We've actually covered the league discussion. Bowen Cairns was on back in May with us, and we really focused in on league discussion. But, for example, here in the Kansas City area, there are a lot of those sort of local one-day tournaments, but it's basically the same people coming to them. We might see one to two new people a tournament, And by new, I mean they're not yet contributing to the IFPA formula. That's sort of my definition. I ran analytics a week ago on the KC stuff for 2017 showing here are the tournaments, here are the average, quote-unquote, novice players and what all that looked like. And the numbers were all pretty close from tournament to tournament. But all our tournaments are kind of the same. In terms of format, they're usually pretty similar. So I just wondered if you had any thoughts on – I know you tend to be at that sort of the higher level, big event stuff, but hey, you're a top competitive player. What works? What seduces the newbies so that they can help pay me?
    108:14
    Well, I guess one part is seducing the newbies, and the other part is just bringing them in so they don't run away. And I guess you covered one of that. One of the aspects we covered is that waiting is bad. So people don't want to come to wait, and they don't want to come to a place where They think they're going to come in, get their butt kicked, and then they have to leave. You know, both of those things are terrible. So match play helps with that. I mean, the qualification best game Herbstyle stuff doesn't help with that as much because imagine if you're going to a best game qualifier, and now that there are a lot of people who play pinball, there are a lot of pinheads who, like me, play pinball a lot, And we're there and we're filling up the queues and the queues are like five deep. And then the new player gets up there and then he explained to them how to get in. And then he explained to them how to get on the queue. And then they're waiting for five people to play. And then they get up there and then they play for 30 seconds and then they're waiting again. You know, that's that's the most discouraging thing that I've seen people talk to me about is the waiting. So, you know, the match play definitely helps with that. I mean, imagine if you're, imagine if, let's put it like this. Okay, you have a bunch of people who are in line for a popular ride like a roller coaster, and you're waiting in line, and then it's your turn to go. Normally, each ride takes the same amount of time, so you kind of know how long the wait is. But now imagine the length of the time you're riding depends on how skilled you are in riding it. So, you know, if you're not good at it, if you're not good at riding the ride, You get up there, you just saw somebody play Theater of Magic for an hour, right? And shoot the left door for 87 times. And you step up, brick three times a drain because the ball seams are off because it's a tournament and everything. It really discourages people putting in that second entry fee. You know, they'll put in that free one and then they're gone. But I mean this is one reason Why Pinberg is the best format Ever ever because it's guaranteed play No matter how good or bad you're doing You're going to have guaranteed play With a whole bunch of people that you People that you hopefully brought with you To play and then you're going to meet a whole bunch of random People that you you know Not even you know new play before And you'll play with a whole bunch of different People every round so And it's guaranteed play So which takes out Which is, like some formats Like say double elimination are good But in double elimination Somebody loses twice immediately And they're gone So match play Solves, doesn't solve It helps with that too, you know So just the fact that you're facing people of your Of your equal skill And as you get better, you start facing other people Who are better, you start seeing You know, different strategies which help you get better And then, you know I mean, and that's, I guess that's That's part of the catch-22 for the new players That you bring them in And yes, they will get their natural butt kicked A few times Because they're a new player And they're stepping into a scene where There are people who have played But then hopefully we can get to the point where They'll start to learn what's going on And once they figure out the fact that Really all they have to do is ask those people And they'll tell you kind of what to do Yeah That's one of the unique things about pinball I don't know how unique it is as far as Pinball versus other gaming scenes But I know at most places This is a fake number But I'll say 95% of the people 9,000 out of 10 You ask somebody about something They'll tell you As long as you're not currently in the game They'll kind of give you some tips on what to do And all it takes is one or two things And teaching somebody how to drop catch once And they're kind of in Once they see, oh that's not magic Oh you just did, oh bye I can teach you how to do it. Done. Okay. Now you've caught the ball and you're waiting to make a shot. Now you can aim for that. Okay. And then, okay, why do they aim for that? Well, you aim for that because of this and this, and now this is active. Now they start to get into the flow of how the game works and they start getting better. And then you start seeing the layers of how a game works, you know, which is why we really have to hopefully, you know, keep programmers like, you know, Lyman and Keith around, you know, who keep programming those games with the multiple layers. Like you have Monster Fats, which is bash Frank for the new player. But then the new player sees the monsters, and then we can get them to bring monsters in with multiball and see how that's better than just bashing Frank all the time. And so there's that progression that helps the new player get into the game. So you have to hopefully hope for games that will keep doing that. Like Walking Dead has that. Walking Dead has bash the well walker. It's a big, huge thing. Hey, hit it. And then you see how dangerous it is. Why am I draining? Well, don't do this all the time Try this, oh, okay, then I'll hit the Yes, then you hit the well walker, nice And so, that's part of it, I mean I guess Match play is friendlier Because of the guaranteed play To a point, I mean, sure, some match plays might have Finals in it, which Is a limiter, but then you have a match play Like the sanctum, which has no finals, it's just straight up Get it done, 24 hours But, you know, that's, I guess that's Part of it, I guess more match play, because Herb style qualifications Are beginning to collapse under their own weight I mean we're going to have to have a point Where we have 20 games in qualifying Right It's going to get bad where all of a sudden We have the popularity is going to be great Which is awesome for the scene but then we're going to have Cues of like 10 people Deep on Metallica And yeah Now of course the Never Dream software makes that Great because you can cue up And go see the rest of a show And then notice that you're moving up on the queue On your phone and then when you're getting close Come back so that helps Having great software like the NeverJane System really helps with that But still Match play is what gets People playing and talking and Drinking alcohol if they do that And having fun And doing that and then And also not being limited by the fact that There's a final that you get Kicked out of because you didn't play as well Okay well we don't do a ton of match play we tend to do a lot of double elimination so it's something for us to consider us being the scene will they do it I do not know yeah I don't know I'm just a guy with a microphone I don't I have no power double elimination is easy to do it's just somebody loses twice I mean it's just that's just math that's science so somebody's gonna lose we do a lot of science here on EGP it's sort of our like our thing well so yeah I don't know if any of that It made a bunch of sense, but it's kind of what I'm thinking.
    115:09
    Okay. Well, we do have actually a couple video game topics we're going to hit on with you here. Hopefully you're not totally lost. Sounds like you're actually fairly well aware of things outside of the realm of pinball. Enough, right? And, Tony, you've got one here about a pretty big Nintendo announcement that I think came out just after we aired last time. It was. It came out just a day or two after we aired last time. Nintendo announced their Nintendo Labo for the new Switch console. Science. Which, it's lots of science, and it's cardboard, and it's $70 and $80 for a set. So, but they're going with the, using the various controls on the Joy-Cons and little infrared cameras to let you actually take cardboard, fold it up into shapes, insert Joy-Cons into the shapes, and then it becomes a controller of some type.
    116:12
    It's one of those things that seems definitely more at kids, but what's interesting to me is just how far Nintendo has gone out again like they have in the past to the kind of weird Nintendo zone where they're like, well, nobody's ever thought of doing this. I mean, I'm not saying nobody's ever thought of doing this, but this seems kind of weird, but we'll do it. The big interesting one to me is they've got an $80 one that uses the Joy-Cons, and you literally make a giant robot suit out of cardboard, and you stomp around your living room and get stuff. What? Yeah.
    116:50
    It's $80. And the thing is, is I really am like, I kind of want that. You know, and this shows that I read too much on pinball because when I saw that, when I saw the trailer for it, I thought it was pretty clever. I also thought it totally reminded me of the Pinbox 3000. That's it. I wasn't going to say it. I'm here to cover for you here. I wasn't going to say it.
    117:17
    Boom, I'm right there with you, Dennis. Right there. That's right, which is cardboard kits people can buy to build their own cardboard pinball machines, mostly oriented kids using marbles and stuff. It's really cool, though. You can put in, like, multi-ball features and stuff. So we do have a link to the Nintendo Labo and the Pinbox 3000 in the show notes so people can read about both of those. But, yeah, the Nintendo thing, really clever, really weird, really Nintendo.
    117:43
    Yeah, it's definitely weird Nintendo. As I saw online earlier, weird Nintendo is best Nintendo. Because first it's cute, kawaii Nintendo, and then there's weird Nintendo. You know, so, that's how you get that money. And, you know, there's Amiibo Nintendos, right, at that level. But, I mean, I was looking at this, and I'm thinking, first thing I look at this, it reminded me of the Pinbox 3000. And then I'm thinking, I mean, is there some educational value in this? I mean, you know, just thinking, you know, possibly bringing in the schools there. That's kind of where my mind went when I saw this, because I went right to the Pinbox 3000. So I'm like, okay, bring that in. We can bring those in to teach physics and construction and things like that. So I'm like, maybe this can be used in a similar way. I mean, other than just purifying, which this looks like it would be purifying.
    118:31
    Maybe one of the future labos that Nintendo will do would be a little cardboard cabinet-style thing for the Switch. I mean, they already have a pinball arcade, Stern pinball arcade, and they can be played in portrait mode so you can see them long view. And so it already supports that kind of cabinet view style when you play on that system for the virtual pinball. Yeah, I've been playing pinball FX3 on my Switch.
    118:56
    And I just think it was really clever that they were like, hey, you know what? Unlike most, the biggest problem with virtual pinball, in my view, is normally you're confined to the TV dimensions, and they are wide, not tall. Right. You can't just go, at least I can't just go to my stand and say, all right, TV, it's 90-degree time. Let's have some fun. You're not going to tape load your TV like you're playing a schmuppering. Yeah. It doesn't kind of work. It doesn't work really. And that is what I think one of the challenges of growing pinball as a spectator sport is, as nice as Carl's streams and stuff are, you still just have the obstacle of we're watching on TVs where it's very difficult to see the play field because it's being squished.
    119:38
    Squishy play field syndrome. Let's see. The only other video game item we were going to touch on was Dragon Ball FighterZ, which is a fighting game that just came out. Tony, you have it?
    119:54
    I have it. I went ahead and I wasn't going to get it, but the initial reviews of the PC version showed just that it was a really good port. So I went ahead and grabbed it, and it's enjoyable. It reminds me a lot, like I thought from the videos and like I thought from all the beta stuff, is it reminds me of some of the old Marvel versus Capcom fighting games. And I can see where this might be one of the new big fighting games once the tournament, the big tournament starts showing up again. Oh, yeah. Outside of watching competitive pinball and competitive Overwatch, I also like to watch competitive fighting games. Oh, yeah. Evo all day. Oh, yeah. That was the whole, that was the weekend. Oh, yeah, it's great. It's great. Hey, why do people watch? They got that big prize pool now, that Capcom stuff. Exactly. Oh, my gosh. So I got this as well for Xbox One. Pretty easy combo setup. You know, it's one of those easy to learn, difficult to master. Story Mode does a good job walking through how to play. Because I haven't played much fighting games since Killer Instinct several years ago. So I don't play combat games. Yeah, I haven't. I don't play a lot of fighting games anymore. I used to. I was always a huge Soul Calibur person, which apparently there is a new Soul Calibur coming, but I haven't played them in a while. I ain't got the young reflexes anymore. Pinball's more forgiving. That ball only moves so fast.
    121:21
    Although, there are ways to make that ball move fast. I played a Tron yesterday that was making people shake their heads. Oh, my God. There are two tournament games I cannot stand.
    121:33
    Full confession. You want to freak me out, you put me on Mustang or you put me on every routine. They're too fast for me. I feel like I can't keep up with the ball. It's a terrible feeling, terrible. But, yeah, Tron can be pretty brutal, too, with that when we've had it on location. I'm actually going to go off the list since we're done with the list anyway. Going off the board.
    121:56
    We're off the board. Now, Steve, you've mentioned multiple times when we were talking in the pinball segment about SimCity and City Skylines. Right. So I'm assuming that means those are games you enjoy. And as somebody who grew up with SimCity and has played a fair chunk of City Skylines myself,
    122:16
    have you played the newest SimCity that came out? Not the newest one, no. Not the newest one. Yeah. See, I was looking at it, and then the City Skylines just seemed more like the old one and the new SimCity. So I played a lot of City Skylines, but the whole building style of game and the city design style of game are a game that I've always really enjoyed. So it was so interesting to me to hear you mention it so much. Right. I mean, yeah, because definitely when I saw, you know, Skylines, everybody, you know, everybody likes playing it everywhere on YouTube. You know, it's like, okay, I guess, I guess City Skylines is taking the title away. Is that what's happening now? Okay, now I'm seeing this new version now. Hold on.
    123:08
    Alright. Does this look like they're maybe copying off each other? Is it going to be a graphics battle? Are we tightening up the graphics on level 3? Is that what's happening? That's pretty much what it is. It's a graphics battle and a slight play difference battle that some people prefer one over the other. I play a lot of City Skylines because it lets me do more of the kind of stuff that I like.
    123:34
    It reminds me more of the older SimCities, where the new SimCity has a lot more innovations, which could be good or bad for you.
    123:48
    So I just... Neither of them are new games. They've both been out for a little while now, but it's just interesting to see games like that, and I never really made the dialed-in connection as much as, Like you said, it kind of does have that feel It was just the way the overhead perspective was It was like they just took a section of a completed SimCity map That you just finished building and you haven't gone back to in a while And just put it in the game Just put it right in the game Yeah, that's always a good feeling I mean, like I said, I played a lot of those games when I was growing up I play a lot of them now I play railroad games too, I like railroad games Now does it seem like How much are they getting into the granular aspects of it Like as far as you know Taxes And you know I mean the cities can get pretty granular When it's all you know Down to the citizen level They can get into it pretty decently I know city skylines Let's you do it It doesn't get like Real deep into the weeds It makes things very easy But you can designate certain sections of the city This is Robert Hills, and that's going to be the expensive, nice place for people to live. And this is the iron, heavy equipment industrial area, and we'll adjust the taxes and the rates and this and that on this area based upon that. So, I mean, it's there, but it's not inaccessible. And it does a good job on letting you do the whole layout how you want instead of kind of locking you in more. But the nice thing about Cities Skylines is it's on Steam, and they've got the workshop and the mods, and you can make it just insanely complex with mods. Or make it really easy with mods. Custom buildings and everything, like I can have my Taco Bell in there or whatever. Yeah, exactly. We're all like that.
    125:52
    And for obvious reasons, I play with a lot of mods that have a lot of stuff on the public works side of the city. So it goes more in depth than the normal. Normally it's, oh, this is water, and water goes to the house, and this building gets your sewer, and that building creates water, and this building creates trash, and that's all public works. For obvious reasons, I play with stuff that lets me go much deeper into public works because that's what I actually do for my job. So that's something to me. But just for people who like that kind of game, and if they've not tried City Skylines, it's definitely something I would recommend.
    126:34
    It's looking like City, we have a $29.99 to get in, and then is this $4.99 a month? Is that the same thing? What is going on? Yeah, the Newston City, it's...
    126:46
    It's an... Man, I don't even... Because this is not the same business model as... No. It's not as friendly a business model as, say, Pitbull FX. You know, where you can buy a game and I'm out. But this is literally... Yeah, no, it's not. The New SimCity is very much a get in and play it. And you get all sorts of bonuses when you have the origin access. Oh boy Yeah it's It's EA doing what EA does For money So that's why I was definitely Staying on the side of Cities Skylines Because Cities Skylines is A One time purchase Not a whole bunch of stuff And it's the same thing It's 30 bucks as well But Yeah it definitely has Insanities That's leading me to To keep getting into Skyline, I'll tell you that because You know, especially if you have A monthly fee, it might become Like one of those services you get and you forget you have And all of a sudden, why did I spend $50 a year I haven't touched it In eight months Wait a minute It just comes up to What's becoming the general rules That if it says EA, you need to be real careful with it.
    128:20
    All right. Well, definitely. We made it. We got to the end of the show. We did it. Thank you, Steve, so much for coming on and speaking with us and educating us on the on all the on the weird competitive things that are only understood by the true king of caching himself.
    128:40
    For our listeners, if you want to reach out to us, we're on Facebook, Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast. We're also on Twitter and Instagram as Eclectic underscore Gamers. And those of you who do follow on Instagram might have noticed that I've actually been boasting stuff there again lately. Yay, me. I'm actually doing it. Journalism. And until next time where I guess we should have the Deep Root Pinball interview for everyone to enjoy. And we do still have our Discord link active on the last episode. There's a link to it on our website, eclecticgamers.com. All right, everyone. See you. Bye. Bye-bye.