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BDYETP 98: Is Pokémon the end boss of baby games?

Bro, Do you Even Talk Pinball·podcast_episode·1h 24m·analyzed·Mar 14, 2026
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

Pokémon smash hit, Jersey Jack fumbles, American Pinball pivots to classic remakes.

Summary

Joe Cherovino guests on Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball to discuss Pokémon Pinball's massive success (750 LE units sold out immediately), Jersey Jack's ongoing Godfather delays, Dutch Pinball's shutdown of Duke/Raza titles and loss of Melvin Williams to American Pinball, and American Pinball's new ownership and strategy of remaking classic Bally/Williams games through a seven-game deal with Planetary Pinball.

Key Claims

  • Pokémon Pinball sold out all 750 LE units almost immediately; Stern also sold out all Pro and Premium first-run allocations

    high confidence · Nick and Joe discussing Stern's production numbers; direct statement about LE sellout within approximately a day

  • Godfather has been owned for nearly three years and still lacks wizard mode and has timer issues (timers run when ball is in shooter lane)

    high confidence · Nick's Hall of Shame segment update on Jersey Jack's Godfather; described as laziest fix not implemented

  • Melvin Williams left Dutch Pinball for American Pinball

    high confidence · Joe and Nick discussing personnel move; described as a big departure

  • Dutch Pinball cancelled Raza and Duke games

    high confidence · Joe discussing Dutch Pinball updates: 'no more Raza, no more your Duke games...getting shit canned'

  • American Pinball signed a seven-game agreement with Planetary Pinball for remastered Bally/Williams games

    high confidence · Joe: 'They got a seven game agreement with Planetary Pinball. Seven games, Joe. That's crazy.'

  • American Pinball's new leadership includes John Popadiuk, Bob Betor (CEO of Electric Playground), and Nick Netzel

    high confidence · Discussion of new ownership and hires at American Pinball

  • Pokémon Pinball has a design issue with balls draining down the middle via left orbit

    medium confidence · Nick observing from play videos: 'I'm seeing a lot of balls going down the middle because of that left orbit...shooting balls into the drain'

  • Pokémon license required that the Pokéball could not open or show the inside; it must shake exactly three times when catching a Pokémon

    medium confidence · Joe explaining licensing constraints discovered during game design

  • American Pinball plans to release two games per year

Notable Quotes

  • “Is Pokemon the end boss of baby games?”

    Episode Title / Nick Lane @ Opening — Framing device for the episode; tongue-in-cheek reference to Pokemon Pinball's accessibility-focused design

  • “Squirtle mode is the one that opens up access to the hole.”

    Jack Danger (Stern design team, quoted by Nick) @ Pokemon Pinball discussion section — Nick's example of not understanding Pokemon terminology; humorous moment illustrating the theme knowledge gap

  • “You gotta finish your games, guys.”

    Nick Lane @ Jersey Jack / Godfather Hall of Shame segment — Direct criticism of Jersey Jack's failure to complete Godfather after three years; reflects wider community frustration

  • “Jersey Jack has dropped the ball. So, like, it's just buying Stern's games left and right. The club gets all the Stern games. There's zero Jersey Jack games at the club.”

    Joe Cherovino @ Jersey Jack discussion — Explains venue operator behavior shift away from Jersey Jack due to lack of game completeness

  • “If you do have a lot of money, just throwing money at the problem is not the answer, and that can also be a detriment.”

    Joe Cherovino @ American Pinball strategy discussion — Advisory to American Pinball's new ownership; warns against overambitious execution

  • “Shoot for one game. And then surprise people with two.”

    Joe Cherovino @ American Pinball strategy discussion — Industry advice on managing production expectations and setting realistic goals

  • “People who are buying pinball machines want the latest and greatest. They just do. Like, I want the new thing.”

    Nick Lane @ American Pinball remake strategy debate — Market insight on collector/operator purchasing behavior; questions viability of classic remakes

  • “It confidently answers, yes, Brody Even Talk Pinball is a pinball focused podcast hosted by Drew Maniscosoloco and Travis Murray. I don't know who those people are.”

Entities

Pokémon PinballgameStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyDutch PinballcompanyJoe Cherovinoperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Pokémon Pinball sold out all 750 LE units almost immediately (within approximately one day) upon release; all Pro and Premium first-run allocations also sold out; Stern scaling back from 1,000 to 750 LE units

    high · Direct statements from hosts about sellout rates and Stern's production decisions

  • ?

    product_concern: Pokémon Pinball experiencing manufacturing issue with balls draining via left orbit/habitrail path into center drain; similar to Mandalorian issue with left orbit railing; issue present in early units but assumed to be fixed

    medium · Nick observing from play videos: 'I'm seeing a lot of balls going down the middle because of that left orbit...shooting balls into the drain'; comparison to Mandalorian left orbit problem

  • ?

    product_concern: Jersey Jack Godfather pinball still missing wizard mode after nearly three years in market; timer bug causes timers to run when ball in shooter lane (laziest fix not implemented); unsuitable for competitive tournament play

    high · Nick's Hall of Shame segment: 'It's still not done. It's still missing the wizard mode. And timers run when the ball is in the shooter lane, which is the laziest thing to not fix'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Operator sentiment shifting away from Jersey Jack toward Stern due to Godfather's incomplete state; venue operator (host) now buying exclusively Stern machines for club while maintaining zero Jersey Jack games

    high · Joe: 'Jersey Jack has dropped the ball. So, like, it's just buying Stern's games left and right. The club gets all the Stern games. There's zero Jersey Jack games at the club'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.254

0:00
Alright, coming up on this episode of Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinball? Is Pokemon the end boss of baby games? We're just joking, we're gonna talk about Pokemon Pinball. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but we've got a lot of American Pinball news. All that and more coming right up. Double Super Jackpot! I need a ramp. I need a loop. I want targets I can hit. I need the scoop. I need a double super jetpack for my life. That's right! And Kevin Manning of Buffalo Pinball. Boom shakalaka. Yo, what's going on everybody? I'm Kevin. Nick and Joe are here. I'm going to hand it off to them in a minute, but I just wanted to give a quick plug before the show starts to something cool we got coming up at Texas Pinball Festival. Let me show you here. So I'm going to be there with a whole crew of folks from Multimorphic, Jerry Stellenberg, Steven Silver, Nick Baldridge from the company, and then Manu Smith, Dave Sousa, a couple owners of the platform. Myself I'm going to be moderating the panel Friday night, 9pm central. Swing by if you're going to be at TPF. There's also going to be like 13 machines in the Multimorphic booth. There's going to be two portals, two Princess Brides, Weird Al, Final Resistance, Heist, Drain, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Lexi Lightspeed, Cannon Lagoon, and Heads Up, which is super cool. You play head to head. I accept all challenges on Heads Up throughout the weekend. So stop by, say hi, hang out, and yeah, come see what we got going on. And without further ado, I'll hand you off to my good friends Joe Cherubino and Nick Lane. Kevin Hartman, All right, thank you, Kevin. And this is Kevin's last show, at least for a while. So Kevin is bridging the gap between the podcast, as obviously he's doing work with Multimorphic. And just to tee things up, as I kind of alluded to towards the end of the year. So for this year of Brody Even Talk Pinball, we're going to do four shows. That's the kind of like minimum we set. And I'm still trying to figure out the kind of the guest host with me. Kevin is nice enough to bridge that gap and he's gonna play production assistant. Kevin I insist that you at least keep your your mic on you can be the Ed McMahon and just laugh naturally. Dude I don't think I can. It's gonna be too tempting to laugh. A laugh is involuntary. A laugh is involuntary. You can't be held responsible for that. And maybe when Kevin's gone we just record his his laughter and I can just hit like a button when I think Kevin would laugh because I know you well enough. Jerry Paterson, All right, so we're joined this month with guests co-host Joe Cherovino. Joe, I've known Joe, I don't know, God, for like 10 years now. Many people know him in the community from Pinball Degenerates. Just an all around good guy. And I don't, I don't use the term good guy for a lot of people. But I think that's the definition of Joe. So, Joe, you want to say hi to everybody? Hey everybody it's really an honor and a pleasure to be here joining you guys so uh been a long time fan for a very for like 10 years so this is kind of insane and um i really appreciate you guys allowing me to come on and uh chat with you guys so thank you yeah yeah yeah so joe was um down in uh buffalo last weekend we had a winter classic tournament where we played all classics uh we had a chili cook-off and believe it or not the The club smelled wonderful. So that's a real testament to high quality food. Joe won the tournament. Look at that. Oh, yeah. Look at this. What does that say? It's a classic. Yeah. First place, A Division, baby. He absolutely destroyed the Harlem Globetrotters at the club, like rolled it. I was in a trance. He got like 1.2 million or something. No, 1.5, sir. Thank you very much. Yeah, but who's counting? Yeah, who's counting? Thank you very much. I think it's the best game of my life ever on Harlem and only because that game was playing so well. Like the games at the Nickel City Pinball Club are just tuned so, so incredibly well, especially the classics were all like in perfect playing condition. Like they just came off the factory floor in like the 70s and 80s. Like it was wild. Like thank you to you and everybody, Matt, everybody, everybody who works on those games is just really great tip top quality. No, it's a shout out to Matt Taylor who's shouldering most of the repair work and Matt's a very competent guy and does great work and then also shout out to Kevin's son who was just working on my Bobby Orr last night and he's coming along which is really great to see somebody who's in college embracing fixing pinball machines and he's going to an EM clinic because he wants to learn more about that so that's exciting. But anyways, let's get into the show. We've got some partner things that we're going to kick off. Kevin, if you're kind enough to put it on the screen so I can see what's going on. This is really easy this year. All right, so we've got our partners. We've got, first of all, our premier partner, Flip N Out Pinball, flipnoutpinball.com. It's the only place I go to buy new pinball machines. Zach Meny is a champ and the team that he's working with, just such a great crew in the business. I just bought a couple months ago Star Wars Pro for the club and as usual, just a smooth experience with Zach. I can't recommend them enough, so FlipNOutPinball.com. Also want to give a shout out to Titan Pinball, Titan Pinball for silicon rings, which I'm constantly purchasing. And they have other things like pinballs, not machines, and of course the comfortable mat tools, all that good stuff. Eric's a great guy. Again, just outstanding folks. We're lucky to work with them. And then pinside.com, the go-to place for all things pinball, the resource to talk on forums, buy and sell machines, and all that good stuff. www.sternpinball.com I've got a little bit of background on the game. It was released in December of this year. And the game was released and was in the game for a month. And the game's title came out about a month ago. Literally, just like a, like, on the 15th of February-ish, around that time, just, like, a month. So, I haven't obviously gotten a chance to play yet. It is getting locations. I am seeing a lot of play videos. And Nick, what do you think? What do you think so far? Yeah, look, this is, this is, number one, theme wise, it's not a game for me. And I recognize that. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy it and it can't be good. I think Stern, what's the best thing about playing this game? I think Stern wisely got the license to this game. My understanding is it's like a bigger business than Star Wars, which kudos to them. I'm sure they're going to crush it. And this should bring a lot more people into pinball who are Pokemon friends. You know, they're people who are obsessed with this theme. I didn't even know what the hell Pokemon was until, I don't know, when they had the Pokemon Go. Like I knew what a Pikachu was because I played Smash Brothers in 2001. I still had no idea where the hell Pikachu came from. So it is clearly a theme that does nothing for me. I was watching a video on it and having breakfast just catching up this morning and I was kind of tuned out but I was watching Stern's gameplay where the design team was working on it and And again, half paying attention, and I just hear this from Jack Danger, and I quote, Squirtle mode is the one that opens up access to the hole. And that was enough for me. This is not a game for me. I don't know what the hell a squirtle mode is. I don't know what hole he's opening up access to. I want no part of that. But I think, again, like, the game looks very vibrant. They crushed the theme. When I first saw it, I thought of Junkyard. And I like that kind of up the middle kind of chaotic idea to it. I've also heard about what they're trying to do with it in creating an accessible game, which makes sense. We got a lot of people who maybe have never played pinball before, suddenly going to this is their first introduction to pinball because they like the theme. So you want a game that's accessible. When I hear accessible, I hear baby game. So again, it's probably not a game for me, but I think this game's going to do very well. I'm happy for Stern, I'm happy for the people that got this theme, and I love seeing more people get into pinball. So, you know, the joke at the beginning is like, is this the end boss of baby games? So I think it has the potential to be very easy, which is the code word, accessible as the code word for that. And it's also, to me, it's a cartoon and weird noises are going off on that. That's also a baby thing to me. So that's my thing on Pokemon. I'm going to get to play it in just a few hours after the show. Shout out to Caputis and Rob Gantz for putting it on location at a bar that's five minutes from me. I love Caputis. Great place to go. Great games there. I'm certainly looking forward to it. And then shout out to Kelly Taylor who's getting a premium for the club. So I'm going to get to play a lot of Pokemon. I'm sure I'm going to have a good time with it. Well, you're right, Nick. I mean, it is a monumental, huge mammoth license. It's like a $150 billion franchise. It's unbelievable. It's incredible. And I'm not a huge Pokemon fan myself, but I am Pokemon adjacent. I watched a few of the first maybe three seasons when I was a kid and then kind of grew out of it very quickly. I played the video game on Game Boy, and I loved actually Pokemon Snap on the Wii. That was a really fun game. Stun gun game, but so I'm pretty familiar with the lore, pretty familiar with the characters, and you know for the most part I think they did a great job with the theme. The art style is literally from the studio. It's on, it looks like Pokemon, it's unmistakably Pokemon. Oh, Pokemon, by the way. You should pronounce it Poke-mon. That's the correct pronunciation because there's an accent on the E. Just so you know. It's not Poke-mon, not Poke-man, not whatever. It's Poke-mon, Poke-mon. I've heard it both ways. It's literally in the show. They say it Poke-mon, but whatever. It's Poke-mon. Thank you. Which brings me to one point. The theme song, which they did get, they made popular, I don't hear the theme song in the game in all the play videos and stuff that I've seen so far. So Nick, when you play the game later on this afternoon, let me know if you hear that Pokemon theme song, because I didn't hear it in any of the play videos. I'm not quite sure where it appears or at what moment it appears. That's kind of it. That will be my number one priority, Joe. So I'm seeing in the chat, people are saying it's way better designed than Junkyard, which is great, right? Like I kind of forget Junkyard exists. However, I do question the fact that I see a lot of balls going down the middle because of that left orbit. It's just shooting balls into the drain. So if it's better designed than Junkyard, I can't wrap my mind around that. So it looks like there's some production issues that I'm guessing Stern has caught it and fixed. Yes. It's a little too bad. I don't know why they keep on suffering from this, right? This is an easy thing to catch on the line, right, if you just test the games. I don't get it, it's disappointing, but this just goes to show you don't want to be the first one through the door. No, you don't want to be the first tester. The first one through the door gets shot. Yeah, you guys are all testers who got the game super early. This problem I saw is very reminiscent to a problem that Mandalorian had where it would come out that left orbit and that railing sticks out too far and it will shoot it down The Winning Pinball Show, Knapp Arcade, Bally Williams, Straight Down the Middle, Bally Williams,

medium confidence · Joe: 'They plan to release two games in a year, which is ambitious, right? That's wild.'

  • A smaller boutique manufacturer needs to sell over 1,000 games per year to be profitable

    medium confidence · Joe's industry estimate: 'for a smaller boutique, you have to sell over a thousand games to like per year overall, for sure'

    • Joe Cherovino @ ChatGPT anecdote — Humorous meta-moment about AI hallucinations; shows podcast's relative obscurity online

  • “That Meowth...is the main kind of like, you know, junkyard wrecking ball type of mech in the center. I think that's a really unique new mech that we've never seen anything quite like that.”

    Joe Cherovino @ Pokemon Pinball mechanics discussion — Praise for innovative mechanical design in Pokemon; compares favorably to Stern's past designs

  • “What is this company? What do they do?...It looks really, really very, very lackluster and unimaginative and uninteresting.”

    Nick Lane @ American Pinball branding/identity discussion — Critique of American Pinball's brand identity and marketing presentation under new ownership

    • Nick Lane
    person
    Kevin Manningperson
    Melvin Williamsperson
    Jack Dangerperson
    John Popadiukperson
    Bob Betorperson
    Nick Netzelperson
    Colin Alsheimerperson
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Nickel City Pinball Clubvenue
    Planetary Pinballcompany
    Electric Playgroundcompany
    Multimorphiccompany
    Godfathergame
    Flip N Out Pinballcompany
    Bro, Do You Even Talk Pinballpodcast
    Pinball Degeneratespodcast

    personnel_signal: Melvin Williams, lead designer at Dutch Pinball, departing for American Pinball; represents significant brain drain from Dutch Pinball during period of game cancellations

    high · Joe discussing Dutch Pinball updates and stating 'Big departure, Melvin Williams leaves Dutch Pinball for American Pinball'

  • ?

    product_strategy: American Pinball pivoting to remaster/reimagine classic Bally/Williams games from 1990s rather than original IP; seven-game deal with Planetary Pinball; strategy intended to leverage nostalgia and proven game mechanics while avoiding original IP development risk

    high · Joe: 'They got a seven game agreement with Planetary Pinball. Seven games'; discussion of reimagining Bally/Williams catalog as strategic pivot

  • ?

    business_signal: American Pinball under new ownership; previous ownership by Indian company ended; new leadership bringing in experienced designers and manufacturers (John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Nick Netzel); establishing offices and production facilities with Electric Playground synergy

    high · Detailed discussion of new leadership team and facility setup; Colin Alsheimer/Kinetasys credited with breaking the story

  • $

    market_signal: Pokémon secured by Stern as license larger than Star Wars franchise; $150 billion franchise value; signals major IP acquisition coup for Stern; indicates Pokemon IP priority in market despite licensing constraints

    high · Joe: 'It is a monumental, huge mammoth license. It's like a $150 billion franchise'; Nick: 'I recognize that this is like a bigger business than Star Wars'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Pokémon license required Pokéball to remain closed (cannot open or show interior); Pokéball catch mechanic must shake exactly three times to register success; constraints shaped game design mechanics and visual presentation

    medium · Joe explaining: 'The license would not allow the pokeball to open up and like eat the ball or spit the ball out...also, after a pokeball catches a pokeball, it is supposed to shake officially three times'

  • ?

    product_strategy: American Pinball planning to release two games per year under new ownership; hosts characterize this as very ambitious and risky; advise conservative approach of releasing one solid game and surprising with two

    high · Joe: 'They plan to release two games in a year, which is ambitious, right? That's wild'; advice: 'Shoot for one game. And then surprise people with two'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Industry estimate that smaller boutique manufacturers need to sell 1,000+ machines per year to achieve profitability; customization strategies risk oversupply and inventory problems; production scaling critical to business success

    medium · Joe: 'for a smaller boutique, you have to sell over a thousand games to like per year overall, for sure'; discussion of customization risks creating oversupply

  • ?

    community_signal: Texas Pinball Festival featuring major Multimorphic presence with 13 machines, panel moderated by Kevin Manning Friday 9pm central with company leadership and machine owners; signals strong Multimorphic community engagement and showcase opportunity

    high · Kevin Manning announcement of Multimorphic panel with Jerry Stellenberg, Steven Silver, Nick Baldridge, Manu Smith, Dave Sousa; 13-machine booth display with Portals, Princess Brides, Heads Up

    • 13:15
    And to catch them all, everybody seemed to catch all the LEs. It sold out almost within like a day, almost immediately. All 750 units of the LE and the pros and premiums apparently are all spoken for in the first run. They're just going full bore on the production line for Pokemon. So again, congrats to Stern and the whole team there who worked on the game for what The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. This is my favorite, like, thing that goes or something. I don't know. It's a human character. It's not a Pokemon. Oh, wow. But all the Pokemon that I know of, like, that I know of in the first, like, 151 are there, and then some, which is fine for me, like, because I don't care about anything after, like, the fourth or fifth season or whatever, or the next generation. But you know, and there's an interesting little piece of, in terms of licensure agreements Zalaz balcony at the TP για gence Pr Привет! datat Li 9 employee
    14:44
    стати It was like simply the Leicester would not allow the pokeball to open up and like eat the ball or spit the ball out. You couldn't, you weren't allowed to see inside the pokeball. Also, after a pokeball catches a pokeball, it is supposed to shake officially three times. It's supposed to shake three times to register that a pokeball has been caught successfully in a pokeball. So just more useless knowledge for you, Nick, in case you didn't have enough useless pokeball knowledge so far. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. All 3 forms and one is Blastoise, his next one is Blastoise and his third final form is Wartortle I believe. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wartortle. And so the Pokemon evolve and I think that's baked into some of the actual game play is that you fight more evolved Pokemon as you level up your Pokemon and fight different more evolved Pokemon. Mm-hmm . Okay great. You know. We can just go on for hours just talking about Pokemon. I'm sorry, we could do the whole show about Pokemon if you want. What is the axis hole that Squirtle opens up? I'm so sorry for saying this, guys. I think that's a cool mech, by the way. This is not a show for children that we're asking these questions. I think that's a really cool mech because it has a diverter on that whirlpool so it can come through to your in lane on the left hand side like a regular habitrail would or it can go into that whirlpool area there. I think that's a low key, one of the actually coolest mechs in the game that I think Jack The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. And with those kinds of changes, they make sense to me. Like, you know, I don't see anything that... But it's like a... It's not like he like ripped stuff out of the game. Like, that Meowth, Meowth is the one of the main antagonists. He's the big hot air balloon character that Team Rocket flies around on. And that's the main kind of like, you know, junkyard wrecking ball type of mech in the center. I think that's a really unique new mech that we've never seen anything quite like that. It's really cool. waż currencies and still admit it registers his homes angles i think that a really cool week a pop-up for almost you can be touch the people interact with and uh... register hits on it from any angle i think that's really cool held his eyes out and uh... coming trees backlog oh at on yeah i mean uh... get admitted here a lot of p TP to by the way could that so that came over usual i love it's like everches always work no he gets you Thank God. It's just like, it's just Pika Pika in different, you know, intonations, but yeah, I guess you couldn't get that from the show. Oh, that's so good. Yeah, it's good stuff. You're gonna go Pikachu crazy, Nick. You're gonna be, you're gonna be loving it. You're gonna be loving it. I love it. I'm gonna love it. I was, I was gonna ask ChatGPT what a squirtle is and I thought better because I don't want that. Not on your work computer. Yeah, I don't want that attached to my ChatGPT conversations. By the way, I asked ChatGPT last week because I wanted to, I'm always testing out AI and I wanted to see if it can help with like compile show notes for me and speed that process up. So I asked it just to see as like, are you familiar with the podcast Brody Even Talk Pinball? And it confidently answers, yes, Brody Even Talk Pinball is a pinball focused podcast hosted by Drew Maniscosoloco and Travis Murray. I don't know who those people are, no offense, I don't. Do you know who those people are? I know Travis Murry. Okay, well, it thinks, okay, so he's apparently the host of Brody You and Talk Pinball. Wonderful. And then I go, you're totally, and it says like this, it talks about tournament strategy, competitive analysis, interviews with top players and industry folks, rule deep dives and game breakdowns. Yeah, we always are in rule deep dives. Community drama and hot takes. Okay, to me that's a lot of inside jokes and sarcasm. Okay, maybe. Anyways, I go, you're totally wrong. Those aren't the hosts. Oh, you're right, says ChatGPT. I was mistaken before about the host of Brilliant Talk. The show is actually hosted by two people named Nick and Kevin. Oh, you know how wrong ChatGPT is about so many things and you just tell them it's... You should... Every response that ChatGPT says, just tell it's wrong because it won't give you the real answer for things. You gotta push it. Yeah. Holy shit! Holy shit! I've never seen such confidence in being wrong before in my life. It's quite amazing. Well, I gotta say, even humans are wrong, because I just got corrected in chat. Yes, that is correct. Wartortle is the second level of evolution of Squirtle. Blastoise is the final evolved form. I had it reversed. My apologies, everybody. Again, I'm not a huge Pokemon fan. I recognize the characters. I remember a little bit of the first couple seasons, okay? I been like 30 years since I seen watched the show Okay All right Well next time we do a podcast we be able to talk intelligently about the game Maybe even there a review Maybe there even a review We haven done those in a long time It's possible we'll do it. But again, I should point out that Stern sold 750 of the LE units. It's kind of funny. This is the... they scaled back. They had been doing 1,000 and then like immediately they sell out 750. So that's amazing. Again, congrats on them. You like to see more people coming into pinball. I'm ready to move on for Pokemon. Are you good, Joe? Okay, sure. Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that. No, no, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll move on here. So next we're going on for just a quick update from Jersey Jack Pinball. It was revealed by Knapp Arcade, I believe, that broke the story, that they have a new potential new connected system called Jack in the Box. They put in a patent for the name Jack in the Box, which people are rumored to be their next connected Stern insider connected style, proprietary player interaction, potentially operator interactive online connected functionality. So that's interesting.
    22:22
    It's interesting. So, I mean, this is like they put in a patent. So who knows how close they are even to this? I don't know what that means. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. Better late than never. Speaking of Jersey Jack, I don't have this in the show notes, but we had that nice Hall of Shame segment that they inspired. So I'm going to just do an update to the Hall of Shame. Once again, Godfather Hall of Shame. We're coming up on three years of owning this game. It's still not done. It's still missing the wizard mode. And timers run when the ball is in the shooter lane, which is the laziest thing to not fix. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. That's ridiculous. You can't use this game in a competition or anything. You really shouldn't. You can, but it's just, yeah, it's bad. Back to the Hall of Shame you go. You're in the Hall of Shame, Godfather Pinball, and maybe just Jersey Jack in the Hall of Shame these days. I think we got somebody from Stern. I won't say names in the chat, so there you go. I'm throwing you guys a bone. You guys have pulled ahead. By the way, I've spent so much money on Stern because Jersey Jack has dropped the ball. So, like, it's just buying Stern's games left and right. The club gets all the Stern games. There's zero Jersey Jack games at the club, which is a shame because... That's true. That's true. I used to love Jersey Jack, but they burned us. They burned us. You gotta finish your games, guys. Alright. Alright, so moving on, we've got Dutch Pinball, a few updates there. Big departure, Melvin Williams leaves Dutch Pinball for American Pinball. We'll get into that part later on, but I don't know. What do you want to kick out? There's a lot of... Oh, the Dutch Pinball update? Okay. Okay, so no more Raza, no more your Duke games, I'm sorry. Those are all getting shit canned. And you're just gonna have to enjoy your Alice in Wonderland and no Back to the Future potentially as well. Is I don't know, he was tied up with that. I don't know what else to say. I don't I don't know Melvin very well. I don't know the guy. Good luck. You know, all I gotta say but yeah, how deep were you into the The American Pinball News They were... It was a downer. It was a downer cliffhanger. Yeah, it was a downer cliffhanger. You know, they were working allegedly on Cuphead. It was close, blah, blah, blah. And then that team was let out. American Pinball was owned by a company from India, right? Just kind of chaotic, like, kind of a kind of a mess. I think I think a lot of that, as much as we can talk about, you know, Dayfix's involvement I think really a big part of that was upper management and their just lack of understanding and vision. Sure. I think that was the main reason why I think, I think for reasons that were not pinball focused, I think that they started the company in sort of bad faith. And they made games, they made games, but you know, kind of almost despite themselves, they made some great games. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Bowen Kerins, Laser Los, Lyman F. Sheats Jr., Automated Amusements, Python Anghelo, Joe Kaminkow, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi.
    26:43
    The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. juvenile pinball is so he seems to be aware of the pinball market place uh... games in the conversations about what games people wants and i think they're making somewhere reduce made some pretty good decisions i've saved some far amazing they go get murk Urban Ap bitte possible full oscillar still couple things that think what was the bull like claiming that they're going to do a lot of customization for the games like You know, different trims and all this kind of stuff. I think that's a really foolish way to go about it, even though you feel like you're going the extra mile for your customer. I understand that, but like at the end of the day, production will really, really be very difficult to customize all these different games unless you have all the supply ready to go. And then you're probably gonna be left with oversupply. You're gonna be left with lots of inventory for games that don't, like people don't want There are people out there who might have had a certain trim or a certain kind of powder coat for their, you know, their armor, side armor and all that stuff. Well, let's talk about their let's talk about their strategy. So their strategy is to do a number of re-imagination, re-imagining something, that's always a weird term, to me, right? But it is. You don't know what to make of it. You know, reimagine a Bally Williams games from the 90s, right, which is an interesting strategy. To me, it makes a lot more sense than Barry O's Barbecue. I think you're going to sell more than 50 games with this approach, so that's a good move.
    28:45
    I guess my thought or question is, I guess too, and maybe that somebody listening to knows this, like how many pinball machines does a company have to sell for it to be profitable to make sense?
    29:01
    It all depends on the scale of the company, obviously, and what their overhead is. But I would say for somebody like a Spooky or something like that, you've got to sell over a thousand at that point, you know what I mean? Or an American Pinball, like for a smaller boutique, you have to sell over a thousand games to like per year overall, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's probably a safe bet, right? They're not, American Pinball is not boutique so much like in the way that Spooky is and Spooky's got a model that crushes it. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. John Popadiuk's pinball show, Knapp Arcade, Bally Williams, Straight Down the Middle, Bally Williams, Sit down with us, find out the all things SRTXR, sports and preservation, uncertainties of if all asset tools that inspire setbacks, possibleapoes, and other All of the pinball adventure. Those IPs are 100% not on the table. One hundred percent. Yeah, yeah. So we're talking about the original IPs that Bally Williams came up with. What's left in the... There's nothing left. There's nothing. Yeah. So... I... Well, I agree. I just think about what people buy and generally speaking, everybody wants... People who are buying pinball machines want the latest and greatest. They just do. Like, I want the new thing. I want that new, new, new, new thing. Now, there have been success stories, right? Obviously, the great games from the Bally Williams were, you know, Monster Bash remake and Medieval Madness. CGC took them all. CGC has eaten them all. They've sucked them in the cheek. I'm sure did pretty well. So what are we left with? Like Circus Voltaire? Like, I mean, like now that game could use some love in terms of code and get, but like, Again, is there enough demand out there when you're competing against all these other things? When I go to folks' collections and people, again, people buying machines, they're buying the newest Stern and Jersey Jack or Spooky and all that, right? Like, even at the club, we don't have a lot of Bally Williams games because there's always this precedence of like, I'd rather have a new game because once you get into the cost of like a new Bally Williams game, like, it's again, if it was cheaper, like by several The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. That's a fun show. And we're gonna have a little bit of fun, too, with that, but before we do that, let me just say a couple words, before the new owners are stepping in, like, that's cool. I hope that this company does well and can produce games. They're gonna do a thing where they're creating remastered versions.
    32:49
    They got a seven game agreement with Planetary Pinball. Seven games, Joe. That's crazy. I can't even fuck with it. Yeah, it is crazy. That's crazy. Like that's never, it's, you know, what are you gonna go for? Like honestly, like mouse it around. I don't know! Like, I, like, and are they gonna be cosmetic? And if so, there is still a cost for that, for doing, you know, redesigning the artwork, the play field, like, potentially the play field, obviously, clearly the back glass, that's a no-brainer if you're gonna redo it. But then is there gonna be, like, actual physical upgrades or, you know, like, things like, again, the Cactus Canyon saloon door thing that they did, like, are we talking that level of comprehensive reimagining? I really hope they don't bite off more than they can chew with this. And like, it's going to be, it's a tough sell for me already. Again, you know what I mean? So they plan to release two games in a year, which is ambitious, right? That's wild. That is very wild. This is like against the balance. Again. Setting expectations and getting base hits. Like, dude, you're not even there. Shoot for one game. And then surprise people with two. They're incredible. Just as many of us like to grow up and say水 glad that we are over here. We
    34:30
    John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, CEO of Electric Playground. He's one of the main, really great guy. I got to know him- What is Electric Playground? It's basically a mod topper company. Mostly they make toppers. Oh, there you go, Gorin. Yeah, well, Gorin's going to have a field day for sure. And actually, and so he's going to, both of them are going to split their duties working for the Electric Playground. And as you can see there, there's like a new layout for their new offices, production offices there. So, So again, this is from a shout out to Colin Alsheimer from Kinetasys for breaking this story. And they're still going to be focusing on that. And I think there's going to be some good synergy. Again, it makes a lot of sense. Bring in some creative people, people like Nick Netzel, who did the Tony Hawk homebrew game. Really fantastic, really fantastic game. I got a chance to play it, the new version of it at Pinball Expo this past fall. Really, really smart people that they're bringing on. So that's a really, that's definitely in the plus column, like 100%, you know, with those hires, really, really smart people, people who really understand what the pinball public wants and wants to see. They want to see creative games. They want to see IPs that they recognize. And they, and, you know, even though, you know, it might be just a topper, their toppers are very well known for having a really mechanical action, like having the ball fly around on like a habit trail for like the, The Pulp Fiction topper that they did or the What's the Twilight Zone topper that they did and all this kind of stuff and I believe they also did worked with Melvin I think it's probably the connections that they worked with Melvin on the Alice in Wonderland sort of adjustment to the topper that they got there so I've got a lot of I've got a lot of hope and promise and optimism about those guys working for the company John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, If you do have a lot of money, just throwing money at the problem is not the answer, and that can also be a detriment. I think what they need to do is just come out with this, the new American pinball, get a solid showing with their first game that comes out. It sells well enough, it works well, it impresses people to the point where they're like, yeah, this is pretty good, which is what Barrels of Fun did, I think, with Labyrinth. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Bowen Kerins,
    37:58
    The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. This expert is in the exceptional boiling and let's not salah thigh back이라는 John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, The Valley Company is a new company, okay? So you definitely want to, whatever you reveal to the public, you want people to be impressed with it, right? And again, that Bally Williams kind of like ball with the wings on it, like that's pretty stale. I mean, that looks almost like, it almost looks like a clown circus ball or something. It doesn't look to me like a pinball or anything. It looks like, I'm still confused about like, what is this company? What do they do? You know, I mean, it just looks really, really very, very lackluster and unimaginative and uninteresting. Barrels of Fun, when they launched, they just had their logo, they had an interesting symbol that they've used in very different various ways, really creatively. And then they launched. They under-promised and over-delivered, right? You can't be over-promising and under-delivering when you're launching a new game, a new company. So they really have to be careful about that and what they present for these, especially these opening stages of this company and how they're going in this new direction. So having a new logo that really doesn't have anything to say is so generic and boring is not a good look. It's not a good look. I'm sorry. Let's move on to the most important topic, which is near and dear to my heart. Okay. How many, it's the article, the article was called from Knapp Arcade, how many Barry O's barbecue challenges were built? I mean that is the question that keeps coming up at night. I should have worn my Barry O's shirt. I should have worn my Barry O's shirt. That is what we all want to know. Good job Knapp Arcade, huge shout out to them. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is what we all want to know. Okay, how many were built? So the article says less than 150. Well, yes. There's, I could say, you know what, if somebody, if I was from American Pinball and they're like, I'm sure there's a lot of people who are like, hey, if I was representing American Pinball and then Knapp Arcade came in and be like, hey, how many burials did you build? I was like, less than 10,000. Sure. Yeah, less than 10,000. Okay. And they said this is what blew my mind, they're still making some. I get it. They have the parts like collecting dust in a corner somewhere from this. Why not? If the IP is your own IP that you've created, you have no window timeline that you have The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. You know somebody? You wanna Barry O's? Maybe one day. I think the game... I like the game. Look, I'm a defender of Barry O's barbecue challenge. I don't wanna spend too much time on it. It begs the question when somebody says something as fucking crazy as that. I think Steve Bowden put an incredible amount of work into it. I really like the show. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Putting a lot of work into something does not make something good. I think the game plays great. I think the game... What? Yeah! I think physically the game plays really great I enjoy it If the flippers are working like the flippers are There so many caveats to this If it the game If it on If it your first game if the flippers happen to be working it a great game Yes! Yes! Yes! If, you know... I think the layout of the game is solid. If it's noon on a winter day and you cool down your house to 50 degrees so the flippers don't overheat... And you don't play more than 10 games, and the game doesn't shut down, and you level it right... That's all pinball, though. That's all pinball. 3 beers. It plays pretty good. That's all pinball. No it's not. Yes it is. No it's not. Stern games just work. Stern, no one's like, hey, you know, this Stern, no one's like, this game is, no one's like, you know what, Stern's game's pretty good if the flippers are working. Like what? Okay, the flippers and Sterns are always gonna work, for sure. Yeah, but there's always gonna be mechanical failures in all games, in all games that are produced, there's gonna be mechanical issues. The flippers, Joe? This is a production of WGBH. Joe, this makes my day. I did not know you were going to come on and defend Barry O's Barbecue. I'm loving this right now. I like the artwork. I think that the hand-drawn part of the artwork, like some of the video stuff that looks a little, you know, stock for sure. But it doesn't matter. It's all in the DMV. Who gives a shit? You know, I'm sorry, it's all in the LCD screen. Who gives a shit really about that? You know, for especially for a simpler game that has like sort of a 1980s like, honestly, I, I, I, look, Kevin, are you biting your tongue right now? Are you, is your tongue bleeding? Look, Kevin's having a good time. I, I, I think the, the, it's an original theme. I think it's bold. I think it's a beautiful tribute to Barry Osler. Uh, you know, it was done with love and you can see that love in the game. Okay. And I love all the little references to Barry's career throughout both physically and in the code of the game. I enjoy the stages of all the different competitions and all the different kind of meats that you have to barbecue. I know that sounds ridiculous, but again, at the end of the day, like really all these things are just arbitrary. They're just kind of stages in how you complete a level in a game, right? It's all window dressing no matter what it is, whether it's Pokemon or Lord of the Rings or Star Wars or whatever. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. The Snappy Flippers of Stern is because they have a lot of patents. It's Stern's fault. No, it's not their fault. Obviously, that's their bread and butter, man. Like the feel of the flippers is such a crucial important part of the game. But Chicago Gaming does and Jersey Jack now does. I still wouldn't say that Jersey Jack feels like a Stern. I think that's- I agree, but I'm not like, oh man, I hope this Jersey Jack game, the flippers work and I can hit ramps. That was for the longest time, though. That was also an issue. What are you talking about? I always hit ramps on Wizard of Oz. It wasn't the most strong, but you can hit them. It wasn't Barry O's level of like... I've never had anything really catastrophically bad. It's a truly weak flipper that can only go up half the playfield. I don't know, again, your experiences. Again, that's the thing, it's like there's all these subjective experiences. And yes, maybe the aggregate of the experiences with the power of the flippers is generally a poor experience. But I haven't really had that in most games that I've played, whether it be like a show like Pinball Expo or on location, you know, very few locations that I've played it at. Look, I'm going to be a defender of this game. There's nothing you can... look, it's like falling in love, okay? If it hits you, it hits you. If it doesn't, it doesn't. I understand it, right? I get it. And I think that, for me personally, it's an enjoyable, fun game. Is it, you know, Godzilla? No. But it never set out to be that way. I think there's fun mechanical stuff in it that is fun to shoot. The captive ball lock system that Ryan thought about or implemented really is an interesting concept and a fun physical thing. It's fun to hit balls with a pinball. It's fun to do that. And it's fun to lock balls in a saucer and all these kind of fundamental, simple, mechanical things. It's kind of, again, you're going to laugh at me for making this comparison, but honestly, I think it's like a pinball. The Wally Winka Show, Knapp Arcade, Bally Williams, Straight Down the Middle, Straight Out the Middle, Straight Out the Middle, I'm not, but I'm saying like it's on the same play level for me as an enjoyment level as a simple, the mechs in it are not breaking the mold. Like it's not like the Meowth, you know, hot air balloon or anything revolutionary that has never been seen before in pinball. But I think that the way they've implemented the mechanical things that they use, drop targets and captive balls, saucers, simple shots, you know, rovers and stuff. I personally enjoy that it's simple pinball that you find from a lot of, you know, solid state games. It's kind of in the same vein as that. And so I enjoy it for what it is. It's not a masterpiece, but it's not an unfun game. I have fun playing the game. I'm sorry. That's just, I can't, you know, I can't, why? I'm not going to crap on a game for being, because it's not as top quality as like a God's Game. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I'm really glad you have a different opinion. So thank you. Thank you for defending the game. You know, agree or disagree? Alright, let's move on. Yes, I would agree. I would agree. Let's move on. Listen, one last thing. I'm a buyer of the game with working flippers at $3,500. It might hit that level. Yes, I know, I know. So, $3,500 game, I mean, that's pretty... I know. I mean, again, maybe the price point was like not realistic for when it was released. Sid ordered the Lexus for 30 dollars today. I offeralmade John Popadiuk & Goody Needs xxxxxzt They undervalued the amount of games that they really should have gone with. I'm not sure if they... Well, how many games did they do for in total? It's like... It's not 666. It's like something around that. It's like... It's under 1,000, right? It's like... I forget how many total games that they released for Beetlejuice, but you gotta go with 1,000 at least for Beetlejuice, man. Like, what are you doing? Like, it's Beetlejuice.
    51:14
    Like... Nick is doing some research as I'm talking, but... Yeah. Have you played it? No, no, no. I mean, it's only just beginning to hit people's homes right now. I don't think you're ever gonna find this game on location. It's just like so incredibly valuable. Like some of these games are going now for $20,000 on the open market. Like that's crazy. You know, like these games are gonna be very niche collector, you know, environments that you're gonna be able to find them in. I'm sure eventually I'll be able to play it at like a show. I'm a huge fan of Beetlejuice. I'm really happy that even though they sold out of these games on day one, Bug went out as a fan of the property and still paid extra money that he didn't have to do to go the extra mile to get the new song that's going to be implemented, the other Harry Belafonte track, Jump on the Line, which is the finale. I think Beetlejuice has like a perfect ending. Honestly, it is like I can go into it later because I'm a movie guy. We go out for another podcast for why Beetlejuice is such an almost perfect film, especially the ending is like perfect. And that song at the end just ties the whole, you know, movie together. It's joyful. It's fun. It's upbeat. I don't know if they're going to implement it in a particular mode in the game. I think they mentioned that they were going to do like have like some of the buyers have input on the game. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. We'll be right back. Peter Levin,
    54:16
    unu Business円 구독과 judicial condol searchedو Allen Chapman, We've seen the sound, the music, the call-outs are all there. As someone who's a big, again, a big movie guy and a big fan of early Tim Burton work, I want to make that very clear, early Tim Burton work like Pee Wee's Playhouse and Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, I think that they really, really hit almost everything you possibly could with anything. There's very, very few little things that are left out of the game. And some of them are left out for good reason. And we're not going to get into that, what was left out of the game. But yeah, I think Spooky did an amazing job, but they just under, I think they should have sold more. They should have, like, honestly, I think it's pretty obvious there was money on the table. And I think I just heard David Van Es, I think it was on the Nudgecast Pinball Podcast, he said, if you're a pinball company and you sell, like the ideal is to sell one less than what the demand is. Yes. I get it that they want to make these games special, but you know what's special still? Medieval Madness is still special. Terminator 2 is still special. Twilight Zone is still very special to a lot of people. And they made a butt ton of those back in the day. Godzilla is still a special game. And they made a lot of those. I've got to wonder now that Spooky is certainly boutique, Right, but they're also at this point where they're mature enough as a company that their limitations on these games has certainly been working for them. So I can't really question their business model, but I do, I guess I am going to question, I do wonder if they graduate to this point where they don't put, they may have some version that's limited, but then they keep on running another version that's not. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. The window in which we have the license, that's also another consideration that I don't think a lot of people put in there. And I'm sure that played into it for sure, but you gotta work that out with the licensor that you can put out a substantial amount of games for a window. Obviously you can't get in perpetuity, but look at Godzilla. They're renewing the license, they're doing all this stuff. Like Godzilla or Metallica, like how long did Metallica have its first initial run? It was insane. Yeah, I hate to see great games, like let's, I don't know if Spooky the Beelzebub is a great game, not played it, but I, let's assume it is, right? Like I hate to see a great game that people want and just go for ridiculous prices and not be available. I mean that sucks. Nobody really wins, nobody really wins. Nobody wins, correct. Nobody really wins. The consumer doesn't certainly doesn't win. Only flippers win. Only speculators win. Correct. And we're not going to get into that. But yeah, like really nobody really wins that really cares about the game. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's unfortunate. And again, I'm sure they have their reasons why, but I'm not sure if they were the right reasons. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. I'm sure they had like a market like they I'm sure they went through the numbers many times. No, no. Well, look, I mean, they're in the middle of nowhere. And, like, Freddy Fast Flips points out that they've got a small team. Yeah. They've got to provide support. So I get it. I mean, it is what it is. It's always going to be the case, I think, with Spooky. And that's okay, right? Like, they're a base hit company, and this is why they're successful, because they have a model that allows them to... I think it's a triple. I think this is a triple. This is a triple. It's not a home run because... Sure, sure, sure. ...they just didn't get enough out... I just can't get enough out the door for demand. And that's unfortunate. I honestly would love to, honestly, just from looking at it, if I had the money, 100%, I'd put my money down on a pre-order. 100%. I see. I had some breaking news. Oh my God. This is really bad news. I saw Kevin do some live updates to the document. And the mods you don't need, he wrote none in capital letters. So this is everybody's favorite. This is why people tune in. What are we going to talk about? We're going to need some help going forward for the way the next podcast is. Yeah, chat! Jesus Christ. We need a, I mean, you're welcome to put something in live that Kevin can filter. But for next time, please send mods you don't need to talkpinball at gmail.com because do it for the children. We desperately need that support. There's, Lord knows no one has stopped making mods you don't need. That has not been the case. As Joe said in a chat, mods you don't need, All of them. And I did appreciate that show. I honestly don't follow that stuff because it's so like.
    60:11
    Like, first of all, I'm not a big collector. The only games I have are Terminator 2 and the original Data East Jurassic Park. So, you know, they're not really making mods for those games. They have, but it's like, I don't know, like the only real mods worth, honestly, in my opinion, if we're talking about mods are like lighting mods. That's the only thing that's really, that actually kind of gives value to your game. Yeah, like lighting up your legs. If you've got pinball legs, you want to put lights on them. Yeah, right, right. Yep. You want to put legs, lights on your legs. I don't know, under-cab lighting looks cool. Under the cabinet because you want to highlight the floor. You, imagine how cool your floor would be if it was blue, Joe. It's not the floor, it's the atmosphere of the room, Nick. It's the atmosphere of the room. People put lights behind their televisions, you know, their flat screen TVs. Doesn't make it right. There you go.
    61:02
    I'm just joking. Here's the part of the show, Joe, where I go to the bathroom, you can continue talking about it,
    61:11
    or you can switch to Barrels of Fun. I'll be right back. Okay. So, Barrels of Fun, we'll jump to Barrels of Fun, some really good kind of, also good news for the new hire, Kyle Smet, who was the creator and designer John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Knapp Arcade, If a game isn't like playing tip like optimally yet, you have a lot of confidence and interest in those games as they develop over the years. As you come back to these shows and they bring these games back, it's truly remarkable to see the leaps and bounds that these designers are making in these games from year to year. And you can see them being hired by all sorts of pinball companies across the board because, you know, generationally, like it's, you know, a lot of the older guard of pinball people are, you know, mechanical engineers, designers, coders even are beginning to retire or are on the cusp of retirement. And so it's really a very good thing to see new blood coming into many different companies across the board, including Barrels of Fun. So congratulations to Kyle Smet for being hired at Barrels of Fun. Very interested to see, I'm not exactly sure what his position is at Barrels of Fun is, but clearly it's going to be in some involvement in game or mechanical design. And, you know, there's a potential new game for Barrels of Fun that people are rumored. Again, there's nothing official. They're Dungeon Crawler Karl, potentially designed by Karl DeAngelo, who did Winchester Mystery House, which sold out within an hour I don even know Like not even a day one sell It like an hour one sellout right Like it was almost impossible to get immediately Like it crazy So, and I played again a little bit of Dungeon, oh, sorry, a little bit of Winchester Mystery House when it was at Expo, only had one game on it, it was fantastic. I don't know, did you get a chance to play it, Nick, or anything? Like, yet? No, no, no, I haven't, unfortunately. It's really amazing. Like, honestly, it's a full package game. I thought it was a unique, I thought it was an original theme. It's obviously based on now we all know. They did the proper launch for this really with educating the public that, you know, the concept of the game and, you know, bringing it out there, having a full press release in the pinball media landscape and everything and talking about it. And I think they've made so many great, correct decisions with this game. And, you know, there's obviously this halo effect that's now happened for people that have missed out on Winchester Mystery House. It's really given people a second look at Dune, which I have always been a huge, huge fan of. We could talk about Dune FOMO 100% as a movie guy, as a science fiction guy. Dune and also, you know, Canadian director Denis Villeneuve. Come on, you got to represent my boy. Dune is, for me, an incredible license that I've been screaming at the hills for five, six years now, David Van Es, Pinball Machine, Especially since the new movies have come out, that this has to be a pinball machine, and this is like a no-brainer. And I think that due to apparently some, the rest of the pinball community wasn't as, you know, familiar with the IP, which is fine, but I think people are really coming around to the game and really investing themselves in taking a second look at Dune because of the halo effect that Winchester has created for the company. I'm one of those people, actually.
    65:20
    I surprised myself. And I don't know how much of it's due to Winchester, per se, but I think it does help that they crank down another game that's getting well-received, right? Karl's on board. I played Dune in the summertime when we went to Rob Gens' house. He was nice enough to host us. Kevin and I talked about that. And I don't know what it was. I spent some time in the Dune owner's thread. I know what it was. This is FOMO. Usually I'm not subject to that, but I got hit hard, super hard. I think maybe this is November or December they announced that they're done making it. There's only a few left.
    66:02
    I don't know, there's going to be like 500 of them out there. I'm like, man, this game is too good for just 500 of them to exist. I know that much. I want to diversify my collection and not just have a ton of Sterns. The other thing that happened is we got a labyrinth at the club and I was able to finally spend some meaningful time on it. I had played labyrinth at shows before. I had played it down in Houston at the Wormhole and it never did anything for me. I think one problem is the game is really dark. Now the collector added additional lighting to it. So I was able to spend some time with them and I'm like, this is really impressive for their first game. This is pretty damn good. So between that and Winchester and then having played Dune and then going to the Dune owners thread, there's like folks in there like Chuck Wirt who I like his takes and he's a very active guy on pin side. Great guy. Yeah, great guy. Shout out for Kleepin, right? He does the tournament, he runs the tournament Kleepin I believe. I don't see, I don't even know if I've ever met him or know who he is. Oh wow, okay. Yeah, yeah. He's very, I like his takes online, he's very measured. And I just see the owners, and usually owner threads are champion things, but like, there is like a there there, there's something there with that game, so I'm like, I better grab it. I'm gonna take a risk. So I should be getting mine soon? Maybe, I guess by April? Oh, so you have ordered it? You've ordered it? Oh yeah, I put an order in, I think, end of January, so. I'm very envious. I'm pretty pumped. It sucks I've got to take the head off to get it in my house. I fucking hate that. I don't want to be taking apart the game. It's just like it causes so much anxiety, but I'm pretty pumped to get this game. Honestly, it's not a baby game. It's not a baby game. It's not a difficult game. It's not a baby game. I think you're going to enjoy it. Yes, that is really why I wanted a non-baby game. I mean, Stern is doing this thing. I swear they must be looking at the analytics of Insider Connected and they changed the code based on like some goal of average amount of play time. And now we're getting these long playing baby games that you know I just kind of joke around about. But like yeah, Dune's not a baby game and that's why I'm like oh it's a unique layout, it's something that's different, different company. I think the presentation is great. I think the code is something you're really going to sink your teeth into honestly. And again, like, again, I know that it came out with very bare bones code, but man, like it's really beginning to come into its own. And I mean, I can only get, I've only played it a handful of times myself, but I can only get like two or three, you know, modes deep into the game, get the multiball, the first, like, you know, regular multiball. I've gotten two different kinds of multiball. I don't think I've gotten the desert power one yet. I forget which is, that's the hardest one to get. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi,
    70:02
    We'll be right back. Be prosecution, stop items,Jeff εllowee, Papa Nye, Bob Levinz, Jim Moody, Bardo Obama, Charlie Brown, Damian Arbenz, Mania, Bob Bartholomew Alvin Mayaya, Told, Jeff Whewison, Robert Scott, Chuck and Shirley Watchbrook, Gene L Aygo, John De 2016, Dean Walker O'Connor Foundation, salted, Mark Bernard способ, and Bob Sam. PD Wocheit, this either way existence I shouldn't expect to be anything else. I've been with All of You since we hit porn and you don't come to the same off. Or even if I wanted to a song with my main theme, the only frank music I can remember www.willywonka.com We only have two games. It's again, I mentioned Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park Data East. I don't even know the new Jurassic Park and they're at a friend's house. So I barely even play them, let alone tune them up. So back to you, Nick. All right. So I already mentioned the Dune FOMO that's coming. I bought a Star Wars Fall of the Empire Pro for the club. Shout out to Flip N Out Pinball. And in talking to club members and all, this is also my opinion, this is the best Star Wars game. Matt Schuffman,
    72:30
    Great game. Great game. Even though it doesn't have a wizard mode. Haha! It does not have a wizard mode. It still can be a great game. So now I'm back to two Keith Johnson games that I own that don't have wizard modes. I was worried. I just, you know, I had Pirates and I had Godfather. They both didn't have wizard modes so I had two. Did you sell Godfather? Did you sell Godfather? No, I'm sticking with it. I'm sticking with it. I still think it's a great game, man. It is a great game. It is a great game. It's a really fun game, man. Keith Johnson's my favorite rule designer. But now I'm back to two games that are unfinished by him. I love you, Keith. You're my favorite rule designer. I get why I get that, you know, that was a game that was made in, I think came out in 2007 or 2008 around the time when- Gotta be, early 2008 for sure. You know, they also picked a theme that didn't sell in Europe and all that, so. Yeah, a spelling game doesn't do well. An English spelling game probably won't do well overseas. We'll, yeah, for sure. So, this game has needed a lot of love. I bought it from this place that, I don't know, it was in- South Carolina or Virginia, that was called like pinball restoration or something. Yeah, right. There was literally the shop job had like five different colored rings in there. Like there's rings just missing blatantly from posts and stuff.
    73:45
    There was a cracked plastic. They told me there's no... So I got, you know, these usual bad deal. But I'm really happy to have the game. The price was fine. So I'm not too upset. It's going to get a color DMD, which is ridiculous that I would add more to that. But the game's unique and fun. I love having it there. And it also smells funny. We cannot put this, we cannot nail down what this smells. I think it's incense. It has an incense smell, but I don't know what the flavor. Maybe like a diffuser or something? I don't, I don't, it's very weird. It's like, I call it the Vanna White Mod, like she's got like a Vanna White perfume or something. Like, I've got deodorizers in there, that thing still reeks. So, just, and also on that game, you can get in deep dive into Wheel of Fortune now, pinball. But that game has some, two, at least two weird things about it. John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Bowen Kerins, Laser Los, Lyman F. Sheats Jr., Automated Amusements, Python Anghelo, Joe Kaminkow, Data East, The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. I'm going to put that in quotes, Bobby Orr for the club that came a couple weeks ago. It's beautiful in terms of the gamut, the playfield. Kevin's son was trying to fix the game last night because there were literally things not soldered in, so the person who sold it to me I think screwed me over. I'm going to try to work it out. Put the boy to work, Kevin. Put the boy to work. But it's a beautiful Bobby Orr cosmetically. Don't spare the lash! And then I sold my Rush to Donny, who's a long-time listener of this podcast, and he is kindly going to put it at the club. So my Rush Premium is beautiful, powder-coated, pinwoofer-like. It's got everything, and it's going to go to the club so other people get to enjoy it, which is cool. Other than that, I've gotten into VR flight sim games. Heavy. Heavy! Oh my god, wow. I love that. That's like watching paint dry for me, honestly. I don't get it. Do you have the whole, the throttle and all that shit? You have no idea, Joe. I don't know if I can even show the throttle. You have like the pedals, the foot pedals and all that? I've got the foot pedals. I'm going to show you the box. Oh my god, wow. Hold on, hold on. Also, shout out to Stern Michael. Thank you for correcting me. Yes, it's Pinsonati that Chuck Wirt does the tournament. Nice. Wow, that looks insane. I got a fuckin' yoke. I got a yoke, I got a fighter stick, I got pedals. I get why people like flying because I get to achieve this in VR. It's like you go up there and there's nobody there. That's how you fuckin' get away from people. Everybody who's a pilot, I'm convinced, just wants to get away from people. There's that great Bukowski quote where he's like, you know, a mile away from civilization is great, 10,000 miles from civilization is even better. Like, like, not a fan of people. So I get it. Like, there's, but also, I think there's the mechanical aspect of like, you know, micromanaging all these fucking your your yaw, and all that shit, like all that, you know, stuff. I think that somebody like who's into pinball, like yourself, Nick would be, and, you know, it gets into that, like nitty gritty of all the details and monotony. Julian Tonke. brandưautht formulate interactive boat glass but is what No, I mean, I'm playing games where I've got, like, I'm shooting people in World War II games. Oh, okay, okay. You know, which is dogfights. And then I play Microsoft Flight Simulator to settle myself down, but also give myself anxiety as I try to land. That's so crazy! VR is so... So crazy. That game is so fucking realistic right now. They've mapped, like, the entire Earth. Like, it is so crazy. I'm just blown away I can sit in my house and have that experience. Like, blown away. Do they have a space shuttle simulator? Can you do, like, space ship? They have a ton of space games too. That'd be kind of cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, we're going to bring it home. I want to thank Joe for being a guest on the show. So in closing, we've got merch. You go to buffalopinball.com, support the show, look good, feel good, show your love. You can follow us on the social media channels. We've got, of course, Facebook, Twitter, we've got a Discord. All that can be found on buffalopinball.com and links to it. You can send an email to the show at talkpinball at gmail.com. By the way, please send us some mods you don't need. Follow us and sub on Twig Channel Prime. There's so many people. I know we're streaming obviously much less and life changes, but people who have hung in there, very grateful. And if you want to support the show, but you're like, I don't want Twitch to get half my money, you can just make a one-time donation via PayPal to buffalopinball at gmail.com. Very kind of you. We appreciate it. Like I said, I want to keep this show going, having guests on like Joe, you know, Gorin a few months ago. Keep it fun, keep it different. And to close it out, speaking of Gorin, who I'm going to see in person. I'm going to fulfill a lifelong dream and see Gorin in person, and I cannot fucking believe I'm saying this, but I'm going to also go to Epcot, which I'm not a Disney adult. I'm the exact opposite.
    79:34
    So I'll give a recap of that. We'll get some pictures for the Discord. But Nick, the best part of Epcot is going to all the different, like, uh, pavilions and just getting super drunk from all the different, like, alcoholic beverages that they provide at all the different pavilions around Epcot. It's like, fucking $500 to get drunk. Lean into that. Lean into that. Lean into that. Okay. Alright. Go to the Canadian pavilion and get drunk on, like, uh... I can go to fucking Toronto. I can go to Canada. It's the exotic world of Canada. It's 20 minutes away from me. This is the real one up here with you, Martha. Very soon. Let's cut to why everybody's here. Let's go to Topper Talk. It's Topper Talk with Gorin. Right now, let's all have some fun. This is about plastic on top of your pin. Go and buy one now. There's a topper here and a topper there. Here a topper, there a topper, everywhere a topper. It's critical to the gameplay experience. You must buy one now. It's your monthly fill of toppers right now. Topper Talk with Gorin. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Topper Talk with Gorin, the part of the podcast where Nick and his special guest host give me three to five minutes to talk about everything happening in the very active and profitable topper community. Now for today's episode I'll be talking about the C-3PO topper from Stern Pinball so let's head into the study and talk about that now. Okay so here we are in the study so let's jump right into the Star Wars Fall of the Empire topper. Here's a photo of it. Overall looks pretty good. Not falling into the typical topper traps of repeating the same artwork on the topper that's right below it on the back glass or just having the name of the game repeated on the topper as well where it would read Star Wars Star Wars. And that's it for this episode of Star Wars Star Wars, which to be fair, Stern was not guilty of that in their previous topper for 2017 Star Wars, but we'll talk about that in a second. But yeah, looks good. You got the main features C-3PO on top. You have some background plastic which looks okay. I wish it was a little more three dimensional but the feature here is C-3PO and you have a light bar in the front as well. And then you add this to your game, you do get access to a special mode called Escape Bespin Challenge Mode. So that's cool. That's always nice. And of course, there's interactivity in the game with callouts from C3PO, the light bar reacts as well, of course, to the game as well. I don't necessarily love, I'm just noticing this now, I don't know, I don't love that There's a Stern pinball and game logo here. They probably had to do it, but kind of breaks the immersion of the topper to an extent, but that's okay. Overall, it looks good. Here's a quick video of it in action, moving around, doing its thing. You got a lot of movement there. No mouth movement, of course, but C-3PO doesn't move his mouth, so that's fine. But, you know, it looks good. I like how it looks. I would want one on my game if I were to own a Star Wars Fall of the Empire. Looks good on the game. Now here's the other thing though. The other thing is it is indeed compatible with 2017 Star Wars as well, which is a great thing. You know, that's smart of them to do. I would have been shocked if they didn't do that. But here's the thing. Price is $1500, which is in line with other topper pricing, I suppose, but, you know, you had the R2-D2 topper, which looked really nice back in the day for 2017 Star Wars. That was $600. The other thing that I've realized is this is basically just the Black Knight Swords of Rage topper, which I love, with a light bar. And that's it. So, that's the top of the list. And I'm sure you've all heard of the C3PO Topper, which now retails for the same price of $1,499.99, but when this topper first came out, it was $429.99. So that is quite the cost increase. With that said, they have to pay, I'm sure, way higher licensing fees on the C3PO Topper, but still, that's huge. But yeah, so not thrilled about the price, but I guess that's just the state of the topper market these days. But yeah, those are my thoughts. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Topper Talk with Goran. Tune into the next podcast for another episode. And as always, get out there and buy a topper. Thank you for coming to my Topper Talk.
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    www.subsedit.com